Cuomo: Health agencies, media didn't sound the alarm about coronavirus

<p>New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says he wished that health organizations and the media had done a better job of warning Americans about the coronavirus threat back in January instead of waiting weeks to prepare New Yorkers to face the spread of the deadly virus.</p><p>"Where was the whole international health community. Where was the whole national host of experts the WHO, the NIH, the CDC, that whole alphabet soup of agencies," he asked at the daily news briefing in Syracuse Tuesday.</p><p>Cuomo has questioned the of handling of the pandemic by the World Health Organization, after Trump shut down funding to the global organization this month over concerns about its actions in the initial days of the coronavirus crisis.</p><p>Cuomo said society needed better bugle blowers when it came time for the U.S. to understand the risk.</p><p>"There's a whole international, national health community we have that we're the experts. Where was the New York Times, where was the Wall Street Journal, where were all the bugle blowers who should say, 'Hey, careful, there's a virus in China that may be in the United States.'"</p><p>Cuomo also outlined a 12-step plan to reopen parts of the state while trying to keep the coronavirus pandemic from flaring up again.</p><p>He said the state also needs to build out a massive testing system, running at least 30 Covid-19 tests per 1,000 people every month, as recommended by White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Deborah Birx.</p><p>More than 1 million cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed and deaths from the respiratory virus passed 57,000 in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.</p>