New data confirms that the most recent group of New York residents who are being hospitalized with the coronavirus have been staying home. According to preliminary data collected from 113 hospitals statewide, two-thirds of new hospital admissions were people over 50 years old living downstate with at least one underlying health condition.
Of the more than 1,000 survey responses, 66 percent of the most recent COVID-19 hospitalizations were people who abided by New York’s stay-at-home order
“If you notice, 18% of the people came from nursing homes, less than 1% came from jail or prison, 2% came from the homeless population, 2% from other congregate facilities, but 66% of the people were at home, which is shocking to us,” Cuomo said at a press conference at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset. “This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home. 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.”
Eighty-four percent of the recent hospitalizations consisted of people who “had remained in one place without traveling by foot or public transportation and personal cars,” Times Union reported (only 55 percent of survey respondents answered the transportation question). And the majority were either retired or unemployed—only 17 percent of those new hospitalizations were employed. Of the majority of new hospitalizations, 96 percent had at least one underlying health condition.
During the press conference on Wednesday, Gov. Cuomo’s confirmed that isolation was the answer to preventing transmission contrary to what the newest state data revealed. He said that while it was “surprising” to him, he equated the findings to “personal behavior.”
“Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself,” Cuomo said. “Government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could, now it’s down to you.”
The governor’s office also identified people of color as the majority of those hospitalized in New York City—25 percent were Black and 20 percent were Hispanic or Latino.
As coronavirus cases continue to decline in New York, so does the state’s hospitalization rate. But the state remains closed until May 15. Then each region in the state will begin a “phased” reopening starting with manufacturing and construction.
“Construction jobs, exterior workers are basically socially distanced by the nature of the work—manufacturing, in a manufacturing setting where you can do social distancing,” Cuomo said. “You want to make sure you have the virus on the retreat, that you’re not still seeing that virus like fire through dry grass. We do have it on the retreat.”
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