While reporting the number of deaths in New York state from COVID-19 has risen to 114, with 1,873 cases detected in Westchester, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo today called on the federal government not to waste time and immediately start building supplemental hospitals in four New York locations.
Cuomo said he has approved of the Westchester County Center, SUNY Westbury, SUNY Stony Brook and the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan as locations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to build additional hospitals.
He called upon the federal government not to waste time and to immediately start the construction process. Cuomo said that the FEMA hospitals would be at the Jacob Javits Center and would be provided with staff and supplies. The facilities put up by the Army Corps of Engineers, such as the one proposed for the Westchester County Center, would need to be supplied and staffed from state and local sources.
Testing has revealed 15,168 cases statewide of the coronavirus as of Sunday morning. In New York City, the number stood at 9,045 cases. Rockland had 455 cases while Orange County had 247 cases.
Cuomo said that the state’s Department of Health has issued an emergency order to hospitals requiring them to cancel elective surgery effective this Wednesday and to expand their capacity by a minimum of 50% with a goal of doubling existing capacity. Cuomo said that he understands that elective surgery provides a significant part of a hospital’s revenue but the move to eliminate it at this time is vital.
Cuomo said that the federal government needs to use the Defense Production Act to break the logjam in availability of medical supplies such as ventilators and face masks and gowns. President Trump activated the DPA but did not issue any orders to manufacturers actually ramp-up production.
Cuomo said that the price of a face mask that used to be 85-cents has now soared to $7 in part because states are competing with one another in bidding for supplies. Ventilators which used to be $16,000 are now being sold for $40,000. He said that action by the federal government could put an end to the competition and create a reliable supply chain.
Cuomo said that federal money is needed right now in the economy at all levels.
“I’m spending money right now that we don’t have,” Cuomo said of the state’s financial picture. “I’m not going to deprive people of medical services, but the economy has stopped. People are not paying their taxes. If you’re not paying your taxes that’s a state source of revenue. Funding from the federal government is essential for me.”
Cuomo said there need to be guarantees that any money going to large corporations will not be a “gift to corporations at the taxpayers’ expense” but rather will be used to benefit the country.
“Let’s learn from what happened in 2008. I was attorney general at that time in the state of New York where we bailed out corporations, they bought back stock, they paid their corporate executives handsomely, they benefited from taxpayer money and the taxpayers wound up getting none of the profits,” Cuomo said. “The citizens should benefit from the corporate success.”
Cuomo said that on Tuesday the state will begin testing a combination of drugs, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and zithromax that previously have been used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis to see whether they can be effective against COVID-19. Cuomo said that some medical experts hypothesize that one reason there has been a relatively low rate of the novel coronavirus appearing in Africa could be that the drugs are routinely taken there against Malaria and have the additional effect of inhibiting coronavirus.
Cuomo expressed alarm that there continue to be gatherings of people in New York City including young people engaged in recreational activities in city parks. He ordered the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to produce within 24 hours a plan to reduce density. That could include banning group activity in parks, opening up streets for pedestrian use because of the drop in vehicular traffic and any other ideas.
As he did previously, Cuomo warned young people who were dismissing the possibility that they could be affected by the virus that it does not discriminate based on age. He reported that people ages 18 to 49 now represent 49% of the cases detected in New York state.
