Mike Segar/Reuters
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at a news conference on Monday, March 23.
- 562 people have died from the coronavirus in New York over the past 24 hours, the single deadliest day since the outbreak began, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Friday.
- Cuomo said he's signing an executive order that will allow the state to take ventilators and other much-needed medical equipment from private companies and hospitals and redistribute it to hospitals in need.
- He also said New York managed to pass a budget, albeit not the one he had outlined in his January budget address, as fighting the pandemic has sucked up so much of the state's resources.
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New York had its the single deadliest 24-hour period since the coronavirus outbreak began in the state.
Since March 1, when the first confirmed coronavirus case was recorded in the state, 2,935 New Yorkers have died. There were 562 deaths over the past 24 hours, the biggest single-day increase so far, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a Friday morning press conference in Albany.
There are now over 102,000 confirmed cases statewide, with 14,810 people hospitalized, Cuomo said, with more than half of those concentrated in New York City, now the global epicenter of the pandemic.
"It's hard to go through this all day and then it's hard to stay up all night, watching those numbers come in and the number of deaths tick up," Cuomo said.
There are over 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus globally, and over 250,000 of those cases are in the US, per Johns Hopkins University.
Here are the other biggest takeaways from Cuomo's daily update:
- Cuomo said he's signing an executive order to address the ongoing ventilator shortage. The order will allow the state to take ventilators and other protective equipment from private hospitals and other companies and "redistribute" them to hospitals in need. The National Guard will be mobilized to assist in this process.
- Cuomo said he's been in contact with Alibaba's Jack Ma and Mike Evans to help source medical equipment and protective gear from China. "Alibaba's been very helpful to us," Cuomo said.
- New York's budget passed on Friday, but it wasn't the budget Cuomo had hoped for in his January 21 budget address. While the budget did address the "child vaping scourge," but did not pass recreational marijuana legalization.
- New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said there's no direct evidence that masks, or face-covering bandanas and the like, can help protect people from coronavirus, but that those with symptoms or confirmed cases should wear them - as with medical workers. Vice President Mike Pence said on Thursday that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is going to be coming out with new guidance on mask-wearing in "in the next several days."
- Cuomo added, "the masks couldn't hurt, unless they gave a wearer a false sense of security."
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