Coronavirus: More Than 200,000 Hudson Valley Residents Infected

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — New York state's continued antibody testing has given officials an updated picture of the number of people who have caught the virus and survived. The Hudson Valley overall infection rate is 10.4 percent, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at his Monday briefing, which works out to more than 230,000 people in Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties.

The governor also continued to lay out details about re-opening the economy. While the set of orders called NY-PAUSE ends May 15, and regions upstate with low infection rates and declining hospitalizations may begin reopening in phases, Cuomo said he expected to extend the PAUSE orders downstate.

According to the state's newest antibody testing results, 15.1 percent of residents in Rockland and Westchester counties have been infected with the new coronavirus. That's 195,286 people, according to extrapolation, far more than the 38,920 confirmed cases found in the two counties through diagnostic testing since the beginning of March.

Overall, 14.9 percent of the state's 19 million residents have been infected. The random sampling survey now covers 7,500 people.

By far most of the infections have been downstate. Cuomo said he thought the Hudson Valley's data was skewed by the ferocity of the outbreak closest to New York City, which showed an infection rate approaching 25 percent.

"We had seen problems in Westchester," he said. The first hot spot in the country was in New Rochelle, where the state's second reported case March 3 was connected to 56 others by March 7.

The outbreak is ongoing, Cuomo said, noting that the downward trend of new hospitalizations has flattened somewhat.

"We're still seeing 1,000 new patients every day," he said.

The state is following guidelines from the federal Centers for Disease Control which recommend waiting to reopen until 14 consecutive days of declining hospitalizations.

The questions for each region as it opens include how will businesses change to protect staff and clients, how will the local health-care system cope, and are there systems in place for isolating new cases and tracing back all their contacts for testing and quarantine, he said.

Regional task forces are coordinating re-opening plans between businesses, schools, hospitals, transportation companies and state and local officials, he said.

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