New York gets 1,100 ventilators with help from China, Oregon
NY secured a planeload of ventilators from China on Saturday, and Oregon was sending a shipment of its to battle the coronavirus pandemic at its U.S. core, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. However the governor's startling plan to force hospitals elsewhere in the state to give spare ventilators to the fight in NEW YORK apparently hadn't yet materialized, a day after he ordered them to surrender 20% of any unused supply to the National Guard for non permanent redistribution. The state got 1,000 ventilators following 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 added that the state of Oregon had volunteered to send 140 more breathing machines.
The influx offered some hope following the governor repeatedly warned that the state's supply of the vital machines will be exhausted in days if the amount of critically ill coronavirus patients kept growing at the current rate.
"It will make a big change for all of us," Cuomo said.
New York may be the pandemic's U.S. epicenter, with over 113,700 confirmed cases by Saturday morning. A lot more than 3,500 people statewide have died, and about 15,000 coronavirus patients are hospitalized. Over 4,100 are in intensive care - many, if not absolutely all, of these needing ventilators.
The outbreak is heavily concentrated in the New York City metropolitan area.
Cuomo's announcement came a day after he said he'd have the National Guard collect and "redeploy" ventilators that some hospitals weren't using.
He alluded again Saturday to the program, but details remained unclear.
"We find what equipment we've, we make make use of 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.
The theory has alarmed Republican politicians and some hospital leaders upstate. They said it would leave people in their areas vulnerable and pit the state's regions against each other.
But two hospital umbrella groups didn't protest. THE HIGHER New York Hospital Association portrayed the idea as ongoing reciprocity among medical centers as the outbreak's hotspots shift, as the Healthcare Association of NY State noted that some hospitals have already, voluntarily sent staff and equipment to harder-hit institutions or accepted patients from them.
Both groups, and several upstate hospitals, said Saturday they had gotten no further information on the governor's plan. The state Health Department said no information was available beyond the governor's remarks.
Messages were delivered to his office seeking details how the redistribution works.
National Guard spokesman Eric Durr said Saturday that the collection had not yet begun.
Governors around the U.S. have already been pleading, competing and scouring the global marketplace for needed supplies, especially ventilators, to treat the sick. Cuomo said Saturday that NY at one point made purchase orders for 17,000 of the devices, but only 2,500 came through.
"You get yourself a call that says, 'We can't fill that order,'" he said.
Cuomo and NEW YORK Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, said the other day that the federal government decided to send about 2,400 ventilators to metropolis and another 2,000 to the state. The mayor and governor have repeatedly implored the federal government for more help.
The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for many people. For some, especially older adults and persons with existing health issues, it can cause more severe illness or death.
In other developments linked to the coronavirus outbreak:
VIOLIST DIES
Vincent Lionti, a violist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for 33 seasons, died Saturday from complications of the coronavirus, the company said. He was 60.
Lionti have been with the orchestra since 1987. Before that, he was a substitute with the brand new York Philharmonic from 1981 to 1983 and an associate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1983 to 1987. He had bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School in NY.
He was artistic director of The Memling Ensemble and an associate of the PBS All-Star Orchestra, New England Baroque Soloists and the Westchester Camerata.
His wife, Kristin, was a personal assistant to the late designer Oscar de la Renta. Their son, Nicholas Lionti, was an onstage extra in the Met productions of "Nixon in China" and "Macbeth".
SENATOR IMPROVES
In upstate NY, state Sen. James Seward, a Republican from Milford, have been on a ventilator since Thursday and in a medically induced coma as a result of COVID-19, but his condition improved and he was taken off the ventilator Saturday, his spokesman, Jeff Bishop, said in a Twitter posting.
Earlier Saturday, Seward's wife, Cynthia, posted within an online community group that he was still in a coma and on a respirator at Albany INFIRMARY, and she asked for thoughts and prayers for his healing, PBS reported. Cynthia Seward, who also has COVID-19, said in the post that she was self-quarantining, had pneumonia and shingles, and had lost her sense of taste.
