NY Sees Most Single-Day COVID-19 Deaths as Gov Urges Vigilance
Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned New Yorkers Thursday against complacency urging them to continue adhering to social distancing protocols to fight COVID-19 as the state saw its highest single-day death toll from the disease.
Cuomo said the daily increase of net hospitalizations fell to 200, the lowest since Mar. 16, even though the number of deaths on Wednesday rose to 799, the third consecutive day the total has been above 700, setting a single-day high for each of those days. The state death toll now stands at 7,067.
In Westchester, 359 residents have died from the coronavirus, with 1,139 people hospitalized. At 17,004 cases, it now has the fourth most cases in the state, behind New York City and Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Public health officials have advised that the deaths will spike even as other factors – hospitalization rates, ICU admittances and intubations – fall because there is lag time from when patients enter until their case is resolved, Cuomo said.
“New Yorkers are acting responsibly and diligently and we are saving lives by what people are doing today,” the governor said.
Despite the progress, Cuomo admitted that watching the number of deaths climb has been difficult to bear. Calling it “shocking and painful and breathtaking,” Cuomo said he never thought he would see anything that surpasses what New York saw in lost lives on Sept. 11, 2001, but the pandemic is likely to soon claim three times as many lives in the state as the terrorist attacks.
“I understand the scientific data, but you are talking about 799 lives, the highest number ever,” Cuomo said. “It’s gotten to the point where we’re going to bring in additional funeral directors to deal with the number of people who have passed. If you ever told me as governor, I would have to take these actions, I couldn’t even contemplate where we are now.”
Meanwhile, talk of restarting the state’s economy can’t begin until the scientific data supports it, he said. For that to happen, there needs to be widespread rapid testing to determine who has had COVID-19 and can safely return to work, Cuomo said.
Since Mar. 9, there have been 810,000 new unemployment claims, said Melissa DeRosa, the secretary to the governor. The state has 1,000 people alone working on the claims.
DeRosa said that by Thursday evening, a revamped state Department of Labor website with a revised application should more easily allow the flood of people to file.
Cuomo said he would not try to predict when the state may be able to relax its social distancing protocols and start a return to normalcy.
“I’m not going to guess when the data will say when we should change our practices,” he said.
Cuomo pledged that the state would investigate why a greater percentage of minorities have died from COVID-19 than their percentage of the population. However, he said the rates are not nearly as skewed as they have been in other areas of the country.
The state plans to increase testing at four sites in predominantly minority neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. Blacks have accounted for 28 percent of the deaths in New York City through Tuesday, even though they are 22 percent of the population. Outside the city blacks have accounted 18 percent of the deaths but are only 9 percent of the population.
The Latin community has had 34 percent of the deaths in the city where they are 29 percent of the population and have accounted for 14 percent of the deaths in the rest of the state while making up 11 percent of the population.
New York State is also asking for people who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate blood to help treat others who are still suffering from the disease.
For those who fit that category, visit www.nybc.org/cpdonor.
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/