New York: The hunt for masks, ventilators and other medical supplies consumed the US and Europe, as more than 1.5 billion people — one-fifth of the world's population — were urged or ordered to stay home Monday to try to blunt the spread of the coronavirus.
Political paralysis stalled efforts for a quick aid package from US Congress. Investor fears about the outbreak's economic toll pushed US stocks down in morning trading even after the Federal Reserve said it will buy as much government debt as necessary and lend to small and large businesses and local governments to help them cope.
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At the start of what could prove a pivotal week in the US and Europe, the head of the World Health Organization called on countries to take strong, coordinated action to stem the accelerating outbreak.
“We are not helpless bystanders,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, noting that it took 67 days to reach 1,00,000 cases worldwide but just four days to go from 2,00,000 to 3,00,000. “We can change the trajectory of this pandemic.”
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The scramble to marshal both public health and political resources intensified in New York, where a statewide lockdown took effect amid worries the city of 8.4 million is becoming one of the world's biggest hotspots. Nearly 10,000 people have tested positive in the city, and almost 100 have died.
The governor announced plans to convert a huge New York City convention center into a hospital with 1,000 beds. Meanwhile, the mayor warned that the city's hospitals are just 10 days away from shortages in basic supplies needed to protect health care workers and patients alike.
British health workers pleaded for more gear, saying they felt like “cannon fodder.” In France, doctors scrounged masks from construction workers, factory floors, an architect.
“There's a wild race to get surgical masks,” François Blanchecott, a biologist on the front lines of testing, told France Inter radio. “We're asking mayors' offices, industries, any enterprises that might have a store of masks.”
Health care workers say they are being asked to reuse and ration disposable masks and gloves. A shortage of ventilators, crucial for treating serious COVID-19 cases, has also become critical, as has a lack of test kits to comply with the World Health Organization's exhortations to test as many people as possible.
The crisis continued to ease in China. The city of Wuhan, where the outbreak first emerged late last year, said it is allowing residents limited movement as its lockdown gradually eases.
In the United States, a fierce political battle over ventilators has emerged, especially after President Donald Trump told governors that they should find their own medical equipment if they think they can get it faster than the U.S. government. Alaska is expected to run out of money imminently to pay doctors, hospitals and clinics who treat Medicaid patients.
China has been the one nation to counter this trend, sending planeloads of protective gear as well as doctors to countries across Europe, including hard-hit Italy, France and Spain.
AP
