Cuomo Becomes Trump's Target After Demanding Ventilators Now
N.Y.’s Cuomo Says Rate of Virus Cases Increasing Despite Actions
(Bloomberg) -- As New York reported more than 5,000 new coronavirus cases and an infection rate doubling roughly every three days, Governor Andrew Cuomo lashed out at President Donald Trump for relying on corporations to fast-track the manufacture of life-saving ventilators.
“You can’t do this on a voluntary basis,” Cuomo said Tuesday during a news conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, which is being converted into a temporary hospital. He warned that many victims of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, will die needlessly without ventilation.
“You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die,” he said.
The president said in a televised town hall that the governor was ungrateful and had failed to prepare his state. “He shouldn’t be talking about us,” Trump said.
Trump, unable to hold his mass campaign rallies at a time when most Americans are staying home, has turned to daily coronavirus briefings not only to impart information -- much of which contradicts his own experts’ advice -- but to air grievances. During a Fox News appearance on Tuesday, the president, who thrives on having an enemy, found one in Cuomo.
The governor, who’s a Democrat, has gained national attention for his urgent yet modulated briefings on the state’s virus response. He has walked a fine line between criticizing the Republican administration for disorganization -- which risks angering the mercurial president -- and forging a cooperative partnership. His tone Tuesday ranged from angry to incredulous.
Ventilators are his latest worry. The complex devices pump air and oxygen into the lungs and remove carbon dioxide, assisting patients whose bodies can’t perform the job. The most critically ill develop severe pneumonia, which can make the devices crucial.
On their own, companies need capital and time to shift production to entirely new products, Cuomo said. And time is running short for New York, he said, with confirmed cases now exceeding 25,000 and peak infection rates expected as soon as 14 days from now.
He called on Trump to use his authority under the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to compel manufacturers to make ventilators and provide seed money to retrofit factories.
“Not to use that power is inexplicable to me,” he said. “It’s not anti-business. The businesses would welcome it. I speak to the businesses, you know what they say? ‘I’ll do it, but I need startup capital.’”
The companies would also have to contend with a shortage of components; makers say their factories can ramp up production only if suppliers across the globe send more circuit boards, tubes and other parts.
Cuomo expressed disbelief over a shipment that New York is receiving from the Federal Emergency Management Agency: “FEMA sent us 400 ventilators. We need 30,000!” he said.
Vice President Mike Pence said in the meeting that the administration Tuesday was trying to help by releasing equipment from the federal government’s reserves. He said 2,000 ventilators had been sent to New York and another 2,000 would be on the way Wednesday.
Trump said later that Cuomo should be happy with what he’s getting.
“We’re building him hospitals, we’re building him medical centers, and he was complaining,” Trump said. “He’s supposed to be buying his own ventilators.”
Trump claimed, without citing evidence, that Cuomo had refused to order 16,000 ventilators five years ago “at a great price” and instead “established death panels and lotteries” rather than prepare for a pandemic.
Minutes later, discussing the nation’s lack of testing capacity, Trump said that no one could have predicted the coronavirus. “Nobody ever expected a thing like this,” he said.
Efforts to reach Cuomo for comment on Trump’s assertion weren’t immediately successful.
The debate between the two leaders came as the rate of infections in New York continued to accelerate. The state has conducted more than 91,000 tests and had 25,665 positive results, the highest and fastest rate in the country, Cuomo said. A day earlier, its total was 20,875.
Deaths attributed to the outbreak rose to 210 from 157 on Monday.
New York has almost 10 times as many cases as California, with about 2,800 cases, he said. The apex of the New York infections will come in 14 to 21 days, higher and sooner than previously expected, Cuomo said.
“In many ways, we have exhausted every option available to us,” Cuomo said.
The state currently has 53,000 hospital beds and projects it will need 140,000 in two weeks when the virus reaches its apex. Cuomo has ordered hospitals to increase their capacity by 50%, and together with the city has identified an additional 14,600 beds. Cuomo’s goal is to increase the number of beds to 100,000.
“These are troubling and astronomical numbers,” he said.
New York University is readying residence halls for use, university spokesman John Beckman said. NYU’s 22 residence halls and apartments house approximately 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students during the academic year.
Columbia University is discussing using some dorms for clinicians at nearby hospitals, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Cuomo has also contacted hotel owners about using their properties, he said at the news conference.
The state and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has also designated the State Universities at Stony Brook and Old Westbury and the Westchester Convention Center for temporary hospitals with 1,000 beds each. The state is also exploring sites at three other SUNY campuses, four campuses of the City University of New York, St. John’s University in Queens and Fordham University in the Bronx.
A week ago, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced early plans to create as many as 1,500 hospital beds, including 600 at a nursing home in Brooklyn, 270 in Bronx hospitals, 350 at a medical facility on Roosevelt Island, and 250 more in five small hotels. It isn’t clear if any of the sites are operating yet.
On Monday, the state announced it had leased the Brooklyn facility, and the Corps of Engineers arrived at the Javits Center to begin creating wards. The Navy’s USNS Comfort is on its way to dock in Manhattan’s west side yards to provide 1,000 additional beds for non-Covid patients.
“I will turn the state upside down to get the number of beds we need,” Cuomo said.
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