New York Will Shutdown if Hospitals Reach 90% Of Capacity

As COVID-19 continues to surge throughout the nation, Governor Andrew Cuomo is warning that another shut down may be imminent if the hospital cases continue to grow.

Governor Andrew Cuomo is really concerned about the surge in COVID-19 cases throughout the state. The state's positivity rate now sits at over 5%, and Governor Cuomo is worried about the surge. He warned that the entire state may need to go into shut down as opposed to hot spot areas only.

Even though the first New Yorkers were vaccinated yesterday, Governor Cuomo knows that New York City has the potential to have their hospitals overburdened if New Yorkers do not buckle down and work harder to control the surge of the virus.

The Governor explained that his new benchmark for a complete shutdown would be if hospitals reached 90% of their capacity. At that point, the area is considered a red zone and all nonessential businesses would have to be closed.

Governor Cuomo said, “The bottom line is we’re going to have to manage the spread in the hospital capacity into the vaccination. I think of it as a foot race between holidays spread in hospital capacity and vaccination critical mass.”

We flattened the curve once before, and I believe that we will do it again. We all want the same things, to have businesses and schools open. Employees want to work and businesses want to be open. To reach that goal, we must once again do the things that we know work. Wash our hands, wear our masks, and practice social distancing.