New York, the next epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic

The situation is dramatic. On Thursday March 26, the death toll from the coronavirus in New York rose to nearly 400, an increase of 100 new deaths compared to the previous day. The city is now considered the main focus of the coronavirus epidemic in the United States, which has the most cases of Covid-19 contamination in the world, ahead of China and Italy.

This maddening increase comes as the city authorities have been calling for help for several days. All hospitals are overwhelmed, and some doctors are already on the verge of despair. However, the peak of the epidemic is still far away. Everywhere, we try to find a place to welcome the sick. A difficult scenario which is accompanied by an economic collapse in the country.

“It’s hell”, testifies an emergency doctor at the microphone of LCI. “People arrive, they are intubated, they die and then the cycle begins again”, he explains, deploring hospitals “overwhelmed, everywhere”. While the number of beds and equipment may be insufficient in the coming days, solutions are being improvised to anticipate the peak of the epidemic: a mortuary has been installed in a town square, a hospital of emergency is under construction, and a military hospital ship is due to arrive in the city bay on Saturday.

Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York estimated Tuesday, March 24 that the city was far from having “flattened the curve” of contaminations, predicting a peak reached within “two to three weeks”, which will be “higher” than expected . According to him, 140,000 beds could be necessary, against 53,000 available. Added to this is a critical shortage of respirators: New York has a stock of 10,000, but it would still need at least 30,000, he explained, criticizing Donald Trump’s too little aid in this health emergency.

In the United States, claims for unemployment benefits exploded by 1,000% last week and reached an all-time high. The American president, who had bet heavily on the economy for his re-election in November, proposed a gradual resumption of activity in parts of the country less affected by Covid-19.

The new coronavirus has already killed more than 23,000 people worldwide, two-thirds of them in Europe, where nearly 275,000 cases are officially diagnosed, according to a count made by AFP.