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COVID-19 surge in NY
While the coronavirus positivity rate over five percent, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is sounding an optimistic note about the ability to treat patients and survival rates.
NEW YORK - As coronavirus cases surge around New York, with the state's positivity rate hovering at close to 5.5%, Governor Andrew Cuomo sounded optimistic on his weekly Friday conference call, suggesting that as bad as things are now, in many ways, they were worse in the spring.
"In the spring, the hospital protocol was very different for COVID," Cuomo said.
The state currently has 53,000 hospital beds set up, and more than 35,000 are currently occupied. More than 40% of ICU beds are currently open, moreover, the length of time patients are spending hospitalized has been cut.
"The length of stay in March, April, 11 days," Cuomo said. "It is now less than half that. 5 days average stay."
Cuomo also suggested that those getting sick now are faring better than those who contracted the virus in the spring, with the number of people hospitalized with the virus who died dropping to 8% from 23%.
Meanwhile, New Yorkers are shifting their focus to the impending delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine, with pharmaceutical company Pfizer testifying during a New York City Council hearing millions of doses of the vaccine are heading to the United States, with hundreds of thousands coming to New York.
In New York, the focus will be healthcare works, 60,000 of which are high-risk workers, nursing home residents and those living in neighborhoods hit hard by the virus. The city's health commissioner says that the vast majority of New Yorkers should not expect to receive a vaccine until mid-2021, depending on supply and availability.