New York City needs $7.4 billion to offset COVID-19 losses: mayor

New York City Mayor Mayor Bill de Blasio.

New York City needs a $7.4 billion in federal aid to offset economic losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday.

De Blasio urged President Donald Trump to push his fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate to back more relief funding to help states and cities rise from the economic damage caused by the disease.

"The federal government must make us whole for us to be able to be in a position to restart," De Blasio, a Democrat, said in an interview on Fox News. "If New York City is not whole, it will drag down the entire region, and it will hold up the entire national economic restart."

The NYC mayor's call comes as New York State reported 367 new COVID-19 deaths over the past 24 hours, the lowest figure since March 31.

The number was announced at a news conference by Governor Andrew Cuomo, who warned against complacency in the fight against the disease.

"The overall hospitalization rate is down, number of intubations is down. Even the number of new COVID-19 cases is down. Still not good. Still 1,000 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, to put it in focus. That would normally be terrible news. It's only not terrible news compared to where we were. This is just terrible news; 367 deaths, which is horrific," said Cuomo.

New York is the epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak, having registered 17,126 COVID-19 fatalities.

Source(s): Reuters