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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced during his daily COVID-19 briefing on Thursday, May 21 that Rockland could resume outpatient medical procedures, marking the last county in the Hudson Valley to be permitted to do so after they were shut down due to the COVID-19 crisis.
"When this pandemic first broke out our hospital systems were overwhelmed and we stopped elective surgeries to increase our hospital capacity for COVID patients," Cuomo said earlier this month. "We are now at a point where we can restart elective surgeries in counties without a significant risk of a surge of COVID-19 in the near term."
New York City and Erie County are the last two counties to remain ineligible for elective surgeries and ambulatory services.
“Rockland has the hospital bed capacity now, which was part of the mad scramble (when the pandemic broke out), which forced us to stop elective surgeries to focus on that,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo cautioned that as the state steadily continues to reopen, it could see an increase in COVID-19 cases, and that needs to be monitored by local governments and health officials.
“When we start to reopen more regions, we’re going to see more activity, and that only leads to increased cases if precautions are not taken,” he said. “We can have more activity, and if people take the right precautions, we don’t have to necessarily see a rise in the number of cases if people take the right precautions.
“None of this is preordained,” Cuomo added. “As you increased activity, what you will happen is a function of what we do. That’s not just rhetorical.”
In Rockland, there were 46 new positive COVID-19 cases confirmed overnight, according to the state Department of Health, bringing the total to 12,877 since the outbreak hit the Hudson Valley in mid-March. There have been 485 COVID-19-related deaths.
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