NEW YORK -- New York's governor said Saturday that the Chinese government was facilitating a shipment of 1,000 donated ventilators to his state, highlighting the extreme measures leaders are taking in what has become a scramble to secure enough lifesaving devices during the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump warned Saturday that the country could be headed into its "toughest" weeks yet.
The number of people infected in the U.S. has exceeded 312,000, with the death toll climbing past 8,400; more than 3,500 of those deaths are in New York state, including more than 1,900 in New York City. The state had more than 113,000 cases as of Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally.
The outbreak is deepening in other areas beyond New York. More than 400 people have died in Louisiana. Michigan has more than 14,700 infections and nearly 500 deaths, with Detroit being the state's epicenter.
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York praised the Chinese government for its help in securing the shipment of the breathing machines that was scheduled to arrive Saturday at Kennedy Airport.
The state secured the shipment after the Chinese government facilitated a donation from billionaires Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai, the co-founders of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Cuomo said.
He also acknowledged that the U.S. government's stockpile of medical supplies would fall drastically short.
"We're all in the same battle here," Cuomo said, noting that Oregon also volunteered to send 140 ventilators to New York. "And the battle is stopping the spread of the virus."
But the governor's plan to force hospitals elsewhere in the state to give spare ventilators to the fight in New York City apparently hadn't yet materialized, a day after he ordered them to surrender some of their unused supply to the National Guard for temporary redistribution.
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He alluded again Saturday to the plan, but details remained unclear.
"We find what equipment we have, we use it the best we can," the Democrat said Saturday, saying he'd seek 20% of "unused and available" ventilators, a number he pegged at 500 in all.
Trump said states are making inflated requests for medical supplies when the need isn't there and suggested he had a hand in the ventilator shipment arriving from China to New York. Trump also said he'd like to hear a more resounding "thank you" from Cuomo for providing medical supplies and helping quickly add hospital capacity.
"We have given the governor of New York more than anybody has ever been given in a long time," he said at a news conference in Washington.
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While Massachusetts used the New England Patriots' team plane to pick up more than 1 million masks from China, Russia also has sent medical equipment to the U.S.
"I want this all to be over," Cuomo said, noting that while it's been roughly 30 days since the state's first case, "it feels like an entire lifetime."
'THERE WILL BE DEATH'
Trump said the federal government is setting up a 2,500-bed field hospital at New York's Javits Center, which will be staffed by the military. He said similar hospital projects are being built in Louisiana and Dallas.
"There will be a lot of death, unfortunately," Trump said in a somber start to his daily briefing Saturday on the pandemic. "There will be death."
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Joining Trump were Vice President Mike Pence, virus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's foremost infectious-disease expert. They stood far apart from one another on the small stage.
Health officials did offer some hope that social-distancing measures were working. Fauci said he saw the efforts in action as he went for a walk in Washington and noticed people waiting 6 feet apart for restaurant takeout.
"As sobering and a difficult as this is, what we are doing is making a difference," Fauci said.
But even as Fauci urged Americans to be patient and let mitigation efforts work, Trump said: "Mitigation does work. But again, we're not going to destroy our country."
The previously booming economy has seen precipitous drops as the U.S. deals with the fallout from the virus that has shuttered businesses, gutted airlines and forced people into their homes.
The president also continued to tout hydroxychloroquine, a drug long used to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, after preliminary studies suggested it might help prevent the coronavirus from entering cells and possibly help patients clear the virus sooner. But the drug has major potential side effects, especially for the heart, and large studies are underway to see if it is safe and effective for treating covid-19.
Trump suggested he may consider whether he should start taking the drug, though he also said he'd ask his doctor first. Some studies are testing whether hydroxychloroquine can help prevent infections in health care workers.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
ECONOMIC TASK FORCE
Trump also said the notion of creating a second White House coronavirus task force to examine how best to reopen the country's economy was a "good idea."
Trump tweeted an endorsement Saturday of a plan offered by Dana Perino, former press secretary to President George W. Bush.
Perino, now a political commentator on Fox News, suggested assembling "a nonpartisan/bipartisan mix of experts across industry sectors" who could advise the president about overcoming the economic difficulties stemming from harsh social-districting measures suggested by the federal government.
Perino said this group would complement the team led by Pence, which includes health, national-security and emergency-preparedness officials. "Let 1st task force focus on crisis at the moment," Perino tweeted.
While the president complimented the idea, he didn't say whether he would follow through. The White House declined to comment when asked if Trump would pursue the idea.
The president has spoken repeatedly about his desire to lift restrictions on the country as quickly as possible to limit the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The administration has examined options for loosening restrictions on geographic areas without many coronavirus cases, or for certain demographics seen as less susceptible to serious complications from covid-19 if infected.
But last week Trump abandoned his proposed target of reopening the economy by April 12, Easter Sunday, after a briefing from the health experts on his task force showed dire projections about the likely death toll from coronavirus. Instead, the president extended social-distancing guidelines through the end of April.
