New York Cases Top 500,000; New Jersey Hospitalizations Break 1,000

(Bloomberg) -- New York coronavirus cases topped 500,000, while hospitalizations in neighboring New Jersey exceeded 1,000 for the first time since July.

The two states, the early focus of the U.S. outbreak, are seeing a resurgence in recent weeks. New York reported a 3.8% positive testing rate in hot spots, and 1.3% excluding them. Hospitalizations there have exceeded 1,000 for several days in a row.

In New Jersey, 80 Covid patients are on ventilators, and 194 are in intensive care. The state has 1,010 hospitalized, up from fewer than 500 at the beginning of the month.

New York is continuing to focus on “microclusters,” including Brooklyn, Queens, and Rockland and Orange Counties, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday on a conference call with reporters. The state also is monitoring increases in cases in counties that border Pennsylvania. Cuomo said it feels like “playing whack-a-mole.”

“You get a microcluster that flares up, we attack it, more restrictions, it drops, another microcluster pops up,” he said. “What we’re seeing obviously nationwide is a very threatening rate of increase. And so far, knock wood, New York has defied that rate of increase.”

Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, on Tuesday enacted an 8 p.m. closing time for all but essential businesses, as cases there totaled more than Essex County’s 21 other municipalities combined. In Hoboken, a mile-square city across the Hudson River from Manhattan, bars and restaurants will have to close at midnight beginning Thursday, hours earlier than usual.

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