The state of 19.5 million people, now officially the nation’s epicenter for the outbreak, confirmed Monday that it has recorded 950 cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus so far. More than 200 of those cases cropped up in the past 24 hours. That’s compared to Washington State, where there have been 769 cases so far.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo responded by closing down restaurants and places of entertainment, and instituting a limited curfew starting Monday night.
He’s also asking for immediate federal help to quickly add hospital beds since New York expects to see so many cases in the coming days. Over the weekend, he wrote to President Donald Trump to ask that the Army Corps of Engineers be deployed to build temporary, excess hospital capacity across military bases and college dorms so existing hospital beds can be designated for the severely ill.
Cuomo said Monday that the federal government should coordinate a nationwide response similar to New York’s, as it’s so far been left up to the states to create a “hodge-podge” plan, leaving the nation “behind from Day One on this crisis.”
“States, frankly, don’t have the capacity or the power to make up for the federal government,” Cuomo said Monday.
Apparently Trump wasn’t pleased with the implication, posting and then deleting a tweet that criticized Cuomo — and prompting a reply from the governor.
