Koon Yew Yin 29 March 2020
I just read this Reuters’ report which I have reproduced so that we all can learn some useful lessons. The US reported 16,000 new cases on last Thursday and 15,000 new cases on last Friday. Currently the US has the most number of cases in the world.
What will happen if the increase of new cases continues at this alarming rapid rate???
By Reuters – March 28, 2020 @ 9:11am
NEW YORK: Doctors and nurses on the front lines of the US Covid-19 coronavirus crisis pleaded on Friday for more protective gear and equipment to treat waves of patients expected to overwhelm hospitals as the number of known US infections surpassed 100,000, with more than 1,600 dead.
Physicians have called particular attention to a desperate need for additional ventilators, machines that help patients breathe and are widely needed for those suffering from the coronavirus.
Hospitals in New York City, New Orleans, Detroit and other virus hot spots also have sounded the alarm about scarcities of drugs, medical supplies and trained staff while the number of confirmed US cases rose by 15,000 on Friday to just over 100,000.
That was down slightly from more than 16,000 new cases reported on Thursday, the largest one-day US surge to date, but kept the United States as the world leader in the number of known infections, having surpassed China and Italy on Thursday.
“We are scared,” said Dr. Arabia Mollette of Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn. “We’re trying to fight for everyone else’s life, but we also fight for our lives as well, because we’re also at the highest risk of exposure.”
The United States ranked sixth in death toll among the hardest hit countries, with at least 1,605 lives lost as of Thursday evening, marking the first time the country had recorded more than 300 deaths in a single day, according to a Reuters tally of official data. Worldwide, confirmed cases rose above 576,000 with 26,455 deaths, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported.
Even as hospital patient numbers steadily climbed, shortages of key medical supplies abounded.
One emergency room doctor in Michigan, an emerging epicenter of the pandemic, said he was using one paper face mask for an entire shift due to a shortage and that hospitals in the Detroit area would soon run out of ventilators.
“We have hospital systems here in the Detroit area in Michigan who are getting to the end of their supply of ventilators and have to start telling families that they can’t save their loved ones because they don’t have enough equipment,” the physician, Dr. Rob Davidson, said in a video posted on Twitter.
New York-area doctors say they have had to recycle some protective gear, or resort to the black market.
Dr. Alexander Salerno of Salerno Medical Associates, a general medical practice with offices in northern New Jersey, described going through a “broker” to pay US$17,000 for masks and other protective equipment that should have cost about US$2,500, and picking them up at an abandoned warehouse.
EMERGENCY POWERS
US President Donald Trump on Friday invoked emergency powers to require General Motors Co to start building ventilators after he accused the largest US automaker of “wasting time” during negotiations.
He had previously resisted mounting calls for him to invoke the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era statute that gives the president broad procurement powers in national emergencies, seeking to exert pressure on manufacturers to act voluntarily.
