Nets owner Joe Tsai is helping New York breathe easier.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that Tsai and the Chinese government helped facilitate the donation of 1,000 ventilators that will arrive Saturday at JFK airport.
It will provide much-needed relief for the suffocating hospitals and patients in New York, which is the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis with 113,704 confirmed cases.
Tsai, the billionaire co-founder of Alibaba (which is the Chinese equivalent of Amazon), is reportedly worth $10.4 billion and has come through in a pinch. In addition to the ventilators, Tsai has pledged to pay all hourly employees at Barclays Center through at least May despite the arena being shutdown indefinitely. It is the most generous gesture from New York sports owners towards their arena employees.
The lack of ventilators _ and the slow response from the federal government to assist New York _ prompted Cuomo into a controversial action Friday, when he signed an executive order declaring the state can seize the equipment and redistribute them to places in dire need.
"We do not have enough ventilators. Period," Cuomo tweeted. "I am signing an Executive Order allowing the state to take ventilators and redistribute to hospitals in need.
"The National Guard will be mobilized to move ventilators to where they are urgently required to save lives."
New York endured 630 deaths on Friday which left the state's tragic toll at 3,565. Most of those fatalities _ 2,624 _ have been inside the five boroughs.
