Elective surgeries to resume in many Upstate NY counties

ALBANY N.Y. — After moving his daily news conference to Syracuse, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was back in Albany for a briefing on COVID-19 Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, the governor said 330 people in New York died from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours. Hospitalizations, net change in hospitalizations continue to trend downward, while the number of new hospitalizations remained close to flat.

The governor announced which counties across New York will soon be cleared to resume elective surgeries at hospitals. Such surgeries were suspended statewide amid the pandemic, to clear the way for additional hospital space.

Last week, Cuomo said hospitals in some regions would see those surgeries resume based on a number of factors, including the local-level impact of the virus.

Monroe, Wayne, Ontario, Oswego and Onondaga Counties are among the counties in which hospitals will be able to resume elective surgeries. Albany says some individual hospitals in these areas may be barred from resuming surgeries at this point if they have not met necessary safety criteria.

The governor said he would sign an executive order Wednesday regarding the return of elective surgeries in these counties.

On Tuesday, Cuomo said the state has outlined a number of benchmarks to help guide the reopening of regions and businesses throughout the state amid the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Cuomo also said that large events like the New York State Fair would not be able to go on as planned unless the entire state was open.

Testing for the virus continues to expand in New York, with Cuomo saying the state is now up to about 30,000 tests per day.

Meanwhile, Cuomo continued to rally Wednesday against what he called partisan pushes against providing federal aid to state and local governments. In recent days, the governor has heavily criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for referring to the provision of such federal aid as a "bailout". Wednesday, he continued to criticize McConnell, as well as Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who also spoke out against "bailing" out states.

Wednesday, Cuomo accused these senators of playing politics - and playing Americans.

"If there was ever a time that one could reasonably believe you could put aside partisan politics...the moment would be now," said Cuomo. "You have human suffering. You have people dying. You can’t stop the politics, even in this moment?"

New York is aiming for a May 15 partial reopening in some regions of the state, with industries such as construction and manufacturing being among some of the first professions to potentially get back up and running. The governor says New York is taking a cautious approach to reopening, so as to avoid potential risk of increasing the rate of infection.