Searchable compilation of Press Conference Raw Transcripts (non-COVID-related subjects deleted)
New York State Governor Cuomo 2020-01-24 to 2021-07-28

2020-01-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a series of actions to raise awareness and prepare New York State in response to an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced two confirmed cases in the United States - one in Washington State and one in Chicago. The State Department of Health currently has four persons under investigation for novel coronavirus that are under isolation as their cases are being tested at the CDC. So far, one of these cases has been proven negative and three are still pending. While the risk for New York is currently low, the Governor is calling for increased vigilance to ensure New Yorkers are protected.

"As we learn about the first confirmed cases of this novel coronavirus in the United States and potentially in New York, I want to assure New Yorkers that we are prepared," Governor Cuomo said. "We are undertaking a wide-reaching and rigorous effort with all stakeholders, including healthcare providers, airports and federal health officials, to put in place the appropriate precautions to keep New Yorkers safe. The symptoms of this virus are very similar to a common cold - if you are concerned that you might be ill, please follow our guidance to protect yourself and others."

Last week the Department of Health issued guidance to healthcare providers, healthcare facilities, clinical laboratories and local health departments to provide updated information about the outbreak, and ensure the proper protocols are in place if a patient is experiencing symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus, had a travel history to Wuhan, China, or had come in contact with an individual who was under investigation for this novel coronavirus. 

Additionally, the Department has hosted a series of informational webinars for hospitals and local healthcare providers. Today the Department hosted a webinar for medical professionals at colleges and universities - many of which host international students - to disseminate information about the virus, infection control recommendations and the current criteria for testing. 

Last week's health guidance coincided with the start of a CDC-led airport entry screening program at John F. Kennedy International Airport for passengers arriving from Wuhan, China. Chinese officials have since closed transport in and out of Wuhan and other cities in the province, including their international airports. DOH, Port Authority and the New York City Health Department will continue to work collaboratively with CDC as their travel screening process evolves. To date, no passenger has required further evaluation as a result of the CDC-led passenger program at JFK. To raise further awareness for all international travel, Governor Cuomo has directed the Port Authority to post informational signs at all four Port Authority international airports.

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "This virus is being carefully monitored at federal, state and city levels to ensure the public's health and safety, and while awareness is important, the current risk to New Yorkers is low. People who have traveled abroad recently and have symptoms that mimic the flu should see their doctor. We are working closely with the Centers for Disease Control to receive daily updates and stand ready to assist."

Symptoms of the novel coronavirus may include:

Runny nose
Headache
Cough
Sore throat
Fever
A general feeling of being unwell.
The CDC recommends that individuals avoid all nonessential travel to Wuhan, China, but has provided specific information for those who are still planning a trip to Wuhan and for individuals who have recently returned from that city and may be experiencing the above symptoms. While there is currently no vaccine for this novel coronavirus, everyday preventative actions can help stop the spread of this and other respiratory viruses, including:

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
Individuals who are experiencing symptoms and may have traveled to areas of concern, or have been in contact with somebody who has traveled to these areas, should call ahead to their healthcare provider before presenting for treatment.

2020-01-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced New York State's latest efforts to prepare and respond to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China, after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now confirms three cases in the United States. While there have been no confirmed cases in New York State, as of today, the New York State Department of Health has sent seven total cases to CDC for testing. Three of those cases have been proven negative, while four results are still pending. Those four individuals remain in isolation as their cases are tested at CDC.

"While the experts still believe the risk of catching this novel coronavirus is currently low in New York, I want all New Yorkers to know we are prepared and continue to take all necessary steps to keep people informed and safe," Governor Cuomo said. "I have directed the Department of Health and other state agencies to continue working closely with the CDC, the World Health Organization, our local and federal government partners, and New York's healthcare providers to ensure we stay ahead of this situation." 

With travelers expected to begin returning to the US this week from Lunar New Year celebrations in China, the New York State Department of Health (DOH) has begun working with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to post multilingual signage about the virus at all four Port Authority international airports. DOH is also working with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to place informational signage on subways and buses

Information about the novel coronavirus is available here.

2020-05-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to be here with you today. It is a beautiful morning. Today is Saturday. Everybody knows to my left, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To my right, Robert Mujica, budget director for the State of New York. I know today is Saturday because Mr. Met tweeted at me this morning that today is Saturday. He is the Mets mascot, so it must be Saturday. Also today is Saturday because I'm not wearing a tie. That is a cue to me to understand that today is Saturday.

Today is Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, it is day 84. Yesterday, a number of my young superstars said to me, you know, this is Memorial Day weekend coming up, and we've been working for 83 straight days, Maybe we do something different, maybe we take a day off, is what they were trying to suggest. I said, okay, tomorrow I'll stay home. So, I am at home today. I never said I wasn't going to work, but I said tomorrow I'll stay home. And, I am at home today, but we are working, 84 straight days. When the COVID virus takes a day off, we will take a day off, it's very simple.

We're in the New York State Executive Mansion. It's not really my home, it's the people's home. It is the residence for governors in New York. It's a great old house, was built in 1856, the state acquired it in 1877. They were building the state capital, which was going to finish in 1899, which was and is really a beautiful architectural masterpiece, and the governor's residence is just a stone's throw from the state capital. And the two work together, the capital was the place for business and the governor's residence was the place for social events and for gatherings and to entertain legislators. It's been home to 32 governors. You had three governors who served as president of the United States from New York, you had Grover Cleveland, you had Teddy Roosevelt and you had FDR. Between FDR and Teddy Roosevelt, they were the two really historic governors who went on. You had Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, also lived in this home.

But it's very much a museum, and it is beautiful. I don't know if you can fully appreciate it today, but we have great artifacts in this home. We have the wheelchair from FDR that he used when he was in this house. It's the wheelchair he also would go into a pool, which is in the back of the house, which was a pool that he exercised in. It was very important for FDR, obviously, to keep his upper body very strong, he was holding himself up, and swimming was his exercise and that's his wheelchair. We have a great portrait from FDR that hangs in the drawing room. We have a great bust of Teddy Roosevelt which was done by Baker, who was an extraordinarily gifted artist, and that's here. We have great art all through this home. The New York State Museum provides art, but we have pieces by Durand here, by Frederic Church, and it's just, you can't appreciate the scope of the home, but the whole first floor is just magnificent. It can hold several hundred people and we do a lot of good work here. My mother did a restoration of the mansion back to the historical, accurate portrayal when she was here. And it's still basically very much the same way. So it is beautiful. It's open to the public. We have a website that people can go to and it's really worth seeing.

On the numbers today, the news is good news. It has been good news. Every day is a new day and it's good to see it continuing. The number of hospitalizations are down. The change in hospitalizations is down. The intubations is down. The number of new cases, new COVID cases walking in the door, which is a very important number, that's down. And the number of lives lost is down to 84. 84 is still a tragedy no doubt. But the fact that it's down as low as it is really overall good news.

I had a conversation with a health care professional and I said what number should I be looking for to get down as a bottom number on the deaths? The doctor said, it wasn't our health commissioner, he said, "If I were you, I would look for 100. You want to be below 100." I said why 100? He said "Well, people will pass away when they're ill and often its pneumonia or it's something else. But if you can get under 100, I think you can breathe a sigh of relief." When he said this to me, we were in the hundreds and hundreds and getting below 100 was almost impossible. But I made a little note. You need something in life to shoot for. You need something to aim for. It's not official. I don't even know if it was 100% accurate. But in my head I was always looking to get under 100. And under 100 doesn't do any good for those 84 families that are feeling the pain. But for me it's just a sign that we're making real progress and I feel good about that.

We've been talking about reopening and how we proceed with reopening. It's been different in different regions all across the state. We have criteria all across the state that applies to every region. There is no variance in the criteria region from region. There's no political difference. There's no local differences. What's safe in Buffalo is safe in Albany is safe in New York City. And I want people to know where we are with these criteria. And that's they're on the website and I encourage people to go look at them every day. They're controlling what's happening. This is all a function of what people do. This has nothing to do with government, nothing to do with anything else. This is what people do. New Yorkers have been great in understanding the situation and responding.

In the Mid-Hudson area, Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Sullivan, Ulster, we have met the criteria for the decline in number of deaths. That is the issue that we were having with the Mid-Hudson region. The only open issue is we have to train tracers. No region opens before it's ready to open. To be ready to open, you need the tracing and testing system in place. Mid-Hudson region, we have identified the right number of tracers. They now need to be trained. It's an online course. I spoke this morning to the representatives of the Mid-Hudson, the county executives, and I said, "Look, we have a choice. If we can get them trained over Memorial Day weekend, we can reopen on Tuesday." You can do these trainings online. Many of them are government employees and we agreed and I thank the county executives and supervisors. We agreed to ask people to be trained Saturday, Sunday and Monday. And we'll open in the Mid-Hudson on Tuesday. So that is good news.

Long Island, the number of deaths are dropping. If that continues, we also have to get the tracing online, but at this rate we could open by Wednesday if the number of deaths continues to decline and we get that tracing up. That is also very good news.

Memorial Day weekend is here. We opened the state beaches. We asked people to socially distance. This is Jones Beach yesterday. People were great. People were great. They're doing what they're supposed to do, and I thank them very much. In terms of testing, we stress this and we should, just because you are not showing symptoms does not mean you do not have the COVID virus. About a third of people who have the virus never have symptoms. So they never know they have the virus, but you can still spread it if you have it - even if you don't know you have it. So, that's one of the insidious elements to this virus. So get a test. We're trying to make it as easy as possible. We're opening more and more testing sites. We're working with advantage care physicians. We're bringing more testing to lower income communities. But we now have 760 testing sites across the state. Please go to the website and get a test. It protects you, protects your family, protects everyone. We've made it as easy as possible, but we do have many sites that have more capacity than they are now doing tests.

 If you have any symptoms, get a test. If you're exposed to a person who turned out to be positive, get a test. If you're a frontline worker, get a test. If you're a healthcare worker, get a test. If you're working in a grocery store, you're delivering products, you're public facing, get a test. If you're a region that's opening up, get a test. We've made it as easy as possible. But this is something where we need people to continue to step up, right? By the way, just because you got a test one month ago doesn't mean you shouldn't go get another test. You can get a test and you can walk out of the testing site and pick up the virus in ten minutes. So it's not I got one test, I'm done. It doesn't work that way. Again, that's up to people. In all these admonitions, all these pleas, the good news is remember it is working. What we are doing is working. You look at the New York curve, you look at how low it is, you look at the number of deaths., look at the decline. Compare with the rest of the nation where you still see the rest of the nation's curve going up. So it is working. And what are we doing? It is the social acceptance and culture of being New York tough which is smart, smart. Smart is get the test. Smart is protect yourself. Smart is risk, reward. Don't put yourself in a situation where it's not worth it. If you can stay home, stay home. If you don't have to go into a certain store, don't go into a store. We're united. We're disciplined. This is all about discipline now. This is doing the same thing we did the day before, even though it's day 84. It's showing respect and love for your family, and for society, and operating that way.

Again, it's working here in New York, because what you're seeing across the rest of the country in many other states, you're seeing the numbers go up. They're talking about a possible second wave in the South which may have reopened too fast and too aggressively. They're talking about a higher number of deaths in California. How these counties reopen, how states reopen, they can make all the difference. 24 states suggest that you may still have uncontrolled spread, right. So, don't underestimate this virus. We know that it can rear its ugly head at any moment. But, what do we need to do? It's not rocket science. Wear a mask, wash your hands, socially distance, use hand sanitizer, but most of all wear a mask.

I am telling you those masks can save your life. Those masks can save another person's life. And the most astonishing fact to me all through this, that the emergency room health professionals have a lower infection rate than the general population. That's the bus drivers, transit workers, police officers, have a lower rate of infection because the masks work, and we gave them the masks and they wore the masks. So, wear a mask.

2020-05-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to see all of you here today. Let's talk about where we are today. First, on the facts first. Total number of hospitalizations is down, that's good news. The rolling average of hospitalizations is down, that's good news. The intubations is down and the new cases are up a little bit on the rolling average, but all part of the decline. That's all good news. Number of deaths ticked up, which is terrible news, but the overall line is still good. The 109 families that lost a loved one, they are in our thoughts and prayers. 

What does a Governor do on Memorial Day weekend? People ask me all the time, "What do you do?" So, what does a Governor do on Memorial Day weekend? You go to the beach. That's what a Governor does and he brings his friends. I'm here with my friends today. From the far right, Gareth Rhodes. To my immediate right, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my left, Robert Mujica, Budget Director for the great State of New York and Dr. Jim Malatras, who's not a real doctor, but he likes to be called doctor. 

We're at the beach. Beaches in New York State, State beaches are open. Jones Beach, the Sunken Meadow Beach, Hither Hills, Robert Moses Beach. Camp grounds, RV parks open tomorrow and we're excited about that. We remind all New Yorkers to be smart in what they're doing. We're now decidedly in the reopening phase and we've been following the numbers from day one. No emotions. Following the science, not the politics. This is not a political ideology question. This is a public health question. It's about a disease, stopping the disease, stopping the spread of the disease and that's science, it's not politics. 

We have all the numbers posted for all regions in the state. We want people to understand the numbers, we want people to understand what's going on because it's their actions that determine our future. Informing the people of the State, that's what I've done from day one every day and that's what we'll continue to do. Also, we feel that this is a case of first impression. We've never been here before. We've never been here before in our lifetimes. That's true, but the country has been through this before and you learn from the past so you don't make the same mistakes. 

When we went through this in the 1918 pandemic, you go back and you look at the places that opened in an uncontrolled way and you see that the virus came back and came back with a fury. Again, it's not about what you think, ideology, this is what we know. These are facts. You go back and look at what happened in the 1918 pandemic in St. Louis. Go look at Denver where they loosened up too quickly and the virus came back. 

Article in the paper today, the Washington Post. 24 states may have an uncontrolled growth of the virus. They're talking about California and Florida may still see a spike in the number of deaths, okay. Those are all facts, and they reinforce the point that we've been making. Follow the numbers, follow the science. And we have done just that. That's why you see our curve is coming down where many places in the country the curve is going up.

Remember what happened to us was no fault of our own. Actually, it makes the point, because what happened to us was we did not have the facts when this started. everybody said the facts were the virus was coming from China. Those were not the facts. The virus had left China. The virus went to Europe and nobody told us. And people came from Europe to New York and to New Jersey and to Connecticut. And 3 million European travelers came, January, February, march, before we did the European travel ban. And they brought the virus to New York and that's why the New York number was so high. We didn't have the facts. We were not informed. But, once we got past that, and we were in control, we have been smart. And smart has worked. We just have to stay smart. Even though it's been a long time, and people are anxious, we have to stay smart. You keep watching those numbers.

The Mid-Hudson is still on track on the numbers to open Tuesday. Long Island is on track to meet the numbers on Wednesday. We have to get the number of deaths down on Long Island and we have to get the number of tracers up, but we're doing that. We're preparing for long island to open. We're getting the transportation system ready. The Long Island Rail Road is run by the MTA. They're going to be cleaning and disinfecting all trains and buses every day, first time ever. We never disinfected buses and trains before, we never thought we had to. But we get it now, and they're doing it every day. They're going to add more cars to the trains so people can space out and socially distance when Long Island opens. I want people to remember that the mask is mandatory on public transportation. I think you're making a mistake, a grave mistake, if you don't use a mask in your own personal life. We know that it works. We know that the first responders have a lower infection rate than the general population because they wore the masks, so I think if you don't wear the mask in your personal comings and goings you're making a mistake. But I do know, as governor, you're going to subject other people in the public to your behavior then you have to wear a mask when you can't socially distance, and that's true on public transportation.

Starting today, all the New York professional sports leagues will be able to begin training camps. I believe that sports that can come back without having people in the stadium, without having people in the arena, do it. Do it. Work out the economics if you can. We want you up. We want people to be able to watch sports to the extent people are still staying home. It gives people something to do. It's a return to normalcy so we are working and encouraging all sports teams to start their training camps as soon as possible and we will work with them to make sure that can happen.

All veterinarian practices will begin on Tuesday. That is a service that is necessary and has been necessary for a period of time. That'll start on Tuesday and I want people to remember that there are people who have paid a very high price, everybody has paid a high price for what we have gone through.

Some people have paid an extraordinarily high price. You have people who literally do not have enough to eat. The demand on food banks has skyrocketed. That's true all across the state. It's true here on Long Island and we encourage people who want to make donations, philanthropies who want to make donations, to make them for the purpose of food banks. You know this is a period where it gets very basic. Do you have housing and do you have food? Let's make sure no New Yorker goes hungry.

Also, as we go forward, we have been talking about the light at the end of the tunnel and we are dealing with it today in the here and now but we also have one eye on the future and when we finish getting through this, which we are, we have to start talking about building back better - not just building back - building back better. Same attitude we had here on Long Island after Superstorm Sandy, devastated Long Island, I said I don't want to just replace what was. We went through too much pain and we learned too much just to replace what was. Let's build back better, a new power grid, new more resilient homes, new more resilient roads so when Mother Nature comes back, and she will come back with a furry, we are in a better position because we learned from Superstorm Sandy. Let's do the same thing here.

What, do we really think this is the last time we are going to have a public health emergency? Does anyone really believe this is the last time like Superstorm Sandy? "Well, it's a once-in-500-year-flood." Yeah, sure once in 500 years. It happens three times a year now. This can't be once in 500 years. There are new rules. I believe there is going to be another public health emergency, different virus, this virus, some other public health emergency. Learn from this and build back better. We asked Eric Schmidt, who is a former CEO, executive chair of Google, who is very good at seeing issues and seeing possibilities to chair a commission for us to look at the situation and say how do we learn from this and how do we prepare going forward and we put together a Commission that is going to work with him that represents all aspects of the state, all aspects of the economy but I want them to get to work and I want them to come up with ideas. Let's make sure we are better for what we have gone through and start preparing for a new chapter in this saga.

We are writing history in New York. We are writing history in America. That's what we are doing. We are writing history for a whole modern day governmental and societal response. Chapter one was dealing with the emergency - stabilizing the health crisis. That was chapter one. We have just about completed chapter one. We have started chapter two which is reopening after you have stabilized health crisis. And we are starting to write chapter two. Chapter three, which we are going to begin preparing for soon is rebuilding and recreating the economy. I don't believe this economy just bounces back. I don't believe it is going to be enough just to go back to where the economy was. Too many small businesses have closed. You will see many of these corporations are going to use this as an opportunity to lay off workers. I believe that. Many businesses who have gone through this period where workers were at home. They had fewer workers. They used more technology and they are going to decide that "Well, we don't need as many workers." That is going to happen. You will have people who decide I don't want to go back to work. I would rather stay home and do it from home.

So, we are going to need to stimulate that economy and government has a role to play in that, it always has. How does government stimulate and lead the way to these new economic opportunities? How does that Eric Schmidt commission come up with new ideas that we can jump start to grow the economy? That is what the next chapter is going to be about. It is going to be about government working with the private sector, working with businesses to jumpstart the economy, to stimulate it, to get some big projects going that get the business sector engaged and confident and believing once again. Gets people into a position where they will invest once again because they believe in the economy. Build new airports, which makes this nation more competitive. That is what we are doing at LaGuardia. That is what we are doing at JFK. This nation hasn't built a new airport in 25 years. When are you going to start? Now is the time to start. How do you improve the mass transit system? How do you rebuild all these roads and bridges that have been failing for so long? Everybody talks about it. Nobody has done a darn thing. How about new technology for education? How about new telemedicine? We learned not ever but he has to show up at the doctor's office. Let's invest and build that new health care system. We talk about a new health care system that can do testing and tracing and has surge capacity and hospital beds. Let's build that new public health system and let government get ahead of it and let government lead the way.

New York State has led the way in so many difficult times in history. New York was the first. I am not just saying that as a New Yorker, "There they are, those arrogant New Yorkers." Read the history books. Read where FDR came up with his great ideas. He used New York as a laboratory when he was a governor and then he brought them nationwide. But we were the first. We started it first and people looked to New York for guidance and for example. And New York was bold and was creative. They talk about the New York energy, the New York mojo. Yes, that is New York. We did things that other people didn't think could be done, and we did it over and over and over again.

We are at Jones Beach today. Jones Beach is indescribably beautiful. Yes. It is also something else. It was a tremendous feat of ambition and vision meeting competence. Jones Beach, built by Robert Moses, you know what is funny about Jones Beach when he started to build Jones Beach? There was no beach. There was no beach. People assume you have a beach because Mother Nature of each there. There was no beach. This was all built. This was all marsh. This is seven miles of fill. They filled a seven-mile-stretch, 14 feet high. It took so much fill that they dug the channel, a canal, and used that fill to build a beach. How ambitious. "You want to build a beach seven miles long, 14 feet of fill, well that's impossible." No, they did it in three years. And it was a marvel, because they believed in themselves. Because you had smart government. You had competent government. People believed in government and they do again, because government did work for people here. It saved lives. So, let's get that kind of ambition back. Let's get that kind of optimism back. We built New York. Mother Nature didn't build this. She gave us a beautiful harbor, but everything else was built and we did it and we can do it again. That is what it means to be New York tough and smart and united and disciplined and loving.
We have an ongoing competition on the wear a mask ad, the most convincing ad. Mariah, my daughter is running this because she was unmoved by my powers of communication and persuasion, but that competition is now open. We have people voting on the five finalists. And the winner will be announced Tuesday and will become a public service announcement for the state. We're asking people to go to the website, look at the five finalists and vote, and then we will announce a winner. I'm excited about this. We are going to be stressing wearing a mask over this weekend. Going to this website and this competition is part of it.

We have Rachel Maddow who has a show on MSNBC at night that I have been on. She was talking about this competition last night in her way. She made some remarks that I would like to show you, if we can.

Rachel Maddow: New York asked people to submit their own public service announcements about why you should wear a mask. And what they circulated this week I believe are the finalists, like the best ones according to the state and they're really good. They're also really, really, really New York.

Governor Cuomo: Now, that really, really, really New York comment. Rachel is by birth a Californian, I believe. Really, really, really New York. Here is what she meant by really, really, really New York, so I want her to do New York a favor and go look at the five, pick which ad she likes best and I'm asking all New Yorkers to go and vote on which ad they like best. But I'm really, really curious what Rachel thinks is the best of the five ads so I'm publicly asking her to go look and vote and let us know what she likes best of the five.

We are also posting some honorable mentions because we've had over 600 submissions. I'm telling you they're phenomenal. I've been watching them. They are just phenomenal. But we have an honorable mention category. We want to show you five more videos now that are in the honorable mention category.

[Videos Play]

Okay. Last point, in this house staying here and as I said really feels like a museum in many ways but you can't ignore just the number of greats who lived in this home, historic greats. What FDR did, what Teddy Roosevelt did. I read a lot of history. New York tough. Yes, yes, this is a tough situation. Yes, New Yorkers are tough and we've shown how tough we are here. Tough means many things, as I've said, loving and disciplined, et cetera. But even tough is tough. Yeah, tough is about courage. Teddy Roosevelt, "Courage is not having the strength to go on. It is going on when you don't have the strength." Day 84, "I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore." We have to do it more. We have to continue to do it. There's no normal. We're going to have to do it for a long time. Talking about the fall, they're talking about a possible second wave. We have to get back to activity. But we have to do it in a different way, a smarter way, maybe a better way when all is said and done. That's courage.

And Teddy Roosevelt was a tough and leaned in to being tough. He liked being tough, Teddy Roosevelt. He liked being physically tough. Teddy Roosevelt had a boxing ring built on the third floor of this house, a boxing ring. And he would challenge the legislators the day to come box with him in the boxing ring on the third floor at night. Can you imagine that? Governor says to a legislator, "Come, we'll go to the boxing ring." I think that's how they got the budget done at the end of budget session. Any discordant voices, "Come to mansion and we'll go to the boxing ring." But he was tough in that sense, rough rider tough, physically tough, pushed himself. My father was Governor of New York, lived in this house for 12 years as governor served as governor. He had a different version of tough. He was more of the loving definition of tough, he was more of the inclusive definition of strong, that strength was in unity and strength was in community and strength was in giving and selflessness and strength was finding the commonality among people and connecting among people. That's his sense and his definition of toughness. This nation at its best only when we see ourselves, all of us as one family. He brought it back to the metaphor of the family - what is society, what is community? You're a family. Treat each others as you would treat your own family members. Sharing benefits and burdens. That was his version of tough. You never know the number of iterations of the same concept. But the concept is right. That concept is New York.

On Friday, the State Department of Health held an informational webinar on the coronavirus with over 400 participants from New York's colleges and universities, many of which have international students and faculty. DOH will circulate guidance this week on messaging to students about the virus, how to prevent it and how it spreads. This is in addition to a series of informational webinars DOH has already held for hospitals and local healthcare providers.

Last week the Department of Health issued guidance to healthcare providers, healthcare facilities, clinical laboratories and local health departments providing updated information about the outbreak, and ensuring proper protocols are in place if a patient is experiencing symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus, had a travel history to Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus originated, or had come in contact with an individual who was under investigation for this novel coronavirus. 

Last week's health guidance coincided with the start of a CDC-led airport entry screening program at John F. Kennedy International Airport for passengers arriving from Wuhan, China. Chinese officials have since closed transport in and out of Wuhan and other cities in the province, including their international airports. DOH, Port Authority and the New York City Health Department will continue to work collaboratively with CDC as their travel screening process evolves. To date, no passenger has required further evaluation as a result of the CDC-led passenger screening program at JFK. To raise further awareness for all international travel, Governor Cuomo has directed the Port Authority to post informational signs at all four Port Authority international airports. 

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "We encourage all New Yorkers to take normal precautions against sickness, such as regular hand washing and avoiding close contact with people who are sick. We will continue to work with our partners at the CDC and are prepared to assist in any way necessary to ensure the health of New Yorkers."

Symptoms of the novel coronavirus may include:

Runny nose
Headache
Cough
Sore throat
Fever
The CDC recommends that individuals avoid all nonessential travel to Wuhan, China, but has provided specific information for those who are still planning a trip to Wuhan and for individuals who have recently returned from that city and may be experiencing the above symptoms. 

While there is currently no vaccine for this novel coronavirus, everyday preventative actions can help stop the spread of this and other respiratory viruses, including:

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. 
Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
Individuals who are experiencing symptoms and may have traveled to areas of concern, or have been in contact with somebody who has traveled to these areas, should call ahead to their healthcare provider before presenting for treatment.

2020-01-27 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced an update on the status of testing for the Novel Coronavirus in New York State, after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed five cases in the United States.

"While there have been no confirmed cases in New York State, as of today our Department of Health has sent samples for nine individuals to CDC for testing; four of these samples have proven negative and five results are still pending," Governor Cuomo said. "These five individuals remain in isolation as their samples are tested at CDC. While the risk for New Yorkers is currently low, we are still working to keep everyone informed, prepared and safe."

2020-01-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced an update on the status of testing for the novel coronavirus in New York State. As of today, the New York State Department of Health has sent samples for 10 individuals to the CDC for testing with seven found to be negative and three more still pending. So far, there are no confirmed cases in New York State.

"While we continue to closely monitor the spread of this novel coronavirus, I have directed our Department of Health to continue communicating with and providing updates to our local communities, healthcare providers, colleges, universities and New York companies with locations or business interests in China," Governor Cuomo said. "My message to New Yorkers is: take this coronavirus seriously, take proper precautions, stay informed, but also feel confident that our Health Department and this administration are prepared and ready." 

The Department of Health continues to provide guidance to New York's colleges and universities, many of which have international students from China, on how to identify the virus, update students and promote prevention measures.

More information about the novel coronavirus is available here.

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "We encourage all New Yorkers to take normal precautions against sickness, such as regular hand washing and avoiding close contact with people who are sick. We will continue to work with our partners at the CDC and around the State as we assist in any way necessary to ensure the health of all New Yorkers."

Symptoms of the novel coronavirus may include:

Cough
Sore throat
Fever
While there is currently no vaccine for this novel coronavirus, everyday preventative actions can help stop the spread of this and other respiratory viruses, including:

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. 
Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
Individuals who are experiencing symptoms and may have traveled to areas of concern, or have been in contact with somebody who has traveled to these areas, should call ahead to their healthcare provider before presenting for treatment.

2020-01-30 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today advised New Yorkers that State and local health departments and healthcare partners are remaining vigilant and have a high state of readiness to protect New Yorkers from novel coronavirus. He also advised New Yorkers of the ongoing risk for seasonal flu and urges them to take recommended precautions to prevent both. As of today, the New York State Department of Health has sent samples from 11 individuals to the CDC for testing for the novel coronavirus, with seven found to be negative and four more still pending. There are no confirmed cases in New York State. 

Regarding flu however, the number of laboratory-confirmed flu cases and hospitalizations has increased every week since flu season began in October. Flu season occurs primarily from October through May, and the 2019-20 season has yet to peak.

"New York does not have one single confirmed case of the novel coronavirus, but we are taking every necessary precaution to protect against its spread into our state. We have been here before, and I want to remind New Yorkers that it is much more likely that they will be exposed to the influenza virus than to the coronavirus," Governor Cuomo said."I am urging New Yorkers to take basic precautions against the flu, such as regular hand washing and avoiding close contact with people who are sick. These measures will also help people avoid coming in contact with the novel coronavirus." 

The latest influenza surveillance report shows seasonal flu activity continues to increase in across New York State. Last week 2,015 New Yorkers were hospitalized with lab-confirmed influenza, up eight percent from the previous week. This season, there have been 11,539 flu-related hospitalizations. In addition, last week, 15,012 laboratory-confirmed flu cases were reported to the State Department of Health, an 11 percent increase in cases from the week prior. There has been a total of 72,385 lab-confirmed cases reported this season, with three flu-associated pediatric deaths. Influenza activity data is available on the New York State Flu Tracker. The Flu Tracker is a dashboard on the New York State Health Connector that provides timely information about local, regional and statewide influenza activity. 

On January 3, the State Department of Health issued a statewide health advisory alerting healthcare providers to the dramatic increase in flu activity across New York State. The advisory also encourages providers to promote the effectiveness of patients getting vaccinated to help prevent the spread of influenza. While the effectiveness of the flu vaccine can vary, this year's flu vaccine is likely to be more effective against the types of flu viruses that are circulating this season.

Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "As flu is considered widespread in New York State, taking everyday preventive steps such as washing hands often, covering a cough or sneeze and staying home when experiencing flu-like symptoms will help prevent the spread of the flu. These same actions will help protect New Yorkers against the novel coronavirus." 

The latest increase in lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations comes after Dr. Zucker declared flu prevalent in December throughout New York State. The announcement put into effect a regulation requiring that healthcare workers who are not vaccinated against influenza wear surgical or procedure masks in areas where patients are typically present. 

The State Health Department recommends and urges that everyone six months of age or older receive an influenza vaccination. The vaccine is especially important for people at high risk for complications from influenza, including children under age 2, pregnant women and adults over age 65. People with pre-existing conditions, such as asthma and heart disease, are also at greater risk, as are individuals with weakened immune systems due to disease or medications such as chemotherapy or chronic steroid use. Since influenza virus can spread easily by coughing or sneezing, it is also important that family members and people in regular contact with high risk individuals get an influenza vaccine.

While there is currently no vaccine for novel coronavirus, the same simple preventative measures for influenza can help stop the spread. Last week the Department of Health issued guidance to healthcare providers, healthcare facilities, clinical laboratories, colleges and local health departments to provide updated information about the outbreak, and ensure the proper protocols are in place if a patient is experiencing symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus, had a travel history to Wuhan, China, or had come in contact with an individual who was under investigation for this novel coronavirus. Additionally, the Department has hosted a series of informational webinars for hospitals, colleges and local healthcare providers. The Department of Health is also working closely with the Centers for Disease Control to receive daily updates.

More information about the novel coronavirus is available here.

For Governor Cuomo's previous statements on novel coronavirus:

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-issues-update-novel-coronavirus-one-more-new-yorker-identified-testing-bringing

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-issues-update-novel-coronavirus-two-more-new-yorkers-identified-testing-bringing

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-states-continued-response-novel-coronavirus-three-more-individuals-are

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-outlines-state-response-first-two-confirmed-cases-novel-coronavirus-united

2020-02-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: We wanted to give you an update on developments with the coronavirus. As you know there have been about 14,000 reported cases of the coronavirus worldwide, about 305 reported deaths. Here in New York we had 12 cases that were investigated, 11 of the 12 turned out to be negative. One person is reported to have the coronavirus here in New York City, still testing. So the one person is still being tested. So 11 have been negative, the one is still being tested.

The federal government declared an emergency health action on Friday evening. That federal emergency health action is being implemented by the State Department of Health and by the Port Authority. The Port Authority runs our airports, this situation fundamentally involved, basically involved JFK Airport. Rick Cotton is the Executive Director of the Port Authority and Dr. Howard Zucker is the Commissioner for the State Department of Health. They have been working with the CDC and implementing the federal rules and regulations around this situation and we wanted to give you a brief update. We'll go first to Port Authority Head Rick Cotton, who will talk about how we're implementing the federal declaration, and then you'll hear from Commissioner Zucker.

Rick Cotton: Thank you Governor. As the Governor said, a public health emergency was declared by the federal government on Friday. Procedures were outlined for all airports. We have been working closely with the federal Centers for Disease Control and with the Custom and Border Protection to implement the required procedures. And those procedures are effective as of 5 p.m. today. After that point non-stop flights from mainland China will only be permitted to land at seven airports, and John F. Kennedy International is one of those airports. The guidance has also been clarified to be clear that it allows planes that are currently in the air from mainland China to land at any airport. Two non-stop flights from mainland China were scheduled to land at Kennedy this evening, and both of those flights have actually been cancelled. We are in close touch with the airlines to understand what their plans are going forward.

Port Authority has worked out and established the staffing necessary to cooperate with federal, state and local officials to ensure that the screening of passengers and transportation off airports if necessary will be in place. Those screening protocols are as follows. First, no foreign nationals, non-U.S. citizens who have had contact with mainland China in the past 14 days will be permitted by the federal government to enter the United States. Second, U.S. citizens who have been to Hubei Province, which is the center of the virus outbreak, in the last 14 days will be subject to mandatory quarantine. If those U.S. citizens who have been in Hubei Province within the last 14 days are symptomatic, those travelers will be immediately transported to Bellevue or to Jamaica Hospital. U.S. citizens who have been to Hubei province in the last 14 days but are not symptomatic - they will be subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine, and they will also be transported off airport to the quarantine facility. The transport will be provided by the City of New York, and the Port Authority will be able to provide all necessary support for that transport. The third group - U.S. citizens who have been to mainland China in the last 14 days but are not symptomatic - will be subject to different protocols. As long as they're non-symptomatic, they will be instructed by the Centers for Disease Control on self-monitoring and medical tracking requirements. They will be subject to restrictions on movements outside their homes, and guidelines will be provided to them to remain in touch with local health agencies as to their health status. Those are the screening procedures that have been mandated and we are fully prepared to institute them in cooperation with our federal and state partners as of 5 p.m. today.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, Mr. Cotton. Dr. Howard Zucker who is talking about how the state is implementing federal actions, and if you could also Doctor give us a little perspective on this virus versus other situations we have ongoing or seen before.

Dr. Howard Zucker: Thank you. Let me tell you a little bit about what we know. So new viruses do surface on occasion and this is a new coronavirus that has never been encountered before - the process is evolving. The symptoms as you heard are similar to the flu or a bad cold - it's just a fever, sore throat, runny nose, cough, respiratory symptoms. As the Governor mentioned there's over 14,00 cases internationally, and 300 plus that have died. As I mentioned it is an evolving process, we do have in the United States now eight positive cases.

Let me share a little bit about what we're doing - we are working with local governments on all aspects of this issue. We have developed a plan, as you have heard from Mr. Cotton, regarding those who are coming in from Hubei Province as well as those who are coming in from other parts of China. But we've been working with the hospitals, with the health professionals, with our national partners. I spoke with other states and we're working with all the state, county health officials - health officials across the nation on this. We are in constant communication with the CDC. And our lab - the Wadsworth Lab in Upstate New York - once they have the protocols from CDC, will soon be able to do testing right there at the lab.

Little bit about what you can do and the public can do - I think it's important to follow smart practices, to wash your hands, to sneeze into your sleeve, to stay home if you are sick, to also obviously see a health professional if you are ill and you are concerned. As the Governor asked us just now to do, I think it would be helpful to do a little bit of perspective about this because I know people are concerned. In New York State when the flu season began, we have had over 70,000 cases of the flu. We have also had unfortunately four pediatric deaths as well during that time. In the United States since the flu season began in October, there have been 15 million people with the flu, and we have had over 20,000 people who have died. And if you look globally, during any average flu season, there are usually about 4 million people who will get the flu. So I think it is really important to just keep this in perspective. It is an evolving process. We are on top of it. We will move forward. We are addressing this on all the different fronts that we need to address it in a very coordinated fashion. Thank you.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much Doctor. So the long and the short of it is the federal government has mandated certain actions. We are implementing those actions. Before the federal government announced anything, we were very diligent. We take situations like this very seriously. We understand the density of New York, the complexity of New York. Whatever happens internationally, it winds up at our doorstep relatively quickly. So, we have seen situations like this before. We are very proactive. I don't take anything for granted. Precaution is always the best practice. Preparedness is always the best practice, and that is what we do here in New York. At the same time, we have to keep this in perspective. There is no reason to panic. There is no reason to have an inordinate amount of fear about this situation. There are different viruses that develop on an ongoing basis. Take every one seriously, but don't have an overly anxious reaction to any one situation. I think that applies to this situation.

2020-02-04 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced an update on the status of testing for the novel coronavirus in New York State. As of today, samples from 17 New Yorkers have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. Of those, 11 have come back negative. Three samples from New York City and three samples from New York State outside of New York City are pending, for six total pending samples. There are still no confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in New York State.

As Governor Cuomo announced Sunday, a hotline has been set up for New Yorkers to call at 1-888-364-3065 where experts from the Department of Health can answer questions regarding the Novel Coronavirus. The Department of Health has also created a dedicated website as a resource for New Yorkers. 

"Even though there are no confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in New York State, we continue to take every precaution necessary to ensure the health and safety of all New Yorkers," Governor Cuomo said. "While the risk to New Yorkers is still low, we urge everyone to remain vigilant, stay informed, follow the recommended steps to protect themselves and their families, and call our coronavirus hotline if you still have questions or concerns."

The Department of Health continues to provide preparedness guidance to New York's health care facilities and local health departments and is working closely with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to adhere to CDC-led airport entry protocols for travelers arriving from China -- which took effect Sunday evening. 

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "As this situation continues to evolve, the State Department of Health remains in close contact with our federal, state and local partners to protect the health of all New Yorkers. It is important for people to take appropriate precautions, just as they should to protect themselves against the flu, and have confidence that we are prepared to handle this public health issue."

Symptoms of the novel coronavirus may include:

Cough
Sore throat
Fever
While there is currently no vaccine for this novel coronavirus, everyday preventative actions can help stop the spread of this and other respiratory viruses, including:

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. 
Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
Individuals who are experiencing symptoms and may have traveled to areas of concern, or have been in contact with somebody who has traveled to these areas should call ahead to their healthcare provider before presenting for treatment.

2020-02-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Let me turn it over to our great Health Commissioner to give an update on the Coronavirus.

Dr. Howard Zucker: Thank you Governor and good afternoon. As we have said over the past few weeks, the risk to the public in New York State is currently very low. The Department is in daily communications, often several times a day, with our colleagues at the CDC, HHS and New York City office of the Department of Health, the Port Authority and local health departments and healthcare providers statewide. And together, we are closely monitoring the developments in China as well as here in the United States.

There are 12 cases nationally and our focus continues on aggressively identifying any new potential for exposures among travelers returning to New York. Now regarding travel, there have been several reports regarding a cruise ship that is docked in Bayonne, New Jersey. What we can tell you is that we understand four individuals have been taken to University Hospital in Newark for observation. But none of the individuals were experiencing symptoms consistent with novel coronavirus.

We've added this novel coronavirus to the department's list of communicable diseases, which requires health care providers to report persons under investigation to their local health departments and ultimately to the state Department of Health.

Reporting and investigation of cases is already taking place and adding novel coronavirus to this list will improve our ability to coordinate efforts with local health officials to control the spread of the disease if necessary.

Additionally, the Wadsworth Center, which is our New York State's public health lab, is working closely with the CDC to get the ability to perform the test for the novel coronavirus and we're working quickly to implement that testing. Bottom line is, we are very well prepared for this response and New York State and local public health officials along with healthcare facilities are very experienced with infectious control practices. While the novel coronavirus not an immediate threat to New Yorkers, let us please not forget that the flu is still prevalent in New York State and has not yet peaked. According to the latest surveillance report last week alone, 1889 New Yorkers were hospitalized with lab confirmed influenza. In that same week 17,321 lab confirmed flu cases were reported. That's a 15 percent increase from the week prior and one of the highest single weeks of activity we have seen. There have also been 13,463 hospitalizations this season since around October.

So every day preventative actions can help stop the spread of both flu as well as the novel coronavirus. Wash your hands often, cover your mouth or your nose when you sneeze. Sneeze into your sleeve. Stay home if you're sick. This is really important. If you're not feeling well, best thing to do is to stay home. If you want, call your doctor, call your health professional, but don't run to the emergency room unless it's truly an emergency. And finally I would like to just address what I think is a very disturbing trend. Concerns about novel coronavirus should focus on public health and safety, not using the excuse for anti-Asian racism or xenophobia. As I have mentioned while the risk of novel coronavirus is still low, New Yorkers should remain vigilant and protect themselves and their families. We should stick together not attack one another. We're going to get through this like we've gotten through so many other things. Thank you very much.

Governor Cuomo: Well said, Commissioner. And just as the Commissioner said, yesterday we were contacted by the federal department of HHS and CDC on the cruise ship that was coming into the New York Harbor. There have been no confirmed cases of coronavirus on that cruise ship. Four people are being tested, but there were no confirmed cases and we're working with them on that. And just to reiterate what the Commissioner, there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York thus far.

We would expect as time goes on that we will find a case of Coronavirus if you look at the spread of it around the world, we would expect that and we are prepared for that. We have taken a lot of time to put protocols in place and quarantine procedures, et cetera. But again, I understand the fear. We went through this before: Zika virus, Ebola, et cetera. But let's have some connection to the reality of the situation, and as the doctor said, catching the flu right now is a much greater risk than anything that has anything to do with Coronavirus. Let me turn it over to Rick Cotton, who is the Executive Director of the Port Authority, who can speak about the Coronavirus and how it's affecting flights, et cetera.

Rick Cotton: Thank you Governor, at the Port Authority we continue to work closely at all of our airports with our federal, state and local partners, including the New York State Department of Health, to ensure that the mandated screening of returning international travelers to the United States is handled smoothly and without incident. Since the order went into effect on Sunday afternoon, at JFK the CDC has screened 6,664 travelers, 3,100 of those travelers came on 14 flights nonstop from mainland China. The remainder of those screened, about 3,500, came on other flights and were flagged for CDC screening due to recent travel to mainland China. Of the 6,664 travelers who have been screened, five have been referred for quarantine. The Port Authority is prepared to assist its partners as we work to protect the public health. Thank you very much.

2020-02-10 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced additional negative results for the novel coronavirus in New York State. The New York State Department of Health just learned of another negative test result, which brings the statewide total of samples that have come back negative up to 22. As of today, samples from 23 New Yorkers have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. Of those, 22 have come back negative. One sample from New York City is still pending; there are no pending samples in New York State outside of New York City. There are still no confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in New York State.

"We are continuing to take every necessary precaution to protect New Yorkers from this virus," Governor Cuomo said. "While there are still no confirmed cases of the virus in New York State, I urge everyone to continue to take commonsense precautions, such as regular hand washing and avoiding close contact with people who are sick."

The Department of Health is working closely with its partners at the federal, state and local level on this constantly evolving public health emergency. Now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized the State to use the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's diagnostic test, New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center is working to implement the coronavirus testing. The Wadsworth Center, which has been at the forefront of numerous public health emergencies such as vaping-associated illnesses, SARS and synthetic cannabinoids, must complete the proper verification protocols before testing can begin. 

While there is currently no vaccine for the novel coronavirus, everyday preventative actions can help stop the spread of this and other respiratory viruses:

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
Individuals who are experiencing symptoms and may have traveled to areas of concern or have been in contact with somebody who has traveled to these areas should call ahead to their healthcare provider before presenting for treatment. 

In addition, the Department has a dedicated website which was created as a resource with updated information for New Yorkers

New Yorkers can call the State hotline at 1-888-364-3065, where experts from the Department of Health can answer questions regarding the novel coronavirus. In addition, the Department has a dedicated website which was created as a resource with updated information for New Yorkers. The Department has also launched two public service announcements (PSAs) on the novel coronavirus, one featuring State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker and another with general information, that are running statewide in multiple languages.

2020-02-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon everyone. Let me introduce the people who are here with us this afternoon. From my far right. Mr. John Bilich from the Port Authority who is the Chief Security Officer. To his left, Ken Raske, President of the Greater New York Hospital Association that works and coordinates all the voluntary hospitals in our state. Beth Garvey, who you know is Special Counsel. Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. Dr. Howard Zucker, who is the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health. Michael Kopy, Director of Emergency Management, and Patrick Murphy, Commissioner of the Department of Homeland Security. I want to thank them all for taking this time.

We have been talking about the Coronavirus and we want to give you an update and a briefing. Commissioner Zucker was in Washington yesterday working with the CDC and getting a briefing on what the CDC had to say about handling the situation. The CDC made it clear that they will be working with the States and the States have a significant role in coordinating the services that will actually be rendered. New York State right now has had 27 cases that we have explored - all of them have come back negative. There is one case that is still pending. There have been 53 cases of people nationwide who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

I have said before that it is highly probable that you will see a continuing spread of this virus. It is highly probable that we will have people in New York State that test positive. New York is the front door internationally. We have people coming here from across the world. We see how it is spreading and affecting different countries - Italy recently - and that will continue. Again, I think it is highly probable and no one should be surprised when we have positive cases in New York.

Our operating paradigm is always prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We have done that all across the board and it has held us in good stead. We are coordinating all the relevant agencies from the State: Department of Health, Emergency Management, Port Authority is here that runs the airports. And we are working with the hospitals all across the State, and Ken Raske has been a great partner in that.

We are also incorporating lessons we have learned. This is not the first time we have gone through a situation like this. Remember we had the situation with Ebola at one time that caused great concern and we went through that situation. We went through SARS. We went through the Zika virus, the H1N1 virus, Legionnaires disease we had to deal with. So we've gone through a number of public health emergencies that we have dealt with and each one seems new and unique, but we've handled situations like this in the past and we're handling this one also.

Some specific actions we're going to take: we'll be sending an emergency supplemental appropriations bill up next week to the Legislature asking for an additional $40 million as an emergency supplemental appropriation for the Department of Health. That, again, is to err on the side of caution. We want to make sure the Department of Health has all the equipment that they would need. Obviously there is an international rush now to get the right equipment, the right masks, gloves, et cetera. Turns out that China is one of the main manufacturers of this equipment, which obviously makes it a little more complicated and problematic, so we want to make sure we're ahead of the curve on that.

The Legislature will also make sure that the Department of Health has the authority to do what it needs to do to manage the situation. Within the next two weeks the State Department of Health will be convening a meeting with all the local departments of health to communicate a standard protocol - all health departments should be doing the same thing. If there is a quarantine, what does "quarantine" mean? "Home quarantine" - how do we define that? "Quarantine in a hotel setting" - what does that mean? Sharing lessons learned, best practices, so the Department of Health will be doing that in the next two weeks.

We're also going to be convening private hospitals. The most logical situation to anticipate in this case is you may have a large number of people with flu-like symptoms who need healthcare attention and that would be our hospital network and making sure that we coordinate the capacity, the available beds among hospitals if we do have a rise in the number of people who need hospitalization, and we'll convene that group with Mr. Raske's help.

We're also bringing our airport operators - we have John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia Airport. JFK is the main airport and Newark Airport in this region that receives a lot of international flights, but people change flights so we'll be bringing in all the airport operators so we make sure we understand again the standard common protocol among all those airport operators, and also that they're talking to the workers in their airports about what this is and what to expect and concerns that might come up. Again you have people - every one of these situations there's a certain anticipation, certain number of questions, and people want their questions answered, and they should be.

We'll also be asking the federal government to allow the State to do its own testing - the State has a very sophisticated Department of Health system and a very sophisticated laboratory at Wadsworth - so one of the issues we now have is it takes a couple of days to get the testing results back. If we could accelerate that by doing testing in the State, and the CDC allowed that, that would be very helpful.

As a matter of perspective, you take in one of these situations very seriously, and that's what government should do. Whether it's SARS or Ebola or Zika or Legionnaire's, we took every moment very seriously. If you prepare correctly, you'll have less of an issue when or if a situation develops into something that is more problematic. I was at the Jewish Community Center this past Sunday. It was a bomb threat - an email bomb threat - something I heard when I was in the federal government in emergency management, they said, "The threat that you don't take seriously is the one that becomes serious." So we take every situation like this seriously and we prepare for it, but from a public point of view, I want to keep the perspective right. Yes, we're preparing, but this situation is not a situation that should cause undue fear among people. Yes, it is a serious illness, has a higher mortality rate than the flu, et cetera, but not like some of these situations. We had 17,000 people in the State of New York last week that had the flu - 17,000. So we've dealt with situations like this in the past and we'll deal with it again.

2020-02-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Yeah President Trump put Vice President Pence in charge of a taskforce on the federal level. I spoke to the Vice President - obviously the State is working in coordination with the federal government. My concern was, in many ways the first step of this process, the step that we need to get right, we need to get right immediately is testing capacity. You want to be able to test people, you want to be able to get results quickly, and you want to be able to handle the volume of tests that we may be faced with.

The current system was we had to send every test to Washington to the CDC and then wait a couple days to get the test back, and CDC was having an issue dealing with the volume that they were getting from all across the country.

Here in New York we have the capacity to run our own tests, and we have the sophistication in terms of research facilities to run our own tests, so we had been asking CDC, "Let us run our own tests in New York." It will take a burden off the CDC and it will get us answers faster. I spoke to the Vice President about that the other day. He said he'd look into it. CDC informed us today our test is approved, we can do our own testing. That is a big step forward.

We'll start testing immediately here in New York, so we can handle more tests, more volume, turn them around faster, and we are ready to go and literally we can start testing immediately. And look, this whole issue with the Coronavirus - there are anumber of trajectories, a number of forecasts with the Coronavirus. It's like looking at the weather map when they have different tracks for a hurricane - hurricane could hit Florida, or could hit Washington or could hit New York or miss everybody and go out to sea. That's sort of the forecast on the Coronavirus - it could be minimal, it could affect a lot of people. So, prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and that's what we're doing here in this State. We have mobilized for emergencies before, and we're going to do it again.

2020-03-01 NYS Gov. Cuomo

"This evening we learned of the first positive case of novel coronavirus — or COVID-19 — in New York State. The patient, a woman in her late thirties, contracted the virus while traveling abroad in Iran, and is currently isolated in her home. The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving to New York.

"The positive test was confirmed by New York's Wadsworth Lab in Albany, underscoring the importance of the ability for our state to ensure efficient and rapid turnaround, and is exactly why I advocated for the approval from Vice President Pence that New York was granted just yesterday.

"There is no cause for surprise -- this was expected. As I said from the beginning, it was a matter of when, not if there would be a positive case of novel coronavirus in New York.

"Last week I called for the Legislature to pass a $40 million emergency management authorization to confront this evolving situation -- I look forward to its swift passage.

"There is no reason for undue anxiety -- the general risk remains low in New York. We are diligently managing this situation and will continue to provide information as it becomes available."

2020-03-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo / NYC Mayor de Blasio

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Good morning. Thank you all for being here. Let me first introduce who’s here and then I’ll make some opening comments, and then I’ll turn it over to Mayor de Blasio. To my far right, Dr. Ken Davis from – President and CEO of Mt. Sinai Health Systems. Dr. David Reich from Mount Sinai Hospital Systems; also, Ken Raske who is the President and CEO of the Greater New York Hospital Association, I want to thank him for all his good work; our State Health Commissioner Dr. Zucker, this good gentleman you know; Bea Grause, who is the President of the Health Association of New York State – HANYS; Dr. Steven Corwin, who is the President of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Joe Lhota, Executive Vice President from NYU Langone Medical Center, but at one time he had a really important job –

[Laughter]

And we have Dr. Barbot, Commissioner of the New York City Health Department. The – first, we’re going to speak about the situation that was reported last night with a person who tested positive for the coronavirus. That woman is a health care worker, she’s 39 years old, she had been working in Iran and came back on Tuesday to New York. She did not take any public transportation. As she was a health care worker, she was very aware of the situation and the potential for this situation. We don’t believe that she was contagious when she was on the plane, or when she took a private car from the airport to her residence. But out of an abundance of caution we will be contacting the people who were on the flight with her from Iran to New York. And the driver of that car service. We’ll be contacting and following up with them as the facts dictate. The health care worker also was with her spouse. He was also a health care worker. So they were both aware of the situation. Her husband is being tested also, but we are assuming that he would be positive in the circumstances, and he has been following the same protocols that she has been following. The testing was done at Mount Sinai. Again, since they were health care workers, they’ve contacted Mount Sinai before that they were coming in and they took all precautions necessary. They are at home, at their home, she – the health care worker has manifested some respiratory illnesses, but her condition is mild, so she’s at home, and she’s not even hospitalized, even though she has tested positive for the virus, her spouse is with her.

In general, there is no doubt that there will be more cases where we find people who test positive. We said early on, it wasn’t a question of if, but when. This is New York, we’re a gateway to the world. You see all these cases around the world, around the country, of course we’re going to have it here. And that’s why the whole challenge is about containment of the number of people who become exposed and who become infected. Our challenge now is to test as many people as you can. You’re not going to eliminate the spread but you can limit the spread. And testing is very important, and that’s why the CDC, the federal government’s now allowing us to test is a very big deal, and will make – have a dramatic effect on how quickly we can mobilize and respond. We are coordinating with private hospitals, private labs around the state. We want to get our testing capacity as high as possible. I said to the people around this table that I would like to have a goal of one thousand tests per day, capacity, within one week, because again, the more testing the better. Once you can test and find a person who’s positive, than you can isolate that person so they don’t infect additional people.

We’ll be moving a piece of emergency legislation on the stateside that will authorize an additional 40 million for additional staff, additional equipment. I want to make sure that the health care system has everything it needs. We’re going to be instituting new cleaning protocols in our schools, on public transportation, et cetera, where they will use a disinfectant. Many will use bleach, which is a good protocol in the flu season anyway. So, if people smell – if it smells like bleach when you get on a bus or when a child goes to school, it’s not bad cologne or perfume, it is bleach. And again, we’re going to be focusing on our facilities that treat our senior citizens, debilitated people, or immune-compromised people, because those are the people who are most likely most affected by this virus.

My last point is this. Late last night, my daughter called me, and I could hear in her voice that she was anxious. She had seen on the news that a person tested positive. And my daughter said “what’s this” and I could hear in her voice she was nervous, and my daughter said don’t tell me to relax, tell me why I should be relaxed. Which is a very big difference there. So, I want to make sure I tell the people of New York what I told my daughter – in this situation, the facts defeat fear, because the reality is reassuring. It is deep breath time. This – first of all, this is not our first rodeo with this time of situation in New York. In 1968, we had the Honk Kong flu. In 2009, we had the Swine flu, where we actually closed like 100 schools in New York State. Avian flu, Ebola, SARS, MERS, measles, right? So, we have gone through this before. When you look at the reality here, about 80 percent of the people who are infected with the coronavirus self-resolve. They have symptoms, the symptoms are similar to what you would have with the normal flu, and for most people, they treat themselves, over 80 percent, and the virus resolves that way. About 20 percent get ill. The mortality rate is estimated to be about 1.4 percent. 1.4 percent, what does that mean? The normal flu mortality rate is about 0.6 percent, and the CDC says 1.4, but they’re extrapolating from what we know from countries around the world. First, even on the 1.4 percent, again that is – tends to be people who are debilitated, senior-citizens, many of whom have an underlying illness – that tends to be the people who are vulnerable to this. Good news, children do not appear as vulnerable to this virus. Less vulnerable than to the normal flu. So, that is good news, but 1.4 percent, that’s extrapolating from China and other countries. 80 percent, it’ll resolve on their own. The woman who has now tested positive, she’s at home, she’s not even in a hospital, so the perspective here is important. And the facts, once you know the facts, once you know the reality, it is reassuring, and we should relax, because that’s what’s dictated by the reality of the situation. I get the emotion, I understand, I understand the anxiety. I’m a native-born New Yorker, we live with anxiety. But the facts don’t back it up here. Also, we’re extrapolating from what happened in China and other countries – we have the best health care system in the world here. And excuse our arrogance as New Yorkers – I speak for the Mayor also on this one – we think we have the best health care system on the planet right here in New York. So, when you’re saying, what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries. We are fully coordinated, we are fully mobilized. This is all about mobilization of a public health system – getting the testing done, getting the information out, and then having the health care resources to treat people who are going to need help. Again that is going to be primarily senior citizens, people who are debilitated, and we are going to have a special effort for our nursing homes, et cetera – congregate facilities where senior citizens are being treated.

And I can’t thank our partners enough. Everybody is doing exactly what we need to do. We have been ahead of this from day one. It was a big break when the federal government allowed us to do our testing because now we are actually in control of the system ourselves. And as New Yorkers, we like control.

[Laughter]

So, with that, let me turn it over to the good Mayor of the City of New York.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you very much, Governor. And Governor, first of all, a compliment to your daughter. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. She is asking the tough socratic questions that I know you’re known for and I think it’s a really great vignette to use to help everyone understand what’s going on. And particularly – look, as a parent I want to say I know parents all over the city have been deeply concerned. I really want you to heed the points that the Governor just made. This is a disease we’re learning about, the international medical community is learning about. But so far, it does not seem to be a disease that focuses on our kids – in fact, the opposite. But the point – the vignette with your daughter, that in fact the facts are reassuring. All New Yorkers should really pay attention to this.

We have a lot of information now, information that is actually showing us things that should give us more reason to stay calm and go about our lives. Also, if I have one difference with the Governor’s remarks it’s that we don’t think we have the best health care system in the country or in the world, we know we do, and it’s a credit to everyone here and I want to thank each and every one of you and all the professionals who work with you in –

Governor Cuomo: [Inaudible] credit to us, no?

[Laughter]

Mayor: [Inaudible] take it. But in the private, in the voluntary hospitals, our nonprofit health care providers, and our public health care system, there is literally no parallel on Earth. So, there’s a lot of places for New Yorkers to turn for help and I want to emphasize today how important it is to turn for that help, to go get that help the second you think you might need it. So, the facts, in fact, show us that this is a situation that can be managed but bluntly what has been the advantage here in New York – we’ve kind of been the anti-China in this sense – has been to say from the beginning, it’s coming here, it’s a real thing, everyone get ready for it, to be transparent, to be open about it from day one.

And the coordination between the City and State, as is always the case on these issues of health care, has been consistent and strong from the beginning. I want to thank you and your team, Governor, for that. So, the fact is we have told New Yorkers from the beginning, get ready, here it comes, we’re going to all be able to deal with it together. By the way, crucially important – the message to New Yorkers from the beginning has been, this is something we all can handle together, go about your lives, go about your business. People are doing that consistently. New Yorkers do not scare easily, do not intimidate easily. Second, we’ve said if you have the symptoms and have any nexus to the nation’s where the issue is profound at this point, go get health care.

Guess what? People have been doing that. The reason it’s taken all this time to get the first case – I fundamentally believe it’s a matter of common sense – is that people have been heeding the warnings, going and getting tested, going and getting checked on, and that’s helped us to stay ahead of it. Now, we need to keep doing that. Obviously, if you have the symptoms and you have a nexus to the nations that are suffering the most, whether it’s you yourself who travelled or a family member or loved one or someone you’re in close, close contact with, go get help. Get to a medical facility, get to a doctor immediately. It’s crucial to understand – and this is again an evolving situation. I’m briefed constantly by our health care professionals. No one is saying they know everything about coronavirus yet, but we do know a lot.

But this is not, so far, something that you get through casual contact. There has to be some prolonged exposure. And I think it’s really important to get that information out to all New Yorkers. People need to be aware of their patterns. If you’ve had contact with someone who may have had a nexus to one of those countries, that’s an important indicator. Act on it. Listen, there was some question earlier about – in the last few days – about whether you go directly to health care or you place a call first. Here’s the bottom line – don’t hesitate to get to a doctor or a health care facility. If you can call first and let them know that you’re coming and let them know your symptoms, that’s ideal and helpful but the most important thing is not to hesitate. We all know a lot of people – and particularly New Yorkers – tend to shrug things off, tend to say, ‘I’ll get to it when I get it or my schedule is so busy, I’ve got something else I have to do.’ That’s not the way to think about this. If you have the symptoms, if there’s any possibility it may be this disease, get to health care right away.

I want to also say that the case here that the Governor described is an example of the work that is done and we all know this, we remember when we all went through Ebola together and other situations. And I appreciate the Governor’s point – we have been down this road as a city, as a state many times before. We have disease detectives at the New York City Department of Health. The New York City Health Department is renowned all over the world, one of the great public health agencies on Earth. Disease detectives who literally track back everyone’s interactions if they contract a disease, do the work to figure out who they’ve come in contact with. As the Governor said, in this case this individual has only one person they’ve been in prolonged contact with, that’s their husband. That capacity has been honed over years. So, if we have other cases, we’re going to be able to do very fine tuned work to know who those individuals come in contact with, and do the kind of follow-up we need.

Finally, the key point about having the ability to do our own testing – the City and State are working together with the Wadsworth Lab, the state lab. They’ve been fantastic, we’ve been able to get a lot done. We’re going to be able to do so much more now starting this week. The city’s capacity will be up and running for the testing as of Friday. That means results will come in hours, not days. This is going to be a much better situation for all of us. In addition, we’re initiating this week an early detection system. We’re working with a number of hospital systems to bring together information gleaned from thousands of health care professionals as they are having appointments with individual patients and there are cases that have relevance here – respiratory diseases. The information coming from those visits is going to be pooled to watch for any trends, to watch for any areas where we need to do additional outreach or work at the neighborhood level.

This is very much a grassroots reality, how you address something like this. It’s making sure the information flows right down into each neighborhood, into each household, it’s making sure that we have people out there giving people accurate information. It’s making sure if someone needs help they can get it. And I want to emphasize to all New Yorkers – there are people in this city who right now feel they need to get to a doctor but don’t know how, they don’t have their own doctor, they don’t know if they can pay for it, they don’t happen to speak English, they don’t have a way to get to the doctor, they may be disabled. Whatever it is, call 3-1-1. Here’s a simple message. If you think you need care, if you are worried you have the symptoms of coronavirus and you don’t know where to turn, pick up the phone, call 3-1-1. We will help you get to the health care you need. If we need to send someone to you, we will send someone to you. But no one should hesitate. The best thing you can do for yourself and your family and all fellow New Yorkers is get to health care immediately if you think you have that need.

So, with that – and I’ll just conclude with the basics. Remember, everyone, as our Health Commissioner Dr. Barbot likes to constantly remind us, cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze. It’s amazing that that may be the single most valuable thing people can do to address this challenge. Just the basics – wash your hands frequently. If you think you may be sick, act like you are sick, and do something about it. These are really basic rules. If people follow those rules – and I think New Yorkers have been up to date – it will make all the difference in the world. So, following those simple precautions will help us a lot.

And again thank you to Dr. Barbot, our Health Commissioner, Deputy Mayor Raul Perea-Henze of Health and Human Services, and our whole team that’s been working with the State to prepare for this day. And now, we will all be working together to address this challenge.

Governor Cuomo: Well said. Questions?

Question: Governor, can you [inaudible] to a patient zero or is it possible multiple [inaudible] were affected and can ever spring up simultaneously perhaps [inaudible] –

Governor Cuomo: Patient zero is called China, right? And beyond that, China does the tracking. Community spread is going to be real, right? Thus far we've had – you can trace it back to an individual or someone who came from overseas, but we're seeing already on the west coast that there's then community spread where you lose the causal connection along the way. And we believe that's going to happen here. So, we will have more cases, we will have community spread – that is inevitable. And we're in this cycle – well, did anyone test positive – did anyone test positive? I've been saying for weeks people are going to test positive – not just one or two or three or five, there will be many who test positive. That's a false bar that we've set. And you will have community spread where people test positive and you can't track it back to any one causal length. The testing and increasing the testing capacity – and that's why we just had a conversation about how aggressive can we be to ramp up the testing because these institutions can also do testing where they get the test – the approved test – but they have the laboratories to do it. We want 1,000 tests per day. Test as many as you can and then isolate those people so you reduce the spread. But that's all this is about, is reducing the spread, not eliminating the spread. And then you say, well, so the virus will spread. Yes, it will spread, like, by the way, the flu spreads every year. And then you get in to talk about the consequences, which is 80 percent of the people who get this virus will just self-resolve – they'll think they have the flu and they have the symptoms and then it self-resolves.

Question: What precautions are being taken where this woman lives, whether it's an apartment building or in her neighborhood, anything like that?

Governor Cuomo: Well, first, this is a trained health care professional. Obviously, in this environment she was very aware of the possibilities so she did, textbook, everything right. Her spouse, also a health care worker was with her – again, textbook, everything, right? They have basically been in a controlled circumstance. We don't believe she was contagious when she was exposed to other people, because remember the contagion comes from the sneezing, the coughing, et cetera, in an isolated setting. We don't believe she was contagious on the airplane or in the car. Out of an abundance of caution, the “disease detectives” that the Mayor referred to – we're going to contact the people on the plane and the private car driver. But those were really, to the best of our knowledge, the only possible exposure.

Commissioner Oxiris Barbot, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: I’d like to add to that – what the Governor mentioned. Because of the fact that this New Yorker took early action, and we know that there's currently no indication that it's easy to transmit by casual contact, there's no need to do any special anything in the community. We want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives, ride the subway, take the bus, go see your neighbors. The important thing, as both the Mayor and the Governor have said, we want New Yorkers to lean even more into frequent hand washing and covering their mouths and their noses. And if you can't get to a water source, make alcohol-based hand sanitizer your new best friend.

Question: [Inaudible]

Governor Cuomo: You raise a good issue. And it's something we, when we talk about being prepared, and we knew this was coming four weeks, which was actually an advantage, having the right supplies, the right masks, the right protective gear, the right training is something we've been working on with the entire hospital system. We started weeks ago in terms of having the equipment and having the training. It has worked very, very well. If any doesn't have the right equipment, they should let us know ASAP and we will get it to them because we have it. And I'm going to refer it to Mr. Ken Raske, who represents the hospitals and who has been working with us on this.

President Kenneth Raske, Greater New York Hospital Association: Well, thank you, Governor. It's a great question. Protecting the health care workers is our primary concern, obviously, within the health care community and having the right equipment is essential in that obligation. And I have to tell you, and it's represented here at this table with the Governor, the Mayor, and our respective Commissioners who are outstanding health department officials – we work hand-in-glove with them in terms of getting whatever supplies that are necessary to the places that are needed. In both cases, both the City and the State, there are stockpiles of stuff – medical equipment, medical paraphernalia and stuff like that that we can draw down. The federal government has one too, and all of which are tap-able in terms of this. But the coordination effort is done in our case through our office of institutions that are running into shortages of this, that, or the next thing. And we will do the best that we possibly can to contact Commissioner Zucker, our commissioner of health in the City, and we will get those supplies to them ASAP.

Governor Cuomo: Also, one general point – there is no mystery to how this is – how contagious this is or how it transfers, right? This transfers like the common flu. So, for health care workers, yeah, you take the right precautions, but it's not like we're dealing with something that we haven't dealt with before. Actually, we've dealt with worse, right? The Ebola Virus, that was really a much more difficult, more frightening situation than this.

Question: Governor, now that the CDC has given the go-ahead for this testing to go forward, are you satisfied that you've gotten everything that you need from the federal government to handle the epidemic?

Governor Cuomo: Have we gotten everything we need from the federal government? No. No, no, no, no – on many levels. On this specific level, we have the testing, but the – I spoke to Vice President Pence, he's heading the President's task force. They're going to be doing a supplemental appropriation. This is going to be expensive for the State, for the City, and we are – I understand the relationship to the federal government, I understand our responsibility, but this is a significant financial burden. We have no issue with the administration, the management and doing the job, but the financial consequences are highly relevant. And at a minimum, we would expect the federal government to help with that.

Question: Mr. Mayor, is New York City’s public laboratory currently testing or not –

Mayor: As I said, as of Friday. This coming Friday.

Question: This coming Friday, okay. And so, what is our current [inaudible] what is the current capacity and was there delay testing this woman because of the [inaudible] –

Governor Cuomo: There is no – we can – our current capacity is several hundred, so we have much more capacity than tests that are being requested. The City lab will come online, the Mayor said, on Friday. The people around this table, they also have laboratories and the State is going to give them the approved test and they will then operate that test. So, we've set an initial goal of 1,000 test per day capacity all combined and then we'll see where we go from there.

Question: The Mayor said earlier that it was a matter of hours [inaudible] give us like a tic-toc of – for someone who gets tested, how that test is done, exactly how long that takes. And also, should this, God forbid, get worse, are there hospital beds set aside in the city for people?

Mayor: As I've said publicly days ago, 1,200 beds are right now identified and can be used in the city without interfering with other health care activities. So, we have that in reserve. Now, I want to emphasize the Governor's point earlier. Right now, we are nowhere near that kind of need. Yes, we do expect communities spread and, yes, we have to be ready for anything, but I want to emphasize that, one, you've got a disease that for the vast majority of people manifests as something that they can handle just by, you know, waiting it out and taking some basic steps. It is obviously dangerous to a small percentage of people, we take that very, very seriously. But I want us to put it in perspective, the Governor's point about Ebola is well taken. I remember I was sitting here during the Ebola crisis. That was a disease that, you know, once it hit, if you got it, you were in grievous danger no matter who the hell you were. This is a whole different reality. But I think the other point to recognize here is that we have the ability to address this. If all of these messages get out of the kinds of things people need to do, the basic precautions, getting to a doctor if you have the symptoms, all of us now being able to test quickly, we have the capacity to keep this contained. If God forbid, it spread, spread, spread, the fact that this hour we have 1,200 beds ready right this moment should be very reassuring to New Yorkers.

Question: [Inaudible]

Governor Cuomo: Several hours – the test itself takes several hours to conduct. But within about 12 hours the results are turned around from start to finish. 

Question: [Inaudible] it’s faster than before.

Governor Cuomo: Yes, because we’re doing it ourselves.

Mayor: We’re not sending it to Atlanta.

Question: When does the State testing start?

Governor Cuomo: It has started, it’s ongoing. The State did this test.

Question: [Inaudible] when did she arrive? On what flight did she take?

Governor Cuomo: We can get you the specifics, she arrived on Tuesday. Our best information is she was not contagious on the flight. Out of an abundance of caution, we're going to be contacting the people who are on that flight. And took a private car to her residence, she was with her spouse. We're testing the spouse who's also a health care worker. We assume the spouse will be positive, okay? So, that's our operating assumption. He has been following the same protocols. They were tested at Mount Sinai and we got the results last night.

Let's do one more –

Question: [Inaudible] a hospital?

Governor Cuomo: Because she doesn't need a hospital. Because she doesn't need a hospital, and that is the point here. Somebody used an expression, this is like the flu on steroids, okay? 80 percent of the people if when infected with a coronavirus will self-treat and self-resolve. They'll think they have the flu because it's the same type of symptoms. About 20 percent will get ill, and, again, as the Mayor said, I've said, everyone on this table has said, the people who are in danger – “most danger” immune compromised, debilitated people, senior citizens, like the normal flu. And those are the people who we have to focus on and concentrate. The good news here, the normal flu also does children – this virus does not seem to affect children. So, this is good news. And the case that tested positive should be an affirmation. She's positive and she's home, because she doesn't need to be in a hospital.

Mayor: Alright, thank you.

Governor Cuomo: Okay. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you.

2020-03-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Thank you all for being here. Let me first introduce who's here, then I'll make some opening comments, then I'll turn it over to Mayor deBlasio. To my far right Doctor Ken Davis, President & CEO of Mount Sinai Health Systems. Doctor David Reich from Mount Sinai Hospital Systems also. Ken Raske who is the President & CEO of the Greater New York Hospital Association. I want to thank him for all his good work. Our State Health Commissioner Doctor Zucker. This good gentlemen you know. Bea Grause who is the President of the Health Association of New York State - HANYS. Doctor Steve Corwin who is the President of New York Presbyterian Hospital. Joe Lhota Executive Vice President from NYU-Langone Medical Center, but at one time he had a really important job. And we have Doctor Barbot, Commissioner of New York City Health Department.

I wanted to speak about the situation that was reported last night with the person who tested positive for the Coronavirus. That woman is a health care worker. She's 39-years-old. She had been working in Iran and came back on Tuesday to New York. She did not take any public transportation, as she was a health care worker she was very aware of this situation and the potential for this situation. We don't believe that she was contagious when she was on the plane or when she took a private car from the airport to her residence. But out of an abundance of caution, we'll be contacting the people who were on the flight with her from Iran to New York and the driver of that car service. And we'll be contacting them and following up with them as the facts dictate.

The health care worker also was with her spouse. He was also a health care worker. So they were both aware of the situation. Her husband is being tested also, but we are assuming that he would be positive, given the circumstances. And he has been following the same protocols that she has been following. The testing was done at Mount Sinai. Again, healthcare workers, they have contacted Mount Sinai before that they were coming in and they took all precautions necessary. They are at home, at their home. She, the healthcare worker, has manifested some respiratory illnesses, but her condition is mild. So she is at home and she is not hospitalized even though she has tested positive for the virus. Her spouse is with her.

In general, there is no doubt that there will be more cases where we find people who test positive. We said early on, it was not a question of if but when. This is New York. We are a gateway to the world. You see all these cases around the world, around the country, of course are going to have it here. And that is where the whole challenge is about containment of the number of people who become exposed and who become infected.

Our challenge now is to test as many people as you can. You are not going to eliminate the spread, but you can limit the spread - testing is very important. That is why the CDC, the federal government now allowing us to test is a very big deal. And it will have a dramatic effect on how quickly we can mobilize and respond. We are coordinating with private hospitals, private labs, around the state. We want to get testing capacity as high as possible. I said to the people around this table that I would like to have a goal of 1,000 tests per day capacity within one week. Because again the more testing the better. Once you can test and find a person that is positive, then you can isolate that person so they do not infect additional people.

We will be moving a piece of emergency legislation on the state side that will authorize an additional $40 million for additional staff and equipment. I want to make sure that the healthcare system has everything that it needs. We are going to be instituting new cleaning protocols in our schools, on public transportation, et cetera, where they will use a disinfectant. Many will use bleach, which is a good protocol in the flu season anyway. So, if people smell - it smells like bleach - when you get on a bus or when a child goes to school, it's not bad cologne or perfume. It is bleach. And again, we're going to be focusing on our facilities that treat our senior citizens, debilitated people, or immune-compromised people. Because those are the people who are most likely most affected by this virus.

My last point is this: late last night my daughter called me, and I could hear in her voice that she was anxious. She had seen on the news that a person tested positive. And my daughter said, you know, what's this? And I could hear in her voice she was nervous. And my daughter said, don't tell me to relax. Tell me why I should be relaxed. Which is a very big difference there. So I want to make sure I tell the people of New York what I told my daughter. In this situation, the facts defeat fear. Because the reality is reassuring. It is deep breath time.

First of all, this is not our first rodeo with this type of situation in New York. 1968 we had the Hong Kong flu. 2009 we had the swine flu where we actually closed like 100 schools in New York State. Avian flu, Ebola, SARS, MRSA, measles, right. So we have gone through this before. When you look at the reality here, about 80 percent of the people who are infected with the coronavirus self-resolve. They have symptoms. The symptoms are similar to what you would have with the normal flu. And for most people, they treat themselves, over 80 percent, and the virus resolves that way. About 20 percent get ill.

The mortality rate is estimated to be about 1.4 percent, 1.4 percent. What does that mean? The normal flu mortality rate is about .6 percent. And the CDC says 1.4 but they're extrapolating from what we know from countries around the world. First, even on the 1.4 percent, again that tends to be people who are debilitated, senior citizens, many of whom have an underlying illness. That tends to be the people who are vulnerable to this. Good news, children do not appear as vulnerable to this virus. Less vulnerable than to the normal flu. So that is good news. But, 1.4 percent, that's extrapolating from China and other countries, 80 percent it will resolve on their own. The woman who has now tested positive, she's at home, she's not even at a hospital.

So the perspective here is important. And the facts, once you know the facts, once you know the reality, it is reassuring and we should relax because that's what dictated by the reality of the situation. I get the emotion, I understand it, I understand the anxiety. I'm a native born New Yorker, we live with anxiety. But, the facts don't back it up here.

Also, we're extrapolating from what happened in China and other countries. We have the best healthcare system in the world here. And excuse our arrogance as New Yorkers, I speak for the Mayor also on this one, we think we have the best healthcare system on the planet right here in New York. So, when you're saying what happened in other countries vs. what happened here, we don't even think it's going to be as bad as it was in other countries. We are fully coordinated, we are fully mobilized, this is all about mobilization of a public health system. Getting the testing done, getting the information out and then having the healthcare resources to treat people who are going to need help. Again, that is going to be primarily senior citizens, people who are debilitated. And we're going to have a special effort for our nursing homes, et cetera, congregate facilities where senior citizens are being treated.

And I can't thank our partners enough. Everybody is doing exactly what we need to do. We have been ahead of this from day one. From day one. It was a big break when the federal government allowed us to do our own testing because now we are actually in control of the systems ourselves. And as New Yorkers we like control.

2020-03-03 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Good morning everyone. I don't think anyone here today needs any introduction, but from my far right we have our great Commissioner of Health Dr. Howard Zucker, the great Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the phenomenal Speaker Carl Heastie and the great special counsel Beth Garvey.

A couple of issues today, I'm going to sign a bill at the conclusion of my remarks that the Houses passed yesterday that is essential, and I'll have more comments on that in a second. But first an update on the general situation. We said for the past several weeks that with this Coronavirus situation you're going to see continued spreading ad that spreading is inevitable. I said you'll start to see community spread cases where you can't track it back directly to one place or one visit. And I think that's what we're seeing today. We have a case in Westchester, a 50 year old gentleman who did not travel to any of the places that are on the "watch list." Did travel to Miami, but that is not a place that we have known that there's any cluster of Coronavirus. And he has tested positive. Lives in Westchester, works in Manhattan, has been with his family in Westchester. So we are now going through possible connections to track down possible connections to find people. The SAR School in Riverdale closed, that is today, that is a school that one of the children attended. There may be some more schools that voluntarily close just until they determine exactly if there were children who might have exposed other children because you have to now track back all of these situations. Our information is the gentleman had an underlying respiratory illness and he is ill and he is hospitalized.

That's juxtaposed with the case we talked about which was a 31-year-old healthcare worker who is positive but she's at home, she's not even hospitalized. And they said, "Why isn't she hospitalized?" Because she has mild symptoms, right? We're all focused on the spread trajectory. The real fact that's relevant is 80 percent of the people who get this virus will self-resolve, they may not even know they have the virus, it will be like a flu with mild symptoms. Twenty percent could get ill. And the lethality rate estimated by CDC, 1.4 percent, which is about double the normal flu rate, but again with populations, senior citizens, immune-compromised and people with an underlying illness. So that's the overall picture.

We also have two families in Buffalo who traveled to Italy and the part of the Italy that has had an outbreak. Those two families are now being tested and they are isolated in their homes. So we're seeing what we expected, what we anticipated, which was a continuing spread. The increased testing and getting up that testing capacity, you can see how important it is now. Our capacity was only a couple of hundred tests per day. You take one of these situations and you're tracking back possible exposures, you see the numbers increasing very quickly. So getting our testing capacity up is critical. We're working with private laboratories where the Department of Health will share their testing protocol with those laboratories. But increasing the capacity of testing by bringing on those proven labs and that is also ongoing, and we are making good progress on that. SUNY is contemplating having the students who are in abroad programs come home. We will have a final determination on that by the end of the day. There is a practical reason why you might want students to come home before travel in that country is stopped. So SUNY is going be deciding that today.

We announced as you know yesterday insurance regulations that will protect people who have to pay any costs. I am going to amend the paid sick leave bill that I sent to the legislature to add a specific provision that says people who because of this situation with Coronavirus have to be quarantined should be protected. Their employer should pay them for the period and their job should be protected. And I am going to make that amendment to the paid sick leave bill that I sent up.

Last point, the legislature passed yesterday an emergency appropriation of $40 million dollars and emergency measures to allow the State government the ability to handle this situation. I think first as a piece of legislation it was critical. These quarantines, when we say quarantined do we need to set up a congregate quarantine facility? You need the legal authority to do that. You can't just say, people it's a voluntary quarantine. To get all this testing capacity up, I have to be able to say to laboratories I need you to cooperate with the State government on this. So, those emergency measures were critical, the amount of money was critical. And if you needed any proof of how urgent that bill was, look at where we are this morning.

I want to applaud the Senate leader, I want to applaud the Speaker for how quickly they moved. The Speaker likes to say to me you have a conference of one. He has obviously a much larger conference. I say yeah, but my conference of one can be more difficult than your conference. But, it is important that people know that government is working and government sees it, and is doing what it has to do and is not caught up in politics and it's not caught up in any confusion. You know, they look at Washington, we have so much going on and you have Washington fighting with themselves. New York is the exact opposite. In one day both the Senate called back everyone to do the vote, the Assembly stayed late at night to work through the vote. And I can't tell you how confident that should make New Yorkers feel because here you need government to work, my friends. You need competent government that steps up and gets the job done, even when it's challenging and even when we're going down a path that no one has gone down before, which is where we are. So I'm very proud of what the Senate and the Assembly did, and with that I'm going to sign the bill and then we'll hear from the Senate Leader and we will then hear from the Speaker.

A conference of one, after much debate, signs the bill. Congratulations.

Andrea Stewart-Cousins: Often our conferences and the conference of one have heated discussion and disputes, but what we all understand is that we're here for one purpose, and that is to make sure that New Yorkers are getting the actions, the reactions that they need in order to be confident in their government. And so despite any of what might happen, because each of us have the same focus, the right things happened. I did not think when we gaveled out that we would be gaveling back in, this was a first for me as a Leader. But given the facts, given the circumstances, that was the right thing to do and I'm very, very happy that our House came back together and we passed this important piece of legislation. Little did I know that this morning I would wake up to find that the county that I live in, in the city I represent, there is an active case. I had to tell that to my daughter on her way to work at a hospital and because of our actions I was able to tell her with confidence that we are preparing to step up, to lead. We have amazing health professionals, you know Dr. Zucker here, and again a group that can come together quickly and just stay focused on what's right. Thank you Governor for your quick action and, of course, my colleague Speaker Heastie. I have a big conference but his is even bigger, but the fact is that size doesn't matter in this instance. Yeah, I figured I'd wake you guys up. And with, thank you Governor, I'll turn it back.

Speaker Heastie: Boy you had a lot of fun with that. Your comment about the Governor with the conference of one, I was going to say sometimes I don't know which one I'm going to side with, conference of one.

One of the takeaways that should be from the swift action, is that I think the coordination and the briefing by Doctor Zucker, I don't think there's a more prepared state, I don't think there's a more prepared health department to deal with the situation at hand. As the Governor said, it's a situation we've never dealt with before. Some of these decisions, time is going to be of the essence. So I think the quick coordination for the Department of Health to make swift decisions that may end up happening simultaneously in two different counties, I think is the reason why the members said they thought it was important to move this bill to allow the Governor as the head of the state to use his leadership and to allow Commissioner Zucker to use his leadership for what's best for the state.

Governor Cuomo: And I think, just to echo what the Senate Leader and the Speaker said, these are uncharted territories. Government has to respond. Government has to respond quickly. There can't be a situation where we have to do something, we have to quarantine people, and we have to say wait a second we do not know if we have the legal authority. We have to go pass a bill. We have to do this. We have to be able to move. Every day matters here and we have to have the funds to do that, the resources to do that. That is what the bill was about yesterday. Also, as a matter of course I work very closely with the Senate Leader and the Speaker, and as things come up I inform them right away. Sometimes in the middle of the night just to make sure they have the same amount of aggravation that I do. But we are in close communication on all of these events as they come up and the actions that we are taking.

2020-03-04 NYS Gov. Cuomo

We heard that you missed us, so we came back. Never let it be said that we are not the thoughtful, considerate administration.

We have some more good news and some more less than good news. Gubernatorial prerogative, we will start with the good news. We went to Westchester County. We had a good meeting with Westchester County and the health organizations in Westchester County and the parties, schools, synagogues that are involved in the situation we discussed this morning.

There is a lot of overlap and this is the most complex case that we have had in terms of the number of interactions. There was the attorney, as you know, who works at the law firm in Manhattan. Family in Westchester, they had attended schools - both Yeshiva University and the SAR school. They had been to synagogue services that had a large number of people. So it is the most complex detective investigation matter.

We had a meeting amongst all of us. We came up with an operating protocol and an action plan. The Lawrence Hospital, which is the first hospital that the lawyer went to, is having eight employees tested. The SAR High School is going to be closed until after Purim which is next week. The individuals there are going to self-quarantine through Friday. If they have any symptoms, they will call a health professional, discuss the symptoms, and then the health professional can decide and recommend whether or not they should be tested. The synagogue is going to be closed until March eighth which will be 14 days from the initial convening and those individuals will be on self-quarantine. The SAR Elementary School will be closed until Friday, but with no quarantine. Then the Yeshiva University will be closed until Friday and will assess the situation up until Friday. Yeshiva University obviously involves many potential students, so a decision there will have a large consequence. So, it will be closed until Friday and then we'll make a decision Friday. That's the good news.

The not so good news is that there was another person who was being tested who came in contact with the 50 year old lawyer, a friend of the lawyer's who he spent time with and in close proximity in a number of situations. That person also tested positive. We then tested that person's wife, two sons, and daughter, and they all tested positive. And those children attend the West Torah Academy, which, coincidentally, is one of the institutions that was at the meeting with us this afternoon where we decided the protocol there was they would be closed until Friday. Obviously, we'll have to reevaluate that in light of this new information. But they're closed until Friday anyway, and they have the people at Torah Academy on notice that they should be looking for symptoms. If they don't feel well, call the health professional. But that is another one, two, three, four, five people.

And, again, all off this one attorney, 50 year old, who is the only person to date who is hospitalized because he also had a respiratory illness and we said that is the target, problematic population, right. Senior citizens, immune compromised or underlying illness and especially an underlying respiratory illness.

2020-03-05 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you. I'd like to thank all of my colleagues for taking the time today. A special thank you to County Executive Laura Curran and County Executive Steve Belllone. We work together on many situations and there is no doubt that this is one of those situations where government working together and being totally coordinated works for everyone's benefit.

Let me make some opening comments and then you will hear from the County Executives. Current status of the situation, we had 11 cases as of yesterday. With the testing we did last night, we have an additional 11. So we are at 22 cases. Eight of those additional cases are connected to a gentleman we have in Westchester County, who lives in New Rochelle, an attorney who works in Manhattan and lives in Westchester. We have been following up on possible contacts that that attorney had. Eight of the new cases are in connection with him.

Two people in New York City who are currently hospitalized and one in Long Island, in a hospital in Nassau County. That individual had underlying medical conditions, which is one of the populations that is at greater risk for this virus. And he has tested positive, and he is under care in a hospital, and his condition has been improving.

On the numbers, the number of people that we find with the virus is going to continue to go up by definition since we are testing more people. You will see that number go up. The number cannot go down it can only go up. And since many of these test are being performed as a follow-up to people who have tested positive, their family, people they've been in contact with, The likelihood of finding positives is even higher. These are not random samples that we're doing. We're most often testing people who were in contact with someone who already tested positive.

What is the point of all the testing is to do the best you can in terms of containing the virus, right. It's imperfect by definition, but the more you can contain it, the more you can limit it, the more you can reduce the spread, the better. And that's why we're doing this on a daily basis. We're also increasing our testing capacity because, again, the more you can test the better. I want to thank Northwell and Michael Dowling and the Doctor and Stony Brook who will be doing testing in concert with the State and will be helping us not just on Long Island but in the metropolitan area. We're working with a number of other laboratories to increase our testing capacity. The State can test at what's called Wadsworth Laboratory, but Dr. Zucker, our Health Commissioner, has been working with the federal government. We now have approval to work with other labs also, so we'll be increasing that testing capacity.

One of the points I'd like to stress today, you know, people, there's a level of anxiety and fear that is out there because of this virus and the constant press attention. Why do people get afraid? This is always one of two reasons. You get afraid either because you think you are not getting the right information or you're confused by the information. Or because the information itself is frightening. The information itself, the facts here, are not frightening. I think what's causing anxiety is that people are confused and they're getting conflicting messages. And if you listen to the radio or you're watching these cable stations all day long, you see all these people spouting different theories and different opinions. The way I handle it with doctors in general, I say to a doctor, and I love all doctors, my sister's a doctor - but I say to doctors, "Before you give me your opinion, give me the facts. Okay and then give me your opinion. There are facts and then there's an opinion that you draw from the facts." So in this situation what are the facts because there has been confusion.

A suggestion that maybe this virus is seasonal and then it's going to go away in the summer. That is not a fact - that is an opinion. Some people believe maybe it will go away in the summer, some people don't, but we don't have a definitive answer as to when the virus naturally will abate. When will we have a vaccine? The president says we're going to have it shortly. CDC says it's about a year. The president met with medical research companies, pushed them to work as hard as they could to come up with a vaccine. The companies say they will develop a vaccine in a matter of weeks or a couple of months. But whatever they develop then has to be tested, and by the time it's tested is 12 months to 18 months depending on how the tests actually go. How does it spread? It spreads like the flu spreads, but this is a respiratory illness, so it spreads from a cough, it spreads from a sneeze - theoretically a six-foot radius is the proximate radius that droplets of sneeze or a cough could travel. Or somebody sneezes on their hand and they put their hand on the surface and you touch the surface. The virus on a hard surface lives for about 24 hours. That's why we talk about disinfecting mass transit systems, et cetera and why that's important. So should we shake hands and should we hug or just bump elbows in this meeting. That is a different kind of feeling frankly and different look.

Every flu season Dr. Zucker recommends to me that I tell people they shouldn't shake hands and they shouldn't hug. I have never followed his advice personally nor professionally and I had never said to the public, oh it's flu season you should not shake hands and you should not hug. I have two issues with that. Number one, I'm in elected office. I shake hands for a living. That's what I do. Number two, I'm from Italian-American heritage. I'm a hugger. I'm a big hugger. So if as a matter of precaution don't shake hands, don't hug, it's good advice in a normal flu season, it's good advice now during the coronavirus situation.

Well, the number of people tested and found positive keeps going up. Yes, it will and it will continue to go up. I've said that from day one. When this is over we will have dozens and dozens and dozens of cases. Okay?

Now, the question that really matters is, so what? So what? What's the bottom line to all of this? The bottom line to all of this is 80 percent of the people who have the coronavirus will resolve themselves. Eighty percent will get the virus, they'll feel some symptoms, and then they will self-resolve. About 20 percent will be seriously ill, possibly requiring hospitalization, and for some very small percentage it will be lethal. The people who have to be most concerned - senior citizens, people who have an underlying immune compromised situation or an underlying illness - those are the people we have to work hardest to protect.

What am I worried about as Governor? Nursing homes, senior congregate facilities, that is where we have to do our best work because that is a population that could be subject to a serious situation if the coronavirus was present there.

What do I worry about personally? Because we all have family members and you know with family members you always have one member who's a little more nervous than the others. My family I have a brother who has an extraordinarily anxious personality, always has been always will be, he's just anxious by nature. So he has a lot of questions. I have a mother who is elderly - she doesn't think of herself as elderly and don't tell her I said she was elderly, I will deny it - but we have to be careful for my mother. I said, "You know you want to think about using hand sanitizer, you want to think about where you're going and what you're doing." Which would also be true during the flu season. Right? It's just extrapolating from a flu season. That's what this is all about.

So, let's keep the perspective. Let's understand what this is. We have data, we have experience. We're not dealing with an unknown situation. It's gone through China, there's been thousands of people who have experienced this disease. So, we know what we're dealing with. And also remember where this is going to be most problematic locally will be for those countries that don't have a sophisticated healthcare system. Luckily in this country, and certainly in this state, we have the most sophisticated healthcare system probably on the globe. So, we're coordinated, we're on top of it, we're diligent. But we also have to keep it all in focus.

With that let me turn it over to County Executive Laura Curran and then you'll hear from County Executive Steve Bellone. Thank you.

2020-03-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

We heard that you missed us and since I never want to cause any distress to the press on any level we came back.

A continued update because the more information the better, and I think the more we communicate with the people of the State and they get actual facts as opposed to theories and hype and politics - I think that is all better.

We are continuing to test and the testing is now ramping up as we discussed earlier. So we have a greater capacity to test and we are turning around more tests. And during the day today we had 11 new cases, eight in Westchester and 3 in Nassau County. That bring the total to 44 cases. The cases in Westchester and Nassau we have to do more investigation, but we suspect they are related to the existing cases.

The cases in Westchester have a number of young people and they have older people. Westchester there is a 12 year old female, 17 year old male, 45 year old male - I'm sorry - 55 year old male, 14 year old male, 7 year old male, 51 year old male, 82 year old male. Nassau, 63 year old female, 41 year old female, 36 year old female.

This is actually good news in some ways because it says the process is working. You get a case and you follow that case and you test that case because you want to find the people who were infected. You want to isolate those people so there is not continued spread. That is what this is all about. It is not a perfect process but the more people who you can tell are positive and stop them from infecting other people the better. 

So we're continuing to do this, continue to inform people who are positive to quarantine themselves so they don't infect other people, and that's how we will work to contain the virus. That nice noise suggests, we don't know what it suggests, so that's the update.

One other announcement, one of the issues, one of the consequences to this, an economic consequence is people are worried about traveling, not just to the countries on the CDC watch list, but just traveling in general because they're afraid if they make plans they may be canceled. If they buy an airline ticket it may be canceled. Something may come up. That is constricting travel, constricting business travel, it's not good for New York, it's not good for any state because it can actually slow the economy. It's one thing to make a purposeful decision to stop a gathering. It's another thing to have people just cancelling trips because they're afraid something may come up and they'll be unable to redeem the airline ticket, et cetera.

The Department of Financial Services, Superintendent Linda Lacewell is going to announce a program where she is going to authorize travel insurance which you can purchase which is unconditional. They have travel insurance programs but they normally exempt epidemics, diseases, et cetera. She is going to authorize an unconditional travel insurance program so if you buy this insurance, you cancel for any reason, including anything related to the coronavirus, you can get the full amount of your airline ticket back and we think that will provide comfort and encourage people.

2020-03-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, nice to see all of you. As we've said, providing information to people during this time, positive information, factual information, so people have a realistic basis to act upon rather than listening to all the hype if you turn on cable TV that you'll hear. We have now been testing around the clock as you know - we are aggressively testing following up leads because we want to find as many people who test positive so we can get them out of circulation. We have 21 new cases that we found, so our total of 76 in New York right now. We have 11 in New York City, 57 in Westchester County, two in Rockland County, four in Nassau County and two in Saratoga County - the two in Saratoga County are obviously new.

The additional numbers are seven additional in New York City from yesterday and 23 additional in Westchester. The 23 cases in Westchester are all related to the New Rochelle situation. Seven in New York City - two people got off a cruise ship, five appear to be community spread, one of those people is in a hospital in the Rockaways. In Saratoga the two, one is a 57-year-old pharmacist, one is a 52-year-old woman who was in contact with a positive person from Pennsylvania at a conference in Miami.

So as I said, that's 76 and that brings the total for Westchester to 57 cases. Westchester is an obvious problem for us - they talk about the contagion in clusters and then the clusters tend to infect more and more people. So obviously you want to pay special attention to those situations. I spoke with the County Executive of Westchester County George Latimer, the Mayor of New Rochelle Noam Branson, Congresswoman Nita Lowey. I spoke with Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins about this and all the respective health commissioners. We already said that we would close the S.A.R. school and the Westchester Day School and the Westchester Torah, S.A.R. school. With this new information we may need to reset that quarantine information. We are checking out to see if one of the new cases was in proximity with people later than the initial setting of the quarantine - the quarantine is 14 days from the last possible exposure, so with these new cases, was there a possibility that there was a later additional exposure, and that's what we're checking now, so there's a possibility that those quarantine periods may be extended.

We're also going to instruct that nursing homes, senior living situations in that immediate area of New Rochelle will suspend outside visitors. Again, the nursing homes are the most problematic setting for us with this disease so we are hyper cautious with nursing homes, assisted living facilities, senior housing, et cetera. We are now doing a census of those types of facilities in this immediate New Rochelle area to put that position in place - no outside visitors.

Voluntary quarantine - there's been some reports that people who are on voluntary quarantine are not following the voluntary quarantine. When we say you are precautionary quarantine, that is a serious situation. We are assuming that you will act in good faith and that you will be following the rules of voluntary quarantine. People who are on voluntary quarantine are issued specific rules - violating those rules is first I think disrespectful to members of the community. It doesn't honor your responsibility as a citizen and you can be putting people in danger. So, even though it is called precautionary quarantine, that is a serious situation and we expect you to comply with it. If you do not comply with it, and we know that people are not complying with voluntary quarantine, there are other measures that we could take. So please respect the voluntary quarantine order.

Also, price gouging continues to be a problem. I was the former Attorney General. I brought these cases. I want businesses to be aware that you could lose your license for price gouging. This is serious. It is not just price gouging. It is price gouging in an emergency situation where you are being exploitive of the public. And there are specific legal provisions for price gouging in an emergency situation. I went through this during Superstorm Sandy. We have a customer hotline number at 1-800-697-1220. We have reports of stores selling hand sanitizer for $80 dollars a bottle. It is not worth it. If you are a store, you can lose your license and we are very serious about this. For the few dollars that you are going to make during this situation it is not worth your while. The State Police are doing an investigation. They will be thorough. I have asked local police departments to also do investigations. So please, not only again is it disrespectful, this is also illegal and you will be caught.

As far as this fearmongering with selling of masks on E-Bay, Facebook, etc., we are also investigating those. I did cases as Attorney General where those were tracked back as stolen property. I think E-Bay and Facebook should play a more constructive role here. Let them police their own sites. I understand freedom of the internet. But it is not supposed to be selling stolen products. And I think E-Bay and Facebook are basically on notice that when you see these masks - these are medical masks - where did they come from? The person did not manufacture these in his or her basement. They had to come from somewhere. So, I would ask E-Bay and Facebook, without getting into a whole philosophical argument about freedom of the internet, just act as good corporate citizens and police your own websites and what you are offering people.

A couple of other points. On the federal aid, I spoke to Congresswoman Nita Lowey today. As I said yesterday, I do not believe the supplemental appropriation bill provided enough funding for New York. New York got in total $35 million dollars. We had already appropriated $40 million. We are probably spending at the rate of about, rough estimate, $30 million per week right now. That is without taking into consideration capital costs for purchasing of equipment, potential testing costs, reimbursement to local health organization, so I told the Congresswoman that $35 million is nowhere near sufficient. The Congresswoman also knows my general feeling that New York has been getting the short end of the stick from this federal government from day one right across the board. They started with the SALT income tax, they won't approve the Second Avenue Subway next phase, they won't approve congestion pricing, they won't approve the AirTrain from LaGuardia Airport, they won't approve the Gateway Tunnels coming from New Jersey. And then they took this gratuitous action of ending our Global Traveler program to extort and exploit us into actually providing access to the DMV database because they want the undocumented drivers. So these are all gratuitous acts. At one point, enough is enough. Congresswoman Lowey has been phenomenal. I've known her for many years. She worked with my father, actually. She's a great advocate for New York. She got us the funding for the Tappan Zee Bridge. She's very effective as a legislator. I went through the situation with her and she said this is just a starting point and she will work deliberately to make our case to the federal government and if she gets a chance in subsequent legislation or a subsequent opportunity to amend this legislation that she would take that into consideration.

Our relationship with the CDC is also problematic on an ongoing basis. We have the capacity to preform tests. We have a sophisticated state lab, we have sophisticated in our state. We are not reliant on CDC for doing the testing. CDC is a bottleneck for this nation in doing the testing. You go to CDC, the tests have to go back to Atlanta, they have to do the test, they then have to send it back. I believe the CDC was caught flatfooted. I believe they're slow in their response and I believe they're slowing down the state. We needed CDC approval for a lot of these things. First, we could only use the CDC - we could only send tests to the CDC. We then implored them to allow the state to do its own testing. Finally, they allowed the state to do its own testing. It became clear that we needed more capacity than just the state tests performed at a state laboratory. So we asked to allow to contract with our commercial laboratories. That took a long time to get that approval. We now have the approval for the outside laboratory contacting.

The next hurdle is something called automated testing, which is done by robotics and it's much faster. So the labs that we are now going to contact with and we have several approved: Northwell Health, which has a tremendous laboratory facility and testing capacity, New York Presbyterian, Memorial Sloan Kettering, University of Rochester Medical Center, Roswell Park, and SUNY Upstate Medical University. We will be contracting with them to do testing. Many of them has automated testing available, but right now CDC does not allow the automated testing. So, my position with CDC is look, it's one thing that you don't do anything to help us, but at least don't handcuff us. That's where we are right now. So, the next hurdle to jump with CDC is to get them to allow us to do automated testing. If we get these labs on board, we get automated testing, we increase our testing capacity exponentially and that is critical to what we are talking about at this particular time in this evolving situation.

I have officially done a declaration of emergency which gives us certain powers. We're going to be doing purchasing and hiring more staff, especially to help local health departments that are very stressed. We've said to the local health departments you have to do the monitoring on the quarantine, the mandatory quarantine. Somebody has to go knock on the door once a day at random intervals. They have to make sure that the person is there. Even on the voluntary quarantine, we want electronic check ins. So this is labor intensive. We need the staffing, we need the purchasing. Under the declaration of emergency, we have a more expedited purchasing protocol and we're going to be doing that.

Last point is always the most important point. What are we doing? We are testing aggressively especially along suspected populations by following the infection tree because we want to identify people, because want to put them in a position where they're not going to infect anybody else. We want to find positives. We're sending mixed messages every time we do these numbers because people say, oh no, more people have it. We say that's good news that we know who the people are so now we can put them in an isolated situation and they won't continue to infect people. That is the point of the exercise, my friends, is to find these people. So we're doing more tests. The more tests the better, the more positives you find the better because then you can isolate them and you slow the spread. That's been the focus.

The real question if you're just living your life, okay, so what happens if I get coronavirus? That's the question. So what happens if I get the coronavirus? If you get the coronavirus 80 percent of the people will walk around and self-resolve. Twenty percent will be hospitalized. The vulnerable population, senior citizens, immune-compromised, underlying illness. We've said that from day one. All the data backs that up. Even take our situation. Seventy-six cases in New York. Ten people are hospitalized of the 76. Ten people hospitalized of the 76. That's about 15 percent which is in line with what we said, about 20 percent will be sick and may require hospitalization. So that is actually what we're seeing.

And there's another piece of data from Johns Hopkins which is so informative. Johns Hopkins has been doing just a tracking, right, because the real question is what has happened to the people who have` gotten the coronavirus. This has been going on for weeks now. What's happened to the people who have gotten the coronavirus? Johns Hopkins is tracking just that. This is what they found: 102,000 cases so far worldwide. Johns Hopkins is working with World Health Organization, et cetera. One hundred two thousand cases. Mortality rate: 3,400 cases. Fifty-seven thousand recovering, 41,000 sick. Over the past two-and-a-half weeks, listen to this, more people are recovering than are getting infected. Okay? So it's exactly what we said. Know the facts; be calm.

If you get the coronavirus, 80 percent walk around and self-resolve, 20 percent get ill and may be hospitalized, senior citizens we have to be very careful of. That's why I am hyper-cautious, nursing homes, senior congregate facilities, immune-compromised. And of the 100,000 people who have gone through this, that's what the numbers show.

So that's what happens if you get it but we still want to do everything we can to make sure you don't get it. And how do we do that? Contain, contain, get a lead, chase it down, get a lead, chase it down, find the positive, quarantine. That's exactly what we're doing and it's going very well.

2020-03-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning everyone. Let me introduce some of my colleagues who are here today. To my right is our great Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker. I want to thank him for all of the good work that he has been doing. I want to thank Dr. Dwayne Breining, the Executive Director of Northwell Labs, who just took us on a tour of this amazing facility. 

To my left, Michael Dowling who is the CEO of Northwell Health. I have known Michael Dowling for more years than I care to remember. He was head of healthcare for the State of New York under a gentleman named Mario Cuomo who served as Governor of the State of New York. Some of you may remember him. Some of the older people might. I do and I miss him every day. My father loved Michael Dowling and he has been phenomenal as a healthcare professional for this entire state in government and out of government. And Northwell, as I will discuss in a moment, is truly an extraordinary facility. 

Let me take a step back. We are at the end of the week. We had a tumultuous week. We want to make sure everyone understands what we are doing with this Coronavirus. We are trying to contain the spread of the virus. How do you contain the spread of the virus? By testing as many people as you can. Find the positives and then isolate the positive people. That is how you contain the spread of the virus.

Why do we want to contain the spread of the virus? What happens if you do not contain the spread? Two things happen. First, you would have to take more drastic measures. What we have seen in China, what we have seen in Italy, you would have to do a massive quarantine which would be very disruptive to society and the economy. China basically closed down everything for two weeks. Closed restaurants, closed businesses, closed schools, closed down everything. It is massively disruptive for society, for people and for the economy.

The second consequence is the vulnerable populations here, senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses, this is a dangerous disease for them - for the vulnerable populations. For most people, you get ill, you recover, you go on with life. So those are the two reasons we are trying to contain the virus. We do not want to have to do massive close downs, massive quarantines, and we don't want members of the vulnerable population getting sick. That is why we are doing what we are doing.

But there is a level of fear here that is not connected to the facts. There is more fear, more anxiety, than the facts would justify. Okay, that is why I want to make sure everyone understands what we are dealing with. You look at the facts here. This is not the Ebola virus, this is not the SARS virus, this is a virus that we have a lot of information on. Johns Hopkins has been tracking this Coronavirus - almost every case. Johns Hopkins has been tracking the 100,000 cases. What happens? For most people, you get the virus, you get sick, you stay home. Most people have mild symptoms, most people don't get hospitalized. The dangerous aspect again is people in that vulnerable population. Senior citizens, the elderly, et cetera. So we are trying to contain it. I've been speaking with business leaders across the state, the private sector has a role here in helping contain it. Basically we want to reduce as much as possible situations creating density. So I've been saying to business leaders.

First, have a liberal sick leave policy for your employees. If somebody is sick, stay home. If you feel symptoms, stay home. And I'd like the companies to communicate that to their employees that they will pay them liberal sick leave policy to stay home. To the extent private sector companies can stagger their workers. Shifts of workers - so one shift comes in early, one shift comes in late. To the extent the private sector company can say, "Stay at home, nonessential workers. Work from home." More and more this is a digital economy. To the extent workers can work at home, let them work at home. We want to reduce the density.

Citizens have a role that they can play. Wash your hands, let's not handshake now, a great new elbow bump - it's like the beginning of a new dance move. Commissioner Zucker recommends to me every flu season that we should tell people don't shake hands, so this is not an extraordinary precaution but it's something that citizens can do to help. If citizens are taking mass transit, if you can move to a train car that is not as dense, if you see a packed train car, let it go by, wait for the next train, same with if you're taking a bus. It's the density to proximity that we're trying to reduce. And private businesses can help, citizens can help in their day-to-day life.

The single best thing we can do is testing. Why? Because the more you test, the more positives you identify, the more people you can isolate and stop the spread, that's why so much of this is about testing. On testing, we need more help from the federal government and the CDC. The CDC I believe was slow to begin with, they were not ready for this, they should have been ready for this, we saw what was happening in China, anyone who didn't realize that someone from China was going to get on a plane and come to the United States was delusional, frankly. Second, the CDC has been slow in allowing states and other commercial laboratories to test - we were asking the CDC, which in the beginning was doing all the tests themselves. We said, "Let the State of New York do tests." We have a great lab, called the Wadsworth Lab, let us use Wadsworth. There was a delay in letting the states do the testing - finally, they let the states do the testing. Now we're saying the testing capacity is more than the state lab can handle, let us bring in private labs to help do the testing. Why? Because we want more capacity and we need more capacity.

We are at Northwell Laboratories today. This is a 150,000 square feet of laboratory space. Over $60 million. This is the most sophisticated lab in the State of New York. This is one of the most sophisticated labs in the United States of America. This lab has what's called automated testing. Which expands exponentially the number of tests that can be done. CDC has not authorized the use of this lab. Which is just outrageous and ludicrous. CDC, wake up, let the state's test. Let private labs test. Let's increase as quickly as possible our testing capacity so we identify the positive people so we can isolate them and we're successful in our containment. 

Not to be using this laboratory, not to be using the other private labs around the state makes no sense whatsoever. Not to be using automated testing, which means rather than a person manually handling a test tube and a test, the machines we saw that handle 120 samples at a time place them in a machine, the machine runs the test. Of course you should be using that technology. And it's one thing for the CDC not to have the testing capacity in place themselves, but that was bad enough. For the CDC not to be authorizing existing labs to do the work, there's no excuse for that. 

The other confusion that has been created and I think which fuels fear in people. President of the United States says, anyone who wants a test can have a test. Vice President of the United States says, we don't have the testing capacity. People say, how can you say both things? You can't say both things. We don't have the testing capacity that we need. Not everyone who wants a test can have a test. We have to prioritize the people who get the tests to fit our capacity, right. You can't ask more people to come in and get tested until you know you have the capacity to test them. The number of people coming in for a test must equal the number of tests you can perform. That's why in New York we have a standard protocol that's in place all across the state, prioritizing who can get tested to fit our testing capacity. 

Once we increase our testing capacity and we can perform more tests, then we can change the prioritization of those people coming in for the tests. We have a statewide protocol because we don't want people shopping tests. I don't want someone from Nassau driving to Suffolk, driving to Manhattan, driving to Westchester because you have different rules on who can get a test. Everyone, everywhere in this state has the same rules, doesn't matter where you go. Hopefully, the CDC acts responsibly and acts quickly and we raise the capacity, we bring a great facility like this online with the automated testing. We can then get testing per day to about 1000 tests. And then we can calibrate the prioritization to the capacity.

As far as the ongoing testing that we're doing, we did more tests overnight and the State now has 105 people who have tested positive. So that number is up by about 16 overnight. Westchester has 82 cases, Nassau has five cases, Rockland has two, Saratoga has two, Suffolk has one, Ulster County has one, New York City has 12. Obviously on those numbers, Westchester at 82 is the clear issue and that is a warning flag for us. What happened in Westchester County is a person who was positive was in a very large gathering and people then got infected and then they went to very large gatherings. So that is my point about the density. An infected person, in a large gathering, can infect many people quickly. That's what we're seeing in Westchester and that's why we want to avoid large gatherings, we want to avoid density. That's why I'm reaching out to the private sector companies. By the way, local governments, I'm asking them to stagger their workforce. I'm asking citizens to stay home, telecommute. When you're on public transportation, find the least dense car or bus available because it is the density, it is the gathering.

So Westchester is a particular problem, we have more work to do there. Otherwise, we're testing to find the positives. Someone said to me, "Well I get nervous because the number keeps going up." I would get nervous if the number didn't go up, I want to find the positives because we want to find the positives because we want to put them in isolation so they're not spreading. The more positive people we find the better. The more tests we run the better. The more tests we run, the more positive people we will find, the better we can do the containment.

So in sum, CDC let's move, authorize the State to authorize private labs, get this most sophisticated lab in the State, one of the most sophisticated labs in the country, get this lab to work. Why you wouldn't makes absolutely no sense. And to New Yorkers, we understand the facts. Keep this in perspective. We don't want a lot of people getting this virus. We don't want to take more drastic measures. But, if you get the virus, you will get sick, you will recover, you most likely won't even go to the hospital. And the only the people who we really have to worry about are the vulnerable populations - senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems. So keep it all in perspective. I know there's a whole frenzy about it, the facts do no justify the frenzy, period. The biggest problem we have in this situation is fear, not the virus. The virus we can handle. It's the fear. And the fear is just unwarranted.

2020-03-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you all for being here. We have some good news. We have some less than good news. Gubernatorial prerogative says that I get to pick. I am going to start with the good news.

Everybody knows who is here. On my far right, Kelly Cummings who is Director of State Operations. The good Doctor Howard Zucker. Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa.

We are going to start with a participatory press conference. This is a participatory press conference today. So with some good news, there will be a prize for whoever answers the question correctly. I have been lamenting about an issue for the past few days. Well, I have been lamenting over a number of issues over the past few days, but one in particular that is egregious and I have raised it almost every press conference for the past week. What is that issue that I have been raising as egregious for the past week?

CDC had allowed testing is a good answer. That is true but it is not the answer I am looking for. Remaining calm. Who said price gouging? Price gouging is most egregious. Price gouging on what? Theft of medical supplies. What else? Hand sanitizer.

Okay, so we are problem solvers. New York, Empire State. Progressive capitol of the nation. You are a problem solver. You have price gouging on hand sanitizer and a high demand on hand sanitizer. What do you do? Distilleries? Close down bourbon? Never. What else do you do? Make your own hand sanitizer. Can you do that? You should be governor. Open the curtain please.

We are introducing New York State Clean hand sanitizer made conveniently by the State of New York. This is a superior product to products now on the market. The World Health Organization, CDC, all of those people suggest 60% alcohol content. Purell, competitor to New York State clean - 70% alcohol. This is 75% alcohol. It also has comes in a variety of sizes and it has a very nice floral bouquet. I detect a little lilac, hydrangeas, tulips. Floral bouquet. We are making it in the State of New York. Corcraft, actually, is making it for the State. Corcraft makes glass cleaner, floor cleaners, degreasers, laundry detergent, vehicle fluids, hand cleaner, and now they make hand sanitizer with alcohol.

Our current capacity is 100,000 gallons per week and we're going to be ramping up. We'll be providing this to governmental agencies, schools, the MTA, prisons, et cetera, because you can't get it on the market and when you get it it's very, very expensive. So that is now in production. We'll start distribution. We're going to distribute it to New Rochelle which is a hotspot for us because literally we're hearing from governments having trouble getting it.

Also to Purell and Mr. Amazon and Mr. eBay, if you continue the price gouging we will introduce our product which is superior to your product and you don't even have the floral bouquet so stop price gouging. This is also much less expensive than anything government could buy. Just to give you an idea, a gallon bottle is $6.10. The seven-ounce bottle is $1.12, our cost, and then there is a very small size, here it is, which is 84 cents, so it's cheaper for us to make it ourselves than to buy it on the open market. And I want to thank Kelly Cummings who got this going and Corcraft very much for their good work.

With that, we'll turn it over to a couple of other measures. The CDC has been speaking with us on how to handle hotspots. The CDC is going to be coming out with additional guidance soon but New Rochelle is a significant hotspot even if you look at the overall map of the United States. So we will be talking about school closings in that area. We have closed the schools now. The question will be duration but we could be talking weeks. Dr. Zucker has a discussion with the CDC and the FDA later on about how long to keep those schools closed but I think at this point it is fair to say we're talking about a number of weeks.

For all schools, we're going to set a policy that if a student tests positive in a school that school is closed for an initial 24-hour period so that we can do as assessment of the situation and the facts and then make a determination going forward given the facts in that particular school district and the Department of Health is going to be doing a joint regulation with SED on that.

Paid sick leave quarantine, we'll be sending up a bill today. As you know I proposed paid sick leave which before any of this coronavirus even began but it's even more important now. I think it's especially important that if government is ordering a quarantine, even a voluntary quarantine, that places a personal hardship on a person, that person should get paid, and we're going to be sending up a bill to the legislature; I'm going to speak to the legislative leaders about that today, because we have a significant number of people now on quarantine, and I don't want to add to the burden that we're creating, and I think to the business community, it's in their interest that people actually stay home and stop the spread, so I feel good about that law, I just want to get it passed.

I want to reiterate a point that we've made before: The people at risk here are senior citizens, people with a compromised immune system, people with an underlying illness, but they should take it seriously. And for people in that category, they should adjust their interactions, so-called "social distancing." I had this conversation with my mother. I said, "Look, you want to be careful; this is not the time to be going to large gatherings. So use your discretion, use your intelligence. It's not the time to be getting on a long plane flight." The fear and the hysteria is outpacing the reality of the situation, but the reality of the situation is people in that target group should be careful, so let's be realistic on the overall hysteria and hype that we're now living through, but the reality is for that vulnerable population, they should be taking precautions.

We have our Port Authority Director, Rick Cotton, who has been doing a magnificent job handling the airports, JFK is one of the main airports for people coming in on those oversea flights. Rick Cotton does have - has tested positive for the coronavirus, so he is going to be on quarantine - he will be working at home. He is the Executive Director of the Port Authority so he has been at the airports obviously. When many people were coming back with the virus, he'll be working from home and now the senior team that works with Rick will also be tested so several of them may be on quarantine and they'll be working from home.

The testing - we'll go through the latest numbers, but let's also remember the context for testing if we can: The more you test, the more positives you will find, and you are testing primarily a suspect group because we're testing people who we believe came in contact with a positive person. We want that data because we want to find out who's positive so we can isolate them and reduce the spread. But it is not a random sample, it is not statistically representative of anything. It's testing a particular universe that we believe may very well have been exposed to a positive person. So it's not statistically, I don't know what it means, I take it as good news because I want to be finding the positives so we can isolate them and we can reduce the spread. And that's what the testing is all about.

So, we did additional testing, we've been basically testing around the clock now. Westchester, you see is up to 98. New York City 19, Nassau 17, Rockland 4, Saratoga 2, Suffolk 1, Ulster 1. Westchester is our problem, as you see from the numbers. That is a relatively small community in New Rochelle - 98 cases, more than the City of New York, that makes the point about gatherings. And that's my conversation with my mother and that's the caution flag. This communicates, transmits more easily than the flu and in Westchester what happened was there was a number of large gatherings, several hundred people, and it transmitted through that congregation. But this is the hotspot, one of the hotspots, nationally by the way, is the New Rochelle hotspot. So it makes the point about how it can communicate in gatherings and why people have to be careful. But those are the recent numbers - 142. With 142 cases it puts New York, well it puts New York actually ahead of Washington. They just updated these numbers - California 111, Massachusetts at 28. And you can see the other national cases.

Context, all these numbers, what does it mean? All day long people keep calling me up and saying, "Here are all these numbers, what does it mean? It means you find the positives, you reduce the spread. What is the bottom line? What does this mean? People are reacting like this is the Ebola virus. This is not the Ebola virus. This hysteria that you see, this fear that you see, the panic that you see is unwarranted. We have dealt with worse viruses. This spreads like the flu, but most people will have it and they get on with their lives.

Many people have it and not know that they have it. So we have a 142 cases. Oh a 142 cases. What does that mean? Only 8 of the 142 are hospitalized. Well how can that be? The others are at home like they have the flu. Eight out of 142 - those are people who predominately have an underlying illness. Remember this is basically pneumonia. When is pneumonia dangerous? When you have an underlying illness. Not just this virus. For decades, when is pneumonia problematic? When you have an underlying illness and that's what this is. So 8 out of 142 puts it in focus and puts it in perspective. And this is the single most demonstrative fact, okay. All this hyperbole, all these opinions. What's the fact? Johns Hopkins tracks every Coronavirus case since it started. What happened? One-hundred and eleven thousand cases, 3,800 deaths, 62,000 recovered, 45,000 pending - still recovering. That's it. That's tracking every Coronavirus case.

It's not good that 3,800 people passed away. That's true, that is very true. By the way, 10 times that number will pass away from the flu this year. Now, people don't realize that. They don't think about it. But that's what the flu does on a seasonal basis. So a little perspective. We have to keep it all in perspective and with that, I'll end there and take your questions.

But I am a man of my word, here's your prize please come up. This is a collector item, this is - you can't use it, cause it's a collector item. It's more valuable - you can sell this on Ebay in about 10 years. It's 001, it's the first gallon container off the line. This is literally number one and it is for you. Please come and claim your gallon. Very well done.

2020-03-10 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Good afternoon. It is the little things. Morning or afternoon. I think most of the people know the people that are here today. To my far right, Linda Lacewell, Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services and also on the emergency management task force that is handling this. The good Dr. Zucker. Melissa DeRosa, the Secretary to the Governor. Beth Garvey, who is the Special Counsel to me.

Let's give you an update on COVID-19. These are the new numbers. Westchester County is up 10. New York City is up 17. Nassau 2 and Rockland 2. As we said, keep in mind what we are doing here. These test cases are not representing a random sample. They are not statistically accurate to the growth or the spread of the disease because this is a selective sampling. We are primarily sampling people who are associated with people who test positive, right? People look at these numbers as almost a statistical represented sample of what is happening. That is not what this is. These are positive cases tested primary from a universe of people connected with someone who tested positive.

What they do show is a continuing problem in Westchester County. And it is not Westchester County, it is New Rochelle. New Rochelle at this point is probably the largest cluster in the United States of these cases and it is a significant issue for us that we will speak about in a moment. You can see even New Rochelle compared to New York City. That when you say Westchester you might as well say New Rochelle. So, New Rochelle is at 108. New York City is at 36. That is really breathtaking.

Again, putting things in focus. Washington State is at 179. New York at 173. You see how much higher the deaths are in Washington. That makes the point that we have been talking about. Who will be most likely affected by this situation. Washington State was in a senior home and that is what this is all about. What does it mean? What is the bottom line. Senior citizens, people who are in the vulnerable population. Senior citizens, underlying illness, compromised immune system, that is who we are trying to protect here.

And you see that in the 22 deaths in Washington compared to New York with no deaths. Same number of cases, look how higher Washington is because it's about the senior citizens. And our focus, governmentally, nursing homes, senior citizen congregate living. Our focus on an individual level, senior citizens, compromised immune systems. Again, what is the net effect of the disease? People talk about it like it's the Ebola virus, which was really a serious and frightening virus. We have 173 cases. Only 14 people are in the hospital. Well how can that be? Because people are at home, recovering from flu-like symptoms. Fourteen out of 173. If you look at the 14, most of the 14 are members of that vulnerable community. Again, you want to put this all in perspective: the single best way to put it all in perspective is the Johns Hopkins which has tallied all of the cases since China. One-hundred and fourteen thousand cases, that's China, that's South Korea, that's Italy, that's the United States. Four thousand deaths, again in the vulnerable population. Sixty-four thousand people recovered. Forty-six thousand cases still pending. People getting treatment or people at home. That's the entirety of the universe.

New Rochelle is a particular problem. It is what they call a cluster. The numbers have been going up, the numbers continue to go up, the numbers are going up unabated and we do need a special public health strategy for New Rochelle. What we are going to do is focus on an area concentric circle around the sites of the majority of the cases in New Rochelle. Much of the transmission tends to happen on a geographic basis. Kids go to school, kids go to a store, parents go to a store, parents walk down the block, shake hands with someone. Parent is walking the door, meets somebody, says hello has a conversation. Remember how this spreads. It can spread from - it's a respiratory illness, droplets of a sneeze, a cough, it's on somebody's hand - you shake hands. Now you have an issue.

So containment strategies focus on geographic areas. Commissioner Zucker has been working on this. This is the single greatest public health challenge we have in this state right now. And coming up with a special strategy to deal with this has been his focus. He has recommended a plan to me. I have accepted the plan. Which will deal with this containment area and the Commissioner will speak to it in a moment. One of the things we're doing is we're putting a satellite testing facility from Northwell into New Rochelle so they will set up a facility within that containment area that can be testing. Northwell received approval last night for their automated testing capacity which increases Northwell's capacity to test - we have been waiting for the CDC to do that. The CDC approved that. Northwell will open up a temporary satellite facility so they can do testing right in that area.

Even testing is a problem, right? Somebody gets in a cab to go to the hospital, now you possibly infect the cab driver, somebody gets in a bus, now the person is on a bus, so this is a major advantage. We're also going to use the National Guard in the containment area to deliver food to homes, to help with the cleaning of public spaces. There is a debate about how long the virus can live on hard surfaces, and you have differing opinions now. Some opinions are the virus can live on a hard surface such as stainless steel or plastic for two days or more. If that's the case, that would be a significant issue as to why it is transmitting the way it does. So cleaning those surfaces is very important with the right material and the National Guard will be helpful on that.

With that, let me turn it over to Dr. Zucker to talk about the strategy for New Rochelle.

Dr. Zucker: Thank you, Governor. So as we know this is an evolving situation and we are addressing many different points as we move forward on this. We have spoken before on the issues of containment and we had moved from a containment strategy into more of a mitigation strategy. When you're dealing with mitigation, you have to deal with the issues of social distancing and how people get gathered together and to try to minimize that. And one of the places where people gather together is particularly the school system and schools and other areas, events and daily or weekly activities. And we believe the most important thing from a public health standpoint is to minimize that. We know where sort of the center of the activity has occurred from the information Public Health and the epidemiology investigation from the beginning of the Westchester-New Rochelle outbreak, and we felt the radius of a mile from that spot would be effective in an effort to try to decrease the spread. I spoke to some of the public health experts the other day and this morning, all the time I should say, about this issue and we have to remember that we are sitting with the first point on a curve or first couple of points on a curve and it would be wonderful to be able to go in the future and look back and see how this curve is going to evolve, but we don't know that and so the most important thing to do is to take all the precautions we can and balance that from a level of protection with that of what could be somewhat disruptive and we understand some things will be disruptive. So we're moving forward with that and happy afterwards to discuss further.

Governor Cuomo: Okay. I want to thank Dr. Zucker for that. The Doctor's plan is March. The period would be from March 12 this Thursday, a two-week period where facilities within that area and schools within that area would be closed for two weeks. We'll go in, we'll clean the schools, and assess the situation. This will be a period of disruption for the local community. I understand that. Local shop owners don't like the disruption. Nobody does. Local politicians don't like the disruption. I get it. This can't be a political decision this is a public health decision. It's not a decision that I am making. I'm making, accepting the recommendation of Dr. Zucker. In a situation like this, whether you're president, mayor, governor, let the experts decide and let the science drive the decision. When you politically interfere in science, that's when you tend to make a mistake.

So again the period is March 12 through the 25. One mile is a fairly constrained area. It is dramatic action but it is the largest cluster in the country and this is literally a matter of life and death. That's not an overly rhetorical statement.

A couple of other facts: I've asked the Comptroller of New York, Tom DiNapoli to give me an opinion as to what consequences he might think this economic shutdown and the entire coronavirus situation will have on the State budget. As you know we're ready to do the State budget. The State budget anticipates this year's revenues and projects next year's revenues. You know what's going on in the stock market. You also have what's going on the economy overall. Right? Conventions are being stopped, tourism is down, hotel bookings are down, restaurants are down. So we just did the budget projection estimates. The world then changed since then so I asked him for any advice that he might have.

As I mentioned earlier there are different opinions on how long the virus can live on hard surfaces. So much of this is new and evolving. No one really knows for sure so you tend to get different opinions and the doctors talk to people all day long. I'm taking to people all day long. There is an emerging school of thought that says the virus can live longer on hard surfaces that originally anticipated, could live two days, maybe even a little bit more. I'm asking all the public transportation authorities in this state to redouble their cleaning efforts. It's easy enough to clean, it's a question of bleach or another clean that's approved by the EPA that kills viruses. But, if it is two days on a hard surface, a bus, et cetera, just picture people are walking around, that is a different situation. I want to make sure that the cleaning protocols are up to date.

Again, as a point of clarity, the state put out a regulation yesterday. Any school that has a child that tests positive must close immediately for 24 hours. That 24 hour period is only a period to allow assessment of the situation to determine what the remedial course is. It's not "it must close for a day and then it's going to open the next day." It must close, then you do an assessment, then you determine what to do with the school. That will be done on a school by school basis because the facts change.

One other point of clarification. You cannot joke, do not joke, whenever you joke you get in trouble. Hand sanitizer that we presented yesterday, the state is not making a profit from the sale of hand sanitizer. The hand sanitizer is not for sale. It is given to other jurisdictions. State use, prison use, bus use. Certain people have commented that it's for profit and tawdry that the state is profiting from the sale. We are not selling the product.

2020-03-11 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Everybody know Dr. Howard Zucker to my left, Health Commissioner, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor and Beth Garvey, Special Counsel to the Governor. We want to give you a few announcements and an update today. Remember the overall game plan is we're operating on three tracks, right? First is testing, second is reducing density to reduce the rate of infection and third is communicating with the people of this state so they know the actual facts versus the hype, versus the hysteria, versus misinformation.

On testing, you look at the experience in China, you look at the experience in South Korea - what changed the trajectory of the incline of the number of cases? It was a tremendous amount of testing and investigation. China - 200,000 tests per day. South Korea - 15,000 tests per day. They were so aggressive on testing that they actually found the people who tested positive, isolated them, and then ran down the track of who those people may have contacted. Massive testing. This testing we've done 5,000 tests to date, according to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. So our testing capacity is nowhere near what it needs to be. Now there will be a retrospective one day - what happened, why? We saw China - November, December last year - you saw the case coming. Why did it take so long for this country to get a testing protocol done? That will be for another day. I'm a Governor - I'm concerned about today. I'm concerned about tomorrow.

So New York State is going to take matters into its own hands. We're going to start contracting with private labs in this state to increase our testing capacity. Remember again the chronology - we started several weeks ago, CDC said they would do all the tests and they would send them to Atlanta. We said that was too little too late - they allowed the State laboratory to do testing. That capacity was several hundred. We said that's too little too late. We have great labs in this state - why the federal government wouldn't avail itself of the labs, why they wouldn't have had protocols and tests ready. So we are going to contract directly with the private labs in this state. There are about 200 labs in this state. The Department of Health routinely works with about 28 labs which are expert in this kind of testing and virology, and where the Department of Health has a preexisting relationship with these labs, where they are confident of the labs' work product, etc. We had a call with the 28 labs today. We informed them that they should get up, get running, and start moving forward with testing.

There is still some complexity that the FDA needs to sign off on the actual protocols of some of these tests and that is still complicating the situation. But this will greatly increase our testing capacity as we get these 28 labs up and running. We had them on the telephone today, had the communication today, and we are starting the mobilization of those 28 labs. But that will make a big difference. But frankly we are not in a position where we can rely on the CDC or the FDA to manage this testing protocol so we will be moving forward with that.

Second track is to reduce density. Why? Because if somebody is infected you do not want them to infect more people. That is what we are doing in New Rochelle. You have the intense cluster. You know you have an intense cluster. Stop large gatherings where you have a large cluster of people that are infected. It is called common sense and that is what we announced with New Rochelle.

We are also announcing that CUNY and SUNY, starting March 19th, will move to a distance learning model. And both systems will be doing that. CUNY will help reduce the density in New York City. SUNY will help reduce the density in downstate New York. That is SUNY Purchase, Stony Brook, Westbury, etc. Downstate is where we have the highest density of cases now. So, SUNY and CUNY closing March 19th thereabouts. There are some different campuses. There may be some variability. But that will be a way to reduce density and that is a good thing.

I've also spoken today with hundreds of business leaders - primarily in New York City. I have asked them voluntarily to help reduce the density. There are a number of ways they can do this, different work shifts. Some people work early. Some people work late, different teams, one team works the other week, but again, ways to reduce density in the city, telecommuting, working from home, all the experts say social distancing. You should be more than six feet from someone. Try walking down a New York City sidewalk and be six feet from people. It would be virtually impossible. So reducing density - how do you do that? Ask the businesses to cooperate.

We're also going to be making a decision on the St. Patrick's Day parade. We'll make that decision later on. I want to speak with a few more people but I've been speaking with health experts, Dr. Fauci who I believe is one of the best in the nation who I've spoken to a number of times. He testified today and this is his strong recommendation. Just reduce large gatherings. Why would you risk bringing thousands of people together knowing that this is a virus that easily communicates. Dr. Fauci was talking about sports events, et cetera, but St. Patrick's Day is one of the great convenings, right, of a large number of people. So we'll be making that decision today but if you listen to the experts they would say you should not be having a St. Patrick's Day convening at this time which I believe makes sense.

We said if we're asking people to be quarantined we are asking the Legislature to pass a bill that says people will be paid by their employer if they're on quarantine. Lead by example, New York State will pay any person who is quarantined who is an employee of New York State. So if you're on mandatory quarantine or on what we call precautionary quarantine you'll be paid if you're a State employee.

Public transit, we've asked them statewide to double the cleaning protocol. This conflicting information on how long the virus lives on a hard surface, plastic or stainless steel, it was at first a couple of hours. Then some people said up to 12 hours. Some people now say up to 24 hours. Some people say maybe a little longer than 24 hours. We want to double the cleaning protocol just to make sure New Yorkers are confident. There was a situation in White Plains where an attorney who practiced at Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains Courthouse tested positive. Six court rooms are closed for cleaning, and employees who had contact with that attorney will be on precautionary quarantine. And anyone who needs a test we will do.

The overall number of cases in Westchester, you see again, 13 new cases. That is probably the single most troubling point in the State right now. 48, 12 new ones in New York City. 28 Nassau. 212 Statewide. This number, as I have said from day one, will continue to grow every day. The more tests we get, the more positives we will get. That's exactly what we are seeking. These are not random survey tests. This is not a random sample. We don't have people who are random sampling the universe to find out what the infection rate is. This is when we find a person who is positive, asking them who they came in contact with, and then testing that chain. That's primarily where these tests come from. And we're looking for the positives. So that is actually good news because it says we're successfully tracking the chain.

These numbers will continue to go up dramatically. The more tests we do, the more these numbers will increase. These numbers do not reflect anyone's belief of what percent of the population is infected. My theory, talking to everyone else, having no medical experience whatsoever, is the coronavirus was in this country before people acknowledged and that it is much more widespread than people acknowledge. My guess is when we go back and we look at this, we will find people that there were many people who had coronavirus where it resolved and nobody even knew about it. We're looking at a test that would test for antibodies that the body produces to fight the coronavirus to prove out this point. If a person has antibodies that were produced to fight the coronavirus, it will show that they actually had the coronavirus at an earlier time, resolved, and moved on. But that's a test that the Department of Health is working on.

You see it goes New York and Washington State, number one and number two. It depends on the number of cases that day. Again, to the extent these cases, these tests are representative of anything. Death rate in Washington State much higher because it was of a vulnerable population, it was a nursing home. That is the vulnerable population in a congregate setting. That is the most dangerous situation posed by this virus. Senior citizens, people with a compromised immune system, people with an underlying illness in a congregate facility.

Third point is communication. Communication is making sure people have the facts, the right facts, the right information because the facts here do not justify the amount of fear. I understand it's a virus, I understand it sounds like a bad science fiction movie. This is not the Ebola virus, we've dealt with that. That was a much more dangerous, frightening virus. The facts here actually reduce the anxiety. We have 212 cases in the state of New York. 32 are hospitalized. Well how about everyone else? They're home. They're recovering at home or they have recovered. But only 32 out of the 212 require hospitalization.

To me, what is the most definite, factual information is the Johns Hopkins study. Let's go back and track every case of coronavirus since we first heard about it. Let's go back to China, to the first case, and track all of the cases and find out what happened. 121,000 cases from the beginning, 4,000 deaths. 66,000 people recovered, 50,000 pending cases. 4,000 deaths are terrible, yes, no doubt. How many people died in the United States from the flu last year? Roughly 80,000 from the flu. So, again, perspective.

2020-03-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, everybody knows I think, Patrick Murphy, who is the Commissioner of DHSES to my far right. Commissioner and Dr. Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health. Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, and Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

Thank you all for being here. Bernadette Hogan is still upset with me about St. Patrick 's Day. We did not cancel St. Patrick's Day. It was postponed. And by the way his eminence agreed with me. Columbus Day? Crowd is smaller.

Okay, let's talk about this today. We are talking about a public health emergency and we are talking about setting up a public health emergency system, right? So much of this information is episodic. We are doing this here. We are doing this here. This has to be a system that is in balance and can handle the entirety of a public health emergency. So there are two basic functions you are performing. One is reduce the spread of the disease. Two, make sure that you can treat the number of people that get infected, right? So, reduce the spread the best you can. You do that through testing. You do that through density reduction. Reduce the spread. Second half of the equation, you must be able to treat the number of people who do get infected. And you need a hospital system, a healthcare system, that can do that. So that is what we are working on.

On reducing the spread, it's testing and then it is density reduction. On testing, I am not that interested in what happened yesterday and what we should have done a few months ago. I am a governor. I am more interested in what is happening today and what is going to happen tomorrow. There will be plenty of time to do a retrospective. We need to increase testing as quickly as possible and get the volume as high as possible. The more people you test, the more people you can isolate. Testing is not about figuring out how many people have the disease. That is gone. As far as I am concerned, we are way behind in testing and determining how many people are actually infected.

The State has authorized 28 labs within the State to conduct testing. That will dramatically increase the number of tests that we can take. The State is contracting with a national lab that is supposed to be getting FDA approval to do what is called automated testing which could increase our capacity by the thousands. We could actually be up to about 5,000 per day next week if the FDA approval works and everything works. But the most relevant data from our point of view is the hospitalization rate, okay? The testing is not about what percentage of the population has coronavirus. You will never figure that out today. The testing is about what percent of those infected are hospitalized to determine the capacity we need in our hospital system.

The second way you reduce the spread besides testing is to reduce the density of people. We all talk about how it's contagious, touching surfaces, etc. So reduce the density. So, we're going to take very dramatic actions in that regard. To reduce the number of people in a contagious environment, no gathering with 500 people or more. From zero to 500, we're reducing the occupancy by 50%. So 50% of your seated capacity is the new capacity for a facility. Those new rules will go into effect five o'clock on Friday, except for the Broadway theaters in Manhattan, where we're going to affect five o'clock today. Yes, that's only several hours, but we've already been talking to the Broadway theaters and they are aware that we're going to be doing this, so they have notice. These rules don't apply to schools, hospitals, nursing homes, mass transit facilities. In addition, this is assuming that businesses are following the protocols that we put out about diligent cleaning, requirements, et cetera. Any business that can't maintain their current occupancy or these new occupancy rules with that diligent cleaning, they should contact Empire State Development, and Empire State Development will give them what's called the Close Order. Direct them to close. That's important for businesses for legal reasons. And their phone number for ESD is (212)803-3100. So that's on the reducing the spread: more aggressive testing, which we are doing, and then new density reduction guidelines.

That then has to work and be coordinated with the capacity to treat the number of infected people. When you look at what happened in Italy, where did they get into trouble? You overwhelmed the healthcare system. And that's where you can get into trouble. If the number of people infected who go to a hospital cannot be treated at the hospital, that's what you want to plan for now. So, first of all, most people who contract the virus will self-resolve or be treated at home. That's about 80% of the people. For the remainder 20%, we've talked about the vulnerable populations, et cetera, you need hospital capacity to handle that number. What is that number? Well, that's why we're watching the hospitalization rate on those we test. So, even if you don't have a testing sample that tells you what you have in the population, you have a testing sample that tells you what percent of those people being infected are requiring hospitalization. And from that you can factor a hospitalization rate, and that's what we're doing.

We're working with the hospitals across the state to develop what's called the surge capacity. How do you expand the capacity in the existing hospital system besides just filling vacant beds? And there are a number of strategies to do that. First of all, we're not doing it today, but the healthcare system should be on notice that we might cancel, at one point, elective surgeries. Elective surgeries are about 25-35% of the hospital beds, believe it or not. So, if you cancel elective surgeries, you free up a significant amount of hospital space. And, again, we're not doing that now, but it is something we're considering in our back pocket.

Department of Health is accelerating regulations to get more nurses and personnel trained and put into a different positions. There are different tranches of certification, Department of Health is working to get people into positions where they can work, for example, in an ICU unit. We're asking former doctors and nurses to reconnect with your old hospital, your old healthcare employer, to be on an on call basis. When you're talking about hospital systems you're talking about two components. You're talking about the facility capacity and then you're talking about the staffing capacity. One of the things that has happened in China, South Korea, and Italy if you study those models, healthcare workers get sick and they can't come to work. So making sure you have enough staff and reserve staff is just as important as making sure you have enough facilities. So, we're asking former doctors and nurses, contact your previous employer. Department of Health with accelerate your recertification on an emergency basis so if we need you we'll have a reserve workforce.

National Guard has a number of medics and medically trained personnel and EMTs. We are now identifying them for reserve staffing capacity, also. Medical schools we're contacting, again for the same reason, to identify possible reserve healthcare professionals who we could call from a medical school if we wind up in a staffing shortage. This is all if, if, if, if, if, but that's why it's planning. Plan for every contingency now. Hopefully you don't have to do any of it.

We're also looking at temporary hospital facilities. What facilities the state owns, what facilities the state has that if we need actual physical space, we could actually expand the healthcare system by identifying temporary hospital facilities now and coordinating the upstate and the downstate hospitals. We have more vacancy rates in upstate hospitals, so we want to plan the health system as one health system and coordinate upstate, downstate. Worst case scenario if you run out of capacity downstate you have upstate capacity.

That is the second part of the system, right? First part is assess the number of people who are infected, that's the testing, reduce it, that's the reducing the density. Second part of the equation, make sure you can treat those people who are going to need hospitalization because you have both the facilities and you have the staff to work those facilities. The system calibrates to the most recent data. So, we're watching that hospitalization rate to gauge, to plan, what could be the possible hospitalization rate for our population. We're studying the hospitalization rate in China, South Korea, Italy, et cetera, to gauge what we need to be prepared for in, what could be, a matter of weeks.

Special concern has always been nursing homes and senior assisted facilities. Why? Because they are the vulnerable population. Right? We've always said 80 percent self-resolve. Twenty percent might need medical attention. The lethality rate is among the vulnerable population: senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses, especially respiratory illnesses. So nursing homes have always been of special concern. The tragedy in Washington State, the number of deaths, that's a nursing home. We're putting additional requirements on nursing homes. All staff must wear masks. All staff must be monitored for symptoms as they're coming in. No non-medical staff, personnel, to enter a nursing home. This means no visitors in a nursing home which sounds very difficult. But look, you don't need, if you care about someone in a nursing home, the last thing you want is to endanger that person and a visitor, grandchild going to visit his or her grandmother who walks in the virus, you're not doing anyone a service. We'll leave it up to the facilities if they are what called exigent circumstances. If a person is in a dire situation then certainly let them see their family. In that case the family should wear protective equipment, et cetera, if they're going into the facility and we'll leave that up to the discretion of the facility.

We have several districts across the state that closed. You will see this happening every day. Remember, we have a state regulation that says any school that has a child who tests positive must close for 24 hours. That school is then cleaned for 24 hours. After the 24-hour period we make an assessment as to whether or not that school should reopen, if so when. This is primarily a local decision and some school districts are making that decision given the facts and circumstances. For example in Nassau we have the Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District that's closing for two weeks.

A couple of basic points: number one, science dictates these decisions. I am not a trained medical professional, although I'm getting a heck of an education on an ad-hoc basis. I may apply for some certificate or something soon. But this is about science. This is about data and let the science and let the data make the decisions. We're blessed to have Dr. Zucker who is literally one of the finest in the country guiding this effort and giving us his advice and we're following his advice and that's the way it should be.

Mayor de Blasio and I agree on these recommendations. I've spoken with other mayors. I've spoken several times with the Vice President, Mike Pence, who is the point person for the federal government. A big part of this testing is getting FDA to approve certain things and the Vice President has been very cooperative and has made an effort to facilitate New York going to these private labs, these 28 private labs, so he has been very helpful to us.

We're also working with the private sector on these closings, the 500 and the 250. We did that speaking with business leaders across the state, specifically, for example, Association for a Better New York, Partnership and chambers of commerce across the state and I want to thank them very much for their help. The most recent numbers, you see the state is up to 328 cases, 112 new cases. So you can see the numbers are increasing. Again, that is not representative of the percentage of the population that has coronavirus because we don't have the testing capacity to actually determine that. This is testing where we're tracking positive cases so we can isolate them. There are several new counties, Albany, Broome, Delaware, Dutchess, Herkimer, and Monroe now have cases today. They didn't prior to today. You can see again, New York is up at the top of the list nationwide with the State of Washington.

Again, State of Washington has 29 deaths. Up until this point we've not had any deaths. But again, that's the nursing home nightmare, if you will, what happened in Washington. And that's why we're taking special precautions here. 47 out of 328 cases hospitalized. 14 percent of the cases hospitalized. To me, that's the most important number. Again, what happens if you get the virus? 80 percent self-resolve, et cetera. We need to make sure the healthcare system has the capacity. That is the intelligent priority for any government that is planning right now. That's again the issue in Italy. The healthcare system couldn't handle the number of infected people. And then you can say yes, you will recover with the right healthcare, but you have to have the right healthcare. And that means the healthcare system has to be responsive to whatever number is generated.

Again, put this all in focus. I know the hysteria is high. I know the political environment superheats everything. But when people say how bad is this, which people say to me 10 times a day, how bad is this. Johns Hopkins has tracked every case of coronavirus since it started. Every case. 127,000, 4,000 fatalities. 68,000 of the 127,000 have recovered and 54,000 are pending. Those are the facts. Those are the numbers. Well, this one thinks this, this one opinion, yeah, opinion, opinion, opinion. These are the facts and these are the numbers. It is worse than the flu in terms of the numbers, yes. We don't want to lose anyone, that's unfortunate. But it's more being able to handle this situation governmentally, operationally. Being able to make it all work, and that's what we're planning on right now.

2020-03-13 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Everybody know our good Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, Budget Director Robert Mujica.

Let's give you an update on today. I was in New Rochelle this morning where we opened our drive through testing facility, which is a great piece of work and it is smart and it is innovative. I want to thank all of the people that made it happen and made it happen very quickly. I especially want to than the healthcare workers who were there. These healthcare workers, the nurses, the doctors, they are really just remarkable people. Just think about it. They are anxious and they put themselves in that situation because they are there to help other people. So, God bless them.

The focus for New York and about every state in the country is reducing the spread of the virus. We have said the way to reduce the spread, the rate of the spread, is a two pronged approach. Reduce the density, yesterday we announced measures to reduce the density, gathering of 500 over, etc. The second way is to increase the testing capacity. The more you test. The more positives you find. The more you can isolate. The more you can reduce the spread. You learn from the countries that have come before: China, South Korea, Italy. The better you are at testing, the more you test, the more you can reduce the spread.

I have told you that we are talking to the federal government about the federal government authorizing states to do testing. States, state health departments regulate labs in their states. If you go for a test now at a lab that is regulated by the state, we need obviously more testing capacity and we need it quickly. So I said I spoke to the Vice President about this. Vice President Mike Pence is a former governor so he understood the state's roles, the departments of health and regulating laboratories. He said he would look at it. I said I thought it could make a tremendous difference.

I spoke with the Vice President today and I spoke with the President. They are authorizing New York State to do the testing and allowing our labs to do the test, and allowing the State Health Department to set up the protocol. That will increase dramatically our testing capacity. I want to thank the President and the Vice President for their receptivity to the idea. And I want to thank them for their quick turnaround.

We have the authorization as of today. So today the State Health Department will be going out to the 28 laboratories that the Department of Health works with on complex testing matters. And those 28 labs will be authorized to do testing. So, we are down in the boiler room now turning all the valves. The labs will be coming on. We think next week we will be going up to a capacity of about 6,000 tests per day which would be a dramatic increase for us. To date we've done about 3,000 tests so that is a very, very big difference. Testing is probably the single most important thing that we can be doing now and as I said it will, that will double. We'll be able to do about in one day all the tests that we have done to date, believe it or not. So again, I want to thank the Vice President and especially the President who facilitated this and moved quickly.

A couple of quick items on the Executive Order - I'm going to do another Executive Order. There are issues that come up that need to be addressed. Unemployment insurance - we're going to waive the seven-day waiting period for anyone who was unemployed as a result of quarantine or laid off because of the virus. Local schools are making a decision whether to stay open or close. That's a local decision. The State rule is if a child in that school tests positive the school must close for 24 hours so we clean the school, assess the situation and then make a decision. Some of the schools want to know if they close do they get penalized by the State for not following the 180-day rule which is 180 days of class to qualify for State funding. We're going to waive the 180-day requirement.

Some utility companies are in a position where people may not be able to pay their utility bill because they got laid off or they're working less. The PSC, Public Service Commission, is going to put out an order that says no utility can turn off a utility to a person who hasn't paid their bill as a result of responding to this virus situation.

We also need to come up with an answer to political petitions that are now being circulated to put people, qualified people, to run for election. Normally you go door to door with a petition and you speak to the person who opens the door and you ask them to sign a petition. This is not the best time to be sending people door to door. It's the exact opposite of what we're trying to do. I don't know the specific solution but I know it's something that we have to address.

I'll give you the numbers for today. That's the total number of people tested - about 3,200. The number of cases, current total 421. We've gone up 96. New York City you can see went up 59 cases to a total of 154. Westchester went up 10 to 158. These are the counties that have cases. Schenectady is actually a new county for a case. New York now has the highest number of cases in the country. New York and Washington go back and forth. Washington had more deaths, obviously, because it was in the vulnerable situation. Senior citizens, senior care facilities, nursing home facilities, those are the number one situation that we're through this.

Current hospitalizations: 50 out of the 421 cases, that's a 12% hospitalization rate. 18 are in intensive care. We have 3,200 intensive care beds in this state. Total number of hospital beds at 53,000, but 3,200 ICU beds. When I spoke over the past few days, I've been talking about watching the hospitalization rate and in particular the rate of people needing the ICU. This is where Italy got into trouble. They didn't have enough ICU beds to handle the number of patients who needed intensive care. That is going to be a problem in this state and in this country. That's something that we have to watch very, very carefully. We've been talking to the hospitals about how you increase capacity quickly. Staffing capacity, facility capacity. Cancelling elective surgeries, which can add a significant amount of capacity. If you have an elective surgery - you want a hip replacement, some other type of elective surgery - there may come a point in time, and I'd say it's probable, where we may postpone elective surgeries because we need that hospital staff to be taking care of this issue. But that is a major problem that we're looking at down the road.

Again, perspective on all this, the Johns Hopkins numbers. Everybody's anxious, everybody's nervous. Johns Hopkins has been tracking the facts. I understand emotion. I also understand facts. You want to relax yourself, you want to understand what's going, look at the facts. They have tracked every coronavirus case, 137,000. 5,000 people have passed away. You look into that 5,000 number, you're going to see senior citizens, and you're going to see people who had underlying respiratory illnesses that were preexisting. You're going to see people with compromised immune systems. The same type of people who would be effected by the flu, but at a higher rate of infection and a higher rate of mortality. 69, almost 70,000 recoveries worldwide, 62,000 pending. We're dealing with the virus and we're dealing with people's perception.

Any emergency, any disaster. You have the issue that you're dealing with, could be a fire, could be flood, could be an impending hurricane. You have the issue and then you have the public perception of the issue. And the fear, the anxiety, the panic, can be a more difficult issue than the underlying issue you're dealing with. And you have a lot of anxiety. I think much more anxiety than the facts would justify. But there are emotions, right. Emotions don't have to be fact-based. And part of my job is to say that the people of this state, what the reality is and what they should expect. First, this is not going to be a quick situation. This is going to be weeks, months, I would calibrate ourselves. This is not going to be gone next week. It's not going to be return to normal next week. Look at China, look at South Korea, look at Italy, look at the trajectory. This is months, so prepare yourself. And this is going to be everywhere. This day-to-day count, we're up two, we're up seven. My guess is there are thousands and thousands of cases walking around the State of New York

My guess is there are thousands of cases of people who had coronavirus, didn't even know they had the coronavirus, had symptoms, resolved, moved on, and never knew they had it. 80% will self-resolve. There could be tens of thousands of people who had it. So, this fascination with how many cases today - the number of cases we're doing to try to identify positive people. It is not in any way representative of the sample of how many people have coronavirus. You have to keep that in perspective.

Also, everybody wants to protect themselves, you want to protect your family, and you want to protect your children. What do I have to do? What do I have to do? People ask me ten times a day. At one point, you can't control the situation and that is where we are. You can't protect yourself, you can't hermetically seal yourself and your family. Someone will touch your child. Someone will put their hand down and then your child will put their hand down. That is going to happen to you, it is going to happen to your children. That's why the facts are important. "Well, what happens if my loved ones, my brother, my sister, my mother" 80% are going to self-resolve. If they're in a vulnerable class, be careful, be careful today, because it can be problematic.

But thinking that you're going to escape coming into contact with this is not going to happen. One of my daughters was in precautionary quarantine, right? She came in contact with someone who was in a hot spot, who we didn't know whether or not that person was positive, so she was precautionary quarantined for 14 days. My daughter, you know. That's everything to me. That's why I get up in the morning. How could I protect my daughter? Why didn't I protect my daughter? Because it's impossible. It's impossible.

Now, my daughter is a young woman. She's not one of the vulnerable categories. So, I have to talk myself through the facts, right. You're talking about my child, right. You want to talk about emotion. Just, just goes up in you. So I had to talk myself through the reality of the situation and the facts of the situation, to calm myself. So I understand fully the anxiety that people feel. I understand the questions. But again, facts, the facts do not justify the fear. And I know more facts than anyone. I'm doing this every day. But, my daughter was possibly exposed because you can't control it. Who knows where the cab driver was? Who knows where the person who sits next to you on the bus was? Who knows where your buddy was last night who may have come into contact with a person who then finds out that they were in contact with a person. You know, you can't. You can't.

The good news is the facts. And yes, if you are in the vulnerable population, it's different. If it was my mother may have been exposed, then I would be more concerned. So what am I doing? I'm taking more precautions with my mother. And I talk to her about it every day. Because, you know, I'm just a son, and she knows better than I know, and she gave birth to me, so by definition there's nothing that I could ever tell her in my life that is valuable, because she gave birth to me, so by definition, I am just inherently inferior, which I understand and which happens to be true. But that's a different situation. So, all of this to say you can't, nobody is going to be immune from this. But, the facts say we have to do what we have to do but we're going to handle it and we're going to get past it.

2020-03-14 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hi, this is the Governor. On the telephone we have Budget Director Robert Mujica. I just wanted to give you an update on the theory that more information is good.

