Gov. Andrew Cuomo provided more details Tuesday on what will qualify a region of New York to reopen its economy in the coming weeks, pointing to state-imposed caps on the hospital capacity and the rate of infection from COVID-19.
Each region will be required to have at least 30% of its hospital capacity free to reopen, and will have to keep the rate of transmission below 1.1, Cuomo said.
In other words, hospitals in that region can’t be more than 70% full, and the disease can’t be shown to have commonly spread from one person to multiple people. The statewide infection rate already meets that standard, but the state hasn’t released an analysis by region.
“Those are danger signs. We know that,” Cuomo said.
He gave his daily briefing Tuesday in Syracuse, where COVID-19 hospitalizations have lagged behind other areas of upstate New York, namely Buffalo and the Capital Region. Central New York, Cuomo said earlier this week, could be one of the first regions to reopen.
“If you look at our infection rate in upstate New York, it’s very different from our infection rate in downstate New York,” Cuomo said.
Officials in New York are planning a careful analysis of each region outside New York City over the next few weeks to decide which will reopen, and when.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has issued guidance that requires states to observe a 14-day decline in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations before they’re allowed to reopen their economy. Even then, New York is expected to reopen in phases.
The first phase, Cuomo said this week, will allow workers in the construction and manufacturing industries to go back to work. That could happen in some regions as early as May 15th, when the statewide lockdown order expires.
The second phase would be split into several different stages, during which the state would handpick businesses and industries to reopen. Those decisions would be based on the essential nature of the business, and the risk of spreading the virus.
It’s also possible that regions will have to reverse course on reopening their economy if they fall below the state’s benchmark, Cuomo said.
There’s a possibility, Cuomo said, that hospitals will become overwhelmed later this year at the start of the flu season, or during a potential second wave of COVID-19. In either scenario, if hospital capacity exceeds 70% in any given region, the economy may be scaled back.
Events designed to draw a large number of people will also be banned statewide for the time being, regardless of whether a region is allowed to reopen or not.
Cuomo said that may include the New York State Fair, which is held in Central New York every year at the end of August, and attracted more than one million people last year.
“Can you open the State Fair unless the entire state is at a point where it’s open? I don’t believe so,” Cuomo said.
The state’s COVID-19 numbers continued to trend in a positive direction Tuesday, with 173 fewer people in the hospital Monday compared to Sunday. The total number of people in the hospital, as of Monday, was 12,646.
The number of people who require a ventilator for treatment also went down, with 3,420 people intubated as of Monday. That’s a decline of 65. An additional 622 people were discharged from the hospital Monday.
An additional 335 people died from the disease Monday, bringing the statewide death toll to 17,638.
The number of people who’ve tested positive for the disease increased to 295,106 on Monday, with 844,994 people tested so far in New York since the start of the pandemic.