New York Mayor Bill de Palacio warned today that the equipment necessary for hospitals to operate is sufficient for only a few days in light of the outbreak of the Coronavirus, which he likened to the Great Depression.
New York had the highest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the United States, and Palacio said city hospitals were on the verge of collapse.
"Frankly, we are ten days away from seeing a wide shortage of face masks and respirators, which are essential to keep the hospital system working," he told CNN.
He appealed to President Donald Trump to move the military to raise the pace of production and distribution of necessary medical equipment.
"If we don´t get more breathing apparatus in the next ten days, people who should not die will die. That is simply so," he said.
He warned that "the worst is yet to come" and described the epidemic rapidly as "the most serious crisis domestically since the Great Depression" in the 1930s.
"That is why we need to fully mobilize the army, and we need Congress to act as if we are heading towards the Great Depression," he said.
"Forget about the airline rescue packages now. Save the people. Save the hospitals. Save the cities, states, and provinces."
About 27,000 people have contracted Covid-19 in the United States, according to an updated statistic from Johns Hopkins University Hospital, more than 9,000 of whom live in New York City, which has recorded 60 deaths.
114 people have died in New York State so far, state governor Andrew Como told reporters Sunday.
He said he had asked the US Army Engineers Unit to build four temporary hospitals, and he also ordered existing hospitals to increase their capacity by 50%.
He added that all unnecessary surgeries will be canceled from Wednesday to make places available for patients with the Coronavirus.
He said that the state of New York needs 30,000 respirators, each of which can cost up to $ 40,000, and he regretted that states were competing with each other to buy them.
"This is an impossible situation to manage. If we did not get the equipment, we could lose lives that we could have saved," Como said.
The head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, Peter Gaynor, who is in charge of the government´s response effort, said demand for supplies, such as respirators, had become a "global problem".
