New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he plans to sign an executive order that would allow the state government to take personal protective equipment and ventilators from hospitals with less need and redeploy them to areas harder hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
The governor said he has spoken with hospital administrators and understands the reluctance to give up essential equipment, but that he wants to avoid a situation where COVID-19 patients are dying in one part of the state while ventilators sit unused in another part of the state.
"The theory is that if the government gets them, they will never get them back. I understand that, but I don't have an option," Cuomo said.
The move marks an expansion of a broader effort to coordinate the state's patchwork of regional health systems and public and private hospitals. The state is surveying hospitals nightly to determine case-loads, personnel needs, and inventories of needed medical supplies.
"Those institutions will either get their ventilator back or they will be reimbursed and paid for their ventilator so they can buy a new ventilator," the governor said. "I can't do anything more than that."
Several hundred ventilators could be shifted from upstate to downstate New York, according to Cuomo, though the exact amount remains to be determined. He said he's banking on hospitals' goodwill and pushed back against the use of the word "seize" in describing the policy.
"First of all, don't use the word seize," he said. "That's a harsh kind of word. It's sharing of resources. We're not going to have any part of the state not have the resources we need because we didn't share resources."
Cuomo also announced that the 2,500-bed emergency field hospital at the Javits Center in Manhattan will transition into treating COVID-19 patients. It was formerly intended as an overflow hospital for non-COVID cases, but there hasn't been enough demand for those cases.
"As it turned out, we don't have non-COVID people to any great extent in the hospitals," he said. "Hospitals have now turned into, effectively, ICU hospitals for COVID patients."
He said that the general shutdown of the state economy has led to a downturn in other types of medical needs, due to a drop in automobile-related injuries, violent crimes, and other incidents.
The latest numbers on the outbreak include 102,836 total cases, 14,810 hospitalizations, and more than 2,900 deaths, up from 2,300 deaths, which Cuomo called the "highest single increase in the number of deaths since we started."
Markets were pointing mostly lower to end the week as investors reacted to the threat of a Covid resurgence in Europe. Jeff Schulze, Investment Strategist at ClearBridge Investments joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss Friday's pre-market activity.
A federal judge tossed out a lawsuit against financial services platform Robinhood following the meme stock saga that swept the investment world. The judge said it found no wrongdoing on Robinhood's part after the platform halted trading on popular meme stocks Gamestop and AMC.
Jill and Carlo are back to cover the latest in the Rittenhouse trial, new information on the origins of Covid, return-to-office and more.
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The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Uber after it was discovered that disabled people were being disproportionately affected by extra “wait time” fees. Attorney Jonathan Bell joined Cheddar to discuss.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has been accused by the EU of manufacturing a migration crisis along his border with Poland. But, even as tensions appear to be stabilizing at the moment, Ali Noorani, the president and CEO of National Immigration Forum and the host of the "Only in America" podcast spoke to Cheddar about the ongoing danger to the migrants who hail from countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. "What is going to happen to folks who are in Belarus who came from these countries? Is Lukashenko going to provide them asylum and protection in Belarus, or are they going to continue to be political pawns in a geopolitical battle," he said. "Real people's lives are being put at great risk."
A group of crypto investors has come together to raise millions of dollars in the hopes of owning a rare piece of the U.S. Constitution. According to the crypto group, "Constitution DAO" It is time to put the constitution in the hands of the people. CEO and Founder of Metaversal Yossi Hasson, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Polarization is among the defining traits of American politics in the 21st century. Sometimes it seems like the only thing we can all agree on is the fact that we don't really agree on anything. But those divisions don't just stop at whether you vote red or blue.
A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds that rather than just two political buckets, we have nine. The "2021 political typology" as it's called distinguishes between different ideological subsets in the Democratic and Republican party. It encompasses everyone from the loudest revolutionary lefties, to the loudest insurrection apologists on the right.
Andrew Daniller, research associate at the Pew Research Center, joins None of the Above to discuss.
Tanya Snyder, transportation reporter at Politico, joins None of the Above with J.D. Durkin to discuss the bipartisan infrastructure law, what it means for the electric vehicle industry and whether Democrats will be able to capitalize on the legislative victory ahead of the 2022 midterms.
Heading into 2022, the eyes of political nerds like us are fixed on statehouses across the country. State legislatures are in the process of taking the data from the 2020 census and using it to draw new congressional districts. The process has major implications for midterms, as Republicans could retake the majority just by gerrymandering enough seats into their column. In Maryland, state level Democrats are considering several maps, one of which would completely draw out the only Republican from the state in Congress.
Bruce DePuyt, senior reporter at Maryland Matters, and Helen Brewer, legal analyst at Princeton's Electoral Innovation Lab, join Cheddar Politics to discuss.
