Sunday, April 19, 2020

Cuomo calls nursing homes a ‘feeding frenzy’ for coronavirus as 540 die in New York

By Dave Goldiner

Governor Andrew Cuomo(Mike Groll/Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)
Gov. Cuomo called nursing homes the biggest concern for New York authorities battling the coronavirus pandemic on Saturday even as a lower overall total of 540 people died in the past day.

The relatively lower death toll represents a dip of more than 25% from just a few days ago. But the governor said the still-raging epidemic claimed 36 elderly victims in nursing homes — and still poses a dire threat.

“Nursing homes are the single biggest fear in all of this,” he said. “Vulnerable people in one place, it is the feeding frenzy for this virus.”

“Nursing homes are the No. 1 long term consequence of this disease,” he added.

In the city alone, 513 people died of the deadly virus as of 6.p.m. Friday. That also marked a significant drop from recent days as the toll ebbs although the grim total now stands at 12,712.

There were 4,220 new cases in the five boroughs pushing the total of positive cases over 126,000.

Cuomo used graphs to show that the state has indisputably passed the peak of the crisis as measured by those in hospitals or being placed on ventilators.

But nearly 2,000 new coronavirus patients are still being hospitalized from coronavirus every day.

“Except for the context that we’ve been in, this would be devastating news,” Cuomo said. “We’re not at the plateau anymore, but we’re still not in a good position.”

Cuomo offered an extended explanation of the difficulties of using testing as a tool to help New York or other states start to reopen. He said even New York, which leads the nation in testing, would need to dramatically increase it before it would be effective.

"The challenge is now bringing this up to scale. Okay. We did 500,000 tests in a month. That’s great news, bad news is, it’s only a fraction of what you need.

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Cuomo calls nursing homes a ‘feeding frenzy’ for coronavirus as 540 die in New York

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