Plans being put in place to re-activate emergency Covid hospital in NYC’s Javits Center

The facility was previously criticized for not treating enough patients

New York is preparing to re-open the emergency army hospital it erected inside New York’s Javits Center as the city and state at large battle the resurgent coronavirus pandemic.

“New York state for weeks has been undertaking preparations to have emergency hospital facilities to be ready for potential surge in cases, including sites such as the Javits where much of the infrastructure is still in place and could be mobilized quickly if the increase in hospitalizations is worse than expected,” Rich Azzopardi, a senior adviser to New York governor Andrew Cuomo, told the New York Post. “We urge New Yorkers to continue to be SMART so we can avoid a surge that overwhelms our hospital system and these facilities do not have to be activated.”

In March, the US Army helped build an emergency hospital inside the massive NYC convention center as the coronavirus hammered New York and drained hospital capacity. The $11m facility was criticized for remaining partially empty as other hospitals in the city dealt with overflowing wards and critical shortages, though New York officials argued they weren’t fully utilized because of strict federal requirements and management of who was allowed into the facility, especially once it was converted from its original purpose as extra general hospital space to Covid-specific treatment.  

(Many of the emergency Covid field hospitals the Army Corps of Engineers built around the country, at an expense of more than $660 million, didn’t treat a single patient for months or at all, dismaying public health experts but relieving state leaders who had request them given apocalyptic early predictions about hospital space.)

By many measures, New York was the state hit hardest by the pandemic, which killed 1,000 people a day at its peak,  and has killed more New Yorkers than residents of any other state and more per capita than all but New Jersey.

Since the fall, the pandemic has been steadily growing. This week, the governor announced that new hospitalizations topped 7,500, the highest amount since May, nearly 100 died a day the last two weeks, and total deaths are about to eclipse 30,000.

"There is nothing pre-ordained here," Mr Cuomo said Monday. "What will happen will be a consequence of our actions -- a year where we felt out of control we're actually in ultimate control because we control the spread of the virus."

In mid-December, the state shut down indoor dining once again, though data suggested that the main driver of the renewed surge was in-person gatherings.

Both Mr Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio have been criticized for how they handled the pandemic, moving more slowly than other places hit early by the coronavirus, a decision which one estimate suggests cost 17,000 lives.

The criticism took on extra salience because Mr Cuomo in October published American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19, a memoir of his time leading the virus response in his state and in many ways as a national figure, right around the time cases began their vertiginous climb back up after a leveling out over the summer.

Mr Cuomo said at the time of the book’s publication that it wasn’t a victory lap, but a guide to “learn the lesson from the first half of the game and play a better second half.”