New York Post, Tuesday, December 1, 2020nypost.comoutbreak
Do as I say, not as I Do: Gov. Cuomo
and top aides are maskless Monday during a
press briefing at which he boasted that his
mask-wearing push has cut COVID-19 cases.NY hosps
NeariNg
Crisis 2.
Retired help eyed again
By Bernadette Hogan
and Kate SHeeHyNew York is dangerously close to
overwhelming its hospital system
with new COVID-19 cases — and is
preparing to recruit retired doc-
tors and nurses to the front lines
again, Gov. Cuomo said Monday.
“It’s a new phase in the war
against COVID,” Cuomo added —
noting that daily coronavirus hos-
pitalizations statewide are nearly
quadruple the rates from June.
Every hospital in the state must
begin compiling a list of retired
doctors and nurses that they can
draw from because there are al-
ready staffing issues in some areas,
Cuomo said.
“I am very worried about staff
shortages,” he said. “I’m more con-
cerned about the staff shortage than
I am the [number of hospital] beds.
“We can build beds. We can’t
create more staff,” he said. “And the
staff is starting tired.”
About 30,000 health-care work-
ers flooded New York at the height
of its crisis in the spring, but now
“they’re all busy,’’ Cuomo said, not-
ing that coronavirus surges are oc-
curring all across the country.
Larger hospital systems such as
New York City’s H+H and North-
well Health also must begin balan-
cing their patient loads — meaning
they have to spread people among
their sites so one facility isn’t over-
whelmed while another has openbeds, the governor said.
In the thick of the horror on
March 23, the state’s daily corona-
virus hospitalization rate hit 3,
— the same as Sunday, said Gareth
Rhodes, special counsel to the
state Department of Financial Ser-
vices, at the press conference.
Cuomo said of the required pa-
tient-load balancing, “This is a
mandate from the state Depart-
ment of Health: You must distrib-
ute patients across your system.”
Hospitals that don’t follow the
edict could face malpractice char-
ges from the state.
“We lived this nightmare, we
learned from this nightmare, and
we’re going to correct for the les-
sons we learned during this night-
mare,” Cuomo said.
Plans are being drawn up for re-
gional “field hospitals” again, too,
said Cuomo at the briefing —
where he played Christmas music
at times and showed photos of Dr.
Seuss’ The Grinch.
Hospitals must come up with
plans to increase their bed capac-
ity by 50 percent, he said.
The state’s positive-test rate —
which the governor has called a
key indicator of worrisome surges
— hit 4.57 percent Sunday, the
highest since around mid-May.
The state has put a limit of 10 on
even private gatherings indoors and
out, although the governor said no
one was ticketed over the Thanks-
giving weekend if they had more.Cuomo said that while hospitali-
zations in New York in the past
didn’t all occur everywhere at the
same time, so resources could be
moved around as needed, “that is
not the case this time.”
“It is statewide,” he said of the
current hospitalization crisis. “So
we will have a limited ability to
bring resources from upstate to
downstate as we did in the spring... because literally every region is
dealing with a hospital issue now.”
Cuomo said local regions’ coro-
navirus hospitalization rates would
now be figured in to the formula
the state uses to decide whether to
take lockdown measures.
New York City has seen its coro-
navirus hospitalization rate remain
steady, with a 4.69 percent positive
test rate Sunday — although Mayor
de Blasio noted that testing had been
down, likely because of the holiday.
De Blasio took part in the gover-
nor’s presser through Skype —
where he claimed that recent test-
ing overall had been strong. It was
the mayor’s first appearance with
Cuomo, even virtually, since June.
The governor warned that he be-
lieves the state hasn’t even begun
to see the effects of Thanksgiving
gatherings. Those should occur in
the next week or so, he said — and
the numbers will likely “be big.’’
It will be more than a month be-
fore the total fallout from the holi-
day season, including Christmas, is
known, the governor added.
who were more than six feet away
... These transmissions occurred
within enclosed spaces that had
inadequate ventilation.”
Dr. Emily Landon, the Univer-
sity of Chicago’s executive medi-
cal director for Infection Preven-
tion and Control, has said studies
show ventilation indoors is usu-
ally not enough to control the
spread of the coronavirus with-
out mask-wearing.
“So it seems that limiting in-
door gatherings where people
don’t wear masks is a key part to
preventing COVID transmis-
sion,’’ she said in a video on ABC.
Vivian Zayak, whose mother
died in a Long Island nursing
home April 1, seethed to The Post
that the press conference was an
example of blatant “hypocrisy”
by Cuomo.
“This is disgusting and infuriat-
ing,’’ she said. “His inner circle
doesn’t wear masks while he
cracks down on everyone else to
wear masks. It’s a continued slap
in the face to nursing-home fami-
lies and residents of New York
who have to abide by these rules
and restrictions.’’
The governor’s office did not
respond to questions from The
Post about Monday’s conference.
[email protected]Mayor de Blasio on Monday
urged people not to visit the Rock-
efeller Center Christmas Tree.
“This is something that in nor-
mal years we all go to see in per-
son. This year, I’m gonna tell you
to watch a different way,” the
mayor said, referring to the tree’s
famous annual lighting in Mid-
town Manhattan and visiting it
during the holiday season.
“On Dec. 2, live and on television
— this coming Wednesday —
you’re going to see the ceremony,
the tree lighting, and that’s the best
way to see it,” de Blasio said, as New
York’s COVID-19 positive-test rate
just hit a level not seen since May.
“I know some people are still go-
ing to want to go in person, and I’m
going to tell you up front, please, if
you can make the decision to watch
it on TV, that’s so much better.”
The mayor added that even after
the lighting, “if you choose to go in
person, there’s going to be a lot of
specific rules in place to make it
much safer than would normally
be the case in a typical year.”
“There will be a reservation sys-
tem, groups of no more than four
at a time will be able to go up and
view the tree. It’s a timed, socially
distanced approach,” he said.
While people won’t be allowed
to watch the tree-lighting in per-
son when the switch is flipped on
at 8 p.m. Wednesday, fans can start
showing up at the site Thursday, as
long as they have tickets.
The tree will be fully lit and open
for public viewing from 6 a.m. to
midnight daily.
Nolan Hicks and Kate Sheehy