Governor asks manufacturers for help producing protective equipment for health-care workers

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a message for New York manufacturers: help produce critically needed personal protective equipment — like gowns, masks, and gloves — for health-care workers, and the state will help you with funding to do it and pay a premium for the products.

“I am now asking all product providers, all companies who are in this business, we will pay a premium for these products,” the governor said in his daily COVID-19 briefing on Friday morning. “If you are a business that does not manufacture these exact items, but you have equipment and personnel and you believe you could manufacture these items … we will give you funding to do it and we will give you funding to get the right equipment, to get the right personnel, etc. I am asking businesses to be creative.”

 Businesses that already produce gowns, masks, and gloves and are interested in selling to the state, should contact Simonida Subotic in the governor’s office at (646) 522-8477 or email: covid19supplies@exec.ny.gov.

Companies interested in getting started in producing these products, should contact Eric Gertler at Empire State Development at (212) 803-3100 or email: COVID19supplies@esd.ny.gov.

“I can’t mandate that businesses make something, but I can offer financial incentives and that is what we are doing,” Cuomo said.