In a press conference on Sunday, Cuomo had a grim outlook for the New York City borough, saying "Staten Island is a serious problem."
The governor made it clear that Staten Island could go into an orange zone in some parts, and a red zone for others as soon as this week at the current rate.
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"Unless they dramatically change the trajectory of the infection rate, this week they will go into those zones," Cuomo said.
In addition, Cuomo announced that the borough is running into a hospital capacity issue that will have to be dealt with over the next few days.
However, Staten Island isn't the only area in the city where the governor said rising COVID rates could lead to a zone change.
"We have several communities that are in the warning track," Cuomo said.
He says parts of Upper Manhattan and Long Island are likely to advance to a yellow zone.
With the holidays approaching, Cuomo also predicted the state's positivity rate could break 10% during the post-Thanksgiving and post-holiday periods.
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"You have a trajectory where it goes so high, the whole scale changes," he said. "I would not be shocked if they said on January 10, January 15, we are up at 7%, 8%, 9%, 10%. That could very easily happen if we are irresponsible. It could even be higher if we are irresponsible. It is purely a function of what we do."
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