State Part of Regional Consortium to Study Reopening Economy
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has entered a partnership with five other Northeast governors to devise a plan that coordinates a restart of the regional economy that has been largely shut down since last month because of the coronavirus.
The coordinated effort with New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island will feature a working group consisting of a top public health official and an economic development adviser from the six states and each governor’s chief of staff to develop a strategy that will slowly return people to work.
Cuomo said Monday that the group will look to strike the delicate balance of helping the economy but to do it in a phased manner that hopefully won’t trigger a new wave of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
“We’ve never been here before but that doesn’t mean you can’t ensure public confidence that you’re doing everything you can to do it in a smart way, an informed way, guided by experts and data and science and not in a political way,” Cuomo said.
He cautioned that while there have been encouraging signs for New York by apparently reaching a plateau on new hospitalizations, intensive care admissions and intubations, the process of a complete return to normal life could be as much as 12 to 18 months away.
The announcement came on the same day that the statewide death toll reached 10,056, after 671 New Yorkers died from the disease on Easter Sunday. That number includes 557 Westchester residents who have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic and another 18 residents in Putnam County as of Monday, according to the Department of Health.
Any plan from the six-state partnership will coordinate health and economic issues that calibrates what to include in the next level of essential businesses and services, Cuomo said. For it to work, there will also need to be a much lower infection rate, adequate diagnostic and antibody testing, federal legislation that provides more fiscal relief to the states and a continuation of the social distancing that is helping to slow the spread of the virus, he said.
“This is a time for smart, competent, effective government,” Cuomo said. “Nothing else matters. I want to say to the people of this state that we did everything we could to the best of our ability.”
The working group is expected to convene on Tuesday and return with a plan as soon as possible.
The Monday afternoon announcement via conference call included the governors of the five other states. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said the coordination plan is critical because of the travel between the states, particularly the tristate metropolitan area.
“All of our pandemic here in Connecticut is along that I-95, Metro-North corridor,” Lamont said. “We have hundreds of thousands of people going back and forth between New York and Connecticut. It’s the commuter corridor to us but it’s also the COVID corridor, which is why it’s so important we work together.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said that an economic recovery can only be achieved when there is also a health recovery.
“This is the fight of our lives. Let there be no doubt about it,” Murphy said. “We are not out of the woods yet in reopening ourselves back up.”
Cuomo mentioned that the states aren’t going to necessarily have identical guidelines since the needs from one state to another, and even within the states, are different. But the goal is to coordinate as much as possible.
A lack of coordination was on display last weekend when Mayor Bill DiBlasio made a surprise announcement that New York City’s public schools would be closed for the remainder of the academic year.
On Saturday and Sunday, Cuomo said he had the authority to determine whether schools would re-opening of society, that includes private industry, the greater workforce and transportation, he said. Schools statewide are closed until at least Apr. 29.
“We closed it down in a coordinated fashion and that means we will go forward together,” Cuomo said on Sunday. “So we’ll have a coordinated plan, we’ll have a regional plan. Hopefully, we’ll get on the same page with New Jersey and Connecticut. We’re going to try. That is the optimum situation.”
Cuomo said last week that the state’s lab had been conducting 300 antibody tests a day and that number is expected to increase to 1,000 by this Friday and to 2,000 a day by next week. Antibody tests can determine who has had COVID-19, including those who were asymptomatic, and therefore likely immune to the virus and able to return to society. Diagnostic testing determines which citizens are positive for the disease.
However, the tests will need to be mass produced in the millions before any reopening, Cuomo said.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/