During his daily COVID-19 briefing on Friday, April 24, Latimer said that there have now been 26,333 positive cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak began in March, an increase of approximately 700 cases overnight.
Active COVID-19 cases continue to decline, Latimer noted, at 8,556, down from 8,955 the day before.
“A week ago, we had more than 10,000 active cases, so we’ve dropped down a bit, which is one of the indicators that we’re flattening the curve,” Latimer said. “We’re still well below the 3,000 bed capacity of Westchester hospitals, which shows that our health infrastructure can absorb a number of ill people.”
The county did not release COVID-19 statistics for each municipality as of 5 p.m. on Friday.
“We treat each individual patient as an important patient because every person in that list is not a statistic,” Latimer said. “I try to put it in graphic form by saying that on March 1, every one of these 891 people was alive and now they’re deceased.
“These are mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, work colleagues, not statistics. This is why we’re making the sacrifices we’re talking about. We’re not doing them for no reason, we’re doing them because 891 people have died.”
According to the New York State Department of Health, there have been 730,656 people tested for COVID-19 statewide, which resulted in nearly 16,000 deaths since the outbreak began.
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