New York reopens Covid field hospital in Staten Island to help accommodate more patients as the city suffers worsening coronavirus outbreak.
“Staten Island is a problem,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a press briefing. As of Sunday, Staten Island reported 91 Covid-19 patients in the hospital, a threefold increase from three weeks ago, Cuomo said.
During the spring, the Covid field hospital in Staten Island was one of many hospitals that opened in New York as it tried to manage a surge of coronavirus infections that led to 800 deaths every day. However, Cuomo admitted that most of those emergency facilities went unused.
“This was a planned emergency facility in the spring. We didn’t use it; now we need it,” he explained.
Across New York, Covid-19 hospitalizations have risen by 122% over the last three weeks, he said, from 1,227 to 2,724 on Sunday. With this, the state predicts that thousands of more people will be confined in the hospitals in the forthcoming weeks.
He also warned that the upcoming holidays could also worsen the recent spike of Covid-19 infections.
“These are dangerous times that we’re in,” Cuomo stressed. “Before you get to Thanksgiving, we’re already in a bad period.”
New York is posting about 5,144 new infections daily, based on a weekly average, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That figure is more than a 15% increase compared with a week ago.
Cuomo has ordered restaurants and bars to stop their operations at 10 p.m., though they can sell for curbside pickup past that time. He also prohibited people from congregating inside and gatherings of more than 10 people in a private residence.
However, the state is suffering a “bad synergy,” where many residents are starting to experience “Covid fatigue” and the possibility of a vaccine has made some people ease their guard, Cuomo said. “This is a toxic cocktail of dynamics and facts,” he said.
New York's coronavirus response
In July, White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci lauded how New York managed the coronavirus pandemic. He said the state kept the outbreak under control “correctly.”
“We know that, when you do it properly, you bring down those cases. We have done it. We have done it in New York,” Fauci said in an interview with “PBS NewsHour."
“New York got hit worse than any place in the world. And they did it correctly by doing the things that you’re talking about,” he said.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said earlier this month that the Covid vaccine will not be available in New York because the U.S. government will not deliver to them.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo “will have to let us know when he’s ready for it because otherwise, we can’t be delivering it to a state that won’t be giving it to its people immediately,” Trump announced during a press conference.
“He doesn’t trust where the vaccine is coming from,” Trump stressed. “These are coming from the greatest companies anywhere in the world, greatest labs in the world, but he doesn’t trust the fact that it’s this White House, this administration, so we won’t be delivering it to New York until we have the authorization to do so, and that pains me to say that.”
