Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone will hold a Facebook Live town hall-style meeting on the county's COVID-19 response on Monday at 6:30 p.m.
Mr. Bellone, who has been giving daily briefings to the press, said on Monday afternoon that the number of confirmed cases of the virus in the county had jumped to 1,458 by Monday morning, out of nearly 6,000 people tested to date. He did not provide a town-by-town breakdown of cases. There were 116 COVID-19 patients hospitalized countywide, 38 of them in intensive care units. As of Monday, 13 people in the county had died from the virus.
The county executive said he expects a "huge surge in the number of patients that will need to be seen at the hospital" as the outbreak continues. The statewide goal is to double hospital capacity to accommodate that surge. Hospitals will need to increase their bed capacity by 50 percent; the remainder of beds are to be provided in field hospitals set up specifically in response to the outbreak.