NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that Michael Bloomberg has volunteered to help New York develop a "tracing army" that will test, trace and isolate people who have contracted the coronavirus.
LISTEN LIVE: 1010 WINS' 24/7 coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
Cuomo said it was the "first ever" contact-tracing program of its kind and that the state will "literally need thousands" of people. He said Bloomberg will use his knowledge of the public and private sectors to help design the program, which could track hundreds of thousands of people across the Tri-State.
"Bloomberg has volunteered to help us develop and implement the tracing program," Cuomo said. "It's a very big undertaking and we thank him very much for taking it on."
"Bloomberg will design the program, design the training. He's going to make a financial contribution, also put together an organization that can help hire the people," Cuomo said. "This has to happen—you don't have months to plan and do this—you have weeks to get this up and running. It's a super ambitious undertaking and Mayor Bloomberg will help coodinate the entire effort."
Cuomo said Bloomberg was making a contribution of "upwards of $10 million" to help fund the plan through a program at Johns Hopkins.
The governor said he's working with Gov. Phil Murphy and Gov. Ned Lamont to operate the tracing program on a "Tri-State basis." He said New York currently has about 225 tracers documented and that Bloomberg is going to start with that "core" and "build on that."
"The tracing is a very, very big deal. Once you trace and you find more positives, then you isolate the positives—they're under quarantine, they can't go out, they can't infect anybody else," Cuomo said. "This entire operation has never been done before, so it's intimidating. You've never heard the words 'testing, tracing, isolate' before. No one has. We've just never done this. There are a few text books that spoke about it, but we've never done it and we've never done it anywhere near this scale."
Cuomo said despite the ambitiousness of the program, "It's what we have to do now."
"We have to put together a tracing army. We can put together people, we can organize, we can train and we can do it. Yes it's a big deal, but it's what we have to do and it's what we will do."
Mayor Bill de Blasio also announced a "Test and Trace" plan for New York City on Wednesday. He said the goal of the plan, called "Test and Trace," is to "defeat" the disease by controlling it using widespread testing and tracing of people who have been infected. It's unclear if the two plans will be connected in any way.
The governor also said Wednesday that New York is "in a much better place" than it could be as the state reported another 474 deaths from the virus.
It's the third day in a row that new deaths from the virus in the state have been below 500.
The number of deaths reported Wednesday—474—brings the state's death toll to 15,302.
There were at least 251,690 total cases across the state as of Wednesday.
Cuomo said hospitalizations, ICU admissions and intubations continued their downward trend, although 1,366 more people were hospitalized for the virus across the state Tuesday, which Cuomo called "troublingly high."
"In downstate New York the curve is on the descent," Cuomo said, adding that the future still remains uncertain.
"When you look at the reality of the situation, we're actually in a much better place," the governor said. "We're not home yet, but we're in a much better place."
New York state hit a milestone Tuesday with more than 250,000 people testing positive for COVID-19 — a figure that likely undercounts infected residents by a significant margin. People in New York City, a worldwide hotspot, were advised to seek testing only if they were ill enough to possibly require hospitalization.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Like 1010 WINS on Facebook and follow @1010WINS on Twitter to get breaking news, traffic, and weather for New York City.
