Governor Kathy Hokul of New York did not expect schoolchildren to wear masks when returning to school on Wednesday, but so far has kept the state-wide mask obligations by public transport. Said that.
“We are working hard to encourage people to get back to work and take the subway, but they have to be safe and secure,” she says by train, bus and other public transport. She described her choice to continue her mission at the institution. “So we will continue to monitor it, but in order to lift it, the numbers must be less than they are now and consistently lower.”
Hokul held her first covid briefing in a few months amid a surge in coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths in the state as a result of the rapidly spreading Omicron subvariety known as BA.5. At the same time, she reassured the public that Covid levels are currently manageable and do not need to change courses, and fall pandemic emergency authority in case of serious illness or a surge in hospitalization. Insisted that it needed to be expanded to.
Hochul has recently received some criticism for continuing to declare every month that New York is facing a state of emergency due to a pandemic. Her declaration allows her to issue a power of attorney and use taxes without full legislative oversight. She partially called the briefing, claiming she still needed that authority, and seemed to share information about the reaction of the monkeypox in the state that dominated the first half of the event.
Regarding Covid, she said she wanted the pandemic to end so far, but “it’s becoming clear to me that it’s not gone.” As a result, she said her office needed to stay agile.
“We have a staffing contract that we plan to maintain so that we can revitalize people by notifying them five days in advance,” she said. “As long as we are still in this environment, we will not give up that flexibility.”
Hochul focused on preparing for the potential for a surge in autumn and winter. In the fall, she said, the state is focusing on giving schools millions of rapid tests and allowing children to be tested by the first day of class. She also confirms that the state has a 60-day stockpile of masks and other personal protective equipment. She has published a state hotline that encourages people to get booster shots if they don’t have them yet and are eligible, and can help Covid people get treatment.
She also discussed her administration’s plans to look back and learn from the first few years of the state’s response to Covid-19. She has created an independent contractor to create a broad “pandemic ex-post review” that analyzes all aspects of the response, including the false decision by former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to move stable coronavirus patients from hospital to nursing. Home during the first wave that said he was looking for.
In New York, viral cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have increased over the past month, well below the levels seen in January of the first wave of Omicron. One reason is that most tests are currently done at home and are not recorded. Vaccines and immunity from past infections also help protect people from severe cases, even if they are re-infected.
Neither the government nor most people seem to be in a high alert mode for this wave of the sixth incident, reflecting the growing awareness in New York City, and beyond that, much action. It’s time to learn to live with a pandemic without change. However, some people still want more advanced precautions to protect those who are more vulnerable to particularly serious infections.
As of July 18, there are 2,628 people admitted to Covid-19 in the state, of which about 1,300 are in New York City, according to state data. In the past week, about 20 people died of the virus each day. During the height of the first Omicron surge, more than 12,000 people were hospitalized throughout the state, of which about 6,500 were hospitalized in New York City and about 230 died per day. And during the first wave, nearly 19,000 people were hospitalized throughout the state at peak times, and nearly 1,000 died daily.