New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has issued a state-wide order for all non-essential workers to stay home now in the most drastic step he has taken in the battle against coronavirus, telling the state’s 19million residents: ‘We are all in quarantine now.’
In an announcement on Friday, Cuomo hardened the previous rule that 75 percent of the state’s workforce had to stay home to 100 percent.
It goes into effect on Sunday evening – he has not yet specified the time – and it is an indefinite order.
Work forces that are excluded are grocery stores, pharmacies, certain government workers, food deliveries and restaurants, internet service providers and news organizations. Public transport will carry on as usual, but Cuomo did not specify whether cabs, Ubers or Lyft will be forced to stop.
Lyft says it will still operate under the premise that the governor said transport would continue but he has not confirmed that yet. A full list of the businesses which will be exempt is expected later today.
Residents will be allowed to go outside and no individual fines will be issued but he encouraged only solitary activities like running or walking.
‘This is not voluntary. It’s not helpful hints. We are going to monitor it. There will be civil fines. I am not kidding about this,’ he said.
He has not specified what the fines will be but said they will only apply to businesses and not individuals.
There are now 7,102 cases in New York State. There are 1,939 new cases in New York City since yesterday, bringing the total to 4,408. The total increase in just one day in New York state is 2,950. The hospitalization rate is 18 percent.
White House coronavirus expert Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke around an hour after Cuomo’s announcement to say he ‘strongly supported it’.
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In an announcement on Friday, he increased the previous rule that 75 percent of the state’s workforce had to stay home to 100 percent, telling residents: ‘We are all in quarantine now’
Cuomo said he had tried to put off the order but felt he could no longer hold off as the number of cases continued to rise.
‘These actions will cause businesses to close.
‘They will cause much unhappiness. I understand that.
I’ve spoken to my colleagues around the state, there’s a spectrum of opinion.
‘Some people say we don’t need to do this, it’s going to hurt the economy.
‘Just so we’re all clear – this is a state wide order.
‘It’s not what your county executive is doing, your mayor, it’s not what anyone else but me is doing.
‘I accept full responsibility. If someone is unhappy and wants to blame someone or complain about someone – blame me.
‘There is no one else who is responsible for this decision.
‘I’ve been in public service for many, years, managed dozens of emergencies, the philosophy that always worked is prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
‘That is what we’re doing.
‘In 10 years, I want to be able to say I can say to the people of New York that I did everything I could do.
‘This is about saving lives and everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.’
‘This is science and math.
‘Watch the number and trajectory. You have the density control valve. If the number doesn’t slow down, tighten the valve more… then close the valve.
‘We’re closing the valve.
‘Everybody has personal freedom and I’ll always protect that….but everybody also has a responsibility.
‘We’re all in quarantine now. We’re all in various levels of quarantine,’ he said.
He said it is not a shelter in place order, saying: ‘Words matter. People are scared and people panic. “Shelter in place” is used currently for an active shooter or school shooting.
‘It was, during the nuclear event, isolate yourself in an interior room no windows, stay there until you get the all-clear.
‘The “shelter in place policy” scared a lot of people and panicked people. Even California doesn’t call it that anymore.
‘Why am I increasing the mandates? Because the numbers are increasing,’ he said.
Cuomo also made an impassioned plea for hospital equipment and announced that he would fund any business that could mass manufacture surgical masks.
The country’s hospitals are in urgent need of ventilators.
‘Ventilators are to this war what missiles were to World War II,’ Cuomo said, offering to pay a ‘premium’ for any that he can get his hands on.
In addition to the closure of non-essential businesses, Cuomo announced he is;
- Banning all evictions for 90 days on businesses and residences
- Will offer funding to any business that can manufacture masks and hospital gowns
- Is considering turning various CUNY and SUNY campuses into hospitals along with the Javits Center
- The US Army Corps of Engineers is building hospital beds before the virus peaks
- The state urgently needs 30,000 ventilators which he said will be the key weapon in the ‘war’ against the virus
- Mandating Matilda’s Law to protect people over 70 – they must stay indoors and screen all visitors by taking their temperature
Cuomo’s announcement came after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city was now the ‘epicenter’ of the coronavirus outbreak in the US with more than 4,000 confirmed cases and 26 deaths as he pleaded with the federal government to give him help before hospitals become overwhelmed.
In an impassioned plea to President Trump on CNN, de Blasio said New York’s hospitals would run out of ventilators and surgical masks in two or three weeks.
He said he was considering turning hotels and the Javits Center, a sprawling expo-center in Hell’s Kitchen, into hospital ‘annexes’ but that the city desperately needed more supplies.
These are the numbers for the state of New York. As of Friday, there are 7,102 cases of the virus after an increase of 2,950
De Blasio says he is looking at turning the Javits Center, an enormous expo center, into a hospital. He will also turn hotels into hospital ‘annexes’ he said
There are now more than 16,000 cases of coronavirus in the US and more than 200 people have died.
