Governor Andrew Cuomo doubled-down on strong language when talking about the Finger Lakes region in his daily briefing.
He hinted that consequences could be coming down the road if the trend does not reverse course.
The Finger Lakes region led the state in COVID-19 patients hospitalized. The Governor said there were 816 individuals hospitalized in the region.
“Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes,” Governor Cuomo started. Each time he’s talked about the region in recent weeks he’s done it that way. While he didn’t spend a lot of time talking about what increased hospitalizations means for the region – but called it a ‘serious’ and ‘deadly’ situation.
“The Finger Lakes has been a problem for the past several weeks,” Cuomo continued. “It is not getting better. This is a concern for us. I will be speaking to elected officials and the hospitals. We are considering several options because that is a serious and deadly situation and it’s not getting better.”
The region’s rate of hospitalization has continued increasing over the last several weeks, since surging after Thanksgiving. The expectation at this point is that cases and hospitalization rates will continue to increase after Christmas and New Years, which are now days away.
Speaking to the state-at-large, as well as holiday celebrations – he said shutdowns are difficult. “Celebrate smart and stop the shutdowns … We can’t survive with these economic shutdowns,” Cuomo added. He did note that no hospital in New York State is within 21 days of overwhelming itself at this point. “That could change if the spike goes up dramatically. That’s what we need to watch carefully.”
Editor’s Note: The press conference is still happening. Click here to watch and stay tuned for updates to this story after the Q&A portion of the briefing.
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