Most New Coronavirus Cases Hit NYers Who Say They Social Distance

NEW YORK CITY — The majority of New Yorkers hospitalized for novel coronavirus are not coming from homeless shelters, nursing homes or jails: they're coming from New York City homes, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.

"This is a surprise: overwhelmingly the people were at home," Cuomo said. "Which is shocking to us."

In an effort to curtail what Cuomo dubbed a "painfully slow decline" in the spread of COVID-19 — roughly 600 patients were admitted Wednesday — the New York governor asked state hospitals to release data on those hospitalized over the past three days.

"While we're seeing that hospital rate go down, those number of new cases are still problematic," Cuomo said. "With everything we've done, we still had 600 new cases yesterday."

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New York hospitals reported 57 percent of patients came from the five boroughs — 21 percent from Manhattan, 13 percent from Brooklyn, 13 percent from Queens, 9 percent from The Bronx and 1 percent from Staten Island — and 66 percent came from their home, according to Cuomo.

Those hospitalized were not predominately essential workers forced to travel for their jobs, the governor added.

"This is not a group we can target with this information," said Cuomo. "It's really about personal behavior."

People of color make up the majority of those hospitalized in New York City with 25 percent identifying as Black, 20 percent Hispanic or Latino and 24 percent white, according to the Governor's office.

Cuomo linked the findings to "personal behavior" and urged New Yorkers to social distance, wear face coverings, wash hands and stay clear of people over the age of 50.

"Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself," Cuomo said. "Government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could, now it's down to you."

Of New York's recent COVID-19 hospitalizations, 66 percent came from home, 18 percent came from nursing homes, 4 percent came from assisted living facilities, 2 percent were homeless and less than 1 percent came from jails and prison, the data show.

Men continue to see higher hospitalization rates at 52 percent and 96 percent of patients had underlying conditions, the governor said.

Older New Yorkers also see increased rates of hospitalizations with 14 percent in their 50s, 20 percent in their 60s, 19 percent in their 70s and 14 percent in their 80s, Cuomo said.

The death toll rose slightly for the second day in a row with 232 New York lives lost on May 5, 230 lost on May 4 and 226 lost on May 3, Cuomo said.

New York City had 171,723 COVID-19 cases confirmed as of May 5, with 43,383 hospitalized, 13,724 lives confirmed lost to the virus and 5,383 lives likely lost, Health Department data show.

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