We discussed on the previous briefing that I was considering an executive order to deal with the current political petitioning process because it makes no sense that people have to go door to door right now collecting petitions. I spoke to political leaders on both sides of the isle and we're going to change the petition process so that you only need 30 percent of the eligible signatures, 30 percent of the requirement of the signatures, to qualify and you'll have until Tuesday 5:00 o'clock to actually collect petitions. After Tuesday 5:00 o'clock petitioning will be closed. You need 30 percent of the legal requirement for that office to qualify.

We're also going to allow absentee ballots for all voters in the election that's in Queens County and I encourage all voters to take advantage of the absentee ballot. You can print it out at home, send it back, but it is better than going to a polling place which is obviously many people coming in and out.

I earlier announced that we are waiving the co-pays for telemedicine. I strongly encourage all New Yorkers to do that. If you think you may have the virus walking into an emergency room only exposes other people. If you didn't have it, now you're exposed to people in the emergency room who may have it. It's also problematic for the medical staff so I know anxiety is high, go on telemedicine, give your symptoms, a doctor can diagnose it, take it from there, and it's totally without copay.


We had another death that was reported. It is a person who had coronavirus, a 65-year-old who had multiple health problems. After he passed and they did the autopsy, they identified coronavirus. Again, like the case this morning, was the 82-year-old woman with emphysema, this is what we have been talking about quote unquote vulnerable populations - underlying illnesses that can be aggravated by pneumonia.

The new numbers, which are going up because the testing is now ramping up at a dramatic rate, we have 613 positive cases, we have [88] new cases from when we last spoke. We have five in Albany, which is [one] new. We have four in Dutchess, which is one new. We have three in Erie County, which I believe is the first cases in Erie County. We have [11] new ones in Nassau for a total of 79. We have [56] new ones in New York City for a total of 269. And those are the main changes. Westchester County 178 with [6] new cases. One other fact that may be relevant is we're now up to 4,700 tests, with 736 additional tests since we last briefed this afternoon. 

From my point of view, the main negative on closing the New York City school system is the possible effect on losing workers because they have to stay home and take care of their children. The most pressing issue of workers staying home are healthcare workers. Again, this is all going to come down to a hospital crisis, assuming we can't get the spread rate of the disease down. Hospitals won't be able to manage it and any shortage of workers would compound that - 1199 is the main union that represents healthcare workers. There have been conversations with them about alternatives - how do we provide childcare for workers so they would be freed up to go to work if the schools were to close. Could we run summer schools to make for the education? So we're trying to be very creative to come up with ways where we could close schools in New York City, but avert the negative, and again the main negative, which I have been saying, is losing healthcare workers for the hospitals. Remember also, 1199 is the main union that represents healthcare workers, so they are pivotal to that conversation. But, some progress, we're looking for creative solutions, and 1199 has always been a good partner and they're working with us. So that's a very positive step, not determinative, but positive.

2020-03-15 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Okay, we want to give you an update on what we know as of today and the recent numbers to date. Also, I am going to take a moment to go through the overall context of what we are doing. Every day we go through the daily update, but it is important that people see and understand the overall context of what is going on.

What is all this about? What the United States is doing, what they are talking about in Washington, what we are talking about here - slow the spread of the virus to a rate that the healthcare system can manage. Slow the spread of the virus to a rate that the healthcare system can manage. You are not going to stop people from being infected. There are all sorts of percentages about what percent of the population will be affected: 40%, 50%, 60%. You will not be able to control that. Nobody thinks you can. But you can make efforts to slow the spread because the real question here is can your healthcare system manage the influx of patients? That is all this is about. And China, South Korea, Italy - it is the same lesson over and over again. You get into trouble when the healthcare system can't manage that rate of intake. So, try to slow the spread so it equals your capacity in the healthcare system.

What do you do to slow the spread? Test, test, test. We made great progress on testing. The President's agreement to allow New York State to do its own testing is very important. We need more federal assistance in allowing what is called automated testing which the FDA still controls. Roche is a company that does automated testing. The President made an announcement with them. But it can't just be a couple of companies for the United States of America doing automated testing. We need more automated testing. What does that mean, automated testing? Manual, you put the test tube in the machine. Automated, everything is robotics. It goes from 30 tests per day to 1,000 tests per day from a laboratory that can go from manual to automated. So that is a tremendous difference and we need more help on that. 

How else do you slow the spread? Density control. This awkward seating arrangement that we have here today reflects two things. Number one, that the LCA does not work on Sundays. Number two, spacing out the seating, reduce the density. So, reduce the density the best you can.

Those are both slow the spread strategies, okay? What does it mean to slow the spread? This is Dr. Fauci. Great New Yorker by the way. You see everyone in Washington looking at the charts of the curve. Flatten the curve. Flatten the curve. Reduce the rate so the high point of cases is reduced so it can be managed by the healthcare system. That is what they are talking about. Flatten the curve. Flatten the curve. Why do you want to flatten the curve? Because the curve is not a curve. The curve is a wave and the wave could break on the hospital system. That is what they are talking about the curve. If you have too high a number of people sick at the same time, when they descend on the hospital system you will overwhelm the hospital system. That is the issue here. It has always been the issue here - overwhelming the capacity of the hospital system. And that my friends is important.

We listen to the cable news all day. Well, why did we not start testing earlier? Why were we not prepared? That is all about yesterday, right? That is all recrimination. That is blame. We should have done this. We should have done that, should have done this. I am a governor. I am here today. I am focused on what I need today to prepare for tomorrow. And that is what everybody should focus on. You want to do a retrospective on who should have done what when and who is to blame? Put a pin in it and do it afterwards. Let's be constructive by just focusing on today and tomorrow. There is an old military expression that management officials use: don't fight the last war. This is not about what happened yesterday. We are looking at a new war that no one has seen before. This is a case of first impression for this nation. We have never fought a virus like this with this potential consequence. So, plan forward. You see that wave. Try to reduce the size of the wave. Assume you can't reduce the size of the wave and assume the wave breaks at a higher level than the hospital system can accommodate. I believe that's what's going to happen.

So what do you do? New York State hospital capacity: 53,000 beds, 3,000 ICU beds. Is that a lot of beds? Is that little beds? Three thousand ICU beds presently about 80 percent occupied. Okay? So that means you have several hundred ICU beds available. Why are the ICU beds available important? Because the people who come in, vulnerable populations, older people, underlying illnesses, respiratory problems - they need the ICU bed. They need the ventilators. They need the machines that breathe for them. Those are the ventilators. They are in ICU beds. The overwhelming crush is going to be on the ICU beds, not the 53,000 normal hospital beds because those are basically going to be people recovering from the flu. You can recover from the flu at home. If it's really bad you go into the hospital, they make sure that you are not dehydrated, but the critical people are the people who have underlying illnesses and need those ICU beds and those ventilators. Three thousand goes very, very quickly on any projection of these numbers.

What do we do? Maximize existing hospital beds and hospital capacity, potentially build more capacity, again we're only talking about several weeks here before that wave breaks, potentially build more on the existing hospitals, provide more staff, identify backup staff, that's why we're going to medical schools, retired nurses, retired doctors, develop a reserve staff because health care workers will get sick and when they get sick they go home. You want to limit the hospitals? Limit staff. That's the way you limit the hospitals. Find doctors who are on reserve, and purchase the necessary equipment. What makes an ICU bed an ICU bed? Primarily the ventilator. These ventilators are expensive to begin with and they are scarce and you can't find available ventilators no matter how much you're willing to pay right because there is literally a global run on ventilators. And free up beds that are in the hospitals. How do you do that? Two ways: one, we may get to a point where you can't do elective surgery, you can have your hip replaced next month, not now, or develop another facility that you can move people from an existing hospital bed who don't need intensive care into a different facility.

How can you build more hospital capacity now? That's a great question. It has never been done before. It takes years to build a hospital. It takes years to convert an existing facility into a hospital. It's billions of dollars, it's a workforce in the thousands, but on the theory of try everything, an area you have to explore is can you build more hospital capacity now? I'll get back to that in a minute.

On the reducing density, slow the spread by reducing density. I've been talking to private businesses all across the state. I am asking them to aggressively to consider work from home strategies. I'm asking them to aggressively consider voluntary closings to help reduce density as a social responsibility to protect their workforce but I want private businesses to aggressively consider work from home and voluntary closings. Depending on what businesses do on a voluntary basis we could consider mandatory actions later on. We've already taken mandatory actions, no large gatherings over 500, 50 percent of legal occupancy of a facility. That is a mandatory way to reduce density in the workplace. I'm asking them today to voluntarily consider closings and reductions in workforce. If need be, we can calibrate up the mandatory requirements that we have already put in action. How do you calibrate it up? Rather than 50 percent of occupancy it could be 40 percent of occupancy, 30 percent of occupancy, et cetera. I'm not doing that at this point but I am asking businesses to aggressively consider these measures. If the private sector does not respond voluntarily, if the spread does not slow, then I would increase the mandatory guidelines.

For New York State government, lead by example. All non-essential personnel in the state are asked to stay home from Rockland County south. That's about half the workforce of the state in that area. Why Rockland County south? That is the area with the highest density of number of cases. Remember again, the number of cases varies widely across the state. You're calibrating your actions to the data, to the science. You should be doing different things in New York City than you're doing in a county upstate that only has one or two cases, right? This is a calibration by science to the facts. 

The New York State court system congregates many people, tens of thousands of people all across the state. I spoke to the chief judge. I asked her to come up with a plan that keeps the essential services operational. Criminal justice services, emergency family services, et cetera, the essential services available. But non-essential services, actions that can be postponed, to postpone them. Again, reduce the density coming into the court system. I'm asking private businesses to stay home. Reduce the density coming into the court system. Don't jeopardize the criminal justice system, don't jeopardize safety, don't jeopardize family integrity, but if it's non-essential then postpone it. Come up with a plan that reduces the courts to follow that concern. The chief judge is a total pro. She's not just a great jurist, she's also a great manager. She's managed large operations before and all of her skill and tenure has been on display here as the chief judge. And she's ideally suited to do this. I asked her to come up with a plan tomorrow that she will announce on the specifics of how she'll implement this.

How else do you reduce density? You come to the issue of schools. To reopen schools, close schools - a number of schools have closed. We've added Jim Malatras - you all remember Jim Malatras. He used to work here then semi-retired, went to academia. He doesn't consider it semi-retirement, but I like to irk him that way. Close the schools - it's not that easy, it's not that simple. Close the schools, for many families the school is childcare. If you close the schools and the children are home, a large percentage of the workforce may say I have to stay home and take care of my children. There are school districts that are in wealthier parts of the stay where the families are in a position where one parent stays home or they can hire a caregiver. But then there's everybody else, right? I'm from Queens, New York, I grew up in a very working class neighborhood. Most families don't have a caregiver at home - if the children stay home, a parent has to stay home. If there's only one parent in the home, that parent has to stay home. Yeah, but we have essential workers that need to go to work - police people, fire officers, healthcare workers, again, because this is all about the capacity of the healthcare system. We can't have 1199 healthcare workers not coming to work because they have to stay home. We can't have nurses staying home because they have to stay home and watch their child. So, it sounds simple, it's not simple. You close the school, how do you feed the children? For many children the breakfast and the lunch are the two main meals they get and they get that at the school.

How do you distribute food to all these children who are now not in school? So, those are very real concerns. If you can address those concerns, address the negatives of closing the schools, then yes, close the schools. Why? Because it's totally in line with our density reduction, et cetera. These concerns can be addressed and it's up to the locality to come up with a plan to do it. We're speaking to Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester - County Executive Lauran Curran, County Executive Steve Bellone in Suffolk, CountyExecutive George Latimer in Westchester. They're interested in closing schools. We said closing schools, if you can reduce the negative, childcare, student meals, et cetera, then I think it's a good strategy. But, we have to address those two negatives. The worst negative is if we lose essential workers. Police officers say I can't come to work. Firefighters say I can't come to work. Public transportation operators say I can't come to work. And most dramatic impact, hospital workers. Because remember the hospital workers, there will be hospital workers who get sick. That's going to happen. That will reduce staffing in hospitals. That has to be factored in because you know that's going to happen. So given that, you want to make sure you're not artificially making that problem worse. Jim Malatras is going to be working with these counties to try to put together these situations that would take care of the negative consequences of closing schools, which would then facilitate the closing of schools. Ongoing operations, just so we sum up. We're doing testing, we've made great progress there. Thank you Vice President Pence. Thank you President Trump. We have more to do. Density reduction, which is what we've been talking about. School closures, and taking care of the negative consequences that might happen is an ongoing function. Hospital capacity, hospital capacity, hospital capacity. And tracking of the cases. Mapping of the cases. Identifying the clusters so we deploy our resources. The numbers today, total tested is up to 5,272. As I've said every day, the more you test, the more positives you will find. New cases 442. I'm sorry, newly tested 442. This is just testing data. 5,200 tested. 442 tested. Since last evening. Is that correct?

Melissa DeRosa: Yeah, so far this morning.

Governor Cuomo: So you see how fast, we were only doing 200 tests per day. We now did 442 since last evening at about 6:00 when we did the last briefing. Positive cases 729, new cases 69. New York is the state that has the most number of cases. Again, you would have to correlate that to how many tests the other states are doing, because the more tests they're doing, the more cases they will find. We've had three deaths. We had an additional death since we spoke last. 79-year-old woman who had multiple major underlying health issues. And had the coronavirus and succumbed to the coronavirus. Current hospitalizations, 137 out of 729, that's 19 percent of the cases. This number relates back to hospital capacity. 65 patients in ICU already. This is against the number of beds available in ICU units. And you can see how quickly these numbers move. 46 patients intubated. Again, perspective, perspective, because we're fighting the virus, we're fighting fear. The fear is winning. And the fear is disconnected from the facts. Fear is an emotion. Emotion can often be disconnected from facts, and that's what happening here. But this tracks all the cases that have happened since China. 156,000 cases, 5,000 deaths. You look at the people who have passed away in the State of New York, the three people. Those are three people who may very well have passed away from contracting the flu, right. Every year, tens of thousands of people die from the flu. We say they die from the flu, but they very often had, they were battling cancer, they had heart disease, they had emphysema. And then the flu on top of that underlying condition was the straw that broke the camel's back. I did an open letter to President Trump today that made three points. It says we know what is going to happen. Because we have the data and the projections. Look at China, look at South Korea, look at Italy and just plot the numbers. You know the term, you know how effective you are at flattening the curve, and we are now looking at a wave. And we know it is a wave. Do everything you can to reduce the wave. We are. It's still a wave. It is going to be a wave. And it is going to be a wave that at any of these projections will overwhelm the healthcare system. I asked three things. One, on the testing, that, and I'm grateful that he approved the New York testing capacity, FDA has to get out of the way on the automated testing capacity. Let us approve automated testing companies. It can't be one or two companies are the only companies in the United States doing this. You need hundreds of thousands. Accelerate the testing. Second, the federal government has to provide help and guidance to states on what to do and when to do it.

This can't be a national policy of every state does its own thing. You can't have a patchwork quilt of policies. New York State closes stores - okay, New Jersey doesn't. What did I do? I just sent thousands of vehicles over to New Jersey. Flooding New Jersey stores. New Jersey closes stores and [inaudible] and what did they do. They just sent thousands of people to shop in New York and then back to New Jersey. You cannot do this ad hoc - one state at a time. Make a decision. Tell the states this is the decision and then let's go.

Closing schools. If you think schools have to be closed, well then help us. Where do we get the child care? Where do we get the meals? Where do we get the money to provide the meals? There are ways to do it, we could just increase what's called the SNAP program. The food assistance program for families. And say, you know what, your food assistance payment is going to go up 50 percent. You buy Johnny breakfast and lunch. But we have the federal government that is intricately involved in that. Help us plan and help us coordinate. And don't pit one state against the other inadvertently by having to come up with different policies.

The third point is this. You're going to need more hospital capacity. You're going to need more facilities. You're going to need ways to free up those 53,000 beds. You're going to need to construct or retrofit physical buildings. Acquire thousands of pieces of equipment like this. A state can't do that. I don't have that workforce. I don't have the resources, but even if I had the resources, I don't have the physical capacity to turn SUNY dorms into hospitals in 3 weeks. I can't. There's only one workforce that can do that. It's the Army Corps of Engineers and the military assets. That's what they do. They build bridges, they build camps, they have tens of thousands of personnel, trucks, equipment, excavators, logistical managers, purchasing power. Use them to come in right now, identify existing facilities that can be retrofitted and use them to do it.

China built dozens of hospitals in literally a month. How? The Chinese government came in and send we're going to do this, we're going to nationalize it. South Korea, the same thing. You can't leave it to the states. I can't do it. I do not have the resources or the capacity. By the way, I'm in an aggressive governor. I push very hard. But there's no way that we could manage this undertaking. The Army Corps of Engineers. I used to be in the federal government, I worked with them, they're amazing. Their capacity is amazing. And what better time to use those resources than saying let's get to work. Let's retrofit buildings, let's purchase the equipment, let's use that massive logistical machine of the military to actually save lives.

It makes all the sense in the world and, by the way, we have no option. We have no options. You what management is? It's the best option. My expression to my colleagues, what are my options? Well you have none. There's only one. Okay. I pick that option. You have no other options. Otherwise we will be sitting here 9 weeks, 10 weeks, 14 weeks from today seeing a health care overrun. We will be saying we knew this was going to happen, why didn't we provide more health care facilities. Why didn't we do everything we could to make that a reality? Doing everything you can to make that a reality means bringing in that Army Corps of Engineers and bringing in that military expertise. And I hope the President takes me up on it.

2020-03-16 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Happy Monday. I love this new configuration. Less density. Everybody knows everyone who's here. To my far right, James Malatras, President of the SUNY Empire State College. Doctor Howard Zucker, our Health Commissioner. Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. Robert Mujica, Budget Director. A lot going on. Situation is accelerating. The numbers are accelerating, everything is accelerating and action is accelerating.

First, as I've said before, this is a national problem and we need federal leadership. You look at the countries who have handled this, I don't care if it's China, South Korea, if it's Italy - they were all handled by national leadership. This is a national problem. It cannot be done in a piecemeal method. You need federal parameters to stop the national patchwork of density reduction closings. I did a few national interviews this morning and I was watching the national news.

You see a whole hodgepodge of efforts being taken across the country. This state is doing, this state is doing this, this city is doing this. It's chaos. I think that actually feeds the feeling that the country is out of control. And there is no clear direction and there is no clear path. California is doing this, New York is doing this, Illinois is doing this. It's the same problem across the country. The density may shift temporarily, but it is the same problem. Let the federal government say these are the guidelines. Here are the guidelines on schools, here are the guidelines on businesses, here are the guidelines on travel. Rather than having us scramble every local government, state government trying to figure it out on its own. It makes no sense.

It is also counterproductive, because then what it is does, it allows what I call state shopping. In other words, you don't like the rules in New York, well then you go to Pennsylvania. You don't like what California is doing then you can come to New York. That's the last thing you want. That is the last thing you want. But when you allow this pattern of desperate policies that's exactly what you're driving. And look, I manage the State of New York.

All the local governments in the State of New York must have the same policy. Why? Otherwise, we would be creating this same problem that the federal government is creating. You can't have Albany with one set of rules, but Schenectady with a different set of rules and Rensselaer with another set of rules. People will be confused and again, if you don't like the rule you get in your car, you drive 15 minutes, you're in a different jurisdiction, subject to a different set of rules. So in New York, you cannot shop New York City versus Westchester versus Nassau versus Albany versus Schenectady. It's one set of rules for the entire state. And it should be one set of rules for the entire nation. And that is the role of the federal government and national leadership and it is lacking.

The federal government should put one position in place and coordinate it with the states. If the federal government isn't going to do what it should do, then the states have to try their best, right. And the best way is for me, not only to have a uniform policy within the State of New York, but to the extent you can, cooperate with surrounding states so you all have a common set of practices. I don't want to close down bars in New York, but Connecticut leaves the bars open. Why? Because many people will get in their car and they'll drive to Connecticut to go to a bar. It's the last thing you want. Now we have people who are drinking and driving. It makes no sense. I don't want to have one set of rules here and a different set of rules in New Jersey, because then I close down the bars, you'll get in the car, you'll drive to New Jersey. It makes no sense.

Well then get the states to coordinate themselves. Yes. Very hard to do. Luckily, we have set a template where our regional states work together. Many of you came to our regional meeting on marijuana laws. And I have a good relationship that I've developed with the surrounding governors. So we have actually deployed that here and I just did a call with Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut and we are adopting the same polices. So, there is no benefit to try to shop New York versus Connecticut versus New Jersey. There will be no more gatherings of 50 plus people. So, if you were hoping to plan a graduation party. You can't do it in the State of New York. You can't go do it in the State of New Jersey and you can't go do it in the State of Connecticut.

Casinos, we all have casinos. If I close my casinos and New Jersey keeps their casinos open, we are going to have the same problem. All casinos will be closed effective 8pm tonight and they will stay closed until further notice. All of these closings, they are until further notice and hopefully I can coordinate with the other governors so we can have the same opening period - just the way we have the same closing period. Gyms are closed effective 8pm tonight. I know that is a specific hardship for the people in this room because I can see you are all in masterful shape, buff even. There are other ways to exercise.

Theaters closing at 8pm tonight until further notice. Any bar or restaurant closes at 8pm tonight. However, there is a silver lining for these establishments because we are also very aware of the consequences for these establishments. So, the State Liquor Authority is going to change its rules, they will have guidance up by 5pm this evening that will allow bars, restaurants, distilleries to sell their products off premises.

So, whatever you could order in the bar, restaurant, distillery, or winery, you can purchase through takeout. And we hope that goes a long way toward alleviating any economic hardship. Stay home and order from your favorite restaurant, order from your favorite bar, order from your favorite winery, order from whatever establishment that you were thinking of patronizing. Just order it and stay at home. And again the Liquor Authority will change their rules to allow that. It is not currently allowed. It is only allowed during this period of closure, but I think it I will help those businesses. As you know, we have done a lot of work with the wineries and distilleries to grow that industry in New York and I want to make sure we protect them. 

Now everybody is at home and they are at home with their kids. My kids are a little older but I remember the old days when you were in the house with the young kids. The house can get very small very quickly. The kids can get very rambunctious very quickly. We are going to wave all park fees in all state parks, local parks and county parks. So you want to get out of the house, great. Go to the park. The weather is changing. Take a walk. Enjoy your family and do it in an environment that is not a dense environment, which is exactly what the parks provide.

Other actions, all local governments must reduce their workforce by 50 percent minimum. I am directing all local governments to allow their non-essential personnel to stay home, work from home, with a 50 percent minimum. Local government can go higher than 50 percent but it must be 50 percent minimum. Work from home which is the same thing I am asking private businesses. If we can ask private businesses to do that, government I think leads by example. So not just for New York State government, which will do this also, all local governments, non-essential people work from home and a minimum of 50 percent of the workforce must stay at home.

Second, I am directing local governments to make sure that all their local police departments and emergency management services are supplied with masks, surgical masks. You have police officers who are encountering people in all different circumstances. EMS workers who traditionally wear masks, police officers who traditionally do not. But I was at the New Rochelle drive-thru testing center the other day. If you are a police officer, you are walking up to a car, stopping a driver, they roll down the window, by definition you are within more than 6 feet. You don't know who you're talking to, people are positive who don't even know that they're positive. I want all the police officers who are showing, all first responders, are showing great courage, getting up, great courage, getting up and going out and doing their job every day. I want them to know that we understand the situation they're putting themselves in and we're providing the necessary precautions. So every local government must provide their local police department EMS workers with masks.

New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland must have childcare educational services and meal programs in place by midnight. We said that those schools will be closing but we need to take care of the negative downside of closing the school. This is not an easy decision. There are negatives when you close a school. Most notable you don't have child care for central personnel. You don't have childcare for health care workers. Remember, remember, please, the greatest challenge and the greatest damage is going to be done by an overwhelmed health care system. Nurses, health care workers, 1199 members, don't have alternatives to child care. Public education is also this state's child care system. It's this nation's child care system and it's not that easy to say well let them get a babysitter. They can't afford it, it's hard to find, and we would have created a true negative situation if we lost health care workers or first responders because we closed the schools and they had to stay home with their children. 

This is solved easily enough. You're closing schools? Don't close all the schools. Leave a couple of schools open or parts of schools open to provide child care for the essential personnel. We also have to have meal programs and meal services in place and educational services in place. On that condition I ordered the schools closed - but it's on that condition and I want those plans and I want them in place by midnight and they have to be approved.

We strongly advise that only services and businesses that are essential stay open after 8 p.m - grocery store, gas stations, pharmacies, medical facilities. We want people home, we want less density. We strongly advise this. This is not mandatory but it is strongly advised and it's not mandatory at this time and it may be in the future. But it is strongly advised at this time.

Testing - we have had a phenomenal increase in testing. We've been able to use our laboratories. Our emergency management team has done a very good job of reaching out to our state labs, getting them on track, getting them coordinated. Our testing numbers are way up as you'll see. Next week, by the end of this week, we think we'll be up to about 7,000 tests per day which is an exponential increase of what we have done. I made this suggestion to the Vice President. I made it to the President. I often tell you when I am unhappy with the federal response to the state. Fairness dictates that kudos where kudos are due and here the Vice President and the President responded very quickly so I want to thank them for that.

We started a drive-through testing facility in New Rochelle, Westchester, where we have one of the highest clusters - one of the first in the United States. I believe it's actually the first on the Eastern seaboard. It has worked very well. It's safe for everyone. You drive up in your car. You never get out of your car. You're tested in your vehicle. They take the test kits back. The time that it takes to take the test is actually faster than we thought. That doesn't normally happen in government. We allotted 15 minutes per car. It's actually running ahead of that schedule. We want to replicate that because it's just smart. The worst thing is a person walking into an emergency room. If you are positive you infect other people. If you're negative you may get infected by walking into the emergency room. So this is the best way to test someone.

We said we were going to open one on Long Island after the positive New Rochelle experience. We're also going to open one on Staten Island. Staten Island does not have an abundance of hospitals. Staten Island is a community where people drive. And Staten Island, I believe, is an appropriate location for this. I also think that Staten Island feels that they have not gotten the level of attention of health services that they need. I've spoken to Max Rose, I've spoken to Senator Andrew Lanza, and I believe this is going to make a difference. We're also going to open one on Rockland County on the same day. We're going to a new phase of this entire process. We talked about early detection, we talked about testing, we talked about containment.

You see those numbers are going up, that means we're moving towards a mitigation phase, and you're moving towards a phase where you must expect a significant inflow into the hospital healthcare system. Now again, this is the great curve they talk about. Plus or minus. Flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten the curve, that's what you hear every day on TV, you see this curve, we must flatten the curve. Concept is right. Flatten the curve, slow the spread so the healthcare system can handle it. When they say this, I don't think of a curve. I think of a wave. And the wave is going to break and the wave is going to break on the hospital system. We're doing everything we can to flatten the curve.

I believe we've taken more dramatic actions than any state in the United States. I believe we have the most effective response of any state in the United States. I don't believe we're going to be able to flatten the curve. Enough. To meet the capacity of the healthcare system. So, this business, plan ahead. Plan forward. Anticipate what's coming down the road and get ready for it. Expanding the capacity of the healthcare system, for a state, is virtually impossible. Building a hospital is a very elaborate, extensive, expensive undertaking. Again, we need federal government to play its role. 

The federal government has tremendous capacity. I was in the federal government. I was a cabinet secretary. I worked with the military. I worked with the Army Corps of Engineers. They have tremendous capacity. This is what they do. This is what they do. They build airports. They build bridges. They build hospitals. This is exactly what they do. Deploy the Army Corps of Engineers to come work with states to build temporary medical facilities. Get us backup bays, so when the hospital is overwhelmed, we can have some of the people who are in the hospital beds go to a backup medical facility. It makes all the sense in the world. And if you don't do it, you know what is going to happen. You're going to overwhelm the hospitals. You only have 53,000 hospital beds. You only have 3,000 ICU beds. Why? Because our health system is basically a private system. They don't build capacity that they don't need. They don't build extra ICU beds just in case, and intensive care beds are very expensive. They don't build a wing of ICU beds that sit vacant for 10 years on the off chance that there's going to be a public health emergency and you'll need the beds. They don't. It's not economics. It's not their business model. So we don't have them.

We have the capacity that people use day in and day out. And that's not just New York, that's every state in the United States. You now have this influx, you can't handle it. And you overwhelm the hospitals. You have people on gurneys in hallways. That is what is going to happen now if we do nothing. That is what is going to happen now if we do nothing. And that, my friends, will be a tragedy. We know what lies ahead. Look at the numbers from China, South Korea and Italy. You don't have to guess. You just have to project. The numbers are on a chart. Our numbers are on a chart. Just extend the current trajectory. Just go dot, dot, dot, dot, and you'll see the numbers rise, and you compare those numbers to our hospital capacity, and it's still math at the end of the day. And it doesn't work. 

The federal government must do this. Assume the federal government doesn't do what the federal government is supposed to do. Which would not be a wild assumption as it hasn't happened to date. Well then as a fall back, the states have to do whatever they have to do. The state has to mobilize to create back up medical facilities and that is what we are going to do. We're going to organize the National Guard, work with the building unions, and work with private developers to find existing facilities that could most easily be adapted to medical facilities. Meaning what? Meaning dormitories, meaning former nursing homes, facilities that have that basic configuration that could be retrofit. Even that is easy because you have the construction element and you also have the equipment element. It is very, very hard to get medical equipment now because everybody on the globe is trying to buy this same medical equipment. Everybody wants to buy a ventilator, everybody wants to buy oxygen, everybody is trying to buy the same equipment and it's terribly scarce. That's why you go back again to the capacity of the federal government, which operates and maintains a medical emergency stock where they have stocked medical equipment for domestic issues or for wartime. When you go to war and they set up a wartime hospital, they have equipment. They have a stockpile. That's why they're uniquely suited to do this. In any event, we're going to do the best we can.

I need, first and foremost, to find available facilities that can be converted. I'm asking local governments, especially in the most dense area, to immediately identify a number of beds in facilities that are available. Frankly, I hope they're surplus because we don't have - this is very expensive and I don't want to pay money for acquisition of property and real estate. But we need the communities that are most effected to begin finding available beds. New York City, we estimate conservatively, at this point should identify 5,000 additional beds, Nassau 1,000 additional beds, Suffolk 1,000 additional beds, Westchester 2,000 additional beds. Why more for Westchester? Westchester has the New Rochelle cluster which, as you know, has a significant number of people who tested positive. We will do everything we can, but we need federal assets and we need federal assistance. 

I am very proud of this state government and what it can do and we have done things that no state government has done before. We've built bridges, we've built airports, we've responded to emergencies. But know what you can't do. We don't have the billions of dollars that you would need to implement an immediate emergency hospital construction program. This state can't do it, no state can do it.

To increase hospital capacity of the existing hospitals in the meantime, DOH is going to be suspending its regulations to allow existing hospitals to increase their space and capacity. DOH has regulations about how many beds per rooms and how much space between beds, et cetera, how wide a hallway has to be. Those are going to be suspended so hospitals can actually use their physical space with more efficiency. We're leaving it up to the hospitals for their discretion and prudence in making these decisions. We do have to get very aggressive about them better using their existing space.

I want the private hospitals to be on notice that we may soon be canceling elective surgery. We are not doing it now. Elective surgery is between 25 and 35% of the beds. Some of the elective surgery is critical. Some is not critical. The non-critical elective surgery may be canceled on a mandatory basis. I'm asking them now as a precaution to start to plan to cancel elective surgery that is not necessary. We will need that capacity in the hospitals when those numbers peak. Michael Dowling, who was the former health commissioner for the state of New York, phenomenal fellow, he worked with my father and was in my father's administration, he was Health Commissioner, he was Deputy Secretary. He's just a jewel of a human being and he's one of the best healthcare professionals in the United States of America. He runs Northwell now, which is a magnificent organization. But Michael and Ken Raske - Ken Raske runs Greater New York Hospital Association, they coordinate all the hospitals. I asked them to convene all the hospitals and now start developing the maximum surge capacity. So if a hospital's capacity is 500, okay, what if we bring in more beds, how many more beds can you hold? What if we brought in more staff, et cetera? We also have a number of efforts going on finding more staff, more doctors, et cetera, not just for the surge capacity but also for the additional facilities we may open. 

These are the new number of tests. We're up to 7,000 tests, so it's a dramatic increase, 1,600 new tests. What happens when the testing capacity increases? The number of positives increase by definition. So the number of new cases has gone up from 221 to 950 cases. And you can see New York City is increasing, Westchester is still disproportionate to the population of Westchester that still represents the New Rochelle cluster. Nassau 109, Suffolk 63, Rockland 16, Albany 12, orange 11, Dutchess 10, Monroe 9, Ulster 7. Number of new cases, New York City and Westchester, some in Nassau, some in Suffolk, but you'll see the cases rise in the most dense areas because that's where people are transferring the virus among themselves. 

Counties with new cases today - Allegany, Onondaga, Ontario and Wyoming. So you see the spread continues. Most impacted states in the United States, we are now at 950, number one in the country, 676 for Washington State. Again, these cases are more an example of how many tests you are doing and who you're testing rather than a raw number of cases in that area. 

Our deaths have increased to seven. Washington is the next highest at 42. Total deaths in the United States - 67. Hospitalizations - 158 out of 950, that's 17 percent of the cases. When we talk about hospital capacity, just take that 17 percent and it's always if you notice, 14 percent, 15 percent, 16 percent, 17 percent, run that 17 percent against whatever you think the total infected population will be and then compare that to our hospital capacity and that will keep you up at night. Hence the situation that Dr. Zucker and myself and my colleagues are in. 

Again, perspective, perspective, perspective. I went through the numbers in Italy, I went through the numbers in South Korea and China last night. You look at all these numbers, they're the same story. You look at the deaths in New York, it's the same story. People who had underlying illnesses, if they got the flu in a normal season they would be in grave trouble. Instead they got the coronavirus and they had existing illnesses and they passed away. Remember, before any of this somebody would pass away in a hospital, an older person, and you would say, "How did they die?" And they would say, "Pneumonia." You'd say, "Pneumonia? How did they catch pneumonia?" And they'd say, "Well it wasn't really pneumonia, it was they had heart disease, they had emphysema, they were struggling with cancer, and then the pneumonia comes the accelerant to a bad situation." And that's what's happening here.

2020-03-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Saint Patrick's Day. I would use my brogue, but I was mocked mercilessly last time I did that - for good cause. But happy Saint Patrick's Day anyway. Sporting a little green just to carry on the tradition. Everybody knows James Malatras. Our great Health Commissioner Doctor Zucker. Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

Let me go through and update. As you know the situation changes daily now, which is expected. This is an evolving situation. The numbers ramp up, that's been the experience in every county this has visited. So we want to make sure that you understand that as the facts change, our strategy changes. We have a plan. We're sticking with the plan. The plan adjusts or moves as the facts move.

First step was testing and second step was containment and they work together. The testing has ramped up. It's continuing to ramp up. We'll be in thousands per day. That is going very, very well. The state is managing its testing capacity. We're working with the federal government on bringing on automated testing. That is all going very, very well and the numbers are going up.

Containment - we've taken a number of measures. Significant measures to do containment. And that is working very well. On the containment side, we had a tri-state strategy, which is highly unusual, but highly effective. We worked with Connecticut and New Jersey. We announced the same rules, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York. Why? You don't want people shopping different states because different states have different rules. You don't want people driving to Connecticut or New York or New Jersey because there's a different set of rules. So, uniformity works. It's hard to do, but we can do it.

Uniformity works and we did that yesterday with restaurants, bars, gyms - all closing 8 o'clock last night and staying closed today. With the caveat that they could sell off-premises by delivery and the State Liquor Authority changed their rules to make that possible. We closed schools. All schools are closed for a period of 2 weeks. And the 180-day ESD requirement is waived for 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks, we may renew that period of time, but all schools have the same period. Why? Because once again, you need uniformity. You don't want a business having some employees in one school district that is open and one school district is closed.

So, in all this disruption and all this change, try to keep it as uniform as possible and the rules as uniform as possible so to the extent businesses can operate, people can live their lives. Keep it uniform.

My phone has been ringing off the hook with a number of local officials saying people are very, very upset. Who's upset about the gym being closed, who's upset about their restaurant is closed, who's upset about the bars closed. Actually I've had the highest number of calls being complained about bars being closed. I don't know if that is statistically representative of anything, but that's just anecdotal.

Some people are upset about schools being closed. I said to the local officials and I want to say to the people of the State of New York, if you are upset by what we have done, be upset at me. The County Executive did not do this. The village mayor did not do this. The city mayor did not make these decisions. I made these decisions. These are all state ordered rules. It's not their local elected officials. I made them because I believe they are in the best interest of the state. I know they cause disruption. I know people are upset. I know businesses will be hurt by this. I don't feel good about that. I feel very bad about that because I know we're going to have to then deal with that issue as soon as this immediate public health issue is over, but my judgement is do whatever is necessary to contain this virus and then we will manage the consequences afterwards.

The old expression, "the buck stops on my desk." The buck stops on my desk. Your local mayor did not close your restaurants, your bars, your gyms or your schools. I did. I did. I assume full responsibility. Again, these are all statewide rules because we don't want people shopping among different jurisdictions. We closed the bars in New York City, but if you keep them open in Nassau all you would see is the flood of cars going to the bars in Nassau, so the uniformity is important.

It's also important that no local government puts any rules in place without first checking with the Department of Health so the Department of Health can make sure they are consistent with all other rules that we're about to put in place.

Mitigation is continuing and is ramping up. There are many rumors out there - part of the fear, the anxiety. People spread rumors. Well, maybe you're going to quarantine New York City. We hear New York City is going to quarantine itself. That is not true. That cannot happen. It cannot happen legally. No city in the state can quarantine itself without State approval and I have no interest whatsoever and no plan whatsoever to quarantine any city.


Well, you contained New Rochelle. We did a containment zone on New Rochelle which was actually misunderstood. Nobody was contained in New Rochelle. There was no cordon around New Rochelle. You could come and go in New Rochelle as you wanted. The containment referred to the virus. All we did in New Rochelle was close the schools and close places of large gatherings so nobody was contained within New Rochelle and nobody is going to be contained in any city in this state. So that's a deep breath moment.

And the last part of the strategy is dealing with the health care system and this is where we are now going to shift our emphasis and I want people to understand what we're going to have to do with the health care system because that is now our top priority and remember what we've been saying all along.

There is a curve, everyone's talked about the curve, everyone's talked about the height and the speed of the curve and flattening the curve. I've said that curve is going to turn into a wave and the wave is going to crash on the hospital system.

I've said that from day one because that's what the numbers would dictate and this is about numbers and this is about facts. This is not about prophecies or science fiction movies. We have months and moths of data as to how this virus operates. You can go back to China. That's now five, six months of experience. So just project from what you know. You don't have to guess.

We have 53,000 hospital beds in the State of New York. We have 3,000 ICU beds. Right now the hospitalization rate is running between 15 and 19 percent from our sample of the tests we take. We have 19.5 million people in the State of New York. We have spent much time with many experts projecting what the virus could actually do, going back, getting the China numbers, the South Korea numbers, the Italy numbers, looking at our rate of spread because we're trying to determine what is the apex of that curve, what is the consequence so we can match it to the capacity of the health care system. Match it to the capacity of the health care system. That is the entire exercise.

The, quote on quote, experts, and by the way there are no phenomenal experts in this area. They're all using the same data that the virus has shown over the past few months in other countries, but there are extrapolating from that data.


The expected peak is around 45 days. That can be plus or minus depending on what we do. They are expecting as many as 55,000 to 110,000 hospital beds will be needed at that point. That my friends is the problem that we have been talking about since we began this exercise. You take the 55,000 to 110,000 hospital beds and compare it to a capacity of 53,000 beds and you understand the challenge.

As many as 18,000 to 37,000 beds, okay? An ICU bed is different than a hospital bed. An ICU bed has additional equipment, most notable ventilators and that's why you hear on the news ventilators are very hard to get globally. Why ventilators? Because we're all talking about acutely ill mainly senior citizens who have an underlying illness. They have emphysema, they're battling cancer, they have heart disease, and then they get pneumonia on top of that. That's the coronavirus. They need to be intubated, they need an ICU bed, and that's the challenge. And that is, remains the challenge. And the numbers are daunting. What are we doing? Everything we can.

First, flatten the curve. Continue to flatten the curve so you reduce that peak demand. We announced dramatic closings yesterday. To reduce the density, it's possible we will be doing more dramatic closings. Not today, but I'm talking to the other governors in the other states. Slowing that expected flow into the hospitals, it's clear we can't manage that flow. How can you reduce the flow? You reduce the spread. How do you reduce the spread? You close down more interaction among people. How do you close down more interaction? Well, yesterday we closed the bars, the gyms, et cetera. You would continue to close down things such as businesses. Italy got to the point where the only things they left open were grocery stores and pharmacies. Those were central services, but they closed down everything else. We're not there yet, but I am telling you, we have to get down that rate of spread. Because whatever we do on the hospital side, we cannot accommodate the numbers that demand on the hospital system.

So again, we just enacted rules yesterday. We're not enacting any other rules today, but it is very possible because the numbers as you'll see in a moment, are still going up. Whatever rules we come up with will be statewide rules. Hopefully, it could be done with our surrounding states. Because the best way to do this is uniformity. No shopping. Among states, among cities, among counties. Everybody lives with the same rules. So we don't have people on the road going back and forth, trying to game the system. At the same time that you're trying to reduce the numbers coming into the hospitals, you're trying to increase the capacity of the hospitals. How do you do that? The hospital surge capacity. What is the surge capacity? Getting the existing hospitals to hold more people. Right now there are rules and regulations about how many people can be in a hospital, how many people per room, how many square feet per bed, et cetera. That's for normal operating conditions. These are not normal operating conditions.

We're examining the entire hospital system. What is the maximum capacity per hospital? If Department of Health waives their special rules, how many people can you get into hospitals? There is a meeting today with all the hospital administrators that I've asked Michael Dowling and Ken Raske to run. Michael Dowling is a former deputy secretary for health and human services, former health commissioner. Michael has worked for my father as health commissioner, I've known him 30 years. He's extraordinary. Ken Raske, he represents all the hospitals. Sitting down with the hospitals saying, change your headset. This is not about how you normally do business.

Frankly, forget the economics. What's the maximum number of people we can get into your hospital and what do you need to do that, and what equipment do you need to do that, and what staff do you need to do that? We're going back to retired staff, and we're asking them to contact us at this website, health.ny.gov/assistance. To get former nurses, former doctors to sign up to be on the call. We're also going to medical schools, nursing schools, to try to get additional medical personnel. And then we're talking about temporary construction of medical facilities. Obviously when you're talking about 45 days, you have a limited capacity of what you can actually get done. But, I'm working with governments and organizations all across the state right now. How do we set up temporary hospital facilities, even if they're not intensive care units? You can take people who are in the hospital beds, move them into a temporary medical care facility and then backfill the bed.

We're also working with FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Guard and the building trades unions to help us on this issue. The numbers, total people tested to date, we're up to 10,000 people. Which is obviously exponentially higher than it was and is continuing to grow. Positive cases, up to 1,300. New positive 432. Number of counties with cases continues to grow. Clinton County, Rensselaer County have been added to that. Our cases are, again, number one in the nation. Our number of deaths now up to 12. Two hundred and sixty-four out of those cases are hospitalized. That's a hospitalization of 19 percent. That's higher than the normative hospitalization rate, which is at about 15 percent, but the 19 percent is higher. Again, keep this all in focus with what we know. The facts we of what this disease does and what the impact is, which is the Johns Hopkins study, which has tracked every case since China.

A couple of other points and then we'll take your questions. We have and will open today in Nassau County, a drive through testing office. We opened one in New Rochelle, it worked very well. We'll open Nassau today. We're going to open a Suffolk drive through testing office and we're going to open a Staten Island drive through testing office. We're going to send up the Paid Family Leave bill to the legislature today. I believe we have a three-way agreement on that. It will also have a provision to cover all people who are quarantined. And we will be doing that, also. We'll also be opening a Rockland drive through testing facility.

Two other points. One, this is an extraordinary time in this nation's history. It will go down in the history books as one of those moments of true crisis and confusion and chaos. I lived through 9/11. I remember the fear and the panic that existed in 9/11 where a single moment your whole concept of life and society can be shaken. Where you need to see government perform at its best. You need to see people at their best. Everybody's afraid, everybody's nervous. How you respond, how you act, this is a character test for all of us individually. It's a character test for us collectively as a society. What did you do at that moment when all around you lost their head? Rudyard Kipling. That is this moment.

What does government do in this moment? It steps up, it performs, it does what it's supposed to do. It does it better than it's ever done it before. What does government not do? It does not engage in politics or partisanship. Even if you are in the midst of an election season. Even if you are at a moment in time and history where you have hyper-partisanship, which we now have. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, it is essential that the federal government works with the state and that this state works with the federal government.

We cannot do this on our own. I built airports, I built bridges. We have made this government do things that it's never done before. This government has done summersaults, it's performed better than ever before. I am telling you, this government cannot meet this crisis without the resources and capacity of the federal government. I spoke to the President this morning again. He is ready, willing, and able to help. I've been speaking with members of his staff late last night, early this morning. We need their help, especially on the hospital capacity issue.

We need FEMA. FEMA has tremendous resources. When I was at HUD I worked with FEMA, I know what they can do. I know what the Army Corps of engineers can do. They have a capacity that we simply do not have. I said to the President, who is a New Yorker, who I've known for many, many years. I put my hand out in partnership. I want to work together 100 percent. I need your help. I want your help and New Yorkers will do everything they can to be good partners with the federal government. I think the President was 100 percent sincere in saying that wanted to work together. In partnership, in the spirit of cooperation I can tell you the actions he has taken evidence that. His team has been on it. I know a team when they're on it. I know a team when they're not on it. His team is on it. They've been responsive. Late at night, early in the morning, and they've thus far been doing everything that they can do and I want to say thank you and I want to say that I appreciate it and they will have nothing but cooperation and partnership from the State of New York.

We're not Democrats and we're not Republicans. We are Americans at the end of the day. That's who we are and that's who we are when we are at our best so this hyper-sensitivity about politics and reading every comment and wanting to pit one against the other - there is no time for this.

The President is doing the right thing in offering to step up with New York and I appreciate it and New York will do the right thing in return.

Also on a personal level, this is, we use the word disruption, such a clinical, antiseptic word, it's a period of disruption. Life has turned upside down, it's just turned upside down. Remember those snow globes when you were a kid and you shook the globe and the snow went all over and the whole picture changed as soon as you picked up and shook that snow globe? Somebody picked up our country and just shook it and turned it upside down. And it's all chaotic and things are flying all over. And there's new information and there's misinformation. And people don't know what to do and businesses are closing and the rules change every minute. And can I go out, can I not go out, how do I get the virus, how do I not get the virus. And now I'm at home and I'm stuck at home and the kids are at home. And then there's a whole component to this, don't touch anyone. Don't hug, don't kiss. We're human being - that interaction is so important to us, that emotional affirmation is so important to us. And now you have all those weighty decisions - should I go out, should I not go out? Is this safe for my kids? Is this not safe for my kids? I'm stuck in my house.

I've used my experience just as a metaphor to communicate and relate. Having the kids in the house sounds great, having the kids in the house, yay the kids are in the house. I remember when my kids were young, I was divorced, my kids were three girls, they were six and seven and eight-years-old. Six and seven and eight-years-old in a small apartment in Manhattan, that's a lot of fun and then that gets old very fast. Right? The claustrophobia just sets in, it sets in for the kids and it set in for me. What I would do then is I would go to my mother and father's apartment, which was also in Manhattan, to get out of my apartment. And I would go to my mother and father's apartment, and they had a little apartment in Manhattan, and my mother was magic with the girls, and she would play with them and she could play with them all day. My mother's pure sugar, she's just pure love, my mother. But I'd be there for a couple of hours and I'd be sitting there with my father, we'd be sitting on the couch and we'd watch a ball game. And after a couple of hours, now the kids are running around and the kids are picking up this and they're picking up this and they're picking up his picture frame and my father says, "Put that down, put that down, don't touch that." After a couple of hours my father would say, "I think you have to go to work now pal." I'd say, "No, I don't have to go to work." "No, I think you have to go to work now pal." You know?

Having all the kids in that tight environment, that's very stressful. That's why yesterday we said all the fees on all the parks are waived. Get out of the house, go to a state park, we have beautiful state parks. By the way, traffic is down, put the kids in the car, go to a state park, go to a county park, go to a city park - Shirley Chisholm Park in Brooklyn is beautiful, it's open, it's air, the weather is getting better. Spend the time with the kids.

There's also tension among families. I mentioned my mother who is numerically a senior citizen, although not in her reality. I wanted her to stay home, I want her to be isolated. She's my mom, I want her protected. One of my siblings said, "I want to take mom to my house and we're going to have a party at my house and I want her to see the kids." I said, "That's a mistake. You shouldn't do that. You should let mom stay home. I'm more protected." The sibling was saying, "I want to take mom, get her out of the apartment, it's closer to the kids." I said, "You don't know. All you need is one kid." All day long, all I hear about it is people coming up to me saying I didn't know, but my daughter was with this person. So I can even see the tensions in the families. And that's real too and people should expect that.

And lastly, there is something to this lack of ability to connect. Don't hug, don't kiss, stay six feet away. We are emotional beings and it is important for us, especially at times of fear, times of stress, to feel connected to someone, to feel comforted by someone. I mentioned my daughter. I have not seen my daughter in over two weeks. It breaks my heart. And then this concept of maybe I can't get next to her because of this virus, there is a distance between me and my daughter because of this virus, its saddens me to the core and it frightens me to the core. And I had her on the phone this morning and I said it to her. I just said it to her. I said I can't tell you how hard this is for me not to be able to be with you, not to be able to hold you in my arms, not to be able to kiss you all over your face - which she hates anyway. And that plays out a thousand different ways, you put all of this together - it is a hard time. It is a hard time on every level. It is a frightening time on every level.

At the same, it is this much time. Is it 3 months, is it 6 months, is it 9 months? I don't know but it is this much time. We will get through this much time. Understand what we are dealing with, understand the pressures that we are feeling, but we will get through this much time. Be a little bit more sensitive, understand the stress, understand the fear, be a little bit more loving, a little bit more compassionate, a little bit more comforting, a little bit more cooperative. And we will get through this time.

We will lose people, yes, like we lose people every year with the flu. We are going be challenged and tested. There are going to be periods of chaos, yes. We have been through that before also. But this is all we are talking about and we will learn from it and we will be better prepared the next time because this is not the last time my friends. This has been a growing rate of this emergencies and health situations and storms. But we are going to get through it and we are going to get thought it together. But understand the pressures that everyone is feeling and let's be considerate of those feelings that are now collective and societal.

2020-03-18 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. I want to give you an overview of where we are today. I'm going to do this in a little bit of a hyper-speed because the President is going to do a press conference soon and I would like to give you a state overview before.

The context is important. Remember for everyone what we're trying to do on the overall management. The bottom line here is very simple. The number of coronavirus cases we have coming in to the health care system has to match the capacity of the health care system. That's what this whole conversation has been about from day one. We keep talking about the curve, the curve, the curve. What they're trying to say is the curve, the increase in the number of cases has to be reduced to a rate of admission that your hospitals can handle and right now we have 53,000 hospital beds, 3,000 ICU beds. That's what the entire country is doing. That's what the federal government is trying to do.

What is the particular problem here? That this is a respiratory illness - the people who come in often have an underlying illness. They need an ICU bed. An ICU bed is the equivalent of a ventilator. It's all about the ventilators. That's why you see so much about how we get additional ventilators.

Right now in New York specifically the rate of the curve suggests that in 45 days we could have up to an input of 110,000 beds, people needing 110,000 beds that compares to our current capacity of 53,000 beds. Thirty-seven thousand ICU units, ventilators, which compares to a capacity currently of 3,000 ventilators. That's our main issue. And again that's a projection and projections can change or you can change projections but that's the problem we're dealing with.

So what is the plan of action? Flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten the curve. Reduce the spread. How do you reduce the spread? Testing, isolate the positives, but frankly more move towards density reduction. Reduce the number of people in contact.

Second, increase the current hospital capacity. Hospitals currently have 53,000 beds. How do you get more beds in your hospital?

Third, identify new hospital beds - how do we increase the supply of hospital beds? Well, that's very hard. We are only talking about 45 days. So what? This is New York. There's nothing we can't do.

And, do all three of those things simultaneously, which is what we're doing. And identifying new hospital beds - we met yesterday with all the hospital administrators. I spoke to them. I said we have to increase the number of beds you have in your hospital. We're going to waive the Department of Health regulations for the time being. Department of Health says how many beds you can have in a room, the space between the beds, all good regulations by the way, but waive them so we can get more beds into existing hospitals.


We also have to make sure those beds are staffed. So more staff, reserve staff, we are reaching out to retired nurses, retired doctors, nursing schools, medical schools to build up a reserve capacity because also you have to anticipate that some hospital workers will get sick during this so you need a reserve capacity for that basis.

How do you create new hospital beds? That's probably the greatest challenge. First convert facilities and take people who are in current hospital beds and move them into a converted facility, who need a lower level of care. Second, the federal partnership which is key, and as we discussed yesterday, the State cannot do this on its own. We don't have the capacity, we don't have a workforce, we're very ambitious, we're very aggressive but the most important thing in life to know is to know what you cannot do. Know your limitations.

We can't build new hospitals in 45 days. The federal government can be extremely helpful here, and we need the federal government's help. I had a conversation with the president yesterday. It was an open and honest conversation. We've always had a very good dialogue. Even when we don't agree, we've always had a very good dialogue. But the president and I agreed yesterday. Look, we're fighting the same war. And this is a war. And we're in the same trench. And I have your back, you have my back and we're going to do everything we can for the people of the State of New York. And the president agreed to that. And I agreed to that. And his actions demonstrate that he's doing that. I've had a number of conversations with White House staff who are working on this. I had a conversation with the secretary of the army. President sent the Army Corps of Engineers here this afternoon. I'll be meeting with them this afternoon. I spoke to the president this morning about specific actions the president is going to take. I can tell you he is fully engaged on trying to help New York. He's being very creative and very energetic and I thank him for his partnership. As I said, the secretary of defense, they can be very helpful. The army corps of engineers, they can be very helpful. And FEMA, can be very helpful. And we're speaking with all of them and we're working with all of them as we speak, and we have been around the clock and all through the night. So if Commissioner Zucker looks a little tired today, that's why. Young people have no stamina.

The president, I spoke to this morning, he's going to be making arrangements to send up this hospital ship, which is called the US Comfort. It has about 1,000 rooms on it. It has operating rooms. And the president is going to dispatch the Comfort to us. It will be in New York City harbor. This will be, it's an extraordinary step, obviously. But, it's literally a floating hospital, which will add capacity and the president said that he would dispatch that immediately. The president also spoke about the mobile hospitals that the federal government has and where we could set up; mobile hospitals, where they come in with a mobile hospital that has a capacity of 200 people, 250 people. I told the president that we would do everything that we need to do to expedite siting of those facilities. We're talking about a couple of locations now. But that is also specific and concrete help. And something that we can get done within the 45 days.

At the same time, as I said we're proceeding on all these tracts simultaneously. Density reduction, we've taken a number of dramatic steps but I think they are necessary steps. You've seen the curve, we can't handle the number of cases in the healthcare system at that current rate of spread. We have to get it down. We've taken dramatic steps. I've said, and I'm going to repeat today, I'm asking all businesses voluntarily, if it is at all possible, work from home. And have your people work from home. We also have already announced a mandatory requirement that all schools are closed statewide. Mandatory requirement that no more than 50 percent of any government's employees can show up for work. Essential personnel yes, but no more than 50 percent of city, local governments.

We also have a mandatory requirement, as you know, of a tri-state agreement. Pleased to announce that Pennsylvania is going to be joining our state coalition, and that's very exciting because none of these measures work unless you have a large enough geographic basis. Makes no sense for a county to try to put its own rule into effect or a city to put its own rule into effect because people will just move. If I can't go to a bar in Queens, I'll drive to Nassau and go to a bar. If I can't go to a restaurant in Albany I'll go to Schenectady. So the geographic footprint, by definition, is essential for these to work. And frankly, even if I come up with a rule for the entire state, people will drive to New Jersey or Connecticut or Pennsylvania and that's why the first ever we have this statewide coalition. I want to thank Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy very much and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf who've been great colleagues and I thank them very much.

Again, I'm asking all businesses to work from home, but today we are announcing a mandatory statewide requirement that no business can have more than 50% of their workforce report to work outside of their home. No more than 50% of the workforce can report for work outside of the home. That is a mandatory requirement. I'm going to do that by executive order and that is statewide. That will exempt essential services, meaning food, food delivery, pharmacies, healthcare, shipping supplies, et cetera. Society has to function. People stay at home, people still need to be able to order food, et cetera, they need to be able to shop. So, you have to keep those essential services running.

I understand that this is a burden to businesses. I get it. I understand the impact on the economy. But in truth, we're past that point as a nation. There is going to be an impact on the economy, not just here in New York but all across the country and we're going to have to deal with that crisis, but let's deal with one crisis at a time. Let's deal with the crisis at hand and the crisis at hand is a public health crisis. Once we get past that, then we'll deal with the economic crisis. There's an old Italian expression that basically says, a rough translation, "a rich person is a person who has their health, everything else you can figure out." That's true for society, also. Let's maintain the public health, we'll figure out the economy afterwards.

We've consulted with a number of business organizations and I want to thank them for their cooperation and their receptivity. The Business Council, The Retail Council, ABNY, The Partnership for New York City, they're the main business groups in this state. They understand the concern and the crisis that we're dealing with and they're helping communicate the message. I thank them for their understanding and for their civic consciousness in this matter.

You can see from the number of cases why we're taking these actions. We are responding to science and data, there's no politics here. The health commissioner and health officials advise us of what we should be doing. The number of cases is way up. The number of cases is up because we're taking more tests. But the numbers are going up, hence the increased actions to reduce the spread, the density reduction. You see total positive cases, 2,300. New positive cases 1,000. You see the number of counties that now have cases spreading just as you see it spreading across the United States of America. This is just a metaphor for the entire country. You see our number of tests has gone way up. We've now tested over 14,000 people. That's a dramatic increase. Again, that's why you see the number of positive cases going up.

We have the highest number of cases in the United States, again, by a significant margin. We're now about double the next state. I don't know how much of that is due to our increased testing, but we are a more dense environment. We have more people than Washington State, so science would dictate, mathematics would dictate, that you'll have a higher rate of spread. Current hospitalizations at 549. Again, that is the number we watch because that's the number that are flowing into the healthcare system. That's the rate of cases flowing into the healthcare system. 23%, we had 20% yesterday, we had 14% last week. So, the number of hospitalizations is going up and again, this is all about the capacity of the healthcare system and it always has been. So the number of hospitalizations is going up and again, this is all about the capacity of the healthcare system and it always has been.

Again, perspective, perspective, perspective. I understand the anxiety; I understand the fear. You look at the pictures on television, empty grocery shelves - it's easy to get caught up in the emotion, but you also have to remember the facts of the situation, and the facts are still very clear. We know what this virus does, we know who it is, we know where it lives, we know what it does to people. It's been tracked since China. 200,000 cases have been tracked. 8,000 people have passed away. 80,000 have recovered. 113,000 are still pending.

We even know what it's done in the State of New York. Of the numbers we've seen in New York since it started, 108 people have already recovered and been discharged from the hospital. The first case we had in New York, which was the healthcare worker and her husband who returned from Iran and tested positive. She never went into a hospital. She was at home quarantined. She has now been recovering at home. She actually took a second coronavirus test and tested negative, okay? So 39-year-old female, came home, was at home, was on quarantine, recovered, two weeks later, tests negative, which means she has resolved the virus in her body, right? And now tests negative. And as we've said 80 percent of the people that's what will happen. She was never hospitalized and she resolved two weeks later. That's what people have to keep in mind.

And look, this is a health issue. It's a public health crisis, but more than that, I'm telling you worse than the virus is the fear that we're dealing with and the rumors and how they spread and "I'm going to be quarantined, I'm going to be locked out, they're not going to allow me to leave my house, I better stock up on groceries." That's not going to happen. So deep breath. We know what is going to happen here. People will get ill, they will resolve. People who are vulnerable we have to be careful. But the panic and the fear is wholly disconnected from the reality.

The only way I know to communicate it is just what I experience in my own life, and I get those calls every day and people are just disconnected from the reality of the situation. One of my sisters called me yesterday, "I have to have my daughter tested for coronavirus." "Why?" "She has a fever, she's sick, she has flu-like symptoms." I said, "Has she been exposed to someone positive?" "No, not that we know of." "Did she travel to a hotspot?" "No." Then I said there's no test and there's no reason for a test - leave her home, help her, be careful that she doesn't infect you, but that's it. And flu-like symptoms, couple of weeks she'll feel better and she'll get on with it. The one thing I said to my sister is, "Don't let her go near mom." That's my mother - my mother's in a different situation. Again, senior citizen - senior citizens, compromised immune systems and underlying illness. I said, "Don't let her go near mom, otherwise treat her as if she has the flu." "Well what do I do? What's self-quarantine?" Self-quarantine is what we used to do when somebody had the flu, right? My father would say, "Go in the room, stay there until you feel better." That's crude self-quarantine. Don't get infected, stay away, throw things away, use hand sanitizer, et cetera. That's the reality of the situation. I get the drama, I get the anxiety, but all in moderation and all in connection with the facts.

2020-03-19 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everyone. Let me introduce the people who are with us today. We want to give you an updated briefing. From my far right our Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, to my immediate right special guest Michaela Kennedy Cuomo, to my left Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, to her left Budget Director Robert Mujica.

Let me make a couple of points if I can today. Again, the context perspective is probably what's most important. Coronavirus is a critical governmental situation. It's a public health crisis. Government has to respond to it and that's what the coverage is all about.

It is a war in many ways and government has to mobilize as if it is a war. Federal government is now engaged in a way they haven't been. I think that is very good news. I worked in the federal government. I was cabinet secretary. I'm one of the more senior governors in the nation. I know what a state can do. I know what the federal government can do and states don't fight wars. They did it one time in this nation's history. It was a tragedy. The federal government has the capacity to mobilize the way we need society to mobilize today.

I've had numerous conversations with the President. I spoke with him again last night. He is mobilizing. He is mobilizing the federal government. We had a number of meetings with different federal officials yesterday and I think that is the best positive sign that the federal government is actually stepping up to the plate.

You will see that this has been diagnosed, pardon the pun, as a healthcare crisis from moment one. This has always been about one thing: reducing the rate of spread so the health care system can manage it and it's been a question of math and projections and it is still exactly that - can we get the spread down to a rate that the health care system can manage.

What is going to be the issue in the health care system? It's going to be the number of hospital beds. It's going to be the amount of protective equipment and most of all it's going to come down to ventilators, a piece of equipment that up until now was relatively inconsequential but when you have respiratory illnesses and then there is volume of respiratory illnesses all of a sudden the number of ventilators becomes critical.

Just to give you a sense of scope, we have about 5,000, 6,000 ventilators that we can identify. We need about 30,000 ventilators. This is a nationwide problem. I was on the phone with the governors from the other states with the National Governors Association yesterday. Every state is shopping for ventilators. We're shopping for ventilators. We literally have people in China shopping for ventilators which is one of the largest manufacturers. So this is a major problem. It's an issue that the federal government can actually play a very constructive role. It's something called the Federal Defense Procurement Act where the federal government can basically order companies to produce certain materials and we're going to need protective equipment in hospitals. We're going to need protective equipment and hospitals. We are going to need ventilators. And that is something that a state can't do but the federal government can do. As this has gone on, we said we are fighting a war on two fronts. We are fighting the virus and we are fighting fear. And they are two totally different situations that you have to deal with. In many ways, the fear is more dangerous than the virus.

I started working on disasters, emergency situations, when I was in my thirties. My first experience was Hurricane Andrew in Homestead, Florida. And I felt it, I saw on the ground what happens when people panic. And the panic and the fear is as dangerous or more dangerous than the hurricane. I have seen it in floods. I have seen it in fires. We now have misinformation and fear and panic, which is as contagious or more contagious than the virus. And we have to deal with both of them.

I have had some conversations that are just irrational with people who heretofore were wholly rational. I had a conversation last night with a businessperson from New York City, who I know, who was panicked that New York City was going to be locked down, that there were going to be roadblocks, that there were going to be mandatory quarantines. He was going to be imprisoned in his house. And I said where did you hear that? "Well, that's what they say. That is what I am hearing." And I was saying I would know, right? Because I would have to authorize those actions legally. It is not going to happen. "Well, I hear it is going to happen." But I would have to do it and I am telling you I am not doing it. It must have taken me 25 minutes just to slow him down to hear the information.

When you get that emotional, that fearful, you literally don't process information the same way. We have to be very aware of that. Clear communication from everyone, from our friends in the media, from healthcare professionals, from all elected officials, clear communication, consistent communication because misinformation, emotion, fear, panic, is truly more dangerous than the virus at this position in my opinion. Because the facts on the virus we know, we watched it from China, South Korea. We studied it here, we know the numbers. It is exactly what we said it was. It is exactly what we said it was from day one. We talked about the increased spread. We talked about the vulnerable populations - seniors, compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses.

So we know what this virus does, we know how it communicates, and we know how to deal with it. It is not going to be easy. It is not going to be pretty. But we know the trajectory of the virus. Let's just take a deep breath and make sure we are all we're acting on facts as opposed to acting on fear. When you act on fear, then you're in a dangerous place. The facts we can handle.

Let me give you a couple of the new facts today. Just to recap, we said we have a plan of action and there are three steps. Flatten the curve, slow the spread, increase the current hospital capacity, and number three, identify new hospital beds. Do them all at the same time, which is the challenge. Make government work, mobilize, operationalize, get it all done, get it all done today. On density reduction, this is a data driven decision. Look at the increase in the number of cases, look at the hospital capacity, and do adjust and do everything you can to slow the increase of the spread so that your hospital system can deal with the growth. We've been taking increasing steps on density reduction because the numbers have been increasing. Again, this is driven by science and by data.

We said voluntary work from home, mandatory closing of schools statewide, mandatory of state and local workforce, mandatory tristate agreement on bars, restaurants, and gyms. Mandatory in-office workforce cut by 50%. We said that yesterday. The numbers have gone up overnight. I'm going to increase the density control today. No more than 25% of people can be in the workforce. Yesterday was 50%, we're reducing it again, except the essential services that we spoke about yesterday. That means 75% of the workforce must stay at home and work from home. Again, voluntarily, I'm asking all businesses to have people work from home. As a mandate, 75% of your employee base must work from home.

In terms of increasing current hospital capacity, our current hospital capacity is about 50,000 beds statewide. Majority of those beds are in downstate New York. Commissioner Zucker is working with the hospital industry. He's going to put out new regulations assessing how many more beds we can get in our existing hospitals. Waiving Department of Health rules, waiving Department of Financial Service rules, how many more beds can we get in those hospitals? We're working on that aggressively.

At the same time, identifying new hospital beds. The Army Corps of Engineers was with us yesterday. We had a very good meeting. We're looking at sites across the state to find existing facilities that could expeditiously be turned into healthcare facilities. Again, I said the federal response is very welcome. I want to thank the President. He said he would bring the Army Corps of Engineers here, they came here the next day. I spoke to him last night to follow up on the meeting.

So, this is going forward aggressively. We're also going to take a bold action, but a necessary action offering 90 day relief on mortgage payments. Waiving mortgage payments based on financial hardship. Meaning if you are not working, if you're working only part-time, we're going to have the banks and financial institutions waive mortgage payments for 90 days - that will be a real life economic benefit, it will also be a stress reliever for families. Waiving these payments will not have a negative effect on your credit report, there will be a grace period for loan modification, we're not exempting people from the mortgage people, we are just adjusting the mortgage to include those payments on the back end, no late fees or online payment fees. Postponing or suspending any foreclosures during this period of time and waiving fees for overdrafts, ATM credit cards. This is a real life benefit, people are under tremendous economic pressure, making a mortgage payment can be one of the number one stressors. Eliminating that stressor for 90 days I think will go a long way. Again, we'll reassess as the situation goes on if that should be extended or not.

Number of positive cases - total positive 4,000. Number of new positive 1,769. You see additional counties that are being added to counties that have cases, spread mirrors what is happening in the country just as the spread is going through all states, the spread is going through our counties. It was downstate first, it's now moving upstate. New York now has 2,000 cases, Washington State, 1,100 cases. Washington State had cases earlier because it went through a nursing home if you remember, but New York State has more cases than Washington State. More cases than any state in the nation, and I've made that point to the federal government and the president and he understands that if there's a state that needs help, the state by the number of cases is New York.

In terms of testing, we have tested now 22,000 - we tested 7,500 people last night. Why are you seeing the numbers go up? Because you are taking more tests. People see those numbers go up, they get nervous, they panic, "Oh look how many more people have the virus." That's not how many more people have the virus. You're just taking more tests so you're finding more positives. There are thousands and thousands of people who have the virus who we're not testing - there were thousands and thousands of people who had the virus before we started testing. There are thousands and thousands of people who had the virus and resolved and never knew they had the virus. We're still testing because you want to find those positive cases, track them down, isolate people and stop the spread. But you can't watch these numbers like the stock market and say, "Well that's the indicator of anything other than how many tests we're taking." It is good news that we're now up to 7,500 tests. We were at one time doing 200 tests per day - just to put that 7,500 in focus - so that's a tremendous increase in the number of tests and you're going to see the numbers go up.

The hospitalization rate is very relevant because remember this is all about the flow into the health care system. So 777 out of 4152, perspective, perspective, perspective. We know the virus. We know what it does. We know it hurts. We know who it effects. Johns Hopkins, since day one, has tracked this virus through China, 222,000 cases, 9,000 deaths, 84,000 recoveries, 129,000 pending.

One last point, we talked about how this is a government response. Federal government is doing this. State government is doing this. Government, government, government. This manifests on a number of levels and the government response is obviously very important. But the impact that I think is greater and probably greatest, as a social phenomenon and on people and on families. This is tremendously disruptive on all sorts of levels. It came out of the blue for me in New York it reminds me of 9/11 where one moment which was inconceivable just changed everything. Changed your perspective on the world, changed your perspective on safety. Children who were young at that time, but of school age, watched on TV. They didn't know if their parents were coming home. I think it changed their whole outlook on life after 9/11. This is a situation like that. It's obviously totally different magnitude, but it's like that. It's a moment that just changes your whole life.

Yesterday, you were going to work and you were going to go to the office party. Today, you're at home and the kids are at home and you're worried about health and you're worried about your job and you're worried about economics and you're dealing with personal issues and you're dealing with family issues. And it's all happening at once. And then you turn on the TV and there's all this different information and nobody can tell you if this is going to be 30 days or 60 days or 4 months or 5 months or 9 months. The stress, the emotion is just incredible. And rightfully so. It is a situation that is one of the most disruptive that I have seen and it will change almost everything going forward. It will. That is a fact. It's not your perception, it's not just you. It's all of us. And it's true and it's real.

Nobody can tell you when this is going to end. Nobody can tell you. I talked to all the experts. Nobody can say 2 months, 4 months, 9 months. Nobody. It's hard living your life with that big question mark out there. Nobody can tell you when you go back to work. People can tell you that it's not just you economically, it's everyone. Take comfort in that. Federal government is actually acting on an economic package, but it's true. Having your family all together is a beautiful thing, it's also different for a lot of people. Especially for a prolonged period of time. So, these are major shifts in life and in the most emotional stressful conditions that you can imagine. And I think my own personal advice is, understand it for what it is and that it's not just you. It has changed everything and it will for the foreseeable future. And think through how you're going to deal with it and what it means. Even try to find a positive in it. It's a very negative circumstance, but you're going to have time on your hands. You're going to have time with your family, you're going to have time at home in this busy, hurry up world. All of a sudden somebody said you have a couple of months where you're going to be home with the family. No work. You work from home. But it's a totally different situation. How do you use that? How do you adjust? It's not going to be done overnight, but it is something that everybody has to think through.

My last, last point is to the younger people in our great state and in our great society. And that's why I invited our special guest here today, Michaela. My grandfather, Andrea, my grandfather on my father's side - his name was Andrea, I'm named for my grandfather, Andrew. Italian-American immigrant. When I was young-ish. When I was like 16, 17, 18 and I would do something that he didn't like, he would just look at me and he would say, "We grow too soon old and too late smart." And I would say, "What does that mean, Grandpa, is that a criticism?"

We grow too soon old, too late smart. These pictures of young people on beaches, these videos of young people saying this is my spring break, you know, I'm out to party. This is my time to party. This is so unintelligent and reckless, I can't even begin to express it. Now, I had a conversation with my daughter who got this. I'm Governor of the state. I can order a quarantine of 10,000 people but I can't tell my daughter to do anything, alright. And I have to be careful because there's almost an inverse response to a direct action. But, I did say to all three of them, from as soon as they could crawl, I used the one line. What is the one line I used to say?

Michaela Kennedy Cuomo: Risk, reward.

Risk, reward. Risk, reward. Just pose the question. I couldn't offer an answer because whatever answer I would offer they would do the other.

Risk, reward. It makes no sense to go expose yourself to these conditions and expose other people. Expose other people.

Michaela, was graduating this year and her school closed to online courses. So she's not going to have the graduation. We're going to have a big party at the appropriate time. We don't know what that time is going to be, if it's going to be 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months. But, at the first opportunity, we're going to have a big party, so that's going to happen. But she was deprived of the last year and the last few months of college which I am sure were very intense study period and that's what she's deprived of that intense study period of those last few weeks. I remember those last few weeks, a lot of studying. But, that's a shift in life. But she was going to take a vacation on spring break and go with friends and take a trip and risk, reward. Luckily, she made the right decision and I'm proud of her for that. No prompting from me, besides the question: risk, reward.

What these people are doing is the risk does not justify the reward. They're putting themselves at risk. Young people can get coronavirus. That's one of the other myths, young people don't get it. Young people do get it and young people can transfer it and you can wind up infecting someone, and possibly killing someone, if you're exposed to it. Risk, reward."

2020-03-20 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Happy Friday, it is almost time for the weekend. Is there a weekend if you did not work during the week? Let me introduce who we have here today starting at the far left, James Malatras who everybody knows, Budget Director Rob Mujica, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, Dr. Howard Zucker from the Health Department and General Patrick Murphy. We call him General Patrick Murphy.

General Patrick Murphy was in charge of our National Guard for many years and did an outstanding job. I have been with him in many emergency situations over the years. He is a man who leads from the front, so he is my type of leader. He had so much fun that he retired and then he came and joined us as Commissioner of Homeland Security.

This team and the team that is working on this, New Yorkers should have total confidence because they have done it before. They have been in this situation, not this exact situation, but they have handled emergencies and they have handled them all pretty well, so they are proven.

Let's go through this for an update on where we are today. Overview of the system, everybody knows what we are dealing with. It is preventing an overload of the healthcare system. So the number of acute cases that are coming into the health care system, the growth in the number of acute cases must match the capacity of the healthcare system and that is what we have been working on. We watched the rate of hospitalizations. We watched the rate of ICU hospitalizations, even more closely. The difference between how many beds you need versus how many ICU beds. And the real focal point, the rate of ventilated patients because that goes to the number of ventilators as we have been discussing. So, those are the three most critical points.

We need more beds. We have been saying that. We know that. We have been working on it. There was a discussion with all the hospitals across the State of New York today. There is about a 50,000 bed capacity that has to be increased. It has to be increased in the existing hospitals. We are planning to cancel all non-critical elective surgeries. By definition elective surgeries can be done at a different time and now is the time not to do that. We have informed the hospitals of that. We are going to set a date probably next week for that. That will free up between 25-35% of the existing hospital beds. We have also instructed all of the hospitals to maximize capacity. We want to know from each hospital how many beds can you get in your hospital? We are waiving the Department of Health and DFS regulations about space, etc. This would be for a term emergency basis. But we want a plan from every hospital. If you use every available space, how many beds can you get in the hospital? And we started that a few weeks ago and that is now coming to a critical point.

With the more beds you need more staff, so we are going to nursing schools, medical schools, asking retired doctors and nurses to come back into surface. Supplies are a major issue - PPE, gloves, gowns, masks, suppliers. I am now asking all product providers, all companies who are in this business, we will pay a premium for these products. If you are a business that does not manufacture these exact items, but you have equipment and personnel and you believe you could manufacture these items, they are not complicated, a mask is not a complicated item to make. A PPE gown is not a complicated item to make. Gloves, are not a complicated item. If you can make them, we will give you funding to do it and we will give you funding to get the right equipment, to get the right personnel, etc. 

I am asking businesses to be creative. I am even looking on the State side. As you know, we went into the hand sanitizer business which we are now increasing by the way. We have opened additional hand sanitizer manufacturing areas. But I have also spoken to the State facilities that make uniforms. If you can make a uniform, why can't you make a mask? And we are researching that.

But it is that kind of creativity that we need from businesses. I can't mandate that businesses make something, but I can offer financial incentives and that is what we are doing. Any business that is interested should contact Empire State Development. They will get on it right away. Eric Gertler is the head of that. Any company that wants to sell product should contact my office, the Chamber, Simonida Subotic at that number. There are also a number of companies that have masks. Goldman Sachs donate 100,000 masks to the State of New York and I want to thank them. But if you have masks, offices that are non-essential right now. There are dentist's offices that are closed. There are clinics that are closed. We need those masks, those gowns, gloves and we need them now.

In terms of building more beds, as I have said we had the Army Corps of Engineers here and we are working with them. There is Lieutenant General Todd Semonite, who is really top professional. Ironically, I worked with him when I was at HUD building housing on Native American reservations at the Pine Ridge Reservation. So, he has been at the Corps a long time. He is top shelf.

We're looking at a possible number of locations for large, temporary facilities - Javits Center, number of CUNY sites, number of SUNY sites, St. Johns University wants to be helpful, Fordham University, so we're looking at all these sites and they're all under analysis, where do we have the space, where can we get up a temporary facility, how quickly?

It's ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. That is the greatest need. We're notifying any health department in the state, if you have a ventilator and you are not using it at this time or it's non-essential for your use, we want it. If you are a regulated health facility we are asking you by order of the Department of Health to make that ventilator available. We will purchase it from you. You could lend it to us but we need ventilators and anyone who has them now please call the New York State Department of health at that number. Again, there are a lot of medical offices that have ventilators that are not operational now and they're just in the corner of the office.

We need those ventilators. The ventilators are to this war what missiles were to World War II? Right? Rosie the Riveter? We need ventilators. That is a key piece of equipment. We can get the beds. We'll get the supplies. But a ventilator is a specific piece of equipment. These are people with a respiratory illness. We need the ventilators.

The number one opportunity to make a difference here is to flatten the curve, flatten the increase in the number of cases like we've talked about, flatten the increase of the number of cases coming into the hospital system. The best way to do that is by reducing density - density control, density control valve, right? That's what we have been doing all along. We're going to take it to the ultimate step which is we're going to close the valve. All right? Because the rate of increase in the number of cases portends a total overwhelming of our hospital system.

So we're going to put out an Executive Order today. New York State on pause. Policies that assure uniform safety for everyone. Uniform safety for everyone. Why? Because what I do will affect you and what you do will affect me. Talk about community and interconnection and interdependence. This is the very realistic embodiment of that.

We need everyone to be safe. Otherwise no one can be safe.

We've studied all the other countries. We've talked to people all across the globe about what they did, what they've done, what worked, what doesn't work, and that has all informed this policy.

Two basic rules: only essential businesses will be functioning. People who can work at home, God bless you. But only essential businesses can have workers commuting to the job or on the job.

Second rule: remain indoors to the greatest extent to protect physical and mental health. On the businesses, on the valve, we reduced it to 50 percent of the workforce. We then reduced it to 75 percent of the workforce must stay home and today we're bringing it to 100 percent of the workforce must stay home.

These are non-essential services. Essential services have to continue to function. Grocery stores need food, pharmacies need drugs, your Internet has to continue to work, the water has to run on when you turn the faucet. So there are essential services that will continue to function but 100 percent of the workforce. When I talk about the most drastic we can take this is the most drastic action we can take.

We also have specific rules for people's conduct. First is for what we call the quote on quote vulnerable population, and remember many people will get this disease. Different countries estimate 70, 80 percent of the population. People will get it, people will recover, that's what's going to happen for the vast majority. That's what's happening in this state for the vast majority. Who are we worried about? Seniors, compromised immune system, people with underlying illnesses. Where are the places we're really worried about? Nursing homes, senior congregate facilities.

We need real diligence with vulnerable populations and there's been a lot of confusion and a lot of different theories and a lot of mixed information. I've gone through it myself with my own family. As I said we have my mother who lives alone. Everybody wants to help and we've gone back and forth. Who should go visit mom? Should mom go to my sister's house? Should mom go to this house? Nobody knows for sure. I asked Commissioner Zucker speak to every health official, get the best rules to protect our senior citizens and people with vulnerable populations and that's what these rules are.

Remain indoors, go outside for solitary exercise. Pre-screen all visitors and aides. Don't visit households with multiple people. Don't go to your daughters house. Mom doesn't want to be alone - I understand, but you bring her into your house and you have 10 people there and they're coming in and out and your daughters have friends. That is a mistake. That is a mistake. Well we're going to go visit mom, I'm going to bring the whole family to see mom. Umm..no. Not now. A vulnerable person should wear a mask when in the company of others. To the greatest extent, everyone in the presence of a vulnerable person should wear a mask. They shouldn't be on public transportation unless it is urgent and absolutely necessary.

Well what does that mean? It means urgent and absolutely necessary. It means what the word says. I call it Matilda's Law. My mother's name is Matilda. Everybody's mother, father, sister, friend in a vulnerable population - this is about protecting them. Protecting them. What you do, what you do highly, highly effects their health and well being. The instinct to love - I want to be with them. I want my kids. Mom wants to see the kids. Be smart. My mother and your mother.

For non-vulnerable populations, these are the rules. No non-essential gatherings. Any concentration of individuals is because you're an essential business and an essential workforce. When in public, social distancing at least 6 feet. Outdoor recreation is a solitary recreational exercise. It's running, it's hiking. It's not playing basketball with 5 other people. That's not what it is. It's not laying in a park with 10 other people and sharing a beer. That's not what this is. There are people and places in New York City where it looks like life as usual. No. This is not life as usual and accept it and realize it and deal with it.

Sick individuals should not leave their home unless to receive medical care, et cetera. Young people need to practice social distancing. Avoid contact with vulnerable populations. Precautionary alcohol wipes. We talk a lot about hand sanitizer. Since I went in to the hand sanitizer business I'm a semi-expert on hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is alcohol. That's what it is. If you can't get hand sanitizer, get a bottle of alcohol, pour it on wipes, paper towels, that's an alcohol wipe. Hand sanitizer now, according to the CDC, has to be over 60 percent alcohol to be effective.

These provisions will be enforced. These are not helpful hints. This is not if you really want to be a great citizen. These are legal provisions. They will be enforced. There will be a civil fine and mandatory closure for any business that is not in compliance. Again, your actions can effect my health. That's where we are. So there is a social compact that we have. Government makes sure society is safe for everyone. What you do can effect my health. There's some bad information, especially among young people, if you look at some of these videos that are going around on some of these newscasts on what young people are saying. "I can't get it" Yeah, that's wrong. That is wrong. Well, young people can't get it - that is wrong. That is not a factual statement.

Twenty percent of coronavirus cases, according to CDC, ages 20-44, okay. France, more than 50 percent of patients in ICU under 60-years-old. You can get it. Well I can't transmit it if I'm not symptomatic. No, you can transmit it if you're not symptomatic. And even if you're young and strong and everybody is superman, superwoman, I can deal with it. Oh yeah? You can give it to your grandparent, you can give it to your parent and you can put somebody else's life in danger. So, just factually a lot of these premises are wrong.

This is nothing that people don't know. It's nothing we haven't been talking about. But we have to do it. And we have to be serious and again, it is a government responsibility. Everyone has personal freedom, everyone has personal liberty and I'll always respect that and I'll always protect that, but everyone also has a responsibility to everyone else. And this is a specific case of that.

I believe in regional actions, none of these policies work unless the geographic area is an area that works. I have spoken to the Governor of New Jersey, Governor of Connecticut about the actions that we're taking today. I'm going to speak with them later this afternoon. We have been coordinating to the greatest extent possible. And they're going to be considering these policies, which again, are very dramatic and I said I would like to do it coordination. I understand we have somewhat of a different circumstance in New York, but they are considering it. We have added Pennsylvania and Delaware to the states we're working with. And again, you can have businesses in New Jersey, if they don't close then their workers are driving into New York. Businesses in Connecticut stay open, you need New Yorkers to drive up to those businesses. So, regional action is the best. We're talking. I'll speak with them later today.

The number of cases and you can see why we've taken these dramatic actions. Total positive up to 7,000; 2,900 new positive cases. Now I've told you in the past that the number of cases is relative to the number of tests. I've also said that New York has been very aggressive about increasing our number of tests. We went to the federal government, we asked for the authority to allow the state to run the tests as opposed to waiting for the federal government. The President granted us that ability. I ramped up all the labs in our state. We opened drive-thru all across the state. We have the testing so high in New York right now that we are testing per-capita more than China or South Korea, okay? And China and South Korea obviously had a much longer time to ramp up. So, we have done a great job at ramping up the number of tests, but when you ramp up the number of tests you are going to get more positive cases.

"Well, now we are more worried." No, because it was the reality. The test are just demonstrating what was. And again, if we could do more tests, you would find more positives, and finding positives is a good thing because we can isolate and we can track back. The number of counties continues to increase and it will until that entire state is blue. Blue is not a political statement by the way, it's just blue versus yellow. New York now has 7,000 cases - that compares to State of Washington that has 1,000, California that has 1,000 and change. So you can see that New York is in a dramatically different position, and you can see why we're taking these actions. Now, again, New York may very well be testing at a multiple of the other states. So does New York necessarily have 7 times more people who are infected than California? You don't know. You know that we are doing more tests per capita, but you don't know what the actual infection rate is. In total, we have tested 32,000 people - we did 10,000 tests last night. I had said last week that we had hoped to get to 6,000 tests - we've gotten to 10,000 tests which again I'm very proud of the operation but again that's why you see the number going up. The rate of hospitalization, watch this number, it's 18 percent, 1,200 out of 7,100. Again, overall perspective, look at the Johns Hopkins numbers - people will get sick, people will resolve. You look at our cases, the first case we had, first healthcare worker, that case she was never hospitalized, she stayed home and she now tests negative. That's what's going to happen with 80 percent of the people.

So why is New York taking these dramatic actions? We know from past history that what a locality does matters. The 1918 Spanish flu which also reminds us that this has happened before in society, right? This tendency to think, oh this is something new, it's a science fiction movie. Yeah, well in 1918 they had a flu epidemic, but St. Louis took one course of action, Philadelphia took another course of action, and it made a dramatic difference in the number of people that died. What government did at that moment made a dramatic difference. And not nationally. Locally.

Yes, New York has the tightest controls in the country. You look at those numbers and you understand why. Look at the increase in the number of cases. Sixteen days ago we were at zero. Today we are at 2,900. Those numbers are why we are taking these actions. Just increase that curve and you will see it more than doubles our healthcare system capacity. It more than triples the number of ICU beds with ventilators that we could possibly arrange. That's why we're taking these actions.

These actions will cause disruption. They will cause businesses to close. They'll cause employees to stay at home. I understand that. They will cause much unhappiness. I understand that also. I've spoken to my colleagues around the state, the elected officials. I've spoken to business leaders. There's a spectrum of opinion. Some people say that we don't need to do this, it's going to hurt the economy. I understand that. Some people want to make it clear that they are disassociated from these actions. I understand that. And just so we're all clear, this is a statewide order. It's not what your county executive is doing, it's not what your mayor is doing, it's not what anyone else but me is doing. And I accept full responsibility. If someone is unhappy, somebody wants to blame someone, people complain about someone, blame me. There is no one else who is responsible for this decision.

I've been in public service for many years on every level of public service. I've managed dozens of emergencies. The philosophy that's always worked for me is prepare for the worst, hope for the best. That's what we're doing here. When we look back at this situation ten years from now, I want to be able to say to the people of New York I did everything we could do. I did everything we could do. This is about saving lives and if everything we do saves just one life, I'll be happy.

Last point I'd also like people to think about, and I don't have an answer for this and it's not what I do, but the isolation that people are feeling and the mental health consequences of what we are doing. When we quarantined people, we quarantined about 10,000 people, 14 days you have to stay at home, and I spoke to many of them and what they would say is physically, operationally it was difficult. But most of all they would all talk about the sense of isolation and the feeling of isolation and not having human contact and how difficult that was. I, as you know, had my daughter who was in isolation and I was very aware of what she was dealing and what she was feeling. And I'll tell you the truth, I had some of the best conversations with her that I have ever had. She was alone for two weeks with her own thoughts, not talking to anyone else, no noise, no activity, and we talked about things in depth that we didn't have time to talk about in the past or that we didn't have the courage or the strength to talk about in the past. Feelings that I had about mistakes that I had made along the way that I wanted to express my regret I talked through with her. People are in a small apartment, they're in a house, they're worried, they're anxious. Just be mindful of that. Those three word sentences can make all the difference. I miss you, I love you, I'm thinking of you, I wish I was there with you, I'm sorry you're going through this, I'm sorry we're going through this. That's going to be a situation that's going to develop because we're all in quarantine now. I mean, think about it, we're all in various levels of quarantine. It's hard. It's hard economically, it's hard everywhere, but it's going to be hard here. It takes each of us to try to help with that.

Last announcement. With all that's going on I want to protect the people of the state of New York as much as I can. I'm going to stop any evictions of any residential or commercial tenants for 90 days. There'll be a moratorium on evictions, residential or commercial, for 90 days. I understand that may affect businesses negatively and I've spoken to a number of them. I don't know who you think you're going to rent an apartment to now anyway if you kick someone out. By my mandate, you couldn't even have your real estate agent out showing the apartment. Same with the commercial tenants. But I know that we're going to put people out of work with what I did. I want to make sure I don't put them out of their house.

2020-03-21 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Saturday. Welcome to the weekend. I want to give you an update and briefing on where we are today and then we're going to go out and do some real work, get out of this building before we get cabin fever. You know the people who are here today. From my far right, Simonida Subotic who is in charge of managing supplies which is a major function for us, Robert Mujica, Director of Division of the Budget, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, the great James Malatras who has been a tremendous help here.

Go through the facts, the numbers are still increasing. We have been seeing that. That's the line that we're tracking. This is all about the increase in the number of cases and managing the increase in the number of cases to the capacity of our health care system. What are we doing? We're reducing the spread and the rate of the spread to match the increase in the number of cases and increasing hospital capacity at the same time - just how do our hospitals manage the rate of the spread.

We're trying to reduce the spread to over a period of months. Over a period of months our healthcare system can deal with the numbers. We have moved to zero non-essential workers. You can't go below zero so we're doing everything we can there and we put out new rules on personal conduct and what people should be doing and how they should be behaving and where they should be.

Matilda's Law which is for the vulnerable population, senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems, underlying illnesses - that was very specific. As I mentioned we named it for my mother Matilda because I went through this with my own siblings. How do we help mom? Where do we bring mom? There was a difference of opinion. The best health professionals put together guidelines that not only help senior citizens but also their families who are trying to deal with this. I know it was helpful to my family and the question among siblings these laws and guidelines answered. I don't want to mention which sibling but it turns out that he was wrong.

The personal conduct rules and regulations are also very helpful. I want to thank Dr. Fauci who is really an extraordinary American and has given me great guidance and help and assistance in putting together these policies so I'd like to thank him and we're doing those.


We're working on every level. Every pistol is firing. Everything that can be done is being done. New Yorkers are lucky. We have a very experienced team that's doing this. This is not their first rodeo. They've been through a number of emergencies on a number of levels.

Increasing hospital capacity - we want to get the capacity of 50,000 thousand up to a minimum of 75,000. We told the hospitals we're going to be ending elective surgeries. We are now working with hospitals to reconfigure the space in the hospital to get more beds and to find more staff to manage those beds. We're working on building new beds. We're going to go out and review a number of sites today. I'd like to give the final list to the federal government and the Army Corps of Engineers today but we're looking at Javits, SUNY Stony Brook, SUNY Westbury, the Westchester Convention Center, and I'm going to go out and take a look at those sites today or the ones I can get to. That would give us a regional distribution and a real capacity if we can get them up quickly enough and then increasing supplies which is one of the most critical activities.

We are literally scouting the globe looking for medical supplies. We've identified 2 million N-95 masks which are the high protection masks. We have apparel companies that are converting to mask manufacturing companies in the State of New York in all sorts of creative configurations and I want to thank them. I put out a plea yesterday to ask them for help and we've been on the phone with all sorts of companies who are really doing great work. We're also exploring the State of New York manufacturing masks ourselves.

We're going to send 1 million N95 masks to New York City today. That's been a priority for New York City and 1 million masks won't get us through the crisis but it'll make a significant contribution to New York City's mask issue and I want to thank Mayor de Blasio for working in partnership. We're sending 500,000 N95 masks to Long Island. We've been working with County Executive Laura Curran and County Executive Steve Bellone and I want to thank them.

We're gathering ventilators. Ventilators are the most important piece of equipment and the piece of equipment that is most scarce. We're gathering them from all different health facilities across the state and then we're going to use those in the most critical areas. We also identified 6,000 new ventilators that we can actually purchase so that's a big deal.

From the federal government's point of view I've spoken to the President a number of times. I spoke to the Vice President a number of times. They've issued a federal disaster declaration which is a technical act by the federal government but what it basically does is it allows the federal emergency management agency called FEMA to step in and assist financially. By that declaration FEMA would pay 75 percent of the cost of a disaster. New York State would pay 25 percent of the cost. The federal government can waive the 25 percent of the cost. I'm asking them to waive that 25 percent in this situation. I've worked on many disasters, FEMA has waived the 25 percent. If there's any situation where FEMA should waive the 25 percent, this is the situation. We're also working with the federal government. We're requesting 4 field hospitals at 250 capacity each. That would give us 1000 field hospital beds. We're going to be looking at Javits as a location for those field hospitals. We're also requesting 4 Army Corps of Engineers temporary hospitals. Those are the sites I mentioned earlier that I'm going to take a look at. The SUNY Stonybrook, Westbury, Westchester Convention Center and also Javits. Javits is so big that it can take the 4 field hospitals and an Army Corps of Engineers temporary hospital. We're also requesting assistance with medical supplies which has been a very big topic of conversation all across the country. 

We're also asking our federal congressional delegation to fix a law that was passed on the coronavirus federal aid because of a technical issue the way the bill was written, New York State does not qualify for aid. That's over $6 billion, that is a lot of money and we need the federal delegation to fix that bill otherwise New York State gets nothing. New York State has more coronavirus cases than any state in the United States of America. That we should not be included in the bill, obviously makes no sense. 

We're also going to conduct immediately trials for the new drug therapy which we have been discussing. I spoke to Dr. Zucker about it. There is a theory that the drug treatment could be helpful. We have people who are in serious condition and Dr. Zucker feels comfortable, as well as a number of other health professionals, that in a situation where a person is in dire circumstance, try what you can. The FDA is going to accelerate to New York 10,000 doses. As soon as we get those doses we will work with doctors, nurses and families on using those drugs and seeing where we get. 

I spoke to the President, he spoke to this drug therapy in his press conference yesterday and I spoke to him afterward. I said that New York would be interested and we have the most number of cases and health professionals have all recommended to me that we try it, so we'll try it. We're also working on a number of other drug therapies, an anti-body therapy, a possible vaccine. We have a company here in New York called Regeneron that's really showing some promising results. I exempted them from the no work order, because they couldn't possibly have a really significant achievement for us. The new numbers, the more tests you take, the more positives you find, and I give this caution because I think people misinterpret the number of new cases. They take that number of new cases as if it is reflective of the number of new cases, the spread. It is not. The number of new cases is only reflective of the number of cases you are taking, right. Where our goal is to find the positive cases, because if we find a positive case we can isolate that person, and that stops the spread. So we're actually looking for positives. The more tests you take, the more positives you will find.

We are taking more tests in New York than anyplace else. We're taking more tests per capita than China or South Korea. We're also taking more tests than any state in the United States of America. That is actually a great accomplishment. Because if you remember back, two weeks, which seems like a lifetime now, the whole question was coming up to scale on tests. How do we get the number of tests up and how do we get it up quickly? I spoke to the president and the vice president and said decentralize the testing, let the states do it. I have 200 labs. I can mobilize quickly. Let us do the tests. They agreed. We're doing more tests than any state, so for example, we've done 45,000 tests. California has done 23,000, Washington has done 23,000, so you see how many more tests we are doing. And again, I credit the team that's working here, because this is exactly what the mandate was. Perform as many tests as quickly as you can, and that's the drive-thrus we've put in place, the hospital management, et cetera. So our numbers should be higher. And they are.

Total number of positive cases now is up to 10,000, number of new cases has increased by 3,000, let's go back in case you can't read as fast as I can read. 6,000 New York City, 1,300 Westchester, 1,200 in Nassau. You see the Westchester number is slowing. We did a New Rochelle containment area. The numbers would suggest that that has been helpful. So I feel good about that. You see Nassau increasing, you see Suffolk increasing. So that's just the wide spread increase that we have been anticipating. But our hotspot of Westchester is now slowing, and that's very good news. New York City, it is the most dense environment. This virus spreads in density, right. And that's what you're seeing in New York City, obviously, has many more people than any other specific location in the state. Number of counties are increasing. You see the blue. I said to you early on that blue is going to take over the whole state, just the way every state in the United States has now been covered. Most impacted states, you look at the cases in New York is 10,000, Washington, California, 1,000 each. Does that mean that we have ten times the number of cases as California or Washington? Or does that mean we're doing more tests than California or Washington? The truth is somewhere in the middle, and nobody can tell you. Total number of people tested, we're up to 45,000. Number of new tests. This is a rate that we watch. What is the rate of hospitalization? Again, because this is all about hospital capacity, right, 1,500 out of 10,000, it's roughly 15 percent of the cases. It's been running about 14, 15. It's gone as high as 20 percent, 21 percent. So actually 15 percent rate of hospitalization is not a bad number. It's actually down from where it was. The more refined number is, of those who are hospitalized, how many require the ventilators, because the ventilators are the piece of equipment that is most scarce. That's the next refinement of these numbers that we have to do.

And again, the context on the numbers is important. We're talking 10,000 et cetera. You look at any world health organization or the NIH, or what any of the other countries are saying. You have to expect that at the end of the day, 40 percent to 80 percent of the population is going to be infected. So the only question is, how fast is the rate to that 40 percent, 80 percent, and can you slow that rate so your hospital system can deal with it. That is all we're talking about here. If you look at the 40 to 80 percent, that means between 7.8 million and 15 million New Yorkers will be affected at the end of the day. We're just trying to postpone the end of the day. Again, perspective, Johns Hopkins, this is not a science fiction movie. You don't have to wait to the end of the movie to find out what happens. Johns Hopkins has studied every case since it started, 284,000, 11,000 deaths, almost 90,000 recoveries, 183,000 still pending. Which tracks everything we know in the State of New York. Our first case, first case, healthcare worker, 39-year-old female who was in Iran. She went home, she never went to a hospital, she recovered, she's now negative. You get sick, you get symptoms, you recover. That is true for the overwhelming number of people. Again, context, people who died in the flu, from the flu, in 2018-2019: 34,000 Americans. 34,000, so when you hear these numbers of deaths, keep it in perspective. 34,000 people died of the flu. Over 65, 74 percent of the people were over 65. 25 percent were under 65. So, if you have an underlying illness, you catch the flu, you can die. More likely if you have an underlying illness, senior citizens, et cetera, but not necessarily. You have 25 percent under 65 years old die from the flu.

Also, in terms of context, perspective. Don't listen to rumors. I mean, you have such wild rumors out there, and people call me with the craziest theories. Just, I understand there's anxiety and stress, but let's remember some basic context and facts. Society functions. Everything works. There's going to be food in the grocery stores. There's no reason to buy a hundred rolls of toilet paper. There really isn't. And by the way, where do you even put a hundred rolls of toilet paper? The transportation system functions. The pharmacy system functions. These things are all going to work. Nonessential workers, stay home, but the essential workers are staying home, especially the healthcare workers. There is not going to be any roadblock when you wake up in the morning that says you can't leave this place, you can't leave that place, right? So if you have a real question, because you think there's a real concern from a credible source, contact my team. We have a special website: coronavirus.health.ny.gov, and ask the question and you will get a real, truthful, factual response.

I have not hidden anything from the people of this state. I have not tilted facts. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the American people deserve the truth, they can handle the truth, give them the truth. When they don't get the truth and if you don't get the facts, that's when people should get anxious. If I think I'm being deceived or there's something you're not telling me, or you're shading the truth, now I'm anxious. Everything I know, I've told you, and I will continue to tell you, and these are facts, and you hear a rumor, and you want to check it out, go to that website, these are people who work for me directly, and you will have the truth. We do have an issue with younger people who are not complying, and I've mentioned it before but it's not getting better. You know, you can have your own opinion. You cannot have your own facts - you want to have an opinion, have an opinion, but you can't have your own facts. "Well young people don't get this disease." You are wrong - that is not a fact. 18-49 years old are 54 percent of the cases in New York State. 54 percent. 18-49 years old. So you're not Superman, and you're not Superwoman, you can get this virus and you can transfer the virus and you can wind up hurting someone who you love or hurting someone wholly inadvertently. Social distancing works and you need social distancing everywhere. There's a significant amount of non-compliance, especially in New York City, especially in the parks - I'm going to go down there today, I want to see what situation is myself, but it has to be stopped because you are endangering people and if it's because of misinformation, if it's because of noncompliance, I don't care frankly - this is a public health issue and you cannot endanger other people's health. You shouldn't be endangering your own. But you certainly have no right to endanger someone else's.

This is my personal opinion, this is not a fact, you know to me it's very important in a situation like this, tell me the facts and then tell me your opinion - this is my opinion. We talk about social responsibility, especially young people talk about social responsibility and they should - we pass a lot of legislation in this building, groundbreaking legislation, national firsts, on economic rights, highest minimum wage in the United States of America, human rights, first state to pass marriage equality, which I believe was a human rights issue, we talk about environmental responsibility and this state has the most aggressive environmental laws in the United States of America and I am proud of it, but I also want people to think about the social responsibility when it comes to public health. We haven't talked about it before, not really a field, it's not really an issue, it's not really a hashtag, but social responsibility applies to public health just as it applies to human rights, and economic rights and environmental rights - public health, especially in a moment like this, is probably most critical. So let's think about that and let's act on that. In this crisis, think of yourselves, we are all first responders - your actions can either save or endanger a life, so we are all first responders. What's going to happen? We're going to get through this. We don't know how long it's going to take us to get through this. Fact is we're trying to slow the spread of the virus to a number of months so the healthcare system can deal with it, so therefore by definition it's going to be a number of months. I know people want to hear, "It's only going to be a matter of weeks and then it's going to be fine." I don't believe it's going to be a matter of weeks. I believe it is going to be a matter of months, but we are going to get through it, and how long and how well it takes us to get through it is up to us. It depends on what we do - you know when you're sick and you say to the doctor, "Well how long until I get better?" And the doctor says, "It depends on what you do. If you follow the advice, you'll get healthy faster, but it depends on what you do." This depends on what we do. China is now reporting no news cases. Let's assume that's true - look at that trajectory, look at that turnaround, look at what they did, we do have data we can follow. So how long is it going to take? It depends on how smart and how we responsible are and how diligent we are. You tell me the percentage of compliance and intelligence and discipline on social disciplining et cetera? I'll tell you how long it takes for us to get through it.

Also something that people aren't really talking about but I think we should start talking about - we talk about the economic consequences of this situation and they are going to be significant, and we are going to have to deal with it and New York will be right on top of it and as aggressive as we are with everything else. But economic consequences come second - first, is dealing with this crisis. We talk about the economic consequences but we also need to talk about the social consequences. There is no Dow Jones index that we can watch on the screen that is measuring the social consequences and the social decline. But the stress, the anxiety, the emotions that are provoked by this crisis are truly significant, and people are struggling with the emotions as much as they are struggling with the economics. And this state wants to start to address that. I'm asking psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists who are willing to volunteer their time to contact the state and if this works out I would like to set up a voluntary network where people can go for mental health assistance where they can contact a professional to talk through how they are feeling about this. They are nervous, they are anxious, they are isolated. It can bring all sorts of emotions and feelings to the surface. When you are isolated you do not have people to talk to. So I am asking the professional mental health establishment to contact us. Let us know that you are willing to volunteer time. It would obviously be all electronic. It would not be in person. It would be telephone, it would be Skype, etc. But I would ask you to seriously consider this. Many people are doing extraordinary things during this public health crisis. I ask the mental health community, many of them are looking for a way to participate, this is a way to participate. And if we get enough mental health professionals willing to volunteer their time, we will set up a mental health electronic help center. And we will talk more about that the next few days.

What happens besides how long? What happens? The bigger question to me is what do we learn about ourselves through this? As a society, we have never gone through this. We have never gone through a world war. We have not gone through any great social crisis. Here in New York, we went through 9/11 which I think is relevant in terms of some feelings that people are now experiencing. 9/11 transformed society. I was there. I was part of it. You were never the same after 9/11. You had a sense of vulnerability that you never had before which I feel to this day. There was a trauma to 9/11. But as a society, as a country, we have been blessed in that we have not gone through something as disruptive as this.

So what do we learn about ourselves? I think what we are saying already is a crisis really brings out the truth about ourselves first of all and about others. And your see people's strengths and you see people's weaknesses. You see society's strengths and you see society's weaknesses. You see both the beauty and the vulnerability. You see the best in people and you see the worst in people. You see people rise to the occasion and you see people fall from the burden of the emotion. So, I think - You take a step back.

First, there are people doing extraordinary work who deserve our thanks. And when you see a healthcare worker on the way to work, when you see a grocer who has been working a double shift, trying to deal with the demand in these stores. When you see a pharmacist who is overwhelmed with a long line, when you see a police officer or firefighter who are out there doing their job. They are opening doors. They don't know who is on the other side of the door. They are walking up to car windows. These are just extraordinary heroes. Heroes, ask yourself, would you do that. I mean what kind of selflessness and courage. You talk about public service. What does public service mean? This is public service. This is public service in stereo and on steroids. These are people really stepping up. When you see them say thank you. The bus drivers, the subway drivers, the public transit workers, these are people showing up, leaving their family, as nervous as you are. But they are doing their jobs. Healthcare workers and people who are watching healthcare worker's children so they can go work in a hospital. They deserve our thanks. And I think understanding what they do in some ways gives us perspective on how beautiful people can be and how courageous people can be, and how great Americans can be.

My last point is practice humanity. We don't talk about practicing humanity, but now if ever there is a time to practice humanity the time is now. The time is now to show some kindness, to show some compassion to people, show some gentility - even as a New Yorker. Yes, we can be tough. Yes, this is a dense environment. It can be a difficult environment. It can also be the most supportive, courageous community that you have ever seen. And this is a time for a little gentility. It is a time for a smile when you are walking past someone. It is a time for a nod. It is a time to say hello. It is a time for patience and don't let the little things get you annoyed. That's New York at its best. That was New York after 9/11.

Yes, we have a problem. Yes, we will deal with it. Yes, we will overcome it. But let's find our better selves in doing it, and let New York lead the way in finding their better selves and demonstrating their better selves. That is the New York destiny and that is the New York legacy. And that is why I am proud to be a New Yorker and to be Governor of this great state. And we are going to do it like we have always done it before.

2020-03-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, happy Sunday. Thank you for being here. We want to give you an update on where we are and some suggest actions going forward. The numbers are still going up, as we've discussed. If you watch the other countries you will see that trajectory and trying to turn that trajectory, but as of now the numbers are continuing to increase. What we're working very hard to do is keep the rate of increase of the spread of the disease to a level that we can manage it in our hospital system. We have 53,000 hospital beds available. Right now, the curve suggests we could need 110,000 hospital beds and that is an obvious problem and that's what we're dealing with.

You have the nation's role in this situation, you also have the state's role. This is what they call an emergency management situation and there are rules for emergency management - who does what. Basically, the state governments, local governments manage an emergency unless the emergency overwhelms the capacity of the local government. Then, the higher level of government takes over. That happens even on the state level. A city will be in charge, a county will be in charge unless it overwhelms their capacity and then the state comes in and takes over. The federal government has made a decision to leave the states in charge of deciding quarantine procedures, whether to open, whether to close. That's why you see New York taking certain actions, Illinois taking certain actions, different states taking certain actions. Because the federal government, this far, has said different situations in different states, let the states decide dependent upon the number of cases they have. I think that has been right, to date. That could change, but it's been right to date. However, the federal government should nationalize medical supply acquisition. The states simply cannot manage it. This state cannot manage it, states all across the country can't manage it. Certainly the states who are dealing with the highest case load can't handle it. But you're hearing it all across the country from states - they just can't deal with finding the medical supplies that they need. That's why I believe the federal government should take over that function of contracting and acquiring all the medical supplies that we need.

Currently, when states are doing it, we are competing against other states. In some ways, we're salvaging other states. I'm trying to buy masks - I'm competing with California and Illinois and Florida and that's not the way it should be, frankly. Price gouging is a tremendous problem and it's only getting worse. There were masks we were paying 85 cents for, we're not paying 7 dollars. Why? Because I'm competing against every other state and, in some cases, other countries around the world. Ventilators, which are the most precious piece of equipment for the situation, they range in price from 16,000 dollars to 40,000 dollars each. And New York State needs 30,000 ventilators. This is just an impossible situation to manage. If we don't get the equipment, we can lose lives that we could have otherwise saved if we had the right equipment.

The federal government has two options to handle this. Voluntary partnership with companies, where the federal government says to companies I would appreciate if you would work with us and do this. And the President has done that and he seems to have gotten a good response on a voluntary basis. The other way is what is called the Defense Production Act where the federal government has the legal authority to say to companies you must produce this now. It is invoking a federal law. It is mandating that that private companies do something. But I think it is appropriate. If I had the power, I would do it in New York State because the situation is that critical. I think the federal government should order factories to manufacture masks, gowns, ventilators, the essential medical equipment that is going to make a difference between life and death.

It is not hard to make a mask or PPE equipment or a gown, but you need companies to do it. We have apparel companies that can make clothing, well then you can make a surgical gown and you can make a mask. But they have to be ordered to do it. If the federal government does it, then they can do it in a very orderly way. They can decide how many they need. They can designate how many each factory should produce, and then they could distribute those goods by need rather than having the states all compete against each other.

It would also be less expensive because it would avoid the price gouging that is now happening in this marketplace. I can tell what is happening. I will contract with a company for 1,000 masks. They will call back 20 minutes later and say the price just went up because they had a better offer and I understand that. Other states who are desperate for these good literally offer more money than we were paying. And it is just a race that is raising prices higher and higher. We even have hospitals competing against other hospitals. If the federal government came in, used the Defense Production Act, you could resolve all of that immediately.

Also, we need the product now. We have cries from hospitals around the state. I have spoken to other governors across the country. They have the same situation. They need these materials now and only the federal government can make that happen. So I believe the federal government should immediately utilize the Defense Production Act. Implement it immediately, let's get those medical supplies running and let's get that moving as quickly as possible.

In terms of federal government funding, they should prioritize the funding. Individuals need money. You are laid off. You are going paycheck to paycheck. We took care of the rent issue here in New York, the mortgage payment, but you have to buy food. You have to buy essentials and if you have not worked and you're laid off, you're in trouble. So I think the federal government is exactly right, the president has talked about this, get funding into the pockets of families that need it to live. Second, money to governments - I'm spending money right now that we don't have. I'm not going to deprive people of medical services, but the economy is stopped, people are not paying their taxes, if you're not paying your taxes, that's a state source of revenue, so funding from the federal government is essential for me. And third, the corporate subsidies that the president is talking about I think is also right, but the corporate funding should not be a gift to corporations at the taxpayers' expense. Let's learn from what happened in 2008 - I was Attorney General at the time in the State of New York - where we bailed out corporations, they bought back stock, they paid their corporate executives handsomely. They benefited from taxpayer money, and the taxpayers wound up getting none of the profits. The citizens should benefit from the corporate success. If the government takes equity, if the government charges an interest rate, but this time, if the taxpayers are going to bail out these big corporations, make sure the taxpayers share in the success of these corporations. Let's do it right this time.

Also the federal funding, they're working on another coronavirus bill - I was in Washington for eight years. This should not be the usual sausage making of pork barrel. When you do a piece of legislation in Washington, most legislators, it becomes the expression, "sausage making," it becomes "pork barrel." It goes through the political process, and the political process says everybody should get some money. Which dilutes the funding, gives it to communities and governments that don't really need the funding and doesn't even address the need, it's one of the reasons people are suspect of government spending, right, because it winds up pork barrel. Every Senator is going to say, "I want money for my state." Every congressperson says, "I want money for my local district. I want to be able to go home with a little package that I can hand to my local government." That's not what this is about in this case. This is about addressing a need and getting funding, precious funding, to people and places that need it. And the rule here should be, money follows the need. It's that simple. What places need it? Self-serving, but New York State has 15 times more cases than any other state right now. Fund the states, fund the places that need it. Follow the number of cases, and use need as the basis for funding. It's common sense. It would be respected by the people of this nation, and the alternative to politicize this funding process is intolerable.

To my congressional delegation, I say, "Look, New York received no funding from the first coronavirus bill, even though New York has the greatest need," and that was a technical mistake in how they wrote the bill. Political custom is one politician or elected official should not pressure people of their own party - my congressional delegation is largely Democrat - so political custom would be well don't pressure another Democratic elected official. I say that is baloney. I represent all the citizens of the State of New York. It's a very simple job I have. I fight for New Yorkers, period. Democrats, Republicans, period, and this is no time to play politics and we need our congressional delegation to stand up and fight for New York.

Also on the federal role, I'm requesting today from the federal government that the Army Corps immediately proceed to erect temporary hospitals. I went out yesterday - I surveyed the sites. There are several good options that give us regional coverage. An Army Corps temporary hospital at Stony Brook, which is on Long Island, Westbury, which is on Long Island, Westchester, where we have that terrible cluster, which is thank goodness reducing, and the Javits Center which is a very large convention center in New York, and New York City, which is where we have the highest number of cases. I met with the Army Corps. They've reviewed these sites. I approve it. I approve it on behalf of the State of New York, and now we just have to get it done and get it done quickly.

These temporary hospitals are helpful but they don't bring supplies and they don't bring staff. And that compounds our problem of having enough medical supplies and frankly compounds our problem of not having enough medical staff because we are trying to increase the capacity in our existing hospitals. The sites that we picked allow for indoor assembly of these facilities, so they won't be out of doors, they'll be indoors, some places we may need to do them outdoors, but these campuses also have dormitories where the healthcare staff can stay. They're very large - there's space and again I have made all necessary approvals so from my point of view construction can start tomorrow. These are pictures of the places where we would assemble them. In Stony Brook, Westbury, Westchester County Center in Westchester, all indoor locations, all open, all ready, accessible. Jacob Javits Center, just expanded it, one of the largest convention centers in the country. It is open, it is ready to go. There is no red tape on the side of New York. We are also asking FEMA to come in, Federal Emergency Management Agency, to come in and erect four federal hospitals at the Javits Center. The federal hospital by FEMA is different than the Army Corps of Engineers temporary facility. The FEMA hospitals come with staff and with supplies. They're in 250-bed configurations, we're asking for 4 of those 250-bed configurations to be assembled in Javits Center. The Javits Center can easily manage them. It's in the heart of Manhattan. They're fully equipped, they're fully staffed. Again, we are ready to go as soon as the federal government is ready to go. 

That will then give us regional coverage in downstate New York which is our most heavily impacted area. The President signed the FEMA Emergency Declaration which allows FEMA to go to work. By that emergency declaration, funding for these services is split: 75 percent by the federal government, 25 percent by the state government. The federal government can waive the state's share as they call it, waive the 25 percent from the state. I'm also requesting that the President waive the 25 percent. I just cannot pay the 25 percent. We literally don't have the funding to do it. And by the way, I don't believe any state will be in the position to w the 25 percent. So I don't just say that on my behalf, I say that on behalf of all the governors. 

I'm the Vice Chairman of the National Governor's Association. I've been speaking with governors all across the nation. No state has the financial capacity to participate in my opinion. But I know, for sure, New York doesn't because we are the heaviest hit state right now. I'm asking the President to do what I did here in the State of New York, cut the red tape, cut the bureaucracy, just cut to the chase. Get the Army Corps of Engineers moving, get FEMA moving, let's get those buildings up. Let's have them in place before that trajectory hits it's apex. Time matters, minutes count and this is literally a matter of life and death. 

We get these facilities, we get the supplies, we will save lives. If we don't, we will lose lives. I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but I want to be honest and that is the simple fact of this matter. We're also implementing the trial drug. We have secured 70,000 hydrocloroquin; 10,000 zithromax from the federal government. I want to thank the FDA for moving very expeditiously to get us this supply. The President ordered the FDA to move and the FDA moved. We're going to get the supply and the trial will start this Tuesday. The President is optimistic about these drugs and we are all optimistic that it could work. I've spoken with a number of health officials and there is a good basis to believe that they could work. Some health officials point to Africa, which has a very low infection rate and there's a theory that because they're taking these anti-malaria drugs in Africa, it may actually be one of the reasons why the infection rate is low in Africa. We don't know, but let's find out and let's find out quickly. And I agree with the President on that and we're going to start and we're going to start Tuesday. 

I also think the FDA should start approving serial-logical testing for coronavirus antibodies and they should do it as soon as possible. What this does is it tests the blood to see if you have antibodies that were created to fight the coronavirus. Remember, all the health officials say the coronavirus was here before we started to test. Many more people have had the coronavirus than we think, most people have resolved the coronavirus who have had it. How do you know that? You can test and find the antibodies that the body created to fight the virus. If you have that antibody it means you had the virus and you resolved it. Why do you want to know that? Because I want to know who had it, who has the antibody which means they most probably will not get it again and that can help us get our medical staff back to work faster. So it's a different level of testing, but I think the FDA should move as expeditiously as they have before on this type of testing. Find out who had it, who has the antibodies and that will help us, especially on medical staff shortages. 

Also on the state role, what am I supposed to do, I'm not just looking to the federal government. I understand that we are responsible here in the State of New York and we're doing everything we can on hyper speed. We have to expand the existing hospital capacity. This gets back to the 53,000 current beds when we may need 110,000 beds. We have said to the hospital administrators, we have a goal of you increasing the capacity in each hospital by 100 percent. Yes, an ambitious goal. Yes, very difficult. Yes, it may be impossible in some places. But remember, a hospital is highly regulated, space is regulated, the number of beds in a room is highly regulated. We're waiving all those regulations and saying just from a physical capacity point of view, see if you can increase your capacity 100 percent. Where did we get 100 percent? We have 53,000 beds, we have to get to 110,000 beds, everyone increases by 100 percent, we meet the goal. Simple, a little too simple, but we understand many hospitals won't be able to do it.

However, at a minimum, hospitals must give us a plan to increase capacity by at least 50 percent. So we would be at about 75,000 minimum against the 110 need. We would still have to find additional beds. I understand that and you see what we're doing with the federal government. There's an opportunity there but every hospital, goal of 100 percent increase in capacity, mandate of 50 percent increase in capacity. We also have an intensive care unit bed issue where we have to increase the number of intensive care units. That is limited by the number of ventilators. What makes an ICU bed and ICU bed in this case? It's that the ICU bed has a ventilator and that's when we get back to needing the ventilators desperately so we have those ICU beds.

We're putting out a Department of Health emergency order to hospitals that says we're not just asking you to do this. It wouldn't just be a nice thing. I'm not just asking you as Governor as a civic obligation. This is a law that the hospitals must come up with a plan to increase capacity a minimum of 50, goal of 100 percent.

We're also canceling all elective, non-critical surgery for hospitals as of Wednesday. Elective, non-critical - the critical surgery, fine. If it's not critical then postpone it. That alone should get us 25 to 35 percent more beds and again that is a mandate that is going into effect for the hospitals.

I understand the hospitals are not happy about it. I heard that the elective surgery is a big source of revenue for the hospitals. I understand that but this is not about money. This is about public health and we're putting that mandate in place starting today.

We're also creating additional bed in places where we can. We're taking over existing residential facilities, hotels, nursing homes and repurposing existing facilities. For example this is the Brooklyn Health Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, 600 beds that we're going to take over and it will serve as a temporary hospital and we're doing this in facilities all across the state.

Two different facts I want to make sure were clear just so there's no confusion. Fact one, young people can get the coronavirus. They're wrong when they say they can't get it. They can get it. Eighteen to 49-year-olds represent 53 percent of the total cases in New York. This is not China, this is not South Korea, on the theory that I'm an American youth and therefore I have a superior immune system than China or South Korea. No. That theory is not correct. In New York, 53 percent of the cases, 18 to 49 years old.

Second fact, older people and those with compromised immune system, underlying illnesses, can die from the coronavirus. You're right the 18- to 49-year-old is probably not lethal but you can get it and you can get sick and it's a nasty illness and then you can transfer it to someone else. That's the case for young people. Older people, obviously if you're a vulnerable person it can be lethal.

Both facts are true and both facts have to be understood. Young people can get it, you will get sick, you probably won't die, but you can transfer it to someone who many very well die and you can transfer it even inadvertently without knowing you're doing it. You can touch a surface, walk away, a day later someone could sit at this table and put their hand in the same place and contract the virus.

I was in NYC yesterday. It was a pretty day. There is a density level in New York City that is wholly inappropriate. You would think there was nothing going on in parts of New York City. You would think it was just a bright, sunny Saturday. I don't know what I'm saying that people don't get. I'm normally accused of being overly blunt and direct and I take that. It's true. I don't know what they're not understanding. This is not life as usual. None of this is life as usual. This kind of density, we talk about social distancing, I was in these parks - you would not know that anything was going on. This is just a mistake. It's a mistake. It's insensitive, it's arrogant, it's self-destructive, it's disrespectful to other people and it has to stop and it has to stop now. This is not a joke and I am not kidding. We spoke with the Mayor of the City of New York and the Speaker of the City Council Corey Johnson. I told both of them that this is a problem in New York City. It's especially a problem in New York City parks.

New York City must develop an immediate plan to correct this situation. I want a plan that we can review in 24 hours so that we can approve it. There are many options. You have much less traffic in New York City because non-essential workers aren't going to work. Get creative. Open streets to reduce the density. You want to go for a walk? God bless you. You want to go for a run? God bless you. But let's open streets, let's open space - that's where people should be, in open spaces areas, not in dense locations. There is no group activity in parks. That is not the point. We spoke about it the other day. Also I saw kids playing basketball yesterday. I play basketball. There is no concept of social distancing while playing basketball. It doesn't exist. You can't stay six feet away from a person playing basketball. You can, but then you're a lousy basketball player and you're going to lose. You just cannot do that.

We also have bigger parks in New York City. We opened Shirley Chisolm parks in Brooklyn. 400 acres. Van Cortlandt Park. There are big parks, there are big spaces. That's where you want to be. But we need a plan from New York City, I want it in 24 hours because this is a significant problem that has to be corrected.

In terms of numbers, I said yesterday, New York is testing more people any state in the country and per capita more than any country on the globe. That is a positive accomplishment, pardon the pun, because we want testing, we want more testing. We ramped up very quickly, we're doing it better than anyone else. That is a good thing because when you identify a positive, then you can isolate that person and that's exactly what we're trying to do. When you increase the number of tests, you're going to increase the number of people who test positive. The numbers show exactly that. We have now tested 61,000 people. Newly tested, 15,000 people. These numbers just are exponential to what is being done anywhere else in the country. That's why you're going to see much higher numbers than anywhere else.

Total number of new cases, 15,000. I'm sorry - total number of cases, 15,000. Total number of new cases, 4,800 new cases. You see the state - more and more counties, we're just down to a handful of counties now where we don't have existing cases. As I said, that is going to be 100% covered, it's just a matter of time.

On the hospitalization rate, which is a number that I watch very closely, it's 1,900 cases out of 15,000. 13%. 13% is actually lower than it has been. We've been running at 15%, 16%, as high as 20%. This is 13%. This is the key indicator because this is saying how many people are going to come in to your healthcare system as the number goes up. So, this is not bad news.

Across the country, you see New York now has 15,000 cases. Washington State, 1,600. California, 1,500. So we have roughly 15 times the number of cases. Now, do we really have 15 times the number of cases? You don't know. We're testing much more than anyone else. So that is a major factor in this. But I have no doubt that we have more cases. We have more density, we have more people from other countries who come to New York than any other states, so I have no reason to believe that we don't have more. I don't believe we have 15 times more - I believe that's also a factor that we test more than anyone else.

114 deaths in New York, total number of deaths 374 in the country. And that is a sobering, sad, and really distressing fact that should give everyone pause because that's what this is all about is saving lives and we've lost 114 New Yorkers. Keeping it all in perspective, Johns Hopkins has followed this from day one. 311,000 cases. 13,000 deaths. Statewide deaths, to the extent we can research the cause of death and the demographics of death, what we're seeing roughly. 70% of those who passed away were 70 years old or older. And the majority had underlying health conditions, okay? So it is what we said it was. Approximately 80% of the deaths of those under 70 years old had an underlying health condition. So, young people can get it. Young people will get sick. Young people can transfer. Mortality, lethality, older, compromised immune system, underlying illness. That's what we're seeing. But even within that population, the capacity of our healthcare system can save those lives. It doesn't mean just because you're 80 and you have a compromised immune system or you have an underlying health condition and you get coronavirus, you must pass away. That's going to depend on how good our healthcare system is. But, in terms of overall perspective, I'm afraid for myself, I'm afraid for my sister, I'm afraid for my child, older, underlying illness, be very very very careful. This gets back to Matilda's Law, this gets back to my mother. That's my fear - it gets back to nursing home, senior care facilities, et cetera.

Personal advice, this is not factual. I try to present facts. I try to present everything I know. I try to present unbiased facts. I try to present numbers because people need information. When you get anxious, when you get fearful, when you don't get the information or you doubt the information, or you think people do not know what they are talking about, or you think you are getting lied to, so I present facts. This is personal advice. This is not factual. So it is all gratuitous. You can take it and you can throw it in the pail.

But we have to think this situation through. Don't be reactive at this point to this situation. Yes, you are out of control in many ways. You are out of control to this virus. You are out of work. Situations are changing. They are not in your control. You don't even know how long this is going to go on. This is a very frightening feeling, that is true.

You can also take back some control. Start to anticipate and plan for what is going to go on. Plan for the negatives and plan for the positives. There are going to be negative and there are going to be positives. There are real economic on sequences. How do you handle the economic consequences? You are not alone. It is everyone in the United States, that is why you see this federal government acting quickly to get funding into the pockets of families who need it. But think through what the economics mean.

Think through the social issues and the social impact of this. Think through the emotional issues of this. It would be unnatural if you did not have a flood or emotions going on. It would be unnatural, if you didn't have a lot of emotions going on. It would be unnatural. Either you wouldn't understand what was happening or you wouldn't appreciate it, but if you know the facts and you understand what's going on, you have to have a flood of individual emotions, positive and negative and anticipate it. You know, "Stay home, stay home, stay home," well when you stay home, remember the old expression, "Cabin fever," right? You stay home alone - you don't want to be isolated emotionally. You can be isolated physically - you don't want to be isolated emotionally. You want to keep those physical connections. You want to talk to people, you want to write letters, you want to have emotional connectivity. That is very important. If you're not alone and you're in the house with the family, and the kids and everybody's together - that's a different set of emotional complexities. Being in that enclosed environment, normally the kids are out, everybody's going to work, you're only together a short period of time of the day.

Now you're all in the same place for 24 hours. I remember when the kids were young, what it was like, it was pure joy, but I remember what it was like to be with them for multiple hours and it's complicated. I live alone - I'm even getting annoyed with the dog, being in one place. So think that through because that is real, and it's going to go on for a period of time. This is not a short-term situation. This is not a long weekend. This is not a week. The timeline, nobody can tell you, it depends on how we handle it, but 40 percent, up to 80 percent of the population will wind up getting this virus. All we're trying to do is slow the spread but it will spread. It is that contagious. Again, that's nothing to panic over. You saw the numbers. Unless you're older with an underlying illness, et cetera, it's something that you're going to resolve but it's going to work its way through society. We'll manage that capacity rate but it is going to be four months, six months, nine months.

You look at China, once they really changed the trajectory which we have not done yet, eight months, we're in that range. Nobody has a crystal ball. Nobody can tell you. Well I want to know. I want to know. I need to know. Nobody can tell you. I've spoken to more people on this issue than 99 percent of the people in this country. No one can tell you. Not from the superb Dr. Fauci to the World Health Organization to the National Institute of Health, but it is in that range so start to plan accordingly.

It's going to be hard. There is no doubt. I'm not minimizing it and I don't think you should either but at the same time it is going to be okay. We don't want to overreact either. The grocery stores are going to function, there is going to be food, the transportation systems are going to function, the pharmacies are going to be open, all essential services will be maintained. There's not going to be chaos, there's not going to be anarchy, order and function will be maintained.

Life is going to go on. Different - but life is going to go on. So there's no reason to be going to grocery stores and hoarding food. You see all this overreaction on the TV everyday which makes you think maybe I'm missing it, maybe I should run to the store and buy toilet paper. No. Life is going to go on. The toilet paper is going to be there tomorrow. So a deep breath on all of that. 

But I do believe that whatever this is 4 months, 6 months, 9 months - we are going to be the better for it. They talk about the greatest generation, the generation that survived World War II. Dealing with hardship actually makes you stronger. Life on the individual level, on the collective level, on the social level. Life is not about avoiding challenges. Challenges are going to come your way. Life is going to knock you on your rear end at one point. Something will happen. And then life becomes about overcoming those challenges. That's what life is about. And that's what this country is about. 

America is America because we overcome adversity and challenges. That's how we were born. That's what we've done all our life. We overcome challenges and this is a period of challenge for this generation. And that's what has always made America great and that's what going to make this generation great. I believe that to the bottom of my soul. We will overcome this and America will be the greater for it. And my hope is that New York is going to lead the way forward and together we will.

2020-03-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everyone. Happy Monday, I hope your weekend was a good one. The weekend is a little different when you're not working during the week. Let me introduce the people who are here today. We have Dr. Howard Zucker starting to my left, who everybody knows. Our great Health Commissioner. We have Steven Cohen, who was Secretary to the Governor, 2010-2011. He also was the top assistant in the Attorney General's office when I worked there. Former federal prosecutor and he's now with MacAndrews and Forbes. Robert Mujica the Budget Director. 

Cara Kennedy-Cuomo, who gives me great joy that she is going to be helping us out. When I was her age, I came and worked with my father in this room as Special Assistant to the Governor for one dollar a year. My father never gave me the dollar a year. I will give you a dollar a year. But she's not working, for obvious reasons, and now she's here to help and that's a joy to me.

Melissa DeRosa, who everybody knows. She worked for President Obama, she was Chief of Staff to the Attorney General. She's been working with me for seven years. She's current Secretary to the Governor. Larry Schwartz, former Deputy County Executive Suffolk, former Deputy County Executive Westchester, former Secretary to the Governor Patterson, and former Secretary to the Governor under Governor Cuomo, 2011-2015. And Bill Mulrow, financial expert, Secretary to the Governor 2015-2017.

The reason I wanted you to meet these people, in some ways it's like putting the band back together, but it's also the most competent group of government professionals that you could put together to address this difficult time. I've worked with these people for 30 years, we've gone through all sorts of different situations together. We did superstorm Sandy together, the Ebola virus together, we've had problems with the federal government. We've built airports, roads, bridges. So they are just the best team that you could have working on behalf of the state of New York. I thank them all very much for their help and their assistance and their voluntarism because most of them are not getting paid. You're getting a dollar.

The increase in the number of cases continues and that is what we are watching every day. They see it as an upward trajectory. I see it as a wave that will break at one point and the question is what is the point of the break, and if when the wave breaks does it crash over the healthcare system? That is what we have been talking about.

So, two track simultaneously, you have to reduce the spread, the rate of spread of the virus. You are not going to control the spread, but you can reduce the rate of the spread so you can handle it in you hospital system. That is what every state is doing. That is what this is all about. How do you reduce the rate of spread? Reduce the density, do more testing, isolate the people who test positive. Second track, increase hospital capacity as quickly as you can so that at the apex of the wave you have the hospital capacity for the people who will need the hospital capacity, which are the vulnerable people that we have been talking about.

Reducing the spread, density control, we have taken every action that government can take: closed the gyms, theaters, other high density businesses, non-essential employees, social distancing, Matilda's law. Remember, this is about protecting vulnerable people: older people, compromised immune systems, underlying illness. Those are the people that are vulnerable here. That is the focus of all of this.

The greatest density control issue right now is in New York City. I saw the issue myself. I told New York City I want a plan. Yesterday, I said I want a plan on how they are going to control and reduce the density. I want the plan today. I want the State to be able to approve the plan. It has to focus on young people and the gathering of young people. I have said it before, you can get it. The numbers show you can get it if you're a young person and you can transmit it and it's reckless and it's violative of your civic spirit and duty as a citizen as far as I'm concerned. If New York City needs legislation to enact their plan once we approve it I would ask New York City to pass that legislation quickly. If they have a problem passing legislation they should let me know.

Also on reducing the spread, increase the testing capacity. When you identify somebody positive isolate that person. What we've done on testing is important. March 13 is when the State got the authority to start testing. Up until then the federal government was controlling all the testing and it was going through that bottleneck of a federal government. I don't mean that in a pejorative way but it had to go through the FDA, the CDC. I said decentralize that task. Let the states do it.

March 13 the FDA allowed the State to start testing. In 10 days, we've gone from testing 1,000 people per day to 16,000 people per day. How much is that? That's more than any other state in the United States is testing. That's more per capita than South Korea which was the gold standard of testing. They were doing 20,000 per day. On a much larger population, about double the population of New York, so we're doing 16,000 which compared to China, South Korea per capita is even higher. So in short we're doing more testing than anyone.

Two points off that: kudos to the team that put that testing in place and the nurses and the doctors, God bless them for being out there every day and doing it, but also our numbers will be higher on positives because we're doing more tests. We have multiple locations that are working now and we'll be increasing those locations.

Second track, increase hospital capacity, increase the number of beds, we have 53,000, we may need 110, we have 3,000 ICU beds, we may need between 18,000 to 37,000. That's my greatest concern because that's where we need ventilators to turn those ICU beds into beds for people suffering from the virus.

We are today issuing an emergency order that says to all hospitals you must increase your capacity by 50 percent. You must. Mandatory directive from the State - find more beds, use more rooms, you must increase your capacity 50 percent.

We would ask you to try to increase your capacity 100 percent. Okay? So we now have 53,000 beds. We need 110,000 beds. If they increased the capacity 100 percent that solves the mathematical projection. Right? I think it's unreasonable to say to every hospital basically double your capacity. I don't think it's unreasonable to say try to reach 100 percent increase but you must reach a 50 percent increase. Fifty percent increase, we're only at 75,000 beds. We still have a problem between 75,000 and 110,000.

Once you secure the bed you have to secure the staff. You are going to have staff that are getting sick and need to be replaced. You create these new beds, you don't have the staff for those new beds now. They just don't exist. Your staffing is to your number of beds. You increase the number of beds you need more staff.

We are going to the entire retired community, health care professionals who are licensed, registered and we're saying we want you to enlist to help. It's not a mandatory directive. I can't legally - well I probably could legally - ask them to come into State service. But this is just a request. We put it out. We've gotten very good response. There are hundreds of thousands of health care professionals who are licensed and registered in this state but we have 30,000 responses to date and I'm doing an emergency Executive Order for all nurses who are registered to enlist and the Department of Financial Services is sending a directive to insurance companies. Health insurance companies employ many nurses, doctors, et cetera in the insurance business. We're saying, we don't need them in the insurance business now, we would like them to help in hospitals because this is not about assessing insurance claims at this point. This is about saving lives. When we get to assessing insurance claims, we can handle it then.

Supplies are the ongoing challenge nationwide. Masks, PPE, ventilators are the number one precious commodity. This is happening on an ad hoc basis We are competing with other states as I have said. We have made certain strides. We have a full team working on it, we're very aggressive. We're talking to other countries around the world. We're talking to companies. We have New York manufacturers who are really stepping up to the plate and converting factories, et cetera. But this is not the way to do it. This is ad hoc. I'm competing with other states. I'm bidding up other states on the prices. Because you have manufacturers who sit there and California offers them $4, and they say well California offered $4, I offer $5 and another state calls in and offers $6. It's not the way to do it.

I was speaking to Governor J.B. Pritzker about this yesterday. Why are we competing? Let the federal government put in place the Federal Defense Production Act. It does not nationalize any industry. All it does is say to a factory, "you must produce this quantity." That's all it does. I understand the voluntary public-private sector partnership, and there are a lot of good companies who are coming forward and saying let us help. But it can't just be who wants to help let me know. We need to know what the numbers of what we need produced and who is going to produce and when. I get that a lot of companies are stepping up and doing good things, and that's a beautiful thing. They're doing it here in New York too, but you can't run this operation that way. It can't just be based on we're waiting for people to come forward with offers and if you happen to get a lot of offers on gloves, then you have a lot of gloves. But if you get no offers on masks, then you don't have masks. 

The Defense Production Act just says you can tell a company manufacture this many by this date. Yes, it is an assertion of government power on private sector companies, yes. But so what. This is a national emergency, and you're paying the private sector company They're going to produce a good and they're going to get paid, and by the way, they're going to get paid handsomely. You cannot continue to do these supplies on an ad hoc basis. We have had success securing supplies. We're going to be dispatching them across the state today. These are the number of goods that are going out. You heard on the news that, especially in New York City, they're worried about running out of supplies. Again, this won't get us through the entire situation, but this is a significant amount of supplies that will be going out. New York City, for example, 430,000 surgical masks, 176,000 pairs of gloves, 72,000 gowns, 98,000 face shields, 169,000 N95 masks, which are very precious now. They're about $7 a mask.

So, these are significant supplies. We have been having some success in gathering them and we're distributing them, and this should make a difference. Well, it will make a difference. Again, not until the end of the crisis, but short term. Hospital capacity: I'm on my way down to the Javits Center today. I want to make sure those hospitals are getting up right away, then we're going to use Stony Brook, we're going to use Westchester, we're going to use Old Westbury. President Trump did deliver yesterday. I put forward a series of requests in the morning. He did the briefing in the afternoon, and he responded to those requests. That's government working, that's government working quickly and I thank him for it. It makes a big difference to New York. We're getting those emergency hospitals. The Javits hospitals for example, those are 1,000 beds right there with the equipment, with the ventilators, and with the staffing. So, that's a big deal.

The president declared what's called a major disaster declaration. That allows FEMA, Federal Emergency management agency, to help us. There's normally a 75-25 split between the costs of those services. Federal government pays 75. The state pays 25. I said to the president I can't pay the 25. We just don't have those kinds of resources. The federal government has the authority to waive that 25 so the federal government pays the whole 100 percent. And that's what the president is doing [for the National Guard] and I appreciate that. I also asked for the FDA to expedite the approval of an experimental drug that we are working on here in the state of New York, which I'll tell you more about in a moment, and the president also did that the FDA gave the New York State Department of Health approval to use on a compassionate care basis a drug that we think has real possibility.

On the drug therapy, Tuesday we're going to start the hydroxychloroquine with the zithromax, that's the drug combination that eth president has been talking about. the FDA approved New York State Department of Health to proceed with an experimental drug, again on a compassionate care basis. But what it does is it takes the plasma from a person who has been infected with the virus. Processes the plasma and injects the antibodies into a person who is sick. And there have been tests that show when a person is injected with theantibodies, that then stimulates and promotes their immune system against that disease. It's only a trial. It's a trail for people who are in serious condition. But the New York State Department of Health has been working on this with some of New York's best healthcare agencies, and we think it shows promise. And we're going to be starting that this week. There's also work on a serological drug where you test the antibodies of a person and see if they had the virus already. We all believe, thousands and thousands of people have had the virus and self-resolved. If you knew that, you would know who is now immune to the virus and who you could send back to work, et cetera. So we're also working on that.

The numbers today, total tested up to 78,000, tested overnight, 24 hour period, 16,000. As of yesterday about 25 percent of all the testing nationwide is being produced right here. Number of positive cases, we are up to 20,000 statewide. 5,000 new cases, which is obviously a significant increase. And as I say that trajectory is going up, the wave is still going up, and we have a lot of work to do to get that rate down and get the hospital capacity up. You see it spreading across the state, the way it spread across the nation, and that will continue, my guess is every day. We have, right now on hospitalizations, 13 percent are being hospitalized. None of these numbers are good, but relatively that is a good number. Remember it's the rate of hospitalizations and the rate of people needing ICU beds. 13 percent is down, it has gone as high as 20 percent, 21 percent, hovered around 18 percent, 17 percent, 13 percent is a good number. Of that number, 24 percent require the ICU beds. The ICU beds are very important because those are the ventilators.

Most impacted states, you can see that New York far and away has the bulk of the problem. And that's relevant for the federal government, that's relevant for the Congressional delegation that is arguing for federal funds. Fund the need. Fund the need. New York, we have 20,000 cases, New Jersey, 1,900. California, 1,800. So, proportionately, in absolute terms, New York has by far the greatest need in the nation.

Again, to keep this all in perspective, Johns Hopkins has studied every case from the beginning. 349,000 cases. Death toll worldwide is 15,000, right? Many will get infected, but few will actually pass away from this disease. Also, this is all evolving and this is all evolution and we are still figuring it out. There has to be a balance or parallel tracks that we're going down. We're talking about public health, we're talking about isolation, we're talking about protecting lives.

There also has to be a parallel track that talks about economic viability. I take total responsibility for shutting off the economy in terms of essential workers. But, we also have to start to plan the pivot back to economic functionality, right? You can't stop the economy forever. So we have to start to think about does everyone stay out of work? Should young people go back to work sooner? Can we test for those who had the virus, resolved, and are now immune and can they start to go back to work? There's a theory of risk stratification that Dr. Katz who's at Yale University is working on, which is actually very interesting to me. Which says isolate people but really isolate the vulnerable people. Don't isolate everyone because some people, most people, are not vulnerable to it. And if you isolate all people you may be actually exposing the more vulnerable people by bringing in a person who is healthier and stronger and who may have been exposed to the virus, right? Can you get to a point where the healthy, the people who are most likely not going to be effected can go to work? Remember, you study the numbers across the countries that have been infected. The survival rate for those who have been infected is like 98%, right? A lot of people get it, very few people die from it.

So, how do we start to calculate that in? We implemented New York PAUSE, which stopped all the nonessential workers, et cetera. We have to start to think about New York Forward. Steve Cohen and Bill Mulrow, who I worked with for 30 years, they're now in the private sector, they're going to start to think about this. How do you restart or transition to a restart of the economy? How do you dovetail that with a public health strategy? As you're identifying people who have had the virus and have resolved, can they start to go back to work? Can younger people start to go back to work because they're more much tolerant to the effect of the virus? So, how do you - you turned off the engine quickly, how do you now start or begin to restart or plan the restart of that economic engine? Separate task, but something that we have to focus on.

I offered my personal opinion yesterday - I separate my personal opinion from the facts. You can disregard my personal opinion. You can disregard the facts, but they are still facts. I said don't be reactive, be productive, be proactive. Somebody, a few people have said to me afterwards, well what did that mean? That happens to me often. Look, this can go on for several months, okay? Nobody can tell you is it four months, six months, eight months, nine months - but it is several months.

We all have to now confront that that is a new reality. That is not going to change. You are not going to turn on the news tomorrow morning and they are going to say surprise, surprise this is all now resolved in two weeks. That is not going to happen. So, deal with this reality. Understand the negative effect of this, which I have spoken to personally because these are personally negative effect. You do not feel them governmentally, you feel them personally. You fee then in your own life.

And don't underestimate the emotional trauma and don't underestimate the pain of isolation. It is real. This is not the human condition - not to be comforted, not to be close, to be afraid and you can't hug someone. Billy and Steve walked in today. I had not seen them in months. I can't shake their hands. I can't hug them. You know this is all unnatural. My daughter came up. I can't give her the embrace and the kiss that I want to give her. This is all unnatural and disorienting. And it is not you, it is everyone. It's the condition

And we are going to have time. And the question is how do we use this time positively? Also, at the same time we have to learn from this experience because we were not ready to deal with this and other situations will happen. Other situations will happen and let's at least learn from this to be prepared for the next situation as dramatic as this one has been.

Also finding the silver lining, the positive. Life is going to be quieter for a matter of months. Everything will function. Life will function. Everything will normal operations, there won't be chaos. The stores will have groceries. Gas stations will have gasoline. There's no reason for extraordinary anxiety. But it is going to change. You won't be at work, you can't be sitting at restaurants, you're not going to be going to birthday parties, you don't have to go to business conferences on the weekends. There's less noise. You know what, that can be a good thing in some ways: You have more time. You have more flexibility. You can do some of those things that you haven't done, that you kept saying, "Well I'd love to be able to, I'd love to be able to." Well now you can. You have more time with family.

And yes, I get family in cramped quarters can be difficult, but it's also the most precious commodity. For myself, this young lady, Cara, is with me. She would never be here otherwise. You know, I'm dad, right? The last thing you want to be when you're in Cara's position is hang out with the old man and hang out with dad and hear bad dad jokes, you know - they'll come with the holidays, they'll come when I give them heavy guilt, but I'm now going to be with Cara literally for a few months. What a beautiful gift that is, right? I would have never had that chance. And that is precious, and then after this is over she's gone, she's flown the nest. She's going to go do her thing, but this crazy situation is crazy as it is, came with this beautiful gift. So one door closes, another door opens. Think about that.

And as I said, normal operations will continue. As I said from day one, the level of anxiety is not connected to facts, there is no chaos the net effect - many people will get the virus, but few will be truly endangered. Hold both of those facts in your hands: Many will get it, up to 80 percent may get it, but few are truly endangered and we know who they are. Realize the timeframe we're expecting, make peace with it and find a way to help each other through this situation because it's hard for everyone. And the goal for me: Socially distanced but spiritually connected. How do you achieve socially distanced but spiritually connected? I don't have the answer but I know the question.

2020-03-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Good to see you all here in masks, related gear. Let me introduce to my right we have General Patrick Murphy, to my left we have General Raymond Shields. These are two gentlemen who I have been through many situations with. We've been through hell and back and if you have to have two professionals dealing with a situation like this, these are the two people that you want to be with. I thank both generals for being here today. I'm Private Cuomo, but I'll be your governor today. I want to begin by thanking all the Army Corps of Engineer people who are here today, who've done an outstanding job. They came in very quickly and they're setting up this emergency hospital, which is going to be badly needed. I want to thank Alan Steel, and all the people of the Javits Center. This is a great exhibition hall, but this is not what they normally do, and they have really stepped up and risen to the occasion, so I want to thank them.

Let me take you through some facts today, because we have some new facts, changes in certain stances that are not encouraging and I want to make sure people understand them and we react accordingly. The increase in the number of cases continues unabated. As a matter of fact, the rate of increase has gone up. We have the most sophisticated people you can get doing projections on this. They've been studying projections from China, South Korea, Italy, places all across this country. And what they're now seeing is that the rate of cases, the rate of new infections, is doubling about every three days. That is a dramatic increase in the rate of infection. And this whole discussion all along has been how fast does the rate of increase spread. And can we slow the rate of increase. We're not slowing it, and it is accelerating on its own. One of the forecasters said to me, we were looking at a freight train, coming across the country, we're now looking at a bullet train, because the numbers are going up that quickly.

And the most challenging point about the increasing numbers is where the numbers will apex. What is the high point of the numbers. And the apex is the point where we have to be able to manage the capacity. We had projected the apex at about 110,000 hospital beds, and that's the number I've been talking about. The new projection suggests that the number of hospital beds needed could be as high as 140,000 hospital beds. So, flatten the curve, flatten the curve. We haven't flattened the curve and the curve is actually increasing. That means the number of hospital beds, which is at 53,000 beds, 3,000 ICU beds. The anticipated need now for the height of the curve is 140,000 hospital beds, and approximately 40,000 intensive care unit beds.

Those are troubling and astronomical numbers, and as I mentioned, are higher numbers than have been previously projected. We are exercising all options as aggressively as we can. That rate of increase, that apex, they project at this time could be approximately 14 to 21 days away. So not only do we have a spike in the increase, when you spike the increase in cases, it accelerates the apex to a point where it could be as close at 14 to 21 days. We're exercising all options. We're doing everything we can on every level to quote unquote slow the spread, flatten the curve.

We've closed businesses, we've reduced street density. We had an issue in New York City, I spoke to Mayor de Blasio, I spoke to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. We'll have a plan that I believe will be in place by noon today. And we have increased testing to the highest level in the United States, and the highest per capita level on the globe. No one is testing more than we are testing. So, in many ways we have exhausted every option available to us. We've closed all the businesses. We've reduced the street density. And we've increased testing to the highest level in the country.

We're also trying all the new drug therapies. The hydroxychloroquine, which the president speaks about and is optimistic about. We hope for optimistic results, also. We're actually starting that today. The president and the FDA accelerated that drug coming to New York so the hospitals will start using that drug today. The FDA also authorized an experimental procedure by the New York State Department of Health where the Department of Health actually takes plasma from people who are infected who have the antibodies and will try putting that plasma into a person who is still struggling with the disease hoping that the antibodies make a difference. We're also pursuing a new level of testing which will test people's blood to see if they have antibodies for coronavirus which means they may had been infected and resolved and never knew it, but if you had the coronavirus and resolved you now have an immunity to the coronavirus for some period of time most experts suggest it's a significant amount of time. That would be very important for us to know because then healthcare workers that could go back to work, there are workers that could return back to the private sector.

But the inescapable conclusion is that the rate of infection is going up. It is spiking. The apex is higher than we thought and the apex is sooner than we thought. That is a bad combination of facts. So, slow the spread. We'll still keep doing everything we can, but it is clear that we must dramatically increase the hospital capacity to meet that highest apex. And we have to do it very quickly. Again, the apex could be here in as little as 14-21 days and you're talking about a very significant logistical operational movement to increase that number of hospital beds and do everything that you need to do related to the increased hospital beds. There are three elements that are necessary to increase the hospital capacity. First are obviously the availability of the beds. A bed without staff is virtually useless and a bed and a staff without the right equipment is virtually useless. So, you have to complete all three at the same time.

As far as beds, we have told the hospitals, I'm going to speak to every hospital administrator today, hospitals must increase their capacity by 50 percent. The goal is to ask them to try to increase it by 100 percent. Remember we have 53,000 beds, we need 140,000 beds. Even if they did increase it by 100 percent, you'd only be at about 100,000 beds. You need 140,000 beds. Emergency hospitals like the 1,000-bed facility that's being built here will be helpful. The emergency hospitals that we're building in Westbury and Stony Brook and at the Westchester Convention Center will be helpful. But they're nowhere near the number of beds that we're going to need. I have no problem using the dormitories all across our state campuses, our CUNY campuses, our state university campuses. I'm speaking to hotel owners about taking over their hotels to put patients in. I will turn this state upside down to get the number of beds we need. But, we need the staff for those beds. We're calling and contacting all retirees in the healthcare field. We're calling all professionals in the healthcare field whether or not they work in a hospital. They could work at an insurance company, in a clinic, or whatever. But we want to enlist as many staff as we can and as many back-up staff because healthcare workers will get sick. This is going to go on for weeks and you can't ask a person to work 14 days consecutive or around the clock shifts, so we'll need a back-up reserve staff.

And equipment, equipment, equipment. Masks, PPEs, and ventilators. And of those three, the great critical need are ventilators. Now, ventilators, you say ventilators nobody really knows what you're talking about. The people who are going to come in, the people who will have acute needs, these are people who are under respiratory distress. They need a ventilator. The ventilators will make the difference between life and death literally for these people. This is piece of equipment that in a normal course of business you don't have a need for high levels of ventilators and our hospital system has about 3,000 or 4,000 that has always met the need. This is a dramatic increase in the number of ventilators that you need. We have been working around the clock scouring the globe.

We've procured about 7,000 ventilators. We need at a minimum an additional 30,000 ventilators. You cannot buy them. You cannot find them. Every state is trying to get them, other countries are trying to get them. The capacity is limited. They're technical pieces of equipment. They're not manufactured in two days or four days, seven days or ten days. So, this is a critical and desperate need for ventilators. We're going so far as to you trying experimental procedure where we split the ventilator. We use one ventilator for two patients. Its difficulty to perform. It's experimental, but at this point we have no alternatives. We're working on this experimental application taking two people in beds, one ventilator between the two of them, but with two sets of tubes two sets of pipes going to the two patients.

Again, it's experimental, but mother of necessity is the mother of invention and we are working on this as we speak. Because life is options and we don't have any other options. There is no other way for us to get these ventilators. We've tried everything else.

The only way we can obtain these ventilators is from the federal government, period. And there is two ways the federal government can do it. One is to use the Federal Defense Production Act. There is federal law where the federal government can say to manufacturers you must produce this product. I understand the federal governments point that many companies have come forward and said we want to help. General Motors and Ford, and people are willing to get into the ventilator business. It does us no good if they start to create a ventilator in three weeks or four weeks or five weeks. We're looking at an apex of 14 days. If we don't have the ventilators in 14 days it does us no good. The federal Defense Procurement Act can actually help companies, because the federal government can say look I need you to into this business. I will contract with you today for X number of ventilators. Here's the startup capital you need. Here's the startup capital you need to hire workers that do it around the clock, but I need the ventilators in 14 days. Only the federal government has that power. And not to exercise that power is inexplicable to me. Volunteerism is nice and it is a beautiful thing. And it's nice these companies are coming forward and saying they want to help. That is not going to get us there. And I do not for the life of me understand the reluctance to use the federal Defense Production Act.

Also, the federal government has 20,000 ventilators in the federal stockpile. Secretary Azar runs an agency called HHS - Health and Human Services. I asked the Secretary, "Look at the first word in the title of the agency you run. It is health. Your first priority is health. You have 20,000 ventilators in the stockpile. Release the ventilators to New York." How can we be in a situation where you can have New Yorkers possibly dying because they can't get a ventilator, but a federal agency is saying I'm going to leave the ventilators in the stockpile. I mean have we really come to that point. Also, we have to be smarter about the way this is being done. The federal government has to prioritize the resources. Look at where the problems are across this nation. California has 2,800 cases. Washington state, 2,200 cases. Florida, 1,200 cases. Massachusetts, about 800 cases. New York has 25,000 cases. New York has 25,000 cases. It has ten times the problem that California has. Ten times the problem that Washington state has. You prioritize resources, and your activity, and your actions to where they are needed. And New York, you are looking at a problem that is of a totally different magnitude and dimension.

