N.Y.C. Death Toll Tops 1,500 as Cuomo Warns on Ventilators

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N.Y.C. Death Toll Tops 1,500 as Cuomo Warns on Ventilators

New York has only six days’ worth of ventilators left.

The warning from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday was ominous: At the rate the state was using ventilators for coronavirus patients, it would run out in just six days.

The remarks imposed an urgent timeline on the guidance the governor has been giving for weeks — that if New York did not get a major infusion of the potentially lifesaving machines, and quickly, the number of virus-related deaths in the state would spike drastically.

“If a person comes in and needs a ventilator and you don’t have a ventilator, the person dies,” Mr. Cuomo said at his daily briefing in Albany. “That’s the blunt equation here. And right now we have a burn rate that would suggest we have about six days in the stockpile.”

The comments came as doctors in New York City, where hospitals’ supplies are dwindling amid a flood of virus patients, cautioned that medical workers might soon need to make difficult choices about rationing care.

Across the United States, hospitals and public health officials have been working on plans for what might happen if the number of virus patients were to exceed the available space in intensive care units.

The governor said that there were 2,200 ventilators in the state’s stockpile and that about 350 new patients a day need them. At that pace, he said, “2,200 disappears very quickly.”

On Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that New York City alone would need 2,500 to 3,000 new ventilators next week to cope with an expected surge in patients.

Mr. Cuomo said that he had spoken to President Trump on Thursday and that while he was sure “the federal government would do anything they can do to help,” he did not think New York could count on the White House to address the shortfall in time.

“I don’t think the federal government is in a position to provide ventilators to the extent the nation may need them,” he said. “Assume you are on your own in life.”

Mr. Cuomo said, however, that the state had been making contingency plans. It is trying to buy ventilators on the open market and converting so-called BiPAP machines — another kind of respiratory device — for use as ventilators. Unused ventilators from hospitals in upstate New York could also be trucked to New York City and the surrounding area as needed, he said.

“We have all these extraordinary measures that I believe if push comes to shove will put us in fairly good shape,” he said.

Other daily statistics:

Deaths in New York State: 2,373, up 432 from 1,941 on Wednesday. New York now accounts for 42 percent of the 5,708 virus-related deaths in the United States.
Deaths in New York City: 1,562, up 188 from 1,374 on Wednesday.
Confirmed cases: 92,381 in New York State, up from 83,712. New York City has nearly 52,000.
Hospitalized in New York State: 13,383, up from 12,226.
In intensive care in New York State: 3,396, up from 3,022.

Javits center beds will be used for virus patients, Cuomo says.

An emergency hospital set up at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan will now be used to treat virus patients, Mr. Cuomo said on Thursday.

The facility, which was set up by the Army Corps of Engineers, was originally intended to treat non-virus patients to free up beds at other hospitals that are being overwhelmed by the outbreak.

But with the number of virus cases continuing to surge — and only a small number of the Javits beds in use as of Wednesday — Mr. Cuomo asked that people infected with the virus be treated at the convention hall.

“I asked President Trump this morning to consider the request and the urgency of the matter,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “And the president has just informed me that he granted New York’s request.”

The Javits facility is one of several temporary hospitals being built to increase the capacity of the city’s health care system.

On Tuesday, city officials announced that the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens, would be converted to an emergency hospital as the number of virus patients in the borough soared. A tented hospital has also gone up in Central Park.

Mr. Cuomo also said on Thursday that temporary hospitals would be set up at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal and at a state Office of Mental Health center on Staten Island.