New York governor says some states making a mistake by reopening
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[May 07, 2020]
By Maria Caspani and Nathan Layne
(Reuters) - States that are reopening their
economies despite rising cases of the novel coronavirus are making a
mistake, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday, urging that
such decisions be based on facts and data rather than politics.
"You have states that are opening where you are still on the incline,"
he told a daily briefing. "I think that's a mistake."
Cuomo also disclosed preliminary data from a survey of hospitals showing
the vast majority of patients were above the age of 51 and had not used
public transportation, among other findings that could play into how he
looks to reopen the state.
Over the past few days Cuomo has started to outline the criteria for
loosening restrictions on businesses in New York, after a three-week
decline in hospitalizations and a downtrend in the daily death count.
New York is the worst-hit state by far, with more than a third of the
country's 71,000 deaths.
He said 232 New Yorkers died on Tuesday from COVID-19, the disease
caused by the virus, a tick higher than Monday but half the daily
fatalities recorded two weeks ago. Hospitalizations fell by 421 to
9,179, the lowest since March 28, Cuomo said.
While the data was further evidence that New York had "turned a corner"
in the fight against the coronavirus, new cases were increasing in the
rest of the country, even as a majority of states have relaxed
restrictions, Cuomo said.
"Yes, our line is going down, our number of cases is going down," said
Cuomo, who has yet to green light the reopening of any region of New
York. "You take New York out of the national numbers, the numbers for
the rest of the nation are going up."
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks at a daily briefing at North
Shore University Hospital, during the outbreak of the coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) in Manhasset, New York, U.S., May 6, 2020.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Cuomo disclosed data from 1,269 COVID-19 patients across 113 New
York hospitals showing that most were neither employed nor users of
the subway or other public transit, and, in a finding he called
surprising, most were admitted from their own home.
The findings could raise questions about prior assumptions about who
is being hit hardest by the virus, Cuomo said, noting that essential
workers were not among those most frequently hospitalized and that
18 percent came from nursing homes, far less than the 66 percent
admitted from their own homes.
The governor also stressed that there was lingering uncertainty
about when the virus may have first appeared in the United States
and warned that the death toll could be greater than what the
current numbers showed.
"They are now saying that the virus may not have come just in
February/March. The virus may have come late last year," Cuomo said,
adding that officials in Chicago were investigating whether people
had died in November and December from COVID-19.
"I think it's going to be worse when the final numbers are tallied,"
he said.
(reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Maria Caspani
in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Steve Orlofsky)
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