The resurgence of COVID-19 nationwide is resurrecting a number of critical challenges for healthcare facilities. One issue is the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE). While facilities generally seem to be better stocked with masks, gowns and gloves, many facilities still are struggling to ensure workers of all kinds have a reliable supply of PPE. Then there is the issue of space. Hospitals in New York City, one of the hardest-hit cities in the initial surge of COVID-19 cases in March, once again are feeling squeezed.

New York will reopen an emergency hospital on Staten Island to address a new surge in coronavirus cases that is straining the capacity of the borough’s hospitals, according to The New York Times. The announcement is another sign New York City is in the grip of a second coronavirus wave that has already led to the closing of public schools, and it raises the specter of a return to the pandemic’s darkest days in March and April.

The emergency unit on Staten Island, at the South Beach Psychiatric Center, would begin taking in virus patients after officials at Staten Island University Hospital and Richmond University Medical Center said they were running short on beds. The unit was one of several emergency facilities that were set up in New York earlier in the year to treat virus patients as the pandemic overwhelmed the city’s hospitals. The Staten Island unit treated about 250 patients from mid-April to June.

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