New York Coronavirus Deaths Still At 'Terribly High Level'; Businesses Won't Open Soon

New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo isn't scared of delivering bad news, and has been regularly providing information about COVID-19 deaths and casualties from Albany.

Cuomo put on another of his signature daily briefings Sunday (April 12), announcing that New York State's total death toll from the disease had risen to 9,385. This total is the highest in the United States and the sixth highest in the world after the U.S., Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom.

There was a silver lining to this dark side, however. Cuomo said the state's death rate, while "at a terribly high level," appears to have flattened. And flattening the curve has been the state's consistent goal since day one. Cuomo has said this time and again since the fight against COVID-19 began in earnest after the state's first case was confirmed March 1.

"You see also a flattening in the number of lives lost at a terribly high rate," he said. "But if you look back over the past several days, you see there's a certain continuity to that number. Again, that's the one number that I looked forward to seeing drop as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, and it has been flattening, but flattening at a terribly high level."

Cuomo added he wanted to reopen the state for business, as well as its schools. This time he said he wants to reopen "as soon as possible."

"We want to reopen as soon as possible. Everyone does, on a societal level. Everyone does on a personal level. Let's just end this nightmare, right?" he said. "Groundhog day. You get up every day, it's the same routine. You almost lose track of what day of the week it is because they don't even have meaning anymore. And there's also some anxiety and stress that we're all dealing with. So, we want to reopen as soon as possible."

The condition will remain the same some time longer considering the grim overall picture. On Sunday, New York State accounted for 189,415, or 34%, of total U.S. COVID-19 cases. If New York State were a separate country, it would be the world's second most infected country after the U.S.

Official state data showed 188,694 confirmed cases as of Sunday along with 9,385 deaths. Of this dreadful total, New York City accounts for 103,208 cases and 6,898 deaths. NYC is responsible for 55% of all cases statewide, as well as 74% of all deaths.

Cuomo, however, said all schools will remain closed as long as there is a public health crisis. He believes schools will need to reopen at the same time as businesses.

“Am I, as I sit here, prepared to say what we’ll be doing in June? No,” he said. “I don’t know what we’ll be doing in June.”

"Schools, businesses, workforce, transportation — it all has to be coordinated. If you say schools are closed through June then you’re effectively saying businesses are closed through June because you can’t restart the economy fully without restarting schools. Schools also provide not just education but also in many ways child care for people who can then go to work."

The state, however, will reopen soon and statistical models see no more deaths by the first week of May. Cuomo said there must be a well-coordinated strategy to avoid an uptick in the infection rate.

"The last thing we want to see is an uptick in that infection rate and an uptick in those numbers that we worked so hard to bring down," he pointed out. "So, we need a strategy that coordinates business and schools and transportation and workforce. What New York Pause did is it stopped everything at the same time. It was a blunt device, but it shut down everything at the same time."