Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced elective outpatient treatments can resume in counties and hospitals without significant risk of COVID-19 surge in the near term.

Hospitals will be able to resume performing elective outpatient treatments on April 28 if the hospital capacity is over 25 percent for the county and if there have been fewer than 10 new hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients in the county over the past 10 days. If a hospital is located in a county eligible to resume elective outpatient treatments, but that hospital has a capacity under 25 percent or has had more than 10 new hospitalizations in the past 10 days, that hospital is not eligible to resume elective surgeries. If a county or hospital that has resumed elective surgery experiences a decrease in hospital capacity below the 25 percent threshold or an increase of 10 or more new hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients, elective surgeries must cease. Further, patients must test negative for COVID-19 prior to any elective outpatient treatment.

The State Department of Health will issue guidance on resuming elective surgeries.

Restrictions on elective surgery will remain in place in Erie, Bronx, Queens, Rockland, Nassau, Clinton, Yates, Westchester, Albany, Richmond, Schuyler, Kings, Suffolk, New York, Dutchess, Sullivan, Ulster, Orange and Rensselaer counties as the state continues to monitor the rate of new COVID-19 infections in the region.

“As New York continues to flatten the curve of new COVID-19 infections, we are now ready to lift the restrictions on elective surgeries in regions where hospital capacity and the rate of new infections do not present a significant risk of a surge in new positive cases,” Cuomo said while in Buffalo. “It is essential that we continue to support hospitals and health care workers in all regions to ensure they have both capacity and supplies to treat COVID patients because this virus is by no means defeated.”