Michael Bloomberg to help New York launch ‘army’ of investigators to track down contacts of infected people

Multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg will help New York build an “army” of investigators to track down contacts of people infected with the coronavirus to help this state, epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, move towards the exit crisis, announced its governor on Wednesday.

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Former New York mayor and former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg will contribute more than $ 10 million and “help coordinate” this tracing program, which will be coordinated with the two neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut.

“We need to put together a tracing army,” Andrew Cuomo said at his daily press conference in Albany, New York,

“We talked about screening, tracing and isolation. This will be key to moving forward. This is how we (…) accumulate data while we move towards evaluating a reopening ”of the city and the New York economy, he added.

The governor said the state currently has around 500 public health investigators, but it is expected to mobilize thousands, including using medical students.

Large-scale screening is seen as a key factor in lifting containment instructions and reviving the paralyzed American economy, without causing a spike in new infections.

Particularly hit by Covid-19, New York State has about a third of the more than 45,800 deaths in the United States.

According to Andrew Cuomo, 474 New Yorkers have died in the past 24 hours, down from the previous day. This brings the total toll for this state of 20 million inhabitants to more than 15,300 dead.

The governor indicated that the number of hospitalizations and intubations was also on the decline, a sign that the crisis was continuing its “slight decline”.

But “if we are irresponsible today (…), we will see this rate of hospitalizations go up within three, four, five days”, he warned.

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