Tents pitched in Central Park and in front of hospitals, the Manhattan Conference Center converted into a hospital soon followed by the Flushing Meadows sports center: New York, the epicenter of an American epidemic now officially deadlier than in China, is undergoing a metamorphosis to be able to treat tens of thousands of potential coronavirus patients.
A dozen tents pitched in Central Park since Sunday were preparing for Tuesday to welcome up to 70 patients sick with the virus from nearby Mount Sinai hospital.
“We see films like Contagion and we don’t think it will ever happen, so seeing it for real is really surreal, ”says Joanne Dunbar, 57, who came to witness the transformation of this iconic Manhattan location.
After eight days of work carried out by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the Javits Center conference center in Manhattan is now operational, with nearly 3,000 beds for patients without the coronavirus, for allow hospitals to focus on the epidemic.
A few streets further, the imposing white silhouette of the military hospital ship Comfort, which arrived Monday with a capacity of 1000 beds, stands out in the middle of the skyscrapers.
Other sites have been identified across America’s first metropolis to serve as a hospital, including one of the buildings at the Flushing Meadows tennis complex in the Queens neighborhood, as well as hotels, intended to accommodate infected people. but not seriously ill.
The economic capital of the United States and the state of New York in general, which had nearly 76,000 cases and 1,550 dead on Tuesday by midday, has entered a race against time to increase its hospital capacity before the peak of the epidemic, expected within “seven to 21 days”, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who said Tuesday that his brother, a CNN presenter, was also infected.
The governor called on New Yorkers to “calibrate their expectations so as not to be disappointed every day upon waking up”, seeing the situation worsen.
“We have about 20,000 beds across New York City,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We expect that all will be transformed into intensive care beds for COVID-19 patients (…) we must therefore triple our capacity”.
Palpable concern
“New Yorkers are in a difficult situation, and we are trying to do the best to open places in order to alleviate the increase in the number of cases”, underlined on CNN the doctor Anthony Fauci, expert in infectious diseases who advises Donald Trump on this crisis.
In this metropolis which has never been so deserted and silent, where now resonates in the evening, as in many European cities, applause saluting the nursing staff, the concern is more and more palpable.
Masks are everywhere, and buildings have “never been cleaned so much,” said Joel Quesada, a cleaner at a Manhattan building complex, where he went from 40 to 55 hours of work per week.
Larry Grossman, director of a supermarket, said to have lost in recent days 14 of his 75 employees, “either sick or afraid to come to work”, despite the protective glass panels installed at each checkout.
If New York is more than ever the epicenter of the epidemic, the entire world power now lives in concern with more than 181,000 cases recorded and 3,600 deaths, a number of deaths now higher than the official Chinese death toll (3,305 deaths). ).
More than three in four Americans are now under strict containment orders. Most major cities are affected, and outbreaks that have appeared in recent days, in Chicago or New Orleans, are worsening.
Even rural states, like Montana, which have very few confirmed cases, are urging the federal government to face masks and test kits, mostly reserved for the critically ill and the most vulnerable for now.
The commander of a US nuclear aircraft carrier anchored in Guam, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, faced with rampant contamination, called on the authorities for help in order to put his crew in facilities allowing better separation.
The discourse of the authorities on the wearing of the mask, initially recommended only for the people in direct contact with the sick, vulnerable people or presenting themselves symptoms, is also in the process of evolving.
The White House Crisis Staff “is actively discussing it,” said Dr Fauci. “As soon as we have enough masks, we will seriously think about broadening its recommendations for use.”
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