While he has been focused on the public health aspects of the novel coronavirus outbreak, New York Gov Andrew Cuomo (D) says that he is very well aware of the economic fallout from the pandemic.

And unlike Donald Trump on the federal level, who is predicting a quick rebound, Cuomo foresees a longer recovery and he is planning accordingly on a regional basis.

Trump has said that he expects a “V shaped” recession, meaning a steep freefall, but a quick rebound when the country is able to shake off the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of the economy has come to a virtual standstill in the New York area, and across the United States, as most of the nation is under extreme lockdown conditions in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.

Nationally, so far, a record 10 million Americans have reported unemployment, and the US economy could take a 30 percent hit.

“As I mentioned, I spoke to Governor [Phil] Murphy from New Jersey, I spoke to Governor Ned Lamont from the state of Connecticut. We coordinated the shutting down, if you will, when we did, schools, businesses, etc., because this really operates as a tri-state area,” Cuomo said. “A lot of people who live in New Jersey work in New York, or live in New York, work in New Jersey or Connecticut, so we talk about the tri-state area, which is true. And we try to operate to the best we can as that regional collaboration and that has been working well for us on schools, on the economy, on health care issues.

“We have to start planning restarting life. We are not there yet, but this is not a light switch that we can just flick one day and everything goes back to normal,” he added. “We are going to have to restart that economy, we’re going to have to restart a lot of systems that we shut down abruptly. And we need to start to plan for that. And I spoke to Gov. Murphy and Gov. Lamont about coming up with the regional metropolitan tri-state approach to do just that.”

Content from The Bipartisan Press. All Rights Reserved.