Gov. Cuomo Says Rise in Hospitalizations is Top Concern as COVID Cases Surge

By Yehudit Garmaise

  Although a COVID vaccine is on the horizon, this morning, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced new strategies to deal with COVID rates that continue to rise in New York

   “The vaccine is coming, and this will end,” Gov. Cuomo said, but for the next several months, as New Yorkers wait for everyone to be vaccinated, the governor laid out five new strategies to deal with the COVID pandemic. “We have been through the worst, but we are not done yet.”

   First, the governor said that instead of focusing on COVID positivity rates, he will instead be focusing on the number of hospitalizations and making sure hospital beds are available for COVID patients who need them.

  “We are now worried about overwhelming the hospital system,” said Gov. Cuomo, whose staff is currently reaching out to hospital administrators about their availability of personal protection equipment and other medical equipment. “And if those [COVID positive numbers continue to increase, which we expect they will, you will see serious stress on the hospital system.”

   The governor said voluntary surgeries will be temporarily stopped in areas that need to free up hospital beds, he has put into place mechanisms for overloaded hospitals to transfer patients to other hospitals, and preparing to provide extra field hospitals.

  “We have 54,000 hospital beds in the state, but we were told we would need 120,000,” the mayor said. “We lived this nightmare, we learned from this nightmare, and we are going to correct from the lessons we learned.”

   Today the New York Department of Health initiated emergency hospital measures in which every hospital has to immediately identify retired doctors and nurses to compensate for staff shortages that the state is already experiencing among healthcare workers, who have become exhausted and overwhelmed.

  “Healthcare workers have had a horrendous year and now, to go through this again with emergency rooms and a high number of COVID patients coming in,” said Gov. Cuomo, who added that hospitals who do not search for retired healthcare workers will be considering to be participating in "malpractice."

   Also, the governor said that as of this Friday, he would be disallowing elective surgeries in Eerie Country, which has the most critical hospitalization crisis in the state. 

  Gov. Cuomo also thanked the Erie County’s Catholic hospital system for voluntarily stopping elective surgery, “just to be responsible,” and to “free up hospital beds.”

    Next the governor wants to increase for COVID testing and make sure that all communities and populations in the state are being tested and treated equally. 

    Gov. Cuomo wants to keep the schools open, but he will continue to limit small gatherings at home, which he said account for 65% of the spread of COVID right now.

(Don Pollard / Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)