Suffolk County is reporting an increase of more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases in a 24-hour period, a number that Governor Andrew Cuomo called “troubling” during his press briefing this morning.
There are now a total of 19,333 cases across Long Island, with 8,746 in Suffolk and 10,578 in Nassau, which also reported more than 1,000 new daily cases for the first time yesterday and today.
“New York City is much larger than Westchester, Nassau or Suffolk,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “When you look at Nassau County, one thousand new cases, Suffolk County, 1,141 new cases—that is troubling news.“
Cuomo expressed concern that health systems on Long Island will soon become overwhelmed by the rapid increase in cases.
“You see those numbers growing in Nassau and Suffolk, and that is starting to stress that healthcare system,” Cuomo said.
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This week, the state sent 200 ventilators to hospitals on Long Island and 400 to hospitals in New York City, he said.
At the current rate of daily hospitalizations, New York State only has about six days worth of ventilators in its stockpile before it runs out of the lifesaving equipment.
“If a person comes in and needs a ventilator and you don’t have a ventilator, the person dies,” Cuomo said. “That’s the blunt equation here.“
It’s too late to find a business to manufacture new ventilators, Cuomo said, because the shortage is expected to happen far sooner than they would be able to produce the complex equipment.
State health officials are therefore taking “extraordinary measures” to prepare for the expected shortage of ventilators.
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Hospitals have begun experimenting with “splitting” ventilators, an experimental procedure where a ventilator, which is built to support a single patient, is split between two or three patients.
Northwell Health, the state’s largest health system, has led an effort to convert sleep apnea machines into equipment that could be used for less severe patients, Cuomo said.
“They don’t have the same force as a ventilator,” he explained, “but on an emergency basis, some research has been done that shows they could be suitable.“
Health officials have also gathered the locations of every single ventilator in the state, so that they can be redistributed in the event of a shortage at any one hospital.
“If we have a problem in a hospital, we’re going to take the ventilators that are not needed and transport them downstate to the hospitals that do need them,” Cuomo said. “And more and more of those are going to be on Long Island.“
New York State has also begun transporting patients from downstate hospitals to upstate hospitals, Cuomo said, which will free up beds for more immediate cases in areas that are experiencing earlier outbreaks.
There are now 92,381 cases in all of New York State, with 51,809 of those in New York City. Westchester, where one of the state’s first clusters emerged in early March, is up to 11,567 cases.
An additional 432 people statewide died from the virus since yesterday, bringing New York State’s total fatalities to 2,373.
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