Cardiac calls to 911 in New York City surge, and they may really be more COVID cases

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Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...-new-york-city-surge-they-may-really-n1179286

Cardiac calls' to 911 in New York City surge, and they may really be more COVID cases
Fire Department data show ambulances are responding to a surge in fatal or near-fatal heart attacks suffered by New Yorkers whose true health issue may be COVID-19.
April 8, 2020, 4:04 PM EDT
By Tom Winter

Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, residents of hard-hit New York City have been talking about ambulance sirens and how the wailing never seems to stop.

They're not imagining things — but the reality is even grimmer than some may have guessed. A huge number of those ambulances are responding to fatal or near-fatal heart attacks suffered by New Yorkers whose true health issue may be COVID-19, the disease associated with the coronavirus.

Emergency Medical Services, the part of the fire department that runs the city's paramedic response, is responding to three or four times its average daily number of cardiac calls, with each call almost twice as likely to involve a death.

According to the Fire Department of New York, or FDNY, it means more patients are calling 911 closer to death, and many more of them are dying despite the best efforts of EMTs and paramedics before they ever reach a hospital....

 

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Source: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loc...en-as-sign-of-covid-19-undercounting/2368678/


Massive Spike in NYC ‘Cardiac Arrest’ Deaths Seen as Sign of COVID-19 Undercounting
Hundreds of people are now dying at home in New York City daily
Published April 10, 2020 • Updated 5 hours ago
1:19/ 2:00
NBC Universal, Inc.

Across Long Island, volunteer emergency responders are answering your calls amid the coronavirus pandemic. Greg Cergol reports.

The FDNY reported a nearly 400 percent increase in "cardiac arrest" home deaths in late March and early April, a spike that officials say is almost certainly driven by COVID-19, whether they were formally diagnosed or not.

Between March 20 and April 5, the department recorded nearly 2,200 such deaths, versus 450 in the same period last year, according to data it provided on Friday.

The numbers are dramatically higher across the board -- the numbers of calls, the number of deaths and particularly the percentage of such calls that end in death.

In just the first five days of April, more than 70 percent of cardiac arrest calls ended in a pronunciation of death every day. Some days, the numbers were up tenfold versus a year earlier -- and everyone acknowledges there's only one likely cause.

“It’s just horrendous. The numbers speak for themselves. This used to be a very, very rare thing in New York City and suddenly it’s jumped up. The only thing that’s changed is COVID- 19,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters earlier this week. The city is moving to count more people in its official total, even if they were not tested for the virus. ..