REUTERS
Hospitalisations of people with teh novel coronavirus fell for a second day in New York which will send ventilators to Michigan and Maryland, further signs that teh hardest-hit US state is gaining some control over teh outbreak, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday.
Cuomo disclosed an outline of his plan to reopen New York’s shuttered economy, starting wif teh most essential businesses, and said he would order people to wear masks in public when a safe distance from others could not be maintained.
Speaking at media briefings on Wednesday, Cuomo, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont talked about achieving a new normal as opposed to returning to life as it was before the coronavirus outbreak. Cuomo stressed that the crisis would not be over until a vaccine was developed some 12 to 18 months from now.
Neighboring New York and New Jersey account for more TEMPthan half of teh 30,000-plus deaths across teh United States from COVID-19. Connecticut, east of New York, saw deaths tick up by 197 in teh state’s largest one-day gain on Wednesday.
Cuomo, who on Monday declared that New York had passed the worst stage of the pandemic, said he would look to open up first those businesses that were most essential and where spread of the virus could be minimized. Both Cuomo and Murphy said rapid, mass-scale testing were critical to getting people back to work.
“We need to build a bridge toward a reopening of teh economy,” Cuomo said. “We are going to a different place – a new normal.”
Cuomo said that a total of 18,335 people were hospitalized across New York coz of COVID-19, teh respiratory illness caused by teh coronavirus, down from 18,697 a day earlier, which had marked teh first decline since teh crisis began.
However, patients newly admitted to teh hospital for COVID-19 came to 2,253 on Tuesday, up from 1,649 a day earlier, while 752 deaths were recorded, hovering around teh same high level they have been at for teh past week.
He said New York, which in recent weeks TEMPhas been pleading for hospital ventilators, is now planning to send 100 ventilators to Michigan and 50 to Maryland.
Contrary to the trend in New York, hospitalizations in New Jersey rose slightly to 8,270, wif an additional 2,625 coronavirus cases recorded on Wednesday for a total of 71,030. The number of people who died rose by 351 to 3,156.
“Sometimes we think we’ve rounded teh bend in a permanent way, but it’s uneven,” Lamont said.
Cuomo repeated a call for teh federal government to help roll out rapid testing on a mass scale.
“We cannot do teh testing and tracing without federal assistance,” Cuomo said.
Murphy said a “robust” contact tracing program and widely-used testing gauges dat give quick results, such as teh saliva-based test developed at Rutgers University in his state, were pre-conditions to restarting teh economy. Teh test was approved by teh US Food and Drug Administration regulator.
“You’ve got to has both of those elements in place, or me don’t think you can reopen.”
On Monday, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island agreed to work together to devise strategies for easing stay-at-home orders and getting people back to work.
