NEW YORK: The mayor of New York City, which has more than a third of the nation’s coronavirus cases, on Sunday described the outbreak as the biggest domestic crisis since the Great Depression and called for the US military to mobilise to help keep the healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed.
“If we don’t get more ventilators in the next 10 days people will die who don’t have to die,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, as the nation’s most populous city saw cases top 8,000 and deaths hit 60.
Nationwide cases are over 25,000 with at least 340 dead, according to a Reuters tally.
“This is going to be the greatest crisis domestically since the Great Depression,” he told CNN, referring to the economic crisis of the 1930s. “This is why we need a full-scale mobilisation of the American military.”
He warned that the worst is yet to come with April looking worse than March and May perhaps even worse.
De Blasio said the city is not getting needed medical supplies from the federal government to contend with the rapid spread of the sometimes deadly respiratory illness Covid-19.
“If the president does not act, people will die who could have lived otherwise,” de Blasio told NBC.
US President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that US automakers Ford Motor Co, General Motors Co and Tesla Inc had been given the green light to produce ventilators and other items desperately needed during the coronavirus outbreak.
The lockdown affecting large segments of the American public to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus is likely to last 10 to 12 weeks, or until early June, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday.
Americans are adapting to the biggest change in daily life since World War Two with schools closed, sports canceled and economic upheaval as job losses mount with the shuttering of businesses across many industries.
Hospitals are scrambling for protective equipment for healthcare workers and for ventilators as they brace for a wave of patients who will need help breathing as severe cases often lead to pneumonia and decreased lung function.
The virus has killed over 13,000 globally and infected more than 300,000 in over 170 countries.
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