Cuomo: COVID-19 Battle Won't Truly Be Over For 12 to 18 Months

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says New York will be reopened in phases adding we are going to a "different place."

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Total hospitalizations and intubations are a "click down," as the curve continues to flatten, Cuomo said on Wednesday during his COVID-19 briefing.

However, about 2,000 people each day in New York are diagnosed with coronavirus.

Live Updates: Coronavirus in the Hudson Valley

"We are not out of the woods yet," Cuomo said. "We can control the spread, but it's still a serious health issue."

The governor announced 752 New Yorkers died in the past 24 hours bringing the statewide total to 11,586

Over 6,800 New Yorkers have died from the virus in the past nine days

April 6: 731
April 7: 779
April 8: 799
April 9: 777
April 10: 783
April 11:758
April 12: 671
April 13: 778
April 14: 752

"We are not out of the woods yet," Cuomo said. "Coronavirus is still a monumental public health crisis and we are losing New Yorkers every day to this virus. Each New Yorker lost to COVID is a heartbreaking loss."

In terms of reopening, Cuomo said we aren't going to the same place.

"We are going to a different place, a better place, a new normal," he said. "We are moving to a more challenging place, but potentially a better place."

He said the battle with COVID-19 won't truly be over until a vaccine is found. A vaccine could take 12 to 18 months, he noted. Dr. Anthony Fauci and the FDA have both given the same timeline.

"I say the sooner the better," Cuomo said. "Anything we can do, we are all in."

Cuomo later added the factors for an "un-pause" will be based on two factors.

Besides a vaccine, the next hope is finding a medical treatment.

"That's another way of having another natural end," Cuomo said. "Until you have a vaccine until you have a medical treatment, what do you do? It's going to be a phased reopening."

The single best tool is large scale testing, Cuomo said.

"Test, trace and isolate," he said.

New testing includes diagnostic testing, antibody testing, saliva testing, finger prick testing and blood sampling, Cuomo added.

"The single best tool to begin to safely reopen society is large-scaling testing," he said. "The unvarnished truth is that we can’t yet test to scale. And we can't get either diagnostic or antibody testing to scale without federal support."