(Reuters) – States that are reopening their economies despite rising infection rates for the novel coronavirus are making a mistake, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday, urging that such decisions be based on facts and data rather than politics.
While data showed New York had “turned a corner” in the fight against the coronavirus, new cases were increasing in the rest of the country, even as a majority of states have relaxed restrictions on business and daily life, Cuomo said.
“You have states that are opening where you are still on the incline,” Cuomo said. “I think that’s a mistake.”
Hospitalizations in New York for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, fell by 421 to below 9,179 on Tuesday, the lowest level in more than five weeks, he said. Intubations also fell.
“Yes, our line is going down, our number of cases is going down,” Cuomo said. “You take New York out of the national numbers, the numbers for the rest of the nation are going up.”
But Cuomo said an additional 232 New Yorkers died due to COVID-19, around the same level of fatalities as the past two days but roughly half the level two weeks earlier.
(reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Maria Caspani in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
