New York, for the second consecutive day, recorded the highest single day death toll with 779 people succumbing to COVID19, "a terrible news", Governor Andrew Cuomo said, warning that the number will continue to rise even as the state is "now bending the curve" through the rigorous social distancing measures.
"The bad news isn't just bad. The bad news is actually terrible. Highest single day death toll yet (of) 779 people. When you look at the numbers on the death toll, it has been going steadily up and it reached the new height," Cuomo said in his daily Coronavirus briefing on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the state had hit a new one-day peak, with 731 people dead in the largest single-day increase in deaths since the coronavirus crisis engulfed New York, the epicentre of the pandemic.
Within a 24 hour period, 779 more people died due to COVID-19.
The New York death toll from COVID-19 surpassed the number of people who died in the 9/11 attacks, Cuomo said, adding that 2,753 lives were lost in the terror attacks and the coronavirus crisis has claimed the lives of 6,268 New Yorkers.
Describing coronavirus as "a vicious predator of a virus" that targeted the vulnerable from day one, Cuomo said, "The number of deaths will continue to rise as those hospitalized for a longer period of time pass away. The longer you are on a ventilator, the less likely you will come off the ventilator."
"It is flattening the curve. That curve is flattening because we are flattening the curve by what we are doing. If we stop what we are doing, you will see that curve change. That curve is purely a function of what we do day in and day out."
"So that is all good news. There's a big caution sign that if we continue doing what we do, we are flattening the curve because we are rigorous about social distancing. If we continue doing what we're doing, then we believe the curve will continue to flat."
"But there's no doubt that we are now bending the curve, and there's no doubt that we can't stop doing what we're doing. That's the good news."