Hospitals. There are already critical shortages. A bronx hospital is running out of ventilators. In brooklyn, doctors are reusing masks. Thats the headline, and the subhead tonight, of the new york times, heres the lead, quote, for weeks, as the coronavirus has spread across the world, new york officials have warned that a surge of cases could overwhelm the States Health care system. Jeopardizing thousands of patients. Now, that surge has begun. In a startlingly quick ascent, new york reported today the state was closing in on 8,000 positive tests which is about half the cases in the entire country. The number was ten times higher than what was reported earlier this week. New york has ten times as many cases now as it did when we started this week. And part of that is increased testing. The state says they processed 10,000 more coronavirus tests overnight last night. But regardless of whether it reflects increased testing or not, its giving us more information about what new york is coping with, and the state is now close to 8,000 known cases, with more than 1200 people hospitalized, already. There are not infinite beds to put people in in new York Hospitals, as they bear the brunt of the first wave of this illness in the United States. And the hospitals in new york that already do not have enough beds, they also do not have the supplies they need to keep hospital workers and doctors and nurses from getting infected themselves, and they of course are the work force that we must keep alive and uninfected, and well enough to be working. As the hospitals fill up and spill over. First in new york. And then next, watch. Its happening. Quote, in the bronx, doctors at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health center say they only have a few remaining ventilators for patients who need them to breathe. In brooklyn, doctors at Kings County Hospital Center say they are so low on supplies, that they are reusing masks for up to a week, slathering them with Hand Sanitizer between shifts. Heres new york citys mayor today trying to make clear that this isnt a future problem to worry about. This is what is happening now. And whatever happy talk youre hearing from the federal government about how things are under control, and supplies are plentiful, well, where those supplies are actually needed right now, theyre not here. We dont have masks. We dont have ventilators. At the beginning of april, we will run out of basic medical supplies, because of the intense strain thats being put already on our hospitals by this crisis. We literally will not have the things we need to save peoples lives. Im telling you in two weeks time or three weeks time, we will have nothing left and i have not gotten a hint of an answer from the federal government about when resupplies are coming. Theres no supplies moving. Theres no military mobe l lieization. We would know if we were receiving supplies but were not. We have not gotten a call saying here is your shipment, heres when it is coming. If the president doesnt act in days, for the defense protection act to put every company that could produce a ventilator or surgical mask and put them on full 24 7 production and guarantee that those products get to the front line, get to where the need is greatest, if he doesnt do that in the next few days, if he does not mobilize the United States military immediately, not only will hundreds die around the nation who didnt need to die, thousands will die around the nation who didnt need to die, people will die waiting to get into a hospital. People will die at a hospital because will is no equipment or there is no medical personnel who can help them in time. Theres no supplies moving. And we would know if we were receiving supplies. We are not receiving supplies. Heres the headline tonight in the wall street journal. Coronavirus cases strain new york City Hospitals. Quote, we are getting pounded. Swiftly rising number of patients. Sooner than expected. Leads to supply shortages. The journal reporting together that the Medical Center in brooklyn has no more isolation space for coronavirus patients. They are fullup. The journal also reporting that long island jewish Medical Center is now 90 full. Half the hospitals intensive care patients right now are coronavirus patients. The hospital is adding icu beds right now tonight, as fast as they can. One doctor telling the paper quote, we are getting pounding, ive been in icu care for 15 years and this is the worst ive ever seen things. Ive seen more cases in the last ten days of severe respiratory illness than weve seen in years. Quote, im very worried. To try to slow down the rate of new infections, remember, intensive care demand lags new infections by about three weeks. After people get infected, three weeks later, thats when those infections start to get reflected in emergency wards and intensive care wards. To try to slow down the rate of new infections, to try to slow the demand on hospital and intensive care beds, new york and illinois have now joined california as states that have full statewide stay at home orders. And announcing the first of the statewide orders last night, California Governor Gavin Newsom says without changes to slow the rate of new infections in california, california expects that 56 of the state would be infected within the next eight weeks. In a state as large as california, that means theyre saying more than 20 Million People woulden infected within the next eight weeks, unless the state radically changes direction. And so a statewide stay at home order announced last night, instituted as of last night. All the way across the country, in the great state of louisiana, things are escalating quickly there as well. Louisiana has more than 500 reported cases now. And that gives that state one of the highest per capita infection rates anywhere in the country. The mayor of new orleans tonight, instituted a stay at home order for