Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged New Yorkers to ‘keep going’ with social distancing guidelines as he announced a further 437 coronavirus deaths in ...
Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged New Yorkers to ‘keep going’ with social distancing guidelines as he announced a further 437 coronavirus deaths in the state in the last 24 hours, an increase in what has been a steadily declining daily death toll.
The state had registered less deaths for five days in a row, lowering to 422 on Thursday before jumping again to 437 on Friday. There were 10,553 new cases.
Gov. Cuomo remained hopeful in his daily press briefing Saturday morning but warned the state’s residents that they must continue to shelter in place despite the growing lockdown fatigue.
‘All the evidence says we’re on the decline,’ he said, adding that hospitalizations are back to where they were three weeks ago after ‘21 days of hell’ for the state.
There were 437 new coronavirus deaths in New York state on Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed as he urged New Yorkers to 'keep going' with social distancing guidelines
The governor revealed that the state is continuing to ramp up testing in an effort to combat the outbreak by carrying out antibody testing in four downstate New York hospitals and on New York City transit workers and the NYPD from Saturday.
The state is also allowing independent pharmacists to conduct diagnostic coronavirus tests and opening up testing eligibility to all first responders, healthcare workers and essential workers.
The state is now testing on average 20,000 people a day and arranged a template with the federal government this week to divide responsibility between federal and state governments.
The state’s cases rose by 10,553 on Friday to a total of 282,143 and 1,184 people were hospitalized.
The death toll is now at 16,599 after 437 new deaths Friday.
Nursing home residents accounted for 19 of these deaths and 418 were in hospitals.
New York state is carrying out more diagnostic testing per capita than any country in the world as well as more testing than the rest of the United States combined.
The antibody testing, which tests for traces that a person has already had the virus, will begin Saturday downstate in some of New York City’s hardest hit hospitals as well as among the city’s police force and transit workers.
Workers in the Metropolitian Transit Authority and Transport Workers Union as well as the state and New York City police force will also receive antibody testing.The testing will include two public city hospitals in Bellevue and Elmhearst - which received national headlines over its high level of cases - as well as Montefiore and SUNY Downstate, a Covid-19 patient only facility.
‘They’ve kept the city and subways operational. They did that for us,’ the governor said.
‘We’ve said thank you and we meant it sincerely. It was a good start but even better than saying thank you, actions speak louder than words. … get me the help I need,’ he added as he announced the comprehensive testing.
The state revealed new antibody testing for four major hospitals, transit workers and for the NYPD and state police as New York extends its testing capability. Gov. Cuomo said the state is now testing more people than the United States or any other country in the world
Gov. Cuomo announced antibody testing for frontline healthcare workers at four hospitals and healthcare systems in New York City. The test looks to see if a person has already had the virus
The governor also revealed a drop in hospitalizations Friday after '21 days of hell' but said that there was still a way to go until the levels dropped down to a few hundred
Cuomo said he understood that ‘one of the biggest complaints across the board’ is that everybody wanted testing, as he talked about hopes the system could be expanded further to allow eligibility for all residents.
On Saturday, he extended the eligibility for diagnostic testing – the yes/no test that says if a person has coronavirus or not – to all first responders, healthcare workers and essential workers, as he announced an executive order that will allow independent pharmacies to become testing collection points.
The governor said he hoped the state's 5,000 independent pharmacies would sign up, gathering tests to be sent to state labs for processing.
He voiced concern, however, that New Yorkers tired of lockdown are looking for an end, as other states begin to relax their social distancing guidelines.
‘I get it’s the worst thing we have experienced in modern history,’ he warned, while comparing the 56 days the state has spent in lockdown to the eight years of the Vietnam War and the six years of the Second World War.
‘This is a terrible experience to go through,’ he said before reminded New Yorkers ‘you are saving lives’.
‘That’s not rhetorical, that’s not overly dramatic. What we have done here has saved lives.
‘Every expert predicted 100,000 more serious infections in the state of New York, 100,000 more.
‘What happened? We did what we had to do, which was hard and is hard, but what did we accomplish? 100,000 fewer infections.
'That’s what 56 days of our relative living through hell has accomplished.’
Cuomo once again addressed younger people as he urged them to remain vigilant and said that they may think they are safe but to think of others, adding ‘Life is better than death even if its not your own’.
'56 days of pain, yes, but relative to what others have gone through not that bad,' he said.
'We actually saved lives. That’s what we did and what we’re doing. I believe everything we did was worth it. For me that’s a heck of an accomplishment. Maybe the life you saved is not your own.'
The governor said that no decision had yet been made about the lifting of New York’s social distancing guidelines but it would be discussed further next week as he works with other governors in the tri-state area to outline phased openings.
He said that there was no timeline yet in place but there was an understanding between local states that border areas, in particular, will be kept in mind when reopening begins.
‘It needs to be balanced with the tri-state approach,’ he continued.
‘Our numbers we are ok but people have cars and people are mobile and people have been cooped up and whatever you do could trigger a reaction in that tri-state area. You could see people come because you are the place where I can get a haircut … that’s the balance to all of this.
‘The discussion is premature but it’s something we’re working on now.’