Hospitals Must Be Below 70% Capacity for New York to Reopen, Cuomo Says

New COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York state are averaging under 1,000 a day for the first time this month, the latest sign of slowly decreasing pressure on the health care system.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters Tuesday that hospitalizations and deaths from the outbreak were both continuing to tick down. The daily death toll dropped again, with 335 deaths reported Monday — the lowest daily tally recorded in April and the third straight day under 400.

There have been at least 17,638 deaths in New York since the outbreak began, according to state figures.

The state total doesn't include the more than 5,200 New York City deaths that were attributed to the virus on death certificates but weren't confirmed by a lab test.

At the peak of the outbreak earlier this month, there had been more than 3,000 new COVID-19 hospitalizations a day, based on a three-day rolling average. The comparable figure released Tuesday was about 950.

"It's still a significant number of people," Cuomo said. "But overall you see the numbers coming down, so that's good news."

Cuomo said that while these figures show officials are successfully keeping the outbreak at bay, this is not the time to get emotional and rush to reopen.

"Emotions can't drive a reopening process, right? We're talking about infection rates. We're talking about hospital capacity. Separate the emotion from the logic, and we have to act as our logical selves here," he said, before adding that businesses wishing to reopen would now have to operate under new guidelines.

He announced the creation of a newly appointed advisory board made up of statewide business leaders, academic leaders, civic leaders to help the state navigate the reopening process.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with underlying health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

Worldwide, the outbreak has infected more than 3 million people and killed over 212,000, according to the same Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe, though it has become increasingly clear that the true numbers are much higher.

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