NYC Nearing Deals To Rent Hotels For Hospital Space, Mayor Says

NEW YORK, NY — Many New York City hotels — made vacant by the rampant spread of coronavirus throughout the city — will soon be converted into makeshift hospitals as part of an effort to expand city hospital capacity ahead of the outbreak's peak, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

De Balsio said that city, state and federal officials are working on lease deals with several city hotels that could see entire facilities converted for medical use.

"I think between the three levels of government we are going to get a lot of hotels. Literally in some cases, leasing entire hotels, converting them into temporary hospitals," de Blasio said during a Monday evening appearance on NY1's "Inside City Hall."

Ideal locations for conversions are hotels that are nearby city hospital, the mayor said during his appearance. The temporary facilities would not be used to treat patients in need of intensive care, de Blasio said.

Converting a hotel into a hospital may be as simple as the "flip of a switch," de Blasio said. During conversations with the Army Corps of Engineers, de Blasio learned that most hotel floor plans translate easily for medical use by installing nurses stations near hotel elevators.

"We're going to be doing that to the tune of thousands and thousands of rooms," de Blasio said.

The idea to convert hotels into hospital facilities was first proposed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in mid March. Coronavirus has had an outsize effect on the hotel business, forcing a number of businesses to completely shut down and lay off workers as the city practices social distancing measures.

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The death toll from the new coronavirus neared 1,000 people in New York City Tuesday, city health officials announced. Despite leading the nation in confirmed coronavirus cases, Mayor Bill de Balsio said the stagger number only represents a fraction of the actual amount of people sickened as the city can only test people who fall critically ill.

Latest city figures show there were 38,087 cases that had tested positive in the city as of Monday evening. Of them, 914 had died. Both the mayor and Governor Andrew Cuomo have said they expect those numbers to worsen over the next couple of weeks.

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