The governors of seven states named appointees to the multistate council to restart the economy. Each state named one health expert, one economic development expert and the governors’ respective chiefs of staff.
From New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo named Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, Robert Mujica, director of the state Division of the Budget and Michael Dowling, president and CEO, Northwell Health.
“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. 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,” Cuomo said. “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.”
Others named to the council are:
New Jersey
- George Helmy, Chief of Staff to Gov. Phil Murphy
- 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 Gov. Ned Lamont
- 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 Gov. Tom Wolf
- Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, Department of Health
- Secretary Dennis Davin, Department of Community and Economic Development
Delaware
- Sheila Grant, Chief of Staff, Office of Gov. John Carney
- Dr. Kara Odom Walker, Secretary, Delaware Department of Health and Social Services
- Kurt Foreman, President and CEO, Delaware Prosperity Partnership
Rhode Island
- David Ortiz, Chief of Staff to Gov. Gina Raimondo
- Nicole Alexander-Scott, MD, MPH, Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health
- Stefan Pryor, Rhode Island Commerce Secretary
Massachusetts
- Kristen Lepore, Chief of Staff to Gov. Charlie Baker
- Michael Kennealy, Secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development
- Lauren Peters, Undersecretary at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services
The governors announced plans for the seven states to work together last week.