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During his daily COVID-19 briefing on Monday, April 27, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that 14.9 percent of the state tested positive for the antibody, up from 13.9 percent five days ago when the health department tested 3,000 people.
Of those sampled, 16.9 percent testing positive were men, compared to 13.1 percent of women. New York City had the majority of positive tests for the antibody at 24.7 percent, followed by Westchester/Rockland (15.1 percent), and Long Island (14.4 percent). Only 3.2 percent tested positive in the rest of the state.
For the testing results, see the first five images above.
Scaling those results, it would mean that it's possible as many as two million people in New York City have had the virus.
"That would significantly lower the mortality rate," Cuomo said.
Cuomo said that due to the discrepancy in the numbers across the state, some regions may have the option to reopen when his “NY Pause” order comes to an end on May 15.
“So see the different numbers in the different places, so there’s going to have to be a different strategy going forward,” he said. “When the pause regulations expire statewide, I will extend them in many parts of the state, but in some parts of the state, you could make the case that we should unpause on May 15, but you just have to be smart about it.
“There’s no light switch that you’re going to flick when everyone goes back to doing what they’ve been doing. We have to take that into consideration moving forward, because if you’re not smart, you’ll see the infection rate go right back to where we were 58 days ago and nobody wants that.”
Cuomo said that before any region or area is permitted to reopen, per CDC guidelines, they much show a decline in COVID-19 cases for at least 14 days. He also warned that healthcare systems may get overwhelmed in September, when flu season ramps back up.
“The healthcare capacity in any region has to be taken into account, and what happens when flu season kicks in in September, when you could be dealing with COVID, and flu cases and have to test for both and have the capacity for both,” he added.
There were 337 new COVID-19 deaths reported overnight, bringing the total to 16,599 since the outbreak began. There have been more than 282,000 confirmed cases statewide, with approximately 1,000 new patients submitted to New York hospitals in the past 24 hours.
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