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May 6 (UPI) -- The coronavirus death toll in New York is close to 20,000, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday, citing data showing the disease is mostly spreading among New Yorkers at home. Cuomo said state health officials reported 232 new deaths to push its total to 19,877 and its caseload to over 320,000.
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"That is 232 families that are suffering today," he said, adding that new hospitalizations are on a "painfully slow decline."
"With everything we've done, we still see 600 new cases yesterday."
Cuomo said data from 100 New York hospitals show 66 percent of new admissions involve residents who were living at home rather than nursing homes, assisted living facilities or other types of congregate settings.
"This is a surprise," he said. "We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we've taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home."
There have been more than 1.2 million U.S. cases so far and more than 71,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Almost 190,000 have recovered.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the formation of new "sector advisory councils" to advise him on how best to reopen the city after two months of a near-total economic shutdown. The 10 boards will cover areas from small business to the arts, culture and tourism. Each will have up to 40 members and be led by deputy mayors and city department heads.
Their mission, de Blasio said, is to "help us understand what is needed to get this restart right."
"This has to be done in stages. It has to be done gradually. That doesn't mean doing it any slower than it needs to be done, it means doing it just right."
De Blasio said the city is preparing to furlough and lay off municipal workers without financial help from the federal government in the next relief bill.
In Georgia, state health officials said Wednesday there's an emerging coronavirus hot spot around Gainesville, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.
Cases there steadily increased throughout April and a mobile hospital has been set up with many as 100 medical personnel, officials said.
"They're being strained pretty hard up there at the moment," Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday.
In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday announced the state will provide free decontamination of N95 respirators used by healthcare providers and front-line workers.
Wolf said the Battelle Critical Care Decontamination System will be used to decontaminate the masks and allow them to be reused.
"This critical decontamination service, provided at no cost by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gives us another option for making sure that the people at the forefront of this pandemic have the equipment they need to stay safe," he said.
Tens of thousands of N95 masks can be cleaned in a single day, he said.
In Michigan, Republican state lawmakers leaders sued Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer seeking to invalidate her extension of the state's emergency.
House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey announced the lawsuit Wednesday.
"The goal from day one, we were told, was to 'flatten the curve' and to ensure our hospital system and healthcare providers could absorb an influx of people entering the system," Chatfield said. "We believe we've done that, and we have to acknowledge now that this virus is not going anywhere.
"Because of that, we have to now transition to asking ourselves, how can we change our daily lives to ensure we're living safely?"
Lawmakers declined last week to prolong the emergency but Whitmer ordered an extension through May 28, citing authority under a 1945 law.
The statehouse in Lansing last week was the scene of an anti-lockdown protest that was attended by several hundred, some with firearms.
