April 08, 2020, 12:35 am
New York (dpa) New York is currently at the peak of the corona pandemic: While the number of victims is rising sharply, a church is now even being converted into a hospital. But Governor Cuomo sees light at the end of the tunnel.
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New York’s St. John the Divine Cathedral becomes a makeshift hospital in the corona pandemic.
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At the temporary peak of the Corona crisis in New York, the particularly hard hit US state recorded 731 deaths in just one day. Overall, the number of deaths was around 5500, as Governor Andrew Cuomo said at his daily press conference.
In the past few days, around 600 patients had died in the state. The governor made hope because of other, falling numbers – especially the newly admitted patients -: “As far as we can see, there is a flattening (the curve) or a possible plateau. It’s because of what we’re doing. And we have to keep doing it. ” In New York with its nearly 20 million inhabitants, strict exit restrictions have been in place for weeks.
In the meantime, all kinds of buildings in the metropolis of the same name continue to be converted into emergency clinics, for example the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. In the almost 200-meter-long nave, tents for up to 200 patients are to be set up, local media reported on Tuesday, citing Dean Clifton Daniel. The crypt below should also be used. The approximately 100-year-old Episcopal Church in northwestern Manhattan is one of the largest Gothic churches in the world.
The state of New York with a total of around 19 million inhabitants is currently the epicenter of the USA during the Corona crisis. The number of cases there is many times higher than in other countries – also because significantly more is tested there. The number of confirmed cases is more than 138,000.
Meanwhile, the US media stressed that the death toll in New York City in the crisis exceeded that of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Almost 3,000 people died at that time. According to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, more than 1,000 people have already died in the neighboring state of New Jersey.
The New York City police officers are also particularly hard hit. At least twelve employees have already died in connection with suspected coronavirus infections, the news channel CNN reported on Tuesday. More than 2000 other employees are infected with the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen. However, Mayor Bill de Blasio emphasized at a press conference on Monday evening (local time) that the situation was gradually improving. More and more police officers would report back to work after recovering from illness.
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