NEW YORK, April 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ventilators will be taken from certain New York hospitals and redistributed to the worst-hit parts of the state under an order to be signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo.
New York saw its highest single-day increase in deaths, up by 562 to 2,935 – nearly half of all virus-related US deaths recorded Thursday.
The White House may advise those in virus hotspots to wear face coverings in public to help stem the spread.
The US now has 245,658 Covid-19 cases.
A shortage of several hundred ventilators in New York City, the epicentre of the outbreak in the US, prompted Cuomo to say that he will order the machines be taken from various parts of the state and give them to harder-hit areas.
New York state remains the epicentre of the US coronavirus outbreak with at least 102,863 positive cases.
The more than 500 person spike in deaths state-wide over the past day is more than half of that reported in a single day in both Spain and Italy, the countries with greatest fatalities.
New York City is the worst-hit area of the state, with 1,562 deaths, Johns Hopkins University reports.
Cuomo warned on Friday that people would die unnecessarily because of a lack of equipment in the areas most devastated by the outbreak.
The governor said he would deploy the National Guard to enforce a new executive order giving the state authority to take and redistribute ventilators from hospitals and other healthcare institutions to facilities in parts of the state most urgently in need.
These institutions will either receive their supplies back or be reimbursed, he said.
“I’m not going to let people die,” Cuomo said of the order.
Cuomo said this week that New York will need nearly 37,000 ventilators for the “apex” of the state’s outbreak, expected to hit at the end of April. Bill de Blasio, the New York City mayor, said the metropolis needs 400 additional ventilators by Sunday.
Hospitals and morgues in New York are struggling to cope with the pandemic, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has warned that New York risks running out of ventilators for patients in six days.
The White House has ordered car firms to switch rapidly to ventilator production.
