New York City hospital warns of new bed shortage amid coronavirus surge

City and state now trying to deal with Covid-19 hot spots

New York City hospital suffers bed shortages amid fears of new wave of coronavirus (Getty Images)

A New York City hospital is suffering from bed shortages and has activated its surge capacity amid a new coronavirus spike.

Mount Sinai Hospital’s president warned its doctors, nurses and staff about the shortages in a leaked internal memo.

“We continue to experience very high occupancy of available inpatient beds and a large number of admitted patients in the Emergency Department,” David Reich wrote in the memo, according to the Daily Beast.

“Please look at all possible options for discharging patients as soon as possible. Nursing, Social Work, and Case Management are all aware and will work with you to facilitate patient discharges.

“Thank you in advance for your assistance with this important patient care and safety issue.”

The hospital did not make comment or clarify if the bed shortages were caused by coronavirus.

Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to shut down businesses in nine Brooklyn and Queens zip codes where coronavirus cases have recently spiked.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo agreed on Tuesday to a 14-day push to attack new clusters of cases in the state.

This would see the closure of non-essential businesses, including bars, restaurants and gyms.

Many of the New York City hotspots are in areas with large populations of Orthodox Jews, who have been accused by officials of flouting mask and public gathering rules.

The new restrictions can be implemented as early as Wednesday and no later than Friday.

As of Tuesday New York City has recorded 242,315 coronavirus cases, 57,594 hospitalisations and more than 32,000 deaths caused by the pandemic.

At the peak of the virus in April the city was seeing 8,000 cases confirmed each day, which had fallen to around 400 per day on Tuesday.