US governors announce multi-state pacts to begin easing coronavirus orders

Democratic governors in the north-east and west coast on Monday announced separate pacts to coordinate efforts to begin reopening society amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On the east coast, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced several north-east states would work together on determining when to reopen the economy. Cuomo said each of the six states would participate in a working group to make decisions on how and when stay-at-home orders can be relaxed without jeopardizing public health. Meanwhile the governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced a similar project for the west coast.

The governors made separate announcements just hours after Donald Trump said on Twitter that it was his decision to decide when to “open up the states”, a claim that has been contradicted by constitutional experts.

The governors did not announce specific plans on how to scale back stay-at-home orders or reopen businesses. Instead, both groups said they would coordinate those decisions while first considering the health of residents.

Cuomo said the state governments’ decisions about how to reopen the economy would be “guided by experts, data and science” and would not be done “in a political way”.

“Let’s be smart, let’s be cooperative and let’s learn from each other,” Cuomo said.

“The house is still on fire. We still have to put the fire out, but we do have to begin putting in the pieces of the puzzle that we know we’re going to need … to make sure this doesn’t re-ignite,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo added: “The reality is, this virus doesn’t care about state borders, and our response shouldn’t either.”

On the west coast, the governors of California, Oregon and Washington – together home to more than 50 million people – announced a similar “western states pact” that would rely on a shared approach to re-opening their economies and containing the virus’s spread.

In a joint statement Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Washington Governor Jay Inslee said that while each state is building a state-specific plan, the three states have agreed to a framework that focuses on working together, putting their residents’ health first, and relying on health outcomes and science to guide their decisions.

“Covid-19 has preyed upon our interconnectedness. In the coming weeks, the west coast will flip the script on Covid-19 – with our states acting in close coordination and collaboration to ensure the virus can never spread wildly in our communities,” the statement said.

States will base decisions on data reports from infections and hospitalizations, among other measures. It’s too early to provide a timeline for when restrictions should be lifted, Newsom said at a press conference Monday, but the governor said details on a “bottom up plan” should be released tomorrow.

Newsom said it was crucial for California to take a regional approach to lifting shelter-in-place orders. “You can’t build walls around it and you can’t deny fundamental facts,” he said of the virus.

The talks to reopen come as New York’s coronavirus death toll surpassed 10,000. An additional 671 New Yorkers died of the virus yesterday, bringing the state’s total death toll to 10,056. But Cuomo said today that a plateauing of hospitalizations suggests “the worst” is over in New York.

Meanwhile the number of coronavirus cases in California appears to have slowed. Admissions to ICUs in California ticked up by 2.9% over the weekend, a modest rise compared to days past. By all accounts, stay-at-home orders appeared to have worked, Newsom said.

Agencies contributed reporting