George Borrello (left) and Andy Goodell
ALBANY – Senator George Borrello and Assemblyman Andy Goodell released a complement plan to the “Restarting New York” regional plan that was put out last week. The two put out a schedule for reopening business sectors based on their inherent risk levels and the ability to mitigate those risks.
The plan provides a breakdown of lower and higher risk business sectors, through analysis of the workplace setting and occupational characteristics and the ease of adapting safety protocols to these environments and activities.
“As New York State enters its sixth week of New York on PAUSE, we are encouraged at the decreases in COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations that are occurring. These improvements have been achieved through the vigilance and great sacrifice of New Yorkers from one end of our state to the other. Together, we are preparing to face the next challenge of this chapter, which is reopening our economy safely and sustainably through a strategy that balances regional readiness with business sector risk,” said Senator Borrello. “We have had positive conversations with Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul about our strategy and stand ready to offer any assistance as she leads reopening efforts.”
The plan stresses that regional and individual business plans should include all safety measures to reduce the risk as much as possible.
While expressing support for the Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Un-PAUSE NY plan, they recommend two changes to the 12-point system for evaluating when a region should restart. The changes include:
- Adjusting the recommendation regarding hospital rates, which under the Governor’s plan must show a 14-day decline. Senator Borrello and Assemblyman Goodell suggest that hospital rates could be “stable or declining” for 14 days without compromising safety or hospital capacity.
- Modifying the contact tracing capacity from the current “30 tracers for every 100,000 residents” to “30 tracers per 100,000 residents or at least two contact tracers for every confirmed active case,” whichever is less. They note that under the current guideline, a county the size of Rockland with 311,000 residents and with 11,453 confirmed cases would have just one tracer for every 123 cases, yet the same formula in Chautauqua County, with four active cases, would result in 7.5 tracers for every active case.
They have forwarded the plan to Lt. Gov. Hochul – who is leading reopening efforts in Western New York.
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