Cuomo Focuses on Hospital Capacity, Health Care Resources as Virus Surges
The spiraling number of COVID-19 cases in New York State prompted Gov. Andrew Cuomo Monday to announce strategies focused on ensuring adequate hospital capacity, staff and testing while keeping schools open as much as possible.
On Sunday, the state reported 3,532 positive COVID-19 statewide, a nearly 250 percent increase from Oct. 29 and up from 429 on Aug. 29. Health officials expect an even greater post-Thanksgiving and holiday season virus surge that may last into mid-January.
“We are now worried about overwhelming the hospital system, and if these numbers continue to increase, which we expect they will, you will see serious stress on the hospital system,” Cuomo said.
The governor said the state will extend its yellow, orange and red zone designations to include hospital rates, death rates, ICU capacity and personal protection equipment.
Other specific steps outlined by Cuomo calls for hospital systems, such as Northwell, Montefiore and others around the state, to shift patients to its other locations to avoid overwhelming a single facility. He warned that if a hospital gets overwhelmed, there will be a state investigation, and if it is found a hospital system failed to redistribute patients, it will be cited for malpractice.
Additional steps call for health care systems to prepare emergency field hospitals and be prepared to staff them, plan to increase bed capacity by 50 percent and confirm personal protection equipment stockpiles.
This Friday, the state will stop all elective surgery in Erie County because of a surge in cases in western New York State. The halt in elective surgeries will be considered elsewhere throughout the state should that become necessary.
Hospital systems are also being asked to identify retired doctors and nurses to have on standby to supplement current staff.
Cuomo said the state must make these preparations to avoid the acute overload the health care system experienced in the spring.
“In the new battlefield, hospital capacity is the top concern – period” he said. “It’s about hospital beds, it’s about ICUs and it’s about having enough staff and enough equipment. That is the effect and that is what we’re going to have to deal with.”
While cases continue to explode in Westchester, County Executive George Latimer said Monday that COVID-19-related hospitalizations are currently manageable. He spoke with hospital administrators throughout the county on Monday, and they were confident that COVID-19 hospitalizations at this point were under control.
On Saturday, there were 244 virus patients in Westchester hospitals. While that number has doubled in the past two weeks, it represents less than 10 percent of the roughly 3,000 hospital beds within the county, Latimer said.
However, the county executive said other numbers are worrisome. As of Sunday, there were 6,117 active cases in Westchester, a number that has more than quadrupled from 1,393 since Oct. 30. During the last week, 15 people died of the virus, placing the county death toll since the start of the pandemic at 1,515. For the month of November there were 42 COVID-19-related deaths in Westchester.
“As these numbers continue to increase, it’s going to be a concern how we’re going to have to deal with it,” Latimer said.
In addition to the state’s strategies to manage hospitalizations, Cuomo also disclosed other measures to try and limit the spread of the disease. He said the state continue to look to increase overall testing, and target it more effectively to health care workers, nursing homes, schools and essential workers. The key is to have it targeted to the proper populations but also have a fair distribution of tests so it is most effective.
The emphasis on testing for schools is to maintain as much in-person learning as possible, particularly for grades K-8 and special education students, Cuomo said. Schools that are in designated orange zones will not automatically shut down, he said. If a school is located in an orange zone, it will be expected to test 20 percent of its students over a month and maintain a low enough positivity rate to continue in-person instruction. If a school is in a red zone, it would have to test 30 percent of its students in a month.
Officials also plan to run a public information campaign stressing the importance of limiting gatherings and avoiding holiday celebrations at home other than with members of your immediate household. The state estimates that there has been close to a 98 percent compliance rate with masks, and it is hoped that repeating information about the need to avoid social gatherings can be similarly effective, Cuomo said.
He said it is estimated that 65 percent of the latest wave of transmissions has been a result of small gatherings, dwarfing the rate of infections at workplaces and schools.
“We have to communicate this to people the way we communicate about masks,” Cuomo said.
The governor also announced that the state will develop an equitable vaccine distribution plan, but did not expect widespread inoculations until at least late spring or early summer because of the complicated nature of the operation.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/