The Javits Center. (Daniel William McKnight)

Dispatch from City Hall, Sunday, March 31. Evening.

Apr 1, 2020 2:52AM EDT

Hospitals In Sync: Cuomo Revolutionizes New York Hospital Care

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced today the founding of a Central Coordinating Team for New York hospitals, and assigned it the mandate to organize the state’s response to COVID-19 and redistribute resources to areas of greatest need.

Over the weekend, the Governor had asked Mayor Bill de Blasio and the State Comptroller to look at unifying the city hospitals, while Cuomo met with private hospitals (Greater NY Hospital Association) to unify them all.

The hope is that resources will be pooled and ventilators and overflow patients will be able to move around the city efficiently and without hindrance based on insurance allegiances or ability to pay.

The Governor admitted that this was not only a drastic departure from business as usual for public hospitals, but that it was antithetical to the private hospital system. Still, Cuomo said, “The distinction between private and public, upstate and downstate needs to end.”

Why is the Governor doing this?
- To get supplies to hospitals that need it, instead of relying on hospitals to amass their own stockpiles.
- To spread COVID-19 patients across all available beds efficiently and quickly.
Who’s going to run this thing?
- The Team is centralized under the State Department of Health.
What is this Team supposed to do?
- Their responsibilities and powers are vague at this point. Here are some things Governor Cuomo suggested they could do, or problems they were supposed to solve:
  - Understand and coordinate the availability of hospital beds across all hospitals and temporary sites.
  - Coordinate the transfer of patients between hospitals in order to prevent single hospitals from becoming overloaded. “Any link breaks, the chain breaks. The healthcare system is a chain; it breaks anywhere, it breaks everywhere.” This includes upstate-downstate transfers, and includes public and private hospitals.
  - Develop new facilities.
  - Understand who has ventilators, and distribute them according to demand. “We’ll distribute it fairly.”
Does the Governor have the right to do this?
- On a first reading, this would qualify as a ‘directive’. On March 3, the Governor signed S7919, an update to the Governor’s state of emergency powers, that include the following:
  - Section two amends section 29-a of the Executive Law to allow the Governor to issue directives when a state disaster emergency is declared to allow for appropriate response to such disaster.
- Read more about the Governor’s emergency powers in Gothamist.

Over 1,000 dead in NYC

The city crossed that benchmark sometime today.

The Budget

To recap: Governor Cuomo has a plan to cut Medicaid by $2.5 billion a year.
- The federal government is making several payments to New York State contingent on states NOT cutting Medicaid.
- Governor Cuomo is not budging, and neither is Congress.
This is all coming to a head, because today, New York State was supposed to sign a budget bill, or else the state would shut down. At the center of the budget debate: that federal funding.
As of midnight tonight, no bill has been signed.
Some links:
- Medicaid fight takes central stage in Albany budget battle (New York Post)
- Cuomo Won’t Back Down On Medicaid Cuts—Even If It Means Spurning Billions In Coronavirus Aid (Gothamist)

Also on budget The Daily News reported:
- Call for New York to raise taxes on ultra-rich instead of cutting Medicaid during coronavirus

Rent

If you missed it yesterday, we published our guide to the first of the month. If you’re curious about the services and support available to you, or if you’re worried about making rent, definitely check it out.
The City also published a guide that’s worth checking out.
Governor Cuomo was asked about the upcoming rent deadline, and did not suggest he was working on a solution besides the eviction freeze currently in place.
Right to Counsel NYC put together an FAQ document about the rent moratorium.
The New York Times published this guide on rent, the federal stimulus money, unemployment, and other financial issues.

Around the City

The Empire State Building transformed itself into a giant red siren.
- FAQ approves of this.
The Mayor announced today he was shutting down all non-essential construction.
Several employees of Trader Joes, which remains open, have reported to Buzzfeed News that several employees have gotten sick with COVID-19, some stores haven’t been entirely cleaned, and that some employees are nervous to come into work.

Closing Playgrounds

Mayor de Blasio announced that 10 playgrounds will be closed tonight because, “[they] have had crowding multiple times.” They reiterated their willingness to close other parks and public spaces if people don’t follow the rules.

Amazon

It was reported that an Amazon warehouse worker was fired for raising health and safety concerns and starting a protest among his coworkers.
In response, Mayor de Blasio announced he ordered the City’s Commission on Human Rights to investigate immediately.
The Daily News spoke to the employee, who said he has no regrets about alerting people to these conditions.

Jails and Prison Doctor thread

The City reported on the Mayor’s recent release of several inmates in juvenile detention. They found that “the mayor’s statements applied only to “juvenile delinquents” — a specific class of children held while awaiting Family Court hearings on mostly non-violent, non-felony crimes.”
In response to an open letter in the New York Post from several district attorneys regarding the state of healthcare in city prisons, the Chief Physician of Rikers took to Twitter to defend his department’s performance.

Governor Andrew Cuomo. (Daniel William McKnight)

Hospitals and Supplies

Brooklyn Center was caught on cell phone carrying out their dead, putting a stark visual on the loss of life.
Daily News: New York officials warn ‘the worst’ has yet to come as city and state scramble to contain coronavirus (Daily News)
Politico: ‘Everybody’s in the same boat’: Coronavirus drives New York’s hospitals to breaking point
New York Post: Coronavirus in NY: City has fewer than 400 free intensive care beds
In response to President Trump’s suggestion that states were slow to respond to COVID-19, the Governor’s commuications director released the following statement: “This is not the time to debate, but the states were not slow to respond – the federal government was absent.”

Transportation

Alternate Side Parking is suspended for another two weeks.

	Friday 4/17, 1pm	Monday 4/20, 2:30pm
Total Cases	122148	132467
– Manhattan	15952	16987
– Brooklyn	32499	35203
– Queens	37447	40714
– The Bronx	27014	29505
– Staten Island	9166	9986
Hospitalization Rate	26.8%	26.2%
ICU Rate	??	??
Confirmed Deaths	7890(NYC) / 8893(NYS)	9101(NYC) / 10022(NYS)
Probable Deaths	4309	4582