Cuomo pleads for help as Comfort arrives in New York City

NEW YORK — New York’s governor put out an urgent plea for medical volunteers and a Navy hospital ship pulled into port Monday as coronavirus deaths in the city mounted and hospitals buckled in what authorities say could be a preview of what other communities across the U.S. could soon face.

“Please come help us in New York now. We need relief,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo pleaded as the number of dead in New York State climbed past 1,200, with most of those victims dying in New York City.

He added: “Whether it’s Detroit, it’s New Orleans, it will work its way across the country.”

Elsewhere around the world, hard-hit Italy and Spain saw their death tolls climb by more than 800 each even as the World Health Organization’s emergency chief said cases in the two countries are “potentially stabilizing.” At the same time, he warned this is no time to let up on tough containment measures.

A U.S. Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds arrived in port in New York to help relieve the crisis gripping the city. The USNS Comfort — also sent to New York City after 9/11 — will be used to treat non-coronavirus patients while packed hospitals deal with those with COVID-19.

Also, nurses and other medical professionals who have volunteered to help have begun arriving.

“Anyone who says this situation is a New York City-only situation is in a state of denial. You see this virus move across the state, you see this virus move across the nation. There is no American who is immune to this virus,” Cuomo said.

As he announced the latest death toll, he said: “That’s a lot of loss, that’s a lot of pain, that’s a lot of tears, that’s a lot of grief that people all across this state are feeling.”

Three-quarters of a million people around the world have become infected and over 35,000 have died, according to a running count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Wuhan opens back up

The city at the center of China’s virus outbreak was reopening for business Monday after authorities lifted more of the controls that locked downs tens of millions of people for two months. “I want to revenge shop,” one excited customer declared as she traversed one of Wuhan’s major shopping streets,

Customers were still scarce, though, as those who did venture out were greeted by shop employees who wore masks and carried signs that told them to “keep a safe distance.”

Among them was this teacher, who was visiting her family when most access to the city of 11 million was suspended Jan. 23 to stem the coronavirus spread.

“I’m so excited, I want to cry,” declared the woman, who gave only her English name Kat as she eyed the wares in the Chuhe Hanjie pedestrian mall.

“After two months trapped at home, I want to jump,” she added, jumping up and down excitedly.

Wuhan suffered 2,547 coronavirus deaths, accounting for about 80% of China’s total fatality toll of 3,186 as of Sunday, according to the National Health Commission. The country had a total of 81,470 confirmed cases.

Moscow in lockdown, other regions follow

The Russian capital, Moscow, on Monday woke up to a lockdown obliging most of its 13 million residents to stay home, and many other regions of the vast country quickly followed suit to stem the spread of the new coronavirus.

A stern-looking President Vladimir Putin warned his envoys in Russia’s far-flung regions that they will be personally responsible for the availability of beds, ventilators and other key equipment.

“We have managed to win time and slow down an explosive spread of the disease in the previous weeks, and we need to use that time reserve to the full,” Putin said.

Russia so far has been relatively spared by the outbreak, with 1,836 confirmed cases and nine deaths, but the number of people testing positive has risen quickly in recent days and authorities are bracing for the worst.

Fla. governor wants cruise boat victims refused

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn’t want the people on a cruise ship where four people died and others are sick to be treated in Florida.

DeSantis says it would be “a mistake” to bring them into South Florida, which already has a high and growing number of coronavirus infections. He says the area’s hospital beds need to be saved for residents and not “foreign nationals.”

He says he wants the cruise line to arrange to have “medical personnel dispatched to the ship.”

Officials say in addition to the four dead, more than 130 Zaandam passengers and crew have symptoms. Four doctors and four nurses were on board to treat 1,243 passengers and 586 crew members, many of whom are American or Canadian, says Holland America, which is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp.

A sister ship, the Rotterdam, took on passengers who didn’t appear to be infected. They were allowed through the Panama Canal on Sunday night and are about three days from Florida.

Day of mourning in Spain

Bells tolled in Madrid’s empty central square and flags were lowered to half-staff in a day of mourning Monday in hard-hit Spain, while the top infectious-disease expert in the United States warned that smaller U.S. cities are about to witness the rapid acceleration in coronavirus cases that New York is seeing.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that New Orleans and Detroit are showing signs that “they’re going to take off,” and other, smaller cities are “percolating.”

“What we’ve learned from painful experience with this outbreak is that it goes along almost on a straight line, then a little acceleration, acceleration, then it goes way up,” he said.

NY deaths top 1K

The warning came as virus deaths in New York surpassed 1,000, President Donald Trump extended social-distancing recommendations for a month in an abrupt turnaround, and the outbreak pushed the health systems in Italy and in Spain to the breaking point.

Spain reported more than 800 new deaths, raising its overall toll to over 7,300.

Spain and Italy make up more than half the world’s death toll of over 34,800 people from the virus that has upended the lives of billions and devastated world economies. Hospitals are buckling under the weight of caring for so many desperately ill patients at once. Italy has by far the most reported virus deaths, at nearly 11,000.

At least six of Spain’s 17 regions were at their limit of intensive care unit beds, and three more were close to it, authorities said. Crews of workers were frantically building more field hospitals.

15% infected in Spain are health care workers

Nearly 15% of all those infected in Spain, almost 13,000 people, are health care workers, hurting hospitals’ efforts to help the tsunami of people gasping for breath.

In hard-hit Madrid, flags were lowered for an official mourning period. During a minute of silence for the dead, Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square was empty as bells tolled.

In a situation unimaginable only a month ago, Italian officials were cheered when they reported only 756 new deaths in one day. Italy said the number of deaths has dropped about 10% a day since Friday.

‘’We are saving lives by staying at home, by maintaining social distance, by traveling less and by closing schools,” said Dr. Luca Richeldi, a lung specialist.

In a stark reversal, Trump extended federal guidelines recommending that Americans stay home for another 30 days until the end of April. The turnabout came after Fauci said up to 200,000 Americans could die and millions become infected if lockdowns and social distancing did not continue.

“We want to make sure that we don’t prematurely think we’re doing so great,” Fauci said.

2.5K deaths in US

The U.S. now has more than 143,000 infections and 2,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, while around the world more than 735,000 people are infected.

Moscow went on its own lockdown Monday as all of Russia braced for sweeping nationwide restrictions. The Russian capital of 13 million accounts for over 1,200 of the country’s more than 1,800 coronavirus cases.

“The extremely negative turn of events we are seeing in the largest European and U.S. cities causes extreme concern about the life and health of our citizens,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Experts say the critical situations seen in hospitals in Italy and Spain will be soon heading toward the United States.

In Italy, coronavirus patient Andrea Napoli, 33, said he didn’t remotely expect that he would be hospitalized, struggling for his life, since he was young and fit. But what he saw shocked him.

While he was being treated in Rome, three patients died in his ward. He saw doctors stressed and exhausted from the long hours, out of breath from pushing equipment around, dressed in protective masks, suits and gloves.

‘’What I saw was a lot, a lot of pain. It was very hard,’’ Napoli said. ‘’I heard screams from the other rooms, constant coughing from the other rooms.’’

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause severe symptoms like pneumonia and be fatal. More than 150,000 people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins.

China has few new cases

China on Monday reported 31 new COVID-19 cases, among them just one domestic infection. At the peak of China’s restrictions, some 700 million people were ordered to stay home, but those rules are easing.

Cases across Africa rose close to 5,000 in 46 countries. Zimbabwe began a three-week lockdown Monday and more cities across the continent were shut down.

Japanese automaker Toyota halted production at its auto plants in Europe, though all its factories in China resumed production Monday.