The problem is the volume. Dealing with 2,000 cases is one thing. 2,000 cases, frankly, we could deal with in this building, with the capacity that we're providing. We have 25,000 cases. We need the federal help, and we need the federal help now. Also, there is a smart way to do this. Deploy the ventilators around the country as they are needed. Different regions have different curbs of the infection. New York is the canary in the coal mine. New York is going first. We have the highest and the fastest rate of infection. What happens to New York is going to wind up happening to California, and Washington state, and Illinois, it's just a matter of time. We're just getting there first.

Deal with the issue here. Deploy the resources. Deploy the ventilators here in New York for our apex. And then, after the apex passes here, once we're passed that critical point, deploy the ventilators to the other parts of the country where they are needed. I'm not asking for 20,000 ventilators and they stay in New York, and they live in New York and change their residence. As soon as we finish with the ventilators, then you move them to the next part of the country that has the critical problem. And then, after that region hits its apex, then you move to the next part of the country that has its critical problems. I will take personal responsibility for transporting the 20,000 ventilators anywhere in this country that they want, once we are past our apex. But don't leave them sitting in a stockpile, and say well we're going to wait and see how we allocate them across the country. That's not how this works. They're not simultaneous apexes. They are a curve that is individual to that region. Deploy to that region, address that region, and then move on to the next. And I'm not only talking about ventilators. We get past the apex, we get over that curve, that curve starts to come down, we get to a level where we can handle it. I'll send ventilators. I'll send healthcare workers. I'll send out professionals who've dealt with it and who know, all around the country.

And that's how this should be done. You know it's going to be on a different calendar, it's going to be a different sequence. Let's help each other. New York, because New York is first. And then after New York, and after the curve breaks in New York, let's all rush to whoever's second. And then let's all rush to whoever's third. And let's learn from each other and help each other.

I want to make a point on the president's point about the economy and public health. I understand what the president's saying, this is unsustainable, that we close down the economy and we continue to spend money. There is no doubt about that, no one is going to argue about that. But if you ask the American people to choose, between public health and the economy, then it's no contest. No American is going to say, accelerate the economy, at the cost of human life. Because no American is going to say how much a life is worth. Job one has to be save lives. That has to be the priority. And there's a smarter approach to this. We don't have to choose between the two. You can develop a more refined public health strategy that is also an economic strategy.

What do I mean by that? Our public health strategy was a blunt instrument. What we said at a moment of crisis is isolate everyone. Close the schools, close the colleges, send everyone home, isolate everybody in their home. In truth, that was not the most refined public strategy. Why? Because it wasn't even smart, frankly, to isolate younger people with older people. But, at that moment we didn't have the knowledge, we needed to act, that's what we did. You can now start to refine that public health strategy. You can start to say, look, the lower risk individuals do not need to be quarantined and they shouldn't be quarantined with an older who it may be transferring to. People who are recovered, you test them, you test the antibodies, you find out that they resolved themselves of the virus. I believe once we get that test you're going to find hundreds of thousands of people who have had the coronavirus and resolved. Once they're resolved, they can go back to work. Develop that test, it's in testing now, once they're resolved let them go back to work. Let the younger people go back to work. Let the recovered people go back to work. It's even better for the older, vulnerable people who you're trying to protect. And then ramp up the economy with those individuals.

So, you're refining your public health strategy and at the same time you're restarting your economy. Those two can be consistent if done intelligently. Restart the economy with our younger, recovered, tested workers. Don't make us choose between a smart health strategy and smart economic strategy. We can do both and we must do both. It's not the economy or public health, it's restarting the economy and protecting public health, it is both. But, I understand restarting the economy. The crisis today, focus on the crisis at hand, focus on the looming wave of cases that is about to break in 14 days. That has to be the priority. And that is hospital capacity and that is about providing hospital beds, providing staff, providing equipment, providing PPE, providing ventilators. Coming back to that number of 30,000 and needing federal action to address it now. If the federal government said today, I will deploy all 20,000 ventilators, it will take us two weeks to get those ventilators into hospitals and to create ICU beds and to locate the staff. So, there is no time to waste. The time to do this is now. FEMA is sending us 400 ventilators. It was on the news this morning. We are sending 400 ventilators to New York. 400 ventilators? I need 30,000 ventilators. You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators? What are we going to do with 400 ventilators when we need 30,000 ventilators? You're missing the magnitude of the problem and the problem is defined by the magnitude.

These are the numbers from today. You can see our testing rate is now over 90,000 people who have been tested. That's the highest rate of testing in the country and per capita on the globe. We did 12,000 new tests since yesterday. Number of positive cases, state of New York - 25,675, 4,700 of those new cases tested. You see the entire state county by county. More and more counties are being covered. We have 3,000 people currently who are hospitalized. We have 756 people in ICU units. The ICU units are the ventilated units. That's 23 percent of the hospitalizations. That's the problem. As the number of cases go up, the number of people in hospital beds goes up, the number of people who need an ICU bed and a ventilator goes up, and we cannot address that increasing curve.

Again, you look at the number of cases in the country, you'll see that New York is an outlier of the number of cases. It's not even close. What's happening in New York is not a New York phenomenon. People in New York don't have a different immune system than other Americans. It's not higher in New York because we are New Yorkers. It's higher in New York because it started here first, because we have global travelers coming here first, because we have more density than most places, but you will see this in cities all across the country. And you will see this in suburban communities all across the country. We are just a test case. We are just a test case. And that's how the nation should look at it.

Look at us today. Where we are today, you will be in three weeks or four weeks or five weeks or six weeks. We are your future, and what we do here will chart the course for what we do in your city and in your community. I'm not asking you to help New York to help New York, I'm asking you to help New York to help yourselves. Let's learn how to do it right, and let's learn how to do it right here. Let's learn how to act as one nation and let's learn how to act as one nation here. And we learn the lesson here, we will save lives in your community. I promise you that.

We're delivering supplies that we've been able to purchase today. New York City has had a critical problem. I spoke to Mayor de Blasio. He's right, he had a critical problem on PPEs, gowns, masks et cetera. The equipment we are bringing today will resolve that immediate need. There will be no hospital in the city of New York who will say today their nurses and doctors can't get equipment. And we're addressing that need not just for New York City but also Long Island and Westchester.

We've acquired everything on the market there is to acquire. We've had a full team purchasing from companies all across this globe, buying everything that can be purchased. And we're bringing that here to distribute to New York City, Long Island, Westchester because that is the greatest need. This number of supplies will take care of our immediate need. It does not take care of the need going forward three, four, five, six weeks. The burn rate on this equipment is very, very high. I can't find any more equipment. It's not a question of money. I don't care what you're willing to pay. You just can't find the equipment now, but this will take care of the immediate need.

I don't want our health care workers, who are doing God's work. They are doing God's work. Can you imagine the nurses who leave their homes in the morning, who kiss their children goodbye, go to a hospital, put on gowns, deal with people who have the coronavirus? They're thinking all day long, oh, my God, I hope I don't get this. Oh my God, I hope I don't get this and bring it home to my children. You want to talk about extraordinary individuals - extraordinary. And it's the nurses and the doctors and the health care workers, it's the police officers who show up every day and go out there and walk into a situation that they don't even know what they're walking into. 

And it's the firefighters and it's the transportation workers, and it's the people who are running the grocery stores and the pharmacies and providing all those essential services. Most of us are in our home hunkered down, worried. They're worried and they're going out there every day despite their fear - despite their fear. Overcoming their fear, and not for their family, they're doing it for your family. When you see them on the street, when you see them in a hospital, please, just say thank you and smile and say, I know what you're doing.

What happens? All these facts, all these numbers. Am I strong in my language vis-a-vis the federal government? Yes, I am. But what happens at the end of the day? What does it all mean? That's what people want to know. What does it all mean? What it all means is what we said it all means the first day this started. The first day I went before the people of New York State and I said, I'm going to tell you the truth, I'm going to tell you the facts the way I know it. Those facts have not changed. Those facts are not going to change. This is not a new situation. 

We've watched this through China. There are hundreds of thousands of cases. 80 percent will self-resolve. That's why experts say to me - tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands have had the virus, didn't know they had it and resolved. That's why we have to get that test that shows you had the virus because you have the antibodies and you did resolve. And once we do that, that's how you get the economy back to work. That's how you get the back-up healthcare workers.

But 80 percent are going to self-resolve. 20 percent are going to need hospitals. It's not about that. It's about a very small group of people in this population who are the most vulnerable. They are older, they have compromised immune systems, they are HIV positive, or they have emphysema, or they have an underlying heart condition, or they have bad asthma, or they're recovering from cancer. Those are the people who are going to be vulnerable to the mortality of this disease, and it is only 1 percent or 2 percent of the population. But then why all of this? Because it's 1 percent or 2 percent of the population. It's lives, it's grandmothers and grandfathers and sisters and brothers.

And you start to see the cases on TV. It's a 40-year-old woman who recovered from breast cancer but had a compromised immune system and four children at home. That's what this is about. It's about a vulnerable population. I called the executive order that I passed Matilda's law - my mother. It's about my mother. It's about my mother. It's about my mother. It's about your mother. It's about your loved one. And we will do anything we can to make sure that they are protected.

Again, keeping it in perspective, Johns Hopkins, 387,000 cases studied, 16,000 deaths on 387,000. 100,000 recoveries worldwide, 268,000 pending. Last point, it is about the vulnerable. It's not about 95 percent of us. It's about a few percent who are vulnerable. That's all this is about. Bring down that anxiety, bring down that fear, bring down that paranoia. It's not about 95 percent of us.

And we're going to get through it because we are New York and because we've dealt with a lot of things, and because we are smart. You have to be smart to make it in New York. And we are resourceful, and we are showing how resourceful we are. And because we are united, and when you are united, there is nothing you can't do. And because we are New York tough. We are tough. You have to be tough. This place makes you tough, but it makes you tough in a good way. We're going to make it because I love New York, and I love New York because New York loves you. New York loves all of you. Black and white and brown and Asian and short and tall and gay and straight. New York loves everyone. That's why I love New York. It always has, it always will. And at the end of the day, my friends, even if it is a long day, and this is a long day, love wins. Always. And it will win again through this virus. Thank you.

2020-03-25 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Thank you for being here today.

I think you know everyone who is here. Let me start to my far right: Gareth Rhodes who is the Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services - he's working with me for a long time from the Attorney General's Office and he's part of our swat team; we have James Malatras, President of Empire College; Dr. Howard Zucker, Health Commissioner; Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor; Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

We have a lot of interesting news today. Things are moving. Current status, we still have the trajectory going up. We have not turned the trajectory nor have we hit the apex. Remember what that line is going to do. It's going to go up, it's going to reach a high point, it's going to tip, it's going to go back down. We're still on the way up the mountain.

Number of infections that have been coming in, 80 percent still self-resolve but 15 percent of the people who test positive require hospitalization. And then there are degrees of hospitalization. But the total universe that requires hospitalization is 15 percent.

We use projection models. We have Cornell Weill which is a great medical institution that does projection models. We use McKinsey that does projection models. The Department of Health does projection models. The projection models are important because they are projecting the possible projector and projecting the possible need, so we're planning for need and the projection models do that. The projection models are just that. They are models of projections. They're not necessarily definitive but it's the only device that we have to plan. Follow the data, follow the data, follow the data. The actual hospitalizations have moved at a higher rate than the projected models, than all the projected models, so that was obviously concerning because that higher infection rate means faster, higher capacity than the hospitals and that's the critical point for us, is the number of people going to hospitals.

Right now what we're looking at is about 140,000 cases coming into the hospitals. The hospital capacity is 53,000 beds. That's a problem. We're looking at about 40,000 ICU cases coming into the hospitals. We have about 3,000 ICU beds. That's a challenge. What is an ICU bed for these purposes? It's basically a bed with ventilator. The ventilator is the most critical piece of equipment for an intensive-care unit bed because this is a respiratory illness and people need more ventilation than usual.

What do we want to do? Reduce the number of cases coming into the hospitals, slow the number of cases coming into the hospitals - that's what Dr. Fauci is talking about on TV every day. Flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten the curve. Slow the number of people coming into hospitals so we can deal with them in the hospitals and we are working on that.

At the same time, increase your hospital capacity. Try to slow the number of cases coming into the hospital, meanwhile raise your hospital capacity. We are working on both simultaneously. We have been from day one. Reduce the number of cases coming in, flatten the curve, slow the spread of the infection - we are doing everything we can on that. That's banning non-essential workers, that's social distancing, that's closing restaurants, closing gyms, just flatten the curve, slow the infection rate.

One issue we had was in New York City where we had a higher level of density than we wanted - especially in the New York City parks, especially with young people. I've been as direct as I can and as blunt as I can on young people and the misinformation that they have. You can catch the coronavirus. You may think you are a superhero. You're really not. You can catch it and you can transfer it which makes you dangerous to the people who you love. But the New York City parks have been a problem. I saw the problem. I saw firsthand, I spoke to Mayor de Blasio, I spoke to Speaker Johnson. We said come up with a plan in 24 hours that everybody agreed with. They came up with a plan. We're now implementing that plan. I signed off on that plan. The plan is going to pilot closing streets in New York City because we have much less traffic in New York City. We have many fewer vehicles in New York City. Open streets. People want to walk. They want to go out and get some air. They want a less dense area, so pilot closing streets to cars, opening streets to pedestrians.

We'll also enact mandatory playgrounds social density - that's probably a new concept - no close contact sports in a playground. No basketball, for example. You cannot do it. We are asking people to do that on a voluntary basis. If there is non-compliance with that, we will then make it mandatory and we will actually close the playgrounds. We don't want to do that because playgrounds are a place to get open air, but you have to exercise social density even in a playground. Again, it's voluntary. The Mayor is going to make it clear that this is important to the people of the city. If it doesn't happen we will actually close down the playgrounds. I don't want to do that, but we do need to reduce the spread of the infection and that is what is most important.

This is very interesting, because the evidence suggests that the density control measures may be working and again, we're doing this from projections. But look at this because it's interesting: This past Sunday, the projection was that hospitalizations were doubling every two days. On Monday, the numbers suggested that the hospitalizations were doubling were doubling every 3.4 days. On Tuesday, the projections suggested that the hospitalizations were doubling every 4.7 days. Now, that is almost too good to be true, but the theory is given the density that we're dealing with, it spreads very quickly but if you reduce the density you can reduce the spread very quickly.

So these projections - I've watched them bounce all over the place and I don't place a great deal of stock in any one projection - all due respect to all the great academics and statisticians who are doing it. But this is a very good sign and a positive sign. Again, I'm not 100 percent sure it holds or is accurate, but the arrows are headed in the right direction and that is always better than the arrows headed in the wrong direction. So to the extent people say boy these are burdensome requirements, social distancing, no restaurants, no non-essential workers - yes, they are burdensome. By the way, they are effective and they're necessary and the evidence suggests, at this point, that they have slowed the hospitalizations. This is everything. Slowing the hospitalization rates coming in to hospitals are everything so the hospitals can deal with the rate of people coming in.

At the same time, increase hospital capacity. What is the high point? You see that line in the beginning. What we're studying is what is the high point of that line. What is the apex of that line? That is the point of the greatest number of people coming into the hospital system. So that's our greatest load is the apex and when is that going to happen. Again, that is a projection. Again, that moves around. But the current projection is that could be in 21 days. So, ramp up the hospital capacity to be able to handle that apex volume. How do you ramp up hospital capacity? You ramp up beds, you ramp up staffing and you ramp up the equipment and the ventilators are the problem in equipment as we discussed many times.

Where are we on that? Beds, we may need 140,000. We have 53,000 - that's the existing capacity of hospitals. We've told all hospitals they have to increase their capacity by 50 percent. I told them that myself on a conference call yesterday. This is a burden for the hospitals to now say you have to increase capacity 50 percent. But I have to tell you, they were very generous about it and they understood what we were dealing with and they were eager to step up to the plate. If you increase hospital capacity by 50 percent that gets you 27,000 beds on top of the existing, that takes you to 80,000. Some hospitals, I asked as a goal, try to increase by 100 percent your capacity. Fifty percent was the minimum. The goal was 100. I believe some hospitals will actually try to do that and I encourage them to try to do that as impossible as it sounds. But now is the time to be aggressive and do things you've never done before. If some of them do that, and I believe some of them will, that would be an additional 5,000 beds. We would get to 85,000 beds.

FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, what we're doing in Javits Center, what we're doing in the Westchester Convention Center; Westbury campus, Stony Brook campus - that's another 4,000, takes us to 89,000. The US Navy ship Comfort, the President dispatched, that would be 1,000 beds to backfill from hotels that takes you to 90,000. If we take all the state dormitories in downstate New York, that could take us to an additional 29,000 beds. We'd be at 119,000 beds. You're still not at the 140,000 that you need but then we're looking at hotels, we're looking at former nursing homes, converting other facilities to make up the differential. So, a lot, creative, aggressive, but in life you do what you have to do.

And that's what we're doing on the bed capacity. Protective equipment, we have been shopping around the world, we have a whole team that's doing it. Right now, we have enough protective equipment, gloves, masks, gowns, for all the hospitals statewide that are dealing with it. I put down a shipment into New York City yesterday. Today, no hospital, no nurse, no doctor can say, legitimately, I don't have protective equipment. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, we have a supply. We do not yet have secured a supply for three weeks from now, four weeks from now, five weeks from now. But we are still shopping and taking care of this immediate need was also good news, and a good job by the team.

And again, we are still shopping for more equipment. Ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. We need 30,000. We have, in the existing hospital system, 4,000 ventilators. This is just in the normal operation of hospitals, et cetera. We have purchased. 7,000 and we are still shopping. Federal government has sent 4,000. We're exploring splitting, where one ventilator could do two patients. Italy has had to do this because they were forced to do it. I want to see if we can study it and do it a little smarter, and have a little more time experimenting with it, but we're looking at splitting the ventilators. We're still working with the federal government to try to find more ventilators, but that is our single greatest challenge, are the ventilators. Again, the ICU beds, that really means a ventilated bed. Because again, this is the number one piece of equipment that we need.

You have beds, you have equipment, you need staff and you need staff understanding that some staff it going to get sick. And they're going to be out, so we have been working on putting together a surge healthcare force. Go back to the retirees, go back to nurses and doctors who may not be in the hospital direct medical care occupation, and ask them to sign up for possible reserve duty. God bless them, 40,000 people have signed up as a surge healthcare force. 2,000 physicians, anesthesiologists, emergency room technicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse anesthetists, respiratory, RNs, LPNs. 40,000 people have signed up. That's a big, big deal because you can create beds, you find the equipment, you have to have the staff. And you have to have the staff for those additional beds, which is not now in the hospital system. And you have to have staff when the existing staff gets ill. Or, by the way, just can't work the hours that we're going to need people to be working. So that's very good.

This is also very exciting. I don't know that anyone else has done this. We've talked about the emotional stress that this brings on people. And the mental health stress, and mental health challenges. No one's really talking about this. You know, we're all concerned about the immediate critical need. The life and death of the immediate situation, which is right. But don't underestimate the emotional trauma that people are feeling, and the emotional health issues.

We asked for mental health professionals to voluntarily sign up to provide online mental health services. Six thousand mental health professionals agreed to volunteer to provide mental health services for people who need it. How beautiful is that?

And the hotline, 1-844-863-9314, you can call that hotline, you can schedule an appointment with a mental health professional totally free, to talk to them about what you're feeling and what stress you're feeling. And again, God bless the 6,000 mental health professionals who are doing this 100 percent free, on top of whatever they have to do in their normal practice. And I'm sure in their normal practice, they're busy. So this is really an extraordinary, extraordinary step by them.

Federal government, I spoke with president Trump several times. I spoke with him last night. I spoke with him this morning. I've spoken to people in the white house who are handling these operations. I've spoken with the vice president. I've spoken with Jared Kushner, who is a New Yorker, he knows New York, and he's working in the White House, and he's been extraordinarily helpful on all of these situations. What we're working on is a common challenge. No one has these ventilators, and no one ever anticipated a situation where you would need this number of ventilators to deal with a public health emergency. So we have purchased everything that can be purchased. We're now in a situation that we're trying to accelerate production of these ventilators, and a ventilator is a complicated piece of equipment. The president and his team I think are using the DPA well because it's basically a leverage tool when you're dealing with private companies, right? We need your help, we can demand your help, or you could agree to help, and we need you to step up and increase production. Even with that, there's a ramp up time for a company to put together the supply chain, put together the workforce, and get these things up and running. So, for you here's going to help. General Motors is going to help. The problem is our timeline is so short, we're looking at an apex 21 days in that range. To get ventilators and these business consortiums put together, supply chain, design team, ramped up and delivered 30,000 ventilators is an extraordinarily difficult task. It's something that our team is working on with the White House team and I want to thank the president for his cooperation. And his team for their cooperation. We're getting very creative, we're talking to countries around the world as well as new companies that could do production.

We're also talking to the White House about another concept. New York has the greatest need in terms of numbers. New York also has the most critical need in terms of timing, right? We talk about our apex, we talk about that curve. Different localities, different regions around the country, are going to have different curves. We are, in some ways, first. Our case numbers went up first. Our trajectory is first. By a long shot. Different regions will have their curve at different times. What I said to the president and his team was, look, rather than saying we have to provide equipment for the entire country at one time, let's talk about addressing the critical need in that hotspot once that hotspot turns - because you have an apex and then you have a curve, and the curve is relatively short - once you address that hotspot with that intensity, intense equipment, intense personnel, then shift to the next hotspot. Have more of a rolling deployment across the country than a static deployment, right? I was in the federal government at HUD. I worked on dozens of disasters. You deal with the disaster in front of you at that time and then you move on to the next disaster. And I think that rolling deployment could work here and on behalf of New York, I said we will be 100% helpful. We need help from the entire country right now. We need resources from the entire country right now. And because our apex is first and our numbers are highest, but the apex high point will be sequential across the country. So, I said to the White House, send us the equipment that we need, send us the personnel, as soon as we get past our critical moment, we will redeploy that equipment and personnel to the next hotspot. And I will personally guarantee it and personally manage it. So if you send us 15,000 ventilators and then after our curve, Los Angeles needs 15,000 ventilators, we can take the equipment from here, we can take the personnel from here, we can take the lessons from here. You know, we go first, we're going to learn things that nobody else has learned because we're going to be the first one through the shoe. And I personally guarantee that we will bring that equipment, we will bring that personnel, we'll bring that technical assistance. I said to the president, I'll be part of going to the next hotspot with out team. We're asking the country to help us, we will return the favor. And we are all in this together and we're asking for their help and their consideration and we will repay it with dividends.

The Senate is also considering a $2 trillion bill, which is 'relief' for businesses, individuals, and governments. It would really be terrible for the State of New York. The $2 trillion bill, what does it mean for New York State government? It means $3.8 billion. $3.8 billion dollars sounds like a lot of money. Rob Mujica, the Budget Director, can talk you through the numbers, but we're looking at a shortfall, a revenue shortfall, of 9, 10, $15 billion dollars. This response to this virus has probably already cost us $1 billion. It will probably cost us several billion dollars when we're done. New York City only gets $1.3 billion from this package. That is a drop in the bucket as to need. I spoke to our House delegation, Congressional delegation. This morning I said to them, 'This doesn't do it'. You know, I understand the Senate theory and the Republican theory, but we need the House to make adjustments. In the House bill that went over New York State got $17 billion. In the Senate bill we get $3.8 billion.

Well you're just big spending. We're not a big spending state. I cut taxes every year. The lowest growth rate of the state budget in modern political history. Okay. So, we are frugal and we are efficient. I am telling you these numbers don't work and I told the House members that we really need their help.

In terms of numbers, total tested we're up 103,000 people. New tests we're up to 12,000. As of yesterday about 28 percent of all testing nationwide has been performed by State of New York. The State of New York is doing more testing than any state in the United States America and I'm very proud of the team on how we're mobilized and got this testing up and running. People ask, "How does the testing work?" Any hospital in the state can perform testing. You can walk into a hospital in Buffalo, New York. If you show the symptoms and meet the protocol you can be tested. Strategically, we deploy testing in the most dense areas. Where we set up the drive-throughs, et cetera, why? Because we're hunting positives. We're hunting positives so we can isolate them and reduce the spread. You're more likely to get positives in a high positive areas. Right? Setup a drive-through in the Bronx versus set up a drive-thru in Chautauqua county. You're going to get more positives in the Bronx. And that's what we want, but anyone anywhere in the state, you have symptoms, you're concerned, you can walk into any hospital and that hospital can get a test performed.

Number of positive cases, we're up to 30,000. Number of new cases 5,000. Again, you see the numbers, 17,000 New York City, 4,000 in Westchester, 3,000 in Nassau County.

Relatively in Westchester we have dramatically slowed what was an exponential increase. So again, the good news side, can you slow the rate of infection? Yes. How do you know? Look at what we did in Westchester. That was the hottest cluster in the United States of America. We closed the schools. We closed gatherings. We brought in testing and we have dramatically slowed the increase.

Nassau County is 3,000. They're relatively right behind Westchester. They were at like zero when Westchester had started. We can slow it and have slowed it.

Again you see it spreading across the state. Current numbers, 30,000 tested positive. 12 percent of those who test positive are hospitalized. Three percent of the positives are in ICU. Okay. This is deep breath time again. I am anxious, I'm nervous, what does it mean. 30,000 tested positive. 12 percent are in the hospital. Three percent are in ICU. If you look at those three percent. They're going to be predominantly senior citizens, people with underlying illnesses, people with emphysema, people with a compromised immune system. That's what this effort is all about. All the noise, all the energy, its about that three percent.

Take a deep breath. Now, that three percent. That's my mother, that's your mother, that's your sister. These are people we love. These are our grandparents. And we're going to do everything we can to protect every one of them. And I give the people of the state of New York my word that we're doing it. But we talking about three percent of the people who tested positive and tested positive who we're worrying about.

Most impacted states, we're 30,000. Next closest state is New Jersey at three, California two. This a really dramatic differential. This is what I argue to anyone who will listen. We have ten times the problem that the next state has, which is New Jersey. You compare us to California, which is larger in terms of population. We have 15 times the problem. Now you have to ask yourself, why. Why does New York have such a high number? And again in the totality, we understand what it means. But why does New York have such a high number? This is my personal opinion. I like to make sure that I separate facts from personal opinion. The facts I give you are the best facts I have. And again, the data changes day to day, but I give you exactly what I have on a day-to-day basis. Personal opinion, why does New York have so many more cases than any other state? How can it be? You're 15 times the number of California. I mean, really is breathtaking when you think about it. State of Massachusetts, with 30 times the number of cases. So why is the question that people ask me.

Two answers. Answer one is because we welcome people from across the globe. We have people coming here, we have people who came here from china, who came here from Italy, who came here from countries all around the globe. We have international travelers who were in China and who were in Italy and who were in Korea and who came here. And I have no doubt that the virus was here much earlier than we even know. And I have no doubt that the virus was here much earlier than it was in any other state. Because those people come here first. That's the first answer.

The second answer is, because we are close. Because we are close. We talk about the virus and how it transfers in a dense area. It's literally because we are close, because we live close to one another, because we're close to one another on the street, because we live in close communities, because we're close to one another on the bus. We're close to one another in the restaurant. We're close to one another in the movie theater. And we have one of the most dense, close environments in the country. And that's why the virus communicated the way it did. Our closeness makes us vulnerable. Our closeness makes us vulnerable. That spatial closeness makes us vulnerable. But it's true that your greatest weakness is also your greatest strength. And our closeness is what makes us who we are. That is what New York is. Our closeness is what makes us special. Our acceptance, our openness is what makes us special. It's what makes us feel so connected one to another. It's what makes us so accepting of one another. It is the closeness that makes us the human beings that we are. The closeness is that New York humanity that I think exists nowhere else. The closeness is what makes our sense of community.

And there's a gentleman who I still look to for guidance and for leadership and for inspiration. He's not here anymore for you. He's still here for me. But he said things more from profound and more beautifully than most other people ever have. And one of the things he said that is so appropriate for today: "We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: The idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another's pain, sharing one another's blessings -- reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race or sex or geography or political affiliation." That is New York. It is that closeness, that concept of family, of community. That's what makes New York, "New York." And that's what made us vulnerable here. But it is also that closeness and that connection and that humanity and that sharing that is our greatest strength, and that is what is going to overcome at the end of the day. I promise you that. I can see how New Yorkers are responding. I can see how New Yorkers are treating one another. I see the 6,000 mental health volunteers. I see the 40,000 health care workers stepping up. I see the vendors calling me, saying, "I can help." That's New York. That's New York. And that, my friends, is undefeatable. And I am glad in some ways that we're first with this situation, because we will overcome and we will show the other communities across this country how to do it. We'll be there for them. We want them to be there for us. And we will be there for each other, as we always have been.

2020-03-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Top of the morning to you. The people with us today, to my right is James Malatras, President of the SUNY Empire College, to my left Melissa DeRosa, to her left, Robert Mujica, Budget Director, back of the room, my daughter Cara who is doing a great job.

Let's talk about what's going on today. First, what I try to communicate in these briefings are the facts of the situation. Facts can be uplifting, they can be depressing at times, they can be confusing at times, but I think facts are empowering. You know, in a situation like this, not knowing the facts is worse because that's when feel out of control or when you feel that you're getting selective facts, or you're being deceived by the information you're getting. That is actually the worst situation. So what I say to my people in every situation, just give me the facts first and then let me understand what the situation and the reality is and then we'll go from there, so that's what I try to do.

The facts on this situation are increasingly important on two levels: public health but also the economic facts. We've been focusing on the public health facts and the response of the public health system to the virus. More and more we now have to deal on two fronts. We have to deal with the public health situation but we also have to deal with the economic situation and I'll get to that in a moment.

Public health, we've had a two-prong agenda which we've been pursuing aggressively. We still are flatten the curve so you reduce the flow into the hospital system. At the same time increase the hospital capacity. What we're looking for is not a reduction in in the number of cases. We're looking for a reduction in the rate of the increase in the number of cases. That's what comes first when you're starting to make progress. The rate of increase should reduce, as opposed to the number of absolute cases. So that's what we're looking for.

The optimum is when they talk about the apex of the curve is not to have an apex and that's what the flattening is, not to have that spike because the spike is where you would overwhelm the hospital systems that try to get down that rate of increase so you can actually handle it in the hospital system and that's what they talk about by the flattening of the curve.

Just as an aside, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been so kind and helpful to me. I speak to healthcare professionals all across the globe literally but Dr. Fauci I think is just brilliant at this and he has been so personally kind. I called him late at night. I called him in the middle of the night. I called him in the morning and he's been really a friend to me personally and the State of New York.

So this is all about getting that curve down and not overwhelming the hospital system. Almost any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the current health care system so little reality - keep the curve down as low as you can but you cannot get fit curve down low enough so that you don't overwhelm the hospital capacity. So any of these scenarios we have to increase the hospital capacity and that's why we're literally adding to the hospital capacity everywhere we can. That's what the Javits hospital is about, that's what the Stony Brook hospital is about, that's what Westchester Convention Center, that's what the Old Westbury additional site is.

We're also scouting new sites now all across, primarily the downstate area of this state, for possible sites. Our goal is to have a 1,000-plus overflow facility in each of the boroughs downstate in the counties, Queens, Brooklyn, the New York City boroughs, Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island and Long Island, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester and Rockland, so every county has a 1000-plus-bed overflow facility and that's what we're working on at the same time, as well as increasing the capacity of the existing hospital system.

As we've said the hospitals have a 53,000-bed capacity. We're trying get to 140,000-bed capacity between the hospitals and the overflow facilities. We've mandated that the hospitals increased their capacity by 50 percent. We've asked them to try to increase it 100 percent but they have to increase it 50 percent. We're also scouting dorms, scouting hotels for emergency beds and that's going well.

Equipment and PPE is an ongoing issue. Right now we do have enough PPE for the immediate future. The New York City hospital system confirm that so we have enough in stock now for the immediate need. Ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. I didn't know what they were a few weeks ago besides the cursory knowledge. I know too much about ventilators now. We're still shopping for ventilators all across the country. We need more. We have approved the technology that allows one ventilator to serve two patients - what they call splitting. Which is when you add a second set of tubes to a ventilator to do two patients. It's not ideal, but we believe it's workable. We're also converting anesthesia machines to ventilators. We have a couple of thousand anesthesia machines in our hospitals and we're converting them to work as ventilators.

Why is there such a demand on ventilators? And where did this come from? It's a respiratory illness for a large number of people. So, they all need ventilators. Also, non-COVID patients are normally on ventilators for 3 to 4 days. COVID patients are on ventilators for 11 to 21 days. Think about that. So you don't have the same turnaround in the number of ventilators. If somebody is on ventilators for 3 or 4 days that's one level of ventilators you need. If somebody is on for 11 to 21 days, that's a totally different equation and that's what we're dealing with. The high number of COVID patients and the long period of time that they actually need a ventilator.

We're also working on equalizing and distributing the load of patients. Right now, the number of cases is highest in downstate New York. So we're working on a collaboration where we distribute the load between downstate hospitals and upstate hospitals. And we're also working on increasing the capacity for upstate hospitals.

Shifting now to a totally different field: the economic consequences of what's going on which have just really gelled after what the federal government has done and we were waiting for the federal action to determine where we were from a point of revenues and economics. What's happening to a state government - any state. It's happening to a city government, is a double whammy. You have increased expenses because of the COVID virus and you have a tremendous loss of revenue because all those businesses are closed and all those people are out of work. People are out of work, they're not earning income, they're not paying income tax. Businesses are closed, they're not making money, they're not paying business revenue.

So we're spending more to take care of the COVID virus and we're receiving less. In the middle of all this, we have to balance a budget. So how do you do a budget when you have expenses going out and a loss of revenue. We estimate the loss of revenue somewhere between $10-15 billion. Which all these number are hard to give a context. That is a ton of money for the State of New York's budget. We were waiting to see what the federal government did before we determined what we had to do because water flows downstream. If the federal government had taken an action that helped state government, city government, et cetera that would have put us in one situation. We now know what they've done. They passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill. They say maybe they'll come back and there will be another bill, but maybe maybe maybe. But we know what they did do with the stimulus bill.

The stimulus bill helped unemployment insurance and that is a good thing. It helped small businesses and that is a good thing. It did not help local governments or state governments and it did not address the governmental loss. And the federal officials, the ones who are being honest, will admit that. New York State receives $5 billion from the stimulus, New York State government. And it's earmarked only for COVID virus expenses. Which means it does absolutely nothing for us in terms of lost revenue to the state. The only thing it's doing is helping us on the COVID virus expenses, which is nice, but the bigger problem is on the lost revenues.

The congressional action, in my opinion, simply failed to address the governmental need. I spoke to all the officials involved. I spoke to our House delegation. I spoke to our Senators. And I believe what they did failed to meet the governmental need. I'm disappointed. I said I was disappointed. I find it irresponsible. I find it reckless. Emotion is a luxury and we don't have the luxury at this time of being emotional about what they did.

When this is over, I promise you, I'm going to give them a piece of my mind, but I would say to them today, this is an extraordinary time in this nation and it's an extraordinary time for government. This was the time to put politics aside in partisanship aside. This is the time for governmental leaders to stop making excuses and just do your job. Do your job. We are one nation. You know the places in this nation that have the most intense problems. Address the places that need the help, and this is not a time to fingers. This is not a time to make excuses. This is not a time to blame everyone else. We've lived with that in Washington for years. Now is the time to actually step up, do the right thing and do your job and they haven't as far as I'm concerned especially when it comes to the governmental need.

In any event, we have to do a budget and the budget is due April 1, so the only responsible course for us is number 1 we have to address this revenue loss. We know the revenues are down. We don't know how much we don't know when the economy comes back. We don't know the rate at which the economy comes back. And we don't know what Washington may do to address the situation in the future, if anything. So, you don't know, you don't know, you don't know and you don't know. But you have to do a budget with all those unknowns. Address them realistically. And how do you address them realistically? First, we're going to adjust down our revenue projections for the initial budget and then what we're going to do, which is something we've never done before, is we're going to adjust the budget through the years to reflect the actual revenue, meaning will say on day one, "Okay we intended to give you $100 we don't have $100 so we're going to give you $95. But I can only give you $95 if I get $95 and I let you know quarterly, whatever the period of time is how much money I'm getting and how much I can give you of the 95 and therefore you can plan accordingly." And that's frankly the only way that you can do this budget. When you have so many unknowns. So adjust the initial number down and then have periods through the course of the year where you say to school districts local governments et cetera, "This is how much we actually received. This is what the federal government did. This is what the federal government didn't do. The economy is coming back faster. The economy's coming back slower. But these are the actual numbers so you can adjust your budget accordingly."

On the public health numbers are testing numbers up again. We did 18,650 tests. This was just a massive mobilization, operational undertaking. We've never done it before you now have to set up all these drive-throughs, you have to set up all of these testing facilities and we're testing more than any state in the country. We're testing more per capita than South Korea. More per capita than China. It really is amazing what we're doing. And the testing is important. The testing is still helping you identify the positives and isolate the positives. The testing is not telling you how many people have the virus and. I think a lot of people conflate the two and that's a mistake. It's not even telling you the increase in the rate of infection. All it's telling you is your increasing the number of tests, and more test you do the more positives you will find and we're working very hard to increase the number of tests because we want to find the positives.

This is the really bad news. The number of deaths is increasing. It's bad news because people are dying. And that's the worst news you can have. It is not bad news in terms of it being unexpected. What's happening is people who were infected. Who came into the health care system have been on ventilators. The longer you are on a ventilator, the more probability of a bad outcome. We now have people who have been on a ventilator for 20 days, 30 days. The longer you are on a ventilator. The more likely you're not going to come off the ventilator and that is what is happening, because we do have people who have been on for quite a period of time. And those are the people who we are losing. That has always been the way the longer stays without recovery lead to a higher death rate, right? And that's not just COVID. That's any medical situation that you've dealt with. That is the natural consequence. When you have older sicker patients, who are staying on ventilators longer. They usually have a worse outcome, right? And I think people get that from their usual experience. What we're seeing now is that is happening. We've had people on a very long time, and they haven't gotten better, and they are passing away. So the number of deaths is at 385, it's up from 285, and since we still have a large number of people on ventilators for a long period of time, the experts expect that number to continue to increase, right, and we've said this from day one. You get the infection, 80 percent self-resolve, they don't go into the hospital. Some percentage going to the hospital, get treated, and go home. Some percentage go into the hospital, need a ventilator, they're on the ventilator, and they never come off the ventilator. And that is a situation where people just deteriorate over time. And that's what we're seeing. That is that vulnerable population, that very small percentage, two or three percent of the population who we've always worried about. But that's what we're seeing. And again, we expect it to increase because as time goes on, by definition we have more and more people on ventilators for a longer period of time.

Total number of people tested, 18,000. That's the break down. Number of positive cases, total 37,000, new cases, 6,400. The curve continues to go up. The spread across the state continues, which is also what we expected, just the way it spread all across the country. We now just have several counties that don't have a single case. The overall number, 37,000 tested positive, 5,000 people current hospital, 5,000. So this is the point, right. 37,000 tested positive. 5,000 currently hospitalized.

1,200 ICU patients, which is what we watch most carefully because those people need ventilators. 1,500 patients who were discharged after being hospitalized, okay. So not to be redundant but, people get sick. 80 percent of the people don't go into the hospital. They stay home. Some don't even stay home, they just self-resolve. Some people get sick and stay home. Some people check into the hospital. Now you're talking about 15 to 20 percent. Of that, a percentage get treated and leave. Of that, the smallest percentage get put on a ventilator. That's the 1,290 ICU patients. Some of those people on a ventilator get better and come off the ventilator. Some people don't get better, stay on the ventilator and when you're on the ventilator for a prolonged period of time the outcome is not positive. But, the percentage of people who wind up in that situation, it starts with the 1,290 ICU patients. Those are the people who are basically put on a ventilator. And that's of the 37,000 that tested positive, right. So we're talking about a very small population, they're put on a ventilator. Some recover, and some don't.

The most impacted states, New York is still number one. Louisiana is a quote unquote hot spot. It has a cluster that is growing and the people in Louisiana and in New Orleans are in our thoughts and prayers. We know what they're going through and we feel for them, and we pray for them, and we know the difficulty they're under, because of with dealing with the same type of situation. So our best to them. Any way we can help them, we stand ready. Again, total perspective is the Johns Hopkins count that has gone from day one. 487,000, 21,000 deaths worldwide.

My personal opinion, not facts, we give you the facts. My gratuitous two cents, which is probably worth a penny and a half.

This is a life moment. It's a moment in the life of this country. It's a moment in the life of the world. It's a moment in our family lives. It's a moment for each of us. Each of us is dealing with it in our own way, and my observation has been that when the pressure is on, is when you really see what people are made of, in a personal relationship in a business relationship.

You know, people can be great when everything is great. The question is what does a person do when things aren't great and what does a person do when the pressure is on them? And that's when you can see a little crack in the foundation of a person. But when the pressure is on that little crack, that little crack can explode and that foundation can crumble. Or, you can see the exact opposite. You can see them get stronger. But you get to see what they're really made of and you get to see the best. You get to see the worst. You get to see the beauty in people. And you get to see the opposite.

The outpouring of support for the people of New York has been so inspiring. Not just from New Yorkers. I'm telling you from across the country, from across the world. You would be amazed at how many phone calls we get. How many offers of support. How many creative ideas from everyone.

We've asked medical staff to volunteer. Retired medical staff who are no longer practicing. 40,000 had volunteered. We now have 12,000 people in one day volunteering to helping on the medical staff. We asked mental health professionals to come forward to volunteer. To offer free mental health services for people who are dealing with the stress and trauma of this situation. We had 6,000 people. We now have 8,600 people. We're getting mental health professionals from other states calling up and saying they'll provide mental health services electronically, through Skype or over the telephone.

It gives me such strength and such inspiration. But I don't want to sugarcoat the situation. The situation is not easy, but easy times don't forge character. It's the tough times that forge character, and that's what we're looking at right now. People say to me, people are getting tired of this situation. They've been home, its going on a couple of weeks. They're getting tired. Well, the truth is this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. We always said, this is not going to be over quickly. I understand people are tired, but I also understand that people in this situation are really stepping up to the plate and are doing phenomenal work.

So the next time you feel tired and believe me I feel tired, but when I feel tired I think of the first responders who are out there every day showing up. I think of the police officers, of the fire fighters who are up there every day, the grocery store workers who are working double shifts just to keep food on the shelves because people are buying so much food because they're nervous; the pharmacists who have lines going out the door and they're showing up every day, day after day; the transportation workers who don't have the luxury of feeling tired because they have to get up and they have to drive the bus so the nurses in the health care professionals can get to work; and those health care professionals who are dealing with a virus that they didn't even understand - they still don't understand. They're there working, many of them seven days a week.

So yes we're tired but look at what others among us have to do in the challenge they're under and how they are stepping up. And who am I to complain about being tired when so many people are doing such heroic efforts?

I also think this is going to be transformative and formative for society. You think about our children. I have my daughters here with me. This is the first time they faced a real national adversity. You have a whole new generation who have never lived through anything like this. They never went to war. They were never drafted. They never went through a national crisis and this is going to shape them and I can tell you just from having my daughters with me. Yeah, they're hurt, they're scared, but they are also learning through this and at the end of the day they're going to be better people for it and they're going be better citizens for it. I believe that because they're rising to the occasion. As we go through this let's make sure that we're teaching them the right lessons and the right response and those lesson and that response are the lessons that we get from our better angels.

During this difficult time let's listen to the voices of our better angels as individuals, as families, as a community, and as a society. We're going to get through this. The only question is how we get through it and when we get through it. But let's make sure at the end of the day that we can say we are the better for it and our children are the better for it - and I believe they will be.

2020-03-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Top of the morning to you. The people with us today, to my right is James Malatras, President of the SUNY Empire College, to my left Melissa DeRosa, to her left, Robert Mujica, Budget Director, back of the room, my daughter Cara who is doing a great job.

Let's talk about what's going on today. First, what I try to communicate in these briefings are the facts of the situation. Facts can be uplifting, they can be depressing at times, they can be confusing at times, but I think facts are empowering. You know, in a situation like this, not knowing the facts is worse because that's when feel out of control or when you feel that you're getting selective facts, or you're being deceived by the information you're getting. That is actually the worst situation. So what I say to my people in every situation, just give me the facts first and then let me understand what the situation and the reality is and then we'll go from there, so that's what I try to do.

The facts on this situation are increasingly important on two levels: public health but also the economic facts. We've been focusing on the public health facts and the response of the public health system to the virus. More and more we now have to deal on two fronts. We have to deal with the public health situation but we also have to deal with the economic situation and I'll get to that in a moment.

Public health, we've had a two-prong agenda which we've been pursuing aggressively. We still are flatten the curve so you reduce the flow into the hospital system. At the same time increase the hospital capacity. What we're looking for is not a reduction in in the number of cases. We're looking for a reduction in the rate of the increase in the number of cases. That's what comes first when you're starting to make progress. The rate of increase should reduce, as opposed to the number of absolute cases. So that's what we're looking for.

The optimum is when they talk about the apex of the curve is not to have an apex and that's what the flattening is, not to have that spike because the spike is where you would overwhelm the hospital systems that try to get down that rate of increase so you can actually handle it in the hospital system and that's what they talk about by the flattening of the curve.

Just as an aside, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been so kind and helpful to me. I speak to healthcare professionals all across the globe literally but Dr. Fauci I think is just brilliant at this and he has been so personally kind. I called him late at night. I called him in the middle of the night. I called him in the morning and he's been really a friend to me personally and the State of New York.

So this is all about getting that curve down and not overwhelming the hospital system. Almost any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the current health care system so little reality - keep the curve down as low as you can but you cannot get fit curve down low enough so that you don't overwhelm the hospital capacity. So any of these scenarios we have to increase the hospital capacity and that's why we're literally adding to the hospital capacity everywhere we can. That's what the Javits hospital is about, that's what the Stony Brook hospital is about, that's what Westchester Convention Center, that's what the Old Westbury additional site is.

We're also scouting new sites now all across, primarily the downstate area of this state, for possible sites. Our goal is to have a 1,000-plus overflow facility in each of the boroughs downstate in the counties, Queens, Brooklyn, the New York City boroughs, Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island and Long Island, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester and Rockland, so every county has a 1000-plus-bed overflow facility and that's what we're working on at the same time, as well as increasing the capacity of the existing hospital system.

As we've said the hospitals have a 53,000-bed capacity. We're trying get to 140,000-bed capacity between the hospitals and the overflow facilities. We've mandated that the hospitals increased their capacity by 50 percent. We've asked them to try to increase it 100 percent but they have to increase it 50 percent. We're also scouting dorms, scouting hotels for emergency beds and that's going well.

Equipment and PPE is an ongoing issue. Right now we do have enough PPE for the immediate future. The New York City hospital system confirm that so we have enough in stock now for the immediate need. Ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. I didn't know what they were a few weeks ago besides the cursory knowledge. I know too much about ventilators now. We're still shopping for ventilators all across the country. We need more. We have approved the technology that allows one ventilator to serve two patients - what they call splitting. Which is when you add a second set of tubes to a ventilator to do two patients. It's not ideal, but we believe it's workable. We're also converting anesthesia machines to ventilators. We have a couple of thousand anesthesia machines in our hospitals and we're converting them to work as ventilators.

Why is there such a demand on ventilators? And where did this come from? It's a respiratory illness for a large number of people. So, they all need ventilators. Also, non-COVID patients are normally on ventilators for 3 to 4 days. COVID patients are on ventilators for 11 to 21 days. Think about that. So you don't have the same turnaround in the number of ventilators. If somebody is on ventilators for 3 or 4 days that's one level of ventilators you need. If somebody is on for 11 to 21 days, that's a totally different equation and that's what we're dealing with. The high number of COVID patients and the long period of time that they actually need a ventilator.

We're also working on equalizing and distributing the load of patients. Right now, the number of cases is highest in downstate New York. So we're working on a collaboration where we distribute the load between downstate hospitals and upstate hospitals. And we're also working on increasing the capacity for upstate hospitals.

Shifting now to a totally different field: the economic consequences of what's going on which have just really gelled after what the federal government has done and we were waiting for the federal action to determine where we were from a point of revenues and economics. What's happening to a state government - any state. It's happening to a city government, is a double whammy. You have increased expenses because of the COVID virus and you have a tremendous loss of revenue because all those businesses are closed and all those people are out of work. People are out of work, they're not earning income, they're not paying income tax. Businesses are closed, they're not making money, they're not paying business revenue.

So we're spending more to take care of the COVID virus and we're receiving less. In the middle of all this, we have to balance a budget. So how do you do a budget when you have expenses going out and a loss of revenue. We estimate the loss of revenue somewhere between $10-15 billion. Which all these number are hard to give a context. That is a ton of money for the State of New York's budget. We were waiting to see what the federal government did before we determined what we had to do because water flows downstream. If the federal government had taken an action that helped state government, city government, et cetera that would have put us in one situation. We now know what they've done. They passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill. They say maybe they'll come back and there will be another bill, but maybe maybe maybe. But we know what they did do with the stimulus bill.

The stimulus bill helped unemployment insurance and that is a good thing. It helped small businesses and that is a good thing. It did not help local governments or state governments and it did not address the governmental loss. And the federal officials, the ones who are being honest, will admit that. New York State receives $5 billion from the stimulus, New York State government. And it's earmarked only for COVID virus expenses. Which means it does absolutely nothing for us in terms of lost revenue to the state. The only thing it's doing is helping us on the COVID virus expenses, which is nice, but the bigger problem is on the lost revenues.

The congressional action, in my opinion, simply failed to address the governmental need. I spoke to all the officials involved. I spoke to our House delegation. I spoke to our Senators. And I believe what they did failed to meet the governmental need. I'm disappointed. I said I was disappointed. I find it irresponsible. I find it reckless. Emotion is a luxury and we don't have the luxury at this time of being emotional about what they did.

When this is over, I promise you, I'm going to give them a piece of my mind, but I would say to them today, this is an extraordinary time in this nation and it's an extraordinary time for government. This was the time to put politics aside in partisanship aside. This is the time for governmental leaders to stop making excuses and just do your job. Do your job. We are one nation. You know the places in this nation that have the most intense problems. Address the places that need the help, and this is not a time to fingers. This is not a time to make excuses. This is not a time to blame everyone else. We've lived with that in Washington for years. Now is the time to actually step up, do the right thing and do your job and they haven't as far as I'm concerned especially when it comes to the governmental need.

In any event, we have to do a budget and the budget is due April 1, so the only responsible course for us is number 1 we have to address this revenue loss. We know the revenues are down. We don't know how much we don't know when the economy comes back. We don't know the rate at which the economy comes back. And we don't know what Washington may do to address the situation in the future, if anything. So, you don't know, you don't know, you don't know and you don't know. But you have to do a budget with all those unknowns. Address them realistically. And how do you address them realistically? First, we're going to adjust down our revenue projections for the initial budget and then what we're going to do, which is something we've never done before, is we're going to adjust the budget through the years to reflect the actual revenue, meaning will say on day one, "Okay we intended to give you $100 we don't have $100 so we're going to give you $95. But I can only give you $95 if I get $95 and I let you know quarterly, whatever the period of time is how much money I'm getting and how much I can give you of the 95 and therefore you can plan accordingly." And that's frankly the only way that you can do this budget. When you have so many unknowns. So adjust the initial number down and then have periods through the course of the year where you say to school districts local governments et cetera, "This is how much we actually received. This is what the federal government did. This is what the federal government didn't do. The economy is coming back faster. The economy's coming back slower. But these are the actual numbers so you can adjust your budget accordingly."

On the public health numbers are testing numbers up again. We did 18,650 tests. This was just a massive mobilization, operational undertaking. We've never done it before you now have to set up all these drive-throughs, you have to set up all of these testing facilities and we're testing more than any state in the country. We're testing more per capita than South Korea. More per capita than China. It really is amazing what we're doing. And the testing is important. The testing is still helping you identify the positives and isolate the positives. The testing is not telling you how many people have the virus and. I think a lot of people conflate the two and that's a mistake. It's not even telling you the increase in the rate of infection. All it's telling you is your increasing the number of tests, and more test you do the more positives you will find and we're working very hard to increase the number of tests because we want to find the positives.

This is the really bad news. The number of deaths is increasing. It's bad news because people are dying. And that's the worst news you can have. It is not bad news in terms of it being unexpected. What's happening is people who were infected. Who came into the health care system have been on ventilators. The longer you are on a ventilator, the more probability of a bad outcome. We now have people who have been on a ventilator for 20 days, 30 days. The longer you are on a ventilator. The more likely you're not going to come off the ventilator and that is what is happening, because we do have people who have been on for quite a period of time. And those are the people who we are losing. That has always been the way the longer stays without recovery lead to a higher death rate, right? And that's not just COVID. That's any medical situation that you've dealt with. That is the natural consequence. When you have older sicker patients, who are staying on ventilators longer. They usually have a worse outcome, right? And I think people get that from their usual experience. What we're seeing now is that is happening. We've had people on a very long time, and they haven't gotten better, and they are passing away. So the number of deaths is at 385, it's up from 285, and since we still have a large number of people on ventilators for a long period of time, the experts expect that number to continue to increase, right, and we've said this from day one. You get the infection, 80 percent self-resolve, they don't go into the hospital. Some percentage going to the hospital, get treated, and go home. Some percentage go into the hospital, need a ventilator, they're on the ventilator, and they never come off the ventilator. And that is a situation where people just deteriorate over time. And that's what we're seeing. That is that vulnerable population, that very small percentage, two or three percent of the population who we've always worried about. But that's what we're seeing. And again, we expect it to increase because as time goes on, by definition we have more and more people on ventilators for a longer period of time.

Total number of people tested, 18,000. That's the break down. Number of positive cases, total 37,000, new cases, 6,400. The curve continues to go up. The spread across the state continues, which is also what we expected, just the way it spread all across the country. We now just have several counties that don't have a single case. The overall number, 37,000 tested positive, 5,000 people current hospital, 5,000. So this is the point, right. 37,000 tested positive. 5,000 currently hospitalized.

1,200 ICU patients, which is what we watch most carefully because those people need ventilators. 1,500 patients who were discharged after being hospitalized, okay. So not to be redundant but, people get sick. 80 percent of the people don't go into the hospital. They stay home. Some don't even stay home, they just self-resolve. Some people get sick and stay home. Some people check into the hospital. Now you're talking about 15 to 20 percent. Of that, a percentage get treated and leave. Of that, the smallest percentage get put on a ventilator. That's the 1,290 ICU patients. Some of those people on a ventilator get better and come off the ventilator. Some people don't get better, stay on the ventilator and when you're on the ventilator for a prolonged period of time the outcome is not positive. But, the percentage of people who wind up in that situation, it starts with the 1,290 ICU patients. Those are the people who are basically put on a ventilator. And that's of the 37,000 that tested positive, right. So we're talking about a very small population, they're put on a ventilator. Some recover, and some don't.

The most impacted states, New York is still number one. Louisiana is a quote unquote hot spot. It has a cluster that is growing and the people in Louisiana and in New Orleans are in our thoughts and prayers. We know what they're going through and we feel for them, and we pray for them, and we know the difficulty they're under, because of with dealing with the same type of situation. So our best to them. Any way we can help them, we stand ready. Again, total perspective is the Johns Hopkins count that has gone from day one. 487,000, 21,000 deaths worldwide.

My personal opinion, not facts, we give you the facts. My gratuitous two cents, which is probably worth a penny and a half.

This is a life moment. It's a moment in the life of this country. It's a moment in the life of the world. It's a moment in our family lives. It's a moment for each of us. Each of us is dealing with it in our own way, and my observation has been that when the pressure is on, is when you really see what people are made of, in a personal relationship in a business relationship.

You know, people can be great when everything is great. The question is what does a person do when things aren't great and what does a person do when the pressure is on them? And that's when you can see a little crack in the foundation of a person. But when the pressure is on that little crack, that little crack can explode and that foundation can crumble. Or, you can see the exact opposite. You can see them get stronger. But you get to see what they're really made of and you get to see the best. You get to see the worst. You get to see the beauty in people. And you get to see the opposite.

The outpouring of support for the people of New York has been so inspiring. Not just from New Yorkers. I'm telling you from across the country, from across the world. You would be amazed at how many phone calls we get. How many offers of support. How many creative ideas from everyone.

We've asked medical staff to volunteer. Retired medical staff who are no longer practicing. 40,000 had volunteered. We now have 12,000 people in one day volunteering to helping on the medical staff. We asked mental health professionals to come forward to volunteer. To offer free mental health services for people who are dealing with the stress and trauma of this situation. We had 6,000 people. We now have 8,600 people. We're getting mental health professionals from other states calling up and saying they'll provide mental health services electronically, through Skype or over the telephone.

It gives me such strength and such inspiration. But I don't want to sugarcoat the situation. The situation is not easy, but easy times don't forge character. It's the tough times that forge character, and that's what we're looking at right now. People say to me, people are getting tired of this situation. They've been home, its going on a couple of weeks. They're getting tired. Well, the truth is this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. We always said, this is not going to be over quickly. I understand people are tired, but I also understand that people in this situation are really stepping up to the plate and are doing phenomenal work.

So the next time you feel tired and believe me I feel tired, but when I feel tired I think of the first responders who are out there every day showing up. I think of the police officers, of the fire fighters who are up there every day, the grocery store workers who are working double shifts just to keep food on the shelves because people are buying so much food because they're nervous; the pharmacists who have lines going out the door and they're showing up every day, day after day; the transportation workers who don't have the luxury of feeling tired because they have to get up and they have to drive the bus so the nurses in the health care professionals can get to work; and those health care professionals who are dealing with a virus that they didn't even understand - they still don't understand. They're there working, many of them seven days a week.

So yes we're tired but look at what others among us have to do in the challenge they're under and how they are stepping up. And who am I to complain about being tired when so many people are doing such heroic efforts?

I also think this is going to be transformative and formative for society. You think about our children. I have my daughters here with me. This is the first time they faced a real national adversity. You have a whole new generation who have never lived through anything like this. They never went to war. They were never drafted. They never went through a national crisis and this is going to shape them and I can tell you just from having my daughters with me. Yeah, they're hurt, they're scared, but they are also learning through this and at the end of the day they're going to be better people for it and they're going be better citizens for it. I believe that because they're rising to the occasion. As we go through this let's make sure that we're teaching them the right lessons and the right response and those lesson and that response are the lessons that we get from our better angels.

During this difficult time let's listen to the voices of our better angels as individuals, as families, as a community, and as a society. We're going to get through this. The only question is how we get through it and when we get through it. But let's make sure at the end of the day that we can say we are the better for it and our children are the better for it - and I believe they will be.

2020-03-27 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everyone. Let me introduce who we have with us today. From my far right we have Jim Malatras who is President of Empire College who I worked with for many years and has been very helpful here on this mission; our Commissioner of Health Dr. Howard Zucker; to my left is General Patrick Murphy who I have more to say about in a moment; and to his left is General Raymond Shields.

Thank you for being here today. This is an amazing accomplishment. It's transformative in just one week. The Javits Center looks entirely different and this is a place that's literally going to save lives. Let me go through some facts if I can on a daily update of where we are and then I want to make some comments to all the women and men who are assembled and did such a great job on this facility.

The increase in the number of cases continues. We still see that trajectory going up. Those are the dates from March 3 to March 25. Strategy, plan of action, all along - step one, flatten the curve, step two, increase hospital capacity. Flatten the curve, meaning if you do it as well as you can do it hopefully there is no high point of the curve. There is no apex. It's a flatter, lower curve. Why? So the hospital capacity can keep up with it. That's what this is all about - not overwhelming hospital capacity and at the same time increasing the hospital capacity that we have so if it does exceed those numbers, which it will in most probability, that we have the additional capacity to deal with it.

Flattening the curve - these are all measures that we put in place, barring non-essential workers, social distancing, closing bars, closing restaurants, all the things I did that made people very happy with me. But the way you make a decision is the

benefit and the burden. Right? The risk and the reward. We are battling a deadly virus. Is there an intrusion on daily life? Yes. Is there an intrusion on movement? Yes. Is there an intrusion on the economy? Yes. But what's on the other side of the scale is literally saving lives and that's not rhetorical. That's not drama. That's fact.

Public education is very important. It's important to all of us on the other side of the balance beam is public health. I decided to close the public schools because I believed it was safer to close the schools and reduce the spread. We did that on March 18. Ee said we would do it for two weeks and then we would reassess the situation at the end of two weeks. Two weeks ends on April 1.

We also said that we would waive what's called the 180-day requirement. That every school has to teach for 180 days. We would waive that but that we would close the schools until April 1 and then we would reassess.

Also we said that every school district before it closes had to come up with plans to continue functions that they were doing, because school districts do more than just educate. They provide child care for essential workers. They provide meals in the schools so everything that they were doing they had to come up with a plan to mitigate the consequence of their closing including distance learning for their students. 

I have to reassess because April 1 is just in a couple of days and I believe the schools should remain closed. I don't do this joyfully but I think when you look at where we are and you look at the number of cases still increasing it only makes sense to keep the schools closed. They have to continue the programs they're doing. They have to continue the childcare, continue the meals, continue the distance learning programs. I'll continue the waiver on what's called 180-day mandate that they have to be in operation, but we're going to close the schools for another two weeks and then will reassess at that point and that is statewide.

At the same time we're working to increase hospital capacity. What is a possible apex of the curve? It changes a little bit depending on the data day to day but now we're looking at about 21 days for a possible apex. So we want to do everything we can to be ready for that increased capacity that could hit us in 21 days and ramp up the hospital capacity. We are doing everything we can. We're doing things that have never been done before. We're doing things that when we put them on the table people thought they were impossible, but we are now doing the impossible, as you know well here with what you did over the past week.

All hospitals have to increase their capacity by 50 percent. We're asking hospitals to try to increase their capacity 100 percent because we need that many beds. We're also looking at converting dorms, we're looking at converting hotels. We've been gathering equipment from everywhere we can: PPE equipment. The most important piece of equipment for us are ventilators and we're shopping literally around the globe to put it all in place. We're creating a stockpile of this equipment so that when and if the apex hits we can deploy equipment from the stockpile to whatever region of the State or whatever hospital needs it. So, we collect it, we hold it as a hospital needs it, a region needs it, then we deploy it; the N95 masks, surgical masks, examination gloves, protective gowns, coveralls, and most importantly the ventilators.

Why ventilators? Because this is a respiratory illness. People need ventilators who come in for acute care, and the people are on ventilators much longer than most patients are on ventilators. Most people are on a ventilator for two, three, four days. These COVID patients can come in and need a ventilator for up to 20 days. So, you see why that need for ventilators is so important. And again, all of this is to make sure we're ready for that apex when the entire system is stressed and under pressure, and that's what we're working on. For the hospital capacity at the "apex," we need 140,000 beds. We have 53,000 beds, that's why we're scrambling and that's why we're asking you to do as much work as you're doing. We need 40,000 ICU beds; the ICU bed are the Intensive Care Unit beds. They have ventilators. We have, when we started, 3,000 ICU beds with 3,000 ventilators. So you see how monumental the task, how monumental the mountain that we have to climb. 

Of the 140,000, how do we get to the 140,000? As I said, all hospitals increase by 50 percent. Some hospitals will increase 100 percent -- they're going to get the gold star hospital award. I don't know exactly what that means, but we'll figure it out later.

FEMA and the Army Corps, and the National Guard have been working to put up these emergency hospitals. So far we have planned for four: the one we're in today at the Javits Center, one in Westchester County Center, one at Stony Brook, and one at Old Westbury. That would be 4,000 additional units. They are all underway as we speak, not as far along as your good work at Javits, but they are on their way. Again, with all of these beds we still have a shortfall, so we're going to go to Plan B. What's Plan B? We're going to seek to build another four temporary emergency hospitals, which would get us another 4,000 beds and we just have been scouting sites for a few days. We have settled on a few sites working with the Army Corps of Engineers, and I'm going to ask the President today if he will authorize another four temporary hospitals for us.

I want to have one in every borough. I want to have one for the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn. One for Nassau, one for Suffolk, one for Westchester, so everybody knows downstate, which is where the essence of the density is right now, that everyone equally is being helped and is being protected. We looked at a site in the Bronx at the New York Expo Center - it's a 90,000 square foot site. Seeing what we did here we think it would work very well, and again the Army Corps of Engineers has worked with us and looked at all these sites, and thinks that these sites work. One in Queens at the Aqueduct Racetrack site - 100,000 square feet there. One in Brooklyn in what's called the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal; it's owned by the Port Authority, but it's a wide open space. We can convert it very easily - 182,000 square feet. And in Staten Island, the College of Staten Island, which is a CUNY facility - 77,000 square feet. Again, inside can be converted; it has power, it has climate control, et cetera.

We would do the same thing that we've done here successfully, so we know it works. We know it's feasible building the interior pace. We have exterior space that we could put up a temporary tent for supplies, equipment, et cetera. That would give us coverage all across the downstate area with proximate facilities to every location downstate, and frankly is the best plan. that we can put together and execute in this timeline. We also have, beyond, the next phase of temporary hospitals. If the White House grants that request.

We have the navy ship Comfort coming up. That is going to be on its way soon. It's going to be right here in New York harbor. It is a massive facility in and of itself. 1,000 beds, 12,00 medical personnel, 12 operating rooms, it has a pharmacy, it has a laboratory. And it should be here on Monday. So that will also help us in this quest.

And then we're looking at dormitories and converting dormitories downstate. We're looking at City College dormitories, Queens College. We have the dormitories because the colleges are closed and the students have left so we actually have dormitories that we can convert. We're also looking at hotels and nursing homes. We're looking at the Marriott Brooklyn Bridge Hotel and a nursing home called Brooklyn Center. So as you can see, we're looking far and wide, very creative, aggressive, and finding all the space that we can possibly find, and converting it to be ready in case we have that overflow capacity.

We also have it planned out so that this will be coming online before we think the apex hits, and at the same time we're trying to flatten the curve to delay and soften that apex, right? Those are the two strategies. Slow the spread, flatten the curve. In the meantime increase the hospital capacity so whatever that surge is that you have you actually have the capacity to deal with it. And right now we have a plan where over the next three or four weeks, which is the same timeline as the apex possibly coming, we're going to have the capacity as high as we can possibly get that, get the capacity. In terms of where we are today, because we're tracking the numbers, we want to see what's happening. And are we getting closer to the apex? Are we succeeding in flattening the curve?

We've been testing. We test more in this state than any state in the United States. We test more per capita than China or South Korea. So we ramped up very quickly on the testing. New tests, 16,000, total tested, 138,000. Number of positive cases, total cases 44,000, new cases 7,377. It continues to spread all across the state as it continues to spread all across the country.

The number of deaths, we're up to 519 in New York. That's up from 385. That is going to continue to go up, and that is the worst news that I could possibly tell the people of the State of New York. The reason why the number is going up is because some people came into the hospital 20 days, 25 days ago, and have been on a ventilator for that long a period of time. The longer you are on a ventilator, the less likely you're going to your going to come off that ventilator. And that's not just true with this virus. That's true with every illness. When somebody's on that ventilator for a prolonged period of time the outcome is usually not good. So we're seeing a significant increase in deaths because the length of time people are on the ventilator is increasing and the more it increases the higher the level of deaths will increase. And again we expect that to continue to increase. It's bad news. It's tragic news. It's the worst news. But it is not unexpected news, either. You could talk to any health care professional, they'll tell you about if you're talking about a loved one if they're not off that ventilator in a relatively short period of time, it's not a good sign.

Overall 44,000 people have tested positive, 6,000 currently hospitalized, 1,500 in intensive care units. That's up 290. Those are the people who need the ventilators. 2,000 patients have been discharged. That's up 528. So, you have people coming into the hospital, getting treatment, and leaving the hospital. Most people who get the virus will never even go into the hospital in the first place, right, so we have to keep this in focus. 80 percent of the people who get the virus will what they call self-resolve. You feel ill, maybe you won't feel that ill. You think you have the flu and you self-resolve. 80 percent of the people. 20 percent will go to a hospital. Some of them will get short term treatment, and then they go home. A very small percent and they tend to be older people more vulnerable people, people with an underlying illness, this respiratory illness compounds the problem they have. They had a compromised immune system. They were fighting emphysema. They were battling cancer and on top of that, they now get pneumonia which is what this corona virus is. That's the population that is most vulnerable. They then go on to a ventilator. Some percentage get off quickly. Some percentage don't get off. The longer they're on, the higher the mortality rate. New York is still by far the most affected state, both in terms of number of cases, and in terms of number of deaths. Why? Because we welcome people here from all over the globe. So travelers came here, people from China came here, people from Korea came here, people who are traveling around the country and stop in China and stopped in South Korea and stop in Italy, came here. And because we are a very dense environment. You know social distancing, stay 6 feet away, that's hard in New York City, right? Walk down on a sidewalk and tell me that you can stay 6 feet away from someone. We're so dense, we're so together, which is what makes us special gives us that New York energy gives us that New York mojo. It also - that density becomes the enemy in a situation like this.

This is the total number of people who have been hospitalized. And we've been watching these numbers every day. We are now compiling the numbers. I think in what's a smarter way before we were getting individual patient data. Every hospital had to tell us about each individual patient, what they're address was, where they came from what the underlying illness was and then put all that information together, which was very labor intensive. So it was erratic, the way the information would come in. Sometimes the hospital was just too busy to put all that information together, so they didn't send it in until the next day or the day after. This is a more uniform set of data. This is all the number of people in that hospital who have the coved virus without getting into all the specifics of individual names and individual circumstances so it's easier for them to get us this data. And you see again the steady incline in the number. But, and this is good news, early on you see that the number was doubling every two-and-a-half days. Then it was doubling every three days. Now it's doubling about every four days. It's still doubling and that's still bad news because it still means you're moving up towards an apex right that number still goes up but there is good news in that. The rate of the increase is slowing. So they're two separate facts: the rate of the increase is slowing, but the number of cases are still going up, all right? And those two points are consistent and that's what we're seeing. We want to see the rate slowing. And then we want to see the number of actual cases coming down or flattening. That's the flattening of the curve. But this is where we are today.

Again to keep it all in perspective people don't know what to make of the coronavirus. "What's going to happen? What's going to happen?" Johns Hopkins is studied every coronavirus since China. 542,000 cases they've studied. Of all those cases there have been 24,000 deaths. That's a lot of deaths, yes. But compared to 542,000 cases, it gives you a sense of the lethality of this disease. And if you look at the 24,000 they're going to be overwhelmingly older people, vulnerable people, people with underlying illnesses et cetera.

The amount of support that we have gotten from New Yorkers in the midst of this crisis is just extraordinary. I am a born and bred New Yorker, if you can't tell my queens accent. I can tell you a Bronx accent, your Brooklyn accent, your Manhattan accent and your Staten Island accent. But New Yorkers never cease to amaze me how big their heart is. You know they talk about how New Yorkers are tough. Yeah you know it's tough to live in a place like this. You have to be tough. But as tough as we are is as loving as we and is as big as our heart is. And when someone needs something there's no place, I'd rather be than New York and the number of people who are volunteering who are coming forward. We put out a call for additional medical personnel because we have to staff all these additional beds. We put out a call, 62,000 volunteers. The number went up 10,000 in one day. How beautiful is that? These are people who are retired. Who did their duty, who could just sit at, home but they are coming forward.

Same thing we ask from Mental Health professionals who could provide mental health services electronically over the telephone through skype, et cetera. Many people are dealing with mental health issues. This is a stressful taxing situation on everyone, on everyone and isolation at home. You are home, you're home alone, day after day, after day. That is a stressful situation. You don't know what's going on, you're afraid, you're afraid to go out. You're isolated with your family. That's a stressful situation. Not that we don't love to be with our family. We all do, but that can create stress. And there's no place to go. There's no one to talk to about that. So, this mental health service over the telephone is very, very important.

I want to speak to the most important people in the room for a moment. Who are the people who are responsible for this great construction behind me. First, I'd like to introduce General Patrick Murphy who's to my left. General Murphy is tested, smart, and he is tested tough. I've been with the general for nine years. I've seen him in hurricanes, and Superstorm Sandy, and floods, and everything mother nature could throw could throw at us. So, I've seen him in attempted terrorist attacks. There is no one better. He leads from the front. He knows what he's doing and you could not have a better commander at this time than General Patrick Murphy and I want you to know that. I want to congratulate the Army Corps of Engineers for what they did here. I used to be in the federal government I worked with the Army Corps of Engineers all across the country. I worked with them on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation building housing and one of the officers of the Army Corps of Engineers is still in service and reminded me of that. They are top shelf and what they did here is top shelf.

I want to thank the Javits staff which has really stepped up and I want to thank our National Guard, because you are the best of us. You are the best of us. And whenever we call on you, you are there and what you did in this facility in one week creating a hospital is just incredible. I don't know how you did it. Now, you did such a good job that I'm asking for four more from the President. That's the downside of being is as good as you are at what you did. But what you did is really incredible

I want to make two points to you and I want to make two promises to you. This is a different beast that we're dealing with. This is an invisible beast. It is an insidious beast. This is not going to be a short deployment. This is not going to be that you go out there for a few days. We work hard and we go home. This is going to be weeks and weeks and weeks. This is going to be a long day and it's going to be a hard day, and it's going to be an ugly day, and it's going to be a sad day. This is a rescue mission that you're on - the mission is to save lives. That's what you're doing. The rescue mission is to save lives and as hard as we work. We're not going to be able to save everyone. And what's even more cruel is this enemy doesn't attack the strongest of us. It attacks the weakest of us. It attacks are most vulnerable which makes it even worse in many ways. Because these are the people that every instinct tells us were supposed to protect. These are our parents and our grandparents. These are our aunts, our uncles. These are a relative who was sick and every instinct says protect them. Help them, because they need us. And those are the exact people that this enemy attacks. Every time I've called out the National Guard I have said the same thing to you. I promise you. I will not ask you to do anything that I will not do myself. And the same is true here. We're going to do this and we're going to do this together.

My second point is, you are living a moment in history. This is going to be one of those moment they're going to write and they're going to talk about for generations. This is a moment that is going to change this nation. This is a moment that forges character, forges people, changes people. Make them stronger, make them weaker, but this is a moment that will change character. Ten years from now, you'll be talking about today to your children or your grandchildren and you will shed a tear because you will remember the lives lost. You'll remember the faces and you'll remember the names and you'll remember how hard we worked and that we still lost loved ones. And you'll shed a tear and you should because it will be sad. But, you will also be proud. You'll be proud of what you did. You'll be proud that you showed up. You showed up when other people played it safe, you had the courage to show up. You had the skill and the professionalism to make a difference and save lives. That's what you will have done.

At the end of the day, nobody can ask anything more from you. That is your duty, to do what you can when you can. You will have shown skill and courage and talent. You'll be there with your mind, you'll be there with your heart and you'll serve with honor. That will give you pride and you should be proud. I know that I am proud of you. And every time the National Guard has been called out, they have made every New Yorker proud. I am proud to be with you yet again. I'm proud to fight this fight with you. And I bring you thanks from all New Yorkers who are just so appreciative of the sacrifice that you are making, the skill that you're bringing, the talent that you're bringing. You give many New Yorkers confidence.

So I say, my friends, that we go out there today and we kick coronavirus' ass, that's what I say. And we're going to save lives and New York is going to thank you. God bless each and every one of you.

2020-03-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Let's talk to you about where we are. Today, this is a situation which none of us have ever seen before and it manifests itself in many different ways. There's economic anxiety. People are out of work. What does this mean? Unemployment insurance, will it cover the bills. There's isolation. There's fear of the unknown, there's misinformation. You put it together, it is very disorienting, to say the least. If you're feeling disoriented, it's not you. It's everyone, and it's everywhere, and it's with good cause. Today is Saturday. You know how I know today is Saturday? Because my alarm clock said Saturday when I woke up this morning. But if you drive around, it doesn't seem like Saturday, right? Saturday is the day that people are off work, except people were off work yesterday. Saturday is the day that the traffic is lighter. But the traffic was lighter yesterday. So, it's literally one day blending into the other. And just as a matter of perspective, a matter of context, this feels like it's been going on forever. But it really hasn't. New York State had its first case of COVID just 27 days ago. New York schools closed only ten days ago. The New Rochelle cluster, which was the highest cluster in the United States, which, thanks to the good work of our health department, has now come down. That was 18 days ago when we started the school closings in New Rochelle and started the testing and the drive-throughs. The overall shutdown of non-essential workers was only eight days ago. Feels like a lifetime.

Perspective, well, how long does this go on? How long do we expect it? China, which was the first test case, right, first case was 12 weeks ago. That's when it started in China. South Korea started nine weeks ago. Italy about eight weeks ago. South Korea started nine weeks ago. Italy about eight weeks ago. So keep it all in perspective during this disorienting time where one day is blurring into the next. A lot of people ask me why is there so much talk about the ventilators? I never heard about a ventilator before. You're not alone, I never really heard about a ventilator before either.

But every emergency situation is unique and every emergency situation winds up focusing on an issue that you would have never thought of before. We've been through emergency situations, Superstorm Sandy. We needed 1,000 portable generators immediately. Whoever heard of needing 1,000 portable generators? We had flooding in the northern part of the state. We need 700 miles of sandbags. Whoever heard of needing 700 miles of sandbags? So there's always a particular circumstance that winds up developing in these situations that really you could never anticipate.

And in this situation, it is about a ventilator. Why? Because the majority of these patients, they're not coming in needing surgery, you know. It's all the same. It's a respiratory illness. Their lungs are damaged. They're having trouble breathing. They have a cough and they all need a ventilator. And that is the peculiarity of this situation. Compounding it is usually when we equip a healthcare system, people are usually on a ventilator for three or four days. With COVID patients, they're on for 11 to 21 days. That then compounds the ventilator issue. Not only do you need more, but people are on them longer, so you need even more, and that increases the problem.

I think the president was right to use the Defense Production Act. What the Defense Production Act basically says is I'm not going to ask private companies to help out, and it's great that we have volunteers, et cetera, but the Defense Production Act gives the federal government significant leverage to actually say, I need these produced and I need these produced by X date. Now, the federal government still pays. They pay an increased cost for the accelerated production, but it gives the federal government the ability to do that. And when it comes to ventilators, they are the necessity in this situation. What do I do as governor? Basically, I ask people who know, I ask the experts a lot of questions.

And just staying on the ventilators, well, what if? What if? What if? What if we can't get the ventilators? What do we do if we don't have enough ventilators? Then you use bag valve masks. What is a valve bag mask? This is a bag valve mask. This is what you do if you have a person that needs a ventilator, and you don't have a ventilator. The way this works is it's basically a manual ventilator and someone squeezes the ventilator, the bag, continuously. This looks easy. I guarantee, if you do this for any length of time, you see how difficult it winds up being. This is the alternative if you don't have the ventilator. We are actually buying these. We bought about 3,000. We've ordered about an additional 4,000 of these bag valve masks. We've even talking about training National Guard people to learn how to operate this device, which is relatively simple to operate, but you need a lot of people to operate this 24 hours a day for each patient, right? So those are bag valve masks. They're the alternative to ventilators and short answer is, no thank you. If we have to turn to this device on any large-scale basis that is not an acceptable situation. So we go back to finding the ventilators because we need the ventilators.

Well, you need 30,000 ventilators. Do you really need 30,000 ventilators? Look, I'm not a medical expert. Even the medical experts can't tell you what you're going to need here at the high point. They do numerical projections and then you plan based on the projection. You plan based on the data, based on the science, based on the numbers. The data says at that high point of need, you could need 140,000 hospital beds and you could need 30,000 ventilators. That's what the numerical projections say. So we're planning for that quote, unquote worst case scenario which the models predict. Maybe we never get there, maybe we flatten the curve and we slow the infection rate so we never get to that point and that's what we're trying to do and we're working on that day and night. But, if we can't flatten the curve, you can't slow the infection rate, you hit that apex, make sure you're ready for the apex and that's where the 30,000 ventilators come in. 

I have no desire to procure more ventilators than we need. On a very practical basis, the state is buying most of the ventilators. The ventilators cost between $25,000 to $45,000 each. So they're very expensive and you're talking about a state government that quite frankly is already in a, from a position of revenue, in a terrible position because we're not collecting any revenues, literally. So I don't want to buy any more ventilators than we need to buy on a very parochial basis. I don't want to pay for them and after this is over, we'll have a great stockpile of ventilators whatever we do, but the state has no interest in inflating the number of ventilators that we actually need. 

Something interesting about the price of ventilators. When we started buying them they were about $25,000. Now, they're about $45,000. Why? Because they're in such demand and there's such competition to buy the ventilators, which I'll touch in a moment. The government has sent us 4,000 ventilators. Those 4,000 ventilators are not currently in use. Why? Because we don't need them currently. What we're doing is we're planning for that apex. We're planning for the critical need and making sure we have the equipment to staff the beds for that critical need. We're not at that critical need. Projections change, but the models say you're 14-21 days away from that apex we call it, when that curve hits the highest point. But when the curve hits the highest point, it is too late to try to acquire what you need. Acquire what you need, that's the concept of putting together a stockpile and that's the process we're going through now. We only have 14-21 days so it's not a significant amount of time, but do everything you can to get ready now. 

There's an old expression, you go to war with what you have, not with what you need. Which is true. When the bell goes off and you have to go to war, you deal with what you have because it's too late to do the preparation. The but on that is until you're in that situation, do everything you can do to be prepared for it. If they tell you you're going to go to war in 14-21 days then spend the next 14-21 days getting ready everything you would need when you actually have to go to war. For us, the war would fully engage if and when we hit that apex. And that's why everything we're doing now is in anticipation of that. Flatten the curve so the apex never happens. God forbid the apex happens, make sure we have as much of the equipment, staff, et cetera that we would need for that moment. 

A few updates. They still forecast the apex to be 14-21 days. Again, that changes on the modeling every time the case load goes up or down a little bit that effects the calculation on the apex. What do you need at the apex? One hundred and forty thousand beds. That's hospital beds, dormitory beds, we're working on that every day and we're getting closer and closer to that 140,000 number. PPE equipment: right now we have enough PPE in stock and all the local health systems say they have enough PPE in stock, short term. No one has enough long term so we're still buying and we're still talking to the federal government about acquiring more PPE. There is a concern among health care professionals because the CDC guidelines suggest a different protocol for PPE and masks depending on the condition and apparently there is a crisis set of guidelines that the CDC puts out for how often you change a gown, how often you change your mask, et cetera in a crisis. And the CDC has put those crisis guidelines in place and many health care professionals are concerned that those guidelines do not adequately protect the nurses and the doctors and the health care staff that are working on this issue. Dr. Zucker is looking at that. If we believe the CDC guidelines don't protect health care professionals, we will put our own guidelines in place. You have a bed, you have the equipment, you need the staff and that's where we're working on bringing more reserves staff and putting that reserve staffing capacity in place and that's going very well, and back to our favorite ventilator quest.

Word to the local health systems, we need the local health systems to think more holistically. In other words, you'll have a regional health system with Western New York, Central New York, New York City and they'll have a number of hospitals. You can have a single hospital get overwhelmed within that system. You can have the staff get overwhelmed. You can have one hospital where they run low on supplies. The local health systems have to choose their orientation where it's not hospital by hospital, which is the normal culture - every hospital is free standing on its own, and is its own entity and buys its owner equipment, has its own staff, et cetera. I need the local health systems to change their orientation and operate and plan as if that system is one. If you see a local hospital getting overwhelmed, shift to an adjoining hospital, both within the public system and the private system. Your public hospitals and then you have private hospitals, voluntary hospitals. We have to stop operating as individual hospitals, and they have to operate as a system. I need the local officials to that.

So patients can and should be moved among those local hospitals as the need requires. Staff can and should be moved among those local hospitals as circumstances require. State department of health has not only advised that but has mandated that. It's not the normal operating culture but it is a necessity in this situation, because depending on where a hospital is, you'll have hospitals getting overwhelmed because they'll happen to be in an area where there are not a lot of other hospitals, or because that's a hot zone, cluster zone, that hospital gets overwhelmed. All right. Shift, cooperate, plan as a local health system. There may come a point where the state steps in and actually allocates among local health systems. This is when I said the other day, you may have patients from downstate New York to Upstate New York. Why? Because if the entire local health system in downstate New York gets overwhelmed or the local health system on Long Island gets overwhelmed, and the Long Island health system says to me, "Look, we've allocated and have eight hospitals. We allocated everything we can among our eight hospitals. We're still overwhelmed." Well then we'll shift the burden literally to a different health system. And I just want them to anticipate that and see that's coming.

We have asked the pharmacies to cooperate above and beyond here and do free home delivery. There are long lines of pharmacies right now. That's not good for anyone. I'm going to be speaking with some of the major pharmacy chains today to ask if they would be cooperative but this would be a very big benefit. I understand it a hardship on the pharmacies to provide home delivery, I'm asking them to do it free of charge, but it will make a very big difference.

Also, the Department of Health is monitoring the density and activity in the New York City parks, specifically on the playgrounds. This has been a problem. We spoke about it last week. The New York City Mayor de Blasio and the Speaker Corey Johnson have spoken to this and gave us a plan. We accepted the plan. The plan is premised on the fact that people will reduce the density in playgrounds - no basketball, no contact sports, social distancing. There have been reports that is not happening and it's not in compliance. Speaker Johnson has made this point and I believe he's right. So if the density compliance is not working on a voluntary basis, we could get to a point where we will close those playgrounds. So I again ask the people in New York City, especially young people, take this seriously, for yourself and for others and let's do it on a voluntary basis. We're also now administering 1,100 tests of the hydroxychloroquine and the Zithromax. This is the prescription the President is optimistic about, we hope to be optimistic also, but we're now using it on a large scale basis particularly in the New York City hospitals and we'll be getting results soon.

Javits will open Monday - I was there yesterday. It's a 1,000 bed emergency hospital. It is amazing what the Army Corps of Engineers did in a short time. It was about one week and the progress they made is really extraordinary and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. The Army Corps of Engineers, the National Guard, which is our workforce that we call out in all these situations - I've worked with many of them and I know them after so many situations together, but they showed up and really done a great job and this should open on Monday. The USNS Comfort is going be on its way as of today I'm told. The President is going to be seeing it off. It should be here on Monday. That will be 1,000 beds. It also brings medical personnel, which frankly are more important than the beds in this case. And it has operating rooms, et cetera. We'll use this to backfill and take pressure off the hospitals. So a hospital can backfill on to this 1,000 bed facility. I'm hoping it gets here Monday and I will greet it with open arms.

I spoke to the President this morning. Actually, just before I came in today. I apologize for being a few minutes late. And the President approved four new sites for emergency medical facilities. One in Brooklyn at the Port Authority cruise ship terminal it's called - one at Queens at aqueduct racetrack and one on Staten Island and one in the Bronx at the New York Expo Center. I went and toured these sites yesterday. They are perfect -- well, perfect. None of this is perfect. They are appropriate and suitable to bring in large scale medical facilities. They're 100,000 square feet, 120,000 square feet. They're open, they have electric, they have climate control, et cetera. So, this is going to be a big advantage. This will add another 4,000 beds and there is one in every borough in New York City, which was important to me. Every borough knows that they have a facility and they are getting the same treatment that everyone else is getting. I'm a New York City outer borough person. You don't know that classification unless you're from New York City. Outer borough. Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Bronx. Those are out boroughs. Manhattan is the inner borough, but they never call it an inner borough. Everyone is being treated the same. We're adding to that bed capacity to get to the 140,000 beds. We've added 695 additional beds South Beach Psychiatric Center on Staten, which is opening up. We have the Westchester Square Bronx 200 beds. Health Alliance in Ulster County, 235 beds. So, you see again, we're trying to have facilities all around the geographic location that's experiencing the increase.

We're also making another shift where we're going to go to COVID-only hospitals. Where people in those hospitals will just have the COVID virus. So the staff that is there is basically working with one type of issue as opposed to a normal hospital setting where you can have people with heart ailments and other medical issues. And on top of them, the COVID patients. The Health Commissioner has given us good advice. It's smarter to keep the COVID patients separate. You don't want a person who goes into a hospital with one situation developing COVID because they happened to be exposed. So, this is smart and we're going to isolate 600 beds for just this treatment. South Beach again, Westchester Square and SUNY Downstate, which is in Brooklyn.

This shows you the coverage that we'll have when all of this is said and done. You'll see it's equally distributed. It's significant and, in truth, many locations have been constructed, adapted, modified, and it's been done in a very short period of time. Again, all this in contemplation of the apex. If we're lucky the apex never happens.

The New York State Department of Health has gotten approval by the FDA to start a new test, which is an antibody test. We can test individuals to see if they were, in fact, infected by the virus, resolved, and now have the antibodies so they have an immunity to the virus. This is being done here. It's managed by our health department. The FDA has given us approval. Department of Health is working with private hospitals who actually enact this now. This could be a big breakthrough if that happens.

On the theory of risk, reward, we're supposed to have a presidential primary election that's coming up on April 28th. I don't think it's wise to be bringing a lot of people to one location to vote. A lot of people touching one doorknob, a lot of people touching one pen, whatever you call the new device on the ballots, so we are going to delay that and link it to an election that was previously scheduled on June 23rd. The June 23rd is for state legislative races and Congressional races. We'll move the presidential election to that date. Ironically, I had advocated that it be on that date all along anyway, so there's only one election and people only needed to come out once. Everybody wants to vote, everybody wants to do their civic duty, but don't make me come out and vote 11 times. Put the elections together so I can go to the ballot once and this will actually do that.

We are also extending the tax filing deadline to July 15th. This good news for individuals, for businesses. You don't have to file your state tax return, you file it with the federal tax return on July 15th. This is bad news for the state of New York on a parochial level. That means we receive no revue coming in until July 15th.

This is the increase in the trajectory in the number of cases. You see it goes up again. The number of people tested, we tested 17,000 yesterday. Again, we're testing more than any other state in the country and more than China and Korea ever tested. Total tested is up to 155,000. Number of new cases 7,681. You see the state getting more and more covered. Just a handful of counties that have not reported any positive tests. This is the summary. 52,000 tested, 7,000 currently hospitalized, 1700 ICU patients, 2700 patients discharged. That's up 681. Remember, people go into the hospital, people get treated, people leave. Remember, most people never go into the hospital. 80% they self-resolve.

Most impacted states. State of New York, 52,000. Next is our neighbor New Jersey, 8,000, then California, 4,000. But, you see the reports nationwide that other states are finding it, other cities are finding it. I believe you're going to see more and more of that. But again, in comparison, you take California, 4,000 cases, compare that to the situation we're in with 52,000 cases. People say I advocate for more help for New York with the federal government and I ask for more things than other states are asking for. Yes. Respond to the need. Respond to the need. We have 52,000 cases. California has 4,000 cases. I want California to have all the help they need, but I want to make sure the distribution of need is proportionate to the number of cases. If you're looking for good news today on the numbers, the number watchers, this is good news. I wouldn't put tremendous stock in it, but it's good news.

We're watching the trend, right, because we're trying to gauge if there is an apex, the number of daily ICU admissions, which are the critical points for us, ICU admissions, people who need ventilators, ventilators are what's in short supply. The ICU admissions went down only 172 compared to 374 the day before. You see the overall line is still up. The 374 was very troubling because that was a gigantic leap. The 172 may be a correction from the 374. I don't like to look at the data on any one night. We average three or four nights to get a more consistent track, but this is good news on a one-day number. The number of ICU admissions dropped as did the number of new hospitalizations dropped. So, there's a correlation there that also affirms both, right? Affirms the ICU numbers to the new hospitalization number. But again, I wouldn't put any - I wouldn't put too much stock in any one number. You see the overall trend is still up, but you could argue that the trend is slowing. I say, don't argue, follow the numbers, get more numbers, whatever the numbers say, the numbers drive the policy. So, we'll track it every day and we'll see from where we go.

The worst news, the news that is most depressing to me, and I'm sure every New Yorker, the number of deaths are up to 728. Of that 728, what's happening is people are on ventilators longer, you saw that average length of stay on a ventilator. The longer you are on a ventilator, the less chance you're coming off that ventilator. That has always been true. It's more dramatic in this situation. Since this has been going on a period of time, you're having more and more people now who are on ventilators for a longer and longer period of time and those are the people we're losing. They tend to be people who came in with underlying illnesses, underlying respiratory illness, compromised immune system. Not all of them, but most of them, but that doesn't make you feel any better, right? These are still people who we lost because of this virus. If they didn't have this virus, they would be with us today. So I don't accept the concept of well, these were people who were old and death is inevitable. Yes, death is inevitable for all of us, just not today, right? That's the point.

Again, total perspective. It's not a new situation. It's not just New York. It's not just the United States. This started in China. They have all the data since China and you have a very broad data base to call from. Again, on prospective, don't forget the basics. People feel this has been going on for so long. Wash your hands, washing your hands by the way is just as effective health care professionals will tell you as hand sanitizer. So, wash your hands, don't touch your face. I'm a big face toucher for some reason, my own face, I don't touch anyone else's face. Stay six feet away from people. The social distancing is important and don't get complacent. These rules are not just important in the beginning, you have to do this every day, so you have to stay disciplined about it.

General comment as to where we are, rule one in any almost any situation in life certainly in government, certainly in an emergency situation is to plan forward. Plan forward. Plan the next step. Don't be reactive, be proactive. Don't wait to find out what the virus is going to do to you. Anticipate what is going to happen and plan for the step ahead. We have been behind this virus from day one. We have been in a reactive posture from day one with this virus. We're waiting to see what the virus does and then we're responding. The virus makes another move, we respond. No, you don't win on defense. You win on offense. You have to get ahead of this and anticipate what's going to happen and create that reality now. That's what we're doing with the apex preparation, right? We don't have that crisis today. We could have that crisis in 14 to 21 days. So yes, I'm creating a stockpile today for a possible reality 14 to 21 days from now. I'm not going to wait for day 13 to say, "Oh my gosh, we need 30,000 ventilators. It's over."

So get ahead of it. That's our apex preparation plan, but beyond just New York, as a nation, we have to start to get ahead of this in two areas specifically. On purchasing, you can't have a situation where 50 states are competing with each other to buy the same material. That is what is happening now. When I showed you the price of ventilators, went from $25,000 to 45,000. Why? Because we bid $25,000. California says, I'll give you $30,000 and Illinois says, I'll give you $35,000 and Florida says I'll give you $40,000. We're literally bidding up the prices ourselves. Now every state, no one's doing anything wrong, I'm here to protect New York. That's what I get paid to do. I have to acquire the ventilators. I have to pay whatever I have to pay to acquire the ventilators. I don't mean to take them from other states, but when you have a system where you say to the states "Okay, you go out and buy what you need to buy." We all need to buy the same thing. We all need to buy PPE and N95 masks, we all need to buy ventilators, so we're all shopping the same distributors, the same group, and it's not even legally price gouging. I was Attorney General. I don't think you have a price gouging case. This is just private market competition. My daughter Cara is working on the purchasing team. They change the prices -- you can see the prices going up literally during the course of the day.

So, if the federal government organized this, if the states organized among themselves, because you can't have the states competing against the states, and then by the way, when the federal government goes out to buy the same equipment for their stockpile, now it's 50 states competing against the states and the federal government competing against the states. So, this is not the way to do business. We need a nationwide buying consortium. Either the federal government should say I'll be the purchasing agent for the nation and I will distribute by need, or the states, which is hard to organize 50 states. I'm Vice Chairman of the National Governor's Association, I'm going to talk to them about this. Maybe the states could come up with a voluntary buying consortium and then we distribute by need. But, this is something that has to be worked out not just for this, but for the future because this can't happen again.

Also we have to plan forward on testing. We've mobilized, we've scrambled, but this is still not where it needs to be. We need many more tests. There are still people who can't get tests and we need tests that are faster. There are other countries that are developing faster tests, developing home tests. We have a rigorous approval process through the FDA and CDC in this country; it served us well in normal circumstances. These are not normal circumstances. I would say to the market if you have a test, and a home test, and a state wants to take responsibility for monitoring the results of the test, God bless you, because you can't have a situation where you have a five-day waiting period for a test. That's five days for the person to be out there and possibly infecting other people, and if the goal is to open up the economy as quickly as you can you're going to need a much faster testing process to find out who had the antibodies, which means they had the virus and resolved, and who's negative and who's positive. So, you are going to need a much faster testing processing. That's the only way you get the economy up and running in a relatively short period of time.

I'll end where I began. You saw the number of days that this has been going: only 28 days. Schools closed only ten days; it feels like a life time. This is not a sprint, my friends, this is a marathon. You have to gauge yourself. You have to understand that this is going to be a long-term situation, and even though it's so disruptive, and so abrupt, and so shocking, it's also long-term. And each of us has to do our own part to adjust to it. It is a new reality. It's a shocking new reality. There is no easy answer. We're all working our way through it, and we all have to figure out a way to get through it. My gratuitous two cents: see if you can't find a silver lining in all of this. People say extraordinary things to me that I just pick up anecdotally. I was going for a walk yesterday with one of my daughters and Captain -- Captain is my dog -- and people come up with all of these interesting ideas, you know: who's painting their house because they never had time to paint their house before; who's working on a project that they never got to; who's reading a book that they never got to do; who's writing a book. A few people say I'm writing my journals, I'm writing my life's story. 

Find a way -- you have the advantage of time here, and you have the advantage of time for communication. I've had conversations with my daughters, hours long conversations, where it's just us, just us talking. No place to go. She doesn't have to go to work. She doesn't have to run out, and they're priceless. They are priceless. I'll never get the opportunity in life to do that again. You know, we're going to get through this and they're going to go off and find a boyfriend and then do whatever they do. I've had conversations with my mother who can't leave the house, and she's in the house so we sort of take turns talking to mom. I talked to my mother for hours and it's special. So yes, it's terrible and I'm not trying to say it's not a terrible circumstance. But, even in a terrible circumstance if you look hard enough you can find a few rays of light, and people are doing it and I think we all should.

It's going to be a marathon, but we're going to get through it and we will get through it, and we are going to be the better for it when we get through it. We will have learned a lot. We will have changed. We will be different, but I believe net, we'll be different in a positive way.

2020-03-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you for being here. Let us go through some updates for today, so everyone knows where we are and what we're experiencing. As you can see the increase on the trajectory of cases continues to climb, 7,681. Couple of updates that I would like to make to the local health providers. We want to anticipate this situation. We talked yesterday about planning forward, getting ahead of it, that we have been behind on this virus from day one. And rather than be reactive, be proactive, get ahead of it. Local health providers should be watching what is going on in different parts of the state and anticipating what's going to happen.

This is going to be a phenomenon of a rolling apex. We keep talking about the apex, the top of the curve. But the top of the curve will occur at different times in different places, right? The curve is a function of the rate of spread, the rate of density and when it started. So you'll see different curves, you see it all across the country. Started in Washington, State of Washington. Now you see New York, you see Chicago, you see New Orleans, you see parts of California. So that rolling apex is happening across the country. That rolling apex is also going to happen across the state of New York. The current projections all say New York City will face the first high water mark, if you will, high tide mark, the height of the curve, but then you'll see Westchester, you'll see Long Island, on a delay with their curve hitting a new height. Model projectors are not sure if it's Westchester first or Long Island first. Some suggest it's Westchester because we had that cluster in Westchester, if you remember, in New Rochelle. And then Upstate New York. We expect a curve in Upstate New York, also. It may not be as high, obviously, as New York City, Westchester, long island, but there will be a curve. So, if you are not in a highly affected health area now, that doesn't mean you're not going to have a real situation to deal with because these numbers are just going to continue to go up all across the state.

So for local health systems this is a new challenge. Most health systems have public hospitals and then they have private hospitals or volunteer, voluntary hospitals. And they basically exist on a day-to-day basis as two different systems. So you'll have public hospitals and then you have the private hospital system. And for all intents and purposes, in normal operating procedures, they operate as two systems, there's very little interaction. There's also very little interaction among individual hospitals, sometimes even within their own system. So you have public hospitals that are a part of a public hospital system, but each hospital basically operates on its own, right? Has its own identity. Certainly true on the private side where you have individual hospitals and they operate on their own. We have to change that mentality, and we have to change that mentality quickly. No hospital is an island. No hospital in this situation can exist unto themselves. We really have to have a new mentality, a new culture, of hospitals working with one another, both within the public system as well as the private system, and we need to think about the public system working with the private system in a way they never have before. There is an artificial wall almost between those two systems right now. That wall has to come down. That theory has to come down. This is going to be all hands on deck. This is everybody helping everyone else. One hospital gets overwhelmed. The other hospitals have to flex to help that hospital and vice versa.

We have Elmhurst Hospital for example in New York City that is under stress. The number of cases in that Elmhurst Hospital is high. When the number of cases is high, the stress on the staff is high. I was just speaking with Dr. Zucker about this. You do this for two, three, four weeks, the level of stress is very intense. Elmhurst Hospital is part of a public health system of about 11 hospitals in New York City. That system has to work together and those hospitals have to work together. The 11 health and hospitals in New York City, the public system. I'm going to ask Mayor de Blasio and Comptroller Stringer to take a look at the system and figure out how we can get that system to work better together as a unified system. This is not going to get better soon. Right? So Elmhurst is under stress now. That stress does not abate for the foreseeable short-term future. So how do we make that system work better together and what recommendations do we have to improve H&H? We'll also be meeting with the private hospitals in New York City that are organized through something called the Greater New York Hospital Association. I'm going to be meeting with them tomorrow to talk about having those hospitals also organize, act as one, get out of their silos, get out of their identities, to work together.

Overall, we have local health systems the states roll which we've never really done before is getting those health systems to work with one another. So we talked about if New York City gets overwhelmed we'll ask the upstate systems to be a relief valve for the downstate health systems, which has never happened before to any scale and also vice versa. There will be a time where the upstate hospitals will be struggling and when the upstate hospitals will be struggling then we want the down state hospitals to be able to takeover and relief those hospitals.

That's actually the advantage of the rolling curve that they're projecting. If it does happen that way, theoretically, I almost think of it as a high tide mark, right? High tide comes first in New York City. Then the tide is on the way down and then it's high tide in upstate New York. So if the tide is dropping downstate then you have some relief for the upstate hospitals.

We put in place the New York Pause program. Today I am going to extend it to April 15, the directive that non-essential work force continue to work at home. We're doing it in two-week intervals because every day is a new day and we'll see what happens day to day, but I think it's not even questionable today that we're going to need two more weeks of non-essential workers.

Good news, Wadsworth, the New York Department State of Health, has developed a less intrusive saliva and short nasal swab test. I'm not sure what a short nasal swab test is but my guess is it wouldn't apply to me. It can be administered in the presence of health care workers. It requires less PPE, health care workers can self-administer it, kudos to the Department of Health on that. It also helps them limit exposure for health care workers and it should start as soon as next week.

People ask when is this over? I think the testing, you tell me when they come up with an inexpensive home test or point of care test that can be brought to volume, I think that's probably when you see a real return to normalcy in the workforce.

In other words, we're all talking about this curve, flatten the curve - at what point on the other side of the curve do you go back to work? Jesse asked this question the other day. There is no answer. I think the answer is going to be in in testing. Dr. Fauci who I think is - we're so blessed to have him here at this time, he talks about faster, easier testing. If you can test millions of people, if you could test today millions of people, you could send them to work tomorrow, right? So the development of these tests, I think, are very important and instructive. Tomorrow the USNS Comfort coming. That is about 1,000 bed capacity. It's staffed by federal officials, federal medical professionals. It is not for COVID patients but it is to take the back fill from hospitals.

Current stockpile, we're still working to purchase equipment all across the globe. We have a whole team working seven days a week. Unfortunately, we're competing against every other state in the United States for the same things. So it's very hard but we're making progress. In terms of finding staff, that's going very well. The volunteerism of New Yorkers, God bless them, we're up to 76,000 health care workers who have volunteered. 76,000. 76,000 people who volunteer to go into these hospitals at this time. Just think about that.

On the total people tested, we did 16,000, last night, total of 172,000 tested, that's the highest in the country. Positive cases 7,000 last night, total cases 59,000. The virus continues its march across the state of New York. Only two counties now that don't have cases. These are the overall numbers, 59,000 people tested positive. 8,000 currently hospitalized, 2,000 ICU patients, 3,500 patients discharged. We know - nobody really points to these numbers but this is good news. 846 people came out of hospitals yesterday, discharged after being treated for COVID, right? So yes, people get it, 80 percent have either self-resolved or have some symptoms at home. 20 percent go into the hospital - majority of those get treated and leave. It's the acutely ill by in large who are the vulnerable population and that's what we're seeing more and more. The deaths went from 728 to 965. What's happening now is as I mentioned yesterday, people are on the ventilator longer and longer. The longer you are on a ventilator, the less your chance of ever getting off that ventilator and that's what we're seeing. And we will continue to see the number of deaths increase. In terms of most impacted states, again, New York is still number one. Total new hospitalizations, these are the charts we look at every night. The number is up 1,175. It was 847 the night before.

These bounce night to night. Any one night's data could have a number of variables in it. What hospitals actually reported, when they reported it, how accurate they were? So more you look for a trend line, more than anything else, and there are trend lines. If you look early on, the hospitalization rate was doubling every two days, then it doubled every three days, then it doubled every four days - now it's doubling every six days. So you have almost a dichotomy: The doubling rate is slowing, and that is good news but the number of cases are still going up. So you're still going up towards an apex, but the rate of the doubling is slowing, which is good news.

Change in daily ICU admissions, you see a pickup in the ICU admissions, but again, you look for the trend line among those columns more than the individual columns. Change in daily intubations, we don't normally run this chart but these are the people most seriously affected and again, you see a trend line in that. You see some aberrations, March 26th the 290, but you see a trend line. And the trend line is what we're watching. You also see a trend line in people being discharged and this is a dramatic trend line. So people came in, they started to come in only March 18, right - so we're only talking about ten days. They started to get treated. A few of them got out early. A few more, a few more, a few more. And now you're seeing the discharge number trend way up because that's what's going to happen. People are going to the hospital, they get treated, they leave. Those that are acutely ill get put on a ventilator and then it's the inverse dynamic. The longer the longer they are intubated, the longer they are on the ventilator, the higher the mortality rate.

Again, perspective, these are the numbers from day 1 since China started. Also, we should all keep in mind we lost the first responders who go out there. I was talking about the 76,000 people who volunteered to help - medical professionals - being a first responder today, being a public health official, working in a hospital, working with senior citizens. This is really an act of love and courage. We lost Detective Cedric Nelson, 48-years-old, 32nd, 23-year veteran. He could've retired. So we wish him and his family peace.

We lost a nurse, we've lost a couple of other nurses. Kious Kelly 48-years-old who was the assistant nurse manager at Mount Sinai West. We wish his family the best. These public people - I don't even have the words to express my admiration for them.

FDR always had words: "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear."

To me, that says it all today. Everyone is afraid. Everyone is afraid. You think these police officers are not afraid to leave their house? You think these nurses are not afraid to go into the hospital? They're afraid. But, something is more important than their fear. Which is their passion, their commitment for public service and helping others. It's public service. That's all it is. Their passion and belief in helping others. And that overcomes their fear and that makes them, in my book, just truly amazing, outstanding human beings. I wish them and their families all the best.

The President and the CDC ordered a travel advisory for people of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. This happened last night. This is not a lockdown, it is a travel advisory to be implemented by the states. In essence, it's nothing that we haven't been doing. Non-essential people should stay at home. So it's totally consistent with everything we're doing and I support what the President did because it affirms what we've been doing. It also affirms what New Jersey and Connecticut have been doing.

Rhode Island issued an Executive Order that New York license plates would be theoretically stopped at the border for mandatory quarantine of some period. That Executive Order has been repealed by the State of Rhode Island and we thank them for their cooperation. That was repealed last night.

Personal opinion, not fact, gratuitous. This is disorienting, it is frightening. It's disturbing. Your whole life is turned upside down overnight. To the best you can, you find a way to create some joy. You try to find a silver lining in all of this. How do you break up the monotony? What do you do? How do you bring a smile to people's face? I'll give you my idea for today: Sunday, I come from an Italian-American family. Sunday was family day. We had the big family dinner, which you'd have like in the afternoon, so it was confusing but it was like a late lunch they called dinner. And it was spaghetti, and meatballs, and sausages, and my family would all get together and it was a beautiful time. I didn't really appreciate it as a kid, but it was just beautiful. They all came together, and the grandparents were there, and they would start to eat at two o'clock and it was like a marathon session. The food was really just the attraction to get people together. You know, everybody talks about how the Italians love the food. That's true, but really they love bringing the family together and the food was the way that people came together, and then you sat at the table and it was just a two, three-hour affair. My mother and father did it also, not to the same extent my grandparents did it, but we had that same Sunday dinner around the table. I tried to continue it as a father with my kids. I was divorced and so I'm not really the best cook to say the least, but we would have on Sundays I would actually go to the Italian specialty store and I would buy the meatballs, and buy the sausages, and buy the sauce, but I would put it in a pot and I would put it on the stove because part of it was that sauce would sit there all day and it would just simmer, you know, and you would smell it all through the house. And then, I'd make them sit down and we would have spaghetti and meatballs and sausage on Sundays.

My daughter Cara is in the back, they would never eat the sausage and the meatball. They would pick at the pasta because, see, they knew I didn't know how to cook so they knew that meatball and sausage was inherently suspect, and I never said that I bought it in the specialty store because that would've ruined the whole tradition anyway. So, they wouldn't eat it and we'd go for Chinese food afterwards. But that convening was something special and today we're going to have our family dinner. We're missing one daughter, Mariah. We're going to get Mariah on Skype and Grandma is going to be on the telephone, and we're going to sit around the table and we're going to have that kind of coming together. It's a little different: Skype and telephones. But you know what? With everything going on, family, we're here, we're together, we're healthy — that's 98 percent of it. So, find ways to make a little joy.

Also for New Yorkers, I know we feel under attack. I had a lot of phone calls yesterday when the President first suggested some form of quarantine. "What does that mean, quarantine? Am I going to be allowed to leave the house? My parents who are supposed to be coming back, and this one's here and this one's here." I know we feel under attack. "The Rhode Island -- you can't drive into Rhode Island. We'll pull you over with the police." Yes, New York is the epicenter and these are different times, and many people are frightened. Some of the reactions you get from individuals, even from governments, are frightening and suggesting that they'll take abrupt actions against New York. But look, this is New York and we are going to make it through this. We have made it through far greater things. We are going to be okay. We specialize in stamina, and strength, and stability, and that's just what we're doing now. We are strong. We have endurance and we have stability. And we know what we're doing. We have a plan. We're executing the plan. Anything, any obstacle that we come across we will manage that obstacle, and we have. I can't sit here and say to anyone you're not going to see people pass away. You will. That is the nature of what we're dealing with, and that's beyond any of our control. But, New York is going to have what it needs and no one is going to attack New York unfairly and no one is going to deprive New York of what it needs. That's why I'm here, that's why we have a state full of very talented, professional people. So a deep breath on all of that. And we are doing exactly what we need to do. There is no state in the nation in the nation that is better prepared or better mobilized than what we're doing. I feel that deeply and having studied everything that every other state has done. Federal officials have even remarked to me that they're surprised how quickly a state as big and complicated as New York has actually mobilized. So, feel good about that.

There are two great New York expressions that I use all the time. Anything I build in New York always has two expressions on it. One, "excelsior." It says it all. Ever upwards. Ever upwards. Aspirational. We can be better, we will be better. We're going aim higher, we're going to improve ourselves. Excelsior. State motto, it's on the seal behind me. Excelsior. And the other, "e pluribus Unum," out of many, one. Unity, unity. You put those two things together, it says it all. Aim high, do better, believe you can do better, be optimistic, and the way you get there is through unity and togetherness and cooperation. Through mutuality and community. Those two expressions. I say to my daughters, if you remember nothing else when I'm gone, if you walk up to the box and have nothing else to remember, excelsior - you can be better, it will be better, we can make it better - e pluribus Unum - we make it better together. That's it and that's what we're doing.

2020-03-30 NYS Gov. Cuomo Pier 88

Okay, well there she is. I want to thank Rear Admiral Mustin who is here. I want to thank the United States Navy. They really acted expeditiously in bringing this ship here. I want to thank the Army that is going to help staff the ship. I want to thank the President of the United States, President Trump, who mobilized this effort and he did with all rapid speed. 

This will be 1,000 beds for New York hospitals. It won't treat COVID-19 patients but it will be a relief valve for hospitals that are struggling now, that are over capacity all across the City. So, the 1,000 beds will come in very handy. These 1,000 beds will be complemented with 2,500 beds that we are doing in the Javits Center. I know the field hospitals that were assembled by the U.S Army. Again, those won't be for COVID-19 patients but they will be for a relief valve for the hospitals. So, we are doing this ship - 1,000 beds. Javits - 2,500 beds. About 3,500 beds to relieve the stress that our hospital system is facing.

That is going to be welcome news and I want to thank all of the people that worked so hard to do this. This is a major enterprise. The Javits Center, what is going on there is truly extraordinary. Everybody is working together to get that facility up and running. It has been transformed in just a week. And it really is a great, great partnership and frankly it's inspiring to see everyone working together for one cause.

We're speaking with a number of my colleagues, governors all across the nation, Democrats and Republicans, have sent the same message to all of you. What you see happening in New York is not unique. Yes, we're more dense. Yes, we're bigger than most places. But, this virus spreads among Americans. This virus does not discriminate. It doesn't discriminate by age. It doesn't discriminate by party. It affects all Americans, and what you're seeing in New York is going to spread across this country. 

New York is just the canary in the coal mine. And I've said to them, prepare soon, prepare early, get your preparations in place. I don't think that any American is immune from this virus. Because no American is immune from this virus. And if there's ever a time that we need to work together it is today. The President's right. This is a war. And what does this nation do when it's at war? It comes together. And it acts as one. And that's what we need to do today. New Yorkers, thank this nation for the help they're giving New Yorkers today, and we will reciprocate the favor. And what we're learning here, and the training that's going on here, is going to benefit the places all across this nation in the coming weeks and the coming months.

But again, thank you. Thank you to the Army, thank you to the Navy, thank you to the Coast Guard, and all of the people who were a part of this great operation. Thank you.

2020-03-31 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning to all. Still is morning, just a long one. Let me go through where we are today on the numbers. Give these people an update. The number of cases still going up. We're all in search of the apex and the other side of the mountain. But we are still headed up the mountain. Number of people tested last night was a near record amount. We tested over 18,000 people. We're testing more people than any state in the country and I'm very proud of that. More per capita than China and South Korea.

Total number of people tested, 200,000. Population of 19 million, is not going to give you a random sample, but it's been helping us track down on the positive cases. Number of positive cases, 9,298. Total cases 75,000 cases. You see the predominance in New York City, then Westchester, then Nassau, then Suffolk, then Rockland. So you can see it's that area of density. It spreads out from that area of density. The march of coronavirus across the State of New York continues. We're down to just two counties that don't have a case. The overall numbers, 75,000 have tested positive. Ten thousand people in our hospitals, 2,700 ICU patients. Good news, 4,900 - almost 5,000 - discharged. That's up 771. So people come in, they get treated, they go home.

New York is at 75,000 cases. Next state is 16,000. California is at 7,000. So you can see New York, there's a magnitude of difference more than any other state. Fifteen-hundred fifty deaths. That's up from 1,218 yesterday. Again, we're studying the charts. We're trying to study the data, follow the data. The data is uneven. It bounces. Numbers often bounce in any model. There are variables in this model. The hospitals are reporting it, so what every hospital reported, were they busy, are they combining a couple of days in one? It's an imperfect reporting mechanism.

You see the basic line is still up. What the statisticians will tell you is you basically draw the straight line that columns indicate and you see that we're still going up which is what we see on the overall trajectory, that we're still going up. Number of intubations was down, not much, but it was down and that's a good sign. You also see the number of discharges going up and that's consistent. The longer people are in, they either get treated and leave or they get put on a ventilator and the longer you're on a ventilator, the less likelihood you will come off the ventilator. That is the blunt truth of this situation.

We have two missions overall that we are pursuing. One is the front line of this battle is our hospital system. That's where this is going to come down to. The second is social responsibility. Stay at home. Don't get infected in the first place. Don't get infected in the first place because it goes back to you're creating a burden on our health care system that our health care system cannot handle. We're talking about exceeding the capacity of our hospital system by some estimates, 2 times. So what does this come down to besides all the other issues? It comes down to not overwhelming the hospital system because those people who need acute care may not be able to get the acute care. So it's all about the hospital system. That is the front line.

What we're doing is we are following the mathematical projections of the experts. We're speaking to all the health care professionals, all the health care providers. World Health Organization, National Institute of Health, Dr. Fauci, CDC, FDA - the whole alphabet soup of health care experts and the mathematicians who then have different models. We talk about five different models and compared the models and tried to find the median through the models. That's how we plan everything. Follow the data, follow the science. People ask me, "What do you think, what do you think?" I don't think about this. What do I know? I'm not an expert. I'm not opining. I talk to experts and I follow people who know.

But for the hospitals procure equipment, identify the beds, support the staff, that's what it's been all about. Of those priorities number one is support the staff. They are the front line and they need relief. They are physically exhausted even more they are more emotionally exhausted. This is unlike any other disasters. Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods - they happen, they are fast, they're over, you start rebuilding. This is different. This is ongoing and the duration itself is debilitating and exhausting and depressing. I'm speaking to healthcare professionals who say, "Look, more than physically tired I'm emotionally tired seeing the pain and death that they are dealing with every day."

In general, I am tired of being behind this virus. We've been behind this virus from day one. The virus was in China. We knew it was in China. Unless we assume there's some immune system variation with Asian people, it was coming here and we have been behind it from day one since it got here and we've been playing catch-up. You don't win playing catch-up. We have to get ahead of it. The second rule is never underestimate your opponent, and we underestimated this virus. It's more powerful, it's more dangerous than we expected, and the third point is plan forward. Get ahead of it. Get ahead of it, fight the fight today, yes, but anticipate the next battle and plan for the next battle.

And the main battle is at the apex. We're still going up the mountain. The main battle is on the top of the mountain. That's where the main battle is going to be. The apex of the curve and then we come down the other side of the mountain. We are planning now for the battle at the top of the mountain. That's what we are doing. Get a staffing plan ready now for the battle at the top of the mountain. Equipment stockpile now - we're gathering equipment that we don't need today because today is not the day of the battle. The battle is when we hit the apex, depending on who you believe, 14 days to 30 days from today.

And also we need a social acceptance of the time expectation. We're all anxious. We're all tired, we're all fatigued. It's been all bad news for a long time. Our whole lifestyle has been disrupted. Everybody knows wants to know one thing, when is it over, nobody knows. Well, President said by Easter; this one said by this - nobody knows. You can have a hypothesis, you can have a projection, you can have an opinion but nobody knows, but I can say this, it is not going to be soon. If our apex is 14 to 21 days, that's our apex. You then have to come down the other side of the mountain once you hit the apex, so calibrate yourself and your expectations so you're not disappointed every morning you get up.

Yesterday we met with the entire state hospital system, Dr. Zucker and our team - first time they were all in one place. And we said to the hospital system, "Look," what I just said to you, "We are dealing with a war, we are dealing with war we've never dealt with before. We need a totally different mindset. We can't do business the way we have always done business - we need unprecedented sense of cooperation, flexibility, communication and speed." And that's what we talked through yesterday, and we have to do it now. The healthcare system is one of those balkanized systems - it's like our state education system, it's like our criminal justice system. It's in place. It's fragmented. They have their own identities, their own associations, it's regionally organized. That all has to change.

We don't have the ability to meet the capacity of our healthcare system as an entirety. That assumes the healthcare system is working as an entirety. That's not how the healthcare system is organized now. We have New York City hospitals, and then we have Long Island hospitals, and then we have Westchester hospitals, and then we have upstate hospitals -- that has to go. Even in New York City you have two basic hospital systems in New York City: you have the private hospitals, voluntary hospitals, about 160 of them, which are some of the finest healthcare institutions in the United States of America. You know, this is Mount Sinai, Columbia Presbyterian, et cetera. Some of their members are also upstate, but they're the large, private institutions. Greater New York Hospital Association, Ken Raske runs that association of 160. 

You then have in New York City the public hospitals, the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. They are eleven public hospitals. They are a universe, and then you have the private hospitals as a separate universe. The eleven public hospitals are the hospitals that in many ways have always been under greater stress and greater need. We have to get those two systems, the private system and the public system in New York City, working together in a way they never did before. The distinction of private-public, that has to go out the window. We are one healthcare system. On top of that, it can't be the downstate hospitals, and the upstate hospitals, and the Long Island hospitals. When we talk about capacity of beds, when I say we now have 75,000 beds, that's a statewide number. That means those beds have to be available to the people in New York City or Nassau even if those beds are up in Albany.

So, combining that whole system, and you're no longer just the Western New York hospitals, or the Central New York hospitals; it's one coordinate system. It's much easier said than done, but we have to do it. On top of that, you have to overlay the new federal beds that came in that are an entirely new component. We have Javits Center -- 2,500 beds. We have the USNS Comfort -- 1,000 beds. We're planning other federal facilities. These all have to be coordinated on top of the existing hospital network. So, you see the organizational situation that we're dealing with. And let's be honest and let's learn from the past, we know where we have to focus. We know where we're going to have problems in the next hospitals because the hospitals that have the least capacity that have already been stressed are the hospitals that are not going to be able to handle the additional load. That is a fact. You know which hospitals are struggling. We do reports all the time about the financial capacity of hospitals and what hospital are in stronger versus weaker position.

The hospitals that are in a weaker position are the hospitals that are going to suffer when they then carry an added burden. That was Elmhurst hospital. It happened to be a public hospital. It happened to be a public hospital in a place of density. It happened to get overwhelmed and that's what then you saw the burden on the staff. You saw the emotion. You saw the stress. That can't happen, and that's what we talked about yesterday. And people said, "Well, Elmhurst isn't my responsibility. Elmhurst is a public hospital; the City runs it. I don't run it. It's New York City, its' not a private hospital." I don't care which link breaks in the chain. The chain is still broken. It doesn't matter which hospital, which link. Any link breaks, the chain breaks. The healthcare system is a chain; it breaks anywhere, it breaks everywhere.

That has to be our mentality. We laid out a full plan on how to do facility development, how to move people among hospitals so nobody gets overloaded, shifting patients, shifting staff, shifting supplies. None of us have enough supplies. Okay, then let's pool our supplies and let's put them out for the people who need them. Just because one hospital happened to have found a vendor from China who delivered 5 million masks, let's share those masks. And we talked about that yesterday.

We also talked again at length about ventilators which everybody knows is a key piece of equipment, identifying all the ventilators in the state, who has them, who has them in a stockpile, who ordered them, who expects them to come in and we'll have one stockpile of ventilators that we can distribute for everyone who needs them. We also talked about splitting of ventilators because that's a technology that does exist. It's been used before. It's not ideal. You take one ventilator and it's used for two patients.

The federal government is a partner in this obviously. I spoke to the President again yesterday about this situation. I spoke to the Vice President. I spoke to Jared Kushner. The White House has been very helpful. We have to get the federal agencies on the ground to understand how this operates, especially FEMA, because we have to be coordinated and people have to know what they're doing and this is no time for anyone to be learning on the job. And we're going to be working through that today. PPE, same thing. We want to know what everybody has. One stockpile, we'll distribute it fairly.

Testing, how do we get, when does this end? This ends when we get a fast track test, an at home test, 15-minute test, and people can find out when they can go back to work because they're negative. We're working on additional testing. As I said, the department of health has a new test, but that's when this ends.

We're also working on the new medications. We're leading the country in many of these developments. We have saliva testing. We're working on the antibody testing and plasma testing at the same time.

We put together an essential coordinating team. It's going to be led by the Department of Health. Westchester is on it and Greater New York, New York City is on it, Long Island is on it. If the federal government is going to participate they have to be part of this team because we have to know what we're doing and I don't want FEMA coming in and blowing the coordination of what everyone is trying to do.

The coordinating team is going to organize upstate-downstate transfers, set patient loads for hospitals, so if one hospital gets up near an overload capacity, let's call it, those hospitals start to send patients to other hospitals before they get up to their max. Within the New York City public hospital system, within the Greater New York private system, and then among the different systems. Different mentality. But we have to do it.

We set two missions. One was hospitals. Second was individual responsibility. The individual responsibility is about discipline. It's about selflessness and being informed. The basic point is stay at home. Stay at home. I know it's hard to stay at home and I know everyone thinks, you know, I can go out, I can be smart, and I won't get infected because it's me. I'm a superhero. It's not going to be me. That is not true.

And it's not just about you. It's not just about your health and your life that you're playing with here, my friend. You can infect other people. So I've been trying to communicate this many different ways for many days. We still see people coming out who don't need to be out. Even for essential workers, people have to be careful. And again, I've been trying to communicate that. Everyone, everyone is subject to this virus. It is the great equalizer. I don't care how smart, how rich, how powerful you think you are. I don't care how young, how old. This virus is the great equalizer.

My brother Chris is positive for coronavirus - found out this morning. Now, he is going to be fine. He's young, in good shape, strong, not as strong as he thinks, but he will be fine. But there's a lesson in this. He's an essential worker. Member of the press. So, he has been out there. The chance you get infected is very high. I spoke to him this morning and he's going to be quarantined in his basement at home. He's just worried about his daughter and his kids. He hopes he didn't get them infected.

You don't really know Chris. You see Chris. He has a show at nine o'clock on CNN. But you just see one dimension, right? You see a person in his job and in his job he's combative and argumentative and pushing people - but that's his job. That's really not who he is. He is a really sweet, beautiful guy and he's my best friend. My father was always working, so it was always just me and Chris. He's a lawyer, also, Chris. He is a lawyer because growing up the decision point came to what do you want to do after college? And my father was very strong personality, and my father basically suggested forcefully to Chris that he should be a lawyer. It was a different time and a different place, you know? Now, my daughters, Cara, who's here, they all follow their individual stars. This is their destiny, which is right. If you had said to my father, I want to follow my individual star, he would say, you're going to follow your individual star right out that door, you know? That's what he would have said.

So, Chris went to law school but he never really had a desire to practice law. He calls me when he is about 26, he is at a law firm and he said, you know, I don't want to be a lawyer. I said I know but you are now a lawyer. You are. He said, but I don't want to be a lawyer. He said I want to be a journalist. I said you want to be a journalist? I said, too late. You're a lawyer. You have to pay law school bills. You didn't go to journalism school. It is too late. No, no, I think I can do it. God bless him. He quit the law firm, went to work for Fox TV, which is a whole separate conversation in the house, and then worked his way up. He's at CNN. He does a beautiful job, but a sweet guy and now he is quarantined in the basement but he's funny as heck. He said to me even the dogs won't come down stairs, he says. But he is concerned about his wife and his kids.

But the reason I raise this is he's smart. He's social distancing, yes. But you wind up exposing yourself. People wind up exposing you and then they find out they're positive a couple of days later. And I had a situation with Christopher two weeks ago that I even mentioned my mother was at his house. And I said, that is a mistake. Now, my mother is in a different situation. She is older and she's healthy, but I said you can't have Mom at the house. And he said, no, no, no, Mom is lonely. She wants to be at the house. I feel bad. She is cooped up in the apartment. I said, yeah, I feel bad she is cooped up in the apartment too. But you expose her to a lot of things. You have the kids there, your wife there. You're coming and going. Your wife is coming and going and you could expose mom to the virus. And love is sometimes a little - needs to be a little smarter than just reactive. And we had a whole discussion. And truth, now, he is informed. I'm informed. Was that dangerous? Was that not dangerous? I went back to Dr. Zucker and I said look, we have to tell people, what are the rules? How does this work? That's when I came up with Matilda's Law, and I said I named it for my mother. And it was very clear about people who are older and what they should be exposed to. My brother, it was two weeks ago, if my brother still had my mother at his house, again out of love and comfort, and my mother wanted to be at eth house anyway, by the way, she didn't want to be sitting at home in an apartment. So she would have been doing what she wanted to do, he would have been doing what he wanted to do. It would have seemed great and harmless, but now we'd have a much different situation. Because if he was exposed, chances are, she may very well have been exposed, and then we would be looking at a different situation than just my brother sitting in his basement for two weeks. So think about that, right. My brother's smart. He was acting out of love. Luckily we caught it early enough.

But it's my family, it's your family, it's all of our families. And this virus is that insidious. And we have to keep that in mind. Keep in mind Matilda's Law. Remember who is vulnerable here. And protect them. You want to go out and act stupid for yourself, that's one thing. But your stupid actions don't just affect you. You come home, you can infect someone else, and you can cause a serious illness or even death for them, by your actions. And people have to really get this, and internalize it, because it can happen to anyone. Two weeks with my mother and Christopher, today is a very different situation.

Last point, there is nothing that I have said different since I started these briefings. And there's nothing we have learned that is different since I started these briefings. We know what to do. We just have to do it. It is individual discipline to stay at home. That's what it is, it's discipline. No social distancing. It's discipline. Well, I'm bored. I know. I'm bored. It's discipline. Making this healthcare system work, that's government skill, that's government performance. That's saying to that healthcare system, I don't care how it worked yesterday, I don't care whose turf this is, I don't care whose ego is involved, I'm sorry, we have to find a way to work, a better way. Time to say to that federal government and to FEMA and HHS, you have to learn how to do your job, and you have to learn how to do it quickly. Because time is not our friend. It's about a social stamina. This is not one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, six weeks, okay? This is not going to be an Easter surprise. Understand that and have the stamina to deal with it. And it's unity.

Let's help one another. New York needs help now. Yesterday I asked for healthcare workers from across the country to come here because we need help. We will pay you, and more importantly, we will return the favor. This is going to be a rolling wave across the country. New York, then it'll be Detroit, then it'll be New Orleans, then it will be California. If we were smart as a nation, come help us in New York. Get the equipment. Get the training. Get the experience. And then let's all go help the next place, and then the next place, and then the next place. That would be a smart national way of doing this. And showing that unity. And, unity meaning, we're not, I know this is a political year, and everything is a political backdrop, and Democrats want to criticize Republicans, Republicans want to criticize Democrats. Not now. Not now. There are no red states, there are no blue states. The virus doesn't attack and kill red Americans or blue Americans. It attacks all Americans. And keep that in mind, because there is, there is a unifying wisdom in that.

2020-04-01 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Lots going on today, coronavirus, also have that little thing called the State Budget that we have to get done. Let me give you an update on where we are. 

I think everyone knows everyone - to my far right Dr. James Malatras; to my right Dr. Howard Zucker; Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor; Robert Mujica, Budget Director, numbers maven extraordinaire.

Overall the number continue to go up. We're still on our way up the mountain. The number of testing has increased. I'm very proud of this. The more you test, the more positives. I understand that but the more you test the more good you're doing. The number of tested is up 15,000, 220,000 total people now tested. Positive cases are up to 7,900. Total cases 83,712, down to one county that now doesn't have a COVID case. 

That's what you're going to see going all across the nation. Well, we're a rural area - we're not going to get it. Oh really? COVID is in upstate New York if you want to talk about rural areas. We have rural areas. And just the way it's gone through rural New York, it will go through rural America.

Total numbers, 83,000 tested positive. 12,000 people currently hospitalized. That's up 1,200 people. 3,000 people in ICU. 6,000 patients discharged. That's up 1,167. People go into the hospital, they get better, they leave the hospital.

Most impacted states, New York is at 83,000. New Jersey is at 18,000. That's Governor Phil Murphy, who has been a great partner to me. Governor Ned Lamont also in Connecticut has done a great part. We've done a lot of great work as a region, which is very unusual. You know those lines between states often become walls. Not with Governor Murphy, and not with Governor Lamont. We're working together. And we're going to work cooperatively with New Jersey because they have a real problem.

California's ticking up. Michigan's ticking up. Florida is even ticking up. Massachusetts. But no one is anywhere near where we are, right? 83,000 compared to 18. Number of deaths, 1,900, up from 1,550. That number will continue to go up. That is people who have been on ventilators for a period of time. If you go on a ventilator, there's roughly only a 20% chance that you will come off the ventilator. The longer you're on the ventilator, the lower the chance you come off.

We're still looking for a curve. We're still looking to see where we hit the plateau. Total number of new hospitalized, again, you see the number goes up and down, but the overall trajectory of the number is up. Change in ICUadmissions, bounce here, bounce there. But the overall number is still up. Change in intubations, same thing. The line is basically a line that is going up. Change in the number of discharged, the line is going up. Why? More people going in, more people get treated, more people coming out. 

Everyone asks the same questions, and they're all good questions. When is this going to be over? What happens? How does it end? And people want answers. I understand people want answers. I want answers. The answer is nobody knows for sure. Anyone who goes on cable TV and says, or network TV and says, this is what is going to happen, that's not true. Nobody knows what's going to happen. And I understand the need for closure, the need for control. We're at a place we've never been before, we're out of control. I need to know, I need to know. Nobody can tell you.

What you do know are facts. And you know, facts are funny things. What you're now getting are subjective facts, people who are optimists want to interpret it one way. People who are pessimists want to interpret the other way. People who bring their own subjective agenda tend to interpret the numbers a different way.

For me facts are facts and the facts that we offer the people of this state and the people of this country, they're not pessimistic facts or optimistic facts. They're not interpreted facts. They're just the best information we have as of this time and I think that is empowering and in some ways relaxing.

As I've mentioned to you, I say to my team all the time, I'm interested in your opinion, but I'm interested in your opinion second. I'm interested in the facts first. Give me the facts, unjaded by your opinion, because once a person has an opinion or once a person wants a certain outcome and they look at the facts through that filter, then you can interpret facts differently.

Just give me the straight facts. Sergeant Joe Friday: just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts. No opinion. There's something empowering to that.

We look for the facts to projection models. That's how we gage what we do. We follow the projection model. Every day you get additional data, they run that data into the model and they refine the model. Basically then we have a composite model because you have many different people out there with many different models. We use McKinsey, which is a consultant to the State, for this purpose to basically look at all the models and come up with a composite model. If people wonder, well where do you get these numbers, Governor? How do you decide what you're going to do? We have a model, we have a projection and that's what we follow.

The current model - and the model, by the way, even more maddening - the model changes the more data that comes in. Because they started with assumptions and presumptions and then the more data that comes in either affirms or discounts their presumptions that they started with. So they refine the model over time and the model changes and the numbers change. But what we're looking at now is the apex, top of the curve, roughly at the end of April. Which means another month of this. The apex, the recent number is you can need 110,000 COVID beds. What does that mean? Beds for COVID people as opposed to other people who are in the hospitals for other reasons. Thirty-seven thousand ventilators. That is our current model.

That model is based on minimal impact from social distancing. Meaning what? One of the great variables is how effective is the social distancing? Are people doing it? Are they complying with it and to what extent? And how effective is it? Nobody knows that answer, so they do different projections depending on how well social distancing works. How well people comply with it and how effective it is. Minimal social distancing impact is where we get the 110,000, 37,000 ventilators. High compliance with social distancing, you still have 75,000 COVID beds as opposed to 110,000. You have 25,000 ventilators. So when I keep pushing for high compliance on social distancing, it's because high compliance on social distancing will reduce the number. This is why they began talking about flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten the curve with social distancing. This says this is the difference between high compliance with social distancing and less compliance. If you have high compliance, you're down to 75,000 COVID beds, 25,000 ventilators. Less, it goes up to 110,000 and 37,000.

Interestingly, both are looking at the same point of apex, it's just a lower apex. Both models say you apex at the end of April, just a lower need at that apex. And that is what we want because this all comes down to at the apex, can your hospital system manage the volume of people coming into the hospital system. That's all this is about at the final analysis.

Now, there are also different models out there based on different presumptions. People studied China, people studied Wuhan. Well if you have the same compliance that you had in Wuhan. Wuhan basically just locked up society. I don't even know that if the federal government enacted the Wuhan model that the American people would comply. We have a totally different social structure, governmental structure. So you have different models that project higher or lower. What we're doing with McKinsey is studying all of them and coming up with a moderate model that is a basis for us to make planning decisions. Because I have to make decisions and I want to make the decisions off the numbers so that's what we're doing. It's not to say that there aren't other people with other opinions. There are many people with many opinions and some have the apex happening sooner, some have the apex happening later. You can find people who believe the apex will come in 7 days. You can have people who say the apex won't come for 6 weeks. You have that kind of range. You have a board range on the number of beds. You have a broad range on the number of ventilators. Our course for planning purposes is a moderate model because in truth, the higher models we don't even have a chance at meeting that capacity anyway.

You say over 110,000 beds. There is no possible way we could get there. So in some ways, an overly aggressive estimate doesn't even mean anything to us, because it's just unachievable. People ask well what's going to happen? And Dr. Fauci said yesterday or the day before, the days blend together, estimated 100,000 Americans may pass away. Some people have said 100 to 200,000 Americans may pass away before this is over. When is it over? When you achieve what they call herd immunity. How do you say 100 to 200? That's a broad range. Well it goes back to the other point. Nobody really knows. But 100 to 200, you're saying a significant amount of people lose their lives. There is a group that is funded by the Gates Foundation, thank you very much Bill Gates, that projects 93,000 Americans will lose their life by the time this is over. That model suggests 16,000 New Yorkers will pass away by the time this runs its course. My guess is, so when Dr. Fauci says 100,000, there are models out there that make these types of projections.

And what would that mean to New York? That would mean about 16,000. Frankly that would mean that New York is only 16 percent, roughly, of the number of deaths. I don't even understand that since New York is so much higher right now. But what that does say to the rest of the nation is, this is not just New York. If you believe these numbers. 16,000 deaths in New York, that means you're going to have tens of thousands of deaths outside of New York. So to the extent people watch their nightly news in Kansas and say well this is a New York problem, that's not what these numbers say. This says it's a New York problem today. Tomorrow it's a Kansas problem, and a Texas problem, and a New Mexico problem. That's why I say to my fellow governors and elected officials all across this country, look at us today, see yourself tomorrow.

And let's address it in New York, and let's cooperate to address it in New York, because it's going to be in your town tomorrow, metaphorically. And if we learn how to do it right here, or learn how to do it the best we can, because there is no right, it's only the best we can, then we can work cooperatively all across this country. The other thing this model says, people say, well when is it over? Two weeks, three weeks, four weeks? This model projects you're going to have a high death rate through July. If this model is correct, this could go through the summer. Now, other people talk about getting back to work, starting the economy, April, May, June. This model says it could go on through July.

Now the question has become nuanced. Well, could you still be dealing with a virus and get the economy up and running and get people out of their homes? Yes. I think there are ways to do both. Not picking between human life and the dollar bill, because no one is going to pick a dollar bill over human life. But can you come up with public health strategy that is consistent with people getting out of their homes, and starting to get back to work? Yes, you can.

My opinion is the best way to do that is to come up with a rapid testing procedure where people can test. They know who's positive, they know who's negative, and they know who can go back to work and come up with a test quickly, and they're starting, that is readily available, that people can do at home, so you can take the test, know where you are, and we can start ending this terrible situation that we're in. Also, you come up with testing and rapid testing. Not only do you get up, and get the economy running, you end the anxiety. The anxiety is what is most oppressive here. Not knowing. Not knowing if I'm positive, if my friend is positive, if my loved one is positive. Not knowing when this is going to end. The anxiety of dealing with this isolation, day after day after day, it's like a bad groundhog movie, you know. Day after day after day. When does it end? How does it end? I don't know. I'm out of control. 

I think the testing is going to be the best mechanism to try to work through that. On the good news front, we have new testing available in New York. Regeneron, which is a great New York company, has created 500,000 testing kits at no charge. Thank you, Regeneron. And they are distributing them, of course across the state. Corning, another great company has donated 100,000 tubes, and 500,000 tubes, at reduced cost. So we can do more tests. New York is very aggressive on testing. We have been from day one, and we think that has helped us slow the spread of this virus.

My favorite topic - young people must get this message. And they still have not gotten the message. You still see too many situations with too much density by young people. They can get it. They're putting their lives at risk. This can kill young people. Rare circumstances, but it can. But you get infected, you give it to someone else. So think about somebody else. And I've said this 100 different ways. The compliance is still not where it should be. You saw the models on the differential in the compliance versus major compliance and minor compliance. So we're going to take more dramatic actions. We are going to close down the New York City playgrounds. I've talked about this for weeks. I warned people that if they didn't stop the density and the games in the playgrounds - you can't play basketball; you can't come in contact with each other - that we would close the playgrounds. I spoke to Speaker Johnson from New York City, who feels very strongly about this and did from day one. We agreed initially with the mayor that we would try compliance and the mayor was going to try to use the NYPD to enforce compliance, social distancing in playgrounds. It is still a problem. We're working with the speaker; we're working with the mayor, but we're going to close down the city playgrounds and leave the open spaces available. So use the open space in a park, walk around, get some sun - great. No density, no basketball games, no close contact, no violation of social distancing, period. That's the rule.

Other good news - we are working with all the hospitals in the state to do something they have never done before, which is to act as one, to cooperate to share supplies, share staff, support one and other, shift patients among hospitals, which really has never happened to any great extent. And the hospitals have been very cooperative and I want to thank them very much.

In this war, we must plan forward for the next battle. Meaning, we have been behind from day one. This virus has been ahead of us from day one. You don't win a war that way. The next battle is the apex. The next battle is on the top of the mountain. See that curve? You see a curve? I see a mountain. The next battle will happen at the top of that mountain. That's where it is going to be joined. And that's where the enemy either overwhelms our healthcare system, or we are able to handle the onslaught of the enemy at the top of that mountain. And that's what we're planning for every day.

But I want to offer you a different perspective that I'm starting to think about and I think we all should start to think about.

As a society, beyond just this immediate situation, we should start looking forward to understand how this experience is going to change us, or how it should change us, because this is going to be transformative. It is going to be transformative on a personal basis, on a social basis, on a systems basis. We're never going to be the same again. We're not going to forget what happened here.

The fear that we have, the anxiety that we have, that's not just going to go away. When do we get back to normal? I don't think we get back to normal. I think we get back, or we get to a new normal. Right? Like we're seeing in so many facets of society right now. So we will be at a different place.

Our challenge is to make sure that transformation and that change is positive and not negative. Let's make sure we're taking the positive lesson and not the negative lesson.

You could get wary of intimacy, and contact, and density. "Social distancing, don't go near anyone." What a terrible thing to live with as a human being. What a cruel torture. "Isolate yourself from other people. Be afraid of hugging someone." Just think how emotionally and personally repugnant that concept is, right? We crave human connection, and now we're being told that could be dangerous. You can't kiss. You can't hug. You can't hold hands. So how we come out of this, and making sure that it's positive and not negative. How do we learn from this? And how do we grow from this, right?

Society, life - you will get knocked on your rear end. You will deal with pain. You will deal with death. You will deal with setback. You will deal with suffering. The question is, how do you get up? First, do you get up? And second, if you get up, how do you get up? Do you get up smarter? Do you get up wiser? Or do you get up bitter, and do you get up angry? And do you get up fearful? We are in control of that.

And we have to start to think about that. We also have to be smarter from what we went through. How do you make the economy more resilient? What happens when something like this happens again? And something like this will happen again. "Oh, no, this is a once in a lifetime, never again." Something like this will happen again. We're seeing it in the environment. We're seeing it with floods, we're seeing it with hurricanes. Something like this will happen again. You can't just turn off the economy like a light switch.

How do governments work together? You can't figure it out on the fly - what the federal government does, what the state government does, what the local governments do. Figure it out before. Learn the lessons from this. Telemedicine, and tele-education. We have closed the schools. Well why weren't we ready with a tele-education system? Why weren't we better with telemedicine? Why didn't we have the capacity to have that's lines on people coming in to give the same basic diagnosis and the same basic advice? Why don't we have medical supplies made in this country? Why are we shopping in china for basic medical supplies? Why don't we gear our medical research to these types of threats and challenges, which we know are on the horizon? We know these viruses are changing. We know they mutate. Why don't we get ahead of it?

You still have to run society. Let's talk about first responder capacity. We now have first responders who are getting sick, and the workforce is dropping. That was inevitable, right? That was going to happen. What's the backup to that situation? And let's talk about societal stability, and engagement at times of crisis. You can't just tell everyone, "go home and lock your doors and sit on your couch and order takeout," for the foreseeable future. That's not who we are. It's not even a mental health issue. It's just, it's a personal health issue. It's how we relate to one another. We're not built to be isolated for long periods of time and not have human contact. So how do we deal with that?

And these are the types of questions that we have to start to think through. But not today. That is the next challenge, I believe. And that is what we're going to have to think about soon. But for now, one crisis at a time, as they say. And we are planning to handle with the current crisis, preparing for the battle on the mount, which is what we are doing every day. And that's what we are doing. And not only are we doing it, but we have to succeed at it. You know? Government process is very good at saying, "well, we're trying. We're working on this. We're doing our best. We're doing our best." Winston Churchill, "it is no use saying we're doing our best. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary." Tad harsh goes with that expression, which I think you could say, tad harsh. Handsome, but a tad harsh, but it's true. And that's what I say to my team every day. This is beyond best efforts. This is beyond, "I'm working very hard." We have to get this done. We have succeed. We have to find a way. We have to make it happen, because too much is at stake.

Last point on a personal note - my brother Christopher, as I told you yesterday, tested positive for the coronavirus. He's at home. He's doing fine enough. He has a fever, he has chills, symptoms of basically a very bad flu. But I want - I think this is illustrative in a number of ways. First of all, anyone can get this disease. Relatively young people, strong people, people who take a lot of vitamin pills. People who go to the gym a lot. Anyone can get this disease. There is no superhero who is immune from this disease. That goes for a New Yorker, as well as a Texan, as well as a Californian. Anyone can get it. No one can be protected from it. I couldn't protect my own brother. With all he knows, and as smart as he is, he couldn't protect himself. So, anyone can get it. And everyone has to be protected. I understand the data. I understand 80% self-resolve, 20% going to the hospitals. Christopher is not in the category that is problematic, by all the data he should have it, he'll have it for a period of time, and he will then resolve. If he has bad symptoms, he'll go into the hospital, he'll be treated, and he'll be released. That's what all the numbers say.

Even though that's what all the numbers say, when he told me he had the coronavirus, it scared me. It frightened me. Why? Because we still don't know. We still don't know. And even if there's just a 1 percent, 2 percent chance, it's frightening. It is frightening. It frightened me. And I deal with all sorts of stuff, and I've seen all sorts of things, and it frightened me. Why? Because we're talking about my brother. We're talking about my little brother. This is my best friend. Talk to him several times a day. Basically, spent my whole life with him. And it is frightening on a fundamental level. And it's frightening because there's nothing I can do, and I'm out of control, and there's nobody who can tell me, and Doctor Zucker can't tell me anything, and Tony Fauci can't tell me anything, because nobody really knows. And this situation is the same situation for everyone. For everyone. So yes. I'm frightened for my brother. I'm worried about my brother, as everyone is worried about everyone in their family, and everybody they love.

I take solace in the numbers, and the facts, because you can't divorce yourself from the facts, otherwise you go to a place of irrationality. But we're emotional beings. And as an emotional being, it is frightening, and it is unknown. And it is threatening, and it is scary and people are dying. He's going to be okay. I believe that. He's in his basement. And I sent him over a book that could be helpful. "Beginner's Guide to Striped Bass Fishing." I hope he picks up some tips from that.

But I also want to say to him, because I want him to know, he found out yesterday morning that he had coronavirus. He did his show last night. He did a show last night from his basement. What a gutsy, courageous thing to do. And we talked about it. And in some ways this can be very instructive, I think, to many people. Because everybody wants to know well what happens if you get coronavirus? All right, he did. And he does this show every night. Maybe some nights he won't be able to do it, but he does this show every night.

So, what's the positive? Show the country what it means to have coronavirus. And that information, that experience can be helpful to people. And that's why he did the show last night. Okay, I have coronavirus. But you know what? Here I am. I'm doing my show. I didn't fall over. I didn't collapse. It's not a death sentence. Here I am. I'm doing my show. Kudos to him. My pop would be proud. I love you little brother. And even though this isn't a flattering picture, I did not pick this picture with your mouth open, but it is suitable in some ways. Any questions, comments?

2020-04-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo Chris Cuomo

Good morning. Good to see all of you. All smiling faces. Most of them smiling faces. Let's give you an update as to where we are today. The number of cases continues to increase. We're up to 79,017. The number of people tested again is the highest rate in the country and per capita higher than China, per capita higher than South Korea. We tested 18,000 people. Total tested 238,000, which is a lot of people but remember New York, you're talking on a basis of 19 million. Number of positive cases up to 86,069; 92,000 total in the State.

Predominantly in New York City, but you see Westchester and Nassau which, by percentage, is a troubling number. Remember New York City is so much larger than Westchester, Nassau or Suffolk. Those numbers are concerning and we're watching those. You can see it in Nassau County, 1,000 new cases. Suffolk County 1,141 new cases. That is troubling news.

Number of counties, you see the entire State, every county in the State now has reported a coronavirus case. We said it was going to march across the State. I've also made the point to my colleagues, every phone call I do with the governor's, the other officials. I say it's going to march across this country. It is false comfort to say, "Well, we're a rural community. We don't have the density of New York City." That is a false comfort. You have counties in New York State where you have more cows than people. New York State - don't think of just New York City. Upstate New York is a rural community and you see that it's just not urban areas. It's suburban areas, that's Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk, comparable to suburban communities all across this country. And we have rural communities that are comparable to rural communities all across this country. In many ways, New York State is a microcosm of the United States and that's why I believe it's going to be illustrative for the rest of this nation as to what's going to happen. 

Current hospitalizations: As I said, 92,000 tested positive; 13,000 currently hospitalized. That's up 1,100. Three thousand ICU patients that's up 300; 7,400 patients discharged that's up 1,292. That's good news. Number of people going into the hospitals going up. Number of people coming out of the hospital is going up. Number of deaths, up to 2,373. Up from 1,941. Looking for a trend line. The trend line is still basically up. Total new hospitalizations, trend line of ICU admissions is still up. Certainly a couple of small deviations but the line is up. Number of intubations is up, but if you want to take an optimistic view, you could start to see a plateauing in the number of intubations. The statisticians tell me that's an optimistic view.

Number of daily discharges is going way up. That's people going in, people going out. Challenge is still at the apex. That's what this is been all about for every system in this country now. Everyone is basically waging the same battle. Different time frames, different numbers, different percentages, but it's the same battle. When you hit the apex, which is the highest rate of infection, highest number of people coming into the hospital system, can you handle that number? Can you handle the height of the impact on the hospital system, which is at the apex of the curve? We call that the battle of the mountaintop. At least I call it the battle of the mountaintop.

Questions people keep asking, which are the right questions. "Well when is the apex?" It depends on what model you use, what model you follow. We follow all the models. It's anywhere from 7 to 21 to 30 days depending on what model you look at. "Well how can you have that variable? Seven to 30 days." It depends on how that model rates how effective social distancing is. The variable is the models that think social distancing is going to be more effective at slowing the rate, have a longer time frame for the apex. Those models that discount the social distancing, they have a shorter time frame for the apex. It makes it difficult to plan, frankly, because 7 to 30 days is a long window. We are literally planning on a day-to-day basis. Deploying assets on a day-to-day basis. We believe it is closer to the shorter end of the range with our in-house people looking at the professional modeling that's being done.

How many beds will you need at the apex? Between 70,000 and 110,000. Again, that is a broad range. Again, that's one of the frustrations, trying to plan for this. Right now we have 53,000 statewide. We have only 36,000 downstate. Remember that, this is a primarily a downstate issue. So by any estimate, we don't have the number of beds. But again, we've taken extraordinary measures. Every hospital by mandate, has to add a 50 percent increase and they have all done that. We're setting up extra facilities, which we've been talking about. We've been shifting patients from downstate hospitals to upstate hospitals and that is continuing. When does this end? You have projection models that have us hitting the apex, coming down from the apex; models vary at how quickly you come down from the apex, but they all basically say you come down from the apex quickly. And then some models have it flattening out, but flattening out for a period of time. Models have it flattening out and continuing through the summer.

How many lives lost? There's only one model that we look at that has the number of projected deaths which is the IHME model which is funded by the Gates Foundation, and we thank the Gates Foundation for the national service that they've done. But that is the model that suggests approximately 93,000 deaths across the country. That's the model that I believe Dr. Fauci was referring to when he said about 100,000 deaths. By that, New York would be about 16,000 deaths by that model.

When we're doing this planning and we're doing our deployment, the theory is the chain is only as strong as the weakest link, right? So that's true for the hospital system. We have about, give or take, 180 hospitals that we are focusing on here in the state. The hospitals that will have the greatest issue will be those hospitals that are usually the most stressed in normal circumstances, right? So if the hospitals before this were under stress, you then add this crisis on top of that - those are the hospitals that one would expect to see struggling first. That's also true for the entire hospital system. You know, we talk about beds, we talk about staff, we talk about supplies, but the truth is you need all three of those things to provide any care. A bed without staff doesn't do anything. A bed and staff without supplies doesn't do anything. So you need all three of those components to work to have a situation where someone can actually get care.

In terms of beds, those are the easiest to find, and we're constructing additional facilities. We're now going to start at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. Obviously, in Brooklyn, New York, New York City. It's expected to open this week, 750 beds. We're talking an Office of Mental Health facility in Staten Island and converting it to a COVID-only hospital. So on beds we are in relatively good shape because a bed is a bed, right? A bed is a question of a structure. Push comes to shove, we can acquire dorms, we can acquire hotels, we can acquire physical structures with beds in them. Of those three components - bed, staff, supplies - I personally am least worried about bed capacity. We have 2,500 beds at Javits, we have 1,000 beds on the Naval Ship Comfort. Beds, we can find. Not easy, but we can find them. The harder components are the staff and the supplies, which is what we've been talking about.

On the staff, we're continuing to shift staff from the Upstate hospitals that are less impacted to downstate hospitals. We've requested out-of-state health care workers. God bless America, 21,000 people have volunteered from out of state to come into New York State. I thank them. I thank their patriotism. I thank their dedication and passion to their mission of public health. These are beautiful, generous people. And New Yorkers will return the favor. New Yorkers will return the favor. This is going to affect every place in this country. We are, in some ways, the first major encounter. We're learning. We'll get the experience. And we will return the favor.

