Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday warned that Big Apple hospitals are just 10 days away from running out of essential equipment to save lives from the novel coronavirus.
“If we don’t get more ventilators in the next 10 days, people will die who don’t have to die. It’s as simple as that,” de Blasio told Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
“Bluntly, Wolf, I think we’re about 10 days away now from seeing widespread shortages of really fundamental supplies — ventilators, surgical masks — the things that absolutely are necessary to keep a hospital running,” he said.
“They will not be able to function if they don’t get an infusion of money right away,” he said, saying the city lost “billions of dollars in the past week.”
Despite Hizzoner himself being criticized for failing to put in orders for COVID-19 supplies until March 6, he stuck to his guns in blaming the federal government.
“It sure as hell feels like we’re on our own at the moment. We are not seeing action from the federal government,” he told CNN. “We’re not getting shipments. We’re not getting the stuff we need.”
De Blasio said the crisis — that has seen more than 8,000 cases in New York City with at least 60 deaths — will soon get worse.
“We have only just begun. That is the truth. The worst is yet to come,” he warned. “April is going to be a lot worse than March and I feel May could be worse than April.”
In a separate interview that aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Hizzoner also President Trump for the city’s supply shortage.
“I can’t be blunt enough: If the president doesn’t act, people will die who could have lived otherwise — senior citizens, folks who are members of families,” the mayor said.
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“The president of the United States is from New York City and he will not lift a finger to help his home town. I don’t get it.”
Hizzoner said he has implored the administration to mobilize the military and pleaded with Trump to use the Defense Production Act to use the military to get hospitals and health professionals more medical equipment.
“The military has extraordinary medical capacity of its own that’s been honed in fighting wars,” de Blasio said. “They can handle any situation. All military personnel who are medically trained should be sent to places where this crisis is deep like New York. Right now. The military is the best logistical organization in the nation,” he said.
“If there are ventilators being produced anywhere in the country, we need to get them to New York, not weeks from now or months from now, in the next 10 days, and the only force in America who can do that is the military.”
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