A field hospital set up in Central Park to treat COVID-19 patients will close, the organization that handles it said on Saturday, a further sign, after the departure of a military hospital ship, that the pandemic is slowing down At New York.
Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical humanitarian organization, had installed at the end of March, at the height of the crisis, a dozen tents equipped with artificial respirators on a playground in the famous New York park, in front of a hospital.
It has treated a total of 191 people infected with the new coronavirus, but will stop welcoming new patients from Monday, she said in a statement, specifying that she would not remove her tents for two weeks until the time to take care of those there. currently.
“This marks an important turning point in the coronavirus epidemic in New York, because it means the number of cases is dropping enough for the local health system to meet the needs,” writes Samaritan’s Purse.
The announcement comes two days after the departure of the gigantic military hospital ship USNS Comfort, which arrived in Manhattan Harbor on March 30 as part of a major operation to double the number of hospital beds in New State. York, the American epicenter of the epidemic.
But the number of hospitalizations turned out to be well below the most pessimistic forecasts, and the field hospital set up in the New York conference center Javits Center, with a capacity of nearly 3,000 beds, must also close next week.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday that 299 people had died from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to nearly 19,000 since the start of the pandemic.
American fighter planes from the acrobatic patrols of the Navy, the “Blue Angels”, and the Air Force, the “Thunderbirds”, also flew over Baltimore (Maryland), Atlanta (Georgia) and the capital on Saturday. , Washington, to pay tribute to caregivers and rescuers.
Protests were planned during the day in several cities in the United States, including New Hampshire, Kentucky and California, to call for an easing of containment measures.
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