New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced another 758 deaths in the state over the last 24 hours. The state now has a total death count of 9,385.
Cuomo noted that the death rate, while “at a terribly high level,” has appeared to have flattened.
“You see also a flattening in the number of lives lost at a terribly high rate. But if you look back over the past several days, you see there’s a certain continuity to that number. Again, that’s the one number that I looked forward to seeing drop as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, and it has been flattening, but flattening at a terribly high level,” he said.
Cuomo said the state wants to reopen “as soon as possible,” likening the constant routine of staying at home to the film “Groundhog Day.”
“We want to reopen as soon as possible. Everyone does, on a societal level. Everyone does on a personal level. Let’s just end this nightmare, right?” the governor said. “Groundhog day. You get up every day, it’s the same routine. You almost lose track of what day of the week it is because they don’t even have meaning anymore. And there’s also some anxiety and stress that we’re all dealing with. So, we want to reopen as soon as possible.”
Cuomo said there needs to be a well-coordinated strategy to avoid an uptick in the infection rate.
“The last thing we want to see is an uptick in that infection rate and an uptick in those numbers that we worked so hard to bring down. So, we need a strategy that coordinates business and schools and transportation and workforce. What New York Pause did is it stopped everything at the same time. It was a blunt device, but it shut down everything at the same time,” he said.
Cuomo also issued two executive orders: one directs employers to provide essential workers with a face covering when they are interacting with the public; the other is to expand the number of people who are eligible for the antibody test, which will show whether someone previously had the coronavirus and has since recovered.
