NEW YORK (AP) — More than 300 New Yorkers died from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, a somber-sounding Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday as temporary hospital beds were made available to help relieve the stress on city hospitals inundated with virus patients.
City officials announced Tuesday that 250 more ambulances and 500 paramedics and EMTs are headed to New York to help manage record numbers of calls for assistance.
The latest coronavirus developments in New York:
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NUMBERS UP
Deaths from the coronavirus continued to climb steeply in New York, topping 1,500 by Tuesday, according to Cuomo.
The number of deaths jumped by more than 300 from Monday. A somber-sounding Cuomo said the New York City region continues to be a hotspot for the virus, accounting for the lion’s share of the state’s 75,795 confirmed cases.
The outbreak hit close to home for the governor, who spoke of his brother and “best friend,” CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, testing positive for the disease.
“Luckily we caught it early enough. But it’s my family, it’s your family, it’s all of our families,” the governor said.
The news is certain to get worse in New York City as the outbreak is expected to peak in the next month.
“For the weeks ahead, let’s not kid ourselves, it gets a lot worse before it gets better,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on NBC’s “Today.”
New York City’s Health Department recorded the city’s first death of a person under 18 years old, though details about the person’s exact age were not disclosed.
The virus, which causes the disease COVID-19, has spread rapidly across the globe. It causes mild symptoms in many of those infected, but it can cause severe symptoms or death for some, including older adults and those with underlying medical conditions such as respiratory ailments. Relatively few deaths among children have been reported.
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MORE HOSPITAL BEDS
A temporary hospital built inside a New York City convention center began accepting patients, and a nearby Navy hospital ship was expected to take in patients as early as Tuesday.
Beds at the Jacob Javits Convention Center and the USNS Comfort are designed to take pressure off New York City hospitals as coronavirus cases spike. The combined 2,000 beds were added to handle non-coronavirus patients.
The emergency hospital sites at the convention center began taking patients Monday night, according to the governor’s office. The Navy said Tuesday morning that the ship docked off Manhattan was expected to accept patients soon.
There were more than 10,900 people in New York hospitalized for COVID-19, with at least 2,700 in intensive care. The number of new hospitalizations statewide Monday was at a high since the outbreak: 1,412.
In one snapshot of the situation in the region’s hospitals, Northwell Health said Monday it has 2,200 coronavirus patients being treated at its facilities, triple the number from a week ago.
The company said several of its hospitals are at or near capacity, including Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson and Glen Cove Hospital.
The state is also scrambling to enlist enough doctors and nurses to care for the growing number of patients.
SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras, who Cuomo tapped for help in the state’s effort, said some downstate hospitals may have initial volunteers working by Thursday. He said the state is sifting through 78,000 applications from volunteers, many of them retirees.
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UNEMPLOYMENT WOES
Cuomo apologized to laid off New Yorkers having trouble trying to file for unemployment benefits. The state’s unemployment site is so deluged it keeps crashing, Cuomo said.
“It is not working as smoothly as I would like to see it,” Cuomo said. “It’s compounding people’s stress.”
The state labor agency received 1.2 million calls Monday; it used to average 10,000 calls a day, according to the administration.
The governor said hundreds of people are working to fix the problem.
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MORE AMBULANCES ON THE WAY
New York City is bringing in 250 out-of-town ambulances and 500 paramedics and emergency medical technicians to help its swamped EMS system respond to the coronavirus crisis.
The city’s ambulances are responding to about 6,000 calls a day — 50% more than average. Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said a five-day stretch last week was the busiest in the history of the city’s EMS operation.
So far, 100 ambulances have arrived and the rest are expected by the end of the week, said Omar Bourne, a spokesman for the city’s emergency management agency. They’re supplied through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Officials say the surge in coronavirus cases has delayed responses to lower-level calls. Oren Barzilay, head of the city’s EMS workers union, said some people are waiting up to six hours for help.
On Sunday, two police officers stepped in to help deliver a baby in the Bronx because of the ambulance backlog.
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DEPLOYED CONGRESSMAN
U.S. Rep. Max Rose will deploy to the National Guard Wednesday to help with the COVID-19 response in his native Staten Island. The Democrat is a captain in the Army National Guard and will serve as an operations officer.
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Associated Press writers Larry Neumeister and Marina Villeneuve contributed from New York and Albany, N.Y., respectively.