Cuomo announces two more regions are almost ready to reopen
At his daily press briefing today, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the two regions bordering New York City are close to being reopened as per the state’s system.
Long Island and the mid-Hudson regions may open as soon as next week if they get some more contact tracers and if their deaths continue to decrease.
As of today, both of the regions — which house many people who work in New York City and use public transit to get there — have hit five of the seven requirements for reopening. New York City has met four requirements and the other seven regions have accomplished all of the criteria.
While every region of the state has a contact tracing program, Long Island and the mid-Hudson region don’t have as big of a program as the state would like.
According to Cuomo, New York is sharing its statewide contact tracing program, which is headed up by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with the National Governors Association since other states are still behind in tracing.
“New York is ahead. We have more advanced curriculum and training and protocols, so we’re going to work with the NGA and make that available to any state that wants to use it,” he said.
The next criteria that the two regions need to meet to be able to reopen is to increase the amount of COVID-19, or novel coronavirus, tests that they’re administering.
By this point, the regions all have the capacity to provide the tests, but not enough people seem to be taking advantage of the tests.
“Our message is very simple: Get a test,” the governor said. “We have state-run sites where we have more capacity than we’re now performing tests. We have some drive-ins where we can do 15,000 tests. We’re only doing 5,000 per day.”
Read more about this in this article: CBS News
De Blasio says ‘all roads are leading’ to a June reopening
Reopening has become the word of the day, as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also discussed it in his own daily press briefing today.
The mayor said that the city may be ready to open as early as June 1, but more likely a slightly later day sometime within the first two weeks of the month.
“All roads are leading to the first half of June . . . To get to a restart that is sustainable and not sort of skittish and moving back and forth all the time,” de Blasio said.
His requirements to reopen are for hospitalizations, ICU admissions and positive tests to all decrease consistently for 10 to 14 days. On top of this, there are the seven statewide metrics that all 10 New York regions need to meet to reopen.
Read more about this in this article: CBS Local
Brooklyn’s $20.8 million field hospital shuts after seeing zero patients
The newly constructed Brooklyn field hospital built at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook shut down after seeing not one single patient.
The hospital, made by Texas-based contractor SLSCO, took nearly $21 million to construct and was intended to treat up to 670 patients at a time, Mayor Bill de Blasio had announced back on March 31.
It was supposed to open in mid-April but wasn’t ready until May 4. City hospitalizations had reached a peak on April 12, with 12,184 people hospitalized and over 3,100 people in critical care.
From April 13 on, the rate of hospitalizations dropped, though, and the need for the field hospital decreased, too. By the May 4 opening date, hospitalizations had dropped to 6,000 people.
The city had predicted medical centers to see a tripling in their capacity from around 20,000 hospital beds across the five boroughs to 60,000 patients in need. That didn’t happen.
This wasn’t the only field hospital the city allowed to be built for millions of dollars that ended up not serving much of a purpose — the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing was converted into a 350-bed hospital as well.
The Queens field hospital was meant to serve as an overflow facility for Elmhurst Hospital and was announced alongside the Brooklyn one, but it opened earlier on April 11.
It saw 79 patients before closing down.
Read more about this in this article: The City
Queens man released from hospital after 53-day admission
A 28-year old Queens man was finally released from the hospital after being treated there for the coronavirus for nearly two months.
Brian Morales was admitted to Long Island Jewish in Forest Hills on March 27 after already staying home from work for two weeks prior. He was put on a ventilator soon after his admission.
“I just want to thank the hospital for everything,” Morales said. “For all the help, for all the support. They did a phenomenal job and I don’t know what I’d do without them.”
According to hospital workers, Morales didn’t even show too much concern for himself but was worried about his family.
He acted as the main income source for them, so with him out of work he was worried about their wellbeing and how they would afford food.
Additionally, they just lost another family member to coronavirus, and he didn’t want them to have to lose another one.
Staff were able to connect his family with community resources and get them a food delivery service so that Morales didn’t have to worry about them while he was trying to recover.
“It’s just really just motivational to the staff,” ICU Assistant Director of Nursing Rosemarie Robinson, said. “They have been through so much despair, so much sadness, and to have this 28-year-old walk out of here today is really cause for a celebration.”
Morales spent a total of 53 days at the hospital.
Read more about this in this article: New York 1
