13 Dead In One Day At 'Apocalyptic' Elmhurst Hospital In Queens, NY

By Susie Madrak — March 26, 2020

CNN's Brynn Gingras was reporting live from Queens, NY at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.

"A horrific 24-hour period there, Brynn, with 13 deaths. What's the latest?" John Berman asked.

"That's the grim reality of what we are seeing here on the ground," Gingras said.

"It's not going away. The demand is still there. It's not going down. As you can see behind me, this line started forming earlier this morning. It's even longer at this hour. People waiting in the cold to get care. The hospital tells us every day they're working to increase the capacity of this hospital by flooding it with nurses and doctors and equipment just to keep up with this demand. 13 people have died at this hospital in Queens while outside it's swamped with New Yorkers waiting in long lines to get tested for the coronavirus. The numbers in the city are rapidly growing. but the nation's top infectious disease experts says studying what's happening here could give clues to reduce infection rates in other parts of the country.

ANTHONY FAUCI: It's accelerating. There are other parts of the country which we need to get a better feel for what is going on. The way we do that is by increasing testing and identifying people who are infected, isolating them, getting out of circulation and then do contact tracing.

"New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reports there's early signs showing stay at home measures are working."

Social distancing, no restaurants, no nonessential workers. Yes, they're burdensome. By the way, they are effective and the evidence suggests at this point that they have slowed the hospitalization.

"Nationwide, some medical staff are fearful of working in hospitals overloaded with coronavirus patients. The shortage of personal protective equipment makes their already difficult job even more dangerous."

We are terrified. Everybody is terrified. We feel an obligation to take care of our patients. Everybody does. But we don't want to become sick.

"Watch medical personnel in New Jersey dressed in full protective gear move dozens of residents from this nursing home after several tested positive. The Washington Post reports in Chicago, doctors privately discussed a 'do not resuscitate' policy for infected individuals regardless of the wishes of the patient or their family members. With cases growing in Louisiana, the governor worries hospitals in New Orleans could reach capacity by the first week of April."

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