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Coronavirus Updates: Queens Hospitals Forced To Transfer Dozens Of Patients Due To "Malfunctioning" Oxygen Systems
By
Elizabeth Kim
and
Jake Offenhartz
Published Apr 8, 2020
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Seth Wenig/AP/Shutterstock
By
Elizabeth Kim
and
Jake Offenhartz
Published Apr 8, 2020
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This is our daily update of breaking COVID-19 news for Wednesday, April 8th, 2020. Previous daily updates can be found here, and up-to-date statistics are here.
Read our guide to understanding New York on PAUSE, NY's stay-at-home order; a look at preparing for the spread of coronavirus is here, and if you have lingering questions about the virus, here is our regularly updated coronavirus FAQ. Here are some local and state hotlines for more information: NYC: 311; NY State Hotline: 888-364-3065; NJ State Hotline: 800-222-1222.
Are you a healthcare worker or another kind of essential worker? Email us what you're seeing at [email protected].
2:50 p.m. More than two dozen patients on ventilators were transferred from two Queens hospitals on Tuesday night, as the surge in COVID-19 patients threatened to overwhelm the facilities' oxygen delivery systems.
According to the State Health Department, both Jamaica Hospital and Flushing Medical Center reported that their "bulk oxygen distribution systems were malfunctioning due to high demand."
Seventeen patients from Jamaica Hospital and nine from Flushing Medical Center were rushed to other facilities in the region, spokesperson Jonah Bruno told Gothamist.
At least ten of the patients at Jamaica Hospital were sent to the USNS Comfort, the Navy ship currently docked on the west side of Manhattan, according to NYC's Emergency Management Department.
The transfer came hours after the USNS Comfort began accepting patients with COVID-19 — a shift from the floating hospital's initial mandate to handle non-coronavirus overflow patients. That restructuring has cut the 1,000 bed capacity of the supertanker by half.
Some models predict that New York will experience its peak use of ventilators and hospital beds on Wednesday, with the highest number of deaths coming on Thursday. Nowhere in the city has been hit as hard as Queens, which has seen 23,000 confirmed coronavirus cases so far, nearly 5,000 more than any other borough.
Michael Hinck, a spokesperson for Jamaica Hospital, stressed that the transfers were preventative, and consistent with Governor Andrew Cuomo's directive to "balance the load" among New York hospitals.
"We had a high number of patients who were receiving oxygen and as a preventative measure, for the safety of patients, we proactively transferred patients to other facilities," Hinck told Gothamist.
The spokesperson declined to say how many patients were currently on ventilators in the hospital and how many additional ventilators were available.
Officials could not provide further information about the condition of the transferred patients.
New York State Reports Highest One-Day Death Toll Amid Signs Of Slowing Spread
1:30 p.m. Governor Andrew Cuomo reported that 731 additional people died statewide from coronavirus since Tuesday, marking a new high in the single day death toll.
As of Wednesday, the total number of coronavirus deaths recorded in the state stands at 6,268, more than twice the number of New Yorkers who died on 9/11.
"It's almost unimaginable to me," Cuomo said during a press conference on Wednesday, calling the news "terrible."
The tragic milestone comes as the number of hospitalizations begin to decrease. Deaths are a lagging indicator to hospitalizations. As the number of days increases among those who have been hospitalized and put on ventilators, the likelihood increases that they will die.
After initially projecting that the caseload would continue to surge, he said that over the last four or five days, the curve of infections was showing signs of leveling off rather than rising.
"We are flattening the curve. Thank God, thank God," he said.
But he warned New Yorkers not to get complacent and urged them to continue practicing social distancing measures.
Like Mayor Bill de Blasio, Cuomo addressed the racial disparity in the tally of deaths, which the state and city released on Wednesday. According to that preliminary data, 34 percent of those who died of coronavirus in New York City were Latino residents, while 28 percent were blacks.
“It always seems that the poorest people pay the highest price,” the governor said, adding that he wanted to find out why and "learn those lessons now."
He announced that the state would do more testing in minority communities and that he would appoint a panel of experts at SUNY Albany, the state Department of Health and the New York-based hospital system Northwell Health to immediately start studying the causes.
"I get the co-morbidities," he said, referring to the higher rates of diabetes, obesity, asthma and hypertension, among blacks and Latinos.
But he added, "What else is at play?"
“Are more public workers Latino and African-American? Who don’t have a choice, frankly, but to go out there everyday and drive the bus and drive the train and show up for work and wind up subjecting themselves to, in this case, the virus?" the governor wondered.
