Janelle Irwin Taylor
New York is stepping in to help the city of St. Petersburg combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo partnered with St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman to open a temporary COVID-19 testing site in south St. Pete in one of the city’s hardest hit zip codes, 33712.
The new site, located on Pinellas Community Church south of 54th Ave. S. on 31st St., opened with help from New York including testing kits and PPE.
“It’s our pleasure to be of help,” Cuomo said during a Wednesday phone conference. “I asked at one point on one dark day, I asked Americans to volunteer to come help us, we were overwhelmed in the hospitals.”
Cuomo said 30,000 doctors and nurses volunteered to help his state battle what was then the nation’s COVID-19 epicenter.
Now New York has stabilized its virus, though they are still not entirely in the clear.
“Whatever anyone needs we will be there,” Cuomo said. “I speak for all New Yorkers when I said that.”
New York is donating 3,800 test kits, 7,500 gloves, 7,500 gowns, 7,500 N95 Masks, 7,500 face shields, 124,000 surgical masks, 200 goggles and 1,250 gallons of hand sanitizer to St. Pete.
The state also donated 10 iPads to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and is sending 10 ventilators and an unspecified number of nursing staff.
Cuomo’s help comes after he offered to help the state, which Gov. Ron DeSantis largely denied.
Cuomo didn’t mention DeSantis directly, but the jab was implied.
“When the pressure is on that’s when the character comes to light,” he said. “We’ve seen people who were under pressure and they didn’t stand up, frankly.”
Now Cuomo is praising Kriseman, a fellow Democrat.
“You were right early on. You were right on the stay-at-home order. You were right on the intelligence of wearing masks,” he said.
The new testing site at Pinellas Community Church opened Wednesday morning. It will remain open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. through Saturday.
2 comments
Sonja Fitch
July 29, 2020 at 3:42 pm
It takes strength to be good and decent. Thank you Cuomo!
It takes stupid and brainwashed to screw up as much as Duffus Desantis is doing! What more do you expect of duffus Desantis? Forget I! Duffus Desantis serves his goptrump cult leader sociopath racist sexist paranoid delusional liar trump! Duffus Desantis does not serve and protect All Floridians!
BlueHeron
July 29, 2020 at 10:31 pm
Love Cuomo. Hate Cuomo. Shouldn’t matter.
Was he perfect in managing the crisis in NY. No. But they were the FIRST major epicenter in the country and had to work extremely hard to get what they needed when the rest of the country was watching from afar. If that meant doing the “NY thing” by getting in the face of everyone and anyone who had the power to assist, so be it.
I personally think the Governor managed things pretty gdamn well. He’s been honest about mistakes made and many, many lessons were learned, the hard way.
I am so happy that Mayor Kriseman got together with Gov. Cuomo. We need help anywhere we can find it and look at the help he is providing to us. What Cuomo has done is pay it forward. Something he has said many times that he is willing to do.
So, we are getting much needed equipment, supplies and nursing staff who have, sadly, lived through the horrors in NY and will bring their incredible expertise to help so many here. A very big deal.
The aid would have come either way but the ability to “take a shot” (wink, wink) at DeSantis is pretty great.
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