Coronavirus: TV medical drama supplies medical relives to hospitals
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, revealed that the city will run out of medical supplies in between two and three weeks if infections continue at the current rate.
Today, that rate further accelerated, prompting the Mayor to call NYC “the epicenter of this crisis” with 5,151 confirmed infections as of Friday, about a third of all U.S. coronavirus cases.
With New York hospitals in dire need of supplies, NBC drama New Amsterdam, which was inspired by New York’s Bellevue public hospital and films at Bellevue and the city’s Kings County Hospital, sprung into action.
“Our tireless crew, the costume dept., set dec, props, all went through every storage area, every nook and cranny of every set and put together half a truck load of PPE, masks, gloves, gowns and face masks,” New Amsterdam creator, executive producer and showrunner David Schulner told Deadline. “While we work closely with Bellevue and Kings County Hospital we are working with NYC relief efforts to find the most needy.”
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The items were delivered to the New York State Department of Health early Friday morning.
New Amsterdam, starring Ryan Eggold, is not the only medical drama series to donate their supplies to local hospitals amid the coronavirus health crisis — ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and spinoff Station 19 as well as The Good Doctor and Fox’s The Resident also have pitched in the relief efforts by donating masks, gowns, gloves to medical workers and hospitals in need.
New Amsterdam also has a personal connection to the outbreak — one of its new recurring guest stars, Hawaii Five–0 alum Daniel Dae Kim, revealed yesterday a positive coronavirus test, noting that he experienced the first symptoms on the flight home from New York where he had been filming New Amsterdam until production was shut down late last week over the pandemic. Ironically, as Kim noted, he plays a doctor who gets recruited to a hospital to help patients during a flu epidemic on the show. There are currently no other known COVID-19 cases on New Amsterdam.
