Coronavirus “Like A Fire Spreading” on Long Island, Cuomo Says

Coronavirus is “like a fire spreading” on Long Island as Nassau County passed Westchester as the county with the second-most diagnosed COVID-19 cases in New York State on Saturday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

The governor has repeatedly stated in recent days his concern with the rapid rate at which COVID-19 is spreading in Nassau and Suffolk counties, where coronavirus hospitalizations have grown from 17 percent to 22 percent of the state total of 15,904.

LI cases rose to 24,706 Saturday, a month since the first case was confirmed in the region. Nassau had 13,346 cases, second only to New York City’s 63,306 cases, while Suffolk had 11,360 — with yet another day of new cases increasing by more than 1,000 in each county on the Island.

“We’ve been saying for the past few days ‘watch Long Island,’ because it is like a fire spreading,” Cuomo told reporters during his daily coronavirus news conference a day after he termed six LI hospitals as COVID-19 hot spots for having some of the highest number of patients in the New York Metro area.

“At one point the fire, it doesn’t max out in one place, but it consumes where it is and then it’s moving out,” he added. “If you look at where it’s moving, you see that Long Island’s number is growing…it’s been growing steadily. Interestingly, it’s not moving north, it’s moving more east.”

As of Saturday, New York State had 113,704 cases, there were 287,216 nationwide, and 1.1 million cases worldwide. Coronavirus deaths totaled 60,960 worldwide, 7,752 nationwide, and 3,565 statewide. Coronavirus recoveries were at 235,775 worldwide, 9,920 nationwide, and 10,478 statewide.