New York City Reports 0 Coronavirus Deaths Just 4 Months After First Report

New York City has now reported zero coronavirus deaths just four months after the first virus-related death was recorded. On March 11, the state officially cited its first death due to Covid-19, and on July 11, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene cited that no one had died of the virus on that day. According to NBC 4 New York, there had not been one day from March 11 to July 11 that there were no deaths attributed to Covid-19.

Roughly one month ago, New York City began the first phase of reopening measures, which allowed many businesses to reopen for curbside service. At the time, officials estimated that this would get about 400,000 New York City residents back to work. Also reported at the time, was that around 200,000 New Yorkers had tested positive for coronavirus. The city’s death toll was estimated to be over 21,000. Those numbers have likely grown slightly in the weeks since first being reported. “We’ve tested everything else, we’ve measured everything else,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. “Everything was going fine, then we had these large number of protests. We don’t know what the effect of those protests are. And we’re concerned about it.”

One thing that the city has remained vigilant about in the fight against Covid-19 is face masks. Cuomo and other leaders have regularly cited that as a major factor in slowing the spread of the illness. Furthermore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly recommends “wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies), especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.” The CDC “also advises the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.”

“Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure,” the department also said. “Cloth face coverings should not be placed on young children under age 2, anyone who has trouble breathing, or is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance.”