
Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday that it was not the best strategy to quarantine all of New York at once to battle coronavirus because it not only shut down the economy but put young people in homes with older relatives and potentially exposed them to the virus.

Speaking at a press conference in Albany as the number of cases in New York rose to 37,000 and the death toll increased to 385 - a spike of 100 in a single night - Cuomo said he was not convinced he would implement the same strategy again.

He is working on producing a test that will identify coronavirus antibodies in a healthy person who has self-recovered so that they can not only be cleared for work, but so their plasma of antibodies can be used to treat a sick person and build an immunity to the virus in them.

It is a strategy which Cuomo said was 'the smartest way forward'.

'It's something we're working through. The smartest way forward is a modified public health strategy that dove tails and compliments a get back to work strategy.

'What we did was we closed everything down. Closed everything. If you re-thought that, or had time to analyze it, I don't know that you would say, "quarantine everyone."

'I don't even know that was the best public health strategy. Young people quarantining with old people was probably not the best public health strategy,' he said.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday that it was not the best strategy to shut the state down at the same time

An abandoned Fifth Avenue this week. Not only did quarantining everyone put older people in homes with young people at risk, it knee-capped the economy

'How do you modify the health strategy to make it smarter but also starts to get you back to work? People who have resolved can go back to work. That's how I think you do it,' he said, adding it was not acceptable to focus either on the economy or on public health.

'You have to do both,' he said.

The antibody test is being developed at Mt. Sinai. It is one of the most encouraging tests to date because it will rule out people who are neither sick or at risk of becoming sick and allow them to resume their lives.

There has no been real information on when it will be available to anyone let alone to the general public. The plan is to first give it to healthcare workers.

Unemployment figures have sky-rocketed to an all-time high of 3.28million, an increase of 3million between March 14 and March 21, as thousands of businesses across the country are forced to close their doors.

Cuomo told those people not to panic, saying they were not alone.

'No one has "lost" their job... when you "loose" a job it suggests you did something wrong but this has nothing to do with you. It's the circumstance that we are in and we must correct it. There's a strength in the fact that it's all of us.

NEW YORK NUMBERS TOTAL CASES - 37,000 HOSPITALIZATIONS - 5,000 ICU HOSPITALIZATIONS - 1,200 HOSPITAL BEDS NEEDED - 140,000 VENTILATORS NEEDED - 40,000 OVERNIGHT DEATHS IN NYC: 100 Advertisement

'When it's all of us, that suggests we have to do something about it because the collective demands it.

'I am sure it's a terrible feeling and a frightening feeling for everyone. No one has been here before. But that's why it's going to change. It is going to help form a new generation.

'This is going to form a new generation and transform who we are. You are not alone. Nobody is alone,' he said.

In the meantime, the country must focus on the escalating number of coronavirus cases.

In New York, that means sourcing enough ventilators to treat the people who will need them. Cuomo revealed that while most ICU patients with other respiratory challenges require a ventilator for three or four days, COVID-19 patients need them for between 15 and 21 days.

It adds another strain to the problem; not only are there not enough ventilators in supply, the existing ones are being used up by people for too long.

Cuomo's strategy to tackle the problem is to use one ventilator to treat two people at once by hooking two sets of tubes up to it. He has also instructed doctors to turn anesthesia machines into ventilators.

CUOMO FUMES OVER 'SHOCKING' STIMULUS BAILOUT THAT GAVE NY 'NOTHING' Cuomo was however enraged and 'shocked' by the federal stimulus plan that was released overnight and gave no financial relief to the state government. 'I was shocked that they were so irresponsible in addressing the state and city need. I never believed they would pass a piece of legislation that just did not address it. They did nothing on the revenue loss,' he said. The stimulus plan gives New York $5billion in COVID-19 expenses but Cuomo's expenditure on it is between $10billion and $15billion, he said. The federal relief package also does nothing to address the loss of revenues the state government is experiencing. 'We're spending more and receiving less. in the middle of all this, we have to balance a budget. so how do you do a budget,' he said. Cuomo said he believes Washington let the nation down by putting politics before public health. When the crisis was over, he said he planned to give them 'a piece of his mind'. Advertisement

There is also a shortage of hospital beds, but Cuomo said he will turn hospital and dormitory beds into ICU beds in makeshift hospitals.

Of the 37,000 people in New York who have the virus, 5,000 are in the hospital and 1,290 are in ICU. There are 6,000 more cases since yesterday, and 18,000 tests were done in the last 24 hours.

'This is the really bad news; the number of deaths is increasing.

'People who were infected who came into the healthcare system have been on ventilators. the longer you are on a ventilator, the more probability of a bad income. We now have people who have been on ventilators for 20-30 days.

'The longer you are on a ventilator, the more likely you're not going to come off the ventilator. That is what is happening. They usually have a worse outcome.

'We've had people on for a very long time and they haven't gotten better and they are passing away,' he said.

'The experts expect that number to continue to increase; we've said this from day 1: 80 percent self-resolve, some go into the hospital and go home, some go in, need a ventilator, they're on the ventilator and they never come off the ventilator.

'People just deteriorate over time. That is what we're seeing,' he said.

Cuomo said that while the number of cases continued to go up, what is encouraging is that there is a slow in the rate of growth.

'We're looking for a reduction in the rate of increase as opposed to the number of absolute cases, that's what we're looking for.

'The optimum is not to have an apex, and that's what the flattening is, not to have that spike because that is where you would overwhelm the hospitals.

'Get down that increase so you can actually handle it in the hospitals,' he said.

He gushed over Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's coronavirus expert, for his support, saying: 'Dr Anthony Fauci has been so kind and helpful to me.

