Twenty-eight more deaths were reported overnight, Westchester County Executive George Latimer said on Thursday, April 16. There have now 10,241 active COVID-19 cases in the county, with 1,125 people hospitalized.
Latimer said that approximately 37 percent of the fatalities were reported out of nursing homes, with the bulk of the deaths from people over the age of 70.
“The fact that we lost 28 individuals last night is a tragedy no matter how you slice it,” Latimer said during his daily COVID-19 news briefing. “But it is also true that that is the smallest number of deaths that we’ve had in one evening in that same two-week period of time.”
Latimer said that the most COVID-19 cases are still in the most densely populated Westchester municipalities, with more than 1,000 cases in Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, and Greenburgh; while there were at least 500 in White Plains, Mount Pleasant, Port Chester, and Ossining.
To help combat the spread of COVID-19 in Westchester, new walk-through testing centers are being set up in Mount Vernon and Yonkers that are scheduled to be open on Friday, April 17.
Though the COVID-19 hospitalization rate continues to drop as the state practices social distancing and "stay at home orders," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that New York will still be shut down for another month as a precaution, with non-essential businesses and buildings still closed.
As of Thursday, April 16, there have been 214,832 confirmed COVID-19 cases in New York State, including 118,302 in New York City. Since the outbreak began, 12,192 New Yorkers have died from the virus.
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