Cuomo also announced that New Yorkers filing for unemployment would receive an additional $600 immediately. The federal government has said it would reimburse the state for the additional funds. The period of unemployment benefits will also be extended, from 26 to 39 weeks.
De Blasio Says Projected Ventilators Needed In Public Hospitals Has Dropped Dramatically
11:30 a.m. The projected number of ventilators needed by coronavirus patients in New York City's public hospitals has dropped dramatically, an early sign that the pandemic may be slowing down.
During a press briefing, de Blasio said that as recently as Sunday, the city had estimated that public hospitals would need between 200 to 300 or more ventilators per day to treat patients with COVID-19.
"That number has come down to 100 or even less," he said. "That’s a striking difference."
Nevertheless, the mayor warned against overconfidence and said New Yorkers needed to continue with social distancing measures as well as staying at home as much as possible.
"It doesn’t tell us when this is going to be over. It tells us we have to double down," he said.
Statewide, the percent of positive cases requiring hospitalization or ICU treatment has remained fairly steady since March 26th, at around 14 percent and 3.5 percent respectively, according to Gothamist's tracking of the epidemic. Starting on April 3rd, the percent of positive cases requiring hospitalization began to slowly drop.
The mayor said that given the projections, the city's hospital system will have enough ventilators to get through the week. As recently as Sunday, the mayor said the city could run out of ventilators by Tuesday or Wednesday.
The city currently has 5,500 ventilators at the ready to deploy to hospitals across the city, both public and private, de Blasio said. Another 135 ventilators are being kept in reserve.
After Pressure, NYC Releases Racial Breakdown Of COVID-19 Deaths
Latino and black residents in New York City have higher mortality rates from coronavirus, according to preliminary numbers released by the city on Wednesday morning.
The early data shows that of those who have died from coronavirus in the city, 34 percent were Latino residents, while 28 percent were blacks.
Black New Yorkers have the highest crude death rate: 23.1 out of 100,000 people. Latino New Yorkers have the second highest reported death rate, 21.3 out of 100,000. But adjusted for age, the death toll is slightly higher for Latinos, who have a death rate of 22.8 versus 19.8.
The released data represents only 63 percent of reported deaths in New York City because according to the city, the vast majority of cases are reported by labs and often did not have race or ethnicity data.
Both rates for blacks and Latinos are significantly higher than of whites, which have a crude death rate of 15.7 per 100,000, and an age-adjusted death rate of 10.2
Asians have the lowest death rate from the disease. Among those who have died, 7.2 percent were Asian.
During two television appearances early Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio hinted at demographic data, saying he planned to address the stark racial disparities drawn by the spread of coronavirus during his daily press briefing.
"The kind of health disparities that we’ve known for too long are clearly evidenced now in this crisis," he said, during an appearance on Fox 5.
The mayor said infections had disproportionately affected black and Latino New Yorkers.
As of Tuesday evening, there were 74,601 confirmed cases of coronavirus citywide, according the New York City's health department. At least 3,544 people in the city have died. The latest numbers reflect a one-day death toll of more than 800, but the city noted that the unusually high increase was due to reporting lags.
On Tuesday, both de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo pledged to release a racial breakdown of the local and statewide data on confirmed cases and deaths, which many elected officials and community members have said is long overdue.
At least eight states, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia, are already reporting racial demographic data. Based on those numbers, blacks are overrepresented in both infections and fatalities. Early analysis of New York City's data by zipcode as well as anecdotes, suggests the same is likely to be true here.
Civil rights advocates have demanded that the federal government put pressure on all states to release racial breakdowns of COVID-19 data.
In general, black Americans face a higher exposure to the disease due to their concentration in urban areas and their jobs in essential industries. The Economic Policy Institute found that only 20 percent of black workers reported being eligible to work from home, compared with about 30 percent of their white counterparts.
During a White House press conference on Tuesday, President Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the national coronavirus task force, acknowledged the impact on black Americans.
Fauci said the virus is "shining a bright light on how unacceptable the disparity is."
He pointed out that underlying medical conditions suffered by black people, such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, asthma, are ones that increase the deadliness of the disease.
“When all this is over and, as we said, it will end, we will get over coronavirus, but there will still be health disparities which we really do need to address in the African American community," Fauci said.
Tagged
covid-19 updates
coronavirus
Elizabeth Kim
Elizabeth Kim is a reporter on the People and Power desk who covers mayoral power. She previously covered the pandemic, housing, redevelopment and public spaces. A native of Queens, she speaks fluent Mandarin. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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