New York — the state hit hardest by the pandemic — saw its largest single-day death toll jump from Monday to Tuesday.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says 731 people lost their lives in the state in the last 24 hours, bringing New York’s total number of coronavirus fatalities to 5,489.
Over 138,000 people in the state have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
However, the three-day hospitalization rate in New York is moving down, a sign the state is reaching a plateau.
“It still depends on what we do,” Cuomo warned Tuesday. “This is not an act of God … it’s an act of what society actually does.”
Cuomo compared the coronavirus pandemic to the 1918 flu pandemic which he said peaked in New York for six months, killing about 30,000 people in the state.
“They didn’t react the way we did and they didn’t know what we know today,” he said.
