What to Know
- New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are on "pause," shutting down all non-essential businesses and enacting new density control measures
- As of Wednesday, more than 38,000 people in the three states had tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 447 have died. NYC has more than 20,000 cases alone and three-quarters of the 366 deaths statewide
- Tri-state governors say the $2.2 trillion Senate relief package, while a first step, gives them just a "drop in the bucket" compared with need; meanwhile, initial unemployment claims nationwide hit 3.28 million Thursday, nearly 5 times the previous all-time record amid pandemic
Makeshift morgues. Cases doubling every 72 hours. Nurses wearing trash bags for lack of protective personal equipment. Economic shutdown. Staggering unemployment. Not enough aid.
The tri-state area is grappling with a months-long crisis that has shown no signs of slowing down. The curve will flatten eventually. But in the meantime, whole states, cities and everyday people are just struggling to figure out how to survive.
As of Wednesday night, nearly 33,000 cases had been confirmed in New York, an increase of more than 7,000 from the day before. At least 366 people have died. The city, impaired by the density that makes it one of the world's most vibrant places, bears the brunt of the impact, with more than 20,000 cases across the five boroughs as of Wednesday night. The mayor's office said the death toll had soared to 280, the biggest increase in deaths the city had seen so far - that's 28 percent of what NBC News estimates to be the total fatality number nationwide.
One hospital in the city, Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, had 13 patients being treated for COVID-19 die over the span of 24 hours, according to NYC Health & Hospitals. In a statement, the hospital group said the number was "consistent with the number of ICU patients being treated there," with Elmhurst being "at the center of this crisis." Before the sun even rose Thursday, the line to get tested at Elmhurst stretched a full city block.
At Mount Sinai, where social media photos show nurses wearing 33-gallon garbage bags as makeshift gowns amid a supply shortage, a nursing manager was listed among the recent fatalities. He was in his 40s.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that actual hospitalizations from COVID-19 were rising faster than initially projected in New York, as he warned a tidal wave would crash on the state's health care system in just a few weeks. New York City saw a 110-percent spike in deaths in the last day and a half. Now a makeshift morgue is being set up at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital to manage the wave of fatalities, a measure used in the past for mass casualty events like 9/11.
States are working with FEMA to construct field hospitals to care for non-COVID-19 patients and relieve the burden on hospitals, which Cuomo has ordered to boost capacity by at least 50 percent. (He'd like to see 100 percent.)
New Jersey, which is working with FEMA on field hospitals in four locations, including at the sprawling Meadowlands sports complex, has endured growing tragedy as well. A day after announcing the state's highest single-day fatality increase, Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday the state had another new high: 18 deaths in one day, bringing its total to 62. New Jersey now has the second-highest case total (4,402) in America. New York is the only state with more.
There is a glimmer of hope. Cuomo said Wednesday that it was taking more time for the number of hospitalizations to double -- from every two days on Sunday to nearly every five days by Tuesday. He said that may be an indication that social distancing measures and other drastic restrictions on public life are working.
A data company's new social distancing scoreboard ranks all three of the tri-states favorably. NYC just announced a pilot plan to close streets in several boroughs to vehicular traffic, giving pedestrians more room to move freely while following social distancing protocols. But with New York's case count still doubling every three days, Cuomo says it's too early to tell if that trend will hold.
The priority is saving lives, Cuomo says. The state is struggling with a hospital bed shortfall upwards of 87,000 beds, but a bed alone won't save the most vulnerable patients. They need intensive care treatment; they need ventilators.
Right now, Cuomo says he has 11,000 ventilators, thousands of which have been sent by the federal government just this week. He says he needs 19,000 more, calling the race to acquire the life-saving machines "our single biggest challenge."
The Senate passed a historic $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill late Wednesday, a package that promises to infuse business, state and city governments and individuals with direct cash and immediate support. Cuomo ripped the bill earlier Wednesday, saying the $3.8 billion allocated for New York is just a "drop in the bucket" given the state projects up to $15 billion in virus-related costs. Murphy said the package was a good first step, but said his state needs more -- and that the tri-state coalition that took unprecedented joint measures to curb the spread would need at least $100 billion just to cope with the crisis and its aftermath.
First Priority -- Save Lives
The economic impact of COVID-19, and its rampant spread, has been devastating on every economic level. President Trump says he hopes to have the country reopened and "just raring to go" by Easter — a notion that Mayor Bill de Blasio called "absolutely inconceivable" given the current situation in New York.
It's not the situation in New Jersey, either, Murphy says.
