With coronavirus hospitalizations on the rise, Gov. Andrew Cuomo rallied for resources for medical centers to increase capacity while considering lockdowns and suspending elective surgeries in some areas.

The governor invoked Sun Tzu’s Art of War — as well as A.J. Parkinson — in a Monday press conference in making an announcement that outlined a plan going into the holiday season which health officials have warned could result in strain for medical staff.

“Covid is shifting the battlefield dramatically and we have entered a new phase, it came with the colder weather,” Cuomo said. “We now have a holiday surge on top of a fall surge.”

As such, yellow, orange, and red zones will now be established based on new indicators: hospitalization rate, death rate, case rate, available hospital beds, available ICU beds, available staff, PPE, and equipment availability.

The Northwell, Montefiore, and NYC Health and Hospitals systems will all begin sharing the workload from the surge already underway. He ordered elective surgeries suspended in Erie County to create more bed space in the hard-hit region.

“We’re going to have a problem in the hospitals, I’m telling you right now,” Cuomo said.

According to Cuomo, 65 percent of all cases can be traced back to social gatherings in homes — limited to 10 people — leading to the decision to not impose more restrictions on indoor dining as they observe the spread taking place elsewhere.

Out of concern for staffing shortages, Cuomo is calling into action a strategy from the spring surge and mandating that hospitals compile a list of retired nurses and doctors who may be able to return to service in the coming weeks.

Cuomo added that he was more concerned that hospitals would run short on staff before they run short on beds, a seemingly different reality from expectations in the spring which indicated that capacity would be strained considerably.

Hospitals are currently required to have a 90-day supply of PPE which Cuomo believes will help avoid hospitals from being inundated with patients and not enough simple provisions such as masks. 

As of Monday, the total in hospitals with Covid-19 was 3,532 while the statewide infection rate is about 4.57 percent. There was a total of 54 deaths on Sunday, according to the governor’s office.

This story first appeared on amny.com

For more coronavirus coverage, visit longislandpress.com/coronavirus

While Gov. Andrew Cuomo is considering how New York State will deploy Covid-19 vaccines with historic deficits, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is pressing the federal for $30 billion to fund those efforts.

Schumer believes New York alone will require “hundreds of millions” in funding will be needed to freely distribute the vaccine, educate the public, hire health workers and establish clinics as multiple vaccines are expected to be fast-tracked by the Federal Drug Administration.

“With a Covid-19 vaccine waiting in the wings, federal dollars need to follow if we are going to get this right and overcome this pandemic,” Schumer said in a Sunday statement. “States like New York will need funding to make sure the resources required once the vaccine is made available are both in place and in progress. New York will require hundreds-of-millions of dollars to hire health workers, establish clinics, including possible mobile ones, and make sure that we have boots on the ground engaging with people in communities, particularly those that often struggle with access to healthcare — and that is going to cost money.”

Cuomo, meanwhile, is more preoccupied by what the state expects to be a winter surge in cases which the administration anticipates will only calm after the holidays are are over, the governor did express some additional concern for distribution of the vaccine.

“After New Years Day, look a week or ten days afterward and hopefully the social activity slows at that point and the infection rate starts to level off. And then you get to a vaccine, which is the answer ultimately,” Cuomo said. “You have to have a discussion about how quickly you can distributed it and how quickly, and what’s the critical mass point of the vaccine. But that is months away by every professional estimate.”

Within the $2.2 trillion HEROES Act, which passed the House of Representatives in May before being blocked in the U.S. Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is the funding for cities and states to organize vaccination efforts.

According to Schumer, he and President-elect Joe Biden have been in discussions to plan new bills through a lame duck session to provide another stimulus to Americans, something unseen since the CARES Act in March, that would include grants for localities to vaccinate the populace.

This story first appeared on amny.com

For more coronavirus coverage, visit longislandpress.com/coronavirus

With millions of people already filing through New York airports, Gov. Andrew Cuomo believes the state could see a 20 percent increase its coronavirus infection rate, which is currently at 2.5 percent.

As such, his administration is sharing the recommendation of both the Trump administration and advisers for President-elect Joe Biden, who say that households that have already been isolating together should keep it that way for Thanksgiving and the holidays.

“I don’t believe it’s about government enforcement; we have 98 percent mask compliance not because government decided, but because people decided to do it,” Cuomo said. “More people on planes, more people on the road, more people shopping, more people going to people’s homes. Let’s say that increases the virus 20 percent above the current rate of increase, just a projection, that’s where we wind up. [If] people are more reckless, could the 20 percent be higher? Yes.”

Cuomo was resolute in stating that law enforcement would not be issuing summonses for families who have gatherings under 10 people. He concluded his Tuesday press conferences with the distribution of turkeys from the state.

“I saw this little cartoon of me looking in your window on Thanksgiving,” Cuomo added. “I’m not looking into your window on Thanksgiving.”

With lines at urgent care facilities being hours-long endeavors for people hoping to be safe in their travels, the Cuomo administration believes this could be a dangerous approach as well.

“At this point, what you see is more concentrated areas within ZIP codes, and of course we’re watching the city as a whole. The big X factor is Thanksgiving,” Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa said. “The even scarier part is that last week, the CDC put out a report that said 24 percent of people who give COVID to someone else never develop symptoms and 35 percent are pre-symptomatic.”

Governor Cuomo has been leaning on the message that restraint over the holidays should be dedicated to essential workers who died of COVID-19, many of whom were hospital staff working directly with those who were infected. Over 130 of those essential workers were MTA employees.

The MTA, despite sorely needing the money after a mass exodus from mass transit left them dealing with deficits in the billions, is telling people to stay home as well.

“With COVID-19 cases dramatically increasing around the country, we are encouraging the public to restrict travel this Thanksgiving during this once-in-a-hundred-year public health crisis,” MTA Chairman Pat Foye said in a statement. “We are also reminding those who must travel about the urgent necessity of wearing masks while riding on public transportation. It’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s also the law.”

According to the Transportation Security Administration, 1 million boarded planes on Sunday, marking the highest traffic through American airports since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic apart from the tally from Oct. 18.

This story first appeared in amny.com

For more coronavirus coverage, visit longislandpress.com/coronavirus

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