Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said on Wednesday that the majority of recent coronavirus hospitalizations in New York appear to involve patients who were remaining home.
A study analyzing data gleaned from 113 New York hospitals over three days revealed that the majority of patients recently admitted to hospitals for the coronavirus have been remaining at home. The majority — 90 percent in New York City and 84 percent overall — of those hospitalized were reportedly not utilizing public transportation, using their personal vehicle, or walking around, according to the governor.
Cuomo said:
Eighty-four percent were at home. Literally. Were they working? No. They were retired or they were unemployed. Only 17 percent working, so that says they’re not working, they’re not traveling, they’re predominantly down state, predominantly minority, predominantly older, predominantly non-essential employees, and that’s important. We were thinking that maybe we were going to find a higher percentage of essential employees who will get sick because they were going to work — that these may be nurses, doctors, transit workers. That’s not the case, and they were predominantly at home. So now that’s only three days. That’s just about a hundred hospitals, 1,000 people, but it reinforces what we’ve been saying which is much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself.
“If you notice, 18 percent of the people came from nursing homes, less than one percent came from jail or prison, two percent came from the homeless population, two percent from other congregate facilities, but 66 percent of the people were at home,” Cuomo said, calling it “shocking” and “a surprise.”
“This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” the governor stated.
“We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home,” he added.
Nearly three-quarters, or 73 percent, of the recent admissions were individuals over the age of 51.
The governor said the findings reinforce the fact that much of the responsibility rests with individuals, as the government can only do so much.
“Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself. Everything is closed down, government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could. Now it’s up to you,” Cuomo said.
“Are you wearing the mask? Are you doing the hand sanitizer? If you have younger people who are visiting you and may be out there and maybe less diligent with the social distancing, are you staying away from older people?” Cuomo asked.
“It comes down to personal behavior,” he added.
Overall, the state’s hospitalization rate is experiencing a downward trend, although Cuomo described it as a “painfully slow decline.”
“But it’s better than the numbers going the other way,” he added.
The state had 326,659 confirmed cases of the virus and 25,028 related deaths as of Wednesday afternoon.
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