New York state ended its worst week regarding deaths from the new coronavirus outbreak, but there are some signs of hope. At the end of Friday, there were 18,654 people hospitalized in the state. This amount represented an increase of 85 cases compared to those registered the previous day.
About half of all deaths in the United States were in the New York metropolitan area, where hospitalizations continue to decline and other indicators suggest that confinement and social estrangement are “flattening the curve” for infections.
The bad news is the daily death toll. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that 783 people died on Friday, the fifth consecutive day that the number exceeded 700 deaths. The total number of deaths from coronavirus in the state is 8,627. Cuomo explained that the daily number of deaths is stabilizing, “but at a horrendous rate.”
City Governor and Mayor Bill de Blasio are debating whether to close schools in the nation’s largest district for the rest of the year, as classes continue online.
The New York mayor said public schools in the school district of 1.1 million students would close for the rest of the academic year to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo indicated that he was in charge of making that decision.
De Blasio said his goal was to reopen schools in September, adding that seniors may not have their graduation ceremony. But Cuomo noted that school closings should be coordinated with the districts surrounding the city.
Meanwhile, St. Patrick’s Cathedral looked empty at Easter. There were no parishioners on the benches this Easter Sunday.
A televised mass officiated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan was scheduled in a broadcast that was expected to appeal to a large audience.
The Archdiocese of New York said fewer than 600 people watched the live broadcast of Sunday mass at the cathedral before the pandemic declared. That amount was more than 100,000 people this Palm Sunday.
With the New York metropolitan area overwhelmed by the number of cases, fear grows that the contagion will spread to the center of the country. Chicago and other cities in the north-central part of the country are preparing for a possible recovery in deaths and are mobilizing to suppress the sources of contagion before they explode.