De Blasio said more would die unnecessarily unless the federal government stepped in.
‘Where the hell is the federal government in the middle of the biggest crisis we have seen in generations?
‘I have to be honest with the people of my city.
‘Here are the facts – as of late last night, 4,000 cases confirmed in New York City, 26 people have died.
‘We constitute 30 percent of the cases in the US and 70 per cent of the cases in New York State.
‘Whether we like it or not, we are the epicenter,’ he said.
De Blasio said on Thursday that the hospitals would run out of ventilators and masks in just two to three weeks.
He is begging the government to mobilize the army to bring any that are in other medical facilities around the country to New York, but claims he has not had a sufficient response.
‘I have made repeated appeals to the federal government to get us basic supplies and there is no meaningful response.
‘I have appealed to the president to activate the United States military which is actually the one force in this nation that could save us because they could mobilize quickly, effectively, to get us medical supplies, personnel – they could get the supplies that are in the rest of our country here in record time,’ he said.
‘We know what they can do in wartime, they can do it in peace time and you know where they are?
‘They’re at their bases right now because the president of the United States, the Commander in Chief, has not given the order.’
‘I’ve got people in my city, right now, a lot of them are older, a lot of them are suffering from other diseases – if help doesn’t come, we’re going to lose people who should not die,’ he continued.
‘People will die who should not die because in two or three weeks, my hospitals, some of the finest in the nation, will run out of ventilators, surgical masks, other protective things and all the things we need to run a hospital.
‘It will endanger our healthcare workers. They’re showing up – they keep coming to work.’
Since Tuesday, more than 2,000 retired healthcare workers have volunteered to come back to work.
The federal government has dispatched USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship, which will dock in New York City and provide another 1,000 beds for people with non-coronavirus related illnesses.
The goal is to free up as many beds as possible in other hospitals for those with COVID-19.
Trump, in his daily press briefings, has spoken more about the country’s ongoing search for ventilators and its research into drugs and vaccines, along with how the economy is going to be affected, than he has about New York.
On Thursday, the Governor of California issued an indefinite ‘stay at home’ order for the state’s 40million residents.
There are now more than 16,000 cases of coronavirus in the US and more than 211 have died
The streets of New York are empty, with millions staying at home per the advice of the government
California governor Gavin Newsom issues statewide ‘Stay At Home’ order for 40 million people
Newsom said in the letter (pictured) that officials project that roughly ’56 per cent of our population – 25.5 million people – will be infected with the virus over an eight-week period’
California’s governor on Thursday issued an unprecedented statewide ‘stay at home order’ directing the state’s 40 million residents to hunker down in their homes for the foreseeable future in the face of the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s directive, effective immediately, marks the largest and most sweeping government clampdown yet in the worsening public health crisis brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak, which he predicted could infect more than half the state within eight weeks.
‘We are confident the people of California will abide by it, they will meet this moment,’ Newsom, a Democrat in his first term as governor of the nation’s most populous state, said at a late-afternoon news briefing from the state capital in Sacramento.
‘They’ll step up as they have over the last number of weeks to protect themselves, to protect their families and to protect the broader community in this great state and the world we reside in.’
Newsom said exceptions to the stay-at-home rule would be granted for residents to make necessary trips to grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors and in some cases work.
He did not give an end date for the order but suggested that it would last for at least eight weeks.
The governor said the order was essential in light of modeling by experts that showed roughly 56 per cent of the state’s residents, or 25 million people, would contract the respiratory illness in the next eight weeks.
Such numbers would require nearly 20,000 more hospital beds than the state could provide.
Already more than 1,000 Californians have been confirmed as infected and 18 have died, the third largest death toll in the United States behind only Washington state and New York.
California is home to some 40 million people, including an estimated 108,000 homeless.
Just before the press conference, Newsom released a copy of a letter that he sent to Donald Trump in which he asked the president to send help ‘immediately’.
‘I respectfully request you immediately deploy the USNS Mercy Hospital Ship to be stationed at the port of Los Angeles through September 1, 2020, to help decompress our current health care delivery system in the Los Angeles region in response to the COVID-19 outbreak,’ Newsom’s letter reads.
Newsom said officials project that roughly ’56 per cent of our population – 25.5 million people – will be infected with the virus over an eight-week period’.
Earlier this week, Trump did say that the Navy hospital ships Mercy and Comfort would be pressed into service, one on each coast, as healthcare systems become badly strained during the pandemic.
But US defense officials have said the ships were not yet ready to sail on the emergency mission, with the Comfort undergoing maintenance in Virginia.
An unnamed US defense official said Thursday that the Mercy would be sent from San Diego to the Seattle area, which is one of the nation’s worst outbreaks of the respiratory illness that has killed more than 200 people nationwide and infected more than 14,000 others.
Trump spoke with several state governors by phone on Thursday, saying the federal government would be helping out US auto companies and might consider a relief package for the hospitality industry as well.