NEW YORK – The number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise across New York, leading the governor to extend the statewide school shutdown until April 15.
“I said we'd revisit it when I shut them down on March 18. The cases are up. We've waived the 180 day requirement for schools to be in session and we're extending that waiver to April 15 as well. We'll reassess again in another two weeks.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo held today's press conference at the Javits Center in New York City, where he told an audience of National Guard members that their success in building an emergency hospital on site in just one week was “just extraordinary.”
He said the death toll in the state is now at 519, up from 385 yesterday, and confirmed cases in the state number more than 44,000.
“The number of people we've lost is bad news,” he said. “It's the worst news. It's tragic news. But it is not unexpected.”
Cuomo reiterated that the vast majority of those deaths were people who had been on ventilators for a prolonged period of time, something he said medical experts say is often the case.
The number of people hospitalized statewide is 6,481, with 1,583 of them in ICU; 2,045 people have been discharged, a number that is up by 528.
New York continues to have far and away the biggest number of cases in the country, but Cuomo said the good news is that the rate of increase is slowing.
Dr. Howard Zucker, the state's Health Commissioner, agreed, saying “Social distancing appears to be working.”
Cuomo said he would be asking the president for permission to build an additional four emergency hospital facilities in downstate sites.
He said the support from New Yorker's has been “extraordinary.”
Another 10,000 medical professionals have volunteered to help, bringing the total to 62,447. And an addition 1,400 mental health professionals have offered to help the state with its toll free hotline, making the total of available therapists and social workers to over 10,000.
Cuomo said the state is ordering the shutdown of all non-essential construction across the state, and answered “the question I want to answer,” when asked about the president's recent statements doubting the state's need for 30,000 ventilators.
“I hope we don't need 30,000 ventilators,” he said. “But I don't operate on opinion. I operate on fact, date and numbers projections. And the numbers say we may need 30,000 ventilators. As far as reports saying the ones we have aren't being deployed? They're in the stockpile and that's where they should be right now.”
