At least 3,250 new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus were confirmed in New York on Saturday, bringing the state total to 10,356, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced this weekend, according to the New York Post.
Cuomo warned young people in a statement intended to wake them up to the deadly reality facing them and their families: “You’re not superman and you’re not superwoman, you can get this virus and you can transfer the virus and you can wind up hurting someone who you love, or hurting someone wholly inadvertently.”
In New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in the northeast, there were 1,803 new infections diagnosed in the 24-hour period between Friday to Saturday, bring the city’s coronavirus total to 6,211 confirmed cases of the virus.
On Friday, the statewide death toll stood at 56 and the governor avoided giving an updated on that figure. However, Cuomo warned at least 40 percent of the population is likely to become infected by COVID-19.
“I don’t believe it is going to be a matter of weeks – it’s going to be a matter of months,” he said.
However, New York State has also done more testing per capita than either China or South Korea, he added, saying that more testing also means more cases will be identified and can then be isolated to help slow the spread of the virus.
One million N-95 masks, those considered most protective for health care workers, are being shipped to New York City. Another half million are on the way to Long Island, Cuomo said, where Nassau County has diagnosed 1,234 cases, an increase from 480 on Friday. Suffolk County has confirmed 662 cases of the virus, up from 291 cases. Some 6,000 ventilators are also being rushed across the state, Cuomo said, adding that the state and Army Corps of Engineers may set up temporary field hospitals in the Javits Center in Manhattan, SUNY Stonybrook, SUNY Westbury on Long Island and the Westchester Convention Center.
A full lockdown order is set to take effect in New York on Saturday night.