Governor Andrew Cuomo says New York State is ramping up antibody testing, a key component of any plan to reopen the economy.

The state is currently conducting 300 antibody tests per day, and is on track to conduct 1,000 per day by next Friday, and 2,000 per day by the following week, he said.

Antibodies are proteins made by plasma cells as an immune response; they remain in a person’s blood after that person has recovered from a disease like COVID-19.

“Our state lab is now developing an antibody test which is a fast and not invasive test … Even with our high capacity and high performance on testing it’s still not enough,” said Cuomo at a press briefing on April 10. “It’s not enough if you want to reopen on a meaningful scale and reopen quickly so the testing front is going to be a challenge for us … You need certain materials so you can do the testing. It’s very hard to get these reagents right. You’re in a situation where countries all across the globe are trying to do the same thing.”

As part of the state’s efforts to bring mass testing to scale, Cuomo offered a full partnership with the federal government to conduct this work. In the interim, he announced that New York, Connecticut and New Jersey will create a regional testing partnership to bring mass testing to scale for residents in these states.

Cuomo also announced an additional $200 million in emergency food assistance will be available for more than 700,000 low-income households enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, now known as SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

Households eligible for the supplement that live in counties outside of New York City will begin receiving the supplemental emergency benefit starting on April 13, and all eligible households will have received it by April 24.

Cuomo is also working with New York’s Congressional delegation to create a COVID-19 Heroes Compensation Fund to support health-care and other front-line workers and their families who contracted COVID-19.