before the end of containment, the governor of New York wants to carry out tests by the millions

The governor of New York State said on Friday that he felt it necessary to carry out tests by the millions before lifting the containment measures currently in place to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

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“We need diagnostic tests and serological tests, and we need millions of them,” Andrew Cuomo said during his daily press briefing, presenting this large-scale screening as a prerequisite for a resumption of economic life. .

“And it’s a matter of weeks, we can’t wait for months”, he said, while acknowledging that such a capacity to test does not exist, for the moment, in the United States. .

The diagnostic test identifies whether a person is sick and the serological test establishes whether an individual has been infected with the virus, even if they are no longer sick or have never had symptoms.

“We want to put 9 million people back to work” in New York State, he explained. “You need more than a few thousand tests per week if you want to get there in a reasonable time.”

New York State remains the most affected in the United States, with 777 new deaths in the last 24 hours and 7,844 deaths in total since the arrival of the pandemic in the region. With 159,937 positive cases, New York State overtakes all countries in the world except the United States.

“We must acquire the capacity to test massively”, hammered the governor. “It’s a completely different exercise, which we still haven’t managed to do well in this country.”

“It won’t be like turning on the light again”

In contrast to US President Donald Trump’s eagerness to restart the US economy, Andrew Cuomo called for caution. “It won’t be like turning the light back on in a room”, he warned, “it will be a gradual, phased process”.

To increase testing, the governor called on Donald Trump to use the Defense Production Act, a law that allows the federal government to force a private company to produce what it feels the country needs.

Andrew Cuomo said he was ready to form an alliance with the border states of New Jersey and Connecticut, which would work with the federal government to develop the capacity needed for massive screening.