CHINA COMMEMORATION
As the number of infections has grown to more than 1.1 million worldwide with more than 64,000 deaths, health care systems are straining under the surge of patients. Experts say both figures greatly undercount the true number of victims because of lack of testing, mild cases that were missed and governments that are underplaying the crisis.
Sirens sounded across China on Saturday and flags flew at half-staff in tribute to victims of the coronavirus pandemic, including the health care "martyrs" who died fighting to save others.
In China, where the coronavirus was first detected in December, authorities have cautiously lifted restrictions as infections decline. On Saturday, China reported just one new confirmed case in the epicenter, Wuhan, and 18 others among people arriving from abroad. There were four new deaths for an official total of more than 3,200 as of Saturday.
Spain's covid-19 cases surpassed Italy with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announcing plans to extend the country's lockdown until April 25.
Spain's confirmed cases increased by 7,026 to more than 126,000 over the past 24 hours, while deaths rose by 809 to more than 11,900. Total cases are now higher than Italy's 124,632, where the country reported its fewest number of new deaths since March 26.
Italy and Spain have reported a high percentage of infections among health care workers.
Carlo Palermo, head of Italy's hospital-doctors union, fought tears as he told reporters in Rome of the physical risks and psychological trauma the outbreak is causing, noting reports that two nurses had committed suicide.
"It's a indescribable condition of stress. Unbearable," he said.
Spain's Health Ministry reported 18,324 infected health workers as of Saturday, representing 15% of the total infections in the country.
There is some good news in these two hard-hit countries.
Italy has signaled the situation, while still grave, is improving. Angelo Borrelli, the head of the country's civil protection agency, said the number of patients in intensive care has dropped by 74, the first fall since the country went into a state of emergency.
In Spain, a slower pace of fatalities and new cases also is offering some hope that the outbreak may be moving toward a peak. Health Minister Salvador Illa said Friday that the goal of slowing the epidemic was "within reach."
Elsewhere, France's health director Jerome Salomon said 7,560 people have died of coronavirus-related issues since the start of the outbreak in the country, including at least 2,028 in nursing homes. More than 440 of the overall deaths happened in the past 24 hours.
In Germany, the number of coronavirus deaths increased and confirmed cases climbed to more than 96,000, a day after Robert Koch Institute President Lothar Wieler warned the country might require further intensive-care space. Germany has boosted capacity by more than 40% since the outbreak began. The death toll in Germany is more than 1,400.
There are signs in turn that the death rate in Sweden is growing faster than elsewhere in Scandinavia, raising pressure on the government to abandon its controversial hands-off approach -- schools, restaurants and cafes remain open.
The number of Swedish deaths from the virus rose to 373 on Saturday, up 12% from Friday. That takes the rate per million in Scandinavia's biggest economy to 36, compared with 29 in Denmark and nine in Norway, where much tougher lockdowns are in place.
The U.K. reported its deadliest day yet with an increase of 708 deaths, taking the total to 4,313. Confirmed infections in Portugal rose 6.5% to 10,524, though the pace of new cases slowed for the fourth day.
EGYPTIAN MEDICS AT RISK
In the Mideast, at least 17 medics in Egypt's main cancer hospital have been quarantined after testing positive for the coronavirus, officials said Saturday, raising fears the pandemic could prey on health facilities in the Arab world's most populous country.
Egypt has reported 1,070 confirmed cases and 71 fatalities. Authorities have closed schools and mosques, banned public gatherings and imposed a nighttime curfew to prevent the virus from spreading among the population of 100 million, a fifth of whom live in the densely populated capital, Cairo.
The worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East is in Iran, where the Health Ministry on Saturday reported another 158 deaths. That raises the overall number of fatalities there to 3,452, among 55,743 confirmed cases. Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said more than 4,000 patients are in serious condition.
Dubai announced Saturday that the skyscraper-studded sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates had begun a 24-hour lockdown for two weeks over the virus outbreak. The city-state's Dubai Media Office also said in a statement that it would conduct "extensive medical tests" across densely populated areas of Dubai, without elaborating.
Dubai is home to the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. The lockdown offered exemptions for some industries and the media office said those leaving their homes were required to wear masks and gloves. "Anyone violating the restrictions will face stringent legal action," the media office said.
The United Arab Emirates has seen a sharp increase in cases in recent days, with 10 deaths among 1,505 confirmed cases.
At the same time, more than 233,000 people have recovered from the virus.
Information for this article was contributed by Jennifer Peltz, Amy Forliti, David Rising, Karen Matthews, Samy Magdy, Nasser Karimi, Jon Gambrell, Kevin Freking and Colleen Long of The Associated Press; and by Macarena Munoz, Sonia Sirletti and Justin Sink of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 04/05/2020