Although around 2,000 patients were admitted to New York hospitals on Friday, the total number of those hospitalized for coronavirus in NY State has dropped over the past few days, giving rise to cautious optimism, Reuters reports.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday that a recent drop in hospitalizations and encouraging statistics indicated that they might have passed the peak of the virus curve.
Friday's death toll was 540, down from 630 a day earlier and the lowest number in more than two weeks. There are also less people being admitted to intensive care, and less people being put on ventilators.
There are currently 236,743 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New York State, where 13,362 people have fallen victim to the epidemic, by far the largest number in the entire United States.