Cuomo Says Indoor Dining Can Resume Despite COVID Being Worse Than When He Banned It
The 7-day average of COVID cases per 100,000 people are higher than last year
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Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that indoor dining could resume after months of restrictions and lockdowns, despite COVID-19 cases being worse than it was when he issued the ban.
So what's changed?
When Cuomo announced the ban on indoor dining on December 11 last year, the 7-day average of COVID cases per 100,000 people was 40.2, according to data from The New York Times.
When he announced that indoor dining could resume last month, the number was 66.1, which is 64% higher than the average per-capita compared to December.
From December to January, the average number of hospitalizations per 100,000 people also rose.
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On Dec. 11, there was a 7-day average of 209 coronavirus hospitalizations per 100,000 people.
As the governor spoke on Friday, citing the “current trajectory” of cases as his reasoning for reopening, average per-capita case counts in New York City were 64% higher than when he announced the ban in December. https://t.co/wq2vGtvEjg pic.twitter.com/Td37O4OiyW
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 2, 2021
On Jan. 28, the 7-day average was 335 hospitalizations, the New York Times reported.
When the ban was announced, the 7-day average test positivity rate was 4.0%.
The number was 5.3% when Cuomo announced the ban would be lifted.
Out of the four metrics used by Cuomo to determine reopening plans, only one showed improvement.
The rate of infection is now between 1.03 and 0.95, which means each person who contracts COVID will infect approximately one other person, according to state officials.
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Cuomo’s COVID task force member, Gareth Rhodes, said that what matters is how the metrics are trending, not where the numbers are.
As the governor spoke on Friday, citing the “current trajectory” of cases as his reasoning for reopening, average per-capita case counts in New York City were 64% higher than when he announced the ban in December. https://t.co/wq2vGtvEjg pic.twitter.com/Td37O4OiyW
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 2, 2021
He told the New York Times that each metric is trending downward, but in December, the case numbers and hospitalizations were upward trendings.
Rhodes said in May; the economy also began reopening despite over 6,000 hospitalizations due to metrics downward trend.
Cuomo presented numbers in his Friday press briefing that did not reflect the true trend in coronavirus case positivity rates, according to a New York Times analysis of data.
He displayed a chart exhibiting the positivity rate dropping from 7.1% on Jan. 5 to 4.9% on Jan. 28.
But Cuomo picked the highest and lowest numbers from the month to show the drop, instead of looking at the overall trend.
The chart showed over 30% drop in test positivity rate, but the 7-day average showed that from Jan. 5 to Jan. 28, positivity rates fell from 6.4% to 4.9%.
Even though that is a decrease, it's a 17% drop rather than Cuomo’s 30% drop, according to the New York Times data.
Cuomo's chart also failed to label the vertical axis, which didn’t begin at zero, the Time reported.
That gives the illusion the numbers were closer to zero than they actually were.
