h. nazan ışık—

10 March 2020—

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday, 10 March held a press conference at Bellevue Hospital on the city’s COVID-19 status.

Nurses, hospital staffs were waiting to welcome de Blasio. He came later than scheduled time.

When Mayor Bill de Blasio arrived, he elbow-bumped attendees and experts who looked like they were there for this and had practiced the elbow bumping as a safe alternative to handshakes. (h. nazan ışık/NKENdiKEN)

Mayor Bill de Blasio: “Well, first thing I want to say is – I want to thank these extraordinary people who work here at Bellevue. You, day-in, day-out, year-in, year-out, you handle whatever’s thrown at you and you’re doing an amazing job. Also, this group is exceptionally good at the elbow bump. I think you guys can go out and teach all of New York City how to do that. Let’s thank them again.” 

Applause filled the room.

Mayor de Blasio at Bellevue holding s press conference.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I want to start up on our update today. Every single day, we’re going to give you what we have that we can tell you. ”  The information they get changes, so the information they give will changes too, he said.  “As of 12 noon … the number of confirmed cases in New York City is 36. That’s 16 new since yesterday and 11 new even since this morning at 7 a.m. when I last spoke about this…. As of 10:00 am, the number of negative cases for New York City was 258 – that was 57 new since yesterday. The number of pending tests, 195.”

He said 1,980 New York City residents were under voluntary quarantine and 30 were in mandatory quarantine.

President and CEO Mitchell Katz, Health and Hospitals: Bellevue is a public hospital, which means that people who are undocumented, people without insurance, they know that they can come here, they can come to Bellevue, they don’t have to worry that they’re going to get a bill that they can’t pay, that they’re going to be treated as unwelcome.

We are prepared at Bellevue and all of our hospitals that were we to have many patients with respiratory distress, we would rapidly discharge those patients who are in the hospital now and do not need to be in the hospital, because they can be safely cared for at home. We would cancel all elective surgeries, in an emergency, we will be canceling our outpatient surgeries, we will be canceling our outpatient visits…. In the case where we suddenly have many people who’ve tested positive of COVID-19, we would be able to double up existing spaces.

Mayor de Blasio reminded: “If you want accurate information, you can go on our website, nyc.gov/coronavirus – nyc.gov/coronavirus – and you can text COVID to 692-692 – that’s COVID to 692-692.”

“One area that should be crystal clear is that it is absolutely crucial for everyone to keep giving blood. There is there is no health risk related to coronavirus in the process of giving blood. no danger in giving blood, but we must maintain our supply. There is no health risk related to coronavirus in the process of giving blood,” said Mayor de Blasio.

Photos: © h. nazan ışık /NKENdiKEN