New York Hits Another Record High in Deaths

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's daily briefing Thursday had a familiar mix of awful news tinged with bigger-picture hope on the coronavirus. The awful part: 799 more people died between Wednesday and Thursday, another record high. "It’s so shocking, breathtaking," said Cuomo, per the Daily News. "I don’t even have words for it." The hopeful news: The number of people hospitalized because of the virus continues to flatten, rising by 200 in the last 24 hours to 18,279. "If the trend continues, the number of people in hospitals will soon start to decline, a sign that the virus has passed its apex," explains the New York Times.

The state's death toll for confirmed COVID-19 cases is now above 7,000, and Cuomo compared it with the devastation from September 2001. It's "a silent explosion that ripples through society with the same randomness, the same evil that we saw on 9/11," he said. Cuomo also emphasized that social distancing must continue, or the flattening of hospitalization rates might reverse itself. People might think, "'Well, now I can relax,' No, you can’t relax," said Cuomo, per the AP. "The flattening of the curve last night happened because of what we did yesterday and the day before and the day before that.” (The official state figures don't count New Yorkers dying at home.)