WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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Governor Cuomo Issues Executive Order Allowing Medical Students Slated to Graduate to Begin Practicing

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that 1,000 ventilators have been donated to New York by the Joseph and Clara Tsai Foundation.

In his daily Coronavirus Intelligence Report, Governor Cuomo said his experts have told him the cases in New York State Now at 113,000, are getting close to the estimated top–the apex. The Governor said they expect the Apex in about 7 days.

The governor also showed a chart show current hospital capacities across the state. He noted the upstate hospitals are approximately 5% full, Nassau Suffolk about 17% full, with New York Hospitals about 85% full. The Governor said he would be meeting with coronavirus command center to allocate equipment, ventilators and personnel where the need is greatest.

Today’s media briefing was the most encouraging since last Monday and is well worth watching. You can see it here

The Joseph and Clara Tsai Foundation and the Jack Ma Foundation have also donated one million surgical masks, one million KN95 masks and more than 100,000 pairs of goggles to the state. The Chinese government and Ambassador Huang Ping, Chinese Consul General, have facilitated these donations.

The ventilators arrived at JFK Airport today.

The National Basketball Association is also contributing one million surgical masks for New York’s essential workers in collaboration with the New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and China’s New York Consul General Huang Ping.

Additionally, Oregon Governor Kate Brown has offered to provide New York with 140 ventilators from Oregon’s stockpile.

Governor Cuomo will also issue an Executive Order allowing medical students that are slated to graduate to begin practicing immediately to help with the state’s surge health care force. To date, 85,000 health professionals, including 22,000 out-of-state individuals, have signed up to volunteer as part of the state’s surge healthcare force during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“This pandemic has been stressing our nation on every level and we are doing everything in our power to prepare for the fight that will come at the apex,” Governor Cuomo said. “Ventilators remain our greatest challenge, and we have received a generous donation of 1,000 ventilators from the Joseph and Clara Tsai Foundation and the Chinese government, as well as 140 ventilators from Oregon – and these ventilators will save lives. This is a painful, disorienting experience, but we will get through it together and we will all be the better for it.”

The Governor confirmed 10,841 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 113,704 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 113,704 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows,.

Editor’s Note: Westchester cases rose 6% overnight to 13,081 from 12,351 yesterday, slowing it’s spread but still growing.

Nassau County continued its rapid spread of the virus rising 11% overnight to 13,346

Suffolk County cases rose 12% to 11,354 from 10,154 yesterday

Rockland County is at 4,872 cases continuing its 13.5% Rate of Infections. Dutchess County is approaching 1,000 cases

NEW YORK CITY IS AT 63,306 INFECTIONS UP 6,107, A GAIN OF 10.7% RISING AT SAME RATE AS THE STATE

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WPCNR CORONAVIRUS BULLETIN. From a CitizeNetReporter APRIL 4, 2020:

In this morning’s coronavirus news conference, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced to reporters, Governor Kate Brown of Oregon announced this morning she is sending 140 ventilators to New York State to aid the treatment of 113,000 COVID-19 cases in New York. Ventilators from Oregon are expected to arrive in the beginning of the week.

This morning Governor Brown said “We’ll be sending 140 ventilators to help NY because Oregon is in a better position right now. We must do all that we can to help those on the front lines of this response,”

GOVERNOR CUOMO thanked Governor Brown and pledged to devote New York resources to aid Oregon when it experiences the Coronavirus wave, saying this is the way states should act to help each other in time of crisis.

Governor Cuomo also announced China is sending 1,000 ventilators to New York by Saturday. Manual pdf

Meanwhile COVID-19 cases rose overnight to 113,000, a 10. Manual pdf 7% rate of infection, slightly lower than the 11.2% the state saw yesterday. The breakout daily rate of increase is being driven by the runup of coronavirus diagonoses in Nassau and Suffolk County. Manual pdf

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WPCNR CORONAVIRUS REPORT. By John F. Bailey. April 3, 2020 updated 2;30 PM EDT

New York State Positive Cases grew by 11.2% overnight according to the numbers announced by Governor Cuomo.

In the local metropolitan area Westchester County (population 1 million) cases rose 6.7% overnight to 12,351, up from 11,567 yesterday, but the rate of increase slowed slightly from 8.2% yesterday to 6.7% today.

New York City  total of positives is 57,159, up 11.2% over Thursday’s 47,439. Yesterday NYC rose at 8.2%.

Elsewhere, numbers are driving up in Nassau County  (with 1.3 Million people) growing by 10.8% Rate overnight at 10,587 cases, up from 9,554 Thursday. Suffolk County with 1.4 Million is growing by a 16% rate at 10,154 cases   up from  8,746 Thursday.

Up north of Westchester, Rockland County is getting hit with new cases at a 15.4% rate of increase per day, up from 12.9% in one day Thursday ; Orange is seeing new cases at a 20% rate and Dutchess County, 21%.

RISE IN DOMESTIC ABUSE REPORTED

For the hotline number of your local domestic violence program, call the New York State Domestic and Sexual Violence Hotline at 1-800-942-6906, English & español/Multi-language Accessibility. Deaf or Hard of Hearing: 711 In NYC: 1-800-621-HOPE (4673) or dial 311 TDD: 1-800-810-7444.

