NEW YORK | In a race against time to face the peak of the pandemic, New York on Monday welcomed the arrival of a 1,000-bed military hospital ship, as the coronavirus spreads quickly in the United States, overtaking in the evening the bar of 3,000 dead.
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The military ship USNS Comfort, with a capacity of 1,000 beds and 12 operating theaters, arrived around 10:30 am local time. It should make it possible to unload New York hospitals of patients who do not require treatment related to the coronavirus.
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“The fact that the Navy is there, that the Army is there to help New York at a time when our city is in need, is very important,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said as the boat entered. in Manhattan Harbor.
“It means that we are not alone […] it is a symbol of hope, ”he added during a press briefing.
The arrival of the boat, along with the opening of a hospital in the Javits Center in Manhattan, which will be able to accommodate nearly 3,000 patients unaffected by the virus, comes as the number of people affected of Covid-19 is increasing at full speed in the United States.
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New York State alone, the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, had more than 67,000 confirmed cases and more than 1,200 deaths on Monday evening, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo.
And the virus is spreading elsewhere in the United States, now hitting the states of New Jersey, Louisiana, Illinois or Florida hard.
“The virus is one step ahead”
The United States has become in recent days the country with the most confirmed cases – more than 163,000, for more than 3,000 deaths, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University, updated continuously.
“The virus has been ahead of us since day one,” New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday at a press briefing. “You never win by trying to catch up. We have to plan for in two, three, four weeks, when it is the peak [de l’épidémie], and be sure that we will then be in a position to win the battle ”.
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Bill de Blasio stressed that his city still needed urgently, just to last the week, some 400 artificial respirators and reinforcements of medical personnel.
“Last week, we probably had around 50% of patients with the coronavirus. This week, we went to 75%. Now we are at 85-90%, ”said doctor Shamit Patel, who works in the emergency room of the Mount Sinai hospital group in Manhattan this weekend. “We are not yet at the end of our capacities, but we are preparing for it”.
This worsening of the situation prompted Donald Trump to extend until the end of April the instructions for containment and restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, rather than alleviating them by Easter, April 12, as he had. hoped for.
Extension of containment
While calling on people to “stay at home”, the US president reiterated Monday that it was “unlikely” that he would decree strict containment at the national level. The measures are taken for the moment at the level of the federated states and more than 70% of Americans are already concerned by a containment.
He warned, however, that April would be crucial: “It is 30 vital days. We will do everything during these 30 days ”.
The well-respected Dr Anthony Fauci, who indicated on Sunday that the epidemic could kill up to 200,000 in the United States, said on Monday that he had no trouble convincing the president to extend the recommendations for containment and social distancing beyond mid-April, after showing him the data predicting the evolution of the pandemic.
With the addition of Maryland, Virginia and the federal capital Washington on Monday, more than 234 million Americans are now under strict orders to stay at home, or more than 70% of the population.
After initially playing down the epidemic, President Trump is wavering on the gravity of the situation and his desire to restart the economy quickly.
The pandemic has exploded weekly claims for unemployment benefits in the United States, with more than three million more people applying for it last week, a record high. And the situation is expected to worsen in the coming weeks.
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