In a briefing on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo said there were indications that social distancing measures put in place in New York appeared to be helping – but that more needed to be done. “The evidence suggests that the density control measures may be working,” he said.
On Sunday, for example, the state’s projections showed hospitalizations doubling every two days. By Tuesday, the estimates showed hospitalizations doubling every 4.7 days, he said – adding the caveat that such a projection was “almost too good to be true.”
He cited encouraging news from Westchester County , where the rate of infection has slowed. “We have dramatically slowed what was an exponential rate of increase,” Mr. Cuomo said. “That was the hottest cluster in the United States of America. We closed the schools, we closed gatherings, we brought in testing, and we have dramatically slowed the increase. ”
New York State, which has tested more people than any other state, now has , 2019 confirmed cases, an increase of more than 5, since Tuesday morning. New York City has , confirmed cases.
But Mr. Cuomo said that more needed to be done, particularly to make it easier to maintain social distancing in New York City, the most densely populated major city in the United States.
Mr. Cuomo said that the city would begin a limited pilot program to begin closing some streets to automobile traffic to give pedestrians more space outside, and to institute new rules to limit density in the city’s playgrounds.
“No basketball,” he said.
But even as the crisis deepened in New York, which does not have enough hospital beds or equipment to handle the cases it expects,
warnings from public health experts that the worst effects of the outbreak were still to come and that lifting the restrictions now in place would result in unnecessary deaths.
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