Coronavirus Deaths Reach 125 In NYC, Restarting Economy Explored

NEW YORK CITY — The governor of New York is exploring how to re-start the state's economy as the death rate from the new coronavirus continues to grow.

Latest figures show it's now killed 125 people in New York City as of Monday evening, with 13,119 confirmed to be infected. And some experts are suggesting the spread of the disease could start to double every two-and-a-half days.

To keep up to date with coronavirus developments in NYC, sign up for Patch's news alerts and newsletter.

But President Donald Trump suggested Monday he was looking to lift controls on people leaving their homes in an effort to stop the coronavirus from destroying the U.S. economy — and Governor Andrew Cuomo said he was looking to do the same thing.

"The President is very concerned about the economy. The economy was doing well - the economy is now truly suffering. The consequences haven't even been felt yet because not only have you stopped the revenue machine - you've increased the expense machine," he said on CNN Monday night.

He added, "I actually have a group that is working on the restart of the economy because I get it, too. This is New York and we're with the home of so much of this. So coming up with the plan to restart the economy is very important.

"But this, you don't want to - it's a false choice to say public health or restart the economy. Nobody's going to make that choice, and by the way, if you have to make that choice, it's public health. Because you cannot put a value on a human life. Nobody cares how long it takes to get the economy up and running if you actually saved lives."

Cuomo said he is attempting to draw up a strategy that might bring less-vulnerable people back to work, but keep those at high risk from the disease at home.

He put in place a stay-at-home order Sunday night which says non-essential workers can only leave their homes to buy groceries, get medication or exercise.

"Is there a public health strategy that says, "Look, you can start to bring young people back to work. You can start to test and find out who had the virus and who resolved from the virus, and they can start to go back to work?" That's how we'll restart the economy, with a smart public health strategy, because closing the door on everyone was only because we didn't know better."

But he said experts are suggesting that the return to work could coincide with a tidal wave of cases.

"I just got off the phone with a new projection model that New York City was seeing double the number of cases every two and a half days, that can take your breath away. That curve they keep talking about, that we have to flatten the curve, flatten the curve, that's not a curve. That is a wave. That is a tsunami.

"That's the scene in The Perfect Storm where George Clooney is trying to go up the wave and he gives the boat all the gas he can to try to get over the top of the wave, and the wave crashes over him. The wave is going to crash over our health care system. It will crash anywhere from 10 days to three weeks."

Coronavirus In NYC: What's Happened And What You Need To Know