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| Bodies are kept in freezer-truck morgues in Queens, NYC. |
Data released late Wednesday by city health officials show that residents in the immigrant-rich Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona sections of Queens have tested positive for the virus in far greater numbers and at higher rates per capita than in wealthy, mostly white parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
People living in one Queens zip code just south of LaGuardia Airport were roughly four times as likely to have tested positive as people in the gentrified section of Brooklyn that Mayor Bill de Blasio calls home. The numbers back something that has, for days, seemed obvious at Elmhurst Hospital, the only major medical center serving that part of Queens where infections are most prevalent.
Long lines of people waiting for testing and treatment outside the hospital have been one of the defining images of the pandemic, as have stories of multiple deaths in Elmhurst’s overburdened wards. Asked about the disparities, Dr. Mitchell Katz, chief executive of the city-run hospital system, said crowded housing could be playing a role.
“We know that in Queens, many families, because of poverty, live together in very close quarters. So that while we are practicing as a city social distancing, you may have multiple families living together in a very small apartment. And so it’s easy to understand why there’s a lot of transmission of COVID occurring,” he said.
A disproportionately high number of people have also tested positive for COVID-19 in certain Brooklyn neighborhoods that are home to many Orthodox Jews, who, for reasons of faith and tradition, also often have large families under one roof. Certain sections of the Bronx have also had a disproportionately high number of positive tests for the virus, compared to population.
Katz said people getting sick in western Queens face a second problem, which is that it has half the hospital beds per capita than Manhattan. The city’s public hospital system has been trying to ease the burden on Elmhurst Hospital by moving some patients out and moving additional staff in. It also increased its number of intensive care unit beds from 29 to 111 in 10 days.
As of 5 p.m. Wednesday the city had recorded 1,374 deaths from the virus. Nearly 46,000 city residents have tested positive for COVID-19. The true number of people sickened by the virus is likely much higher because officials have been rationing tests and encouraging all but the most seriously ill people not to seek treatment and instead ride it out at home.
Most people who get the virus experience mild or moderate symptoms, including fever and cough. Others, though, develop pneumonia, sometimes requiring hospitalization. The risk of death is greater for older adults and people with other health problems.
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| Patients lining up for hours to get tested inside the Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NYC. |
At a New York City hospital in the center of the state's coronavirus outbreak, at least 13 patients died in the span of 24 hours, hospital staff said. Elmhurst Hospital, part of the city's public hospital system, said in a statement that the 13 deaths were consistent with the number of intensive care unit patients the hospital was treating at the time. (i.e. 100% death rate once one is on a Queens's ventilator.)
The deaths occurred from Tuesday to Wednesday at the Queens hospital as New York continues to battle COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. As of Wednesday evening, the city said it had 20,011 known cases, leading to 280 deaths.
"Elmhurst is at the center of this crisis," the hospital statement said. "It's the number one priority of our public hospital system right now." Medical staff are working to meet the hospital's growing demand as it increases its effective capacity daily, the hospital said. Staff is doing "doing everything in our power" to save every COVID-19 patients, the hosptial added.
"The frontline staff are going above and beyond in this crisis, and we continue surging supplies and personnel to this critical facility to keep pace with the crisis," the statement said. The New York Times reported that some patients waiting for a bed at the 545-bed facility died in the emergency room, and a refrigerated truck sits outside to hold bodies. "It's apocalyptic," Dr. Ashley Bray, 27, a general medicine resident told the Times.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the city's density and it being an international destination is what made such a hotbed for the outbreak. “Our closeness makes us vulnerable,” he said. “But it’s true that your greatest weakness is also your greatest strength. And our closeness is what makes us who we are. That is what New York is.”
The governor has ordered everyone to stay at home "to the maximum extent possible" and banned all nonessential gatherings "of any size for any reason." Cuomo has also said that the state has an adequate supply of masks and other protective equipment to last several days, but that the race to acquire respirators remained critical. He said they will be returned to states who donate them – and that his state will provide expertise on treatment as well.
"We are asking the country to help us," he said. "We will return the favor." In a tweet, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city had received 400 ventilators from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and expected an additional 2,000 by the end of the week. "Those WILL buy us time. But we need 15,000 — and we need them FAST," he tweeted, urging more federal help.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump was critical of Cuomo, saying the governor should have ordered more ventilators years ago. However, Democrats have pressed Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act to require companies to expand production of the equipment. Social distancing has helped slow the rate of New York's hospitalizations, but they are still rising above expectations, Cuomo said.
New York will need 140,000 hospital beds, almost three times the existing capacity, according to Cuomo, who said he expects the state's curve to hit its apex in two or three weeks. "We are still on the way up the mountain," he said.
