Reopening New York Safely and Securely is Solvable

too crowded for me to sit inside? And in a massively crowded city inside of a large state, there are countless details like these to consider when it comes to keeping entire populations safe. Jason Dgiati works for the State of New York and has been mulling over those details since day one of the pandemic. As we were dealing with these emergencies and even closing down the economy putting these restrictions in place, the immediate thought was, we're gonna

have to reopen. We're gonna have to turn this whole thing back on. New Yorkers are no strangers to catastrophic challenges. They emerged from nine to eleven from the blackouts in two thousand and three and made impressive recoveries after both Hurricanes Irene and Sandy. Those were events. Those are things that happened, and then they stopped, and we looked around, said, what do we need to do to fix right? How

are we going to clean this up? COVID started and just kept going, and we're still going even as COVID continues. Jason d Gianni's team is actively trying out ideas to encourage New York residents to re engage with social activities safely. The Excelsior Pass is a digital tool that makes negative COVID tests and positive vaccination statuses quick to confirm. Dgianni thinks it offers some vital grease to the wheels of

the state's economy. This is Jason Dgianni. I'm a project lead on New York's Excelsior Pass program, and reopening New York safely and secure is solvable. Are you originally from New York been there your whole life or my whole life originally from downstate from Long Island, So came upstate for college and just ended up not leaving. When would you say was your last normal day on the job?

March thirteenth? Oh wow, that was a front top of mind. Yeah, Friday the thirteenth, which is you know, ominous of itself. That was the last normal day in the office. Tell me a little bit about your job, be pre covid, Like, give me a typical day, pre COVID. I mean, I'll focus on the procurement end, is making sure we're spending the state's money wisely and have a good process. At the division of the budget, We're dealing primarily a lot

with professional services and things of that nature. And then literally the turn from February into March, testing and building up the state's testing capacity became front and center, and I saw that focus shift and the volume we were looking for shift. That's when you knew things were going to change. This being a large New York event, you know, COVID, did you have any comparisons from this event to something like nine to eleven being a really big, significant New

York event. It's hard making comparisons with stuff like this. I mean, I'll just say, especially New York's had a lot to go through. So yeah, nine to eleven Sandy was huge. I was in state government at the time, so I saw a lot of the state's response. My family, my parents didn't have power for three weeks. I remember just talking to my mom going on you know, local shops, trying to charge your phone so you could talk to people.

But there's a key difference in those events that just different from COVID that really just made this whole experience so surreal. Those were events. Those are things that happened, and then they stopped and we looked around, said what do we need to do to fix right? How are we going to clean this up? COVID started and just

kept going and it wasn't done and we're still going right. So, thinking about your reaction to something like Hurricane Sandy, the government probably knows exactly how quickly to react to a natural disaster that has an end. How would you gauge the government's reaction to something like COVID that does not have an end? When would you say that you guys really found your way righting the ship found your way, saying Okay, we're figuring it out. We're in the storm now,

we're figuring it exactly how to respond? Yeah, I'll say the one thing working in this administration in this environment is the quick pivot to action is always there. And I can say, I mean, there were people who were in rooms for days on end without break a week or so in you know, we realized that was going

to be a steady state for a while. The pivot, or like the looking forward to getting out of this happened early on in the sense that as we were dealing with these emergencies and even closing down the economy putting these restrictions in place, the immediate thought was we're gonna have to reopen, We're gonna have to turn this whole thing back on, and that was always I would say, in the back of our minds, what was that going to look like and what was it going to take?

