Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the drop in New York's daily number of Wuhan coronavirus deaths "good news," but cautioned that it was "too early to tell" the significance of the short term decline.
The total number of deaths in New York attributed to the coronavirus increased to 4,159 as of Saturday, accounting for nearly half of all coronavirus deaths reported in the United States. But the good news, the governor said, was the daily number of Wuhan coronavirus deaths has fallen for the first time in the state. On Saturday, 594 coronavirus deaths were reported in New York compared to 630 deaths the previous day.
The number of new hospitalizations decreased dramatically, from 1,095 on Friday to 574 on Saturday, and daily ICU admissions fell from 395 on Friday to 250 on Saturday. The number of daily intubations was also down from 351 to 316 during the same two-day period. Cuomo said the decline could be the "beginning of a shift in the data" or could be just an "interesting blip."
NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo: "Number of deaths is up... but the number of deaths over the past few days has been dropping for the first time." pic.twitter.com/E0g8jKXhyb
— The Hill (@thehill) April 5, 2020
Dr. Deborah Birx said during the White House's Coronavirus Task Force briefing that New York, Louisiana and Detroit are currently on the upside of their mortality curves, with officials expecting these hotspots to reach their peaks in the next six to seven days.
President Trump warned on Saturday that the coming week would be on "one of the toughest weeks" in America's fight against the coronavirus.
"There's going to be a lot of death, unfortunately. There will be a lot of deaths," the president said, before adding the situation could be improved if Americans do their part to stop the spread of the disease.