The curve of COVID-19 hospitalizations has flattened in the states of New York and California this week, as the total confirmed cases in the U.S. surpassed 465,000.

America's coronavirus epicenter – New York – recorded a new single-day high of 799 COVID-19 deaths Thursday, but its Governor Andrew Cuomo said the rate of hospitalizations continued to fall. "We had a 200-net increase in hospitalizations, which you can see is the lowest number we've had since this nightmare started," said Cuomo, adding that intensive care admissions were also at the lowest yet.

Meanwhile, California saw its first daily decrease in intensive care hospitalizations during the coronavirus outbreak, a key indicator of how many health care workers and medical supplies the state needs, Governor Gavin Newsom said Thursday. The rate of all virus hospitalizations has slowed this week. Those in intensive care units (ICUs) need the highest level of care, so it was particularly encouraging that the number of patients needing such facilities in fact dropped by 1.9 percent on Wednesday to 1,132.

Newly released data showed that 6.6 million Americans filed initial jobless claims last week while another 6.6 million people have filed for unemployment applications.

"We have to keep the curve flat"

COVID-19 has killed more than 16,500 people in the United States, and the number of confirmed cases has grown to more than 460,000, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. New York is accounting for around half the number of deaths across the country.

"We are flattening the curve by what we are doing," Cuomo said Thursday, adding, "We have to keep the curve flat."

On Monday, Cuomo extended the state-wide shutdown of schools and non-essential businesses until April 29 to help stop the rate of infections increasing again. He warned that there could be a second wave of infections and said it was too early to say when the city might be reopened again.

"I'm not going to say to anyone: 'This is where I think we'll be in three weeks or four weeks or five weeks.' I have no idea," Cuomo admitted.

The nightmare of coronavirus outbreak has reminded New Yorkers of the crisis on September 11, 2001, when the terrorist killed nearly 3,000 people by attacking the twin towers in the city. But this time the silent devil – novel coronavirus – has killed many more people and caused devastating tragedies. To cope with the crisis, New York had expected to receive between 5 billion U.S. dollars and 6 billion U.S. dollars in federal relief.

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Alarms will still sound

On the west coast, California is entering its fourth week of a statewide "stay-at-home" order that has shuttered schools and non-essential businesses. Governor Gavin Newsom has been building the state's stockpile and earlier this week was confident enough in supply levels to help other states.

"I caution anybody to read too much into that (the flattening curve)," Newsom said of the decline in ICU hospitalizations. California hospitals have more than 11,000 ventilators, and two-thirds aren't being used, he said.

Newsom and state public health officials have been preparing for a worst-case scenario surge of COVID-19 patients that could require an additional 66,000 hospital beds and 10,000 ventilators beyond the hospitals' current total.

In the past four weeks, California processed more unemployment insurance claims – 2.3 million – than it did in all of 2019. But help is coming Sunday, when unemployed Californians will start getting an extra 600 U.S. dollars per week in unemployment benefits, money Congress approved as part of a 2.2 trillion U.S. dollars coronavirus relief package.

California's statewide hospitalizations climbed to 2,825 on Thursday, and the death has soared past 500, according to statistics compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

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Though the deaths are increasing, the number of the need for hospitalizations is dramatically decreasing, said Dr. Anthony Fauci at a White House briefing Thursday. He believed that the containment measures are working, thus people need to continue to follow the measures.

Just as the the New York governor and health officials warned, people should not relax and stop social distancing. "Only strict adherence gave the state a chance to lower fatalities," said Cuomo.

Literally no excuse

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the swine flu in 2009, followed by Ebola in 2014, and Zika in 2016, have already cost tens of thousands of American lives. Though when a global pandemic will happen is hard to predict; people should get prepared instead of getting lost in instability and chaos. 

According to Susan Rice, a national security adviser during the Obama administration, a 69-page playbook on how to cope with incoming global pandemic was detailed, prepared, and left to President Trump. However, this "war plan" might be "put into a trash can" by the Trump administration. 

She claimed that Trump should have begun "moving immediately from very early January to do the things that we know we have to do."

"Warnings are for strategic moves, and it can be tactical," said Rice. She believes there is no excuse for the Trump administration's late response to the pandemic. China warned about the potential crisis, as per Rice, so the U.S. health system should've had the capacity to search for medical supplies at the beginning of the year. However, the precious two-month window was wasted since "Trump is rather than leading the situation, he is just playing political games and failing his job utterly," said Rice. 

(With input from agencies)