
Cuomo: NY may be 'past the plateau'

Newsday is opening this story to all readers so Long Islanders have access to important information about the coronavirus outbreak. All readers can learn the latest news at newsday.com/LiveUpdates.
This story was reported by John Asbury, Catherine Carrera, Matthew Chayes, Alfonso A. Castillo, Michael Gormley, David Reich-Hale, Jean-Paul Salamanca, Craig Schneider and Jeff Williams. It was written by Schneider.
Officials including the president, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and both Long Island county executives saw positive signs Saturday amid the COVID-19 pandemic, even as the governor said another 540 New Yorkers had died of the virus.
Statewide, COVID-19-related hospitalizations, intensive care admissions and intubations were down, Cuomo said, and those statistics held true for Nassau and Suffolk counties, according to briefings held Saturday by officials on Long Island.
Of the statewide deaths reported Saturday, most — 504 — were in hospitals. Another 36 were in nursing homes, Cuomo said. He emphasized that nursing homes remain an area of great concern. “It is a feeding frenzy for this virus,” he said.
Cuomo said that hospitalizations and intubations have been down for several days. The new report of 540 deaths marked a decrease from 606 deaths the day before. However, for about a week and a half, New York had seen 700 deaths a day or more.
"If you look at the past three days you could argue that we are past the plateau and we're starting to descend, which would be very good news,” Cuomo said.
For the second consecutive day, Suffolk’s COVID-19 death toll numbers were not available; County Executive Steve Bellone attributed that to a delay at the state level. Nassau County Executive Laura Curran also could not provide an update on the number of deaths there for the second straight day.
Nassau has marked 28,539 positive cases since the pandemic reached Long Island March 5. The county has recorded 1,109 deaths during that period.
Overall, Suffolk County is now averaging 1,000 additional cases daily, with the number of confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 countywide at 26,702 as of Saturday. That county has reported at least 693 deaths.
As of 2 p.m. Saturday, the New York City Health Department recorded a total of 126,368 coronavirus cases since the city’s first known infection, reported Feb. 29. There have been 8,448 deaths since March 11, when the first city victim died from the virus.
The virus is the probable cause for an additional 4,264 deaths, according to the city, which on Tuesday began publicizing a separate tally of people who died without a lab-test confirmation of infection, but whose death certificates list COVID-19 as the cause based on clinician determination.
President Donald Trump, at his daily coronavirus briefing Saturday, said “we continue to see positive signs that the virus” is past it peak. “We are winning” the COVID-19 war, he said.
He said that since he issued the guidelines this week to open up the country, Texas, Vermont and Montana have announced they will begin lifting stay-home rules next week. “We need to get Americans who are at less risk back to work,” the president said.
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Curran said Nassau County marked the third straight day of declining hospitalizations.
Nassau saw an 11% decrease in COVID-19 patients admitted during the last three days, with 2,204 patients still admitted in the county's 11 hospitals. Nassau hospitals saw 135 fewer admissions Friday.
The county saw 258 discharges from hospitals as of Friday and four fewer patients on ventilators, with a total of 485 patients still intubated.
“With this good news, we become more eager and ready to reopen society and resume whatever our new normal is going to look like,” Curran said.

In Suffolk, hospitalizations are down to 1,538 countywide, with the county having discharged 123 people in the last 24 hours. Intensive care unit numbers and intubations have also decreased.
“That is significant," Bellone said. "This is now three days in a row where we’ve seen those numbers all going down. We will see if that trend continues, but that certainly is good news.”
Roughly 3,416 Suffolk County patients are in hospital beds due to the virus, and 739 COVID-19 patients are using ICU beds.
Cuomo stressed there were still 2,000 people either admitted to hospitals or diagnosed with the virus daily in the state, and “that is still an overwhelming number.”
Meanwhile, former acting LIRR president Raymond Kenny, a Lindenhurst resident whose childhood fascination with trains led to a railroading career that spanned a half-century, died Saturday from complications of COVID-19, his family said.

Kenny's family said he was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center about a week ago with symptoms of the coronavirus, and later tested positive and was put on a ventilator. Kenny, who most recently headed rail operations for New Jersey Transit, was 68.
A testing 'logjam'
Much of Cuomo’s briefing Saturday was focused on ramping up testing, which he said is critical to monitoring the rate of infection, controlling it, and reopening the economy. The state is conducting 500,000 tests per month, Cuomo said, but that is "only a fraction of what we need.”
Cuomo said the state called the top 50 laboratories and asked them how they could double their testing output. Most said they cannot get enough reagents, the chemicals needed for the testing, to accomplish this, he said. “That’s the logjam we’re in,” Cuomo said.
He said manufacturers also have said they cannot get enough of the reagents, many of which are not made in the United States.
Cuomo said New York needs the federal government to help improve the supply chain of reagents, especially when that supply chain is international.

