Intensive care unit admissions in New York state dropped overnight even as the state reported over 7,600 new confirmed CCP virus cases and 219 new deaths.
New York City recorded an increase of 4,368 overnight, bringing the total to 29,766, officials announced at a press conference on Saturday.
The bulk of the state’s 52,318 cases are in the city.
Of the 7,328 patients currently in hospitals, 1,755 are in intensive care units (ICU), Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters in Albany. Only 172 patients were admitted to ICUs overnight, a significant drop from the 374 admitted the day prior.
“This is good news. I wouldn’t put tremendous stock in it, but it’s good news,” Cuomo said. “The overall line is still up. The 374 was very troubling because that was a gigantic leap. The 172 may be a correction from the 374.”
One hundred ninety-two were admitted on March 25 and 215 were admitted on March 24. The admissions were below 100 earlier this month.
The number of those admitted to hospitals also dropped, from above 1,100 in each of the previous two days to 847.
And 681 patients were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total of those discharged to 2,726.
“People go into the hospital, people get treated, people leave. Remember, most people never go into the hospital. They self-resolve,” Cuomo said.
The state reported its single largest 24-hour increase in deaths, a figure that jumped from 519 to 728.
No other state has more than 177 deaths.
New York has tested over 155,000 people, more than any other state in the country, including 17,412 new tests completed in the past day.
Officials have repeatedly pushed back the projected “apex” of the CCP virus in the state, which as of Saturday was estimated to be 21 days away. The state projects a need for 140,000 hospital beds and 30,000 ventilators, which they’ve been scrambling to meet.
Hospital Beds
The quest to quickly boost the number of hospital beds in the city is being accomplished through a variety of measures.A 1,000-bed emergency hospital at the Javits Center on the West Side of Manhattan is slated to open on Monday, Cuomo said, calling the transformation completed by the Army Corps of Engineers “extraordinary.”
The USNS Comfort was leaving Norfolk, Virginia on Saturday and is also scheduled to arrive on Monday. The U.S. Navy ship has 1,000 beds, operating rooms, a laboratory, and a pharmacy, along with 1,200 medical workers.
“We'll use this to backfill and take pressure off our hospitals,” Cuomo said, referring to how no COVID-19 patients will be treated on the ship.
The crew will begin treating patients on Tuesday, President Donald Trump told those assembled in Norfolk around the same time.
Trump approved four new sites for temporary medical facilities, including at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens and at the City University of New York’s Staten Island campus. Each facility has approximately 1,000 beds.
Officials are trying to keep COVID-19 patients separate from other patients requiring hospital care in a bid to slow the spread of the new disease.
Treatment for the Virus
While no vaccines or proven treatments for the CCP virus exist, New York is testing some treatments that doctors are already prescribing.Eleven hundred tests of hydroxychloroquine and Zithromax are being administered to patients, a prescription that Trump has been optimistic about, Cuomo noted.
Results are expected back soon.
In another update, the New York State Department of Health just received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to test people for antibodies. The test will show if people infected by the virus got better and have antibodies indicating immunity to the virus, Cuomo told reporters.
Officials also announced pushing back the New York state presidential primary from April 28 to June 23, when the congressional and legislative primary elections are already scheduled.
