Coronavirus Deaths Reach 4K As Virus Nears Apex: Cuomo

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — New York’s battle with the new coronavirus may have reached the “mountaintop,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday.

Deaths from the virus reached 4,159 — the “worst news,” Cuomo said during a morning news conference. That's 594 deaths in the span of a day, although Cuomo said the numbers actually show signs the state’s outbreak is reaching a peak or plateau.

“But the number of deaths over the past few days have been dropping for the first time,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo emphasized it’s too early to tell whether that’s the start of a trend. He noted, however, that admissions into intensive care units and daily intubations are down, as are hospitalizations in general.

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Discharges from hospitals are “way up,” with the overall rate hitting 74 percent, Cuomo said.

“We’re looking at this seriously now, because by the data we could be either very near the apex or the apex could be a plateau and we could be on that plateau right now,” he said. “We won’t know until we see the next few days — does it go up or does it go down?”

Still, it's a slightly different tune than Cuomo sounded on Saturday, when he said the state hadn't yet reached the outbreak's apex.

Hospitals and health officials have been shifting resources — masks, ventilators and other equipment — and patients to facilities on a daily basis to deal with the changing numbers, Cuomo said. He said a temporary hospital in the Javits Center could serve as a “relief valve” for an overburdened system, particularly among New York City’s public hospitals.

Another help will come in the form of 1,000 federal personnel — doctors, nurses and others — who can help the city's hospitals, Cuomo said. About 325 will reach the city's hospitals on Sunday, he said.

The fight against the coronavirus is a war and New York appears to be on the threshold of a battle at the outbreak’s mountaintop, Cuomo said. He said he hopes that peak — whether an apex with a steep drop in new cases, or a plateau where new cases remain level for days at a time — is near.

The problem is statisticians need more data to say where exactly the state stands in the battleground, he said.

“You guys think I don’t give you straight answers, you ought to talk to statisticians,” he said.

More than 2,600 New York City residents have died from the coronavirus, according to state data.

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