Coronavirus in N.Y.: 'Astronomical' Surge Will Hit Hospitals, Cuomo Says

Offering his grimmest forecast yet of a crisis that has now claimed the lives of more than 200 people statewide, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the worst was yet to come. Matters were particularly dire in New York City, he said, where the case count appeared to be doubling every three days.

Cuomo said that, despite the city’s efforts to slow the spread of the virus, the number of infections could reach its peak by mid-April, far outrunning earlier projections.

“We haven’t flattened the curve and the curve is actually increasing,” Cuomo said. “The apex is higher than we thought and the apex is sooner than we thought. That is a bad combination of facts.”

The governor’s warnings came as millions of city residents sat hunkered in their homes and as all of its nonessential businesses were shuttered. One survey showed about a third of city residents had lost a job because of the epidemic or lived with someone who had.

As the number of cases in the city neared 15,000, the police launched a new series of patrols to encourage people to stay inside and to practice the appropriate “social distancing” that health experts recommend.

In the expanding web of the outbreak, emotions ran high: More and more New Yorkers were starting to discover that their colleagues, friends and relatives were falling ill and dying. So far, 131 have died in the city.

Confronting what he called these “astronomical numbers,” Cuomo, who has generally been restrained in his criticism of President Donald Trump, lashed out for the first time at Washington’s response to the urgent situation in New York.

On Monday, federal emergency officials announced that they were sending 400 ventilators to the state. Not long after Cuomo spoke, Vice President Mike Pence announced that an additional 4,000 ventilators were either on their way or would soon be sent to New York state.

The breathing machines were only one part of a landslide of medical equipment being rushed to hospitals in the city and its suburbs: 340,000 N95 respirator masks; 145,000 surgical gowns; and 350,000 pairs of gloves.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .