BUFFALO, N.Y. — For a third consecutive day, the state of New York reported that its number of cases of coronavirus, along with hospitalizations and the number of deaths associated with the virus, seem to be leveling off.
This has sparked discussions about when Governor Andrew Cuomo might relax his executive orders aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, which crippled the state’s economy by closing most businesses and sending millions of New Yorkers to the unemployment line.
"Everybody's anxious to re-open the economy… I get it," Cuomo told reporters on Tuesday.
But he also expressed caution over opening things up too soon.
"We could lose all the progress we made in one week if we do it wrong," Cuomo said.
“I think there’s a real danger in just opening up too quickly and spiking illnesses," agreed Dottie Gallagher, president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, a regional chamber of commerce serving Erie and Niagara Counties. “I think businesses want to follow the science and the data and to come back in the right way. There’s no real rulebook that we are following, we’re really figuring it out as we go.”
Could Western New York open sooner?
New York City and its surrounding environs are considered of the national epicenter of the pandemic.
Western New York, while certainly not immune from coronavirus, has far less population density and not even a fraction of the number of cases as downstate.
This has led some to wonder whether Western New York might be allowed to re-open while New York City remains closed.
“I think as soon as the data shows we can re-open and if it's sooner here than there because of those reasons, that’s what will happen," said Gallagher.
However, there are indications that Cuomo might not allow that, as he was instrumental in getting the governors of several adjacent states to agree to create a multi-state bureaucracy to coordinate when they will all lift their restrictions.
“The virus can get on a plane, or an Amtrak, or a car and travel up I-95,” Cuomo said on Tuesday, reiterating why he believes that it’s important that one state doesn’t get ahead of others in opening businesses and restaurants, for example, lest people from other nearby states flood in.
The same theory might dissuade Cuomo from allowing one part of New York State to have rules more relaxed than another.
Helping Western New York businesses prepare to reopen and stay alive
During recent years where the U.S. economy boomed, Buffalo and Western New York, while seeing some improvement, lagged behind many other areas.
“Our renascence was tenuous at best and we have to hope we’re not going to be a in a deeper hole than the rest of the state. But we are going to need to work together to get out of it," said Gallagher.
The Partnership is currently working with local governments and economic development organizations in sending a Business Impact Survey to 10,000 businesses to better understand how to address potential gaps in available resources for businesses now and economic recovery period that lies ahead.
The survey, which can be accessed here, asks questions regarding lost revenue, workforce impacts, and their ability to operate remotely.
“What we’re really looking to see is where businesses are now that the stimulus has been announced and try to discover where the gaps are and how to get those businesses up and running and what support they need,” said Gallagher. “For example, many very small businesses which may have sole proprietors use personal bank accounts and don’t have commercial accounts. Well, you can’t access the SBA loans without a commercial bank account, so there’s one niche issue where we can try and help those businesses.”
Gallagher also predicted that when businesses are allowed to re-open it will be on a “sector by sector” basis.
“There are some sectors of the market that are really going to struggle, particularly around tourism and big events, and they are going to struggle for quite some time,” she said.
As well, Gallagher believes businesses will have to reinvent how they conduct their operations.
“I have been speaking with a lot of manufacturing firms lately, and they’re not set up to have six feet between work space zones right now,” she said. "So, they have to change the way they work and those are the kind of things businesses can do, will do, and must do in order to have a workforce that doesn’t get sick."
A silver lining to a dark COVID cloud?
The coronavirus pandemic may result in other changes, that could end up having a positive effect on Buffalo’s business prospects.
“Our sister organizations have gotten a lot of inquiries from companies that feel that maybe they shouldn’t be all invested in major metro cities and that maybe they should be more dispersed,” said Gallagher.
“Cities like Buffalo could be sort of become secondary hubs if businesses decide not to have their entire operation in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles anymore. Maybe some second-tier cities like ours will be able to benefit from that. Let’s hope that’s the silver lining that comes out of this.”