New York state has received 1.5 million cloth masks from the federal government to help implement an executive order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo issued an executive order Wednesday requiring anyone in a situation where social distancing is not possible to wear a mask or face covering to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The state will distribute the masks from the federal government to the public, Cuomo said at a media briefing Saturday. 

“I think (this) is a small inconvenience that has a tremendous benefit for people,” Cuomo said.

The coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has infected 236,732 people in New York state as of Saturday and killed 13,362. The state has confirmed 7,090 cases and 540 deaths since Friday.

The total number of hospitalizations from the virus in New York state is on the decline, suggesting that the state could be past the height of the outbreak, Cuomo said. 

To limit the spread of the virus in prisons, the state has started releasing prisoners over 50 years old who are not guilty of a violent crime or sexual assault and have 90 days or less left on their sentence. Close to 200 prisoners have been released based on this criteria, said Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. 

“This will roll forward throughout this current emergency,” she said.

Prisons and nursing homes both need to increase COVID-19 testing within their facilities, but nursing homes are of particular concern, Cuomo said. The state hopes to conduct more tests on health care workers in these facilities. 

“There are not enough tests being performed on any group in any part of the state,” Cuomo said. “That’s why we have to bring testing to scale.”

Large-scale testing and tracing remains vital to reopening the state’s economy, Cuomo said. The process of testing and tracing involves finding and isolating anyone who has come in contact with an infected person.

“Tracing requires an army,” Cuomo said. “You need thousands of people who just trace in the state of New York.”

The state’s dependence on private companies’ supply chains has posed another testing challenge, Cuomo said. Manufacturers who sell testing machines to private labs each have their own set of testing reagents that only work with their machines, he said. 

New York state needs the federal government’s help to coordinate the supply chain and distribute more testing reagents, Cuomo said. 

“We are barely stabilizing our public health system now,” Cuomo said. “You’re not seeing a total overload of the emergency rooms, that does not mean happy days are here again.” 

The National Governors Association is asking for $500 billion from the federal government to reopen the states, Cuomo said. Funding for states should be included in legislation in order for governors to reopen schools and small businesses, he said.

“This is now all up to the governors,” Cuomo said. “Nobody wants to get the economy going more than me.”

Cuomo said the number of cases in each region of the state will be a determining factor in how soon the regions can reopen. He doesn’t want to be too hasty with reopening, he said. 

“We are not at a point that we will be opening anything immediately,” Cuomo said.

Published on April 18, 2020 at 3:15 pm

Contact Sarah: scalessa@syr.edu | @sarahalessan