Cuomo: following the science pays off

MANHASSET, N.Y. (WWNY) - Gov. Andrew Cuomo says following science instead of emotion and politics is why New York’s coronavirus crisis is on a decline.

“Our number of cases is going down,” he said at his coronavirus briefing on Long Island on Wednesday. “We’ve turned a corner and we’re on the decline.”

Citing a chart published in the New York Times, the governor said if New York is factored out of the national numbers, “the numbers for the rest of the nation are going up.”

“To me,” he said, “that vindicates what we’re doing here in New York, which says follow the science, follow the data.”

It’s important, he said to put emotion and politics aside when deciding when to reopen the economy.

“What we’re doing here shows results,” he said. “The hospitalization rate is down, the number of deaths is down, the number of new cases is down.”

The number of deaths on Tuesday at 232 was up slightly from Monday’s 230, which was up slightly from Sunday’s 226.

“One of the most stubborn situations and the most distressing are the number of deaths,” he said.

And, he said, the total number of deaths is likely to be much higher once everything is counted.

The governor said researchers in Chicago are studying the possibility that the coronavirus was in the United States as early as November or December, which would mean some deaths in that timeframe might end up attributed to COVID-19.

There is some good news, he said. “You see that hospitalization rate go down and you see the number of new cases going down.”

On Tuesday, the number of new cases was around 600, which the governor said is still too high.

After three days of collecting demographic data on new cases, the governor said he was surprised to learn that 66 percent of them weren’t at work or some other activity, but were staying home.

Most of them were 51 or older and the bulk of them were retired or unemployed.

“It comes down to personal behavior,” Cuomo said, including wearing masks, washing hands, using sanitizer, and social distancing.

He said the government has done what it can, “now it’s up to you.”

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