April 9, 2020 / JASON BRESLOW
Mayor Bill de Blasio is warning that New York City could require an additional 45,000 medical workers by the end of April to help reinforce a hospital system that has been stretched dangerously thin by the COVID-19 crisis.
In an interview Thursday with NPR’s Morning Edition, the mayor called that projection a “worst-case” scenario, but warned that without help from the federal government, the city would be unable to meet the additional demand for doctors and nurses. 
“Our health care workers have been through hell. It has been war-like conditions,” de Blasio said. “I’ve spoken to everyone at the federal level,” he added, “the president, the defense secretary, you name it, about the fact that there should be a national system to enlist, even voluntarily, doctors, nurses, all the medical personnel that we need from around the country.”
New York continues to be the hardest-hit state in the nation by the coronavirus pandemic, with the city and its five boroughs at the epicenter of the outbreak. The city has seen more than 80,000 cases and more than 4,200 deaths, according to data from the Department of Health.