NYC Mayor: Today we have just plain good news

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says that statistics over the past few days show the impact of the coronavirus is moving downward.

"Our indicators are now moving all in the correct direction," the mayor said.

Still the news comes as New York reels under a crushing load of cases and officials are planning a massive effort to interview thousands of newly diagnosed people to track the places they visited and the people they met.

"This is going to be a tremendous effort," said health commsissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot.

In the coming weeks, tracers will be hired for an extraordinary expansion of a common practice in public health _ testing, tracing and isolation. The plan for one of the nation's largest metropolitan areas is staggering even for a public health system that used the technique to combat AIDS and tuberculosis.

With COVID-19 hospitalizations leveling off, state and city officials are both preparing to hire thousands of tracers. Along with more testing and more help for infected people to isolate themselves, the corps of virus sleuths could eventually help tame the outbreak that has brought the nation's biggest city to a standstill.

Tracing involves isolating everyone who tests positive and interviewing them about recent close contacts, which health officials define as people who had physical contact or an interaction of 15 minutes or more within six feet of someone who was infectious. Then, tracers connect with those contacts. If they prove to have the virus, the process is repeated with their own close contacts, and so on.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.