Music Starts: 'That's when all hell broke loose': Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

[Spartan]

"We ended up getting our first positive patients -- and that's when all hell broke loose," said one New York City doctor.

The doctor, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity out of concern for his job, described a hospital that was woefully unprepared for an influx of Covid-19 patients that started roughly two weeks ago -- which has already stretched the hospital's resources thin and led to severely ill patients outnumbering ventilators.

"We don't have the machines, we don't have the beds," the doctor said.

"To think that we're in New York City and this is happening," he added. "It's like a third-world country type of scenario. It's mind-blowing."

At first, patients skewed toward the 70-plus age group, but in the past week or so there have been a number of patients younger than 50.

"I don't think they understand the severity of this disease," the doctor said of the younger patients.

"Two weeks ago, life was completely different."

[Spartan]

Officials in New York state are pushing hospitals across the state to increase capacity. The state is home to more than 6% of the world's confirmed cases so far -- and roughly half of all US cases.

In New York City, plans are also underway to build emergency hospitals and backfill other hospitals with 1,000 beds in the Javits Center, according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In addition, thousands of doctors and nurses, who are either retired or no longer see patients, have signed up as a "surge health care force," Cuomo said Wednesday.

There are simultaneous effort to procure ventilators for the most severe patients. According to Cuomo, New York has procured 7,000 ventilators in addition to 4,000 already on hand, and the White House said Tuesday that the state would receive two shipments of 2,000 machines this week from the national stockpile. But the state needs 30,000, Cuomo said.

The Strategic National Stockpile said Wednesday that it held approximately 16,660 ventilators before the coronavirus response, and ventilators have been deployed over the past few days.

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