Governors from 6 states, including NY, appoint council to get people back to work

Posted 19 April 2020 at 5:08 pm

‘Now it is time to start opening the valve slowly and carefully while watching the infection rate meter so we don’t trigger a second wave of new infections.’ – Gov. Cuomo

Press Release, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Office

New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, Delaware Governor John Carney, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker today announced their appointees to the multi-state council to restore the economy and get people back to work.

“We have been collaborating closely with our neighboring states to combat this pandemic through a uniform approach to social distancing and density reduction and it has been working well,” said Gov. Cuomo. “Now it is time to start opening the valve slowly and carefully while watching the infection rate meter so we don’t trigger a second wave of new infections. This is not a light switch that we can just flick on and everything goes back to normal – we have to come up with a smart, consistent strategy to restart the systems we shut down and get people back to work, and to the extent possible we want to do that through a regional approach because we are a regional economy. New York is partnering with these five states to create a multi-state council that will come up with a framework based on science and data to gradually ease the stay at home restrictions and get our economy back up and running.”

The appointees include one health expert, one economic development expert and the respective Chief of Staff from each state.

The appointees from each state include:

New York

• Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor

• Robert Mujica, Director of NYS Division of the Budget

• Michael Dowling, President and CEO, Northwell Health

New Jersey

• George Helmy, Chief of Staff to the Governor

• Dr. Richard Besser, President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

• Jeh Johnson, former United States Secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama

Connecticut

• Paul Mounds, Jr., Chief of Staff in the Office of the Governor

• Indra Nooyi, Co-chair of the nonprofit organization AdvanceCT and former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo

• Dr. Albert Ko, Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine and department chair at the Yale School of Public Health

Pennsylvania

• Michael Brunelle, Chief of Staff, Office of the Governor

• Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, Department of Health

• Secretary Dennis Davin, Department of Community and Economic Development

Delaware

• Sheila Grant, Chief of Staff, Office of Governor

• Dr. Kara Odom Walker, Secretary, Delaware Department of Health and Social Services