While qualifying as “shocking” this new record, the governor of New York has, for the third consecutive day, argued the “good news” that constitute the fall in the number of new hospitalizations as the fall in admissions in intensive care.
New York State, epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, recorded a new daily record of deaths, with 799 dead, but the number of new hospitalizations has never been so low, said Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday.
“We are flattening the curve, we have had a net increase in hospitalizations of 200”, which is “the lowest number we have had since this nightmare began,” the governor said during his daily update on the epidemic.
The last few days have all marked daily death records, the last dated Wednesday with 779 dead. This state of nearly 20 million inhabitants now has more than 7,000 dead, according to figures given daily by the governor, or nearly half of the more than 14,800 deaths recorded in the United States by Johns Hopkins University.
But while qualifying as “shocking” this new record, the governor has, for the third consecutive day, put forward the “good news” which constitute the decrease in the number of new hospitalizations as the decrease of the admissions in intensive care.
“Do not relax” the containment measures
He also stressed that the worst scenarios of the different projection models did not seem to materialize, thanks to the containment and distancing measures, and the measures taken to increase the capacity of the hospital system.
But he again called for “not to relax” the containment measures he extended until April 29, despite their dramatic consequences. “We cannot assume that just because we are seeing positive signals, this is all going to end soon or that we will not be hit by new waves.”
While the toll of the epidemic in New York greatly exceeded that of the attacks of September 11, 2001, he stressed that the economic consequences would be much more serious.
September 11 was “an emotional, physical and cultural catastrophe, it gave us a feeling of vulnerability that we had never had”, underlined the governor. “But for the economy, (the pandemic) is more devastating.”
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