The Governor said he would be getting in touch with the Secretary of the Navy to find out why the government does not want the USNS Comfort hospital ship to take in corona virus patients.

The head of the New York State Department of Health explained what masks protect your face properly, but agreed that any face covering such as a bandana could be of help, but supplies of masks were being distributed only to medical personnel.

SCHOOL BOARD BUDGET VOTES ACROSS STATE NOW IN LIMBO

Yesterday the White Plains City School Board announced the website, the state has postponed the statewide school district budget and board elections from May 20 to June or Beyond (the notice was not mentioned in any briefings):

REVISED APRIL 1, 2020, PER EXECUTIVE ORDER 202.11 DATED 3/27/2020: 

“Any school board, library board, or village election scheduled to take place in April or May of 2020 is hereby postponed until at least June 1, 2020, and subject to further directive as to the timing, location or  manner of voting for such elections.” 

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The state now has over 92,000 cases; there are 884 new cases in Westchester for a current total of 11,567 out of 39,000 people tested in the county.

268 people with confirmed White Plains addresses have tested positive for the virus up from 248 yesterday ( Editor’s note: Increase 8%, below Westchester County rate).

As we have said, the local municipal numbers lag behind the broader county numbers due to the delay in the county receiving the necessary data from the state. Over time the lag has only gotten worse.

Despite this we have determined that we will continue to provide you with the numbers that we receive each day.

When and if the county provided municipal numbers have “caught up” to the overall numbers we will let you know, until then that you should not come to conclusions, positive or negative based on one day’s report.

The crime rate in White Plains has been very low for several years and it is even lower now.

We continue to patrol and enforce our laws and respond to resident complaints. Sanitation is picking up trash on a normal schedule; the streets and garages are being cleaned, building codes and city laws and ordinances continue to be enforced. The city remains at work.  

One area of concern is domestic violence.

Although we haven’t seen a spike in these cases, current living conditions may make it difficult for people to seek help.

We want to make it clear that if you or someone you know, is in a dangerous situation you should contact the police, the investigative and victim support services remain in place and we are here to help. No one should live in fear in their home. Alternatively, My Sister’s Place operates a 24 hour hotline- that number is 1-800-298-7233.

Tomorrow at 7 we are paying tribute to all our essential workers with a focus, of course on our medical personnel. Come to your door window balcony or driveway and make some noise to show how much what they are doing matters to us.

Remember we are standing together by staying apart

Helpful links:

Westchester County Coronavirus information

NY State Coronavirus Information

White Plains Hospital Coronavirus Information

If you are experiencing symptoms associated with coronavirus, please call either the White Plains Hospital Hotline at (914) 681-2900 or the NYS Dept of Health Hotline at 1-888-364-3065.  Professional staff will screen you over the phone by asking you a series of questions and assess your need for testing

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Wrap-up from the Governor’s Press Office, 4:15 PM. April 2, 2020 (EDITED)

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the State Department of Health has approved Northwell’s protocol allowing BiPAP machines to be converted into ventilators.

The State has purchased 3,000 BiPAP machines from Philips in Pittsburgh, and 750 machines are already in stock and will be distributed to hospitals.

The State has already taken a number of extraordinary measures to acquire more ventilators and build the State’s stockpile, including tracking where all the ventilators are located in New York and shifting their locations to meet the highest need and ending elective surgeries. If necessary, hospitals may also use anesthesia machine ventilators or use a “splitting” protocol where one ventilator is used for two patients using separate tubes. 

Governor Cuomo said the State has begun conducting a hospital-by-hospital survey on a nightly basis to take inventory of every hospital’s supplies.

Additionally, all hospitals are being asked to contribute the supplies they don’t currently need to a central stockpile to be distributed to hospitals with the greatest need.

The Governor also announced that 21,000 out-of-state individuals have volunteered to work in New York’s healthcare system on a temporary basis during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To date, 85,400 health professionals in New York have signed up to volunteer as part of the State’s surge healthcare force.

The Governor announced that, through June 1, 2020, consumers and businesses experiencing financial hardship due to COVID-19 may defer paying premiums under individual and small group health insurance policies.

DFS shall consider any liquidity or solvency concerns of the health plans. During this period, health plans will be required to continue to pay claims, not to report late payments to credit rating agencies, and to work with individuals to help them transition to new coverage, i,

f appropriate. In addition, insurers are reminded that they cannot impose late payment fees. Governor Cuomo thanked Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont for his collaboration on this initiative.

The NY State of Health and the New York State Department of Financial Services announced a one-month extension of the special enrollment period through May 15, 2020 to allow uninsured New Yorkers to apply for coverage through NY State of Health or directly to insurers.

If you lost employer coverage, you must apply within 60 days of losing that coverage. Because of a loss of income, New Yorkers may also be eligible for Medicaid, the Essential Plan, subsidized Qualified Health Plans or Child Health Plus.

“We are continuing to plan forward and prepare our healthcare system for when the apex of the curve hits,” Governor Cuomo said. “We are taking extraordinary measures to acquire more personal protective equipment, find beds to increase hospital capacity and recruit staff, but there is still a critical need for all three of these components, and we need all three in order for our hospitals to actually function and provide care.

Finally, the Governor confirmed 8,669 additional cases a 10.3% increase) of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 92,381 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 92,381 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows, local counties in boldface: