State starts planning how it will restart the economy following coronavirus shutdown

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said the state has begun thinking about how it will start to roll back the unprecedented restrictions it has placed on business activity and daily life to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Even as the state continues its focus on public health through social distancing, more testing, deploying new drugs to sick patients starting Tuesday, setting up temporary hospitals, securing critical medical equipment like ventilators, the governor acknowledged the state needs to start planning on opening the economy up again.

“There has to be a balance or parallel tracks that we’re going down. We’re talking about public health. We’re talking about isolation. We’re talking about protecting lives. There also has to be a parallel track that talks about economic viability,” Cuomo said in his daily coronavirus press briefing Monday morning. “I take total responsibility for shutting off the economy in terms of essential workers. But we also have to start to plan the pivot back to economic functionality, right. You can’t stop the economy forever.”

Cuomo’s comments came just more than 12 hours after the state put into effect NY Pause, which mandated that all non-essential businesses in the state must have their entire workforce working from home, banned all public gatherings, and placed limits on outdoor recreation like pickup basketball games. And that came after the state already ordered numerous businesses to close completely in the prior few days including casinos, fitness centers, movie theaters, bars, restaurant dining rooms, malls, bowling alleys, amusement parks, barbershops, hair salons, tattoo or piercing parlors, and nail salons.

The governor did not provide any timeline or even an estimate for when all these closures and restrictions would start to end, but he began to open the door to it.

That may involve allowing certain people to go back to work sooner than others.

“So, we have to start to think about does everyone stay out of work? Should young people go back to work sooner? Can we test for those who had the virus, resolved, and are now immune, and can they start to go back to work?” Cuomo asked out loud.

The state has no concrete answers to those questions yet, but Cuomo says the planning is beginning.

“You turned off the engine quickly; how do you now restart, or begin to restart, or plan to restart that economic engine. Separate task but something that we have to focus on,” he concluded.