When your community needs help, New Yorkers will be there. And you have my personal word on that. And it's also the New York tradition. When there's been a hurricane or there's been a flood or Hurricane Katrina, New Yorkers are the first ones in their cars to go anywhere in in this nation that needs help. And I will be the first one in my car to go wherever this nation needs help as soon as we get past this. I will never forget how people across this country came to the aid of New Yorkers when they needed it. And I deeply appreciate it. We have 85,000 volunteers now in total, which are being deployed to the hospitals so they can find staff that works for them.

Supplies are an ongoing challenge. The PPE is an ongoing challenge. The gowns, the gloves and the ventilators. First of all, we have for the first time ever a hospital-by-hospital survey that will be done on a nightly basis of exactly what they have. As I said, we're coordinating the healthcare system in a way it's never been coordinated before. Rather than having all these regional systems and public systems, private systems, et cetera, we have a central stockpile. We are asking all the hospitals to contribute what they have to that central stockpile, and then we will disburse on a need basis. You know, some hospitals have more supplies than they're using. We're saying, don't hoard supplies. Let's put all the supplies in the central stockpile, and then we will draw down from the central stockpile, and we will monitor this literally on a daily basis.

I'm also asking on supplies. I don't have a New York Defense Production Act, right. A governor can't say to a company, we need you to manufacture this. But I ask businesses just to think about the situation we're in and a possible opportunity. It is the cruelest irony that this nation is now dependent on China for production of many of these products. Many of these products, in the normal marketplace, were being produced in China, and now, you have everyone shopping China for PPE, gowns, ventilators. The gowns, the gloves, are not complicated components to manufacture. The gowns are tyvek, or paper material.

If you are a manufacturer who can convert to make these products and make them quickly, they are not complicated products. The FDA lists the specifications for these products on their website. If you have the capacity to make these products, we will purchase them, and we will pay a premium, and we will pay to convert or transition your manufacturing facility to a facility that can do this. But, we need it, like, now, you know. We're not talking about two months, three months, four months. We need these materials now. That's the stress, I understand that. But, if you are in the garment manufacturing business. If you have machinery that can cut a pattern. You know, a coverall, you're not making a fashion-forward, fitted garment, right. These are relatively straightforward components. So if you can do it, it's a business opportunity, it is a state need, it's a national need. Please contact us. We'll work with you, we'll work with you quickly, there'll be no bureaucracy, no red tape. And we'll finance, we're not asking for a favor from these businesses, we'll finance what you need in terms of transitioning and we'll buy the product and I will pay a premium because we need it. And this is a number for the Empire State Development Corporation, which is handling this task.

In terms of ventilators, we released 400 ventilators last night to the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. We released 200 to Long Island and Westchester. As I said, you see those growing numbers in Nassau and Suffolk, and that is starting to stress that healthcare system. So we released those ventilators last night. At the current burn rate, we have about six days of ventilators in our stockpile, meaning if the rate of usage, the rate of people coming into hospitals who need ventilators, if that rate continues, in our stockpile we have about six days. Now, if the apex happens within that timeframe, if the apex increases, if the apex is longer, we have an issue with ventilators. These numbers, by the way, are also going to be compiled every night. There's a difference of opinion, how many will you need. We'll need what we need. You know, I have no desire to acquire more ventilators than we need. The way we are basically acquiring ventilators is the state is buying them. They are very expensive and the state is broke, so I have no desire to buy more ventilators than we need. But, we need what we need. If a person comes in and needs a ventilator, and you don't have a ventilator, the person dies. That's the blunt equation here. And right now, we have a burn rate that would suggest we have about six days in the stockpile.

But, but, we are taking all sorts of extraordinary measures, I've spoken to health people all across the nation, Dr. Zucker's done all sorts of research. And we have extraordinary measures in place that can make a difference if we run into a real ventilator shortage. First, we know where all the ventilators are in the State of New York, by hospital. If we have a problem in any hospital, we are going to take the ventilators that are not needed from the upstate hospitals and transport them to downstate New York, to the hospitals that do need them, which again more and more are going to be on Long Island, and then we'll return them or we will figure out the finances of it and make those hospitals whole.

We are also increasing the number of ventilators by ending all elective surgeries. If you do not need an elective surgery, a hospital cannot perform it. If it is not critical, that's freeing up ventilators. We're also using anesthesia machine ventilators, without the anesthesia, obviously, but using them as ventilators. We're also so called splitting ventilators. We put out a protocol, all the hospitals are practicing that now, one ventilator, two sets of tubes can do two patients. It's not easy, it's not ideal, but it's better than nothing.

We're also converting what's called BiPAP machines, which do not have the same force as a ventilator, but on an emergency basis, some research has been done that says they could be suitable.

We are also still in the business of looking for ventilators to buy ventilators. It is too late to ask a company to make them in any way that would work for our timeframe. Our timeframe, seven days to 30 days, no one is going to be able to make a ventilator for you in that period of time.

Nationwide, parts of the country that have a later curve, yes. If you give a company two months, three months, they can ramp up production. But not on our curve. Not on our curve. So we have to find ventilators that we can buy and we are still doing that. Again, the main place is China.

We are converting the BiPAP machines. This has not been done before, but Northwell, which is one of our premier health care systems, has developed a protocol and they are teaching the other hospitals now how to do it. We just bought 3,000 BiPAP machines and 750 came in yesterday.

So yes, the burn rate of ventilators is troubling and six days of ventilators in the stockpile is troubling. But we have all of these extraordinary measures that I believe, if push comes to shove, will put us in fairly good shape. I do not want to say yet I'm confident, and it depends on how many we need, but I can say with confidence we have researched every possibility, every idea, every measure you can possibly take to find ventilators. This state has done, that I can promise you.

We are also going to open the health care exchange enrollment period through May 15. We have about 96 percent of the people in the state covered with health insurance. If you are not covered, we are extending the enrollment period to May 15. Please get covered. You can go to the New York State of Health website and sign up.

My brother, my little brother, I only have one brother, Christopher, tested positive for coronavirus. A lot of people are concerned about him, obviously people in my family, but even beyond that. New Yorkers are very compassionate and many people asked me about Chris and how is he doing, not just for himself, but we keep talking about this coronavirus, coronavirus, coronavirus, I'm afraid of it, I'm anxious about it, what does it actually mean? Okay, your brother has it. How is he doing? So a lot of people ask me that question and I talk to him quite frequently and he is doing okay and I checked in with him this morning and asked him how he was feeling and he was up and spry and much his normal self.

I invited him to join us for a couple of minutes if he was up to it this morning and I think he said that he was in a position to join us and I asked him to join us by video if he's available. There he is, with his hat, Cuomo Prime Time. Say hello.

Chris Cuomo: Let's get after it! 

Governor Cuomo: Let's get after it! I love that saying. You're looking fit and fine. Many people are asking about you. I tell you the truth, everyone I talk to is asking about you and how you're doing and how you're handling it and how you feel. Cara is here by the way. She's working with me now. She's working on supplies so she says hello. So how are you feeling?

Chris Cuomo: I love Cara and you have great kids. There is no better way to actually measure what you've actually meant in the world than the kids you bring into it. And your daughters are great and I'm not surprised at all that they're helping. They make me proud of the family. Thank God the next generation is better than the one that brought it into this world.

I'm doing pretty well all things considered. It's been very tough. I get it now. I've now become part of this group of people who have this virus and they're reaching out to friends and people who are new friends. They have this 5, 8, 10-day constant virus, constant fever and it's tough. You know, it's not doing great to my hair, I have to be honest; it's tough for the hair and the way I want it to look. You look like you've been cutting your own hair, which some people are good at, some people are not. So I've chosen to wear a hat, because I don't want to butcher my own hair cut. But, it's going to be a long slog. Now that I know the fight that I'm in for, I'm more comfortable and I've learned that I see why it takes people out. You have got to rest because your body has the fever because it's fighting the virus, and you've got to chill. I'm very lucky; I have a wife who loves me, who's keeping me fed. I got a nice place to be, millions of people don't. You've been very smart, Andrew, getting people to think about how they can reach out and help people without contact. A lot of people are fighting this alone, and I can't imagine that. I can barely, you know, keep it together and I have everything done for me. I'm very lucky. There are a lot of people who are in a bad way, and they're reaching out and I feel for them. So, we're in a real fight and we really do have to remember our connections to each other because otherwise there would be no way through.

Governor Cuomo: You're on what, you're on day two?

Chris Cuomo: Yeah. I really believe that it didn't start until I got the diagnosis, maybe because it's psychosomatic or whatever, but that night I got hit with a fever and those rigors, spelled like rigors "R-I-G-O-R-S". But, it was like out of a movie. I tell you, I had hallucinations I was seeing Pop. You came to me in a dream. You had on a very interesting ballet outfit and you were dancing in the dream, and you were waving a wand and saying, "I wish I could wave my wand and make this go away." And then you spun around and you danced away.

Governor Cuomo: Well that's a -- there's a lot of metaphoric reality in that one. I thank you for sharing that with us. It was kind of you. 

Chris Cuomo: I can't get that picture out of my head.

Governor Cuomo: Obviously the fever has affected your mental capacity.

Chris Cuomo: Yep. And being alone all the time, I think everything I say is freaking nuts.

Governor Cuomo: So, you still have -- do you have a fever today?

Chris Cuomo: I have a fever right this instant, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Really? Well, you look good. I have to tell you, comparatively you look good.

Chris Cuomo: Well first of all, I appreciate that. I must point out to your audience that you were concerned about how I looked several times, and you didn't like my hair. You thought that I was giving a bad look of survival of the virus. I think I'm doing okay.

Governor Cuomo: Good. You look good. You sound good. I know that sometimes we joke. I'm not going to do that today. You know, rule one is never hit a brother when he's down, and you're literally in the basement. So, I'm going to refrain from any rebuttal today. 

Chris Cuomo: I don't know, Andrew. This is probably your best chance because when I'm healthy, you know what happens when we go toe to toe when I'm healthy, so really if I were you now is the time to strike. 

Governor Cuomo: Yeah but see that's -- 

Chris Cuomo: You may get sick, but I would come for it now because once I'm healthy, I'm not going to forget all the jokes you did at my expense. I saw the picture you showed of me the other day; it raised my fever.

Governor Cuomo: No. Look, Chris, I have no doubt that you would hit me when I'm down. That's the difference between us and that is my point. That's not who I am. I hadn't made any jokes. There was not a joke. Some people misinterpreted what I said. I said that I was going to send you a book because I know you're just walking around the basement there, that I was going to send you a book on beginners guide to striped bass fishing, but that's only because, you know, you normally fish for porgies and it's totally different to fish for striped bass than porgies. I was never saying anything that was in any way offensive. 

Chris Cuomo: Well, I appreciate the book. I like to learn. I love to fish with you; it's one of my favorite things to do. You're the only person I've ever known who fishes in all white because you have no expectation of getting any kind of fish, or any type of substance on you at any time we fish, which has been great training for the virus. You have lived a sterilized existence pretty much the entire time I've known you.

Governor Cuomo: Yeah. I believe you can fish and still stay neat and clean. I'll tell you this -- 

Chris Cuomo: I love these briefings, I think you should have one every day.

Governor Cuomo: Yes. I have been. I know you haven't noticed.

Chris Cuomo: Oh, sorry.

Governor Cuomo: Yeah. It's sort of like the way you have a show. Yes, I do a briefing. You have Cuomo Prime Time, I have Cuomo all the time. That's the difference.

Chris Cuomo: The hats are available, by the way.

Governor Cuomo: Yes. It is a good looking hat, and one hour a day. I work 23 hours a day. That's like the mathematical balance. But anyway.

Chris Cuomo: That's your job.

Governor Cuomo: That's my job. I do believe this is going to be a great public service in an ironic way. People are about coronavirus. What does it mean? What happens if I get it the virus? You living it, showing it, doing it, doing the show, reporting on how you feel, reporting on what you're doing. I think it really takes, it demystifies this. It takes a lot of the unknown out of the equation. I know it's a terrible unfortunate circumstance for you. But think about it from a journalistic point of view, public service point of view, you are answering questions for millions of Americans. If I get it, what happens? What do I do? What do I look like? How about my family?

By the way, best news is, thank God, your family doesn't show any symptoms. Knock on formica. Because if your wife had any symptoms, you'd be in the basement for a lot longer than this virus would keep you in the basement, brother.

Christopher Cuomo: Let me tell you, I don't know how I would do it without her. I've always been emotionally dependent on my wife. But now I don't eat, without Christina. The kids wont come anywhere near me. The dogs wont even come down to see me. I had to trick the dog to come in to take a picture with him.

Governor Cuomo: Is that a relationship issue? Or is that a canine instinct issue, I wonder.

Christopher Cuomo: I think they know people get into survival mode and they're like big dog went down, doesn't mean we all have go down. And they are keeping their distance like everyone at this time. I get a FaceTime alert every once in a while. I get a text message. They all are very proud of you and what you're doing.

I know how hard this is for you. I know it's frustrating when you can't control what you need and you know what you need, and you know how important it is and you cant get it. That is very tough and I've watched it in real time with you. I can tell people, of course, I'm your brother and I'll never be objective about you, but I've never seen you work harder than now. And I've never seen you have this kind of desperation to source equipment and your drawing in from everybody you know. And you've done everything you can to stay positive with the federal government and that is so important right now. You're doing everything you can.

Unfortunately, look what's one of the big lessons in like that pop used to tell us? Certain things you're not going to be able to control. Certain things are going to happen. This virus is one of them. It happened. It's going to run its course. You guys can't put a number on it. I know there's a huge temptation to do it. I know your using the models. I talked to Dr. Fauci and all the different experts. People want timing, but we got to be realistic. We don't know how long it's going to last. We only know what we control, which is staying away from one another. If we do that well, things will go better. Sometimes in life you got to ride it out and we're in one of those experiences now. People will remember this period, maybe more than any other period in their whole lives. People will be remembered for how they stepped up right now and what they did and what they didn't do. And I'm very proud of you big brother.

Governor Cuomo: Well look, I've said at this briefing this a transformative moment for the state, for the country, I believe that. I also believe it's a moment where you really see what people are made of. When the pressure is on, that's when you see all the cracks and you see all the strength. It's easy to be nice when everything is nice, but when the pressure is really on. And for you, when they told you, you tested positive. You know, a lot of people's instinct would have been to get in bed, pull the covers over your head, and just lay there. For you to get up, do that show, share with people. That is a strength and a character strength that is really incredible.

You know we joke a lot, but the strength you showed here and dedication to journalism, and your skill, and your ability to make this okay for people, and to communicate it. You can do the coronavirus. Have the coronavirus, but you know life goes on. I've been saying a thousand times 80 percent of the people get it and they will self-resolve, but you're showing that. Not many people would have stood up the way you have stood up. I've always been proud of you, you know that. On a basic level, not only do I love you, I've always been proud of you, but I've never been prouder of you than I am right now. You go get some rest. I love you. Everybody loves you. This is going to be fine. You're going to get through it and you're going to do a beautiful public service in the meantime, and I'm proud of you. Then we'll go fishing, we'll have a drink, and we'll laugh about it. Go get some rest. Thank you for taking the time.

Christopher Cuomo: I know that I have to take care of myself. I won't do the show all the time. I'll do it whenever I can. People have been very nice and saying don't work too much because you don't compromise fighting the virus. They are right. You're right, and I hear all the advice. I love you. Thank you for letting me join today. I'll enjoy watching this now that I know it's a regular thing. I'll watch it every day because I'm stuck in the basement.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you for saying such loving supporting things.

Christopher Cuomo: If you need me, you know where I am.

Governor Cuomo: Rule one, never hit a brother when he's down, in the basement. Love you.

Christopher Cuomo: In the basement.

Governor Cuomo: In the basement.

Christopher Cuomo: Love you.

Governor Cuomo: Ciao

2020-04-03 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Good to see most of you. No, good to see all of you. New state seal. That's right. This is the seal of the State of New York. The Legislature passed my modification to the seal. You see in the middle of the seal two words, Excelsior - State motto. Ever upwards. Aspirational. We can be better. We can lift ourselves. Excelsior. An we added e pluribus unum, which is actually more appropriate today than when we started this process. E pluribus unum - out of many one. It was our Founding Father's fundamental belief for this nation. Adams spoke to it. Madison spoke to it. Jefferson spoke to it. Although they had a lot of different opinions while they were doing the Constitution, the one thing they agreed was e pluribus unum. Out of many one. And it was good then and it's even better advice today.

The curve continues to go up. The number of tests has reached a new high. We did over 21,000 tests. Thank you to our great health department. We have over 10,000 new cases; 102,000 total tested positive, 14,000 hospitalized, 3,700 ICU patients, 8,800 patients discharged, that's good news. Number of deaths: Highest single increase in the number of deaths since we started, 2,300 to 2,900 deaths.

You see the totality for New York State, 102,000. New Jersey, California. Remember when this started, New York had airports that were designated entry zones. This is an international destination, international hub. You have people coming from across the world. Sooner and at a higher rate than anyone else. Total hospitalization, 1,400. It's also a new high. Daily ICU admissions is down a little bit, but you had more deaths, you have more people coming in to hospitals than any other night. Also more people going out which is obviously the ebb and flow that's coming in and out of the hospital system.

The hot spots we now track on a nightly basis. How many people go into what facility, so we can track the increase in what's happening? You see an increase in New York City as we knew. Certainly communities, frankly more in New York City than other communities. But you also see an increase on Long Island which is something we're concerned about. Long Island does not have as elaborate a health care system as New York City. We don't have the same amount of resources on Long Island and we see an increase in the number of cases on Long Island and that has us very concerned.

Supplies, PPE are in short supply as they are across the country. We need companies to make the materials. It is unbelievable to me that in New York State, in the United States of America, we can't make these materials and that we are all shopping China to try to get these materials and we're all competing against each other. These are not complex materials and will work with New York manufacturers. We'll finance the transition necessary to make these materials. We talk about them as if they're very complicated. This is an N-95 mask. This is it. It was 70 cents before this started. It's now as high as 7 dollars. But this is all that an N-95 mask is. It's fabric, it's material. The FDA has the specifications, then it's two pieces of elastic cord. It can't be that we can't make these. This is a gown. We call them gowns. This is a gown. There is nothing sophisticated about the manufacturing of this garment. There is nothing sophisticated about the material. It can't be that companies in this country, and in this state, can't transition to make those supplies quickly. Again, I understand if there's a financial burden. We will address that and we will work with you. So please, contact us.

Javits is going to be converted to a COVID facility. The original plan was to use Javits - Javits is a State convention center. It was retrofitted by the Army Corps of Engineers to hold 2,500 people. The original plan was that it would not take COVID-positive patients. It would take non-COVID patients and it would be an overflow for hospitals. As it turned out, we don't have non-COVID people to any great extent in the hospitals. Hospitals have turned into effectively ICU hospitals for COVID patients. We wanted to convert Javits from non-COVID to COVID. It is federally run. Frankly, the federal agencies were not eager to do that. FEMA was not eager to do that. I called the President. I spoke to him about it yesterday morning. That afternoon, yesterday afternoon, the president called me back and said he spoke to the task force. They would grant the request to transition the Javits center to COVID only. That adds 2,500 beds. That is a big deal. I thanked the President for doing it. He did it despite the fact that the federal agencies were not eager to do it, and he did it quickly. I thank him for that. It is a big deal for us.

We are still challenging the issue of ventilators. We don't have enough period. This situation is very simple now. People come in and they are almost all COVID people. Ironically, the number of non-COVID cases has dropped, because so many things are shut down that you don't have the same number of automobile accidents, people getting hit by cars. You don't have the same crime rate, so you don't have the same number of trauma cases coming into the hospital. They are COVID cases. Many of them go right to the ICU. In the ICU, you need a ventilator. And if you don't have a ventilator, the process stops and we don't have enough ventilators. We are doing everything possible, splitting the ventilators, using BiPAP machines by this new protocol, using the anesthesia ventilators. We're the government is being as helpful as they can from the federal stockpile. But in truth, I don't believe the federal stockpile has enough to help all of the states because you can't buy the material at this point.

We are still trying to buy from China. We are working with Alibaba, which has been very helpful to us. I spoke to Jack Ma and Mike Evans, who is the president. And they have been personally gracious and very, very helpful in trying to get us to source material from China. But we are going to have to redeploy ventilators from across the system. In other words, there are hospitals that have ventilators. There are hospitals that have PPE equipment. There are private-sector companies that have PPE equipment that they are not using that we are going to need to redeploy to the places in the hospitals where we need them. I had a conversation with the hospital administrator yesterday. I understand they don't want to give up their ventilators. Ventilators are expensive pieces of equipment. I understand that, even if they're not using them, they are reluctant to see them go out the door. The theory is if the government gets them, they will never get them back. I understand that. But I don't have an option.

I'm not going to get into a situation where we're running out of ventilators and people are dying because there are no ventilators but there are hospitals in other parts of the state that have ventilators that they're not using. I'm just not going to allow us to go there. I think it would be wholly irresponsible. I'm going to sign an executive order that says the state can take ventilators and PPE from institutions that don't need them now and redeploy them to other parts of the state and other hospitals that do need them. Those institutions will either get their ventilator back or they will be reimbursed and paid for their ventilator so they can buy a new ventilator. I can't do anything more than that. But I'm not going to be in a position where people are dying and we have several hundred ventilators in our own state somewhere else. I apologize for the hardship for those institutions. Ultimately there is no hardship. If you don't get the ventilator back, I will give you my personal word, I'll pay you for the ventilator. I'm not going to let people die because we didn't redistribute ventilators. The National Guard are going to be deployed to pick up these ventilators which are all across the state and deploy them to places where we need them.

State budget passed last night, 3:00 a.m., as you know. The state budget was extraordinary. First, it passed a lot of major policy initiatives that we should all be very proud of: the nation's first domestic terrorism law. It improved bail reform. It addressed this child vaping scourge going across the nation. We banned fentanyl, a ban against repeat subway sex offenders, campaign finance reform, paid sick leave, middle class tax cut, very aggressive airport construction program and accessible renewable energy sightings.

I understand we're all consumed with the coronavirus situation but we have to be able to walk and chew gum. We have to move forward at the same time and that's why passing the budget and these pieces of legislation were important. These issues are still important and child vaping, et cetera, surrogacy, these are major issues for people. And they passed last night and congratulations.

The budget was difficult because the State has no money and how do you do a budget when you can't really forecast revenues and we came up with a somewhat novel budget that actually is calibrated to future revenues or losses. So we really start with an assumption and then what we're saying is when we see how much revenue the state makes, how fast the economy comes back, what the expenses are, we'll calibrate accordingly.

We are heavily reliant on the federal aid legislation that gets passed. The federal government has passed a couple of pieces of legislation. They're planning to pass another piece of legislation. It's very important that whatever legislation they pass helps state and local governments. When you deprive a state government all you are actually achieving is that that state government has to turn around and not fund the programs that were dependent on that state government. We fund education, health care. I spoke to Speaker Pelosi today. She's working on the program for the next piece of legislation. She understands fully the need of state government. She understands fully the need of local governments. She understands my position on how New York was shortchanged in the past bill and she said she's going to do everything she can do to help New York. I've worked with the Speaker many times. I've known her for 30 years and I believe her and her credibility and her competence is unparalleled, in my opinion. So I'll be working with the Speaker and the rest of the Congressional delegation going forward. But we need federal assistance. Depending on how much federal assistance we get, we'll be that calibration of the budget going forward.

Coronavirus response in general. There is a lot of conversations about how we should respond to this, governmentally, or from an intergovernmental perspective. People want to say this is a states' rights question versus federal interference. Who should decide what is done on a state level? There is no governor who is arguing that their state's rights are being trampled, right? It is not a states' rights issue. No one is standing up saying the federal government is trampling my rights. I have said that on other occasions. No governor, Democrat or Republican, is saying that here. Every state is saying the same thing. I need help, I need assistance. I don't consider this situation with federal government as interfering with a state's rights. This is a situation that is, by definition, a national disaster emergency situation, where the states need and welcome the federal assistance.

I was in the federal government, as you know. I worked on scores of federal emergencies. The only operational model that I see that could potentially work here at this stage, where we are today with the realities we are facing, where no state can get the supplies they need, no state can get the PPE they need. No state can get the ventilators they need. The market has literally collapsed. The only operational model that I see is you have curves - we have been talking about our curve - you have curves in different parts of the country. Those curves occur at different times. It depends on when the outbreak started in that region - how quickly it spread. So, you have different curves in different parts of the country, occurring at different times. I think the only practical solution at this point is focus on the emergency that is in front of you. Focus on the emergency that is at the place and time that is in front of you. And then, redeploy to the next situation.

New York is the tip of the spear, so to speak. We have the high numbers. We have the first major encounter. Deploy resources to New York. We will hit that curve. We will be at the top of the curve. Seventeen days, 21 days, we are on the others of the curve and we are coming down. And then I don't need the ventilators that we have amassed and split and the BiPAP machines. We can redeploy what we have, personnel equipment, to whatever locality is next. Now, it is not a perfect sequential timing. But, if you look at the projected curves, when it is going to hit Michigan, when it is going to hit Illinois, when it is going to hit Florida, you will see that there is a timing sequence to it. Why not, or what is the alternative, to now saying let's help each other? Let's focus on each situation as it develops, and let's move our resources and personnel as it develops.

What is the alternative to the crisis that we see looming nationwide? You can't. You do not have enough. The federal government does not have enough material to sit there and say whatever you need I can get you. Don't worry, California. Don't worry, Michigan, don't worry, New York, don't worry, Florida - they can't. They have essentially said I don't have enough in my stockpile to handle all of this. I will get into a blame game. Should it have been in the federal stockpile, should states have been stockpiled? Forget that. The reality is how do you handle this operation, unless you go from place to place and say each state has to help every other state as we go along? There is a simple analogy to this that we live all the time. When we have minor emergencies with disasters, when we have a minor hurricane that's regional in nature, or minor flood, power goes out. What do we do? All the power and utility companies from all across the country descend on that region that needs help. Right? After a hurricane, power lines are down. You look at the highways you see all those trucks coming in from different states, right? Arizona trucks, Colorado trucks. When Florida has a hurricane what do we do? We get in the trucks, everybody drives down to Florida, personnel, et cetera. When Puerto Rico got into trouble, what did we do? Con Edison, New York, Rochester Gas, they all went down to Puerto Rico. Why? Because help the place that has the crisis. This is that on a macro scale. New York is in crisis. Help New York and then pick up, decamp, and then go to the next place as this rolls across the country.

There's not a perfect timing. There will be two parts of the country that hit an apex at the same time. There will be three parts of the country that hit an apex at the same time. I do not see any operational practical alternative to dealing with this going forward. By the way, this is all operational. There is no concept. There's no abstraction. There's no philosophy to this. This is a person walks in the door. Do you have a bed? Do you have a staff person? Are they wearing PPE and do you have a ventilator? Are they all present at that moment when that person walks in that door? That's all this is. That's all this is. Forget testing, vaccines, that's a separate project. That's not where people are going to die in the near term. People are going to die in the near term because they walk into a hospital and there's no bed with a ventilator. Because there's either no bed, or no staff, or no PPE, or no ventilator. That is what is going to happen. I think this is the only way to avoid it.

Look, I believe the American people are there. How many times have seen a disaster across this country and how many American just show up to help. I mean, it's in the American DNA to say were here to help one another. It is E Pluribus Unum. I didn't have to put that on the seal. That's just a reminder, out of many one. We're community. We're Americans. We're family. We're brothers and sisters. There's a commonality. Well, I am New Yorker. You're from California. I know those are lines on piece of paper. We are the same. We're the same. We know that here in New York.

I asked for people to come help New York, health officials, health professionals. 20,000 people volunteered in a matter of days to come help New York in the middle of a pandemic. 20,000 people. Think about that. 20,000 health professionals said I'll leave my home and come to your state. Systematize that volunteerism. Systematize that genericity, that charity, and that expertise. That's how we beat this damn virus as it marches across the country.

We just deploy in front of the virus as it works its way across the country. In any event, when our curve is over that's what we're going to do. New Yorkers are going to take what we've amassed. We're going to take our equipment, we're going to take our personnel, we're going to take our knowledge and we will go to any community that needs help.

We're learning things that fortunately no other community had to learn because we're first and because of the intensity of the situation here. When our urgent need is over we will help any community in this nation that needs it, because that outpouring has been there for us. You know I remember post 9-11 and I remember post 9-11 without asking anyone for anything, the people who showed up in New York just to help. Tradesmen bringing tools, people bringing food, people trays of cookies, whatever. They just showed up. Nobody asked. They just showed up and said, "I'm here to help," and stood on the corner helping people. That's America at its best and at this time when we're dealing with our worst, let's deploy America at its best. And we know what that is and that can help us.

2020-04-04 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Let's go through some numbers. The increase continues. We're up to 10,482 cases. 23,000 people were tested yesterday, that's the highest number of testing we've ever done. That's good news. 283,000 total tested. Number of new cases, 10,841. New high. Total hospitalizations, 15,000 people currently hospitalized, 4,000 ICU patients. 10,000 patients discharged, right. That's the good news. Number of deaths, all-time increase up to 3,500, 6,500. Most impacted states, you see New York at the top again. New Jersey has a serious problem in New Jersey and a growing problem. Then Michigan, then California, then Massachusetts. Total number of hospitalized is down a blip, but we believe that's not statistically meaningful. You have the number of ICU cases are up. The number of intubations are up.

The number of discharges are also up. And this is interesting, two thirds of the people who have been hospitalized have been discharged. Okay? Two thirds of the people who have been hospitalized have been discharged. That's what we've been saying all along. Most people won't be hospitalized. People who are hospitalized will come in, be treated, and leave. That's two thirds. One third of that number has a serious condition which will require continued hospitalization. We're tracking the growth of the number of infections by hospital, and we can see just where the numbers are increasing.

We've been talking about hitting the apex. The apex is the point where the number of infections on a daily basis is at the high point, and that is the ultimate challenge for the healthcare system. Can we handle that number of cases at the high point of the curve? I call it the battle of the mountaintop because that's what it's going to be. That's going to be the number one point of engagement of the enemy. By the numbers we're not at the apex. We're getting closer, depending on whose model you'll look at. They'll say four, five, six, seven days. Some people go out 14 days. But our reading of the projections is we're somewhere in the seven-day range, four, five, six seven, eight day range. Nobody can give you a specific number, which makes it very frustrating to plan when they can't give you a specific number or a specific date, but we're in that range. So we're not yet at the apex. Part of me would like to be at the apex and just let's do it, but there's part of me says it's good that we're not at the apex, because we're not yet ready for the apex, either. We're not yet ready for the high point. We're still working on the capacity of the system. The more time we have to improve the capacity of the system is better, and the capacity of the health care system, beds, staff, equipment. We'll be doing a conference call with all the hospitals today to coordinate deployment of the equipment.

Watching the spread of the rate of infections is interesting. This chart is what we've been talking about, but you can see it here. The upstate number is the top bar. The rest of New York has been fairly constant, 4%, 5%, 4%, 5%, Westchester, Rockland 8%, 6%, 6%, 7%, 7, 7. Long Island is the area that is growing. You see Long Island goes from 16% to 17% to 18%, to 19 to 20 to 22%. New York City is actually dropping as the number of cases in Long Island increases, as a percentage of cases within the state. For us, this is about tracking the virus, tracking the spread of the virus, and then deploying as the numbers suggest.

In terms of beds, the 2,500-ed facility at Javits is going to make a major difference. That has to work. The White House agreed to make that a COVID-positive facility. Remember, originally the Javits Center, which is a state convention center, we worked with the federal government, they constructed a 2500-bed facility, it was supposed to be non-COVID. I spoke to the president, transferred that with his intervention to a COVID facility. The federal government will staff that and the federal government with equip that. That is a big deal because that 2,500-bed facility will relieve a lot of pressure on the downstate system as a significant number of beds and that facility has to make that transition quickly and that's what we're focused on. It's going to be very staff intensive, very equipment intensive but the theory there is the best we can to relieve the entire hospital system downstate by bringing those COVID patients to Javits and from the intake to the treatment and it's going to be very difficult to run that large a facility. But if that works and that works well that changes the numbers dramatically so that's a top focus for us. I spoke to the White House today on planning the logistical operation to get that up and get that running asap, and that's the top operational priority.

In terms of staffing, we have 85,000 volunteers, 22,000 out-of-state volunteers. How amazing is that? 85,000 volunteers. I'm also signing an executive order to allow medical students who are slated to graduate to begin practicing. We need doctors, we need nurses, so we're going to expedite that.

On ventilators, remember, we ordered 17,000 ventilators. To give you an idea of how many 17,000 is, the federal stockpile was about 10,000 ventilators for the nation. We ordered 17,000 just for the state of New York. When we ordered the ventilators we were paying for the ventilators. So, trust me, you know the financial situation of the state. We were not looking to spend a penny that we didn't have to spend. We placed that order for the ventilators and we were paying for that order. That order never came through. This goes back to the China situation. We had signed documents, we placed the order,Governor Baker talks about this in Massachusetts. But then you get a call that says we can't fill that order because you had all that demand going in. So, what do we do? We find what equipment we have, we use it the best we can. If you ask hospitals today what ventilators do you have that are unused and available that they don't need in the short term and take 20% of that number of available ventilators, that's 500 ventilators. 500 ventilators is a significant number now. China is remarkably the repository for all of these orders. Ventilators, PPE, it all goes back to China. Long term, we have to figure out why we wound up in this situation where we don't have the manufacturing capacity in this country. I understand supply chain issues, I understand the cost of manufacturing, but there's a public health reason, as we've all learned the hard way, why we need the capacity in this country to do this.

Anyway, it all comes back to China. New York has been shopping in China. We're not really China experts, here. International relations is not what we do on a daily basis. I've been to China before when I was HUD secretary, I did a trade mission with China. So, I have a basic understanding, but we went to the Asia Society to help us navigate China. I asked the White House to help us navigate China. I spoke to the ambassador and we got really good news today. That the Chinese government is going to facilitate a donation of 1,000 ventilators that will come in to JFK today. I want to thank Joe Tsai and Clara Tsai and Jack Ma from Alibaba, and the Nets, but I'm not stating a preference, for their donation. That's going to be very helpful and I want to thank Ambassador Huang very much for his help in making all of this happen because this is a big deal. It's going to make a significant difference for us.

Also, the state of Oregon contacted us and is going to send 140 ventilators, which is, I tell you, just astonishing and unexpected. I want to thank Governor Brown, I want to thank all of the people in the state of Oregon for their thoughtfulness. Again, this was unsolicited. But the 140 ventilators will make a difference. I was thinking about it, on behalf of New York and what it means for our - first it was a kind gesture. I know Governor Brown and she is a kind person, but it's also smart from the point of view of Oregon. Why? Because we're all in the same battle and the battle is stopping the spread of the virus, right? Look at what they did in China. It was in the Wuhan province. First order of business was contain the virus in Wuhan. Why? Because you want to contain the enemy. That's always the first step. Oregon, we're dealing with it now, we don't stop the spread in New York, it continues. And if you look at the projections, Oregon could have a significant problem towards May. Our problem is now. So it's also smart from Oregon's self-interest. They see the fire spreading. Stop the fire where it is before it gets to my home. That was the Wuhan province.

Somebody sent me a great quote from FDR, who had such a beautiful way of taking complicated issues and communicating it in common-sense language. FDR was dealing with trying to get the lend-lease program approved and accepted by the public. Why would this country help another country fight its war? That was the lend-lease program. His point was it's a common enemy. We want to contain the enemy. That other country's fight is actually our fight. If we don't stop the spread then it's going to burn down our own country. But this is how he does it, right? The concept is right, but how does he explain that? Suppose my neighbor's home catches fired and I have a length of fire hose 400, 500 feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it with his hydrant, I may help him put out his fire. Now what do I do? I don't say before that operation, neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15, you have to pay me $15 for it. What is the transaction that goes on? I don't want the $15. I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. All right, if it goes through the fire all right, intact without any damage to it, he gives it back to me, and thanks me very much for the use of it. But suppose it gets smashed up? Holes in it during the fire. We don't have to do too much formality about it. But I say to him, I was glad to lend you that hose. I see I can't use it anymore. It's all smashed up. He says how many feet of it were there? I tell him 150 feet of it. He says, alright, I will replace. Now, if I get a nice garden hose back I am in pretty good shape.

The State of Oregon has lent us 140 ventilators. It was kind, it was smart, stop the virus here. It's better for the state of Oregon, it's better for the nation. Their curve comes after ours. We'll return their 140 ventilators, and there's never been a discussion, but frankly I know New Yorkers and I know New Yorkers' generosity. We will turn it double fold, because that's who we are and that's what we believe. So, stop the fire in New York, kind, generous, also smart.

Personal opinion, look I want this to be all over. It's only gone on for 30 days since our first case. It feels like an entire lifetime. I think we all feel the same. This stresses this country, this state, in a way that nothing else has frankly, in my lifetime. It stresses us on every level. The economy is stressed, the social fabric is stressed, the social systems are stressed, transportation is stressed. It's right across the board, but the most difficult level is the human level. It is for me, anyway. It's every day, and it's everywhere. My brother catches the virus. That's stressful. My mother is worried about my brother, and she's concerned. We have a birthday party yesterday for Stephanie, was standing around a cake. Everybody's six feet from each other in this bizarre supposed to be just a fun usual celebration of a birthday. My daughter's cousin has a tragedy and that's just emotionally very painful. They can't hug each other and hold each other. They can't even grieve together. The cyberchats, I mean, this is so emotionally taxing that you can't even begin to -- you can't quantify the effect on society and the effect on individuals. And the burden that we're dealing with.

So, yes, I want it over. If there was anything I could do to accelerate getting it over, I would. In some ways I want to get to that apex, I want to get on the other side of the apex and let's just slide down that mountain. On the other hand, we have to be ready for the fight and we have to handle that fight. That's where we are. So, what do we do? You have to get through it. You have to get through it. There is no simple answer here. You're not going to wish this away. You have to get through it. You have to get through it intelligently, saving as many lives as you can. That's hard work, and that's perseverance, and that's mutuality and that's community, and that's finding your better self, and that's finding inner strength and dealing with a situation that is almost unmanageable on every level. Because you are out of control. This is a painful, disorienting experience, but we find our best self, our strongest self. This day will end and we will get through it and we will get to the other side of the mountain. And we will be the better for it. But we have to do what we have to do between now and then. That's just what we're doing here.

2020-04-05 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Sunday. For those of you who celebrate Happy Palm Sunday. Happy Passover week for those who celebrate Passover. Thanks for taking the time to be with us today. We want to give you an update as to where we are.

The number of cases increase which is nothing new. It's happened every day since we've started this. It's been a long month. Something a little bit different in the data today. We're not really 100 percent sure yet what the significance is as we're feeling our way through this.

Number of people tested, 18,000. Positive cases are up 8,000, total of 122,000 cases. Number of patients discharged, total discharged is 12,000 - 1,700 discharged in one day. Number of deaths is up. That's the bad news. It's 44,159 and we pray for each for each and every one of them and their families and that is up and that is the worst news.

But the number of deaths over the past few days has been dropping for the first time. What is the significance of that? It's too early to tell. This is the impact by state. But as I said the interesting blip maybe in the data, or hopeful beginning of a shift in the data and the number of cases, total number of new hospitalizations is 574 which is obviously much lower than previous numbers. That's partially a function of more people being discharged but you see ICU admissions are also down. The daily intubations down slightly from where it was. Again, you can't do this day to day. You have to look at three or four days to see a pattern.

Discharge rate is way up and that's great news and the statewide balance of cases has been relatively stable for the past few days. There is a shift to Long Island. Upstate New York is basically flat and as Long Island grows the percentage of cases in New York City has reduced.

For those people who look at the data, you have all these projection models and what's been infuriating to me is the models are so different that it's very hard to plan when these models shift all the time. But there's also a difference of opinion on what happens at the apex. All the models say you go up until you go down - thank you very much. Then there's a difference of, is the apex a point or is the apex a plateau. In other words you go up, hit the high and the immediately drop, or do you go up and then there's a plateau where the number of cases stays high for a period of time and then drops? There's a difference of opinion.

So you have to think about that when you think about what you're seeing in the numbers because you could argue that you're seeing a slight plateauing in the data which obviously would be good news because it means you plateau for a period of time and then you start to come down and we're all feeling our way through this and we have the best minds in the country, literally on the globe, advising us because New York is the first. I also think it will be very helpful for the other states that follow. I was just talking to Dr. Zucker about codifying everything we're learning because when the next states start to go through this we hope that they can benefit from what we're going through.

But we're looking at this seriously now because by the data we could be either very near the apex or the apex could be a plateau and we could be on that plateau right now. We won't know until you see the next few days. Does it go up, does it go down, but that's what the statisticians will tell you today.

As we've said before, the coronavirus is truly vicious and effective at what the virus does. It's an effective killer. People who are very vulnerable must stay isolated and protected. I mean, that was the point from day one. That was the point with Matilda's Law, my mother. You have to isolate and protect those people. If a very vulnerable person gets infected with this virus, the probability of a quote unquote "cure" is very low. And that's what this has really been about from day one. That small percentage of the population that's very vulnerable. Major effort that has impacted everyone to save the lives of those people who are in the very vulnerable population. If you're not part of that vulnerable population, then you will get sick, 20 percent require hospitalization, but the hospital system is very effective and it makes a real difference. And that's why the highest number of people ever now being discharged, right.

So you're just seeing the evolution of this whole story. You're seeing the narrative unfold, right. We're all watching a movie, we're waiting to see what the next scene is, and as the movie unfolds you start to understand the story better and better. Rush of infection rate, rush of people into the hospital system, hospital system capacity explodes, more people are in, but, more people are coming out. 75 percent of those people who have now gone into the hospital system are coming out of the hospital system. It also helps with the capacity of the hospital system because obviously the more people who are coming out, it makes it easier to handle the large influx that's coming in.

Having said all of that, the operational challenge for the healthcare system is impossible. Because the system is over capacity, all across the board. It's just over capacity. So what we're basically saying to a system is you have to manage with the same resources that you have, same staff, an over-capacity situation. And that is putting a tremendous amount of stress on the healthcare system. You're asking a system to do more than it has ever done before, more than it was designed to do with less. I understand that. I get that. Day in and day out, the commissioner and everyone at this table deals with the healthcare system. I understand what they're dealing with. I understand they're being asked to do the impossible. And they are being asked to do the impossible. But, life is options and we do not have any other options. So you get to a situation and you do what you have to do in that situation. And that's where we are. The only operational plan that can work, right, because you know the system doesn't have the capacity, doesn't have the supplies, doesn't have the staff. So how do you handle this surge over capacity?

We call it, we have to surge and flex, which means you have to deal with, if you're an individual hospital or hospital network, yes, you're going to be over capacity. And the only way we can make this work is if we flex the system so that we take all hospitals, all hospital networks, some hospitals are in networks, and we work together as one system, which has never been done, right. We have public hospitals. We have private hospitals. We have Long Island hospitals. We have New York City hospitals. In totality, it's the health care system, the state manages, regulates the healthcare system, but they're all individual hospitals. And, or individual networks. And they are accustomed to just doing business and managing their own affairs. That doesn't work. We have to balance the patient load among all of these hospitals. So if one hospital starts to get high or has a protected high intake, we have to shift that patient load to other hospitals. That means some patients who show up at their neighborhood hospital may be asked, can we transport you to another hospital, which is not in your neighborhood, but actually has more capacity. So we have to adjust that patient load among all of the hospitals, which is a daily exercise and it's very, very difficult.

We're running short on supplies all across the board. Some hospitals happen to have a greater supply of one thing or another. One hospital has a greater supply of masks, one hospital has a greater supply of gowns. And when we're talking about supply, hospitals are accustomed to dealing with a 60-day supply, 90-day supply. We're talking about 2 or 3 or 4 day supply, which makes the entire hospital system uncomfortable, which I also understand because we're literally going day-to-day with our supplies, with out staff, et cetera. Which is counter-intuitive and counter-operational for the entire health care system and I understand that also.

The big operational shift will be Javits coming online if we get that up and running efficiently. That's 2,500 beds for people who test positive with the COVID virus. That is a major shift for the systems and at a time when we desperately need a relief valve for the system, Javits could do that. We're working very hard to get that up and running. That rolling deployment, that flexibility - there is no other way to do this on the state level. I can't say to a hospital, I will send you all the supplies you need. I will send you all the ventilators you need. We don't have it. We don't have them. It's not an exercise, it's not a drill. It's just a statement of reality. You're going to have to shift and deploy resources to different locations based on the need of that location. I think that's going to be true for the country. The federal government everyone says federal stockpile, federal stockpile. There's not enough in the federal stockpile to take care of New York and Illinois and Texas and Florida and California. It's not an option. The only option I see is there's a national deployment - everyone says this is war time, it is a war and the virus is the enemy - where help New York today, thank you state of Oregon, we're dealing with this curve today and this intensity and then nationally, we shift the resources to the next place that is most impacted.

Just what we're doing in New York City and New York State on a microcosm, we shift resources from the Bronx to Brooklyn to Queens to Nassau. Shift national resources and state resources from New York to Florida to Illinois, whatever is next on the curve. We're going to do that in any event. We get through this, people have been so beautiful to us and it is the New York way. We're going to codify everything we've learned and when we get past this curve, whatever part of the country goes next, we will be there with equipment and personnel and however we can help.

Federal government is also deploying approximately 1,000 personnel to New York. That's doctors, that's nurses, that's respiratory technicians. The immediate priority is to deploy those people to help the New York City public hospitals. The New York City public hospital system, H&H, was a system that was under stress to begin with before any of this. So obviously, you add more stress to institutions that were under stress, it only makes the situation more difficult so we're going to deploy all the federal personnel who are coming in today, 325, to the New York City public hospital system.

I talk to the hospital administrators on a daily basis. We get them on a conference call and we do this shifting of supplies and balancing of patient load. I know that I'm asking them to do really difficult things, I get it. I don't enjoy being in this situation. I don't enjoy putting them in this position. I know their staff is all over burdened, but all I can say is thank you to the administration of this health care system and most importantly thank you to the frontline workers. These people, they are true heroes in the truest sense of the word, what they do day in and day out under very difficult circumstances, and we thank them all.

On a different and somewhat lighter note, there is an accompanying affliction to the coronavirus that we talked about early on. It is cabin fever. It is a real situation. Not medically diagnosed, I asked Dr. Zucker there is no medical diagnosis for cabin fever, but I believe it exists. It is a feeling of isolation. It is often accompanied by radical mood swings, resentment of people around you to varying degrees, for no reason whatsoever. Just an upwelling of resentment, especially toward people who are in apparent positions of authority in this situation which I've noticed. Irrational outbursts can come at any time, without any warning. Just an irrational outburst, frustration, anger, with no rational basis. Cabin fever, in many ways, also threatens the essence of our Constitution, which is premised on people sharing domestic tranquility and it can be disruptive to tranquility. I can attest to that. It is a real thing. Think about it. It has only been one month but it has been a long month.

Positive intervention for cabin fever, I am going to take up running again. I used to run in the normal days before this job. But I am going to start running again. My daughter Cara, we will run as a family and go out there. Cara has a head start. She is out there doing five miles every day. She thinks she can beat me. Give me a couple of weeks and I will be right there, right there. Fast like lightning. We are going to do it. We will make the dog come. The dog is also experiencing cabin fever. He's a little disrupted. The order of the pack has changed. Different people, he does not know where he fits. He has anxiety. He is going to run. Think of ways to deal with it. I don't have any great answer.

But a little perspective on the whole situation is important. I challenged my daughters, this is terrible, this is terrible, this is terrible. I have been saying this is terrible for society, the economy and personally. But, you know, let's look back at history, right? Generations have gone through terrible times. So, my challenge to them is you find me a generation that has had a better overall situation than where we are right now. Go back to World War I, World War II, Vietnam, 1918 flu pandemic, you find me a generation that has not had a challenge to deal with and we will are going to have that discussion. Keep in mind on perspective. This is going to be over. You can see the story developing. You can start to see how the story ends, right? They will have a vaccine. Will it be 12 months or 14 months or 18 months? There are a number of treatments that are being expedited and are being tested right now. Dr. Zucker of New York is working expeditiously and cooperatively with the FDA to try all new different treatments: convalescent plasma, receptor antibody treatments, we are working on the hydroxychloroquine - we are working on it aggressively. So, we are trying all these new treatments. Some of them show real promise. But, you can see where the story ends.

I think, this is opinion and not fact, I think you see the return to normalcy when we have an approved rapid testing program that can be brought to scale. We are now testing rapid testing programs. But, when you get to the point where you can do rapid testing, of scale, and people can start to go back to work because they know they are negative. We continue to protect the vulnerable population, which is what this was about, and we liberate, as my daughters would say they are seeking liberation. We liberate people who can go back to work because we know that they are not in the vulnerable category and they are negative. I think that is, it is under development now, the rapid testing, and we are part of it. That is going to be the answer, I believe. And we get through it because we are New York State tough. Thank you.

2020-04-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Good morning. The start of another work week, or not. Everybody knows from my right Dr. Jim Malatras; medical doctor, still a doctor, Dr. Howard Zucker; to my left Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor; to her left Robert Mujica Budget Director, extraordinaire.

On the numbers, the number continues to increase. We're up to 8,658 new cases. Overall we have 130,000 people who tested positive, 16,000 people in our hospital system, 13,000 people have been discharged. Number of deaths are up once again, number of people we lost, number of New Yorkers, 4,758 which is up from 4,159 but which is effectively flat for two days.

While none of this is good news the possible flattening of the curve is better than the increases that we have seen. New York is still far and away the most impacted state. New Jersey is having real difficulty and speaking with Governor Murphy from New Jersey and anything we can do together we will. Michigan also, California has leveled off and Louisiana is having a difficult time so they're in our thoughts and prayers.

Total number of hospitalizations are down. The ICU admissions are down and the daily intubations are down. Those are all good signs and again would suggest a possible flattening of the curve. The number of discharged is down but that reflects the overall reduction in the numbers.

Big question that we're looking at now is, what is the curve? And we've been talking about cases increase, increase, increase - until they don't. When they stop increasing then what happens? The projection models have a number of alternatives. Some suggest basically the curve goes up and then drops precipitously. Some suggest a slight pause at the top. Some suggest there's a longer pause at the top which is effectively a plateau effect, or again the straight up and straight down precipitous drop which is the peak effect. No one can tell you which will occur. They say any one of the three options, you study other countries, you've had a combination of the above. We are studying it as we use the projection models from day one to determine actually what we do, how do we set policy and program by following the data.

Dr. Malatras has been working on the numbers, working with the statisticians and the projection models and helping us incorporate that into an operational model and, Jim, if you want to take a moment and speak about the projection models here please?

Dr. Malatras: Great, thank you, Governor. As the Governor said, we have been looking at projection models from the beginning to determine the size of scope and severity and the Governor has mentioned this over his briefings. We've been working with many organizations and using the data, like Imperial College, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Cornell, McKinsey and others and some of the initial projections that we first saw at the beginning of this was at least up to 110,000 beds for COVID patients alone and the peak would come at the end of April. Those were some of earliest modeling from many organizations that it would be at the end of April around 110,000 beds just for COVID patients. There are other models too that we were tracking, one being lower at around 55,000 COVID beds, but again peaking at the end of April. 

We follow, now that we have a pretty robust set to go by for the last several weeks, the bottom line the purple line is sort of where we are tracking today which suggests, it's a lower, and the question was what could you do to lower those initial projections from 110,000 and from 55,000? So a lot of the activity was we saw what the statisticians and the folks looking at these types of models said was going so what activities and what actions could you take to aggressively lower that number and the answer really was and what the Governor has been doing is aggressively enforce and enact social distancing to lower the overall number. This number and the current data suggest that that is exactly what's happening and it's not settled yet because we are going day-by-day, and the numbers as the Governor says, have changed a lot over time based on what numbers come in. But this could suggest that we are indeed potentially at the apex or beginning to be at the apex at this moment. Like the Governor has said, there has been a range of models 7 days, 14 days, 21 days, 30 days. It looks like we're at toward the earlier side of that time frame based on the current projections and modeling that we've been looking at. 

Governor Cuomo: You also see on this slide where we are now and it can still go any way. We could still see an increase so it is hopeful, but it's also inconclusive and it's still depends on what we do. These models all have a co-efficient of what we do and how successful we are with social distancing, et cetera. From our decision making point of view, it doesn't really matter if we've hit the plateau or not because you have to do the same thing. If we are plateauing, we are plateauing at a very high level and there's tremendous stress on the health care system. To say to this health care system, which is at maximum capacity today, this is a hospital system where we have our foot to the floor and the engine is at red line and you can't go any faster. And by the way, you can't stay at redline for any period of time because the system will blow. That's where we are. We are at red line. People can't work any harder. The staff can't work any harder and staying at this level is problematic. If we are plateauing, it is because social distancing is working. So we have to make sure the social distancing actually continues. 

On the relieving the pressure on the hospital system, which is unsustainable at this rate, we're continuing what we call our surge and flex program where we get all the hospitals on the line on a daily basis. They're all doing inventories, they're all doing data sheets, they're all on the telephone, and we are shifting among the hospitals the ventilators, PPE equipment, who has gowns, who has masks, that happens on a daily basis, that adjustment. Also to relieve pressure on the hospital system, the Javits coming online is a very big deal. That is the relief valve for the entire downstate system.

The 1,100 military personnel started to come in. 300 were sent to New York City public hospitals to help the New York City public hospital system, the H&H system, which has been in distress. The rest will go to Javits to bring that up and running to full capacity. That transition is happening now. That is a COVID center now; it started as non-COVID; it's now a COVID center. The majority of the military personnel will be coming in tomorrow and the next day, but that Javits Center is going to be major release valve.

Second, the United States Navy ship Comfort, the original plan was that that would come in for non-COVID people. The original plan was it would also be a relief valve on the hospitals but not for COVID people, that it would take all of the non-COVID patients, if you will, from the hospital system. That was the plan. As it turned out, there's not a lot of non-COVID people in the hospital system, which is a separate story - happens to be a good news story. A byproduct of shutting everything down is you have fewer car accidents, crime rates is way down, fewer trauma cases, so there is not a large non-COVID population in the hospitals.

I'm going to call the president this afternoon and ask him to shift the Comfort from non-COVID to COVID. Then we would have Javits and the ship Comfort as a relief valve, that's 2,500 beds and 1,000 beds - that's 3,500 beds - which could serve as a relief valve for the whole downstate system. That is the only way we sustain this level of intensity in the hospital system.

I understand what the original plan was with the Comfort, but I understand that there is no preordained strategy here. You have to feel it out day to day and you have to adjust with the facts. We do not need the Comfort for non-COVID cases. We need it for COVID.

If we had those two facilities as a relief valve that would make a significant difference. Bringing online 3,500 beds is no small task. Northwell Health is going to help us manage those. But they will be staffed by military personnel. Only the military could bring in that many people that quickly with that logistical operation and I want to thank DoD very much for their cooperation, because God bless the U.S. Military. We are fully aware of what they do to defend this nation, but this is a different application that we do not see every day and they are doing an extraordinary job. So I will call the President. He has been helpful to New York in the past and he has moved quickly in the past. I will ask him if he can make this adjustment for us because it would be truly beneficial. We would feel much better knowing that we can sustain this pace if we could start to offload patients to these two facilities.

In any event, plateau or not plateau, we still have to extend New York Pause because if that curve is turning it's turning because the rate of infection is going down. One of the reasons the rate of infection is going down is because social distancing is working. We have to continue the social distancing. Schools and non-essential businesses will stay closed until April 29. I know that's a negative for many, many reasons. I know what it does to the economy. But as I said from day one I'm not going to choose between public health and economic activity because in either event public health still demands that we stay on pause with businesses closed and schools closed.

Whether we've hit the apex or whether we haven't hit the apex, you would have to do the same thing. There is also a real danger in getting overconfident too quickly. This is an enemy that we have underestimated from day one and we have paid the price dearly. Well, the numbers look like they may be turning, yay it is over. No, it is not. Other places have made that mistake. Hong Kong has made that mistake, South Korea has made that mistake, and we are not going to make that mistake.

The weather is turning, people have been locked up, we've been talking about cabin fever. Now it is a nice day, I'm going to get out, I'm going to go take a walk. Now is not the time to do that. And frankly there has been a laxness on social distancing, especially over this past weekend, that is just wholly unacceptable. Look, people are dying. People in the health care system are exposing themselves every day to tremendous risk walking into those emergency rooms, then they have to go home to their family and wonder if they caught the virus and they're bringing it home to their family. If I cannot convince you to show discipline for yourself, then show discipline for other people. If you get infected, you infect someone else and you go an emergency room and you put a burden on all sorts of other people who you do not know, and who frankly you do not have the right to burden with your irresponsibility. And people, especially in New York City, the level of activity is up, partially due to the weather, made it a nice day. I understand people have been locked up for a long time, but now is not the time to be lax and it is a mistake. We all have a responsibility. We all have a role in this. We said that from day one. We have to respect the role that we play. Because the role we play is a societal obligation, that is how I see it.

I want local governments to enforce the social distancing rules. The local governments are charged with enforcement. I want them to enforce them. I want to be frankly more aggressive on enforcement, because all of the anecdotal evidence is people are violating it at a higher rate than before. So, we are going to increase the potential maximum fine from $500 to $1000. But it's not really about the fine. Nobody wants the money, we want the compliance. We are serious. And, again, it is not about your life, but you do not have the right to risk somebody else's life. You do not have the right, frankly, to take a health care staff, and people who are literally putting their lives on the line, and be cavalier or reckless with them. You just do not have the right. And we want to thank all the people who are getting us through this every day under very tough circumstances. And we see the illness rate among these essential workers, and we know the sacrifice they are making and we should respect it. It is that simple. You have the first responders who are out there, you have police officers who are out there, the transit workers who have to drive the bus and train every day, the health care workers who are doing extraordinary work -- so let's respect them, and let's help them.

We're also going to set up a fund run by the Department of Health to assist the health care workers with expenses, costs, childcare, et cetera. I want to thank Blackstone for making the first contribution to that fund of $10 million to assist the first responders. I hope other individuals and corporations follow their lead. We are also very aware of the mental health aspect of this situation, and the stress, and the isolation that this has caused. And people are trying in their own way to grapple with what this means, and what is the impact? How do you rationalize this situation? And the mental health aspect of it is very real. Headspace is going to partner with New York. They're an app. They're going to have content for New York and free membership for New York. So we thank them. But we also have an emotional support hotline. We have thousands of mental health professionals who have signed up to volunteer to provide mental health services. So we want people to make sure they know about that and it's available.

I talk about perspective a lot. Maybe, frankly, because partially I'm speaking to myself. I had a good conversation with my daughters last night, Cara and Michaela, who are often wiser than I am and wiser than their years. It's very hard to see the number of deaths we're having. It's frightening, it's disturbing, that amount of loss. I'm the governor of New York. I see my job as preventing that kind of disturbance and negativity and loss for the people of the state. Perspective, you know, we like to think that we can control everything. We can't. We like to think that we can fix everything and fix all the problems for people. We can't. The undeniable truth here is that this virus is a deadly enemy and we will lose and we are losing people who are vulnerable to the virus. That can't be controlled, that can't be fixed. Why? That's Mother Nature, that's a question God can only answer. But, control what you can. Do what you can.

The challenge is to make sure that we don't lose anyone who could've been saved if our healthcare system was operating fully. Don't lose anyone who you could save. That is a legitimate, ambitious goal of government. And that we have done so far. That we have done so far. Have we saved everyone? No. But have we lost anyone because we didn't have a bed or we didn't have a ventilator or we didn't have healthcare staff? No. The people we lost are the people we couldn't save. Not for lack of trying and not for lack of doing everything that we could do as a society, not only as a government and as a healthcare system. So, to the extent we can find peace in that, it helps me. We are still New York tough. New York tough means tough, but tough in a New York sense also means compassionate. It means that we are unified, it means that we are loving, because if you're really tough, the really tough guys, they're tough enough to show love. And because we're smart. And that's how we're going to get through this.

2020-04-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Everyone I think knows who is here. To my far right Dr. Malatras; Dr. Zucker; I'm technically a doctor also but not really; Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor; Robert Mujica, Director of the Budget.

Let's talk about today's numbers and where we are today. Total number of newly hospitalized is up from yesterday but when you look at the three-day averaging of these numbers the three-day average is down which is good news. This is the three-day hospitalization rate. We tend not to look at any one day, day to day it's up somewhat, but if you look at the three-day average it's moving down which is good news.

We talk about the apex and is the apex a plateau and right now we're projecting that we are reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalizations and you can see the growth and you see it starting to flatten again. Again, this is a projection. It's still depends on what we do and what we do will affect those numbers. This is not an act of God that we're looking at. It's an act of what society actually does.

Change in daily ICU admissions is way down and that's good news. The daily intubations numbers down and that's good news. The discharge rate is right about where it was. The bad news is 5,489 New Yorkers have lost their lives to this virus. That is up from 4,758. That is the largest single day increase and we talk about numbers but that's 731 people who we lost. Behind every one of those numbers is an individual, is a family, is a mothers, is a father, is a sister, is a brother. So a lot of pain again today for many New Yorkers and they're in our thoughts and prayers, many people across this country.

While the discrepancy or the discordancy number of deaths is up, number of hospitalization dropping, the number of losses is a lagging indicator to the number of hospitalizations. What happens is a person goes into the hospital, if they're treated most of them are then released, they're discharged. Some stay. Some get put on a ventilator. The longer you are on a ventilator the less likely that you will ever come off that ventilator and that's why you're seeing the number of deaths increase, because these are people who came in at the peak. They were not successfully treated. They're on a ventilator. The longer you're on a ventilator the less likely you come off the ventilator.

New York is still the most heavily impacted state in the nation and New Jersey which is on the curve a little bit behind New York is suffering, and again our thoughts and prayers are with them. I spoke to Governor Murphy of New Jersey today and we talked through the situation and working on joint strategies but our heart goes out to all of our neighbors in New Jersey, Michigan, California, Louisiana.

In terms of how we're operating, how we're managing the situation, as we know the hospital system basically is a three-legged stool. It relies on the number of beds, number of staff, and the equipment. Number of beds, we have started with the system about 53,000 beds statewide. We're up to about 90,000 available beds. So we have more than enough beds available. Staff has been a problem, staffing. Health care staff is getting sick, they're overworked, they're stressed, they're under great emotional stress. You know, think about these health care workers. You're working in a hospital, in an emergency room that's overwhelmed. You're worried about your own health. You then go home. You're worried about bringing a virus home, if you're infected. At home is under stress as every home is under stress.

About 7,000 new staff have been hired from the pool that we have identified. These are retired health care workers who came forward. These are people from across the country who came forward. The state has a pool of potential employees. The hospitals hire from that pool, and they've hired about 7,000 to date. Equipment, that's the protective equipment. Ventilators, where we are. We are stretching and moving, but every hospital has what they need today. And then we balance the patient load among all hospitals, so no hospital, single hospital, or system gets overburdened. And that's a daily adjustment which takes tremendous cooperation among all of the health care institutions. I thank them very much for what they're doing.

And then we have the overload relief which is the Javits Center. 2,500 beds and the U.S. Navy Ship Comfort. the U.S. Navy Ship Comfort had 1,000 bed capacity. It was originally for non-COVID patients. What wound up happening was we don't really have non-COVID patients. Closed down society, there's fewer traffic accidents, crime is down. So the original plan which was the Comfort would take non-COVID cases did from the hospitals didn't really work, because the hospitals didn't have non-COVID cases. I called the president yesterday morning, asked him to speak to the Department of Defense to see if they would change it to COVID. The president, to his credit, moved expeditiously, called me back yesterday afternoon, said they would make the Comfort COVID. When they make that transition, the capacity of the ship comes out from 1,000 to 500 beds because COVID patients require a greater treatment area, more space. And therefore the capacity of the ship came down from 1,000 to 500. It's still a tremendous benefit. So between Javits and the Comfort that's 3,000 beds, which is a welcome overload relief to the hospital system, which is already extraordinarily stressed.

But I spoke to General O'Shaughnessy today, who we spoke through the Comfort and Javits. The Department of Defense has been fantastic, and the number of military personnel they've sent up here and how quickly they've been sent up here. This is a tough assignment to run facilities this large and to come up to speed and to be handling this many COVID patients in a new startup emergency facility. This is a really difficult undertaking and they have really been fantastic. I want to thank them all and I want to thank the President for moving as quickly as he did.

We're working on a tri-state cooperative. As I mentioned, I spoke to Governor Murphy from New Jersey. I spoke to Governor Ned Lamont from the State of Connecticut. We coordinated the shutting down, if you will, when we did schools, businesses, et cetera, because this really operates as a tri-state area. A lot of people who live in New Jersey or work in New York or live in New York, work in New Jersey or Connecticut, so we talk about the tri-state area which is true. We try to operate to the best we can as that regional collaboration and that has been working well for us on schools, on the economy, on health care issues. We have to start planning restarting life. We're not there yet, but this is not a light switch that we can just flick one day and everything goes back to normal. We're going to have to restart that economy. We're going to have to restart a lot of systems that were shut down abruptly and we need to start to plan for that. I spoke to the governors, Governor Murphy and Governor Lamont about coming up with a regional metropolitan, tri-state approach to do just that. How do we, when we get to that point, which we're not at but how do we restart our economy and get everything up and running as quickly as possible.

My personal opinion, it's going to come down to how good we are with testing. You're not going to end the infection and end the virus before you start restarting life. I don't think you have that luxury. How do you start the economy back up? How do you start getting back to work as quickly as possible? It's going to come down to testing. You're going to have to know who had the virus, who resolved the virus, who never had it and that's going to be testing. And that is an entirely new field that we're just developing now. The New York State Department of Health developed an anti-body testing regiment that Department of Health has approved for use in New York State. That has to be brought to scale and the Department of Health is going to be working with the FDA to do just that.

This tests the blood to determine whether you have the anti-bodies which means you had the virus and resolved the virus. That's why you would have the anti-bodies for the virus. That would mean that you're no longer contagious and you can't catch the virus because you have the anti-bodies in your system which means you can get to work, you can go back to school, you can do whatever you want. But you have to have that testing and you have to have that testing on a scale. You have 19 million people in the State of New York. Just think of how many people you would need to be able to test and test quickly. The anti-body testing is part of that. Also, rapid testing to determine whether or not you have the virus now exists. They have quote, unquote 15 minute tests that are commercially available. But again, they have to be brought to scale. No private company has the capacity to bring those to scale. I was speaking with Governor Murphy and Governor Lamont - we are interested in working with private companies that can actually bring this testing capacity to scale and to scale quickly because again if you have the antibody testing that's part, if you can then test if a person is positive for the virus and you can do it that day you can get those results in 15 minutes, that's also another way to get back to life and do it quickly. So we're very interested in that New York, so is New Jersey, so is Connecticut. There are private companies that have these tests. Again, it's all up to scale. We're starting them in the state of New York. We only have about a 50,000 person testing capacity, which is nice, but is not of a scale that's actually going to make a large difference so private companies that are interested in getting into this space and coming up to scale quickly we are interested in those companies and we're interested in investing in those companies and they should contact us at empire state development corporation.

Also restarting life. The state budget, not just this state, but every state budget has been decimated by the situation. We shut down the economy. People aren't working; they're not paying income taxes. Businesses aren't operating so our budget just collapsed, right? Our revenues just collapsed. You want to restart the economy, you have to help restart the local governments, and that's going to be a federal act. I don't have the capacities of governor, no governor, does to generate revenue in a positive way from an economy that's not operating. That is going to be a federal stimulus bill. There's no other way to do this, and it has to be a stimulus bill that actually understands you have state and local governments that have to be brought up to speed and functioning if you want to facilitate this re starting up the economy. Federal government passed some legislation. As I've said at the time it was woefully inadequate from New York's point of view. We then have had some time to actually study the legislation - it actually gets worse when you read it. And it's not even what was represented to us initially, so I'm sending our congressional delegation later today saying the past legislation did good for the nation, I have no doubt gave aid to a lot of people in places that needed it, but it was not fair to New York and that has to be remedied in any legislation that goes forward.

The last I know it's been a frustrating 37 days, but it's only been 37 days, on the other hand. I know it feels like a lifetime. It's been so disruptive, so abrupt, so frightening, so disorienting, but it's only been 37 days, right? Everything in context and everything in perspective. I know it's tough to get up every day, and this is like Groundhog Day living through this bizarre reality that worry. It's even more difficult I think with the weather changing you feel the seasons changing and it's getting nicer and you start to open a new book of possibilities, and you know, now the weather is getting nice and I should be getting outdoors and I should be doing this and I should be doing this. I get it, but it's only been 37 days. I started by saying those numbers of cases, that's not arbitrary. What we do effects the number of cases. Our behavior effects the number of cases. We're generating the cases. They're not descending on us from heaven, right? It's our behavior. It's been 37 days.

The 1918 pandemic that we talk about peaked in New York for six months. It came through in three waves and it peaked for six months. 30,000 people died in New York during that pandemic. Why? They didn't react the way we did, they didn't know as much as we know today, they didn't have the same drug therapies, but we are changing the curve in that virus growth. You see that plateauing, that's because of what we are doing. If we don't do what we are doing that is a much different curve and that's what happened in the past. So, social distancing is working. Well, you shut down all the businesses. I know. Well you shut down all the schools. I know, but it is working. That's why you see those numbers coming down. If we were doing the same rate of interaction, those numbers would still be going up. So, to the extent we see a flattening or a possible plateau, that's because of what we are doing and we have to keep doing it. I know it's hard, but we have to keep doing it.

To the extent it takes an effort, remember at this time it's about we and it is not about me. I know what I would like to be doing. I would like to be going - it's motorcycle weather for me. It's time to get out on the water. It's time to go hiking in the Adirondacks. I get it, it's not about me. It's not about me. What I do will affect other people. It will affect my family, it will affect other people. It will affect people in those emergency rooms who are killing themselves every day to keep other people safe. I get infected, I will affect them. So, we all talk about society and community and interconnect and interrelation and family and life is bigger than us. Now's the time to live that, right? Now is the time to live that. So when you feel that need, I have to do this, it's not about me. It's about we and what's good for all of us. My health is in your hands and your health is in my hands. The health of those healthcare workers and those first responders and all those people who have to show up to work every day to keep society functioning, we are responsible to them, also.

So, to the extent it's hard, I get it, but maybe if we think about it through a different lens, a broader lens, it'll be a little easier. Let's not get complacent. We have to stay disciplined, we have to stay smart, we have to stay safe, and we do that by staying at home. We will get through this together.

2020-04-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon to everyone. These are stressful, emotional times as we know. Today is a day in the State of New York with very mixed emotions based on two very different pieces of information we have. I'm trying to work through the mixed emotions for myself, so I'll just present the facts and then we'll go from there.

There is good news in what we're seeing that what we have done and what we are doing is actually working and it's making a difference. We took dramatic actions in this state. We did the New York PAUSE program to close down schools, businesses, social distancing and it's working. It is flattening the curve and we see that again today so far. Meaning what? Meaning that curve is flattening because we are flattening the curve by what we are doing. If we stop what we are doing, you will see that curve change. That curve is purely a function of what we do day-in and day-out.

Right now it's flattening. The number of patients hospitalized is down. Again, we don't just look at day-to-day data, you look at the three-day trend but that number is down. The three-day average trend is also down. Anecdotally there are individual hospitals, the larger systems are reporting that some of them are actually releasing more people than are coming in. They're net down. So we see the quote, unquote flattening of the curve.

We have more capacity in the hospital system than ever before. We've had more capacity in that system to absorb more people. The sharing of equipment, which has been really one of the beautiful cooperative, generous acts among different partners in the health care system has worked. If the hospitalization rate keeps the decreasing the way it is now, then the system should stabilize over these next couple of weeks, which will minimize the need for overflow on the system that we have built in at Javits and at the USNS Comfort.

That is all good news. There's a big caution sign, that's if we continue doing what we're doing. If we continue doing what we're doing. We are flattening the curve because we are rigorous about social distancing, et cetera. So if we continue doing what we're doing then we believe the curve will continue to flatten. But, it's not a time to get complacent. It's not a time to do anything different than we've been doing. Remember what happened in Italy when the entire health care system became overrun. So we have to remain diligent, we have to remain disciplined going forward. There's no doubt that we are now bending the curve and there's no doubt that we can't stop doing what we're doing.

That's the good news. The bad news isn't just bad, the bad news is actually terrible. Highest single day death toll yet, 779 people. When you look at the numbers on the death toll, it has been going steadily up. It reached new height yesterday. The number of deaths, as a matter of fact, the number of deaths will continue to rise as those hospitalized for a longer period of time pass away. The longer you are on a ventilator, the less likely you will come off the ventilator. Dr. Fauci spoke to me about this and he was 100 percent right. The quote unquote lagging indicator between hospitalizations and deaths. The hospitalizations can start to drop, but the deaths actually increase because the people who have been in the hospital for 11 days, 14 days, 17 days pass away. That's what we're seeing. Hospitalizations drop and the death toll rises. I understand the science of it. I understand the facts and the logic of it. But it is still incredibly difficult to deal with. Every number is a face, right. And that's been painfully obvious to me every day.

But we have lost people, many of them front line workers, many of them health care workers, many of them people who were doing the essential functions that we all needed for society to go on, and they were putting themselves at risk. And they knew they were. Many of them vulnerable people who this vicious predator of a virus targeted from day one. This virus attacked the vulnerable and attacked the weak. And it's our job as a society to protect those vulnerable. And that's what this has always been about from day one, and it still is about.

Be responsible, not just for yourself, but to protect the vulnerable. Be responsible because the life you risk may not be your own. Those people who walk into an emergency room every day and put themselves at peril, don't make their situation worse. Don't infect yourself or infect someone else or their situation becomes more dangerous. Just to put a perspective on this, 9/11, which so many of us lived through in this state and in this nation, 2,753 lives lost. This crisis we've lost 6,268 New Yorkers. I'm going to direct all flags to be flown at half-mast in honor of those who we have lost to this virus.

Big question from everyone, from my daughters, I'm sure around most people's dinner table, when will things go back to the way they were? I don't think it's about going back. I don't think it's ever about going back. I think the question is always about going forward, and that's what we have to deal with here. It's about learning from what we've experienced and it's about growing and it's about moving forward. Well, when will we return to normal? I don't think we return to normal. I don't think we return to yesterday, where we were. I think if we're smart, we achieve a new normal. The way we are understanding a new normal when it comes to the economy and a new normal when it comes to the environment. Now we understand a new normal in terms of health and public health and we have to learn just the way we've been learning about the new normal in other aspects of society.

We have to learn what it means - global pandemic, how small the world has actually gotten. Someone sneezes in Asia today, you catch a cold tomorrow. Whatever happens in any country on this globe can get on an airplane and be here literally overnight and understanding this phenomenon and having a new appreciation for it, how our public health system has to be prepared and the scale to which we need a public health system. Look at the way we're scrambling right now to make this work. We have to learn from that.

I think we've also learned positive lessons. We found ways to use technology that we never explored before. You have a New York State court system that - thank you, Chief Judge - is basically developing a virtual online court system which has all sorts of positive benefits going forward. Using technology for health care, using technology to work from home, using technology for education. These are all positives that we can learn.

Testing capacity which we still have to develop - that is going to be the bridge from where we are today to the new economy in my opinion. It's going to be a testing informed transition to the new economy where people who have the antibodies, people who are negative, people who have been exposed and now are better, those are the people who can go to work and you know who they are because you can do testing. But that we've all developed a sense of scale over the past few weeks in dealing with this.

There's also lessons to be learned - why are more African-Americans and Latinos affected? We're seeing this around the country. Now the numbers in New York are not as bad as the disparities we see in other places across the country but there still are apparently disparities. Why? Comorbidity - I understand that. But I think there's something more to it. It always seems that the poorest people pay the highest price. Why is that? Why is that? Whatever the situation is, natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina, the people standing on those rooftops were not rich White people. Why? Why is it that the poorest people always pay the highest price? But let's figure it out. Let's do the work. Let's do the research. Let's learn from this moment and let's learn these lessons and let's do it now.

We're going to do more testing in minority communities but not just testing for the virus. Let's actually get research and data that can inform us as to why are we having more people in minority communities, more people in certain neighborhoods, why do they have higher rates of infection? I get the comorbidity. I get the underlying illness issue, but what else is at play? Are more public workers Latino and African-American who don't have a choice, frankly, but to go out there everyday and drive the bus and drive the train and show up for work and wind up subjecting themselves to, in this case, the virus whereas many other people who had the option just absented themselves. They live in more dense communities, more urban environments. But what is it? And let's learn from that and let's do it now.

I'm going to ask our SUNY Albany chief Dr. Havidán Rodriguez to head an effort to do it right now. We'll do more testing in minority communities now with more data research done now. So let's learn now. The Department of Health will be doing it along with Northwell. But let's learn these lessons now.

We're also going to make an additional $600 payment to all unemployed New Yorkers. The federal government says they will reimburse us for it, but people need money now in their pocket. New York will be doing that immediately. We're also extending the period coverage of unemployment benefits for an additional thirteen weeks. Goes from 26 weeks to 39 weeks. That should be a relief.

On voting, I've seen lines of people on television voting in other states. This is totally nonsensical. God bless them for having such diligence for their civic duty that they would go stand on a line to vote. People shouldn't have to make that choice and, by executive order, all New Yorkers can vote absentee on the June 23 primaries coming up.

I want to say thank you to all the places and people who are working with the State of New York. Mercury Medical dedicated 2,400 BiPAP machines. BiPAP machines are technically not ventilators, but they can be modified to effectively ventilate even though they are not ventilators and we are using them. They were brought up from Florida, thank you very much JetBlue for doing that. I also want to thank Oregon and Washington State and California for freeing up ventilators. I want to thank the direct care workers who are doing a fantastic job and they're doing it every day. I want to thank the state workers who are showing up and doing a great job every day. Every first responder. This has been a long battle and it's going to go on, but I want them to know how thankful we all are of them for what they're doing. I want people to remember that we're flattening that curve and if anything, we double down now on our diligence.

We're going to start a social media campaign. Who are you staying home for? It's not about staying home for yourself, stay home for others. Stay home for the vulnerable people who, if they get this virus, are in a really bad place in life. Stay home for the health care worker who's in the emergency room because you don't want to infect anybody else who then puts another greater load on our health care system. So who are you staying home for? I'm staying home for my mother. It's not about just you. It is about all of us. Who are you staying home for? We'll start a social media campaign that does that. 

Thank you to all the New Yorkers for all they have done and we still have more to do. We are by no means out of the woods. Do not miss read what you have seen in that data and on those charts. That is a pure product of our actions and behavior. If we behave differently, you will see those numbers change. I just doubled the fine on disobeying the social distancing rules. Why? Because, if anything we have to get more diligent, not less diligent, and we have more to do. And that's New York tough, but tough is more than just tough. Tough is smart and disciplined and unified and tough loving. The toughest guys are tough enough to love, right? 

Last point, our brothers and sisters in the Jewish community celebrate Passover tonight. We wish them all a happy Passover. The Jewish community has had a long and difficult year, besides any of this. The number of incidents of anti-Semitism across this country, the violence that they have seen even in this state of New York that has such a large Jewish population. So, we wish them all well on Passover. The message of Passover I know helps me today, and I offer to others to consider. Passover says we remember the past. We learn from the past. We remember the lessons of the past. We teach a new generation those lessons. But, there is also a message of hope in Passover. Next year in Jerusalem. Next year the promised land. Next year will be better. And yes, this has been a difficult month. We'll learn a lot and we'll move forward, and we'll be better for it.

2020-04-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Today is Thursday, April 9 if you were wondering about where we are today. Seems like one day blends into the other. You have weekdays and you have weekends. But do you really have weekdays and weekends if you're not working? Today I think it's important to take an overall look at where we are. The context, the perspective because we're starting to see a shift and I want to make sure that people actually keep the shift in perspective and understand where we are in the scope of our journey in this situation.

It's been 18 days since we closed down New York. I know it feels like a lifetime. I tell my daughters every day, "It's only 18 days since everything days." It's 39 days since the first COVID case in New York. It feels like a lifetime. It's 80 days since we had the first COVID case in the United States. Eighty days. Been an intense, life-changing 80 days, but that's what it has been.

When we started this situation that we are still in the midst of, before people get complacent. The end of the March, the White House task force, coronavirus task force, was still talking about 1.5-2.2 million deaths. The best case scenario with quote, unquote mitigation efforts, was 100,000-240,000 deaths in the United States, which is breathtaking. For New York, there were a number of models that were put out that we are following. The most frightening was Columbia University that said we could have 136,000 people in New York City only who would be hospitalized. Not infected. We had the McKinsey model which suggested 110,000 people could be hospitalized statewide. We had a second scenario from McKinsey which is 55,000 people hospitalized. Then the Gates Foundation, thank you very much, funded the IHNE study which said a highpoint of 73,000 statewide.

Any of these scenarios are devastating for New York. Because remember we only have a 53,000 bed capacity system statewide; 36,000 beds in New York City. Any of these scenarios are problematic. Luckily, the current trend, if it continues - and if we continue the flattening of the curve - we're at about 18,000 people hospitalized right now. We have increased the capacity of the system dramatically. We have moved pieces around the state like never before. Our health care system has done a phenomenal job of doing an insurmountable task. Our federal partners, the Army Corps of Engineers, they have just really all done a great, great job. Our theory, and I believe my job as Governor, prepare for the worst, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Now, we're at about 90,000 bed capacity in our overall system today with everything we've done. Even the 90,000 beds, as you see, doesn't compare with the most problematic scenarios. Ninety thousand beds, we can handle the McKinsey moderate scenario. We don't make the McKinsey severe scenario at 110,000. I believe that 90,000 we have a plan to get to 110,000, converting dormitories, et cetera, et cetera. But it would be a massive undertaking and a massive scramble. We do make the Gates funded projection model. The Columbia University model we can never, that would just be a nightmare. That's the one that keeps me up at night because you couldn't get anywhere near that projection.

All of the statisticians also said, "Look, we don't know how effective you can be at closing things down and social distancing," because we've never done it before. But they all said that's the chance to so-called flatten the curve if you actually got people to comply with all these measures, and we have never seen it done before in this country and we don't know if you can do it. So that is the big if in the equation. And that remains the big if in the equation. You can flatten the curve, we are flattening the curve, by what we're doing, and we're flattening the curve so far. We should all be concerned, especially New Yorkers, well, we're flattening the curve, that's good news. It is good news. Well now I can relax.

No, you can't relax. The flattening of the curve last night happened because of what we did yesterday and the day before and the day before that. This is all a direct consequence to our actions. If we stop acting the way we're acting, you will see those numbers go up. And I showed the projection models because we can't handle the worst-case scenarios. We can't even handle the moderate case scenarios with all we've done. So it is essential that we keep that curve flattened because we don't have an option of handling the curve if it goes higher.

The additional good news is the hospitalization rate does suggest that it's coming down and we are flattening the curve. We had 200 net increase in hospitalizations, which you can see is the lowest number we've had since this nightmare started, actually. Change in ICU admissions is the lowest number we've had since March 19 or so. All of this data suggests that we are flattening the curve so far, and the numbers are coming down so far. Number of intubations is down, three-day average on intubations is down. So far our efforts are working. They're working better than anyone projected they would work. That's because people are complying with them.

You know there are always two questions: can you enact these policies, and then can you enact the policies in a way that people will follow? You know, we can enact a policy, and people thumb their nose to it and continue doing what they're doing. So there has to be a social acceptance, an adherence, to the policy. And New Yorkers are doing that. They're acting responsibility, and diligently, and we are saving lives by what people are doing today. Our expression has been New York Tough, because every day is tough on many, many levels. I get it. But, every day that we are New York Tough, we are actually saving lives.

And don't underestimate this virus. I think that is a mistake we made from day one. We is the collective we, we is the global community. This virus is very, very good at what it does. We lost more lives yesterday than we have to date. We understand, and all the experts have said, Dr. Fauci said from day one to me, you will see the deaths increasing after the hospitalizations because the deaths increase the longer a person is in the hospital, the longer a person is on the ventilator. I understand the scientific concept. I understand the data. But you're talking about 799 lives. The highest number ever. It's gotten to the point, frankly, that we're going to bring in additional funeral directors to deal with the number of people who have passed. If you ever told me that as governor I would have to take these actions, I couldn't even contemplate where we are now.

And to put all of this in perspective, I lived through 9/11. 9/11 was supposed to be the darkest day in New York for a generation. We've done everything we can since 9/11 to make sure 9/11 didn't happen again. We lose 2,753 lives on 9/11. We've lost over 7,000 lives to this crisis. That is so shocking, and painful and breathtaking I don't even have the words for it. 9/11 was so devastating, so tragic, and then in many ways we lose so many more New Yorkers to this silent killer. There was no explosion but it was a silent explosion that just ripples through society with this same randomness, the same evil that we saw on 9/11.

What we do we do? We move forward and we do the work that we need to do. We're going to start an effort called New York Loves which is going to be a coordination of all the charities and not-for-profits and foundations and people who want to help. There's been a tremendous outpouring of support from organized not-for-profits, et cetera, but also people just wanting to donate, people just wanting to help. The best effort is if we can coordinate all those resources to make sure there's not duplication and we're actually addressing the right need. So the Department of State, Rossana Rosado, Secretary of State, and Fran Barrett who coordinates not-for-profits - we will coordinate all the people who want to donate and help and will work with the local governments that need help.

Also let's learn the lessons of what we're going through now because we haven't finished going through it. Let's learn how and why this virus kills especially why we have higher fatality rates among African Americans and Latinos and what we do about it. Let's understand it but let's also address it. We're going to be doing more testing in African-American and Latino communities. With more data we're going to open new testing sites primarily in African American and Latino communities. With SUNY Albany, Department of Health, Northwell - collect the test results but also collect the information that we need to come up with policies to fix this. Where do people live? Where do people work? What's the socioeconomic status? Where do they socialize? What are the previous health conditions? Why do we have these higher rates and what do we do about it in? Let's do that.

Rapid testing and testing is going to be the bridge to the new economy and getting to work and restarting. We're not going to go to go from red to green. We're going to go from red to yellow. Yellow is let the people who can go back to work start going back to work. How do you know who can go back to work? Test them. You have rapid testing capacity. We have to bring it to scale. We have to bring it to scale quickly and that's something that the State is working on as well as the federal government.

Let's also find the treatment for this disease - a convalescent plasma which is plasma from people who were infected that can be then used to treat people who get infected. We need that plasma from people who were infected. We're starting up lot blood drive and asking those who have recovered from the virus to contact us and to donate blood so we can develop the convalescent plasma treatment and there's a website on the screen that they can go to to help.

We also have to be prepared and stay prepared. We have to have the supplies. We have to have the right laws. We have to have the right procedures because remember the 1918 Spanish flu came in three waves. We're on the first weight. Everybody is assuming well once we get through this we're done. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that. This virus has been ahead of us from day one. We've underestimated the enemy and that is always dangerous my friends and we should not do that again. There is an article in the LA Times that says the communities that have dealt with this before like Wuhan and Singapore are now seeing a second wave of infection. There is a theory that this virus can mutate and change and come back. We're in a battle but this is about a war and we're only on one battle here. Even once we get through this battle, we have to stay prepared for what could come down the road. And we also have to start to repair the immense damage.

Before you start talking about restarting the economy you're going to have to address the damage that is done to society today which is intense. The economic damage. People who are now living in poverty. I mean, people have been without a check, without a job, for weeks. Most people in this state live paycheck to paycheck and all of a sudden the paychecks stop. We're doing everything we can on the unemployment benefits and increasing the unemployment benefits. But, you have families that are in true economic hardship and are impoverished because of this situation.

What we do with the housing market, the healthcare system we have pushed to the max. We have pushed people to the max, we have pushed facilities to the max. We have beds in lobbies, in conference rooms, in hallways. I mean, we did what we had to do to be ready, but we have done a lot of damage in the midst that has to be undone. So, that's something that we're working on immediately.

We need the federal government to be responsible. We need the federal government to pass legislation that helps. We have to stabilize state and local governments across this country. New York State has had the highest number of cases by far and away. Our costs have been the highest in the country. They passed legislation that was enacted. We were told it would bring 6 billion dollars to healthcare. When we did our state budget a couple of weeks ago, we believed what they said and we believed we were looking at 6 billion dollars in healthcare funding. Turns out, when we actually read the language, it was about 1.3 billion dollars to the state of New York, which is much different than 5 or 6 billion dollars. The funding disqualified one third of New York's Medicaid recipients, which nobody said. To our federal representatives, I spoke to Senator Schumer, I spoke to Senator Gillibrand, this is no time for politics. This is a time to enact the legislation that actually addresses the need. I was in Washington for eight years, I get how the political process works in Washington. Not here and not now, my friends.

We also have a significant mental health issue that comes with what we've done. The isolation, the disorientation. It's a growing problem. We have a growing problem with the number of domestic violence cases. If you need help during this highly stressful period, and I suspect more people need help than acknowledge that they need help, we have a support hotline. We have thousands of people who have volunteered to help. People should reach out and ask for it.

We have to stay ahead of this virus. We're watching Rockland, Nassau, and Suffolk. The numbers have come down in New York City. But you look at the concentric circles around New York City, the natural spread, the natural concentric circles, are toward the suburban communities - Westchester, Rockland, Nassau, Suffolk. Westchester we've had problems already. One of the first hotspots in the nation was New Rochelle in Westchester. Now we're seeing numbers creep up in Rockland. Nassau and Suffolk, the numbers are creeping up so we're watching those areas next. We sent additional equipment last night.

The overall point is, look, you stay at home and you save a life. Period. Stay at home, you save a life. I know New Yorkers, I'm born and bred, the instinct is well this is good news, now I can relax because, by the way, I've been dying to relax and get out of the house and end this Groundhog Day reality. Yeah, you're not out of the woods. Now is not the time to misunderstand what's happening. We have done great things and we have saved lives because we have followed these policies. The moment you stop following the policies, you will go right back and see that number shoot through the roof. We are not prepared to handle the highest numbers in those projection models. Whatever we do, you can't take a 50,000 bed system and get it to 136,000 beds. It's an impossibility.

I'm a person who never says no and believes New York can do anything if we try. I'm telling you, we have to keep that curve flat. Today we can say we have lost many of our brothers and sisters, but we haven't lost anyone because they didn't get the right and best health care that they could. The way I sleep at night is I believe that we didn't lose anyone that we could have saved. And that is the only solace when I look at these numbers and look at this pain that has been created. That has to be true. That has to continue. That is a function of what each and every one of us does.

New York tough, Yes. We're tough, but tough means we're smart, we're disciplined, we're unified, and we're loving. If you don't want to stay home for yourself, stay home for someone you love. That's what the stay at home campaign is all about. You want to have reckless disregard for your life? It's not about your life. It's about the health care worker who will have to treat you in the emergency room. It's about the vulnerable person who you infect, who you could kill by your actions. Sometimes it's not about you, Right? It's not about me. It's about we. That's where we are.

2020-04-10 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Everybody knows the people with us today. Dr. Jim Malatras, from my right Dr. Howard Zucker, Health Commissioner. To my life, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, to her left Robert Mujica. To our friends celebrating Good Friday today, I wish them a good, good Friday. To our friends celebrating Passover, I wish them the best. 

Let's give you an update on where we are. To use and overused term, we are cautiously optimistic that we are slowing the infection rate. That's what the numbers say, that's what the data suggest to us. Change in total hospitalizations is down, not relative to yesterday, but when it's averaged over the 3-day average on the hospitalizations, you see a dramatic decline in those numbers and that's obviously very good news. Change in ICU admissions is actually a negative number for the first time since we started this intense journey. That means there are fewer people in the intensive units statewide than there were. Again, that's the first time we've seen a negative number so far. So that's good. The three-day average of that is down.

Change in intubations is little tick higher than it's been the past few days, but it's still overall down. The three-day average is also down. The bad news is we continue to lose a tremendous number of lives and endure great pain as a state. Seven hundred and seventy-seven lives lost. I understand intellectually why it's happening. It doesn't make it any easier to accept. What's happening is the number of people who came in two weeks ago when we had those very high hospitalization rates. Either you get treated and get better and get discharged or you stay in the hospital and probably wind up on a ventilator. The longer you're on a ventilator the less likely you will come off the ventilator and that's what's happening now.

These lives lost are people who came in at that height hospitalization period and we're losing them. The numbers are lower than yesterday for those who can take solace in that fact. As someone who searches for solace in all this grief, the leveling off of the number of lives lost is a somewhat hopeful sign. The number of total lives lost, 7,844. For people, just to put this in perspective. I lived through 9/11 as many New Yorkers did who are of somewhat advanced age. I believe 9/11 was the worst situation I was going to deal with in my lifetime. To put in perspective, 2,753 people lost their lives on 9/11. We're at 7,844. In terms of lives lost, that this situation should exceed 9/11 is still beyond my capacity to fully appreciate to tell you the truth.

We've been watching a spread to the suburban communities around New York City: Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland. That seems to have stabilized. We have a couple of hotspots in Suffolk County that we're watching, but overall we've been very aggressive in these suburban communities in jumping on those hot spots and the percentage of growth in upstate New York and the suburban areas around New York City is basically been stabilized and flat so that's good news too.

So overall, New York is flattening the curve and we have to flatten the curve because when they showed us the projection models of what the statisticians projected the curve would do we had no capacity to meet those projections. In other words, Columbia University who was projecting the highest case load said we needed 136,000 hospital beds in New York City when we started. It was just several weeks ago. One hundred and thirty-six thousand hospital beds in New York City. We only have about 33,000 to 36,000 hospital beds in New York City. So, that was obviously distressing to say the least.

McKinsey had projected we would need 110,000 hospital beds. They had a second scenario which they considered their moderate scenario, which was 55,000 hospital beds statewide. And again, we didn't have that capacity even on the moderate scenario. The Gates-funded IHME suggested we needed 73,000 beds. We didn't have that either. So none of these projections were, in any way, comforting to us. The actual curve is much, much lower than any of them projected. And, well what's the variance?

How do you come up with an actual curve that is so much different than what those experts predicted? First, in fairness to the experts, nobody has been here before. Nobody. So, everyone is trying to figure it out the best they can. There is no model to track against. Second, the big variable was what policies do you put in place, and the bigger variable was does anybody listen to the policies you put in place? I'm governor of the State of New York. You can announce a policy. That doesn't mean anyone is going to follow it. You can announce a policy, we're going to close down all businesses, everybody must stay home. And if people don't follow it, or they don't take it seriously, or they believe you're being premature or you're being political, they wouldn't follow it. And then what do we do? What do we, arrest 19 million people? Or ticket 19 million people?

So the big variable was, what policies do you put in place. And the bigger variable, does anybody care, and does anyone follow it? And all the social distancing stay at home, nobody has ever done this before. So the statisticians had to come up with a premise on how many would comply, and we've actually exceeded that. But, we have to keep doing it, you know. People tend to think, well this is a natural trajectory of the disease. There is no natural trajectory. The trajectory is the trajectory that we create by out actions. The natural trajectory would see that line continue to go up. It would continue to go up and up and up until you develop herd immunity, where you would see many, many more infections. So, we did that. We are doing that. And that's why we have to stay the course. I said to someone this morning, you tell me how we behaved today, and I will tell you the infection rate two days from today or three days from today. What we do today will determine the infection rate two or three days from now. So, what we're doing is working, stay with it. Even though it is a grind and even though it is difficult. We have to stay with it.

We have to stay with it operationally, on our hospital system, where we're coordinating statewide in what we call the surge and flex system. We have 50 percent additional capacity on our hospital system. We're sharing equipment all across the system. We have to continue helping people who are struggling every day. Food assistance is a real issue for people. We're going to add $200 million to provide more than 700,000 low-income households more funding for food, basic food. Continue to help our medical workers, who are the front-line soldiers in this battle, and have done a phenomenal job. I know I say it all the time, but every day, they're out there doing truly the Lord's work.

We're going to provide additional housing. I want to thank all the companies that have come forward to be part of this effort. Airbnb is contributing funding to provide housing for our healthcare workers. 1199 SEIU is working with Airbnb and they're providing their members with additional benefits. We have hotels that are coming forward and offering free hotel rooms, so we thank them all very much. Last night, as a signal of our thanks to the workers who are out there every day. We lit up landmarks in the New York City area and in Niagara Falls blue in their honor and that's a nice symbolic tribute. What's even better is to take action that shows our gratitude. Saying it is nice, doing it is even better.

After 9/11 Congress created a victim's compensation fund. I've been working with our Congressional delegation. We think the federal government should set up a heroes' compensation fund to compensate our health care and other frontline workers for what they did here. Saying thanks is nice. Actually providing assistance is even better.

The big question is going to turn to when do we reopen, especially in places like New York where we're going to see the numbers now starting to change. The natural trajectory, the human movement is going to be okay now let's reopen. I need to get out of my house, had been cooped up, cabin fever, I need funds, I have to work, and that's going to be the next question, next issue that we have to deal with.

What I say on that question, again, none of us have been here before so let's learn from what has happened so far and let's learn from what we have been seeing over these past few months so it informs what we're doing going forward.

First of all, the key to reopening is going to be testing. I've said that from day one. It's not going to be a light switch where you flip this economy like you flip a light switch. It's not going to be everybody goes back next Thursday. It's not going to happen that way. It's going to be a gradual phased process and it's going to be reliant on testing, testing of antibodies, testing for diagnostic results and testing on the scale that we have not done before.

New York State has been very aggressive on testing and our state lab has been very aggressive on testing. Our state lab is now developing an antibody test which is a fast and not invasive test. The State Department of Health can do 300 tests a day. By next Friday, they will be able to do 1,000 tests and 2,000 tests the following week. That's great, sounds like a lot but 2,000 tests are still a drop in the bucket, and I'm proud of how New Yorkers advanced on testing. You look at how quickly New York State has moved on testing and how many tests we have done - we've done a higher percentage of tests in New York State than other countries have done and New York State far exceeds what this nation as a whole is doing on testing. Even with our high capacity and high performance on testing it's still not enough. 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.

Why can't New York just develop more tests and do more testing? How do we get New York State Department of Health to scale? That's an issue that we've been working on it's harder than it sounds. You need certain reagents so you can do the testing. 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.

Federal government has something called the Defense Production Act, DPA they call it, which I've been saying from day one is a very powerful tool for the federal government to use when they need to secure a product in the defense of this nation. This is in the defense of this nation. The federal government has used it effectively. They've used that in this situation more as a point of leverage than anything else, basically saying to a company, you know, we need you to do this, we do have the Defense Production Act that we could use. But we need an unprecedented mobilization where government can produce these tests in the millions.

New York State Department of Health is doing is doing several thousand. We have 9 million people we want to get back to work. You need more than several thousand tests per week if this is going to happen any time soon. Private sector companies on their own, I don't believe will be able to come to scale. We're working with the private sector companies. They have the tests but they don't have the capacity to come to scale. You're going to need government intervention to make that happen and the federal government is in the best position to do that.

New York State offers to be a full partner with the federal government. We do have the largest number of cases in New York. New York is an economic engine. I can't do it as a state. If I had a Defense Production Act in the state, I would use it. I would use it. I don't have that tool, the federal government does. Any way we can partner with the federal government to get these tests up to scale as quickly as possible, we are all in. I like to operate as a coalition with New Jersey and Connecticut because we are the tri-state area. I have spoken to Governor Murphy and Governor Lamont of Connecticut. They will join in a testing coalition. So, I ask the federal government if you are willing to step in and use the federal powers, New York State and New Jersey and Connecticut would partner with the federal government. And let's get the testing up to scale quickly so we can start to build that bridge to reopening the economy.

Second on reopening, you need a federal stimulus bill. You need a federal stimulus bill - they passed a couple already. But you need a fair federal stimulus bill that is not a political pork barrel bill. You know where the cases are. You know where the need is. I understand the political dynamics of the U.S. Senate but this is not a time to be passing bills that really are to make sure your home state gets enough funding. That's not what this is about. This is about helping the country coming back and focusing on the need. When I says the bills were unfair to New York, the past bills, it is not just that I am advocating to New York. Look at the need. Look at where the cases are. Look at where the damage has been done. The federal government is trying to address that damage. You know where it has been done. Look at the chart on where the cases exist. Look at the number of deaths, the number of cases, the number of hospitalizations and help those places come back and come back quickly. That's what the stimulus bill is supposed to be doing.

Also, let's make sure we are learning from what we just went through and are going through. Because there are lessons I think we should all be aware of over the past few months. And before you take a step forward, let's make sure we know what we are stepping into. A question I had from day one, when you look back at this, where were the horns that should have been triggered back in December and January. Where were the warning signs? Who was supposed to blow the whistle? The President has asked this question and if think he's right. The President's answer is the World Health Organization should have been blowing the whistle. I don't know enough to know if that's right or wrong, but I know the question is right and sometimes the question is more important than the answer.

How did this happen? I still want to know how this happened. Because the warning signs were there. And if you don't know the answer, then how do you know it is not going to happen again, right? Fool me once - January, you go back and look at the headlines in January and you see questions and you see warnings. Now, they were all over the map, but we saw what was happening in Asia. We saw what was happening in Europe. Where were the international experts saying, "Well, if this is happening there, this is what we should expect to happen in the United States? Or prepare to happen in the United States?" January, February, you still had sources in this country saying basically there's nothing to worry about. You know, how did that happen? Did we really need to be in this situation where the United States winds up with a higher number of cases than the places that went before? We sat here and we watched China. China winds up have 84,000 cases, we wind up having 474,000 cases. I mean, how does that happen? We saw South Korea. They wind up with 10,000 cases. Italy, where we saw a collapse of the whole health system, winds up with 143,000 cases.

I raise the question because the answer, again, is less important than the question, but before we move forward let's make sure we're not repeating the same mistake that we made, right? George Santayana. "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I don't want to repeat what we just repeated, what we just went through over this past month.

So, what are the relevant questions? Is there going to be a second wave? Let's look at the countries that have gone through this reopening process and what can we learn from them? Right? Well, we have to start to reopen. Let's look at what the other countries who have gone before us, what they did, what worked and what didn't work. When you take just a cursory review you see caution signs. Hong Kong appeared to have the virus under control, they let its guard down, the virus came back. Hong Kong recorded the biggest rise in cases and a new wave of infections. Is that true? Could it happen here? Article yesterday, Italy has seen a bump in the number of cases. You know, before we take a step make sure we are more informed and more aware than we were in the past. They're talking about a second wave in Singapore.

You got back and you look at the 1918 flu epidemic. That was over 10 months. There was a first wave, there was a second wave. The second wave was worse than the first wave because the virus mutated. Third peak and the whole experience was 10 months. Is there any extrapolation to where we are today? I don't know the answers. This is not what I do. It's not what a state does.

But, we know the questions and we should have the questions answered before we take a step forward. Yes, no one has been here before. These are totally uncharted waters. But we do know that none of this is predetermined and it is all a function of our actions. We are in total control of our destiny here. What we do will effect literally live and death for hundreds of people.

So, where do we go from here? First, keep doing what we're doing. Stay home because that works. We are flattening the curve, we must continue to flatten the curve. We have to get testing to scale. That is an entirely new exercise. It's something we still haven't done well in this country. We need both diagnostic testing and antibody testing. We need millions and millions of them. We need them in a matter of weeks, not months.

We have to be more prepared as a nation. We should never go through this scramble that we went through with states competing against other states to buy masks from China. I mean, we should just never have been here in the first place, but certainly we should never be here again. And then let's make sure we study the waters ahead and proceed with caution before we set off on the next journey. When we talk about reopening, let's study the data and let's look at what has happened around the world. Let's make sure the best health minds in the country are giving us their best advice.

How do we go forward? We stay New York tough. New York tough means more than just tough, it means discipline. It means unified. It means loving. And it means smart. Now is a time to be smart. Now more than ever. That's what it means to be New York tough and we are.

2020-04-11 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Saturday. Good enjoying Holy Week. Happy Passover. Holy Saturday. Easter is tomorrow. Big day.

Let's go through where we are right now. The good news is the curve of the increase is continuing to flatten. The number of hospitalizations appears to have hit an apex and the apex appears to be a plateau which is what many of the models predicted, that it wasn't going to be straight up and straight down. It was going to be straight up, you time the top number and then you plateau for a period of time and that looks like what we are doing.

The hospitalization rate is down and that's important. We have more people getting infected still. We have more people going to the hospitals but we have a lower number. That is all this is saying. Fewer people are going into the hospitals, still net positive. The three-day average which is what we look at, because day-to-day can be somewhat deceiving, especially when you get towards the weekend, because the weekend reporting gets a little different, but all of the numbers are on the downward slope. Still, people getting infected, still people going to the hospital, but a lower rate of increase.

The number of ICU admissions is down. The three-day average on ICU admissions is down. This is a little deceptive because at one time hospitals had discrete ICU wards for ICU beds. Effectively now in a hospital, all of the beds are ICU beds. It is like the entire hospital has turned into an ICU facility. This distinction is actually, I don't know how enlightening this is. This, however, is still a discrete category. The increase in the number of intubations. As we discussed, the intubations are a bad sign from a health diagnostic perspective. When we talk about the number of deaths, those tend to be people who have been intubated for the longest period of time. While ICU beds may not mean anything anymore in the hospital system, intubations are still intubations. This is a very good sign that intubations are down.

We were worried about the spread from New York City to Long Island and upstate. If you look at the bar chart you can see almost a wave where it did start to move. We have been working very hard in Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, which are the surrounding suburbs to New York City and so far we've had hotspots but we've attacked them aggressively and we believe that we have stabilized the situation upstate and in the suburbs which is what you see in that chart.

Terrible news is the number of lives lost - 783 yesterday. That is not an all-time high and you can see that the number is somewhat stabilizing. But it is stabilizing at a horrific rate. 783 people, 777, 779, these are just incredible numbers depicting incredible loss and pain, especially this week especially this week, all 783 individuals and their families are in our thoughts and in our prayers. The total number of lives lost, 8,627, that's up from 7,844.

People ask, well, when is it over, when is it over, when is it over? My children ask that every day. I'm sure everyone's living with the same question. Every time you wake up, you say, when does this nightmare end? And everybody wants to hear that it ends in two weeks or three weeks or four weeks, or, here's the date that I can tell you that it's over, just give me some certainty, some closure, some control of my life back. But I also said from day one, and when I raise my hand to take the oath originally, I would never tell you anything but the truth, even if the truth is inconvenient or painful. Winston Churchill is a hero of mine. His granddaughter, Edwina Sandys, sent me a portrait, a tribute to Winston Churchill, and I thank her for that. But, Winston Churchill said now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. It's just a great Churchill quote, you know, it's precise in how he uses language. I think that's a fair statement of where we are now. This is the beginning that we are in. This was a beginning phase. We're all trying to figure it out. We're all trying to adjust. But it's the end of that beginning phase.

What we do now? We stay the course. What we're experiencing as a product of our actions, period. We do something different, we will see a different reaction in those numbers. Everyone wants to turn to the question of, when do we reopen? I get it. I think the first caution for me is as we enter this new phase of reopen, when do we do it, how do we do it, this person's opinion is here, this person's opinion is here, the best thing we have done to date is we have kept politics out of the discussion. Even though this is a hyper-partisan time, even though we're in the middle of a presidential election, even though it's one of the ugliest political periods I can recall, we've kept politics out of this crisis. I've worked very hard to do that, I've worked very hard to keep myself out of the politics. I have no personal politics, not running for anything. I'm governor of New York, thank you, and that's where I'm going to stay.

I've worked very hard with the president of the United States. We've have had our political differences in the past, no doubt. But there's also no doubt that I've worked hand in glove with the president here, and he has been responsive to New York and responsive to New York's needs, and he's done it quickly and he's done it efficiently. I've literally had conversations with him in the morning where he turned around a decision by that afternoon. I've been in the federal government, I know what it's like to make a decision. And he has really responded to New York's needs.

So, keep politics out of it. Focus on government and focus on policy and keep politics out of it. It's very hard, especially at this time. And you start to hear there's dialogue on reopening and you start to hear people with political theories on whether we should reopen faster, whether we should reopen sooner, why are people against reopening, why are people in favor of reopening? That is corrosive and destructive and if we don't stop it, it will feed on itself. There are no political conspiracies here.

All of the projection models have basically said the same thing. Everyone has basically said the same thing. Everyone has basically said the same thing, which is, first of all, no one has been here before. Second of all, everyone, all of the experts, I didn't have an opinion, because I'm not an expert, all of the experts had higher projection numbers than we actually experienced, and they all said, caveat, government action could flatten the curve, but we don't know what governments will do and we don't know if people will even listen to what governments will do.

But, almost all the experts, when you go back and look at it, had the same basic, heightened, fears. From the New York State projection point of view, Columbia University, highly credible organization, 136,000 New York City only. McKinsey, great organization, 110,000 statewide, 55,000 on a moderate level. Gates, 73,000. Gates-funded IHME, 73,000 statewide. The Gates-funded model I think is the one that the White House most relies on now, currently. All of those models were projections. they all said, depending on what people do. Not even government. What people wind up doing. But it wasn't just these academic, private organizations.

The White House task force was talking about 1.5 to 2.2 million deaths, without mitigation. With mitigation, they were projecting 100 to 240,000 deaths as the best-case scenario. This is the White House task force. The actual estimate has now been adjusted down, but they're still at 60,000 deaths, that they're projecting. The Peter Navarro White House memo was talking about loss-of-life, one to two million souls. One to two million souls, infecting as many as 100 million Americans. CDC was talking about 160 million to 214 million people infected. The whole population is only 328 million. So the CDC was projecting that more than half the population would be infected. They were talking about 2.4 million to 21 million people being hospitalized. We only have 925,000 beds in the United States of America. How would you hospitalize 2.4 million to 21 million people? And that was the CDC.

So, there was no political conspiracy theory. There is no political conspiracy theory. It's uncharted waters for all of us. So let's focus on the facts, let's focus on the data, and let's make decisions that way. And also, if someone says, "Well, CDC was wrong and the White House task force is wrong and Peter Navarro is wrong and the Columbia is wrong and Cornell is wrong and McKinsey is wrong and the Gates funded IHME..." They were all wrong. If I'm representing them, I say it's too soon to tell. It's too soon for Monday quarterbacking because the game isn't even over yet. What do you think we're in? Sixth inning for baseball. You think we're at halftime if it's a football game. You don't know yet what the actual issue is going to be. And you don't know yet how this turns out because many decisions have to be made. You have to reopen, you have to decide how to reopen. You have to decide when to reopen. That is going to be impactful. We don't know if there's going to be a second wave or not. All of these things are yet to come so anyone who wants to say, "Well, here's the score at halftime and I'm going to now claim and try to collect my bet because it's halftime," it doesn't work that way. The game has to be over and this game isn't over. 

What do we do now? Well, we need to do more testing and more advanced testing and we have to do it faster. That's both the diagnostic testing, that's the anti-body testing. We have to get better at both and we have to be able to create a higher volume faster. We have to be more prepared. We should never go through what we went through on this preparation drill. The federal stimulus bill is going to be key. 

That legislation, in my opinion, has to be better than the past legislation. It has to be less political, less pork barrel and more targeted to the actual purpose. You want to help the places that were impacted, I'll tell you what the federal legislation should do. It should repeal SALT. You want to help New York, which is the most heavily impacted? By the way, you think you're going to reopen the economy without the engine of the New York metropolitan area? You're kidding yourself. You want to help New York, you want to help the places that are effected? Then repeal the SALT provision which was a gratuitous, offensive, illegal - in my opinion - action to begin with, but which literally targeted New York and some of these places, Michigan, Detroit, California. Repeal that if you really want to help places that are affected. To my delegation, they know this issue very well, as does the California delegation, as does the Michigan delegation. That's what you can do if you want to stop with the politics and help people. 

In the meantime, here you're going to have many people who are struggling, businesses who are struggling. We have government programs, but trying to access a government program is like trying to break into a bank sometimes. It's not that easy. The New York State court system and our chief judge is going to organize some lawyers statewide to do pro bono legal assistance to help people with issues that they may have: housing issues, access to government program issues, et cetera. Many legal issues are going to stem from this in many places where people need help. Lawyers who have time on their hands who are not working, they're looking for volunteers. 

Most of all, we have to think before we act. These are all big decisions. Reopening. Reopening is both a public health question and an economic question and I'm unwilling to divorce the two. There is no economic answer that that does not attend to public health. In my opinion, you can't ask the people of this state or this country to choose between lives lost and dollars gained. No one is going to make that quid pro quo. I understand the need to bring back the economy as quickly as possible. I understand people need to work. I also know we need to save lives and we have. One cannot be at the expense of the other. 

As we look forward, I'm still troubled by what we just went through. If no one sounded the alarm in January and February, how do we know that it's safe to proceed now? There are stories and there is information that says some of these places that reopened too quickly are now seeing a growth in the number of cases. They're seeing a growth in the infection rate again or they're seeing a second wave. So there's troubling signs on the horizon. I want to make sure that we know this time that we've learned from the other experiences. We're going to be putting together, in New York, a team of the best minds that look at what happened in Wuhan, look at what happened in Italy on the reopening and make sure that what we're doing is based on all the science available internationally. What is the probability, what is the possibility of a second wave happening? What is the possibility of people re-experiencing the virus? There's some reports from South Korea. Let's understand because fool me once, it's one thing to make a mistake once, but this nation should not go through it again. Before we make these decisions, let them be informed by the experiences we're seeing all across the globe. 

There's no doubt that what we're doing now is as impactful and as important as anything that has been done. This is a time where our actions will literally determine life and death. I've been in government most of my adult life on many levels through many circumstances. This is no doubt the most important period for government in my lifetime. There is no doubt about that. The decisions that we make now. Also the potential for the decisions that we make now. These are big questions and we should think about them both in the short term and the long term. How do we reopen? What do we rebuild when we open? How do we do it? Did we learn the lessons from the past? Did we learn the lessons from what we just went through and are we the better for it? Do we take this moment and make it a moment of positive growth? It's transformational, yes, but are we fully experiencing the reality of what we went through, learning from it, and actually going to be the better for it? Are we doing that as a society and are we doing that as individuals? I know the pain, I know the pressure, I know everybody wants to get out of the house. They want to get out of the house tomorrow. They want me to say, we are going to be reopening the economy in two weeks and we beat the beast. The worst thing that can happen is, we make a misstep and we let our emotions get ahead of our logic and fact, and we go through this again in any manner, shape, or form. So, that is what we have to do.

To all of my friends, enjoy this holy week. I know it is different. I am a former altar boy. This was the hectic, busy week when you were an altar boy. Good Friday, Holy Saturday, tomorrow is Easter. For Christians, Catholics it is a very high time of the holy year. Passover week to our Jewish brothers and sisters. To say different, everything has been different. Not going to church, not celebrating - Palm Sunday was last Sunday, not celebrating Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday is different and hard. But, it is the same message, right? Whether you do it from home, whether you do it over a television, or through a computer screen. It's the same message. If anything, that message is more profound during this situation than it normally is. New York Pause. We paused. We slowed down. The activity level slowed down. You reflect more, you think more. I think that is important during this holy week. In the meantime, we stay New York tough, which is smart, which is united, which is disciplined, which is loving. And we are going to get through this.

2020-04-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Good to see you again for the second time today. Happy Easter for all those celebrating. Happy Passover. Happy Holy Week.

To my right we have Dr. Jim Malatras; to my left Melissa DeRosa; Robert Mujica, Budget Director. Thank you all for taking time. Let's go through where we are today on this beautiful day.

Let's start with the good news because we deserve some good news, Lord knows. Change in total number of hospitalizations is down again. This is the number that we have been watching because the great fear for us was always overwhelming the hospital system, the capacity of the hospital system and we've added capacity, moved to a quick turnaround, but the great fear was always overwhelming the raw capacity of the hospital system, the number of beds. So the number of additional net beds was always important to track and that's what we see here - the net beds is down to 53 which is the lowest number since we started doing these charts. So that is a good number.

Three-day average which would be more accurate than the day-to-day which tends to fluctuate is also down as you see. Total in hospitalizations, 18,700. But you see the 1,818, 1,818 - that's the so-called flattening of the curve. The apex isn't just an apex. It's a plateau. You see that line flattening and that's what the experts were talking about that it might have been a straight up and then rapid down or it might be up to an apex and the apex becomes a plateau. That's what these numbers suggest.

Change in ICU admissions ticked up. Again the ICU admissions is a little questionable now because almost all the beds in the hospital have turned to an ICU bed. So how hospitals classify ICU admissions is a little dubious to me but that's my personal two cents. Three-day average on ICU admissions, same thing.

Tick up in the intubations which is not good news. But you see yesterday was great news. That may have been a blip in the overall. The intubations are very relevant because people coming to the hospital, they get treated, hopefully they get discharged, if they don't get discharged they stay in the hospital, they decline, they become intubated, if they become intubated the longer you're on a ventilator the less likely you will be to get off that ventilator so that's the trajectory we see. The intubations, most people who are intubated will not come off the ventilator so that's a troubling number, the intubation number which is real. But the three-day intubation rate again is down relative to where we were so all the numbers are basically saying the same thing.

Number of this charges goes up because we have that high hospitalization rate. People stay for a week, two weeks, they get discharged, that's why the discharges are a function of the hospitalization rate. Three-day average of the discharges you see again basically flat so it's all reinforcing the same thing, a flattening of all these numbers. You're not see a great decline in the numbers but you're seeing a flattening. And you're also seeing a recurrence of the terrible news which is the number of lives lost which is 758.

Somebody asked the question once, can you ever get numb to seeing these numbers? Unfortunately, no. 758 people lost their lives in a 24-hour period. I speak to many families who are going through this, many people who lost loved ones. Everyone is a face and a name and a family that is suffering on this weekend which for many people in this state and in this nation is that high religious holiday. It's already distorted because we have churches closed, we have temples closed. So this is truly tragic news and I want every family to know that they're in our thoughts and prayers, and we're sorry that they had to go through this. And I want them to know that New Yorkers did everything humanly possible to be there for their loved ones to try to save those lives. And we're proud of that. You see also a flattening in the number of lives lost at a terribly high rate. But if you look back over the past several days you see there's a certain continuity to that number. Again, that's the one number that I look forward to seeing drop. Soon as I open my eyes in the morning. And it has been flattening but flattening at a terribly high level. Again, put it in context. 9,385 lives lost when you add those from yesterday. Put in the context of 9/11, which was supposed to be the tragedy of my lifetime. 2,753 lives lost, we're now at 9,385.

The question for everyone is when we reopen. People want to get on with their lives. People want to get out of the house. Cabin fever. We need the economy working. People need a paycheck. Life has to function. When do we reopen, when do we reopen? Look, the answer is we want to reopen as soon as possible. Everyone does on a societal level, everyone does on a personal level. Let's just end this nightmare, right. Groundhog Day, you get up every day, it's the same routine, you almost lose track of what day of the week it is, because they don't even have meaning anymore. And there's also some anxiety and stress that we're all dealing with. So we want to reopen as soon as possible.

The caveat is we need to be smart in the way we reopen. What does smart mean? It means a coordinated approach, a regional approach, and a safe approach. Nobody wants to pick between a public health strategy and an economic strategy. As Governor of this state I'm not going to pick one over the other. We need a public health strategy that is safe, that is consistent with an economic strategy. How do you reopen, but how do you do it in a way that is smart from a public health point of view? The last thing we want to see is an uptick in that infection rate and an uptick in those numbers that we worked so hard to bring down. So we need a strategy that coordinates business and schools and transportation and workforce.

What New York Pause did is it stopped everything at the same time. It was a blunt device, but it shut down everything at the same time. We're going to need testing. More testing, faster testing, than we now have, when you start to move people back to work. And we're going to need federal help. There is no doubt about that.

I did a joint statement with Governor Hogan, who is the chairman of the National Governors Association. He is a Republican. I am the vice chair. I'm a Democrat, those of you who don't know. And we did a joint statement that said look, the federal government did a stimulus bill, a bill that was supposed to help move the economy along called the federal CARES Act. The federal CARES Act just, almost ignored state governments. When you ignore a state government, you ignore our situation. We have a $10 to $15 billion deficit. We got a budget done, but our budget was basically contingent on what happens going forward. And without federal assistance, how does this state economy come back? How do we really start to fund schools, et cetera? And that has to happen from a federal level.

There is no level above the state government that can make a difference besides the federal government and we did a statement on a bipartisan basis that said the federal government has to fix this in the next bill, and we put $500 billion for funding, for state governments and again we did that on a bipartisan basis. From New York's point of view the past bills were like most federal passed bills. They went through the political process. To get a bill passed in Washington, everyone has to get their piece of the pie to pass a bill. I understand politics. I understand it very well. That's not how they should be operating here. You did an injustice to the places that actually had the need, which from an American taxpayer point of view, that's what you were trying to correct. You were trying to correct the devastation of the virus. Well then correct the devastation of the virus. Not everything has to be an opportunity for pork barrel. You look at where the money actually went. Theoretically, the bill distributed funding to states for corrective action and expenses on handling the virus. 

Kaiser Health, which is a very notable organization, said that Nebraska, Montana, for example, Minnesota are getting approximately $300,000 per COVID-19 case. New York State gets approximately $12,000. How can that be? It can be, because in the Senate, it became a game of political pork and I want my share as opposed to where is the need genuinely. New York is vital to this American economy. It's not just about New York. Our economy is vital to this country. You want New York's economy up and running not just for the good of New York but the good of the nation. That was the purpose of the legislation. It missed the mark. I hope they do it next time. 

A simple, easy way to help New York is right the wrong that the federal government did when it passed the SALT tax, state and local tax deductibility. That was just a political maneuver in the first place. You're trying to help places that are suffering from the virus. Repeal the SALT tax. It should have never been done, as I said, in the first place. 

We're going to work with our neighboring states because this is the tri-state area. It's a regional economy. I will be speaking with Governor Murphy and Governor Lamont later today on coming up with a re-opening plan that is a public health plan. Safeguards public health but also starts to move us toward economic activation.

We'll also do an executive order today which directs employers to provide essential workers with a cloth or surgical face mask to their employees when they are interacting with the public. They should provide those masks cost free. New Jersey did a similar order and I think Governor Murphy was right and I want to do that here in the State of New York. 

We have to also expand testing. One of the ways we want to do that is by executive order, we're going to expand the number of people who are eligible to do the anti-body test. We have state regulations that say who can actually do the anti-body test. There are two tests: One is a diagnostic test, one is the anti-body test. The anti-body test tells you if the person had the virus and got over the virus. That would be a prime person who could go back to work because they theoretically have an immunity to the virus for a period of time. They're not sure what the period of time is. There aren't a tremendously large number of people with anti-bodies, which is good news because we kept down the infection rate. But that is an important test and we have to get that test to scale and this executive order will help do that. 

Happy Easter for all those who are celebrating. Happy spring for those who aren't celebrating. Spring is my favorite season. What spring says to all of us is it's a time of rebirth. That no matter how cold the winter, no matter how barren the landscape got, the Earth comes back to life. It was flat and it was barren and it was closed down, then it comes back to life. For me, this spring especially. We have been closed down. We have locked the doors. We've isolated. We've hunkered down. We've closed down in a way we've never closed down before, we want to talk about a cold winter. Where the earth becomes barren. This has been a cold period from this societal point of view. And we've closed down in a way we've never closed down, but we will come back to life and we will have a rebirth. And that's what Spring is all about. And the rebirth is primarily about our people and about our spirit. They say the spirit lives.

They've been a couple movements through this that will stay with me for all time and a couple of moments that were really dark periods, looking at that number of deaths is a dark period. The phone calls with families are dark periods. The fear of the worst case scenario of those numbers going through the roof and overwhelming the hospital capacity was a dark period. Fears of seeing what happened in Italy and how their health care system got overwhelmed and it could happen here, that was dark. Number of conversations that with people who lost their father, their spouse, their brother, their sister out of the blue.

But there's also been some moments that just was so inspirational to me that just showed such a positive spirit. When things are at their worst is when you will see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Where people are under pressure you see like the true essence will come out and some people will break your heart, people who you expected to react differently will just break your heart and disappoint you but then other people who you expected nothing from will show you a strength and a resilience that just is an inspiration. We were going through a period where we were afraid of the hospital capacity peaking and we needed equipment, we were focused on ventilators because ventilators for this disease, it's a respiratory disease you need ventilators. Nobody ever anticipated this kind of situation, so we're in a mad rush for ventilators. And we're shifting ventilators all over the state and I'm asking hospitals to cooperate with each other and lend each other equipment, including ventilators. And some hospitals were great and some hospitals were less great which you expect.

But then out of the blue a phone call came where a nursing home in upstate New York said we understand downstate may need ventilators. We want to let them borrow 35 ventilators. Unsolicited they just called and offered the 35 ventilators and we went, we picked up the ventilators and we brought them down state, but I remember when they came in and they told me, a nursing home in upstate, a nursing home is one of the most vulnerable places in this entire situation, right? Elderly populations and in a confined area of a nursing home. And here a nursing move comes forward and says we want to lend you 35 ventilators to bring down state. I tell you for me, when I heard that news. With all this bad, with all this negative. Something inside me said you know what we're going to be ok. We're going to find our way through this because there is an inherent goodness in people that will surprise you and they will rise to the occasion. And at the end of the day, good will win against bad, I believe that. And love will conquer all.

We brought the 35 ventilators back to Pathways which is a nursing and rehabilitation center. I went by there this morning when they were returning the 35 ventilators just to say thank you. Thank you on behalf of all the people of this state. Thank you for their generosity. Thank you on behalf of downstate New York. We're in a position now where we're not going to need the ventilators. We're going to be okay equipment wise, unless things change dramatically.

But thank you on behalf of the people of the state, as governor of the state of New York. And thank you for myself because the people from Pathways, who are watching this broadcast, I couldn't go inside. So I didn't really get a chance to talk to them, but I wanted to say thank you from me because they brought me inspiration and hope and energy at a time when I, personally, really needed it. That call and that generosity and that love buoyed my spirit and my feelings and was such a lift for me. I remember I went and I talked to the team. I said, can you believe how beautiful a gesture this is? So I wanted to say thank you as governor and for me, myself, and I, Andrew Cuomo. Thank you to the people of Pathways.

2020-04-13 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. What day is today? It's a day that ends in "y," that's what day it is. It's Monday. Hope you enjoyed the best you could this different weekend. Different Easter celebration for those who celebrated Easter and Passover. Everybody knows who's here. Doctors to my right, Dr. Jim Malatras, Dr. Howard Zucker. To my left, Secretary to the Governor, Melissa DeRosa and Budget Director Robert Mujica.

Let's give you some facts. Plain truth facts. Here's the good news: The curve continues to flatten. We've talked all along quote, unquote the experts said there were two possibilities. You could have a high point and an immediate drop off or you could have a plateau. It appears that we have a plateau. It's flattening, it's the flattening of the curve. The increase has slowed down. It flattens out for a period of time. Nobody knows how long because no one has been here before. If you look at the number of total admissions, 18,000, 18,000, 18,000 - that's definitely a flattening. That is good news. Still going up a little bit, by the way, but a basic flattening as opposed to increasing gaps.

The total number of hospitalizations net down, a little bit up, a little bit down. Overall, just follow the line, don't get caught up in the day-to-day. As we say, the three-day rolling average, which is more accurate than any one-day is down again. The net change in ICU admissions is down. Again, I discount these ICU admissions because the old demarcation of an ICU bed in the hospital and a regular bed in a hospital is gone. Almost every bed is an ICU bed. Net change in ICU admissions is also down.

Intubations is real. Intubations is the worst signal. People who are intubated wind up on a ventilator, most often do not come off the ventilator. Some are 70 percent, 80 percent depending on who you talk to. This is a scary number. When that's down, it's good and that is down. The three-day rolling average is down. So that's good news. We were worried about the spread from New York City to suburbs upstate and we have been very aggressive when we get a little cluster spot that's acting up. We jump on it. This is like watching a fire going through dry grass with a strong wind and it's blowing the fire and a couple of embers wind up on one side of the field. The embers start to catch fire and that's a cluster and you have to run over to those embers and stamp them out right away before they grow. You see the stabilization there. That has been good too.

This is a new take on it, we talk about net hospitalizations. This is the number of new COVID hospitalizations to-date. This is how many new COVID diagnosis or people walking into the hospital had COVID. So you see still about 2,000 people per day are walking in or being diagnosed with COVID. You're still increasing the hospital population. Initially, by 2,000 people who are testing positive for COVID, but on the other side of the health care system, people are being discharged on the other end.

The net is what we talk about because we've always been worried about lack of capacity in the hospital system where you pour the water into the glass and the glass overfills. Where the hospital system can't handle the number of people coming in. That's why we've been studying the net. This says, take a deep breath. You still have 2,000 people per day who are coming in to the hospital system.

The terrible news is as terrible as it gets and the worst news I've had to deliver to the State as Governor of New York and the worst news I've had to live with on a personal level. Number of deaths is 671. Not as a bad as it has been in the past, but basically flat and basically flat at a horrific level of pain and grief and sorrow. This is 671 people who passed away on Easter Sunday. For me - I'm Catholic - Easter Sunday is the high holy day in many ways, one of the high holy days, and to have this happen over this weekend is really, really especially tragic and they are all in our thoughts and prayers.

That raises the death total to 10,056. Again, for perspective, 10,000, 2,700 lives were lost in 9/11 and 9/11 changed every New Yorker who was in a position to appreciate on that day what happened. The number of lives lost was horrific after 9/11 and the grief was horrific. We are at 10,000 deaths. New York, 10,000 deaths, New Jersey, 2,000 deaths, Massachusetts, 756, and then you have the state of Michigan.

Why New York? Why are we seeing this level of infection? Well, why cities across the country? It's very simple. It's about density. It's about the number of people in a small geographic location allowing that virus to spread and that virus is very good what it does. It is a killer. It is very good at spreading. It is very contagious and the dense environments are its feeding grounds. We learned that lesson very early on. Remember, we had one of the first hot spots in the nation. One of the most intense clusters was New Rochelle, New York. New Rochelle is in Westchester County. It's not in New York City. Why New Rochelle? That's what I was so concerned about early on. We didn't know what we were looking at. Why New Rochelle, because in New Rochelle one person or two people who were infected were in dense gatherings with hundreds of people and it spread like wildfire.

So it's not just a dense city or a dense community. It's any person in a dense environment. You can be in a very rural county. You know, people think New York is all New York City. No, no. We have counties that have more cows than people by population. You can be anywhere. If you have one person who is infected in a room of 200 people, 300 people, 400 people, now you have a problem.

This goes back to the Spanish flu where some cities canceled parades. Other cities didn't cancel parades. We went through these numbers when we had the decision on St. Patrick's Day parade, which Bernadette still will not forgive me for, but you can have a parade in a relatively small city but you bring people together and this virus has a feeding frenzy.

Where do we go from here? Question of reopening which everyone wants to do and everybody wants to do yesterday. I am at the top of that list. We have to understand on the reopening, as much as we have this emotion, we want it to happen and we want it to happen now and we can't take this anymore and everyone feels the same. It is a delicate balance. Remember what we have to do on reopening. And remember, it has never been done before. None of this has been done before. Anyone who says to you, oh, I know what we should do. I know. Yeah, you don't know because nobody knows and that's the one thing that we have learned over and over again. And this place has never done this before. Also, you look around the world, you see warning signs from countries who have opened.

My point is to our team, I want to learn from those other countries frankly and I want to make sure we know from our studying and assessment of what's going on in other countries what worked, what didn't work, and let's learn from those lessons. You can now go back and look at Wuhan province and look at Italy and look at South Korea and see what they did and see what worked and what didn't work so let's learn. So we'll listen to the experts, we'll follow the data. But remember this is a delicate balance. What are we doing on reopening? We are easing isolation. We want to increase economic activity. That will happen essentially through a recalibration of what are essential workers.

Remember, we never turned off the economy. The economy is still functioning. You can get in your car, you can get gasoline, you can go to the grocery store, you can shop, youcan get on a bus. The economy is functioning. We never turned it off. We turned it way, way down, and it's just the essential services that have been operating, but the essential services have all been operating. What you will be doing in essence on the reopening is recalibrating what is essential. You'll start to open that valve on the economic activity. And you'll turn that valve very slowly, reopening the economy, more essential workers, do it carefully, do it slowly, and do it intelligently. More testing and more precautions at the same time that you're opening that valve. More testing so you have more information about who should be coming in, et cetera. More precautions because you know that works. As you're calibrating and opening the valve.

And while you're opening that valve, watch the meter. What's the meter? The meter is the infection rate. The meter is those daily hospitalization rates. And there is a cause and effect. You have density, you have more people infecting other people, you will see it within a matter of days in that hospitalization rate. So yes, open the valve. Slowly, advised by experts. Keep your eye on the meter. The meter is the infection rate. And watch that infection rate. And if you see that infection rate start ticking up, which would be undermining everything we have accomplished thus far, then you know you've opened the valve too fast. That is the delicate balance that we have to work through. And that is what has never been done before. And nobody can tell you today, I know how to do that, because it just hasn't happened.

So what do we do? First, come up with a reopening plan. I'm not interested in political opinions. I'm interested in what the experts say about this. To the best they can tell you, but, you have public health experts. They can study South Korea. They can study China. They can study all the data that we have. You have economic experts that can help you decide what is the next notch of essential workers that can actually start the economy back up and have a consequential change. But that is a real plan, and that has to be developed, and that has to be smart. The why did the geographic area for that plan the better? Because this virus doesn't understand governmental boundaries.

Well, I'm Westchester County, so this virus has to stop before entering here and follow my rules. No. The virus follows its own boundaries and its own guidelines and it doesn't have any. The geographic area that is an economic area, a workforce area, a transportation area, that's the relevant area that we have to be looking at. You have to coordinate all these systems. You can't start one system without starting the other systems. You can't start the economic system without starting the transportation system. And if you can't run the transportation system, then you can't reopen the economy, just doesn't happen. You have to coordinate the schools with the transportation with the economic system. These systems work in coordination. They're big gears and each gear intermeshes with the other gear. And you can't start one gear with the other gear stopped, right? That's the coordination.

You're going to need federal support, and you're going to need smart legislation passed by the federal government that actually attends to the need, as opposed to normal political considerations.

Testing is going to be key. That's a new frontier for us, also. This state is probably the most aggressive state in the nation in actually getting the testing up. We test more than any other state. We test more than other countries. We test more than the other leading states combined in testing. But, that's still not enough. We have to do more.

We know that the precautions work. The masks work, the gloves work, the temperature taking works. It's abnormal, it's different, but it works, and we have to do it. While we're doing this, we have to remember to stay the course and not jeopardize what we have achieved - and we have achieved much.

This afternoon I'll be joined by other governors. We've been talking to other states - Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island - for the past couple of days about how we come up with a reopening plan and can we work together on a reopening plan. We'll be making an announcement this afternoon with other governors about just that, the reopening plan.

As I said, the optimum is to have as coordinated a regional plan as you can. I understand intergovernmental coordination can be somewhat of an oxymoron, but to the extent we can work with Connecticut and New Jersey and Rhode Island and Delaware and Pennsylvania, I want to. It is smarter for everyone. For people of their state and for the people of my state. This is a time for smart, competent, effective government. Nothing else matters. I want to make sure that I can say to the people of this state, we did everything we could to the best of our ability and the optimum is a geographically coordinated plan. I don't believe we could ever get to totally coordination with the other states because all those states have little different set of circumstances and facts - I don't even believe we should have a uniform plan without recognizing the state by state distinctions. But, to the extent we can coordinate, we should and we will.

Last point, and this is a personal point, when is it over? I have this conversation a hundred times a day. I had it last night with my daughters. When is it over? It's a difficult conversation because people want it to be over so badly, right? I want the fear to stop, I want the anxiety to stop. I don't want to have to worry about my brother anymore. I don't want to have to worry about my daughters. I don't want to have to worry about my mother. I want it over. I want to get out of the house. I want to get back to normalcy. I've been living in this weird, disorienting, frightening place. I'm afraid to touch people. This violates the human behavior and needs. When is it over? It's not going to be over like that. It's not going to be we flick a switch and everybody comes out of their house and gets in their car and waves and hugs each other and the economy all starts up. I would love to say that's going to happen. It's not going to happen that way. It can't happen that way. Can it happen in some communities across the country, where frankly, they have very low infection rates and they could come up with a testing regime where if they find one or two cases they quickly jump on those one or two and they isolate and they track? Yes. But is that going to happen here? No. Is that going to happen in any community that has a significant issue? No. There is going to be no epiphany. There is going to be no morning where the headline says, "Hallelujah, it's over." That's not going to happen.

What will happen, is there'll be points of resolution over time. What does that mean? There'll be points of resolution. There'll be points where we can say we've accomplished something, we should feel better, we should feel more calm, we should feel more relaxed. It will be incremental. We're controlling the spread. We are controlling the spread. You look at those numbers, you know what it says, we're controlling the spread.

I was afraid that it was going to infect my family no matter what I did. We're past that. If you isolate, if you take the precautions, your family won't get infected. We can control the spread. Feel good about that. Because, by the way, we could have gotten to the point where we said, we can't control this damn thing. We can't control it. It's in the air. It gets into your house. It doesn't matter. You close the door, it comes under the door. You could have gotten there. We're not there. Those numbers say we can control the spread. Feel good about that.

The worst is over. Yeah, if we continue to be smart going forward because, remember, we have the hand on that valve. You turn that valve too fast, you'll see that number jump right back. But, yes, I think you can say the worst is over because the worst here are people dying. That's the worst. The worst doesn't get any bad than this worst. And this worst is people dying. That's the worst.

And Winston Churchill, I mentioned the other day, the end of the beginning. Yes, we can control the spread, and we can reduce the number of people who die and our health care system can do phenomenal work and rise to the occasion and deal with this beast. It has not overwhelmed the health care system, we have controlled the spread and there's confidence to be taken in that. And that's an accomplishment. And it was a heck of an accomplishment. Those health care workers for the rest of my life I will say nothing but thank you to them. And I was not sure we could keep the tide from overwhelming our hospital capacity and they did. Feel good about that.

I believe the worst is over if we continue to be smart. And I believe we can now start on the path to normalcy, and we can have a plan where you start to see some businesses reopening, understanding the delicate balance. I think there will become a point where there's an announcement that we have a medical treatment that you can get sick, but they found an anti-viral medication that can help you treat the disease. So, take another deep breath when we get to that point because, okay, you get infected but there is a drug regimen that can help you. And then you'll get to a point where they announce we have a proven vaccine. That's when it's over. That's really when it's over. They have a vaccine, it's been tested, it's been proven, they can produce it, you're going to get a vaccine, this is the thing of the past, don't worry about it, close the chapter, move on.

Okay, when do we get there? Twelve months to 18 months. I can't believe you said 12 months to 18 months, as Cara said to me. Its 12 months to 18 months. When Dr. Faucisaid how long until a vaccine, he says 12 months to 18 months. When the FDA is asked, how long until you get a vaccine? They say 12 months to 18 months. That's the point - - when you ask me when can I do a deep breath for the first time in five weeks? When they say we have a vaccine. That's when it is over. But, there will be points between now and then when we should feel more confident and we should feel better.

"Well, I want it to be over tomorrow." I get it. I want it to be over tomorrow. I want it to be over tomorrow more than you want it over tomorrow. But that's not reality, so let's calibrate our expectations. In the meantime, stay the course because we have accomplished a lot through heroic efforts of health care workers, police officers, transportation workers who showed up to drive those trains and buses every day. I mean, people just doing extraordinary, brave, generous, courageous things every day. Literally putting their lives at risk for the public. And we have flattened that curve by people's actions, which remember is why those projection models were all wrong. The projection models were high, they weren't wrong. That's a bad word. What they were saying, this is where the infection will go if unabated. What's the question mark on whether or not you can abate it? Can you put forth a government policy, but more, will people listen to the government policy?

You have 19 million people in New York. I can stand up here all day long and say you must social distance, you must stay home. If New Yorkers don't believe it, if Americans don't believe it, if they question their government, if I don't have credibility, why do I stand here and go through all the facts? I am not asking any New Yorker to take my word for anything. I'm not asking any American, take my word for it. Here are the facts. I'll give you the facts. The good facts, the bad facts, the ugly facts, you get all the facts. You tell me, you decide. They decided on the facts they would comply and they've done things I would have never dreamed that they would do. And they've actually made significant progress. Do not reverse the progress that we have made in our zeal to reopen and get back to normal. That's going to be the challenge going forward. But we'll do it because we are New York tough and tough is not just tough. We know what tough is. But tough is also smart and tough is also united and smart -- tough is also disciplined and tough, most importantly, is loving. While that sounds counterintuitive. They sound repugnant. No, no, no, no. Toughest people are strong enough to say love, the toughest people and that's New Yorkers.

2020-04-14 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Day 44 but who's counting. Every day is Groundhog Day. Thank you for being here.

To give you some facts about where we are today, total hospitalizations actually basically flat, technically a tick down, which is probably the first tick down so that's a good sign but basically flat so we thing we're at the apex on the plateau. The number of hospitalizations went up, flattened, continuing to flatten, good sign. Technically the number is down a tad, statistically irrelevant, but better than being up.

The net change in total hospitalizations, if you look at the curve, which is what we look at, the curve is down. If we do a three-day average, which is more accurate than any one day, because remember this reporting mechanism is new, we just put it in during this situation so I wouldn't bet all the chips on any one day, but when you look at three days, you look at the overall curve, we think it's indicative, so the three-day average is down.

The net change in ICU admissions is down. Again the ICU admissions I take with a grain of salt, since hospitals are no longer what they were and they're basically all ICU wards. Intubations is a real number. That's the number of people who are being put on a ventilator. About 80 percent of those people will never come off a ventilator. So when you see the intubations that is proportionate to the number of people we will lose. That's what we've been watching all along. People going to the hospital, most get treated and are discharged. Some are not discharged. If they're intubated about 80% of the people who are intubated will not come off the ventilator. The number of new people going into the hospital per day is also down, but we still have 1,600 new COVID cases yesterday so we have 1600 people new coming into the hospital, some being discharged. The net is what we've been watching, but it's also interesting to note that you still have 1,600 new people walking into the hospital or who are in a hospital and then diagnosed with COVID so the volume is still high and the hospitals have still been working hard.

We've been watching for growth outside of New York City, Long Island, Westchester, Rockland. That's been basically been flat. There have been little hot spots here and there. The Department of Health has been very good and aggressive in jumping on those hot spots and tamping them down, test, isolate, trace. You can see the numbers by region across the state, proportionately obviously downstate, New York, which is what we've been talking about, but looking for growth towards Long Island, Westchester, Rockland. The rest of the state proportionately upstate is very, very low to everything else in the state.

This is something else we are watching - this is the number of deaths in nursing homes and the nursing homes have been an increasing issue. The nursing home issue was flagged by the first cases we had in the State of Washington because that is the vulnerable population in the vulnerable place and we've been worrying about nursing homes from day one, as we saw in the State of Washington. But you see the percentage of loss of life is getting higher in the nursing homes compared to the hospitals.

Lives lost yesterday, 778. That number is up. To me that's the most painful number and it has been the most painful number every day, and those New Yorkers are in our thoughts and prayers. You look at the past few days and the number of lives lost, it's basically flat at a devastating level of pain and grief but evidence is, everything else we're seeing is basically a flattening at this level.

The statisticians will say number of lives lost is a lagging indicator, which is a nice scientific term, but it doesn't mean it's not just terrible, terrible, terrible news. Nothing we can do about it. Although, many New Yorkers are doing everything they can to save peoples lives on a daily basis at a great personal cost to themselves.

Total number of deaths is 10,834. What we have learned through this process is that our actions determine our destiny and that's actually good news. We changed the curve. Every projection model, White House, CDC, coronavirus White House task force, Columbia, Cornell, Gates funded group - every projection had a higher rate of infection, higher rate of death. CDC was talking about over a million people. CDC was talking about projections that would have swamped the nation's hospital system. That didn't happen. Why didn't it happen? Because of what we did. That's important to remember and realize. We changed the curve. Better way to say it is we are changing the curve every day. We have shown that we control the virus, the virus doesn't control us. This is a big deal. We could have been in a place where we couldn't stop the spread of the virus. We could have done this whole lockdown, close down, shutdown and you still could have seen those numbers going up. That would have been a frightening place.

We should take some comfort in the fact that we have demonstrated that we can actually control the spread of the virus. Tremendous, dramatic pain to do it, shut down everything but thank God we can control the spread. Can you imagine how bad a situation it would be if we did all of this and you still saw those numbers going up. You lock up with your family, you protect them, but somehow the virus still infiltrated the house. That would have been frightening. So there is good news in this.

There's also a caution flag. We are, in some ways artificially, controlling that curve. We've taken all these extraordinary actions and we are reducing the rate of infection. That means whatever we do today will determine the infection rate tomorrow. It is total cause and effect. You stop doing what you are doing or you behave differently and you will get a different result. That's important to remember as we talk about reopening.

Everybody's anxious to reopen. I get it, I'm anxious to reopen. Cara and Michaela are anxious to get out of the house. Trust me, they love me, they love spending time with me, but they're sort of done with the entire experience. That's universal. People need to get back to work. The state needs an economy. We cannot sustain this for a prolonged period of time. Everybody agrees. Everybody will also say how you reopen is everything because of the first point which is we are now keeping down that rate of infection. If you start acting differently you will see a corresponding increase in that rate of infection. The worst scenario would be if we did all of this, we got that number down, everybody went to extraordinary means and then we go to reopen and we reopen too fast or we reopen and there's unanticipated consequences and we see that number go up again.

Well, you're being hyper cautious. Oh really? Go look at other countries that went through exactly this, started to reopen and then they saw the infection rate go back up again. So let's at least learn from past mistakes. We've laid out a way to reopen, coming up with a comprehensive plan first that is regional in nature. We have seven states that we're working with. The virus doesn't understand state boundaries. Doesn't understand that it needs a passport, you know, it defies all of our norms. So how do you put the best minds together in a seven-state area, come up with a regional strategy? Because the virus can get on Amtrak, the virus can get on a plane, the virus can get in a car and drive up 95. We're all connected. And in truth, since nobody knows where they're going, and nobody's done this before, let's think together, and let's plan together.

If we can't come up with a common plan, let's see if we can come up with a plan that's not contradictory, let's see if we can get to a place where what Connecticut does, New Jersey does is not counter to what we're doing here in New York. And that's the point of the seven states working together. Also the point is it also doesn't work unless you coordinate the reactivation of all the systems. I did this graphic because no one got when I went like this yesterday, and I said the gears have to mesh, this is what I was saying. I could see, Nick, you did not get what this meant, so that's a clarifier for you personally, from yesterday.

We also have to be clear on who is responsible for each element of the opening. The president said last night that he has total authority for determining how and way states reopen. That is not an accurate statement, in my opinion. Now that we know that government actually matters, and government is relevant, and that government has to be smart, because what government does is determining how this goes. It's literally determining in many ways life and death. We have to be smart about it.

The federal-state relationship is central to our democracy. This has been a topic discussed since our founding fathers first decided to embark on this entire venture, right. This is basic federalism, the role of the states and the role of the federal government. And it is important that we get this right. Our founding fathers understood, and we have to remember today that the balance between the state and the federal, that magnificent balance that is articulated in the constitution is the essence of our democracy. We don't have a king in this country. We didn't want a king. So we have a constitution and we elect a president. The states, the colonies, formed the federal government. The federal government did not form the states. It's the colonies that ceded certain responsibility to a federal government. All other power remains with the states, it's basic to our constitution and that federal-state relationship.

Hamilton, who in many ways was representative of this discussion of the balance of power. State governments possess inherent advantages which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy, ascendancy, a beautiful word, over the national government and will forever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments on the states, that their liberties indeed can be subverted by the federal head is repugnant is repugnant to every rule of political calculation. Strong language, but that was the permits. So, there are laws, and there are facts even in this wild political environment.

What do we do? We do what we do because we are New York tough, but tough is more complex than many people think it is. Within that word tough is smart, and united, and disciplined, and loving. They are not inconsistent, to be tough and to be loving. Let me make a personal point, not necessarily a factual point. President did his briefing last night, and the president was clearly unhappy. The president did a number of tweets this morning that he's clearly unhappy. Did a tweet about mutiny on the bounty and governors are mutineers. I didn't follow the exact meaning of the tweet, but the basic essence of the tweet was the he was not happy with governors and this was a mutiny. The president is clearly spoiling for a fight on this issue. The worst thing we can do in all of this is start with political division and start with partisanship. The best thing we have done throughout this past 44 days is we've worked together, and we haven't raised political flags. Even in this hyper-partisan environment, even though it's an election year, even though the politics is so intense, we said, "not here, not in this." This is too important for anyone to play politics. It was a no politics zone, right? This just about doing the right thing, working together, and that's important and we have to stay there. We're all in a little bit of a reflective mood. I'm in a reflective mood. Everything we do here is so important. Every day is so important.

I was thinking after the President made his comments and looking at some of the remarks and looking at the tweets, reminded me of a poster I saw when I was in grade school. Saint Gerard Majella, Queens, New York, Catholic school - red blazer, gray pants, white shirt, little clip on tie - remember the tie with the hook? Remember the hook tie that you had to put the hook on, and then it looked like you had a real tie, which I never understood. The hook was harder to do, you had to hook, then you had to adjust the band, which was harder than just teaching the kid how to just tie the tie, would've been easier, but. I was in grade school and there was that poster, that came from a Sandburg poem, I think. "Suppose they gave a war and nobody came," and I was looking at the poster and I didn't really get it, because even then I was very literal. "Suppose they gave a war and nobody came." So, I'm looking at the poster and a priest came up behind me and said, "What's wrong, Andrew?" I said, "I don't understand that. Suppose they gave a war and nobody came. How could that happen? Then you wouldn't have a war." He said, "Well, that's the point. The point is, what would happen if people just refused to engage? They just refused to fight." I still didn't get it, because and he said, "You know, sometimes it's better to walk away from a fight than engage it. Sometimes it takes more strength, frankly, to walk away from a fight than engage it."

The President will have no fight with me. I will not engage in it, I've sat here every day for 44 years asking New Yorkers to remember that this is not about me, it's about we. I understand you're personally inconvenienced. I understand you're frustrated, and stressed, and anxious, and you're feeling pain. Think about we. Think about -- get past yourself and think about society, and think about your family and think about interconnection and act responsibly for everyone else. This is no time for politics, and it is no time to fight. I put my hand out in total partnership and cooperation with the President. If he wants a fight he's not going to get it from me. Period.

This is going to take us working together. We have a real challenge ahead. Just because those numbers are flattening, it's no time to relax. We're not out of the woods. In this reopening, we could lose all the progress we made in one week if we do it wrong. We have a number of challenges ahead. We have to figure out how to do this. How do you have a public health strategy that works with an economic reactivation strategy? Nobody has done this before. How do you start to increase the number of essential workers? How do you learn the lessons of the past? How do you start to do the massive testing that we're going to do have to do here? And that we don't have the capacity to do today? The capacity does not exist.

The private sector companies that do testing, we can only get about 60,000 tests per month. That's not enough. We're going to do the antibody testing, but that's not enough, either. How do we do this? Put together this whole testing system and do it in a matter of weeks? It is a real question. How do we use technology? Apple and other companies are working on using technology to do tracking. How do we do that? How do we do it fast? How do we take all our strength and our collective strength and take this nation's collective strength and figure out how to do those challenges?

50 years ago this week, Apollo 13 gets damaged 220,000 miles from earth. Somehow they figure out how to get a spaceship back 220,000 miles 50 years ago. That's America. Okay. Figure out how to do testing. Figure out how to use technology to do tracing. That's what we have to work on. We have to do that together. We have to do as a government what our people have done, right? Sometimes political leaders can learn best from following people who are normally ahead of the politicians.

Look at how people have been selfless and put their own agenda aside for the common good. Can't their leaders be as smart as they are? The answer has to be yes. So, I look forward to working with the president in partnership and cooperation, but he has no fight here. I won't let it happen. Look, unless he suggested that we do something that would be reckless and endanger the health or welfare of the people of the state, then I would have no choice. But shy of that, I put my hand out to say let's do this together.

2020-04-15 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Bigger group than usual. More the merrier. Thank you very much for being here. We'll give you some updated information and then we'll go from there.

On this format of the presentation, I throw out my own personal bias to the way we do this. If you haven't noticed, I have an annoying personal habit that my children remind me of often. My staff too, they reminded me this morning. People love to give you their opinion of what they think, "I think this, I think this," and I often will stop them and say, "Ok, before you tell me what you think just tell me the facts." Just give me the facts first before your interpretation of the facts. I like to start with just the facts, just give me the facts. That's what we do in this presentation: here are the facts. No opinion. No filter. Then I'll give you an opinion, but I'll tell you what's my opinion versus the facts. Just the facts. It is an annoying personal habit because people want to tell you their opinion. I think this. I know, but tell me the facts first, then we'll do your opinion.

Total hospitalizations clicked down, still in the 18,000, but it clicked down. Good news. That's a fact. That's a fact that it's good news, not my opinion. You see the flattening of the curve - all these new expressions that we've never used before - plateau, flattening, rounding. Net change in hospitalizations, down. That's good news. Three-day rolling average, because remember any one of these days of reporting, this is a new reporting system. It's imprecise. I wouldn't bet the farm on any one days number, but a three-day average starts to be a little more accurate. ICU admissions is down, that's good news. Intubations are down, that's very good news. Just on a real life level. When a person is intubated, they're on a ventilator. Eighty percent of the people will never come off the ventilator or thereabouts, so that's good news.

Little reality check, you still have on a day-to-day basis, about 2,000 people who are being diagnosed with COVID. We're out of the woods? No. We're still in the woods. The good news is we showed them we can change the curve. Good news is, great news in my opinion, we can control the spread. That is great news. Could you imagine if we couldn't control the spread? If we did all this and the spread kept going up? So we can control the spread. You still have about 2,000 people a day who are new diagnosis coming into the hospital system. It's still a serious public health issue.

Lives lost yesterday, 752, which is the painful news of our reality day after day and they are in our thoughts and prayers. You see 707 in hospitals, 45 in nursing homes. People are interested in those numbers and how those numbers are changing. You see the terrible news has basically been flat over the past several of days. Again, the number of death is a quote, unquote lagging indicator. It's almost disrespectful to put it in scientific terms, but these are people who were probably intubated. They were on a ventilator and then again, the period of time you're on a ventilator, normally has a bad outcome.

