NYC Coronavirus Deaths Pass 1K As City Reaches Grim Anniversary
NEW YORK CITY — The death toll from New York City's new coronavirus outbreak has passed 1,000 people in less than a month.
Figures released by the city Tuesday evening showed 1,096 people had died and 41,771 had beeen diagnosed with the virus.
The grim milestone came exactly a month after the coronavirus arrived in the city. The first case, a healthcare worker who'd recently returned to the city from Iran, was confirmed on March 1.
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She has since recovered, but the illness has spread at a staggering rate, threatening to overwhelm hospitals and the city's medical resources and leaving the city shutdown in a way that has never been seen before.
"I'm telling you all it will be tough, but it will be something that we will fight through and we will survive," the city's mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday night.
The mayor said that the next two months will be even worse than March.
"I think the time horizon that's of deepest concern to New York City is April, May," he said.
"I think thereafter we pray that we start to come out of this, but it won't be instant. You know, it'd be going – you’ll be going up the mountain, then you come back down the mountain. It's going to take time."
He said the city was expecting to need three times its existing 20,000 hospital beds in the coming days. Field hospitals have been set up at the Javits center, the U.S. Open tennis center in Queens and in Central Park in an effort to be ready. Another is planned at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, while the city is looking to rent hotels to convert into medical centers.
"We say we need your building, I've not heard anyone say no," the mayor said.
"Everyone understands what time it is."
Coronavirus In NYC: What's Happened And What You Need To Know
This article originally appeared on the New York City Patch
