Congress late Sunday passed a one-day funding bill to keep the government afloat, and a vote on the $900 million COVID relief package agreed-to late Sunday is expected to come today. The agreement reportedly includes direct payments of $600 for qualifying Americans, a federal unemployment insurance bonus of $300 a week, more money for businesses who need to pay rent and their employees, and vaccine distribution funds. On Friday before the deal was made in Washington, Rockland Business Association CEO Al Samuels said the bill’s exclusion of funding for the states would be especially harmful to New York, which needs to start working on the next fiscal year’s budget…
The agreement also includes $4 billion in funding for the beleaguered MTA, which had threatened massive cuts and the elimination of service west of the Hudson without significant help. Hopefully the money comes on time for area small businesses. Stony Point supervisor Jim Monaghan says it’s getting tough in his town…
COVID-19 by the numbers now, here in Rockland, we lost four more to COVID, the total count stands at 739. We’ve got three hospitalized being tested, another 86 there are confirmed cases, and a total of 2,130 active cases. Overall, we have a total of 24,983 reported cases, 196 more than Friday.