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There were 1,649 new COVID-19 cases reported in New York, as the statewide total rose to more than 195,000.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at his daily news briefing in Albany that there were 778 newly reported deaths, bringing the total to 10,834 since the outbreak began 44 days ago.
A day after Cuomo declared that “the worst is behind us,” he praised New Yorkers for “changing the curve.”
“What we’ve learned is that our actions determine our destiny. That’s the good news, we changed the curve,” he said. “Every projection had a higher rate of infection, a higher rate of death, projections that would have swamped the entire nation’s hospital system … and that didn’t happen because of what we did. We’re changing the curve every day.
“We have shown that we control the virus, it doesn’t control us.”
Cuomo refuted President Donald Trump's claims he has "absolute authority" over when states will reopen their own economies.
"I don't agree with the president's legal analysis," Cuomo said in an interview on CNN. "The president doesn't have total authority. We have a Constitution. We don't have a king. We have an elected President.
"That's what our founding fathers did when they wrote the Constitution and the Constitution clearly says the powers that are not specifically listed for the federal government are reserve to the states and the balance between federal and state authority was central to the Constitution.
"It's one of the great balances of power and the Constitution has served his nation very well for a long time.
"Again, they didn't want a king. Otherwise, we would have had King George Washington. We didn't. We had President George Washington elected by the people."
At his news briefing, Cuomo said “now is no time for politics and no time to fight," but that Trump's assertion was wrong and he could not let it stand.
“This is going to take all of us working together," Cuomo said. "We have a real challenge ahead.
"Just because those numbers are flattening, it's no time to relax.
"We’re not out of the woods, and if we reopen too early, we could lose all the progress we’ve made in one week If we do it wrong. We have a number of challenges ahead. We have to work to figure out how to do this.”
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