The total losses, the total number of deaths number. The CDC changed guidelines on how they want information reported. They want deaths and then another category of probable deaths which is a new category that's done by the local departments of health or the coroner. We're going to rationalize those new reporting requirements with local governments and get that information out as soon as we can. We're also, since we have a little bit of period to take a breath, we're going to contact nursing homes and facilities to find out if there were other people who passed from COVID who were not necessarily in a hospital or in a nursing home. There is a sense that there may be additional people who passed away and they weren't included in the count because they weren't in a hospital or weren't in a nursing home. So we'll be going through that.

Basically, the health care situation has stabilized. The fears of overwhelming the health care system has not happened, thanks to the phenomenal front line workers. Thanks to all the additional capacity that the hospital system created. Over 50 percent additional capacity in one month. Just think of that. Thanks to the work that our federal government did, Army Corps of Engineers, providing the beds at Javits and Comfort.

By the way, Javits, which is 2,500-bed capacity is the overflow valve, about 800 people have gone through Javits. So thank you very much. And that was a great service that was done by the federal government in a very short period of time. So we have that stabilized. People are still getting infected but we have the infection spread down to a manageable number. We've accomplished that. People are restless.

We have to talk about the reopening of the economy, how do we do this? We have to build a bridge from where we are to the reopening of the economy. Well, what does that look like? Let's say that where we're going, it's not a reopening in that we're going to open what was, we're going to a different place. And we should go to a different place. And we should go to a better place. If we don't learn the lessons from this situation, then all of this will have been in vain. We learn a lot if we're willing to open our eyes and open our ears. So we're going to a different place, which is a new normal, and we talk about the new normal, we've been talking about the new normal for years. We're going to have a new normal in public health. By the way, the way we have a new normal in the environment, a new normal in economics, a new normal in civil rights, a new normal in social justice, right. This is the way of the world now. We're moving to a new place, more challenging place, but also potentially a better place.

Well, when is this over? I say, personal opinion, it's over when we have a vaccine. It's over when people know I'm 100 percent safe and I don't have to worry about this. When does that happen? When we have a vaccine. When do we have a vaccine? 12 to 18 months. Who determines that? The federal government has to test the vaccine, FDA. It's a big gap, 12 to 18 months, yes. I say the sooner the better, anything we can do to work with the federal government to get the vaccine done faster, we are all in. You want to use New York State as a laboratory? We are ready, willing and able. Any way the state Department of Health can work with the FDA to reduce that testing period? We are all in and energized and creative and ambitious about it. And so anything we can do to accelerate that vaccine, we will do. You need a place to test it in large numbers, think of New York. But that's the ultimate end, right? We have a vaccine. Now we don't have to worry about this. By the way, we'll probably have to worry about the next public health risk at that time, so don't forget everything we learned.

Besides the vaccine, there's a possibility that they develop a medical treatment. So we can't prevent you from getting the virus, but, we have a new medical treatment and if you get the virus, don't worry, it's no big deal, you go and you get this medical treatment. That's another way of having a natural end, right? And that's what convalescent plasma is all about and the antibody testing to find people who had the antibody and then injecting the antibody into a person as a treatment method. Maybe the hydroxychloroquine works. Now, this has been a very politicized topic. I have done my best to stay 100 miles away from politics in all of this. Everybody wants to see hydroxychloroquine work. Everybody. Well, the president says he believes it works. But he's not a doctor. You're right. He believes, says he believes it works but he's not a doctor. Find out. Find out. And everyone hopes that it works. And anything New York can do to test it, we will. We are now testing hydroxychloroquine.

There are a number of hospitals that are doing it. It's not a government decision. It's not a political decision. A medical doctor decides. And if a medical doctor decides it works, fine. We have an executive order that limits the prescription of hydroxychloroquine only because we don't have enough. And there was such a demand on it that people who needed it and were using it can't get it. So, if the federal government sends us more, we will dispense more. It's a pure supply side issue. Or maybe they develop another drug that they figure out has an effect. That could happen between now and the vaccine. And we all pray that it does. But until you have the vaccine, until you have the medical treatment, what do you do? How are you building the bridge?

Well, it's going to be a phased reopening, right. And during the phased reopening, the priority is make sure you do no harm and keep your eye on the public health issue. That is what is key in all of this. So it's going to be a calibration of reopening based on public health safety and that infection rate because what we have done, and the reducing of the infection rate, is a pure function of what New Yorkers have done and what people across the country have done. When you relax that social distancing, you could very well see an increase in the infection rate. So it's all a calibration to the public health. But it's going to be a gradual increasing of economic activity in calibration with the public health, public health standards. The single best tool to doing this gauging, right, is large-scale testing. Test, trace and isolate. Just what everybody is talking about. What does this mean? It means you test, find a positive, trace back who they were with, where they were, test those people and you isolate the people who are positive. It's inarguable, it's just very, very hard to do and it opens this new world of testing and this new world of testing is a new world to all of us, by the way.

This diagnostic testing, are you positive or negative? There is then testing for antibodies, were you exposed? If I find out that you were already exposed and had the virus, now you can go back to work because you had the virus, you have antibodies. Antibody testing, once you have the antibodies, you can help develop convalescent plasma where they can take your blood, take those the antibodies and use it as treatment.

There's saliva testing which is faster and easier. It's not blood testing. It's not a swab. It's just saliva. But that's a new form of testing that's just been developed. This finger prick testing which is less invasive but also being developed. There's full-blood sampling testing which is obviously more intrusive.

But to do the testing, you need testing equipment. You need swabs. You need vials and you need all of these things at a capacity that does not now exist. Where do you do the testing? We've been doing the testing in hospitals. Frankly, that's not a great place to do testing. You don't want people walking into a hospital emergency room who may be positive for COVID. Our drive-through locations are better.

But how do you bring that to scale? And then even if you have the equipment and the testing site and the personnel to do the testing, where do you get the labs to test all of these tests? This is a whole world of questions that nobody has ever seen before. The bottom line is, well, you need large-scale testing. Let's do it.

We can't do it yet. That is the unvarnished truth. I know, because New York has been doing this since this started, exploring this new world. We have done more tests than any other state. We've done over 500,000 tests which is more than the other states that are near us combined. Okay? So, we've been very aggressive here. But in all this time, we've only done 500,000 tests. Now that's a large number of tests, yes. But this is over a one-month period and even 500,000 tests, you're talking about a state with 19 million people. So you get a sense of the scale of what we have to do here.

We cannot do it without federal support and I've been saying this for days. If you have a state that has a lower need, yes. They may be able to do it. But when you have a state that has to do a large number of these tests, I'm telling you, we can't do it without federal support and I've said that to day one.

We will coordinate and we have been coordinating all of the tests in our state. That's how we got to that 500,000 number, more aggressive than I think anyone else. We have 228 private laboratories in this state. We will coordinate with them. We'll make sure that we're not competing with ourselves, because there are a lot of groups that are now testing.

New York State Department of Health developed their own antibody test and that test is going to be very important and It's in our control because we'll actually do those tests. We don't need a private lab. We don't need anyone else. With those tests, it will go to about 2,000 per day capacity and that is a finger prick test so it's not terribly invasive. Even I can endure the pain of that one.

We've asked the FDA to approve a state test that could get us to 100,000 people per day. To give you an idea, that's then 500,000 a week, if you don't work the weekends, I don't know if you do and I don't want to raise something I don't know about, but 500,000 a week, we've only been 500,000 to date, right? So you get a sense of how powerful that would be if the FDA approves that.

We're going to prioritize the antibody testing for first responders and essential workers and this is important. We've all been saying thank you to the health care workers and that's nice but I've been talking to George Gresham through this. He's the head of 1199 which represents many health care workers. His point has always been gratitude is appreciated but we need support. The health care workers need the support. They need the PPE equipment and they need the tests to make sure they're not getting infected and if they are infected what is the status. He's been exactly right - more than thank you, actions more than words.

Nurses, the same thing, NYSNA, they've been doing phenomenal work. They need support, they need the equipment, they need time off, they need to recuperate. And the first responders, the NYPD. Pat Lynch, who represents the NYPD, has said to me from day one, my guys need support, "guys" being gender neutral. They're out there every day, they live in the downstate area and they work in the downstate area. Many work—live in Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, and they're working in New York City. They need not only PPE equipment, et cetera, they need testing. They need to know if they've been infected for themselves. And also, they could wind up being spreaders if we don't know. And Pat Lynch and the NYPD have been extraordinary here. Okay, make them a priority for the testing that we can do and we can control, and that's the antibody testing. And we will.

So, the more testing, the more open the economy. But, there's not enough national capacity to do this. I've been speaking to governors across the country. Every governor is now in the same situation. I was speaking with Governor Pritzker of Illinois, he has some companies that do this testing in his state. But everyone is in the same position. And we have to be clear on this, who does what, between the federal government and the state government. The states cannot develop national testing. There's no simple answer to it. It's basically controlled by private sector companies who have been doing it at a reduced volume. Because that was the world. You didn't need such a high level of tests. So the private sector companies only developed to the capacity that the market demanded.

This is an entirely new market and then when you talk to the private sector companies, which I have, they'll say, I can't increase my volume. I can't get enough swabs, I can't get enough vials, I don't have enough machinery to manufacture it or test it. They need chemical agents that are part of the test. Many of these chemical agents aren't even manufactured in the United States. So there's an international supply chain. All this to say, it is very hard to bring this to scale quickly and we need the federal government to be part of this.

Testing capacity, to me, is like what ventilators were over the past month. All of a sudden because of this virus and the respiratory attack, we need massive numbers of ventilators. I never heard about ventilators before this. I now know more than I ever wanted to know about ventilators. But it came out of the blue, they're very hard to manufacture. There's a whole supply chain, they're a sophisticated piece of equipment and you just—it's very hard to get them manufactured quickly. No one is to blame on ventilators. No one is to blame on testing. I know we're in a political world. Well, who's to blame, who's to blame? Sometimes there's nobody to blame, you know? On this testing situation, there's nobody to blame. Just how do we now do it? How do you now scale this up and scale it up quickly, because we want to phase the reopening as fast as we can between now and a medical treatment and a vaccine, right? That's what we're doing.

I do know this, it's along the lesson of ventilators. The answer on testing is not what happened on ventilators, which is 50 states competing against each other to buy testing capacity from these private sector companies and the federal government, which is also buying testing capacity, competing against the 50 states. That is not learning the lesson of what we did before. So partnership with the federal government, 100 percent. But we need that partnership to do this. Once you test, then you have to trace the contacts. So we test Bernadette, Bernadette turns up positive. Okay, who were you with over the past week? What family members were you with? Who do you sit next to in the office? You now have a list of 30 people. If it's Bernadette, even more, because she's highly social, has a lot of friends. Now somebody's got to run down that list of 30 people. From one positive. It's a detective, investigator in the public health space. That is a massive undertaking. It's intelligent, but it's massive. And that is an army of tracers.

So testing, have to get that up to scale. And then tracing, yes, but that's a massive undertaking that we now don't do. So, testing, tracing, isolation. Yes, we have to do that in concert with the federal government. Again, no one's done it before, no one's done it to this volume. And second, for the states to do this role of reopening, we need funding. And the past federal legislation has not provided it. It's that simple. They funded many good causes: hospitals, small business, et cetera. Yeah, but you now want the state governments to do all this work. Do this, do this, do this, do this. Okay, I'll do everything I can. I need your help with the things I can't. But, you have to provide funding because at the same time the state governments are broke. And that's not just me. That's every Governor in the United States.

That's the National Governor's Association, the Chairman Governor Hogan - good man, Republican - and myself, Vice Chairman for the National Governor's Association, wrote a joint letter saying the states need $500 billion in funding because I have to be afloat and have some capacity to do all these things you want the Governor's to now do. And that has to be in the next federal legislation and there can't be excuses about it. So from today to 18 months, which is the last date for a vaccine, that's what we have to work through. First rule, do no harm.

This is a public health crisis, we're still in the woods. Just because that number has plateaued, that doesn't mean it's any time to relax what we're doing. So do no harm, don't go backwards. Hope we find a medical treatment between now and 18 months. In the meantime, testing, tracing, testing, tracing, trying to get that up to scale which is going to be the equivalent of getting Apollo 13 back to Earth, 220,000 miles 50 years ago. It is a very difficult task. It can't be done perfectly, I can tell you that right now but we can do better than we're doing and in the meantime a phased reopening of the economy as educated by testing tracing.

Now one other point on the phased reopening, what does that mean and how do we phase this reopening until we get to a medical treatment or a vaccine? This is what we're thinking about. We need clarity on what the federal government is going to do and what the state governments are going to do. I heard the President last night, it's up to the states basically. Great, I get it. The states can do the do no harm. It is their job to do the public health monitoring. The states can also do the phased reopening pan. We cannot do the states that have a large problem cannot do the testing and tracing without federal assistance and that's important.

On the reopening, we can do, and we have a blueprint for the reopening, again as guided by the testing-tracing, but there are two factors really on the reopening. How essential is the business, service or product or function? The more essential a business, service or product, the more urgent the need to immediately get them back online, or as soon as possible. So, how essential is what the business does and then second, what is the risk on infection spread of that business? Some businesses can say I can open tomorrow. In my business I can have all sorts of precautions, people will not be less than six feet apart. Period. There will be no congregation of people. I won't do conferences, I won't do joint meetings, it's not the way my business operates. I can bring everybody back, put them at separate desks, they'll never be near each other. I have a very low risk of infection spread. Businesses can start to redesign their workplace to think that way.

Alright, so your business poses a low risk of infection spread. That's the second factor and the first factor is how essential is your business? So that is almost a business by business evaluation that has to go on. And then once you determine the essential nature of the business, because right now we have all "essential workers" who are working, right? This would be, now what's the next tranche of essential workers and how high or low is the possibility of infection spread if that business becomes operational. Then you basically have a matrix where the lower risk of infection spread and the higher nature of essential services are the businesses that you would start prioritizing, right? So that's how we will inform our economic reopening as we're being guided by the testing-tracing and as we're making sure we're not jeopardizing the success we've made in handling the public health issue. That's the whole outline, the whole vision from here to 18 months, building that bridge to the new normal for the economy until we get to a conclusion.

In the meantime, for today, stop the spread. I'm going to show you a chart in the next couple of days. We've been tracking the infection rate which is, what? Which is one person -- how many people does one person infect? Does one person infect one person, two people, three people? That rate of infection is the difference between a manageable situation and a pandemic. And they can -- they can calibrate that for what Wuhan did, where we are now and where we were, and it is a fascinating analysis.

In the meantime, what do we do today? We have to continue to stop the spread and this is a constant calibration also. I'm going to issue an executive order that says all people in public must have a mask or nose covering -- mouth and nose covering, and they must wear it in a situation where you cannot, or are not maintaining social distancing. Meaning what? Meaning the same thing we've been saying from day one. If you're going to be in public, and you cannot maintain social distancing, then have a mask and put the mask on when you're not in socially distant places. You're walking down the street, you're walking down the street alone, great.

You're now at an intersection and there are people in the intersection and you're going to be in proximity to other people, put the mask on. You're right to go out for a walk in the park, go out for a walk because you need to get out of the house, the dog is getting on your nerves. Fine, don't infect me. You don't have a right to infect me. If you are going to be in a situation in public where you may come into contact with other people in a situation that is not socially distanced, you must have a mask or a cloth covering nose and mouth. That is by executive order. So, if you're going to get on public transit, you're going to get on a bus, you're going to get on a subway, you're going to stand on a subway platform, you're going to walk in a neighborhood that is busy, you're going to be on a sidewalk, you're going to pass other people on a sidewalk, you're not going to able to maintain social distancing, you must wear a mask or cloth or an attractive bandana or a color-coordinated bandana cloth, but you have to wear it in those situations. We'll give people three-day notice to allow compliance. Just on the off chance that somebody doesn't have a cloth covering or a mask, and we'll go from there.

On the ventilators, we've stabilized the health care situation. New York had one of the earlier curves. There are other places in this country now seeing increases in the death rate and seeing stress on their health care system. I will never forget the generosity that people across this country showed to our state and I said at that time, New Yorkers are generous and they are grateful and gracious and when you need help we will be there for you and we will be.

The state of Michigan is going through an issue right now. The State of Maryland is going through an issue. We're stabilized. We're going to send 100 ventilators to Michigan and 50 to the state of Maryland.

Last point, personal opinion. Build a bridge. We built a bridge and I learned a lot by building that bridge and it's a lesson that has informed me and a lesson that I think should inform people who are hearing about us needing to build this bridge.

It was a bridge across the Hudson River called the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was in very bad shape, had been in bad shape for 20 years. For 20 years everybody talked about we're going to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge. Nobody did it.

It was in such bad shape that there were actual holes in the roadway that they would put these large metal plates over and when you would drive across the Tappan Zee you would go over one of these metal plates and the plate would bounce a little bit and you could actually see glimmers of light that would come through the hole and metal plate. Traumatized two generations of drivers, me included. Government kept saying, yeah, we have to replace this bridge, we have to replace the bridge. Never did.

I become Governor. I say we have to replace the bridge. A whole wrath of bureaucrats say to me, in a nice way, you know what, it's too risky a venture. It goes across the Hudson River, the Hudson River's an environmentally sensitive place. You try to build a bridge in the Hudson River, you have to put down piles, you have to do all that construction. It's going to annoy environmental concerns, it's going to be very expensive, it's a very high-risk, difficult project. They cautioned me not to do it. By the way, for 20 years nobody had done it. I said yeah, but then you don't build the bridge. I understand the risk. I understand you could get blamed, I understand something could happen, I understand whatever you do in life people are going to have 57 different opinions and it's never going to be perfect. Yes, they can always write stories, this one criticized this, this one criticized this - we love negative in society for some reason. But then you don't get anything done.

Long story short, we built a bridge. On time, on budget. It's beautiful. We did go through all the heartburn of going through a construction project in the public domain. Yes, many people criticized. We picked blue, they wanted green. We did this, they wanted that. That's the nature of people. But, we did it. It is a beautiful symbol for me and for anyone who sees it. Don't tell me that we can't do it because I know that we can do it. Because we did do it and we did it very well.

Have we dealt with a situation like this? Can we build a bridge that takes us from today to 18 months? Yes. Yes, because we are bridge builders, that's what we do. We build bridges. Sometimes literally, sometimes symbolically, sometimes metaphorically, but we build bridges. The bridges can be a bridge, can be an airport. It can be a new civil rights legislation, new labor rights legislation, new minimum wage legislations, but we build bridges. That's what we do in New York and we're going to do this.

2020-04-16 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. In case anyone doesn’t know anyone who was here today, from my far right, Dr. Malatras, not really a doctor, Dr. Zucker who is really a doctor. To my left, Melissa DeRosa secretary to the governor. To her left, Robert Mujica, budget director. Let’s give you some facts today. My man, Sergeant Joe Friday, just the facts, ma’am. My daughters say nobody understands who Joe Friday is. That’s their mistake. Dragnet was an underappreciated, cinematic treasure in my opinion. Joe Friday, just the facts, just the facts. They’re just the facts.

Hospitalization rate is down from 18,000 to 17,000 mark. That is good news. Total hospitalizations down. You talk about the flattening of the curve, the apex. How long is it flat? When does it start to curve? We don’t know, but this is a good sign today. If you look at the net change in hospitalizations, it’s down more significantly than it has been. So that’s positive news, three day average, which again is more accurate than the day-to-day counts. I’m a little skeptical about the day-to-day counts. This is all a new reporting system, but the three-day average is more reliable. ICU admissions number is also down significantly for the first time, so that’s good news.

Intubations is down, and that’s really good news because the intubations ultimately lead to the worst news. 80% roughly of people who get intubated never come off the ventilator. The number of new people who are diagnosed with COVID, about 2,000 still yesterday. So when you see the reduction in rates, remember what we’re talking about, we’re talking about a reduction in increases. You still have 2,000 people every day about who are walking into a hospital for the first time or who were being diagnosed with COVID for the first time. And 2,000 is still a lot of people. But the good news is it means we can control the virus, right? We can control the spread. And we did not know for sure that we could do that, we speculated that we could do it, but we didn’t know. So now we know that we can control this disease. The bad news is 2,000 people walked into a hospital yesterday for the first time with a disease, and the worst news is 600 people died yesterday from the disease.

That is still continuing at a really tragic, tragic rate. Of those deaths, 577 in hospitals, 29 in nursing homes. We’ve been watching the nursing homes because nursing homes in many ways are ground zero for this situation. Last night, the number in nursing homes was relatively low. Everyone asks the same two questions, when is it over, and how do we get there? How do we start to make our way from here to there? When is it over? As I’ve said when is it finally over? It’s over when you have a vaccine, and that’s 12 months to 18 months. We’ve said to the FDA any way we can be helpful in the testing of that vaccine, how do we accelerate that? How do we expedite it? New York is ready, willing, and able to do that with the FDA.

Maybe there’s a medical treatment between now and the vaccine, that would be great. But those are unknowns and it’s out of our bailiwick. We are working with a lot of companies that are working on treatments. We’re testing treatments in our hospitals, but that’s a pure medical research and development function, which is beyond us. At the same time, how do we unpause New York? New York is now on pause, how do we unpause it? First, do no harm. Don’t let that infection rate go up to the best of your ability. Don’t lose the progress that you have made. Second, now go back that we have some stability and we can actually work with the healthcare system, which we had on overdrive for many, many weeks. And we had increased the capacity as you remember, every hospital had to increase capacity 50%. Just think about that. 50% more beds, staffing those beds during this horrific period. Now we have a chance to be more intelligent frankly about handling our healthcare system, testing and tracing, testing and tracing, testing and tracing. And we need the federal government to work with us on that. And then phasing an economic return to the ‘new normal’.

Those are all activities that are going on at the same time, and that’s our plan to ‘unpause New York’. You stopped everything, how do you now restart that machine in a coordinated way that doesn’t drive up the infection rate? That’s the balance that we’re trying to strike. On unpausing and having businesses open, that is a nuanced question. There’s no light switch, it’s not all businesses go back. It’s what business is, what do they do, what risks do they pose, and what changes can they make in their business to make them more safe? This is not just government deciding, it’s government deciding with private businesses who now have to take a look at this new normal, this new reality and tell us how they think they can adjust to it.

One of our questions in evaluations is how essential is that business service? You have to start somewhere. Right now we have the economy working with what are ‘essential workers’. That’s why the grocery store is open, that’s why public transit is running. So we want to start to bring the economy back, move up one traunch on how you define essential, what’s the next level of essential businesses? Are there certain businesses that are inherently safer or can be safer? And then let’s talk about how we reopen them and where we reopen them. And these are all questions that we have to work through on a case by case basis. But there is a matrix, and the matrix is how important is the business to society? How essential a service, and how risky is that business from a rate of infection? And obviously, the more essential a business, the lower the risk, the more they are a priority.

And then how do you do it? You do it in phases of priority, and then you phase it up the way we phased down, which is by percentages. And this is going to be an ongoing process over the coming weeks that we’re working through with the other states. But the what, the how, the when, looking at how important that business is and what the risk that business poses. And then do it in coordination with our other states because this is really a regional issue, and it should be addressed on that basis. Coordinating with the other states doesn’t mean we’ll always be in lock step, but we’ll talk through everything first and hopefully we’re not doing something that’s contradictory to another state at a minimum. And so far so good on that exercise. And then analysis is ongoing. But it’s not going to be all about what government does, what government does.

The private sector now has to think about what they do and how they do it and how they can do it differently in this new normal, reimagine your workplace. And we learned a lot through this situation, people worked from home. Well, how many people can continue to work from home and the business still work? How do you socially distance in the workplace? Can you socially distance in your workplace? What are your new normal procedures and practices? How do you think you’re going to get workers back and forth? And what precautions would you take? In the workplace, how would people work and where would they sit or where would they stand? And how do you do it without conference meetings, and how do you do it without gatherings? How are you going to interact with the public in a way that keeps the public safe? We’re talking about businesses that pose a lower risk, tell us how you intend to organize and conduct your business, and can you do it in a way that poses a lower risk, and what would you do with your workforce to make sure if an

… To our workforce, to make sure if an infection happens that we can jump on it quickly.

And then as we’re going through all this planning, this is going to be a moment of transformation for society. And we paid a very high price for it. But how do we learn the lessons so that this new normal is a better New York. And there are lessons that we must learn from this because we do need to do things differently, or we can do things differently, and we can do things better.

Part of the way across that bridge is testing. It is the single best tool to inform decisions and to calibrate all of this. This new testing world is a new frontier for all of us. New York state has been very aggressive about doing testing. We set a very ambitious goal when we began, and I’m happy to say they did it. We’ve done 500,000 tests in 30 days. That’s more than California, Florida and Michigan combined. And this is all about figuring it out first and taking a system that frankly didn’t exist and creating this testing system and this testing regimen. 500,000 tests in one month. That sounds great, and it was great. It was a great accomplishment. And congratulations to everyone who put it together.

But when you think of 500,000 tests in one month, and then you compare it to the fact that you have 19 million people in this state, you have 9 million workers so 500,000 doesn’t sound so big. So we have many questions to answer. Where do you test? How do you get the supplies? How do you coordinate the private labs? How do you coordinate the demand going to these private lab? Everybody wants testing. Private sector companies are calling for testing, and they’re going right to the labs. Everyone is going right to these labs, and 50 states are competing, and the federal government is buying product from these labs. This has to be figured out. And it can only be figured out in partnership with the federal government. On top of that, once you go from testing, you have to trace every person who comes up positive. Trace means investigate, investigate all those prior contacts. And then one contact, you test that person, leads you to another person. So the tracing investigators are really assembling an army that does not now exist.

I spoke to the White House again this morning about it. I understand that this is a problematic area, and the federal government’s not eager to get involved in testing. I get that. But the plain reality here is we have to do it in partnership with the federal government.

You’re talking about supply chains that go back to China. A state does not have the capacity to do that. And there’s no reason why you would have 50 states each trying to figure this out on their own, competing with the federal government, competing with the private sector. So I’m very much looking forward to the federal government’s willingness to tackle this, understanding that it will be imperfect at best. But if we work together, we can do better than any of us could do alone. And that’s what this is all about. You’re not going to achieve optimum performance. You can’t put together this national system with perfection. So people are understandably reluctant to get involved, but understanding the risk and understanding that it’s never going to be done perfectly, if we work together, we can do better. And that’s what we have to actually accomplish.

We have to strengthen the health healthcare system. Our surge and flex, which is the first time we’ve ever called upon all these hospitals to work together and coordinate. Every hospital was basically its own enterprise. And then we go back and say, well, you all have to work together and coordinate, and we’re going to help you coordinate. It was the first time that’s ever happened. We understand about a stockpile like we’ve never understood before. We understand about sharing resources like we’ve never understood before. And we understand about sharing among states and how good people were to New York when we needed it. And states stepping up and sending us ventilators. And I said New Yorkers don’t forget. And New Yorkers are the most generous and most gracious and will be there when people need help.

New Jersey is still looking at their curve rising. The wave hasn’t crested in New Jersey. They’re our neighbors, anything we can do to help. I’ve told Governor Murphy all he has to do is ask. We’re here, and we’re going to send 100 ventilators to New Jersey.

But the key to all of this, the calibration is the infection rate. And this gets a little technical, but I need people to really understand this. Why don’t you open tomorrow? Because we’re afraid the infection rate will go up. And everything we’ve been doing is to slow the infection rate. Well, how do you track the infection rate? We don’t. We don’t track infection rates. We see hospitalization rates, which are different. A hospitalization rate is a person who got infected and became seriously ill so they had to go to the hospital. But we don’t know how many people have been infected or are getting infected. We only know at this point how many people walk into a hospital or how many people get tested in a nursing home.

If you have advanced testing, then you’ll have a better idea of what percent of your population has actually been exposed. That’s where the antibody testing is all about. But the key is, as you’re making this calibration on the reopening of the economy, as you’re bringing more people out of their homes, how fast is that virus spreading? And how quickly is that infection rate rising? Dr. Fauci said early on that this virus spreads. It does it very well. And we know that, and we’ve learned it the hard way. The rate of infection is everything. All those early projection models assumed a higher rate of infection, a higher rate of spread. That’s why they were calling for so many more hospital beds, many more mortalities because they projected a higher rate of spread. That has not happened so far. Caveat, so far. We’ve controlled the beast. We brought the rate of spread down. If their rate of spread actually happened, we would’ve been in a much, much worse situation. And we would have been in a really bad place. I mean their projections were staggering. And it didn’t happen because we slowed the models.

But remember what they were talking about, CDC, which is supposed to be the preeminent source, 160 million to 214 million people infected, they were projecting. That was only March 13th. That’s what the CDC was projecting. You know how many 160 to 214 million are? Now we only have 328 million people in the country. They were projecting more than half of the population, and maybe two thirds of the population, infected. And that was only a month ago. They were saying 2.4 million people to 21 million people would be hospitalized. Do you know how many that is? We only have 900,000 hospital beds in the nation. They were saying by their projection, a minimum of twice as many people would need hospital beds as we have hospital beds. Just imagine that. That was the CDC.

The White House Coronavirus Task Force, the same thing. The White House Coronavirus Task Force was saying 1.5 to 2.2 million deaths. Deaths. And that was the White House Coronavirus Task Force as of March 31, Best case scenario, 100 to 240,000 with mitigation efforts. March 31, just over two weeks ago.

So, and that’s why all of these models said the same thing. They were all believing a higher infection rate. Now, and that’s McKinsey, and that’s Columbia, and that’s Cornell. That’s all of them. That’s the Gates-funded model. They were all projecting a higher infection rate. We slowed the infection rate by our actions, and that’s why we’re in a better position today.

Now, what does the infection rate mean? And I know this gets a little granular, but people have to understand it if they’re going to understand why we need to do what we need to do. The infection rate is how many people does one person infect. How fast is the virus spreading from one person to another? And they talk about the R nought factor. The R nought factor is the projected spread of the virus. If one person infects less than one other person, the disease is on the decline. If one person basically infects one more person, the rate of spread is stable. I get infected, I infect one, one person infects one. When you have a really situation out of control is one first person infects two people or more because then the increase is just exponential. And that’s fire through dry grass.

This is what they were all trying to project, and this is what we have to control as we start to reopen the economy. We say we turn the valve on the economy, we open a little bit, and we watched the meter. What’s the meter? The meter is the hospitalization rate, or even better, the virus spread rate. So you start to turn that valve, you start to bring people out of their homes, you start to reopen businesses, you see that number going up, turn the valve back right away. And this is what we’re trying to deal with going forward. And again, nobody has been here before so we’re trying to figure it out.

If one person, if the virus spread increases to the place where one person infects two people, that is an outbreak. If one person is only infecting one other person, that is basically a stable increase. Ideally one person is infecting less than one person, and that is a decline of the spread of the virus. And that’s what we’re shooting for. Just to belabor this one more point, where you’ve seen an outbreak epidemic spread, it’s when one person is infecting more than one other person. That’s when you’re out of control. On the Diamond Princess cruise, the infection rate was one person infects 2.2 additional people. Wuhan was one person was infecting two people or three people. The 1918 pandemic, one person was infecting one and a half to 2.8. On our severe projection, one person was infecting 1.4 to 1.8. On the moderate projection, one person was infecting 1.2 to 1.4. What we’ve done because of our mitigation efforts, social distancing, stay home, lock the door, we’ve brought it to less than one. Our infection spread rate is 0.9. Wuhan, which really closed down everything, everything, everything and locked it up, Wuhan brought the infection rate down to 0.3. So that’s the range we’re talking about.

But when you think about that, we’re now 0.9, we only have a margin of error of 0.9 to 1.2. 1.2 takes you back to the high projection rate. We’re at 0.9. That does not leave you a lot of wiggle room. So you’re going to start to phase the reopening. You’re at 0.9 now after this entire close down. If you go to 1.2, you’re going to have a problem again.

So you see how narrow the window is. But New York Pause has worked, the close down has worked. That’s how we control the beast. That’s how we got it down to 0.9. However, we’re not there yet. We’re just at 0.9. Again, Wuhan got down to 0.3. So we have to continue doing what we’re doing. I’d like to see that infection rate get down even more. The New York Pause policies, the close down policies, will be extended in coordination with other states to May 15th. I don’t want to project beyond that period. That’s about one month. One month is a long time. People need certainty and clarity so they can plan. I need a coordinated action plan with the other states, so one month we’ll continue the close down policies. What happens after then? I don’t know. We will see, depending on what the data shows. What does that mean? Tell me what our infection rates spread is. Is it 0.9? Is it 1.0? Is it 0.7? Tell me what the hospital…

Is it point nine, is it one, is it point seven? Tell me what the hospitalization rate is and then the experts will tell us the best course of conduct based on that data. No political decisions, no emotional decisions, data and science. We’re talking about human lives here. As relatively simple and possibly annoying as it seems. Wearing a mask is one of the best things that we can do. And I understand I’m getting a lot of not happy phone calls of what I said yesterday about wearing a mask in public, but I’m sorry it makes people unhappy. I do not consider it a major burden and it really is a simple measure that can save lives. And yes, people say it’s a personal intrusion on them, but again, remember it’s not just about you, right? I have rights also and my kids have rights and your kids have rights and you have a right for another person to take reasonable safeguards not to get infected.

So the masks work. We said in public today I’m going to include public transportation systems, private transportation carriers for hire vehicles, any operator of a public system and operator of a private carrier and for hire vehicles must wear a mask at all times. What does this mean? If you get on the bus, you need to wear a mask. If you get an a train, you need to wear a mask. If you get into a private car service, Uber, Lyft, the operator needs to wear a mask. If you get on a private bus, the operator needs to wear a mask and you need to wear a mask on a private carrier. So is this inconvenient? Yes, but you’re in a closed environment. By definition, you’re not socially distancing. By definition, you’re the front seat of a car to a back seat of a car. You’re one seat in a bus to another seat in the bus.

This is a precaution for everyone that I think balances individual liberties with a social conscience. This will going into affect Friday 8:00 PM. Ultimately what determines the rate of infection? You do, and I do. That’s what this all comes down to. As simple as it sounds, it’s not about government. It’s not about anything else. It’s about what people decide to do and what people have decided to do. They have brought this infection rate down. It’s that simple. Nurses, doctors did a phenomenal job. First responders did a phenomenal job. Essential workers did a phenomenal job. But that rate came down because people changed their behavior. That’s what happened. It is about the behavior of our people. It’s that simple. It’s our behavior. It’s our level of discipline. It’s how we educate our children. It’s how considerate we are of others, what we’re willing to do to safeguard others’ health in our community.

That’s what makes all the difference on what we’re doing. And it is the simple things. It’s wearing a mask. It’s washing your hands, it’s the hand sanitizer, it’s the social distance. It’s making sure your children understand what to do, what not to do. It’s all of these simple procedures that seem almost insignificant but on a collective basis make all the difference in the world, and it is making smart choices. I want to get out of the house. I’m going crazy. I need to do this. I need to do this. I know, but be smart, be smart and engage what you’re doing relative to everyone else and relative to the overall goal. But I will tell you, and I don’t know that people truly appreciated this. I don’t know that I did. Of all the unique aspects that we have learned going through this, the most positive and the most surprising to me has been how people have responded.

The policies that I have communicated are not worth the paper they are printed on. I could stand up here as governor and say, “We must do this. We must do this. We must do this.” These are some of the most life changing policies government has ever issued. Think about it. This is not government saying, here’s your tax rate. Here’s age of voting. This is government saying, stay in your house. Don’t touch another person. Wear a mask. Government, I don’t even have the ability to enforce these measures on any scale. If people said, I’m not willing to do it.

So these policies, which are difficult, which are life changing, they are being implemented by people because people are choosing to do the right thing. It is that simple. And what this is all about today, the masks on transportation. I trust in New Yorkers. I believe if the facts are presented to the people in this state, New Yorkers will do the right thing. What is the right thing? There’s always the right thing. It is the appropriate path that is socially and morally correct. And New Yorkers have a very strong right thing quotient. They know what the right thing is when they hear it. And all I’m trying to do is give them the facts and the information to explain why I’m suggesting these actions.

They decide whether or not to follow them. I can’t put a mask on 17 million people. 17 million people will decide whether or not they’ll do it. But they have done it, because they have the facts, they have the information, they understand the risks, they understand the rewards, they understand the consequences. And what they have done has worked. And it’s brought this state forward. And it’ll bring this nation forward. And that’s New Yorkers at their best. And that’s because we are New York tough. And because New York tough is more complex than the word suggests. It’s smart, it’s united, it’s disciplined and it’s loving. And New Yorkers have proven that time and time again every day for 46 days.

2020-04-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Friday. Weekend is almost here. Whatever that means. I’m not sure when someone figures it out I’m sure they’ll tell me. Let’s talk about where we are today in terms of the data. Total hospitalizations ticked down. Again, that is good news just to tick, but we’ll take it. It’s better than going up. Again, this is one day, but it is flattening, reducing slightly depending on your point of view. This is sort of a test that you’re an optimist or are you a pessimist. Pessimistic would say we’re basically flat. Optimists would say, I think we’re starting to trend down, so it’s a personality test. Net change in total hospitalizations is undeniably on the decline. The three day average, which is more accurate than any one day number also says the same thing. The ICU admissions is down. That’s not that telling to me because as I said, the entire hospital is now basically an ICU ward. But the number of intubations is down and that is very good news because intubations 80% of the time wind up in a person not recovering. So that’s really good news. The reality and the counter narrative, counter fact, number of new cases that walked in the door, COVID cases walked in the door of a hospital is still about 2,000 per day and that is still very high. So that yes, fewer people in the hospital, fewer people being intubated, but still 2,000 people walking in the door and if you notice it’s hovered about the same rate for several weeks, it peaked, but 2,000 that’s a very high number.

Number of deaths unfortunately refuses to come down dramatically. 630 that is still breathtaking in its pain and grief and tragedy and basically flat. Again, like many of the other numbers, just in terms of overall context where are we, where are we going? Everybody wants to ask that question every day and I understand that. We have to get to tomorrow. What is the final conclusion of this ugly chapter? I still believe it’s when we have a vaccine. When people know that this virus is totally controlled, that’s 12 to 18 months. Hopefully, it can be sooner. Maybe there’s a medical treatment in between. We hope. We pray. A lot of medical companies, are working very hard on it right here in this state, all across the country. That would totally change the trajectory. People who were looking for a quick fix, a quick answer, it would be a medical treatment.

That would be the quick fix and that’s when of a vaccine. That would be a quick fix. In the meantime, it’s going to be an incremental process between today and tomorrow. As much as people don’t want to hear that, that’s the truth. You’re not going to hear any day soon it’s over. The nightmare ends and we wake up. It’s going to be incremental and we have to be smart as we do this. Do no harm control the rate of infection, as we go through this. We also have a lot of work to do operationally in terms of the healthcare system and now testing, which I’ll talk about in a minute. The testing, tracing is the guideposts through this, right? As we’re working our way over the next several months, the testing, which is informing us as to who can go back to work, helping us isolate people. It’s about testing and testing is a totally new challenge. Nobody has done this and what we need to do on testing.

And then phasing the ramp up of the economy to the new normal as we do this. Again, in terms of perspective, I think of it this way, our whole response thus far basically has been a response to a crisis, right? And as the numbers start to come down and as people start to take a deep breath and people start to feel we can control the beast, which we can, and they take comfort in the fact that we can control the beast, which I do. I was afraid this thing was uncontrollable and that despite everything we did, the numbers were going to continue to go through the roof. And by the way, nobody could tell you otherwise, but we proved we can control the beast. We can reduce the rate of infection. We did that by our response to the crisis credit to all New Yorkers, all Americans, they flatten the curve.

Nobody else, no government agency, no public health expert. People’s actions flatten the curve. We responded to the crisis that’s sorts of all in this first response. First phase, bring down that infection rate. The infection rate was one person infected 1.4 other people. That’s when an epidemic breaks out. That’s fire through dry grass, right? That’s what we talked about yesterday. We have the infection rate down to 0.9, one person infects 0.9 other people. I’ve never met a 0.9 person, but the infection rate is less than one to one that then sees the outbreak starting to subside. The numbers starting to come down, which is what we’re seeing in the numbers. So we did that. This is all in our response to the crisis and let’s say it’s from minute one to where we are today. This is all been crisis response. Bring down the infection rate we did that. Bring up the hospital system to this projection level, which would have been impossible, but ramp up that hospital system so when you have all these new infected people, you can handle it.

You don’t overwhelm the public health system. You don’t have people dying in hallways. Which is what we saw in Italy on TV, right? That’s all phase one. That’s critical response. Hurry up, get it done every day is vital. Drastic measures taken quickly in a coordinated way. That’s phase one. We’re still in that phase because you still have 2,000 people coming in the door every day. So don’t get cocky, don’t get arrogant. We’re in control. No, you’re not in crisis because you can control the beast, but you’re only controlling the beast because of what you’re doing. That’s where we are. We’re starting to transition to another place. What’s the other place? It’s going to be the second half of this situation, which is an pausing, right? The situation we’re in now is unsustainable. People can’t stay in their homes for this length of time. They can’t stay out of work.

You can’t keep the economy closed forever. You just can’t. Society can’t handle it personally or economically. So now we’re moving into another phase, which is this reopening phase. How do you plan the reopening? Nobody’s ever done this before and how do you plan a reopening of an economy and at the same time be cognizant of the public health crisis that you are still in, right? We have the infection rate down to 0.9, one person is infecting 0.9%, less than a person. Okay. The epidemic outbreak percentage is 1.2, one person infecting 1.2. You only have between 0.9 and 1.2 is a margin of error. We have to reopen. We have to reopen. We have to reopen. Yeah. You only have a very slim margin to operate on. You open too fast, you bring people out too fast. You’ll get to 1.2 in three days and we’ll be right back to where we started, so that’s the, I want to get out of my house versus a public health balance that we’re talking about.

How do you measure this? How do you calibrate it? You have to develop a testing capacity that does not now exist and then you test people on a higher volume than ever before. You then trace them to find other positives and then you isolate them. In the meantime, we have to stabilize the state’s finances because we have a terrible economic deficit, we’re spending money every day that we’ve never dreamed of spending. We’re asking all these hospitals to do things, all these local governments to do things. We’re paying and we’re paying when we’re in a position where we don’t have any money, which is also an unsustainable position in life. You can’t keep writing checks if you have no balance in your account. It doesn’t work longterm. One point they come and they knock on the door. I don’t know who knocks on the door when you’re a state government, but somebody is going to come knock on the door, so that’s where we are overall. The next frontier is going to be testing. We don’t have a testing system that can do this volume or that can be ramped up to do this volume. We don’t have a public health testing system by the way. It’s de minimus. If you look at what our government departments of health have, it’s a relatively de minimus capacity. Well, what’s our private sector testing capacity? That’s relatively de minimus also, think about what we’re talking about. We’re talking about labs that normally operate to do blood testing. If you need a marriage license, you have to give up. If you have your child is sick, they send them for a strep test. The doctor says, go take a blood test for allergies, you go. When you go to a lab to have blood drawn. That’s basically the system we’re talking about. That system does not do large scale COVID testing. This COVID testing first in and of itself is a very complicated new test. It’s not as simple as drawing blood and getting it tested. This test in and of itself is complicated and expensive and you don’t have the network that does that. It does not exist. This is where we were with the hospitals.

We came up with what we call surgeon flux. What happened with the hospitals when this started, we started seeing these much higher numbers that would overwhelm a hospital system. Well, how do we ramp up the hospital system? You don’t really have a public hospital system. Downstate New York, you have about 100 hospitals. You only have about 15 of those 100 are public hospitals. The rest are all private hospitals, voluntary hospitals, but there are private hospitals. We had to get those private hospitals to work with government in a coordinated way. Never happened before. Extraordinarily difficult. We did it, but it was a phenomenal undertaking. You now have 300 laboratories in hospitals across the state that do virology testing. How do we get 300 private labs and hospitals to become one system statewide to do testing for COVID and how do we get them all coordinated? This is something that has never been done before and is going to be a tremendous undertaking. Also, to further complicate it what they will tell you now, because we’ve been having the conversations. The labs, if they can get the test, which they have to purchase from private sector companies.

The tests require certain chemical reagents to operate. So you take a sample and then you mix it with other chemicals. They can’t get the chemicals that they need to mix to do the test. Well who has the chemicals? No one has the chemicals because everybody has been overrun with demand and the chemicals come out of where? China. Where everything has come from over the past 40 days. Everything goes back to China and China is now in a position where they’re being asked globally for these reagent chemicals and that is a piece of the equation that I can’t figure out. That’s why the federal government has to be part of this approach and part of this answer. I can do what I can do on the state side and I will. I’m going to issue an executive order that says the Department of Health will be coordinating those private sector labs, which are private sector companies, but they are licensed by the state of New York.

They’re permitted by the state of New York and we need them to step up and work together. But the federal government cannot wipe their hands of this and say, “Oh, the states are responsible for testing.” We cannot do it. We cannot do it without federal help. I’m willing to do what I can do and more, but I’m telling you I don’t do China relations. I don’t do international supply chain and that’s where the federal government can help. Also remember the federal government at the same time is developing testing capacity. So we wind up in this bizarre situation that we were in last time, 50 States all competing for these precious resources. In this case it’s testing and then the federal government comes in and says to those companies, I want to buy the tests also. This is mayhem. We need a coordinated approach between the federal government and the states.

Second thing that is of a meeting concern is we have to stabilize the finances of the state. The federal government has passed three bills to address this crisis. Of those three bills, the state governments have gotten precisely zero, zilch, nada in unrestricted aid. The state should this, the state should this, the state should this. Yes. Well, what support have you given the states? None. I mean, how can that even be, how is it even plausible as a strategy? It doesn’t work. We need financial resources to stabilize the states because when you starve the state governments… I still eat, Dr. Zucker’s still eats. But we can’t fund schools, we can’t fund hospitals, we can’t fund small business, we can’t fund all these extraordinary efforts that we’re undertaking. It makes no sense. We need to support the states because the states are the ones who are doing this. Reopening is up to the states, right? That’s the federal decree. It’s up to the governors. The governors will decide. The states have to decide…

-to the governors, the governors will decide, the states have to decide. Everyone is in a different position and it’s up to the states, which I agree. It also happens to be the constitution. But put that aside. I also think it’s the right approach.

Okay, it’s up to the states, but then don’t ask the states, don’t give them this massive undertaking that has never been done before and then not give them any resources to do it. That’s not how this is going to work. The expression don’t pass the buck without passing the bucks, A.J. Parkinson. Mark remembers him. Don’t ask the states to do this. It’s up to the governors, up to the governors, up to the governors. Okay. Is there any funding? So I can do these things that you want us to do? No. That is passing the buck without passing the bucks. Passing the buck, which is the opposite of the buck stops here. The buck doesn’t stop here. I’m passing the buck and I’m not passing the bucks. I’m not giving the financial assistance to actually perform the responsibility.

So last point is we go from today to tomorrow, but we talk about the new normal. This also has to be an opportunity where after this horrendous period that we have gone through on every level, after the exorbitant cost of this, the personal pain of this, the death of this, this has to be one of those moments in time when we look back where we say society transformed. It was a learning and growth and transformational period where growth and evolution was accelerated. Yes, society took a terrible blow, but it became a moment of reflection where all sorts of new reforms and innovations happen.

That’s what we have to do with this period when they look back at it. So our goal is not let’s get up and turn the machine back on and keep going the way we were. No. How do you make the changes now that you’ve been talking about in some cases for years, by the way, but you never had the political will to do it? Or it was too hard, or it was too difficult. We talk about environmental changes that we’re going to make, but we never really do it. We talk about issues of income inequality, but we never really get there. We talk about changes to our public transit system, but it’s too hard, it’s too controversial. All right, well now you have an opportunity in this window to really make changes and reforms and improve things in a way you haven’t. And by the way, if you went through this and you went through this pain and aggravation and suffering and you didn’t learn, well, then shame on us. Then shame on us. Because there are so many lessons to learn and then you’ve come back better than you were. 9/11, New York took a terrible beating. This nation took a terrible beating. We learned from it. We grew, we’re better. 9/11 transformed the country. If I told you before 9/11 you were going to take off your shoes when you went to an airport before you could get on an airplane and they were going to go through every bag and every, you would say, “I’m never doing that.” 9/11 said, this is a different world. Look at all the security measures we now have post 9/11 that we would have never envisioned.

We went through Hurricane Sandy. We didn’t build back what was. You build back better than before. You take that moment. You learn that lesson and you improve society. We have to do that here, and we have to do it affirmatively. It doesn’t just happen. You have to say, we paused, New York paused. You paused, you reflect, you learn, you grow and you move forward.

Look at what we learned about the public health system. You know what we learned about the public health system? There is no public health system capacity. Hospitals had the number of beds they needed to operate. Well, what in case of an emergency? There was no emergency capacity in hospitals. Nobody had beds left empty. Oh, that wing is in case there’s an emergency. Then we would use that wing. It didn’t exist. Why not? Well, that’s not what we did. So how do you improve the public health system? How do you improve the emergency response? Well, we never had to deal with a pandemic before.

By the way, what is a pandemic? Okay, well now we did. And now let’s learn and how will we going to be ready for the next situation like this because there will be another. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know when it is. I don’t know if this virus comes back in a second wave, but there will be something, and we have to be ready and better for it.

And not just what you learned, but what have we been talking about doing that we should be doing that this is now an opportunity to do? We’ve been talking about re-imagining the workforce and workplace. Does everybody actually have to drive in to the office every day? Or did we learn that there are ways to telecommute and work from home where it’s actually more efficient, it’s actually more effective?

What are we doing about our transit system and how do we make it safer? Not just the way we’ve been talking about, but also from a public health point of view. And how will we now smarter about public interactions? I can’t tell you how many doctors now have come to me and said, ” I said for years we shouldn’t be shaking hands. That is just a total way to transmit germs and viruses, et cetera.” So how do we take this moment, since we are paused anyway and actually come back smarter?

I also believe it’ll work. It’s a moment of personal reflection. We’ve been in a different circumstance, we’ve been in a different circumstance vis-a-vis our family. What have we learned during this heartbreak and during this crisis? I’ve spent a lot of time with my kids, 22, 25, twins, two 25s. My interactions with my kids had gotten so superficial over these past few years. Everyone’s busy, busy, busy. So what do you need? Everything good. You need anything from me? When do I see you? I miss you. That was the same conversation over and over and over. Now I’ve got time to sit with them and really have in depth conversations that I hadn’t had in a long time.

And I’ll tell you, one of the things I learned is I was missing a lot. They’re not four, five, six, seven, 10 years old anymore. They’re grown up and they have complex lives and complex feelings and complex situations, and you don’t understand that or get to appreciate that when all you say is, “How’s everything? Anything you need? When do I see you again?” “Well, I was busy,” is my defense to myself. I was busy, I was busy. Yeah. Except that’s not an excuse, and take a deeper reflection on what’s important in life and you can’t have a real quality relationship with your child or another human being unless you take the time to get below that surface and really understand the person and really take the time to talk through what’s going on.

People don’t work that way. They don’t open up in a four minute conversation. So now I wind up in a situation where I have a couple of hours to talk to one of my daughters, and there’s a whole person and life and nuance that’s going on that frankly I had been oblivious to. I’m not going to let that happen again. I haven’t been able to see my mother. She’s a little older, and I see a lot of people, I’m exposed to a lot of people. I don’t want to go see my mother because she’s in a vulnerable population and I’m out and about a lot. So it would be careless to go see her now, but I think about all the times I have said to her, she lives in Manhattan. She said, “Can you come over for a cup of coffee today?” How many times I’ve said “Yes, I’ll come over for a cup of coffee,” and then called back and said, “I can’t do it today. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time.” Why? “Well, because something came up. I was busy. I didn’t have the time.”

Wrong, wrong. That was more important than anything else. Sometimes you don’t miss something until it’s been taken away. And it made me rethink what was important and what I had been missing and I’d been missing a lot. Because all this, we’re all busy. We’re all busy. We’re all busy. What does it mean at the end of the day? What what were you really busy with and did it matter?

So I know that I’ve learned a lot on a personal level. But we may be more physically distant for the foreseeable future. The key is to be more connected, more connected individually, more connected as a society, more connected as a community. And that’s what we’re going to do.

2020-04-18 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Let's start with some indisputable facts today. Today is Saturday. That is a fact and it's indisputable. Somebody could dispute it but I will sand by that factual determination. 

Hospitalization numbers are down - good news. We had been hovering around 18,000, then we went to 17,000 and we're now at 16,000 - almost 17,000 - but that is good news. 

We're down now for several days. The statisticians will say are we past the apex? Have we hit the plateau and flattened for a period of time and are we now on the way off the plateau and on the descent? If you look at the past three days you could argue that we are past the plateau and we're starting to descent which would be very good news. Again, it's only three days but that's what the numbers would start to suggest and you see that basically across the board. 

Hospitals will tell you that also the emergency rooms have fewer people in them. Remember they were at manic max capacity for a very long period of time. Remember we increased the hospital capacity by 50 percent so every hospital had 50 percent more and that capacity was overwhelmed which just reminds us of the job the hospitals have been doing. 

But we see that in the numbers as well as what the hospitals are saying to us. You look at the three-day average which is more accurate. That is down. The ICU admissions, that I don't think is reflective of anything anymore but we continue to include it for some unknown reason, are also down. 

The intimations are down which is very good news. Again, intubation means you've been put on a ventilator. Probability is about 80 percent that you won't come off the ventilator once you're put on a ventilator so that's very good news.

But sobering news on the other hand happy days are not here again. We still have about2,000 people yesterday who were new admissions to a hospital or new COVID diagnoses. That is still an overwhelming number every day - 2,000 new. If it wasn't for the relative context that we've been in this would be devastating news - 2,000 people coming into the hospital system or testing positive. And if you notice 2,000, we're not at the peakbut this is where we were just about in late March when it started to go up. So we're not at the plaza tower anymore but was still not in a good position.

The worst news is still tragic news - number of deaths 540. It's not as high as it was but still 540 people died yesterday. 540 people, 540 families. 504 in hospitals, 36 in nursing homes. Nursing homes are the single biggest fear in all of this - vulnerable people in one place. It is the feeding frenzy for this virus despite everything we can do in the best efforts of people working in those nursing homes who are doing just a fantastic job.

Testing. Testing is the single most important topic for us to understand I think and it's important that we understand it. I spoke to one of my daughters last night who shall go nameless but she said to me, why do they all talking about testing? Which was sort of sobering. I think I'm communicating information and facts and my daughters are probably some of the most informed people on the situation given the hardship they endure being my daughters during this period of time. And she was like, I don't understand all of this about testing, which is again, it's a wakeup call to me. I think we're communicating. I think we're putting out this information. But you know people have lives to live even in this crazy time. But for me the best thing I can do in my position is to communicate facts to people so they have the information to make decisions. That's what I've been trying to do since day one. Here's the information, here are the facts, you decide, and I'll tell you what. I think the course of conduct should be given these facts, but here are the facts right before you tell me what you think. Just tell me the facts and then we'll get to your personal interpretation of the facts.

So facts on testing, because it is granular and it is a little boring, but it's also vitally important. Testing is how you monitor the rate of infection and you control for it and that is the whole tension in reopening. Everybody wants to reopen. You don't need to hold up a placard saying we want to reopen. Nobody wants to reopen more than me. Nobody wants to get the economy going more than me. Nobody wants to get on with life more than me and everybody else. We're all in the same boat. We all have the same feelings. 

The tension on reopening is how fast can you reopen and what can you reopen without raising that infection rate so you go right back to where we were overwhelming the hospitals? The infection rate now is one person infects .9 other people. You can't infect .9but it's basically one person is infecting one person. A tad less - and I don't even know if it's a tad less because I don't even know that the statistics are that accurate frankly. 

So let's say one person now infects one person. That's where we are now. When that is happening the virus is basically stable. Where we were was one person was infecting 1.4 people and that's when you have outbreak widespread epidemic. We brought it down from 1.4 to .9. How did you do that? Those were the New York Pause policies. Close down business, close down schools, everybody has to social distance, everybody has to take precautions, masks, et cetera. But it worked and we went from 1.4 to .9. Wuhan says at one point they got down to .3 which is where you really start to see the numbers drop. But that's where we are. 

The tension is when you start to open business you start to have gatherings, you put people on a bus, you put people on the subway, you put people in a retail store. Then you're going to see more infections. You see that infection rate rise and then you're going to be back to where we were. So how do you gauge this, right? How do you calibrate it? 

That is all about the testing. And you have a very tight window. You're at .9 now. You can only go up to 1.2 before you see those hospitalization numbers start taking off again. You're talking about a very, very tight window that you have to calibrate and this is all without precedent so how do you actually do that intelligently? Well, you have to test and testing informs the calibration.

What is testing? Testing is you test. You test the person to see whether they are positive or negative for the coronavirus. There is also something called antibody testing but let's put that aside for a second. On the diagnostic testing, positive or negative, you test the person.

When you find a person who is positive you then trace. Trace, they call them detectives. You find the person and then you interview that person and find our who they came in contact and you follow that tree down. That's testing and that's tracing, when they talk about tracing.

Trace all those contacts and then you find the people who are positive. You isolate the positive people so they can't continue to spread.

Tracing requires an army. Literally an army. You would need thousands of people who just trace in the State of New York because any one person then leads to 10, 20 possible people who were infected. You have to trace all through those people. You find the positive person, you isolate them. The trick with testing is not that we don't know how to do it. We've done it better in this state than almost any other state, almost any other country. It's bringing this up to scale. These are private sector companies that are doing this. We have done a very good job in testing. The state has played a pivotal role in testing.

You look at New York and the number of tests we do. It's more than California, it's more than any other state. It's more than any other country. We have had great success in ramping up testing. We know how to do it. We know how important it is. We had that hot spot in New Rochelle, Westchester. It was the hottest cluster in the United States of America. We jumped on it and we jumped on it with intense testing and it worked. We still have an issue, but it's no longer a hotspot cluster because you do a lot of testing, you take the positives and you isolate them. The challenge is now bringing this up to scale. We did 500,000 tests in a month. That's great news. Bad news is it's only a fraction of what you need. The more you test, the more information, the more you can open society.

How does testing actually work? This, again, you have to know the facts otherwise this is all a blur and it becomes a he said, she said. There are about 30 private companies, large private companies in the country that are even international. Thirty large companies make equipment to test and they all have their own test. You have the ACME test, the this test, the this test, the this test. Well, those 30 companies have been selling their machines to local laboratories and that's their business. They make a machine, Roesch makes a machine. They then sell it to people. You have to buy their machine and they then sell these local labs their testing protocol because their test works on their machine. You buy the Roesch machine, you then have to buy the Roesch test from the Roesch Corporation. You buy the ACME machine, you then have to buy the ACME test from the ACME Corporation. They sell these tests to local labs. 

We have about 300 local labs in our state who have bought these 30 types of manufacturers and 30 types of tests. Then every time the lab goes to run that test, if I'm running the ACME test, I have to have the ACME equipment and the ACME vial and the the ACME swab and the ACME reagents. What are reagents? When you take the swab, nasal swab, throat swab, you then test it with other chemicals. The other chemicals are reagents. Depending on what test you bought, they have their own reagents for every test. The ACME test has one set of reagents. The Roesch test has another set of reagents and you have to go back to them to buy these reagents. That's the basic chain. It gets very complicated very quickly because you have the national manufacturers who sold their machines to local labs. The local labs then need to go back to that manufacturer to run their tests. There's very little uniformity among the tests. You're trying to coordinate this whole private sector system. We have some public labs, the state has a Wadsworth Lab, but the real capacity is in these private labs.

So how do you bring this up to scale and how do you cut to the chase on this one? We called the top fifty producing labs in the state and said tell us what it takes to double your output, okay. And this is literally what they said. So there's no interpretation here. Most of them come back.

Sometimes they talk about the equipment, nasal swab, vial. But what you see is most of them are talking about, we can't get the reagents. We can't get these other chemicals that we need to test. Where do they get the reagents from? Their manufacturer who made the machine in the first place, okay. And they all say with the machines we bought we could actually be doing more if they would give us the reagents. That's the logjam that we are in. They bought the machine. They have the machine. They have the test but they need the reagents to do a higher volume of tests. When you go back to the manufacturer and say why don't you distribute more reagents, they say one of two things. I can't get more reagents because they come from China, they come from here, they come from here. We don't make them in the United States. Or they say the federal government is telling me who to distribute to.

And this is why I say you have the federal government involved in this situation, rightfully so, because the federal government is saying to Acme pharmaceutical, give X to California, give Y to Chicago, give Z to New York. These manufacturers are regulated by the federal government and the federal government clearly has a role in addressing this crisis. But, we need two things from the federal government. We need help on that supply chain, especially when it becomes international, and we need coordination and basic partnership. I get the state's role. We've been testing. I get this is hard. I get that it's difficult. I get that it's never going to be perfect. I get in this society there's going to be a blame game, and everyone's going to say, why didn't we have enough testing? It's the feds, it's the state. That's going to happen anyway, right. That's the world we live in. And I'm not asking for the federal government to come in and do any more than they need to do, but we do need their coordination and we do need their partnership.

And we also need from the federal government, we need funding. I get that we have to fund airlines. We have to fund this business. We have to fund small businesses. I agree a hundred percent, but you also have to fund state governments. And by the way, when you fund the state government, you're not funding a private business. We're not an airline. So you don't have an issue of should government really be giving tax dollars to this private entity. When you fund the state government you just are funding a state government to perform the functions you want us to perform, which is the reopening function. I get it. I'll do it. But I need funding. And when you fund a state government, you're funding small businesses anyway, and you're funding hospitals anyway, and you're funding schools anyway. And you know, the Republican doctrine used to be limited government and states' rights. I'm a good distribution mechanism to small businesses and hospitals and schools because I know what's going on in the state. But if you want to us reopen, we need funding.

National Governors Association is highly relevant because this is now all up to the governors. The National Governors Association is bipartisan. The chairman is a republican. I'm the vice chairman, I'm a Democrat. I'm the incoming chair person. We did a press release yesterday saying we need funding in this next bill. We need $500 billion for the states so we can do this reopening. Federal government yesterday sent 1.5 million cloth masks to New York State and I want to thank them for that. These are cloth masks that we can distribute to people to help implement our policy where if you're in public you have to wear a mask. It's not a surgical mask. It's a cloth mask manufactured by the Hanes corporation I believe. But we're asking people to wear masks. And this is going to be very helpful because we're going to have additional masks to distribute to the public.

Last point, personal opinion. This is not a fact. It's just my opinion. You can throw it in the garbage. The emotion in this country is as high as I can recall, people are frustrated, we're anxious, scared, we're angry. We've never been through this before and on every level this is a terrible experience. It's disorienting, it threatens you to your core. It makes you reflect on your whole life and it really has -- it's mentally very difficult, it's emotionally difficult, economically, it's disastrous. I mean the market goes down. Your retirement funds go down. You're not getting a paycheck. It is as tumultuous at times as we have ever seen. But in the midst of this, there is no time for politics.

How does the situation get worse, it gets worse quickly? If you politicize all that emotion. We cannot go there. That's why I work so hard when anyone raises any political agenda to me. I work so hard to distance myself from it. I'm not running for anything. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be governor of the state of New York until the people kick me out and then I'm going to go spend time with my family and that's that.

So, I have no political agenda and I've stayed a hundred miles away from politics, just so people know that there is no possibility of a political distortion here. Because it's no time for politics and look if you have partisan divisions splitting this nation now it's going to make it worse. Abraham Lincoln, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," 1858.Where did Abraham Lincoln get it from? If a house is divided against itself, the house cannot stand, Mark 3:25. So, this is an accepted wisdom letter say, house cannot stand, not to mention the house cannot rise up from the greatest challenge it has seen since World War II. This is no time and no place for division. We have our hands full as it is. Let's just stay together and let's work it through and that's why we're called the United States, right? And the unity was key going back to Abraham Lincoln, it was always about the unity going back to the framers of the Constitution, was always balance of power to ensure unity and we need that unity now more than ever before.

2020-04-19 NYS Mayor Cuomo

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for being here today. I want to thank our host very much, Northwell. Michael Dowling, to my left, is head of Northwell. They've done an extraordinary job all through this situation. They have an extraordinary leader in Michael Dowling. Michael Dowling ran health care for the State of New York, health services for the State of New York. He worked with my father. Came for one year, wound up staying with my father for 12 years in State service. He's one of the really beautiful and brilliant leaders in this State. It's a pleasure to be with him. I want to say to all the people ofNorthwell who have done extraordinary jobs, thank you so, so much. Thank you for having us today.

To my right is Melissa DeRosa, she is the Secretary to the Governor. To her right is - what's your name, young lady? - Mariah Kennedy-Cuomo, who is part of my team and it's a pleasure to have her with me today. I'll mention more about that in a second.

Today is Sunday, that is a fact. I know these days tend to run one into the other, but today is Sunday. I like to focus on the facts in this situation because facts are what's most important. A lot of people have opinions and a lot of theories, but Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was a great Senator from the State of New York, liked to say, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." So let's give the people of the State the updated facts.

This is the state of hospitalizations. We've been watching this 24-hours a day for it seems like most of our lives, but it's only been about 40 days. The total hospitalization rate is down again in the State of New York. We're down to 16,000. If you look at the numbers, we were at 18,000 people hospitalized for a period of time. It flattened there for a while, it paused there. Then it went down to 17,000 but this is a low from our high point of 18,000.

Big question of whether we've been past the apex, past the high point and it turned out the high point wasn't a point. The high point was a plateau and we got up to a high point and then we just stayed at that level for a while. If the data holds and if this trend holds, we are past the high point and all indications at this point that we are in a descent. Whether or not the descent continues depends on what we do, but right now we are on a descent. That's in all the numbers. The hospitalization numbers are down. The 3-day average of the hospitalization rate is down. I was speaking to Michael and that's what he's seeing in his hospital system in emergency rooms across the state are saying. They see the maximum inflow is less than what it was. That all tracks with what the numbers are saying.

This number of intubations, which I watch carefully because intubations are the number of people who are put on ventilators and 80 percent of the people who are put on ventilators don't make it. This is a very important chart to look at and the fact that those numbers are down is very important.

This is a reality check. With all the good news in the reductions, we still have 1,300 people that yesterday came in and tested positive and were hospitalized. Thirteen hundred is a lot of people coming into the hospital system with that diagnosis. Less than it had been, so that's good news, but it is still 1,300 people who are testing positive and need hospitalization.

We've been watching the spread of the virus from the New York City area. There have been little outbursts on Long Island and upstate New York and we've been jumping on those outbursts. Overall, we have controlled it and the numbers are about the same. Westchester and Rockland where we had real problems. Remember, the first problem was in Westchester County, New Rochelle. Westchester County and Rockland, Long Island, Upstate New York is now only about 70 percent of the cases. We're watching for a potential spread in other parts of the state, but so far we have contained it and we have controlled it.

Nursing homes are still our number one concern. The nursing home is the optimum feeding ground for this virus. Vulnerable people in a congregant facility, in a congregant setting where it can just spread like fire through dry grass. We have had really disturbing situations in nursing homes and we're still most concerned about the nursing homes.

The worst news of all for us to live with every day and an everyday tragedy, we lost another 507 New Yorkers. Those are not just very large numbers we see deaths. Every number is a face and a family and a brother and a sister, mother and a father. People are in pain today and will be in pain for a long period of time. We remember them in our thoughts and prayers.

On this Sunday, a day of reflection, thank you from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of all New Yorkers, for what the people at Northwell have done, the entire team. Talk about team effort, this is the team effort. And to all of our health care workers all across this state, 1 million health care workers, 445,000 hospital workers, 160,000 nursing home workers, they have made all the difference in the world. You know, a crisis like this, it tends to bring out the best and the worst in people. And certain people can break your heart in their response to this. But on the other hand, other people can rise to the occasion and give you such a sense of confidence in the human spirit, and the healthcare workers have done that.

I've been looking at this chart for 40 days and it looks like a bar chart, it looks like numbers and a line. I don't see it as a bar chart as we've been going through this. To me, it was a mountain that just kept building, and building, and building, and you didn't know where the top of the mountain was. And those numbers kept growing and we kept going up the mountain and we kept wondering where is the peak, where is the apex, what is the high point, when does this stop, and we get to the top of the mountain and by the way it's not a point. And then it plateaus, and it plateaus at a very, very high rate, which means every day those health care workers have to come in and they're seeing a tremendous number of people come in the door, overwhelming the capacity of the hospital. And remember, we asked hospitals to increase their capacity 50 percent. So if a hospital had a 100-bed capacity, now they had a 150-bed capacity. And it stuck at that very high level on that plateau, and it was day after day after day. People who were at their max and had given it all. And the next day, it's the same thing all over again. But they did it, they got us through the plateau, and now they are getting us down the other side, and we just pray to God it remains down on the other side.

So this has been a lot of pain and a lot of anguish for a lot of people. But the skill, the courage and the love of our health care workers, of our first responders, of our police, of our essential workers, they have really gotten us through all of this. We also want to thank our neighbors. 95,000 medical professionals who agreed to help in this state and outside of this state, who said they would come and help us. And I want to thank the other states and communities who we put out a call for help, and we got help from all across the country. It reminds me in that post-9/11 time when we needed help, and other communities in the northeast needed help, and people came from all across the nation, and they just wanted to help, and they just showed up. That's what happened here. And that, when I talk about seeing the best and the worst in people at a time of crisis, that outpouring of generosity, I'm sure you felt the same, gave us such a sense of confidence that we're not in it alone, and humanity and the love of the American people was there for us. And I said we need your help today, but New Yorkers also never forget. And thank you for the help, and we will be there when you need us. And we will be there when anyone needs us.

Right now, our neighbors in Massachusetts are looking at an increase in cases. I spoke to Governor Charlie Baker yesterday. They may need 400 ventilators and we know how important ventilators are. If their numbers keep going up and they have to scramble, and I said you were there for us, and we're going to be there for you. If they need 400 ventilators, we've already identified them, and we will bring them over on 24 hours notice. And we wish them well, and anything they need, we're going to be there.

So the recent news is good. We are on the other side of the plateau and the numbers are coming down. But, that's good news only compared to the terrible news that we were living with, which is that constant increase. And remember, you still have 1,300 people who walked into the hospitals yesterday testing positive. So, it's no time to get cocky and it's no time to get arrogant, right? We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do. And this virus has been ahead of us every step of the way. We've been playing catch-up from day one in this situation. So it is no time to relax. And this is only halftime in this entire situation. We showed that we can control the beast and when you close down, you can actually slow that infection rate, but it is only halftime. We have to make sure we keep that beast under control, we keep that infection rate down, we keep that hospitalization rate down as we now all get very eager to get on with life and move on. So, it's not over.

We have a whole second phase and in this second phase, first, do no harm. Don't jeopardize what you've already accomplished by seeing that infection rate increase. We have to be smarter, especially when it comes to the new frontier of testing and how we test and how aggressively and how we get that organized. And then when we talk about rebuilding, we have to talk about not just rebuilding, but let's learn from this horrific experience. Let's take these lessons forward and how do we build back better than before? I don't want to have on all through this and then just say we are reopening. No, we have to open for a better future than we have ever had. And we have to learn from this. As we go through this, I know people are eager to get on with life. We have slowed the infection rate down to .9 percent. 0.9 percent means one person infects .9 percent of a person, less than one. That means the virus is slowing. If one person is infecting 1.2 people, the virus is increasing and is an epidemic and an outbreak and is out of control.

So, we have a very small margin of error here, as we navigate going forward. Any plan that is going to start to reopen the economy has to be based on data, and that means it has to be based on testing. This is a new world for all of us. How do you get testing up to scale? How do you get it up to scale quickly and how do you find out where we really are right now in terms of this virus? You have all these scientists and experts who are basically trying to extrapolate from the data, but we don't really know how any people were infected. How many people had coronavirus but self-resolved? We don't really know, because we haven't been able to do testing on that large a scale. But we are going to start, we are going to start here in the State of New York with antibody testing.

Antibody testing means you test the person to find out if they have the antibodies if they were infected with the coronavirus. We are going to do that in the most aggressive way in the nation. We are going to sample people in this state, thousands of people in this state, across the state to find out if they have the antibodies. That will tell us, for the first time, what percent of the population actually has had the coronavirus and is now at least short-term immune to the virus. This will be the first, true snapshot of what we are really dealing with. We are going to be doing that over the next week and the New York State Department of Health will be running that. There's also another set of test that are called diagnostic testing.

Diagnostic testing is whether a person is positive or negative. We are coming up to scale on this, even though it is very, very hard. Northwell is leading the parade on this and I just looked at some of the technology they are bringing in. All of these different manufacturers who make different machines to run different tests and it's a number of big manufacturers.Northwell is bringing in as many as they can, but this has to be brought to scale. Nobody has done testing at this level ever. We have to do this in partnership with the federal government, because there are all sorts of logistical questions and supply chain questions and people can't get certain chemicals they need to do tests and the chemicals are made in other countries. So, we have to do this with the federal government.

I spoke to the head of the CDC yesterday and he was very smart and very informed. We talked about how we can do this together. Talk about being smart, the federal government is talking about passing another piece of legislation which would help in the reopening. They want to help small businesses, and that is great. They also have to help a governments and local governments, which have not been supported in previous legislation. Everyone is saying, "It is up to the states to come up with a reopening plan, it's up to the governors, it's up to the governors."

Fine. That is true, and right, and legal. But the governors in the state have to have resources. And yes, you have to help small businesses, you have to help the airlines, all of these private sector interests as well as citizens. But if you don't help the state government and local government, then how are we supposed to have the finances to reopen? If you don't give state and local government support, we are the ones who support the schools, we support the police, we support the fire, we support the hospital workers, we support the transit workers.

So, if you starve state and local government, all that means is we have to turn around and reduce funding to the people who we are funding. If we don't get federal assistance, you are looking at education cuts of close to 50 percent in the State of New York, where school districts would only get half of the aid they got from the state last year. You are talking about cuts to hospitals from the State. I mean, how ludicrous would it be to now cut hospital funding from state governments? So, the governors, bipartisan, Democrat and Republican, in this crazy and political environment where you can get Democrats and Republicans to agree on anything, all the governors agree and have said to Washington, "Make sure you fun the states in any next bill you pass."

And we asked for $500 billion. Again on a nonpartisan basis. We also must remember as we go forward what we have done so well thus far. The mutuality and discipline that we have shown. I have many school districts in the state, over 700 school districts. They are calling saying they want to open up their local schools. They want to make these decisions. Local officials are calling, we have beaches, we have parks, we have businesses, we want to make the decisions. I understand the pressure that the local school districts are under. I understand the pressure that the local officials are under. I understand the mounting political pressure. You know, people see those numbers come down, they are like, OK, let's go. Let me get out of my house. I get it. But, we have to stay smart and we have to stay united.

Now is no time, as I said, to get arrogant. We are working with our regional states, our partners, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc., the surrounding states. We are coordinating with them and we have to continue to do that. The weather is getting warmer, the numbers are coming down, cabin fever is getting worse. I believe that is going to be a documented disease when this is over, cabin fever. But we have to stay smart and we have to stay coordinated. We have been working with New Jersey and Connecticut because whatever one state does affects other states, right? You live in Nassau, Suffolk, New York City, you can get in your car and be in New Jersey, you can be in Connecticut in a matter of minutes.

So, it is very important to plan accordingly. It is not that we can be on the same page on everything, but at least let's know what each other is doing. For example, on state parks, we are coordinating what our policies are because you can see people go from one state to another. I was in Albany yesterday, talked to a couple who drove up from Queens for Thai food to Albany. And I said, you came up for Thai food from Queens? That is a two and a half hour ride. They said yeah, we just had to get out of the house. I said, just for Thai food? Queens, they have good Thai food. I'm from Queens. It just shows how people need to get out and do something. So, we get it. New York State parks are open, New Jersey they are closed, Connecticut, they are open. New York, our beaches are closed, in New Jersey, the state beaches are closed, some of the local beaches are open, Connecticut, they are open. Connecticut marinas are open and New Jersey and New York also. Staying coordinated with our partners is very important and it is important within the state also.

I get the political pressure that everybody is under. I get the political pressure that local officials are under. But we have to be smart and we have to be coordinated. People have to have the best government from government officials in the State of New York. Government matters today in a way it has not mattered in decades. And it is important that government sends the right signal and one message and there is no confusion. Because if people don't have confidence in government right now, if they think there is chaos or confusion or politics, that would be a terrible message to send. We have done a great job as government officials - all of us - Democrat, Republican, state, local. We have to keep doing it. And now is not the time to send mixed messages. And also on a very parochial level, I get that in the conversations I've had people feel political pressure. Hear is the simple answer. The State's emergency powers now govern in this emergency. Blame me. Blame me. Somebody's complaining about a beach, somebody's complaining about whatever, businesses open, schools open, blame me. It's true. It's right. It's the state law and I don't have any issue with that. So blame me.

Also, as we are planning the reopening, let's set the bar a little higher. Let's all start to think about this now. What did we learn during this? Personally, what did we learn? Socially, what did we learn? Collectively, what did we learn? And how do we incorporate that into our reopening? How do we have a better health care system when we reopen? How do we have a better transportation system, better telecommuting, a smarter telemedicine program? Better technology and education? How do we have more social equity?

You can see the disparate effect of this disease and how it reinforced the disparity in the inequity in society. How do we remedy that? And how are we more cohesive as a community for having gone through this, right? It is not just reopen. It is not just build it back. It is advance. Use this as a moment in time where they look back, when they write the history books and they say oh boy, they went through a terrible time but they actually learned from it and they improved from it. They moved forward. We had 9/11. Yes, we built back. 

We built back different, we built back smarter. We had Hurricane Sandy, devastated Long Island. I was governor. I didn't say we want to replace, I said we're going to learn how to do a new grid system. We're going to learn how to do better infrastructure. And we did. Long Island, today, is better for having gone through Hurricane Sandy as terrible as that was.

We have to do the same thing here. How do we come back even better? So, the long and the short of it is thank you to all New Yorkers for all the good work. To our healthcare workers, a special thank you. To the police, to fire, to the transit workers. You know, the economy has not been closed down, right? All the essential services have still been functioning. You still can go to the grocery store and get food. Lord knows you could go to a healthcare institution and get healthcare. The transportation works, the buses work. All these people who kept everything working, we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

But also remember we still have more to do. New Yorkers know that because New Yorkers are tough, but tough doesn't mean just tough. Tough is easy. It's tough but smart, but disciplined, but unified, and but loving. That's who we are as New Yorkers.

Last point, on a personal point, I have my daughter Mariah who is with me. She is the third daughter for me. She just came home, if you will - she was quarantined - so now I have all three daughters with me. They can't appreciate this, but it's such a comfort to me, personally, to have them home. You know, when your child is not at home, especially at a difficult time like this, you're always wondering where are they? Are they okay? Are they doing what's right? And every instinct is you want to be able to protect them. When they're not there you have this constant hole in your heart, right, and this constant question as you go through the day. So, you're trying to do everything that you have to do but you still have this question in the back of your mind. Where is Mariah? How is she?

So, now that they are all three with me gives me a great sense of comfort in this crazy situation we're in. But, if not for the craziness, I would never have my three daughters with me again. They're 25, 25, 22 years old. The last thing they want to do is hang out with Pop, right? They have places to go, people to see. They're taking life by the horns. So, I get this beautiful silver lining in the midst of this hell where my daughters are with me again. We get to celebrate family and we get to bring back traditions and we get to enjoy each other and have really in depth conversations that we haven't had in years, right? Reconnect in a way we haven't had the opportunity in years.

Today is Sunday and I come from an Italian American household where we had a great tradition on Sundays. The family had to come together at the table, you had to be there. They called it dinner, but it started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon - I don't know why they called it dinner. But everybody was at the table. Spaghetti and meatballs every Sunday. I started my tomato sauce before I left. We're going to go back, we're going to sit at the table, have our spaghetti and meatballs on Sunday, and I know what I'm going to talk to them about.

My daughters, Mariah - and Mariah brought her boyfriend, who's also here. The boyfriend is very nice and we like the boyfriend. Advice to fathers, the answer on what you think of the boyfriend is always I like the boyfriend. Always. Because there's only two options. Either you like the boyfriend, in which case you say I like the boyfriend, or you don't like the boyfriend. But you can never say you don't like the boyfriend. I learned this lesson the hard way. Otherwise it triggers NDS. NDS is Natural Defiance Syndrome. It's not documented, but it is a psychological condition where if you say as a father I don't like him, Natural Defiance Syndrome kicks in and then they like the boyfriend more because he is opposed by the father. So the answer has to be I like the boyfriend. In this case, I actually like the boyfriend. But even if you don't like the boyfriend, the answer can only be that I like the boyfriend.

But we're going to be at dinner with the boyfriend and we're going to have our spaghetti and our meatballs. They won't eat the spaghetti and the meatballs because when I cook it they just won't eat it. But they move it around the dish and that's all I can ask. But I'm going to tell them - I'm going to recall to them - how important that meal was on Sundays. To have the family together, to take the time to sit and to talk and to reconnect. People talk about the Italians and they love the food. Yeah, they love the food, but the food was just a magnet to get the family to the table, right? It was just the device to get people to spend two hours at the table. That's where you talked and you went through the week. I used to do it at my grandfather's house. My father, mother, my kids, all the siblings would go to my grandfather's house.

My grandfather's name was Andrea. I'm named for him, Andrew. At the end of the meal, my grandfather would always say, he was at the head of the table and he would say, "Okay, that was my vacation," and then he would get up and they would do whatever they were doing. I never really understood what he meant. Later in life, I said to my father, who is his son, "What did grandpa mean, that was my vacation?" He said, "Well your grandfather never had a day off. Your grandfather worked seven days a week." He ran a little grocery store, delicatessen in Jamaica and he worked seven days a week. And he was saying that was his vacation. He never took a vacation and everybody would take a vacation on tv and in the tv commercials. That was his vacation. The three hours at the table for dinner with his family, that was his vacation. Then he would go back to run the store.

You think of how our immigrants work in this country and wherever the immigrants are from, what that whole immigrant philosophy and drive does for us, and I'll will end where are started.

You think of all the essential workers. "Well we had to stay at home. I'm tired of staying at home." Yeah, think of all the people, all the essential workers who had to go out there every day and work in the middle of this, who frankly would have much rather stayed home and they didn't know what the virus was, and they are out there working with the public, exposing themselves. Why do we have a higher rate of infection among African-Americans, Latinos, et cetera? Well, who are the essential workers? We have a higher rate of infection among the essential workers, because they were out there driving the buses, and they were out there driving the trains, and they were out there running the hospitals and the emergency rooms, and the nurses, and the police officers.

They didn't get to stay home and they got sicker and they died, more than anyone else. Because they were there honoring their responsibility to their job and to public service. Let's remember that. Let's remember them. Yeah, we are all going through a tough time, and it is a tough time. But a lot of people have shown a lot of courage and a lot of beauty and they've had very tough lives. Let's appreciate them at the same time.

2020-04-20 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Monday. All devices off, by the way. To my far-right, Dr. Jim Malatras, to my right, Dr. Zucker, a real doctor. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, to her left, Robert Mujica, budget director, calls himself doctor of the budget, not a real doctor.

Today is 51 days since the first case in New York, just for perspective, so we know where we are. 92 days since the first case came to the United States of America. It was in Seattle and in California. These are the hospitalization numbers for today. A tick down yesterday, but a slight tick, statistically irrelevant. The question for us is, are we passed the apex? We have had a number of days that have seen a reduction, reductions across the board. Hospitals also say anecdotally that they have less patients in their emergency room, which, again, perspective, the emergency rooms were way over capacity. It was chaotic. It was hellish. And the emergency rooms are still at or over capacity, but it's better than it was. The total change in hospitalizations, you see that has been going down. The three-day average of hospitalizations is going down. Number of intubations is down again. That is great news, not down as much as yesterday, but down. Number of new people coming in the door with COVID diagnosis is again, just about flat with yesterday. This was reporting over a weekend. Sometimes the weekend reporting can get a little funky because it's Saturday and Sunday, and they have less of the staff. The reporting may not be as accurate but it's basically flat.

The question that we initially dealt with at the beginning of this as the numbers were going up. The question is, how long until we reach the top of the mountain? Every day, it was the number's higher, the number's higher, the number's higher. The question is, when do you get to the top, how high can it go? Then, we get to the top, the top turns out not to be a peak, it turns out to be a plateau, and then we're on the plateau, and it's basically flat, and then the question is, how long are we going to be on this plateau? How long, how wide is the plateau? The question now is, assuming we're off the plateau, and we're seeing a dissent, which the numbers would suggest we're seeing a dissent, the question is now, how long is the dissent and how steep is the dissent? And nobody knows. Just the way nobody knew how long the ascent was, nobody can tell you how long the descent is. And that's what we are trying to figure out.

The number's coming down, but how fast does the number come down? And how fast does the number come down to where it becomes a low enough number that we have some confidence that we have a margin of error? Does it take two weeks for it to come down? Some projections say that. Does it take a month? Some projections say that. And again, the projections are nice, but I wouldn't bet the farm on them. And I don't even have a farm. Worst news is the number of lives lost, that number is still horrifically high. If you're looking for the optimist's view, it's not as bad as it was, but 478 New Yorkers died yesterday from this terrible virus.

Everyone is anxious to reopen. Everyone is anxious to get back to work. So am I. Question is, what does that mean? How do we do it, when do we do it? Nobody disagrees that we want to get out of this situation. Nobody. You don't need protests to convince anyone in this country that we have to get back to work, and we have to get the economy going, and we have to get out of our homes. Nobody. The question is going to become, how, when, how fast, and what do we mean in terms of reopening? With reopening, I want to set the bar higher. Meaning the question shouldn't be, when do we reopen, and what do we reopen? The question should be, let's use this situation, this crisis, this time, to actually learn the lessons, value from the reflection, and let's reimagine what we want society to be.

Since we are going to have to go through all of this, and it's not going to be fast, let's at least make this a moment that when we look back, we can say, wow, we went through hell but look at all the lessons we learned and look at how much better we made this place from this incident.

We went through 9/11. It was hellish when we had to rebuild but we were smart enough to say, how do we build it back better? You look at downtown Manhattan now, it is better than it was before 9/11. You look at the security procedures that this nation has. We're better than we were before 9/11. We had Superstorm Sandy here on Long Island. Terrible, terrible. Thousands of peoples' homes gone. Long Island is better today for having gone through Superstorm Sandy.

Okay, how do we use this situation and stop saying reopen, but reimagine and improve and build back better? And you can ask this question on any level. How do we have a better transportation system, a better housing system, better public health system, better social equity, better use of technology? People who are working from home, a lot of them are saying, I should have been doing this all along. You have telemedicine that we have been very slow on. Why was everybody going to a doctor's office all that time? Why didn't you do it using technology? Why haven't we been using more technology for education? Why haven't we incorporated so many of these lessons? Because change is hard and people are slow. Now is the time to do it.

And that's what we are doing in a multi-state regional coalition and that's very important because that is the smartest way to do it. On a more granular level here in New York, we will have a "reimagine task force" that focuses primarily on downstate New York, which has been the most affected area, and led by the State with those local elected officials, but let's get the best housing experts. Let's get the best transportation experts and let's use this as a moment to really plan change that we could normally never do unless you had this situation.

In the meantime, do no harm. This is my number one concern every day. Do no harm. Don't let that infection rate go up and that's testing and that's watching the dials, right? We know what's going to happen now. The weather is going to warm. People are a little more relaxed because they see the numbers coming down, and we know human behavior. They want to get out of the house and they want to be more active. And there is a sanity quotient to this whole situation. There's only so long you can say to people, stay in the house and lock the door, right? They have to go out do and something, and they will. They will come out with the warmer weather and we do have parks and there are recreation areas. It is not even healthy to stay in the house all the time. But that is going to happen. That activity level is going to increase naturally.

When that activity level increases you can very well see that infection rate spread. Infection rate is primarily a function of contact. You touch a surface and then I touch a surface. You cough and the droplets go on me. It's contact. And that's why a place like New York City or anywhere you see a hotspot cluster, New Rochelle, it was about contact. People start coming out. They start moving around more, there will be more content. That contact will increase the virus spread. Watch the dial. Watch the virus contact spread. You will see it in the hospitalization rate. To the extent we are doing testing you will see it in the testing rate, but remember how thin our margin of error is.

We were at 1.2, 1.3, 1.4. That's when the virus is outbreak. One person is infecting more than one additional person. When you get the infection rate below 1, theoretically, the virus is slowing. We are at .9. We are at .9 to 1.2. That is a very fine margin of error. I don't even know that it is statistically relevant, frankly, because all of these numbers are a little loose, but that is what we have to watch and we will. And we have to watch this until we have a medical treatment, or we have a vaccine. That is when this is really over.

In the meantime, I say to my local government officials, I am getting a lot of calls from a lot of supervisors, town, elected officials, et cetera, they are under increasing political pressure, and they want to do things. The state rule is now everything is closed, and the state rule is they cannot take any action that is contrary to that. Because coordination and discipline is now key. Beaches, public facilities, schools, parades, concerts - these would all be magnets for people. I work with our other states because frankly, if they open up a beach in Connecticut, you could see a flow of people from New York going to a beach in Connecticut, if i don't open our beat his, but if they have a concert in New Jersey, people who are cooped up here, you could see them get in a car and drive to New Jersey to a concert. By the way, people drive to new jersey for concerts anyway without COVID. I told someone yesterday - I ran into a couple in Albany who said, we are from Queens. They are in a car eating out of Styrofoam trays. They drove up from queens to buy Thai food in Albany, take out, because they liked the Thai food restaurant in Albany. As said, you drove from Queens to Albany to buy Thai food, 2.5 hours, three hours. I see enough Thai restaurants in Queens, all due respect to the Thai restaurants in Albany, they're very, very good but would you really drive three hours. They said, we had to get out of the house, we had to do something, so we liked to take a drive.

So, anything that Jersey, Connecticut, does can affect everyone else. Westchester does something, Suffolk does something, New York City do something, it affects everyone else. That is the reality. So, everything is closed, unless we say otherwise, and the most important thing - I just had this conversation with a local official. Look, people need government to work. Government has to be smart, and if it looks confused between the state and the county, or the state and the town, that's the wrong message for everyone. So, let's just be smart.

On testing and funding, those are the two areas we are working with our federal partners. Testing is going to require everyone to work together. Federal and state, state and locals by the way, we are starting the largest antibody test every done today in New York, the largest sample, but this has to be a multilevel government coordinative project because we have to do this on an ongoing basis. Also, on the funding issue, this is obviously a unique period in a lot of ways. We did a state budget in a way we have never done it before. Since our state didn't have any revenues, the way we did the budget is basically said, it's dependent on what we get from the federal government, and the federal government had promised funding all along. We said, whatever we get from the federal government will determine our state budget, right? Because the state has a $10 billion to $15 billion hole right now, and that has never been done before. It basically said, I will tell you the state budget when I know the state budget, and the state budget is going to be a function of whatever the federal government gives us. The federal government has not funded states to date. The National Governor's Association, bipartisan, headed by a chairman, Governor Hogan, Republican. I'm the vice chairman. We have said with one voice, you want the governor's to do the job, we need you to provide funding for state governments. There's now another piece of legislation they're talking about passing in Washington and, again, it doesn't have state and local governments in it. This week, we're going to do a state forecast, if they exclude state government again, our state forecast will project - without any federal funds, you can't spend what you don't have - if you were to allocate the shortfall relatively on a flat basis across need, you would be cutting schools 20 percent, local governments 20 percent and hospitals 20 percent. This is the worst time to do this.

Now, the federal government has said from day one, "don't worry. We're going to provide funding to the states." Yeah, don't worry. I'm worried because I've heard this over and over again. My job is very simple. I have one agenda. I have one purpose. I fight for New Yorkers. That is my job. I don't have any side jobs. I don't have any other places to go, people to see. That's all I do. I'm telling you, New Yorkers need funding for this budget because we can't do it otherwise. Washington is saying what, we want to fund small business. Yeah, great. You should fund small businesses. They want to fund financial services and large corporations and airlines and hotels. Yeah, that's all great. Fund all those businesses. But, at the same time, don't forget teachers and police officers and firefighters and transit workers and health care workers and nursing home staff. Those are the people who I fund with the state budget and you shouldn't make us choose between small businesses and large businesses and people who are on the front line, doing the work day-in and day-out.

I would even go a step further and I would propose hazard pay for front-line workers. We all say, "boy, they did a great job. The health care workers did a great job. The police, they're heroes." Yes, they are, but you know what, thanks is nice but also recognition of their efforts and their sacrifice is also appropriate. They are the ones that are carrying us through this crisis. This crisis is not over. If you look at who they are and the equity and fairness of what has happened, I think any reasonable person would say, "We should right this wrong."

Forty percent of the frontline workers are people of color. Forty-five percent in public transit, 57 percent of the building workers, 40 percent of the health care workers. People of color are also disproportionately represented in delivery services and child care services. The economy closed down - the economy did not close down. It closed down for those people who frankly have the luxury of staying at home. All those essential workers who had to get up every morning to put food on the shelves and go to the hospitals to provide health care under extraordinary circumstances, and the police officer who had to go out to keep you safe and the firefighter who still had to go out and fight the fire - those people worked and they went out there and exposed themselves to the virus.

Two-thirds of those front line workers are women. One-third come from low-income households. So they've been doing this work, they've been stressed, they're going home to a household often had 2 wage earners, one of them is now not working, they're living just on that one salary. And, after all of that, we see the infection rate among African-American and brown Americans higher proportionately than other groups. Why? Because they were out there exposing themselves. That's why. You can talk about health disparities, et cetera. But, I believe all the studies are going to wind up saying, "Yes, when you are home with your doors locked, dealing with cabin fever, they were out there dealing with the coronavirus." That's why they are more infected. Pay them what they deserve. I would say hazard pay, give them a 50% bonus, and I would do that now. Yes, airlines, also frontline workers.

Also, we have a need and responsibility to get the assistance we need to people in low income communities. We have—NYCHA is public housing in the city of New York, high concentration of people in one place. Many people in the small lobby, many people in elevators, many people in hallways, a higher number of people in the apartment, just a higher occupancy. That's where the virus spreads. We are going to set up a test program in NYCHA, where we're going to have on-site health services and testing in the New York City area, with New York City Housing Authority projects, working with local officials. We're doing it as a pilot program to see how it works. If it works well, we will go further with it. We have as you see Congressman Meeks, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Attorney General Letitia James, Speaker Carl Heastie, and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz who will be working on this and coordinating it, and I thank them very much. We're also going to bring 500,000 cloth masks to NYCHA. That is one mask for every person who is in public housing, and hand sanitizer, et cetera. Just so they have the necessary equipment they need to do the social-distancing and protection.

Personal opinion, not a fact, throw it in the pale, what we're are doing here, you know as a general rule, what we do determines our future, right? The smartest government is as smart as people are. That is how you shape your future, but this is cause and effect on steroids. What we do today will determine tomorrow and we are not going to need to wait to read the history books. We make smart decisions, you will see smart outcomes in two weeks. We make bad decisions, you will see bad outcomes in two weeks. So, when they say the future is in our hands, the future is really in our hands and we are going to get through this. We can control the beast. The beast will not destroy us. We can control the beast, great news. We have a lot of work to do to keep the beast under control, and we have a lot of work to do to reopen, but we are going to set the bar high, and we're going to reimagine, and what we reopen will be better than what we had before. Built back better, built back better, BBB. And that is what we are going to do because we are New York tough and tough isn't just tough. Tough is smart, tough is disciplined, smart is united, and smart is loving.

2020-04-21 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good evening - night shift. To my right Gareth Rhodes; to my immediate right Jim Malatras; to my left Melissa DeRosa; and Rob Mujica to her left.

We had a meeting at the White House this afternoon and it was very productive and it was positive and we got a lot done.

I've been talking for a number of days as have most governors about testing as the next phase that we have to enter into. We're starting to talk about reopening and planning reopening.

Everyone is obviously concerned about how you reopen and if you reopen in a way that is too rushed and you're not prepared you could actually see the infection rate go up which is the last thing that anybody wants. Testing is the best way to inform and educate yourself as you go through the reopening process so you can watch not just hospitalizations - which we'll have that data - but also testing so you can look at the infection rate across the state and see how the infection rate is increasing.

Also, testing for employees who want to go back, employers who want to know whether or not the employees are actually negative of the virus. Testing has been a very big task to undertake. There's also been a lot of back and forth between the states, my state included, and the federal government about who does what on testing and who is responsible.

I said this morning that I think in many ways people are just talking past each other because the federal government is helping on testing and states are responsible for testing but testing is a very complicated issue with a lot of levels. To have a real progress you have to sit down and go through the various steps of testing and actually decide who does what and that's what we did this afternoon.

We agreed that the state government should be responsible for managing the actual tests in their own laboratories. We have about 300 laboratories in the State of New York. We regulate those laboratories. It's up to a state to determine how many tests, where those tests should be done, New York City versus Buffalo versus Long Island, et cetera, the staff to do those tests, how often you do the tests - those should all be state decisions and state responsibilities.

The antibody test, which is one of the tests, how do you use those, when - that should all be up to the states.

The tracing function - that is the function after testing that actually traces people who are positive, who did they come in contact with, to isolate them - that's all the state's responsibility.

The problem with testing and bringing testing up to scale has been the national manufacturers of the equipment who make the testing kits that they have to send to the state labs so the state labs can actually perform them. Those are done by national manufacturers. The national manufacturers have said they have a problem with the supply chain to quickly ramp up those tests. They need swabs, they need vials and they need chemicals, quote, unquote reagents.

That is where the federal government can help. States cannot do international supply chains. I guess they could, but not in this time frame and it's not what we do. You shouldn't have 50 states competing to do international supply chains. One of my colleagues, Governor Hogan the Chairman of the National Governor's Association who is the Governor of Maryland - Republican, good man - he was bringing tests in from South Korea. Very creative and proactive on his part, but that's not what state's normally do. Let the federal government take responsibility for that federal supply chain for the national manufacturers. That's what we agreed in this meeting.

That is an intelligent division of labor, in my opinion. Let each level of government do what it does best and it ends this back and forth, what do the states do, what does Washington do, who's responsible, et cetera.

To quantify that situation in the State of New York, we now do, on average, about 20,000 tests per day. Our goal, which is very aggressive and ambitious but set it high and then try, our goal is to double the 20,000 to get to 40,000 tests per day. We need several weeks to ramp up to that, but it is a very aggressive goal. That is our current system at maximum. Our current laboratory system, 7-days-a-week, 24-hours-a-day. The maximum our system, as it exists, can do is that number. That's our goal and it was a very productive conversation. Again, that is the biggest single task we have to do that is identifiable from today. It ends the whole back and forth and the finger pointing in a very fair and smart way. It's a smart resolution so I feel very good about that. If we could double our tests that would be a home run. That is a really, really big deal.

We also talked about funding to the states. The legislation that the Congress passed did not have funding for the states. It passed additional money for small business and that's great and we need that and that's a positive, but it did not fund state governments, which to me is just a mistake, frankly. Fund small businesses, fund airlines, but you don't fund police, you don't fund fire, you don't fund healthcare workers, you don't fund teachers, you don't fund schools, you cut the aid to schools in this state. You know the state governments are broke, to use a very blunt term. You know the state governments are now responsible for the reopening and the governors are going to do the reopening, and they have no funds to do it. So, we talked about that, the President said he understood the issue and that he would work very hard to get funding for the states in the next piece of legislation that passes. And we hope there is another piece of legislation.

I also told the President, from my parochial point of view, we had a conversation with Secretary Mnuchin and the President, that there is a match. What's called a local match for FEMA funding. When the FEMA does something, the local government should match that funding by twenty five percent. I said to the President there is no way New York can pay that match because we don't have the funding period and it is disproportionate to New York, because we've had such a much larger number of cases than any other state in the United States. That it falls disproportionately on New York, which disproportionately is dealing with this crisis in the first place. We get all the hardship and then we get a bill because we had the hardship. Makes absolutely no sense and as a practical matter we couldn't pay it anyway. The President said he understood and that he would work to waive the local match. Secretary Mnuchin said he understood. Secretary Mnuchin was very supportive and I thank him for his support and the President said that he understood and that he would take care of it and I believe that he will, because he did understand it and that's a big deal for the state of New York.

Again, the incongruity the state that had the most pain and death should get a bill because they endured pain and death. I mean it makes no sense. So, that was a lot and it was complicated, but vitally important and the resolution was good across the board.

We met not just with the President, but with members of his team because a lot of this is granular and detailed and if you don't work out the details there is no conceptual agreement, right? It has to be on the details, so people actually know what we're agreeing to and it was on that level. So, I thank all the people on the President's team who made themselves available and work this through with us in detail and it's a really positive, positive resolution.

2020-04-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Full crew today. Today is day 53. It's important to get a sense of bearings. Fifty-three days since we closed down New York. Fifty-three days since this nightmare happened. Such a disorienting period. Fifty-three days. Is it a long time or is it a short time? Well, if you look back compared to what other generations have gone through or other periods of crisis in this country, 53 days is nothing. We've dealt with really intense, terrible situations for a long time in the past. It feels very long and it's very stressful. That's across the board.

You have families that haven't had a paycheck come in in a couple of months, meanwhile the bills keep coming in. That's tremendous economic anxiety and insecurity. By the way, it's exactly right. When do I go back to work? When do I get another paycheck? That's a pressure that people feel in the household. Even the good part of it.

Well, my family's together I have all my three girls, in my case, with me and that's nice and that's good news. But you put even the family together and you lock them up, cabin fever, everyone has their own stress that they're dealing with. Everyone's trying to figure out their life and they're all together in this intense period. Even that is stressful. I feel it in my own household. My daughters are getting tired of my jokes, believe it or not. How that can happen I have no idea, but somehow they manage to do that. Even have trouble now picking a movie at night because the rule is if you pick a bad movie then you are on movie probation. You don't get to pick the next movie. Everybody is on movie probation in my house now. That's a problem.

Even the dog, Captain, is out of sorts and relating to stress. Maybe there's too many people in the house and he's having trouble adjusting. Captain doesn't like the boyfriend. I said I like the boyfriend so it's nothing that I said, but all sorts of tension that people are living with. Real tension and then just the day-to-day stress.

Yes, it's a terrible period of time, I get it. We have to deal with it. When you look at the reality of the situation, we are actually in a much better place. We're not home yet, but we're in a better place. The really bad news would have been if we concluded that we couldn't control the spread of the virus. That was a possibility. You looked at all those initial projections. How do you know we could control the spread? We could have done all those close down measures and it didn't work and the spread continued. That would have been bad news.

Relatively, we're in a relatively good place. In downstate New York, the curve is on the descent. The question is now how long is that descent. Is it a sudden drop off? Is it one week, two weeks, three weeks, six weeks? We don't know. Better to be going down than to be going up. Let's keep that in mind. We are going down. How fast, we'll find out, but we're in a better place.

Hospitalizations numbers are coming down. Intubations are coming down. Number of new people coming into the hospital every day is still troublingly high, but better than it was, still problematic. Number of lives lost is still breathtakingly painful and the worst news that I have to deliver everyday and the worst news that I've ever had to deal with as Governor of New York. At least it's not going up anymore and it seems to be on a gentle decline.

Make no mistake, this is a profound moment in history. Our actions are going to shape our future and you're not going to have to wait for a 10-year analysis, a retrospective, to find out how our actions affected our future. What we do today, you will see the results in three, four, or five days. You tell me what the people of this state and this country do today, you will see the results in the number of hospitalizations in just a few days. We get reckless today, there are a lot of contacts today, unprotected contacts today, you'll see that hospitalization go up three, four, five days from today. It is that simple. and it's that pressing, that every decision we make is going to affect how we come out of this, how fast we come out of this. So, in this moment, more than any other, truth, not what you would like to see, what you'd hope to see, not emotions, truth and facts, truth and facts. That's how we operate here in the State of New York. Truth and facts. Give me the truth and give me the facts. And that has to guide our actions. Period.

We had a productive meeting at the White House yesterday. Productive visit, everybody says productive visit. Very few people come out and say unproductive visit, right. What does that mean, productive visit? To me a productive visit means we spoke truth, we spoke facts, we made decisions, and we have a plan going forward. And that was accomplished yesterday. And I feel good about it personally. Because it's what should have happened, right? Big issues on the table. In the political process, well he said this, she said this, and you get into a he said, she said, or you get into a blame game, finger pointing. But the meeting was very productive.

And by the way, these are people in the White House who politically don't like me. That's the fact, right. You see the president's tweets. He's often tweeted very unkind things about me and my brother. Politically, he does not, we've had conflicts. back and forth. But we sat with him, we sat with his team, and that was put aside. Because who really cares how I feel or how he feels? Who cares? Get the job done. I don't care if you like him or he likes you. We're not setting up a possible marriage here. Just do the job. When you're at war, you're in a fox hole. Nobody says, well, do you like the person you're in the fox hole with? Who cares? You protect the other person in the fox hole, then you get out of the fox hole and you take the hill, charge up the hill. And that's how we should be operating now. I don't care what your politics are, I don't care what you think about my politics. We both have a job, let's do the job. And that was the spirit of the meeting yesterday. And it was very productive on what were very contentious, unclear issues. So it was very good.

The main issue was testing, which I'll talk more about in a second, but we also talked about state funding. All the governors are united, Democrat and Republican. National Governors Association, every governor is saying the same thing. We have to have state funding. The states have a role basically in a deficit situation, and we need funding from Washington. They've passed bills that help a lot of Americans, that's great. Help small businesses, that's great.

But you have to help state governments because state governments fund the people that the federal government can't fund. State and local governments, we're funding police, we're funding fire, we're funding teachers, we're funding schools. You can't just ignore them. And when you don't fund the states, then you're saying to the states well, you have to fund them, and the states have already said in one united choir, we can't. We can't. So we talked to the president about that.

The president gets it. The president says he's going to work very hard in the next piece of legislation. But, you know, I've been in Washington. I was there for eight years. The congress has to insist that this is in the legislation. And yes, they passed funding for small business and funding for testing, and that's good. That is a good thing, i's not a bad thing. But it's not enough either. And they don't come back every day, the Congress. It's hard to get them to come back. And this was not the time for baby steps. This is when you should be taking bold action. The action is proportionate to the issue. And you haven't had a problem that's any bigger than this that any of the senators or Congress people have ever dealt with. Well, then your action should be proportionate and responsive to the problem. And it wasn't.

The President also agreed, which is a big deal for New York, to waive what's called the state match for FEMA. Normally a state has to pay 25 percent of the FEMA cost. That would be a cruel irony for New York and adding insult to injury. New York had the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country, therefore our cost of FEMA was the highest cost in the nation. Therefore, New York should pay the highest amount. How ironically cruel would that be? You're going to penalize us for having the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country. And at the same time that Congress passed a piece of legislation not even funding the states. So, the President agreed to waive that. That's a very big deal. That's hundreds of millions of the dollars to the State of New York.

But the big issue was testing. We've been talking about testing, tracing, and then isolating. And that will be the key going forward. That's how you're educated and have some data points as you're working your way through this reopening calibration, right? How does it work? You test the person, if the person winds up positive, then you trace the person's contacts. Contact tracing. You have to start with a large number of tests, and we set as a goal yesterday to double the number of state tests, to go from 20,000 on average to 40,000. That is just about the maximum capacity of all the laboratory machines in the state.

We have private labs, about 300 of them that we regulate, they have purchased the machines over time. These are expensive machines. If you took every machine we had, and they had all the supplies they needed from the national manufacturers, and you ran that machine seven days a week, 24 hours a day, how many tests could you do? About 40,000. So that's, if you put your foot to the floor, you brought the engine up to maximum RPM, up to the red line, you brought it up to 6,000, assuming the red line was 6,000, and you held it there, 7 days, 24 hours a day, at red line, how many tests could you do? 40,000. Now, there's a lot of buts and ifs in there. But the machine has to stay together for 7 days, 24 hours a day. You have to have enough people feeding the machine. But that is our maximum potential. So where did we set the goal? At our maximum potential. Why? Because we need to. "Well, it's unrealistic." Might be a little unrealistic. But I'd rather set the bar high and try to get there, and whatever we get is what we get.

But once you do all those tests, every positive you have to go back and trace. And the tracing is a very big, big deal. Once you trace, and you find more positives, then you isolate the positives, they're under quarantine, they can't go out, they can't infect anybody else. This entire operation has never been done before. So, it's intimidating. You've never heard the words, "testing, tracing, isolate," before. No one has. We've just never done this. There are a few textbooks that spoke about it, but we've never done it. And we've never done anywhere near this scale. So, it is an intimidating exercise. But I say so what? Who cares that you've never done it. That's really irrelevant. It's what we have to do now. So, figure out how to do it! Well, we have to put together a tracing army. Okay. We've put together armies before. Never a tracing army. But we can put together people, we can organize, we can train, and we can do it. And yes, it's a big deal, but it's what we have to do and it's what we will do.

We want to operate on a tri-state basis. I've spoken to Governor Murphy in New Jersey who's doing a great job, and Governor Lamont in Connecticut is doing a great job. They've been very great neighbors to New York. It's best to do this tracing on a tri-state area. Why? Because that's how our society works. The virus doesn't stop at jurisdictional boundaries. "Oh, I'm at the town of Brookhaven, I stop here." No - the virus doesn't say that. The virus just spreads. And you look at the spread of the virus, it is in a metropolitan area. So, we'll work together. This will be a massive undertaking.

Good news is, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has volunteered to help us develop and implement the program. Mayor Bloomberg was Mayor of New York City, as you know - three terms. As governor, I worked with Mayor Bloomberg. He's developed an organization where he works with mayors across the world, literally, providing them guidance. He has tremendous insight both governmentally and private sector business perspective. Remember, his company, Bloomberg, went through the China close down, open up, they went through the European close down, open up. So, he's had quite a bit of experience in this area. It's a very big undertaking, and we thank him very much for taking it on, because it is going to require a lot of attention, a lot of insight, a lot of experience, and a lot of resources.

We're also going to be partnering with Johns Hopkins and Vital Strategies in putting together that tracing operation. It will be coordinated tri-state and downstate. Why downstate? Because, again, downstate operates as one area. About 25 percent, 30 percent of the work force that goes into New York City comes from outside of New York City. I have a house in Westchester. I work in New York City. Who's supposed to trace me? Westchester or New York City? If I turn up positive, yeah, my residence is in Westchester County, but I work in New York City and I would have contacted many more people in New York City than I would in Westchester.

Because if I work in New York City, that's where I'm contacting people. I live in Suffolk, but I work in New York City. I'm a police officer who has a house in Rockland, but I work in New York City. I'm a firefighter, who lives in Rockland or Orange, but I work in New York City. I live in New Jersey, but I work in the city. I live in the city, but I work in Connecticut. Right? So all those interconnections. If you're going to do these tracing operations, you can't do it within just your own county. Because you'll quickly run into people who are cross jurisdictional. So understand that going in. Blur the governmental jurisdictions because they don't really make sense. Put everybody together, work together. Harder done than said, but 100 percent right, there's no doubt about that.

We're going to take the initial tracers that people have now. The state has about 225 today. Rockland has 40, Westchester 50, Nassau 60, New York City 200. They are going to work together. Mayor Bloomberg is going to start with that core, but we have to build on that because we'll literally need thousands. SUNY and CUNY have 35,000 medical students that we're going to draw from, but we have to put together a significant operation because the numbers get very big very quickly here.

Today is also the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. When you look at many of the numbers that we're finding, and you look at the disparity between the African-American community, Latino community that has a higher rate of infection than the white community. You start to ask why and you start to study those health disparities. You also find that in those areas where the coronavirus infection rate is higher, they tend to be minority areas, and by the way, those minority areas tend to be the places where we cited plants that pollute the asthma rates. Respiratory illnesses are three times higher among people in the African-American community, three times the asthma rate, respiratory illness rate. They're getting more coronavirus, they're a higher percentage of essential workers. You see how these two factors come together and make a bad situation worse. Let's learn from that. It's one of the lessons that we have to learn, and we have to go forward and we will.

The positive message is look how well we do when we actually focus and we make a decision and we say, "We have to do this." If you had told me two months ago that I would be able to stand up before the people of the state and say by the way, we have to close down everything, businesses closed, everything closes, everybody go into your homes, close the door, lock it, don't come out. I would have said it's not going to work, it's not going to work. You're not going to get 19 million New Yorkers. We're just a defiant group of people, questioning everything, they're not going to do it. Well, maybe if you give them all the facts and they understand, and they'll do it and we did. Look at the potential. Look at the possibility of what you can actually do. Well, then can you really make a real difference on these issues we've been fighting for decades, but we haven't really made the progress we need to--climate change, the environment. Yes, you can.

Last point, my phone is ringing, I'm talking to many local officials. They feel political pressure to open. I understand. I said yesterday that we're going to make decisions based on a regional basis, because just as the nation has different states and different positions, New York State has different regions and different positions. North country is one set of facts, facts. This is about truth and facts. North country has one set of facts, Western New York has a different set of facts, Capitol District has a different set of facts. Make decisions based on the facts, and the facts are different in down State New York in many areas. Also make them on the facts and realize the consequence of what you could do opening one region, but not other regions and how you could flood that one region and give them a host of problems they never anticipated. But make the decision on the facts. I get it, don't make the decision based on political pressure. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.

This is a profound moment. We make a bad move it's going to set us back. I get the political pressure and I get the political pressure that local officials are under. We can't make a bad decision. I get the pressure, but we can't make a bad decision. Frankly, this is no time to act stupidly, period. I don't know how else to say it and I've said it innumerable times to local officials on the phone. I get the pressure, I get the politics. We can't make a bad decision and we can't be stupid about it. This is not going to be over any time soon. I know people want out, I get it. I know people want to get back to work. I know people need a paycheck. I know this is unsustainable. I also know that more people will die if we are not smart, I know that. I have to do that count every day of the number of people who passed away. We're not going to have people lose their life because we acted imprudently. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that and I'm not going to allow the state to do it. I'm not going to have the obituary of this period be, well they felt political pressure, so they got nervous and they acted imprudently. That's not who we are.

So, I've said to them look, if you look at any of the facts, the 1918 flu, they're talking about it now. There can be waves to this, right? You walk out into the ocean, you get hit with that first wave, oh great, I'm done. The wave hit me, I'm still standing. Beware, because there can be a second wave, or there could be a third wave. So, don't be cocky just because you got hit by a wave and it didn't knock you off your feet. There can be a second wave and if you're not ready for the second wave, that's the wave that's going to knock you down, because you're not ready for it. So, that's what I'm worried about.

Also, to the local officials and local politicians, I have no problem with them blaming me. It's a very simple answer. I say to everyone whenever they say I agree with you, it's the governor. Because, by the way, it is the governor. It is. These are state laws that are in effect, the local officials can't do anything about them anyway because they can't contradict a state law. It's true, so the local official can say, "It's the Governor. Blame him." It's true and it will stop us from doing something that's counterproductive and it'll also stop us from getting into a dispute between me and the local government where the net message will be to the people there's disagreement or confusion among government. This is not the time for disagreement of confusion among government.

The state laws govern. I get the local political pressure. Blame the Governor, it's the truth and the local laws can't counteract state laws anyway. To this political pressure. This is a quote that I think people should take to heart:

"When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then they ceased to be free."

Edith Hamilton originally, Edward Gibbon in the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. "When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then they ceased to be free." We have a responsibility today to ourselves and to others. There is a codependency and a mutuality among people in society that is more clear and distinct than we have ever seen it. You sneeze, I get sick. You sneeze, I get sick. It is that close a connection.

You have a responsibility to act prudently vis-a-vie other people. Because you're not just putting your own life at risk. You're risking my life and my children's life and my parent's life and you don't have that right. You have to act responsibly and to advocate for total irresponsibility, let's all be irresponsible, no. Not here, not now.

2020-04-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Okay, good morning. Good to see all of you. We are going to go through some facts. I was talking to a reporter yesterday who said basically, you know, you give us grim facts, troubling facts. I don't give grim facts. I don't give happy facts. You know, facts are facts. And when we started this, I said the best thing I can do is to give people the truth and give people the facts, separate from an opinion, separate from my spin, separate from what I would like to believe, what I hope - just facts.

And the reason I do that is because everything we're doing is basically voluntary, on behalf of people, right? State government, local government, federal government, can't really, doesn't have the power to enforce stay-at-home orders. If 19 million people said, I'm going out today, they would go out. But the belief was if they have the facts, if they understand the facts, they'll act prudently in connection with the facts. Now, some of the facts have been disturbing. Some of the facts have been ugly. But those are the facts and that's my job, is to present the facts as facts. If I have an editorial comment on the facts, I give it to you. But I want you to know, that's my editorial comment, versus what data or science will say. Also, our Muslim brothers and sisters begin the observation of Ramadan this evening and we wish them all the best.

The hospitalization rate is down again, so that is good news. The overall, if you project the curve, everybody's looking at curves nowadays. If you look at the curve, the curve continues to go down. And that's also in the total hospitalization number, bounces up and down a little bit, but it's clearly down. Number of intubations bounces a little bit, but it's also clearly down. The number of new COVID cases walking in the door or being diagnosed is relatively flat. That is not great news. We would like to see that going down but it's not going up either. Number of lives lost is still breathtakingly tragic - 438. That number is not coming down as fast as we would like to see that number come down.

And what we're looking at this point is, okay, we're on the downside of the curve, the numbers are trending down. Do they continue to trend down or do they pop back up? If they continue to trend down, how fast is the decline and how low will the decline go? In other words, if 1,300 people or about that number keep walking in the door, then you're going to have a hospitalization rate proportionate with the number of people walking in the door. So we want to see the number of people walking in the door reduced, the number of new infections reduced, so we hit a low plateau, if you will. But we don't know what that is and we don't know when it is. And if you look at the number of incoming cases, it's been remarkably flat for the past several days. So that's the best indicator of how containment is working and how the close-down policies are working. And over the past few days, we've basically flattened at 1,300 new cases a day, which is not great. We would like to see those new cases reducing even more and we'd like to see them reducing faster.

You then have other long-term questions. Is there a second wave of the virus? We talk about the 1918 pandemic. It came in three waves. Is there a second wave? Does the virus mutate and come back? The federal officials are starting to talk about the fall and potential issues in the fall. They're worried about the virus waning somewhat during the summer. Remember, there was talk, will it go away when the weather gets warm? No one is really saying it will go away when the weather gets warm in the summer. But there's still a theory that the virus could slow during the summer but then come back in the fall. If it comes back in the fall, then it comes back with the normal flu season. That's then problematic because you are then quote/unquote testing for the flu and you're testing for covid on top of all the other tests you do. That could be a possible overwhelming of the testing system.

If people could have the flu or could have COVID in the fall and they don't know which it is they could get nervous and start going into the health care system which could then bring back a capacity issue in the health care system. So that's something we have to worry about and watch.

Nursing homes are our top priority. They have been from day one. Remember how the nursing home system works. They are private facilities. They get paid to provide a service. They get regulated by the State government. There are certain rules and regulations that they must follow and we put in additional rules and regulations on nursing homes in the midst of this crisis. Staff must have appropriate PPE. They must have their temperatures checked before they come into the facility. There are no visitors who are coming into the facility which is a tremendous hardship but it's necessary to protect public health. If they have a COVID-positive person in the facility that person has to be in quarantine. They have to have several staff for the COVID residents versus the non-COVID residents.

If they can't care for the person in the facility they have to transfer the person to another facility. The nursing home is responsible for providing appropriate care. If they cannot provide that care then they have to transfer the person to another facility. They have to notify residents and family members within 24 hours if any resident tests positive for COVID or if any resident suffers a COVID-related death. That is a regulation they have to follow and they have to readmit COVID-positive residents but only if they have the ability to provide the adequate level of care under Department of Health and CDC guidelines.

If they do not have the ability to provide the appropriate level of care then they have to transfer that patient or they call the Department of Health and the Department of Health will transfer that patient. But that is how the relationship works.

The State has very strict guidelines on privately run facilities. They get paid to take care of a resident. That resident, that patient must have a State-directed level of care. If they cannot provide that they can't have the resident in their facility - period. Those are the rules.

We're going to undertake an investigation of nursing homes now to make sure they're following the rules. It's going to be a joint Department of Health and Attorney General investigation, but those are the rules. They get paid to take care of a resident and they have to do it in accordance with State rules and if they don't we will take appropriate action. The State Department of Health and the Attorney General are going to be commencing an investigation to make sure all of those policies are in place and being followed. If they're not being followed, they can be subjected to a fine or they can lose their license. It's that simple.

Testing is going to be a major operation that happens from now until the situation is over. It's new, it's technical, it's complex, it's a political football, but testing does a number of things for us. Number one, it reduces the spread of the virus by finding people who are positive, tracing their contacts and isolating them. That's a function of testing.

Testing also - what they call anti-body testing - you test people to find out if they have the antibodies. Why? Because if they have the antibodies they can donate blood for convalescent plasma which is one of the therapeutic treatments. So you want to find people who had it so you can identify them to donate for convalescent plasma. The testing also can tell you the infection rate in the population, where it's higher, where it's lower, to inform you on a reopening strategy and then when you start reopening, you can watch that infection rate to see if it's going up. If it's going up, slow down on the reopening strategy. There are different forms of testing for different purposes. All of them are important. It was vital for any state, I believe, to first get a baseline study of where you are on the infection rate. All we know, to-date, is the hospitalization rate. How many people are coming into hospitals. That is all we have been tracking. That's all we know.

From that, you had all sorts of anecdotal extrapolations on the hospitalization rate saying, I think the infection rate, I think the infection rate is that. I said, "I want to have the infection rate." We have undertaken the largest, most comprehensive study of New York State to find out what is the infection rate. That, we started a few days ago. Sample size so far, 3,000 people statewide. Let's find out what the infection rate is. We have preliminary data on phase one and this is going to be ongoing. We did about 3,000 tests. We're going to continue this testing on a rolling basis. We'll have a larger and larger sample, but I want to see snapshots of that is happening with that rate. Is it going up? It is flat? Is it going down? It can really give us data to make decisions.

We did 3,000 surveys in about 19 counties, 40 localities across the state. The surveys were collected at grocery stores, box stores, et cetera. That's important. It means you're testing people who, by definition, are out of the home and not at work. What does that mean? I don't know, but that has to be a factor that's taken into consideration. These are people who are out and about shopping. They were not people who are in their home. They are not people who are isolated. They are not people who are quarantined who could argue probably had a lower rate of infection because they wouldn't come out of the house. These are people who were outside. These are people who were not at work so they're probably not essential workers. So that has to be calibrated.

What we found so far is the statewide number is 13.9 percent tested positive for having the antibodies. What does that mean? It means these are people who were infected and developed the anti-bodies to fight the infection. So they were infected 3 weeks ago, 4 weeks ago, 5 weeks ago, 6 weeks ago, but they had the virus, they developed the antibodies and they are now quote, unquote recovered, 13.9 percent, just about 14 percent.

Breakdown male, female: Female 12 percent positive, males close to 16 percent, 15.9 percent positive. Regionally, Long Island at 16.7, New York City at 21.2, Westchester, Rockland 11.7 and rest of state, 3.6. This basically quantifies what we've been seeing anecdotally and what we have known, but it puts numbers to it. Rest of the state is basically upstate New York, 3.6. It's been about 7-8 percent of the cases that we've had in the state. Westchester, Rockland we had an initial significant problem. Remember Westchester had the largest, hottest cluster in the country at one time. Eleven percent, so it's literally somewhere in between. New York City 21, which again, supports what we knew anecdotally. Long Island, 16.7 so it's not that far behind New York City and it is significantly worse than Westchester, Rockland. We've been talking about Westchester, Rockland and Nassau, Suffolk basically as one. But there is a variation with the Long Island numbers. By race, Asians about 11.7 percent, African-American, 22 percent, Latino, Hispanic, 22 percent, multi none other, 22 percent, white 9.1 percent. This reflects more the regional breakdown, African-American and Latinos are in this survey, disproportionately from New York City, and New York City is at 21 percent. So, the African-American number, Latino number is 22 percent. Upstate, whites, they're talking about more upstate, which is 9, but it's 3.6 in the survey. By age, nothing extraordinary here. We did not survey anyone under 18. So it starts with 18 years old. 18 to 24, 8 percent. 45 to 54, 16. 75 plus, 13.

But it's a small percent of the total. Again, how many 75-year-olds were out shopping and about? That is the group that's supposed to be isolating because they are the most vulnerable. 65 to 74 also. But that's the distribution. Again, the sample was by definition, people who were outside the home, so we have to analyze that. What does that do to the numbers? But that is a factor that has to be taken into consideration. If the infection rate is 13.9 percent, then it changes the theories of what the death rate is if you get infected. 13 percent of the population is about 2.7 million people who have been infected. If you look at what we have now as a death total, which is 15,500, that would be about .5 percent death rate. But, two big caveats. First, it's preliminary data, it's only 3,000. Well, 3,000 is a significant data set, but, it's still preliminary.

And, when we say there are 15,500 deaths, that number is going to go up. Those deaths are only hospitalization or nursing home deaths. That does not have what are called at-home deaths, right. This doesn't include people who died in their home and were not in a hospital or a nursing home. We still have to compile all that data. And then the at-home deaths, you have to go back and try to find out what was the cause of death for those at-home deaths, and then add them to the number of deaths connected to COVID. It gets even more complicated because in California, they're now finding deaths that go back to last December or January that they believe were COVID-related. And people didn't even know about COVID at that time. So, if you then go back to December and January, and start to look at the number of deaths and check them for a COVID-related death, I don't even know how you do that practically, you'll see that total number of deaths go up.

But that 15,500 is not an accurate total number of deaths, in my opinion. Well, fact. It's not an accurate total number of deaths because it does not count in-home deaths, at-home deaths. It's not accurate because there will have been many other deaths that were never tested for COVID that should be attributed to that number. But, with those caveats, that's what we see in this survey. It also supports the decision that we talked about to have a regional analysis and decision-making. Upstate New York is 3.6 percent. New York City is 21 percent. What you do in a place with 21 percent is not the same thing necessarily that you would do in a place with 3.6 percent. It's just not. It's the same theory that some states open now, and New York doesn't. Because the facts should dictate the action. If the facts dictate the action - you have different facts, you have different action. So when we talk about a regional analysis on reopening, that's exactly right because look at the facts in that area.

But there's a second complicating factor, because there always is. What you do in a region still has to be coordinated because you have a pent up demand in the whole tristate area where one region opens up for business - you could see people come in, literally, from the tristate area and overwhelm that region. We try to rationalize with Connecticut and New Jersey because there have been facilities in Connecticut that were open and you have all sorts of New York license plates there. So, yes, regional analysis, but understand on that regional analysis that you still exist in a tristate area with millions of people who are looking for something to do to get out of the house and put the kids in the car and go. That has to be factored in because that is a significant factor.

We also have to do more to get testing in the African-American and Latino communities. We talked about health disparities. This state did not have the kind of disparities we've seen in other states, but I want to understand them and I want to address them. There are going to be a number of factors why you could have a higher percentage of positives in the African-American, Latino community. There were existing health disparities. There were existing comorbidities. Underlying illnesses, diabetes, et cetera. I also believe you have a greater percentage of the "essential workers" who are African-American and Latino. While everyone else or many other people had the opportunity to lockdown at home as terrible as that was, the essential workers had to get up every morning and go out and drive the bus and drive the train and deliver food and do all those essential services that allowed people to stay home.

Also, you have more people in the New York City area. More people getting on subways, getting on buses. More people dealing with that density. We know that's where it communicates. But, New York City Housing Authority - we're starting more testing today at New York City Housing Authority facilities. You talk about public housing. I was a HUD secretary. I worked in public housing all across this nation. That is some of the densest housing in the United States of America. People crammed into elevators, crammed through small lobbies, overcrowding in their apartment. So, public housing does pose a special issue and it should be addressed.

I also want to get more testing in African-American and Latino communities all through the New York City area, including Long Island after this. I want to work with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries and Congress member Yvette Clarke and Congress member Nydia Velazquez to help us work with the churches in those communities. The churches have volunteered, many of them, to be testing sites. One of the problems is finding a testing site, but many churches have said they would be willing to use their facilities for testing sites. As we ramp us the testing, I want to get it into the African-American, Latino community and using the churches as a network, I think, is going to be extraordinarily effective. But this is something New York should lead the way on - answering this question and addressing this issue.

Also, I want to speak to a point from our friends in Washington. Senator McConnell, who is the head of the Senate. You know, we've been talking about funding for state and local governments. It was not in the bill that the House is going to pass today. They said don't worry, don't worry, don't worry the next bill. As soon as the Senate passed it, this current bill, Senator Mitch McConnell goes out and he says, "maybe the states should declare bankruptcy." Okay? This is one of the really dumb ideas of all time. You know, I said to my colleagues in Washington, I would have insisted that state and local funding was in this current bill, because I don't believe they want to fund state and local governments. Not to fund state and local governments is incredibly shortsighted. They want to fund small business, fund the airlines, I understand that. But state and local government funds police, and fire, and teachers, and schools. How do you not fund police, and fire, and teachers, and schools, in the midst of this crisis. Yes, airlines are important, yes small businesses are important, but so are police, and fire, and healthcare workers, who are the frontline workers. When you don't fund the state then states can't fund the services. It makes no sense to me.

It also makes no sense that the entire nation is dependent on what the governors do to reopen. We've established that it's up this governor, it's up to this governor, it's up to this governor. But then you're not going to fund the state government? You think I am going to do it alone? How do you think this is going to work? And then to suggest we're concerned about the economy? States should declare bankruptcy? That's how you're going to bring this national economy back, by states declaring bankruptcy? You want to see that market fall through the cellar? Let New York state declare bankruptcy, let Michigan declare bankruptcy, let Illinois declare bankruptcy, California declare bankruptcy. You will see a collapse of this national economy. So, just dumb. Vicious is saying when Senator McConnell said, "This is a blue-state bail out." What he's saying is, if you look at the states that have coronavirus problems, they tend to be Democratic states. New York, California, Michigan, Illinois, they are Democratic states. So, if you fund states that are suffering from the coronavirus, the Democratic states, don't help New York state because it is a Democratic state. How ugly a thought -- I mean just think of what he's saying. People died, 15,000 people died in New York, but they were predominantly Democrats, so why should we help them?

For crying out loud, if there was ever a time you're going to put aside your pettiness and your partisanship and this political lens that you see the world through Democrat and Republican and we help Republicans, but we don't help Democrats. That's not who we are, it's just not who we are as people. If there is ever a time for humanity and decency, now is the time. And if there was ever a time to stop your political obsessive political bias and anger, which is what its morphed into, just a political anger, now is the time and you want to politically divide this nation now? With all that's going on? How irresponsible and how reckless. I am the governor of all New Yorkers, Democrat, Republican, independent, I don't even care what your political party is, I represent you. We are all there to support each other. This is not the time or the place or the situation to start your divisive politics, it is just not.

That's why look, our rule has been very simple from day one. There is no red and blue. There should have never been a red and blue when it comes to any important issue, but certainly not now. That's not what this country is all about. It is not red and blue, it is red, white, and blue. When we talk about New York tough, we are all New York tough, Democrats and Republicans. We're all smart, we're all disciplined, and we're all unified, and we're all in this together and we understand that and that's how we operate. We operate with love and we're strong enough to say love. Say love is not a weakness. It is a strength and New Yorkers are that strong.

2020-04-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Everybody looks bright and happy, happy and peppy and bursting with love. No? Today is Friday. I hope you all have big plans for the weekend. Can you have a weekend if you didn’t have a week day? Philosophical questions.

Total hospitalizations, down. Good news; 14,200. All the evidence suggests we’re on the downside of the curve. We’re headed down. Net change in hospitalizations is down. Net change in intubations is down again and they have been down for a while. This is still not great news. Number of new people coming into the hospital. Number of new infections is a slightly down but that’s basically a flat line and that is troubling. About 1,200 new, 1,300 new infections every day. Number of lives lost is still heartbreaking news. 422. Again, this is at an unimaginable level and it’s dropping somewhat but it’s still a devastating news.

The question we’re watching now is we hit the high point. We’re on the way down. How fast does that number come down and how far does that number drop? We have projections again, like we had projections on what the disease was going to do on the way up the mountain. We have projections on what the disease would do as a rate of decline. But again, they’re just projections. Some projections has it going down and flattening at about 5,000 people in hospitals still. Some projections have the decline slowing between now and June. But these are again all just like they had projections as to how fast and how far the disease would increase. Those projections as we know were wrong. Well, they weren’t wrong. We didn’t hit those projections because of our actions, because of what we did because of what the federal government did.

Luckily, the disease did not go as high as they thought in the projections. You now have the corresponding question, how fast is the decline? How low was the decline? And again, the variable is going to be what we do.

We change the projection on the way up. We can change the projection on the way down but it’s purely dependent on what we do. Are we socially distancing? Are we testing? How fast do we reopen? How do we reopen? You answer those questions and you will determine what the rate of decline is.

If you say, “Well, we’re done. Can’t stay in the house anymore. Let’s just reopen. Just start business tomorrow. Let’s go.” What happens? That’s what happens. All the progress we made is gone and all experts, or virtually all experts will say, not only does the virus spread increase but it increases to a higher point than we had increased the first time. Again, this is a remarkably effective virus at spreading and growing. So I know everyone’s impatient. Let’s just reopen. That’s what happens if we just reopen. So we have to be smart.

People are also talking about a second wave; potential of a second wave people are talking about. Potential for the virus to come back in the fall, which means the game isn’t over. Which means the game could be just at halftime. So let’s make sure we’re learning the lessons of what has happened thus far. Let’s make sure we’re being truthful with ourselves, not that we’re deceiving anyone else but let’s make sure we’re not deceiving ourselves.

What has happened? What should we learn from as far as what has happened thus far, so we make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again and let’s do that now.

This was our first global pandemic. Welcome. There had been people who talked about global pandemics before. Bill Gates had talked about the potential of a global pandemic during the Obama administration. They talked about being prepared for a global pandemic but it was almost always an academic exercise. What if? What if? What if?

Once it happens, once it actualizes for people, then it’s different. Then people get it. We now know that a global pandemic is not just a textbook exercise. It’s not just the tabletop exercise. It can happen and when it happens, it’s devastating and let’s just learn from what happened on the first one. Let’s just get the basic lesson of what happened on the first one.

Last November, December, we knew that China had a virus outbreak. You could read about it in the newspapers, right? Everybody knew. January 26, we know we had the first confirmed case in Seattle, Washington, and California. February 2nd, the president ordered a travel ban from China. March 1st we have the first confirmed case in the state of New York. By March 19th, New York state is totally closed down. No state moved faster from first case to close down then the state of New York.

March 16th we have a full travel ban from Europe. Researchers now find and they report in some newspapers, the virus was spreading wildly in Italy in February and there was an outbreak, massive outbreak in Italy in February. Researchers now say there were likely 28,000 cases in the United States in February, including 10,000 cases in the state of New York and the Coronavirus flu virus that came to New York, did not come from China. It came from Europe.

When you look at the number of flights that came from Europe to New York, the New York metropolitan area, New York and New Jersey during January, February, up to the close down, 13,000 flights bringing 2.2 million people. All right. So November, December you have the outbreak in China. Everybody knows.

January, February, flights are coming from Europe. People are also coming from China in January, until the China closed down and the flights continue to come from Europe until the Europe shutdown. 2.2 million people come to New York and come to New Jersey.

We acted two months after the China outbreak. When you look back, does anyone think the virus was still in China waiting for us to act two months later? We all talk about the global economy and how fast people move and how mobile we are. How can you expect that when you act two months after the outbreak in China, the virus was only in China waiting for us to act? The horse had already left the barn by the time we moved.

A researcher now says knowing the number of flights coming into New York from Italy, it was like watching a horrible train wreck in slow motion. Those are the flights that were coming from Italy and from Europe, January and February. We closed the front door with the China travel ban, which was right. Even in retrospect, it was right, but we left the back door open because the virus had left China by the time we did the China travel ban. That’s what the researchers are now saying with 28,000 cases in the United States, 10,000 in New York. So what is the lesson? An outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. When you see in November and December an outbreak in China, just assume the next day it’s in the United States. When they say it’s in China, just assume that virus got on a plane that night and flew to New York, or flew to Newark Airport, and it’s now in New York. That has to be the operating mentality, because you don’t know that the virus didn’t get on a plane. All you need is one person to get on that plane in China and come to New York. The way this virus transfers, that’s all you need, and you can’t assume two months later the virus is still going to be sitting on a park bench in China waiting for you to get there. That is the lesson, and again, why do we need to learn the lesson? Because they’re talking about this happening again with this virus, where it could mutate in China and get on a plane and come right back, or the next virus, or the next pandemic.

Whose job is it to warn us of these global pandemics? The President says it’s the World Health Organization, and that’s why he’s taken action against them. Not my field, but he’s right to ask the question, because this was too little, too late. And let’s find out what happened so it doesn’t happen again, and it will happen again. Bank on it. Let’s not put our head in the sand and say, “This is the only global pandemic that we’ll ever have to deal with.”

In the meantime, let’s keep moving forward. One of the things we’re working on is, “How do we clean? How do we disinfect?” We’re talking about reopening. We still have public transit systems running. We still have buses running, so we’ve been working on, “How do you come up with new cleaning, new disinfecting protocols?” And I asked the simple question to our team a few days ago, “How long does the virus live?” And it’s something we need to know, but frankly, I think it’s something everybody needs to know. The virus can live up to 72 hours on plastic surfaces and stainless steel surfaces. Okay? So just think about this from a transit point of view, or from your car point of view, it can live on a vinyl car seat up to 72 hours. It can live on a pole in a bus or on a seat in a bus for up to 72 hours. Up to 24 hours on cardboard. Up to four hours on materials like copper, and the droplets can hang in the air for three hours.

This was a shocker to me. When they were talking about droplets, I thought it was a droplet and then it falls, right? It’s a droplet that can hang in the air for three hours. I don’t even know how that works, and many of the people who spread it are showing no symptoms at all, so just factor that in, in your daily life when you’re going through your own precautions.

We’re also going to do the state finance report this week, and what you’re going to see is what we expected, roughly a $13.3 billion shortfall from our forecast. Total effect over the period of the financial plan is $61 billion. Now, what happened? New York State was not, quote-unquote, “in trouble” before this happened. New York State was very, very strong before this happened. Our economy was growing. It was growing at a very high rate. Our government spending has been at record lows. The spending increases. Our taxes today are lower than the day I took office. “Oh, you’re a Democrat. How can that be?” They’re numbers. Tax rates on individuals, businesses are lower today than the day I took office. Every tax rate, as incredible as that sounds, is lower today than the day I took office. So the state finances were very, very strong, and then this economic tsunami hits and you shut down all the businesses. Everybody stays home. They’re not getting a paycheck. They feel like that economic anxiety. The consequences to the state is the revenue projections are way down.

What do we do about it? Some people have suggested, “Well, states should declare bankruptcy.” I think, as I said yesterday, it’s a really dumb idea. People are trying to talk about bringing the economy back reopen. We have to get the economy moving again, and then rather than provide financial aid to the states that got hit by this economic tsunami, through no fault of their own, suggestion was made, “States should declare bankruptcy.” Few problems with that premise. Forget the morality of it, and the ethics of it, and the absurdity of it, and the meanness of it. Legally, a state can’t declare bankruptcy. You would need a federal law allowing states to declare bankruptcy. So to the Senate that proposed it, I say pass a law allowing states to declare bankruptcy. I dare you, and let the President sign that bill that says, “I give the states the legal ability to declare bankruptcy.”

It’s your suggestion, Senator McConnell. Pass the law. I dare you. And then go to the President and say, “Sign this bill allowing states to declare bankruptcy.” You want to send a signal to the markets that this nation is in real trouble? You want to send a international message that the economy is in turmoil? Do that. Allow states to declare bankruptcy legally, because you passed the bill. It’ll be the first time in our nation’s history that that happened. I dare you to do that, and then we’ll see how many states actually take you up on it. I know I wouldn’t, but if you believe what you said and you have the courage of conviction because you’re a man of your word, pass that bill, if you weren’t just playing politics. We’ll see how long it takes him to do it.

Also, moving on, voting. We still have elections in the midst of all this chaos. We’ve seen elections held where we have people on lines for a long period of time. It makes no sense to me to tell people, “You have to put your life at risk, violate social distancing to come out to vote.” So we passed an executive order that said you can vote by absentee. Today I’m asking the Board of Elections to send every New York voter what’s called a … Automatically receives a postage paid application for a ballot. If you want to vote, we should send you a ballot so you can vote so you don’t have to come out and get on line.

And then looking ahead, more testing, and we are making great progress on that. New York State is doing more tests than any state in the country right now. New York State is doing more tests than any country per capita on the globe right now. That is what will educate on moving forward. Watch the spread of the virus. It’s getting warmer. More people are to be coming out of their homes. That’s going to happen naturally. Watch that spread. Testing gives you those numbers on an ongoing basis. Maintain social distancing.

Also, plan on a reopening, and not just reopening what was. We went through this horrific experience. It should be a period of growth. It should be a period of reflection. If we’re smart and we use it that way, there are lessons to learn here, if we’re smart and we have the courage to look in the mirror. We went through 9/ 11. We were the smarter for it. We went through World War II. We were the better for it. We went through Superstorm Sandy. We learned. We grew. We were the better for it. We should do the same thing here.

People have totally changed their lifestyle. What did we learn? How do we have a better healthcare system that can actually handle public health emergencies? How do we have a better transportation system? How do we have a smarter telemedicine system? How do we use technology and education better? Why do some children have to go to a parking lot to get wifi to do their homework? How do we learn from this and how do we grow? And let New York lead the way, because we are New York tough, but New York tough, when they say we’re tough, yeah, we’re tough, but we think tough incorporates being smart, and being disciplined, and being unified, and being loving.

Last point I want to make is, and this is just personal. It’s not factual. My grandmother on my father’s side, Mary, was a beautiful woman, but tough. She was a tough lady. She was New York tough. Gone through the Depression, early immigrant, worked hard all her life, and she was a little rough hewn. She was rough hewn. And I would say to her, “You know, Grandma, I met this girl, met this guy, they’re really nice.” And she would say, “Nice? How do you know they’re nice? It’s easy to be nice when everything is nice.” I said, “Grandma, what does that mean?” She said, “You know when you know if they’re nice? When things get hard. That’s when you know if they’re nice.”

And I never really got it, but her point was, it’s easy to be nice and kind and affable when everything is easy. You really get to see people and get to see character when things get hard, and when the pressure is on is when you really get to see true colors of a person and see what they made of. It’s almost as if the pressure just forces their character, and the weaknesses explode or the strengths explode. And that’s what we’ve gone through. This has been hard. It’s put everyone under pressure, and you’ve really seen what people are made of, and you’ve really had a snapshot of what individuals are made of, and what we are made of as a collective. And personally, I’ll tell you the truth. Some people break your heart. They just break your heart. People who I thought would rise to the occasion, people who I thought were strong, under pressure, they just crumbled. They just crumbled. On the other hand, you see people who you didn’t expect anything from who just rise to the occasion, and you see the best and you see the worst. You just see the best and the worst of humanity just comes up to the surface, on both ends. Everything gets elevated. The strength in people and the weakness in people. The beauty in people and the weakness in people, the beauty in people and the ugliness in people. You see both. For me, the beauty you see and the strength that you see compensates and balances for the weakness, and I get inspired by the strength so I can tolerate the heartbreak of the weakness. Here’s a letter that I received that just sums it up.

“Dear Mr. Cuomo, I seriously doubt that you will ever read this letter, as I know you are busy beyond belief with the disaster that has befallen our country. We are a nation in crisis. Of that, there is no doubt. I am a retired farmer hunkered down in northeast Kansas with my wife, who has but one lung and occasional problems with her remaining lung. She also has diabetes. We are in our 70s now, and frankly, I am afraid for her. Enclosed, find a solitary N95 mask left over from my farming days. It has never been used. If you could, would you please give this mask to a nurse or doctor in your state? I have kept four masks for my immediate family. Please keep on doing what you do so well, which is to lead. Sincerely, Dennis and Sharon.”

A farmer in northeast Kansas, his wife has one lung and diabetes. He has five masks. He sends one mask to New York for a doctor or a nurse, keeps four masks. You want to talk about a snapshot of humanity.

You have five masks. What do you do? Do you keep all five? Do you hide the five masks? Do you keep them for yourselves or others? No. You send one mask to New York to help a nurse or a doctor.

How beautiful is that? How selfless is that? How giving is that? That’s the nursing home in Niskayuna that sent 100 ventilators down to New York City when they needed them. It’s that love, that courage, that generosity of spirit that makes this country so beautiful and makes Americans so beautiful. It’s that generosity of spirit, for me, makes up for all the ugliness that you see. Take one mask. I’ll keep four. God bless America.

2020-04-25 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Saturday. Today is Saturday. I know that because my calendar says today’s Saturday and it is a beautiful Saturday here New Albany. Sun is out. We’re going to do this. Then I’m going to take the girls hiking up at Thatcher State Park and bring the dog, get out of the house, hike until they are fatigued and exhausted because exhaustion is our friend. Total hospitalizations down again. If you look at that overall curve, that is the mountain little perspective. We are back where we were 21 days ago. 21 days of hell, but we’re back to where we were. What we need to find out is when we will be back to the point where only several hundred people showed up at the hospitals every day with a COVID infection. That’s what we want to see. We want to know how fast that decline continues and how low that decline gets. And we would like to get back to the days of only 400, 500 people showing new infections every day.

All the numbers are basically saying the same that we are in fact, on the downside of the mountain. I’ve always been worried that there’s a little tick up and that there’d be some evidence that we’re not on decline, but all the evidence says we’re on decline. Even the number of new cases actually tick down yesterday after being stable for a number of days. It’s down to about 1100 new cases only in this crazy reality with 1100 new cases be relatively good news, right? But 1100 new cases, again, we’d like to see that down into the two, three, 400 new cases per day. Just when you think you’re going to have a good day, this reality slaps you right in the face. 437 deaths yesterday, which is actually a tick up. This number is, as you can see, call it flat, call it flat with a slight decline if you’re looking for a silver lining. But this is just terrible, terrible, horrific news. Testing is what we are compulsively obsessively focused on now. Both diagnostic testing, which is a positive negative the antibody testing. We do about 20,000 tests per day.

Average goes up and down a little bit depending on the day. We had great meeting with the federal government this week and came up with a division of responsibility. I spoke to the other governors about it yesterday with the vice president on a all governors conference call. Spoke about the arrangement with the federal government. I hope the federal government and the other governors follow that template because it’s a template that makes sense. We always said this was a federal state partnership and the president said that he understood the federal government had a role. We came up with a division of responsibility, which is basically the States take responsibility for the labs in their state in getting those labs functioning. We regulate those labs.

Labs functioning. We regulate those labs and the federal government would take the responsibility of making sure the national manufacturers had the tests, the reagents, the vials, the swabs, all the equipment that the national manufacturer needs to be able to send to our labs, so our labs can actually function. Our labs have these highly sophisticated machines that they bought from national manufacturers, but the machine requires the test kit and the reagents specifically for that machine.

It’s like you buy a printer from a company for your computer, like a color printer. But the printer requires cartridges from that company. You can have a fancy printer, but if you can’t get the replacement cartridges that printer is a paperweight, right? So we need the national manufacturers to have the reagents, the test kits, and that’s what the federal government is doing.

But it’s working here in New York. So we’re seeing the number of tests increase and we want to get it stabilized and up. New York state is already doing more tests than anyone because we did get into this first, we were aggressive, we were pushing the line. So we’re actually doing more tests per capita than any country around the world, let alone any state in the United States. As we’re increasing the capacity of the labs, okay, so now our 300 labs are getting more equipment, more supplies, they can do more tests. Now we need more collection mechanisms, more places to collect the test data so they can send it to the labs. It goes collection, then send those samples to the labs, the labs run those samples, get the results back to the people.

We have boosted the lab capacity to an extent where we need more collection sites now. So where do you get collection sites? We’re going to authorize all the independent pharmacists in this state to be collection sites for testing. I assume, and my guess and my educated guess, is that independent pharmacists will take us up on this. And there are 5,000 pharmacies in New York state. Some of them have already been doing it, some of the larger national chains, but if your local drug store can now become a collection site, people could go to their local drug store. There are about 5,000 in New York. They would be collection sites that would quickly ramp up our collection capacity. So we’re doing that.

And since we now have more collection sites, more testing capacity, we can open up the eligibility for those tests. We had a protocol with eligibility. Not everybody could get a test. And that’s been a big complaint across the board. Everybody wants a test and they couldn’t get tests because we had a tight screen on the eligibility because we had limited capacity to test.

As you increase the capacity to test, you can increase the eligibility. And first responders, healthcare workers, and essential employees. Why? Because these people have been carrying the load and they have been subjected to the public all during this crisis. And because they’re public facing, right? These are the people who you interact with. You get on a bus, this is the bus driver. You get in a subway car, this is the subway conductor. You are interacting with government. These are the people who you’re interacting with. If they’re infected, they could possibly spread it to a large number of people.

So we are dramatically increasing the capacity with these groups. What are the first responders? Firefighters, paramedics, EMT, police officers, police officers, state, local, county, sheriff’s, et cetera. Also correction, parole officers, probation officers. People who are in the prisons. They can now go to the increased number of collection sites in the state. They are eligible to get a test. Healthcare workers, broad definition, direct care providers, healthcare practitioners, medical specialists, occupational therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, residential care program managers. So if you’re working in a residential facility, mental health facility, et cetera, community group residents, you’re now able to get a test and “essential workers”. Essential workers are the people who’ve been keeping everything running.

You know when we say we close down the economy. We didn’t really close down the economy, right? We closed down the economy relative to what the economy was doing. But you still go to the store and buy groceries. Your lights are still on, right? Someone is picking up the garbage in front of your house. So those essential workers have been functioning all along. And these essential workers, and God bless them, we want to make sure they are now eligible for tests again, because they’ve been working all along. They’ve exposed, and also because when you go in to the dry cleaner, this is the person on the other side of the counter who’s interacting with dozens of people a day. So we want to make sure those people get tested.

As we continue to develop our testing capacity and the labs are coming up to scale, the collection sites are opening. The more testing we have, the more we will open eligibility. Hopefully one day we get to the point where anybody who wants a test can walk in and get a test. Right? And that was the dream. But we found out quickly that we couldn’t do that. You have 19 million people in the state. So we had to prioritize. We’re still prioritizing, but we’re opening up that prioritization. The more capacity, the more tests, the more we’ll open the eligibility criteria. We’re also focusing on our healthcare workers and first responders. We’re doing antibody testing for our frontline healthcare workers. And we’re starting today coming up to scale with four facilities in downstate New York. Obviously downstate New York handled the bulk of the cases, not just in this state but in this nation. So we’re going to those hospitals that had a large number of coded cases come in and we’re doing antibody testing there as quickly as we can and to the largest scale that we can.

Elmhurst Hospital was one of the cities, New York City’s public hospitals. When we talk about hospitals downstate, there were about 100 hospitals. About 11 of the 100 are what’s called public hospitals. New York City runs them as part of their health and hospitals corporation. Those public hospitals, really saw a large number of people and they were under stress. And they were under stress, frankly even before the COVID situation, but Elmhurst Hospital, which made national news for the number of cases they were handling Bellevue, Montefiore, SUNY downstate is now running a COVID only hospital. So everybody in that hospital is a COVID patient. And you want to talk about God’s work, that’s where it’s happening. We want to get them the antibody testing.

And we’re also going to do a significant antibody testing in downstate New York with those frontline transit workers also. People who’ve been working for the MTA, their transit workers union, TWU members, they’ve kept the city operational. You need those buses and you need those subways. If you want to have the hospitals running, if you want to have the grocery stores running, those employees have to be able to get to work. And the MTA, the buses, the subways, they did that for us. God bless them, the MTA and transit workers. And then the police, the first responders who are out there because we have to be safe and we have to be safe even during COVID.

So NYPD was out there. They had a large number of people who became sick because of the situation. State police, same thing. So we’re going to be doing significant antibody testing there. We’ve said thank you to the first responders and we meant it sincerely. And saying thank you is a good start. People want to know that they’re appreciated. But even better than saying thank you, actions speak louder than words, right? So show me that you’re thankful and act like you’re thankful and get me the help I need. I’m out here doing my job. It’s my public duty. I get it, but I’m sacrificing myself. I’m sacrificing my family. At least show me support. And support is you have the equipment you need, you have the tools you need, and we’re going to get you the testing on a priority basis because you deserve it. Last point, personal opinion. Somebody said to me, “I can’t do this anymore.” People are feeling the stress on a number of levels. They’re not getting a paycheck. Their life is on hold. “Is my business going to come back? Do I have a job at the end of this? My whole life has been disoriented. I just, I can’t take it anymore.” I get it. I get it. I really do fundamentally get it. This has been a God awful situation on many, many levels.

God awful situation on many, many levels. And many people I’m sure are saying this in their own way, so who said it to me is not important, but it was one of my daughters, I won’t tell you which one though. Just to protect the privacy.

I get the feeling. Today is day 56. It’s been 56 long days. Generations are called upon to deal with high levels of difficulty. We are called upon to deal with this crisis. Day 56. 1918 pandemic went on for two years, we are in day 56. World War one went on for four years, the great depression went on for four years. You want to talk about economic anxiety. You want to talk about people losing homes, not being able to feed themselves. People living in camps, people living in cars, world war two, six years, Vietnam war, that intensity every night, every night have to hear about the tragedies went on for eight years.

I get 56 days is a long time and I get it’s the worst thing that we have experienced in modern history. I get that. But just a little perspective, not that it makes our situation any better, but it gives you a sense of perspective. Yes, in life, things happen. On an individual level and on a societal level, things happen. And you have to deal with it and it’s hard, but on the other hand, that makes us who we are. You get shaped by your experiences. This is a terrible experience to go through, but we will manage it, we will handle it, and we will be the better forward.

56 days or this inconvenience, yeah, think of it this way, what you’re doing is actually saving lives. That’s not rhetorical. That’s not overly dramatic. You are saving lives. What we have done here has saved lives. Every expert, every expert, CDC, white house task force, Cornell university, Columbia university, McKinsey, the group that Bill Gates funded, every one of them projected that there would be at least 100,000 more serious infections in the state of New York, 100,000 more serious infections, more hospitalizations. What happened? We did what we had to do, which was hard and is hard. Well, what did we accomplish? 100,000 fewer serious infections. That’s what 56 days of our relative living through hell has accomplished. And that is a heck of an accomplishment. So yes, it’s not for naught. 100, 000 fewer infections.

