Governor Cuomo announces 35 counties approved to resume elective outpatient treatments

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced 35 counties have been approved to resume elective outpatient treatments. The Governor previously announced that the state will allow elective outpatient treatments to resume in counties and hospitals without significant risk of COVID-19 surge in the near term. The counties now eligible are: Allegany, Broome, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chenango, Delaware, Dutchess, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Genesee, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Livingston, Madison, Monroe, Niagara, Oneida, Onondaga, Ontario, Orleans, Oswego, Putnam, Saratoga, Schoharie, Schuyler, St. Lawrence, Steuben, Sullivan, Tompkins, Ulster, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates.

 

Governor Cuomo also announced New York State is now conducting an average of 30,000 diagnostic tests for COVID-19 per day. Last week, the Governor announced the state will work with the federal government to double New York’s testing capacity from 20,000 tests per day to 40,000 tests per day over several weeks.

 

The Governor also announced the results of the state’s FDNY and NYPD antibody testing survey that tested 1,000 New York City Fire Department officers and 1,000 New York City Police Department officers from across all five boroughs. The preliminary results show 17.1 percent of FDNY officers and EMTs have COVID-19 antibodies and 10.5 percent of NYPD officers have COVID-19 antibodies. The state will be conducting further antibody analysis and surveys by race and gender in the future.

 

The Governor also announced the state is testing today 1,000 transit workers for antibodies to further determine the spread of infections among our frontline workers. The State is working with BioReference to provide antibody tests to first responders and other essential workers from the MTA, State Police, DOCCS and others.

 

The Governor also directed the MTA to issue a full plan by tomorrow, April 30th, on how it will clean and disinfect every train, every night in response to reported deteriorations of the conditions in the subways during the pandemic.

 

“We have made tremendous progress to stop the spread of this infection, but we are not out of the woods yet and we need to proceed with caution as we begin our re-opening plan,” Governor Cuomo said. “We know testing is key to re-opening New York – it is the indicator that will show if we are keeping the infection rate down throughout the re-opening process. We have been more aggressive than any state or nation in the world on testing and we are now halfway to our goal of doubling our testing capacity from 20,000 per day to 40,000 per day, but we still have more work to do.”

 

Finally, the Governor confirmed 4,585 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 299,691 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 299,691 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

 

County	Total Positive	New Positive
Albany	1,067	58
Allegany	35	0
Broome	273	7
Cattaraugus	47	2
Cayuga	48	0
Chautauqua	31	1
Chemung	119	6
Chenango	96	1
Clinton	59	0
Columbia	165	11
Cortland	28	0
Delaware	60	1
Dutchess	2,881	64
Erie	3,196	107
Essex	27	1
Franklin	15	1
Fulton	67	1
Genesee	152	3
Greene	114	2
Hamilton	3	0
Herkimer	58	0
Jefferson	60	0
Lewis	9	0
Livingston	67	2
Madison	126	0
Monroe	1,404	33
Montgomery	51	2
Nassau	35,505	420
Niagara	401	15
NYC	164,841	2,503
Oneida	422	11
Onondaga	782	40
Ontario	90	0
Orange	8,488	114
Orleans	85	5
Oswego	63	0
Otsego	66	1
Putnam	946	14
Rensselaer	262	12
Rockland	11,586	133
Saratoga	346	3
Schenectady	479	10
Schoharie	39	1
Schuyler	7	0
Seneca	38	0
St. Lawrence	170	0
Steuben	214	4
Suffolk	33,265	541
Sullivan	811	42
Tioga	84	2
Tompkins	127	1
Ulster	1,252	22
Warren	152	2
Washington	134	3
Wayne	70	0
Westchester	28,626	381
Wyoming	65	2
Yates	17	0