'Amazingly good news': New York healthcare workers not testing positive for coronavirus at higher rate than general public

'Healthcare workers actually are at about the same or lower than the general population in that area,' Governor Andrew Cuomo says

New York has released more data about who has tested positive for the coronavirus in the state, with Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing that the percentage of healthcare workers with Covid-19 is not higher than the general public.

“That is amazingly good news,” Mr Cuomo said during his press briefing on Thursday.

The state has aggressively tested healthcare workers for the coronavirus because they are directly in contact with people infected.

In New York City and Westchester, healthcare workers tested positive for antibodies at a lower rate than the general public.

About 6.8 per cent of workers tested positive in Westchester compared to 13.8 per cent of the general public. New York City showed 12.2 per cent of workers testing positive compared to 19.9 per cent of general public.

Long Island data showed 11.1 per cent of healthcare workers testing positive compared to 11.4 per cent of the general public.

“We were afraid of what was going to happen, and the healthcare workers actually are at about the same or lower than the general population in that area,” the governor said.

Mr Cuomo added that a takeaway from the news should be how imperative it is for healthcare workers to remain protected with proper PPE and other equipment. Also, he said it proved how impactful masks, hand sanitiser, and gloves can be in curbing the spread of the novel virus.

On Monday, the state released information about who has been hospitalised from Covid-19 in recent days. The data showed that a “shocking” 66 per cent of hospitalisations were of people who were retired or unemployed and not commuting on a regular basis.

The data came from a preliminary look into 113 hospitals across New York and included 1,269 respondents as the officials work to better understand how the novel virus has spread.

About 18 per cent of new cases came from nursing homes, 4 per cent from assisted-living facilities, 2 per cent from congregate-care facilities, 2 per cent were homeless, less than 1 per cent from prisons and 8 per cent were marked as “other,” according ot the data.

“Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” Mr Cuomo said, calling the data a “surprise”. “We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home.”

Age also impacted who tested positive for the novel virus, with about 73 per cent of people over the age of 51. But the data also showed that people under that age group were still at risk.

Of those hospitalised from the novel virus, 96 per cent had comorbidities.

New York has increased testing for Covid-19 in an effort to assist the state on how it should reopen in the coming weeks and month. Currently, NY Pause, the state’s name for its stay-at-home order, will go through 15 May.

Mr Cuomo said on Thursday that as that date comes closer, officials will look at different areas of the state to see what parts could start reopening. Businesses expected to first come back would be construction and infrastructure.