City hospitals are now equipped with 5,500 ventilators, enough to safely treat novel coronavirus patients for the next week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday.
On Sunday, the mayor estimated that the city would need 200 to 300 ventilators a day to meet demand but now, that number has shrunk to just 100 — a promising sign that the curve might indeed be flattening.
“It’s very early, it’s very preliminary, but that is a striking difference,” said de Blasio during his daily novel coronavirus briefing. On Tuesday, city hospitals received 500 ventilators from the state and has 135 ventilators in reserve, the mayor added.
“We are not going to say that we can actually predict next week yet,” said the mayor. “But the fact that we have confidence that we can get through this week is definitely a good sign.”
