BUZZARDS BAY, Mass. — Massachusetts' late entry into a six — now seven — state regional COVID-19 council was simply because "we had other stuff to do," said Gov. Charlie Baker. 

 

The council announced on Monday by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo brings together seven mid-Atlantic and Northeast states to create a framework for economic restoration in "reopening" their economies. 

 

Baker said there had been no intent not to join the cooperative but rather that "sancrosact" meetings critical to the state's operations had taken precedence. 

 

"We used to have a leadership meeting every Monday with the Senate president and the Senate ways means chair and the Speaker of the House and the House Ways and Means chair and the Senate and House Republican minority leaders," he said on Tuesday during a tour of the field medical station opened at Joint Base Cape Cod. "We're not having that meeting physically anymore but we still do a phone call every Monday at two o'clock ... And it's sacrosanct, I mean it's on the calendar, you can't change it, you got to be there. And now more than ever, we want to make sure that we don't miss those opportunities to talk."

 

The announcement of the regional agreement was about 2 p.m., the governor thought. "We just simply wanted to get stuff we needed to get done in Massachusetts."

 

The original states in the council are New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The council will include a health expert, economic development expert and the chiefs of staff of each state to develop a framework for lifting the stay-at-home orders while minimizing the risk of spreading the novel coronavirus.  

 

Stating that the states couldn't just flip a switch to bring everything back to normal, Cuomo, in his comments, said, "now it is time to start opening the valve slowly and carefully while watching the infection rate meter so we don't trigger a second wave of new infections." 

 

Taking a multi-state approach within the regional economy will create a consistent strategy, he said. 

 

Baker said his administration had been in talks with the council Monday and made the announcement to join that night. 

 

"Many of those states are significant commerce trading and travel partners with us," the governor said. "I think we all need to do, when we think about reopening the economy, is to do it safely and to do it in a way that ensures confidence in the public that it will be done in a way that doesn't create a rebound."

 

Massachusetts is at a different point in its surge than where the other states are, he noted, with an expectation that cases of COVID-19 will peak here in the next couple weeks. New York is cautiously optimistic that it's on the downward slope — but it comes at a price of more than 10,000 deaths over the past month. 

 

"But I do think it's important for us to collaborate and cooperate where it makes sense to on a go-forward basis," Baker said. "That we know what they're doing and they know what we're doing, and none of us does something unintentionally that disadvantages, or damages the others."

 

The governor reiterated that testing and tracing will be key to containing the pandemic and urged residents to continue social distancing, washing hands and wearing masks. 

 

"We're working on putting up what I think will be one of the largest contact tracing programs, anywhere in the country because in the end, testing and tracing are a big part of how we actually push back over time against COVID-19," Baker said, adding that Massachusetts is now the third or fourth largest tester in the country. 

 

The field medical station at Joint Base Cape Cod, a joint effort with the National Guard and Cape Cod Hospital, brings 94 beds online in preparation for the expected surge of COVID-19 cases that could range from 47,000 to 172,000.