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Governor Hochul Announces
New COVID-19 Winter Surge Plan
Published: December 31, 2021
at 02:30 p.m.
By: Press Release from Governor Hochul’s
Office
Governor Hochul Announces
Winter Surge Plan 2.0
As New York Battles Winter Surge, Governor Unveils
Targeted Plan to Protect Vulnerable New Yorkers, Save Lives, and Support
Critical Industries
Builds on Ongoing Efforts Including Distribution of
Millions of Test Kits, Actions to Boost Hospital Capacity and Address
Staffing Shortages, and Ongoing Vaccination and Booster Outreach
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced Winter Surge Plan 2.0, a new
targeted effort to bolster New York’s fight against the winter surge.
Governor Hochul’s comprehensive plan focuses on
five core areas: keeping students in school, doubling down on masks and
testing, preventing severe illness and death, increasing access to vaccines
and boosters, and working together with local leaders. Hours before the New
Year begins, Governor Hochul also urged New
Yorkers to celebrate New Year’s Eve in a safe, responsible
way.
“As we head into
the holiday weekend, New York State is mobilizing every resource at our
disposal to fight the winter surge and keep New Yorkers safe,” Governor
Hochul said. “We can get through this
surge through targeted actions, partnerships with local leaders, and by
taking common sense steps to keep us all safe: get vaccinated, get boosted,
and wear a mask indoors.”
“We have every
tool to keep our families and communities safe,” Acting State Health
Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said. “We must ensure we use them all.
Governor Hochul’s targeted plan to expand
vaccination and booster access, mask and test, and
increase measures to protect our health care workers is the comprehensive
strategy needed to combat the fast-spreading Omicron variant. Leveraging
these layered mitigation tactics is how we will protect the health of New
Yorkers and effectively manage the winter surge.”
1. Keep Schools
Open: After two years of remote learning and school closures, Governor Hochul is focused on keeping students in school in the
upcoming year. The first plank of Governor Hochul’s
5-part plan includes:
- Providing tests to students and school
districts: 5.56 million
tests arrived for schools this week and between six and seven million
more are expected to arrive in the coming days. New York has mobilized
40 trucks and 86 state personnel to distribute tests. Overall, New
York State has secured 37 million tests for distribution.
- Working with counties to implement Test-to-Stay: Test-to-Stay policies have
proven successful at keeping our kids safe and schools open. If a
student tests positive, classmates can take a test kit back home with
them and return to the classroom upon receiving a negative result
instead of mandatory quarantining.
- Keeping college students and faculty safe: SUNY and CUNY will be introducing a new
requirement for all students to get boosters, campuses will require
mandatory mask wearing in public indoor spaces, and
will require all faculty to be vaccinated. Students will also be
required to submit negative tests upon returning to campus.
2. Keep Masking, Keep Testing: Governor Hochul recognizes that to stop the spread of the virus,
New Yorkers must continue wearing masks and getting tested for COVID.
Governor Hochul will:
- Extend the mask-or-vax requirement: the Department of Health will extend
the mask-or-vaccine requirement for an additional two weeks,
protecting workers and allowing businesses to remain open.
- Make masks more widely available: New York State has already distributed
5 million KN-95 masks, and more will be distributed through state
legislators. Hundreds of thousands of masks will also be distributed
for nursing home visitors.
- Launch new testing sites: Governor Hochul
will open six new testing sites on January 4, totaling 19 state-run
sites statewide. Additionally, Governor Hochul
announced the launch of two new testing sites at MTA stations, in
addition to previously
announced MTA pop-ups.
3. Preventing Severe Illness and Death: With case counts
rising, Governor Hochul is making it a priority
to prevent severe illness and death by supporting our hospital system. The
Winter Surge Plan 2.0 will:
- Distribute antiviral treatments: New York is working with the Biden
Administration to secure doses of the antiviral drug Pavloxid and make this treatment more widely
available.
- Boost hospital capacity: Governor Hochul
will continue enforcing the November 26 Executive Order to boost
hospital capacity. Since it took effect, the number of hospitals with
limited capacity needing to pause non-essential surgeries has declined
from 32 to 21.
- Launch National Guard EMT training: to ramp up our long-term health care
workforce capacity needs, the Department of Health and the Division of
Military and Naval Affairs will be launching two pilot EMT training
classes on January 5th. This will cover two classes of 40
service members (80 service members in total) who will be able to be
deployed by February.
- Secure additional help from Federal partners: in the coming days, we will receive
federal Department of Defense (DoD) Medical Response and Disaster
Medical Assistance Teams (DMATs). This will include a 35-member DMAT
to SUNY Upstate in Syracuse, 23-member DoD Medical Response Team to
Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, and 50 new ambulance teams
deployed to NYC.
- Protect nursing home residents and workers: the Hochul
Administration is in constant contact with all 606 nursing homes in
New York and will be providing them with additional PPE to ensure the
safety of all patients and staff. Additionally, the
Administration is coordinating with hospitals and will be deploying
durable medical equipment in continued support of the care for all New
Yorkers.
4. Expand Access to Vaccines and Boosters: Vaccines continue to
be the best defense against COVID hospitalization and death. While 95% of
adult New Yorkers have received at least one shot, there’s more to do to
increase vaccination and booster rates, especially among children:
- Provide boosters to nursing homes: New
York will begin requiring each nursing home to demonstrate their plan
to increase vaccination and booster rates among their
residents.
- Increase pediatric vaccination: the most unvaccinated eligible cohort
is New Yorkers aged 5-11. New York will increase our focus on
pediatric vaccination.
- Get booster shots to teenagers: we anticipate approval of Pfizer’s
booster shot for children aged 12-15 and will immediately begin
outreach to that population once ready.
5. Work With Local Partners: From the
beginning, Governor Hochul has emphasized that
the fight against COVID must take a collaborative approach. Fighting the
winter surge requires close collaboration with local
partners:
- Let local leaders
lead: from New York
City to Erie County, local leaders are making smart choices. We will
continue this surgical, targeted approach.
- Provide resources to local partners: Governor Hochul
will continue to lead a whole-of-government approach to fight COVID,
making sure county emergency managers and local school boards have the
tests and masks they need.
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