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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced Monday that the state is bringing in international experts to help advise the state's reopening plan. Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and Dr. Samir Bhatt, Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London will work with the state to provide technical advice and analyze data/metrics throughout the state's reopening process and help track the state's progress.

"As we begin to reopen businesses and regions across the state, we have to make sure we are paying attention to the numbers and the data to make sure that infection rate doesn't go back up again," Cuomo said. "This virus is not just an issue in New York State - it is a global issue - and we need to make sure we have the best informed approach to reopening. We are bringing in international experts in this field to help advise our reopening strategy and analyze the numbers and the data as we move forward."

New York State has doubled testing capacity to reach 40,000 diagnostic tests per day, and encouraged eligible New Yorkers to visit a new website to find a nearby testing site.

"Throughout this entire pandemic, testing was key to controlling the virus and now it will be key to monitoring the virus as we begin reopening in regions across the state," Cuomo said. "New York has worked aggressively to build a massive statewide sample collection network and is now testing more than any state or country per capita, but our new problem is we have more sites and capacity than we're actually using. The more New Yorkers get tested, the better -- and we are going to ensure to all individuals who will return to the workplace in phase one of our reopening plan have access to testing, and we are launching a new website to make it easier for New Yorkers to find nearby testing sites."

Cuomo also announced that Western New York and the Capital Region have met all seven metrics required to begin phase one of the state's regional phased reopening plan starting tomorrow, joining the Central New York, North Country, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier and Mohawk Valley Regions. Western New York has now identified enough contact tracers to meet the state's guidelines, and the tracers are being trained today in preparation for Western New York entering phase one, which includes construction; manufacturing and wholesale supply chain; retail for curbside pickup and drop-off or in-store pickup; and agriculture, forestry and fishing.

He also announced new efforts to bring more tests to nursing home facilities to help these facilities meet new guidelines mandating that all nursing homes and adult care facilities test all personnel for COVID-19 two times per week. The state is connecting nursing home facilities with labs to get more tests to these facilities, and so far the labs have reserved at least 35,000 tests per day just for this purpose. The state is also sending 320,000 test kits to nursing homes statewide this week.

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