the city. Its along the lines of what is in place now statewide in california and new york and illinois. The Tulane Health system in new orleans is actually planning to shut down one emergency room in a new orleans suburb so they can move all of the staff from that emergency room location, instead to a downtown new orleans hospital where theyre experiencing a large surge in coronavirus patients. Louisianas governor, John Bell Edwards telling the white house that he believes his state may be only seven days away from its hospitals being out of capacity. The white house released a transcript of his request for help, so we can see it in exact words, the governor saying, quote, my fear, based on modeling ive received today, is that in the earliest, in as early as seven days we can start to exceed our capacity to deliver health care here. Im asking for help in terms of surging our medical capacity. The governor then goes on to ask specifically if the v. A. Hospital in new orleans, federal facility, might be a place where patients from the regular City Hospitals could be surged into, as the hospitals start to overflow. In oregon state, and in washington state, the states governors there, kate brown and jay inslee respectively, they have now ordered a halt to all nonurgent medical and dental procedures statewide. Anything that requires protective gear for Health Care Providers because that gear is so key to whether or not doctors and nurses and other Health Care Workers stay alive to take care of the rest of us. The oregon governor, kate brown, announcing that the state is actually rounding up protective equipment now, like masks and gloves, rounding that stuff up, collecting it, from contractors, and veterinarians, and anybody else who is not using it for Human Health Care right now. Oregon is also one of several states that is building new capacity. New beds. Last night, we reported on king county in Washington Building a brand new 200bed hospital that im tempted to call a Field Hospital, because theyre building it in a soccer field, we reported on that last night, in king county, washington, that is going up fast. One state south, in the great state of oregon, they are also now building out a similar facility. A 250bed hospital that theyre putting up on the grounds of the oregon state fairgrounds. They are using a fairgrounds building thats about 50,000 square feet, and they are converting it to hospital overflow. Frankly, states all over the country need to be doing things like this. Heres salem, oregon, today. Were at the jackman lawn building, where the hospital will be set up. And when you look inside, this building is massive. Its 48,000 square feet. And inside, theres heating and electricity. Governor brown said this morning, the oregon medical station will become a 250bed emergency hospital. Right now, its unclear what level of care will be offered here. The governor said the Emergency Coordination Center is working on identifying 1,000 temporary hospital beds across the state, to move patients to, who do not have covid19. We do not yet know whether this will be that overflow, or if it will be an emergency set up for critically ill coronavirus patients. I spoke with one of the project managers, chris inningersoll, working at the covid19 emergency center, and says uniformed military members are helping set this up so he doesnt is want the community to be alarmed if they see them and unloading hospital materials like beds and other supplies, like military equipment. The questions like who will be staffing this hospital, and what level of equipment is here, we dont yet know. Governor brown said this morning, the hospital may be ready by friday, but inningersoll says he doesnt think it will be operational then. And what is clear right now is that setting up the oregon medical station is a direct measure to flatten the curve and slow the spread of covid19. So theyre calling it the oregon medical station. Oregon is building this capacity right now. They say they want a thousand beds that they need to get in very short order across that state. Theyre using military resources to get 250 beds up and running right now. Again, theyre calling it the oregon medical station. But theyre building it at the oregon state fairgrounds. In washington state, they want even more surplus beds. They want 3,000 beds in washington state. They have already been buying and leasing hotels and motels. Yesterday they started standing up a hospital on a soccer field. Well talk with the king county commissioner over the course of this hour, to talk about how his county, how hes been able to basically get so on the ball about that stuff, and get that stuff in motion, bet those beds in use, while the rest of the country has lagged so far behind. In chicago, the commissioner of Public Health said today that they, the city has assigned its first contract for hospital overflow and quarantine beds in chicago. Now the commissioner did not announce what that first contracted facility is for chicago. But they say theyre looking at empty schools and dormitories, and even convents. And chicago is expecting to stand up thousands of beds again to try to keep chicago hospitals from being overwhelmed. In california, the governor says they will be trying to add tens of thousands of beds. The governor there signed an executive order last week that allows the state to commandeer, to take over medical facilities and hotels and he signed that executive order last week, he now says the process of doing that is under way. Today, we just secured a very large hospital in northern california, seton, now part of our portfolio, and were going to populate that hospital, as an example to meet the moment. Tomorrow, well announce a hospital in southern california. Thats 750 beds, those two hospitals combined. We start to stack this. 750 here. The motels that were currently and hotels that were currently negotiating with, we