The former mayor of New York, who renounced the Democratic nomination in early March, will inject more than $ 10 million and help coordinate the program.
In addition to funding provided by Michael Bloomberg, New York State has $ 1.3 billion in federal funds for this program, which will be carried out in coordination with neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut.
The people of these states travel daily to work in New York City, which is an epicenter of the pandemic in the United States. This research operation represents a colossal task. We will literally need thousands
people to do it, Governor Cuomo said.
As of Wednesday, 474 New York state residents died from COVID-19, a drop from the previous day. To date, there have been more than 15,300 deaths from the coronavirus in this state of 20 million inhabitants.
About a third of all deaths in the United States from COVID-19 are in New York state.
L’army
investigators will help find people who have been infected in order to get them to isolate themselves, said Andrew Cuomo.
We talked about screening, tracing and isolation. This is going to be the key to moving forward. This is how we […] accumulates data while moving towards the evaluation of a reopening
of the city and the New York economy, added the governor.
Large-scale screening is seen as a key factor in lifting containment instructions and reviving the paralyzed US economy, without causing a spike in new infections.
Double the number of tests
More than 257,000 people in New York State have already tested positive. But in reality, there would be many more cases of COVID-19, and Governor Cuomo intends to increase the number of tests performed each day from 20,000 to 40,000.
New York State currently has 225 people assigned to trace people who have had contact with those infected. The city and suburbs of New York have more than 500, but their efforts were quickly overtaken as significant numbers of New Yorkers fell ill.
Andrew Cuomo says he will recruit the new investigators from the pool of 35,000 medical students enrolled in city and state universities. They will be trained, online, by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
The city itself will develop its own program: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio made it public shortly before Governor Cuomo’s announcement. Bill de Blasio says when large-scale testing becomes available to New York City, the city will need up to 10,000 investigators. Among them will be municipal employees and those of non-profit groups.
–
