Central Park in New York: Another field hospital with 68 beds is opening today in the heart of the city. Covid-19 patients are to be treated here who cannot be accommodated in the hospital behind, in the Mount Sinai Hospital. So it should create relief. It is one of several field hospitals in this city. One has already been built in the congress center with 1000 beds. More are to be built on a harness racing track, in a cruise terminal and on a university campus.
The city and the state must have 150,000 beds, up to now there have been 50,000. These 50,000 are said to have been increased to 75,000. But there are still a lot of beds missing. The height of the crisis is expected here in seven to 21 days, Governor Andrew Cuomo said today. You couldn’t say exactly. But you want to be prepared for this climax.
The latest numbers from New York are shocking. More deaths in the state of New York than in the whole of Germany, and the trend is rising. Similar terrifying numbers for the entire country. The White House – the task force in the White House – expects around 200,000 deaths. You don’t want to commit yourself at all. But that is also the background to the President’s decision to continue to shut down the country for the time being.
Some interesting details: This field hospital behind me is being set up by a Christian organization, a radical organization that speaks out against gay marriage, among other things. That’s unusual for a city as liberal as New York. But in these times more radical Christians may also work together with the Jewish organization with the Mount Sinai Hospital.
Another interesting detail: I recently talked to leading scientists in the country on the sixteenth floor of this hospital, what you see behind me, with the top emologists who are working on the vaccine against this coronavirus. And just a few floors below, a 48-year-old nurse recently died because he was not well equipped, his colleagues say.
So the top 250 scientists up there, who are among the best, and a few floors below, or at least that’s what my colleagues say, they couldn’t adequately protect this carer and others. The problem has now been resolved, says the hospital. Perhaps you saw the photos of carers that you posted yourself. They show themselves with garbage bags tied around their bodies because there isn’t enough equipment, not enough ventilators, not enough face masks and not enough gowns either.
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