White House Meeting Revisited

Today Governor Cuomo provided details from yesterday’s meeting with President Trump. The Federal Government will work on the international supply chain to ensure New York will be able to work with its roughly 300 local labs to perform a combined 40,000 diagnostic and antibody tests per day.

In addition to the testing, the State will launch a tracing program focused on downstate New York that will work in conjunction with Connecticut and New Jersey.  This program will identify who is infected and trace who they may have had contact with along the way. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is donating $10.5 million to help develop the training and background checks needed for the program in partnership with the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and Vital Strategies. The program will be funded with $1.3 billion that the State has access to through previously passed Federal legislation specifically for tracing.

Reopening Schools and Businesses

When asked about the possible closure of schools for the remainder of the school year, Gov. Cuomo stated that it is still too early to make a decision. He indicated that he sees opening businesses, schools and public transportation as being three interlocked gears that all must begin to move together. They would need to be disinfected, as well as have protocols in place for continued disinfecting and proper social distancing procedures in place.

New York City

The NYC Council today held its first Remote Stated meeting. During the meeting they passed multiple zoning bills, and introduced a number of new bills for future consideration.  A complete agenda of all bills passed and introduced can be found here.  The City Council will begin holding Committee meetings tomorrow.  Please let us know if you have any questions about the bills introduced and the overall process moving forward. 

In addition to the City Council’s legislative work today, Mayor de Blasio went on the record in regards to this year’s 4th of July celebration, stating “the show will go on”. 

COVID-19 Numbers

The Governor again states that we appear to be on the far side of the COVID-19 plateau, with all of the three-day average statistics continuing to decrease slowly. The number of deaths in the State has increased by 474 since yesterday to 15,302 total.