Reopening Process
Governor Cuomo today stressed the State must continue to follow CDC guidelines and reopening criteria while also learning from what other countries and states have done when Regions begin the reopening process.
The status of each region in the State will be updated daily with their standing made public here regarding eligibility for reopening. Currently the Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley and Southern Tier Regions are set to begin Phase 1 of reopening on Friday, May 15th. The counties within these eligible regions are as follows:
Finger Lakes
- Monroe
- Orleans
- Genesee
- Wyoming
- Livingston
- Ontario
- Wayne
- Seneca
- Yates
Mohawk Valley
- Oneida
- Herkimer
- Otsego
- Schoharie
- Fulton
- Montgomery
Southern Tier
- Delaware
- Chenango
- Broom
- Tioga
- Tompkins
- Chemung
- Schuyler
- Steuben
Federal Assistance
The Governor returned his focus today to the need for federal assistance for state and local governments. He stated that New York would need $61 billion in federal support or it would need to cut spending by 20% for schools, hospitals and local governments.
To accompany this request he announced that today he and Republican Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland (who is also Chair of the National Governors Association) are making a joint bi-partisan statement to again ask for unrestricted federal dollars for state and local governments. He indicated that the statement would ask to use the money for landlord and renter assistance, payroll protection, funeral costs, reinstatement of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction and funding for state testing and tracing programs.
Americans First
Today Governor Cuomo announced the proposal of the Americans First Law. This federal law would be proposed by New York’s Congressional Delegation – Rep. Nydia Velázquez, Rep. Thomas Suozzi, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Gregory Meeks, Rep. Grace Meng, Rep. Eliot Engel, Rep. Paul Tonko, Rep. José Serrano, Rep. Joe Morelle, Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Rep. Yvette Clarke.
The law would aim ensure that any corporation that received federal stimulus dollars would have to in return hire back as many employees as were originally furloughed. The idea, according to the Governor, would be to stop “corporate bailout boondoggles” allowing companies looking to make a profit from the federal stimulus dollars to not fully spend the money and in turn pass the “profits” along to the shareholders. There has been no response from NY’s federal representatives on this proposal as of yet.
COVID-19 Numbers
Thankfully, we continue to remain on the far side of the COVID-19 plateau. That said, the number of deaths in the State has increased by 195 since yesterday. To help put some perspective on where the State stands, the hospitalization rate in the last 24 hours continues to be roughly the same as it was on March 19, three days before the “New York State on PAUSE” program originally went into effect on March 22.
