(Reuters) – Governors in U.S. states hardest hit by the novel coronavirus sparred with President Donald Trump over his claims they have enough tests and should quickly reopen their economies as more protests are planned over the extension of stay-at-home orders.
New York continued to see hospitalizations decline to 16,000 from a high of 18,000, and the number of patients being kept alive by ventilators also fell. There were 507 new deaths, down from a high of more than 700 a day.
“If the data holds and if this trend holds, we are past the high point and all indications at this point are that we are on a descent,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a daily briefing, while urging residents to continue social distancing. “We showed you can control the beast. But it’s only half time. We still have to make sure we keep the beast down.”
To get a baseline of how many people were infected with the novel coronavirus, Cuomo said the state would do the most aggressive anti-body testing in the nation in the next week using a random sample.
New York will test 2,000 people a day or 14,000 per week out of the 19 million residents in the state.
The United States has by far the world’s largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 740,000 infections and over 40,000 deaths.
It took the United States 38 days after recording its first fatality on Feb. 29 to reach 10,000 deaths on April 6 but only five more days to reach 20,000 dead, according to a Reuters tally. The United States’ toll rose to 40,0