Health News

Cuomo Calls for More Federal Support for Testing, Local and State Governments

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April 20, 2020

By Barrett Seaman

While the numerical indicators continue to signal a descent from the state’s COVID-19 plateau, Governor Andrew Cuomo repeated his appeal to the federal government to provide financial support for local and state governments and for more help in distributed the elements needed to conduct widespread testing.

Hospitalizations are down; fewer patients are in emergency rooms; intubations are fewer, and the daily death toll fell again to 478 on Sunday. In additional the infection rate, which measures the number of additional people who are catching the virus from current carriers, remains under one—another measure of a downward trend.

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On testing, in reaction to a Trump tweet Monday morning that states were in charge of testing, Cuomo said, “The President is right,” but that where federal intervention is needed is in intervening to stop the unnecessary competition for equipment and chemicals needed to conduct testing and streamline the national supply chain. Some 300 labs in New York State are currently having difficulty getting what they need from national and international manufacturers.

Cuomo also called on the federal government to provide hazard pay for essential public workers on the front lines, proposing a 50% bonus. Citing Center for Economic and Policy Research sources, he said that 41 percent of frontline workers are people of color, 45 percent are public transit workers; 57 percent are building cleaning service workers and 40 percent of healthcare workers are people of color.

Recognizing that residents in concentrated populations—particularly in public housing—are among the most vulnerable to the virus, the governor announced that the state is shipping 500,000 cloth masks and 10,000 gallons of hand sanitizer to public housing complexes in New York City.

Anticipating that a lot of planning will be needed to phase the state back towards normalcy, Cuomo announced the creation of a “Reimagine NY Task Force” to improve systems in downstate New York once the state is no longer on pause. Among the members of the task force will be Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who thanked Cuomo, saying, “Reopening the economy, consistent with a science-based strategy to reduce the spread of the virus, is a priority of all of us.”

In Westchester, Latimer reported 108 new deaths from Sunday, bringing the total to 743. All told, the county has had 23,803 confirmed cases. In the accompanying chart, those numbers are distributed by municipality with the rivertowns showing the following totals and what they represent in terms of percentage of each village’s population:

Dobbs Ferry………147 1.3%

Irvington……………52 0.8%

Tarrytown………….168 1.5%

Sleepy Hollow…… 223 2.2%

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