US coronavirus live: House Democrats push for investigation into Trump's coronavirus response

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the temporary hospital constructed at the Javits Center in Manhattan would now receive coronavirus patients.

The orignal plan was for the convention center to receive non-coronavirus patients to help free up space in the city’s hospitals, but Cuomo said there were simply not enough non-coronavirus patients right now to make that plan worthwhile.

Cuomo also warned that the city is running dangerously low on ventilators. “We don’t have enough,” the governor said. “Period.”

Cuomo said yesterady that the state was expected to run out of ventilators in less than a week.

Congressman Adam Schiff said in a statement that the proposed commission to probe the coronavirus response would not be aimed at “scoring political points.”

“This is not an exercise in casting blame or scoring political points, but something that the American people should rightly expect from their government as an exercise in accountability,” Schiff said.

“In designing such a commission, I believe that the 9/11 Commission provides an established and proven model, one which Congress should adapt to the purposes of the Coronavirus.”

But Trump has already made clear he is steadfastly opposed to the idea, dismissing any potential review commission as another “witch-hunt.”

A Navy captain who was relieved from his post after raising concerns about the spread of coronavirus on his ship was celebrated by his crew members as he departed.

Captain Brett Crozier was dismissed yesterday for showing “poor judgment” after a letter he wrote warning about a coronavirus outbreak on the USS Theodore Roosevelt was leaked to the press.

In the letter, Crozier wrote, “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

Most of the ship’s crew members were allowed to disembark and quarantine after the letter became public, but the incident cost Crozier his job.

Last night, hundreds of sailors gathered to wish Crozier farewell, and videos posted to social media showed crew members chanting the captain’s name as he departed.

A Navy ship hospital docked in New York to help the city amid the coronavirus crisis has only received 20 patients.

The Comfort’s arrival into New York Harbor was celebrated on Monday, but a laborious process to receive patients has hobbled the hospital ship’s usefulness as many of the city’s emergency rooms are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.

The New York Times reports:

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating executives at local hospitals. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only 20 patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said. ‘If I’m blunt about it, it’s a joke,’ said Michael Dowling, the head of Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system. ‘Everyone can say, ‘Thank you for putting up these wonderful places and opening up these cavernous halls.’ But we’re in a crisis here, we’re in a battlefield.’ …

Ambulances cannot take patients directly to the Comfort; they must first deliver patients to a city hospital for a lengthy evaluation — including a test for the virus — and then pick them up again for transport to the ship.

The Comfort was originally supposed to treat non-coronavirus patients, but that theory has been difficult to put into practice, and hospital executives complain the hospital ship serves little purpose if it cannot help address the surge of coronavirus cases.

The company 3M has responded to Trump’s criticism of its production of N95 masks after the president implied 3M was negatively impacting the US coronavirus response.

Trump issued an order under the Defense Production Act yesterday to have 3M step up its production of face masks and then sent this mysterious tweet:

The CEO of 3M fiercely pushed back against Trump’s criticism this morning, saying the company started doubling its production of masks in late January in response to coronavirus.

“The narrative that we aren’t doing everything we can as a company is just not true,” CEO Mike Roman said.

New York mayor Bill de Blasio called for the creation of an enlistment program for medical professionals to help combat the pandemic.

“Next week in New York City is going to be very tough — next week in New York City and Detroit and New Orleans and a lot of other places,” de Blasio told MSNBC this morning.

“And unless the military is fully mobilized and we create something we’ve never had before, which is some kind of national enlistment of medical personnel moved to the most urgent needs in the country constantly, if we don’t have that we’re going to see hospitals simply unable to handle so many people who could be saved.”

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has similarly asked for medical professionals from other parts of the country to come to New York as the state sees the highest number of coronavirus cases, promising to “return the favor” once the virus hits their communities.

Dr Anthony Fauci said this morning that Americans can use face coverings to lower their risk of getting coronavirus.

The federal government is expected to soon revise its recommendations on face coverings, after health officials initially saying masks were not necessary for the general public.

But Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the coverings could be helpful for instances when people are not able to stay six feet apart, like at pharmacies.

“Because of that and because of some recent information that the virus can actually be spread even when people just speak, as opposed to coughing and sneezing, the better part of valor is that when you’re out, and you can’t maintain that six-foot distance, to wear some sort of facial covering,” Fauci told Fox News.

But the senior official emphasized Americans should still practice social distancing, adding that medical professionals would still have the highest priority in getting face masks.