The mayor of New York on Saturday launched an appeal for the general mobilization of health professionals, estimating that he needed the help of 45,000 additional people to face the coronavirus which is spreading at full speed in the megalopolis.
“Doctors, nurses, breathing specialists … to all those who are not already in the battle: we need you”, launched the democratic councilor, Bill de Blasio in a video posted on his Twitter account.
“We need 45,000 health professionals to join the fight in April and May to be able to get out of it,” added the mayor of New York, calling on his constituents to prepare for two “hard” months.
The night before, the city sent a alert message on the phones of New Yorkers to call all health professionals to volunteer on a website dedicated to the fight against the new coronavirus.
More than 57,000 cases have been identified in the city, which already deplores the death of more than 1,800 people, including 305 for the single day of Friday.
More broadly, New York State is the new epicenter of the pandemic, with more than 113,000 identified contaminations, almost as many as in Italy or Spain, the countries where the human losses are the heaviest.
To avoid such tragedies, the New York authorities are engaged in a race against time to strengthen the capacity of medical structures to cope with the influx of patients.
Field hospitals were thus erected in a conference center in Manhattan or Central Park and a military hospital ship with a thousand beds docked in New York Harbor.
But according to Bill de Blasio and State Governor Andrew Cuomo, hospitals are at risk of running out of staff but also of ventilators to treat the most affected patients.
Bill de Blasio estimates that an additional 2,500 to 3,000 respirators are needed in his city for the coming week alone. Andrew Cuomo on Friday signed a decree to requisition devices held in private structures, in order to make them available to public hospitals.
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