1,218 Dead in N.Y. and Cuomo Says Worst Is Still to Come

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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, briefing reporters on Monday, said that the worst of the coronavirus outbreak was yet to come, even as another 253 people died in the state in a 24-hour period.

“If you wait to prepare for a storm to hit, it is too late,” the governor said. “You have to prepare before the storm hits. And in this case, the storm is when you hit that high point when you hit that apex. How do you know when you’re going to get there? You don’t.”

The governor spoke at the Javits Center, a convention hall in Manhattan that was quickly turned into a 1,000-bed emergency hospital. His remarks came shortly after a Navy hospital arrived in the city.

The setting for Mr. Cuomo’s briefing underscored New York’s urgent efforts to prepare its health care system for the wave of sick people that are expected to overwhelm hospitals in just a few weeks.

Here are other developments from Monday:

New York reported almost 7,000 new cases of the virus, bringing the total to nearly 66,500. Most of the cases are in New York City, where 36,221 people have tested positive, the city says.

Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey announced 3,347 new positive coronavirus cases in the state, bringing the total to 16,636. There were 37 new deaths, for a total of 198.

In New York, the number of people hospitalized was 9,517, up 12 percent from yesterday. Of those, 2,352 are in ventilator-equipped intensive care rooms.
In a hopeful note, Mr. Cuomo said that while the number of hospitalizations continues to grow, the rate in which it is growing was tapering off. “We had a doubling of cases every two days, then a doubling every three days and a doubling every four days, then every five,” Mr. Cuomo said. “We now have a doubling of cases every six days. So while the overall number is going up, the rate of doubling is actually down.”

More than 4,200 people have been discharged from hospitals.

New York has tested more than 186,000 people in March, about one percent of the state’s population. But while New York’s testing capacity far outpaces that of other states, it has not reached the critical-mass level public health experts say is necessary to more precisely identify the spread of the virus.

Sources:

New York Times: 1,200 Dead in N.Y. and Cuomo Says Worst Is Still to Come

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