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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was hoping to alleviate what he said was an approaching “a total overwhelming” of the health care system.
J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, home to 12.6 million people, told reporters at an afternoon briefing that is still underway: “To avoid the loss of potentially tens of thousands of lives, we must enact an immediate stay-at-home order.”
People who break the Connecticut order could be fined, Gov. Ned Lamont said.
Connecticut’s order for its 3.5 million residents goes into effect Monday at 8 p.m. In Illinois, it starts at 5 p.m. Saturday.
“You go out to the Midwest, you go out to other locations, they’re watching on television, but they don’t have the same problems. They don’t have, by any means, the same problems,” Trump said Friday.
Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that between 9 and 11% of Americans who have been tested get a positive result. That would mean at least 170,000 people in the United States have been tested, but there are samples that are part of a backlog of tests that need to be examined this weekend, she said.
“This is the most drastic action we can take,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state of 19.5 million residents has the most confirmed cases of any state at more than 7,000.
“These are not helpful hints. … There will be a civil fine and mandatory closure for any business that is not in compliance” starting Sunday, Cuomo said.
Cuomo described the measures as an attempt to “close the valve” of sick patients to hospitals because the increasing number of cases “portends a total overwhelming of our” health care system.
Echoing other state and local leaders, Cuomo pleaded with businesses to manufacture or otherwise donate more equipment, such as masks for health care workers and ventilators for the sick.
The nation also is grappling with the economic consequences of encouraging people to stay home.
Hospitals desperately need more supplies, doctors and politicians say
Doctors and state and local politicians nationwide, meanwhile, are warning that hospitals do not have enough supplies of masks, ventilators and other equipment needed to protect physicians and help patients.
A physician in Georgia who didn’t want to be identified because she feared she could get fired for speaking out told CNN there are too many patients and they reuse equipment that is in short supply.
“It’s the first time in my entire career that I’ve been afraid, and I’ve heard other physicians say they’re afraid,” she said.
Details about how the federal government is trying to influence production are hazy.
Speaking alongside Trump, Vice President Mike Pence teased a “a major procurement from the federal government of N95 masks” coming over the weekend. 3M said in a statement on Friday it has doubled its global output of N95 respirators.
Birx told CNN that “we just unlocked 90 percent more of the masks than we had just two days ago.”
It might turn out to be effective, but more data is needed to show that it is useful and safe under the conditions of this disease, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at Friday’s White House news conference.
Fauci told CBS News he spoke to the FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Birx about setting up an online system to help doctors figure out whether to give it to patients and then enter the data from those people.
He told NBC earlier Friday that Americans probably will need to avoid crowds for weeks.
“If you look at the trajectory of the curves of outbreaks in other areas, it’s at least going to be several weeks,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Today” show.
Why California issued a general stay-at-home order
Spurring California’s general stay-at-home order, Newsom said, were models showing that the virus could sicken 25 million of California’s nearly 40 million people in eight weeks. That could require the hospitalization of more than 19,000 people beyond the state’s current capacity, he said.
Connecticut, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were among the states that announced other restrictions Friday.
Economists predict big increase in unemployment claim filings
The country is only just beginning to understand the economic consequences of the pandemic.
Although a government report showed 281,000 Americans filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week — a 33% jump over the week before — economists are predicting the next weekly report will be much worse.
Medical supply shortages loom
That includes using masks beyond their designated shelf life and reusing masks during encounters with different patients, cautioning however that not all types of masks can be reused.
As a last resort, the agency said health care providers could consider using “homemade masks” — such as bandanas or scarves — to care for coronavirus patients, ideally in combination with a face shield.
The guidance comes as hospitals and medical care workers have begun to sound the alarm on a rapidly vanishing inventory of supplies.
CNN’s Steve Almasy, Vanessa Price, Elizabeth Joseph, Annalyn Kurtz, Kevin Liptak, Katie Lobosco, Alexandra Meeks, Veronica Stracqulursi and Amanda Watts contributed to this report.
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