And look, “Life is better than death, even if it is not your own,” A.J Parkinson. Even if you’re 22 and you’re 25 and you’re strong and you’re healthy and you say, “Well, you know what, even if I get coronavirus, it’s not going to affect me because it doesn’t affect the young.” With a little caveat there, except when it does, and your life might’ve been the one that it did affect. But even if you’re right, I’m 22, I’m 25 I would’ve been just fine. Yeah, but who could you have infected? And maybe they weren’t going to be fine because they weren’t 22 when they weren’t 25 because they were 65 and because they had diabetes or they had hypertension or they had an underlying heart condition, or because they were recovering from cancer and a cancer operation, and you infect that person and that person dies because you got infected. That’s the reality of what we’re dealing with. 56 days of pain. Yes, yes. Relative to the past and what other societies have gone through, bad but not the worst that people have gone through. What did we accomplish? 100,000 fewer infections in the state of New York. And we actually saved lives. That’s what we did and that’s what we’re doing and that is inarguable.

Personal opinion is, I believe everything we did was worth it. People can argue that point, but that is what we did, and for me that is a heck of an accomplishment and want to feel good about and one which New Yorkers will be proud of, because it is what New York is about, which is being tough and being smart and disciplined and unified and loving. So maybe the life you saved is not your own. You still saved a life. And that’s not a bad way to spend one day or 56 days.

2020-04-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Happy Sunday. Today's day 57. Feels like many more but it is only day 57, I can assure you. Just feels like 57 years. News today on the numbers is relatively good. The decent continues and that's a very good starting place. We are now back to where we were on March 31st, before we started this, dramatic increase in the number of cases. We're still watching big question is how fast does that number continue to come down, first, does that number continue to come down, because that would be a nightmare if it ticks up, and how fast does it come down and how low does it go, right. Before we started this, you only had a couple of hundred cases. When do we get back to a couple of hundred new COVID cases going in?

The overall hospitalization rate is down. The number of intubations is down. Even the number of new COVID cases is down. Still not good, still 1,000 new COVID cases, yesterday, to put it in focus. That would normally be terrible news. It's only not terrible news compared to where we were. This is just terrible news, 367 deaths, which is horrific and there is no relative context to death. Death is death, 367 people passed, 367 families. What I've been working from day one is to make sure that people understand the facts of what we're dealing with, because this is a unique situation.

Government really can't act unless the people fully support the action. What we have done here government couldn't do. It was a pure function of what people did. So my plan all along has been give people the facts, and if they have the facts, they will act responsibly. But, they have to have the facts. They have to buy into the plan. And it really is an individual decision, right? Who's taking care of your health? You are. We're mutually dependent in that what I do can affect your health, but it really comes down to giving everybody the information so people can make their own decision, and the great achievement in this period has been that when people get the facts, and they trust the facts, and they understand the facts, they do the right thing. And that is a lesson that I hope people remember after this is all over. But, we still have to remember the facts. And we talk about reopening, we talk about re-imagining. Let's start to put some meat on the bones of what we're talking about so people understand.

The federal guidance from the CDC is that before you start reopening the state and the regional hospitalization must be in decline for 14 days, okay. That's the CDC's guidance. The federal government leaves it up to the states, it's up to the governors, up to the governors, but they also give guidance, and in this case, I think the CDC guidance is right. So we're monitoring the hospitalization rate. We're monitoring the regional hospitalization rates. We said in this state, it's a very diverse state. Upstate regions are like states in the Midwest, even out west. And we have different hospitalization rates. We look at the rates across the state as well as across the regions. We're going to reopen in phases, a regional analysis on what we call our economic regions that we've been working with the state on, and those regions have been working together on economic policy, et cetera. So to analyze the regions which are existing coalitions, actually works. But look at a regional analysis. Make a determination and then monitor whatever you do. Phase one of reopening will involve construction and manufacturing activities. And within construction and manufacturing, those businesses that have a low risk, right. There's a range of construction activities. There's a range of manufacturing activities. But those businesses that pose a low risk within them.

Phase two would then be more a business by business analysis using the matrix that we've discussed. How essential a service does that business provide and how risky is that business? If you open that business, how much risk are you possibly incurring and how important is it that that business reopen? That matrix will be guiding us through phase two.

In phase two, when we get there, we need businesses to do that analysis. They have to think about how they're going to reopen with this quote, unquote new normal. What precautions are they going to take in the workplace? What safeguards are they going to put in place? It's very much going to be up to businesses. Then we're going to leave two weeks between phases so we can monitor the effect of what we just did. Take an action, monitor. Two weeks that's, according to the experts, the incubation period of the virus so you can actually see if you had an effect where you increased the rate of infection which you would then see in hospitalizations, testing, et cetera. Everyone understands the overall risk that you start to increase activity, the infection rate goes up, two weeks to actually do that monitoring.

That's the broad outlines of the reopening plan. Then you get into caveats. One caveat is you can't do anything in any region that would increase the number of visitors to that region. You have a whole multi-state region in lockdown here. It's possible that you open something in Syracuse or you open something in the North Country where you now see license plates coming in from Connecticut, New Jersey, people from downstate all coming to that area because they've been locked down and they're looking for an activity. So that's something that we have to pay attention to.

All of this is done in a multi-state context with our neighboring states, most relevant, especially downstate. Downstate is obviously the most complicated situation. That's New York City, that's Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk, the surrounding suburbs. Multi-state coordination is vital there because the New Jersey, Connecticut, New York City area is basically very intermixed. People are coming and going, they live in one place, they work in the other place. That coordination is important. You get upstate, coordination with Massachusetts is more important in some areas. Some parts of the state, Pennsylvania coordination is more important. Coordinating with those states that are neighbors to that region.

Downstate, we've said we have to coordinate the main activities. There are gears that intermesh. You can't turn one gear without turning the other gears. That's how you strip gears. Keep trying to explain to my daughters. Transportation, parks, schools, beaches - these are all coordinated activities. You turn one, they all have to turn. That's true for New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, they all have to be coordinated. We're working with local businesses and leaders to do that.

Again, on the phased reopening, does my business reopen? Well, what is your business and how would you do your business in this new normal? You normally have people in a conference room, are you going to do that? You normally have people in work stations that are right next to each other, do you plan on reopening that way? This is not a one-sided equation here. Businesses, you develop plan on how you would reopen given everything we now know. If you have a plan, I'll show you in a moment, that actually takes into consideration these new circumstances, more essential, lower risk. The way a business opens will determine the risk. They can't really determine how essential their service is, but they can determine how risky opening their business would be.

We need them to be creative and think outside of the box. We've been speaking with business leaders across the state, but some people even need a new economic model. We want to bring sports back so there's an activity that people can watch on TV. What sports can you do without an audience? What sports can you make work economically where you don't have to sell a seat in the stadium or in the arena? How do you do drive-ins? How do you do different types businesses that could actually work in this environment? Again, they have to be creative and they have to think about it.

Downstate, which does have particular needs, we need summer activities in downstate New York. You can't tell people in a dense urban environment all through the summer months, we don't have anything for you to do, stay in your apartment with the three kids. You know, that doesn't work. There's a sanity equation here also that we have to take into consideration. Special attention for public housing residents. Special attention for low-income communities. That number one paid a higher price for this disease than anyone else. We talk about the racial disparity, African-Americans and Latinos. We're the increasing testing. We're going to have more to say on that this week, but lower-income communities need more assistance through this. I also need to focus -- we need to focus on the basics. We need more food banks, more food assistance. There are people who literally are struggling for food and for childcare. We have to make that more available. I want to bring in, in a coordinated way the philanthropies, there's a lot of good will, a lot of people want to help. Philanthropies represent a positive force in our society. I want to make them part of this in a partnership and we're doing that. So, working through all of this with partners in the business community and the health care community. Right, because we have an economic strategy and we have a public health strategy. It has to work with businesses, who are creative and more thoughtful. And health care professionals who just learned a very important lesson with what we went through and I don't want to lose that lesson.

In terms of businesses thinking about the new normal, think about it in terms of people. How are you going to protect your people? What are you going to be doing differently with your employees? Your actual physical space, what does the physical space look like when you reopen in this new normal? What are you doing about PPE equipment? How are you cleaning? What's the hygiene? What's the access? What's the screening? How do you move people? What's the travel and transportation? Then what processes can you put in place to make your business less risky, right? How can you train people? How you can communicate about this disease? Can you do testing in your workplace? These are all factors for businesses to consider that want to reopen quickly. Again, it's between the two -- it's governmental decisions in partnership with business decisions. Because I think every business leader gets, you can't go back to where you were. We have to go back in light of the circumstances that have developed.

In the midst of all this, monitor the public health impact. All that progress we made by flattening that curve, we could lose that in a matter of days if we're not careful. It's important that people understand what that actually means. This gets technical, but it's worth understanding. If I can understand it, anybody can understand it. They talk about the rate of increase of the spread of the infection, right? The R-naught factor. But it's basically straightforward. If one person infects less than one person, that's the first category of R-naught. One person infects less than one person. The next step up is one person infects one person who then infects another person, one to one to one to one to one. The worst situation is one person infects two people and then those two people go out and infect two people. That's fire through dry grass, right? Now you're in bad shape. That's where we were when this started. We were actually there before we even knew we were there. This is now the insight that the disease came from Europe to New York because it was already out of China by the time we realized it. It went to Europe, went to Italy, went to the Lombardi district, got on a plane, came to New York and it was here much earlier than we knew and it was spreading much earlier than we knew at a much higher rate.

We have to be down to the one person infects one other person. You can't really go beyond that margin. Right now, we're at .8. One person infects .8 percent of a person so one person is infecting less than one person. That is good news.

At that rate you see the virus declining. Upstate, interestingly, it's .9. Again, statistically very close but upstate the infection rate is one person infects .9 percent. Downstate, one person is infecting .75. Okay?

So that's where we are across the state. If we keep the infection rate below one person infecting one person, that is where the infection rate continues to drop. That's where you will see the curve dropping. So we have to stay there.

How do you monitor it? You have three basic dials. Number of hospitalizations, which you see every day which I show you every day, the number of hospitalizations, and you can see that by region.

The number of positive antibody tests - this is why testing is so important. We're doing antibody testing around the state in regions. Antibody testing tells you how many people have been infected - a little bit of a lag because you only have the antibodies after you have had the virus. But it tells you on a lag basis how many people have been infected.

The third dial is the diagnostic tests, which are just positive or negative. They tell you on an absolute basis what your infection rate is. Those are the three dials that you are watching. Take these activities, watch those three dials.

You have your hand on the valve, the activity valve. So you open the valve a little bit, phase one, watch those dials like a hawk, and then you adjust. That's called the RT factor, rate of transmission factor. What is the rate of transmission of the virus? We're now at about .8. You cannot go above 1.2. 1.2, you see that number go right back up again.

We will be sitting here talking about showing you a chart that showed up, down, and then up again. That's what happens if the rate of transmission gets to 1.2. So this is the balance that we collectively need to strike.

I want to get back to work, my kids want out of the house, I need to do something - I understand. We have to do it intelligently and this is the definition of intelligence in this context.

Also, I don't want to just reopen. We learned a lot of lessons here painfully. But we learned a lot of lessons and that's what reimagine means to me. How do we take the lessons we learned, take this pause in life and say, when we reopen we're going to be better for it and we're going to reimagine what our life is and we're going to improve for this pause?

Look, even on an individual level, you had time to decompress a little bit or compress for a different set of factors but I think everybody went through a period where they analyzed their life and what they were doing and when somebody all of a sudden pulls the rug out from under you and you wind up in a different place, you know, you just see life differently and I think that's true for most people. Okay. After that reflection, what have we learned? How do we improve? How do we build back better? Because it's not about return to yesterday. There's no return to yesterday in life. It's about moving forward. It's about taking your experience and what you learned and bringing it to a positive effect.

With that, I want to end on just sharing a story that me a lot. There's a tunnel in New York called the L-train tunnel. People in New York City know it very well. It's a tunnel that connects Manhattan and Brooklyn, and 400,000 people use this train and this tunnel. 400,000 people is a larger group than many cities in this country have, okay. So they had to close down the tunnel because the tunnel was old and the tunnel had problems and everybody looked at it and they said, we have to close down the tunnel. 400,000 people couldn't get to work without that train, and they had all these complicated plans on how they were going to mitigate the transportation problem and different buses and different cars and different bikes and different horses, the whole alternative transportation. And this went on for years.

Everyone said, you had to close the tunnel and it was going to be closed for 15 to 18 months. Now when government says it's going to be closed for 15 to 18 months, I hear 24 months to the rest of your life. That's my governmental cynicism. But that was the plan. We're going to close it down, rebuild the tunnel, 15 months to 18 months, the MTA. This was going to be a massive disruption. I heard a lot of complaints. I get a few smart people, Cornell engineers, Columbia engineers, we go down into the tunnel. And we look at it. And the engineers say, you know what? There's a different way to do this. And they talk about techniques that they use in Europe. And they say not only could we bring these techniques here, and we wouldn't have to shut down the tunnel at all. Period. We could just stop usage at nights and on weekends and we can make all of the repairs. And we can do it with a partial closure for 15 months.

The opposition to this new idea was an explosion. I was a meddler, I didn't have an engineering degree, they were outside experts, how dare you question the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy knows better. It was a thunderstorm of opposition. but we did it anyway, and we went ahead with it. And we rebuilt the tunnel, and the tunnel is now done better than before, with all these new techniques. It opens today. It opens today. And the proof is in the pudding, right? We went through this period of, I don't believe it, this is interference.

It opened today. And it opens today not in 15 months, but actually in only 12 months of a partial shutdown. So it's ahead of schedule, it's under budget, and it was never shut down. I relay this story because you can question and you should question why we do what we do. Why do we do it that way? I know that's how we've always done it, but why do we do it that way? And why can't we do it a different way? Why not try this? Why not try that? People don't like change, you know. We think we like change but we don't really like change. We like control more than anything, right?

So it's hard, it's hard to make change. It's hard to make change in your own life, let alone on a societal collective level. But if you don't change, you don't grow. And if you don't run the risk of change, you don't have the benefit of advancement. Not everything out there has to be the way it is. So we just went through this wild period where people are walking around with masks. Not because I said to, but because they understand they need to. How do we make it better? How do we make it better? And let's use this period to do just that. And we will. And we'll reimagine and we'll make it a reality because we are New York tough and smart and disciplined and unified and loving and because we know that we can. We know that we can. We showed that we can.

2020-04-27 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Big Monday crowd. Hope you guys have a good weekend. Welcome back. I had a very nice weekend, not that anybody is asking. Nice weekend with the girls and boyfriend. I like the boyfriend. If anyone asks, boyfriend has departed the premises.

Monday. This is the total hospitalization rate which you see is basically flat. Flat is not great, but flat may be a reaction to the weekend, Sunday discharges may be down. We have the same question, how fast and how steady is the decline? We don't want to see flat, we want to see an increase in decline. We want to see how fast that decline goes and how low does the decline go. When does that hospitalization rate get down to a truly manageable number? When does the incoming case number get down to a manageable number?

You see again overall hospitalization rate is on the decline. Again, yesterday little less than we would like to see. Hopefully it was a Sunday anomaly because of the weekend. Intubations is down. Number of new cases still 1,000 new COVID cases every day, puts it in perspective. Down a tad from where it was, but again these weekend numbers sometimes are a little strange. Number of lives lost, 337. Still tragically high, but on the decline if you look at it over the past few days. Not that that gives any solace to 337 families who are suffering today.

On testing, this has been a big topic, increasing testing. It's been a scramble for all the states. We're doing well on it. The testing tells you where we are and whether the infection rate is going up or going down. We've now tested 7,500 people statewide so that's a very significant number and it gives us a snapshot of where we are. Just a snapshot, but snapshot, snapshot, snapshot. You look at the different pictures and you have a movie at one point and you can track what is happening. With 7,500 people the percent statewide that's positive is 14.9. When we tested five days ago it was 13.9, 13.9 to 14.9, one point, statistically it's in the margin of error. I'd like to see the margin go the other way.

Male, female they both went up a point. Men are still more likely to have the virus than women by a couple of points. Whatever that bespeaks, I care not to speculate. These are the regional numbers in broad strokes. Long Island, 14; New York City is up a couple of point. Westchester, Rockland is up a couple of points. The rest of the state is basically flat. This is the infection rate by region. People hear "New York" they think New York City. Yes, we have New York City, we also have upstate New York, North Country, which is predominantly rural or suburban and you see different situations across this state. This is not a homogeneous state. So the Mohawak Valley, 2.6 percent; North Country it's 1.2 percent. Capital District, 2.1; Hudson Valley 10 percent, but that Westchester and Rockland in it. Central New York, 1.3; Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, Western New York, 7.1. Western New York is the high point of upstate. Hudson Valley, again, has Westchester, Rockland. We had a significant problem in Westchester, less so in Rockland so I think that skews that number. When you see 1.2 percent in the North County, 2.6 Mohawk Valley, Capital District, you see a much different situation than you're looking at in New York City where you're in the 20s. Different situations, different strategy going forward.

We are coordinating as a state. We are coordinating with our neighboring states. But you still have to take into consideration the variations across the state and that's what we are trying to navigate.

By race, you see the percent for Asians has ticked up, African-Americans actually down. Latinos went up 10 percent. Nobody can explain what caused that jump in this survey and it's something we are going to watch and we are doing more testing in lower income communities and African-American and Latino communities as we discussed.

And the age breakdown is fairly consistent with where it was. So that's where we are today in New York. New York City, obviously, high point number of cases in the country, higher than some countries globally, and upstate New York a very different reality.

Big question is reopening, especially for those places with less of an issue to begin with or places that have reduced their problems and I get a lot of local officials who are calling me. We want to talk about reopening, reopening, reopening.

Know what you are doing before you do it. Those are words to live by. I don't know who said it but it is a true axiom. We want to un-pause. May 15 is when the pause regulations expire statewide. I will extend them in many parts of the state. But in some parts of the state some regions you could make the case that we should un-pause on May 15.

But you have to be smart about it. We all have to be smart about it. As we said there is no light switch where you flip a switch and everybody goes back to doing what they are doing. We have to take these circumstances into consideration. We have to learn the lessons, we have to move forward and we have to be smart because if you are not smart you will see that infection rate go right back to where it was. We will be right back to where we were 58 days ago and nobody wants to do that.

So what I want to say to my regional colleagues is, be smart. Well, we want to reopen. Well, have you thought through reopening? And we have a couple of weeks, but start thinking through what it means to reopen. First question is, do we meet the CDC guidelines that say you reopen when you see a decline in numbers for 14 days?

Second, we talked about on the reopening bringing back construction and manufacturing as the first two industries, but how do you bring them back and what precautions are going to be in place? What precautions do you want those businesses to institute when they start? And part of this is on business. You know your business. I don't know your business. I don't know how you do business. How do you incorporate into how you do your business and where you do your business, the precautions that we want to take going forward? How do you do social distancing, how do you do monitoring, are you going to take the temperature of people who walk in the door, et cetera, and that's for government but it's also a question for business.

Healthcare capacity - you want to reopen a region. What is the healthcare capacity in that region? How many beds will you have available if that number goes up? How many ICU beds will you have available? Are you contemplating what's going to happen when the flu season kicks in in September where we could potentially now be dealing with COVID cases on top of flu cases - you have to test for both and possibly have hospital capacity for both.

Do we have testing in place? Is testing ready to go because testing is one of the main monitors, right? Do we have a tracing system in place? We all talk about testing tracing, isolating - that has to be in place. Test people, you then trace the contacts, you find the positive people and you isolate them. But you need a tracing system and this is something we have never done before, right? So that system has to be in place.

When we isolate people, where do they go? Isolation, once you find the person who is positive, basically you can say to the person, look, you can go home, but then you run the risk of infecting those people in your house. Or we could put you in an isolation facility. We have a hotel, et cetera, that we can put you in for two weeks. But you have to locate those facilities first.

We have to coordinate as a region. There is no one county in a region. It's a region. And these are the Regional Economic Development Council regions that have worked together. But we have to coordinate that region. So everybody in that region has to have the same policy when it comes to schools, when it comes to transportation, when it comes to testing, when it comes to tracing and that region's plan has to fit into our overall multistate plan. No attractive nuisances, attractive nuisances is a legal concept where you have a potentially dangerous situation that actually attracts people, normally children, to it. We can't open an attraction that might bring many people from outside the region and then overwhelm people in that region. You have a lot of pent-up demand and we have seen this before where when we are not coordinated, we have New York people going to Connecticut because Connecticut has parks or waterside access that's open. We don't want to create a situation where people flood an area because they are looking for something to do.

And then we need a regional control room, I call it. We have to be monitoring what happens when we start to reopen, and that entire region has to have a control room function where we are watching what's happening. For those friends who are more graphic, we are going to turn the valve on reopening, turn it a little bit, start to reopen, and then you watch the dials. What are the dials? Hospitalization rate, which we know now, we have been watching that. What does the antibody testing tell you? Antibody testing is important because it tells you the people who were infected, the infection rate, and now resolved because they have antibodies. What is the diagnostic testing, which is different type of testing, tell you? Positive and negative. But what's happening on the diagnostic testing? Those dials will give you the fourth dial, which is the infection rate, what's called the RT rate, the rate of transmission. so turn that valve a little bit for a region, watch those four gauges very carefully every day, see what's happening on those gauges. You can either close the valve, open the valve a little bit more or leave the valve where it is. But when I talk about the regional control room, that's what I'm talking about.

Getting that data in to one central place where everybody agrees on the numbers and everybody agrees on what we do is the next step. We have medical centers that were built. I spoke to President Trump about this this morning. When we were worried about the lack of capacity in the hospital system, the federal government was good enough to send in the Army Corps of Engineers. They did a phenomenal job in building beds quickly. We built a number of facilities. We are now talking about possibility of a second wave of the COVID virus or COVID combining with the regular flu season in September, which could be problematic again for the hospital capacity. So the facilities that were built, I spoke to the President about leaving them in place until we get through the flu season. God forbid we need extra capacity again. I don't want to have built - ask the federal government to build capacity, then take it down and then wind up in another problem area.

Javits Center, we have to think about because the Javits center is in the Javits convention center. It has 2,500 beds, so it's a great facility, but it's also in the convention center. You can't reopen the convention center, obviously, when it has the hospital beds in it. Westchester County Center, the same issue. It's also the Westchester Convention Center. So question mark on those facilities when we take them down or how we take them down. I'm going to speak to the County Executive in Westchester County, George Latimer, about that. Javits will be on hold for both facilities, now until we decide. But again, anticipate an issue in the future and make sure we're ready. But I want to thank, again, the Army Corps of Engineers, did a fantastic job. President Trump got it done and he got it done very quickly. So, those facilities, Javits, you know over 1,000 people went through Javits. We didn't need the whole facility but 1,000 people is a large number of people.

On Saturday, as you know, we expanded our diagnostic testing criteria for frontline workers, essential workers, et cetera. We'll be opening additional drive-through testing sites for those people this week. People can't just show up at a drive-through center. You have to call first, make an appointment, so we can handle the flow. We're also very concerned about making sure we get testing to our essential workers and our frontline workers.

We're going to be doing a survey of New York City fire department and New York City police department. This week, 1,000 and 1,000 respectively, just to find out again with the antibody testing, what is the infection rate. NYPD was out there every day and they paid a terrible toll. The attendance rate is now good again, many were out sick. But we want to know exactly where those frontline workers are, if they have been infected, we want to make sure people are getting help and we want to know exactly what happened. We'll also be doing 3,000 healthcare workers, these are hospital staff, nursing staff, doctors who are in the emergency rooms, to find out their situation. And we'll be doing 1,000 transit workers. These are the bus drivers, the train operators, who keep the public transit system working and we want to do testing to find out how they're doing.

We're seeing a tremendous demand in food banks, which is predictable in some ways. But, the numbers are very, very high, and we need to address it. 200 percent increase in Westchester, 100 percent increase New York City, 40 percent on Long Island, 40 to 60 percent across Upstate New York. So we're going to commit $25 million for emergency funding for those food banks. I'm also asking philanthropies to help. Many philanthropies said they wanted to help and step up. This is a, I would say the number one thing they can do to help, and if they are interested, please let us know and we'll supplement the state funding with philanthropies funding.

We also have an issue across upstate where, because the markets are so roiled, some farm cooperatives are actually dumping milk because the market can't consume it. This is just total waste to me. We have people downstate who need food. We have farmers upstate who can't sell their product. We have to put those two things together. It's just common sense. But we have to make that marriage between product upstate and need downstate. And we're going to launch a special initiative to do that. We're also immediately to stop this dumping of milk, going to work with industries in our state who can use the milk and get it to people who need it. So I want to thank these companies who will be working with us to buy the excess milk, yogurt, cheese, sour cream, cream cheese, and then we'll give it to the food banks that are downstate.

When it comes to reopening, and I talked about what I'm going to speak with the regions about, but I don't want to just do reopening. We have to use this moment to reimagine and be smart and grow. This is one of those moments. If you look back in history, sometimes it takes a crisis to wake people up, and it takes a crisis to change the body politic to actually accept change, because change is hard to make, and if you look at the instances in the past where we've had significant problems, you'll see we were normally smart enough to learn and to grow from them.

So, reimagine New York means don't replace what was, build it back better and we have done that in the past. Chicago fire, 1871, killed 300 people, but we learned stricter fire safety laws. San Francisco earthquake, 1906, the same thing was devastating, but that led to better construction and earthquake standards. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire here in New York, 1911, started a whole workers' rights movement and safety in the workplace. Mississippi flood 1927, that's when the Flood Control Act started and we woke up and started building levees and dams, et cetera. Great Depression, FDR pivoted from that crisis to an entire new economic structure. We went through 9/11 and we are better and safer as a society for it. Department of Homeland Security was formed on the federal side, which has been the single largest innovation in the federal government. Even Superstorm Sandy that we went through, 2012, I was part of that. It was devastating, but New York is better for it. We have a power grid that's now better. We raised all of our electric stations. We changed our infrastructure along the waterfront. We built houses back to different code. So, it's that process that we have to go through here. What did at the learn? How do we change? How do we improve?

We talked about tele-education, yeah, we went through it, we had to go through it, but it didn't go as well as it could have gone. We didn't have any notice. But let's learn the lessons. Let's do better. Telemedicine showed great potential. You don't have to go to the doctor's office. You can do a lot by telemedicine. How did we learn that? Public transportation, we're still learning. How do we clean and disinfect a public transportation system on a daily basis? I mean, just think about the scale of that undertaking. How do you do it? We're still trying to figure it out. And then how do you have a better public health system? Because we were not ready for this. Our health system was not ready for any public health crisis that would demand more capacity or more coordination. So, let's learn from that.

And let's have a society that is more social equity. You look at the people who paid the highest price for this crisis. They were the people who were in the least good position to pay. The poorest among us always pay the highest price. Why is that? Why do the lower income communities see this disease in higher proportions? Why were the essential workers who had to show up disproportionately African- American, Latino?

So, is life going to be different? Yes, life is going to be different. But different in this case can mean better if we're smart about it. And when we are finished going through this, we should be tougher and smarter and more resilient and more unified and better than before. Last point, A.J. Parkinson, great quote, "I respect elected officials who aren't typical politicians." Elected official does not have to be a politician. Politician has bad connotations to politicians. The word politician. You can be an elected official who is not a typical politician. Not a go along, get along kind of guy. You know, not a make no waves kind of guy.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear stood up, said to his senior senator in the state, Mitch McConnell that Mitch McConnell was wrong on saying he wouldn't provide funding to state and local governments and wrong in saying states should go bankrupt. It is hard for a governor, especially Andy, who is a relatively new governor, to stand up to a senior official and speak truth to power. That is hard. Takes guts. Takes courage. And you don't get that from a typical politician. So, it warms my heart to see an elected official who is not a typical politician. Thank you, Governor.

2020-04-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon to everyone. I want to introduce, for those of you that don't know, my colleagues who are with me. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my right, Dr. James Malatras, he is not a real doctor like the doctors here, but he is still technically a doctor. He runs Empire State College. He has done all great policy work in the State for many years. To his right, Gareth Rhodes, he is not a doctor either. Well, technically he is a doctor too, an attorney is a doctor. He is Department of Financial Services but has worked with me in the State for many years and he has been a great talent here.

It is a pleasure to be here today. We are in Syracuse, the State University of New York Upstate Medical School and Hospital. We had chance to say hello to the nurses and doctors who work here. Got to wave from a social distance. But I wanted to say thank you for all they've done here. We also sent a team down to New York City. So, it has just been an extraordinary experience. But we have seen the good, the bad, the ugly in all of this, and the good is beautiful.

Let me talk to you about some of the facts that we are dealing with today. Facts are our friend. People want to make decisions, they want to know the facts without spin, without opinion, and that is what we have been giving them. Total hospitalization rate is down a tick, which is good news. The change in hospitalization on the rolling total you see is down. Number of intubations is also down. The number of COVID hospitalizations per day, these are new people who are newly diagnosed with COVID, it is under one thousand which is good news. It is still a significant number of people, 900 people. After all of this, we still have 900 new infections yesterday on a three day rolling average. But overall number is going down. So, that's good news. This is the worst news every day. I think maybe today is the day the nightmare will be over - but it is not. 335 people passed away yesterday from this virus in this state. That's 335 families. You see this number is basically reducing but not at a tremendous rate. And the only thing tremendous is number of New Yorkers who still pass away.

Everybody is talking about reopening. I get it. You can't sustain being closed. The economy can't sustain it. Individual families can't sustain it. We can't sustain it on a personal level. Our children can't sustain it. But, we have to. When we talk about reopening, this should not be a political discussion, it shouldn't be a philosophical discussion, shouldn't be because people are protesting or, some people want it, some people don't want it. It is a factual discussion on reopening, right? So, let's demystify it a little bit because in this environment, it is becoming rhetorical rather than factual.

We want to reopen, but we want to do it without infecting more people or overwhelming the hospital system. We're at upstate medical today. Our great fear was the number of people infected would overwhelm the hospital capacity. So, that is the balance. Reopen but don't increase the number of infected people and don't overwhelm the hospital system. Well, then design that system in reopening, right? You can factually with data design a system that does just that. And that's what government is supposed to do. Government is not about spouting political or philosophical opinions. Government is about running services, designing programs that actually work for the people to address the problem. And in this situation, we can actually measure. We have data. We have facts. So, measure what is happening in society and calibrate your reopening to those measurements, right?

So, we're adopting a set of rules, a set of guidelines. We have studied reopening plans, all around the country. We have spoken to every expert on the globe who has been through this before, and we have come up with factual data points to guide us on reopening. First point, don't overwhelm the hospital system. If the hospital system in an area exceeds 70% capacity, which means you only have 30% left, or if the transmission rate hits 1.1, those are danger signs. We know that. Remember, hospital capacity. If you're at 70% on your hospitals, there is a two week lag on this virus, so if you ever hit 70% you can expect the number to go up for the next two weeks as people who just got infected actually get ill and some of them come into the hospitals. So, 70% is a safe metric to use for your hospital capacity. If your transmission rate hits 1.1, that's what they call outbreak. That means it is going to spread much, much faster. You wouldn't start reopening unless you had a transmission rate below 1.1, really below 1. But if it hits 1.1, that means that you're in trouble.

So, those are two main data points. If you look at the state, and this state is different than most states, this state has New York City, one of the most dense urban areas on the globe, and then we have Upstate New York. And if you look at our infection rate Upstate New York, it is very different than the downstate New York. And if you look at the rate Upstate New York, it is comparable to many states in the Midwest and the West. We hear the discussion every day, "Well, some states are reopening because that's don't have that bad of a problem." Some of the places in Upstate have a problem that is comparable to states in the Midwest or the West. Much, much different than New York City.

Okay, then let's come up with data points, factual points of what we have to do to reopen. So, everyone has the same opening template that we're dealing with. And we have to be smart about this. Again, I know it is emotion, and I know that people are feeling emotional. But emotions can't drive a reopening process. We're talking about infection rate and hospital capacity. Separate the emotion from the logic. And we have to act as our logical selves here. And that's what smart means. Be smart about it - don't be emotional and don't be political. Don't get pushed politically into a situation. "Protesters are in front of the capitol, we better reopen." No. I'm not going do that. That's not how we make decisions.

The first point is - CDC set guidelines as to reopening for states. We think those CDC guidelines make sense. You have to have a 14-day decline in the number of hospitalizations before you go forward. Second, identify industries that you can start reopening that will bring people back to work, get the economy going, but, you know that you can do the appropriate precautions and social distancing. So, in phase one, we're talking about the construction and manufacturing industry. Those are two industries that employ a lot of people, but we believe you can put the right precautions in place and learn the lesson from where we have been. And, say to those businesses, this is not just about government, but say to the business, "Tell us how you are going to incorporate the lessons that we just learned. How do you incorporate social distancing? How do you incorporate fewer people in this space you so reduce density? How do you have the right PPE? How are you going to monitor? Are you going to take temperatures of everyone who walks in?" That's for businesses to decide also.

Separate point: make sure that you don't have what we call, "attractive nuisances," not really the right use of the term. Attractive nuisance is a legal term. But, an attractive nuisance in this context - you open up a facility, or an attraction that could bring people from outside the region to you. You have all of this pent-up demand in the whole tri-state region. Make sure that don't open up something that's going to bring hundreds of people from the outside in. What business precautions will those individual businesses take? Watch the healthcare capacity. Your healthcare system cannot go over 70 percent capacity. Again, there is a two-week lag. If you're at 70 percent, bells should go off. Don't go over 70 percent in your ICU beds. Many of the people who come in with COVID, need an ICU bed because it is respiratory illness. As a matter of fact, almost at the heat of this, almost every bed in a hospital turned into an ICU bed. That's why we needed the ventilators. Because, these people who get seriously ill with COVID need that level of care.

Remember, you have a flu season coming up in the fall. And the number of hospitalizations normally goes up in the flu season. So, anticipate that. Stockpile the equipment. We learned a lot of painful lessons here. One is, you have to have the PPE, you have to have the masks and you have to have the gown. There is an international demand on it. So, make sure we have a stockpile of reserve of the PPE. We have to have testing. How many tests? Dr. Birks recommends 30 per 1,000 people. Different people have different numerical personals. But, I think that we start with that. Do we have enough testing sites? How long does it take to turn around a test? And then are we advertising to people, this is where you go in and this is what you do to get a test, if you think you may be infected. The whole thing with keeping that infection rate down, is find a person early who is infected, let them know it, and then, trace and then isolate. Do we have a tracing system in place? Mayor Bloomberg is helping us to organize this. It has never been done before. Nobody ever heard of tracing to this extent. But, tracing is once a person says that they are positive, you trace their contacts back, you notify people, you test people. That is a whole different operation. The current recommendation is you need at least 30 tracers per 100,000 people. So, we have to have that in place. You have to have isolation facilities in place. Isolation facilities are when someone gets sick, you know that they are positive, and they don't want to go home to quarantine, because, if they go home, they could infect their family, which is what is happening now, a lot of these new cases. So, we have to have a facility where somebody who is positive, could quarantine for the two weeks, without going home. And we have to identify them now.

We have to coordinate regionally, schools, tracing this all has to be coordinated on a multi-county effort. We have to reimagine tele-medicine. Reimagine tele-education. We have to have a regional control room that is monitoring all of these indicators and gives us the danger sign if we get over 70 percent capacity, if the infection rate pops up. We have to have one central source that is monitoring all these dials, that hits the danger button so you could actually slow down the reopening.

And then we have to protect the respect the essential workers which is I'll talk about in a moment. On businesses, they have to have social distancing, continued testing, ongoing monitoring protocols. That's all part of the new normal and businesses are going to have to do that if they want to reopen. They are going to have to adopt the federal and the state guidelines on this issue.

Today we're announcing an advisory board that is made up of statewide business leaders, academic leaders, civic leaders who are advising us on just this and they have been for weeks and I want to thank them very much.

Manufacturing, construction, as the first phase, businesses, that's 46,000 jobs in a place like central New York so its major employer, and these are businesses that can adopt to the new normal in terms of their employees and in terms of the places of business and in terms of the processes that they put in place.

On the healthcare capacity, again, we just lived this. We cannot be in a situation where 70% capacity is exceeded. You need at least that 30% buffer on hospital beds and you need 30% of your ICU beds available if that number starts to tick up.

In terms of testing, we have to have the testing regimen in place and we have to prioritize the people who get tested. Symptomatic people, individuals who came in contact with a symptomatic person, and front line and essential workers. They do have a higher right infection because they are putting themselves in harm's way and we want to make sure that they have the testing so we have an early alert system.

You have to have the right number of sites. Testing won't work if it is impossible to get. Testing won't work if it is too hard to get. So you have to have the right number of sites for the area that you're dealing with. The advertising is very important. It has to be available but people have to know it is available and they have to know what the symptoms are that would have them go get tested because, again, this is about people understanding it and people buying into it. This is not government orders. This is people get it. They know the facts, they know what they are supposed to do and these do it because they have been, we've communicated successfully the circumstances and the facts. But you need that testing and you need it to trace the contacts. Otherwise, you see that infection rate increase.

On the tracing, the estimate is 30 tracers for every 100,000 people. So that's a data point. That's what it means to have tracing in place. And then isolation facilities is a proportionate number of people who test positive, who say, I can't go home or I don't want to go home. I don't want to infect my family. I don't want to infect my significant other. I have enough issues without having to explain how I infected my significant other with COVID, which is a valid point. So, isolation facilities are available for those people.

And then the regional control room, where you're monitoring all of those metrics, you're monitoring hospital capacity, the rate of infection, the PPE burn rate, how businesses are complying, and it has an emergency switch that we can throw if any one of those indicators are problematic because remember we have gone through hell and back over the past 60 or so days.

What we have done has been tremendous, really tremendous. What people have done, what the American people have done, what New Yorkers have done, has been to save lives, literally. But we have to remain vigilant. This is not over. I know as much as we want it to be over, it is not over and we have to respect what we accomplished here.

When they started this the projections for this state were 120,000 New Yorkers would be infected and hospitalized. Only 20,000 were infected and hospitalized. How could they be so wrong? They were not wrong. We changed reality. The differential, the variance, is what we did. It is close down. It is wearing masks. It is all of that. We reduced the rate. We so-called flattened the curve. That meant 100,000 fewer New Yorkers didn't get seriously ill, didn't go into a hospital, didn't overwhelm the hospital system. And a percentage of those people who got seriously ill would have passed away. So we literally saved lives.

We can't now negate everything that we accomplished. We have to do the opposite. We have to take this experience and we have to learn and grow from the experience. And we have to build back better than before. As a society and as a community we need better systems. This exposed a lot of issues, fundamental issues. We have to do a better job on tele-education. Remote learning, sounds great but you have to have all of the equipment, people have to be trained and teachers have to be trained. We jumped into it. We have to do a better job. We have to do a better job on telemedicine. Not everybody has to show up at the doctor's office. You can do a better job. We have to do a better job on our basic public health system. I mean when you look back the virus was in China last November and December. Last November and December. Why didn't someone suspect, well maybe the virus gets on plane last November, December and lands in the United States the next day, right. Everybody talks about global interconnection and how fast. Everybody knows, there is a virus in China. Last November, December, China says don't worry we're taking care of it. Yeah, but all you need is one person to get on a plane. As it happened, one person got on plane and went from China to Europe and then it went from Europe to New York. The flights from China basically go to the West Coast. The flights from Europe basically go to the East Coast. We got it through Europe.

But, where was the whole international health community? Where was the whole national host of experts, the WHO, the NIH, the CDC? That whole alphabet soup of agencies. Where was everyone? Where was the intelligence community with the briefings? Saying this is in China and they have something called an airplane and you can get on an airplane and you can come to the United States. Governors don't do global pandemics, right. But, there is a whole international, national health community that would do that. Where are all of the experts? Where was the New York Times? Where was the Wall Street Journal? Where was all of the bugle blowers who should say, be careful, there is a virus in China that may be in the United States. That was November and December. We're sitting here, January, February, still debating how serious this is.

And again, it's not a state responsibility. But, in this system, who was supposed to blow the bugle and didn't? Because, I would bank that this happens again, and is the same thing going to happen again? I hope not. So, we have to figure these things out.

We also have to remember that as a society and as a community, we're about government and we're about systems. But even more, we're about values. What makes us who we are, are our values. And that's my last point which is, point number 12, protect and respect the essential workers. I had two nightmares when this started. One, that I would put out directives on what we need to do and 19 million New Yorkers would say, "I haven't been convinced, I'm not going to do this." Because look at what the directives were. We're going to close down every business. You have to stay in your home. I mean, the most disruptive government policies put in place. I can't even remember the last time, I can't even see in the in the history books the last time that government was more disruptive to individual life. No businesses, everybody stays home. No schools. What happens if New Yorkers said, "We're not doing that? We're not doing that. It's too much. It is an overreaction, it's political." Everything is political nowadays, right? So easy to say, well, that's just political. That was a fear, because if New Yorkers did that, governmentally had no ability to enforce 19 million people staying in their homes. That's why the communication was so important. Give them the facts, give them the facts, give them the facts so they understand why. That worked.

Second nightmare was, what if essential workers don't show up? You have to have food. You have to have transportation. The lights have to be on. Someone has to pick up the garbage. The hospitals have to run. What if the essential workers said, "I'm not showing up." You communicated so effectively, the fear of the virus, that the essential workers say, "If everybody is staying home, I'm staying home too." It could've happened. I went through the HIV virus when HIV started. People we petrified. Nobody knew what it was. Nobody knew how it lived. How it was transferred. How long it lived. People were petrified. Nobody wanted to go near it. What happens if the essential workers here said, "I'm not going to show up to run the bus. You don't pay me enough to put my life in danger. I'm not doing it." They showed up. They showed up. I just finished communicating how dangerous this was to convince 19 million people stay home and close schools and close businesses. And the essential workers still showed up. That is a value. They did not show up for a paycheck. They didn't show up because government asked them to show up. They didn't show up because their employer said, "I need you to show up." They showed up, out of their values and out of their honor and out of their dignity. That's why they showed up.

My grandfather, people know my father in this state, my grandfather little Italian immigrant, Andrea Cuomo, named for him. No education, ditch digger, came here the classic immigrant story. Winds up having a little grocery store in South Jamaica, Queens, poor community. And during the depression he almost lost the store and he loved to tell this story. Why did he almost lose the store? Well, it was the depression, and the finances. No. Because, he gave away food during the depression. Because, he wouldn't let anyone be hungry. So, a family would come in, nobody had money it was the depression and he would give them food. He was giving away so much food that he had problems paying his bills. Gave him a lot of stress, wound up having a heart attack as a young person. But, no one told him to do that. That was just his values. And I would ask him about it afterward. I said, Grandpa, why would you do? He said, what am I going to do, do let them go hungry? I'm going to let somebody go hungry? That was unimaginable to him. He was an essential worker. Nobody calmed him an essential worker but he was an essential worker.

And, that's what people are doing day in and day out here. The person who delivers the groceries, the person who's driving the bus, the person who's driving the subway, the nurses, the doctors, the orderlies. All of these people who are showing up every day. Not because of the check, they could stay home too and file for unemployment. No, they're doing it out of their sense of honor and their sense of dignity and their sense of pride, this is their mission, this is their role, they're New Yorkers, they're Americans, and they're going to show up.

The police officers, the firefighters. I mean, everyone's petrified. You're going to be a police officer, you're going to pull people over in a car? You're going to go into a house for a domestic disturbance, wrestle with somebody in the house, you don't know who it is? That's what they do. That's their job. That's why I wanted to thank the healthcare workers and everybody thanks the healthcare workers, but it's not just the healthcare workers. It's all the people who've been out there all this time making sure that everyone else could stay home. They have higher infection rates. They're getting paid a minimal amount of money. They have families at home too that are suffering, but they're getting up every day and they're doing their job. So as we talk about reopening, protect and respect the essential workers. They need testing. They need equipment. They're putting their lives on the line. Protect and respect the essential workers.

Public transportation we've kept running because they need it to get to work. That's why public transportation continued. We talked early on about closing public transportation. They said forget it. That's how the nurses are getting to work, that's how the orderlies are getting to work. Nobody will be in a hospital, nobody will be there to deliver the food, nobody will be in the power plant to keep the lights on, nobody will be at the telecommunications department. Public transportation is vital for them. Well, then make sure public transportation is safe, and disinfected. The New York Daily News ran a story today on the public transportation in New York City. And the front page is a picture of a subway car filled with homeless people and their belongings. Respect the essential workers. That is disgusting what is happening on those subway cars. It's disrespectful to the essential workers who need to ride the subway system. Upstate New York, need to ride the buses to get to work. They deserve better and they will have better. We have to have a public transportation system that is clean, where the trains are disinfected. You have homeless people on trains, it's not even safe for the homeless people to be on trains. No face masks, you have this whole outbreak, we're concerned about homeless people, so we let them stay on the trains without protection in this epidemic of the COVID virus? No. We have to do better than that, and we will.

And we will learn from this and we'll be better from this because, we are New York tough. And tough means not just tough, because tough is easy. It's smart, and it's disciplined, and it's unified, and it's loving. And that's who we are, and that's what we are, and that's why we got through this as well as we have thus far together. Because of our values, because of our respect, our dignity, our mutuality, our love for one another, our willingness to sacrifice, and because, we're fortunate where we have many, many heroes in our midst, not because they have medals on their uniforms, but because they have honor in their souls and they have strength in their character, and they have dignity and pride in themselves, and because they show up every day, every day, to make sure that everyone is protected. And, they have to be at the top of the list. They're going to be at the top of the list in the next iteration of whatever this is. They're going be at the top of the list at the golden gate. But, they deserve our respect and protection here, and they're going to get it.

2020-04-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Members of the esteemed Legislative Correspondents Association. Thank you very much for being here. Everybody knows Joe Friday. My daughters tell me that nobody knows him, and nobody knows what I'm talking about, but that's okay because what he would say is just the facts, ma'am, just the facts, ma'am, very droll, dry. Because people want to give their editorial comments, well I think this, I think this, no, no, no. Well let's just start with the facts, ma'am. Joe Friday. Get to know him.

Hospitalization rate ticks down, good news. Net change, down, that's good news. Intubations down, that's good news. COVID hospitalizations, new ones per day, just about flat, that's not great news. Actually up a tick. So that is not good news. What we're watching now is how fast the decline, how low does it go? We don't want to see 1,000 new cases every day. We'd like to see that in the low hundreds, ideally, of new cases every day. Death rate, terrible news. 330. You see the decline has been slow at best and still disgustingly high. So we're making progress, that's for sure, but we're not out of the woods yet. And we're proceeding with caution.

And there are caution signs out there that we should pay attention to. Singapore is talking about a second wave with 900 new cases. This is after they controlled the beast, they're on the decline. They're now looking at new cases. Germany is a situation that we should also watch and learn f from. They relaxed and started to reopen. they're now seeing an increase. These are interesting, the rate of infection, which is what we watch, was at .7. One person infecting .7 percent, obviously less than one person. 1 percent infection rate is one person infecting one person. They were at .7. They started to reopen. In 10 days they went up to a one on the infection rate. That's troubling. Shows you how fast the infection rate can increase if you don't do it right on the reopening. So proceed with caution.

Our reopening is different. We don't have a conceptual plan. We don't have an abstract plan because there is no conceptual plan, there is no abstract plan. You have to have a plan that is based on facts, based on specifics. This is not about politics, this is not about spin, this is not about emotion. There are no conspiracy theories at work here. We outlined a 12-step plan that is factual, that is based on numbers, based on data and then it has a numerical circuit breaker that is not subject to personal emotion or desire, but just checks and monitors that infection rate that we just saw in Germany and is watching for those increases. And if there's an increase, circuit breaker stops the reopening at that point. Some of the specifics we're looking at, you must have 30 percent of your hospital beds available.

We can't go back to where we were where we overwhelmed the hospital system. We have to have a 30 percent buffer. We have to have 30 percent of ICU beds. We have to have that buffer before we start bumping up against total capacity, and we have to watch the hospitalization rate and the diagnostic testing rate, how many are positive, how many are negative, which we'll take on a continuous basis. You see that number start going up, worry. But it's all based on the data and the numbers. I'm sorry, and the rate of transmission, RT, rate of transmission, our road and track, rate of transmission has to be 1.1 or less. We just said Germany is at .1. The 1.1, that is textbook outbreak. So watch the numbers and watch the transmission rate.

How do you do that? You do that with testing and that's why everybody is talking about testing. The testing allows you to continually test sample how many people are positive, how many people are negative. You see the positive start to increase through your day-to-day testing. That is a pause sign. We're doing about 20,000 tests. We said we wanted to double that. We're now on average about 30,000 tests per day which is a dramatic increase, not where we need to be, but a dramatic increase.

Where we are now, you should know, is New York State is doing more than most countries are doing so we have been very aggressive in testing and we have made great progress. New Yorkers should feel good about that but we have more to do.

On elective surgeries, we had canceled all elective surgeries so we could have increased capacity in the hospitals. When you cancel elective surgeries hospitals feel a financial pinch because that's where they make their money is on elective surgeries. So for areas that don't have a fear of a COVID surge, we're going to allow elective surgeries to begin. That's primarily in counties upstate. Again, counties where we're still worried about a surge in the COVID beds, we're not going to open it up to elective surgery until we know we're out of the woods on the COVID virus. This is a list of counties that are eligible now for elective surgeries. I'll do an Executive Order on that today.

We've been worried about front line workers because they are the heroes who are out there every day so everybody else can stay home. Somebody asked me yesterday on a radio interview, well, you're out there every day. Are you taking care of yourself? I'm out there every day. Forget me. I'll tell you who is out there every day. The nurses who are in the emergency room, the doctors in the emergency room, the police officer who is going into homes and apartments because there's a domestic disturbance, the EMTs, the Fire Department, the delivery worker who goes to 50 doors a day and gets paid. Those people are out there every day. They're the ones who are really doing the work. Compared to them, what I do is de minimis. They're doing it not because they get paid a lot of money, not because people say thank you, God bless you. They're doing it because it's their value, their honor, their pride, their dignity, and they show up. Even when it's hard, they show up. My hat is off to them.

I want to make sure we do what we need to do to protect them, that they have the equipment, they have the PPE, they have our respect, they have our gratitude. I also want to make sure we're testing so we get them the results of tests so they can be taking care of themselves.

I also want to see if we have a significant problem in any of those front line workforces. So we're doing testing. We started with the New York City Fire Department and New York City Police Department. What we found so far, the Fire Department which also has the EMTs, tested 17% positive, NYPD 10% positive. Number much higher in the FDNY, EMTs. We believe that's because the EMT number is driving it up, but we have to do more numbers and more research to determine that. Remember, the EMTSs, they are the front line. They're the ones who are there assisting the person in the closest contact in many ways. FDNY, also. But we want to find out exactly what's going on. They compare to a downstate average of the general population of about 18%. Again, we'll do further research, further surveys to look at it by race and gender, also.

We're also going to do the same thing with the transit workers, the people who drive the buses, the subways, who clean the buses and the subways. Without those buses and subways, the essential workers couldn't get to work. Why didn't we just close down subways and buses? Because you close down the subways and the buses in New York City, don't expect the nurses and the doctors to be able to get to the hospital. Don't expect the delivery worker to be able to deliver food when you ring on your telephone. We need that public transportation to transport the essential workers. Those front line workers are at risk, so we're going to do additional testing for the transport workers.

I also commented yesterday, the Daily News had pictures of things that are going on in the New York City subway system, where the cars were filthy, they were disgusting. Homeless people were there with all their belongings and it was not just a Daily News picture, it reflected what has been in the press and what people have been saying, which is the deterioration of the conditions in the subways. Some crimes are up in the subways, even though ridership is down 90 percent. I don't even know how mathematically that is possible. The trains are filled with homeless people. You're not doing the homeless any favor. I've worked with the homeless all my life. To let homeless people stay on the trains in the middle of a global health pandemic with no masks, no protective equipment, you're not helping the homeless.

Letting them endanger their own life and endanger the lives of others is not helping anyone. I told the MTA yesterday, in two days, which means tomorrow, I want a full plan. How do we disinfect every train every night, period. Any essential worker who shows up and gets on a train should know that that train was disinfected the night before. We want them to show up. We don't want them to stay home. We owe it to them to be able to say, the train you ride, the bus you ride has been disinfected and is clean.

Also, state and local funding from Washington is essential. This is now turning into a political brawl on state and local funding. More and more, some of the elected officials in Washington are saying they're against it. They're lead by Senator Mitch McConnell, who leads the Senate, who makes it blatantly political. No blue state bailout. No blue state bailout. What is he trying to say? The states that have coronavirus are Democratic states and he's a Republican, so he doesn't want to help the Democratic states.

He went so far as to say, well he'd be in favor of the states going bankrupt. First, states have never gone bankrupt. States can't go bankrupt. There are serious Constitutional questions about whether or not a state can declare bankruptcy and you need a federal law that would allow the states to declare bankruptcy even if you got around the Constitutional question on bankruptcy. If he believes that, if it wasn't just political rhetoric and personal vitriol, then pass a law that allows states to declare bankruptcy. He would have to do that. I dare him to do that and get that bill signed by the President.

To make it partisan is what is most disturbing and you can see they're now rallying the partisan troops. Senator Scott from Florida says we're supposed to bail them out. We versus them. We're supposed to bail them out. It's we and it's them. That's not right. Who is we and who is them? Who is we? And who is them? Them, the people who had coronavirus. They are the ones who had the coronavirus. We, without the virus, are supposed to bail out those people who have the virus. what an ugly sentiment. First of all, on the facts, it's not even close to right and why they would even want to go down this road when the facts damn everything they're saying. And there are still facts. I know it's hard to communicate facts in this environment. I know a lot of the filters don't communicate facts. They all communicate spin now. Everybody has their own spin. But there are still facts that are not political theater, right? New York State bails them out every year. They're not bailing us out. We bail them out every year. New York State pays $29 billion into that federal pot, $29 billion more every year that we never get back. Our state contribution into the federal pot, the United States of America pot, every year we put in $29 billion more than we take out. On the other hand, they take out every year $37 billion more than they pay to the federal government. Senator Mitch McConnell, you are bailing out New York, when every year you take out more from the kitty, the federal pot, $37 billion more than you put in? Who is bailing out whom?

Senator Scott, Florida, you're going to bail us out? You take out $30 billion more every year than you pay in. How dare they? How dare they when those are the facts? How long are you going to play the American people and assume they're stupid? They are not and they can add and they know facts. And I don't care what the news media tries to do to distort these facts. They are numbers, and they are facts, and they can't be distorted, and this is every year.

Look, what this is really about, it's the Washington double speak. You look at the bills that they want to pass and who they want to help. They want to fund the hotels, the restaurants, the airlines, the big corporations. That's who they want to fund. Who do state and local governments fund? State and local governments fund police, firefighters, nurses, school teachers, food banks. That's who I want to fund and that's what it means to fund a state and local government. And that's the choice they're making. Everybody applauds the health care workers. Jets fly over in tribute to the health care workers. That's all nice. Saying thank you is nice. How about actually rewarding them and making their life easier? How about giving them hazard pay? How about helping with their childcare? How about helping families who can't feed their kids right now? How about helping the police, and helping the firefighters, and all the people who are out there right now killing themselves to make life easier for us?

That's what this is really about. They want to fund corporate America. That's who puts money in their pockets. And I say let's fund working Americans. That's the choice. Bail out us, them. No, it's just theater. It's just smoke and mirrors to avoid the American people seeing the reality, which is whose pocket they want to put money in, versus whose pocket state and local governments want to fund. The reason that it's so disturbing to me, I'm not surprised by anything in politics. I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly for many, many years. I was in Washington for eight years. I know what it's like. But if there was ever a time that one could reasonably believe you could put aside partisan politics. If there was ever going to be a moment where we could say, you know what, let's stop just for one moment the partisanship, the ugliness, the anger, the deception. Let's just stop for one moment. If there was going to be one moment to hit the pause button, the moment would be now. You have human suffering. You have people dying. You can't stop the politics even in this moment? Even in this moment when people are dying all across the country, you still want to play your politics? That's what this is about, and that's why it is so disturbing on a fundamental level. Politics, I'm getting up and I'm reading that death toll number. I'm speaking to the widows and the brothers and the sisters and the children of people who died, and then we're going to play politics with funding that's necessary to save people's lives? When does it stop?

And the disconnect is between the political leadership and the people, because the American people, it's not them. They are principled, they are kind, they are better than what they are getting. The American instinct is to help each other in crisis. The American instinct is to be good neighbors. The American instinct is the farmer who sent me the one mask to help a New Yorker when he only had five masks and a wife with one lung and underlying illness. And he sends one of his five masks to New York. Think about that generosity, that charity, that spirit. That's America. Why? Because we're good neighbors, because we care about one another.

America was when I said we need help in our emergency rooms and hospitals and 95,000 nurses and doctors from across the nation said we will come to New York to help. We'll come into the emergency room. We'll come into the hospital. I understand it's COVID I will leave my family, and I will come to help yours. That's America. That's who we are and that's who we have shown ourselves to be in the middle of this crisis. The crisis brings out the best and the worst, yes. And the best of America is beautiful and that's what we've seen. Because, yes, we are tough. Yes, we are smart. Yes, we are disciplined. Yes, we are united. Yes, we're loving, loving, because we are Americans. And that's who we are and how we are as Americans. And I just hope the political leadership of this nation understands how good we are as a people.

And the textbook says politicians lead, elected officials lead. No, sometimes the people lead and the politicians follow, and that's where we are today. Follow the American people. Look at what they're doing. Look at how they're reacting. And politicians, try to be half as good as the American people. I want to show you a self-portrait that was done by American people. This is a self-portrait of America, okay? That's a self-portrait of America. You know what it spells? It spells love. That's what it spells. You have to look carefully, but that's what the American people are saying. We received thousands of masks from all across America, unsolicited, in the mail, homemade, creative, personal, with beautiful notes from all across the country, literally. Just saying, thinking about you, "We care, we love you, we want to help." And this is just people's way of saying we care. And we want to help. This is what this country is about. And this is what Americans are about. A little bit more of this and a little bit less of the partisanship and the ugliness, and this country will be a better place. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

2020-04-30 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Good morning, we have some new faces with us today. Starting at my far right, Sarah Feinberg, who runs the New York City transit system. To her left, Patrick Foye, Chairman of the MTA. Dr. Zucker, you know, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To her left, Robert Mujica, who is the Budget Director of the State of New York and wears second hat today because he is also a member of the MTA board. He doesn't really wear a second hat. That was metaphorical.

What day is today? When I was at Housing and Urban Development, I would sometimes say in a staff meeting, what day is today? What is the date? And I worked with a great fellow who was a Catholic priest, Father Joseph Hacala. And he would say today is another day to do better, with his warm smile, today is another day to do better. He passed away, Father Hacala. I have this picture in my room and I was thinking about him last night. Today is another day to do better. It is another day to improve. It is another day to be better, make life better, to be better at helping people. Today is another day, another opportunity God gave us.

Hospitalizations are down - good news. No change in total hospitalizations down - good news. No change in intubations down - good news. New covid cases slightly down, 933, but still unacceptable. But down from where it was. Number of lives lost, still terrible, 306. An optimist would say the number is on the decline, a realist would say that's a tremendous amount of pain and grief for hundreds and hundreds of New Yorkers who lost a loved one.

The big question everyone is asking is the reopening. When? How? Where? I said from day one on this situation, we have to be smart. We are at a place we have never been before. Emotions run high. Be smart, follow the numbers, follow data, talk to experts. Don't get political, even in this election year even, even in this partisan time in this country where everything is political and everything is polarized - not now. And respond to facts and data and experts, not to emotion which also runs very high right now. If we do this right, it is science reopening. It's not a political exercise. It is a science. It can be based on numbers and data, and that is true. Everybody wants to reopen, caveat is reopened but don't reopen in a way that increases the spread of the virus, doesn't increase the rate of the spread of the virus. Well how do you know that? You can test. You can get numbers. Test, get a sample and see what is happening. You know that if the rate of transmission goes over one 1.1 you are in an outbreak, you're in an epidemic. So, you don't have to guess. It's not what it feels like. Get the numbers, do the testing, get the numbers, rely on the numbers.

The second fact you have to deal with as a science in this formula, do you have the hospital capacity available if that rate of infection increases? Don't go above 70% capacity, so you have a 30% buffer, so we don't wind up in the same mad scramble that we were in last time. Make sure you have ICU beds with the 30% capacity and make sure you have enough equipment. We're not going to go through who has a mask, who has a gown, who knows someone in China? Let's have at least a 30 day supply of stockpiled equipment: ventilators, masks, gowns, gloves, etc. There are facts, its science, it's data. Then what's testing? Testing, then you trace, then you isolate, and that remains the key to controlling the rate of infection.

The testing is how you monitor the rate of infection, what's happening to the rate as you increase the economic activity? I will take the test and we'll test enough people so we have enough data to make a decision. We're increasing the number of tests. It's hard. Nobody's done it on this scale before. There's been a lot of back and forth, we met with the federal government, met with the president. We have now a partnership in how to do testing. We're ramping up testing. We're moving very quickly in this state. We do more tests in this state than in any other state in the United States. We do more testing in this state than any country on the globe per capita. So, we are doing it well. We are doing it aggressively. We've increased from about 20,000 tests to about 30,000 tests per day and we're still ramping up and that's good. There's more to do more testing and more to talk about on testing, but not today.

Today, we're going to talk about tracing which is the second step after testing, right? You test, you now know what's happening on the infection rate, you can gauge your decisions based on that infection rate. Second step is trace those people who came up positive. All right, we tested. You have the data. You can adjust the opening valve, the reopening valve, now you trace. When you get a positive, you talk to that person and trace back to they have been in contact with. You with then test those people, you then isolate those people so you don't increase the rate of infection. That's what tracing is. Faster you trace, the better. You want to test right away. You think you have symptoms, you think you were exposed, come and get a test, do it today. Once you get that test results, you have data on what's happening with the infection spread. You then right away, as quickly as you can, trace that person. Who have they met with? Who have they been in close contact with over the past 14 days? And you then contact those people and say you may have been in contact with Dan. Dan tested positive. You should check your symptoms - if you develop any symptoms what we know right away and we will bring you in to take a test. That is tracing.

The problem is it's not rocket science to do it on an individual basis. The problem is the scale that we have to do this act. Yesterday we tested 4,681 people who were positive. Yesterday 4,681 people were positive. How do you now communicate with 4,681 people, trace back all the people they've been in contact with over the past 14 days close contact, and contact those people. That is an overwhelming scale to an operation that has never existed before. We do tracing now but on a very limited basis. That's why this is so hard tracing in and of itself - one person it's easy. 4,681 on one day. Today we'll have another 4,681 people. So just think of the scale on the operation. Last week we announced that Michael Bloomberg would lead the first ever testing-tracing-isolation program. Figure out, how many people, how to train them, what technology, how do we do this. And it's of a scale never been done before and by the way we need it tomorrow. There is no time to go get a university to do a study, a blueprint, and then put a plan together. We need it tomorrow, because we're literally doing it right now. We're doing the testing, we're coming up the scale on the testing. You need the tracing to come up the scale to meet what we're doing on testing.

The estimate so far is you need 30 contact tracers for every 100,000 people who are in the affected are. Statewide that would be about 6,400 to 17,000 tracers, depending on what happens on the testing rate. The more people test positive, the more tracers. The less people test positive, the less tracers you need. So, these things are all linked, right? The better you do at reducing the spread of the virus, the fewer people test people test positive, and the fewer you need to trace back. It will require under any estimate, a tracing army to come up to scale very, very quickly. And Mayor Bloomberg has put together a great team who's going to work on this. He has great talent in his Bloomberg Philanthropies, Johns Hopkins University working together with the New York State Department of Health. This is that undertaking and it is massive and that's why bringing in a person with the talent of Mayor Bloomberg and the experience of Mayor Bloomberg to do this is essential. Where do you get the army? Well we have Department of health employees all across the state - counties have them, cities have them, the State has them. We'll marshal those employees - you also have a lot of government employees who are at home now getting paid but are not working. What government employees who are now existing, city, state, counties, can we deploy to become tracers and then train them, et cetera. After you go through all of that, if you don't have enough, you're going to have to hire people. And then you have to train them - right away, because nobody's done this before. They're going to need help, they're going to need technology, they're going to need monitoring and they're going to have to be tested before they can do this.

So, it's a massive undertaking. And that's Mayor Bloomberg's involvement in his generosity here is so important, and we want to offer a big thank you to Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Who I believe may be joining us by telephone or some technological means. Here he is. How are you, Mayor Mike?

Mayor Bloomberg: I'm here.

Governor Cuomo: Good to see you.

Mayor Bloomberg: Governor, I'm fine and good to see you. And I want to thank you for all your good work to lead this State through this crisis and to deliver facts and data to the public, and also a sense of hope which really is important. I know your daily press conferences have become must-see TV for a lot of people. And for the record, I thought your advice to fathers on what to say about a daughter's boyfriend was exactly right the other day. Anyways, the question on everybody's mind continues to be, "How can we begin to loosen these restrictions and begin reopening the economy?" And one of the most important steps we have to take to reopen the economy as safely as possible is to create a system of contact tracing as you just outlined. When social distancing is relaxed, contract tracing is our best hope for isolating the virus when it appears and keeping it isolated. The Governor recognizes that and since Bloomberg Philanthropies has deep experience and expertise in public health, we're glad to support the State in developing and implementing a contact tracing program.

As Andrew said, the contract tracing is a way to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus but don't know it. And doing that requires a lot of well-trained people who are coordinated and managed effectively. It is a very big undertaking just because of the scale, so we've enlisted the best public health school in the world at Johns Hopkins University. No offense, but its name Bloomberg School of Public Health, which our foundation work with on public health and other issues. And we've also teamed up with nonprofit organizations Vital Strategies and Resolve To Save Lives. They get the contract tracing program up and running a lot, has to happen first and hiring, training, deploying and managing a small army of New Yorkers as the Governor said is really the great challenge. To help the state recruit contact tracers, we've brought in a staffing organization. And we're also teamed up with CUNY and SUNY, both of which will help identify potential job applicants, and I want to thank both of them for their work in joining us. To help the state with training, Johns Hopkins has developed a training class which can be taken remotely. It will cover all the basic information of epidemics, contact tracing and privacy. There's also a test at the end of the training which you have to pass in order to be hired, so we're not going to put up people there that don't know what they're doing. We'll also put technology to use in other ways. Vital Strategies is developing three new smartphone apps. The first will help contact tracers find information and data quickly. The second will help the public to provide information to health departments. And the third will allow those in quarantine to access the guidance and services they need including the ability to report any symptoms they may be experiencing. Vital Strategies is also working directly with the state to develop protocols and workflow materials for contract tracers and mappers. That includes a comprehensive playbook that will detail the steps needed to do contact tracing effectively. And I want to make it clear, we will release that playbook publicly so cities and states around the country can use it and so can nations around the world. That way the work we do here in New York really can help fight the virus globally. We'll also bring in a group of outside experts to conduct an evaluation of the program so that other states and countries can see what worked well and identify areas they can improve on. And, we'll learn as we go, and make adjustments and share what we've learned.

Sharing in spreading best practices is something that Bloomberg Philanthropies works on with cities around the world. In about an hour I'll be getting on a call with mayors around the country, which is a call we hold every week. It's been a good way to share information and strategies. And I know all of the mayors are following the news of the contract tracing program that we are starting here and other states have also begun the process of starting. Before I turn it back over to the governor, let me just echo something that he has said repeatedly and that really is important to remember. As tough as these times are, we are New Yorkers, and we've been through a lot together, and we're going to get through this together again. So governor, back to you and thank you for everything you're doing. Together we're going to lick this and get back to a normal life that we can, we are so proud of the way the citizens of this state are behaving. Thank you all.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much. Thank you very much to Mayor Bloomberg. This is such a great asset for the State of New York and all of the people in it. This is a monumental undertaking. You know, so many of these things that we talk about just never existed before. Testing of this magnitude, contact tracing of this magnitude. It's never existed. So we have to design new systems, new approaches to do this and this problem is bigger than any one of us, but it is not bigger than all of us. And using the expertise and the talent that we have we get everyone to work together here. we will do this and the mayor is exactly right. New York, he says as a New Yorker, in many cases we've dealt with challenges first. We figure it out and then we work with other places to actually learn from what we've done. I think this is going to be one of those examples. We want the best system that we can have to get New York open and to protect New Yorkers. But it will also be a laboratory to put together the best system ever put together so we can share that with other governments. And that's what Mayor Bloomberg does so well. He did as mayor and he does it now but through his philanthropy.

So, we'll develop the best system here and then what we learned we hope can benefit other people. We'll also be coordinating this contact tracing on a tri-state basis because many of the people who come into New York, live in Connecticut, live in New Jersey, go back and forth. We don't want to get limited by jurisdictions when you're doing this contact tracing. Somebody turns out, you have a trace that takes you to a person in New Jersey. Well, we work in New York, we can't go to New Jersey. Having that tri-state alliance makes tremendous sense. So I'm working with Governor Murphy and Governor Lamont on that, and I want to thank them very much. Next problem. Stone to stone across the morass, right. Problem to problem across the morass. In this situation every day is a new problem that pops up. Okay, let's handle it. Next problem. In an emergency crisis situation what happens is problems compound, right. You're in the middle of a hurricane, the power lines go down. Now the power lines go down, now the heat is off. Heat is off, now people are freezing in their homes. We didn't anticipate that. I know, but that's what happens. One problem creates another problem, it's like a bad game of dominoes. And these problems compound each other, and the combination is often unforeseen.

We have that now with the New York City subway system. Daily News did a front page story, which crystallized it, but it had been happening for weeks. And no one anticipated it, but you have a virus outbreak and conditions on the New York City subway system, for a variety of reasons, have rapidly deteriorated. When you think about what happened you can put it together in the retrospective. The COVID outbreak happens. New York City's a place of density, subways, buses are a place of density. MTA employees who run that system, care for that system, get sick, call in sick as they should. They don't want to infect other people. The number of MTA employees comes down. Number of NYPD, New York Police Department, they get sick, their numbers come down. You now have fewer MTA workers, you have fewer NYPD workers on the trains and in the stations. We have now a greater need than ever to disinfect the subways, the buses, and the stations. Why? Because you're in the middle of a pandemic, this is a place of density and you have thousands and thousands of people going through these subway stations, these turnstiles and these buses, trains and ADA vehicles. Because MTA workers are sick, NYPD officers are sick you have fewer people to monitor and maintain the system. This all happens in the midst of a public health emergency. 

At the same time, you have more homeless people who now are on fewer trains and you have fewer people to outreach to the homeless people. Now you put all of this together, and then at the same time we need our essential workers to go to work. I said the other day, I have two great nightmares from day one: Nightmare one, you did everything you did, closed down, et cetera and you didn't stop the rate of increase of the virus. That would have been a nightmare. Can you imagine if we did all of this and we still saw that virus going up? That would have been a real problem. Second nightmare, the essential workers say I'm not going to work. I'm not going. The transit operators, the police, the food delivery people say it's too dangerous. I'm not going. I'm staying home too. 

You don't have food, you don't have power, you don't have transportation, you don't have electric, now you see society in a really difficult situation. We need those essential workers to go to work. I am pushing every day to get our essential workers to go to work even though they see a lot of their colleagues getting ill. You need those nurses, you need those doctors in very difficult circumstances. That's why I say, they are the heroes of today. All the essential workers. How do our essential workers get to work? They need the public transit system. It's true in New York City, it's true all across the state. They need the public buses, they need the trains, they need the subways to get to work. We need them, they need the buses and they need the subways. 

We are as a society, me as a spokesperson for the state, I'm saying to them every day, I need you to do this. I know it's hard, but I need you to do it. Okay, we need them to do it but what is our obligation. Our obligation is to make sure we're doing everything we can do to keep them safe. That's my personal obligation and it's the collective obligation. You want them to be there to deliver the food, what's your obligation is to do everything you're doing to make sure that they are safe while they're doing it. The MTA understood where we were with this global pandemic. They stepped up operations are were cleaning trains and buses every 72 hours, which is an amazing undertaking when you think about it. To clean all those buses and trains every 72 hours. We know the virus can live for hours or even days on a surface which means if somebody positive walks on to a train this morning, that virus can be there tomorrow and the next day. That then changes the whole focus of the problem. 

You want to honor the essential workers, thank you, thank you, we'll fly airplanes. We'll have public demonstrations of gratitude. Yeah, even better than that is what you do and how you act. Let's make sure that we're doing everything we can. Let's clean, disinfect those buses and trains every 24 hours. Why? Because that's the way we best protect the health of our essential workers which makes sense if you want the essential workers to continue to come to work. It makes sense if you don't want the infection rate to go up in your society. It makes sense if you don't want the essential workers to get sick and again, it is our obligation as human beings to reciprocate and make sure we're doing everything we can. 

To say disinfect every train every 24 hours is just a task that nobody has every imagined before. I would wager in the history of public transportation in this nation you never had a challenge of disinfecting every train, every 24 hours. Disinfect, how do you even disinfect a train? We clean trains but how do you disinfect? This is a whole new process, these are new chemicals. This is new equipment for workers. It's new methods. Just think about it, you have to disinfect every place that a hand could touch on a subway car. Every rail, every pole, every door, wherever a hand could touch or coughing, sneezing. Wherever droplets could land. So you have to disinfect that entire interior of the car and then you have to disinfect the stations, the handrails, everything that people could be touching. It is a massive undertaking that we've never done before. 

That is the right thing to do. That is, as we said we've never done tracing before, we've done disinfecting train cars before, but so what? That's what we have to do. So figure out how to do what you have to do. This is what we have to do. I challenged the MTA to come up with a plan, they came up with a plan. They can disinfect all trains and buses every night. It can best be done by stopping train service from 1 am to 5 am every night during the pandemic so they can actually perform this service. 

Now, remember the context that we're in in this pandemic. Ridership is down 92 percent. One to 5 are the slow hours, 1 am to 5 am. It's the lowest ridership. Estimate is about 10,000 people ride the system overall during that period of time. So the MTA will launch what they call the essential connector program, they'll have buses, dollar vans and if necessary, will provide for-hire vehicles to transport a person. The Uber, the Lyft, the vehicles - at no cost to the essential worker during those hours to provide transport. So, people who need transportation during 1am and 5am can have it. Will have it. Even to the extent of a for-hire vehicle paid for by the MTA. Remember, 1am to 5am - we don't have bars open, we don't have restaurants open, so you don't have a lot of traffic that you would normally have. You do have essential workers who are using our trains and subways. They will have transportation during that period of time.

This is going to be one of the most aggressive, creative, challenging undertakings that the MTA has done. It's going to require the MTA, the state, the city, the NYPD to all work together. It's not that easy to stop train service. You have to close down stations, you have to make sure people don't walk in, then you have to figure out how to clean all these trains and all these stations.

I've consulted with the elected officials on the MTA's recommendation and we all agree to accept the plan on the Essential Connector Program. The MTA is undertaking something that people would've said was virtually impossible. Trains and buses will be disinfected daily. Service will continue. The MTA will also disinfect the fleet on the Metro North and the Long Island Railroad, which is what goes out to Long Island, goes to the Northern suburbs. They can do that without any disruption in service because of the volume of ridership, et cetera.

So, just think about it. The entire public transportation system in downstate New York will be disinfected every 24 hours. This is a joint MTA, state, city partnership. We're doing a lot of things here that we've never done before. I am never one to shy away from a challenge. I don't believe government has that option. I'm never one to say, "well, that's just too much, too hard, too ambitious." We can do it. I believe we can do it. I believe we can do anything. I believe we can build bridges, I believe we can build airports, I believe we can defeat global pandemics. But this is as ambitious as anything that we've ever undertaken. It's going to require a lot of extraordinary service and effort from multiple agencies all working together.

The MTA has stepped up by recommending this plan. The state will do whatever it has to do. A big part of this falls to the city. I've spoken to Mayor de Blasio. It's going to require a lot of assistance from the NYPD, it's going to require a lot of assistance from different city agencies. Again, close down every station, close down the trains. We've never been here before. I guarantee another ten things come up when we go to do this that are also anticipated consequences.

So the mayor is really stepping up to the plate here and is doing something that no mayor has ever attempted to do before. We'll all do our part, we'll all work together, but it's a heck of an undertaking for the mayor. I applaud him for his ambition here in stepping up and taking this on. You know, it's always easier to just say no. It's always easier to say we can't do it because when you say we will try to do it, now you're changing things and whenever you change, there's opposition. Every time. So, it's always easier just to stay status quo. It's always easier not to risk. Not to try to raise the bar because maybe you can't do it, maybe there'll be problems. So it's easier just to say no. It's easier to say this is all we can do it's impossible. That's not what the mayor is doing here. The mayor is stepping up and he's stepping up in a big way. I want to applaud him for it.

I think we have the mayor who is on the telephone or some electronic means. There he is, Mayor Bill de Blasio. Welcome to Albany.

Mayor de Blasio: Thanks, Governor, it's a pleasure to be with you. Governor, that point you made about all of us together doing something different, doing something necessary, and being willing together to go someplace we've never been before. You and I have talked about this kind of idea a lot over the years. I think when we first met each other, the word "disruption" was considered a bad thing. In recent years, it's taken on a very positive connotation. That when we disrupt something that isn't work or has been thought about in a very narrow way and we go someplace new and better, that's a positive. I think what we're talking about today is exactly that. I commend you and everyone at the MTA.

I want to talk about why I think this plan is so important - in terms of our essential workers, our first responders, our healthcare heroes - why I think it's so important in terms of also addressing homelessness in a new and powerful way.

But I first want to express my appreciation, along with you, really appreciate - back on one of your previous topics - the contact tracing. Really appreciate that my predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, is stepping up such a big way for New York City and New York State. Contact tracing, the test and trace approach, is going to change everything. You and I are united in that, as well. The aggressive approach. In fact, Governor, New York City is hiring 1,000 contact tracers with healthcare background to super charge this effort. I think we are going to be able to show this country a model that's going to be extraordinarily effective in beating back this disease. I look forward to that partnership as well.

Right here on the issue of the MTA, we've all been thrown the biggest curveball of our lives with this pandemic. But look at the consistent heroism of the healthcare workers, the first responders, the grocery store workers, the pharmacists - everyone who came forward. And, Governor, I know you feel it too. It's probably the proudest moment we've had as public servants in this state, in this city, watching the heroism of these New Yorkers who have stepped up. Now, we owe it to them to understand their lives and the notion that they have a daily routine where they go into battle. They go toward the danger. They go to where the infection is, which so many people couldn't even imagine, but that's what these heroes are doing. We owe it to them to support them every way possible. You and I have talked many times about the PPEs and the basic protections. But we also owe it to them to be safe on the way to work. On the way back home to their families. So, I think what we're doing here in partnership is exactly the right thing. To say we're going to find a way to make our subway system cleaner than its probably ever been its history honestly and address this crisis in a whole new way. I agree with that and I commend you for it. And yeah, it took some disruption to say we're going to do something during this pandemic we've never done before, but it makes sense when it comes to protecting our heroes.

The second point, homelessness, look another issue you and I, Governor, have worked on for decades. Well, we know it's been on many ways an intractable issue because there wasn't always an impulse to disrupt. And here is an example of saying look, we now found new ways to get street homeless people off the street. I want to commend Commissioner Dermot Shea and everyone at the NYPD who's really focused on how to help the homeless. Commissioner Steve Banks, everyone at Homeless Services, Social Services, also those heroic outreach workers.

Governor, you know about this work, go out there day after day to engage homeless people on the streets, in the subways. Get their trust and get them to come into shelter and ultimately to permanent housing. This work has always been in some ways stymied by the reality of a homeless person who is struggling with everything their dealing with, a mental health challenge, a substance abuse challenge, riding the subway all night long. We're New Yorkers we know about this reality and it's been put in stark white by this crisis, like so many other challenges and disparities have. Well, it's an unacceptable reality and this new plan will disrupt that unacceptable reality and allow us to actually get help to people more effectively. Because if you're not going back and forth all night on a train and you're actually are coming above ground where outreach workers are there to help you. Where NYPD officers trained in homeless outreach are there to support homeless people and get them to a better situation.

Governor, you know for decades in this city somehow homeless encampments were actually tolerated. People thought oh it's the kind of thing, what can we do about that? I'm proud to say the last few years Homeless Services, NYPD, nonprofit organizations, we got together and said we're not allowing that anymore. We shut them down and we found it actually helped us to get the homeless to the help they need. This is another example of that, so I want to let you know that as we all talked about this idea and I commend you, your team in Albany, and obviously team at the MTA, Pat Foye, Sarah Feinberg. It's been a very productive conversation these last few days. And what I think we've come to together, is yeah we're going to do something unprecedented. We'll do something because we're in an emergency but we're also going to do something that's going to protect people and offer a new way to get people help who never got enough. So Governor, thank you. I think this is a partnership you're right it's not going to be easy. No one said it was going to be. But you have my full commitment, the commitment of the City commission, the NYPD and all of our agencies. We're going to make this work together and we're going to be able to look back and say we did something that actually changed people's lives for the better and as long as it takes we're going to stand with you and get this done.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mayor de Blasio. Mayor made a lot of good points. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. But nobody ever said it was going to be this hard either and I think the Mayor's point is very well taken. Look, we're doing things all across the board here that had never been done before and I think there are lessons to learn and lessons we'll take with us. Telemedicine I think is a lesson we'll take with us, tele-education, remote learning, it's a lesson we'll take with us, a new public health system is a lesson that we'll take with us and I think we're going to improve and learn from this experience with the New York City transit system because the truth is it wasn't working well or as well as it should before. We did have a problem with the homeless and Mayor de Blasio is right. I've worked on it all my life. Outreaching to homeless people is very, very hard and getting them to come in to a place that actually provide services is very, very hard. So this can actually energize the connections with outreach workers and the homeless population. And we've never had to disinfect trains like this or buses like this and they will be cleaner than ever before.

So a global pandemic, but you live, you learn, you move on and most importantly you meet the challenge. You meet the challenge and this is a daunting challenge and the Mayor is stepping into it with eyes wide open and it takes guts and it takes courage and they'll be bumps along the way I guarantee you but that's where we are and that's why we get the big bucks.

I also want to be able to say today to the essential workers, we thank you not just with words but with our actions and I want you to know we are doing everything we can to keep you and your family safe and that's what it means to say, thank you. Act with gratitude. Don't just use the words. Act with gratitude. They're on those trains. They deserve to be kept safe. They deserve to have a clean, safe ride to and from work and they're going to have it and we're going to move heaven and earth to make sure that happens.

So in a challenge what do we do? We come together and we rise to the occasion. Never did it before. I know. So we'll do it now and we'll figure out how to do it and we've overcome every obstacle that we've been thrown. We have the beast on the retreat. We're making ground every day. We just have to keep it up and we will because we are New York tough. We are smart. We are disciplined. We are unified and we are loving.

2020-05-01 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Good to be with you. Everybody knows Dr. Malatras, Dr. Zucker, Elizabeth Rosa, secretary to the governor, Robert Mojica budget director, also a member of the MTA board. Today’s day 62. Feels like just yesterday. Before we look at the numbers, I just want people to recall the context for these numbers and remember what we have accomplished. We were faced with a situation where the infection rate and those numbers were going straight up. That was only 30 days ago that we saw the number of cases and number of people coming into hospitals, the infection rate, everything was going straight up. That number would have just continued to go straight up and that’s why all the projections, national projection, state projections and local projections turned out to be incorrect. Excuse me. Because they were all believing that that line was going to continue to keep going up.

What happened is New Yorkers, Americans changed reality, literally changed reality. They literally changed the path of the virus spread and reversed the spread, and that’s what the close down procedures did. That’s what the masks have done. That’s what the socially distancing has done and New Yorkers, and all across this country, you saw that number change from that up trajectory to the downward trajectory. That shift in the trajectory reduced by about 100,000 the number of new Yorkers who would have been in hospitalized, 100,000 hospitalized. To be hospitalized you have to be seriously ill. A portion of those 100,000 would have passed away. So all this inconvenience, all this turmoil, for what? To keep 100,000 people out of hospitals. That’s for what. And the 100,000 people into hospitals would have overwhelmed the hospital system, would have been chaotic. That’s where Italy was, and a number of those 100,000 would have died.

So remember that context, and not just for the retrospective, but for the prospective. Our past actions changed the past trajectory. Our present actions will determine the future trajectory. It is that clear. It is cause and effect. You tell me what we do today, I will tell you the number of people sick tomorrow. So every day we get up every day everyone says, “Oh my gosh, I have to do this again.” Yes, but what you do today is going to determine the number of sick tomorrow. And New Yorkers have continued to do what they have to do and you see that number of hospitalizations dropping and that is all good news and that is a credit to the community and the social conscience and the responsibility of New Yorkers. The question now is as we’re on the decline, how fast is that decline and how far is that decline?

How low will the number actually wind up? Right now we’re at about 1,000 new cases per day. Okay? In the 900s. 954, 933, 970, 973. That’s four days. Day before that it was 1,076. That looks like the number is flattening, is plateauing at about 900, 1,000 cases. Three, four days, five days, if you want to say between 900 and 1,100. That is still too high a number of new cases to have every day. It’s not where we were. It’s a lot better than where we were for sure, but 1,000 new cases every day is still a very high infection rate. It’s still a burden on the hospital system, so we now want to take it to the next level. Let’s drill down on those 1,000 new cases. Where are they coming from? Why is the infection rate continuing? Who’s getting infected and let’s get more targeted in our response, right?

We’re fighting this statewide, but you have to wage the battle, wage the war on many fronts. It’s a statewide battle. Now that we have it basically stabilized and on the decline, the enemy is on the run, the virus is reducing, let’s get more refined, more targeted. And I’m going to be speaking with the hospitals this afternoon and say that we want to get more specific information on those new cases that are coming in the door. Where are they coming from? Who are they? To see if we can come up with a more specific target. If you look at the past few days where the cases have been coming from, this is a three day what they call rolling average, but you see 17% from Manhattan. Much of it correlates to population, but much of it also correlates with downstate New York. 17% Manhattan, 17% Kings, 12% Bronx, 11% Queens, but then 10% Nassau, 7% Westchester, Suffolk, so it’s the downstate region and then upstate it’s Erie County.

So gives you a snapshot of where the cases are coming from, but we need more specific information to have a specific battle plan. Literally, where do the new cases come from? Are they essential workers? Are they people who are staying home and getting infected by a family member, or are they essential workers who are still traveling and possibly getting infected at work? Where do they work? How do they commute? Is this a question of getting infected on public transportation? We just announced new subway buses, Long Island railroad, Metro North protocols. Where in the state? Are these people who are being transferred from a nursing home? What’s their sex? What’s their age? What’s their previous health status? What are the demographics? Let’s get more specific information from the hospitals to see if we can come up with a strategy that is more tailored to the reduction of these 1,000 cases per day.

The number of deaths, 289, lower than it has been, but still tragic and terrible and all the good numbers, all the good news, for me every day this number just wipes that all away. We announced a statewide policy for our schools. We did it last March 18th, we said that we were going to close schools all across the state, K to 12 and higher education schools. We waived what was called the 180 day requirement, which was the state regulation that schools had to have 180 days of teaching. Schools then transferred to distance learning programs, meal delivery services, childcare options for essential workers. That has actually worked out well, not perfectly. We had to do it in a rush, but there are lessons that we can learn here that could change teaching going forward and teaching in these types of situations going forward. But it did work.

It basically functioned well and teachers did a phenomenal job stepping up to do this. It was a hardship on everyone, but we made the best of the situation. Colleges and universities were also moved to distance learning. Campuses were closed unless the student really needed housing on the campus. Schools obviously by definition have higher density. They have transportation issues. Kids who are getting on a bus, we didn’t have the protective measures to put in place. You have 700 public school districts, 4,800 schools in this state. Then you have 1,800 private schools, 89 SUNY and CUNY campuses, 100 private colleges. In total there’s 4.2 million students, so the decisions on the education system are obviously critically important. We must protect our children. Every parent, every citizen feels that. We must protect our students, we have to protect our educators, and given the circumstances that we’re in and the precautions that would have to be put in place to come up with a plan to reopen schools with all those new protocols.

How do you operate a school that’s socially distanced with masks, without gatherings, with a public transportation system that has a lower number of students on it? How would you get that plan up and running? We don’t think it’s possible to do that in a way that would keep our children and students and educators safe. So we’re going to have the schools remain closed for the rest of the year. We’re going to continue the distance learning programs. Schools have asked about summer school and whether we’ll have attendance in schools for summer school. That decision will be made by the end of this month. Again, nobody can predict what the situation is going to be three, four weeks from now. So we’re trying to stage decisions at intervals that give us the information, but also enough time for people to make the preparations they need to make.

So any decisions on summer schools will be made by the end of this month, but in the meantime, meal programs will continue, the childcare services for essential workers will continue. And then we want schools to start now developing a plan to reopen. And the plan has to have protocols in place that incorporate everything that we are now doing in society and everything that we learn. We’re going to be asking businesses to come up with plans that safeguard workers when they reopen. We need schools to come up with plans also that bring those precautions into the school room. And that’s for schools. That’s also for colleges.

And that’s for schools, that’s also for colleges and the state will approve those plans.

Related issue that we need to discuss and we need to pay attention to, this COVID crisis has caused significant disruption and many unintended consequences and ancillary issues that have developed, and one of them is when you have people who are put in this situation immediately with no notice, it has caused serious mental health issues. You have anxiety, depression, insomnia, loneliness, that feeling of isolation. We’re seeing the use of drugs go up, we’re seeing the use of alcohol consumption go up. This is a chronic problem. If you’re feeling these issues, you’re not alone, as a matter of fact, half of all Americans have said that their mental health has been negatively impacted.

Don’t underestimate the stress of this situation. It happens on a lot of levels. Three out of four say that their sleep has been affected. You don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from. You don’t know if your job is going to exist. You’re at work one day, the next day they say everything’s closed, stay in the house. You’re in that house in a confined situation or you’re in an apartment in a confined situation, you can’t get out. It’s difficult.

For emotional support, we have a hotline that is set up. People shouldn’t be shy in any way or have any second thoughts about calling for help. It is a pervasive problem and people should make the call and get the help if they need the help.

We also see in line with what we’re talking about, a dramatic increase in the incidents of domestic violence. There was a 15% increase in March, a 30% increase in April, March is when this started. 15%, April 30%. That is a frightening rate and level of increase. Again, New Yorkers in need. We have a domestic violence helpline, (844) 997-2121. You can call, just discuss the issue. You don’t have to give your identity, you don’t have to say where you live, but people who need help should reach out. There was no shame in reaching out and saying, I need help. This is a national epidemic. It’s a statewide epidemic. Ask for help and we’re here to help.

We’re especially concerned about these issues for frontline workers,, just think about what the frontline workers are going through, think about what the healthcare workers are going through. They’re working extended hours, they’re seeing a large number of people die. They’re working in very frightening situations. They’re worried about their own health, they’re worried they get infected, they then have to go home, worry if they’re infected. Are they bringing that infection home? So this is a terribly stressful, difficult time, especially for the frontline workers, and we want them to know that we not only appreciate what they’re doing, but we’re there to support them. Saying thank you is nice, acting in gratitude is even nicer. So we have an special emotional support hotline for our essential workers.

We’re also going to direct all insurers to waive any cost sharing, co-pay deductibles for mental health services for essential workers, which means the mental health services will be free for frontline workers and they’ll be at no cost.

Too many people, too many families have said to me, “Well, I would go for services, but I don’t want to pay the cost. I can’t afford it. I don’t want to take that money from my family.” That’s gone. There is no cost to get mental health services. So just wipe that reason away and get the help that you need. It’s even in the best interest of your family.

Last point, personal opinion. Who said when life knocks you on your rear, learn, grow up and get back up? Was it AJ Parkinson? It was not AJ Parkinson. It was me. Nobody ever said that. Just me. When life knocks you on your rear… learn, grow and get back up. This has been a very difficult, difficult situation for everyone. But when life knocks you on your rear, learn and grow. And we will collectively learn and grow. We’re going to learn many difficult lessons from this situation. We’re going to learn about public health threats that we never saw before, we never heard of, we never really anticipated, we never actualized. Everyone talked about global pandemics and that possibility, but you know what, until it happens, people don’t really get it. Our hospital system and how that works and how it works in an emergency, how tele-education works, how tele-medicine works, how you keep society functioning during an emergency, how you communicate to people the dangers of a situation without panicking people because you still need essential workers to come out and do their job, you don’t want to panic people where they say, “I’m not leaving the house,” but you need to communicate the facts so people act responsibly. How do you do that in a short period of time? What do you do about public transportation? We learned the whole lesson with a downstate public transportation system.

So there’ll be a lot to learn from this, which we will learn and we will be the better for. I believe that. And that’s part of life. In the meantime, we have to go day to day and we try to make the best of a bad situation. You try to find that silver lining through the dark clouds. All of us try to do it in our own way. Everybody is struggling with it in their own way, and that’s all across the board. In many ways, this is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, this impacts your life dramatically. But personally, if you work at it, maybe you can find the little silver lining.

I’m sitting there last night with my daughter McKayla. She’s my baby. The baby’s now 22. And she says to me, “Dad, think about it. I’ve spent more time with you now than I will probably spend with you in the rest of my adult life.” I said, “Wow, what does that mean?” She said, “Well, think about it. I’ve been with you for over a month. I won’t be with you for another month for the rest of my adult life.” Which is kind of jarring because I still think of her as my baby, but you know what? That’s probably right. She’s 22, she’s going to go off, do whatever she does, and then you see her at holidays for a few hours here, maybe you steal a Saturday once in a while. Reminded me of the Harry Chapin song, Cat’s in the Cradle, which is a great old song from a great, great man. Great New Yorker too.

These are, with all of the bizarreness, I haven’t been able to see my mother in two months, but I have my daughter probably for a longer period of time than I probably have for the rest of her adult life. That’s probably true. So you try to find the silver lining. You try to stay positive. We stay socially distant, but we stay spiritually connected.

New Yorkers have been so supportive of each other. You can feel it. There’s this spirit of community and mutuality. People are there to help one another. People understand that everybody’s going through this. Everybody’s in stress. You look at the way people have complied with these rules, as annoying as they are, masks, six feet. That’s out of respect, one for the other. I love the metaphor of the mask. The mask does not protect me. I wear the mask to protect you. What a beautiful sign of caring, of mutuality. I wear a mask to protect you. That’s the spirit even in this terrible time of difficulty.

So yes, you can be socially distant, but you can be spiritually connected and closer in ways you’ve never been before. And I believe that’s where we are because we are New York tough, which means tough, smart, United, disciplined and loving.

2020-05-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Pleasure to get out of the state Capitol, tell you the truth, and talk to the people who are actually doing the work. I am a Queens boy, so it’s coming back home for me. Corona Queens was called Corona Queens before the coronavirus. There was no connection between Corona Queens and the coronavirus. Let me introduce my colleagues who are here from my far left, Pat Foye, who is the chairman of the MTA, to my immediate left Sarah Feinberg, who runs the New York City Transit Bureau, to my right, Gareth Rhodes, who is Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services but has been with me for many years and is now helping on this up in Albany.

Today is Saturday. I know that because it’s on the slide, otherwise I may not have known that. But I follow the days by what’s on the PowerPoint. Everybody talks about this is uncharted waters that we’ve never been here before, and that’s true. But even when you are in uncharted waters, that doesn’t mean you just proceed blindly. You get whatever information that you can because you want to stay informed. Even in the old days when sailors would sail into uncharted waters, this is before GPS and radar and depth finders, they would throw out a piece of lead with a rope, the lead would fall to the bottom, and they would call back to the captain how deep the water was.

The levy even had on the very bottom a piece of wax that would pick up what was on the ocean bottom, whatever, sand, rocks, etc. So the captain could tell basically where he was. So unchartered waters doesn’t mean proceed blindly. It means get information, get data the best you can, and use that data to decide where you’re going. So especially in this situation, we have so much emotion. You have politics. You have a personal anxiety that people feel, social anxiety, social stress. Let’s stick to the facts. Let’s stick to the data.

Let’s make sure we’re making decisions with the best information that we have. So we do a lot of testing, a lot of tracking to find out where we are. We test number of hospitalizations. Every night, we find out how many people were in the hospital the day before and we’ve been tracking that. Good news is that number is down a tick again today. The net change in hospitalizations is down a tick. Intubations is down, which is very good news. The new cases walking in the door, the new COVID cases, the number of new infections was also down a little bit, 831.

It had been relatively flat at about 900 every day, which is not great news. Yesterday was 831. We’ll watch the see what happens with that. The number that I watch every day, which is the worst, is the number of deaths. That number has remained obnoxiously and terrifyingly high and it’s still not dropping at the rate we would like to see it drop. It even went up a little bit, 299 to 189 the day before, so that is bad news. 276 deaths in hospitals, 23 in nursing homes. As everybody knows, nursing homes are where the most vulnerable population is and the highest number of the most vulnerable population.

But again, use the data, use information to determine actions, not emotions, not politics, not what people think or feel, but what we know in terms of facts. We’ve been sampling all across this state to determine the infection rate, so we know if it’s getting better or if it’s getting worse. And we’ve done the largest survey in the nation testing for people who have antibodies. If somebody has antibodies, it means that that person was infected. That’s what the antibody test does for you. It tells you that that person was infected. They’ve now recovered so that they have antibodies.

I went through this with my brother Chris. He got infected. He now has the antibody, so if you test him, he tests positive for antibodies. So we’ve been doing these antibody testings all across the state. We have the largest sample now over 15,000 people, which is an incredibly large sample. And when we started on the 22nd, we had 2,900 people surveyed at that time. We had about a 13.9%, just about 14% infection rate statewide. It then went up to about 14.9 and today it is down to 12.3. Now statisticians will say this is all plus or minus in the margin of error, but it’s a large sample.

It is indicative 14 to 14.9 down to 12.3. And as you can see we test about every four or five days. We have so much at stake, so many decisions that we have to make that we want to get those data points as quickly as we can. And seeing it go down to 12% may only be a couple of points, but it’s better than seeing it go up, that’s for sure. And again, this is outside the margin of error, so this is a good sign. And it is 15,000 people surveyed, so it’s a large number. You can then start to look at where in the state, who in the state, so that will inform our strategy.

You can see it’s a little bit more male than female. Not exactly sure why that is. In New York City, you see the number one from 21 to 24 and it’s down to 19.9. So again, that’s a good sign. You will always want to see the number dropping rather than the number increasing. Within New York City, you see the Bronx is high, 27%, Brooklyn 19, Manhattan 17, Queens 18, Staten Island 19, and we’re going to do more research to understand what’s going on there. Why is the Bronx higher than the other boroughs? Statewide, you see it’s basically about flat.

This is predominantly an issue for New York City, then long Island, then the Northern suburbs, then the rest of the state. But Erie County, which is Buffalo, New York has been problematic. The racial breakdown we’re looking at to see study disproportionate impact, who is paying the highest price for this virus, what’s happening with poorer communities, what’s happening with the racial demographics overlaid over the income demographics, and also if there’s any information in different ages that could be instructive. We’re still getting about 900 new infections every day walking into the hospital.

That is still an unacceptably high rate. We’re trying to understand exactly why that is, who are those 900, where is it coming from, what can we do to now refine our strategies to find out where those new cases of being generated and then get to those areas, get to those places, get to those people to try to target our attack. If you remember, we had the first cluster in the nation, the first hotspot even before they called them hotspots was New Rochelle, Westchester and there was a tremendous outbreak in New Rochelle. We then sent all sorts of resources into New Rochelle and we actually reduced that hotspot.

So if you find a specific place or pattern that is generating infections, then you can attack it. But you have to find it first. And that’s what we’re looking at, especially on these number of new infections that are coming. And you see, if you look at the location of it, it’s not telling us much. But we asked the hospitals yesterday, we have all the hospitals on a conference call and I spoke to all the hospitals and asked them to take additional information from people who are walking into the hospitals to try to find out where these infections are coming from.

Are they frontline workers or are they people who are staying home? Are these infections that are being spread in the home? Or are they frontline workers? Which means they’re getting up every day. They’re getting on public transit, they’re going to work and maybe they’re getting it on public transit, maybe they’re getting it at the workplace. But getting more information on where these new cases are coming from. Where do you live, not just borrow, but what community within the borough? Are there different health factors that are affecting the new infection rate, comorbidities? How are they traveling?

Are they in their cars? Are they on public transportation? Is it the New York City Transit System, Long Island Railroad, etc.? So we asked the hospitals to collect that data yesterday. We’ll be getting that over the next couple of days, and that will help us again, get more information. In the meantime, we know that vulnerable populations are paying the highest price. Our seniors, our nursing homes, and our poorer communities.

Seniors, our nursing homes, and our poorer communities, they are the ones where you have higher infection rates and you have higher risk and higher exposure. We’re going to distribute today 7 million masks to just those communities in nursing homes, poorer communities, people in public housing in New York City, New York City housing authority. So we’ll be doing that today. 7 million masks is a large number. There’s about 9 million people in New York City total, so 7 million masks is obviously… will make a big difference.

We’re also funding food banks. The more this has gone on, the longer people are without a job, longer are without a check, basics like paying rent and buying food become very important. We have addressed the rent issue, the immediate, urgent need. Nobody can be evicted for nonpayment of rent. And that’s true through June. So people are stable in their housing environment.

The next basic need is food, right? And we’re operating food banks. We just funded $25 million more in food banks. All the food banks will tell you that the demand is way, way up. And we need help in funding the food banks. There are a lot of philanthropies, a lot of foundations that are in the business of helping people. Well, if you’re a foundation or a not-for-profit or a philanthropy, or a person who wants to help, we could use more funding for food banks. The state budget is also very stressed with what’s going on, so we don’t have the state funds to do what’s needed, but we would appreciate donations for the food banks.

As I said, the antibody testing has been very important and we’re going to undertake a full survey of antibody testing for transit workers. Transit workers have very much been at the frontline. We talk about essential workers, people who are out there every day running the buses, running the subways, all through this. We know that there’s been a very high infection rate among transit workers. We’ve said thank you and we appreciate what you’re doing 1,000 times, but I believe actions speak louder than words. If you appreciate what we’re doing, then help us do what we do and we’re going to be doing that with more testing and more resources. That’s going to be going on right now. And to keep our transit workers safe and to keep the public safe, the riding public, we’re going to do something that has never been done before, and that is that the MTA is going to be disinfecting every train 24 hours.

This is such a monumental undertaking, I can’t even begin to describe it to you. The New York City subway system has never been closed. It operates 24 hours a day because we have a 24 hour city. We’re taking the unprecedented step during this pandemic of closing the system for four hours at night from 1: 00 AM to 5:00 AM when the ridership is lowest. The ridership is lower to begin with; it’s down about 90% because of everything, but it’s lowest during 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM. We’re going to close it from 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM the MTA is going to literally disinfect every train, and I just viewed the operations on how they’re doing it. It’s smart. It’s labor intensive. People have to wear hazmat suits. They have a number of chemicals that disinfect, but literally you have to go through the whole train with a misting device where they spray disinfectant literally on every surface.

You know, this virus, they’re just studying it now, but there are reports that say the virus can live two or three days on some surfaces, like stainless steel. You look at the inside of a subway car, you look at the rails, you look at the bars, they’re all stainless steel. So to make sure the transit workers are safe, to make sure the riding public is safe, the best thing you can do is disinfect the whole inside of the car, as massive challenge as that is.

But that’s what the MTA is doing and they’re doing it extraordinarily well. And it’s just another sign of the dedication, the skill, the capacity of our transit workers, which is indicative of the story of New York. I mean, they are stepping up in a big, big way. And not just the cars, they’re also doing stations, all the handrails, et cetera. And it’s good and smart for the transit workers who have to work in that environment. But it’s also right for the riding public. And we want people to know who need to use the subways and the buses, because they are working, that they are safe. And the essential workers who have kept this entire society functioning have done an extraordinary job. And we want them to know that we’re doing everything we can do to keep them safe. This was a delicate balance all along. We needed New Yorkers to understand how dangerous this virus was. And we communicated that early on so that when we said stay home, people understood they should really stay home, right? New Yorkers can be a cynical bunch, and just because a governor says “stay home,” they’re not going to stay home unless they understand why they need to stay home. So we presented those facts.

But at the same time, We’re saying to essential workers after just hearing how dangerous the virus is, “And by the way, you have to go to work tomorrow.” And they did. And if the essential workers didn’t, then you would have seen a real problem. If you don’t have food on the shelves, if you don’t have power to homes, if you don’t have basic services, if the police don’t show up, if the fire department doesn’t show up, if the EMTs don’t show up, if the ambulances don’t run, if the nurses don’t show up, if the doctors don’t show up, then you are in a place where you’ve never been before. So after communicating how dangerous the situation was, the next breath was, “But frontline workers, you have to show up.” And they did. And they did, and they did their job. And that is an extraordinary, extraordinary example of duty and honor and respect and love for what they do and who they are, and love for their brothers and sisters in the community. And they demonstrated it. They didn’t say it, they demonstrated it every day when they get up and they leave their house.

So God bless them all. But we also have to do what we have to do to make sure we’re doing everything we can to keep them safe. And this heroic effort on cleaning the subways is part of that. And we will continue it, because we are New York tough. But “tough” doesn’t mean just tough. It means smart, it means united, it means disciplined, and it means loving. You can be tough and you can be loving. They’re not inconsistent. Sometimes you have to be tough to be loving. And that’s what New York is all about.

2020-05-03 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Good to see you all here today, appropriately socially distanced. For those of you who don’t know, to my right is Melissa DeRosa Secretary to the Governor, to my left is Robert Mujica, Director of the Budget, always happy, always smiling.

Today is Sunday. It’s a beautiful day in New York City. Sunday for me is a day of reflection. We will do a little reflecting. Today is day 64 since we closed down New York. Only 64 days. Feels like a lifetime, but only 64 days. Today’s numbers, the total hospitalization rate is down and that is good news for all concerned. 9,786. Below 10,000, which is a big deal for us. You have to go back to May 18th and 19th to see where to get near that number. March, I’m sorry.

The number of total hospitalizations, again, is down. The number of intubations is down, and that’s really good news because intubation is generally bad news.

The number of new cases is 789, that’s good news. We were hovering at about 900, 1000. That may be just a reporting anomaly because this is over the weekend and the weekend reporting tends to be a little different. And remember this reporting system we just put in place, this never happened before, where hospitals were reporting on a daily basis and hospitals have a lot going on, so I wouldn’t bet the farm on any of these specific one day numbers. But the overall trend is good. The number that is the most important number that we look at, which is still tremendously distressing, is the number of deaths. 280. And you can see that that number has not moved dramatically in a relatively long period of time. But the overall direction is good, even though it’s very painful.

I think it’s important that we take a moment and learn the lessons of what we’ve been going through. This has been unprecedented, what we’ve been doing for the past 64 days. This was all an urgent situation. This was all hurry up. We had to quickly figure out a plan, quickly enact a plan, but now we’re a couple of months into it and I think simultaneously we should be learning the lessons of what we just went through. People talk about this like it’s going to come and go and it’s a once in a lifetime. I don’t know that it’s a once in a lifetime and I don’t know that it’s going to come and go. There are people now talking about a second wave. They’re talking about a possible mutation of the virus, so caution would suggest that as we go through this, we learn at the same time to make sure if we have to go through this again or if this is a prolonged situation, that we are learning from what we’re implementing.

Edmund Burke, a great Irish philosopher, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” Wise words, the macro questions, bigger than just New York questions, bigger than a governor’s questions. What happened in China? People are talking about it. Where did this virus start in China? How did it start? How did we not know? What should China have told us? Above my pay grade, but important questions. How did the virus get from China to the United States? And we assumed it got on a plane from China and flew to the United States. That was the first thinking when this started. Now it appears that that’s not so.

As we’re going through this, what could we have done differently? More importantly, what should we do differently if this is a prolonged situation, or if there is a next time? And again, caution, I would assume there’s a next time. Anyone who sits back and says, “Well, this is the only public health threat that we’re going to face” it’s not the case.

We’re seeing increasing threats all across the board. Environmental threats, Mother Nature, natural threats, threats from emergency weather, that we’ve never seen before. And if you look back as far back as 1918 when they had the flu pandemic that people talk about, it took 10 months. It came in three different waves, and the second wave was worse than the first wave. So even if you put aside all the modern day challenges, when this happened in 1918 it came in three different waves. So let’s be prepared and intelligent.

Some of the lessons to learn. The CDC did a fascinating report that they put out on May 1, which starts to take a deep look at what happened. And I think there’s a lot of important information in that and it pointed to something that we’ve been looking at here in New York. The report says that when they look at the different strains of the virus in the United States that there are different strains and we were all looking at the West Coast. The West Coast had cases well before the East Coast, remember, maybe six weeks before the East Coast. Those strains came from China. What we saw in the state of Washington, what we saw in California, they came from China. Flights from China land predominantly on the West Coast.

What we have seen in New York didn’t come from China, but actually is a different strain of the virus that came from Europe. That’s an important fact to know and to study. They then said, in this CDC report, from February you had 139,000 travelers coming from Italy, 1.74 million from other European countries where the outbreak was spreading wildly and rapidly. So everybody’s looking at China, meanwhile, the virus had traveled from China to Europe, was in Europe, spreading from Europe. We had European travelers coming. They come to the East Coast, they land in New York, they go to New Jersey, they go to Connecticut, they’re in the New York area, and we’re all still looking at China.

We were looking at China, and the travel ban on China may have been helpful, but the horse was already out of the barn in China. The virus had left. The virus was in Europe. And meanwhile, we have European travelers coming here and they’re bringing the virus, which is now a different strain of the virus, to the East Coast.

This is from that CDC report, the Principal Deputy Director, “Delay in travel bans allowed for the virus to spread throughout the United States and contributed to the initiation and acceleration of domestic COVID cases in March. Extensive travel from Europe, once Europe was having outbreaks, really accelerated our importation and the rapid spread. The timing of our travel alerts should have been earlier.” That is a very important fact and something we have to learn from.

A person from the Grossman School of Medicine, “Knowing the number of flights coming into New York from Italy, it was like watching a horrible train wreck in slow motion.” Nobody was watching Italy and Europe at the time. Nobody was even thinking about it.

“Today, we must consider an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere,” A.J. Parkinson. And I think those are words to remember going forward. Outbreak in China, in a number of days it’s going to be in Europe, from Europe it’s going to come to the United States, assuming it didn’t come from the United States immediately from China.

Another lesson we have to learn is our hospital system. We talk about our hospital system. We don’t really have a public health system. We have a hospital system and we learned the hard way about the capacity, the equipment, and the management of our hospital system. New York City, we have only 12 public hospitals. They are the Health + Hospitals corporation. They’re run by New York City. But there’s only 12 hospitals in that public hospital system.

44 hospitals are private hospitals. They’re private institutions. They’re regulated by the state, but they are private institutions. They have their own area of expertise. They have their own basic clientele. And they’re doing business as individual entities, like an individual college. We have a system of colleges, but each college is individual. It’s the same thing with hospitals. Each hospital is an individual entity.

Long Island, we have four public hospitals, we have 19 private hospitals. Westchester, one public hospital, 12 private. Rockland, one public, two private. Hudson Valley, the rest of the state, two public hospitals, 87 private hospitals. So really your healthcare capacity in this state is all in the hands of private hospitals. You have 176 private hospitals in this state. That’s the capacity.

But that means you have to now rely on those private hospitals, get them all to be part of one system, which day to day, that does not happen. They’re operating themselves. We have, again, state regulations that say this is how you must operate, but they operate as individual entities.

In the middle of this outbreak, we had to go back and do what we call the surge and flex management system, where we said to all 176 private hospitals, “We have to work together and we have to manage this system as one because hospitals are getting overwhelmed.” Maybe within the public system they can share patients and doctors and staff, because you have, in New York City, H+H has 12 hospitals. Okay, you can share among your 12, but we have to get these 176 hospitals now all to work together, even with the public hospital. And hospitals were getting overwhelmed, so now you need a system to share patient capacity, share equipment, share ventilators, share staff. That had never been done.

We did this all basically on the fly and we put together a de facto public health system. But it was a lot to do on the fly and we need to institutionalize these lessons.

Part of what we have to learn is what happened with the equipment. This was just a situation that nobody anticipated. It happened all across the country. You couldn’t get enough gowns. You couldn’t get enough masks. We’re going to put in a state requirement now that every hospital has to have a 90 day supply stockpile, their own stockpile, of all the PPE equipment that they could need for a 90 day supply at the rate of usage that we saw with this COVID virus. So every hospital has to have 90 day supply, period.

We can’t go through this day to day moving masks all across the state. This mad scramble that we were in, and still are in, in many ways. Also as a nation, we can’t go through this again. There was competition among states, they were competition among private entities, to get this equipment. The federal government was trying to buy it. I’m bidding on behalf of New York. We’re bidding against other states, Texas, California, other states across the country trying to buy the same masks from the same vendor. We literally wound up bidding up the price. I have people in China. I’m trying to contact people in China who can figure out how to buy masks from China. It was totally inefficient and ineffective.

State of Massachusetts, Governor Baker was good enough to work with Robert Kraft who had a personal airplane that he sent to China to get masks, and Massachusetts was good enough to give us some of the masks that a private airplane picked up. This is not the way to deal with this situation. Plus we just drove up prices by our own competition. There was a limited supply, it was primarily in China, and then you have 50 states and all of these private entities in the federal government trying to buy from China. It made no sense. So, let’s fix that.

New York State alone buys about $2 billion of medical supplies this year. $2 billion this year. And that’s one state, and that’s us purchasing from China and around the world. We’re going to form a consortium with our seven Northeast partner states, which buy about $5 billion worth of equipment and supplies, that will then increase our market power when we’re buying and we will buy as a consortium, price as a consortium for PPE equipment, ventilators, medical equipment, whatever we need to buy, when you put all those hospitals together, all that public health capacity together, which will make us more competitive in the international marketplace, and I believe it will save taxpayers money. I also believe it will help us actually get the equipment because we have trouble still getting the equipment and just buying the equipment because…

Getting the equipment and just buying the equipment. Because these vendors on the other side, they’re dealing with countries, they’re dealing with the federal government. Why should they do business with one state, right? When they can do business with an entire country. So this consortium I think will help us get the equipment and get it at a better price. We will come up with a regional identification of all the equipment we need. Basically it’s all standard equipment. A mask is a mask, a gown is a gown. Let’s come up with a total amount that we need.

Let’s stop doing business with vendors who we found to be irresponsible. And we found out the hard way. I can’t tell you how many orders we placed with vendors who are acting basically as brokers, who just started businesses in the middle of this pandemic because they saw an opportunity. So let’s compare notes among the States to find out who was good to do business, who was not good to do business with. Let’s see if we can’t do the purchasing in this country. And let’s see if we can’t do the purchasing in this region. You know, why are we buying all this material from China? Literally billions of dollars of PPE. And we’ll do it in coordination with the federal government.

But I want to thank our neighbors, our neighboring States. The word neighbor has a different connotation. You don’t normally think of the surrounding States as neighbors. You think of the person next door as a neighbor, but they are neighbors. And they’ve acted as neighbors. I can’t tell you how supportive Governor Murphy in New Jersey and Governor Lamont in Connecticut, and all the other governors in our coalition have been. Literally where you can pick up a phone and I can say, “I need help with masks. Do you have any extra masks? Do you have any extra gowns? Can I borrow this? Can I borrow that?”

Really the way you would deal with a neighbor in an extraordinary circumstance, right? You’d knock on the door and say, “Can I borrow this?” That’s how these States responded. And it was really a beautiful, generous way of operating that was an inspiration to me. It wasn’t, “I’ll have my lawyer call your lawyer.” It was, “Whatever I can do, I’ll do.” And in that spirit we want to keep that coalition together and we want to work together.

We’re doing regional planning now on the reopening because every state is linked to every other state. We do something in New York, it affects New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, et cetera. People are very mobile right now, so it’s a very important relationship for us both productively and from an efficiency point of view. And they have been great and they’re joining us today. We have Governor Phil Murphy with us, Governor Ned Lamont, Governor Tom Wolf and Governor John Carney. And we’ll start with our neighbor from the great state of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. How are you Governor Murphy?

Governor Murphy: I’m well. Happy to be on with you. I will be brief and say I echo literally everything you’ve said, including the comments on the positive in terms of what this has been like with efficiencies, as well as the inspiration which has derived from our neighbors. And notably beginning with you and all the other governors who are on this with us today. It has been truly an inspiration. So, on behalf of the 9 million of us in New Jersey, I say thank you. We are in the same boat, we’re beg borrowing and bartering for equipment, PPE, ventilators, et cetera. We’re all doing it.

Someone said to me a couple of days ago that gowns have become the new ventilators. And so we’re still out there and so the notion of coordinating together as a region makes enormous amount of sense. So sign me up and sign New Jersey up. We’ve moved in New Jersey alone 21 million pieces of PPE in the past two months. A lot of which we’ve had to get beforehand. And so this makes so much sense. And really look forward again as you suggest that we coordinate actively as we help our government, all of the regional council we put not just the governors on today but also out in Massachusetts. This is a perfect extension of that relationship. But I echo one of your comments that not only should we not have to be scouring the world for this, but it ought to be made in the USA. And better yet made in our States.

And so that’s something that I think we all want to strive forward doing that. In New Jersey we’ve got to figure out a way to make this stuff here. And lastly, and you said this and I’ll repeat, we’ve all got to do within our own four walls. What we do in a regional cooperation matter so much and another great example of that, I think it’s a brilliant extension of our ongoing cooperation. And then lastly, none of this is in lieu of the partnership with government. As you rightly point out, we have to have all of the above. What’s good for our own citizens, with people in the region and work closely with the federal government every step of the way.

Thank you for having me on today. Thank you to you Governor Cuomo and to each of our governors in this group. And really looking forward to working with you in the better days ahead. Thank you.

Andrew Cuomo: Thank you very much Governor Murphy. I think the governor’s on this phone, we’ve learned so much about PPE over the past few weeks. I think we can go make gowns ourselves at this point. I think we’ve learned now. Give us some sewing machines. I think we can actually contribute. So, thank you very much Phil. God bless you and stay well. And anything you need we’re here. Thank you.

We’ll go now to Governor Lamont, great state of Connecticut. Governor Lamont, thank you very much for being with us and thank you for all you’ve done. Not just for the people of Connecticut, but for the entire Northeast. Good to be with you Ned.

Governor Lamont: And back at you, on behalf of Connecticut. New York and Andrew Cuomo have been a very good neighbor for us. And as you know we got into this together. We realized what we had to do when it came to closing down parts of our service economy. We did that together. We’re opening it up together, and that’s the way it works best. And as you point out, when it comes to the purchasing look, we’ve learned something, right? We can wait for the national stockpile. We can wait for that plane to land from China. Let’s see what we can do ourselves. And as you point out, we’re much stronger together. I wouldn’t mind having some of that New York purchasing power. Thanks for sharing that with Connecticut going forward.

And just as importantly what we can produce together as well. I mean Phil Murphy, you’ve got that amazing pharmaceutical industry there in New Jersey. Help us out with the reagents. And what we can do in terms of gowns being produced in Rhode Island. But we can all do together to make sure that this next round we control more of our own destiny. And to those that say, “Where you’ve been?” And, “You’re ordering up all the Christmas trees and they’re going to arrive on December 26th.” I say I’m afraid that this is still best beginning as you pointed out, Governor Cuomo. And we’re planning for the next round of this, if there is a next round. Making sure that we control our own destiny going forward. We do it much better together. Thanks for getting us together, Andrew.

Andrew Cuomo: No, my pleasure. Thank you very, very much Governor. And you’re right. Look, we’re spending billions of dollars. Why not buy from our own vendors in our own region? Why are we buying from China, right? I’m sure there are a lot of businesses within our own States that if they knew they had that kind of purchasing, that they were looking at, that they would either adapt their businesses or grow their businesses so we could buy from them.

Plus, you’re right. We would control our own destiny rather than everyone trying to figure out how to buy from China. So thank you very much, Governor Lamont. God bless you. We’re here. Thank you. Let’s go now to Governor Wolf from Pennsylvania. Good to be with you, Tom. Thank you very much for everything you’ve been doing. Thank you for being a great neighbor to the state of New York and all your surrounding States.

Governor Wolf: Thank you Governor Cuomo. Well thank you very much for organizing this, again. A few weeks ago, we all got together and announced that we were going to work together to fight this pandemic. And we said then that by working together we can do a lot more than we can do if each of us works on our own. And I think today is a specific example of that we can work together to buy the things that we need to allow our healthcare system to have the capacity it needs to fight this fight. We need to help our hospitals. We need to help our healthcare workers. We need to help our longterm care facilities, our first responders, all of those things.

And what you’re doing here, and what we’re doing, is actually pulling together to make sure we’re doing all those things. And part of this is testing. It’s not just the equipment. We really need to work together to build the capacity to test it. We’re not going to be able to give our citizens the confidence they need to go back to work. They’re not going to have the confidence we need them to have to go back to school or go back to the store, or to go back to worship. So all those things are really important.

And by working together we can pull our financial resources, which are really important and significant. As you pointed out Governor Cuomo, we can actually pull the brain power that exists, the great institutions in our areas and the manufacturers who can make this stuff. All that we can pull together. And if we can do that, with even with something as difficult as testing, I think we’re going to make sure that we get through this in the best possible way. So thank you for pulling this together. This is really important and I’m proud to be with you.

Andrew Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you Governor Wolf. And you’re so right. Look, we’re creating in some ways new industries, right? Whoever heard of the testing industry, or the tracing industry? Or these reagents that all these tests now use? Even the demand on PPE. I mean this is a whole new world for all of us. But there’s also an economic opportunity in it, and we should take advantage of it because we need it and it’s not going away and it’s going to be a major industry going forward. So let’s make sure it happens here.

But Tom, thank you very much. Thank you for all the help and thank you for everything you’re doing. Really. You’re an inspiration to all of us. Thank you Tom. And we have Governor John Carney with us from Delaware. John, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you for all the help. Thank you for all the support. Thank you for the friendship through all of this, which is also very important. Just the personal support is important as we’re going through this as colleagues. Thanks for being with us today, John.

Governor Carney: Yeah. Thank you Governor Cuomo for including Delaware in this coalition. Thank you for your great leadership there in state of New York, and particularly Metro New York city with your colleague governors on either side of you. You’re an inspiration, frankly to all of us. Our hearts go out to you as we see the numbers. I was really happy to see your numbers on the chart at the beginning of your conference today as they trend downward. That’s really a very good and positive thing. And thanks for including us, a state of, we like to refer to ourselves as a state of neighbors. There’s just shy of a million Delawareans here on the Southern end of this geographic coalition on this side of I-95 and the Amtrak Northeast Carter, which connects all of us.

The two governors at the bottom of my screen are great partners, Governor Wolf and Governor Murphy on either side of the state of Delaware. Really important our coordination and collaboration. But this particular initiative with respect to purchasing together PPE, and most importantly I think as governor Wolf mentioned, testing equipment and capacity is so incredibly important for a small state like ours. To have the purchasing power of Governor Cuomo of New York and New Jersey and Connecticut and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts and Rhode Island is just so incredibly important for us in terms of getting the right pricing. If we’re going head to head with New York, we’re not going to get it. If we’re along shoulder to shoulder with you, with Governor Murphy and Governor Wolf, we’ve got a good chance of getting a better price and getting the product that we need.

And I think through all this too. The other thing that was really interesting to me in joining the coalition was just all the assets that the other States can bring to the table, in terms of intellectual capacity, your research institutions, your hospitals. Because we know that they’re is going to be breakthroughs, or we hope, in testing and other kinds of technology that help us as we respond to this. So I couldn’t be happier to be part of this coalition, part of your leadership team Governor Cuomo with again my two neighbors here in the Southern end of our coalition.

And to each of you, thanks for the great work that you’re providing to the citizens of your state. I tell people all the time, “It’s going to be way harder, the decisions we have to make in reopening our economies in phases than it was shutting things down in my view, just because of the balance we need to strike there.” And we’ll do that in working together and with the expertise that this coalition and the purchasing power in particular of this initiative will bring to the state of Delaware. So thanks very much.

Andrew Cuomo: Thank you John, thank you Governor Carney. And Governor Carney is right. It was easier to shut down then it’s going to be to reopen. Shutting down was you walk into the basement, you take the power switch and you just go from on to off, right? There was an urgent need. It was an emergency. Reopening is more of an art form. And I thank my gubernatorial colleagues for doing this together. We also have Governor Raimondo from the state of Rhode Island and Governor Baker from the state of Massachusetts who were part of the coalition.

You go through situations in life which are unexpected. Okay, you do your best and then you learn from them and you grow. And that’s what we’re trying to do here today. Because people expect more from government than ever before. I believe this has been transformative for a generation. Think about, when was the last time government was this vital? I don’t know, maybe in a war? World War II when government had to mobilize overnight. But literally for decades you haven’t seen government this essential to human life, literally. And government has to work and it has to work well, and it’s not for the faint of heart now. And people want government to perform, and government is making decisions every day that affect their lives and they deserve the best government, right? They’re paying for it, they deserve it, and they deserve competence and expertise and smarts. And for government to be doing creative things and learning like we’re doing here today. At the same time, government is working. We’re trying our best. We’re working seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We’re doing a lot of good work, a lot of creative work. But this is not just about government, it’s too easy to point fingers, “Well, this one has to do that. This one has to do that.” Every person has a part in this. Every person has a part.

And driving around New York City today, and I was here yesterday, we are all very thankful to our healthcare heroes, our frontline workers, our essential workers. You watch television, there are all these nice commercials. Thank everyone for what they did. And we should. Nurses, doctors, police officers, transit workers, God bless them. But if you really want to say thank you, make their life easier by not getting sick and not making someone else sick. An individual’s role is act responsibly and intelligently for yourself, for your family, and for your community.

Wear a mask. Wear a mask. I mean, that’s the basic step, right? Socially distance. If you can’t socially distance, you’re in New York City, you’re going to walk up next to a person, wear a mask. Okay, it’s not the most attractive garment ever created. So what? “Well, I don’t like, it feels uncomfortable, unnatural.” So what? You want to honor the healthcare workers and the people who literally gave their lives in some cases for what they did here, act responsibly. Wear a mask. I know the weather’s getting warmer. I know people want to get out of their house. Fine. Wear a mask and socially distance. That is your social responsibility in the middle of this overall pandemic.

And when we talk about New Yorkers together and the spirit of unity and how people are helping one another and how tough we are and how smart we are and how disciplined we are and how we love one another, show it. You know how you show love? By wearing a mask, please.

2020-05-04 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Thank you all for being here. From my right, let me introduce who I have with me and acknowledge some special friends. To my right is Gareth Rhodes, who has been,, works with the Department of Financial Services but he's been working with us in Albany during this coronavirus pandemic. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, who's secretary to the governor. To her left, Robert Mujica, who's the state budget directly. He doesn't smile much nowadays because the state budget is not in great shape, but when the federal government does the right thing and gives us funding, we expect he's going to smile, that big smile again. It's a pleasure to be in Rochester with so many of my friends who've done such great work for the state. Former lieutenant governor Bob Duffy, who worked with me when we first got started and has done great work for the entire State of New York. Danny Wegman, pleasure to be with you. Wegmans is a great New York corporation, and Danny's a great civic leader, and they've been very helpful through this situation. Also, thank you for allowing us to do the antibody testing at Wegmans, that's been very, very helpful. And we thank you for everything you've done. And Nicole Wegman, thank you, pleasure, thank you for being on our New York Forward advisory board to help us going forward and find our way through this.

Let's give you an update on where we are today. The total number of hospitalizations is down. You see that curve coming down. You see that mountain that we went up. Now we're on the other side of the mountain. You start to see the shape of the mountain. Unfortunately the decline from the mountain is not as steep as the incline, right? And the big question for us in New York and every state across the nation has been how fast and how low does that decline go, right? How fast does the decline actually happen? And what is the lowest level that the decline will reach? Unfortunately you see that we were hoping for a quick up, plateau, at the top, which is what they talked about, but a fast decline. You see the decline is, again, not as steep as the incline. But it is a decline, and that's good news.

The net change in total hospitalizations is down, net change in intubations is down, and that's always good news. When a person is intubated, roughly 80 percent of the time, there's not a good outcome. So the fact that intubations is down is good news. And then the other end is how many new cases are coming in the door every day? How many new diagnoses in COVID cases? And that number is also declining. So not only are the number of people in hospitals coming down, but the number of new cases coming in the door is down. And that's good news because it had plateaued at about 900 statewide for a few days. But this number is down at 700, and that's a good number. I would take this with a grain of salt, as they say, because this is reporting from yesterday, which was a Sunday, and sometimes we get different results on the weekend. Remember, this whole reporting system has just been put in place. This never happened before. This is now every hospital in the state reporting, every day, for the first time. So, it's a plus or minus across the board.

This is the number that haunts me every day, and this number is not declining anywhere nearly as fast as we would like to see it decline. Still 226 New Yorkers who passed away. And so we don't become immune, we talk about these numbers. 226 families, right, that's 226 wives or brothers or sisters or children that are now suffering the loss of a loved one. So we remember them in our thoughts and our prayers. People are all talking about reopening, which we should be talking about. This is not a sustainable situation. Close down everything, close down the economy, lock yourself in the home.

You can do it for a short period of time but you can't do it forever. But, reopening is more difficult than the closedown. The closedown was relatively simple, right? You go into the basement, you throw the big power switch, and everything just goes down. Close the businesses. Stay at home. It was a blunt operation and when that was done all across the country, just stop everything now. When you go to restart, the reopening, now knowing what we know, it's more nuanced. You have to be more careful. And again, no one has done this before, and no one has been here before. So, first, start by learning the lessons that we did learn through this experience.

And second, let's be smart about what we do. And I get the emotion, and I get the impatience, and I get the anxiety. We all feel it. When I say the situation was unsustainable, it's unsustainable on many levels. It's unsustainable economically, it's unsustainable personally. A lot of anxiety is now all through our community. We see it in increased alcoholism, increased substance abuse, increased domestic violence. So this is a very, very difficult period, and people want to move on. Yes, but let's be smart about what we do and let's learn the lessons.

One of the lessons is, we have never been here before, and we didn't really know what was going on. CDC releases a report, end of last week, that says the virus was actually coming to the east coast from Europe. Everybody was looking at China for all those months. China was last November, December, the virus migrated from China while we were all staring at China, and went to Europe. And the strain that came to the United States came from Europe. We had people in the airports stopping people from China, testing people from China, the federal government did a lot of testing, a lot of screening, people getting off planes, from China. Yes, but meanwhile the people from Europe were walking right past them. And that's where the strain came from that was infecting this area. And that's what the CDC just learned last week, and this is going back to February, right? On one of the most studied topics ever.

Again, just learn the lessons of what happened. You now add that piece of information on the Europe trips, and then you see the number of flights that came from Europe during that time, where they landed, and now you - It explains why you've seen the outbreak in Chicago that you've seen, why you've seen the number of cases in New York because, yes, the flights were landing here, people were coming from Italy, and the UK, and from European countries, and nobody thought to screen them. Nobody was on guard. And you add that to the density of New York, especially in New York City and that virus just took off, okay. We didn't know. We didn't know. Now we do. We also can look back in history and look at that 1918 flu pandemic they talk about. The places that opened too soon saw that flu come right back. And by the way, that flu was not one wave. That was three waves: first wave, second wave, third wave. The second wave was worse than the first wave.

And you see, watch the other countries that went through this before us, right? We're not the first one down the chute. There were other countries that went down before us. You see they wanted to reopen also. They were feeling the pressure on reopening. And you study those cases and you see that you reopen too soon or you reopen unintelligently and you can then have an immediate backlash. And that's not speculation. That is looking at other countries, and look at what has happened around the world. And then you talk to the experts who know, listen to what they're saying. Dr. Fauci, who I think is one of the best voices and minds on this, Dr. Fauci's been through this in different iterations. He was one of the pioneers on the HIV virus and AIDS. And he says we could be in for a bad fall and a bad winter. Could be. Why? Because he doesn't know. He's not sure but could be for a bad fall or bad winter.

Okay, so put all of this in the equation and then also acknowledge and actualize that the truth is that nobody knows what happens next, and when it happens. Well, how can that be that nobody knows? We're so sophisticated. We have so much intelligence. We have so many experts. This is the United States of America. How can it be that no one knows? Because no one knows. I speak to the best experts globally, globally, and nobody can tell you for sure. Now, experts, we look to experts, and we expect them to know, so we push them to know. "Answer the question. Tell me when. What's going to happen in September? What's going to happen in December?" Sometimes the answer is, "I don't know." Sometimes that's the honest answer.

I was talking to my daughters last night, and they said, "You know, you say at your briefings, I don't know. How can you say that?" First, I'm not really sure they watch my briefings. But they're right. Sometimes I say I don't know. Why? Because I don't know. And if you don't know, say you don't know. And I speak, again, to the best minds in this country, the best minds around the globe, and they don't know. So, if you don't know, say you don't know. It doesn't mean you're not smart, no reason to get defensive. I don't know. When you know what you don't know, and admit it, it will actually keep you safe. My daughters don't quite agree with this yet, but I haven't given up on the concept. Know what you don't know. Know when you don't know what the future holds, you can be safe because then you can prepare for different possibilities. And that's where we are. We don't know. But we will be prepared for all possibilities.

So, reopening. Chart a course. With the best information you have, learning from the lessons you have, but be able to correct that course depending on what happens, which means, don't act emotionally. Don't act because "I feel this, I feel that." Because someone said, "Well other states are opening, so you must be able to open, if other states are opening." Forget the anecdotal, forget the atmospheric, forget the environmental, forget the emotional. Look at the data. Look at the measurements. Look at the science. Follow the facts. And that's what we've done here from day one. This is no gut instinct. This is look at the data, look at the science, look at the metrics. Move forward, measuring what you can and what you know, and then be prepared to adjust. "Well, I want specificity, I want to know for sure." You don't. But there's liberation in knowing that. So, let's do this intelligently, based on metrics, and we'll see what happens and we'll adjust to whatever happens. "Well, what does that mean on metrics?" You can measure this. And we have to measure this. You look at that percentage and the rate of hospitalizations, which we have, right? That's the chart that goes up and down. You watch that hospitalization rate, do your diagnostic testing so you know how many people are testing positive, and you can watch that rate going up or down or flat. Do the contact tracing, so after the testing, you follow up and you do that contact tracing. And you are then reducing the infection spread by isolating the positives. If you do those things, you will control the rate of transmission of the virus, which is everything.

Nobody says you're going to eliminate the virus in the short-term. Nobody. But you can control the rate of transmission, and if you can control the rate of transmission, you can control the rate of transmission from becoming an outbreak or an epidemic or overwhelming your public health system. That is the best you can do. So, control the rate of transmission to what they call 1.1 or less. 1.1 is every person infects 1.1 other people, more than one other person. If you're doing that, that is an outbreak. That means it's going to increase exponentially and it's going to be out of control. As long as your rate of transmission is manageable and low, then reopen your businesses and reopen the businesses in phases, so you're increasing that activity level while you're watching the rate of transmission. The rate of transmission goes up, stop the reopening, close the valve, close the valve right away. So, reopen businesses, do it in phases and watch that rate of transmission. It gets over 1.1, stop everything immediately. That's where the other countries wound up.

They started to reopen, they exceeded the 1.1. It became an outbreak again. They had to slow down. Rather than starting and stopping, you'd rather have a controlled start, so you don't have to stop, right? And that's what you learn from the other countries. You reopen too fast, then you have to stop, and nobody wants to have gone through all of this and then start just to stop again. Well, how does that happen?

First of all, it's not going to happen statewide. This state has different regions which are in much different situations than other regions in this state. And rather than wait for the whole state to be ready, reopen on a regional basis. If upstate has to wait for downstate to be ready, they're going to be waiting a long time. So, analyze the situation on a regional basis, okay? And you look at a region on four measures -- the number of new infections, your health care capacity. If the infections go too high you overwhelm your health system, now you're Italy with people on gurneys in a hallway because your hospital system can't handle it. Do your diagnostic testing so you're seeing how the infection is increasing or decreasing. And do the contact tracing, have that system in place so when you're testing, you find a positive, you trace the contacts from that positive person and you're isolating them to bring down the rate. And you do that on a regional basis. That system has to be in place for a regional basis.

How do you start? When can I start reopening? We look at guidelines from the CDC, which say a region has to have at least 14 days of decline in total hospitalizations and death on a three-day rolling average. So, you take a three-day average, you have to have 14 days of decline. You can't have more than 15 new total cases or five new deaths on a three-day rolling average. This is telling you that you're basically at a plateau level that you can actually start to reopen. Then you're watching the rate of infection and the spread of the infection, and the benchmark there is fewer than two new covid patients per 100,000 residents, right? It's based on your population to account for the variance in the different sizes of regions across the state. Then, anticipate, protect yourself from all possibilities. Well, what if we have a surge again? Never fill your hospitals to more than 70 percent capacity. Leave 30 percent in case you have a surge. Remember, this virus is tricky. The rate of infection -- a person who gets infected today shows up in the hospital ten days from today or two weeks from today. So, that infection rate goes up, you don't feel it for two weeks. There's a lag to it. You want to make sure you have 30 percent of the hospital beds available in case you have that surge. Also, learn the lessons from before. Every hospital has to have 90 days of PPE for that hospital, at the rate that they have been using it during COVID. We cannot have another mad scramble where nurses and doctors don't have gowns and masks, et cetera, because the hospitals don't have the necessary stockpile. So make sure every hospital has the stockpile.

On the testing, we have done really remarkable work on testing. One million New Yorkers have now been tested believe it or not and the CDC Coronavirus Task Force for the White House recommends that for a region to reopen, you have 30 tests for every 1,000 residents ready to go.

So what testing capacity do we need for a region to reopen? You have to be prepared to do 30 tests for every 1,000 residents. New York is doing more tests than any country in the state by far. New York is doing more tests than any country on the globe per capita. So we're way ahead in testing but it doesn't matter what we're doing statewide. To open a region, that region has to have a testing capacity of 30 per 1,000.

The National Guard has been doing a great job for us in putting together testing kits and distributing testing kits and we want to thank them very much but we have to have those tests and we have to have what they call tracers, contact tracers, in place and Mayor Bloomberg has been very helpful, former mayor of New York City, in putting together this tracing system.

This has never existed before on this scale. A group of people who literally trace contacts from a person who's positive. Who did you have dinner with last night? Who did you have dinner with two nights ago? Who might you have been in contact with? And then contacting those people to say, do you have any symptoms? If you do, you should know you were with John Smith. John Smith tested positive. He said he went to dinner with you. You should be on alert. That whole tracing system has never been done, not only in this state, but in this country. So that all has to be set up and it has to be done.

Once that is all done then you can talk about reopening businesses. Well, which businesses do we open first? You open businesses first that are most essential and pose the lowest risk, okay? Most essential and the lowest risk. Phase one, we're talking about construction, manufacturing, and select retail with curbside pickup. They are the most essential with the lowest risk. Second phase, professional services, retail, administrative support, real estate. Third phase, restaurant, food services, accommodation. Fourth, arts, entertainment, recreation, education.

Remember, density is not your friend here. Large gatherings are not your friend. That's where the virus tends to spread. That's why those situations would be down at the end.

Then we need businesses to also reimagine how they're going to do business and get ready to protect their workforce, to change their physical environment to the extent they need to and to change their processes to make sure people can socially distance, people remain in a safe environment. And that's going to be up to businesses to come up with ways to reconfigure their workplace and their processes to make this work and that's business by business. Government can say these are the standards but a business is going to figure out how to do that.

When you look at this state, there are some regions that right now by the numbers pose a lower risk, some that pose a higher risk. We can tell you by region right now, of those criteria that we went through, which ones are in place for which region, so which ones have the right hospitalization, the right testing regimen, the right contact tracing regimen, and which ones still have work to do in those areas. And this is going to be region by region and each region has to put together the leaders in those respective areas who put together this system and monitored this system literally on a daily basis. So, they're getting all that input, all those specifics, all that data, and then day by day they're making a decision as to how to proceed with reopening based on the data. Based on the facts. That'll be a little different for every region in this state.

May 15th is when the statewide PAUSE order - P-A-U-S-E not P-A-W-S - the PAUSE order. The PAUSE order was stop all businesses, stay at home. That expires on May 15th. May 15th, regions can start to reopen and do their own analysis. But, these are the facts that they have to have in place to do it. Start now, don't wait until May 15th. Don't call me up on May 15th and say, "Well, the PAUSE order expired, I want to open." Because I'm going to ask you the questions I just presented. Do you have a healthcare system in place? Is your health system ready? Can your hospitals handle it? Do you have testing in place? Do you have tracing in place? Have you talked to the businesses about how they're going to reopen?

So, we have a couple of weeks, but this is what local leaders - this is what a community has to deal with to reopen safely and intelligently, in my opinion. This can't just be we want to get out of the house, we're going. No. Let's be smart, let's be intelligent, let's learn from the past, let's do it based on facts.

You know, we are at a different time and place. Government is fundamentally in a different position than it was just a couple of months ago. This is for real now, right? Government politics - it's not about optics, it's not about celebrity, it's not about press releases, it's not about what I put on Instagram yesterday. This is about government leaders performance, their expertise. This is a situation where their competence and their ability can be the difference between life and death, literally. What the governments have done - federal, state, local - what we've done in this state has literally saved lives. We've reduced all the projected hospitalization rates dramatically. By about 100,000 New Yorkers.

100,000 fewer New Yorkers were hospitalized than they predicted. 100,000. Thank about that - if we had 100,000 people in our hospital system. First of all, our hospital system would've collapsed if the projections were true. If we didn't change those projections. We literally saved lives. How many of those 100,000 would've been hospitalized and would've died?

So, we've done great work at a tremendous cost and tremendous hardship, but we've done great work. We just have to remain vigilant and smart and competent going forward. And that's what New York tough means. New York tough means we're tough, but we're smart, we're disciplined, we're unified, and we are loving. It's the love of community and love of each other and respect for each other which is what has gotten us through this and will continue to.

2020-05-05 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Masks up. Good morning. It’s a beautiful day in New York city. Pleasure to be here. Let me introduce people. We have from my far left, Dr. Jim Malatras, who’s been working with us for many years on the state side, now head of Empire State College. My daughter Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, one of three, no favorites. Her participation today will be clear in a couple of minutes. To my right, Melissa DeRosa secretary to the governor. Let’s give you some facts about where we are today.

The number of total hospitalizations is 9,600, that is a lower number than yesterday, barely. It’s basically flat. As I mentioned yesterday, the weekend reporting numbers tend to be a little erratic. Sometimes we’re not quite sure why. This whole reporting mechanism has just been in place a couple of months. First time ever every hospital has reported every day to the state, but it’s better than going up.

You see the overall total hospitalizations is down. Changing intubations is down. That’s good news. And the number of new hospitalizations is also down. This is an important number. This is how many people came in yesterday with a diagnosis of COVID into hospitals, or people who were technically in a hospital who were then diagnosed with COVID. But again, Sunday is a different day operationally for hospitals, but again, the number is down, so it is good news. This is always the worst number when we’re going through the facts of the day and it is not good news; number of lives lost 230. Technically up from yesterday even allowing for the Sunday reporting. But it is painful, painful news for all New Yorkers and we’ll remember those families in our thoughts and prayers.

There’s no doubt that we’re coming down the mountain. Only question is what trail we take, what path we take coming down the mountain. How fast does that decline continue? Does the decline continue? And that is purely a function of what we do. None of this is preordained. None of this is decided by any factor other than our own behavior. You tell me how well New Yorkers socially comply with distancing, et cetera, and I’ll tell you what that infection rate is doing. It’s that simple. And everything we have done thus far has worked and that’s why the number is coming down. But you tell me what we do today and tomorrow and I’ll tell you the infection rate in the next few days.

What we’ve said from the beginning is the key is testing and tracing and isolating. It’s very hard to do. It’s easy to say. No one has ever done this before. We’ve never put this kind of testing regimen in place. Industry-wide, we’ve never had a tracing operation that’s anywhere near this magnitude. We’ve never done isolation, quarantine. That’s never happened before. But we do what we have to do, and this is what we have to do to monitor the infection rate and to control it. And that’s what we’re doing.

We laid out a very specific reopening plan yesterday. We studied all the state’s plans, we’ve studied reopening plans of countries around the world. We incorporated all the best practices. I think we probably have the most specific plan for metrics and measuring to make these decisions. And it’s basically a mathematical formula, if you look at that reopening plan. And I think that’s the way we should do it and proceed. This is about following the data, learning the lessons, listening to the experts, following the science, and it’s about being smart.

Everybody is emotional, we’re getting more emotional. There’s more stress, there’s more anxiety, there’s more pressure on all of us. We want to get on with life. We want a paycheck, we want to make sure our job is there, but it’s still a time to be smart. We don’t act emotionally. We act based on logic and fact and science, that’s how we make policy. But we have to remind ourselves every day because the pressure is to just respond to the emotion. And there’s also no doubt that we’re going through a devastating and costly moment in history. It’s costly on every level. Number of lives lost, the economic impact, the personal impact, substance abuse has gone up, domestic violence has gone up, mental health issues have gone up. So we have paid a very high price for what we’re going through. But the hope is that we learn from it and that we are the better for it. We endured the pain, let’s make sure we benefit from the gain.

And this is also true and people can understand this as a life lesson. You get as old as I am, you go through some tough periods in life and that’s a fact, that is going to happen. You live life long enough, you will go through a difficult period. I’ve gone through more than my share, but you take those periods and you try to learn from them and you try to grow. That’s the best you can do with it. What can you learn so when you move forward, you’re the better for it. And we do that as a society also. That’s the concept of build back better. We don’t want to go through all of this and replace what was there before, replacing what was there before as a starting point. We want to replace, but we want to improve. And we want to be better for this experience, and we want to build back better. We were smart enough to do that as a country, as a state, after 9-11 we went through pain. We came back stronger. You could argue more united as a country, more United as a state, more aware of our vulnerabilities. And yes, greatest country on the planet, greatest state in the nation, it’s our opinion. But we were vulnerable to terrorist attacks. So we learned from it and we got stronger and we got better and we’ve incorporated security into our life in a way that was unimaginable before 9-11.

Hurricane Sandy, super storm Sandy devastated thousands of lives, billions of dollars in damage. We built back and we built a back better than we were before. We didn’t replace what was, we improved almost everything that we learned during that time. Our housing construction is different, our power grid is different, our infrastructure is different.

So you go through these situations and you learn, and that’s what we have to do here. We have to have a better public health system. We should never go through this again. What we went through with the hospitals, what we went through with PPE, staff shortages, that can never happen again. How we use telemedicine, we have to learn and we have to grow. It was vital to what we did here. We have to make sure we’re better at it. Our public transportation system, we’re learning. Tonight we’re going to shut down the subways for the first time in history. Why? Because they have to be disinfected. Whoever heard of disinfecting a subway car? Well, now you learn. You have to disinfect subway cars, figure out how to do it. So you can say to people who use the subways, don’t worry, it’s safe. That’s a starting point for public transportation. And one of the areas we can really learn from is education. We’ve all been talking about tele-education, virtual education, remote education, and there’s a lot that can be done. The old model of everybody goes and sits in a classroom and the teacher is in front of that classroom and teaches that class, and you do that all across the city, all across the state, all these buildings, all these physical classrooms. Why, with all the technology you have. And we’ve been exploring different alternatives with technology. We have classrooms in this state that have technology where they’re talking to students on Long Island with a teacher from Staten Island, with students from around the world, participating with technology, hearing that one teacher. And if you look at the technology, it looks like all these different students are in one classroom.

All right, well, let’s learn from that and let’s learn from this experience. We did a lot of remote learning. Frankly, we weren’t prepared to do it. We didn’t have advanced warning, but we did what we had to do and the teachers and the education system did a great job, but there’s more we can do. We’re still working on providing some students with the technology, with the tablets, et cetera. Some teachers needed training, they weren’t ready for it. Well, let’s take this experience and really learn how we can do differently and better with our education system in terms of technology and virtual education, et cetera.

And that’s something we’re actively working on through this process. So it’s not about just reopening schools, when we are reopening schools, let’s open a better school and let’s open a smarter education system. And I want to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We’ll be working with them on this project. Bill Gates is a visionary in many ways and his ideas and thoughts on technology and education, he’s spoken about for years, but I think we now have a moment in history where we can actually incorporate and advance those ideas.

When this change come to a society, because we all talk about change and advancement, but really we like control, and we like the status quo and it’s hard to change the status quo. But you get moments in history where people say, “Okay, I’m ready. I’m ready for change. I get it.”

I think this is one of those moments. And I think education as well as other topics is a topic where people will say, “Look, I’ve been reflecting, I’ve been thinking, I learned a lot. We all learned a lot about how vulnerable we are and how much we have to do and let’s start talking about really revolutionizing education and it’s about time.”

One point I want to make about reopening not just in this state, but all across this nation. There’s a conversation that is going on about reopening that we are not necessarily explicit about, but which is very important. There’s a question that is being debated right under the surface and the decisions we make on reopening are really profound decisions. And the fundamental question which we’re not articulating is how much is a human life worth? How much do we think a human life is worth?

There’s a cost of staying closed, no doubt, economic cost, personal cost. There’s also a cost of reopening quickly. Either option has a cost, you stay closed, there’s a cost, you reopen quickly and there’s a cost. The faster we reopen, the lower the economic cost, but the higher for human cost. Because the more lives lost, that my friends is the decision we are really making.

What is that balance? What is that trade off? Because it is very real. If you now look at the projection models of how many lives will be lost, you’ll notice they changed recently. Why did they change? And they went up dramatically. Why? Because now they’re factoring in the reopening plans and the reopening schedules that states are announcing. The federal government’s estimate, federal government’s estimate, FEMA has increased from 25,000 to 200,000 the number of daily cases by June. Think about that increase.

The IHME, which is a foundation model supported by Gates, which is the preferred model by the white house. When they were projecting deaths by August 4th, they projected in early April 60,000 deaths. They projected mid April 60,300 deaths, actually a little lower. Their new projection is 134,000 deaths. How did it go from 60,000 deaths to 134,000 deaths? This is the model which the white house relies on. When the director of the institute was asked why those revisions happened, the director said, rising mobility in most of you US states as well as the easing of social distancing measures expected in 31 States by May 11th, indicating that growing contacts among people will promote transmission of the Corona virus. That’s a very nice way of saying when you accelerate the reopening, you will have more people coming in contact with other people. You’re relaxing social distancing. The more people in contact with other people, the higher the infection rate of the spread of the virus. The more people get infected, the more people die. We know that, and that’s why the projection models are going up. There’s a cost of staying closed. There’s a-

There’s a cost of staying closed. There’s also a cost of reopening quickly. That is the hard truth that we are all dealing with. Let’s be honest about it, and let’s be open about it. Let’s not camouflage the actual terms of the discussion that we’re having. And the question comes back to how much is a human life worth? Do you see that projection model go from 25 to 200,000 cases from FEMA? You see the number of deaths go from 60,000 to 134,000. How much is a human life worth? That’s the real discussion that no one is admitting openly or freely, but we should. To me, I say cost of human life, a human life is priceless. Period.

Our reopening plan doesn’t have a trade off. Our reopening plan says you monitor the data, you monitor the transmission rate, you monitor the hospitalization rate, you monitor the death rate. If it goes up, you have a quote unquote “circuit breaker.” You stop. You close the valve on reopening. But it is a conversation that we should have openly. Hard conversation, painful conversation, controversial conversation. Yes, all of the above, but it’s also the right conversation, because those are the decisions we’re making.

Also, as we’re going through this, it’s important that our leadership be factual and productive and united, because this is a time when government has to work. Government on all levels has to work. The federal government has to work, and it has to work now better than it has worked in the past. All the craziness that we’ve watched in Washington, all the politics that we’ve seen in Washington, all the dysfunction that we’ve seen in Washington. Now it is unacceptable, because what government does today will literally determine how many people live and how many die.

That’s not hyperbolic and that’s not overly dramatic. That is just the fact. That federal government has to be able to pass legislation. To pass legislation, it has to be on a bipartisan basis. You have the Congress. The House is controlled by Democrats. The Senate is controlled by Republicans. Unless you get a bipartisan agreement, you’re not going to pass legislation. If you don’t pass legislation, the federal government does not work. If the federal government doesn’t work, it makes it virtually impossible for state governments to work. If I can’t work, then local governments can’t work.

This is not something that a state can control. Well, the governors are in charge. The governors are in charge. I can only be in charge to the extent I have the resources and the means. And that comes from the federal government, not just for New York, but for every state in this country. So that federal government has to work. The legislation that they pass is important, and they have to pass legislation. And that only happens on a bipartisan basis. There was no choice. Well, just the Democrats can do it. Well, just the Republicans can do it. They cannot. It takes two to tango. It takes two Houses to pass a bill, and one is Democratic and one is Republican. So the facts are important.

President gave an interview as reported in the New York Post. Blue state coronavirus bailouts are unfair to Republicans. Bailouts. This is the topic of whether or not the federal government should provide aid to state governments. And it’s been a discussion for weeks. Federal government has passed legislation in the past that helped airlines, helped small businesses, help hotels. Great. Great. They haven’t provided any aid to state and local governments. Well, why is that important? It’s the state and local governments that fund police, fire, education, teachers, healthcare workers. If you starve the states, how do you expect the states to be able to fund this entire reopening plan? Well, the governors are in charge. But the states are in dire financial circumstances because our economy suffered when all the businesses shut down.

So the debate now is, well, it’s the blue states that have the coronavirus. Okay. New York they call a blue state. California they call a blue state. The Republicans are saying, “We don’t want to give money to the blue states.” First of all, this is not a blue state issue. Every state has coronavirus cases. And it’s not just Democratic states that have an economic shortfall. Republican states have an economic shortfall. Well, it’s the mismanagement of blue states for decades that they now want us to bail out. That’s just not a fact. It is not a fact. First of all, no blue state was asking for a bailout before this coronavirus. I wasn’t asking for anything from the federal government before the coronavirus. And by the way, the federal government wasn’t giving New York anything for years. Everything they were doing was negative to New York.

Then comes the coronavirus. Our economy stops because we shut it down. Now we have a $13 billion deficit because we stopped the economy. So what we’re asking, every state is asking. Because of the coronavirus, we need financial help in restarting the economy. And that’s what we’re asking for from the federal government. How do you call that a bailout, which is such a loaded word. Such a rhetorical, hyperbolic word. It’s a bailout. There’s no bailout. Because of the coronavirus, this nation has been impacted, and states have been impacted because the states make up the nation, and we need financial help because of the coronavirus situation. And this is not any mismanagement by the states. If anything, the mismanagement has been on behalf of the federal government, and that’s where the mismanagement has gone back decades.