"If the numbers aren't telling us that we've broken the back of this and we're meaningfully going in the right direction, we won't be able to open up the state responsibly at that point," the governor said on "Morning Joe" Thursday. "I hope sooner than later - believe me there's nothing that would make me happier - but we can't. If we go too early, I'm fearful we will throw gasoline on the fire and we'll have a much bigger challenge on our hands - and the challenge right now is pretty darn big to begin with."
Cuomo says the first order of business has to be saving lives, period. But he said the government can look at ways to restart the economy, thinking about which people can begin to go back to work, while still prioritizing public health.
Job-seekers have not been hard to find. Some areas of the state have seen a 1,000 percent increase in unemployment claims, according to the latest labor statistics. But the number of those out of work has been outpacing the number of open opportunities, particularly in states that have shut down all non-essential business. Murphy said New Jersey has 12,000 jobs available now; according to the state's page, 88,000 people are looking for them. Initial unemployment claims nationwide hit 3.28 million Thursday, nearly five times the previous all-time record.
The demand for medical personnel, on the other hand, is far outpacing the supply -- so much though that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have all called on retirees to return to work and help answer the call. Cuomo said Wednesday 40,000 people from physicians to RNs to respiratory therapists have responded to date. Mental health professionals, thousands of them, have also signed up to field calls via the state's new hotline. On the other side of the spectrum, NYU says it will graduate its medical students early to help shoulder the load.
A coronavirus testing site at Temple University's Ambler campus in Montgomery County expanded its criteria to include people dealing with stomach issues or a loss of smell and taste. It comes after doctors revealed new symptoms associated with COVID-19. NBC10's Aaron Baskerville has the details.
Private companies are stepping to the plate, donating millions of masks and thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer. JetBlue is flying volunteer medical workers to New York state for free. At least one hotel -- the Four Seasons in New York City -- has opened its rooms to healthcare workers free of charge.
The city has been providing childcare for essential workers, and Murphy announced Wednesday that he was ordering any daycare center in his state still in operation to certify it would only care for the kids of essential workers. If they do not agree to that, they must close by April 1.
"A lack of childcare cannot be a barrier for them or our response," Murphy said. "While these workers commit to protecting us and our families, we will commit to helping their families."
Murphy also said he had been in touch with Vice President Mike Pence, requesting again the Trump administration issue a major disaster declaration for his state as it did for New York, opening up billions in urgently needed funding. He said he was hopeful for a positive outcome; it's not clear when he might get one.
Grave Reality, Growing Desperation
To date, the vast majority of coronavirus patients in the city who have died (74 percent) are older than 65. But the majority of cases (55 percent) are people younger than 50; 2 percent of cases are people no older than 17. And with young people sometimes less likely to exhibit symptoms that might beget proactive testing, the case scale could be tipped even higher their way.
Numbers will continue to rise as more people are tested, officials have said. To date, the state of New York has accounted for 28 percent of all COVID-19 testing in America, Cuomo said Wednesday. That is an accomplishment, he noted -- the only way to curb the spread is to identify the positive cases, isolate and treat them.
But as the number of cases soars, and the layers of impact deepen and become more complex, local leaders say they need an infrastructure that can handle it. That requires more federal help, and officials say the U.S. government has yet to fully leverage the weight of its unmatched authority.
All three states are scrambling to develop their own mobile testing centers and drive-thrus. But there have been bumps, as the number of people desperate to get tested flood the capacity of the new facilities. New Jersey's largest testing center in Paramus has had to shut down within minutes of opening each day because it hits capacity; newly opened stations face similar plights.
Governors are working to accelerate action on the drug front as well. New York launched a clinical trial for an experimental treatment Tuesday and plans to be the nation's first state to try to heal critically ill patients using recovered people's plasma — a process called convalescent plasma that was used during the flu epidemic of 1918. Right now, everything is on the table.
Mount Sinai's chief medical officer urgently called for those who recovered from COVID-19 to donate antibody-rich plasma to give to the sick. In a letter to staff that he posted to Twitter this week, he said the COVID-19 crisis is "the humanitarian mission of our lifetimes."
Where Do We Go From Here?
The depths of the outbreak — and its impact — are incomprehensible at this point but most definitely catastrophic: Billions upon billions of dollars have been lost and more will be lost; many have died, far more have been sickened. The grim totals will rise — and it may be months before we see the curve flatten out.
The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic, the first coronavirus to ever earn the dubious distinction. It's novel — that means it's new and no one has immunity to it.
Nationally, NBC News estimates more than 64,000 have been infected with the novel coronavirus and around 900 people have died. The numbers are far more stark globally. WHO offered a somber outlook in a recent situation paper: It took three months to get to the first 100,000 cases. It took 12 days to get to the next 100,000, and just five days to get the next 100,000 after that.
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2020-03-26 13:14:43Z
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