New York City deaths from COVID-19 exceed 1,000, Florida governor issues stay-at-home order

New York authorities rushed to bring in thousands of medical volunteers Wednesday as the statewide death toll from the coronavirus surged past 1,900 and the wail of ambulances in the otherwise eerily quiet streets of the big city became the heartbreaking soundtrack of the crisis.

New York state's death toll was 1,941 due to the pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference, an increase of 391 fatalities. In the previous 24 hours the number of discharges statewide was nearly level with new hospitalizations, but there are more than 12,200 coronavirus-related hospitalizations in New York, with just over 3,000 of those being patients in intensive care.

As hot spots flared around the country in places like New Orleans, Detroit and Southern California, New York City was the hardest hit of them all, accounting for the majority of the state's deaths, with bodies loaded onto refrigerated morgue trucks by gurney and forklift outside overwhelmed hospitals, in some cases in full view of passing motorists. And the worst is yet to come.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he is considering a plan to halt flights to coronavirus hot zones in the U.S.as he struggles to contain a pandemic that is projected to kill at least 100,000 people.

"We're certainly looking at it, but once you do that you really are clamping down an industry that is desperately needed," Trump told a White House news briefing.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the same briefing that a vaccine will be "the ultimate game changer" in the fight against COVID-19 and added there should be a vaccine on the market in ayear to 18 months.

WATCH | Fauci talks about what it would take to relax physical distancing measures:

'The ultimate solution...would be a vaccine'

5 years ago

Duration 1:46

Dr. Anthony Fauci says the U.S. is on track to have a COVID-19 vaccine in the next 12 to 18 months

New York City'sHealth Department reported late Tuesday that nearly 1,100 people have died of the virus in the city. The development came just over five days after the United Statesas awhole recorded over 1,000 deaths.

Data released by the city shows Brooklyn and Queens have the most cases in number among the five boroughs of the city, though on a per capita basis the Bronx has seen the most deaths.

The city's ambulance system and police department are under increasing stress from the pandemic, with nearly a quarter of the city's emergency medical service workers out sick, according to the fire department. In all, 2,800 members of the fire department are sidelined, including about 950 of the city's 4,300 EMS workers.

Nearly 16 per cent of the New York Police Department's uniformed force is now out sick. More than 1,000 officers have tested positive for the virus.

In New York, at least 78,000 people have volunteered as medical reinforcements, according to state officials. The group includes recent retirees who are willing to go back to work, health-care professionals who can take a break from their regular jobs and people between gigs.

Few have made it into the field yet, as authorities vet them and figure out how to use them, but hospitals are expected to begin bringing them in later this week.

Health-care workers who have hit the ground already, many brought in by staffing agencies, have discovered a hospital system becoming overwhelmed.

"I have never seen so many human beings in an ER at one time in my entire life," said Liz Schaffer, a nurse from St. Paul, Minn., who had her first shift Tuesday at Mount Sinai Hospital. "Shoulder to shoulder. It is a sight I never thought I would see. Patients are dying every day. Every single day."

Authorities are racing to build temporary hospitals in locations including Central Park, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, a cruise ship terminal and a sports complex to handle an expected surge in patients.

'Roughest' weeks ahead: Trump

While New York and a few other hot spots have garnered most of the attention, Trump warned Americans on Tuesday to brace for a "hell of a bad two weeks" ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus pandemic even if current physical distancing guidelines are maintained.

"This is going to be one of the roughest two or three weeks we've ever had in our country," Trump said. "We're going to lose thousands of people."

Public health officials stressed Tuesday that the number could be less if people across the country bear down on keeping their distance from one another.

"We really believe we can do a lot better than that," said Dr. Deborah Birx, the co-ordinator of the White House coronavirus task force. That would require all Americans to take seriously their role in preventing the spread of disease, she said.

WATCH l Trump now warns of 'vicious' virus:

U.S. projects over 100,000 COVID-19 deaths

5 years ago

Duration 1:59

President Donald Trumps COVID-19 team projects somewhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand deaths in the United States from the current pandemic.

The jaw-dropping projections were laid out during a grim, two-hour White House briefing.

"We are continuing to see things go up," Fauci said. "We cannot be discouraged by that because the mitigation is actually working and will work."

On Wednesday, Dr. Jerome Adams, the U.S. surgeon general, said that some areas of the country would likely need to maintain those restrictions into May. "Well, it will be for some places, it won't be for others, depending on where they are on their curve," he told ABC's Good Morning America.

Elsewhere in the U.S., federal, state and local officials tried to end a standoff over whether two cruise ships with sick and dead passengers may dock at Port Everglades, Fla.. Among the passengers in limbo are several Canadians. Two deaths have been blamed on the virus, and nine people have tested positive, the Holland America cruise line said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that state, federal and county officials have been in contact with each other and the cruise companies to try and bring about a resolution, which he said should be coming soon.

DeSantis also said he is issuing a statewide stay-at-home order effective midnight after consulting with Trump and White House advisers, who have said that Americans need to stay home throughout April.

Federal and local pressure had mounted on the governor to abandon his earlier county-by-county approach.

More than 30 other states had already issued such orders, including other large states such as California, New York and Illinois. Those all acted more than a week ago.

In Southern California, officials reported that more than 50 residents of a nursing home east of Los Angeles have been infected and two have died. Cedar Mountain Post Acute Rehabilitation in Yucaipa has been told to assume that all of its patients have the virus, health authorities said.

Birx said on Tuesday the experiences of Washington state and California overall give her hope that other states can keep the coronavirus under control through physicaldistancing. That's because they moved quickly to contain the early clusters of cases by closing schools, urging people to work from home, banning large gatherings and taking other measures now familiar to most Americans, she noted.

"I am reassured by looking at the Seattle line," she added. "California and Washington state reacted very early to this." Many other states and local governments already have stiff controls in place on mobility and gatherings.

The virus, which causes the disease COVID-19, leads to mild symptoms in many of those infected, but it can cause severe symptoms or death for some, including older adults and those with underlying medical conditions such as respiratory ailments.