GOTHAMIST
Five people died from COVID-19 in New York State on Saturday—the lowest number of deaths in one day since March 15th, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday.
But as the coronavirus cases drop in New York, the governor is now concerned the virus will spread once again as other states see cases rise amid businesses reopening.
With five deaths and fewer than 900 hospitalizations, Cuomo said on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday morning, "How does that number go up? Two ways. Lack of compliance—and I'm diligent about staying after New Yorkers and local governments that have to police it—and second, I'm now afraid of the spread coming from other states, because we are one country and people travel."
"I'm afraid the infection rate in the other states will come back to New York and raise that rate again," Cuomo said. "If these states keep going up, we're going to have a national crisis like we have never seen. They said this was the way to help the economy by reopening. It's been the exact opposite."
"Every time the virus goes up, the stock market goes down. And if those states continue to increase, you’ll see it go all across the nation. You’ll see New York on the rise, again, and you’ll see the other states starting to go up even more," Cuomo said.
In New York, hospitalizations dropped to 869—39 fewer than the previous day. Newly admitted patients dropped by 24 to 54, and the number of people in intensive care units dropped by 1 to 229. Total deaths rose to 24,835.
Of 61,906 tests conducted Saturday, 0.99% were positive. In New York City, the positivity rate was 1.1%.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said on Meet the Press Sunday morning that fatalities and hospitalizations were the lowest in two months, but noted some southern states are seeing surges. Azar emphasized personal responsibility—like wearing face coverings—and community contact tracers in counties seeing cases surge. But President Donald Trump rarely wears a mask himself and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the U.S. needs about 100,000 contact tracers—more than three times what the country currently has.
The secretary and president are "basically in denial about the problem," Cuomo said when asked on Meet the Press about Azar's comments.
"They don't want to tell the American people the truth and they don’t want to have any federal response except supporting the states, supporting the states," Cuomo said. "This is a virus. It doesn’t respond to politics. You can’t tweet at it, you have to treat it."