April 29, 2020 – Albany, NY | Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced 35 counties have been approved to resume elective outpatient treatments. The Governor previously announced that the state will allow elective outpatient treatments to resume in counties and hospitals without significant risk of COVID-19 surge in the near term. The counties now eligible are: Allegany, Broome, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chenango, Delaware, Dutchess, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Genesee, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Livingston, Madison, Monroe, Niagara, Oneida, Onondaga, Ontario, Orleans, Oswego, Putnam, Saratoga, Schoharie, Schuyler, St. Lawrence, Steuben, Sullivan, Tompkins, Ulster, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates.
Governor Cuomo also announced New York State is now conducting an average of 30,000 diagnostic tests for COVID-19 per day. Last week, the Governor announced the state will work with the federal government to double New York’s testing capacity from 20,000 tests per day to 40,000 tests per day over several weeks.
The Governor also announced the results of the state’s FDNY and NYPD antibody testing survey that tested 1,000 New York City Fire Department officers and 1,000 New York City Police Department officers from across all five boroughs. The preliminary results show 17.1 percent of FDNY officers and EMTs have COVID-19 antibodies and 10.5 percent of NYPD officers have COVID-19 antibodies. The state will be conducting further antibody analysis and surveys by race and gender in the future.
The Governor also announced the state is testing today 1,000 transit workers for antibodies to further determine the spread of infections among our frontline workers. The State is working with BioReference to provide antibody tests to first responders and other essential workers from the MTA, State Police, DOCCS and others.
The Governor also directed the MTA to issue a full plan by tomorrow, April 30th, on how it will clean and disinfect every train, every night in response to reported deteriorations of the conditions in the subways during the pandemic.