New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday provided his daily coronavirus update from the Javits Convention Center, which opened today as an emergency field hospital.
The governor said both the Javits Center and the USNS Comfort hospital ship, which docked in the city this morning, will serve patients dealing with non-coronavirus medical needs. That should leave New York City hospitals to serve as the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak.
While expressing gratitude for federal support the state has received, Cuomo stressed that the city is not an "anomaly" but rather a "canary in the coal mine" for what the rest of the state and country will soon experience.
"What you see us going through here, you will see happening all across this country," he said.
"Anyone who says this situation is a New York City-only situation is in a state of denial."
All but one county in the state of New York has a confirmed COVID-19 case, he added.
Collaboration has been complicated, however, by the fact that states are competing for the same stock of limited supplies.
"We're competing amongst ourselves. We're driving the prices up. When we started buying ventilators, they were under $20,000. The ventilators are now over $50,000 if you can find them," Cuomo said.
The governor echoed a message from Mayor Bill de Blasio earlier today emphasizing that New York would provide guidance and direct assistance to other areas once they, too, become hot zones.
The state's latest death toll from the virus now stands at 1,218, a jump of about 300 from Sunday. Cuomo said the jump correlates with an increasing number of patients who have died after prolonged periods of ventilators use, suggesting that patients with more serious cases are beginning to succumb to the disease.
In a bit of positive news, Cuomo reported that cases are now doubling at a slower rate than that had been, down from doubling every two days to every six days.
"While the overall number of cases is going up, the rate of doubling is actually down," Cuomo said.
The former White House communications director gave a profane interview to The New Yorker that essentially led to his firing. "I got bagged inappropriately," Anthony Scaramucci told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin.
The former White House Communications Director, who was fired in after a brief 11-day tenure last year, tells Cheddar that both the Deputy Attorney General and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are fair and principled men.
Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director, told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin that the fall out around Dr. Ronny Jackson's nomination for Secretary of Veteran's Affairs is purely partisan politics.
Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said the President should "get out more," because his direct appeals to his base via on-air interviews is what they love about him. His comments came after Trump gave a wide-ranging interview to Fox News, in which he admitted, after previous denials, that his personal attorney Michael Cohen dealt with adult film actress Stormy Daniels for him.
Since Russia banned the encrypted messaging service last week, Google and Amazon have also been dragged into the fight. This comes at a time when Telegram is considering an ICO and has already raised a total of $1.7 billion, making it the biggest potential coin offering in history.
Weeks after President Trump took office, he issued the first travel ban restricting entry into the U.S. for people from some majority-Muslim countries. Since then, after backlash and appeals, Trump has put out two more versions of the directive and now the Supreme Court is deciding whether or not the ban is Constitutional.
More and more politicians are throwing their weight behind legalizing marijuana, now seeing it as more of a "political opportunity" than a liability. That, in part, is driven by pressure from voters, says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for Marijuana Laws.
Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey, who holds a medical marijuana card, says the drug's ability to relieve pain makes it a much more effective way to combat opioid addiction. “Why would we continue, in light of the crisis that we have, to prescribe opioids for pain relief?” Fritchey told Cheddar Tuesday.
The legislator has been vocal about getting his medical marijuana card in hopes of getting rid of the stigma around the drug, he told Cheddar. Fritchey is also pushing to legalize recreational use of the cannabis in Illinois and says it should be uses as a tool to fight the opioid crisis.
The Agriculture Department's proposed Farm Bill will kick millions of people off of benefits and take free breakfast and lunches away from hundreds of thousands of kids, says the Democrat from Massachusetts. The new legislation could go to a vote in May.