And you saw this, I think in a lot of the discussions and press conferences about what were the numbers, what was the signs showing us, how was this going to grow? And when would we know we can start doing certain things. But I would say, right away, we were going down a path and we knew we have

to get back out, and that was always there. And you go back to the governor's State of the State address in January right already talking about what reopening was going to be, and even Excelsior pass right and how that was going to be a tool. Tell me a little bit about Excelsior Pass. What is it, what does it do? When we started, it was a lot of the focus was on testing, COVID testing because vaccination rates

we're still ramping up. But essentially, Excelsior Pass lets you take a negative test result or your vaccination status, turn that into a very simple QR code pass that you can then present to be scanned or just show people that shows your status, so you can show I have a negative test, I'm COVID free, or I've been vaccinated. It's a tool that's giving people comfort to go out and get used to getting back to what they love

doing before the pandemic. What has been the response from New Yorkers as the Excelsior Pass has been The access to it has been rolled out and I guess in the app store or wherever else it's available. We've just crossed over our two million mark for two million passes generated. We're seeing parties being thrown where people are asking those to come and bring an Excelsior Pass and show their status. We're seeing bars use it, We're seeing restaurants, we're seeing

exercise Jim's use it. Look it's a voluntary program, right. I mean, it's a tool we put out there. It's free for every New Yorker, it's free for every business in New York. It's something we wanted to get in people's hands to help them get out and reopen and and just seeing that uptake has been great. Why was

it important for y'all to make the past voluntary. It's important for a number of reasons, I think, you know, primarily is we didn't want to put something that was going to get get in the way of people's participating. There's access questions, there's availability questions, and you know, we mitigate that in different ways. Where it's a it could be a principal pass too, so it's it's something it's digital, it's on a phone, but you could just print, print

it and have your QR code and carry that around. Well. Was top of mind for us was not putting a roadblock or a hurdle in the way of people being able to go out there. You know, there's other states in which they've written in legislation to prevent any sort of access denial when it comes to using the vaccine, having taken a vaccine or not taken a vaccine. Yeah, So how would you respond to people that are critical of this saying, well, now they're requiring us to show

that we've been vaccinated even though it is a voluntary system. Well, I think you know what I would say is we're giving people a choice in a tool to help them as they see fit and if they want to to help them participate and use this. Do you think it's the most ideal situation if everybody used it? When you say everybody used it, you mean like every business or

just individuals? I mean yeah, I'm just saying like, if, like in a perfect world, if every single person we're using the Excelsior app, would that be the ideal scenario for y'all? Or is this really just an option you guys are presenting. Yeah, look, it's an option, right, So we don't have requirements that say everyone, you know, things are only open to those who are vaccinated, or things are only opened to negative tests or these statuses. You know, what I'd like to see is people use it as

much as they can. I think for individuals, I would say, get your past just to have it. I think it's just helpful to have instead of this just your CDC card and not having to carry that right or to use it when when you run into a business. From a business standpoint, I would say, make that available and when appropriate for the type of activities you are reopening, and you think this will generate increased business or attract more people, use it and show how this can be helpful,

How how creating. You know these vaccination sections like in sports arenas, How that's that's a helpful thing. So I would say support that. Anything that's going to support public health, anything that's going to support our economic health is good for New York period. With only nine million people fully vaccinated in New York State, that's basically only a fraction of the population. So how effective can the pass be

with numbers like those? Well, I think it can be as effective, you know, as as the people using it and want to make use of it. I mean, it is out there right now. So look, it's effective in a sense of it is a replacement. You can digitize your credential and you can use it and present it and any business can just download the scanner and use it and scan it. So it's as effective as the original credential itsself. Right, So I mean that's something you know,

we talk about too. Is the CDC card or your test results, those are the baseline credential. That's what you need. Well, when we were reopening and you know you want to get into like let's say, a fully vaccinated section at Yankee Stadium or something, you need to show your vaccine card, right, So this is an effective replacement for that or substitution for that. So we know that you had to work a lot with federal medical databases and the New York

State databases as well. Was working with them a challenge or how was that relationship? That was not an impediment for us, It was a feature. So New York State, we have a database for all of our test records. So every COVID test that's administered in New York State and every vaccination that is given is in our New York State database. And that is the engine that really

drives the Excelsior pass. When you scan an Excelsior Pass, you're not only seeing that Okay, somebody's showing me they're vaccinated or they got a negative result, which you also get as a result that says New York State has validated this pass against their data. It's you know, we talk a lot about the comfort of the New Yorkers getting the pass, but from a business standpoint, to have that piece of mind when you conduct that scan, I think that's a huge piece too. And do you guys

have options for folks who are visiting New York. So that's something we're working on. You alluded to this early, right. Different states have different approaches thoughts on vaccine passes and these records. We're working certainly with our neighboring states and trying to have some kind of data sharing or ability to issue this pass. Especially down in the New York City area. There's a lot of folks from like Connecticut,

