New York Reports 144 More Deaths From COVID-19

Industrial firm employees manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE), like face shields, to supply New York's health care workers and hospitals at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City on March 26, 2020. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

Nearly 150 people died overnight from the CCP virus, New York officials said Friday.

The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.

The state’s death toll rose to 519 as overall cases increased to 44,635, by far the most in the nation, prompting some states to crack down on travelers arriving from New York.

The death toll “is going to continue to go up,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference at the Javits Center in the city’s Manhattan borough, noting a number of patients are in hospitals for 20 to 25 days on ventilators.

“The longer you are on a ventilator, the less likely you are going to come off that ventilator,” he said.

A ventilator is seen at the New York City Emergency Management Warehouse, where 400 ventilators arrived and before being shipped out for distribution, due to concerns over the rapid spread of the CCP virus in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on March 24, 2020. Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

Some 6,481 patients are now in state hospitals, the bulk in New York City. Only 496 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized in the state 10 days ago.

The rate of hospitalizations, though, has slowed in recent days, going from a doubling in hospitalizations every two days to every four days, which Cuomo called “good news.”

“It’s still doubling, and that’s still bad news, because it means you’re still moving up towards an apex,” he added.

“The rate of the increase is slowing but the number of cases are still going up.”

The number of patients in intensive care units in the state has risen by 290 overnight to 1,583 and the number of people discharged from hospitals hit 2,045, an increase of over 500.

About four in five people who contract the new illness don’t require hospitalization and get better through rest and supportive care at home.

National Guard troops listen as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks to the press at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York on March 27, 2020. Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images

The majority of patients requiring hospitalization are those who are older or have underlying health conditions. People 75 or older have so far constituted about half of all deaths in New York City.

Other American states have, so far, not been nearly as affected. New Jersey has the second most cases with 6,876, while Washington state has the second most deaths with 151.

Cuomo said the gap between New York and other states in both categories stems from the density in New York City as well as the slew of international visitors and residents.

Officials in the city also encouraged people to attend parades and other events, and go out to to eat, as late as the first week of March, well after public health experts warned of the high transmissability of the virus.

New York has said it needs 30,000 ventilators to care for patients when the virus hits its apex in the state, a figure questioned by President Donald Trump late Thursday. The state approved a method to use a single ventilator to care for two patients this week in a bid to make up for the current shortfall in the machines, which help people breathe.