New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said the federal government needs to step in and set tighter national standards to respond to the coronavirus outbreak as he called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to retrofit buildings into hospitals in his state.
He said the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying that people should postpone or cancel gatherings of 50 or more people for eight weeks isn’t enough.
“Every state cannot come up with its own rules. You’ll just have people going from state to state,” Mr. Cuomo said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “Set the national standards and let’s live with them.”
Mr. Cuomo also re-upped a call he had issued a day earlier for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to step in and retrofit buildings like college dorms and surplus property to function as hospitals in his state.
He said there are 50,000 hospital beds and 3,000 intensive care unit (ICU) beds in new York.
“The next war is going to be overwhelming our hospital systems. You look at any of these projections and you see that coming,” he said.
“States can’t build…only the federal government can build. It’s the Army Corps of Engineers. That’s what they do. Let them come in today…because time is short,” Mr. Cuomo said. “This federal government has to get more engaged. There’s been no country that has handled this that has not nationalized it.”
He said a “patchwork quilt” of policies doesn’t work.
“It makes no sense for me to do something in New York and New Jersey to do something else. I close the bars, they go to New Jersey,” he said.
Mr. Cuomo also announced on Sunday that New York City, Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk schools would close for two weeks starting on Monday.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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