April 9, 2020 / Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes Staff
Topline: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a press conference on Thursday that even though his state again saw its biggest single-day increase in coronavirus deaths, the total number of new hospitalizations continues to decline, hitting its lowest level in three weeks.
- New York is the global epicenter of the coronavirus crisis, with more than 151,ooo confirmed cases across the state—and 81,800 in New York City alone, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
- Deaths in New York hit a third-straight daily record, with 799 new fatalities reported on Wednesday, bringing the total number of casualties to 7,063.
- The “good news,” however, is that new coronavirus hospitalizations in the state decreased to just 200, which is “the lowest number we’ve had since this nightmare started,” Cuomo said.
- Daily ICU admissions and number of intubations have also fallen significantly: “All of this data suggests that we are flattening the curve so far,” the governor of New York said on Thursday.
- With his state now seeing fewer cases than most models had originally projected, Cuomo said that social distancing measures are paying off and have been “essential” to flattening the curve.
- While the death toll has been steadily rising—with over 700 fatalities each day so far this week, it’s a lagging indicator to the rate of new cases starting to level off. “Deaths increase the longer a person is in the hospital,” Cuomo explained.
