New York City reported a record 824 deaths from the coronavirus in 24 hours, a grim reminder that despite flattening infection curves and lower hospital admissions, the health crisis in the largest US city is far from over.
Statewide, the fatality rate has worsened by the day. New York reported 799 new deaths on Thursday, on top of about 1,500 in the prior two days. Total coronavirus deaths in the state now exceed 7,000.
The city and state take snapshots of the virus’s effects at different times of day, which may partly account for why the city reported more deaths than the state did. A spokesman for the governor, Rich Azzopardi, said the city and state were working to come up with a unified reporting system to eliminate their discrepancies.
The latest spike in deaths, which lag as an indicator of the virus’s spread, comes as the rate of hospitalizations in the city and state is dropping sharply.
At his daily virus briefing on Thursday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said there had been only 200 net new hospitalizations over 24 hours, the lowest number since the crisis broke out. That number had been as high as 1,400 just a week ago. Likewise, the rate of new intensive-care admissions and intubations — when patients are put on a ventilator — also plummeted.
But New York State also reported more than 10,600 new positive cases on Wednesday, a second day above 10,000 after multiple days when the number was trending downward. At more than 159,000 infections, New York’s cases have now eclipsed those of Spain and Italy. It’s unknown how many people have been infected but never tested.