There will be new restrictions on working in New York State, as Governor Andrew Cuomo issues new mandatory density reductions to help control the spread of the corona virus. Meanwhile, New York is getting help from the federal government to increase hospital beds.
Governor Cuomo says all businesses will now be required to have 50% of their employees working from home, except for essential services.
“Today we are announcing a mandatory state wide requirement that no business can have more than 50% of their work force report to work outside of the home,” Cuomo said.
Essential services such as food delivery, pharmacies, health care, shipping and supplies are exempted, says Cuomo.
“Society has to function,” said Cuomo. “So you have to keep those essential services running.”
Cuomo says he’s working cooperatively with the administration of President Donald Trump to try to double the number of hospital beds available in the state in the next few weeks.
The governor says he’s meeting with the Army Corp of Engineers to identify sites, such as dormitories and closed nursing homes, to convert to new beds.
“We’re fighting the same war, and this is a war and we’re in the same trench,” Cuomo said he told Trump. “And we’re going to do everything we can for the people of the state of New York.”
Cuomo says the President’s “actions demonstrate that he is doing that”.
The governor says the Navy is also deploying a hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, to New York harbor , to care for those sick from the virus.
Cuomo also put out a plea to manufacturers of ventilators to make more of the devices as soon as possible.
The governor continues to oppose any plans to require New York City or other regions to shelter in place, he says it will just cause people to flee to other areas. New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio has said shelter in place for the city might be possible in a couple of days.
"WORKING REMOTELY" NOT AN OPTION FOR MANUFACTURERS
Many Central New Yorkers are now working from home in an effort to stem the spread of COVID-19. That’s fine for those who only need a computer to do most tasks. But what about the area’s manufacturers? Dean Burrows is President and CEO of Gear Motions in Solvay.
"The challenge of manufacturing is that you're making a product...transforming one product into another, and it's difficult to do any of that remotely. We can look at our front offices, HR, payroll, and some of our support services. But in reality, you have to be in a manufacturing facility to actually do our job."
About 50 people work at the Solvay plant making precision metal gearing for a variety of industrial products. Burrows says they’ve talked about separating operations into smaller groups and staggering shifts over 24 hours and 7 days to protect workers. But he says that could all change in an instant.
"If we end up having someone who [tests positive] and we have to self quarantine for two weeks, it's going to be difficult to do anything. We would shut everything down, and in essense cease operations at our local facility. We do have facilities in Buffalo, so we do have redundant capacity."
Burrows says he’s anticipating there might be some supply chain issues here and abroad in the coming weeks affecting the other parts of the larger products they help to produce. President of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York Randy Wolken says they’ve been urging members to have a contingency plan for such emergencies.
"I'm seeing a lot of business leaders step up. Obviously, they're also going to be trying to mitigate economic losses, which will be a part of this crisis. I've been telling members stay calm, act daily, do what's in the best interest of both you and the community, and we'll weather the storm."
Wolken says they’ve been helping companies try to manage the crisis on a daily basis.
