New York state, showing a falling hospitalization rate seemingly representing a nearing plateau, recorded its deadliest day, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday morning at his daily briefing.
Cuomo revealed that 731 people had died on Monday, the largest single-day increase, bringing the state's total reported death toll to 5,489, roughly half of the nation's total.
"That's 731 people who we lost. Behind every one of those numbers is an individual, is a family, is a mother, is a father, is a sister, is a brother. So a lot of pain today for many New Yorkers," he said. The governor also heaped praise on the frontline workers for having the "mindset" to serve despite so many passing away and while potentially exposing themselves to illness.
But while the number of deaths jumped, the governor also said the state seemed to be plateauing, and the three-day hospitalization average is moving downward, noting that deaths are a lagging indicator to the number of hospitalizations as critical patients are in the hospital for a lengthy amount of time.
"We talk about the apex and is the apex a plateau, and right now we're projecting that we are reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalizations. You can see the growth and you see where it's starting to flatten. Again, this is a projection. It still depends on what we do and what we do will affect those numbers," he said.
Encouraging New Yorkers to continue practicing strict social distancing measures, Cuomo stated, "This is not an act of God that we're looking at. It's an act of what society actually does."
The governor added that the state was planning ways to restart the economy and that he had communicated with the governors of Connecticut and New Jersey. However, the ability to re-open New York will depend on testing.
New York's Department of Health had approved an antibody "testing regimen" for the blood to check if someone already had the virus, according to Cuomo. The test is awaiting FDA approval.
