Sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words. The one below from today’s edition of The New York Times certainly brings back the horror of 9/11 for any New Yorker who was in the city at that time. It shows the parking lot on 30th st between the coroner's office, on the corner of NYU Medical Center, and the city’s public Bellevue Hospital. This is where they erected the tent that held the remains of the victims of the 9/11 World Trade Center collapse. The refrigerator trucks are there to serve as a morgue. The day after o9/11 I looked out of my window and saw those trucks ringing the medical center. Again New Yorkers are circling the wagons, waiting for the enemy to strike.
We are out on Long Island in Suffolk County, NY - close enough to see the tsunami that is in store for NYC coming our way. Suffolk has ~ 1.5 million people and ~4,000 cases, but ignore the case numbers - they are meaningless. The important data are: 1) the time it takes for the death rate to double 2) the number of ICU beds available 3) the number of ventilators. 216 ICU beds (of which between 50%-75% would already normally be in use). On March 19th 3 people died of COVID. On March 24, this number rose to 17 and on March 27 to 30. This is a 3-day doubling time. As of Mar 28, 139/216 ICU beds are occupied by COVID patients – this means in 3 days, ironically this will be April Fools Day, we will run out of ICU beds. But this is no joking matter if you are a USA citizen reading this, sit down, call your congressman and senators, tell them to SEND THE 20,000 VENTILATORS STOCKPILE TO NYC NOW.
Data on case incidence and death rates and ICU occupancy: https://www.suffolkcountyny.gov/Departments/Health-Services/Health-Bulletins/Novel-Coronavirus
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