Cuomo projects plateau in hospitalizations as coronavirus deaths surge

As the New York death toll surged to its highest one-day total on Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo projected that the state is reaching a plateau in coronavirus hospitalizations due to strict social distancing measures.

The big picture: Daily ICU admissions, intubations and the three-day hospitalization rate have all decreased, Cuomo said Tuesday. The daily death toll jumped to 731, totaling 5,489 — the "largest single-day increase" — but Cuomo cautioned that number of deaths is a "lagging indicator" due to the length that most critical patients are in the hospital for.

What he's saying:

"We talk about the apex and is the apex a plateau, and right now we're projecting that we are reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalizations. You can see the growth and you see it's starting to flatten. Again, this is a projection. It still depends on what we do, and what we do will affect those numbers. This is not an act of God that we're looking at. It's an act of what society actually does."

By the numbers: New York has more than 130,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus. At least 3,202 people have been killed by the virus in New York City, officially topping the death toll from 9/11, according to AP.

• "Behind every one of those numbers is an individual, is a family, is a mother, is father, is a sister, is a brother. So a lot of pain again today for many New Yorkers," Cuomo said.

The big picture: Cuomo said that re-opening New York and returning people to work is "going to come down to testing." New York's Department of Health has approved an "antibody testing regimen" that tests blood to determine whether or not someone has previously had the virus and is no longer contagious.

• Cuomo said that both the antibody tests and 15-minute rapid diagnosis tests must be "brought to scale" in order for them to make a difference.