Fast Facts:
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The governor is extending the state shutdown til May 15
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The governor said “Our goal is that the ”˜new normal”™ will be a better New York.”
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The state is shipping 100 ventilators to New Jersey
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Total hospitalizations continued to decline
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606 state residents died yesterday, down from the 752 the day before
The economic shutdown and social distancing measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 in New York state have been extended to May 15, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced today.
This will include keeping closed those businesses not deemed to be essential and urging people to stay at home. When out, protocols call for people to avoid getting closer than six feet when on the street, in stores or other places.
Cuomo has been working with the governors of six nearby states on a coordinated approach to restoring activities. Cuomo did not address what the other states might be doing when announcing the extension to May 15.
The extension of the shutdown and social distancing policies in New York came as President Trump yesterday continued pushing to reopen business and restart social activity in some states within days and in other sections as early as May 1.
Cuomo reiterated his position that New York’s efforts have managed to control the spread of the virus within the state’s borders.
The governor was asked at the Albany news conference today to comment on an allegation yesterday by Trump that New York City was “padding” the numbers of deaths it was reporting to help justify an overreaction to the severity of the crisis.
Cuomo’s Secretary Melissa DeRosa and Cuomo said that an increase in the reported New York City death toll was the result of a change in guidelines for compiling the numbers that had been issued by the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Some people think the close-down order was a government overreach,” Cuomo said, “Some people think that this is all a fabrication and a political conspiracy. To them I say if you don’t think 600 people died yesterday and if you don’t think that’s a problem, I disagree with you. If you doubt that 600 people died, I’ll bring you to see 600 people. So, is it a fabrication? No. Six hundred people died yesterday.”
The actual death toll as reported by Cuomo a few minutes earlier was 606. That was a drop from the 752 deaths reported on April 14. Of the newest deaths, 577 occurred in hospitals and 29 in nursing homes. The toll in New York stood at 12,192 as reported today by the state’s Department of Health. Of that, 738 deaths were in Westchester.
The net change in hospitalizations in the state went down again yesterday by 600, adding to declines of 362 and 128 on the previous two days. Admissions to intensive care units also declined with the number of patients in ICUs declining by 134.
There were 1,996 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals yesterday in New York state, down by more than 200 from the day before but up slightly from the previous two days.
With some conservative commentators and Trump seeming to suggest that New York and other states may have exaggerated the need for hospital beds, personal protective gear and medical equipment, Cuomo discussed the early projections from researchers as well as the CDC and the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
He pointed out that on March 13, the CDC was projecting that 160 million to 214 million Americans could be infected out of the current population of 328 million. CDC projected that from 2.4 million to 21 million people would need to be hospitalized at a time when there were only 925,000 hospital beds in the entire country.
He cited figures from the White House projecting that anywhere from 100,000 to 2.2 million people could die in the pandemic depending on how successful efforts were to stop the spread of the virus.
Cuomo clarified that his executive order issued yesterday requiring New Yorkers to wear a mask. He noted that it requires a mask or other cloth covering over the mouth and nose at all times when on public transportation systems and when riding in private transportation carriers and for-hire vehicles.
All operating personnel of public, private and for-hire transportation services must wear a mask at all times. That’s in addition to mask being required wen social distancing cannot be maintained such as on a busy street.
Cuomo called on businesses to begin working on ways to reimagine the workplace to prepare for the reopening of the economy. He said that employers should make sure that employees have the means for safe transport including masks and gloves if they use public transit. He said employers also should consider switching to telecommuting and work from home.
He said attention should be paid to redesigning the workplace to have desks at least six feet apart and conference rooms that allow social distancing. Cuomo said that there need to be measures for ensuring minimal contact with customers and that protective gear is on hand. He also said protocols need to be in place for dealing with a situation in which an employee tests positive for COVID-19.
Cuomo said that while in the early stages of the outbreak one person with the virus may have been infecting two or three other people, that has now been reduced in New York to the point where the infection rate is 0.9, or less than one other person being infected.
He said that while that’s good, Wuhan, China, brought its rate down to one person infecting 0.3 others. Cuomo said that if New York state’s rate is allowed to go up to one person infecting 1.2 others, that will lead to a new expansion of the outbreak.
