China-to-New York ventilator shipment shows supply scramble

NEW YORK - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday the Chinese government was facilitating a shipment of 1,000 donated ventilators to his state, highlighting the extreme measures leaders are taking in what has become a cutthroat scramble to independently secure enough lifesaving devices during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a sign of the disorganized response to the global crisis, Cuomo went out of his way to praise the collaboration of the Chinese government in securing a shipment of the breathing machines that was scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Airport on Saturday, while acknowledging that the U.S. government's stockpile of medical supplies would fall drastically short.

"We're all in the same battle here," Cuomo said, noting that the state of Oregon volunteered to send 140 ventilators to New York. "And the battle is stopping the spread of the virus."

Leaders like Cuomo have been forced to go outside normal channels and work with authoritarian governments and private companies, or create partnerships with other states, as the U.S. stockpile of medical supplies is being limited and the Trump administration has threatened to cut off exports, which could erode diplomatic relations.

While the state of Massachusetts used the Patriots' team plane to pick up over a million masks from China, Russia has also sent medical equipment to the U.S. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said Friday he'd prevent the export of N95 protective masks, prompting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to say that Canada won't bring retaliatory or punitive measures, while noting that Canada ships gloves and testing kits to the U.S.

"I think of the thousands of nurses who cross the bridge in Windsor to work in the Detroit medical system every day," Trudeau said. "These are things Americans rely on."

The number of people infected in the U.S. has exceeded a quarter-million, with the death toll climbing past 7,000; more than 3,500 of those deaths are in New York state, including more than 1,900 in New York City alone. In addition to getting ventilators from China and Oregon, Cuomo has issued an order that forces even private hospitals in the state to redistribute ventilators to the hospitals most in need.

"I want this all to be over," Cuomo said. "It's only gone on for 30 days since our first case. It feels like an entire lifetime."

As the number of people infected has grown to more than 1.1 million worldwide, health care systems are straining under the surge of patients. In China, air raid sirens sounded across the country Saturday and flags flew at half staff in tribute to victims of the coronavirus pandemic, including the health care "martyrs" who have died fighting to save others.

With the highest number of infections in Europe and their hospitals overwhelmed, Spain and Italy struggled to protect medical staff on the front lines of the outbreak, while 17 medics in Egypt's main cancer hospital tested positive for the virus.

Italy and Spain, with combined deaths of more than 25,000 and nearly a quarter-million infections, have reported a high percentage of infections among health care workers.

Carlo Palermo, head of Italy's hospital doctors' union, fought tears as he told reporters in Rome of the physical risks and psychological trauma the outbreak is causing, noting reports that two nurses had committed suicide.

"It's a indescribable condition of stress. Unbearable," he said.

Overall, new infections continued to slow their once-exponential pace in Italy, with 4,805 new cases registered Saturday that brought the country's official count to 124,632. The death toll continued to mount, with 681 new victims bringing the world's highest toll to 15,362.

In France, 7,560 people have died of coronavirus-related issues since the start of the outbreak in the country, including at least 2,028 in nursing homes, health director Jerome Salomon said. More than 440 of the overall deaths happened in the last 24 hours.

World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned African leaders of an "imminent surge" in coronavirus cases on the continent, urging them to open humanitarian corridors to allow the delivery of badly needed medical supplies.

More than half of Africa's 54 countries have closed air, land and sea borders to prevent the virus' spread but that has delayed aid shipments. Virus cases in Africa are now over 7,700, and the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned some nations will have more than 10,000 cases by the end of April.

Eleven Russian military planes carrying disinfection experts landed in Serbia on Saturday, which Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin said shows "that we are not alone."

The transport followed last month's deployment of a similar Russian coronavirus task force to Italy and the delivery of medical supplies to the United States. Russia has reported a relatively few 4,700 cases and 43 deaths.

In China, where the coronavirus was first detected in December, authorities have cautiously lifted restrictions amid dropping numbers of infections. On Saturday it reported just one new confirmed case in the epicenter of Wuhan and 18 others among people arriving from abroad. There were four new deaths for an official total of 3,326.

Spain's Health Ministry reported 18,324 infected health workers as of Saturday, representing 15% of the total number of infections in the country.

Still, as Spain completes its third week in a state of emergency, there were signs the number of new infections were slowing, but they were still high with 7,026 new cases reported overnight Saturday and 809 deaths.

In Italy, more than 11,000 medical personnel have been infected - just under 10% of the official total - and some 73 doctors have died, according to the National Institutes of Health and the association of doctors.

Significantly, many were general practitioners or dentists who were believed to have been exposed via respiratory droplets.

A key reason for the high rate among general practitioners was that flu was raging at the same time in the early part of the year, "which didn't allow us to discriminate between the two," said Palermo, the doctors' union head.

Worldwide, confirmed infections rose past 1.1 million and deaths exceeded 60,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say both greatly under-count the true number of victims because of lack of testing, mild cases that were missed and governments that are underplaying the crisis.

At the same time, more than 233,000 people have recovered from the virus, which causes mild to moderate symptoms in most patients, who recover within a few weeks.

Forliti reported from St. Paul, Minnesota. Rising reported from Berlin. Associated Press writers around the world contributed to this report.

Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak