ALBANY, NY — The economic consequences of the new coronavirus outbreak are dire and Congress has failed to help states on the front lines of the outbreak, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. And the effect on school districts, programs and local governments will be massive.

"I'm disappointed," Cuomo said. "I find it irresponsible I find it reckless. Emotion is a luxury and we don't have the luxury at this time of being emotional. When this is over I promise I'm going to give them a piece of my mind."

The new federal $2 trillion stimulus bill gives New York $5 billion to fight the virus but nothing to make up for the precipitous loss of revenue.

"What's happening to a state government is a double whammy," Cuomo said. "You have increased expenses because of the virus and you have a tremendous loss of revenue because all those businesses are closed and all those people are out of work. We're spending more and we're receiving less. "In the middle of all this we have to balance our budget. We estimate the loss of revenue at $10-15 billion. That is a ton of money for New York state's budget."

That means state spending on everything will be all that much smaller. It will also be a moving target. New York's budget must be passed by April 1, but revenue losses are expected to continue to grow. So state officials are going to do something never done before, he said: adjust the budget through the year to reflect actual revenues. Then what is apportioned out will be adjusted proportionately. The adjustments will be announced ahead of time, he said, so that school districts can adjust their budgets as they go.

This is happening while the death toll rises. The total number of confirmed cases in New York was 37,258 as of Thursday morning and 385 have died, up from 285 the day before, he said.

There are 5,327 people currently hospitalized with the coronavirus, including 1,290 intensive care patients.



The coronavirus is unprecedented in its demand for ventilators. In general an ICU patient is on a ventilator for 3-4 days, he said, but coronavirus patients are on them for 11-21 days. And some are on for 20-30 days. It is the latter who are most likely to deteriorate and die. "Longer stays on ventilators lead to worse outcomes," he said. "We still have a large percentage of people who have been on ventilators for a long time."