During a Wednesday press conference, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said social distancing will be key to making sure state hospitals can handle the apex of cases expected in late April.
“This all comes down to at the apex, can your hospital system manage the volume of people coming into the hospital system? That’s all this is about at the final analysis,” he said.
He presented one model that showed a need of 110,000 “COVID beds” and 37,000 ventilators by the end of April, if there is minimal impact from social distancing. Those numbers drop to 75,000 and 25,000 respectively based on higher compliance with social distancing.
The governor said that 391 New Yorkers died within the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,941 deaths and 83,000 cases.
He also showed a projection that predicts a total of 16,000 will die in the state before the population achieves “herd immunity.”
“We’re still looking for the curve to straighten, we’re still looking at where we see a plateau,” Cuomo said. “The line is still going up.”
State hospitals will begin to coordinate more, Cuomo said, by sharing supplies, medical personnel, and eventually moving patients from hard-hit areas to less-burdened hospitals.
Cuomo made official an earlier warning that he’d close playgrounds and public sports facilities in New York City if people didn’t voluntarily avoid them.
“I warned people that if they didn’t stop the density and the games in the playgrounds — you can’t play basketball, you can’t come in contact with each other — that we would close the playgrounds,” he said.
The governor noted that he is still open to people returning to work before the virus has completely run its course, assuming widespread testing is available to ensure status.
“My opinion is that the best way to do that is to come up with a rapid testing procedure,” he said.
Biotechnology company Regeneron is providing 500,000 testing kits to New Yorkers free of charge, according to Cuomo.
Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama says his new Cabinet will include an artificial intelligence “minister” in charge of fighting corruption. The AI, named Diella, will oversee public funding projects and combat corruption in public tenders. Diella was launched earlier this year as a virtual assistant on the government's public service platform. Corruption has been a persistent issue in Albania since 1990. Rama's Socialist Party won a fourth consecutive term in May. It aims to deliver EU membership for Albania in five years, but the opposition Democratic Party remains skeptical.
The Trump administration has asked an appeals court to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors by Monday, before the central bank’s next vote on interest rates. Trump sought to fire Cook Aug. 25, but a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed’s board.
President Donald Trump's administration is appealing a ruling blocking him from immediately firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook as he seeks more control over the traditionally independent board. The notice of appeal was filed Wednesday, hours after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb handed down the ruling. The White House insists the Republican president had the right to fire Cook over mortgage fraud allegations involving properties in Michigan and Georgia from before she joined the Fed. Cook's lawsuit denies the allegations and says the firing was unlawful. The case could soon reach the Supreme Court, which has allowed Trump to fire members of other independent agencies but suggested that power has limitations at the Fed.
Chief Justice John Roberts has let President Donald Trump remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, the latest in a string of high-profile firings allowed for now by the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