Senator Moynihan, God rest his soul. New York Senator, great man, said decades ago that New York has been continually shortchanged by the federal government. Why? Because we have always given them more money than they gave us back. Right. How does the federal government work? The federal government collects taxes and puts it all in a pot and then takes money from that federal pot and gives it back to the states. Every year New York State has put more money into that federal pot than the federal government has given back. Every year for decades, and that is just the fact.

Also, you want to try to divide, divide, divide. The facts are, it’s the Democratic states, which happen to have now high coronavirus content, which actually have put in more money than the Republican states who are now saying, “Why should we bail out the Democratic states?” The Democratic states have been supporting them for years. New York, every year, $29 billion more paid in that it gets out. New Jersey, also a high coronavirus state, $18 billion more every year then it gives out. Massachusetts, Connecticut, California.

And then you look at the Republicans who now say, “Well, we don’t want to help the Democratic states.” They are actually the states that have been taking more every year. Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky. Senator Mitch McConnell, he’s Kentucky, $37 billion more every year. Alabama, Florida. Everything’s about Florida. Why? Because it’s a swing state and we’re in an election year. I get it. Florida gets $30 billion more every year than it puts in. What are you talking about? Fairness, equity, bailout.

You look at where we’ve been over the past five years, we’ve paid it in $ 116 billion more than we get back. You want to be fair, just give New York back the money you took and it’d be $116 billion. Who gives and who takes? We know those facts and we know the numbers. But look, this whole discussion that Senator McConnell is raising, that some senators are raising, this is counterproductive and it will lead to defeat for all of us. You need a bipartisan bill to pass. You go down this path of partisanship and politics, you will never pass a bill. If you never pass legislation, you’ll never get this economy back on its feet. So you go down this path of division, you will defeat all of us, because we’re all in the same boat. There is no separating us. It’s still the United States of America.

This partisanship, we have to turn the page. I know it’s how Washington operates. I know it’s how Washington has been operating for many years. But we have to stop, and we have to change, and you do need a totally different mindset. It can’t be it’s you versus me. It has to be we, right? We the people. If you don’t get back to we and you think about a collective interest, you’re going to defeat us all. Because it can’t happen. You have to get out of this Democrat, Republican. It’s red or blue. It’s not red or blue. It’s red, white and blue. This coronavirus doesn’t pick Democrats or Republicans. It doesn’t kill Democrats or Republicans. It kills Americans. The virus is less discriminating and more of an equalizer than the lens that we’re viewing the virus through. And if we can’t get past this now, when can we ever get past it?

You have a national crisis. You have a national outbreak, a national epidemic killing thousands of people. You can’t put your politics aside even now, even today? Families have fights. Yes, family have fights. Somebody’s going to die, and the family is still going to carry forward these silly fights from years ago. Nobody even remembers how this started. If there’s ever a time to come together, it’s at a moment of crisis. This is a moment of crisis. We always understood. The great ones always told us that it won’t work this way. A house divided against itself cannot stand. You want to be a leader? You want to go down in the history books as someone who stood up and did the right thing? Well then remember what made us great in the first place, and that’s what a great leader would do.

Also, last point, each of us must do our part. Talk about government, government, government. Yeah. Government has a lot to do. I understand that, fully. Citizens also have a role to play. You know who’s going to keep yourself? You’re going to keep yourself safe. You know it’s going to keep your family safe? You’re going to keep your family safe. You know who’s going to keep each other safe? Each one of us keeps the other safe. Every person has a responsibility here, social responsibility, and that’s what wearing a mask is all about. Just wear a mask. It’s the smart thing to do. It’s also the right to do. Right thing to do. In all this complexity there is still a right thing. You still know what’s the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do. Maybe right thing is a New Yorker expression. I don’t think so. You know what the right thing to do is. Nobody has to tell you what the right thing to do is.

The right thing to do is to wear a mask, because it’s not about you. It’s about my health. You wear a mask to protect me. I wear a mask to protect you. And wearing a mask is not the greatest intrusion. I do not understand why people think it’s such a burden to wear a mask. And, look, 99% of the people do it. It’s the 1% of the people who don’t do it, right? That’s who we’re talking about. We were talking about this last night, and I was expressing my frustration why some people just don’t get it. And what this has been about from day one, this whole exercise, and where I started this on day one, all these things we’ve done. Nobody’s doing these things because government told them to do it. Right? I’m the first governor in the history of the state of New York to say, “We’re closing businesses,” to say, “You must be quarantined.” No governor has ever said that. How do I enforce that? I can’t. I can’t. How do you enforce making 19 million people stay at home? I can’t.

I said from day one I can give the facts to New Yorkers, but then New Yorkers have to decide and agree that it makes sense given the facts, and agree to do it. And New Yorkers have agreed to do it. All of these things, closing schools, closing businesses, stay at home, socially distancing. So now wear a mask.

And I was saying last night, I don’t understand why this wear a mask is so hard. Mariah suggested it may be the way I’m communicating it. I’m just not effectively communicating. Don’t laugh. Well, first of all, this is a common refrain in my house from my daughters, that it’s me and my lack of ability to communicate effectively. It’s a fair statement. And I’m guilty. I have no doubt I am guilty. I am a bad communicator and that I haven’t been communicating the rationale for wearing a mask effectively, so I’m open minded, I understand my weaknesses and my flaws. I’m a work in progress. We’re all a work in progress. I’m trying to get better.

So Mariah’s suggestion is, look, why don’t we ask New Yorkers to produce an ad that the state could run on explaining to New Yorkers why they should wear a mask, and the context and the rationale and the health reasons and the social responsibility and it’s not that big a deal. Maybe there’s a better way to communicate it than I have been communicating it. Again, 99% of the people are doing it and it’s great. We’re talking about that 1%. So maybe I just haven’t been persuasive or effective enough in my communication skills.

So I said to Mariah, “Great idea.” We’ll ask New Yorkers, produce an ad, 30 second ad. They submit it. Mariah’s going to be an unofficial advisor with the Department of Health. Pick the five best, put them online, let New Yorkers pick the best ad. State will run that ad. It’ll say on the bottom, “Produced by whoever won the competition.” They’ll get a lot of acclaim. They’ll go on to be big creative experts and maybe we’ll have an ad that communicates this better than I have been able to communicate it to date.

So I’m excited about that and Mariah is going to help on that and take it on as a project and I’m excited about that. At no cost to the people of the state of New York, she will be a volunteer. The boyfriend can try to put in, he could submit a possible ad for consideration. The boyfriend will lose but he could submit an ad because I’m still governor. And that’s what we’re going to do. Mariah, do you want to add anything or did I explain it clearly in my flawed communication modality?

Mariah: No, I think you covered it. We’ll be providing more information in the next few days, but if you are interested, you can go to WearAMask.NY.gov.

Andrew Cuomo: Melissa, anything else you need?

Melissa: No, perfect.

Andrew Cuomo: See, sometimes I communicate. Sometimes I communicate effectively, but you’re not alone in criticizing my communication skills. Many of the people in this room would agree with you. And we are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving.

2020-05-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to be with all of you. Pleasure to be back on Long Island. Let me introduce the participants we have here today.

From my far left, Dr. Jim Malatras from Empire State College. To my immediate left, Michael Dowling, who needs no introduction in this facility, but Michael Dowling worked for 12 years with Governor Mario Cuomo, who I believe was the best governor to serve in the history of the state of New York. I may not be objective on that. 12 years with Mario Cuomo was a long 12 years. When you worked with my father, those were dog years when you worked with Mario Cuomo. 12 years and Michael basically ran the healthcare system for the state of New York and developed the healthcare system during that time, then went and now runs a Northwell \Health System, which is the largest hospital system, health system in the state. He’s been extraordinarily helpful here in dealing with this virus and he’s going to be even more helpful as we go forward. It’s a pleasure to be with him. To my right, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To her right, Dr. Howard Zucker, who you all know, who’s our commissioner of health who’s been doing a great job.

A pleasure to be here today. This is one of the most challenging times that this state has faced in modern history. Challenging time all across the nation. A lot of questions, a lot of anxiety, a lot of opinions out there. Everybody has an opinion. Watch the news, talk to people, everyone has an opinion on what we should be doing. Everyone has thoughts that they want to share. One of the things that makes me frustrating for my team, is I say that “I’m interested in your opinion. I’m interested in your thoughts, but let’s start with facts first, right?” Then once we agree on facts, then we can get to opinions and thoughts and beliefs. But let’s start with facts and that’s what I’ve been doing for the people of the state of New York.

Let me give you facts. Our total hospitalization rate is down again. You see this curve, we talked about it on the way up, which was a painful journey. We talked about it at the quote unquote “apex,” which turned into more of a plateau, a flattening and now we’re seeing it gradually decline. We would have liked to see a steeper, faster decline, but this is where we are. It’s a painfully slow decline, but it’s better than the numbers going the other way. You see it on total hospitalizations, you see it on intubations and you see it also in the number of new cases per day.

This is important because while we’re seeing that hospitalization rate go down and you see the number of new cases going down, those number of new cases are still problematic, right? It means 600 new cases yesterday. With everything we’ve done, we still have 600 new cases yesterday, either walking in the door to hospitals or people who are in hospitals who were then diagnosed with COVID. But that number is also going down.

One of the most stubborn situations and the most distressing are the number of deaths. That is down from where we were, but it’s still 232 yesterday, which is an unimaginable and painful reality that we have to deal with. When people talk about how good things are going and the decline and the progress, that’s all true. It’s also true that 232 people were lost yesterday and that’s 232 families that are suffering today. Also, a caution in the number of deaths. I know the reporters and everyone likes to trace these numbers and document these numbers. I think we’re going to find when all of a sudden done that the numbers are much different than we actually thought they were. The amount of information that is now coming out, that changes what we believed or what we were told happens almost on a daily basis. This was a virus that started in China now last week the CDC says, “Oh, it didn’t come from China. It actually came from Europe to the East Coast.” That’s how it got to New York and that’s how it got to Chicago, et cetera. That by the time we turned off travel from China, the China travel ban, the virus was already gone and it was in Europe and then it came here from Europe and we didn’t know at the time, so February, March flights were landing, people coming from Italy, from the UK, et cetera, they were bringing the virus. We didn’t know then.

They’re now saying that the virus may not have come just in February, March, the virus may have come late last year. They’re doing testing in Chicago now on people who passed last November and December to see if they passed from the COVID virus. I think this is all going to change over time, so a note of caution. I think it’s going to be worse when the final numbers are tallied. We’re also not fully documenting all the at-home deaths that may be attributable to COVID. I think that the reality is going to be actually worse.

But there’s no doubt it’s a time of unprecedented anxiety, stress. People want answers. People want answers now. Haven’t had a paycheck. They don’t know where job is. They don’t know if they’re going back to work, where they’re going back to work, when they’re going back to work and they want answers now. I understand that fully. But before we look for answers, let’s make sure we’re all understanding the same question. Right?

The question here is not do we open or reopen the society? When do we reopen it? We have to reopen the society. It’s like asking when do you start breathing? You have to breathe, right? The economy must function. People need incomes. The economy has to work. The state needs revenues. People have to be able to live their lives. You have to be able to get out of the house. You have to be able to see friends. You have to be able to see family. It’s not a question of do we reopen? It’s a question of how we reopen. That’s really the question that we have to grapple with and that we’re dealing with in New York.

Our position in New York is the answer to the question, how do we reopen, is by following facts and data as opposed to emotion and politics. Right? Everyone has emotion. “I want to go back to work today. I want to go see my family today. I want to be able to go to a bar and have a couple of drinks and socialize with my friends today.” I do, by the way. But it’s not about emotion. It’s not about political position on reopening. There’s no democratic position, Republican position. This virus kills Democrats, Republicans. There’s no politics to this. Deal with facts and deal with data and use that to instruct you even more important at a time of high emotion. Understand the emotion, appreciate the emotion, but deal on the facts and the data. And you have it.

You can calibrate by the number of hospitalizations, the infection rate, the number of deaths, the percentage of hospital capacity, the percentage that you’re finding on antibody tests, the percentage of finding on diagnostic tests, positive, negative. You’re collecting tracing data, make your decisions based on the information and the data. That’s what we’re saying in New York. That actually works. By the way, we know it works.

When you look, there’s a chart today that was published by the New York Times. You look at what’s happening in New York. Yes, our line is going down. Our number of cases is going down. We have turned the corner and we’re on the decline. You take New York out of the national numbers, the numbers for the rest of the nation are going up. They are going up. To me that vindicates what we’re doing here in New York, which says follow the science, follow the data, put the politics aside and the emotion aside. What we’re doing here shows results. The hospitalization rate is down, the number of deaths is down and the number of new cases is down.

For me, I’ve been focusing on this number of new cases. That’s where our health professionals are focused. Why? Because with everything we’ve done, closed schools, closed businesses, everybody shelter at home, all the precautions about wear a mask, wear gloves, et cetera, you still have 600 new cases that walked in the door yesterday. Week before that, we still saw 1000 new cases every day. Where are those new cases still coming from? Because we’ve done everything we can to close down. How are you still generating 600 new cases every day? Where are they coming from? Again, let’s look at the facts. Let’s look at the data. Let’s understand and see what we can do.

What we’ve done over the past few days is we asked hospitals, look at just those new cases who are coming in, right? Yesterday, 600 new cases. Where are those people coming from and what can we learn from those people to further target and refine our strategy?

When you look at where they’re coming from, they are primarily coming from downstate New York, which is not surprising. Basically equally distributed. Long Island is 18%, so that’s a number that jumps out at you. Rockland, Westchester, which is where we did have a problem, that’s down to 11%. When you look at the racial breakdown of who’s getting hospitalized, you see it’s proportionately minorities, disproportionately African American and Latino. Again, in downstate New York. Higher percentage male, 52-48. We don’t know exactly why, but the virus doesn’t discriminate generally. A very high percentage comorbidities, which is what we’ve been talking about and which we understand, which is not a surprise.

This is a surprise. Overwhelmingly, the people were at home, where there’s been a lot of speculation about this. A lot of people, again, had opinions. A lot of people have been arguing where they come from and where we should be focusing. But if you notice, 18% of the people came from nursing homes, less than 1% came from jail or prison, 2% came from the homeless population, 2% from other congregate facilities, but 66% of the people were at home, which is shocking to us. Disproportionately older, but by the way, older starts at 51 years old. I’m a little sensitive on this point, but if old-

I’m a little sensitive on this point, but if older starts at 51 years old, then that’s a large number of us old folk in this state and in this country. So that whole vulnerable population being old, well old is now 51 and up. So think about that. 60 to 70, 20%, 70 to 80, 19%, but 51 years old is old. Okay. Then I am very old. Transportation method, we thought maybe they were taking public transportation and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation. But actually no, because these people were literally at home. 2% of car services, 9% were driving their own vehicle. Only 4% were taking public transportation, 2% walking, 84% were at home. Literally. Were they working? No, they were retired or they were unemployed. Only 17% working. So that says they’re not working, they’re not traveling. They’re predominantly downstate, predominantly minority, predominantly older, predominantly nonessential employees.

That’s important. We were thinking that maybe we were going to find a higher percentage of essential employees who were getting sick because they were going to work. That these may be nurses, doctors, transit workers. That’s not the case, and they were predominantly at home. So now that’s only three days. That’s just about 100 hospitals, 1,000 people. But it reinforces what we’ve been saying, which is much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself. Everything is closed down, government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could. Now it’s up to you. Are you wearing the mask? Are you doing the hand sanitizer? If you have younger people who are visiting you and may be out there and may be less diligent with the social distancing, are you staying away from older people? Older starting at 51 by the way, but it comes down to personal behavior.

This is not a group that we can target with this information. It’s really about personal behavior. Another issue that we’re looking at and were trying to understand, what is happening in these hotspot clusters that you see popping up? You see it happening across the country in meat plants, where you have a significant number of people getting infected and there’s now a meat shortage in the nation. Well, we have a hotspot in New York state. We have a hotspot in upstate New York, Madison, Oneida counties, and it’s around an agricultural business, but it’s not a meat processing plant. It’s actually a greenhouse farm, and we have dozens of cases coming from the employees in this situation. So what does that tell you? Well, it’s not really about meat or vegetables, right? There’s nothing about the fact that it was a meat processing plant, because we have a vegetable processing plant.

It is about worker density and large gatherings. That’s the caution flag here. That’s the message. It’s not about poultry, it’s not about meat, it’s not about vegetables. It’s when you run a facility with a large number of workers in a dense environment. And we learned that already in New York when we had the New Rochelle hotspot, which was the first hotspot in the nation, new Rochelle Westchester. And the lesson was one or two people infected who go to a large gathering or a dense gathering, that virus just takes off on you. And we learned that in New Rochelle, they’re learning it again in meat processing plants and poultry processing plants across the nation. And we just went through it again, and we’re going through it now in Madison and Oneida County. So that’s something that we have to watch and keep in mind. Also at the same time that we’re going through this reopening exercise, I want to make sure we don’t miss the opportunity in the moment.

The opportunity in the moment is that we want all through this, let’s learn the lessons and let’s take this moment in history to actually improve from where we are and to build it back better. I want to set the bar high and set the goal of not just replacing what we did. Okay, everybody go back to where we were. I don’t want to say that we spent all this time, all this pain, all this suffering, lost all these deaths, only to go back to where we were. Go back to a better place. How do you take … How do you find the silver lining in this viral storm and actually improve your situation? We’re on Long Island. We went through superstorm Sandy. It was horrendous. Thousands of people displaced, but we learned and we built back better. Long Island is better for having gone through hurricane Sandy.

Well, how can you say that? Because it’s a fact. We learned, we improved from a horrendous situation. Well, how do we do that here? And that’s part of what we want to do. People talk about making changes in society. Change is very hard to make. Change is hard in your own personal life, right? How many New Year’s resolutions did we make as a society that are still in effect here in May, right? I was supposed to lose five pounds. I was supposed to be running every day. I was supposed to never lose my temper. Forget it. One week, maybe 10 days for the temper. But history does show that people are ready for change at certain moments. And I believe this is one of those moments like in Superstorm Sandy, like in 9/11, like we’ve seen after natural disasters around the country where people say, “I get it and I’m ready to make changes.” And that’s what we want to do.

That’s what we talk about when we said, “It’s not just about reopening, it’s about rebuilding. It’s literally about re-imagining and moving the state forward at this moment.” And we want to do that. How do we come up with a better transportation system? How do we have more social equity in society, a better safety system, better housing, better economy, better education, better healthcare system? And we need the best minds available to take this moment to put together with the best thinking that we can find to make the best improvement. One of the lessons is in public health and our hospital system. We worked in an impossible situation when this started. We were told that we may need 130,000 hospital beds for COVID. That was the initial projections. We only have 50,000 hospital beds in the state. How do you get 50,000 hospital beds to a 130,000 capacity?

It was impossible. And by the way, we don’t really have a public health system. We have separate hospitals all across the state, but they don’t really function as one system. They never really work together on a day to day basis. They don’t share patient load, they don’t share PPE. How do you do that? And we scrambled and we made it work, but now how do we institutionalize that, and how are we ready for the next COVID or the next whatever it is? How do we use telemedicine better? How do we better allocate our health resources? How do we harden the healthcare system? But let’s take the lessons we just learned and institutionalize it and we’ve asked Michael Downling to do that. He was a big part of the scramble that we went through to make it work and Northwell was a leader. It’s the largest and in my opinion, the most innovative, but now how do we take that and institutionalize it so we don’t have to go through this again.

So next time something like this happens, we can just open a book and says, “Here’s what we do, step A, step B, step C.” And we want to thank Michael for his service with that and he’ll be working with Dr. Zucker from the department of health. Another area is education. We went to remote learning overnight. That’s what happens when you close the schools. Okay, all the students go home, we’re going to go to remote learning. What is remote learning? And we weren’t really ready for it. We had all talked about it, thought about it, there was some, but we were not really prepared to do it. We then had to do it, we implemented it and God bless the teachers in this state. They did a phenomenal job and God bless parents who had to figure out quickly how to use computers and technology and Zoom this and Zoom that. But how do we really learn those lessons? And we went to Bill Gates and he’s going to work with us on re-imagining the education system, and I want to thank him very much.

How do you create a testing and tracing system. By the way, what is a testing and tracing system, right? We never did this before, but we have to take thousands of COVID test, antibody tests, diagnostic tests, and then we have to trace, have an army of tracers to do this. We’re doing it for the first time ever, but how do we learn and institutionalize it? Yes, we have to do this for COVID, but we’re not going to go through all of this trouble and then just forget it. This will happen again. Some people say this virus comes back in the fall or the winter or there’ll be another health emergency, but Michael Bloomberg has generously said that he would work with us and use his philanthropy to develop that testing and tracing, and then on a larger scale, how do we really use new technology in the economy of tomorrow?

And that’s the lesson that we’re all learning, right? Work from home, telemedicine, tele-education, it’s all about technology and a better use of technology, and really incorporating the lessons into that. And probably the best mind in this country, if not on the globe to do this, is, I believe a true visionary, especially in the field of technology. And that’s Eric Schmidt, who was a former CEO of Google obviously, and just saw a future that no one else envisioned and then develop the way to get there. And we’ve asked him to come work with us to bring that kind of visionary aspect to government and society. Let’s look at what we just went through. Let’s anticipate a future through that lens and tell us how we can incorporate these lessons. And Mr. Schmidt, who has tremendous demands on his talent and his time, has agreed to help us and had an effort to do this. Eric, thank you so much for doing this and thank you so much for being with us.

Eric Schmidt: Thank you Governor, you have been doing an incredible job for our State and frankly for the nation, and I’m really pleased to help. The first priorities of what we’re trying to do are focused on tele-health, remote learning and broadband. We can take this terrible disaster and accelerate all of those in ways that will make things much, much better. The solutions that we have to come up with have to help the people most in need. People are in different situations throughout the state. We need to consider all of them and not pick one or the other. So the intent is to be very inclusive and make this thing better.

We need to look for solutions that can be presented now, and accelerated and use technology to make things better. My own view is that these moments are a chance to revisit things that are not getting enough attention, and we have systems that need to be updating and need to be reviewed. My commitment is to make this period, this sort of awful period, to be a period as you described in Long Island where New York State, New York City, everyone comes out stronger. The public private partnerships that are possible with the intelligence of the New Yorkers is extraordinary. It needs to be unleashed.

Andrew Cuomo: Well, great. You are the person to help us do that. We are all ready. We’re all in. We are New Yorkers, so we’re aggressive about it, and we’re ambitious about it. And I think we get it, Eric. We went through this period, and we realized that a change is not only imminent, but it can actually be a friend if done the right way. And I hope that when we look back on this time, we talk about all the pain, all the suffering, but we also say it was a moment in time where we came together. And we brought a creative aspect, and an innovative aspect, and we worked together in ways we never did before. And we made this place a better place. And I can’t thank you enough for doing it. Eric, thank you very much. I look forward to continuing the conversation and working together. Mr. Schmidt, thank you.

Eric Schmidt: Thank you Governor.

Andrew Cuomo: Thank you.

That is exciting. Last point, today is National Nurse’s day, as you know. Nobody knows better than New Yorkers how our nurses really stepped up with our healthcare professionals. When the pressure is on in our lives, you wind up seeing the best and the worst in people, and heroes rise to the occasion. And that’s what we saw here in the state of New York. Our frontline healthcare workers were just extraordinary, showing up every day, working impossible hours, a virus that nobody understood, fear of infection, but they just kept rising to the occasion. And that’s why New York and the nation just loves all our healthcare workers. But our nurses especially have done a phenomenal job. And we thank them from the bottom of our hearts. And Jet Blue had a beautiful idea of a way to say thank you, which is donating round trip flights to 100,000 medical personnel and nurses to honor their efforts.

Isn’t that a beautiful thing? 10,000 to New York medical professionals. Michael Dowling is not eligible for that situation, but other than that, because we need him here in New York. But it’s a nice way that Jet Blue is saying thank you. And all of us will find our own way to say thank you. But I’m sure every New Yorker joins me in saying thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of our heart. To all the nurses who are here today, God bless you. And thank you for getting us through this. And thank you for being New York tough, which is not just tough, but smart, and disciplined, and unified and loving. God bless you.

2020-05-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, pleasure to be here. Thank you all for being here - appropriately socially distanced I see. It is a pleasure to be at the New York Medical College today. Thank you, Dr. Kadish for having us. Westchester County, great County Executive George Latimer. Also home to our great Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

And it is a beautiful day. It is so beautiful. I am going to go home after this, take the motorcycle out, and go for a ride. I'm going to wear my mask on the motorcycle, protects from COVID virus, also keeps bugs out of your mouth - works on both fronts. It is time of high anxiety. I understand that, a lot of pressure all across the country. But even more at times of high anxiety, it's important that we stay with the facts and the truth. John Adams, was defending the British at a time when the American people hated the British, "Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." Lincoln, big believer in the American people always, "Let them know the truth and the country is safe." I love Lincoln and the wisdom and the economy of his language. Let them know the truth and the country is safe.

Here are the facts where we are right now. 8,600 total hospitalizations, that number is down. That is good news and it's a fairly significant drop. So, that is good news. The net change in hospitalizations you see is also down. That's good news. Intubations is down. That's good news. The three-day rolling average of hospitalizations is also down. You see, you see the curve, you see the outline of what we went through, you see how fast it went up. Reminds you how fast the infection rate can spread. Look at how fast those numbers went up. And you see how once those numbers are up, how slow, how long it takes to get them down, right? We are on the down side of the mountain. Down side of the mountain is a much more gentle slope then what we went through going up the mountain. We wish it was a steeper decline but it's not. This is the worst number every day is the number of deaths, 231. And you can see how slow that has come down and how painfully high it still is. This is a chart of the number of lives lost. And again, you can see how fast that infection took off and how many lives we lost. And once that infection rate is high and people are getting infected, you can see how long it takes to slow it down and reduce the number of deaths. And they're coming down at painful, slow level of decline.

The top priority for us, one of the top priorities for us, has been protecting our frontline and our essential workers. You have to remember what happened here. It all happened so fast that it's almost hard to gain perspective on it. But the frontline workers, they showed up and went to work and put their lives in danger so everyone else could stay home. I laid out the facts as Lincoln said to the people of this state, laid out how dangerous this virus was, advocated in argued based on those facts that we needed to close down, close down schools, close down businesses, stayed home. People did that. In the next breath I said and by the way we need you essential workers to go to work tomorrow after just having explained how dangerous the virus was to justify shutting down society in a way that had never been shut down before. Next a breath, essential workers, I need you to go to work. Hospital care, I need you to go to work and help people who come in with the COVID virus after we just discussed how dangerous the COVID virus was and how little we knew about the virus.

Look at the courage that those frontline workers had to show. I mean it is still amazing to me and I just want to make sure on a human level we're doing everything that we can for them. So we've been aggressively testing the frontline workers to find out who needs help, how many people actually have been infected and we've been working with the police and transit workers and health care workers.

We tested 25 downstate health care facilities. Downstate New York is where the predominance of the virus was, over 27,000 employees, so it's it a very large sample. What we found out is really good news and one of the few positives that I've heard in a long time. When you look at the percentage of people who have the antibodies - which means they were infected at sometime in the past and they're now recovered - of the health care workers, in Westchester, 6.8, New York City 12.2, Long Island 11.1. That is about the same or lower than the infection rate among the general population. So Westchester, the infection rate among the general population is 13.8, almost 14. Westchester health care workers it's about half of the rate of the general population. I mean that is amazingly good news. We were afraid of what was going to happen and the health care workers actually are at about the same or lower than the general population in that area.

So that makes two points to me. Number one, our health care workers must be protected. They must have the PPE. We've been saying that all along. There was a mad scramble this last time to get the PPE. Internationally it was a mad scramble for all of us. That can never happen again. We have to have the PPE. We have to have the stockpiles. We did an order that said every hospital has to happen 90-day supply of PPE at the COVID rate of usage so we'll never go through this again but it also shows everybody how important the masks and the gloves and the sanitizer are and that they work. You know, it's not that the frontline workers get anything especially more sophisticated than the masks that people wear, the N95 masks. You know, they wear a gown, they wear a mask, they wear gloves, but they follow protocol and those masks work. They work. If they're working for front-line workers, they're going to work for people in their day to day lives and the precautions of gloves and sanitizing, they work.

Also, during this time it's important that we protect New Yorkers who are facing financial hardships. You have people who live paycheck to paycheck. The majority of people in this state live paycheck to paycheck. All the sudden the paycheck stops. Federal government issued a one-time payment of $600 unemployment benefits, but it's not making up the gap for many, many families. And they are struggling and we want to make sure we're doing everything we can. We have a problem in upstate New York where many of the farms can't sell their product. You had a lot of farms that were literally just dumping milk that the dairy farms had produced. But at the same time, you have people in downstate New York who are going hungry and can't buy, can't pay for enough food. Tremendous demand on food banks, so we've been putting the two together. It makes no sense to have upstate farmers who can't sell their product and downstate families that can't get enough to eat. So, we have been funding efforts to connect the farmers to the downstate food banks and we've done that with about $25 million to what we call our Nourish New York initiative. And that has worked, we're funding about 50 food banks that have 2,100 farms that are delivering food to those food banks. And about 20,000 households in the state are participating in that. The volume of food and product that is not being wasted that is supporting upstate farms and helping downstate families is tremendous. We want to continue doing that. The state budget is very, very tight right now with what's going on with the economy. So, philanthropies, foundations, there are a lot of people who want to help. This is a great cause and I would suggest that they help, so we can do even more.

People literally are worried about being able to pay rent. You don't work for two months and that rent bill keeps coming in. You know it's not that the bill payers, the bill collectors have taken a vacation, bill collectors work right, they still send the bill and you still get collection notices. We did by executive order that I issued a moratorium on residential or commercial evictions, you cannot be evicted for nonpayment of rent related to this COVID situation and that went through June. So, nobody has been and nobody can be evicted through June, either residential or commercial.

We're going to take additional steps of banning any late payment fees because a person couldn't pay the rent during this period of time. Also, allowing people to use the security deposit as a payment and they can repay it over a prolonged period of time. But also I'm going to extend that moratorium an additional 60 days. It has an expired in June, but people are anxious and June for many people is just next month and the rent bill is going to come due. So, we're going to extend that 60 days until August 20. So, no one can be evicted for nonpayment of rent, residents or commercial because of COVID until August 20. Then, we'll see what happens between now and then. Nobody can really tell you what the future is so that will be in place. I hope it gives families a deep breath. Nothing can happen until August 20 and then we'll figure out between now and August 20 what the situation is.

Also, at this time, principles matter. I understand the anxiety. I understand the stress, but let's remember who we are what we're all about and what principles matter to us. People are talking about reopening the economy, it's more important than public health or public health is more important than the economy and that's the underlying argument in the discussion that you're hearing going on right now. To me, it's never been a question of whether or not we reopen. It's not reopen or not reopen, you have to reopen, you don't have a choice. It's how you reopen. it's how you reopen. To say well, we either have to have a strong economy or protect public health, no that's a false choice.

It's not one or the other, it's both. We have to reopen, get the economy running and we have to protect public health. This is not a situation where you can go to the American people and say, "how many lives are you willing to lose to reopen the economy?" We don't want to lose any lives. You start to hear these what are, to me, absurd arguments. Well yes, if we reopen people will die, but people were going to die anyway. Look, we are all going to die at one point the big question is when or how. The when and how matters. I understand that I am going to die. I just don't want to die now or next week and I don't want to die because I contracted the COVID virus unnecessarily. So, people are going to die. Yes, we are all going to die. That is not a justification in my mind.

it would be a novel defense. Person before a judge, charged with murder. Did you have a gun? Yes. Did you fire the gun? Yes. Did you shoot the person? Yes. Did the person die? Yes, but the person was going to die anyway. Yeah, I know, but it was the gun that killed the person and the bullet and you fired the gun. To go down this road - well, there are old people who will die. Predominantly, on the numbers. By the way, old - how do you define old - not that old is a justification, but we looked at the numbers yesterday the number of new cases coming in to hospitals. Fifty-one-years-old is where the increase starts, 51-60, 61-70, 71-80 is the highest. But 51-60, so 51 is not really old. I know that it's all relative and since I am beyond that 51, it's easy for me to say. But I don't really see 51 as old when we start talking about the old people.

I also think, and I do this for myself, any leader who makes a decision in this situation should be willing to participate in anything they authorize. So there is nothing that we are going to authorize or allow in this state that I, myself, will not be part of. You know, it's too easy to say, "Okay, you can go do this, but I'm going to protect myself and I'm going to stay behind the glass wall." No. If all human life has the same value, if I say something is safe for New Yorkers then I will participate in it because if it's safe for you, it's safe for me, right? That should be our standard going forward.

What we've been doing in New York is look - make the decisions based on facts and data not emotion and politics. I understand the emotion and I understand the anxiety and the stress. I understand politics a little bit. But, that's not the basis for making a decision. Every leader has told us that in different ways. That was John Adams, that was Lincoln, that was FDR, that was Teddy Roosevelt. When my team comes to me and says, "Oh boy, we had a new prison break. There's a flood coming. There's a hurricane. Ebola virus and the air is on fire." Slow down, deep breath. Let's look at the facts, let's understand the situation, and let's take action based on the facts. That is the way to lead, that's the way, I believe, to lead one's life.

Here we have a lot of information. We have a lot of facts. We know the hospitalization rate, we know the infection rate, we know the number of deaths, we're taking antibody tests, we're taking diagnostic tests, we're doing tracing. Make your decisions based on the facts and the data. It sounds simple and basic, but it's more important now than ever before.

And it is working for us. It is working. That's not just me saying that because I'm the governor. You look at what's happening in New York and look at what's happening in the rest of the nation. In New York, the number is coming down. It's coming down dramatically. You take New York out of the rest of the nation's numbers - the rest of the nation is going up and we're coming down.

So, what we're doing is working and when it's working, stay the course. Quote attributed to Winston Churchill, "If you're going through hell, keep going." And that's what we're doing. We're going through hell, but what we're doing is working so we're going to keep going. Because we are New York tough, smart, disciplined, united, and loving.

2020-05-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Just let me introduce the people who were with me today. From my right, Dr. Howard Zucker, our health commissioner has been doing great work. To my left, Melissa de Rosa, who is secretary to the governor, which is a top position in state government. To her left, Gareth Rhodes, who was deputy superintendent and special counsel to the New York State Department of Financial Services, but who has been working with the chamber on this situation has been doing an excellent job.

We’re at Marist College today. It’s a pleasure to be here. Dr. Dennis Murray, pleasure. Thank you very much for having us. Marist, go red foxes. We’re in Poughkeepsie, which is right down from Albany, New York, right down the Hudson River. Beautiful ride today, going down the Hudson River. Many people fishing, a little fishing envy. Striped bass season in New York. No fishing for me, but that’s okay. There’s always next year.

Albert Einstein. “I do not like to state an opinion on a matter unless I know the precise facts.” Good advice. Wouldn’t it be nice if all those talking heads on TV took that advice? No opinion unless you know the facts. Let’s talk about some facts. Total hospitalizations down to 8196, good news. Change in hospitalizations, you see has been going down. Change in intubations is also down, and that’s really good news. The percentage of people once intubated that actually successfully come off a ventilator is very low, so that is very good news. And the number of new COVID hospitalizations per day is just about flat, has been flat for a few days. These are the number of new cases that are coming in the door every day, or people who are in the hospital who then test positive for COVID. And these charts, I look at the line more than anything, and what the curve is actually saying more than the specific number.

We would have hoped to see a steady, sharp decline in those numbers. We went up very quickly, as you see on the left of the screen. We would have hoped that we would have come down very quickly, hit the top and then come down. That’s not what’s happening. It’s more flattening out. Question, when we look at these charts now, will it flatten out or will continue to drop? When you look at the actual projection model that IHME, this is one of the more accurate projection models, they showed going down, but you even have several hundred cases in mid-June, so these models have been instructive but not necessarily determinative in the past, but that’s what we’re watching now, going forward.

Same thing on the number of lives lost. This is probably the most important statistic and the most painful. 216 New Yorkers passed away yesterday. That’s 216 families. You see that it’s been persistently constant in the 200 range for the past few days. We’re also looking at that. What does that curve do? What does that line do? Does it slowly decline? We would have liked to see, again, up and then a fast decline. Possibility that it flattens out at one point. But again, we don’t know. We don’t know. So we go day to day, and we see and we react, given the facts that we’re presented with.

The lack of facts can hurt you. We’ve seen that, I believe, during this global pandemic. How did it happen? Why weren’t we ahead of it? Not just for a retrospective but also prospectively. If you don’t understand how it happened last time, and you don’t learn the lessons of what happened last time, then you will repeat them, right? And there’s a good chance that this virus comes back. They talk about a second wave, they talk about a mutation. And if it’s not this virus, another public health issue. And I think we have to learn from this, and unfortunately, you learn from it as we’re going through it because we may not have the luxury of time. If they are right on the speculation about a second wave in the fall or the winter. Well, we have to start getting ready now.

And it is shocking to me that so many months, so many weeks we talked about the virus was coming from China, from China, from China, from China. Now it turns out the virus didn’t come to the East Coast from China. It came from Europe. And all those talking heads, that is a relatively new fact.

When you then look back at the timeline of what was going on, I think it’s informative. We were talking about the virus in China last year, the end of last year, November and December. We had the first case in the state of Washington, January 21. We then had the China travel ban by the President on February 2nd, which was a right move in retrospect. Six weeks later, you have the travel ban from Europe, and then we still have John F. Kennedy airport open in New York, as what’s called the “funnel airports”. There are about four airports in the nation that were left open for flights coming from China and Europe. And John F. Kennedy airport, which is our main international airport, was one of them. When you look back, November to April is a long period of time.

And what happened, apparently, is the virus got on a plane from China, someone who was infected got on a plane and went to Europe. And then from Europe, the virus mutated in Europe and then flew to New York City. Newark Airport, flew to places on the East Coast, flew to Chicago. And you can see why, right? The virus wasn’t going to stay in China and wait for us to deal with it in China. Everybody talks about how mobile people are and global interconnections, et cetera, and that’s what happened.

But nobody was saying, “Beware of people coming from Europe.” We weren’t testing people coming from Europe. We weren’t telling anyone at the time, if you have a European visitor or European guest, make sure they get tested. They walked right through the airport. Well, I understand what happened in retrospect, but we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

From December to March, three million Europeans came through our airports. You wonder why we have such a high infection rate. You put three million Europeans coming into this market undetected. You don’t tell anyone. There’s no precautions. There’s no testing. And then you let people circulate in this dense environment, you’re going to have the virus spread, and that’s exactly what happened.

And many of those people didn’t stay in New York. They just landed at JFK, connected to another flight, and flew to a city in the United States. That’s what happened. Flights from China proportionately go to the West Coast of the United States, but the European flights, they come to the East Coast. Three million Europeans is a lot of people. And again, it was months of people coming and people circulating, before we were really put on notice. So learning what happened is important. So we don’t-

So learning what happened is important so we don’t make the same mistake again twice and we’re better prepared in the future. And I think a word of caution would be today we must consider an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. You hear about an outbreak in China, you hear about an outbreak in Korea, just assume that it gets on a plane the next day. Somebody who’s infected gets on a plane and can go anywhere on the globe, literally. One fact we do know about COVID is we know that there is still a lot that we don’t know about this virus. And some things that we thought were facts are now being revisited. We were told if you had the virus, you then had antibodies, you would then be immune from getting it a second time. Now there are some questions about whether or not you’re immune, how immune you would be even if you have the antibodies.

We were led to believe that the good news about this virus was it didn’t affect children, which was taken as great news. Now we have a new issue that we’re looking at, which is something we’re just investigating now, but while rare, we’re seeing some cases where children affected with the COVID virus can become ill with symptoms similar to the kawasaki disease or toxic shock like syndrome. That literally causes inflammation in their blood vessels. This past Thursday, a five year old boy passed away from COVID related complications, and the state department of health is investigating several other cases that present similar circumstances. This would be really painful news and would open up an entirely different chapter because I can’t tell you how many people I spoke to who took peace and solace in the fact that children were not getting infected.

We thought that children might be vehicles of transmission, a child could get infected and come home and infect the family, but we didn’t think children would suffer from it. If this is true, some of these children are very, very old, so caution to all people who again may have believed that their child couldn’t be effected by COVID. This information suggests we may want to revisit that quote unquote fact, that assumption. And if you see any of the symptoms that are on the chart that your child is evidencing, caution should be taken because this is something that we’re looking at. And again, there has been at least one fatality because of this, and there may be others that are now under investigation. So this is every parent’s nightmare that your child may actually be affected by this virus, but it’s something we have to consider seriously now.

Another fact we do know about this and a common thread with the virus is that it affects minority communities more dramatically. Nothing biological about the minority community, but demographically, socially the infection rate is higher. New York state does not have the same disparities we see in other states around the country thankfully, but we do have a disparity. It’s again relatively modest, but something that we won’t tolerate. And you see it in the Hispanic community, you see it in the African American community where they are disproportionately affected. We asked the hospitals to look at the new cases that are walking in the door to see what we can learn about where we are now because we’ve taken so many actions, so many dramatic actions, closed down schools, closed down businesses, we’re testing. We still have new cases. We’re getting additional information on these new cases now. And when you look at the new cases and where they’re coming from in the state, it’s clear that a majority of the new cases in a disproportionate number are coming from minority communities.

21 zip codes with the highest rate of hospitalizations, 20 have greater than average black and/or Latino population. So this is something that were focused on and we’re going to address and we will address immediately, and we will have more information on this in the next couple of days. We must also adjust to the changing circumstances. Given the shut down, many aspects of society have been closed down or are less operational. The court system is among them. It’s done a lot of work thanks to what the court system has been able to manage by remote telecommunication, et cetera, but we passed a law in New York called the Child Victims Act, which was long overdue, which allowed survivors of sexual abuse as children to file a claim. We then had a window of time that they could actually file the claim. Because of the reduction in court services, we want to extend that window and we’ll extend it for an additional five months until January 14th.

Because people need access to the courts to make their claim because “justice too long delayed is justice denied,” Martin Luther King Jr. So we will extend that window for people to bring their case. The good news on the overall is we’re finally ahead of this virus. For so long, we were playing catch up. We talked about the facts and circumstances that we found out about it. It was in China. It had moved. And we were playing catch up. We were behind it. Now, I feel for the first time we’re actually ahead of it. We have showed that we can control the beast. You look at those numbers coming down. Remember our numbers are coming down in New York. Most states in this country, you still see the numbers going up.

You take New York out of the national numbers and you see the cases are on the incline. We have it on the decline. So we have the beast on the run. There’s no doubt about that. We haven’t killed the beast, but we’re ahead of it. And the hospitalization rate is coming down and the death rate is coming down. So that’s all good news. And I feel that we are, for the first time in this engagement, we’re actually ahead of the virus. We have to stay there and we have to figure out what the next move is that the virus is going to make and we have to stay ahead of it. But we are ahead of it and we are in control of our own destiny. Why is that virus on decline? Why are those cases going down? Because we’re making the number of cases go down.

We are reducing the number of infections. If we didn’t do anything, you would’ve seen that infection number keep going straight up. We reopen irresponsibly, you will see that infection number go straight up. We are reducing the rate of infection by our actions, wearing the masks, the close downs, the precautions. We turn that curve, no one else. And we are going to determine what that rate of infection is going forward. You tell me how we behave today, I will tell you the rate of infection three days from now. You tell me how we behave today, I’ll tell you the number of people who walk into a hospital in seven days or 10 days. It is that clear, cause and effect. It is that clear. That’s also liberating. Finally, our destiny, our future-

Finally, our destiny, our future is in our hands and it’s not subject to the whims of the virus. We are in control of the spread of the virus and that is good news to me. We just have to stay there and we will because we are New York, tough, smart, united, discipline, loving and the great state of New York is showing the way forward, once again.

2020-05-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Happy Saturday. I know its Saturday because I don't wear a tie on Saturdays. That's why I can tell it is Saturday. People ask me often, "what do you think about our situation?" And I say I think about what I know. What does that mean? Good question. It means in New York what we've been doing is we follow the facts, we follow the data, we follow the science. We focus on what we know and the facts that we know, and we make our decisions based on the facts.

So, every morning we look at facts. Facts today are that the hospitalization rate dropped once again which is very good news. The total hospitalization rate has dropped, the intubation rate has dropped, the number of new cases per day has dropped down to 572, and those are new cases, people who walk in the door of the hospital or people who are in hospital and that test positive, but that is down to 572. You see it hasn't been that level since we started back March 20, March 21. So, that is welcome news. This is not welcome news and this has been heartbreaking every day - 226 deaths. 226 families. And you see how that number has infuriatingly constant. 226 is where we were 5 days ago. So, we would like to see that number dropping at a far faster rate than it has been dropping. And these are 226 people who lost their lives despite everything our health care system could do, right? That's despite the best hospital care, the best nursing, the best doctors, the best equipment. So, they are people who we know we made every effort possible to say. And to the extent there's some peace in that then we're looking for peace wherever we can.

The priority for us today is a dealing with a new issue that has come up which is truly disturbing. And that is the issue on how the COVID virus may affect a young people, very young people. Infants, children in elementary school. We had thought initially and again so many of what the initial information we had turned out not to be correct or turned out to be modified, but we were laboring under the impression that young people were not affected by COVID-19. And that was actually good news, right? The vulnerable populations were older people, people with comorbidity. But one of the few rays of good news was young people weren't affected. We're not so sure that that is the fact anymore. Toddlers, elementary school children, our presenting symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease or toxic shock like syndrome.

Now, these are children who come in who don't present the symptoms that we normally are familiar with with COVID. It's not a respiratory illness, they're not in respiratory distress, and I think that's one of the reasons why this may be getting discovered this far into the process. It's more an inflammation of the blood vessels which can then cause problems with their heart. And there are 73 cases that the Department of Health, Doctor Zucker, is now studying. But the illness has taken the lives of 3 young New Yorkers. So this is new and it's developing. The Department of Health has communicated with the federal officials, the CDC, and the CDC has asked New York to develop national criteria for this so that other states, other hospital systems, can also be checking into this and looking into this. Again, as it turns out, these children happened to have the COVID antibodies or be positive for COVID but those were not the symptoms they showed when they came into the hospital system. So it's still very much a situation that is developing but it is a serious situation.

The Department of Health is also going to be working with the New York Genome Center and Rockefeller University to conduct a genome and RNA sequencing study to see if there is something about these children that may present a definable situation. But rest assured the Department of Health is on top of it. This is the last thing that we need at this time with all that's going on, with all the anxiety we have, now for parents to have to worry about whether or not their youngster was infected. And again, symptoms that don't even see a like the symptoms we associate with COVID-19 so we still have a lot to learn about this fires and every day is another eye opening situation. But rest assured the Department of Health is doing everything that they can do.

I think it's fair to say that the New York State Department of Health is the first one that has been on this situation and again working with the CDC and whatever we find out we not only share with the public but we'll also share with other states and other hospital systems because it is very possible that this has been going on for several weeks and it hasn't been diagnosed as related to COVID. So again we'll keep you updated. I know many people are concerned about as they should be.

A priority that we've been working on throughout has been protecting our frontline workers. We're very aware of the sacrifices that our frontline workers are making so many of us can stay home and stay safe and we want to make sure we're doing everything we can to protect our frontline workers. We've been working with the health care workers, police officers, firefighters, EMT and our transit workers.

In New York we have to keep the public transit system operating. That's how many essential workers, frontline workers get to work. If we got to a situation where we had to close down public transit our hospital system would have suffered. That's how nurses get there. That's how the hospital staff gets there. But our transit workers had to operate that transit system right in the midst of this COVID virus and it never stopped. Bus operators, train operators, station cleaners, so while everyone was trying to get home, trying to stay safe, they were showing up for work every day to make sure that the people who didn't need to go to work or get to work.

We've already conducted the largest antibody test in the country. 15,000 people in that sample. What the antibody test tells you is who has been infected by the virus and then has the antibodies as they recover and that gives us a baseline, that 15,000 survey statewide, to compare other groups against so we know what the average infection rate is in different parts of the state. We can then compare groups to that baseline.

We recently tested the transit workers writ large who have been doing the operations of the transit system. We tested 1,300 so that's that a large size sample. 14 percent was the infection rate among transit workers and that's actually good news. We'd like to see 0 but 14 percent is below the average infection rate for New Yorkers so it means that the transit workers' infection rate is below the norm for New York City.

Within the transit workers it's a little higher with station workers than with bus operators or train conductors, assistant conductors, but all categories are below the New York City norm. The New York City norm was 19.9 so that is that is good news and that also affirms the news we've heard on the other essential workers, frontline workers.

Our health care workers, nurses, doctors were afraid that because they were literally in the emergency rooms that have a higher infection rate but turns out that's not true. 12 percent was the infection rate among those workers - shows that the PPE works when we talk about masks and gloves, et cetera. Not that nurses and doctors in those emergency rooms have fancier equipment or more sophisticated equipment. This is the same type of mask that they wear so it works.

New York Police Department had an infection rate of 10 percent. Fire department and EMT had an infection rate of 17 percent which is the highest of all those groups. We think it's higher because of the EMT workers, but again all below the New York City rate of 19.9 percent.

Another issue that we've been aware of and we're working on is the fact that poor and minority communities are suffering most. The numbers in the state are not nearly as bad as the disparity in many other states, but any disparity is bad. And that's what we have been focusing on here. We did surveys and data that show if you look at the 21 zip codes with the highest number of hospitalizations for covid, 20 of those 21 have greater than average African-American or Latino populations. 20 of 21 of those zip codes. So, there's no doubt that it is a problem and we've mapped this, and you can see exactly where people are coming from as they're walking into hospitals. Part of the new system that we've implemented through this is hospitals report nightly how many cases they have, where they come from, and we can now literally map the number of people and where they're coming from throughout the state. And then when you look into that information, especially in Brooklyn, and in the Bronx, it's clear that the communities are heavier minority population and heavier year low-income population. And when you compare that with the overall city rate, it makes the same point that hospitalization rate, infection rate among the minority community, among lower-income communities is higher than the average.

Unfortunately, in a cruel irony, this is often the case. When you look at disasters, emergencies, I don't care if they're hurricanes, floods, whatever they are. Cruel irony is, the poorest people pay the highest price. I've seen this across the country when I was at HUD. You're there to take care of a flood or a storm, it's the poorer communities that get wiped out first, right. It's the lowland, it's the land that tends to flood that it has the lower value and that's where the lower community, lower-income community tends to locate. We understand why, we understand the health disparities, we understand co-morbidities, but we also understand it's just not right. It is just not right and we have to address it. We saw the same thing in Hurricane Katrina. Those people who are on rooftops were not the wealthy white part of the community. They were predominately minority, they were predominantly low-income, those rooftops very often were public housing. So, this has been the pattern. Flint, Michigan, the people who were drinking water that was poisoned, they were low-income minority populations. If you even go back to 1927 the Great Mississippi Flood. Where does the Mississippi flood? It floods the low lands. It floods lower income communities. We get it, but we have to break the cycle.

New York, we're going right at finding the reasons for the disparity and resolving them. We're doing more testing in low-income communities and communities of color. We're do testing in public housing aggressively. Partnering with Ready Responders which is a group which is doing great work. We've delivered PPE equipment, masks over one million, hand sanitizer, et cetera to public housing.

And today we're launching a new initiative, again to address exactly this which is to expand access to testing in low-income communities and communities of color. We're partnering with Northwell Health which is the largest health system in New York and they're going to set up 24 additional testing sites at churches in predominantly minority communities. This is a different kind of partnership, it's creative, but it's necessary. We're working with both churches individually and association of churches and Northwell. Northwell will provide the testing in churches in lower-income communities and communities of color. The churches will help us outreach to the community to get people to come in and explain why it's important that people come in and get tested. And Northwell will do the testing. We have 24 sites in the New York City area. Some will be opening the week of May 12. Some will be opening the second week of May 19. But you see the coverage when we had the network of churches is very broad, again focused on these communities that we want to reach out to. These 24 new sites will be working with the current network of sites and we've already located many testing sites in minority communities, in low-income communities. But when you put the church based sites together with the drive-thru sites, together with the walk-in testing sites, and our sites at public housing, the coverage will be extensive.

So, the sites will be there. We now need New Yorkers to go get the tests. And I know, I do this with people all day long. "I feel fine, I feel fine." You can feel fine and test positive for COVID. You can - you can be asymptomatic and still have the COVID vipers. "Well I feel fine, what's the difference?" Because you can give it to someone else who will not feel fine. And you can give it to a person who's more vulnerable group, older person, person with an underlying illness, and they could be in serious trouble. So, you want to know if you have it not just for yourself but so you don't communicated to anyone else.

I want to thank our partners for who have been working on this. It's exactly what we want to do. All through this situation we said we don't want to just deal with this virus. We don't just replace what was there - we actually want to make sure that we build back better than before. I understand that this inequity, this disparity exists. I understand it existed for decades, I understand it exists all across the country. Been not New York. Not New York. It shouldn't be here. I want to thank our congressional leaders who are partners in this effort who have been very instrumental in organizing the churches and putting it together with Northwell Health, especially Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke from Brooklyn and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who we're going to hear from in a moment.

I also want to thank the church groups. This is not in the normal line of business for churches to be setting up testing sites for a COVID virus. But I think it is the mission of the churches. They're there to serve the community, they're there to work with the community and meet the needs at that time, and this is the need at that time. So, they've been extraordinarily helpful and cooperative. I especially want to thank Reverend Rivera and Reverend David Brawley for coming up with the idea and then working with the other groups to get them to all participate.

So, we've never done anything like this before, but there are a lot of firsts for all of us in this situation. So I want to thank them very much for what they're doing here. And it's my pleasure to announce that we're being joined with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who is a personal friend of mine, he's a great star for the state of New York. In Washington, his voice, his leadership has been pivotal not just for New York, but for the entire nation. And this is a time when we need the federal government to actually work, and work well and work efficiently and work effectively and work for the people, which show sometimes doesn't happen in Washington. And the people, the police, the firefighters, the people of this state couldn't have a better, more powerful advocate than Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. And the Congressman worked tirelessly to put together this arrangement that we're announcing today with the churches. Again, it is a different type of partnership. But we do what we have to do in New York, and the Congressman saw the need and he reached out to the church groups and brought them together to be where we are today. Congressman, thank you so for everything you do, but especially thank you for what you did to bring these church groups together with Northwell, so we could announce this initiative. Congressman, good to be with you.

Congressman Jeffries: Morning, Governor. Great to be with you and of course, thank you for the tremendous leadership that you have provided to the people of the Empire State and in fact the nation in so many ways during this moment of trial and tribulation. And I just appreciate the fact that your leadership has been evidence-based, data-driven, compassionate and comprehensive, and today's announcement is just another example that. We know that this is an extraordinary pandemic and it requires an extraordinary governmental response at all levels of government, it's all hands on deck at the city, the state and the federal level. And the New York delegation is committed to continuing to work with you to make sure that we can drive to federal resources into New York State to match the level of infection, pain, suffering and death that we've all had to endure. It's an all of government moment and, of course, an all of America moment, as you've encouraged all of us to dig deeper here in New York and throughout.

In that spirit, we know that the houses or worship, the spiritual community, has always been there to help the community get through the storm. These churches have been there through the crack cocaine epidemic to welcome people in while others were rejecting them. Our churches have been there, for instance, to address the high rates of gun violence in our community through gun buyback programs, taking thousands of guns off the streets in their congregation buildings. We also know that these houses of worships, our churches, our spiritual leaders, have been there to partner with the state and with law enforcement organizations like the Brooklyn District Attorney's office to begin again initiatives to address old warrants and summons and citations that can impact the ability of people from communities of color to be able to get all of the opportunities to benefit from our full economy.

So, now at this moment, thanks to their continued engagement and your leadership and willingness to partner, we can address this COVID-19 pandemic with these houses of worship and religious leaders who have the credibility, the authenticity, and the capacity to reach those in the community who need to be tested. At the end of the day, this is not over for any of us until it's over for all of us. As you've indicated, we know that communities of color have been hit particularly hard. We are disproportionately overrepresented amongst our essential frontline workers, live in dense environments, and have historically been under resourced throughout the nation.

This testing initiative will be incredibly essential to ensure we can turn the corner in communities of color such as those that I represent as well as those represented, of course, by great members of the delegation like Nydia Velasquez, Yvette Clarke, Greg Meeks, Adriano Espaillat and so many others.

So thank you, Governor, for your partnership. I thank EBC and the other church coalitions for their initiative and willingness to do what is necessary for us to confront this storm. The scripture says, "Weeping may endure during the long night, but joy will come in the morning." I'm thankful for your leadership, Governor Cuomo, thankful for the partnership with our houses of worship. We're all going to be there with the community until its morning time in the United States of America once again.

Governor Cuomo: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Congressman, so well said. Some people say the churches are closed. No, the churches are open. Churches never close. They're doing their work and they're performing their mission. And Congressman, big week for you. What you're doing in Washington is so important to all of us. This legislation that may be passed by Washington - getting this country the aid they need. Getting this state the aid we need. Pass legislation, did great for small businesses, et cetera. But I know your priority now is to bring funding for working New Yorkers, working Americans. The police, the firefighters, the healthcare that have gotten us through this. Making sure the state governments can function so we can do the reopening.

We couldn't have a better voice, a stronger voice, a more capable voice than yours in our delegation fighting for us and for the nation. You make the case for New York, you're making the case for America because we are just a micro chasm, New York. We did get hardest hit in the number of cases, but you address the need here, you address the need in America. God bless you, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you, Congressman Jeffries.

Congressman Jeffries: Thanks, Governor, God bless you.

Governor Cuomo: Thanks.

That's our congressional delegation, representing all New Yorkers who are tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving.

2020-05-10 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, let me introduce the people who are with us today for those of you who do not know who someone is. To my far right, Jim Malatras, PhD doctor. To my immediate right, Michaela Kennedy Cuomo, related to me, daughter, third of three only by age order. There is no order beside age, no preference, no degree of love, no estimate of any ability, just all equal within my eyes. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To her left, Dr. Howard Zucker. To his left Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

Thank you for being here today. Today is day 71 with a question mark. The number of hospitalizations today, down, great news. Number of intubations, down, that's great news. The COVID cases, which is a different problem than number of people who are in hospitals, this is how many new cases are showing up every day which has been still very high is down to 521 and that is down. 521 takes us right back to where we started this hellish journey, right? March 20th is when we did the closedown order. And where we are today is basically, with the number of new cases, is basically right where we were when we started. So, it has been a painful period of time between March 20th and May 9th. The optimist would say yes but it's only March 20th to May 9th. The pessimist would say but a lot of pain, a high cost, loss of life. The realist would be somewhere in the middle. But all of this work, all of this progress of turning that tide, of reducing the rate of infection, that's all thanks to New Yorkers and what New Yorkers did. Number of deaths, 207. Still terribly high but better. The number of deaths, 207, takes us back to almost where we started about a week in. As the number of deaths started to increase, you could see early in March, 27 deaths, then how quickly it went up: 38, 42, 56, 76, 101, 130, 207. So, just to give you a perspective of a where we are today versus where we were.

One of our top priorities is protecting people in nursing homes and seniors. This is where this virus feeds. It is where this virus started when it started in the State of Washington. We have implemented many safety measures, many of which have been difficult to implement but we did for health reasons. Restricting visitation except for end of life visits, this is a tough policy and I had serious qualms about it to tell you the truth. But the health officials were right. Yes, you want visitation. No, you don't want to walk a virus into a nursing home that could kill the person you're going to visit. PPE requirements, all staff have to be checked going to a nursing home every 12 hours. All facilities must notify families within 24 hours. Separate facilities, residents from staff in the event of an outbreak. We have provided them with millions of pieces of PPE equipment.

This is a national problem, right? Nursing homes, generally all across the country, have seen the COVID virus take a high toll. New York has one of the highest populations of nursing home residents of any state in the country, over 100,000 residents. But New York's percentage of deaths in nursing homes is the 34th highest of any state. So, if you look at the states and the percentages of people who died in nursing homes as a percentage of that death. New York is number 34. So, none of this is good news but just to give you context of what people are looking at. This virus uses nursing homes, they are ground zero. They are the vulnerable population in the vulnerable location, right? It's a congregation of vulnerable people. Today we're taking additional steps to protect seniors in nursing homes.

First, I want people to understand how a nursing home operates vis a vis the state. The most vulnerable population deserves the highest level of care, right, so the rule is very simple. If a nursing home cannot provide care for a person and provide the appropriate level of care for any reason, they must transfer the person out of the facility. If they can't find another facility, they call the state Department of Health. So what does this mean? If they don't have enough staff, if they don't have enough PPE, if their facility doesn't allow for isolation or quarantine - whatever it is, if they cannot provide the proper care, they must transfer the resident, period.

If they have a COVID positive person and they can't treat a COVID positive person, they must transfer the person or call the state Department of Health and the state Department of Health will transfer that person.

All nursing home staff must now be tested twice a week. That's not just a temperature check, that is a diagnostic test. We have the tests available. We have brought them online. The state has more testing capacity than any state in the country. They have to test their staff twice a week. That is a rule, it's not an "I'd appreciate it if you did."

Hospitals, going forward, cannot discharge a patient to a nursing home unless the patient tests negative for COVID-19. So, we're just not going to send a person who is positive to a nursing home after a hospital visit. Period.

Remember, and I want the nursing home operators to understand this, we have alternative facilities for nursing home patients, COVID or non-COVID. Remember what we did here. We created 40,000 hospital beds because we had to. We had a 50,000 bed capacity system - the early projections were we would need 100,000 beds, 140,000 beds. We created 40,000 additional beds minimum. SO we have beds available. We also set up COVID only facilities. So we have available COVID only facilities that could accept nursing home residents. We're not reducing the number of hospital beds that we have available. We've always had more hospitals beds available than we've used - always. There has not been a day that we didn't have more beds available than we've used. So if a nursing home cannot take care of a person, we have facilities that can. I understand the nursing homes perspective, but if they cannot provide the appropriate care, they have to call the Department of Health and let's get that resident into an appropriate facility. I can't be more direct about that. We have available COVID only facilities upstate as well as downstate. So we have the facilities available. If there's any issue, the resident must be referred to Department of Health which will find alternative care.

If a nursing home operator does not follow these procedures, they will lose their license. Well, that's harsh. No. Harsh is having a nursing home resident who doesn't get the appropriate care. That's what's harsh - having someone's parent or mother or brother in a situation where they're in a facility, they can't even get a visitor, they're isolated, they feel alone, and they're not getting the appropriate care. That's what is harsh. If that's what happens, then that facility operator should lose their license. I have no problem with that. I was the attorney general. I did investigations of nursing homes. I have tremendous respect for what they do, but this is the essence of their responsibility and obligation. Again, we have the facilities. We have the beds. It's not like a situation where there are no options. We have options and we want to use them. So if there's any reason why you can't provide appropriate care let us know and we will put them in a facility that has it.

Also, this is an issue that people need to be aware of. New York State is investigating 85 cases of a COVID-related illness in children. Mostly toddler to elementary schools, it's symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease, what they call Kawasaki disease or toxic shock-like syndrome. This does not present as a normal COVID case. COVID cases tend to be respiratory. This presents as an inflammation of the blood vessels, sometimes inflammation of the heart. It's possible that these cases were coming in and were not diagnosed as related to COVID because they don't appear as COVID. But it is a situation that has taken the lives of three New Yorkers. There are two additional deaths that are currently under investigation as possibly related to the same situation. The New York State Department of Health is going to notify all the other state department of health. Every state has the department of health. They will notify their counterparts in the other states to put them on notice of this. Again, we've recently found this and are investigating it but it may be possible and it may even be probable that this is a situation that exists in other states and we want to make sure that they are where aware of it.

New York State Department of Health is also actively pursuing a new drug therapy. Remdesivir has been shown to have some positive effect and we are desperately looking for a treatment for this virus. So the CDC has started tests on this drug and New York State is working with HHS, Health and Human Services on the federal side, administering it to 2,900 people at 15 hospitals and we're looking for more doses to start with an additional 500 people.

This week is May 15. May 15 the pause order, the closedown order expires. We're looking region to region across the state as to where would be appropriate to reopen. This state we have a clear uniform set of criteria. It's the same all across the state, it's all science-based, it's all data-based and we'll look at those numbers, we'll look at those data points to see where it's safe to open.

Local governments should start to look at two things, citizens also. Of those factors that we look at, many factors are just the rate of spread of the infection and they just purely link to the rate of spread of the infection. Second set of factors looks to the capacity of local government. Do they have enough hospital beds open in case that infection rate goes up? Do they have the testing tracing isolation that we've all been talking about for weeks and weeks and weeks? Do they have that operation in place and do they have a compliance function in place where when we say manufacturing businesses can open but people must be six feet apart that they can actually monitor those businesses to make sure there is compliance?

So factor one are just the numbers, infection rate, et cetera, and everybody knows what that is in different parts across the state. Factor two is what local governments have to do to be ready and working together with their counterparts in that region and we'll be speaking to this more tomorrow because May 15 at the end of the week.

Also this week Washington is going to be considering additional legislation. That is essential to what we're all trying to accomplish here. The President has made it clear that the reopening is up to the states, is up to the governors, and I've been working with governors all across the country and by and large the people believe the governors are doing what they need to do.

But you can't ask someone to do that which they cannot do. You can't ask someone to do something that is beyond their capacity, beyond their limits. We can handle the reopening but every state, almost every state, has a significant financial problem because of the loss of revenue due to the economy. Just think of how a state works. You close down businesses, their income drops, they're not paying an income tax. The state's revenue drops proportionately and that's what is happening. You look at - our economy was doing great, really great, in this state, but then comes the COVID virus and the impact on our financial plan is about $61 billion. We then have to pay for all this COVID related work, all this hospital work and testing and everything that's going on. That's about another $5 billion per year.

We then have essential state agencies that are operating that also have taken a tremendous financial loss. The MTA operates the subways and buses, collects revenue from tolls when people go over bridges or through tunnels, but ridership is down 92 percent. Cars aren't driving and they're not paying their tolls. Tremendous revenue loss at the MTA. Port Authority, tremendous revenue loss at airports. The economic impact is beyond anything that any state can deal with. If the federal government doesn't help the states then you're forcing the states to cut funding and the places where the state normally funds will suffer.

If they force me to cut funding, I have to reduce the funding to schools, to local governments and to hospitals. Why would you ever want to reduce funding to these essential agencies at this time? Why would you make me allocated pain among schools, hospitals and local governments? It makes no sense at all. New York alone would need about $35 billion this year just to compensate for the total amount of losses. When you look at Washington and what Washington has done in the past legislation they've passed, when I say they treat it like pork barrel, why? I was in Washington for 8 years in the Clinton administration. Everything becomes a political game, every piece of legislation becomes a political game.

When they passed the past legislation, the money they sent to states was supposed to be for COVID. The whole exercise was this was to compensate for what happened during the COVID virus. They just played politics. Everybody put money in for their home state. When you look at what they actually accomplished, state's like Alaska got like 100 times what New York got for funding. We got about $23,000 for every COVID case, but state's that didn't have very many COVID cases also received a tremendous amount of funding. Our friends in Kentucky, $337,000 for every COVID case. We got $23,000. What they've done in the past made no sense. Also, what they've done in the past is what they always seem to wind up doing.

They bailed out corporate America, that's what they did. You look at the past legislation, they bailed out corporate America. This legislation, this week, going forward, let them fund working Americans because that's the need. You look at the past legislation, they funded hotels, restaurants, airlines, big corporations, public companies. Now it turns out they funded a tax break for millionaires. In the COVID response legislation, that's what they did and they didn't fund state and local governments.

Who do state and local governments fund? I fund police, firefighters, nurses, school teachers and food banks. You took care of corporate America and I don't even want to go through that, but now you're going to starve police and fire and hospitals and schools? Everybody applauds the health care workers, but now you don't want to provide any funding. Separate, last point on Washington.

Don't make the same mistake twice. Don't do what this nation did after the 2007-2008 mortgage crisis bailout where the government bailed out all these bankers and corporations that made a fortune running a mortgage scam. And then when the mortgage scam collapsed and the banks were going to go bankrupt, then the taxpayers had to come in and fund the banks. How does this make sense? The banks make all the profit on the way up. They then get into trouble on the mortgage fraud and we have to bail them out, and who's going to bail them out? The taxpayers are going bail them out. No, it's not that they reap all the profits on the way up and then the taxpayers provide a golden parachute on the way down. That has to stop.

There should be no subsidy for any corporation that lays off employees, period. Because I'll tell you what's going to happen. You will see corporations using this pandemic to lay off workers. That's what you will see. Because they're already saying it to the market analysts. "We're going to get the lean during this period. We're going to right size during this period." What does that mean? It means they're not going to re-hire the same number of employees. So, they're going to boost their corporate profits by reducing the number of employees. That's what it means. That's what it means. Government should not subsidize their reduction of employees and then when they reduce employees government is supposed to now subsidize those employees, unemployment insurance, et cetera. We did it once. We can't do it again.

Here's my suggestion to my colleagues in Washington, the Americans First Law. If a corporation does not rehire the same number of employees, no government money. All the billions that they just gave out, if you don't rehire the same number of employees you had pre-pandemic, you have to return those funds. We're not going to subsidize you to lay off workers. If you can lay off workers and you're saving money by laying off workers, you don't need the American taxpayer to subsidize you. Otherwise you will never get those employment numbers back. Because that's what's going to happen all across the country. And we keep going because we are New York tough. We are smart, united, disciplined, and we are loving.

Every time I say we are loving, I think people must think that is such a strange word for a government official to be talking about, that we are loving. You never hear government talking about loving. You never hear a lot of people talk about loving or love. But at this time, where we are all going through so much pain, and so much stress, and so much anxiety, and we're in a place where we've never been before. It's probably the one thing we need more than anything else. And it's not easy to talk about love. That's why I put it with New York tough. It's not easy to talk about love. I need love to show that vulnerability. It's hard to do that. That's why in some ways you have to be tough to be able to talk about love. But we all need it now because this is hard on everyone. It is hard, I don't care who you are. You can be a governor of the state, a health care worker, public employee, a daughter of a governor, a son, it is hard everyone. And love is the one thing that can make everything better and the one thing we need. When I said today is day 71 with a question mark. Because today is not really just day 71. Today is Mother's Day and that dwarfs all else, day 71, day 70, day 69, it's Mother's Day. And for me, you want to talk about love, the personification of love for me has always been my mother. My father was loving in his way, but he was not warm and cuddly kind of loving. My mother is just always been pure love, just pure sweetness, pure goodness, pure affirmation, unconditional love. Whatever you did. However stupid I was, and I can be pretty stupid. Just that total love of a mother. So, today more than anything else, mothers are special, they're special every day, but how about going through this. I'm talking about nursing homes, you have mothers in nursing homes, families can't get to see them.

Mothers have been doing double duty stuck at home, dealing with all that stress, all that situation. Mothers who have lost mothers, mothers who we've lost during this hellacious period where so many people have lost their parents. So, today is Mother's Day, first and foremost. And today is about love, and showing love, and expressing it, and appreciation for our mothers. And my mother, who I cannot see today, because I am in a position where I am exposed to too many people, and if I go see my mother, Dr. Zucker, blame Dr. Zucker, the health commissioner, says it will be risky for me to see my mother because I want to make sure that I don't infect her with anything. She's stronger than I am, and she's smarter than I am, but I just want to make sure that we don't do that. But I get to say happy Mother's Day to my mother, with my daughters, they're all here, through one means or the other, whatever this is, zoom this, zoom that. Happy Mother's Day to you mom. I miss you, I love you so, so much, I wish I could be with you, but I can't be, but I can't be because I love you. That's why I can't be with you, because I love you. But I know Maria's taking good care of you.

Matilda Cuomo: I miss you too. A lot. And your beautiful daughters.

Cara Kennedy Cuomo: Happy Mother's Day Grandma.

Matilda Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you Cara.

Governor Cuomo: You have Cara there, Cara's with Mariah. Mariah, you want to say happy Mother's Day, Grandmother's Day?

Mariah Kennedy Cuomo: Yes. Happy Mother's Day Grandma. I just was thinking today about this story that I love hearing you tell about how you met the pope, and how he looked you in the eye, took her hand in his, and he said la famiglia. It really captured your spirit. Thank you so much for teaching us what the meaning of family is, both from our own little brood, to the family of New York. I love you.

Matilda Cuomo: Very well said. Thank you.

Governor Cuomo: And I have Michaela here with me.

Michaela Kennedy Cuomo: Hi Grandma. Happy Mother's Day.

Matilda Cuomo: You're up at the capitol.

Michaela Kennedy Cuomo: Yes. But I'm so glad to see your face. We're so grateful to have such a caring Grandma, and one who was a great mother and role model to our dad and aunts and uncles, and such a great mother to so many children beyond our family, so thank you. Love you so much Grandma.

Matilda Cuomo: Thank for that. Thank you so much. I can't forget this, girls. I will never forget this.

Governor Cuomo: Well, you look good, this is going to be over, and then we're going to get back to life as normal and we're going to have fun. And then you can spend more time with me. I know i am your favorite. I know you don't want to say that because you have Maria there, but we'll get to spend time together, and we'll look back at this and we'll say that we're the better for it, right?

Matilda Cuomo: That's right. Time for everything, Andrew.

Governor Cuomo: Alright, well you have fun there, anything you need? Is Maria taking good care of you? You're sure Maria's taking good care of you?

Matilda Cuomo: I have your sister Maria here and I have beautiful granddaughters here as well, so I'm in good company. And all the children, all my grandchildren, I am so blessed, as many mothers today are, and I just thank you so much for everything you do, Andrew, to make families really better than ever. Thank you.

Governor Cuomo: Alright, you have a beautiful day. I'll see you soon. I know you want to see me because I know I'm your favorite deep down inside but you don't want to say it. I love you honey, I'll talk to you later.

Matilda Cuomo: Thank you very much, Andrew. Thank you.

2020-05-11 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Dr. James Malatras to my right. Not a real doctor, but a PhD doctor, which still counts to be a doctor. To my left Secretary Melissa DeRosa, who is the top state official, appointed state official. It’s a pleasure to be with her. It’s a pleasure to be in Rochester today, really Irondequoit, but for most people, they’ll relate to Rochester. It’s a pleasure to be in the Rochester Regional Health Facility, and I want to thank the Present and CEO, Eric Bieber, very much for having us here today. I also, we’re joined by a number of elected officials, I want to thank them for being here. We have County Executive Adam Bello. A pleasure to be with you.

We have that great congressman who had a really challenging position before he went to Congress, because he was working in New York State government, but he’s now in Washington and we need his voice there more than ever. This is going to be a big week in Washington. We need to get the federal government to recognize the situation that state governments face, and fund not just corporate America, but fund working Americans, police, firefighters, school teachers. They have yet to do that to the extent necessary, and hopefully with the leadership of the House we’ll get that done this week.

We have Robert Duffy, who is former mayor of Rochester, my great lieutenant governor in the first term, a pleasure to be with him as we go forward. We have elected officials here with us today. I also asked the elected officials all across the state to join us to understand today’s presentation, so we invited all the county executives, we invited all the mayors to listen to this presentation, because we start a new chapter today in many ways. It’s a new phase, if you will. May 15th is the end of the statewide closure. May 15th is the end of this week, and the question is now going to shift more towards localities and regions across the state to make sure they’re in a position to open, and the state will be working in coordination with them, but it’s an exciting new phase.

We’re all anxious to get back to work. We want to do it smartly, we want to do it intelligently, but we want to do it, and that’s what this week is going to be all about. In terms of where we are, total hospitalizations are down again. That net change is down again. The net change in intubation is down again. The number of lives lost, still too high obviously at 161, but better than it has been, so we see all the arrows are pointed in the right direction. If you look at the number of new COVID cases per day, about 488. That is just about where we started this horrific situation, right?

So May 10th, we’re right about where we were on March 19th before we went into the abyss of the COVID virus, and when you see the number of lives lost, again, we’re right about where we started before we really went into the heart of this crisis, and that’s what it’s been, it’s been a crisis, and a painful one, but we’re coming out of the other side. So in many ways, from my point of view, we’re on the other side of the mountain, right? We got hit with the virus, we saw that incline, we saw the number of cases growing, we saw the number of deaths growing, we finally hit a plateau, because we did what we needed to do, and we changed out behavior and we closed down, and we turned the corner, and then we started to come down the other side, and that was the decline, and now the decline has gotten to a point where we are just about where we started the journey.

So, to turn to reopening, because we have abated the worst by what we’ve done, and now we can intelligently turn towards reopening, and that’s May 15th. That’s this Friday, and local regions all across the state should start to prepare for it, and people as well, and that’s what we want to start to talk about today. We are going to open when we’re ready to open. What does ready to open mean? Well, first the number of hospitalizations, the infection rates show decline. The federal government with CDC guidelines have laid that out, and we think it’s intelligent, and we’ve accepted the federal guidance, and we have testing tracing in place in every local region. Testing tracing, words we never really heard before this situation, but now people hear them every day. Testing, have the capacity to do enough tests. Diagnostic tests, so are you positive or are you negative? Antibody tests, did you have the virus and have you resolved the virus? Have that testing capacity in place. Tracing, when you find a positive case, trace it back and then isolate the positive so you reduce the spread. It sounds simple. It’s a logistical nightmare, never been done before, but that’s what testing tracing is all about, and that has to be done region by region. That capacity has to fit every locality.

We talk about being New York tough and what tough really means, and the second word in New York tough is always smart, and we have been smart through this, and we have to continue to be smart. There are seven metrics, if you will, to get it down to a quantifiable situation that each region has to look at. First are the infection rate, the number of hospitalizations, the 14 day decline in hospitalizations or under 15 new hospitalizations. That means you’re controlling the hospitalizations. New hospitalizations under two per one hundred thousand, so you know that the virus, again, is under control. Then number four, let’s learn from the past. We had a true public health emergency that we were in danger of overwhelming our hospital capacity. Let’s make sure we have 30% buffer in a number of available hospital beds in case that virus takes off again on you. We want to make sure we have hospital beds, so hospitals up to 70%, but 30% available hospital beds, 30% available ICU beds. Many of the people who come in with this virus need an ICU bed. We want to make sure we have the ICU beds if we need them, god forbid. And then, testing capacity so we know what the virus spread is doing. You don’t know what the virus is doing unless you are testing, and then the tracing that fits with the testing program.

We’ve been doing more tests than any state in the United States of America, so New York is way ahead in what we’re doing on testing. We’ve come up to speed faster, we’re doing more tests per capita than any country on the globe, so we’re doing very well in that regard, but you need it in every region. It doesn’t help the Finger Lakes if the Capital District has enough testing, you have to have enough testing and enough tracing in the Finger Lakes. So each region has to have that in place, and we understand that. We can measure this. This has always been about data and science for us, and you can look at each individual region and you will know where each region is in this state by those criteria. So you know what your infection rate is, you know what your hospitalization rate is, you know how many tests you need in place, you know how many tracers you need in place. This can be a science. It can be measured, right? And that’s what we want to do. We want to demystify this entire issue.

It sounds like a science fiction movie, I know. I feel like we’ve been living a science fiction movie, but you can also study it and analyze it, because we have a lot of experience now, right? We’ve been living with this for months, other countries have lived with this for months, so let’s learn, let’s be smart, that’s who we are, and we can do that by each region in this state. And you see, depending on the region in the state, some regions are ready to go today, they just need to get some logistical pieces in order by the end of the week, some places are very close, Central New York just one or two criteria that haven’t been met yet, and you can do that with Long Island, New York City, all across the state.

When we reopen, we’re talking about a phased reopening. That’s what everyone basically is doing. The question is moderating that phasing and doing it intelligently, but starting with construction and manufacturing, retail, curbside pickup, agriculture, forestry and fishing, then to phase two, phase three, phase four, monitoring all along. We start with businesses that are more essential and pose a lower risk, right? Because once you say, “We’re going to reopen,” they say, “Well, what first?” Well, really everybody says “Me first.” After “Me first,” what businesses first? Those that are most essential and those that pose a lower risk because you can socially distance, et cetera. That’s the matrix to make the decision.

And then, businesses have to do their part also. This is not a one sided affair. Businesses have to put safety precautions in place. We understand what has to be done, how the workforce has to have personal protection, they have to be socially distanced, the workspace itself in some cases has to be adjusted, reconfigured. How do you have people work but they’re six feet apart? They don’t come to a cafeteria, there’s no gathering, right? That’s what we’re trying to avoid. And then, what processes do we have in place to test those employees, or if an employee is symptomatic, you can get them testing right away. You can then do tracing within the workforce. You look at what’s going on around the country, just listen to the news. There’s meat processing plants where you have hundreds and hundreds of workers getting sick. We have an agriculture plant in Madison County that dozens of people got sick. It’s not about the meat, or the agriculture. It’s the gathering. It’s the density. That’s what creates the problem. So, learning those lessons and making sure we don’t make those mistakes here.

On retail, all retail would be authorized to do curbside pickup, or drop off, or in store pickup. The essential retail, which we’ve been, has been open all along, will continue operating under the current protocols. We’ll also open certain businesses statewide, which are low risk. Landscaping, gardening, low-risk recreational activities like tennis, drive in movie theaters. Talk about going back to the future, back to drive in movie theaters. I’m okay with that by the way.

Local officials, they have to do their work and their responsibility. Testing and tracing, they have to have those systems in place. We have to have a system in place regionally to monitor the infection rate with the hospitals. That connection has to be very close. They have to know on a day to day basis, if not an hour to hour basis, how many people are walking into the hospitals. I often do conference calls with all the hospitals in the state to find out exactly what is going on, because they can tell you how many people walk through the door that morning, or that afternoon. And you want to be able to watch that. And that has to be done on a regional basis.

Businesses have to follow these new rules, but we have to make sure they’re following those rules also. And you will get calls from employees who say, I went back to work, but by the way, I’m not comfortable. I don’t think this is appropriate social distancing. I don’t think I’ve been given the appropriate equipment. Regional governments have to be in a position to respond to those. The local governments have to be in communication with each other. We do this on a regional basis. So, there are a number of counties in that region, but it’s one region. And this virus doesn’t respect county borders, or state borders. Those governments have to be in contact with each other. If you know what’s happening with your neighbor, you know what’s happening in your district. So that has to be in place and that has to work.

And there’s also something we call a regional control room, which is made up of the top officials, government officials, academic officials, healthcare professionals, that are watching the situation in that region develop. You are going to increase activity, depending on how intelligently you increase activity will be the possible effect on the spread of the virus. You need to know what the impact is, you need to know it in real time, and you need to be in a position to respond. If it does not go well, and you see that infection rate moving, because the hospitals tell you they see an increase, or because your testing data shows an increase. You have to be able to pull the plug, or slow down the increase in activity. And that’s what we call the circuit breaker, right.

So, you’re increasing the activity. You’re watching the infection rate. You’re watching the hospitalization rate. You see that start to tick up. You have to have a circuit breaker, slow down the activity level, because you’re increasing the infection rate, and nobody wants to be there. That means you’re going back to the other side of the mountain, and we just made it over the mountain. Nobody wants to go back to the other side of the mountain. So those regional control groups are very important. They have to be in place. They have to communicate. Everyone has to know what each other’s responsibilities are going forward.

And we have been working with the regions all across the state over the past few weeks, we have those groups assembled. But this week it’s Monday, before Friday start talking, start communicating, understand who does what, where. And that’s true in regions all across the state. But I would urge them now to get on the telephone, or Zoom, or whatever your preferred technology. Start talking, start understanding what happens on Friday. What do our numbers look like. And let’s get that all set sooner rather than later.

This is the next big step in this historic journey. First phase was figure out what we were dealing with, because we had no idea. Scramble frankly, to deal with a situation that dropped from another planet. Stabilize. Ramp up the healthcare system. Inform people. Get people to understand what we were dealing with, and control the damage. That’s the mountain to me. We’re now on the other side of the mountain. Next step. How do we reopen? How do we reopen intelligently? And how do we reopen without taking a step back?

Well, what we have done thus far is really amazing. And it was because we were smart, and because we were unified. And because we did that, we averted tragedy. Let’s just remember where we were, right. Remember where you were before you take a step forward. We had the virus that attacked us from Europe. The virus was coming. They now say, the experts now say, the geniuses now say the virus came from Europe in January and February. And you know what, no one knew. No one knew. With all the sophistication, with all the public health organizations, with that whole alphabet soup of agencies, nobody knew the virus was coming from Europe. Everybody’s looking at China, and the virus is coming from Europe. Why? Because by the time we moved, the virus had traveled from China to Europe. And then people are getting on flights from Europe, coming to New York. Two million travelers, two million travelers came from Europe. We had no idea.

So New York, the East Coast, people were landing at JFK. They were landing at Newark Airport. And that’s where the virus came from. January, February, March, nobody knew. European travel ban goes into effect mid March. It’s too late. It was already here. Okay, let’s learn the lesson going forward. But that was the situation. Those were the cards we were dealt. That’s why New York had such high numbers. Not because there’s anything special or different about New York, but because New York is where the European flights were coming in. And we didn’t know. That was the situation that we were handed.

They then say, well, we project hospitalizations to be 120,000. I said 120,000? You know how many hospital beds we have in this state? 50,000. How can we have hospitalizations of 120,000, if we only have 50,000 beds counting every bed in the entire state of New York. If you could coordinate every bed, you are at 53,000 beds, and they projected 120,000. So, scrambled to try to get more hospital beds. But the only real course was, you have to reduce the infection rate. How do you reduce the infection rate? You have to close down, stop people from spreading, stop gathering, stop density. We did that. Otherwise, thousands more people would have died. Thousands more would have died. That is not rhetorical. That is not dramatic. That is a factual statement. Thousands more people would’ve died. We made that happen. We changed that trajectory. I didn’t even know was possible at one time.

When this started, we were at a truly bad and frightening place. If we didn’t change the trajectory of this virus, and we had 120,000 people show up at our hospitals, we would have made the situation in Italy look like a walk in the park. We were really at a very, very bad place. Again, through no fault of our own. A virus came from Europe. Whoever would have figured that. Somebody should’ve, but, above my pay grade. We changed the trajectory, dramatically by what we did. And that was smart, but we have to stay smart, and we have to stay united. You look at what we’ve done. New York, the cases are now on the decline. You look at the rest of the nation outside of New York, the cases are still on the incline. We took the worst situation in the nation, and changed the trajectory, so now we’re on the decline. The rest of the nation, the cases are still on the incline. That is because of what the people in this state did.

If you had said, when we started this, yes, we have more cases than anyone else. Yes, we had this European virus attack us and nobody expected it. But we’re not only going to change our trajectory, we’re going to change the trajectory more dramatically than any place else in the nation. And when you look at the nation compared to New York, you’re going to see us on the decline, the rest of the nation on the incline. People would have said it was impossible, but we did it. But we have to stay smart. On this next phase, we have to learn from the mistakes that others have made, and we’re not the first to reopen. And that’s a good thing, because you can look around and learn. Other countries reopened too fast. They didn’t have controls in place, and they reopened, and then they had to slow down, or they had to stop. We don’t want to do that. We want to monitor our reopening, so if there’s any change, we can immediately calibrate it. Some states have not coordinated their actions. So you have one county doing this, another county doing this, you’ve confused the general public. And by the way, Monroe County cannot open in and of itself. Onondaga County cannot open in and of itself, Albany County cannot open in and of itself. There is no county by county plan here. It has to be coordinated, and it has to be at least in a region. And we did that, other states didn’t, it was smart.

And there’s one set of rules, and the public has to understand the set of rules. Some states are opening, even though they haven’t met the CDC guidelines, which I don’t even know how that happens. Federal government says, here are the CDC guidelines, which are basic health guidelines. Some states don’t meet those guidelines and they’re opening anyway. Well, there’s a lot of pressure to open. I know, but pressure doesn’t mean you act unintelligently. Some states opened and then saw a rush of people from surrounding states. We’ve talked about that here, the concept of an attractive nuisance. Finger Lakes opens, you can’t open up an attraction or a site that will be attracting people from outside the region, and then you have a problem you never encountered. So that’s something to watch.

And some places never really made the people part of the plan. And that is a fundamental mistake. Because we are not at a point where government is going to solve anything, frankly. This is people who are solving the problem. Personal opinions, opposed to facts. I did one thing right as governor that I’m proud of. I got the people involved in this situation to a greater degree than they have been involved, probably in modern history, probably in modern history.

From day one, this was of such a magnitude that unless people engaged and understood and bought into this, government was impotent. State government can’t enforce any of these things that we did, stay in the house, close every school, close every business, state government can’t enforce that. People had to understand the facts and people had to engage in governing themselves in a way they hadn’t in decades. I don’t know what happened, I’m still trying to figure out once society got to a place where people would accept the lack of professionalism from government, the lack of competence from elected officials. I don’t know when government became so political, and it all became about rhetoric rather than actual competence. But it happened somewhere along the way, that government could not handle this situation. People had to get engaged, people had to be informed. And that’s the one thing I did right.

Now, they got engaged because it mattered. This is not an abstract issue. You’re talking about people’s lives and people’s health, and the health of their children. So they were interested, they were engaged, but they were also informed. And I worked very hard every day to make sure they knew the facts, trust the people, Lincoln, and informed public will keep this country safe. True, and that’s exactly what happened here. And that’s what we’re going to continue to do. People need to be part of this.

The whole plan that we’re outlining today is all down, it’s online, it’s in a book, people need to understand exactly how we do this second phase, just the way they understood how we were going to get over that mountain, and how we were going to flatten the mountain, they have to understand now how we reopened, and they have to be part of it. Understand the plan, hold me accountable, hold me accountable, hold your local officials accountable, but people have to be part of it. And they have to know the facts and know what we’re doing, because it’s going to come down to how people react and how people behave.

And if they understand what we’re doing, they will do it, just as I couldn’t enforce any of this on day one, the local officials are not going to be able to enforce it either. Nobody’s going to mandate personal behavior. People have to wear a mask, people have to be smart when they show up at work, people have to be smart when they shop. They have to understand, this is not the floodgates are open, go back, do everything you were doing. Be smart, nobody’s going to protect your health, but you. No one’s going to protect your children’s health, but you. Well, children aren’t effected. Oh, really? That’s another fact that they’re going to change on us.

Now we’re worrying about, we have 93 cases that we’re investigating of young children who have COVID-related diseases. So this is about keeping yourself smart, and keeping yourself healthy, and keeping your family healthy. We’ll do everything we can, but you have to be New York tough. Smart is the first word after tough, united, disciplined, loving.

2020-05-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Pleasure to be with all of you today. Let me introduce who we have with us. To my far right, we have, we have a very loud noise that is very disturbing. Has nothing to do with the, Gareth Rhodes, however, who's a big part of our effort here. To his left, my right, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To my left, we have Mr. James Malatras, Ph.D. doctor. It's a pleasure to be in Binghamton today at Binghamton state university, brand new school of pharmacy. President Harvey Stenger, thank you very much for having us. It's a beautiful new facility, pleasure to be here. We're getting a little bit of a late start, I wanted to hear the Senate briefing this morning on the COVID virus, see if there was any new thinking. Let us give you the facts and some of the new thinking that we're doing here in New York.

Number of total hospitalizations in the state is down again. That is good news. The net change in hospitalizations, three-day rolling average, little more accurate, that's down. The intubation rate is down. Look, that's just about where we were when we started. Literally the closedown and literally.

Number of lives lost, about 195 yesterday. That is the most devastating number that we have to deal with every day. It's actually up a little bit from the day before. But overall, the trend is down. And if you look at the number of lives lost, again, we're just about where we were when we started before we saw the onslaught of the virus and then dealt with it and changed the trajectory of the virus. Never forget what we did here. What New Yorkers did, by their actions and theirsacrifice. They saved lives. They saved hundreds of thousands of lives because that projection of what the virus was supposed to do was much, much worse than what it wound up doing. So we're making real progress, there's no doubt. But there's also no doubt that it's no time to get cocky, no time to get arrogant. This virus has deceived us every step of the way. We have been behind this virus from the very beginning. And it still surprises us.

We thought, initially, that it didn't affect children. We're now dealing with an issue that's very disturbing. We have about 100 cases of a inflammatory disease in young children that seems to be created by the COVID virus. And this is something that is just starting and New York is leading the investigation of this situation. The symptoms of the children are analyzed to the Kawasaki disease, or toxic shock-like syndrome, but it's an inflammation of the blood vessels and can affect the heart. We've lost three children, 5-year-old boy, 7-year-old boy, an 18-year-old girl. The ages of the children affected in these 100 cases is all across the board, as you can see. Less than one year old, predominately 5 to 14, but we lost a young lady at 18 years old and we have some cases up to 21 years old. So this is a truly disturbing situation and I know parents around the state and around the country are very concerned about this and they should be. If we have this issue in New York, it's probably in other states, and probably hasn't been diagnosed yet in other states. Because again, these children don't present the usual COVID symptoms. They're not respiratory symptoms. And I think that's one of the reasons why people haven't found it yet. But they know what the symptoms are, if your child has the symptoms that they are saying are symptoms that should cause an alert. We need parents to be advised. We also have the state Department of Health that is telling hospitals and medical providers to prioritize testing for the COVID virus for any children that are demonstrating these symptoms.

At the same time, while we're not cocky or arrogant, we're talking about reopening. We have to get back to work. We all do. We talk about New York being tough but tough also means smart and we have been smart all through this.

You look at where we are today. The curve in New York - New York is on the decline. You take New York out of the numbers for the rest of the nation, the nation is still on the incline in the number of cases. So we have been smart. We got hit worst because the virus was coming through Europe. Nobody even told us. Nobody even knew. But we took the worst and we turned the curve and we are, we have a better curve now than you see in many other states and certainly as the United States as a whole.

So reopening, yes. But it still means we have to be smart. What does smart mean? It means following the CDC guidelines to begin with. Follow the data. Follow the science. We said that from day one. Don't fall subject to a motion and politics. Stay with the science and the data. Listen to Dr. Fauci. Even this morning he said if you don't follow the CDC guidelines you run a real risk of triggering an outbreak that can get out of control.

What is out of control? Out of control is when the number of people infected going to your hospital system overwhelm your hospital system. That is what happened in Italy. That was our great fear here in New York. But that is a very real situation that people have to watch from.

Smart means learning from the mistakes of others. We're not the first one down this path. Study what China did and South Korea did and Germany did. Look at what's happening in the other states and inform your actions by what happened in other places that went through this same process and you'll see many of the other places rushed reopening and actually had to backtrack and then close again. That's the last thing that we would want here in New York.

Smart means regional management, local government managed and engaged and citizen participation because this all turns on what people do. This is not about government. Government can offer advice and suggestions and guidance but it's about what people do. Why did we turn the curve in New York? Because people acted responsibly and intelligently.

And we also have to do it in a way that is totally transparent. I want every New Yorker to know all the facts because it's up to New Yorkers. It's up to the people and how they respond. Then give them the information and trust their judgment. Trust their judgment. What did we learn here? That when people are informed of facts that they actually believe, which is saying something, but if you give them the real facts that they believe a real facts and not political facts, not partisan facts, not spin, not hype, not some rhetoric from a politician who's trying to get something for themselves. If you give them the real facts they will respond intelligently but you have to give them the real facts and that's transparency. That's what smart means and that's what we're doing here in New York.

All the facts are on the website. All the facts for your region are on the website. You know exactly what I know. I don't know anything more than I am telling the people of the State of New York and you can see the changes in your region. Capital District in New York changed overnight. You can see the changes in the direction in your region.

And then what are we doing? We have our hand on the reopening valve and we're turning the reopening valve and we're starting to reopen. But we're calibrating it and we're monitoring it. The first monitoring device is the diagnostic testing - positive or negative. People need to go. People need to be tested. We have more tests than ever. We're testing more than any other state in the United States. We've come up to speed faster than any other state. People have to take the test. We have it available in drive throughs, in pharmacies, and you watch that testing rate day to day to see if the testing rate is going up, more people testing positive. Then once you test then comes you're tracing, then comes your isolation operation, et cetera.

Second monitoring device as you're doing antibody testing. The antibody testing tells you how many people have had the virus and have recovered from the virus. There is a little lag in the antibody testing because it's really telling you who was infected 2 weeks ago or 2.5 weeks ago. But if you see that number going up you know more people have gotten infected. You then have the hospitalization rate which is very important. You know every day now because of the system we put in place how many people walked into a hospital with COVID. Watch that hospitalization rate. If you see the hospitalization rate going up, you have a problem. And watch the hospitalization rate in terms of the capacity of the hospitals. That's what we've been dealing with for the past 2 months. We've said you have to have a 30 percent buffer in the capacity of hospitals. So, if that infection spikes you have a 30 percent buffer in terms of capacity. But watch that hospitalization rate and they will then give you the infection rate - the RT. They will tell you, those gauges will tell you the rate of transmission from one person to another person. And if one person is infecting more than 1 of the person, 1.1, that's the outbreak that Dr. Fauci was talking about. And you can compute these rates, you can monitor exactly what you are doing. There is a science to this and there is a methodology to this that erases all the theories, right?

Everybody has a theory. "I think this. I think that I think that. I think warm weather is going to make a difference. I think God is going to do something." Yes, I know everybody has a theory. Just tell me the facts. Tell me the numbers and that's what I want to tell the people of this state. And respond to the facts, local region then manages this system. They monitor those numbers we're talking about. They control that valve. They make sure businesses are complying with the safety precautions when the businesses go back. Every business is going to say "don't worry, don't worry, I'll have safety precautions, I'll socially distance, I'll give equipment." Yes, are they actually doing that? Are we staying away from large gatherings? Are we making sure? That's up to the local government.

And then built in is circuit breaker that when those gauges hit red turn off the valve. Hopefully you don't get to that point because you have been monitoring, and you calibrate, and you adjust the valve a little bit at the time. But worst-case scenario you turn off of that. That's what other countries have had to do when they open that reopening too quickly. No other state had this accurate or transparent a monitoring mechanism. But I want people to know exactly what is going on in your community day to day because you are the ones who are determining what happens in your community - nobody else. No governor, no senator, no elected official, it's what people do. It's what our neighbors do. The regional control group are the top elected officials, academic officials, top health care professionals in that region in that community, and they're the ones who are going to have to make it work. But this will be online every morning or every day and everyone can see exactly what is happening literally day to day. No other state has the system. No other state is as transparent. No other state is gathering local data so it can present data state wide every day. We're doing it because the secret of our success has been exactly this. The secret of our success, the one thing I did right, was communicate to people and trust people that with the right information they will might make the right decisions. This is the most advanced way in the nation to give people, to give citizens, the information they need to lead their lives correctly. And that will that will be online in the next couple of days. But Friday is May 15th is the opening date and this will be online.

To act smartly, right. We all have heard Washington say many, many times the governors are in charge of reopening. Thank you very much. So, the governors are in charge of reopening, but that doesn't mean the states are on their own, the governors are on their own. We need federal help. We need federal assistance and they're talking about passing a piece of legislation in Washington this week. It has to be a smart piece of legislation this time. What does that mean? No handouts to greedy corporations, no political pork, and no partisanship. Sometimes, there has to be a time in history when the federal government is willing to stop playing partisan politics. And if it's not through this experience, through this crisis, it will never be. That's the first definition of smart for the federal government. The bill has the fund state and local governments. It has to fund working families. It has to fund state testing and tracing.

Everybody talks about testing and tracing. It's up to testing tracing. It is, no one has done it before. No state has this testing capacity. No state has this tracing capacity. We have to build it. We can do it, but it's a heck of a logistical endeavor and we need funding to do it. And we need a real economic stimulus. This economy has been damaged through no fault of anyone. Through an act of God with this covid virus. But to get this economy back up and running we're going to need an intelligent stimulus bill from Washington.

When I say no pork barrel, what does that mean? When they pass a piece of legislation in Washington every senator sees it as their opportunity to bring home bacon to their state. This is supposed to be about the covid virus and repairing damage from the covid virus. Keep it about the covid virus. Last bill when they did it, they were talking about providing money to states that didn't really have a major covid problem. So, how would the state spend the money? They were talking about building a new state capital in some states, because they didn't have enough covid cases to justify the federal allocation. So, they were looking for ways to spend the money. How ludicrous is that, right? This is somebody's money. This is a tax payers' money. They worked hard. They're willing to help solve the problem of covid, but keep it about the covid virus.

Second, I understand businesses need to recover. This doesn't have to be a giveaway to the rich millionaires who are doing just fine anyway. And it doesn't have to be a giveaway to big business. It shouldn't be that another episode in history where somehow the rich figure out a way to get more assistance. When it's supposed to be about helping average Americans and that's the people who really need help here, are the working families. Families that go paycheck to paycheck. They're the ones who are struggling and the essential workers who have been so great for so long. Police officers, firefighters, nurses, school teachers. The people who literally need food. I mean, I have people literally saying, "I need food to feed my family." We have unprecedented demand at food banks. Those are the people who really need help and those are the people who our state government funds.

New York State, we know what happened to our economy. We know what our budget looks like. We need $61 billion in federal support or we will wind up aggravating the situation, because when you don't fund the state, who does the state fund? State funds schools, local governments, and hospitals. You really want New York State to turn around and have to cut schools and cut local governments? You know who local governments are? That's police, firefighters. You want me to cut hospitals? Hospitals are the nurses and the doctors who just got us through this and everyone celebrates as heroes. If you don't fund the state that's who you're cutting in terms of finances. Now, this is not a red issue, blue issue. Yes, I'm a Democrat, but this is not about politics. I have Democrats, I have Republicans in my state. I have Independents, I have short people, I have tall people. In New York, we have everything. If you're going to be an effective statewide leader, forget red and blue. It does not work, and every state, red states, blue states, they all need funding. You put the governor's in charge, the states are heading the reopening, they need funds to do it. There's an organization called the national Governors Association, NGA. Democratic and Republican governors. It's headed by a Republican governor, Governor Hogan. I'm the vice chairman, I'm a Democrat. We do a joint statement today, saying states need funding, and not pork barrel funding and not funding that flows through the states but gets to their special interests. That's not what we want. We want funding to allow us to do our job. Democrats and Republicans working together are going to make this statement, and Washington should listen.

The federal bill should also be responsive to working families. What are the problems that working families are facing? They come to me with? "I can't pay my rent. I can't pay my mortgage. I'm afraid that once this forbearance period ends, the bank is going to send me 3-months' worth of mortgage payments, I'm not going to be able to pay. I'm afraid that once this forbearance period ends. I'm going to get a bill for 3 months of back-rent, and I can't pay it and I'm going to be evicted." That's what real families are talking about now. They're afraid that they're not going to get their jobs back. The funeral costs for families - funeral costs are devastating. That's reality for working families and your homeowners in the state and many of the states affected by COVID Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Michigan. Same state that have to go COVID problem, that just were have been additional tax from Washington when they repealed what's called SALT - state and local tax deduction. It was a theft by Washington to increase taxes on certain states - New York is one of them, Massachusetts is one, California's one. And it hurt homeowners, because you can't deduct your state and local taxes anymore. It was punitive. It was political. It was wrong. You want to help taxpayers? You want to help homeowners? You want to help the places that were hit by COVID? Repeal SALT, and that's what should be done in this bill.

And you also have to fund state testing and tracing. We can put together the operation. It's not going to be easy. It's going to entail thousands of people in this state to test and trace. But we need funding from Washington to make that happen. And if you want to be creative and aggressive and smart, what we need more than ever, the bill shouldn't just reopen America. Now was a chance to actually reimagine America, okay? You need to stimulate the economy. You need to create jobs. You need to get people back to work. Now is the time to invest in building and rebuilding. Invest in public infrastructure. Build airports, bridges, mass transit. Build a public health infrastructure so we can handle a situation like this next time.

The investment in public infrastructure is long overdue. They've talked about this for years. There are dozens and dozens of reports that will talk about the bad shape of our roads and our bridges and how bad our airports are compared to international airports and we haven't built a new airport in the country in 25 years? While all the other countries are building new airports? Now is our time to do it. Every president - Democrats, Republicans they have all said the same thing. "Our public infrastructure is crumbling. We need to create jobs. We should invest in public infrastructure." Now is the time to do it. And if not now, when? If you can't agree on a stimulus for the economy to rebuild this country today, when are you ever going to do it?

Last point on this, no bail out boondoggles. Do not betray the American people again. Why do I say again? Because I went through the 2008 bail out, which was the bail out for the banks after the mortgage crisis. I went through that. They bailed out the banks. You know what the banks did? They gave it to their employees and they got rich. You know who paid the bill? The American taxpayer paid the bill and the homeowner paid the bill when the equity in their home disappeared overnight. Everybody said oh, we can't let the banks fail so the taxpayers had to bail out the banks. The banks turned around and gave bonuses to their executives. I know because I was the Attorney General of New York at the time. I had to try to clean up the mess. I had to go after the banks for the bail out that Washington gave them that they were giving in multimillion dollar bonuses to their executives. The same executives who had created the mortgage scams in the first place. Don't do it again.

I'll tell you today what the new scam is going to be. The new scams is going to be these corporations are going to use this pandemic to lay off workers. That is what they're going to do. They're already saying it. They do these analyst calls where they tell the analysts why their stock value is going to go up. What they're saying is we're not going to hire the same amount of workers. We're going to rehire fewer workers, our profit margin goes up, our dividend goes up, our stock value goes up.

Yeah, except the American workers are left on the beach. That's what they are going to do. Mark my words today. I want to propose a law that's very simple: Americans First. Americans first. Not America first, Americans first. Protect the worker. Corporation wants a bail out? Corporation wants money? Fine. But if you do not rehire the same number of employees, give the money back. If you do not rehire the same number of employees, no government gift and bail out for you. That's the Americans First law. Very simple but undeniable.

I've spoken to a number of members of the Congressional delegation for New York. They're going to propose the Americans First law. No bail out boondoggles. I'm excited about that. I've also spoken to the Congressional delegation about what I just talked to you about, what we need in this bill. What the state and local governments need, what working families need, and I believe our delegation actually has an opportunity to lead the way. It's not just New York that's tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving, but we have a federal government that gives us a United States of America that is tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving.

Let me leave you with one point of personal opinion. Yesterday - personal opinion so it's worth what you're paying for it and since you're not paying for it, it's easy. Yesterday I went for a walk with my daughter - I had to take the dog for a walk. Even the dog is getting a little out of sorts. I think he has COVID virus himself, the dog.

So, we take the dog for a walk with my daughter, Michaela. She's my young one, she's 22 years old. So, we're going for a walk and everybody's wearing masks and a lot of people wearing gloves, which is very smart. One fellow says to me, "I wear the gloves because when I wear gloves I don't touch my face as much." Which is interesting because you don't want to touch your face, right? You don't want to touch your mouth, your noses, your eyes even.

So, it's a pleasant day, going for a pleasant walk. We come across one fellow who is not wearing a mask. I said something to the gentleman about the mask. We started to have a discussion about wearing masks and not wearing masks. And we were in a little bit of a disagreement, and the conversation got a little tense so I stopped the conversation because otherwise I'd get a lecture from my 22-year-old Michaela. I don't lecture Michaela, Michaela does lecture me. So, I let it alone, and we finished the walk and it was all very nice. Not that she gave me any credit for leaving the conversation alone.

But, I did want to make a point to that gentleman that I didn't get to make, but it's a sort of a universal point. People send me masks now, and some really beautiful masks. Some are personalized, this one says Governor Cuomo, was made for me. Some say New York Tough, beautiful colors. I have masks sent to me from sports teams, I have Buffalo Bills masks, I have a Giants, Jets, Mets, Yankees mask. This one sent to me says E Pluribus Unum, which I love. Out of many, one. But, any mask, even if it says nothing, it does say something. Doesn't have words on it, but it makes a statement.

When you wear a mask, you say, I respect you. That's what the mask says to everyone you walk past. I respect you. I respect you. I respect your health, I respect your privacy, I respect your space, I respect you. I can do anything I want with myself. This is America. But I respect you. And out of respect for you, I wear this mask. This mask says I respect the nurses and the doctors who killed themselves through this virus to save other people. And I respect the nurses and the doctors, so I'm not going to infect anyone, or allow anyone else to be infected unnecessarily so I don't cause more stress on the nurses and the doctors. This mask says, I respect the essential workers who get up every day, and drive the bus, or drive the train, or deliver the food, or keep the lights on so that I can stay home and I can stay safe. It says I respect others. And I respect you. And that is a statement that we should all be willing to make any day. But especially in the middle of this. Yes, I want individuals to be informed so they make the right decision, but it's about us at the end of the day, right. It's a mindset that says it's not about me, it's about we. And we have reciprocal responsibilities, and a collective and a mutuality that says, I'm going to respect you, and help you, and you're going to help me, and respect me. That's how your battle community spread, with community unity. That's what the mask says.

2020-05-13 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. It’s a pleasure to be here. Let me introduce the people who were with me, those over you are not familiar with them. To my right Dr. Howard Zucker, who is the New York State Commissioner of Health and is doing a fantastic job here. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To her left, Gareth Rhodes, who’s Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services but has been working with us on this COVID situation. He’s been doing a great job, pleasure to be in the north country today, Jefferson County. I want to thank Dr. Ty Stone for having us and the hospitality today. I wear a mask. Apparently it doesn’t say anything. You don’t see any words on it. But when someone wears a mask, it says to other people, I respect you. I respect your family. I respect the work of our frontline heroes, the nurses, the doctors, et cetera. And I wear this mask to protect you and your family because I respect you. It’s a sign of respect, and all the New Yorkers, I believe, should do it.

Let’s talk about the facts today and the situation we’re looking at today. Number of hospitalizations are down again, so that is good news. The rolling total of the number of hospitalizations has been down, and that’s good news. Number of intubations is down, and that’s good news. And new cases per day, which is something we watch very carefully, little bit up but overall down. I refer to that as the mountain. You see the outline of the Mountain Adirondacks. We know about mountains. You see how fast we went up and how much slower the decline was. And that’s important. That’s what the national experts are talking about when they say you could have an outbreak that you couldn’t recover from. The increase, the incline is very fast. The virus travels very quickly, and then the getting control of the outbreak is much slower and much harder.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: (08:53)
And that was the experience had here in New York. You see how fast it went up and how many days of super effort by New Yorkers it took to get that spread under control and to reduce the rate of new cases. The number of lives lost, still painfully and tragically high. These are not numbers. These are families. These are lost individuals. They’re fathers, and mothers and brothers and sisters. And 166 families are in pain today, and they are in our thoughts and prayers. When you look at where we are today, we’re just about where we were when we started this terrible situation. So we have, hopefully, come through the worst. We paid a heck of a price for it, but we’ve come through the worst.

One of the things we’ve been very diligent in doing is taking care of our essential workers. We owe them. There’s still a right thing in life and a wrong thing. There’s still obligation and gratitude. And the essential workers we owe. We closed down everything. We communicated how important it was to do that, how deadly this virus was. And then we told the essential workers, “But you have to show up tomorrow even though this is a deadly virus. We need you to show up, nurses, doctors, transit workers, police officers. We need you to go to work while everybody else can stay home and try to be safe.” They made a tremendous sacrifice, and I ask them to do it myself day after day. And I told them we would do everything we needed to do to protect them. We’ve been doing testing of the essential workers to see if we have a problem anywhere. And good news has been the frontline workers are testing at lower rates than the general population.

So Downstate New York, the transit workers tested, about 14% of the overall number tested positive. That’s compared to New York City. We’re about 19.9% of the general population. The healthcare workers, 12%. think about that. Nurses, doctors in emergency rooms, 12%. You know what that means? That means PPE works. Masks work. Gloves work. hand sanitizing works. How do healthcare workers have a lower percentage of infection than the general population? Because people don’t wear these at home and they don’t take the precautions. But this works NYPD, 10%. Fire Department, 17%. We then sampled the New York State Police who’ve been doing extraordinary work. We sampled 2,700, which is a large sample of the State Police. Only 3% tested positive, and that’s general population Upstate New York of about 12%. So that’s also very good news. And then we tested the people who worked at work at DOCS, our Department of Correction Services.

Prisons we’ve also been very careful because prisons you have a congregate population. Wherever you have those gatherings that’s where we see that virus spread. So we did a test of those people who work at the Department of Corrections, primarily corrections officials. We sampled over 3,000. 7.5%. again, below the general population rate.

So that should give us all some peace of mind that the essential workers were out there. They are doing fantastic work for us, and we’ve made sure that they were protected in doing the work that they’re doing. All of the frontline workers, public service frontline workers, tested below the general population. So we should feel good about that. Also, I want people to know that elective surgeries are going to start in 12 more counties, and that’s important. We had stopped elective surgery so we had additional hospital capacity for COVID patients. But as the number of COVID cases has come down, we can restart elective surgeries. Also, ambulatory services. So that is good news. A lot of attention on reopening now.

And we’re doing something in this state that no other state is doing. We are doing the most transparent discussion and reopening operation of any state. Why? Because it only works if people understand it and if people are part of it. This is not a government exercise that we’re doing here. This is a social exercise. The 19 million people of New York State are doing this. And the best I can do is give them the information. And I believe in them. And I believe in the people. And I believe when they have the right information and they trust the information and they know the information is actually factual, as opposed to some type of political jargon, they will do the right thing. And they have, and that’s how we bent that curve and flattened that curve. Same thing on reopening. You will know exactly what is happening in your region and your county. You’ll know the facts. You’ll know the numbers on a daily basis. And you’ll know what we’re doing. We heard testimony yesterday from the National experts, Dr. Fauci, who warns of suffering and death if the U.S reopens too soon. If you reopen the economy too soon, people are not taking the precautions, you have gatherings, the virus will transfer, and you’ll see a spike in hospitalizations, and you’ll see a spike in deaths. What’s the key in that expression? The key is too soon. If you open too soon. All right, what does that mean too soon? Too soon means you’re opening, you’re increasing activity at a rate that the hospital system cannot handle, and people are not taking the right precautions, that’s what too soon means. Well, then how do we calibrate too soon? You can measure exactly what you are doing. The red valve is the reopening valve. You start the reopening valve, activity increases, you’re doing diagnostic testing. Are you positive or you’re negative? And, you watch that rate.

You’re doing antibody testing, which tells you how many people were infected, and you watch that rate you know on a day to day basis now how many people are walking into the hospital with COVID. We have those numbers, never had them before. We have them now. You watch that rate every day, and if you watch those rates you know how fast the virus is spreading, what they call the rate of transmission, the RT, so too soon, watch the numbers, watch the measures. There is a science to this, and that has to be watched in every county, in every region, and it has to be monitored, and you see those numbers starting to move, you will know if you’re reopening too soon, and if people aren’t taking the right precautions, and if you see that virus spreading, so give the information to the people. That’s what I’m trying to do, that’s what I’ve been trying to do from day one, because government can’t do any of this. This is a function of the actions of every individual, and every family.

We’ll have a regional control group, for the north country, for every region in the state, watch those numbers every day. Make sure those businesses are complying, make sure people are complying, and watch it day to day, and you’ll know if the activity is increasing to a level that is increasing the rate of transmission, and act accordingly, and that has to be done on a region by region basis. Now, also with this virus, we must stay alert, because we’re still learning, and what we thought we knew doesn’t always turn out to be true. This virus has been ahead of us every step of the way in this country. When we first started with this virus, we were told it was coming from China, right? Wuhan province, it came from China, and it’s going to come from the China now to the United States.

It turns out it didn’t come from China to the United States. It did in some parts of the country, but the East Coast, it turns out it came from Europe. I talk to everyone all day long. In the beginning of this nobody ever said, “It’s coming from Europe.” And, we had two million Europeans come to New York, New Jersey, the big airports, international airport, JFK, and no one knew it was coming from Europe, because it had gone from China to Europe, and then, it gets here from Europe. No one knew. Once you have the virus, you have antibodies, and then, you’re immune from further infection. That was stated as a fact. Now, it turns out maybe you’re not immune even if you had it, maybe you have some immunity, but not total immunity. We’re not sure.

Then we were told children are not affected by COVID virus. Great. Sigh of relief. Less than 1% of New Yorkers who were hospitalized under 20 years old. Now, we’re finding out that may not be a hundred percent accurate either, because now we’re seeing cases. The Department of Health is investigating, and New York is in many ways the tip of the arrow here looking at 102 cases where children who may have been infected with the COVID virus show symptoms of an inflammatory disease, like the Kawasaki disease, or toxic shock like syndrome. We have lost three children in New York because of this. Five year old boy, seven year old boy, and an 18 year old girl, and these cases are all across the state, predominantly, where the population is.

60% of these children tested positive for the COVID virus, 40% tested positive for the antibodies of the COVID virus. That means children either currently had the virus, or could have had it several weeks ago, and now have the antibodies saying that they had the virus, and they recovered from the virus. 70% of the cases went into ICU, which means they’re serious. When you go into intensive care it means it’s serious. 19% resulted in intubation, which means they’re very serious. 43% of the cases are still hospitalized. On the age, when they say children it’s across the board. It can be under one year old, it can be up to 20, 21 year old. Majority between five years old and 14 years old. It’s… affects children of old races, and it’s not just in New York.

The Department of Health sent an alert to 49 other states. Dr. Zercher has been leading this conversation nationwide. 14 other states are now investigating cases in their state for possible inflammatory disease for children related to COVID, five European countries are now looking at this, because it happened after the fact, and does not present as a normal COVID case, it may not have been initially diagnosed as a COVID case. COVID cases are normally respiratory. This is not predominantly respiratory. It’s an inflammation of the blood vessels, which could affect the heart, so it’s more of a cardiac case than a respiratory case, which is a new manifestation of the COVID virus.

Department of Health is being very aggressive in doing the investigation, and also, talking to other states, countries about what they may have learned partnering with Rockefeller University, and the New York Genome Center to see if there’s anything in the DNA of these cases, but parents have to be aware of this. The predominant signs; fever, abdominal pain, skin rash. Other symptoms; change in skin color, difficulty, feeding, trouble, breathing, racing, heart, lethargy, irritability, or confusion, so it’s a wide array of symptoms as you can see, which makes it even harder for a parent to know exactly what they’re dealing with. If your child has been exposed to someone who had COVID, even if it was several weeks ago, that is a special alert in this situation.

Department of Health has told the hospitals in the state to prioritize COVID testing for children who come in with any of these situations, and if you want more information, this is the health site to go to. Now, as a parent, I can tell you, this is a parent’s worst nightmare, to have a child, we thought that children would not especially affected by the virus to now find out that they might be, and it might be several weeks later, this is truly disturbing. We raise it because it’s something that parents should be aware of. We’re still finding out more about it. We’re working very aggressively. The more we know, the more we’ll communicate. For now, everything we know is on that website.

But, the parents say, “Should I be concerned?” You should be aware. You should be aware. First job is to protect our children. My baby’s 22, not really a baby anymore she likes to tell me. She’s theoretically, this is 21 and below. She’s 22. Maybe I have nothing to worry about. I still worry because that’s what you do as a parent, you worry. I tried to get her up to come with me today, Mikayla, 22 years old. You think you have any power in life try to get a 22 year old out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, and you will quickly come down to earth about any expectation of anything, but go to the website in the meantime. New York state, I’m proud of what our people have done, and we’re proceeding with caution, and with intelligence. We also need help from Washington.

I understand the federal government has said, it’s up to the states, it’s up to the governors, great, but we need help to make this happen, and we need help from Washington. I think the decision or realization that it should be done state by state makes sense, but it doesn’t mean the states are on their own either, and we need federal legislation. We need what’s called state and local aid. Our state budget, our state economy has suffered. We have a significant funding gap, and states need assistance. New York has about a $61 billion funding gap, which is a very, very serious funding gap. Who does the state fund? If we don’t have funds in our budget, what does it mean? States fund local governments. We fund police, firefighters, and schools. If our budget doesn’t work who gets cut? Police, firefighters, schools, local governments, the very people who we need to fight this virus, and the very people who we all call the essential workers, and the heroes who have been doing a great job, then how do we not give them the support that we need? We also need funding for state testing. Everyone says the key is testing. The key is testing. By the way, this is a tremendous operation to put in place. This will be millions of tests in New York, tracing, never been done before to this extent. It’s going to be thousands of people who have to do tracing. We need funding for that. The Washington Bill should finally provide a real economic stimulus that helps this nation rebuild.

Every president has talked about the need to rebuild our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our airports, every administration does a report. The bridges are falling, the roads are crumbling. Our country doesn’t build airports anymore, which it doesn’t. We’re building a new airport in downstate, New York, the LaGuardia Airport. First new airport in 25 years in this country. How can it be that we haven’t built a new airport in 25 years? You’ll fly around the world and everybody’s airport looks amazing, it’s like a shopping mall, hotel entertainment complex, and then, you come to an airport in this country.

You need to stimulate the economy, you need to create jobs. Do what every president has said, but none has done Democratic, and Republican. The bill that was introduced yesterday has something that’s very important to many states. It repeals what’s called SALT, S-A-L-T, the state and local tax deduction. This was a tax change made two years ago, three years ago in Washington. It increases the taxes of homeowners in certain states. New York is one of them. It costs New York state about $29 billion per year, state of Massachusetts, 11.8 billion dollars per year. It also affects New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland. That is repealed in this bill that the house put in.

It’s the single best piece of action for the state of New York, and we have representatives who know this very well, and Representative Lowey and Representative Neil, I applaud them for putting it in. They have to make sure it’s in the final bill, because the only thing that matters is what’s in the final bill, but that is good news in this bill, and the need for state and local aid. This is not a Democratic, Republican issue. You have Democratic governors, you have…

Not a Republican issue. You have Democratic governors. You have Republican governors. All governors will say they need assistance from the federal government. The governors work together in an organization called the National Governors Association, NGA. The chairman is a Republican, Governor Hogan from Maryland. I’m the vice chairman, Democrat. Governor Hogan and I did a joint statement on behalf of all the governors saying we understand what we have to do. We’re prepared to do it, but we need help from Washington, and we need that state and local funding. So this is not a partisan issue. Something else that Washington has to do, which is very important, special interests, always rear their ugly head and these bills that are coming out of Washington, they have a lot of funding to get the economy running, a lot of money for big businesses and a lot of money for millionaires and a lot of money for large corporations.

I fear what is going to happen is that corporations are going to use this pandemic as an excuse to lay off workers. They’re already telling analysts that their profits are going to go up because they’re going to reduce their payroll. So you’ll have Americans who are now out of work who think they’re going to get their job back, but the corporation is going to announce, by the way, we don’t need all those employees back. We’re going to reduce our number of employees, and you’ll see layoffs for Americans.

We went through this before. 2008, we had the mortgage fraud economic catastrophe, right? And we bailed out the banks. I was attorney general at the time. So many banks took the bailout from taxpayers and then gave themselves bonuses or gave their employees bonuses with taxpayer dollars. And as attorney general, I had to bring actions against these corporations to get the money back. How absurd they create a financial catastrophe in 2008. Because of these mortgage scams and mortgage frauds, taxpayers bail out the corporation, they turn around and use the money to give themselves a fat paycheck when they’re the ones who caused the problem in the first place. So we made this mistake before. We can’t make this mistake again.

I did an op-ed today in The Washington Post that speaks just to this. You want to provide subsidies to corporations? I understand that. Make sure the subsidies are tied to worker protections. Very simple. If a corporation gets a check from the government, that corporation must not lay off any workers, have the same number of workers after the pandemic that you had before the pandemic. And don’t think taxpayers are going to subsidize you, Mr. Corporation, so you can then lay off workers and then the taxpayers can then pay for that. I call it the Americans First law. No corporate bailout if you’re going to lay off workers. And it’s going to be introduced by members of the New York congressional delegation, and I’m very proud of them for their leadership. If we get that Washington bill passed, then it’s going to make a significant difference because it’s going to give states the ability to do what they need to do to reopen. And we can take it from there because we are New York tough, which is New York tough and smart and united and disciplined and tough enough to love. Thank you.

2020-05-14 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, everyone. It's our pleasure to be at the Upstate Medical Center today. Let me thank all the
nurses and doctors here for their extraordinary work and what they've done. Doctors and nurses from Upstate Medical Center made themselves available all across the state and they were really fantastic so we thank them all very much. It's a pleasure to be with Mayor Walsh and County Executive McMahon. I thank them for being here. I think President Dewan for his hospitality. 

We have with us today from my far right Dr. Howard Zucker, our State HealthCommissioner who has been doing outstanding work. To my right Michaela Kennedy Cuomo, the youngest of my three. I thank her very much for being here. She was going to come with us yesterday but she had an appointment with her pillow that could not be broken despite an executive order. To my left Secretary Melissa DeRosa, to her left Gareth Rhodes.

First again I want to thank all the nurses and doctors here and all across the stateand the country who have done just truly, truly extraordinary work. Thank you for being with us this afternoon. This morning I wanted to make sure I could watch the hearing that was going on in Washington to see if there was anything that we could learn.

Today is day 75. It feels like a lifetime but it's 75 days since we had our first case. You can see so far so good in terms of the continuing decline in the total number of hospitalizations in the state, on the three-day rolling average also. The number of intubations is down and that's really good news. The number of new cases which is what we're watching, these are the new cases statewide, new diagnoses, people who are in hospitals who test positive or people who walk in the door who test positive. It's much, much better than it was. The number of lives lost is also down,still terrible and tragic but headed in the right direction so all the arrows are pointed in the right direction. We're basically right back to where we were before we started this horrific situation.

The question then becomes reopening. It's not a question of reopening or not. Everybody wants to reopen. We have to get back to work. People need apaycheck. The state needs in an economy. People have lives to live so everybody wants to reopen. The question is how you reopen and from the national experts,global experts, make sure you don't reopen too soon. What they mean to be saying buy too soon is you have to reopen intelligently and you have to reopen in a calibrated way. Nobody says don't reopen. They say just be intelligent about the way you reopen. 

Follow the data, follow the science, follow the facts, follow the metrics. We know enough now to know what happens, that every action has a reaction. If we do this then this will happen. We've lived this enough. So based on what we know make sure we're being intelligent, not emotional, not political, not based on feelings but based on facts. Learn the lessons of other people who have gone through this.Other states have gone through it. Other countries have gone through it. There are experiences that we can learn from. Educate yourself and be smart. Be smart. 

Check the data on a daily basis and we have the data on a daily basis. We've put together a very elaborate reporting system on testing data, on hospital data from all across the state. That data is now available on a daily basis and you can track that data and know exactly where you are. It's like taking your blood pressure every morning. It's like getting your cholesterol count every morning. You can know exactly where you are every morning. Not just for the elected officials, not just for government. This is all about what people do. This is about what citizens do and what the elected officials are trying to do, what I'm trying to do is to inform the citizens so they can better protect themselves and they know what decisions they should make and that's why all the information we're accumulating we're making it in a very transparent way and I hope people get up in the morning, they have theircup of coffee and they go online to find out where their county is, how are they doing and calibrate their behavior that way.

The State has developed a very elaborate dashboard of relevant local information. They told me they were designing a dashboard. I got very excited about it. I sent them a picture of what I think is one of the really iconic dashboards - 1967 Corvette, arguably the most beautiful dashboard. I said they should consider that design when they were doing a state dashboard. They came back with this design - it's the New York State dashboard. How it in any way mirrors the dashboard from a 1967 Corvette I have no idea but, how can government be expected to have the same artistic design that we had 50 years ago? So here's the State dashboard. You notice the iconic design and curves and art that was used in it but it has all the information even if it's not the most artistic and it has all the information for all the regions statewide. So every region can compare themselves to other regions in this state. 

Right now by the criteria that we have which is basically from the federal CDC, we have certain regions that are poised to reopen tomorrow, other regions where the numbers do not suggest they're in a position to reopen. This is all based on the metrics and the numbers. How many hospitalizations do you have? Are the cases going up? Are they going down? Do you have your testing in place? Do you have your testing in place? Obviously we have different rates of infection across the state, hence the variance in opening times.

The big responsibility is now going to fall to local government to manage this situation and my advice to local governments are in terms of priority: daily monitoring of numbers daily monitoring of numbers, and daily monitoring of numbers are the first three priorities. Know the facts. Know what you're dealing with. You know what activities you engaged. You know how you increased the level of activity. We're measuring the effect of that activity. Make sure you monitor it every morning, every morning. Make sure the businesses that open are in compliance with the guidelines that are opening. Make sure individuals comply. You're going to say it's a reopening, people are going to say hallelujah, run out of their house, they're going to want to get out, they're going to want to do things. 

Phased opening does not mean the problem has gone away. It means we have controlled the problem because of what we did and because of our individual responsibility and individual actions and that has to be maintained and I would urge local governments to be diligent about the business compliance and about individual compliance. Then if you see a change in those numbers react immediately. React immediately. If you allow this virus to get ahead of us we will have a problem. So we'll have of the data. React immediately. 

At the same time the states need help from the federal government and that's a topic that's being discussed now. Washington must act. It must be smart. It must be fast. New York State has a $61 billion hole. Well what does the State fund? TheState funds local governments, fund schools, funds health care. If the State has no budget then schools get cut, hospitals get cut, local governments get cut. If local governments get cut then you cut police and firefighters. Why would you ever want to cut essential frontline personnel at this time makes no sense.

Washington has already acted. They've done a lot of businesses incentives great. But we need our healthcare institutions. We need our schools. We need our police and firefighters. I spoke with President Trump this morning. We spoke again about the State funding issues. He heard me out. I've also asked him to expedite certain payments and he's expediting a $3.9 billion payment to the MTA which is a very large transportation agency in the state which desperately needs funding because the ridership is way down and the President cut red tape and actually sent the first installment today so I'm grateful for that and I thank him.

The House meantime has proposed the bill. The bill does a lot of good. It fundsstate and local aid, $500 billion to make up for those shortfalls. It funds testing. Everybody talks about testing tracing, testing tracing. Those operations have to be put in place and New York State will wind up hiring thousands of tracers. We need funding to do that. I understand it's our obligation. States are in charge, governors are in charge, but we need help with funding.

The House bill repeals the SALT tax change that was made in Washington about three years ago and that tax change that they made cost New York State billions. The House bill repeals that change which is a significant, significant benefit to this state and ironically the states that were most hurt by SALT are the states that have of the most pain from the COVID virus. So repealing SALT actually is in my opinion the best thing you can do to help the states that are now battling the COVID virus.In New York State the SALT repeal increased our taxes12 to $15 billion, just New York State. We know pay 12 to $15 billion more every year to the federal government believe it or not so that would be a major boost but Washington has to act.

No delay, no special interests getting priority or special treatment here, and when we're doing these corporate bailouts make sure we don't make the mistake we made in 2008 where we gave corporations large bailouts and the corporations took the money and paid themselves with the money. I was Attorney General at the time. I brought cases against corporations that took the bailout and gave themselves all a pay raise. Why should the American taxpayers now bail outcorporations unless they're going to rehire workers. I'm afraid you're going to see corporations that will not hire bank the same number of employees. They're going to use this pandemic as a way to restructure or get lean. If a corporation is going to take government money they should rehire the same number of workers they had before. I did an op-ed in the Washington Post to that effect but I believe that should be a condition across the board. Any corporation that gets money from the government, from the people should hire back the same number of workers. If you want to lay off workers don't expect the taxpayer to subsidize you laying off workers.

It is a moment in our modern history where we can get out of this partisan gridlock, hyperpolitical moment. Now is the time. My position - funding for state governments is not a Democratic position. There's an organization called the National Governors Association. It's Democratic governors, it's Republican governors, the chairman is a Republican governor, I'm the vice chairman, and the NGA, National Governors Association, in a bipartisan way is urging Washington to pass the relief for state and local governments. So there's no red or blue here. It's red white and blue. 

Also at the same time we went through all this pain. People talk about reopening. Iwant to set the bar higher. It's not about just going back to where we were. Let's use this as a moment to grow and to get better. Let's learn from the pain that we went through and I talk about reimagining New York and let's use this as a moment to reimagine our education system, our telecommuting, our telemedicine, a better public transportation system, a better public health system. Take this experience and grow from it. Life will knock you on your rear end. That's true but do you get up and do you get up smarter? And that's the moment where we're at. One of the lessons we learned, they were speaking about in the hearing today. We should never again be in the position where we don't we have medical equipment. Where we're facing a pandemic, we're facing a major public health issue, and we don't even have basic equipment for nurses and doctors? And so much of it came from China? And governors such as myself are trying to figure out who do we know in China, to get masks for nurses in our hospitals. I mean it was terrible, what we went through. It's a matter of national security. And I want to make sure that we in New York are actually leading the way.

Let us start manufacturing here, in this country, in this state, masks and gowns and drugs, the ventilators, and the tests we need, and let New York start and we already have. But we should never again as a nation have to scramble the way we scrambled. We are now aggressively courting businesses, incentivizing businesses to build, to manufacture, medical equipment here in this state. And the state will partner with corporations to do that. So if you want to start, grow your business, expand your business manufacturing masks and gowns is not the most difficult situation technologically. The volume is the problem, the quantity. But we want to develop that here in this state. And then with this virus we must remain vigilant because we're still learning. Facts are in many ways still continuing to change on us. And while we're learning the virus is still learning also.

We have a situation that is serious and concerning, which is these COVID-related illnesses in children. Department of Health is now looking at a 110 cases of a COVID-related illness in children. It's similar to what they call Kawasaki disease or toxic shock-like syndrome. We've lost a 5-year-old, a 7-year-old and an 18-year-old girl to this disease. New York State and Department of Health are at the forefront, nationally if not internationally in looking at this. And the Department of Health, good work of Dr. Zucker, they've had a number of telephone conferences, web conferences. 16 other states now see cases that they're investigating, once Department of Health explained what they've been looking at, six European countries are now looking at the same situation. And I expect this is only going to grow. Parents should beware, and parents should be informed of this. The key is prolonged fever. And then you see on the chart the other symptoms that parents should look for. Also it tends to present in children who were exposed to the COVID virus and actually now have the antibodies from the COVID virus or still test positive for the COVID virus. So if you have a child who has a fever, who you think may have been exposed to the COVID virus, a person who had the virus, we found out later came down with it and you see the symptoms, then you should take action. New York State has published today online the first-in-the-nation criteria for healthcare professionals to isolate, define, identify this syndrome and test for it. But it is very important - right now we have it affecting children from less than one year old, so infants to 21 years old, okay? When you look at over the 100 cases, that's the span, which is obviously a very frightening development. There's information on the website.

Last point, point of personal opinion. I'm the Governor of the State of New York and I take that responsibility very seriously. I'm honored to be governor. I work at seven days a week, 24 hours a day. But in many ways before being governor, I am a son. I'm a brother and uncle and I'm a father. As a parent, as a father, I just want to make sure I'm communicating especially this last situation to the people of the state and beyond. This virus has been ahead of us every step of the way. I can't tell you how many quote, unquote facts I was told that then changed, right? When the virus started the virus was coming from China, everybody was looking at China - turns out the virus came from Europe. Nobody told us. When this first started if you had the disease and recovered, you then had antibodies and you were immune. My brother had the virus, recovered, so we have the antibodies. We were told, "Well then you're immune from getting it again," and we had plans to have people who tested for the antibodies, they could go back to work because they were immune and the facts changed, "You know what maybe they're not immune, maybe they're only a little immune or they're partially immune." \Then we were told, children are not affected by the virus - that was the only good news by the way in the whole first evaluation. "Children aren't affected. Okay, now maybe children are affected. And we just didn't know it." Okay, well what do we know now? Well we're studying 100 children from one to 21." Okay, Michaela, my daughter is 22. "Well we only have people up until 21, so she's okay." Yeah until we have someone who's 22 or 23 or 24.

So, the facts change. I have done my best to give people the information that I know. But I want you to have the same caution flag that I live with. The facts in this virus have changed. And I believe they will continue to change. So, take this all with a grain of salt. My basic point is, do not underestimate this virus. It has beaten us at every turn and it has surprised us at every turn. Don't take it lightly. Don't underestimate it. I believe the facts will change as we go forward. The more we learn about the virus, the more the facts change, and the worse it gets. There has been no news since we started this where we were actually too cautious or too concerned. All the news has been bad as far as I'm concerned.

So, with all this information, with all government is doing - hearings in Washington, all this - you know who's going to protect you? You are. You know who's going to protect Michaela, 22-years-old? Michaela being informed. Michaela understanding. I like to think, with a little advice from a parent, that she discounts 99%, but maybe 1% of the advice communicates. Michaela's graduating from college this year, they closed the college. She said you know, a lot of people are having parties and they're having graduation-like events. Should I go? At 22, you can't tell them anything 22. I couldn't tell them anything at 21, 20, 19. I said here's the facts, this is what we know. Is it worth the risk to do it? Michaela's made all the right decisions, but every parent, every child, it's your job to understand and protect yourself. I just urge caution because everything I say, I tell you everything I know, but I'm also telling you there are things we don't know yet. How do you protect yourself from those things?

Just be cautious, be diligent. Wear a mask, wear gloves, stay away from gatherings - I know they're inconvenient, but God forbid, you know, just God forbid. I've talked to too many families who've lost people. I've talked to too many people who've lost people who were not supposed to be lost to this virus. When this started, this was just about vulnerable people - senior citizens, comorbidities. Yeah, then how do you lose a 40-year-old who had no symptom of anything, right? Children were not affected. Yeah, until children are affected.

So, caution to everyone. Whatever I know, I will communicate. But again, it's about you protecting you and I heartily recommend caution and diligence.

2020-05-15 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Don’t worry, it’s Friday. Young guys need stamina. Friday, you’ll have the weekend off. Oh no, you won’t. That’s right. Let’s take a look and see where we are today. Total number of hospitalizations, down. That’s the way we like to see it. Rolling average, down. That’s the way we’d like to see it. Changing intubation is, down. That’s the way we like to see it. Number of new cases up, we don’t like to see that, but it’s only up a tick. And again, these numbers tend to bounce, but it’s been a slow decline. There’s no doubt about that. And you see, there’s been several plateaus in the decline. We are very curious to find out where that number winds up, how low the new cases go.

We’ve done a lot of research as you know. Those new cases, mostly coming from people who are at home. So we’re talking about home spread more than at work, more than first responders, more than essential personnel. And that’s the hardest place to control the spread is when a person’s literally at home, right? There are very few precautions, it’s all about personal behavior, but that’s where those cases are coming from.

Number of deaths is down, but still painful, 132. We are right about where we were when we started this. Number of lives lost, we go right back to March 27th and that’s when we really first started this miserable journey. Good news again, if you look at New York, our curve is down. Congratulations, New Yorkers and actually the curve in the rest of the nation is up. So while cases are increasing across the country, the number of cases in New York are actually going down. And that’s remarkable in some ways, because we had more cases than anyone else. Not because there’s anything particular in the air in New York, but because we had people coming from Europe, bringing the virus at a time when no one knew the virus had moved from China to Europe. And we had three million Europeans come January, February, March before we did the ban on European travel. And those flights came to the East Coast and they landed at JFK Airport, which was one of the funnel airports, if you remember. So the problem had nothing to do with us, but we were then tasked with resolving it and New Yorkers stepped up to the plate and have done a great job.

The question now, is on reopening. We’re going to open half the regions in the state today, 5 regions out of 10. They are the regions that meet the numerical criteria. There’s no politics to this judgment. There’s no arbitrary nature to this judgment. It’s all on the numbers. Seven criteria, which basically measure the infection rate, hospitalization rate, testing rate, et cetera. And that’s how the decision is made. For those regions that don’t qualify to open today. We’re extending, what’s called the New York PAUSE Order, which is the close down of a services and institutions that have been closed down.

If a region hits its benchmark at any time, regardless of the PAUSE Order, then that region can open. We’re opening phase one in those five regions today. Just some points on each of those industries. Residential, commercial construction will open. Indoor construction and outdoor, masks must be worn by employees when they’re six feet from one another. So they must all have masks. The employer must provide the masks. Any gloves, any equipment that the employees need on that work site must be provided by the employer. There’s no congregate meetings. For retail businesses, curbside pickup starts. The employee and the purchaser in the vehicle must be wearing a mask. Anyone in the vehicle must be wearing a mask. Gloves are preferred, but they’re not mandated. And the employer, the store owner must make hand sanitizer available. If curbside pickup is not practicable, then in store pickup is available, but it is in store pickup. It is not in store shopping. It’s in store pickup because curbside is not practicable. Requires ordering ahead. Social distancing in the store, no more than 50% maximum occupancy of that store for people coming there to pick up.

Patrons must wear a mask. Store employees must wear a mask, gloves are preferred, hand sanitizer has to be made available. For an individual’s behavior, people ask, well, what am I supposed to be doing as an individual? I’m not a store owner. I don’t work construction. I understand as an employee, what my requirements are, but just what do I do in normal life? When you are in public and you’re within six feet of another person wear a mask that is a requirement. Curbside or in store pickup wear a mask and socially distance. Store owners should not let you in the store for an in store pickup, if you don’t have a mask. The exception is less than two years old or some people for medical reasons, can’t wear a mask.

In a construction or manufacturing setting. The employee must wear a mask whenever they can’t socially distance. And the employer has to meet certain precautions, which they said they would when they reopened under this. In private, people ask what should I do? Well, then you have our best advice, but in private is private, what you do in your home, what you do with your family, what you do with your personal relationships, your friendships. We’ve talked about exposure to senior citizens and how you should be careful to vulnerable populations, but there are no government requirements on what you do when your home, et cetera.

The responsibility for local officials and what we call the regional control center. Local officials have to enforce business compliance and social distancing. These businesses are opening subject to saying they will comply with safety precautions. Local officials have to make sure they are followed. As well as social distancing guidelines for individuals. The regional control center will have a daily morning meeting where they review and monitor the infection testing and hospitalization rates. And I can’t stress this enough. We’re starting to turn the valve. One of my favorite graphics, not seeing a heck of a lot. Starting to turn the activity valve, watch what happens to the infection rate, testing rate, hospitalization rate. If those numbers start to move, slow down on the activity level. That requires you to monitor the impact of this increase in public activity. You will see an increase. We expect to see an increase, but that increase has to be monitored and has to be controlled. We’ve talked about the infection rate, the rate of transmission. When the rate of transmission hits 1.1, you’re headed towards a bad place. So monitor that rate daily and correct immediately, if you see an increase in those numbers.

Beaches, we’ve talked about coordinating with other states, and this has happened in other parts of the country. Other parts of the world, also. We are one multi-state region. What one state does will affect other states. That is probably no where more clear than when it comes to opening beaches. One state doesn’t open beaches. Another state does open beaches. You will see people flood to that state. Georgia opened barber shops. People drove from out of state to Georgia to get a haircut. If New Jersey opens beaches or Connecticut opens beaches and we didn’t open beaches, you would see a flood of people to Connecticut and New Jersey. And our relationship and responsibility to our other states, neighboring States is important. We want what’s best for New York, but we want what’s best for New Yorkers. It’s not in New York’s interest to have New Yorkers going to a Jersey beach, which is now going to be overcrowded because you have people from New York and New Jersey going to that beach. It’s not in our interest to have people going to Connecticut beaches, if those beaches are then going to be overcrowded.

So, we’ve worked with New Jersey and Connecticut. We’ve come up with an agreement that accommodates all needs. And it was done in good faith. The agreement is New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware will all be opening beaches for the Memorial Day weekend. States will have different specific rules about what happens on that beach. They’ll all be plus or minus, but they are all basically in the same ballpark. They’re opening Friday of Memorial Day weekend, state beaches. That includes local beaches, lake shores. It does not include pools. Pools are closed. But no more than 50% capacity. And that will be done at parking areas, entrance areas, exit areas, et cetera. No group contact activities, no volleyball, no football, nothing like that. Areas of social gathering will be closed, picnic areas, et cetera, playgrounds, pavilions arcades. Social distancing will be enforced for employees and for visitors. Masks must be worn by employees. And visitors must have masks and wear them when they can’t socially distance.

At this point, concessions will not be operating. We don’t want long lines of people waiting for concession stands. And we’ll ensure that staff levels are adequate to enforce these measures. On the beaches that are controlled by cities, towns, counties, municipal beaches, municipal lakes, the local government can decide to open or stay closed. If they choose to open, they must adopt the state’s requirements at a minimum. And the chief executive can decide to do that. If they want to impose additional requirements above and beyond the state requirements, they are free to do that. That will be done by a home rule message. And those decisions should be made by the locals by Wednesday, May 20th so we can plan accordingly.

If a locality doesn’t open beaches, we need to know that because then we’ll have more demand on the state beaches in that area. If they do open beaches, we need to know that also, just to understand the flow of the traffic and where we have to staff up. Again, state beaches will be open on Friday before Memorial Day. Last point, reopening must be smart. And we have to keep this in focus. Remember, learn from the lessons that are around us. We’ve seen other countries open. We’ve seen cities open. We’ve seen them then close because the activity level went up too high, too fast. We see countries like Germany that are reopening, but they’re seeing that infection rate go up and they’re monitoring it very closely. We expect the rate to go up, but it has to go up at a rate that we can control. Right? And the risk is the activity level increases quickly, and then the virus spreads quickly, you overwhelm the health system, et cetera. So, this has to be. monitored, very closely.

A lot of it is going to fall on the local governments. And we need them to really step up here on the compliance for businesses and for individuals. The testing and tracing is one of the key monitors on that dashboard. They all meet the minimum testing and tracing requirements, but they have to do it also. And it has to be done every day. And that is the logistical operational challenge. We’re working with them to do that, but that has to be done every day, and the monitoring of all the indicators, again, and quick reaction. These indicators will be online for everyone, not just for local governments. They’re on the website. I would suggest everyone look at them, look at them for their county, their region so they know exactly where they are every day. They’re updated daily.

And how this goes is up to all of us, stone to stone across the morass, as my father used to say. You’re going through a morass, and we are in a morass, there’s no doubt about that. Find the stone, find firm footing and step onto that stone. Then you find the next stone. Then you find the next stone. That’s what we have been doing. This reopening is the most data-driven, fact specific, science driven reopening that has been done, period. It’s all about the numbers and the facts. That’s right. Second stone is, now you start to reopen, do it intelligently and do it with discipline and not with emotion. And government has to be there. And government has to perform.

But to be up to all of us, it means it has to be up to each of us at the same time. Right? And that is very important here, that each of us understands our responsibility. And that’s how this has worked from day one. Government, government, government, it’s not about government. It’s about what people have decided to do in this situation. How did we bend that curve? When they write the history books, they’re going to write about how New York turned that curve. And that was done by New Yorkers. It was not a governmental act. No government could tell 19 million people stay at home, don’t go to work, wear a mask, socially distance. That’s not government action. That’s social action. Those are people who choose to do the responsible thing, I think, because we gave them the facts. But they reacted intelligently. They responded responsibly. And we have to continue that.

With this virus, I just want to say on a personal level, and I want to make sure everybody understands this, the facts here have been changing. And the facts have only been getting more negative. This started that it was only going to attack vulnerable people, seniors, people with co-morbidities. I was speaking to a doctor today about a young person who passed away of a stroke from COVID, no underlying conditions, nothing else. It was a stroke, no respiratory illness. Well, what happened? Well, apparently the virus can affect the heart, and the liver, and other organs besides the lungs. And we didn’t know that.

Children weren’t going to be infected. Well, except now we’re studying a hundred cases where children are in fact affected by the virus, and some of them very serious. And that 100 cases, I’ll wager that’s going to only go up. And it’s going to be much more widespread than anyone thinks. So, the amount of personal responsibility here to keep oneself safe, to keep one’s family safe, I cannot stress highly enough.

Do not underestimate this virus and do not play with this virus. I can be asymptomatic and not know that I have the virus, but I can put my hand down on this table today, you can come touch this table three hours from now, and pick up the virus. I can walk into a store to pick up a package, not know that I have the virus, put my hand on a stainless steel counter. You can come in the store the next day, put your hand on that counter, and pick up the virus. I don’t care how diligent the store owner is and how many masks do you wear, that’s how powerful this virus is.

Well, it’s only old people. No. Tell that to the families who have an eight year old and seven year old in the hospital. Tell that to the 21 year old girl’s family where the 21 year old girl passed away. Everyone is vulnerable to this virus, everyone. And government can’t keep you safe. Only you can keep yourself safe. But, when you keep yourself safe, and I keep myself safe, that’s the way we keep all of us safe. That’s the story of life. And that’s the story of where we are today. And that’s a story of being New York tough, which is tough, but it’s smart, and united, and disciplined, and it’s being loving and responsible for one another. Questions?

Speaker 1: Governor, how many tests a day-

Speaker 2: Governor, we’ve talked a lot about nursing homes and the spread in nursing homes. It’s recently been brought to our attention that there are a high number of cases in OPWDD group homes, these are group homes for the disabled, across the state. OPWDD says they have almost 2,000 cases now in group homes and 324 deaths. A staff member contacted me saying that they’re concerned about the policy in the group homes. First of all, the staff are telling me that they’re being moved around to different homes. And we know a lot of the homes have had COVID. So, they’re afraid that, I guess, there’s a staffing shortage. And so, the nurses and the staff in there are being moved around. That is one protocol that they want brought to your attention.

Speaker 2: They also were concerned because they’re having problems social distancing in this community. And it’s a very high risk community. What is your response? We’ve also heard from family that are saying they are not feeling like this community of the disabled is getting attention.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. I think the basic point is what we’ve been talking about. Right? It’s the same with the nursing home, it’s a prison, it’s any congregate facility. There’s no doubt, where you have a congregation of people, that is a place where the virus can transfer. Whether it’s a meat processing plant with 1,000 employees, it wasn’t about the meat in the meat processing plant. Right? It was just 1,000 employees. We have an agriculture plant that Madison County where it was about the density of the employees. Also, because you had four to a room and it’s the density. We started this with the hotspot in New Rochelle Westchester, before they even called it a hotspot. It was the first one in the country. It was one person, super spreader, new term, who was with a couple of hundred people at a gathering. And dozens got sick. So, the congregate facilities of people, that’s all it is. It’s just wherever you have a density, a gathering of people that is a problematic area, nursing homes worst. But if you have a community group home and you have six people living in a house that is a place where you want to watch. Now, six people in the house is not as bad as 1000 people in a prison or 300 in a nursing home, but any place where you have a gathering. On the moving of staff, I don’t know if that’s right or wrong or normal operating procedure or not, but we can check. But I just don’t know

Speaker 3: Governor, how many tests a week will New York need to get to test all nursing home staffers and essential workers? And on the nursing home staffing questions, does New York have the current capacity to test as many nursing home staffers as you’re requiring them to do? And if not, how will your administration make sure there’s the capacity to get there and when? Has the president fulfilled his end of the bargain, when he told you that he was going to be helping with the supply chain issue for testing manufacturers?

Governor Andrew Cuomo: There’s a lot there. Let’s unpack it one at a time. I don’t know the policy at OPWDD, but we’ll check what the staffing policy is and we’ll check if there was a change. On the testing, we’re doing more testing than any state in the United States. We’re doing more testing per capita than many countries on the globe and we’re ramping up dramatically and quickly. We have to test staff in nursing homes. We have the most aggressive requirement, I understand that, two tests for every staff member per week and that is the most aggressive, but this is the most vulnerable population. Testing is much more available than it’s ever been in this state. There are parts of the state where we have more testing capacity than people are using. We have drive-throughs, drug stores that are performing tests who say they don’t have enough clients coming in, believe it or not. We’re getting more testing kits. We’re sending about 120,000 out to nursing homes now. It is something we have to do and we will do, but this is one of those situations where it’s never been done before. It is very hard to do, but we have to do it and we will do it, just like we have done all across the board.

As far as what the federal government is doing. The federal government is helping the supply chain for the national manufacturers. The way this works is the end user is let’s say a nursing home or a drive-in or a pharmacy. They are implementing the test. They purchase the test from a national manufacturer and they purchase the machine from the national manufacturer. There are a number of machines. And depending on the machine you purchased, you need the test kit that works for that machine. It starts to get complicated because you can have six or seven different types of machines that you bought, each machine has its own test kit. It’s like when you buy a printer and then you have to buy the cartridge for that printer. And some of the national manufacturers can’t provide test kits, they’re just overwhelmed in the test kids. And the federal government is working on those supply chain issues for those national manufacturers. It’s working much better than it has, but I don’t think anyone would say we’re there yet.

Speaker 3: Do we have the capacity right now in New York to test all nursing home staffers twice a week? Yes or no.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yes.

Speaker 3: Yes. And yes or no, is the federal government fulfilling its end of the bargain to help on the supply chain issue [crosstalk]?

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Ask the federal government.

Jesse: Governor, can you explain your-

Speaker 4: Wadsworth’s lab has been denied-

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Excuse me one second, I didn’t mean to cut you off.

Speaker 5: No, that’s okay. If I could just punctuate the governor’s point. Since we announced last Sunday that we were going to require two tests a week for nursing home staff, we have worked with the commercial labs, BioReference, LabCorp and Quest to get additional capacity. And the state has reserved 30, 000 tests per day to be dedicated just to nursing home staff. That’s 210,000 tests a week that we have now secured that’ll just be dedicated to going to this nursing home issue. On the Wadsworth situation, yes, we understand everyone would like to use Wadsworth. They can’t. There’s not the capacity for that, which is why they’re going to have to go to the drive-throughs and why they’re going to have to, if they can’t accommodate the standard on their own, work with us to use some of the capacity that we have now reserved through the three commercial labs.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: And remember that Wadsworth is one lab. It’s the state lab. There are 300 labs that operate in this state. Wadsworth, we’re proud of, it’s a state lab, but there are 300 labs and we need all 300 labs operational to meet this volume. The only way you get the volume up this high is all those labs are at maximum capacity. No one lab could come anywhere near that. Even with all 300 labs working and doing seven days a week, you’re still not at the level you need. And then those 300 labs will say, they’re going to have a problem on the back end getting the supplies. That’s where the federal government comes in.

Jesse: Governor, can you explain your rationale for reopening the beaches, considering the potential public health peril there? What was it? What was the calculation for you?

Governor Andrew Cuomo: The calculation is I’m trying to work in conformity or accommodation with our surrounding states. They were going to open beaches and if New York did not open beaches, you would see an influx of people to the Jersey Shore, Connecticut, et cetera. That would put New Yorkers then in jeopardy there because the problem with a beach is if it’s overcrowded. If it’s 50% of occupancy, you’re fine. The problem is if you overcrowd at the beach and if other states were opening and New York wasn’t, you would have millions of people from New York flooding those beaches. They would be a problem. And that wouldn’t help anyone. The safeguard is this, first we open them with safeguards, 50%, et cetera. Second, if there is a problem and the locals do not enforce those regulations, we will close those beaches immediately.

