NEW YORK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st December, 2020) New York has started disallowing elective surgeries to free up hospital beds as coronavirus infections start ramping up again in the former hotspot, after a surge of gatherings in homes for the recent US Thanksgiving and more of such activity expected for the holidays, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday.
"If it gets serious, we might stop elective surgeries. We've already stopped in Erie County in New York," Cuomo told reporters, referring to an area in the state with particularly highly infections. "We now have a holiday surge on top of the fall surge. Sixty-five percent of all cases now are from small gatherings. This is a dramatic shift. It's what happens during the holidays. It's not going to be a one- or two-day affair. It's going to be the entire holiday season, which is 37 days."
The governor said the daily hospitalization rate in New York had risen to 3,500 from around 900 at the end of June.
"The top concern period it's about hospital beds. It's about ICU and it's about not having enough staff and enough equipment and all that. That is the effect and that's what we're going to have to deal with," he added.
At the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in April, New York reported having about about 18,000 people in hospital a day due to the virus.
The recent spike in infections comes after many Americans ignored health experts' warning not to travel for the November 26 Thanksgiving holiday or gather with those they do not immediately live with.
US airports screened 1.8 million passengers on Sunday, the highest since March, data from the Transportation Security Administration showed, as more people seem receptive of flying nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic amid reports of imminent vaccine availability for the virus. At least two vaccines, by Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc, are awaiting emergency approval from the food and Drug Administration and could be available for use before Christmas, US Health Secretary Alex Azar said.
Despite the progress in vaccines, health experts warn that the US hospital system could still be overwhelmed in the coming months by COVID-19 cases, as evidenced in the March-April period.
More than 13.3 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus since January and more than 266,000 have died of related complications, data tracked by the Johns Hopkins University showed. In recent weeks, daily hospitalization of those infected have reached more than 100,000.
