NEW YORK _ Gov. Cuomo called nursing homes the biggest concern for New York authorities battling the coronavirus pandemic on Saturday even as a lower overall total of 540 people died in the past day.
The relatively lower death toll represents a dip of more than 25% from just a few days ago. But the governor said the still-raging epidemic claimed 36 elderly victims in nursing homes _ and still poses a dire threat.
"Nursing homes are the single biggest fear in all of this," he said. "Vulnerable people in one place, it is the feeding frenzy for this virus."
"Nursing homes are the No. 1 long term consequence of this disease," he added.
Cuomo showed graphs that show the state has indisputably passed the peak of the crisis as measured by those in hospitals or being placed on ventilators.
But nearly 2,000 new coronavirus patients are still being hospitalized from coronavirus every day.
"Except for the context that we've been in, this would be devastating news," Cuomo said. "We're not at the plateau anymore, but we're still not in a good position."
Cuomo offered an extended explanation of the difficulties of using testing as a tool to help New York or other states start to reopen. He said even New York, which leads the nation in testing, would need to dramatically increase it before it would be effective.
"The challenge is now bringing this up to scale. Okay. We did 500,000 tests in a month. That's great news _ bad news is it's only a fraction of what you need," he said.
A day after Cuomo ripped into President Donald Trump's coronavirus response, the governor insisted that he is laser-focused on managing the pandemic not gaining a partisan edge.
"Look, if you have partisan division, splitting this nation now, it's going to make it worse," Cuomo said.
He refused to weigh in on Trump's backing of right-wing demonstrations against the social-distancing regulations in states with Democratic governors.
"There's no perfect way to do this," Cuomo said.
