You are reading

Cuomo Believes New York Will Be Able to Avoid a Shutdown

Governor Andrew Cuomo (Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)

Dec. 18, 2020 By Allie Griffin

Governor Andrew Cuomo believes New York will be able to avoid a second COVID-related shutdown, he announced today.

“I believe we can avoid a shutdown and I believe we will avoid a shutdown — I’ll go that far,” Cuomo said during a press briefing Friday.

He said that a second shutdown of the economy — like the PAUSE order he imposed that shuttered all nonessential businesses in the spring — is “totally avoidable.”

Cuomo said two key issues must be addressed to avoid a shutdown— hospitals in the state must be able to manage an increase in COVID-19 patients and New Yorkers need to slow the spread of the virus.

On the first point, no hospital in the state has indicated that it will reach above 85 percent of its capacity within three weeks, by Jan. 8, he said.

The governor previously announced that the state would shutdown a region if its seven-day average hospitalization growth rate shows that the region will hit 90 percent — indicating critical hospital capacity — within three weeks.

Downstate has roughly 31,000 hospital beds available after local hospitals shifted to crisis management and increased their capacity by 25 percent.

“I believe hospitals are going to be able to manage this,” Cuomo said. “We learned a lot in the spring.”

Cuomo said individual New Yorkers have also learned a lot from the springtime, when the pandemic reached its peak.

“I also believe New Yorkers can slow the spread,” he said. “I believe New Yorkers can flatten the curve because I saw them do it.”

He added that people have learned to be cautious when celebrating holidays after Thanksgiving led to an increase in coronavirus cases across the state.

“New Yorkers are smart,” Cuomo said. “I think they’re going to learn from Thanksgiving and I think you’ll see a smarter response through the holidays.”

Cuomo said New Yorkers should adopt a new state mantra of “slow the spread, stop the shutdown.”

email the author: news@queenspost.com

One Comment

Click for Comments 
Sara Ross

Instead of closing restaurants to indoor dining, where the infection rate is less than 2%, why not fine people walking on the street without masks, wearing them on their chins or using them as bracelets? Open the dam restaurants!!!

Reply

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Dead body of adult woman pulled from the freezing waters off Rockaway Park Friday morning: NYPD

First responders pulled the body of a woman from the frigid waters off Rockaway Park on Friday morning, and investigators are working to determine how she died.

Police from the 100th Precinct in Rockaway Beach responded to a 911 call at 8:44 a.m. reporting a person in the Atlantic Ocean in the vicinity of Beach 109th Street and Shore Front Parkway, where the body of an adult woman was recovered from the surf, unconscious and unresponsive.