Though the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to grow quickly and has now topped 30,000, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday said that there were early signs that stringent restrictions on social gatherings and other measures could be slowing the virus’s spread.
Mr. Cuomo highlighted data that showed slowing hospitalization rates. On Sunday, the state’s projections showed hospitalizations doubling every two days, while Tuesday’s estimates showed them doubling every 4.7 days.
“That is almost too good to be true,” the governor said, “but the theory is, given the density that we’re dealing with, it spreads very quickly, but if you reduce the density, you can reduce the spread very quickly.”
quote:
New York State has 30,811 confirmed cases, up more than 5,000 since Tuesday morning. That is more than 7 percent of the 431,000 cases worldwide tallied by The New York Times. There have been 285 deaths in the state. New York City has 17,856 confirmed cases.
There was encouraging news from Westchester County, where the rate of infection has slowed. “We have dramatically slowed what was an exponential rate of increase,” Mr. Cuomo said. “That was the hottest cluster in the United States of America. We closed the schools, we closed gatherings, we brought in testing, and we have dramatically slowed the increase.”
State officials project they will need 30,000 ventilators, of which they currently have 4,000. But the state is making headway: Mr. Cuomo said 7,000 more ventilators have been procured, in addition to 4,000 ventilators sent by the federal government.
The governor said about 40,000 health care professionals, including retirees, have volunteered to work when hospitals become strained. Almost half are nurses.
More than 3,800 people are currently hospitalized, or 12 percent of all confirmed cases. Of those, 888 people are currently in intensive care.
In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy announced 736 new cases, bringing the total in the state to 4,402, including 62 deaths.
Just heard the CMO from Mount Sinai in Brooklyn talking about what they're facing.
Typically they have 212 patients in the hospital, now they have 225, and 171 of them have coronavirus. "They're incredibly sick. In a matter of hours they go from sick to a crisis. They start to crash and five people have to run over to treat them."
And they don't have enough PPE.
-------------------------------- When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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