New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced "emergency hospital measures" Monday to deal with the state's surging virus cases in an effort to avoid overwhelming the state's health care system. "It is mandatory as of today that they (hospital systems) balance the load within their system, they balance the patient load, so you distribute the patients among your hospitals in your system," Cuomo said. Hospital systems will also need to identify retired doctors and nurses that could be called up to help alleviate overburdened staff. They must also add 50% capacity and ensure personal protective equipment stockpiles are available. More than 3,500 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the state. "If we had a real hospitalization crisis, we could potentially do a New York pause" once again shutting down businesses in the state, Cuomo said. The Governor said the "nightmare" the state faced in the spring of hospitals being overwhelmed while "that system had other hospitals that had capacity" would not happen this time around. Comparing the virus to a character out of a Dr. Seus story, Cuomo said "the COVID Grinch is an opportunist, and the COVID Grinch sees this as the season of viral transmission. All those things that the holiday season brings, they all increase social activity. They all increase mobility, and they will all increase viral transmission." Cuomo said "small gathering spread is now the number one spreader about 65 percent of all cases." The governor called this a "dramatic shift" caused impart by the holidays and reduced "social options." Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/qt/live, or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app. Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake: https://cor.us/surveys/27AF30 Connect with us on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloomberg Breaking News on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloombergQuickTakeNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/quicktake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quicktake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake