NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. — Governor Andrew Cuomo provided a COVID-19 update Tuesday morning in New York City, saying the COVID-19 infection rate is stable across the state.
The governor added that the percent positive rate in the Western New York Region decreased on Monday; however, Cuomo stressed that it was a "holiday sample," saying he's taking it with a grain of salt.
Despite the "holiday sample," Cuomo says "it's better news" for the Western New York Region.
According to the governor's office, the percent positive rate in Western New York fluctuated over the past few days. The rate was at 1.6 percent on Thursday. It decreased down to 1.2 percent on Friday, then increased on Saturday to 2 percent. The rate then started to decline once again, going to 1.9 percent on Sunday on 1 percent on Monday.
During the press conference Tuesday the governor also addressed the increase of COVID-19 cases at college campuses across the country. In New York State seven colleges have seen COVID-19 outbreaks, including the University at Buffalo and SUNY Fredonia.
Starting Tuesday, the New York State Department of Health will be issuing regulations to New York colleges requiring them to notify the state when they have 100 or more COVID-19 cases. The governor says colleges must notify the state immediately.
Cuomo added that if a college in New York State has over 100 COVID-19 cases, they could be closed down to do remote learning.
He also brought up the restaurant situation in New York City, where there is still no indoor dining. If indoor dining reopened there, he says it would add 10,000 more places for the state to keep tabs on.
"You know you had a bad experience with bars," Cuomo said. "You know that you're at your maximum in terms of enforcement capacity. You're now going to double the number of establishments that you need to monitor. How do you do that? That's the conundrum that we face. You also know that when we opened indoor dining in Upstate New York, we had issues."
Governor Cuomo said when indoor dining reopened, there were COVID-19 clusters that happened because of that. He also says before allowing indoor dining in New York City, he would need more local enforcement officers in place to check on the complaints that would come in.
Of the 57,826 tests reported in New York State on Monday, 557 were positive, for a percent positive rate of 0.96 percent. The infection rate has been below 1 percent for over a month.
As of Monday, 445 New Yorkers were hospitalized with 114 patients in the ICU.
The state reports five more people have died in New York State from COVID-19 on Monday.