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Coronavirus’s toll on New York City became starker on Tuesday evening, as the city began to count the number of “probable COVID-19” deaths in addition to laboratory confirmed cases, pushing the city’s death toll to 10,367.
The city’s department of health has recorded 6,589 confirmed deaths and 3,778 probable deaths through April 13, the new data released Tuesday afternoon shows.
The updated statistics come less than a week after the city vowed to provide data for the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 that were not lab confirmed.
“As a city, it is part of the healing process to be able to grieve and mourn for all those that have passed because of COVID-19,” Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in a statement. “While these data reflect the tragic impact that the virus has had on our city, they will also help us to determine the scale and scope of the epidemic and guide us in our decisions.”
The news came hours after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City will begin manufacturing its own coronavirus test kits. The local production of 50,000 test kits per week will begin at the start of May.
“If people can make them around the world, why not us? Companies all over the world could make some of these components, why couldn’t the most innovative city on earth figure out a way?” de Blasio said. “So, I’m here to announce to you that we have found a way.
The need for production came as the city failed to source kits on the open market and requests for help from the federal government went unanswered, de Blasio said.
Academic and commercial laboratories, manufacturers and 3-D printers in the city will be creating the components needed for the testing kits. They comprise just three elements: a nasal swab; a liquid solution known as the viral transport medium; and a tube with a screw top “to keep the sample secure and sanitary,” de Blasio said.
In New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S., 106,813 people have tested positive, according to the city’s Department of Health.
In New York state, there are 202,208 confirmed coronavirus cases and 10,834 people have died. The state does not track probable deaths.
The state has tested 499,143 individuals in total, with 20,786 tests administered on Monday alone, according to the state department of health. New York City-specific testing numbers were not available.
The announcement of the upcoming production comes a matter of days after the city’s department of health released a memo to health care providers describing a serious shortage of swabs and detailing testing priorities.
“As the swab supply continues to decline, there is a real possibility hospitals will completely run out,” Saturday’s memo said. “At this time, providers are reminded to only test hospitalized patients in order to preserve resources that are needed to diagnose and appropriately manage patients with more severe illness.”
New York City’s weekly production will be joined by a standing order of a further 50,000 tests per week that the city will be purchasing from a laboratory in Indiana, bringing the total number of weekly test supplies in the city to 100,000. “And that’s just the beginning,” according to de Balsio.
The breakthrough “does not let the federal government off the hook,” the mayor said. “They still have to come through now, because the amount of testing we’re going to need, the amount of testing that is going to be needed across the country is vast.”
“If the federal government can’t figure it out, then get out of the way and let us at the local level get this done,” he added.
Along with the testing kits, de Blasio also announced that the city’s weekly production of face shields and surgical gowns — being manufactured by a handful of local companies in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens — will increase significantly to 465,000 and 100,000, respectively, with a goal of far more, he said.