start stacking those master leases, for those hotels. Were working, i had very, positive conversations with the leaders of two of the finest Public University systems in the world, uc and California State University system, were working with those systems to identify appropriate dormitories to help us with the surge. We start stacking those numbers. California, washington, oregon, the city of chicago, louisiana asking to please use the v. A. Facility, which makes sense, probably, in the short run, except the v. A. Has done almost no testing of veterans already in its care, and the numbers theyre showing early on from the few tests this very done show that the v. A. Is going to have their very own serious charge with their own patient load, particularly given that they have so many older patients. In terms of the happy talk weve had on this front from the federal government, there is no sign that the Navy Hospital ships that the president made such a big deal of, the comfort and the mercy, theres no sign that theyll be anywhere onsite helping out anywhere in the country for weeks yet. The president said when he announced that those ships would be put into action against the covid19 epidemic, he said one of those ships would be operational in new york harbor by next week. Thats nonsense. It will not be there next week. The army is talking about deploying a combat support hospital and a Field Hospital, potentially to new york, and also to seattle, that would certainly be a help, as we understand it, a combat support hospital typically has about 250 beds, including about 50 icu beds. A Field Hospital is much smaller, less than 100 beds, but a Field Hospital can also support icu bed, including with ventilators. So thats not a lot of capacity that the army is talking about, one combat support hospital, one Field Hospital, if theyre only talking about deploying one of each of those, thats not much, but every little bit will help. It would be helpful in particular if theyre able to move those fast. Again, it looks like tonight, new york is already getting the first blast in terms of hospital capacity. There is talk in new york about potentially converting the gigantic javits center, into bed space, to hospital overflow space. Theyre also talking about potentially using Madison Square garden. Or the student dorms at nyu, new york university. And it is presumed that the u. S. Military will help with setting those up, or with converting those spaces into hospital overflow, but with new York Hospitals already filling up tonight, just talking about the prospect of doing that, at some point, is late already. And i mean the lodestar, the thing that new york officials believe they are heading for, is something akin to the situation in northern italy which experts say epidemiologically speaking is about ten days 0 two weeks ahead of where the United States is in terms of its increase in cases. And about the same distance ahead of new york city in terms of a hospital influx. This is the main hospital, it is one of the most advanced hospitals in italy. But its the most hard hit hospitals in all of italy. The town is the center of the epidemic here. This isnt a ward. This is a waiting room. Wherever you go, people are on gurneys and corridors and meeting rooms, theyre everywhere. All the medical staff urge other nations to see whats happening, and lock their nations down. Right now. Or face this. Well, i would suggest just to shut down to stop all of the outbreak, and not come into this kind of situation. It is very, very difficult to manage. Can i ask you personally what its been like . I have never felt so stressed in my life. Imen intensivist, and im quite used to intense moments, and choices, and people are critical, and will die without any treatment, and you make a difference, but when youre over to this point, you realize that you are not enough, and maybe all, we are 100 anesthetists here, we are doing our best, but maybe it is not enough. We are here tracking the coronavirus. The problem facing Health Services across the world is that when the infection curve goes up, it rockets, and all of the resources, all of the testing, all of the supplies, are used up instantly. Multiple hospitals all at once. Italy reported its largest single day death toll today. 627 people died in the last 24 hours. And even as italy struggles and struggles and tries to keep up, china just set up a team of experts who just went through their coronavirus catastrophe to try to advise and help out with the situation in northern italy. The Vice President of the chinese red cross on that visit to northern italy said that from what he can observe, what italy is doing to try to slow the rate of new infections, which are frankly the kinds of measures we are just lackadaisically starting in a few states in this country, the chinese officials who just went through this in their own country, are visiting italy and they say what italy is doing is not nearly strict enough to make enough of a difference. Quote, here in milan, he said, the hardest hit area by covid19, the lockdown measures are very lax. I can see public transport is still running. People are still moving around. Having gatherings in hotels and they are not wearing masks. Quote, i dont know what people here are thinking. We really have to stop our usual Economic Activities and our usual human interactions. We have to stay at home and make every effort to save lives. It is worth putting every cost we have into saving lives. Again, thats what the head of the chinese red cross is telling northern italy about how well theyre doing in their nationwide lockdown effort. Their nationwide lockdown effort in italy is effectively the same kind of stay at home order that only three u. S. States have thus far adopted, and those three only in the last 24 hours. So here we go. There was some more happy talk from the white house today about how plentiful our <