'I think he is just brilliant at this and he has been so personally kind, I call him late at night, middle of night, in the morning. He's been really a friend to me personally and to the state of New York.

Cuomo was however enraged and 'shocked' by the federal stimulus plan that was released overnight and gave no financial relief to the state government.

'I was shocked that they were so irresponsible in addressing the state and city need. I never believed they would pass a piece of legislation that just did not address it. They did nothing on the revenue loss,' he said.

The stimulus plan gives New York $5billion in COVID-19 expenses but Cuomo's expenditure on it is between $10billion and $15billion, he said.

The federal relief package also does nothing to address the loss of revenues the state government is experiencing.

The number of cases in the US has rocketed over the last two weeks

Set against his outrage with the federal government is his affection for the many people who have offered to help the state, and his appreciation for healthcare workers.

Cuomo told New Yorkers, who are growing frustrated with the quarantine, to look at the people who are unable to stop working for inspiration.

'This is not a sprint, this is a marathon. We always said this was not going to be over quickly. I understand people are tired but I also understand people in this situation are really stepping up to the plate and are doing phenomenal work.

'Believe me, I feel tired, but when I feel tired, I think of the first responders who are out there everyday, the police officers, the fire fighters up there every day, grocery store workers who are working double shifts to make sure there are food on the shelves, pharmacists who have lines out their doors, transportation workers who don't have the luxury of feeling tired because they have to get up and drive the bus that gets the healthcare workers to work.

'Healthcare workers who are dealing with a virus that they don't understand. Look at what others among us have to do and the challenge they are under and how they are stepping up.

'This is not a sprint, this is a marathon. We always said this was not going to be over quickly

'Who am I to complain about being tired?' he said.

Cuomo added that the crisis was the first time many of the country's younger generations had ever known true adversity and that it could be the making of them.

'There is a whole new generation who have never lived through anything like this.

'They never went to war, they were never drafted, they never went through a national crisis. This is going to shake them,' he said, adding that the 'pressure' of the crisis exposes people's good traits and shortcomings.

'The question is what does a person do when the pressure is on them? That's when you can see a little crack in the foundation of a person. That little crack can explode and the foundation can crumble, or you can see the exact opposite,' he said.

Since Wednesday, an additional 12,000 retired healthcare workers have offered to help New York and an additional 2,600 people have offered to give free mental health help.

Now, there is a workforce of 52,000 retired doctors and nurses in the field, and 8,600 people offering free mental health help to people who are traumatized by the crisis on a hotline.

'It's the tough times that forge character and that's what we'rem looking at right now,' he said.

New Orleans emerges as America's next coronavirus epicenter after infections rise by 30% to 1,800 in 24 hours: Mardi Gras is blamed for outbreak that threatens rest of South

New Orleans is on track to become the next coronavirus epicenter in the United States with one of the highest growth in cases seen anywhere in the world.

Authorities are warning that hospitals could collapse by April 4 and that the state will run out of ventilators by the first week of next month if the growth rate continues.

Nearly 1,800 people in Louisiana have tested positive for coronavirus and 65 have died in the two weeks since the first patient was reported on March 9 - an average daily growth rate of 65 percent.

The number of cases increased by 400 - or 30 percent - in the span of 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday.

An abandoned Bourbon Street after businesses closed their doors in preparation for the virus outbreak

The New Orleans metro area accounts for about 70 percent of Louisiana's infections - with 827 reported in the city to date, more than the total number in all but 15 states.

Orleans Parish, which includes the city, has suffered the highest number of deaths per capita of any county in the US with 37. Eleven of those deaths were reported at a nursing home, where dozens more residents tested positive for COVID-19.

As concerns grow that Louisiana could spark a larger spread across the southern states, experts say the crisis in New Orleans was likely accelerated by Mardi Gras, the iconic celebration that unfolds across the city over a period of several weeks, culminating on February 25 this year.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump issued a major federal disaster declaration for the state, freeing federal funds and resources. Only five states have been issued the declaration so far.

The escalating crisis in the state has dashed hopes that less densely populated and warmer-climate cities would not be hit as hard by the pandemic, and that summer months could see it wane.

The plight of New Orleans also raises fears it may be a powerful catalyst in speedily spreading the virus across neighboring southern states

New Orleans is the biggest city in Louisiana., the state with the third-highest case load of coronavirus per capita in the US after the major epicenters of New York and Washington.

The ranking is particularly alarming given Louisiana's relatively small population of 4.6 million. In contrast, Texas has a population of 29.4 million but only 826 cases.

Governor John Bel Edwards warned in a press conference on Wednesday that people in the state need to 'make sure you're doing what we ask'.

'This has spread across the state of Louisiana. One of the consequences of this is ventilator capacity,' he said.

'If our growth continues we could run out of ventilators in first week in April and that depends on whether the curve gets flattened and our ability to pursue and allocate additional ventilators.'

The governor expects to receive 100 further ventilators on Thursday and 100 more at the beginning of next week but warns that even if they are received it is still 600 short of what is needed in the New Orleans area alone.

'Quite frankly, it is not enough,' he concluded.

The growth rate in Louisiana tops all others, according to a University of Louisiana at Lafayette analysis of global data.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose state accounts for more than half of the nations nearly 74,000 cases, offered some words of support to Louisiana at a press conference on Thursday.

'Louisiana is a quote unquote hot spot. It has a cluster that is growing and the people in Louisiana and in New Orleans are in our thoughts and prayers,' Cuomo said.

'We know what they're going through and we feel for them, and we pray for them, and we know the difficulty they're under, because we're dealing with the same type of situation.

'So, our best to them. Any way we can help them, we stand ready.'