Coronavirus in N.Y .: ‘Deluge’ of Cases Begins Hitting Hospitals – The New York Times, Nytimes.com
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There are already critical shortages: A Bronx hospital is running out of ventilators. In Brooklyn, doctors are reusing masks.
(people have waited outside Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens on Friday to be tested for the coronavirus. Credit …Dave Sanders for The New York Times
March , (Updated) 7: pm ET
New York State’s long-feared surge of coronavirus cases has begun, thrusting the medical system toward a crisis point. in a startlingly quick ascent, officials reported on Friday that the state was closing in on 8, 04 positive tests, about half the cases in the country. The number was 15 times higher than
what was reported earlier
in the week.
In the Bronx, doctors at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center say they have only a few remaining ventilators for patients who need them to breathe. In Brooklyn, doctors at Kings County Hospital Center say they are so low on supplies that they are reusing masks for up to a week, slathering them with hand sanitizer between shifts.
Some of the jump in New York’s cases can be traced to significantly increased testing, which the state began this week . But the escalation, and the response, could offer other states a glimpse of what might be in store if the virus continues to spread. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Friday urged residents to stay indoors and(ordered nonessential businesses to keep workers home
in the short term, hospital workers say their biggest worry is a severe shortage of the medical gear that protects them from sick patients.
The state has three stockpiles of medical supplies, including millions of masks and gloves, as well as more sophisticated equipment like ventilators. On Friday, the state health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, said those supplies had been tapped to help backfill shortages at some hospitals.
Hospitals have been trying to find more of the N 100 masks that are most effective at preventing virus spread, as well as lighter surgical masks, goggles and gowns. But with suppliers running out across the world, hospital workers have improvised.
At Kings County Hospital Center and the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, administrators have given doctors one N mask to last all week, according to employees at the facilities. At Kings County, emergency room doctors wipe down the masks with hand sanitizer between shifts and put the masks in brown paper bags labeled with their names, a doctor there said.
The Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs Kings County, denied that workers were being told to reuse masks. A representative of Northwell Health, which includes Long Island Jewish, acknowledged that administrators were trying to preserve masks because the supply was limited.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that (N) masks should be discarded after each interaction with an infected patient and should not be used for more than eight hours.
In a hospital affiliated with Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, administrators stowed their masks in a locked room after a fistfight broke out among workers and visito rs over access to the dwindling stockpile. Several hospitals have sent emails warning workers that they can be fired for the “unauthorized use” of masks.
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