The federal government must gear up efforts and engage in a "war footing" against the spread of coronavirus, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
"We're going to have to set up emergency ICUs in hospitals not only all over New York City but all over America," de Blasio told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"We're going to need the United States military to come in with their substantial logistical and medical capacity. We're going to need the supply chain nationalized in some form right now."
The mayor also pointed out that there is "no effort" to make sure vital medical equipment, including ventilators, surgical masks, even hand sanitizer, is available.
"All these products should be put on a 24/7 production cycle," de Blasio, a Democrat, said. "Whatever factories anywhere that can make them should be cranking them out. They should be distributed for federal priority, as you would in a war."
He also called for help from the military to build the facilities needed to treat the ill.
"To the best of my knowledge, the United States military right now is still engaged in building the border walls," said the mayor. "Take them off that and put them on coronavirus, for God's sake...if we don't have the medical facilities, the ventilators, and supplies, you're going to be losing thousands and thousands of lives that could have been saved."
De Blasio also called on the federal government to help people who have suddenly been put out of work with the closure of businesses, saying the "audacity" of a president like Franklin Delano Roosevelt is needed now.
"The problem is, with a virus, it's not like you can create work and congregate people, so it's bluntly about money," the mayor said. "It's about putting money in people's hands to keep the economy solvent, to keep people's lives together."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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