Cuomo to ask Trump to authorize four more temporary hospitals

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Friday that he will ask President Trump for the authorization to build four additional temporary hospitals as the state deals with a rising number of coronavirus cases.

“We still have a shortfall [of hospital beds], so we’re going to go to Plan B,” Cuomo said at his daily press conference on the outbreak.

“We’re going to seek to build another four temporary emergency hospitals, which would get us another 4,000 beds,” he explained.

Cuomo gave his press conference from the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, one of four temporary hospitals that he had already ordered. The others will be in Westchester, Stony Brook and Old Westbury on Long Island.

The governor elaborated on his expanded plan, saying that he wanted to have a temporary hospital in every borough of New York City as well as Nassau County and Suffolk County. The sites, according to Cuomo, have already been identified: the New York Expo Center in the Bronx, Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, Brooklyn Cruise Terminal and the City University of New York-College of Staten Island. 

Cuomo repeated earlier projections that the apex of the virus outbreak in the state could be in about 21 days. At that time, New York would need an estimated 140,000 beds and 40,000 ICU beds. The governor said that currently, the state has 53,000 hospital beds and 3,000 ICU beds.

New York is the epicenter of COVID-19 in the U.S., with almost 39,000 confirmed cases, according to The New York Times.