Back in Albany, I inquired about what might be done to get fully automated machines like the Hologic machine I had seen at Northwell up and running. I was told that Roche, a Swiss company with a U.S. headquarters and manufacturing facility in Indiana, was in line for FDA approval of its fully automatic testing system in the coming days. This would be a major breakthrough that would allow one machine to do thousands of tests a day. I spoke with Matt Sause, CEO of Roche North America, on the phone along with Joe Lhota and Bob Grossman of NYU and Steve Corwin of NewYork-Presbyterian.
“Matt, how many Roche instruments can you get to New York and how fast?”
He agreed to have several delivered within the next week along with the chemical reagent allocations that would be a critical piece of ramping up early testing.
When visiting Northwell, I had made the case for the FDA to approve the lab to run the Wadsworth test, as well as approve several other of the state’s most sophisticated labs. Hours after the event ended at Northwell, the FDA approved Northwell’s lab to use the Wadsworth test. In thanking the FDA for their approval of Northwell, I noted that it was a good first step, but they needed to go further and expedite approval of the fully automated machines like the ones made by Roche and Hologic that would exponentially increase our testing capacity.
MARCH 9 | 28 NEW CASES | 8 HOSPITALIZED | 0 DEATHS
“New York Empire State. Progressive capital of the nation. You are a problem solver.”
I WAS JUGGLING THE BRIEFINGS IN the morning and then the operations in the afternoon. For me the two functions demanded two very different aspects of my personality. The briefings required me to be calming and confident and emotionally connected. The operations meetings needed me to be persistent, detail oriented, and aggressive. Switching gears quickly that way was not easy.
In a situation where everything is out of control, we seek to control anything we can. I needed something that I could actually control and get done myself, and quickly. One of the significant issues was that stores were running out of hand sanitizer. The fear of the virus was everywhere by this point, and the immediate response was to stock up on disinfectants, cleaning products, and hand sanitizer. The government had suggested using it as a precaution in addition to regular and thorough handwashing, and now you could not find a bottle on store shelves. On the internet a bottle that sold for $3 before the pandemic could now be priced as high as $50. The media was reporting on the scarcity, which only further increased the growing anxiety. Hand sanitizer is important, but washing your hands is just about as effective. If you want to be hypercautious, you can wash your hands with some alcohol.
I wanted to show people—and myself—that I could actually solve a problem, even if the problem was just the availability of hand sanitizer. I also needed a break from what I was dealing with. The first order of business was to find out what exactly hand sanitizer was. I figured it couldn’t be that hard. It turned out hand sanitizer is more complicated than you think. I called several manufacturers (yes, me), and it turns out there is a variety. There are different scents and differing lotion capacities. A good hand sanitizer not only cleans your hands but also leaves them feeling soft and smooth. My hands have never been soft and smooth. I was interested only in the virus-killing capacity of hand sanitizer.
Someone suggested I contact our prison industry division, which employs prisoners to make various products, and it turned out that the prison industries program already made hand sanitizer. Who knew? Prison industries made a number of products including industrial cleaners, furniture, and clothing. And yes, they made hand sanitizer. Problem solved. Now we just had to focus on bottling and distribution.
Not so fast. It turned out the hand sanitizer made by prison industries was 50 percent alcohol based. The CDC had said that for hand sanitizer to be effective against COVID, it had to be at least 70 percent alcohol based. I called the CDC to figure out where they got the information leading to the 70 percent figure, but after being transferred to eleven different people, I gave up. I concluded that we would make hand sanitizer with a 75 percent alcohol base to be safe.
The prison industries made products for large-scale commercial use. Therefore, they used large drums to contain their products. We had to retool the industry. We needed small bottles and new equipment to fill the bottles. We needed additional holding tanks and large quantities of alcohol and lotions. It also appeared that alcohol was in short supply—of course, because all the manufacturers were increasing hand sanitizer production in an effort to meet soaring demand. After calling a dozen suppliers, I secured a significant amount. I spent hours getting the entire operation in gear, but it was actually a worthwhile distraction, though I could not have done it without Kelly Cummings, my director of state operations. As crazy as this hand sanitizer project was, Kelly never flinched and made it all happen.
Our hand sanitizer was called New York State Clean. It came in several sizes, including an easy-to-use gallon jug. Over time, we produced millions of bottles. You couldn’t walk around New York without seeing a New York State
