New York State Sees Its Deadliest Coronavirus Day Yet
New York state had its deadliest COVID-19 day on Thursday with over 500 fatalities reported. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced early on Friday that the death toll has gone from 2,373 to 2,935 in the last 24 hours. Cuomo also signed an executive order that allows the state to take initiative on distributing ventilators to hospitals as needed.
The Governor also announced a plan under which the entirety of the state’s network of hospitals would operate under a unified system. This would allow hospitals to share staff, supplies, and patients for the time of the crisis instead of operating as independent facilities as usual.
There are about 200 hospitals in New York state, totaling 53,000 beds before Cuomo told them to double their capacity. About 20,000 of those beds are in New York City.
We do not have enough ventilators.
Period.
I am signing an Executive Order allowing the state to take ventilators and redistribute to hospitals in need.
The National Guard will be mobilized to move ventilators to where they are urgently required to save lives.
— Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 3, 2020
The death toll in New York means that the state’s deaths from the coronavirus have now passed the deaths from the September 11 attacks.
Earlier in the day, Spain briefly passed Italy for second-most COVID-19 cases. The country experienced it’s highest and second-highest death toll days back-to-back Thursday and Friday. Both countries, however, are beginning to report a slowdown in new COVID-19 infections.
Because of the worldwide pandemic, the US has stopped issuing new passports to citizens apart from cases of “life-or-death emergency”.