New Jersey and neighboring states. We want to make it as easy for them to come into New York as possible. To anyone listening who is coming to visit New York, any record you have is still valid and can still be you, So anyone who's asking for vaccinated folks, you can still show your CDC card. Do you have any experiences with yourself going out and because I imagine you have to be an evangelist for the past in some ways,

but have you been using it yourself? Yeah, yeah, I mean certainly I've gotten it right away, I can say, I mean early on. I mean just one of the two biggest experiences was we went to a Rangers game and we went to the Barclays Center for a Nets game. So going to that and seeing that the first fans, the first couple of days people being able to go in and see their teams live again was just, you know,

great to see. I mean, for me personally, it's cool to just to see something you've worked on and pull it out on a phone and just have somebody at MSG scan it. I mean, that's a pretty cool feeling, right. We don't always get to build something and then go play with it and watch it work. Have you had the opportunity to be like, you know, I helped make that.

That's right, this is past number seven, right, like, but well, you know the funny thing is, I mean, for me, I had to wait till I was eligible for vaccine. So actually there was a period of time where Excelsior pass was out there and I couldn't get a pass from my vaccine pass. I did get a bunch of test passes, so so that was something I was able to try out. Do you think the creation of the app has encouraged more people to go get vaccinated. I hope.

So aside from the public health, from the personal health reasons to get vaccinated, you're seeing now what you can do with that vaccination status. Just look at sports right you can have back to normal full capacity sections for people who are vaccinated. I mean, my brother's huge Islanders fans, they're very excited. Right now you can go to Anasta coscy and you can go and watch and be with

the crowd like you were before COVID. That is such a huge is just so uplifting for me personally, just going from this journey and if we go back to Friday thirteenth, going from where we were to trying to buy medical supplies that were impossible to get to now helping people go to a sports game with all their friends. I mean, what a turnaround. I know I talked a bit about like the business community, a huge benefit of this program is the ease and the efficiency of scanning

people into your establishment. I mean, we've all scanned QR codes and stuff. We know how quick this stuff is. Compare that to you have a line of fifty people at MSG or a club or a show or whatever, and you've got to go look through a card and check the dates. Is have fifteen days passed or you're checking a test, is it within three days? It takes you know, a minute. I actually, I mean I saw this when we were doing our pilots oft like Madison

Square Garden. You see someone in the dark with a flashlight looking at this piece of paper trying to calculate is this a valid test result or is this the you know, that takes time. So this is this is a lot much more efficient and much easier. So in most cases, like if they have the vaccine pass, the only way that they can get it is by having either a clear COVID test of clear vaccination status or

clear PCR status. If I'm not mistaken, so do you guys run into incidences where people do not scan clear based on there but even though they have a QR code that says that they are one of the things.

And this was primarily with the test results, those would expire after a certain amount of time, right you you had to be within a three day range, so you would get a negative result, you know, the skin would not work, or you'd get the X because it's expired, or would say he's expired, or if somebody was trying to create one, you know, and it was not a recognizable QR code. Let's say somebody's trying to recreate this in some way or or spoof this, so those those

would show up negative. What advice would you give to other cities and states exploring this avenue. I would say focus on, you know, the objective, which is trying to get people to come out. Keep it easy, keep it secure, keep it simple. Jason Dgianni is the Director of Procurement for the State of New York and help launch the Excelsior Pass. The digital tool makes proof of negative COVID tests and positive vaccine status is easy to confirm through

a quick scan. It's free for businesses and individuals across the state. Solvable Senior producer is Jocelyn Frank, Research by David Jah, Booking by Lisa Dunn. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias, and our executive producer is Mio LaBelle. Solvable is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review. It helps us find our way to the ears of new listeners. You could find Pushkin podcasts wherever you listen, including on the

iHeartRadio app and Apple podcasts. I'm Ronald Young Junior. Thanks for listening. I'll pull up appen