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There are now more than 4,600 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in New York, setting off alarm bells in Cuomo’s head as his Department of Health issued a new order to hospitals across the state to increase their capacity by 25 percent as a precaution.
By increasing hospital bed capacity, Cuomo estimated that the state could reach upwards of 58,000 COVID-19-specific beds.
“We have 215 hospitals in this state, so it wasn’t a matter of the hospital system getting overwhelmed in the spring, it was individual hospitals that got overwhelmed because they didn’t balance their patients,” Cuomo said during a COVID-19 briefing on Monday, Dec. 7. “Once we figured it out in the spring, it went fine enough and now we have more experience in dealing with it.”
If hospital capacity becomes “critical,” which has been defined as 90 percent of capacity, or is in danger of becoming critical, Cuomo said he would be forced to shut down that region in an attempt to reset the COVID-19 numbers.
The number of COVID-19 patients being treated in New York hospitals peaked at approximately 19,000 in the spring when the state was “sucker-punched” by the virus coming from Europe.
“If your seven-day rolling average shows that within three weeks you will hit crucial hospital capacity, we will close you down,” he said. “If our hospital capacity becomes critical, we're going to close down that region."
During his briefing, Cuomo also called on retired nurses and doctors to return to service, noting that New York State will automatically renew registrations without cost.
The governor estimated that upwards of 20,000 retired nurses and doctors could potentially be added to the roster of frontline workers combating the virus.
“We’re well aware of staff resources, and these are staffs that are coming in stressed” he said. “Talk about a long year, they’ve had the longest year out of anyone. So we’re going to ask retired doctors and nurses to sign back up, and we’ll automatically renew registrations without cost.”
Cuomo said that he expects cases to continue surging through at least the middle of January, and that hospitals are in danger of being overwhelmed until a vaccine is approved and disseminated to the general population.
“No state is better than we are at managing our hospital system, but you cannot overwhelm them,” he stated. “You can’t overwhelm the hospital system - that means people are dying on gurneys in hallways, and the life you could have saved you can’t save because you don’t have the staff, and people die unnecessarily.
“The shut down could be as early as Monday if the hospitalization rate doesn’t stabilize,” Cuomo continued. “If you are at a rate that is going to overwhelm your hospitals, you must shut down … 'Oh we don’t want to do that again,' then change your behavior, but if you don’t want to change your behavior. That is the reality of the situation.”
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