With COVID-19 cases now pushing close to 80,000, Gov. Charlie Baker is calling for a $1 billion supplemental budget to cover a range of pandemic-related costs, including more protective gear for frontline healthcare workers.
Baker said he expects the $1 billion in spending would be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund.
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“It’s actually a net-zero to the state. We need to spend first to get them to reimburse,” said Baker said Tuesday after touring a life sciences company in Ashland that manufactures protective equipment.
“We’re not yet out to the woods and we should all remember that,” Baker added, as he described the phased efforts expected in coming weeks to ease restrictions on businesses.
In addition to protective gear, the supplemental budget would cover incentive pay for ceratain state employees on the front lines, temporary field hospitals and shelters, National Guard pay, the contact tracing program, emergency child care for essential workers, and increased costs to house and shelter vulnerable residents.
Baker said that the state’s plan to relax some restrictions on businesses would be guided by the state’s coronavirus data. Businesses that expect to see restrictions lifted would be ones “that don’t have a lot of face-to-face interactions with customers as part of their regular business.”
The additional 129 COVID-19 deaths reported Monday brought the state’s total death tally to 5,108.
Baker’s discussion of reopening parts of the state’s economy came as one of the country’s foremost infectious disease experts issued grave warnings about rising COVID-19 infections if states and cities move too quickly to relax restrictions on the economy.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the nation’s infectious disease agency, told U.S. senators today that COVID-19 cases would rise again if local governments allowed people to start gathering again.
