New York – Seven states in the northeastern United States, including New York, announced a coalition on Sunday to jointly acquire medical supplies such as masks and respirators and not rely on the federal government for a possible second wave of the coronavirus.
The initiative, announced by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, will also seek to boost local production of this type of equipment instead of opting mainly for imports from China as until now.
Along with New York, they form the group Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the latter the only one that is not governed by a Democrat.
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Some states in the region, the worst hit by the coronavirus in the country, have repeatedly criticized the performance of the federal Administration of Republican Donald Trump for his response to the pandemic and, specifically, for the lack of medical supplies.
“We are going to buy as a consortium,” Cuomo explained at a press conference, in which the governors of other states such as Phil Murphy, from neighboring New Jersey, who after New York is the most affected by COVID, also intervened by videoconference. -19.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont argued that united states “are much stronger,” being able to access better prices and supplies, and thus have greater control of their “destiny” in a second wave of the virus.
The goal is to avoid seeing deficiencies such as those experienced at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when states competed with each other and with countries around the world to get masks, medical gowns or respirators.
In the case of New York, Cuomo announced that all hospitals will be required to have a stock of protective material for health workers of at least 90 days with an eye on another outbreak.
On the last day, the number of deaths from COVID-19 in New York fell to 280, after a slight rebound the day before, and is already very far from the almost 800 daily deaths that came to be at the worst times, during the second week of April.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey there were 137 victims, less than 205 the day before and far from the more than 400 that were recorded some days this week.
