New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday said that while he doesn’t want to draw broad conclusions, there have been improvements in recent days in terms of the number of people showing up in hospitals in need of ventilators amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“The number of people showing up in our hospitals who need a ventilator - that situation has improved a bit in recent days,” Mr. de Blasio said. “I am hopeful, but I’m not drawing conclusions until I’m a hundred percent sure and my health team is a hundred percent sure.”
“But the good news is it is giving us some more time,” he said.
He said NYC Health + Hospitals, which runs the city’s public hospitals, reported about 830 intubations across their system, which Mr. de Blasio said was “pretty stable from Sunday into Monday.”
The hospitals run by the group house about 20% of the hospital beds in New York City.
“Beds have been available, are available,” he said. “We are not experiencing the worst-case scenario right now - thank God.”
Mr. de Blasio said people absolutely still need to be practicing social distancing measures.
“It is way too early to draw any definite conclusions - I want to really make sure none of us in public life tell you we have turned a corner until we are absolutely certain. We are not there yet,” the mayor said.
“But I can say in the last couple of days something is starting to change - we don’t know if it will be sustained, but it is meaningful now,” Mr. de Blasio said.
He said that social distancing and stay-at-home rules are clearly having an effect.
“Anyone who sees crowding or people [who] are not socially distancing: call 311 right away and we will send enforcement agents immediately,” he said.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had reported on Monday that the increase in the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state was essentially flat for two days, and that the number of new hospitalizations, the change in daily intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and the change in daily intubations were all down in recent days.
Mr. Cuomo has estimated that his state could need 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators, which are crucial for treating coronavirus patients and buying time to try to help them recover.
The governor had estimated on Thursday that there were enough ventilators in the state stockpile to last about another six days.
New York has been the hardest-hit state in the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 130,000 cases and more than 4,700 coronavirus-related deaths among a population of about 19.5 million people. There have been more than 300,000 tests.
More than half of the state’s cases and deaths are in New York City, home to about 8.6 million people.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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