New York City on Sunday topped 200,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, just
three months after the first person in the city tested positive for
Covid-19.
There were 56 Covid-19 deaths in the state on Saturday, ‘which in this
absurd reality we live in is very, very good news,’ Governor Cuomo said
Sunday.
While noting a slight uptick in the three-day average of new coronavirus
hospital admissions, Cuomo said the number is declining overall across
the region.
The confirmed death toll in the city is 16,848 with a further 4,721 probable deaths.
It comes as NYC, the epicenter of the virus in the US, prepares for the first phase of easing lockdown.
That will see construction and manufacturing workers return to their
jobs along with curbside retail. Mayor Bill de Blasio says he expects
that to happen in the first half of June.
And in preparation for that on June 8, Gov. Cuomo said Saturday he will
focus this week on providing more testing and more supplies like masks
to neighborhoods where infection rates remain high.
Office workers in the city will not return until the second phase and
even then, businesses have to meet strict requirements to keep staff
safe.
The U.S. death toll from coronavirus topped 100,000 on Wednesday, a
startling milestone just four months after the country’s first case was
confirmed.
It remains the highest death toll from the virus in the world and
surpasses the U.S. military combat fatalities suffered in every conflict
since the Korean War.
As of Sunday there were more than 104,000 COVID-19 deaths in the US. The
figure is more than double the deaths in any other country.
It is a figure that President Trump initially stated would never be hit
as he claimed in February that the virus would go away itself as warmer
weather began.
He later stepped back on these comments saying that keeping the death
toll to 100,000 would be a sign that the administration had ‘done a very
good job’.
With coronavirus deaths continuing to decline in New York, Gov. Andrew
Cuomo expressed hope Sunday that the state is approaching a level where
fatalities are perhaps not eliminated but are very few.
Cuomo devoted most of his daily coronavirus briefing Sunday to
discussing the ongoing protests against police brutality which, while
mostly peaceful, have spurred violent outbursts that left police cars
burned, businesses vandalized and hundreds of people arrested from New
York City to Buffalo.
He speculated that the unrest might have been enhanced, in part, by
pent-up frustration and agitation over coronavirus lockdowns.Cuomo also
confirmed that dentists statewide can reopen Monday.
The governor said that dentists’ offices will be subject to state guidance on best practices for safety and social distancing.
It comes as the Cuomo administration slowly eases restrictions on
economic activity in the state, region by region and industry by
industry.
