New York State ends its worst week for deaths from the novel coronavirus outbreak yet, but there are some signs of hope. As of the end of Friday, there were 18,654 people hospitalized with the virus in the state. That amount was an increase of just 85 from the previous day.
About half of the deaths in the United States have been registered in the New York metropolitan area, where hospitalizations continue to decline and other indicators suggest that confinement and social distancing are “flattening the curve” for infections.
The bad news has been that large numbers of people die every day. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that 783 people died on Friday, the fifth day in a row that the death toll surpassed 700. The number of deaths from coronavirus in the state is 8,627. Cuomo explained that the daily death toll is stabilizing, “but at a horrendous rate.”
New York City Governor and Mayor Bill de Blasio could face more questions about whether schools in the nation’s largest district would close for the rest of the year, while classes remain online.
The New York mayor said public schools in the city’s 1.1 million student school district would close for the remainder of the academic year to slow 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. The pandemic meant that there were no parishioners in the pews at St. Patrick’s Cathedral this Easter Sunday.
A televised mass officiated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan was scheduled in a broadcast that is expected to attract a large audience.
The Archdiocese of New York said fewer than 600 people were watching the live broadcast of Sunday’s Mass at the cathedral before the pandemic. That number was more than 100,000 people on Palm Sunday.
With the New York metropolitan area overwhelmed by the number of cases, fears are growing that the contagion will spread to the center of the country. Chicago and other cities in the north-central part of the country were preparing for a possible spike in deaths and were mobilizing to quell the sources of contagion before they exploded.
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