New York may be “flattening the curve” of new coronavirus cases, but Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday he’s still laser-focused on supplying hospitals with the equipment and medical personnel necessary to save the lives of patients still suffering from the disease.
“We’re not out of the woods at all in terms of protecting hospitals, making sure they can save every life that can be saved. That’s still the number one issue every day,” de Blasio said on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
“We still have to make sure that our hospitals can hold the line,” de Blasio said, adding that health care workers “have been through hell” dealing with so much death.
Between Tuesday morning and Wednesday night 1,000 New Yorkers died in the five boroughs from the coronavirus, bringing the Big Apple’s death toll to 4,260.
On Wednesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the lockdown he ordered March 20 appeared to be “flattening the curve” of new cases as the three-day average increase in hospitalized patients held largely steady for the second day — 533 new admissions, which was virtually unchanged from the 529 on Monday.
Deaths will continue to mount as patients hospitalized for longer periods of time pass away, Cuomo explained.
De Blasio said his fear of a mass ventilator shortage for the sickest coronavirus patients had somewhat abated, as the number of new breathing machines needed in city hospitals each day decreased by about one-third.
But both leaders warned the progress could be reversed and told people to stay indoors.
De Blasio reinforced that message in the NPR interview Thursday.
“We got to hold right now with shelter-in-place, with social distancing and prove that those strategies are working,” the mayor said.
“We see a little bit of evidence lately but we’re going to have to ask people to stick with it for quite a time to get through this.”
