Coronavirus: More than 500 die in New York overnight with 100,000 reported cases
New York state has the biggest single-day increase of death toll with 592 people dying from the coronavirus yesterday, the governor said.
Governor Andrew Cuomo started his daily press briefing on Friday with the grim news about the death toll increasing in the state.
The state's death toll rose to 2,935 people dying from the novel virus after posting its largest single-day increase.
"Highest single increase in the number of deaths since we started," Mr Cuomo said.
Coronavirus cases topped 100,000 in the state with 102,863 people testing positive, 57,159 of whom reside in New York City.
Officials are closely monitoring the rise in Covid-19 cases across the state to determine the areas of need. Long Island is a new area of concern given the increase of infections, the governor added.
More than 14,000 people are currently hospitalised from the virus.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of hospitalisations has been a concern for how it will overwhelm the hospital system. Medical supply shortages that include personal protective equipment (PPE), gowns, and ventilators has also been a concern as more Covid-19 patients require medical care.
New York state has scrambled to acquire ventilators to treat all the anticipated patients, as the virus tends to attack the upper respiratory system.
“It is unbelievable to me that in New York state, in the US of A, that we can’t get these materials,” Mr Cuomo said.
In order to address the shortage of medical supplies in parts of New York, the governor said he would be signing an executive order allowing the state to redistribute ventilators and PPE from institutions that are not currently using them.
"Those institutions will either get their ventilator back or they will be reimbursed and paid for their ventilator so they can buy a new ventilator," he said. "I can't do anything more than that. But I'm not going to be in a position where people are dying and we have several hundred ventilators in our own state somewhere else."
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