Hospitals like Lourdes and United Health Services in Broome County will have to set aside plenty of space for masks, gown and ventilators in their own emergency equipment stockpiles.

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is requiring hospitals to prepare for another upswing in the coronavirus to the scale it was at the height of the climb in the number of cases in March. 

Cuomo says hospitals will have to maintain their own stockpiles of at least a 90-day supply of personal protective equipment, ventilators and other items.

During weekend briefings, the Governor said he expects a surge of coronavirus cases is historically possible, hearkening back to the 1918, which saw three waves.

With the lessons learned from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York which had states bidding against each other for masks, gowns, ventilators and other supplies, Cuomo says hospitals can’t rely on allocations from the national stockpiles, which were slow to arrive during the initial emergency.

The Democrat was also joined with six Northeast Governors like Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, in announcing a consortium to pool their buying power to obtain PPE and testing supplies.  The states are also exploring manufacturing and procuring materials in the U.S. or in the Northeast region instead of having to buy everything from China, which is being accused by the Trump administration of downplaying the pandemic in order to hoard supplies and gouge prices.
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