States That Are Reopening Economies Are Making A Mistake, Says New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
On Wednesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo criticized the decision of giving relaxation on lockdown in various states of the country, saying that despite the rising cases of COVID-19, states that are reopening their businesses are making a mistake. He urged that these decisions should be based on facts and data rather than politics.
In his daily briefing, Cuomo said, “You have states that are opening where you are still on the incline. I think that’s a mistake.”
Cuomo also revealed preliminary data taken from a survey of hospitals, which showed most patients were old, above the age of 51, and had not used public transportation.
After a three-week decline in the number of new COVID-19 cases and a downtrend in the daily death count, Cuomo has now begun to shape criteria for loosening restrictions on businesses in New York. With more than one-third of the country’s 71,000 deaths, New York stands out as the worst-hit state by far.
Cuomo said that 232 New Yorkers died on Tuesday from COVID-19, which was a bit higher than Monday but significantly less than the fatalities recorded two weeks ago. He added that hospitalization reduced by 421 to 9,179, which is the lowest since March 28.
He said while the data showed that New York had “turned a corner” battling COVID-19, new cases were rising in the rest of the country, even as a majority of states have given relaxation on lockdown.
Cuomo, who has yet to give a green signal to the reopening of businesses in New York, said, “Yes, our line is going down, our number of cases is going down. You take New York out of the national numbers, the numbers for the rest of the nation are going up.”
Disclosing data from 1,269 COVID-19 patients across 113 New York hospitals, which showed that the majority of them were neither employed nor users of the subway or other public transit, Cuomo called it surprising, as most of the patients were admitted from their home.