Coronavirus: New York declared major disaster area as cases exceed 10,000
- State ramps up medical capacity and tries to source more masks and hospital gowns
- Flights temporarily halted at area airports because of virus-related staffing issues
New York state is struggling to slow the spread of coronavirus to give the healthcare industry time to ramp up capacity, with the total number of confirmed cases exceeding 10,000.
“The estimates show 40 to 80 per cent of the population is going to be infected,” governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday. That means as many as 15.6 million people could become infected by the virus in the coming months.
“The only question is: how fast is the rate of spread and can we slow the rate so the hospitals can deal with it?”
As of Saturday morning, the state had 10,356 cases, with 3,254 newly confirmed ones, and the federal government designated the state as a major disaster area.
The state’s death toll reached 56, according to Johns Hopkins University. New York City had the highest number of cases in the state, with 1,803 new cases and a total of 6,211, Cuomo said.
New York state now has the highest number of cases in the United States, accounting for almost half of the country’s total.