Cuomo Says Police to Enforce Social Distancing; Deaths Rise

(Bloomberg) --

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he's ordered police to enforce social distancing even as the state's severe Covid-19 outbreak recedes. He spoke on a day when new reported virus deaths rose slightly to 299.

“I've said to law enforcement all across the state: Enforce the mask executive order,” Cuomo told reporters on Saturday when asked about a protest the day before on Long Island, where mask-less protesters demanded the state re-open. The police didn't intervene at the time. “It's reckless, it's irresponsible and it's not about your life, it's about other people's lives,” he said.

Cuomo made it clear that New York -- the center of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, with almost 19,000 dead -- wouldn't immediately follow other states in reopening or easing restrictions on business, schools or social life.

The Democrat has said he'll not begin reopening until at least May 15, and even then will move in phases starting in areas less hard-hit by the virus.

“I disagree with people who say ‘open the economy' even though you know there's a public health risk,” Cuomo said. “I'm not going to put dollars signs over human lives.”

Cuomo spoke from a subway maintenance facility in Queens, rather than from his usual briefing room in Albany, the state capital, to underscore the lengths to which New York is working to protect essential workers and to prevent a resurgence of the outbreak.

NYC to Stop Subways Early Every Morning for Virus Cleaning

Two days ago, he announced that the New York City subway would be closed between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. so that all cars could be disinfected -- an undertaking he called “unprecedented.”

“It is going to be hard, but it is the right thing to do and it has never been done before,” Cuomo said.

Mass transit ridership in New York is down about 90%, and the roughly 10,000 people now taking the subway in those hours will be redirected to special buses.

The governor said homeless people who sleep on the subways will need to exit the trains during cleaning.

“You do not help the homeless by letting them stay on a subway car and sleep on a subway car in the middle of a global pandemic when they could expose themselves or others to a virus,” he said, adding that that the subway shutdown may help steer more homeless to needed help.

New York City has just over 60,000 homeless people, according to the city's Department of Social Services. Of those, over 803 have tested positive for Covid-19 and 63 have died, the agency said.

ICU Admissions Down

Although Cuomo repeated his firm line on reopening and social distancing, he noted trends that continue to show that the outbreak in New York has receded significantly.

New and ongoing hospitalizations continued to drop, as did admissions to intensive care. Cuomo also noted a decline in the percentage of people testing positive for antibodies -- a sign that a person had the coronavirus -- to 12.3%, down from 13.9% on March 22 and 14.9 on March 27.

But deaths reported on Saturday rose slightly, to 299 from 289 the day before, after falling for six days.

“That number has remained obnoxiously and terrifyingly high, and it is still not dropping at the rate we would like to see it drop,” he said. “So that is bad news.”

It is, however, a significant drop from the peak of the outbreak. On April 9, 799 people in New York were reported to have died.

The state reported on Saturday 4,663 new coronavirus cases, for a total of 312,977 -- about 9% of total reported cases around the world.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.