New York sees its deadliest 24 hours yet, as coronavirus cases surpass 12,000 in Nassau: governor

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Governor Cuomo has warned in recent weeks that New York’s apex of COVID-19 cases was coming within seven to 21 days. Already, though, the state has surpassed 100,000 cases as of Friday, he said, and Thursday into Friday was the deadliest 24-hour period during the coronavirus crisis so far, with 562 new deaths statewide.

“We had more deaths,” Cuomo said, “we had more people going into the hospitals than any other night.”

In all, 2,935 New Yorkers have died of the disease.

In Nassau County, more than 12,000 people had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Friday.

The governor identified Nassau and Suffolk counties as emerging areas of concern.

He also noted that a number of Nassau County hospitals have been identified as hot spots because of the high volume of COVID-19 patients they are seeing, including St. Francis Hospital, North Shore University Hospital, NYU Winthrop Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Good Samaritan Hospital.

The governor signed an executive order Friday to redeploy ventilators from upstate hospitals that are not now using them to downstate hospitals where there is most need.

“I’m not going to let people die because we didn’t redistribute ventilators,” Cuomo said.

National Guard units will move the ventilators. They will be returned to the hospitals when the crisis has passed, or the hospitals will be compensated for them, the governor said.