Cuomo also called on the federal government to provide funding to the state. “If you need us to reopen, we need funding,” he said.
He noted that the National Governors Association issued a news release Friday saying the states need $500 billion. According to the association, the money would go toward addressing revenue shortfalls.
The lack of a cohesive public health system has been a major take-away for Cuomo so far amid the crisis, he said in a virtual interview with former President Bill Clinton that was broadcast Saturday.
“It’s a concept, public health, but there’s no physical manifestation of it,” Cuomo said. “I think when we get a chance to sit back and learn the lessons from this crisis, the big eye-opener to me is: Where is our public health system?"
Cuomo said Saturday that currently one person infects 0.9 other people, which is down from a high of 1.4 people. He said that a rise to 1.2 people would once again start filling up hospitals. He said that contact tracing, in which the state tracks the people who have come in contact with an infected person, is key here.
“Tracing requires an army of people,” he said. "You would need thousands of people who just trace in the state of New York because any one person then leads to 10, 20 possible people who were infected. You have to trace all through those people."
While discussing a restart of the economy, Cuomo mentioned the possibility of different reopening strategies for different parts of the state. He said one factor that needs to be considered, however, is that people are mobile and could travel to an area that has been reopened.
"That's why it's a very complicated equation," he said. And, he said, “We’re not at a point where we’re going to be reopening anything immediately.”
Counties review economic impact
Curran said Nassau County is reviewing the financial impact the work stoppage has had on the county.
“We don’t want people to be anxious about reopening strategies. We have to do it in a regional way and a methodical way,” she said. “I believe we can strike a balance and avoid reinfection and allow society to reemerge in its new normal. The numbers are not as bad because people stayed home and practiced social distancing.”
Curran said the county’s economic advisory council recommended to delay school property tax collection, due in May. She said the county has a collection guarantee to schools, to make up any shortfall in school taxes collected.
The Nassau County Legislature does not have the authority to delay school tax collection, Curran said; her office said any decision to delay it is up to the state, but the county must weigh whether that could impact paying first responders.
The county’s $3 billion budget is made up by 67% of sales and property tax — 41% from sales tax and 26% of revenue from property taxes.
“It’s no surprise to anyone we are a county dependent on sales tax and property tax,” Curran said. “I’ve directed our economic team to run various economic models. There’s no question even in the optimistic models, the county will face serious economic hardship.”
In Suffolk, Bellone said county officials will be reaching out to local financial institutions that deal in mortgage forbearance programs. Officials will highlight which institutions have programs that are “doing the right thing” and “the wrong thing” to help homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgages, he said.
Once those institutions and programs are identified, Bellone said, the county will work on getting that information out to residents via the county’s website and other measures, as well as touch base with state and federal partners to see where they can step in regarding possible enforcement.
Bellone said, “We’re going to make sure that people are aware of institutions that are really, in this moment of crisis for our country and this community, who are really stepping up to do the right thing.”
Also Saturday, New York Attorney General Letitia James blocked debt collectors from accessing billions of dollars in emergency stimulus payments.
James issued official guidance to state banking institutions, creditors and debt collectors, making clear that financial relief provided through stimulus payments are exempt from garnishment under state law.
“Today, we are taking concrete action to ensure debt collectors keep their hands off New Yorkers’ stimulus payments,” James said in a statement. “This official guidance makes clear that banks and debt collectors cannot freeze or seize stimulus funds that are on their way to New York families, and any institution that violates this guidance will face swift legal action from my office.”
The CARES Act authorized the Treasury Department to issue emergency stimulus payments of up to $1,200 for eligible adults and up to $500 for eligible children to help offset the costs of essentials, like housing, groceries, and car payments.
Other developments
New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health on Saturday said the number of COVID-19 patients at its 19 hospitals has fallen to 2,629. The health system had about 3,300 COVID-19 patients at this time a week ago.
“We are seeing pretty significant drops each day,” said Terry Lynam, a Northwell spokesman. “We fell by more than 100 in the last day.”
Northwell had been reporting more than 3,000 COVID-19 patients every day between April 2 and Wednesday.
Another bit of good news: Long Island Jewish Valley Stream is the only one of Northwell's 11 Long Island hospitals to have an ICU occupancy rate above 90%. The systemwide ICU occupancy rate fell to 80%. It had been in the 90% range about a week ago.
About 62% of the health system's ventilators are in use. Northwell has about 1,100 ventilators, which include converted bi-level airway pressure (BiPAP) machines.
About 72% of Northwell ventilators had been in use earlier in the week.
Also Saturday, Cuomo amended his executive order on essential businesses to allow personal use of marinas and docks for maintenance, as long as marinas follow strict social distancing guidelines. The order allows marinas to open for “personal use or operation of boats,” as long as marinas don’t operate chartered watercraft or rentals. The guidance on marinas also applies to New Jersey and Connecticut.
While golf is still considered nonessential, members at private clubs on Long Island and throughout the state will be allowed to play golf again after the New York Clubs Association obtained a clarification Friday from the state on access to courses during the pandemic.
Cuomo is also issuing an executive order allowing New Yorkers to obtain a marriage license remotely and allowing clerks to perform ceremonies via video conference, a practice that is banned under current law. Many marriage bureaus have temporarily closed as a result of the pandemic, preventing New Yorkers from getting a marriage license.
The state is also planning to release prisoners who have 90 days or less on their sentence, so long as they did not commit a violent felony or sexual assault and they are deemed to not be a threat to the community. About 200 inmates would be affected.
Meanwhile, Michael Balboni, executive director of the Greater New York Health Care Facilities Association, said the governor’s announcement that nursing homes are now a major focus of the COVID-19 response was "very, very good news."
"Nursing homes are struggling and some are close to collapse from a perfect storm of lack of staff, PPE and financial support," Balboni said. "Washington needs to partner on this crucial effort to keep our most vulnerable residents safe, especially nursing homes in low-income communities.”