Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Thursday promised to bring in more funeral directors to New York after the state set a single-day record of 799 people killed by the coronavirus on Wednesday.
“It’s gotten to the point, frankly, that we’re going to bring in additional funeral directors to deal with the number of people who have passed,” Cuomo said after announcing the new numbers.
The number of deaths has steadily increased since Monday despite lower numbers over the weekend.
On Monday, 731 lives were lost, and Tuesday recorded 779 deaths.
New York has suffered a loss of 7,067 so far in the coronavirus pandemic.
Cuomo also shared some good news, citing lower numbers of total hospitalizations, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and intubations.
“All of this data suggests that we are flattening the curve so far and the numbers are coming down so far,” he said.
He again noted that the number of deaths was the last number to go down.
Cuomo shared three different models that projected higher numbers of hospitalizations but praised New Yorkers for helping the state keep the numbers below projections.
“Our efforts are working, they’re working better than anyone projected they would work because people are complying with them,” Cuomo said.
He urged New Yorkers to keep following the social distancing guidelines and warned them not to underestimate the coronavirus.
“We are saving lives with what we are doing today,” he said.