COVID-19: MOVING FORWARD

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo urged Americans to be 'socially distanced, but spiritually connected' during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Every New Yorker must stay at home from work, unless they are an essential worker. Exemptions from the order will include shipping, media, warehousing, grocery and food production, pharmacies, healthcare providers, utilities, banks and related financial institutions.

Governor Cuomo said this morning,  "We implemented New York PAUSE, which stopped all the nonessential workers, et cetera. We have to start to think about New York Forward. How do you restart or transition to a restart of the economy? How do you dovetail that with a public health strategy? As you're identifying people who have had the virus and have resolved, can they start to go back to work? Can younger people start to go back to work because they're more much tolerant to the effect of the virus? So, how do you - you turned off the engine quickly, how do you now start or begin to restart or plan the restart of that economic engine? Separate task, but something that we have to focus on."

Staying home will help slow the spread of COVID-19 and will protect others from becoming critically ill and dying. Staying home also protects essential workers, including health care providers and retail workers, who must continue to work. Essential workers need to stay healthy to continue to provide services, such as caring for the sick and keeping groceries and food available.

"The increase in the number of cases continues", Cuomo says, "we see it as a wave that will break at one point and the question is what is the point of the break, and if when the wave breaks does it crash over the healthcare system?" The focus, he said is to reduce the spread, the rate of spread of the virus - not control the spread, because you can't, but he said, you can reduce the rate of the spread. "That is what every state is doing. That is what this is all about. How do you reduce the rate of spread? Reduce the density, do more testing, isolate the people who test positive. Second track, increase hospital capacity as quickly as you can so that at the apex of the wave you have the hospital capacity for the people who will need the hospital capacity, which are the vulnerable people that we have been talking about."

Latest info on #covid19 in NYC 

Hospitalizations 1,800  

ICU 450  

Deaths 99 

Confirmed Cases 12339*

*As 3/23/2020

All non-essential businesses that are normally open to the public must remain closed. Bars and restaurants may provide takeout.

Also, all non-essential gatherings of any size for any reason are banned.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo also announced an initial delivery of hospital supplies to the Jacob K. Javits Center where FEMA has started to build a 1,000-bed temporary hospital that will help increase New York's hospital capacity to combat COVID-19 and open next week. This is in addition to the four sites selected by the Army Corps of Engineers that will create temporary hospitals in downstate New York with total capacity up to 4,000. The federal administration has deployed 339,760 N-95 masks, 861,700 surgical masks, 353,300 gloves, 145,122 gowns and 197,085 face shields to New York State, with many state supplies already located at the Javits Center.

Staying home will help slow the spread of COVID-19 and will protect others from becoming critically ill and dying. Staying home also protects essential workers, including health care providers and retail workers, who must continue to work. Essential workers need to stay healthy to continue to provide services, such as caring for the sick and keeping groceries and food available

"We are going to have time. And the question is how do we use this time positively?"

 "Finding the silver lining, the positive. Life is going to be quieter for a matter of months. Everything will function. Life will function. Everything will normal operations, there won't be chaos There's less noise. You know what, that can be a good thing in some ways. You have more time. You have more flexibility. You can do some of those things that you haven't done, that you kept saying, 'Well I'd love to be able to, I'd love to be able to.' Well now you can. You have more time with family."

"Realize the time frame we're expecting, make peace with it and find a way to help each other through this situation because it's hard for everyone. And the goal for me - socially distanced but spiritually connected. How do you achieve socially distanced but spiritually connected?"

For more information on this executive order from the Governor, visit the NYS Department of Health website.

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