• New York City more than doubled its ICU capacity in a few short weeks to handle the crush of coronavirus patients.
• Before the outbreak began, studies show the city had around 1,600 ICU beds. As of this week, the city had 3,500 — and counting.
• Part of the increase is due to repurposing specialty wards as coronavirus ICUs, and boosting the capacity of limited equipment, doctors and healthcare workers told Business Insider.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

As patients fall critically ill due to the COVID-19 virus, hospitals have raced to find additional room to treat patients.

But setting up space for critically ill patients isn’t as simple as setting up an additional bed. There are hospital beds, and then there are intensive care or ICU beds.

The death toll in New York City, the global epicenter of the outbreak, is still mounting. As of Wednesday, 6,298 New Yorkers had died from the disease — more than double 9/11’s death toll in the state — as hospitals across the state scramble to stockpile the necessary masks, protective equipment, and ventilators to care for coronavirus patients. There were 4,504 people in ICUs across the …continued .
[Source: Business Insider]