Vigilance urged as 'apocalyptic' scenes mix with hope

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***WARNING: SENSITIVE IMAGES IN VIDEO***

(SOUND BITE) (ENGLISH) NEW YORK GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, SAYING:

“Number of deaths are up once again….”

While New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday reported some 600 hundred new deaths in his state from the coronavirus to bring the total to nearly 4800, he noted the increase in fatalities – while still by far the most of any state – has appeared to level off over the past few days.

(SOUND BITE) (ENGLISH) NEW YORK GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, SAYING:

“While none of this is good news, the flattening, possible flattening of the curve is better than the increases we've seen.”

New York state also saw a drop in new hospitalizations.

A glimmer of hope, perhaps, to kick off a week that government health officials warned would be brutal – as illustrated Monday by several healthcare workers in New York who took to the streets to protest the ongoing dire lack of supplies.

Among them, Jillian Primiano – an ER nurse at Brooklyn’s Wyckoff Medical Center, which built a makeshift morgue to stack its deceased.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) WYCKOFF HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM NURSE, JILLIAN PRIMIANO, SAYING:

"Dystopian. Apocalyptic. I am seeing people die every single day. We don't have the cleaning supplies that we need. We don't have the space that we need. We don't have the staff that we need. There are refrigerated trucks outside of my hospital. And it's poor people who are dying in record numbers. They call it indiscriminatory. It's not.”

The nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, stressed one day earlier that the key to preventing the spread of the virus remains strict social distancing.

(SOUND BITE) (ENGLISH) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, SAYING:

“So if we really want to make sure that we don’t have these kinds of rebounds that we’re worried about, it’s mitigation, mitigation, mitigation – that’s the answer.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom toured Sacramento’s old Sleep Train Arena – once home to the Sacramento Kings – which is being converted to a health care facility as the state prepares for a spike in coronavirus cases that could strain the state’s healthcare system.

This came after he looked visibility frustrated over the weekend as he implored Californians to remain vigilant.

(SOUND BITE) (ENGLISH) CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM, SAYING:

“Everybody in the state of California – 40 million strong – practice physical distancing. Full stop.”

CVS on Monday said it is launching two drive-through rapid testing sites- in Georgia and Rhode Island – and hopes to perform 1,000 tests a day.

While more than 300,000 people in the U.S. have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials believe a shortage of kits has undercounted cases.

A Reuters tally shows that more than 10,000 people in the U.S. have died from the coronavirus.