As of Monday night, New York City’s death toll for the notorious coronavirus jumped into the triple digits, killing 125 people, as per city officials said. The figure includes 26 NYC fatalities just since Sunday night. As reported by the NY Post, the count of people infected with the novel virus in NYC leaped from 12,339 to 13,119, as of Monday, City Hall reported. The New York City region is now considered an epicenter of the pandemic, due to the figures which show that approximately 5 percent of the world’s confirmed cases are now in the Big Apple. As of Monday, globally there are a total of 392,331 cases, and tragically 17,156 deaths.
In NYC, as of Monday night, Queens was leading all the boroughs with the most coronavirus cases, numbered at 3,848. Following closely with the next highest infections was Brooklyn, with 3,742 cases. Manhattan was next with 2,646 cases. Bronx reported 1,999 confirmed cases and Staten Island had 877.
On Tuesday Morning, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the rate of the coronavirus’ spread through the state of New York is accelerating like a “bullet train”. In NYS, the confirmed number of cases is 25,665, and there have been 210 casualties, as of Tuesday Morning. Over half of those cases, or 14,904, are in the five boroughs. “We’re not slowing it, and it is accelerating on its own,” said Cuomo in a press briefing. “The [disease] forecaster said to me, ‘We were looking at a freight train coming across the country.’” Speaking at Manhattan’s Javits Center, which is now being converted to a 2,000-bed hospital complex, Coumo added, “We’re now looking at a bullet train.”
As per the Post, in NYS the spread of the disease is now doubling every three days. The state only has roughly 53,000 permanent hospital beds. Experts are now projecting a demand of 140,000 hospital beds at the peak, up from the previous estimate of 110,000 by Cuomo. The speedy rate of the spread has led Cuomo to project that this peak may actualize in as little as two to three weeks from now.
“It accelerates the apex, to a point where it could be as close as 14 to 21 days,” the governor said. “The apex is higher than we thought, and the apex is sooner than we thought. The inescapable conclusion is the rate of infection is going up.”
Among the casualties, a Brooklyn principal has died due to complications from the coronavirus. As reported by the NY Post, Dezann Romain, principal of the Brooklyn Democracy Academy in Brownsville, died on Monday. This was the first known casualty of a city public school staffer due to the pandemic. “Our prayers are with her family and school community as we mourn alongside them. Please keep Principal Romain in your thoughts and continue to do everything possible to keep yourselves and your loved ones safe during this health crisis,” the union said in a statement.
The 36-year-old was promoted up from assistant principal between 2016 and 2017 at the transfer high school, as per public records. “This is painful for all of us, and I extend my deepest condolences to the Brooklyn Democracy Academy community, and the family of Principal Romain,” said Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, in a statement.
