John,

Hopefully this message finds you and your family are healthy and doing well. I wanted to provide you with an update on this past week’s developments as we work to safely get our state and country back on track and back to business.

I had a great meeting with the President this past week at the White House to discuss continued coronavirus response efforts in DC, Albany and Suffolk.

Congress replenished funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL). This bill, which President Trump signed on Friday, also included important funding for our local hospitals and testing.

Suffolk County received $257 million this past week from the CARES Act.

There were three key PPE deliveries that I helped secure this past week for our front line workers, working with Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, the White House, and commercial suppliers. So far this month, I’ve been able to help locate and bring in over 1.2 additional million pieces of PPE for Suffolk. These were the three deliveries this past week:
- 80,000 surgical masks and 27,000 gowns;
- 500,000 face coverings;
- Tyvec suits, surgical masks, gloves, hand sanitizer and more on Saturday, following a call I made to the White House asking for more PPE on Friday. Here’s the story from ABC Channel 7 news:

A new drive thru testing center opened at Elsie Owens Health Center in Coram. You can make an appointment to get tested at this site, by calling 845-553-8030, Monday-Friday, 9AM-5PM.

As part of my request to Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to include Suffolk County in the Municipal Liquidity Facility, I hosted a call this week between Secretary Mnuchin and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone to make our pitch. Learn more here.

The Long Island Congressional Delegation hosted a video press conference on Friday to discuss updates on our work together regarding coronavirus response and to answer questions from local reporters.

I added a new COVID-19 info page to my website.

US Ambassador to Iceland Jeff Gunter reached out to me recently looking to donate pizza to our local healthcare workers. These generous donations have since been made to St. Charles Hospital and Long Island Community Hospital.

Throughout this crisis, we have seen countless members of our community step up and pitch in to help our incredible healthcare and other front line workers. One of these individuals is Ken Wright. He is the chairman of Southampton Hospital Association and owner of Wright and Company Construction. Ken and his team of 100 volunteers produced 10,000 isolation gowns for Stony Brook Southampton Hospital with supplies provided by Riverhead Building Supply.

We have come a long way and made many positive steps towards recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. I’m looking forward to seeing our economy open smartly and precisely in a way that prevents another outbreak.

Be Well, Best Wishes, and Stay Healthy,