Gov. Cuomo to Shutdown any State Regions in Which Hospitals Near 90% Capacity

By Yehudit Garmaise

      “If our hospital capacity becomes critical, we are going to close down that region,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this morning at a press conference. “Period. We call it, ‘Close down a red zone.’”

  How does the state judge when hospitals reach their critical capacity?

 Gov. Cuomo said, “Our formula is that if a hospital’s seven-day average continues for three weeks so that it reaches 90% capacity…we close you down that area.”

   Although Gov. Cuomo has been widely criticized for his shutdowns, he insisted that the state must take precautions to “slow the rate the spread, and [therefore], slow the rate of hospitalizations.”

   “If you overwhelm the hospital capacities, you will have to go back to shut downs,” Gov. Cuomo said. “There are no options, [and shut-downs] are not discretionary.”

    The Governor said that there are no alternatives to shutdowns because “you can’t overwhelm the hospital systems.”

    “Overwhelming the hospital systems means that people die on gurneys in hospital hallways,” Gov. Cuomo said. “And the life you could have saved, you can’t save because you don’t have the staff, the doctors, and the nurses.  And people die unnecessarily. Those are the absolutes.”

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