As hospitalizations rise sharply in New York, doctors scramble.

The coronavirus outbreak continued to gather pace in New York, where the number of hospitalized patients jumped by 40 percent in one day, Mr. Cuomo said Thursday.

The sharp jump in hospitalizations — to 5,327 coronavirus patients, of whom 1,290 were in intensive care — called into question optimistic projections that Mr. Cuomo shared the day before, which had suggested that social distancing rules were slowing the rate of hospitalizations.

Mr. Cuomo said that the experts who make such projections note that there are often day-to-day fluctuations, and that it was better to look at longer time frames to make accurate estimates. “So we’ll just continue to watch it,” he said.

But with the state’s death toll rising to 385, up 100 from the day before, Mr. Cuomo gave a somber assessment of the challenges ahead.

“I don’t want to sugarcoat the situation,” he said. “The situation is not easy.”

Here’s what else he said:

New York State had 37,258 confirmed cases as of Thursday morning, up more than 6,400 from Wednesday morning.

Mr. Cuomo said the state had enough protective equipment for health care workers to satisfy the immediate need, despite recent reports of nurses and doctors in New York City reusing masks and using trash bags as gowns.

The governor said the state’s goal was to build at least one facility with more than 1,000 beds in each of New York City’s five boroughs and surrounding populous counties to manage an imminent overflow of patients.

The challenge was evident at hospitals across the city, including Brooklyn Hospital Center, a 175-year-old hospital where Walt Whitman once comforted the Civil War wounded and where Anthony Fauci, the White House adviser who is now American’s most famous doctor, was born.

More than 40 percent of the hospital’s inpatients were confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases, as were more than two-thirds of the critical care patients. By Wednesday four had died, three of them since Monday. More than a half-dozen hospital workers have contracted the virus; two were receiving intensive care themselves.

It feels, one employee said, like an invisible war.

Dr. Sylvie de Souza, her green N95 mask already askew, trudged in clogs recently between the emergency department she chairs and a tent outside, keeping a sharp eye on the trainee doctors, nurses and other staff members who would screen nearly 100 walk-in patients for the coronavirus that day.

“I have so many different fears,” Dr. de Souza said on Wednesday. “It’s getting really, really more difficult every day.”

In Manhattan, a hospital has begun treating multiple patients on some of its ventilators, a breakthrough that could alleviate a critical shortage of the breathing machines and help hospitals around the country respond to the expected surge of patients.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital began so-called “ventilator sharing” this week at its Columbia Irving facility, hospital officials said. The technique has worked in scientific studies and was used after the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. This is believed to be the first time that it has been used as a long-term strategy.

Reference: NY Times