Mayor Bill de Blasio expanded on his plea for a “national mobilization” of health care workers Saturday as New York City’s medical system buckles under the strain of more than 56,000 coronavirus cases.
“It feels like wartime in New York,” he said on MSNBC. “There are over a million doctors in the United States, 3.8 million nurses, and yet we are running out right now.”
De Blasio called on the Trump administration to create a national enlistment system for medical professionals that could funnel them to coronavirus hotspots — and again pleaded for direct intervention by the US military.
“This country is not on wartime footing,” he said.
“The military are at their bases; they are not at the front. And we have medical professionals [in other states] going about their normal lives.”
“This is a war,” he said. “Let’s treat it as a war.”
De Blasio has said Sunday could be the breaking point when city hospitals’ need for personnel and lifesaving equipment exceed their capacities.
“Right now, we’re struggling to have enough for next week,” de Blasio said Friday.
