N.Y. Drops Below One New Infection Per Victim, Cuomo Says

(Bloomberg) -- New York State’s lockdown has reduced the rate of spread for the coronavirus to under one new infection for every existing one, an important milestone that could mean the outbreak is shrinking, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

But even as Cuomo credited New Yorkers for altering their behavior, he implored them to continue keeping their distance from one another to prevent a resurgence, after warning previously that there would be multiple waves of outbreak. He also announced that he was extending the state’s lockdown under the Pause Act at least another month, to at least May 15.

“What determines the rate of infection? You do and I do,” Cuomo said Thursday at his daily virus briefing. “That rate came down because people changed their behavior. That’s what happened.”

The governor reported 606 new deaths in 24 hours, down from 752 the previous day. That raised the state’s death toll to 12,192.

But other data suggest the state is slowly turning a corner. The number of hospitalized patients fell below 18,000 for the first time in 10 days, declining for the fourth consecutive day. Intensive-care admissions and intubations, in which patients are placed on ventilators to help them breathe, also declined. The number of new hospitalizations ticked down.

And in a continued sign that the state believes the worst of the crisis is over, it sent 100 of the ventilators it had amassed to New Jersey, after sending 150 to other states Wednesday.

Separately, the state reported 8,505 new infections from Wednesday, a high number to be sure but more in line with recent trends after a spike above 11,000 the day before.

Infections remain stubbornly high, even as the hospital system has managed to get the case load under control. But Cuomo said the infection rate, which measures the number of new patients infected by existing ones, was showing signs of stabilizing and even moving toward a decline.

Getting below the threshold of every infected person infecting one other person is an important milestone. Above a rate of one-to-one means an outbreak is growing, while below it means it’s contracting.

Still, arriving at such data requires extensive testing, tracing and modeling of the virus, which New York and other states have said they lack the money and staffing to do -- raising questions about how precise Cuomo’s analysis is.

While talk has turned to New Yorkers going back to work and resuming a more normal way of life, Cuomo’s extension of the Pause Act until at least May 15 makes clear that is still some way off, giving more time for infections to decline and for other positive trends to take root.

Cuomo left open the possibility that the lockdown could be extended further, saying he would make that assessment when the time came.

“The rate of infection is everything,” Cuomo said, noting that the trajectory of infections has been far lower than what expert modeling had initially predicted. “We’ve controlled the beast, we’ve brought the rate of spread down.”

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