Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo Monday extended the shutdown of schools and nonessential businesses until April 29. Citing a possible flattening in the number of people infected by the coronavirus, he nonetheless warned people to follow social distancing rules to help keep the disease at bay.
Suffolk cases continued to rise as testing increases, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said. There are 14,487 cases as of 7 p.m. Monday, with 2,003 in Huntington.
Bellone will be on CNN’s New Day program at 7:15 Tuesday morning.
Cuomo also said that Covid-19 cases could be treated aboard the USNS Comfort, which was originally sent to New York Harbor to help non-Covid-19 patients.
“As it turns out, we don’t have many non-COVID symptoms because when you close everything down, the silver lining was traffic accidents, crime went down. So, we really need help with the COVID patients. The president spoke to the Department of Defense and granted that request to use the Navy Ship Comfort for COVID patients. So, that’s an additional 1,000 beds with federal personnel managing that ship. So, that’s a welcome relief and the president granted the request. … Between the 2,500 at the Javits Center and the 1,000 beds of the Comfort, that should be a major, major relief system for already overtaxed hospital system.”
School districts are expecting to hear Tuesday about graduation requirements and other decisions related to state requirements as educators scramble to sort out multiple programs thrown into confusion by the truncated school year.
WORLDWIDE
Confirmed Cases: 1,337,749
Deaths: 74,169
UNITED STATES
Confirmed Cases: 362,759
Deaths: 10,781
NEW YORK
Confirmed Cases: 131,569
Deaths: 4,758
SUFFOLK
Confirmed Cases: 14,487
1,463 Hospitalized
199 Deaths