Jesse: Do you feel like Governor Murphy kind of forced your hand in this by announcing yesterday that he’d opened the beaches or did you consultant with him?

Governor Andrew Cuomo: No, no, no. We’ve been talking to them about beaches for a long time. We talked to them about everything on a daily basis.

Jesse: But he announced ahead of you.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, but we knew exactly what he was going to do. And we had been talking about it. No, he didn’t force my hand. Look, as governor, he has no jurisdiction in New York. I could say, we’re not opening our beaches. If we don’t open our beaches, people will go to New Jersey beaches. I promise you that. They’ll go to Connecticut beaches. And then you have a situation where you have 4 million New Yorkers going to Jersey beaches, Connecticut beaches. What happens to those beaches? Well, who cares, they’re in New Jersey and Connecticut. First of all, I care. And those are New Yorkers in those beaches. I think this plan makes the most sense. Is there a risk that the locals won’t enforce the rules? Yes. Or the beach will get overwhelmed and they can’t enforce the rules? Yes, that is a risk and we have eyes wide open. And if that happens, we will close the beach the next day.

Jesse: [inaudible] so you’re talking about [inaudible]-

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yes, yes.

Jesse: So it’ll be day to day.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Did you want to make a point?

Speaker 5: No, I just want to say, but just to be clear, Jesse, we had the multistate agreement in place yesterday when Governor Murphy spoke at a high level that the states had been coordinating. That wasn’t something that they announced and then we came to an agreement on. We were in agreement with us and Connecticut and Delaware prior to Governor Murphy speaking about that yesterday,

Governor Andrew Cuomo: I think Connecticut had always said the beaches were open.

Speaker 5: The Connecticut beaches actually were never closed.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: I see someone else, yes?

Speaker 6: [crosstalk] While it’s up to local governments to enforce that businesses are compliant with health and safety standards, is there a way that the state’s going to give some guidance to local governments and how they can keep businesses in check? And also there is a website that the state has that employees can submit complaints against businesses that are not complying with these health and safety standards, what’s being done with this information as well?

Governor Andrew Cuomo: First of all, the local governments have the guidelines on the compliance and the business owners have it. And any business that opens today in the regions that can open, they sign a compliance agreement and that compliance agreement is kept on the premises. If there’s a violation, which should be enforced by the local governments, they have that business owner who will agree to operate under the following conditions and they therefore violated that agreement and they can be closed on that basis. To the extent we get any complaints, we forward them to the local governments. Rob, you want to add anything on that?

Rob: No, that’s right. Look, governments have been enforcing this on essential businesses since the beginning of the PAUSE order. They’ll continue to enforce under those same guidelines. Now they have the guidelines, they’ll continue to enforce those the same as they had before. And as the governor said, all of the complaints that come through the hotline will be forwarded through the regional control rooms and to the local governments so that they can enforce them.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Mr. John.

John: The controller’s April cash report is due today. That’s the report that can trigger your ability to actually implement cuts to local governments, to school districts. We don’t have any federal clarity today that reports coming today. What are you going to do?

Governor Andrew Cuomo: What am I going to do about what, John?

John: Well are you going to implement the 20% cuts to schools and local government [crosstalk]-

Governor Andrew Cuomo: I hold to the belief, I have faith in humanity and a certain level of common sense. And I believe Washington, despite their dysfunction and politics, will ultimately provide funding for state and local governments. Even if you put aside common sense, the survival instinct of a politician who has to run for reelection this year in this state or any state affected by COVID, which is most states, they will not come home and stand for reelection if they don’t provide funding for state and local governments because they would have created a devastating circumstance in their state. If we have to cut schools, police, fire, hospitals, because Washington didn’t provide reasonable funding when they did bail out millionaires and billionaires and rich corporations, but they’re not going to fund police and fire. I don’t think any Washington official is going to come home and present that case to the people they represent. I believe we will receive Washington funding due to the survival instinct of political officials.

Go ahead, John.

John: You have to make a decision on your own at some point. What’s your drop dead date for making a decision?

Governor Andrew Cuomo: What is the drop dead date?

John: The budget that was enacted had the first benchmark was the controller’s cash report that, as you mentioned, comes out today. That report confirms the estimates that the state has made, which is that we’re down 14% in revenues and then we’ll have a $61 billion gap over the next four years. Now that we have those cash numbers, we’ll look at it. As the governor mentioned, Washington has been talking about a federal bill that provides money in relief in the event that those funds don’t occur. Then we would have to make those reductions, but as the governor mentioned, we believe that based on the bill that the House put in, those funds will be there. In the event that they don’t, our plan would be within the month of May, we would have to then put out a plan that still would be contingent upon the receipt of federal funds. In the absence of the receipt of federal funds, 90 percent of the states spending is in the areas of school aid, healthcare, social services, right? As the governor points out, we think it would be irresponsible not to provide those resources because those are the types of things then you would have to reduce.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: John, I’m teasing you a little bit just because I like to tease you, but, look, I’m not taking the focus off them. They have to provide, they have to do their job. Not do a press release about their job, they have to deliver federal funding to the state of New York and I want to hold them accountable. And at one point you have to perform or not perform. Look, when I’m in this building, I either pass a budget or not, right, with the legislature? And if the budget isn’t passed on time, what all you guys say is, “Oh, you failed. You didn’t get it done. You’re a bad person. You’re not going to heaven.” Okay, it’s binary. For me to say, “Well I tried my best, I really tried. We all worked hard. We stayed up late at night.” Who cares? You failed.

This is the analog in Washington. Either the federal officials pass the bill to take care of businesses, pass the bill to take care of millionaires, pass the bill to take care of all these other needs; either you pass a bill to take care of state and local government, and that’s police, fire fighters, and schools, or you’re going to be responsible for the cut.

And that’s the fact and that’s the truth and that’s where I’m leaving it. And then let’s see if they perform, tongue-in-cheek. Never underestimate a politicians instinct for self survival. And I do not believe they’re going to want to come home and defend the fact that they cut police, fire fighters, teachers, nurses, and doctors after those people just were designated heroes who saved lives during the pandemic, which happens to be true. Karen?

Karen: John took my question, but I have one that’s maybe more important to New Yorkers and is when is hairstylists going to be able to open? I know you said you were going to find out the answer yesterday. Seriously, they have to pay for their booths, they have to pay for their buildings even month to month and they’re not getting any income.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah? How about the story about the hairstylists in Kingston? Did you hear that story?

Karen: I did, yes, but-

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Barber in Kingston was operating in defiance of the close order, infected I think over a dozen people. That is an occupation of close proximity, right? You can’t really socially distance and do a haircut. Maybe mine you could do from six feet away, but that is by definition an up close and personal occupation. But hairstyling is in phase two.

Speaker 7: Right now we have hairstyling in phase two.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Phase two.

Speaker 8: Governor this week the state court system announced that they would be reopening certain upstate court houses along with [inaudible]. That sort of service seems to fall under the definition of professional services in phase two. What do you make of their decision to open up on a phase one timeline?

Governor Andrew Cuomo: The court system?

Speaker 8: Yes.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, doing justice… if you want to talk about an essential service, justice is an essential service.

Speaker 8: What sort of advice would you give to people who are not currently infected, but might become infected and will have to overcome the illness while at home. What sort of things should they have going in, just baseline, if they were to get infected?

Speaker 9: Well I think the first thing obviously is to contact their physician if they have any of these symptoms of concern. But it’s the precautions that the governor has mentioned about washing your hands, making sure that you are away from other individuals who are sick, and all the straightforward issues that we’ve addressed before.

Speaker 8: Well, are there any devices that they should have? Any sort of stockpiles? Any sort of basic medical supplies that should be in place if they would be infected?

Speaker 9: Well I think the real issue here is, each person is a little bit different. If somebody has a medical condition that their doctor recommends that they are taking certain medicines, that they should be sure they have their medicines, enough medicines on hand or on supply. If there is other devices that they use. Some people use spiro meters to check if they have asthma. They should have those in supply. It really is tailored to each individual, but the overall precautions they should take are the things we’ve spoken about all along.

Speaker 8: Do you have a plan for widespread home check ins though for people who are dealing with this illness at home?

Speaker 9: This is where the issue of telemedicine comes into play and we are working closely with our healthcare professionals about that, particularly in the rural areas, but even in the urban areas.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Editorial comment on the last question, when you ask a doctor what is the first thing someone should do when they feel ill, the answer is always going to be call the doctor. One last one, Dan did you have your hand up?

Speaker 10: Are you talking to me? Sorry.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yup. Somebody had their hand up. [crosstalk]-

Speaker 10: On the children’s disease the Kawasaki Syndrome, can you give us a sense of where the geography of that is? Is it all concentrated in one place? Does that seem like the case-

Governor Andrew Cuomo: All across the state, but it’s proportionate to population and right now it’s 103 cases in New York. I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of, it’s not 103 cases in New York, it’s just that we have seen it first and it was deceptive the way it presented because COVID, they were all looking for respiratory illnesses. This is not a respiratory illness. This is an inflammation of the blood vessels, so it did not look or smell like a COVID case. When they went back and checked, the overwhelming number of children tested positive, or had the antibodies. Close to 90 percent either were positive or had the antibodies and I think you’re going to be seeing more of this. There’s stories about other illnesses that are popping up and now they’re saying this COVID virus does more damage in the body than we were aware of, but specifically with children.

The reason I want this point abundantly clear because this is not what we were told initially, and this is not what I told people initially. We were told it was primarily vulnerable people and the good news is, that children seem unaffected. And as a parent, that then gave me a false sense of security, to now say, “Oh, we were wrong about that.” You’re talking about my child’s health now and my child’s life, I take this very seriously. And this is a big about face, right?

There was also an about face, if you have the virus and you have the antibodies you’re immune and you can go back to work. Now, “Oh, maybe not. Maybe you’re not immune. Maybe you’re a little immune. Maybe we don’t know.” These are dramatic shifts on this virus. And I don’t fault anyone because it’s a learning process et cetera, but the more we learn, the worse it is and the more we learn, it’s only negative. We have not learned anything, since this started, that we say, “Oh, that was better than we thought.” I have to go to work guys, thank you. [crosstalk]. I will talk to you tomorrow, Saturday. Yay Saturday

2020-05-16 NYS Gov. Cuomo

To my left, Melissa DeRosa. Secretary Ms. Melissa DeRosa. To her left, Budget Director Rob Mujica. Today is Saturday. I know it’s Saturday because I don’t wear a tie on Saturday. That’s how I know it’s Saturday, which is a little convoluted reasoning, but it’s not the first time.

The total number of hospitalizations are down again. It’s interesting to look at the curve, how fast we went up and how relatively slow the decline has been. That shows you the problem of having a spike. Spike happens quickly but resolves slowly. Net change in hospitalizations is down. Net change in intubations is down. Number of new cases per day is also down 400, which sounds like a large number, but this is on a statewide population of 19 million, 50,000 hospital beds.

The number of lives lost, 157. That number has been stubborn. You can see May 10th it was 161. And these are all basically in the margin of error, if you will. This system is not that precise. I believe when they actually go back weeks from now and calculate the total number of deaths, at home deaths, et cetera, you’ll see a variation in this number.

Again, we’re right about where we were when we started. We just want to make sure we don’t go back to the hell that we’ve gone through. And when we talk about reopening, that’s a discussion. We have half the state now, in terms of regions, which is now in the process of reopening. We have a dashboard that tells people where their region is, what’s going on, what the hospital rates are doing, what the infection rates are doing. So everyone has information to inform themselves and to have conversations with their local government.

We have a smart phased reopening plan that has been reviewed by great experts in the field and we feel very good about that. We’re getting a little more nuanced in our analysis, looking for economic activities that you can start without crowds and without gatherings. Remember, the problem here are crowds and gatherings. So what can you do? Or what economic activity is willing to reopen without a crowd? They’re talking about this in terms of sports. You can have baseball without a crowd but it can still be televised. Great. If you can have economic activity without a crowd, that’s great.

We can do that in this state with horse racing tracks and we’re going to do that. There’ll be guidelines for the actual participants but no crowds, no fans. For the industry itself, for the televised viewers, that can still work. That is also true with Watkins Glen. That can operate and there’s a big viewership for Watkins Glen. Let me take my car to Watkins Glen. I’ve done it before, I can do it again. Wear a mask in the car. I don’t even have to wear a mask in the car, I’ll be alone.

Update on elective surgeries. We’re going to open Westchester and Suffolk Counties for elective surgeries and ambulatory care. We want to make sure people who need medical services are getting medical services. There was a period where hospitals were dealing basically with the COVID patients. We are past that period. If you need medical attention, if you need a medical procedure, you should get it. And the hospitals are safe places to go. To the extent people are worried about going into a hospital, there’s no reason.

And the caveat is always, as we reopen, this is a new phase, this is an unknown phase. Nobody can tell you exactly what happens because nobody has been here before. That stone to stone across the morass, take a step that you know is a firm step, and then you watch and see what happens. What happens depends on what we do. That’s why this has been such a unique situation, not for government, but for society. What will happen? Well, tell me what you’re going to do and I’ll tell you what will happen. Well, how can that be? Because you’re in control of what happens. How you act will determine what happens to you, literally. Will I get infected? Well, depends on what you do. Will we have a higher infection rate? Depends on what we do. You increase economic activity, we expect to see an increase in numbers. We don’t want to see a spike. Well, will there be a spike? It depends on how people react and it depends on their personal behavior. Are they wearing masks? Are they using hand sanitizer?

It’s getting warmer. There’s going to be a natural increase in activity anyway. People are going to come out of their homes. They’ve been there for a long time, the weather’s warmer. They’re going to come out. How do they act when they come out? And that is the big question mark. Have the reopening with all those question marks, I sit there and I have the conversations with experts. What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen? They say, “You tell me how people react and I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.” But I don’t know how people are going to react. “Well, then I can’t tell you what’s going to happen.” So if people are smart, then yes, you will see some increase in the numbers, but you won’t see a spike. You’ve seen spikes in other countries that have opened. You’ve seen spikes in states that have opened. We have an intelligent, and I believe the most intelligent system, but it is still reliant on what we do. It is reliant on human behavior. So be smart and be diligent and don’t underestimate this virus.

Local governments will do their part. I’ve spoken to all the local government officials. They’re going to be doing compliance. They’re going to be doing compliance on businesses that are opening. They have to follow the protocols. They’re going to be doing compliance on enforcement, wearing the masks, et cetera, but still it’s going to come down to what individuals do.

The only other big question mark on where we go longer term is what the federal government does. We have a significant economic problem in this state. It’s the collective of all the individual economic problems. And when you add up the collective, it’s $61 billion to the State of New York. “Well, we don’t really care about the state budget. It Has nothing to do with me.” I know that’s what you may say, but it’s actually not correct. The state budget is very relevant to you, because what the state budget funds, we don’t do space exploration in this state. We fund schools, we fund hospitals and we fund local governments. That’s the state budget. A lot of words, but it funds schools. It funds hospitals and it funds local governments. Local governments fund police, fire, all the heroes that we talk about. Hospitals, that’s nurses, that’s doctors, that’s emergency room staff.

The house passed a bill yesterday, which is a smart bill, which finally provides funding for state and local governments. They funded businesses. They funded millionaires. They funded corporations. Who did they forget? They forgot the police, the firefighters, the working Americans. What a shock, right? The house bill also has Medicaid funding. It increases food assistance, 100% federal reimbursement for FEMA costs, funding for testing, which is so important. Everyone says testing, testing, testing. Fine, we’ll get it up and running, but we need funding. And it repeals the salt tax penalty to the State of New York, $14 billion. $14 billion, which was a theft in the first place.

After the house passes a bill it goes to the Senate. And that’s where the bill is now. And to the Senate, they should respond quickly. I understand, from their point of view, they say, “Well, we funded businesses. We funded millionaires.” Yeah. Good. That’s nice. How about working Americans? And that’s what the Senate should think about. How do you actually help the American people. And my two cents, they shouldn’t delay. They shouldn’t be captive of special interests. I don’t care who gave you money to run for office, you still work for the people. No corporate bailouts. Don’t bail out corporations, and then have them turn around and lay off American workers. Don’t let them use government money to subsidize employee layoffs. Don’t do that. That would betray the trust of the American people.

That’s what happened in the 2008 bailouts. They bailed out the banks and the banks turned around and gave each other bonuses. I was attorney general. I brought actions against AIG. I brought actions against banks, like the bank of America, who took taxpayer money and then gave themselves a raise. Don’t give corporations money so they can then lay off workers in their restructuring to get lean. And then the American taxpayer is going to have to pay for the people who were laid off. And I’m afraid if this isn’t raised sooner, rather than later, that’s exactly what these corporations are going to do.

And let’s put the politics aside. If there’s ever a moment in this government, in this country, where it’s not about politics, this is the moment. For senators to be talking about, I’m not going to bail out blue States because the blue States have more coronavirus cases. Shame on you. Shame on you to look at the death toll in this nation and say, “I want to count how many people passed away by their political party. And I’m more interested in States where Republicans live than where Democrats live.” We’re not Democrats and Republicans. We are Americans. That’s what comes first.

And in the time of crisis, we’ve always been Americans and the great leaders, Democrats and Republican have always said that. Go back and look at the great Republicans. Go back and look at the great Democrats and see how they operated and try to be great in this moment, senator and congressperson. And if you don’t want to look at former politicians, go back to the good book, which said the same thing that the great politician said, I’m wonder where they got it from. They got it from the good book. Everybody says they read the good book. Mark 3:25, “If a house is divided against itself, the house cannot stand.” Read the good book and do what’s right for the American people. Let’s be together, tough, smart, united disciplined, and loving.

2020-05-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Happy Sunday. Glad to see you all here, Sunday crew. Hope you're getting overtime, double overtime, triple overtime. I'm on comp time. I have enough comp time to take off nine years now. I've added it up. 

Let's look at the facts today. Total hospitalizations is down, good news. Net change is down, intubations is down, and new COVID hospitalizations are down. So, it's a good day across the plate. It is interesting, and we've always been talking about this and been looking at this. It is interesting to see how the decline has actually been relatively flat. Remember, we always talked about we knew how sharp the incline was, what was the decline going look like, what was the contour of the mountain going to look like? Look how long it takes on the way down compared to on the way up. That's why those spikes are dangerous. Once you have the spike, coming down from the spike is a prolonged period of time. Number of deaths are down, 139. At a different time and place, if I had that news to deliver, that would be incredibly shocking to people. Only in this environment is it not shocking. And relative to where we were, it's good news. 

Again, we're right about where we were when we started. We just want to make sure we never go back to where we were. The question is reopening, not reopening or not. Everybody wants to reopen. Nobody wants to reopen more than I do. The question is how. We've said the five upstate regions are reopening. We have said there's a dashboard with all the facts and data that are driving these decisions. There's been a shift in the Capital Region and in Western New York where on the seven metrics, on the metrics, they are now qualified for reopening. There is still a need to increase tracing, the number of people who are prepared to do tracing, and that is a pure administrative function. And we'll be working with both the Capital Region and Western New York to get that tracing up but that is a purely administrative function. In the Capital District, we have - we need 383 tracers. We need an additional 166 identified. Western New York, we need 521. We'd need an additional 352. We'll be talking to the regional heads today to find those additional personnel and get them trained and get them ready. But that's the only function that has to be performed for those regions to open. And again, that's something that we anticipated, and that's just administrative and working together with the regions. We can get that done. So, that's good news. 

Today is day 78. Day 78, 78 days, a long time or a short time? You can argue both. When you shut down everything and you've gone through the trauma that we've gone through, 78 days is a long time. And people are feeling it, and they're feeling it in a number of ways. We've talked about it, but I don't know that any of us have really explored the depths of the mental health issues that have been created inadvertently through these 78 days. We've been so anxious about the day to day and operationally oriented, we've been talking about hospitalizations, talking about death, talking about infection rates, but there's also a more subtle but very present mental health crisis that has been going on. Don't underestimate the trauma that this has created for people. Out of the blue comes this virus, something we've never seen before. You're living a science fiction movie. It's been incredibly anxiety producing, traumatic, disturbing, and we've felt and seen all along evidence that this is creating a significant mental health challenge for people.

Look at some of these numbers now that people are reporting. The number of Americans who are reporting serious mental distress, up to 38 percent, doesn't even discriminate by age. Eighteen to forty-four. It's a multiple of what its ever been and this something that I think deserves more attention than it has gotten because it's very real. How are you? It's a simple question that we ask. How are you, really? The Mental Health Coalition is working on a project, my brother-in-law Kenneth Cole, his daughter, my niece, Katie Cole - who is a tech genius - are working with the Mental Health Coalition and they're working on a website How Are You, Really? They ask people to answer that question and share their feelings and their thoughts. 

Not just "how are you." How are you? Oh I'm doing fine. Thank you. How are you? I'm okay. How are you? You know, pretty much alright. Getting by. Yeah, but forget that answer. How are you, really means let's get to a different depth in the question and a different depth in the answer. How are you, really? You can't be fine. It's not a trite answer. We're going through hell. How are you when you're going through hell? Not good. That's what happens when you're going through hell. I'm not good. I'm anxious, I'm stressed. I'm nervous. I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'm living a science fiction movie. I am afraid. That's how I am. We're not comfortable talking about that. That's not the normal social back and forth. 

The "how are you doing?" question is almost a throwaway. The expected response is "fine." It's almost a rhetorical question. "How are you doing?" Fine, good. How are you doing, really? And let's talk about it and let's be aware of it. Government can do a lot and groups can do a lot, we can also do a lot in our own lives, with our own families. I'm trying with my family on the telephone, the ones I have in person. How are you doing, really? Really, let's talk about this. I want you to understand how I feel and the stress I feel and how are you doing, really? It sounds simple but I think it can be very constructive individually. I know it's been helpful for me and this how are you really can actually provoke a good conversation, so I would suggest people look at it. 

For people that have issues, we have a support hotline where we've asked mental health professionals to volunteer their time to connect by FaceTime or on the telephone. We've had a tremendous response, use it. This is nothing to be ashamed of ever in life, but especially now. Of course there's going to be mental health issues and of course people are going to have stress that they need to work through and anxiety that they need to work through. Nothing to be ashamed of ever, but especially now. Also at headspace.com, that has been very helpful and we thank them for their support. 

On the reopening strategy, we've said all along that it's data driven and a big piece of the data driven strategy is the testing component. We've all been talking about this testing, especially diagnostic testing, which has been very important. In the beginning, the challenge was what is diagnostic testing? How do we ramp up diagnostic testing? This is a scale that this nation has never done before. How do we do it? How do we do it quickly? It involved the federal government, it involved the state governments. FDA had to approve tests. We then had to get our labs up and running. 

We set an initial goal, March 13 - seems like a lifetime ago, but it actually was right over a month. Six thousand tests a day, we were going to try to do and that sounded like a very ambitious goal. We then got to 10,000 tests a day, then got to 15,000 test per day, 20,000 thousand tests. I then met with the President and we talked about an institutional agreement between states and the federal government, where the federal government would help with the supply chain and getting materials to the national labs and the states would be responsible for organizing their labs. We said we were going to try to double our capacity at that time on April 21 or thereabouts and everybody said, "Oh, you're being too aggressive, you can't do it, you can't do it." I said, "well, can I tell you, that's who I am."

We're at doubling the goal. We're now at 40,000 tests per day. So that's May 17. We started with about 6,000 tests. So, we now have a really significant number of tests that we can do so much, so that per capita we are doing more than other countries -significantly more. Diagnostic tests by population, New York is 7.1. Italy is second, 4.1. Canada, USA, nationally is doing 3.3. We're double the national average. So, thank you to the Department of Health team and everybody who has been working so hard to do that. When you compare us to other states in the nation again we're double the percentage. Not raw numbers because we're bigger than many states, but by percentage we're much, much higher and this is a very big advantage for us because testing originally was used to control the virus.

Now testing is really going to be very helpful in monitoring the virus. We're all talking about what is the spread of the virus when you increase economic activity. Well, how do you know what the spread of the virus is? Testing, testing, testing. Not only do we have a large capacity to process the tests, we also have put together a network of testing sites all across the state and we have a new agreement with CVS which has a tremendous network across this state where they're going to be bringing on testing capacity so we thank them very much for that.

But we have now 700 testing sites. Okay? So we can do more tests and we have 700 testing sites across the state which means there's a testing site near you. So many sites that it doesn't fit on a map. That's how many sites. That's what a map looks like when you plot all the sites. It's meaningless, unless you like those blue things all over the state. So it's 700 testing sites.

What's the new problem? The new problem is we have more sites and more testing capacity than we're using. Okay? That's a good problem but that is the next. From hurdle to hurdle, right? Stone to stone. I see it more like from hurdle to hurdle down the track. Now we have more testing capacity and more sites than we're actually using. We have drive-in sites that can do 15,000 per day. We're doing about 5,000 per day. The more tests, the better for the state, the better for society, the better for your family, the better for you.

Who can get a test today? Any individual who thinks they have a Covid symptom. Covid symptoms, coughing, sneezing, fever. What else? Sneezing, coughing, chest pain, cough - because Covid symptoms are basically like flu symptoms. If you think you have symptoms get a test. Get a test. It's up to you. Any individual who has had contact with a person who you find out had Covid, right? You get that phone call. Oh, I was with you last night at a party. Turns out I tested positive for Covid. Okay. you now qualify for a test. You lose your sense of smell. You lose your sense of taste. That's a symptom of Covid. Any individual who is on quarantine, precautionary or mandatory, any healthcare worker, any nursing homeworker, any first responder can go for a test today. Any essential worker who interacts with the public. Food delivery personnel, person working in a retail store, they're all eligible and we're increasing it today. Any individual who would return to work in Phase 1, construction, manufacturing, curbside retail, okay?

But again, it's anyone who thinks they have covid symptoms. So, it's a tremendously large universe of people who can get tested. And all you have to do is go to a website, find the testing site near you, and get a test. And it is a fast and easy thing to do. Now, we've been working on this for a period of time. And first we ought to get the testing capacity up, then we had to get the sites up, then we wanted to make it easy, then we increased eligibility. And we just don't have enough New Yorkers coming to be tested.

So, I've been asking people, have you been tested? No. Why not? Well, they can't say it's inconvenient, because we have 700 sites. They can't say they're not eligible, because if you have any symptoms you're eligible. There is a general proclivity where -- and I don't mean any disrespect to the medical profession. My sister is a doctor. But some people just don't like to go to the doctor and don't like to get tested. On a personal level, they love doctors. How can you not? But there's a reluctance to go to a doctor's office, which I understand. I am not good when it comes to this. I don't do the scheduled, all the scheduled check-ins that I'm supposed to be doing. And it's sort of like do I really want to know? Do I really want to go and be poked, and prodded, and investigated, and have a test and then worry about what the test says? It's just being honest. So, I am not good at this. But this test is not an invasive test. There is no pain to this test. There is nothing about this test that should intimidate people from not taking this test. It is fast, it is easy. It is so fast and so easy that even a governor can take this test. That's how fast and easy it is. And for you doubting Thomases, which is what you all are, gender neutral, because by profession you are doubting Thomases. I am going to show you how fast and easy it is to take a test and demonstrate why there should be no reluctance.

This is Dr. Elizabeth Dufort, who is in the appropriate PPE wear. Nice to see you, doctor. You make that gown look good.

Doctor Dufort: Head up a little bit.

Governor Cuomo: Head up.

Doctor Dufort: Close your eyes.

Governor Cuomo: Close my eyes? Why do I need to close my eyes? You can question the doctor. That's okay. Why do I need to close my eyes?

Doctor Dufort: For comfort, it might make you tear a little bit.

Governor Cuomo: Okay, if I fall asleep?

Doctor Dufort: Then we'll have you sit down.

Governor Cuomo: that's it?

Doctor Dufort: Yeah.

Governor Cuomo: That's it? Nothing else?

Doctor Dufort: That's it.

Governor Cuomo: Told you. Thank you very much, doctor.

That is the whole test. I'm not in pain. I'm not in discomfort. Closing my eyes was a moment of relaxation. There is no reason why you should not get the test. And you don't even have to be New York tough to take that test. You do have to be smart to get that test, and you have to be united, and you have to be disciplined for the period of time that you close your eyes. And you have to love yourself, and love your family, and love New York.

2020-05-18 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Good to be with all of you today. Pleasure to be in Buffalo. You know the people who are with me but just in case, you have been living under a rock to my far right, Robert Mujica, Budget Director of the State of New York, to my immediate right, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul who has done a great job statewide but she's taken a special role in coordinating Western New York, so we thank her very much for what she's done. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, to her left, Gareth Rhodes who's been working with us through this crisis. It's a pleasure to be at Roswell, Dr. Candace Johnson, thank you very much for the hospitality. Just thinking about our trip to Cuba and your great accomplishment. It was fun, it was fun, and it was productive. And it's always a pleasure to be with my friend, my partners, the great Mayor of the city of Buffalo, Byron Brown and the great County Executive of Erie County Mark Poloncarz - thank you for everything you've been doing to get us through this.

I'm pleased to report that I took a COVID test yesterday and I am negative from that test. So, that is good news. You take one of those tests, it's very easy. I showed people how easy it was yesterday. And when you find out you're negative, it's actually a nice sense of relief. I didn't have any symptoms or anything, but you know, you don't need to have symptoms and you can have the COVID virus. So, you take the test they tell you you're negative, 24 to 48 hours. And it is peace of mind. There's no reason why people shouldn't be getting testing - we actually have now more testing capacity than we are using at many of our sites. And we've expanded the number of people who are eligible for testing - anyone who has any symptom for a COVID virus, any symptom includes basically the symptoms you would have if you had the flu. Same symptoms, if you have any symptoms, get a test. Get a test. Protects you, protects your family, protects your colleagues, so get a test. If you were exposed to a person who you find out is positive for COVID, get a test. Get a test. Takes 30 seconds - we have 700 locations across the state. So, there's no reason why you shouldn't do it - you go right to the web. It shows you right where the location is, you can sign up and go.

Let's give you some facts on today. Number of hospitalizations are down. So, that's good news, not down a lot but down - I'll take it. Net change is down; net change in intubations is down. The number of new cases per day is down by one. Not great. But I'll take it - it's going in the right direction. So, that is good news. The number that breaks my heart every day - the number of deaths is still painfully high at 106, but it is down. And in this world where we're looking for good news on a daily basis, that is good news. Although in our thoughts and prayers are those 106 families today.

And if you look at where we are, we have done a phenomenal job in reducing the spike, reducing what could have been cataclysmic - you see that incline on that curve. No one could tell you when we were in the midst of that incline where would stop or if it would stop. There was no global expert who said if you do this if you close this and close this and close this, then we can tell you with certainty it can it will stop the spread of the virus, nobody said that. All they could say was do your best, try to close everything down, and then hope for the best. And New Yorkers responded - we had the highest number of cases in the country. New Yorkers responded with great unity and great discipline, and that's why that curve turned. We hit the apex and we're on the way down - you also see how slow the way down is. That's why all the experts always say be careful of this spike because it's a long time coming down from the spike. We want to avoid the spike because you can't reverse it in a matter of days. It takes a long time to get those numbers back down. And this is with everything we did and with all the loss and pain we suffered this is how long it took to get those numbers down.

We now have a top priority, which we have from day one which is our nursing homes. We were introduced to this virus in Seattle, Washington where it attacked a nursing home - the most vulnerable population in the most vulnerable place. Senior citizens in a congregate facility, that's how we were introduced to this virus, and I'm afraid that's how we're going to leave this virus. So, protecting our nursing homes and seniors has been a top priority.

Last week, we put in place a requirement to test all staff at a nursing home twice per week. Why? Well, number one, it keeps the staff safe. Number two, if you see an increase in the positive among staff people it's an alert that you probably have a real problem in that nursing home because chances are the staff are getting it from the nursing home or giving it to people in the nursing home. So, if you watch what happens with the staff, it's a canary in the coal mine for what's happening in the nursing home. And third, it clearly keeps the residents of the nursing home safe. Now, to help nursing homes do this we've worked with all the private labs, identified a number of tests that we can send just for the purpose of testing people in nursing homes, that's about 35,000 per day. We're sending 320,000 test kits to the nursing homes today to help them do this.

With everything we're doing, I know the nursing home operators are not happy about this. I get it. It's very hard to administer. The staff all have to be tested twice a week. Okay, we're giving test kits, we've set up a lab capacity, but it is still an operational issue. I understand that and I understand that no other state is doing this. And I hear that quite often from the nursing homes. No other state is requiring that the staff be tested twice a week. I understand that. I understand we have the most aggressive standard in the nation, but I also know that it is necessary. And look, from day one, we said this was going to be hard. And we said we drew bad cards in this hand.

New York did have the highest number of cases, not because we did anything wrong, but because the virus fooled everyone and we were closing down China and the virus had already left China and gone to Europe. And by the time we closed Europe 3 million Europeans had come from Europe and landed in New York airports. That was happening and we didn't know, close china, was already gone by the time we closed China. And it had left Europe by the time we closed Europe. That's why New York had that cluster. Those flights from Europe come here. They land in JFK. They land in Newark. People take connecting flights. They're coming here. So, that brought the virus here. That's why we have the numbers we have.

Okay, but we said we're going to do what we have to do and we're going to do what we have to do to protect the lives of New Yorkers. Who's in a nursing home? This is your mother, this is your father, your sister, your brother. This is our family who are in nursing homes. That's who they are. And they're our senior family members who we owe nothing but gratitude and respect. And the one thing we need to be able to say at the end of this is we did everything we could. We did everything we could. 106 people died. How do you live with that? How do you sleep with that? Because we did everything we could. We still can't save every life but we can do everything in our power that we can do to try to save every life. And that's why I'm comfortable with what we're doing on nursing homes. I know it's hard and I thank them.

On reopening overall, we're opening regions that have hit the data points, hit the metrics. Western New York has one metric that they have to hit which is the number of tracers. They need 521 tracers. They've identified 525. Great piece of work that they did over the weekend. I want to thank the Mayor, I want to thank the County Executive, all the regional officials who found people to serve as tracers. They're going to be trained tomorrow, and that means all the metrics will be hit and Western New York will open tomorrow. So, that's exciting. It's been a long painful period but we start to reopen tomorrow. New York State Department of Health is also granting a waiver to restart elective procedures for ECMC. We want to make sure hospitals are in a position to provide care for people who need it. So, this is a good step. I also have been encouraging major sports teams to plan reopenings without fans but the games could be televised. New York State will help those major sports franchises to do just that. Hockey, basketball, baseball, football, whoever can reopen we're a ready, willing and able partner. Personal disclosure, I want to watch the Buffalo Bills but I'm still objective. I'm acting as Governor. There is no personal agenda here. Yes, I do want to watch the bills but that is not subverting my role as Governor. I think this is in the best interest of all the people and in the best interest of the State of New York even though I do have a coincident personal agenda because I want to watch the Bills but they are separate agendas. At least some would say I have a conflict of interest, I want to disclose it.

The judges and staff will be returning to courthouses in the 30 upstate counties that are open this week. What will reopening mean? That's a big topic of discussion now. What does reopening mean? This is not a subject that is a political subject or where political opinions really matter. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, I don't care. I don't care. This is not a political exercise that we are going through. People say, well I have a personal opinion. I don't even care about your personal opinion. I don't think you should care about my personal opinion because it's not about a personal opinion. It's not about an ideological opinion. It's not about a geographic opinion. It's not even an opinion that's relevant. This is about facts and science and data these decisions are being made as a matter of math. It's numbers. It's math. That's all it is at the end of the day. You start to increase economic activity, you have more people coming out of their homes, more people contacting other people and then you measure the impact of that increase with numbers - not with opinions, not with politics, not with partisanship. With numbers, and then you just measure the impact.

Make sure that you don't go above 70 percent of your hospital beds so that if a large number of people get infected you have the hospital beds to take care of them. You make sure you don't go over 70 percent of your ICU bed capacity because when these people are infected with COVID they do need ICU beds. We learned that the hard way. You have testing up and running, 30 tests per 1,000 residents. Where did that come from? That's the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Birx.

You have 30 tracers ready for every 100,000 residents. That comes from the experts, and then you watch the infection rate and you make sure that you don't get near 1.1 on the infection rate. It's math and there's a liberation in that. At a time of such division in politics and elections and all this garbage this is an exercise in science and math and it's data that we can all share and we can all participate in. I encourage people to go look at the data and look at what's happening in your region because that's how we're going to get through this - on the numbers on the math, on the facts.

We're going to bring in advisers to the State, advisors who are international experts, global experts who have dealt with these kinds of diseases. This is not just a State of New York issue. It's not even an American issue. It's a global issue and I want to make sure we have people reviewing and then reviewing the reviewers and then as many opinions of experts that we can get are the best path forward. Dr. Osterholm is a nationwide expert in this field and he has agreed to review our data, what we're doing, what's happening, and to advise us as to how our progress looks on the numbers. I want to thank him very much. We to have Dr. Samir Bhatt, Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, who has agreed to serve as an advisor to the State of New York. Dr. Bhatt is the senior lecturer in geostatistics at the Imperial College in London. Geostatistics is not my field of endeavor. I never heard of geostatistics before, doctor. That's why we need you to advise us, Dr. Bhatt, because I know nothing about geostatistics. But Dr. Bhatt is joining us, I want to thank him very much. The Imperial College in London, we have had a number of projection models that were done early on by a number of very prestigious universities.

And we've been watching all these projection models since this started. As you know, many of the models were not 100 percent accurate because they couldn't calculate the effect of the social participation and what people actually did to change the curve. And in a State like New York, what the people did dramatically changed that curve so it affected the projections. But, the Imperial College model, as we've been following this for weeks, was the best, most accurate model. And therefore, I think Dr. Bhatt deserves all our thanks because they really helped us all through this to date, and I want to thank him very much for taking the time to advise us, not just on how we constructed our model to date but what happens going forward as we increase the economic activity and we start to see numbers change. So, Doctor, thank you very much for being with us, and it's a pleasure to welcome you today.

Dr. Samir Bhatt: Thank you, Governor. It's a professional honor to work with New York. I think your state has already shown what can be achieved when policies are driven by science. And I think the sacrifices people have made and will continue to make deserves an applause. The leadership shown in New York during this crisis should be commended and I think yours is an approach for others to follow. At Imperial College London, we have a huge COVID-19 response team collaborating with scientists and government agencies globally. You in New York have successfully contained the virus for now, but New York is not out of the woods yet. No state, no country is. As you reopen, New York must continue to watch the data and follow the science. We are really eager to work with New York, as they're approaching this crisis from a scientific perspective driven by data. New York is leading the way with data collection, and this will help tie together as many sources of evidence as possible to reach a scientific consensus which can then be used for decision-making. Our team is focused on rigorous modeling to track R, or RT, as you have put it, as well. The reproduction number of the virus going forward. If R goes above 1, this means the virus is no longer contained, and we need to track the spread of this virus and the disease using the best data possible and as much of it as possible. We're committed to open science, so policymakers and citizens understand our conclusions, limitations, and of course, the uncertainties. To date, my team at Imperial has released reports for Europe, Brazil, Italy, relying on data from Google, as well as open source statistical tools developed at Columbia University. Thanks to these tools and our research network, the code is available to everyone to see, test, and to improve. As countries around the world and states around the U.S. start reopening their economies, we will see cases rise once again. And so, New York must continue to be vigilant and to follow the data. So, I think, I say, you know, Governor, thank you for this opportunity, and truly, thank you for the work you've been doing and you are doing.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you very much, Doctor, thank you for being with us. Thank you, I look forward to speaking to you in the days ahead. I want to thank the doctor very much and the whole college. Look, I'm a parochial New Yorker. I was not all that eager to seek the advice of a college in London, but I can tell you this. This is a global pandemic, and what we're now doing, other countries have done before. We tend to think we are always the first. We're not the first. We're not the first to deal with this virus. Other countries have dealt with it, other countries have gone through reopening, they've learned all sorts of lessons on reopening. I want to make sure that what we're doing is the best-informed approach. So, I want to thank the doctor very much, and they'll be looking exactly at what happens at our data, our metrics, going forward. And then the last point is, what's the impact of the reopening? We don't know yet what the road ahead looks like. It is a function of what we do. So, you tell me, how responsible are the employers in following the guidelines that have been put forth, right. We talk about reopening, and contracting, and agriculture, and fishing, and manufacturing. And there are safety guidelines that those employers must follow. How scrupulous they are in following those guidelines will matter. You tell me if the store owners follow the guidelines and I'll tell you what happens. You tell me if the employees are following the guidelines, and wearing the PPE, and using their hand sanitizer and I'll tell you what happens. You tell me how individuals react now that the weather is getting warmer, are they wearing masks, are they acting socially responsibly, are they staying within social distancing requirements and I'll tell you what's going to happen. You tell me how effectively a local government enforces the guidelines and I'll tell you what is going to happen.

So, none of this is predetermined. This is all a function of what we do today going forward. The smarter, the more disciplined we are the lower that infection rate will climb. The lower the infection rate climbs, the more you increase the economic activity. It is a formula. It is math. At the same time, it's liberating because it takes the politics out of it, it takes a personal opinion out of it. But it's also something you can measure and track and you will know exactly what's going to happen because it's a function of what we're doing. It's up to us. It's up to you. It's the collective, we're going to decide the future that starts today.

We should also set our goal high, right. We're coming back, we're coming back from the closing. All right, so what is our goal? I say it should not just be about we're going to reopen. Reopen suggests you're going to go back to where you were before the closure. We're going go back to the day before the closure. No. Life is never about going backwards. Life is never about I want to get back to where I was. It has to be about building back better than before. We want to go forward. We want to advance. And that's what we have to think about going through this. Yeah, we took a hard blow and we got knocked down. No fault of our own. Whoever created that virus, mother nature, god, whoever. No fault of our own.

Welcome to life. Things happen outside of your control that you couldn't do anything about, but it just happens. And then the question becomes are you strong enough to get back up once life knocks you down? And are you smart enough to learn from what you went through in life? And when you get back up you will be the better for it. I believe that. That's my story. That's our story. That's the story of Buffalo. Getting knocked down, change in the economy. All right, but we're going to get back up because we're strong enough and we're going to learn from it, because we're smart enough. That's the story of Buffalo. That's the story of New York. That is the American story, right. It's what made this country the best country on the globe. Not that we didn't get knocked down. We got knocked down plenty, but we were smart enough to learn and strong enough to get back up. And that's where we have to set our sights. Not about reopening.

We're going to make this place better than ever before. Because what we went through is a transformative experience in life. On an individual level and on a social level. We're not going to be the people we were the day before. We're going to be better. We're going be to smarter. We're going to be stronger for what we went through. We're going to be a stronger society for what we went through. I believe that. And we're going have a stronger Buffalo, a stronger New York, and a stronger America. And that's what it means to be New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving.

2020-05-19 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. It's my pleasure to be on Long Island this afternoon. I'll wear a mask out of respect for my fellow New Yorkers. And today at Northwell, I wear a mask to also say thank you to the nurses and the doctors and the healthcare professionals that did so much work, saved so many lives. The least we can do is wear a mask to stop infections. It's not overly intrusive, it's not overly invasive, you can make a fashion statement. I picked blue today to match my blue suit. I didn't really do that, it's just the only one I had. Let me introduce the people who are here. To my left, far left, Dr. Jim Malatras. To my immediate left, Michael Dowling, who is the president and CEO of Northwell Health, who has done just an extraordinary job, the whole team at Northwell has been extraordinary in what they've done for the entire state, not just Long Island, not just downstate New York, Northwell is the largest healthcare system in the state, and they really stepped up to help the entire state. And Michael, and the leadership he's brought to Northwell, and because he knows healthcare, New York State the way he does, former health commissioner in charge of health for the State of New York. He's really been a fantastic asset, I want to thank him. To my right, Melissa DeRosa, to her right, Robert Mujica, budget director for the State of New York.

And as I said, it's a pleasure to be on Long Island, it's a beautiful day. It's that bittersweet reality that we're living in. The news is good today, the weather is good, so it's good to be here. But, I'm not out on the water, I'm not fishing off the south shore of Long Island, I'm not fishing off the north shore of Long Island. Normal days, I would have been doing that by now. Little break, little piece of sanity. But the news is good. Total hospitalizations declined again. This is an important lesson, though. What you see here, you'll almost in every state across the country, you'll see in almost every country across the globe. Look how fast that spike comes, look how fast that incline is, how steep the incline is, and then look at how slow, relatively, that decline is. You can get into trouble quickly with this virus and it takes you a longer time to turn that curve and to turn that infection rate. So, don't let a spike happen in the first place, learned that lesson, got it.

Net change in total hospitalizations down, change in intubations down, number of new cases, this is an important number that we track, down again, 335. That's on a system of 53,000 so that's really good news. Number of deaths, again, on a relative scale, the number is down. It's down dramatically from where it was in the first place, but it's still painfully high. We are basically back to where we started before this tragedy descended upon us. It didn't actually descend upon us, it actually came from people in Europe, which nobody told us, nobody knew. We all thought the virus was in China, and everybody was talking about watch China, watch China, watch China. Well the virus had left China and gone to Europe and came here from Europe. 3 million European visitors came on flights to JFK or Newark airports between January, February, March. The Europe travel ban started mid-March. By that time, 3 million Europeans had come. That's another lesson we have to learn. We're now all excited and talking about reopening. We have all the data-driven metrics that can tell you exactly where we are in terms of reopening across the state. Albany, Capital Region, which has met many of the health metrics has to get their tracers up and running. We've been working with them to do that. They need 383 tracers, they found 430 working together so that's great news. This whole testing, tracing, testing, tracing - we use these words like people would know what they mean. We've never done testing on this scale, we've never done tracing on this scale. We'll have thousands of tracers who follow-up after the testing statewide. They're now being trained today and Capital Region should open tomorrow.

Long Island is making great progress. Long Island, we were losing about 100 residents per day. We're now down to about 13 per day. When someone asks, "Well why did we go through all this pain for 2 months, 3 months?" Because we saved lives, that's why. Because we saved lives. And if we didn't do what we did, that number of 100 per day would have kept going up. That's why we did what we did. Did it work? You're darn right it worked. We've saved many, many lives and you look at the curve in New York versus the rest of the nation, we're going down, many parts of the nation, the curve is still going up.

Nassau County is now eligible for elective surgery and ambulatory care. Anyone who needs health service should get it. There's no reason not to go to the hospital. No reason not to go to the doctor's office. Many reasons why you should go. Denial is not a life strategy. If you have an issue, get it tested, get it resolved. We're also looking at a pilot program over the next two weeks to start to bring visitors back to hospitals. That's going to be run by the Greater New York Hospital Association, Downstate and Health Association of New York State Upstate. There will be a number of hospitals participating in that. Northwell has a number of hospitals. This is getting visitors back into hospitals with the right precaution, with the right equipment. It is terrible to have someone in the hospital and that person is isolated, not being able to see their family and friends. I understand the health reasons for that, we were afraid of the virus spread, but this is a pilot project to see if we can bring visitors in and do it safely.

We're now taking steps to do further reopening with fewer crowds. I'm very aggressive on encouraging sports teams to start and to operate without fans. This is more an economic calculus for different sports. Some sports franchises can make this work easier than others. It depends on the economics of that sport and how much is determined by selling seats in the arena or the stadium, et cetera. To the extent they can start, I encourage them to start. The state will work with them to start. Downstate, we have a number of sports teams. When a team plays, even if there's no one in the stands, it gets broadcast and that gives people at home entertainment value, something to participate in. Another reason, frankly, to stay home as opposed to go out and staying home is good right now so I encourage the sports teams, and again, New York will be a full partner, anything we can do to make it happen and make it happen safely, we will.

Memorial Day is coming up. That is an important American tradition. We want to honor our veterans and we want to make sure that no matter what happens we are still honoring our veterans. The state will allow ceremonies, local ceremonies of up to 10 people or less. We hope that those ceremonies are broadcast, televised in their areas so people can be a part of honoring that tradition. Local governments can make a decision that they don't want those ceremonies to happen, they don't want 10 people gathering. Ten is the CDC guideline, is for 10 people gathering. That's where the state got the recommendation from the federal CDC. But I can understand the difference of opinion so we'll leave it up to local government.

Vehicle parades I think are appropriate and should be encouraged and again, this is an important tradition. Many people lost their lives. This is important to many, many families all across this state and nation. It's important to the veterans that they be recognized and I think we can do that and I think we can do it safely.

New Yorkers are doing everything they can as a people. Our response has been probably the most demanding in the country because we had the largest number of cases but every step of the way New Yorkers have stepped up. As a government we are doing everything that we can. We're doing more testing than any other state. We've been more aggressive than any state in nursing home precautions. So we have been smart. New Yorkers have been smart. The government has been smart and that should be respected and now we need a federal government that is as smart as the people who elected that federal government because New York, to move forward and move forward quickly we need a federal government as a partner.

They're now in the midst of running a number of programs that provide cash benefits to corporations. Let's make giving those corporations funding that the corporations are actually acting on behalf of Americans. I proposed something called the Americans First Law. Not America First, Americans First Law. We learned the hard way in 2008 that you can see government provide billions of dollars to corporations to quote unquote stabilize the economy. We did this after the mortgage scandal. We gave billions to the banks, remember? Because they were too big to fail. So we had to give billions of dollars to the banks. What did the banks do? Many of them turned around and gave themselves bonuses and they gave themselves parties and end of year bonuses and special pay bonuses. These are the same banks that created the mortgage fraud in the first place, then get bailed out by the taxpayer and wind up having parties at taxpayer expense. I fear what they're going to do this time is they'll take the money from government but then they'll lay off workers. They're already talking about it.

You see these corporations talking about getting lean and restructuring. That means downsizing. Why? Because they think they have an opportunity. Now, many of the employees have been laid off temporarily, or temporarily at home, the corporations think this is an opportunity to reopen with fewer employees. It would be such a scandal if corporations now took taxpayer dollars and then laid off workers, and reopened. It would be such a scandal, and a fraud if these corporations were allowed to receive government money, lay off workers, and then government taxpayers had to subsidize the workers who were laid off. So, my law is very simple. If you take government funds, you must rehire the same number of workers you had pre- pandemic. If you take government funds, you must rehire the same number of employees you had pre-pandemic. If you want to lay people off, if you want to get lean, if you want to restructure, fine. But don't use taxpayer money to subsidize it and don't think taxpayers are going to pay you to lay off employees and then wind up with an unemployment problem at the end of the day.

That's what happened in 2008. I was attorney general. I brought the cases afterwards. I brought actions against AIG and against banks like Bank of America that took these bailout funds, and then gave themselves bonuses and parties. Don't make the same mistake twice. The American taxpayers are doing what they have to do. Don't make fools of the American taxpayers.

Second, Washington was very quick to fund businesses and corporations. The bills they passed thus far have been about funding corporations and businesses to keep, to prop up the economy. Fine, who did they not fund? They didn't fund state governments and local governments. Who do state and local governments fund? They fund the hospitals. They fund the police. They fund the firefighters. They fund the school teachers. They fund the food banks. Why was Washington so quick to fund the corporations and the big businesses, but now they have to think about whether or not they want to fund state governments and local governments, the hospitals, the police, the firefighters, school teachers? What sense of priority do you have that you see so clearly the need for corporations, but you don't see the need to continue basic services? And what makes this so offensive to me, you turn on the TV, you see all these ads praising the healthcare workers and the nurses and the doctors who saved so many lives, who worked so hard, and the first responders who went out there, they're the heroes of today, and they are, and they are, and they should be acknowledged - and they should be funded.

If you don't fund New York state government, you know what that means? That means I have to cut aid to Northwell, to hospitals, to nurses, to doctors. It means I have to cut aid to local governments that fund police and firefighters. I have to fund funding to schools, teachers, who have also been heroes doing remote learning, et cetera. It's about priorities. It's about values. And I understand the large corporations are the ones who fund the political accounts of these elected officials. But let them remember, that they get elected by the people. People still vote. People still matter. Show the same consideration for the workers that you showed for the corporations. That's all I'm asking, and that's the Americans First law, and state and local government.

This is not a partisan issue. This is not Democrats versus Republicans. I have stayed 100 miles away from any politics all through this. This is no time for politics. This is not a political divisive issue. This is all the governors in the United States. National Governors Association represents all the governors. The White House left it to the governors to do the reopening, right? All the states are doing the reopening. You can't tell the states go reopen, figure it out, and then not provide them with the funding to do it. The head of the National Governors Association is a Republican governor, Governor Hogan. I'm the vice chairman of the NGA. I'm a Democrat. In unison, in a united voice, we're saying to Washington, you need to pass funding for state and local governments. The House passed a bill that did it. That also provides funding for testing, which is very important, testing, tracing enterprise. It repeals SALT, which is an additional tax on New Yorkers for the federal government. But the Senate now has that bill. The Senate must act.

Also, there was very exciting news about a company that might be close to developing a vaccine and the federal government is working very hard to accelerate the vaccine, as they should. The testing, the regulations, the procedures about getting a vaccine online. That would be the best possible outcome. But, we have to make sure whatever company finds the vaccine, finds the pot of gold, that whatever private company finds that, the vaccine must then be available to all people. And it can't be a situation where only the rich, only the privileged can get the vaccine, because one company owns the rights and they can't produce enough for everyone. This is a public health matter. This is a national security threat. This should not be about one corporation's privacy. If the federal government is bending over backwards and jumping through hoops to allow this company to develop a vaccine, then let's make sure the federal government sets the rules now and says to any company that develops the vaccine, the next day we have to be in a position where that patent, that formula can be given to companies all across the globe to produce a vaccine, so we can treat everyone.

And the last point is this, the world is different today than it was. There are situations in life that can happen on a moment's notice, and change the very trajectory, and definition of your life. You can get health news about an individual that just changes your whole life. What you thought was so important yesterday becomes totally unimportant. This situation, this covid virus has changed the world fundamentally. I don't believe we ever go back to where we were. I don't believe life is about going back, right? Life is about going forward.

But this is a different world. It's a different world individually, it's a different world for families. We're all trying to recalibrate and reassess who we are and how we live and what's important, what's not important. I hope, on an individual level, that this period is going to make me a smarter person, a better person, a deeper person. It's made me question a lot of things about my life, a lot of priorities, a lot of things I was doing. It makes you think through personal relationships and what's important and where you've been spending your time. Was that the smartest use of time? Sometimes when something is taken away you see how valuable it was. Now you can't go see family members if you wanted to. You can't see friends if you wanted to. When someone says you can't, it changes your whole perspective. You ask yourself why haven't I been? Why didn't I? When I get a chance, how am I going to do it differently this time? I think that can actually be a good process to go through. Painful, but good.

It's also true for government. Government is important again, right? Government, most days you lead your life, government, politics, it's a sideshow. It's not that important. When does government really become important? Probably, almost not in m lifetime. When has it been vital? It's vital at the time of war, crisis, real national crisis. But that's the only time it's really vital. When you don't have a choice but to deal with and rely on government.

Well, government is now important again. In a way, it hasn't been in my lifetime. It matters what government does. Government has made the difference between life and death here, right? Because government is part of social action and the people who saved lifes in this are New Yorkers for doing the right thing. But government was part of that. It helps organize. Today, government's going to be held to a different standard and it has to be fundamentally different. It has to be smarter than it was. It matters now what happens. You have to know what you're doing now. Not just look like you know what you're doing, not just sound like you know what you're doing. You have to be smart. You're not going to tweet your way through this. You have to be smart. You have to be competent at what you do. There's something called government and you either know how to do it or you don't know how to do it.

You know, for many years, anyone can be in government. You know. I don't know, can anyone be a nurse? Oh, no, you have to know what you're talking about. Can anyone be a doctor? No, you have to know what you're talking about. Can anyone be a lawyer? No, you have to know what you're talking about. Can anyone be a plumber? Nope, you have to know what you're talking about. Can anyone run government? Oh, yeah, anybody can run government. The less you know, the better. That wasn't true. You have to be competent. It has to be beyond politics.

This is not about an ongoing campaign. You're now a government official, you represent everyone. Forget the politics, represent people. It doesn't matter, Republican, Democrat, that's all garbage now. I'm the governor of New York, all New Yorkers. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, atheist. I don't care if you vote, I don't care if you don't vote. That's your business. I represent you. You pay me to represent you. That's how I see it. Government has to be fair. It has to be effective. That's where we all are now. That's where we've been in New York. That's what it means to be New York tough - as person, as a society, as a collective, and as a government. To be smart, to be united, to be disciplined, to be loving, that's New York.

2020-05-20 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. It's always good when you know the difference between morning and afternoon, it's a good way to start the day. From my left, we have budget director Robert Mujica, always smiling, because that is our financial forecast, all smiles. Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. From my far right, we have Dr. James Malatras, Dr. Howard Zucker. To my immediate right, Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, who is on special volunteer assignment for the state, working for her father, a very pleasant boss. A little sad today, Mariah and I, because the boyfriend has left the premises, returned to his home state. That's okay. That old expression, you love something, let it go and it will return to you, and if it doesn't return, then it was never meant to be. Words to that effect.

Numbers are headed in the right direction today. Hospitalizations are down, net change in hospitalizations are down, intubations are down again. Number of new cases, down. But it was a long road down, slow decline. Fast spike, slow decline. This was what has happened all across the country. Number of deaths, still painfully high. Not down, up a little bit. The overall direction is right, but this is a painful, painful, tragic number of lives lost and they are all in our thoughts and prayers.

You look at the entire experience, you see we're stabilized basically with where we were before we had this dramatic increase, and one of the things we've learned through this is smart wins. It's not about politics, it's not about motion. You're dealing with a virus, the virus doesn't respond to politics, the virus doesn't have an ideology, the virus isn't red or blue. It is a virus that is attacking people. It's about science, it's about numbers, it's about data, and smart wins the battle. If you follow that guidance and that theory, we're always looking at researching the numbers, where are the cases coming from, how do we reduce the numbers?

You look all across the country, it's lower income communities, predominantly minority, where we're still seeing an increase in the numbers. We looked at that in New York City. We did a very extensive research project and it is true. You can look at where the cases are coming. Look at the testing data, by geographic area, by zip code, and find out where the cases are coming from. We asked Northwell Health, which is the largest health system in the state, to do an extensive test for us. We're in the midst of that test, but we have back about 8,000 tests, which is a very large sample, and the data is very powerful and informs what we're doing going forward. The test was done in New York City, because that's where we have the highest predominance of cases. But, in lower income communities, communities of color, we partnered with the faith-based community, with churches, to conduct tests. We found about 27 percent of the individuals testing positive. 27 percent, that's compared to the New York City general population of about 19 percent. The Bronx had the highest percentage, 34 percent. Again, compared to a citywide average of 19 percent. Then Brooklyn, then Manhattan and then Queens. Staten Island was at the New York City overall number.

But you take a place like the Bronx, it is 34 percent, compared to 19 percent. Just to give you an idea. The data shows not just a high positive, not just that a high number of people had the positive, but the spread is continuing in those communities and that's where the new cases are coming from, okay? And you can literally do that on a zip code basis. For example, you are seeing in the Bronx, 43 percent of the people tested positive. 43 percent. Compared to the New York City general average of 19 percent. Hospitalization rate, 3.2 people for every 100,000. Compared to 1.8. It is double the hospitalization rate.

So be smart. Let's use the numbers, let's research. Where are people who are infected? Where are new cases coming from? Where is the spread continuing? Low-income communities, communities of color. They tend to be high Latino, high African American population. And we are seeing that pattern continue in zip codes, lower-income, predominantly minority. Brownsville, Brooklyn, 41 percent. Double the city average. That happens to be 80 percent African American, but again, just about double the rate of hospitalization.

So that's where the cases are still coming from. That's where the virus is still spreading. But again, you look at the data and you see it over and over again, by zip code, by select communities within the city. My old neighborhood, Hollis, Queens, 35 percent compared to 19 percent. So, it's all across the city. Less in Staten Island, higher in communities of color and lower-income communities. I want to thank the congressional delegation who helped organize this partnership between Northwell and the faith-based community. Getting 8,000 tests in a short period of time is not easily done.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries came up with this idea about 10 days ago, organized it quickly. I want to thank Hakeem - I also want to thank Congresswoman Velázquez and Congresswoman Clarke, for helping us get it organized. The faith-based community has been great here. Reverend Brawley and Reverend Rivera organized those churches for us. So we have the data, we have the research and now we have to take the next step, okay? We did the research, we have the data, we know what's happening, now what do we do about it? That's always step two and we're going to develop targeted strategies to these highly impacted communities. What we're seeing in New York City is going to be true across the state. Northwell Health is going to double the number of churches that they're working in. Forty-four total churches. We're going to partner with Somos Community Care and I want thank them very much for stepping up. They're going to open 28 additional testing sites in these zip codes that fit this profile. We're going to focus on public housing.

When you think about everything we're talking about, social distance, et cetera. and then think about public housing and how hard it is in public housing to do the things we're talking about. I worked in public housing all across the country when I was the Housing and Urban Development Secretary during the Clinton administration. Social distance - how do you socially distance in an elevator in a public housing complex? How do you socially distance in the hallways of a public housing complex? How do you socially distance in the lobby? How do you socially distance in a small playground that's attached to public housing. We understand the challenge and ready responders are going to increase the testing in 40 public housing developments in New York City.

This is going to be a very extensive effort between Northwell and Somos. You'll have 72 faith-based sites. You'll then have ready responders in public housing and we want to now take the next step which is outreach programs, getting the PPE into the community, getting the hand sanitizer into the community. Explaining social distancing and why that's so important and explain how this virus spreads. It's a public health education effort. I've been all across the state, you drive through some of these communities and you can see that social distancing isn't happening, PPE is not being used and hence, the virus spreads.

Again, we did the research in New York City because that's where we have the predominance of cases. It is going to be true in every community across this state and across this nation. You tell me the zip codes that have the predominantly minority community, lower income community, I will tell you the communities where you're going to have a higher positive and you're going to have increased spread and you're going to have increased hospitalization.

I'm asking all local governments to do the same thing that we did in New York City. Focus on low-income communities, do the testing and do the outreach. Do the testing and do the outreach. That's where the cases are coming from. That's where the new hospitalizations are coming from. That's what's going into the hospital system. That's where you're going to see the highest number of deaths. That is our challenge.

On reopening, which we're doing across the state. We do it on the numbers. We do it on the metrics. Every New Yorker can go to the website and find out where their community is. Capital District will reopen today. We're working with religious institutions. Right now they can have up to 10 people with strict social distancing guidelines at religious gatherings. We ask them to consider drive-in and parking lot services for religious ceremonies. We're going to be working with our interfaith advisory council. Our interfaith advisory council has representative of the religious community across the state, all different religions. I understand their desire to get back to religious ceremonies as soon as possible. As former altar boy, I get it. I think even at this time of stress and when people are so anxious and so confused, I think those religious ceremonies can be very comforting. But we need to find out how to do it, and do it safely, and do it smartly. The last thing we want to do is have a religious ceremony that winds up having more people infected. A religious ceremony by definition is a gathering, right. It's a large number of people coming together. We know from New Rochelle, Westchester the first hotspot, that religious ceremonies can be very dangerous. So, we all want to do the same thing, the question is how do we do it, and how do we do it smartly and efficiently. I will be talking with members of the religious community on doing just that and I'm sure we can come up with a way that does it, but does it intelligently.

People ask all the time, well now we are reopening, what is going to happen? What's going to happen is what we make happen. There is no predestined course here. There is nothing that is preordained. What is going to happen is a consequence of our choices and a consequence of our action. It's that simple. If people are smart, and if people are responsible, and if the employers who are opening those businesses do it responsibly, if employees are responsible, if individuals are responsible, then you will see the infection rates stay low. If people get arrogant, if people get cocky, if people get casual, if people become undisciplined, you will see that infection rate go up. It is that simple. This has always been about what we do. It has never been about what government mandated. Government cannot mandate behavior of people and it certainly cannot mandate behavior of 19 million people. It can give you the facts. It can give you the facts that lead to an inevitable conclusion. And New Yorkers have been great about following the facts, but we're at another pivot point.

Yes, we're reopening. Yes, the numbers are down. Yes, we can increase activity and increase economic activity. What is the consequence of that? It depends on what we do. Do your part, wear a mask. Now, wearing a mask, I have been trying to communicate in a whole different set of ways. Mariah is heading up a project that she'll report on in a moment that is helping to communicate this message. But it seems like a simple thing, wearing a mask, and it's apparently so simple that people think it's of no consequence. It happens to be of tremendous consequence. It is amazing how effective that mask actually is. Don't take my word for it, I am not a doctor, I am not a public health expert. Again, look at the facts. What shocks me to this day and I would have lost a lot of money on this bet. How do front-line workers have a lower infection rate than the general population? If I said to you, who is going to have a higher infection rate, nurses in an emergency room, doctors in an emergency room, or the general population, who has a higher infection rate, nurses in an emergency room, doctors in an emergency room, or the general population, who has a higher infection rate? I think most people would've said the nurses in the emergency room, the doctors in the emergency room, the hospital staff. They are going to have a higher infection rate because they are dealing with COVID-positive people all day long. Not true.

How do nurses and doctors have a lower infection rate than the general population? How do transit workers who are on the buses and subways all day long have a lower infection rate than the general population? How does the NYPD, police officers who show up who are dealing with people all day long, how do they have a lower infection rate? How does the NYPD have almost half the infection rate of New York City? How can it be? They are the police officers.

They are wearing the mask. The mask works. Those surgical masks work and it's in the data. It's not that I'm saying it. It's in the data and it is otherwise inexplicable. Just look at that list. Transit workers are lower. Healthcare workers are lower. The Police Department is lower. The Fire Department is lower, which also has the EMTs who show up first and help a person get into an ambulance. They have a lower infection rate. The DOCs workers are the correction officials, who are correction officers, who are in a prison. They are at 7 percent. State Police, 3 percent. They wear the masks. Wear a mask. Remember all those pictures of people in China always wearing masks? Oh, I wonder why they wear all those masks. They were right. The masks work. They are protective and they work. Wear a mask.

So on May 5 we launched the contest to come up with video messages prepared by New Yorkers to try to communicate the message of wear a mask better than I was communicating the message of wear a mask because my daughters were quick to point out that maybe it was my communication skills which were preventing the effective communication of the wear the mask message. The caveat is my daughters often say it is my communication skills which are the problem in the home, in society at large. So Mariah volunteered to run a competition where we asked New Yorkers to do a 30-second ad and the winner of the competition would be the ad that the State runs. With that, I will turn it over to Mariah for her update and her report. 

Mariah Kennedy Cuomo: Today we are excited to be sharing the five finalists that our team has selected for the New York State wear a mask ad contest and these finalists, which we will be showing shortly, are in the running for winning this contest and being shown as a public service announcement. Starting today people can go to wearamask.ny.gov to vote for their favorite ad and voting will be open through Memorial Day. On May 26 we'll be announcing the final winning ad and we are so grateful to all the New Yorkers who have submitted one of the over 600 submissions. And we will be sharing honorable mentions as well so you can see even more of the great videos.

Governor Cuomo: Great, 600 submissions and these are the five finalists that people can view and vote on. Okay, let's see the five finalists.

[Videos Play]

Governor Cuomo: Great, I know that guy by the way. I see him all the time. So, those are the five finalists. People can vote. They go to the coronavirus.health.ny.gov/wear-mask-new-york-ad-contest-cast-your-vote to vote. Vote between now and May 25. Winner announced May 26. How many times can a person vote?

Mariah Kennedy Cuomo: Once.

Governor Cuomo: Once, no voter fraud on this election, no absentee ballots, no polling place. Is there early voting? I don't think so. All right, that is great. Thank you very much for doing that. We will announce that winner May 26. Over 600 submissions though and they are really great. I have seen a number of them. We are going to post the honorable mentions also, but all 600 will be available to look at and they are really creative and have different voices from all across the state. So, I want to thank you very much everyone who participated, because they really are, they are special.

2020-05-21 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: City of New York. Let’s talk about some facts as to where we are today. Everybody knows who’s with us today from my left, Dr. Jim Malatras, Robert Mujica, budget director, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, Gareth Rhodes, young genius. Total hospitalizations down, great news, 5,187. The net change is down, that’s good news. Intubations are down, that’s very good news. New COVID cases are down to 246, which is actually lower than we were when this first started. So we’re back to a point earlier than we were when this COVID crisis hit us and we started that spike, so that’s really good news.

The number of deaths, 105, that’s terrible news. Relatively it’s better than it has been, still 105 families who are grieving today, and they are in our thoughts and prayers. But you see the overall trajectory of this situation, March 20th to May 20th, been a period of time that we’ll go down in history, a lot of pain, unique period, but we got through it. We got through it. We got over the mountain, literally and figuratively. We’re not talking about reopening across the state, we’re doing it region by region. Rockland County today is eligible for elective surgery and ambulatory care. When we open up for elective surgery in the hospital system, it means we have the hospital bed capacity. One of the mad scramble, if you remember early on was to make sure we had enough hospital capacity because the projections were we would need double our hospital capacity in this state, so we stopped elective surgeries.

Opening up elective surgeries means we have a hospital capacity. When we reopen a region, we start to reopen a region, there will be increased activity, more people are coming out. That does not necessarily equate to an increase in the number of cases. It does not have to be that increased activity means more cases. It tends to be true, but it doesn’t have to be true. You can have more activity and if people take the right precautions, you don’t necessarily need to see a rise in the number of cases. And none of this is preordained. As you increase activity, what will happen is a function of what we do. And that’s not just rhetorical. If you tell me how New Yorkers were react with increased activity, I will tell you what will happen to the infection rate. It literally depends on what we do, and everyone has a role to play as we go forward. You reopen shops for curbside retail. How do the shopkeepers, the retail owners, how do they perform? How do the employees perform? How do the employers who have people coming back perform? And probably most importantly as individuals, how are we acting and how are we performing? Are we maintaining social distancing, et cetera. Of all the bizarre things we’ve gone through, this fact is probably one of the most important facts to me.

Logic would have suggested that first responders would have had the highest infection rate. Just common sense. The nurses, the doctors, the EMS workers who are first responding to COVID positive people, working with COVID positive people all day long, they had to have the highest infection rate. Just logic. Think about those emergency rooms. People working 12, 14, 16, 18 hours a day with COVID positive people, they must have had the highest infection rate. NYPD first responders, fire department, they must have had a higher infection rate. The first responders, the frontline workers wind up having a lower infection rate than the general population in that area. How can that possibly be? Because the PPE works, those masks work. We’ve literally tested all the frontline workers, transit workers they’re driving the buses, they’re encountering hundreds of people a day, they’re driving the trains, subway system, on stations in cars, healthcare workers, nurses, doctors, hospital, staff, NYPD, fire department, correction officers in state prisons with a congregate population, state police, office of court administration, they all have a lower percentage than the general population.

Now, it’s good news for the frontline workers and we were all worried about what they were doing, but there’s a message for all of us, which is that the PPE actually works. The mask is not just a social symbol. This is not do it because we’re asking you to do it. The surgical mask, this mask, is the same thing that is given to the frontline workers. They’re not using anything different. If it reduced the infection rate for them, it will reduce the infection rate for you, but you have to wear it. Now, we say that employers must provide this to employees when they go back to work. If they do not get one, employees should call this number and report an employer who is not operating with the right precautions. Also, with starting our tracing operation, and this is totally new, a person who tests positive, the tracers will then contact that person and ask who they may have exposed.

And you could get a phone call following up on this tracing information saying, “You were with John Smith last night, John Smith is now positive, you may want to be tested.” On your telephone, if you have one of the new fancy phones, which I do not, it will come up NYS Contact Tracing. You should answer that call. It’s not a hoax, it’s not a scam, it’s not a fraud. That is an official message saying New York State Contact Tracing is calling. So if you get that message, take that phone call it’s for your health, it’s for your family’s health. Small businesses are struggling. The numbers of small businesses that they’re projecting may not come back are really staggering. We’re trying to do everything we can on a state level, I hope the federal government passes an additional small business relief program, but we are extending the sales tax filing.

We’ve extended it from March 20th to May 19th, we’re now going to extend this to June 22nd. We understand that they have financial issues, obviously. So the state is doing everything that they can. On schools, we adopted a statewide policy for our schools. May 1st, we announced K to 12 and college would be closed for the rest of the academic year. Schools obviously pose risks they’re places of gathering, they’re on buses, they’re in classrooms. How do you reduce density in the classroom? How do you reduce density in a cafeteria, on a school bus, et cetera? How do you get children to wear masks? And we have another development that we’re tracking, which is the COVID related child illness. Ms. Russo’s done great work on this.

I believe, and I’ve said this from the start, this did not present as a COVID situation because it’s not respiratory. And we were told early on that children are not affected by COVID, and that was one of the pieces of news that actually reduced anxiety early on. We’re now starting to see that children who test positive for COVID or test positive for COVID antibodies are developing these inflammatory symptoms, inflammation of the blood vessel, inflammation of the heart, but it’s quite serious and we’ve lost a number of children. New York State Department of Health was the first to really investigate this. The more they investigated, the more cases they found. Last Thursday, there were seven countries that also investigated and found cases. There were 17 states that found cases, this was last Thursday. Today, there are 13 countries and 25 states. This is one of those situations where the more they look, I believe, the more they’re going to find. So when we’re talking about schools, again, the facts have changed from the “experts”, because there are no experts on this COVID virus. I’ve learned that the hard way. Children are not affected, well, now, maybe children are affected. And when you’re talking about schools, and you’re talking about children, and you’re talking about density-

And you’re talking about children and you’re talking about density, exploring the situation and making sure that this is not a widespread situation effecting children. They’re not even sure the duration after the COVID exposure that this might occur, because this is all a case of first impression, but this is a related issue that does affect children. And obviously it’s something we’re very concerned about. So question was on summer school, would summer school open. Summer school is not going to open statewide for in class teaching. It will be through distance learning, and meal programs and childcare services for essential employees will continue. In terms of opening up school for the fall, it’s still too early to make that determination. We want to get more information on this inflammatory syndrome. We also want to see how the development for treatment of vaccine proceeds. We will issue guidelines beginning of June on what schools would need to do to come up with a plan to prepare to open.

The schools will do those plans, provide them to the state in July. The state will approve those plans or not approved those plans in July, all in preparation for an opening in September. But again, we don’t want to make that decision until we have more facts. And as the facts keep changing, prudence dictates that you don’t make a decision until it’s timely so you have the most recent facts to make the decision. We’re coming up to Memorial Day weekend. State, downstate beaches that are open tomorrow. Jones Beach, Sunken Meadows, Heather Hills, Robert Moses. They’re on long Island. Those beaches open at 6:00 AM, they close at 9:00 PM. Swimming is allowed from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and there’s like Welch Beach and Harriman State Park. Just a note on these beaches, there are certain rules on beaches that are operating, primarily 50% capacity and then social distancing on the beach.

No contact activities, obviously. Social distancing will be enforced. Masks are required to be worn when social distancing isn’t possible. But there is such a demand in the New York City area to get to a beach, to get some respite. It’s Memorial Day weekend, people want to get out of the homes. 50% capacity. Those beaches may reach capacity at 10, 11 in the morning. So that’s something to take into consideration. I’m a Queens boy, it’s a ride to these beaches, and you don’t want to take that ride and get all the way out there and find out the beach is already closed. Again, this is a first time for all of us, but 50% capacity with this pent up demand? Those parking lots will reach capacity very quickly. So take that into consideration when you’re making your plans. This week is national EMS week, and it’s a time to thank the EMS workers who just were on the front lines and did a magnificent job.

Some of them actually gave their lives to this, and we are all very, very grateful to them. The EMS workers, as well as all the frontline workers. But to those who we lost in this battle, and it was a battle. It is a battle. We want to say a special condolences to their families. Really, everybody knew. They knew what inferno they were running into. And they ran into the fire for us. Everybody knew COVID-19 was dangerous, but they didn’t stay home. They didn’t call in sick. Some people volunteered to come from across the country to help us here in New York and they lost their lives. We should remember that.

When we were in the midst of this now, when we get a chance to reflect on what has been done here, what we’ve gone through and how people reacted. Winston Churchill, never was so much owed by so many to so few. COVID-19, it could kill you. Everyone stay home except the frontline workers and essential workers. We need you to go to work. Well, I thought you just said COVID-19 could kill me? Yes, but you have to go to work anyway. And they did. And they did. Hospital workers, NYPD, fire department, EMS, grocery store workers, delivery boys, delivery women. They showed up, God bless them. God bless them. And we thank them.

2020-05-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Andrew Cuomo: Everyone knows the people who were here I think. Just in case, my far left, Dr. Jim Malatras, not a real doctor. Not even a fake doctor, Dr. Robert Mojica, Director of the Budget. To my right, Melissa de Rosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my far right, real doctor, Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health.

Good morning to all of you. Happy Memorial Day weekend, starts today. Summer is now upon us. This will be the 155th Memorial Day. Press gets to ask me questions. Here’s my question for you guys today. Where was the first officially recognized Memorial day celebration?

No answer. Let the record show there is not a single submission from the assembled press. You guys should know. Waterloo. New York, Seneca County, 1866. President Johnson declared Waterloo, New York the birthplace of the Memorial Day parade. And as you are a press corp from the State of New York, I would hope that you remember this going forward and there’s the sign just in case you forget, Waterloo, New York, birth place of Memorial Day.

Today is day 83 of the COVID-19 crisis. Some of my young guns saying, oh, it’s 83 days. We haven’t had a day off. It’s Memorial Day weekend. Life is about stamina, stamina. It’s Memorial Day weekend. Imagine if you were in a real war, overseas war, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War. Day 83, it’s nothing, tour of duty. News is good today. Hospitalizations are down. Net change in hospitalizations is down.

Number of new cases per day is down. This is a level now that is lower than when we first began. So that’s good. Number of deaths painfully high at any number, right? And you see that this number has been stubborn on its way down, but it’s 109 yesterday. They were all in our thoughts and prayers. Again, you see how quick that spike went up and you see how slow it is to come down. So we want to make sure we don’t go back there ever, ever again. We’re talking about reopening. Question is not whether or not to reopen, the question is how you reopen smart, how fast and safe can you reopen. Reopen as fast as you can, as long as it is safe and you are safe if you’re acting smart.

What does smart mean? Phasing it in by metrics, just study what’s happening. Continue to test so you have an idea of the growth of the virus. Trace those cases, isolate those positives, watch your hospital capacity, and monitor what’s going on so all your actions are based on data. We post all the data. Anyone in the state can go online, see where they are by their region. Long Island and Mid-Hudson region, if the number of deaths continues to decline the way it has and they get their tracing online. Every region has a certain number of tracers that they need to reopen because we want to make sure when they reopen, they have the testing and tracing operation working. But if the number of deaths continues to decline, they get their tracing up and online, both regions could reopen this week.

In anticipation of that, we’re going to allow construction staging. Before you can begin construction, you have to have staged the construction. The materials have to be onsite, etcetera, and safety precautions have to be onsite. So we’re going to allow that construction staging now for the Long Island and the Mid-Hudson. We’re hopeful that the number of deaths continues to decline and then they would be reopening this week.

Testing is a big component of all of this. New York State tests more than any of the state per capita, we test more than any other country per capita. So we are far ahead in terms of getting this operation online. And this is the first case, nobody’s ever done this before, putting together this tracing and testing capacity, but we’ve signed up another 52 independent pharmacies. That brings the total number of sites in the State of New York to 750. And our message is very simple. Get a test. We have state run sites where we have more capacity than we’re now performing tests.

We have some drive-ins where we can do 15,000 tests. We’re only doing 5,000 per day. Get a test. If you have any symptoms of COVID, which are basically the same symptoms as the flu. If you have any symptoms, get a test. If you were exposed to a person who you find out was positive, get a test, get a test, and you can go to this website and they’ll tell you exactly the site closest to you.

In terms of tracing, all the reasons that have come online had to have the right number of tracers. That’s why we were talking about Mid-Hudson and Long Island has to get their tracing numbers up. But every region has the tracing functioning. Mike Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, volunteered to have his Bloomberg philanthropies put together a tracing program because there is no such thing as a tracing program. How do you train tracers? How do you recruit tracers? What software do the tracers use? They’ve been doing that with Johns Hopkins. They have been fantastic. We have that in place now. And we’re going to share that with other states online. And we’re going to do that with the National Governors Association because New York is ahead and we do have more advanced curriculum and training and protocols.

So we’re going to work with the NGA and make that available to any state that wants to use it. Small business is a priority. Federal government passed the small business assistance program, that is run out of money and small businesses are taking a real beating in this situation. They are 90% of New York’s businesses and they’re facing the toughest challenges. The economic projections vis-a-vis small business are actually frightening. More than 100,000 have shut permanently since the pandemic hit. Many small businesses just don’t have the staying power to continue to pay all the fixed costs, the lease, et cetera, when they have no income whatsoever.

Minority owned businesses face a far greater risk and have received less in federal relief. So New York State is starting its own small business relief program. Working with private banks, we have over $100 million available to make loans to small businesses. We’re going to focus on MWBs that did not receive federal assistance and focus on really small business. You know, the federal definition of small business has what many could consider large businesses, but we’re going to focus on true small businesses. 20 or fewer employees, less than $3 million in gross revenues. People who are interested in participating in this program can go to the website that is on the screen.

It’s Memorial Day weekend. We expect people to be getting out, going to parks, beaches, etcetera. We understand that, but we have to remain vigilant at the same time. I know the weather is warmer. I know people have been cooped up. I know there’s tremendous energy to get out. You have to remain vigilant. You read in the papers that they’re talking now about a possible second wave or hotspots for places that have opened too fast or opened without testing and tracing or opened without doing monitoring. That would be the worst situation is if we went through everything we went through, you start to reopen, you’re not doing the monitoring and the vigilance, and it actually winds up with another hotspot or cluster. Or worse, frankly.

And remember, we are still learning about this COVID-19 virus. And one of the things I find most infuriating is the facts continue to change with this virus. Nobody’s fault. But since we didn’t know about the virus, we had certain assumptions that quote unquote “experts” made, and those facts change. From day one, it started that this virus was coming from China, so everybody’s looking to the West Coast from the West, and it turns out the virus came from the East. It came from Europe and it walked right through our airports and nobody was screening and no one was doing anything. And that it was not in March, it was coming here January, February, and March. Virus was here much sooner than anybody knew.

A fact was if you have the virus and you have the antibodies, then you’re immune, so we can put together a workforce that can go back to work. People who had the virus and now have the antibodies. Now they’re not so sure if you’re immune, if you have the antibodies.

It started, children were not going to be affected by the coronavirus. Now we’re not so sure that children aren’t affected and we’re watching carefully this inflammatory syndrome that is starting to hit children who are COVID positive, or have the antibodies for positive.

Most recently, CDC says infected surfaces are not a major source of transmission. When we started, it was about infected surfaces and you could get it from infected surfaces and that was a major problem. We have a very aggressive disinfecting campaign going on across the state, public transit, et cetera. Now the CDC says, yeah, that’s not a major source. It’s airborne. It’s droplets. That’s a major source. If the major source, if they’re right, and the major transmission source is airborne, it takes you back to wear a mask. Wear a mask.

This reminds me in some ways of the education campaign we went through after we learned about the HIV virus and transmission of the HIV. I remember how many times and how long we had to talk to people about wearing a prophylactic and how it could make the difference between life and death. The mask can make the difference between life and death. I know it’s a small thing. It’s de minimis, it doesn’t look like much. But if it’s now primarily airborne, you know the mask works.

How do you know the mask works? First responders have a lower infection rate than the general population. Nurses, doctors in emergency rooms have a lower infection rate than the general population. How can that possibly be? Because they wear the mask and they do the hand sanitizing. You feel out of control. You can’t protect yourself. You can’t protect your family. Yes, you can. That’s what the mask does. You want to be in control of yourself. You want to greatly increase your odds, wear the mask.

By the way, we’re not just asking you, the mask is mandatory in public settings, public transportation. If you’re in a taxi or an Uber, private carriers or any time you are in public within six feet of another person, the mask is mandatory. It is not just a nice thing to do, a responsible thing to do for citizen duty, it is mandatory that you wear the mask within six feet of another person in public. You don’t have a right to infect another person. You don’t. Look at the Constitution, tell me where it says you have the right to infect another person. You don’t.

Smart, how do we reopen smart? It’s up to you. It’s up to us. That’s both the beauty and the conundrum of this situation. It is wholly dependent on social action. Wholly dependent on social action. You tell me what people do, I will tell you the results. Period. Government can say whatever it wants, I can sit up here and say whatever I want. I can’t control it. People can control it.

2020-05-25 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, to all. To my right, we have Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my left, Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo, who is representing her whole family and the honor of allowing us to throw a wreath in honor of Memorial Day. To her left, Gareth Rhodes, who has been working with us from the onset of this tragic COVID situation. We’re at the USS Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. This is a remarkable, remarkable facility. It’s always a pleasure to be here. It was started by the Fisher family, which is one of the great families of the state of New York. Susan Marenooff Zausner’s here with us today, who is the president of the organization. We want to thank her for her kindness.

And today we honor the service members who have lost their lives. We remember their families and the pain that they’ve dealt with, and we thank them all for their service, their bravery, and their sacrifice. I want to thank the Gailband family, Stu and Ellen, for being with us today and giving us the honor. Let’s take a moment of silence in memory of all those who are fallen, and wishing their families peace on this difficult day. Thank you. This is the USS Intrepid. I’ve been here a number of times. Every time I come, I learn something else. A remarkable history itself, launched in 1943, over 30 years of service, served in World War II, the Cold War, Vietnam War. It really is a phenomenal walk through history, visiting this great ship. 250 Americans who served on board lost their life while they were serving on this ship. And that brings home the message of today.

President Kennedy was speaking about Memorial Day and giving thanks to those who served and who made the ultimate sacrifice. But he reminded us that as we express our gratitude, never forget that the highest appreciation is not about uttering the words, but to live them. That is the greatest acknowledgement of the sacrifice that has been made, to carry it forward. And this Memorial Day, I think it’s especially poignant and powerful when this country is going through what it’s going through. And we know something about loss because we’re living it again. Over 100,000 Americans will lose their lives to this COVID virus.

How do we honor them? We honor them by growing stronger together. And during these times there are so many Americans who have really risen to the challenge, done more than anyone could ask more than anyone could expect. We want to make sure that we remember them and we thank our heroes of today. And they’re all around us and they did extraordinary service to allow us to continue doing what we’re doing.

I can just imagine the responsibility of a chief executive who has to call men and women into war and how they deal with that responsibility. I know that I feel a grave responsibility to our frontline workers, our essential workers, who understood the dangers of this COVID virus but went to work anyway, because we needed them to. We needed the nurses and the doctors to perform phenomenal service in the hospitals. We needed the police, the fire department, the EMS to show up. We needed the frontline workers in grocery stores to show up so others could stay home and be safe.

And I bear heavy the responsibility of explaining to the people of this state and beyond what we were dealing with when we were dealing with the COVID virus and how dangerous it was, and then in the same breath asking people to please show up tomorrow, having just explained how dangerous it was. And many of those people who showed up and did their duty and served with honor lost their lives to keep others of us safe. And in many ways, that is a microcosm of what we hear talking about today on Memorial Day.

But as John F. Kennedy said, remember with your actions. And today we’re saying, we honor that service, and we’re going to make sure that every government in the State of New York provides death benefits to those public heroes who died from COVID-19 during this emergency. I also believe the federal government should be doing the same, honoring the frontline workers, showing Americans that we appreciate what you did, that you showed up when it was hard that you worked when it was hard. You appeared for duty when it was troubling to do so. And I’m sure many people were afraid to show up, but they showed up anyway and they deserve not just words of thanks, but actions that show the appreciation. And I think the federal government should dedicate federal funds and pay hazard pay to those workers who showed up. It’s a way of saying, thank you. We understand what you did. We appreciate what you did. And it’s a way of showing Americans that when there is a next time, and there is a next time, that we truly appreciate those people who show up and do their duty.

Today, we also honor the veterans who we lost to coronavirus during this epidemic, Jack Conyers, Stephen Patty, Cleveland Jessup. And those are just a handful people from New York. We’re still in the midst of this COVID battle. We are making progress here in New York. Again, the hospitalization rate is down. The net change in hospitalizations is down. Intubations is down, which is very good news. Day to day hospitalizations are down, which is continued good news, and in many ways, the most important news, it means the number of people who are coming in to our hospitals on a day to day basis continues to drop. And the most important number to me, the number of lives lost. 96 is still painfully high, but only in the relative absurdity of our situation is that relatively good news. And we remember those 96 families today.

John F Kennedy’s words of appreciation were echoes of the thoughts of Abraham Lincoln, after thanking those who lost their lives in the Civil War. ” It is for us, the living, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on.” It’s about the unfinished work. That’s what Abraham Lincoln said. That’s what John F. Kennedy said. That’s what almost every great leader of this country has said. It’s about dedicating ourselves to the unfinished work.

And we do that here in New York. We honor the memory of the fallen by going forward, by living, by growing, by advancing, by learning from it, by being stronger than ever before, by taking the values and principles of America that they lived and died for and raising them to a new level. By rising even higher and even stronger than ever before. And we will do that. We will do that here in New York. We’ll do that in this country, because America and New York are tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving, at the end of the day. And that has brought us to this point where this country is the strongest, best country on the globe. And it will take us forward.

2020-05-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

It's a pleasure to be here today. Hope everyone had a good weekend. I had a great weekend. Stayed at home Saturday, went to the beach Sunday, went to the Intrepid yesterday, plus I changed the oil in the car, so I had a good day, good weekend. I want to thank the Stock Exchange for hosting us today. This is a beautiful room. I was here this morning, the stock market reopened today, so it's a pleasure to be here. I want to thank Stacey Cunningham, who's the president of the New York Stock Exchange, for her hospitality and courtesy.

Let's start with the facts, facts first. That's what the American people need. Number of hospitalizations down, great news. Rolling average down, number of intubations down. Number of new COVID cases down to the lowest level since this ever started, just about 200. Amen. Number of lives lost, 73. That's the lowest level that we have seen since this started. So again, in this absurd new reality, that is good news. any other time and place, when we lose 73 New Yorkers, it's tragic. It's tragic now. But relative to where we've been, we're on the other side of the curve and that's the lowest number that we've had. So we thank all the health care staff once again, doctors, nurses, who've been doing a fantastic job. And you see we went up the mountain very quickly, that spike took us up very quickly, and it took a long time to come down but we're still coming down.

Yesterday was Memorial Day. And traditionally, Memorial Day is a pivot point, it's a transition point, summer is starting. Fashion changes, mindsets change, and it shouldn't be that much different this year. Memorial Day is going to be a point where maybe we don't all run back to the beach, but we're going to turn the page on COVID-19 and we're going to start focusing on reopening, and how we reopen, and how smart we are in reopening, because that's the whole issue. You look at what's happening across the country, it was never a question of reopen or not reopen. The answer was always reopen. The question was always how smart are you on this reopening? How intelligent are you on the reopening? How informed are you, how disciplined are you on the reopening because that determines how successful the reopening is.

The stock market reopened today, I had the honor of ringing the bell. And it didn't reopen the way it was. It reopened smarter than before. Fewer people, wearing masks, new precautions, that the stock exchange has incorporated, not because government said they had to, but because the stock exchange is smart, and they wanted to get back the business but they wanted to be smart and they're doing it in a way that keeps people safe, and that's an example of exactly what we've been talking about. So two tracks going forward from Memorial Day. Number one, monitor the reopenings. We're reopening in regions all across the state because regions are different all across the state, so we're reopening in regions. Monitor the regions. We have a dashboard that is up. Every New Yorker can see the numbers and what we're doing is gauged by the numbers.

Mid-Hudson opens today. They met all the metrics, all the numerical criteria, so they're opening today. Long Island will open tomorrow. We're going to bring on the last of what's called the tracers who do the contact tracing after testing. They'll be coming online today and Long Island will open tomorrow.

Each region has a regional control group. I've spoken to many of the county executives across the state who are key on these regional control groups. I said to the county executives, watch the numbers. When you see a cluster of cases, jump on it. Jump on it. That's what the contact tracing is all about - what happened? Where did they come from? Is there any commonality among the people in the cluster? Is there a geographic identity to that cluster? But that has to be done region by region.

You have to stay disciplined and focused. Study the numbers, the numbers inform you. The numbers tell you what's happening. That dashboard tells you what's happening. Those regional control groups have to be disciplined. Steve Bellone in Suffolk, Laura Curran in Nassau, Mark Poloncarz in Buffalo, Adam Bello in Rochester, and Ryan McMahon in Syracuse. Focus on what's happening in those numbers. You see a little movement, you pounce on it. Find out what it is, explore it, and resolve it.

New York City is the one region that is not reopened yet in New York. That's for obvious reasons. The numbers have been worse in New York City. The number of cases was worse in New York City. Again, nothing endemic to New York City. What happened in New York City was the virus was coming from Europe, we didn't even know. Nobody told us. We all were told it was coming from China, China, China. Look to the west, it came from the east. We're looking west, it came from the east. It was coming from Europe. January, February, before we did a European travel ban, 3 million Europeans landed at our airports and the virus came that way. So, once the virus got here it spread. This is a dense area. New York City, public transportation. It had the worst problem in the nation, one of the worst problems on the globe. It's the one region that's not reopened yet. We're now going to focus on reopening New York City.

Again, we do it smartly. We have data, we have tests. We can focus on the new cases in New York City. Where are those infections still coming from? And we literally can now focus on those areas by zip code. We've done so much testing. We do more testing in New York than any state in the United States of America. We do more testing per capita than most countries on the globe. We do so much testing that we can actually identify zip codes that are generating the new cases. If you have that kind of intelligence, that kind of data, then you can target your resources right to those areas. Those zip codes tend to be predominately minority communities. The infection rate is not spreading among essential workers. It's speaking among workers who have stayed home or who are unemployed. It's spreading in the home, it's spreading in the community.

We're going to focus on those zip codes. We're going to focus on those communities and we want to slow the infection rate even in those communities. And that will really bring the numbers down in New York City. We started that last week, but we're going to bring it to a new level starting this week. And you can see that the infection rate in some of these zip codes is double the infection rate in the city. The infection rate in the city general population is about 19 percent, almost 20 percent. In some of these communities the infection rate is 40 percent. Literally double the city-wide average. And when we look at those new COVID cases coming into the hospitals, where are they coming from? They're coming from these zip codes. And we can literally identify it, so we want to attack the virus at the source. That's what we're going to be doing in New York City. In New York City we also have to get the number of tracers up, and trained, and online, and we'll be focusing on that.

Statewide, we all have to remain smart. Regions that are opened, regions that are reopening, New York City that hasn't opened yet where we have to get the numbers down. It's about citizens. And it's about what people do. That's been the great riddle in this whole thing. We don't understand it. It's about government. Government this. Government that. Forget government. This whole trajectory is decided by people. It's personal behavior, that's all it is. You tell me what people do today, I'll tell you what the infection rate is tomorrow. And it's simple, it's wash your hands, it's socially distance, it's use the hand sanitizer, and it is wear the mask. Wear the mask. And this is almost a point of cultural communication.

Wearing a mask is now cool. I believe it's cool. If I could sign an executive order that says wearing a mask is officially cool. There is a certain amount of informing the public and accepting a new type of standard. Wearing the mask has got to be something you do every day when you get up, when you walk out of the house you put the mask on. And I said the other day, you know, New Yorkers want to reinforce it for other New Yorkers. This is cool. You want to encourage people to do this. By the way, they have all sorts of colored masks. You don't have to have a boring mask like my mask. I'm a boring guy. They have color masks, they have masks that say things. Some people coordinate their outfit with the color of their mask. And this has to be part of literally who we are and what we do every day. That does not mean when someone doesn't wear a mask, we should be rude to that person or be obnoxious to that person. But this has got to be part of every New Yorker's fashion, and design, and clothing, and outfitting. Wearing the mask. It makes a real difference. And if you think that's all talk, answer for me why all the first responders have a lower infection rate than the general population? The only difference is they wore a mask. And they wore the PPE. So, wear a mask, everyone has to do their part.

Second track is while we're reopening, supercharge the reopening, right. Stock market opened today. We want that economy to come roaring back. We want it to come roaring back. And that's not going to happen just by wishing it to be so. We have to take an affirmative action, we have to be part of that, and today is page one of that chapter. I don't believe that the economy just bounces back. Some economists say, "We artificially stopped the economy and we release it and it went down and it's going to come right back in a straight line." I don't believe it comes straight back. I believe it bounces back, but it bounces back differently. We talk about the normal and the new normal. I think you are going to see the same thing with the economy. I don't think it comes right back to where it was. It's not like bouncing a basketball. You bounce a basketball, it goes down and comes straight back up. It's like dropping a football. You drop a football, depending on how it hits, it goes off on different angles.

The economy is going to come back up. I don't think it comes straight back up. And I think there will be winners and losers in this new economy. I think the top end of the economy will be fine. They always are. It always works out for them. You look at the 2008 recession after the mortgage fraud, we did the bailouts. The big banks were the first one to come back fine. But I don't think the economy comes back for everyone, everywhere the same way. I think you are going to see American workers who are laid off, that's why I'm pushing the Americans First Law in Washington. I think you are going to see corporations use this as an opportunity to, in their words, "restructure, to get lean, or show the analysts we can increase the profit," and how do you increase the profit fast in a corporation? You lay off workers - that's what you do. And I think you are going to see corporations do that. We've lost thousands of small businesses that just are not going to reopen their doors. So, you are going to see pain in this new economy. And let's start to anticipate that and let's start to deal with that now.

We know that government can stimulate the economy. This country has done it in the past where we have engaged in major public works that made the nation better and when we did it, we stimulated the economy. You look at all the great things that this nation did, building the Hoover Dam and the Lincoln Tunnel, all these magnificent public improvements, that made the nation the nation - and created thousands of jobs at the same time. Now, everyone has been talking about the need to do major infrastructure in this nation. Every president. Democrat, Republican, President Clinton talked about it, President Bush talked at it, President Obama talked about it, President Trump talked about it, Vice President Biden talks about it. "We have major infrastructure needs, we're not building, the rest of the world is passing us by." It's true. Well, then, do something about it. Don't just talk about it. Everybody's identified the same problem. Democrats and Republicans. But nobody has done anything. If there's ever a time to actually take on this overdue need, of major infrastructure construction, now is the time. There is no better time to build than right now. You need to restart the economy. You need to create jobs. And you need to renew and repair this country's economy. And its infrastructure. Now is the time to do it.

It's especially the time to do it when some of the volume is lower, right? The time to fix the hole in the roof, we would say in Queens, is when the sun is shining. That's when - you what, you don't think that's a Queens expression? That was a Queens expression as far as I'm concerned. That's when you fix the hole in the roof when the sun is shining. The time to do this work is now when you need the jobs and the volume is low and New York will lead the way.

We are going to accelerate our big infrastructure programs. We have the Empire Station project, which is building a new Penn Station, which is long overdue. That Penn Station has been torturing people for too long. Let's now accelerate the Empire, Penn project while the ridership is low and when we need the jobs. Accelerating LaGuardia Airport which is going to be the first new airport in this nation is 25 years. Traffic is low, passenger volume is lower, let's accelerate that construction now. Let's do things that we've been talking about for a long time but we've never actually pulled the trigger on.

We know that we need renewable power. We know we can generate renewable power in Upstate. We know we need it downstate. Let's build the cross-state transmission lines to develop that renewable market upstate and satisfy the need downstate. We know they have low-cost hydropower in Canada. Let's run the cable, the transmission lines from Canada to New York City to get that power down here and let's stop talking and let's start doing. Let's invigorate this whole renewable market.

There are other big infrastructure projects that we've been talking, talking, talking about, which we have to do where we need federal help and federal approval. Let's put those on the table. The AirTrain to LaGuardia. New York City is one of the only major cities that has no train from the airport into the central city. We've been talking about the cross-Hudson tunnels where the Amtrak trains come through that are old and that are crumbling and that if they become a problem, you literally stop Amtrak travel to the entire Northeast. Let's stop the politics on it and let's get it done and let's build those new tunnels.

The Second Avenue Subway, the next extension for the Second Avenue Subway goes from 96th Street to 125th Street would open up that whole 125th Street area. It would bring a whole new chapter of revitalization to New York City. Let's do that in partnership with the federal government.

I'm going to go Washington tomorrow. I'm scheduled to meet with the president to talk about a number of things, but this is one of the things I want to talk to the president about. You want to restart the economy, you want to reopen the economy, let's do something creative. Let's do it fast. Let's put Americans back to work and let's make America better. It is common sense. It is common sense. So many of the things that we need to do you don't need to be a government expert or an engineer to figure out. It's common sense. You have an infrastructure that's crumbling, you need to jump start the economy, you need to create jobs, do it now. Do it now. That's one of the things I'm going to talk to the president about tomorrow.

Last point, we did the Wear A Mask New York PSA contest. I asked my daughter Mariah to help out, volunteer, pro bono, no money. Supervised by her very nice, easy going boss - moi. And Mariah agreed and she did a fantastic job, and frankly this contest has gone much bigger and generated much more energy and excitement than I anticipated. And with that I will turn it over to Mariah.

Mariah Kennedy Cuomo: Thank you. We launched the Wear A Mask ad contest in May asking New Yorkers to create ads about the importance of wearing a mask in public. And we received over 600 video submissions from across the state. We selected five finalists and put it to a vote, and people cast 186,117 votes. And today, we are proud to announce the winning ad, which is We Heart New York. And with that, we'd like to play it.

[Winning Ad Plays]

Mariah Kennedy Cuomo: Thank you and congratulations to Bunny Lake Films, a female founded boutique production company based in Brooklyn, New York, who created that incredible ad. And we now would like to show the second-place ad which is You Can Still Smile.

[Second-Place Ad Plays]

Mariah Kennedy Cuomo: Thank you to everyone who submitted ads, who voted, who shared ads, and helped spread this important message that it's absolutely critical to wear a mask in public. And we'll be continuing to reach out to New Yorkers for help in spreading the message about how we can get through this together because New Yorkers are clearly ready and willing and able to help.

Governor Cuomo: Beautiful, that is a great job. Now, I have to make an executive decision, not order, there is no election that we have nowadays that doesn't raise issues it seems. This was extraordinary. We opened this up to competition. There were 96,000 votes for the first and second place winners. 96,000 votes and only a 500-vote differential between number one and number two, okay? Which if it was a normal election would normally trigger an automatic recount, all right? It was that close. There is also an issue with the selection that we never really defined an eligible voter. And we have people who voted in this competition all across the state, all across the country, all across the world, we had international people voting in this competition, which I did not really fully think through. So rather than have a debate about who would have been an eligible voter, because that 500 votes between first and second is so small, if you start to have a question about who's an eligible voter, it could get dicey. So I'm going to make an executive decision.

The state will run both ads, first and second, because they're both great and obviously yes, one won by 500 votes. But it was a tremendous turnout, people loved both, that's clear, so the state will run both and we don't have to get into a debate about who's an eligible voter in a video competition. So we'll run both of those PSAs. I want to thank all the voters who participated. That tremendous number just shows how engaged people are all through this. This is about life and death. This is about their lives, this is about their community, and they're engaged, and they should be, because they are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving.

2020-05-27 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Pleasure to be here today. Let me introduce the people who are with us. To my left is Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To my right is Robert Mujica, budget director of the State of New York. We’re at the National Press Club today. It’s a great organization, great part of Washington’s history and legacy, and I want to thank Michael Freedman very much, who is the President of the National Press Club, thank him for his hospitality and courtesy for having us here today. We are in Washington. I spent eight years in Washington during the Clinton administration. I was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, came down at the beginning of the Clinton administration, stayed until the end. Lived in Virginia. That’s where I got my Southern accent. Really southern Queens, but … And we had good discussions today, and we’ll be heading back, but we wanted to do a briefing from Washington so it was timely.

And let’s talk about some facts as to where we are. Number of hospitalizations in New York are dropping. The total change in hospitalizations is down and continuing to drop. The intubations are down, and that’s a very good sign. It’s rare that good things happen after an intubation. And the number of new cases is down, which is very encouraging news. These are the number of new cases that are walking through the door. In terms of number of New Yorkers that we have lost, 74 yesterday, which is just about what it was the day before, which is, the day before was an all-time low at 73. Seventy-four is not as good as 73, but it is all headed in the right direction. Again, only in this time of crisis, would 74 deaths be anything less than truly tragic news, but when you’ve gone through what we have gone through, it’s a sign that we’re headed in the right direction.

And we are. When you look at the curve in the state of New York, we are down. We’re on the other side of the mountain, as we say. And the decline is continuing. That’s different than what we’re seeing in some other parts of the nation, where you see the curve either going up or just starting to flatten, so we’re pleased with the progress that we’re making in New York, and we’re ready to go to the next phase. Open a new chapter. Memorial Day is often a time when society transitions. Memorial Day, normally we’re getting ready for the summer, and people are starting to think about summer vacations and summer activity. We have that on a moderated basis in New York, but it’s also a time of transition for us. And we’re transitioning to a new chapter on reopening, restarting the economy. This is all a situation that has never happened before, so this is a first case for all of us.

And we’re trying to learn as we go along and we don’t want to just reopen the economy. We want to have a really smart reopening. We want to watch those numbers as we go forward, and we want to reopen the economy to make it stronger than it ever was before. How do you learn from this? And that’s the beginning of the new chapter that we’re going to write. We started yesterday by reopening the stock exchange in New York, where the stock exchange was actually had people in the building rather than just electronically. We’re doing it on the numbers. Numbers matter. This is not about politics. This is about science. Right? We’re fighting a virus. The virus is not a Democratic virus. It’s not a Republican virus. It’s a virus, and viruses respond to science, and science is about facts and about numbers.

And that’s how we’re doing it. We’re doing it on the metrics. We’re looking at the hospitalization rate. We’re looking at the death rate. How many new people are coming in the door into hospitals? How many hospital beds do we have available? How many ICU beds do we have available? Do we have testing in place, and do we have tracing in place? Just take the politics out of it. Right? Just do it on the facts, and do it on the science. And that’s what we’re doing in New York. And then you wouldn’t reopen everything immediately. You would do it in phases, and you would phase it by the most important businesses, the most essential businesses that pose the lowest risk first. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. And we then have several phases for the actual business openings.

But we’re in Washington, and the parameter is what should states be doing and what should the federal government be doing? I understand that states are responsible for the reopening. That’s been the position of the states, and it’s also been the position of the federal government, so states are doing re-openings. States are responsible for the testing. States are responsible for tracing. States are responsible for their healthcare systems. States are responsible for the enforcement of all the procedures around reopening. But, at the same time, the federal government has a role to play. And the federal government has to do its part as we work our way through this crisis. And there cannot be a national recovery if the state and local governments are not funded. That is a fact. Washington is now debating their next bill that would aid in the reopening and the recovery. Prior bills have helped businesses, large businesses, small businesses, hotels, airlines, all sorts of business interests. That’s great.

But you also have state and local governments and state governments do things like fund schools and fund hospitals. Do you really want to cut schools now? Do you really want to cut hospitals now, after what we’ve just gone through, when we’re talking about a possible second wave, when we’re talking about a fall with possible more cases? Do you really think we should starve state governments and cut hospitals? Would that be smart? Do you really want to cut local governments right now? That’s cutting police. That’s cutting fire. Is now the time to savage essential services? And don’t you realize that if you do this, if you cut state and local governments and you cause chaos on the state and local level, how does that help a nation striving to recover economically? The COVID states, the states that bore the brunt of the COVID crisis, they’re one-third of the national GDP. How can you tell one-third of the country to go to heck, and then thank you’re going to see an economic rebound?

Also, state government, state economies, local economies, that’s what the national economy is made of. What is the national economy, but for a function of the states? There is no nation without the states. They tend to forget that in this town, but it’s the obvious fact. And we’ve made this mistake before. Again, look at history. If you don’t learn from the mistakes, you’re going to repeat the mistakes. It’s that simple. And we have seen in the past what has happened when state and local governments were savaged and how it hurt the national recovery. Wall Street Journal, not exactly a liberal publication, makes the point that on the economy, cuts to employment and spending likely to weigh on growth for years.

So even if you believe the rhetoric we’re about reopening, we’re about getting the economy back. Great. Then if that’s what you believe, you would provide funding to the state and local governments. The Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, very smart man, respected on both sides of the aisle, said we have evidence the global financial crisis and the years afterward where state and local government layoffs and lack of hiring weighed on economic growth. We want to reopen the economy. We want to get this national economy better than ever. Fine. Then act accordingly and act appropriately. This hyper-partisan Washington environment is toxic for this country.

You have people saying, well, we don’t want to pass a bill that helps Democratic states. It would be a blue state bailout, is what some have said. Senator McConnell, stopping blue state bailouts. Senator Scott, “We’re supposed to go bail them out? That’s not right.” On Fox TV, Laffer, “You want us to give our money to Cuomo and New York? Hello, not this week.” First of all, this is really an ugly, ugly sentiment. It is an un-American response. We’re still the United States of America. Those words meant something. United States of America. First of all, Mr. Federal Legislator, you are nothing without the states, and you represent the United States. Not only is it ugly. It is false. It is wholly untrue, what they are saying, 100%.

And there are facts. If you want to pose the question, which is, I think divisive at this period of time. But if you want to pose the question, what states give money and what states take money. Right? There is a financial equation that is the federal government. And you want, if you want to ask what states give money to other states and what states take money from other states, that’s a question that Senator McConnell and Senator Scott and Mr. Laffer don’t really want to ask.

Because the truth, the truth is totally the opposite of what they’re saying. You look at the states that give more money to the federal government than they get back. You know the top what they call “donor state” … You know what one state pays in more to the pot than they take out of the federal pot than any other state in the United States? It’s the state of New York. New York pays more every year, $29 billion more than they take back. You know the second state? New Jersey. Massachusetts, Connecticut, California. Every year, they contribute more to the federal pot. You know who takes out more than they put in from that pot? You know whose hand goes in deeper and takes out more than they put in? Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Alabama, Florida. Those are the facts. Those are the numbers. The great irony is the conservatives want to argue against redistribution of wealth. Why should you take money from the rich and give it to the poor? That’s exactly what you are doing. That is exactly what you have done every year. So it’s only redistribution unless you wind up getting more money, then it’s fine. Then, it’s not redistribution. Take from the rich, give to the poor, that’s redistribution. Yes, unless you’re the poor, Senator McConnell, Senator Scott, because you were the ones who have your hand out, you were the ones who are taking more than others. Redistribution, you’re against it except when the richer states give you more money every year.

And then the great hypocrisy, they actually made the redistribution worse. When they passed three years ago, a provision ending what’s called State and Local Tax Deductibility. That didn’t level the playing field. What they did was they took the states that were already paying more money into the federal government, the “richer states,” and they increased the money they were taking from the richer states. They took another 23 billion from California, another $14 billion from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut. The hypocrisy is so insulting because when you start to talk about numbers, there are still facts. And people can still add, and people can still subtract, and they know what they put in and they know what they take out. And I know it’s Washington DC but the truth actually still matters. And Americans are smart and they find out the truth, even in the fog and the blather of Washington DC.

So my point to our friends in the Congress, stop abusing New York, stop abusing New Jersey, stop abusing Massachusetts and Illinois and Michigan and Pennsylvania. Stop abusing the states who bore the brunt of the COVID virus through no fault of their own. Why did New York have so many cases? It’s nothing about New York. It’s because the virus came from Europe and no one in this nation told us. We were told the virus is coming from China. It’s coming from China. Look to the West. Yeah, well, they missed it. We were looking to the West, it came from the East. The virus left China went to Europe. 3 million Europeans come to New York, land in our airports, January, February, March, and bring the virus. And nobody knew. It was not New York’s job. We don’t do international global health.

It didn’t come from China. It came from Europe and we bore the brunt of it. And now, you want to hold that against us because we bore the brunt of a national mistake. And because we had more people die, we lost more lives. You want to now double the insult and the injury by saying, well, why should we help those states? Those states had more COVID deaths. That’s why you’re supposed to help those states because they did have more COVID deaths. And this is the United States. And when one state has a problem, the other states help.

I was in the federal government for eight years. When Los Angeles had earthquakes, we helped. When the Midwest had the Red River floods, we helped. When Florida had hurricane Andrew, we helped. When Texas had floods, we helped. When Louisiana had hurricane Katrina, we helped. We didn’t say, well, that’s Louisiana’s fault, they had the hurricane. Well that’s Texas’s fault, they had the floods. It was nobody’s fault. And we were there to help because that’s who we are and that’s what we believe.

What happened to that American spirit? What happened to that concept of mutuality? You know what? There is still a simple premise that you can’t find in a book. And Washington hasn’t written regulations for, called, doing the right thing. There’s still a right thing in life, the right thing you feel inside you. The right thing is a calibration of your principle and your belief and your soul and your heart and your spirit. And we do the right thing in this country. Not because a law says, do the right thing, but because we believe in doing the right thing. As individuals, as people, we believe doing right by each other, by living your life by a code where you believe you are living it in an honorable way, acting on principle, and you’re doing the right thing.

Why can’t the government? Why can’t the Congress reflect the right thing principle that Americans live their life by. Pass a piece of legislation that is honorable and decent and does the right thing for all Americans. Why is that so hard? And if you want to talk about reopening the economy, then do it in a productive way. People think this economy is just going to bounce back. I don’t think it’s going to bounce back. I think it’s going to bounce back for some. And I think there’s going to be collateral damage of others.

We already know that tens of thousands of small businesses closed and probably won’t come back. We already know that the large corporations are going to lay off thousands and thousands of workers and they’re going to use this pandemic as an excuse to get lien, to restructure, and they’re going to boost their profits by reducing their payroll. We know it. We’ve been there before. We saw this in the 2008 mortgage crisis where the government bailed them out, the big banks that created the problem, and they use the money to pay themselves bonuses and they laid off their workers. They’re going to do the same thing again.

That’s why I propose the Americans First Legislation that said a corporation can’t get a dime of government bailout unless they rehire the same number of workers they had pre-pandemic is post. Don’t take a gift from the taxpayer and then lay off Americans who are going to then file for uninsurance paid for by the taxpayers. Don’t do that again. And if you want to be smart, we know that there’s work to do in this nation. We’ve known it for years. You can fill a library with a number of books on the infrastructure and the decay of our infrastructure and how many roads and bridges have to be repaired. How this nation is grossly outpaced by nations across the world in terms of infrastructure and airports and development.

Now is the time to stimulate the economy by doing that construction and doing that growth. You want to supercharge the reopening, that’s how you do it. And this nation was smart enough to do it before, we did it in the midst of the great depression, we created 8 million jobs, we built an infrastructure that we’re still living on today. We’re still living on the infrastructure built by our grandparents, not even our parents. What are we going to leave our children? And now is the time to do it. We have major infrastructure projects in New York that are ready to go, that are desperately needed, that were desperately needed 30 years ago. Build them now. Supercharge the reopening, grow the economy. That’s what we would do if we were smart.

You’re not going to have a supercharged economy. You’re not going to see this nation get up and start running again unless we do it together. That’s states working with other states, that’s a federal government that stands up and puts everything else aside. They were elected to provide good government. Nobody elected anyone to engage in partisan politics. There was a time when, as a nation, we were smart enough to say, you want to play politics, that’s what a campaign is for. Run your campaign against your opponent. Say all sorts of crazy things. That’s crazy campaign time. But when government starts, stop the politics, and do what’s right and smart, don’t play your politics at the expense of the citizens you represent.

There is no good government concept anymore. It’s politics 365 days a year. From the moment they elected to the moment they run again, it’s all politics. And that is poison. We have to get to a point, if only for a moment, if only for a moment, if only for a moment, in response to a national crisis where we say it’s not red and blue, it’s red, white, and blue. It’s the United States. And we’re going act that way. In New York we say that by saying New York tough, but it’s America tough, which is smart and United and disciplined and loving, and loving. That’s what makes America, America. Thank you for having me.

2020-05-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, pleasure to be here today. I am wearing a very cool mask today, let the record show, New York Tough, New York Mets colors. It is a pleasure to be in Brooklyn, New York. Let me thank Stanley King, who is the Director of the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club. I am here with Melissa DeRosa to my right and Gareth Rhodes to my left. It is a pleasure to be back in Brooklyn. Spent a lot of time here. My grandparents were here. I am from a mixed marriage in New York City. My mother was from Brooklyn. My father was from Queens. So I spent a lot of time here and it is a pleasure to be back. And you will understand why we are in Brooklyn in a moment. 

Let's talk about where we are today. Fact by fact across the morass, we are all trying to find our way through this. Andfollowing the facts are the way we have chosen to do it in the great state of New York. Facts today are good. The total number of hospitalizations are down. The rolling total is down. The change in intubations, people who are put on ventilators is down. So, that is very good news. And the number of new COVID cases per day is also down, 163,which is the lowest that it has been. So, that is all very, very good news from our point of view. The relatively positive news is the number of deaths continues to decline, 74. This is always painful and we are going to be watching this number to see how far down it actually goes. We have a large state and the COVID virus tends to attack those who are seniors and those who have underlying illnesses and will remain a cause of death for the foreseeable future, I'mafraid to say. But we want to get this number down as low as possible and we are doing everything that we can do to do that. We have the best hospitals, the best doctors, the best nurses. They are all working day and night. So, we can take a little solace in the fact that we know we have done everything we can to help save those 74 lives. We can't always be successful, but you can always do the most that you can do and that is what we are doing. And you see, again, the number of lives lost and how that number is coming down. That is all good news. 

Yesterday, I was in Washington D.C., spoke to a lot of people, I met with the President, spoke to congressional members, spoke to senate members to try to find out what was going on. This is my opinion, so it is worth what you pay for it, and since you are not paying anything. Iunderstand what states must do to work their way through this pandemic. The states are taking the lead in the responsibility. I understand that. I understand what governors must do. I am the Vice Chairman of what is called the National Governors Association. So, I work with governors all across the nation and we talk about our responsibilities, and I feel good about what the states and what the governors are doing. My question is what is Washington going to do? The federal government, because they have a role also in this. Yes, the states are in charge and yes the states are implanting their plans. But we need support from the federal government. And that is the role of the federal government. 

Washington has passed numerous pieces of legislation and they have successfully bailed out big corporations. Theyhave passed pieces of legislation that have a lot of benefits for the rich and the powerful. Now the question is what is Washington going to do in terms of passing legislation that helps working Americans, right? Police officers, firefighters, school teachers, hospitals, unemployed people, businesses that are struggling, how do we help them? How do we bring them up? And that is what states do and local governments do, and that is state and local government funding, andthey have to provide that. Also, my opinion is Washingtonshould, just for this once, and their proclivity to make every piece of legislation pork-barrel legislation. I understand they have to get senators to vote for it, and they have to get House members to vote for it, but that doesn't mean they have to make it a gravy train of pork just to pass it. Maybeyou can just pass a bill on the merits of a bill, how about that? Novel, but possible. 

This is supposed to be a specifically targeted piece of legislation to help restore the economy and repair the damage of the COVID virus. Well, then make the legislation about funding to repair the COVID virus. And you know where the covid virus has been in this country, you know where it is wreaking havoc, you can count the number of deaths and where they are. You can count the number of positive cases and where they are. You look at the passed legislation that came out of Washington and how they dispersed money, and you look at how they wound up making it a gravy train. And every state got a lot of money,local governments got a lot of money, and in many cases t's disconnected from the COVID virus and the COVIDsituation. If you take the total funding and you actually look at how much states got per positive COVID case, it is not even close. Some states got millions of dollars per COVIDcase. New York state, we got about $23,000 per case. NewJersey, we got about $27,000 per case. I understand they have to quote unquote buy votes on a piece of legislation. Ialso understand it is taxpayers' money, and theoretically a legislator is there to do what is right, not because that legislator was seduced with large amounts of taxpayer dollars, even though that state wasn't affected. 

I also think Washington has an opportunity to actually step up and to be smart for a change. They should be talking about revitalizing the economy, not just reopening the economy. I don't believe you just reopen the economy and it bounces back for everyone. I think it bounces back for the big corporations. I think it bounces back for the rich. I think it bounces back for the powerful. That is what happened after the 2008 financial crisis, the mortgage fraud crisis. The big banks that caused the crisis, they were fine just months afterwards. They took the federal bailout money and gave themselves bonuses. I remember. I was the Attorney General of New York. I chased those corporations to put the bonuses back. But how about the small businesses that closed? How about the corporations that are going to lay off workers now? What's going to happen to them? How about all those blue collar jobs that are not going to come back right away? How about those little retail stores that are not going to come back right away? So, it'snot just about revitalizing. It's not just about reopening, it's about revitalizing and it's about having a plan and a vision for the future. 

Okay, we went through this. What is the plan going forward? We went through the depression but there was a plan afterwards. We went through World War II but there was a plan to restore the economy. Where is the plan? Where is the vision? Where is the plan to say, "Yes, we went through hell but heaven is on the other side, and we are going to rally and we are going to be better for this." B.B.B., build it back better. We are not just going to return to where we were. We are going to be better than ever before. And to make sure that any of those corporations that took taxpayer money rehire the same number of workers. You hear these corporations now talking about "Well, we are going to take this opportunity to restructure. We are going to get lean." You know what that means? That means they are going to lay off workers. They are going to boost their profits and their stock price by laying off workers and not rehiring people after the pandemic. Now, that is a corporations right, but you don't have to subsidize that with government money, right? You shouldn't be giving them government cash and then they lay off workers, and then the taxpayer has to pay unemployment for the workers they laid off. That would be a scandal, right? Well, if they don't stop it, it is going to happen here. 

And if they were smart, they would finally rebuild the infrastructure in this nation, which they have been talking about for 30 to 40 years and they have never done. Youwant to put people to work? Build airports, build bridges, put technology in education, put technology in healthcare. Do the things you have talked about for 40 years but the government was never competent enough to do. And also, to Washington, after my conversations, so much of it is "Well, here is our politics. Here is our politics." Forget your politics. Just put it all aside. There is a greater interest than your politics. That's doing the right thing for this country and your constituents and stop the hyper-partisan attitude and the gridlock. Forget the red and blue, we are red, white and blue. We're all Americans. That's my opinion. Back to the facts. 

We're going to focus on the opening of New York City. We have reopened the other regions of the state. We divided the state into different regions because the state has dramatically different facts across the state. We're in New York City, one the densest urban areas on the globe. We have parts of upstate New York which are rural areas, which look more like the Midwest and have facts more like the Midwest. We divided the state into regions and addressing the facts in each region. The other regions have all started reopening. 

New York City, where we had a much higher number of cases than anywhere else in the state, anywhere else in the country than many countries on the globe. New York City is a more difficult situation. We were attacked in New York City by the coronavirus from Europe. I like to say that, because say, "What do you mean the coronavirus from Europe? I thought the coronavirus was from China." Yeah, so did I. So did everyone. That's what we were told. The coronavirus was coming from China. What we weren't told was the coronavirus left China, went to Europe, January, February. Then came here from Europe. Nobody told us. I know nobody told us. They say nobody knew. I don't know how nobody knew but the cases came from Europe. January, February, March 3 million people traveled from Europe to JFK and Newark Airport. 

Why did New York City have so many cases? Because 3 million Europeans came January, February, March and brought the virus and nobody knew and nobody told us. No fault of our own. There's nothing endemic to New York City. Yeah, we have density, but we're all watching China. We're looking to the West and the virus came from the East. It came from Europe and that's been documented now. We were the hardest hit, but we're going to reopen as the smartest. If you look at the curve in New York right now you see how our numbers are going down. You see the curve in many other states, many other parts of the country still have the curve going up. 

We did get hit the hardest, but we learned. The state has a set of rules and metrics to reopen that apply to New York City just like they apply to every other region. Why? Because what is safe to reopen in Buffalo is the same standard that is safe to reopen in Albany or Long Island or New York City. I'm not going to open any region that I don't believe is safe. We have different standards across the nation, different states have taken different standards. You can argue about whether or not we should have different standards of safety in this nation, but that's above my pay grade. I can tell you in this state there are no different standards of safety. What is safe to reopen is safe and if it's safe for your family, it's safe for my family. I wouldn't reopen an area that I didn't consider was safe for my family. That's my personal gage. 

It's the same all across the board with the same rules. Phase one reopening is construction, manufacturing, curbside retail by specific guidelines. The other regions have all hit phase one. New York City has yet to hit phase one, but that's what we are pointing toward. Once you hit phase one, you continue to monitor the metrics. If all is good, you move to phase two accordingly. It is about the metrics. It is about rate of hospitalization, number of hospital beds, number of ICU beds, what's happening on the testing, what's happening on the symptoms that people are reporting and you monitor those metrics, those facts and you proceed accordingly. 

New York City we have to make more progress on some of the metrics. We have to make more progress on what's called contact tracing, which is very important. After you test, whoever winds up positive, you trace back those contacts and you isolate. New York City you also have the added situation of public transportation. For New York City to reopen, you have working New Yorkers who commute on mass transit. We have to be able to have a mass transit system that is safe, that is clean and is not overcrowded. 

The MTA has really taken the bull by the horns on this one. We never heard of disinfecting a train. We heard of cleaning trains and you can debate whether or not the trains were that clean, but to get them to a point where they're disinfected was a higher level, a higher standard than anyone ever dreamed of. They're now disinfecting every train and every bus on a daily basis. They're piloting the use of UV light technology to kill viruses in subway cars. They're using the best science to get ready for this. 

In the meantime, we want to focus on New York City hotspots. If you look at New York City there are very different stories within the city. We now do enough testing - we do tens of thousands of tests per day - we are doing more testing in New York State than any state in the country. We're doing more testing in New York State, per capita, than any country on the globe. We're the testing capitol. When you do that many tests, you can target exactly where people are getting sick and where those new cases are coming from. 

You can look at that by neighborhood, by zip code and what you see is more of the cases are coming from outer borough communities. More minority communities, lower income communities. New hospitalizations coming from people who are not currently working. They're not essential workers. They're communities where essential workers live, but they're not the essential workers. It's more from what we call community spread. It's in communities that have an underlying health care disparity, which is a problem across this country. Populations that have higher incidents of underlying illnesses and lack of masks, social distancing, particularly with younger people. 

If you look at the testing results for example, you have communities that have double the infection rate of the city in general. The city in general is about 20 percent infection rate. You have communities that are literally more than double: 43 percent infection rate. Brownsville, Brooklyn 41 percent infection rate. East Bronx, 38 percent infection rate. Soundview, Bruckner section of the Bronx, 38 percent infection rate. Hollis, Queens - my old neighborhood - 35 percent infection rate. Flatbush, Brooklyn 45 percent infection rate. That's why we're here today. 

You know these communities have a higher infection rate. You know the new cases that are being generated tend to come from these communities, well then target those communities. That's part of being smart. Get them help and get them help faster and address the health care inequality that is underlying all of this. Bring in more diagnostic testing, more antibody testing, more PPE, more health care services for the underlying illnesses. That's where the co-morbidities come from. Bring in more supplies and bring in more communication. We're doing all of the above. We're taking on the issue of inequality when it comes to health care and we're going to take on the challenge of the most impacted communities in terms of Covid. 

We're working with Northwell Health Systems. Northwell is the largest health system in the state. It's a great organization and they're going to bring more health care services to the impacted communities in New York City that we're talking about. We're up to 225 testing sites. I just passed one on the way here today. Many of these testing sites are underused. We have testing sites, drive through sites that can do 15,000 tests a day. They're only doing 5 tests a day. There is no cost to the test. It does not hurt. It is pain free. I did the test on live TV, didn't flinch. It's just a nasal swab, there's no needle. You can go to the website: coronavirus.health.ny.gov and find a site near you. Get tested. Get tested. If you have a symptom, get tested. If you're exposed to a person who was positive, get tested. It's no cost, it doesn't hurt and there are sites literally everywhere throughout the city. 

We've delivered more than 8 million masks across New York City to public housing and food banks, churches and homeless shelters. The masks work. They work. We have to culturalize the masks. We have to customize the masks for New York to get New Yorkers to wear them. We're bringing one million additional masks today. 

Today I'm signing an Executive Order that authorizes private businesses to deny entrance to people who do not wear a mask or a face covering. I have been working to communicate this message about masks and how effective they are. They are deceptively effective. They are amazingly effective. We've made them mandatory in public settings, public transportation, et cetera. When we're talking about reopening stores and places of business, we're giving the store owners the right to say if you're not wearing a mask, you can't come in. That store owner has a right to protect themselves. That store owner has a right to protect the other patrons in that store. You don't want to wear a mask, fine, but you don't have a right to then go into that store if that store owner doesn't want you to. I will sign that Executive Order. 

In general, more communication, more education about the availability and importance of testing, diagnostic testing, antibody testing. Wearing the PPE, why social distancing makes sense and communicating this to people. My main job all through this has been communications. This was not a task government could ever accomplish. I knew that from day one. I know what government can do, I know what government can't do. Tell 19 million people in the State of New York that they have to stay home. Government can't do that. I can say it, but we'd have no way to enforce it. It's up to what people do and people, especially New Yorkers, they're going to do what they want to do. They're going to do what's smart if you give them the information, if they believe you, if the information convinces them. They're going to do what they're going to do. 

My job from day one has been communicating the facts to people so people can make a smart judgement from themselves. So people had the information to protect themselves. To protect their family. To decide what was smart. That's my job as Governor, that's what I've been doing. That's what I continue to do. I'm still trying to communicate to people how important it is to take tests and wear masks, et cetera. I have, at times, been frustrated that not everybody seems to get it. 

I have my three girls at home, as you know, family keeps us grounded. Family always has a way of bringing you back to reality. My girls have been very good at telling me that when I raise the frustration of communication. They say, "Well, it's you, Dad. You're the one who's not communicating." I've had many helpful hints as to why I haven't been able to communicate effectively or to the level I would like to. That I'm not cool enough. I think I'm cool. I'm wearing a cool mask. I don't have enough edge - one of them said I don't have enough edge to communicate effectively. 

So I'm trying different ways. They didn't like the state advertising, we're now doing different state advertising. But I understand that I need reinforcements and I need help in communication. Especially, when I'm in Brooklyn, even though I'm half from Brooklyn, that doesn't matter when you're from Brooklyn. They want a full-fledged Brooklyn voice if they're going to listen to a Brooklyn voice of authority. So I'm going to bring in reinforcements to help us communicate that message and I'm pleased to have them with us today and I want to thank very much two great New Yorkers, two great performers, Chris Rock and Rosie Perez who are going to join us and I want to thank them very much. They're going to help communicate this, they're going to do advertisements for the state and they're going to help communicate this message that it's important for an individual's health, for a family's health and it's important for all our health. We're one family in New York. One family in Brooklyn. One family in Queens. One family New York City. And do it for the good of the family. Rosie, it's great to be with you again. Chris, I'm so glad that you're here. I cannot thank you guys enough and we'd love to hear from you. Whichever one wants to start.

Chris Rock: Ladies?

Rosie Perez: Thank you, Chris. You're such a gentleman.

Governor Cuomo: What a gentleman.

Rosie Perez: It's an honor and it's really good to be here with my friend, my fellow Brooklynite, Chris Rock, and of course fantastic Governor Cuomo, who has been such an amazing leader during this crisis. You know, and I'm proud to be partnering with the governor to make sure that my hometown, my borough, my beloved borough of Brooklyn and all of New York most impacted communities have their resources. They need to stop the spread of this virus and to help spread the word about what we all have to do to beat this virus. In a Brooklyn there's a saying, spread love the Brooklyn way. And I want to extend that to not just the outer boroughs, to the tri-state area, but to all of America, and to all the world. Spreading love the Brooklyn way means respecting your neighbors, respecting your communities, and the way you can do that is by getting tested, wearing a mask. That says, I love you and you love me. I respect you and you respect me back. I don't care who you voted for. I don't care who you're going to vote for.

All I care is that we get out of this pandemic as quickly as possible and as safely as possible. Over a hundred thousand deaths is just incredibly heartbreaking and we can lower these numbers. We're already doing it. And I wish the media would show how effective the governor has been in spreading this message of wearing a mask and keeping social distancing. And for those who are not adhering to the guidelines, just know that you're not just disrespecting yourself. You're disrespecting your loved ones, your communities, your neighbors, everyone. So please spread love the Brooklyn way. Get tested. Wear a mask, and let's help fight this virus. We could do it. We could do it. We will rise up. We will stand up. Brooklyn stand up. New York stand up. America, please stand up and be safe. Thank you so much. And I just want to say that our governor is a rock star and he makes me proud to be from New York.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much. You guys are the rock stars. I'm just a fan. Thank you so much. Rosie, thank you so much. Chris?

Chris Rock: Yes, thank you. I watch you every single day and you bring me calm, you know? You bring me joy. Didn't Anita Baker sing that? You bring me joy every single day, because I don't know what's going on. I thought I loved lived in the United States. I thought I lived in a country and now I realize we have 50 countries, essentially. Right now we're in the country of New York. I want to say, I got the test today. I just got tested to come out here. I got a 65. So just past. Just past. Actually, you know, we haven't been able to perform or do any shows or anything. I'm looking at this microphone like, wow. Can I just say hi, microphone, I really missed you. I know it's been hard, but we're going to get back together at some point. It's going to be even better than the last time, microphone. I will never take you for granted.

People need to get tested. People need to make it a festive occasion. They need to posse up and get tested. Like all the crew is getting tested. And the family should get tested. You know, if you love your grandmother, if you love your elderly mother, your elderly anybody, you should get tested. And it's not just, you know, it's wherever there are poor people, really. It's wherever people are congested. So, yes it's in East New York. Yes, it's in Brownsville. But, you know, it's also in Garrison Beach. It's also in Marine Park. It's also, you know? So, everybody that can get tested should get tested as soon as possible. And I'm just so, you know, the governor called me up and I'm here to do whatever is required, you know. I hope to God that when this is over, you're still a part of the government. I hope this isn't the last like oh, it is over, no. I hope this keeps going on.

Governor Cuomo: I hope so too. I wouldn't be bad.

Chris Rock: It wouldn't be bad.

Rosie Perez: Excuse me, governor, I also would like to say that -- wear a mask, please. The numbers in our communities are staggering. This is not a joke. This is not a hoax. This is real. This is real deal Holyfield. So please, love each other, love yourselves. Get tested, wear a mask.

Chris Rock: Get tested, wear a mask. It's like when the doctor prescribes antibiotics. He says take the whole prescription and if you stop, whatever you came in there for is going to come back worse. So social distancing is what was the prescription and we need to take the whole dose. Or else it is going to get worse.

Governor Cuomo: So true, so well said. Look, it is a new thing, right? This wear a mask thing. It's just a couple of months when you think about it. Nobody heard about it before that. You'd watch TV every once in a while, you would see people in China wearing masks, but nobody did it here, right. So, it is introducing a whole new concept to people. And it's not only making it okay, it's making it not okay to not wear a mask. Not wearing a mask is not okay and that has to be the culture. And that has to be the attitude. It's not okay if you don't wear a mask. It's not okay for you to jeopardize my health. I don't think its right for you to jeopardize your health, but that's your health. And by the way, you jeopardize your health, you also jeopardize the health of your family when you go home and whoever else you are interacting with. But you don't have a right to jeopardize my health.

So, it is as Rosie said, its respect. It's civic duty. It's humanity. It is New York. You know, New York is, New York is 19 million people who start with the premise that we can all live together. In a very close area, right. Part of that acknowledgment is, we're going to respect one another. And we're going to respect each other's space and add we're going to respect each other's air to respecting each other's space, right. We're going to respect each other's air. Wear a mask. Thank you, Rosie. Thank you, Chris.

2020-05-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you, again. Thank you to Iona College President Carey for having us here today. I know it’s a busy day and a distressful day on many levels, but let’s proceed. Today is day 90 of the corona pandemic crisis. “Follow the facts. They will show you the way.” -A.J. Parkinson. That’s what we’ve been doing in New York, following the facts. The facts today in terms of the coronavirus are good. Number of hospitalizations are down. Net change in total hospitalizations is down, intubations are down, and the new cases are down to 152, which is a dramatic, dramatic drop for us. At one point… we’ll never get to zero. What is the bottom of the curve? I don’t know, but we’re close. And the number of deaths, thank the good Lord, continues to decline. It’s at its lowest level ever of 67 deaths. And we hope and we pray that that continues to be the case.

The question is on reopening and as everyone knows, we’ve been looking at the numbers, looking at the metrics in terms of different regions across the state. The overall state was hit the hardest by this virus. And we’re coming back as the smartest. We were forced to learn more and learn faster and respond quicker because we were hit by the invisible enemy, the European virus, the virus from Europe, when everyone said watch China. Well, they were wrong. The virus came to New York from Europe. We have metrics that are posted. We want all the people to know exactly what we’re doing because they are the ones who decide what happens. So communicating this information has been key from day one. We have now done even more testing. We test more than any state in the United States per capita. We test more than any country on the globe per capita. And that is helpful in a number of ways. It also gives us more and more information to make decisions. So we can now look at the number of tests we’re doing by a specific area in the state and see on a day-to-day basis, what is happening with the spread of the virus by the number of tests in that area. And you can actually see a trendline from day to day, right? This is all about opening smart, which means what? Which means you are tracking the virus. And we can now track it on a day-to-day basis to help us inform us about our decisions and how we should react.

And we have a new dashboard that actually tracks that information. And you can see remarkably clearly what is happening in terms of the spread of the virus, the severity of the new infections, new infections in the region. So everyone will know exactly what’s happening and why we’re doing it and what we’re planning to do. The reason we are so rigorous about this is because many states and countries have reopened and they made mistakes. Yes, everybody wants to open tomorrow. I wanted to open before we ever closed, but you have to be smart. And we’ve seen what has happened painfully when cities and states and countries reopened too quickly, they had to, they wound up closing again, which is the worst situation.

So be smart. We have the data, we have more data than almost any other place on the globe because of our testing. And we have had it reviewed at every level. All the local officials sign off, the regional official sign off, the best state experts. And then we go to global experts who have done this in countries around the world who frankly have more experience than we do because they’ve been through this, the crisis and the closing and the opening and the closing again. And we review all the data with them. And I want to thank them all very much for taking the time to go through the data. But these are literally the best minds that you can find on the globe and when it comes to this and they have gone through all the data.

So I feel confident that where we can rely on this data and the five regions that have been in phase one can now move to phase two because their data has been reviewed. And the experts say to us it’s safe to move forward because people have been smart and you haven’t seen the spike. So they go to phase two. Phase two is all office-based jobs, real estate services, retail reopening, barbershops, hair salons reopening, that’s all part of phase two. There’s specific guidance on how to reopen in phase two. It’s not just open the doors and everybody has a party. It’s 50% occupancy in office buildings, signage on markers, et cetera, no meetings without social distancing. Don’t share food or beverages. I mean, I see people all the time sharing food and beverages. You really don’t want to do that now.

But again, there’s specific guidance for every area. Retail stores, 50% occupancy, wear the face covering. A store owner can tell you they don’t want you to come in if you’re not wearing a face covering. Why? Because you don’t have the right to infect the store owner, you don’t have the right to infect other customers in the store and you don’t have the right to walk into a store and all the other customers run out because you don’t have a face mask. Malls are closed except stores that open to external entrances curbside. But again, very detailed guidelines.

Barbershops, hair salons are open by appointment only. The professionals in those operations have to get a test every two weeks. We recommend that the professionals get a test before they reopen. That’s not a mandate. That’s a recommendation. And we recommend to customers to ask the barber or professional in the hair salon if they had a test before you use their services. That’s a recommendation. But they have to get a test every two weeks. And if I were walking into a barbershop, I would say, I would ask the barber, “Did you get a test before you reopened? When was the last time you got a test?” And if they got a test, they’ll have a certification. They’ll have an evidence of that test. And people will wear face coverings.

But the basic rule is still it’s all about how we act. It comes down to that. How the employer acts, how the store owner acts, how the employee acts, how the individual acts, how the local government acts. Reopening in New York City is more complicated as we know. But we are on track to meet all the metrics, hospital capacity of 70%. We want 30% hospital capacity. So God forbid something goes wrong, we have the hospital beds. We want to make sure we have the stockpile of PPE. We’re not going through what we went through last time, searching the globe for ventilators and masks and gowns. I mean, we learned that lesson the hard way, this entire country did, but it’d be madness to go through that again.

We have to have the testing in place, which we do. The contact tracing is being brought up to speed. We believe all of these things can be done next week. The MTA preparations for reopening, but we think all of this can be done by next week. And we would be on track to open the week afterwards. One of the things we want to do and we have been doing is I want to focus on the hotspots. Again, follow the facts. We have the data. We can tell you by zip code where the new cases are coming from. They are in New York City, they’re outer borough, they’re more Brooklyn, they’re more the Bronx. They are lower income areas. They’re more minority areas. And we know where they are by zip code. Some of these zip codes, you have double the infection rate in those zip codes that you have citywide.

Citywide, the infection rate is about 19%, 20%. In some zip codes, it’s over 40%, the infection rate. We know where these zip codes are. Next week, let’s do a full court press on these zip codes. And we’ve been talking to our colleagues in the city, speaking to the mayor about this. Next week, hospitals, PPE, get that contact tracing up. MTA will finish their final preparations, but then hotspots, hotspots, hotspots. We’re in New Rochelle today where we had the first hotspot in the nation.

There was no such thing as a hotspot before New Rochelle had a hotspot. Congratulations, New Rochelle, created a new term now used by every American, hotspot, in this regard. But we know where the hotspots are in the city. We want to focus on them next week, be ready to open. We are on track to open on June 8th, which is one week from Monday and next week, as I mentioned, we’ll be following up on these issues. Phase one should bring about 400,000 employees back to work in New York City. Remember that reopening does not mean we’re going back to the way things were. Life is not about going back. Nobody goes back. We go forward.

Life is not about going back. Nobody goes back. We go forward. It’s going to be different. It is reopening to a new normal. It’s a safer normal. People will be wearing masks. People will be socially distanced. It doesn’t mean they don’t like you. It’s not a personal reflection. It’s just a new way of interacting, which is what we have to do. Wear a mask, get tested and socially distance. It is that simple, but that hard. It is that simple, but that hard. Those simple devices, wearing a mask, hand sanitizer, they make all the difference. They make all the difference. You talk to all the experts, “What advice? What should we do?” Wear a mask. “How can it be that simple?” Because, sometimes it’s that simple. The doing is what’s hard, not the advice. Getting 19 million people to do it, that’s what’s hard.

What happens is up to us, up to us. People say, “Governor, tell me what’s going to happen next week, the week after.” I can’t tell you. Only you know. It’s the person in the mirror. You tell me how the people of New York City respond, I’ll tell you what happens in New York City. You tell me how the people in Westchester respond, I’ll tell you what happens in Westchester. The New Rochelle hotspot, that was all done by New Rochelle. It was no act of God. It was no external force. It happened because of what people in New Rochelle did.

We know how we got here. We know how we can get from here. If we act smart, these stores open and they’re smart, the customers are smart, people are smart, people on public transit are smart, then we won’t see those numbers go up, as we haven’t in the upstate regions that have reopened and Long Island that has reopened. The numbers have not gone up. Why? Because people have been smart. We have to continue to be smart. We’re going to be doing this in New York City with our partners. I want to thank the Mayor very much and his team very much.

Everybody in government has been working overtime. None of us have been here before, but we are figuring it out. I’m proud of the way New York is figuring it out. We wish we were never here, but once we were here, we have made the best of it. We should be proud. The Mayor is looking fit and healthy and rested. I don’t know why, but he’s looking extraordinarily good. It’s good to be with him in this new way of everyone is virtual, everyone is Zoom. But it’s not the virtual Mayor, it is the real mayor of the city of New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Good to be with you mayor.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you so much, Governor. Governor, I’m worried that the coronavirus is affecting your eyesight because I think the last 90 days for all of us, a lot of long days. I know you and your team have worked extraordinarily hard. I think we all look a little less than ideal lately. Thank you. I want to say, first of all, thank you, Governor. Thank you to your whole team for the extraordinary work that’s happened over these last months. As you said, our teams talk all day long with a lot of common purpose. We’ve done really important work with the same strategic view, the same approach. I want to thank you for that.

We are excited to get to the point of a restart for New York City. When I talked to the people of this city this morning, I told them that the indicators are moving absolutely in the right direction, but that the key to getting to a point, a definition for that phase one came from the collaboration between you and me and the state and the city to all get on the same page and make sure that we were confident that it was the right time to do it.

You and I have talked and I think we are absolutely on the same page. The fact is, Governor, you’ve talked about the condition of the state and how incredibly different it is than even a month or two ago. I just want you to hear this good news about the city, our own health department indicators. We have set a threshold that we want to be under 200 new hospital admissions each day to know we’re in a safe zone. Today, Governor, only 61 new patients for COVID-19 or a similar disease. That’s breathtaking how far we’ve come on that.

We also have said we want to be below 15% of all new tests, positive result for the people taking those tests. Governor, as you know, with your help we’ve all been doing more and more testing every day, literally exponential growth. Today’s number will bring a smile to your face. Only 5% of those tested, tested positive in New York City. These are great indicators. The third one, we still have a little work to do, but I’m very confident. I know you are too. That’s the number of people in our public hospital ICUs. This morning, Governor, we announced that threshold, that 375 threshold, we were damn close at 391 patients. But as you and I have discussed, we’ve got about 40 patients that actually can be cared for outside of ICUs in a different setting that gives them the long-term [inaudible] under that threshold.

Now when you add all that together, as you and I have discussed, we are on now the gateway to the next big step. Governor as I affirm to you, we’re going to spend this coming week going out to the businesses in New York City that would be part of phase one. We’re going to be providing them with free face coverings. We’re going to be providing them with a hotline where any employer can call to figure out how to address those practical questions.

I have given a lot of credit to you and your team for the guidance you’ve put out around phase one. [inaudible] very [inaudible]. [inaudible] questions. If we see something that’s not right, helping them correct it, but we’re going to do the same for workers. I have a hotline for workers to make sure they’re safe and they’re getting the support they need. As you and I discussed, this next week we will be able to implement all of that. A lot of hands-on direct work with the small businesses and …

(silence)

Andrew Cuomo: It will work in New York and New York … if you continue to watch [inaudible]. I did want to focus on those hotspot zip codes, [inaudible] preparation, the hospital numbers. There are about 100 hospitals in New York City, 11 are the hospitals the Mayor was referring to, the New York City hospitals. But then there were about 90 other hospitals, they have to have the beds available. They have to have PPE available. We’ll be working with them, but we’ll get there for June 8th. June 8th, we have to be smart. Again, this is not a happy days are here again, it’s over. We have to be smart. We’re going to remind New Yorkers of that.

2020-05-31 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Let me introduce who’s with me today, from my right, Robert Mujica, budget director for the state of New York. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To Melissa’s left, we’re joined today by Major Chris West from the New York State Police. Last night was a long, and ugly night all across this nation as we know. Let’s talk about where we are today with the COVID virus first. The number of hospitalizations are down again. A net change in hospitalizations down again. Intubations down again. Number of new deaths still dropping. All good news. Number of lives lost down to 56, which is in this absurd reality we live in actually very, very good news. There’ll be a point at which the number of deaths can’t get any lower, because people will die of something, and COVID virus is very good at affecting those people who have other illnesses.

But, this reduction in the number of deaths is tremendous progress from where we were, and we have gone through hell, and back, but we are on the other side, and it’s a lesson for all of us.

2020-06-01 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. We had a long night in this country. To my left, glad to be joined by Dr. Howard Zucker. To my right, I'm glad to be joined by Secretary Melissa DeRosa. Let's talk about where we are, start with the facts that we know.

In terms of handling the COVID virus, we're doing better than we've ever done before. The number of hospitalizations is down. It's continued to drop. The reduction in the number of intubations is down. The three-day average of new hospitalizations is down to the lowest level ever, which is really good news. We're doing a significant amount of testing. As you know, we're testing more than any state in the United States. We're testing more per capita than any country on the globe. And the tests are very relevant because they're a snapshot in time. They tell you where you are on that day. Yesterday we did about 50,000 tests, which is a tremendous number of tests. Less than 1,000 people tested positive. That is the lowest number we have had since this began, and when it began, we were only doing 3 or 4,000 tests. We now did 50,000 tests. So the progress is just phenomenal. And that's the rate of positives from our testing, remembering that the testing has increased exponentially. And we have the lowest number of deaths that we've ever had at 54.

And there will be a level at which that number can't drop any lower, right, because people who are gravely ill and contract the COVID virus, it's going to be a bad outcome. But that number is dramatically different than what we were looking at for many, many weeks. Question is, where do we go from here? No doubt the initial objective was getting control of this COVID virus. The situation has gotten more complex since then.

But on the reopening, five regions upstate have entered Phase 2. That's good news. Western New York is expected to move to Phase 2 tomorrow and we expect that to happen. We have the data that we've been tabulating during Phase 1 in Western New York, all the data looks very good. We're going to have the global experts go through today. I want to make sure we're not missing anything. This is new for all of us. It's not what county executives do. It's not what governors do. This is very detailed research of statistics, what clusters might pop up, etc. So, we also have global experts review all the data for us because this question of closing, opening, countries have gone through this before. There is a body of knowledge to know. And where we also go to global experts who we've enlisted who have gone through this with other countries where they close, they opened, they got into trouble, they had to close again. But, they're looking at it now. We want to make sure they get the latest data. We'll have a final announcement later this afternoon for Western New York, but the conversations I've had with them are all good and we expect Western New York to go to Phase 2 tomorrow. the Capital District region is moving to go into Phase 2 on Wednesday. Again, all the numbers look good there. We're going to run them by our global team to make sure they are as good as we think they are. But at this point the Capital Region is also on track to go into Phase 2 on Wednesday.

What we have done with this COVID virus is a really amazing accomplishment, if you take a step back. And it was all done by the people of this state. They did it. 19 million people did what they never did before. They responded with a level of determination and discipline that I was amazed with frankly. And I am a lifelong New Yorker, but they did was unlike anything I've seen. Remember where we were. We had 800 people die in one day. We had the worst situation in the United States of America. At one point we had the worst situation on the globe. And we're now reopening in less than 50 days. Now, it was a long 50 days. I can recount every one of them. But, we went from a really internationally terrible situation to where we're talking about reopening today.

Even New York City, where we're planning to reopen June 8th. And that was just 50 days. The whole closure period has been about 93 days. Yes it was a disruptive 93 days, I know. But look at what we did in 93 days. We went from the worst situation on the globe to actually reopening. That's where we are. We should be very proud of what we've done. Just don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We're talking about reopening in one week in New York City.

2020-06-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Let me introduce the people at the table with me from my far right, Major West, to my immediate right, Superintendent of the state police, Keith Corlett, to my left Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. Yesterday was another long ugly day and night all across this country. New York state was not an exception. Today’s day 94 of the COVID pandemic. It’s day nine of the situation that we’re dealing with, with the killing of Mr. Floyd. And it’s the first time that we’ve spoken about these two situations that we’re dealing with now at the same time. And I think at this moment of confusion and unrest, the smartest thing is to take a step back and let’s gain a little perspective. And let’s just talk as people about this situation. I do a lot of reading, always have, about leadership in a crisis, especially government leadership in a crisis. When is government most important?

It’s most important at a time of crisis, day in and day out. It does what it does, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but when it really matters is in the middle of a crisis. Now, it depends on what type of crisis we have. Some crises, government can take care of on its own. Some crises I can take care of on my own, operational crises, internal crises. But the really difficult ones are the social crises where it’s not really about government, it’s really about society, and it’s really about people. And people have to handle the crisis. Those are the ones that really test, not just the capacity of government, the ability of government, the leadership of government, but they also test who we are as a people and how we respond as a people.

My strategy has been in this COVID crisis always, you go to the people, you use the people, it’s about them. They are the solution. So you inform the people, you give them the facts, you give it to them clearly, you give it to them without opinion, you give them the facts completely. So people know you’re being 100% open and honest. You then offer a plan after you give the facts, right? During this COVID crisis, I say, “Here are the facts,” and then I say, “Here’s my opinion.” I like to think the opinion is based on the facts, but people can agree or disagree, but offer a plan based on those facts and then ask for support of the plan. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what we’ve done during this COVID crisis, which frankly has worked very well for the state. You look at the progress we have made. It’s breathtaking, how far we’ve come and how fast we’ve come.

This situation we have multiple crises that are colliding and that creates confusion and disorientation, and that’s where we are now. We have the COVID crisis that is still going on. At the same time, we have a new crisis, which is the civil unrest from the murder of Mr. Floyd. I believe that’s what it was. I believe it was a murder. And then to further compound the situation, you have an environment that is racially charged and politically charged. So you’re trying to deal with these two situations, which are very different in the middle of a dynamic in this country of racial division and a hyper-political environment and a nation that is more divided than it has been at any time in my lifetime. Just the basic division in this country. So what do we do?

We first take a step back, gain some perspective and separate the issues. Separate the issues. You want to solve a problem? Let’s understand what we’re trying to solve for first. COVID-19, let’s take that issue and pull it out. On the COVID-19 issue, day 94, we have more good news today. Number of hospitalizations are down. Number of new COVID cases walking in the door is at an all time low, 154, 154. Congratulations to the people of the State of New York. Look at what you did. Look at the progress you made. God bless you. Number of deaths, just about as low as we have seen it. The numbers again are not 100% accurate given the system, but you see the overall direction. So we’re doing very, very well when it comes to dealing with the COVID-19 crisis.

Buffalo enters Phase II today, Western New York, Capital District should enter Phase II tomorrow. All the numbers indicate that. Our experts are going over the numbers, but there’s no reason to believe that the Capital District doesn’t go into Phase II tomorrow and I fully plan to affirm that later this afternoon. But Capital Region will go into Phase II, New York City’s on track, in the midst of all of this to open Phase I next Monday. Summer day camps are going to open on June 29th. We’re still reviewing the situation with sleep away camps. So that’s the COVID situation. That’s going very well. Civil unrest post Mr. Floyd’s killing. That’s also a complex situation with a number of levels. You have protestors who are outraged at what has happened. And you have criminal activity, looting, extremist groups who are using this moment for their own purposes and exploiting this movement and moment. Two very different things. On the protesters, they’re outraged. And by the way, I agree with them.

They don’t want to hear about COVID anymore. COVID is yesterday’s news. No, COVID is still a problem. And COVID still kills also. So be mindful and respective of that. But look, it is a tough moment. There is no doubt, but there’s also no doubt that we have gone through many tough moments in this state and in this country. And we’ve gone through many long nights and we’ve dealt with many problems. We’ve dealt with this COVID virus, which frankly is one of the most frightening challenges that we have confronted. And we have a lot to do.

2020-06-03 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to be with all of you. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To my right, Robert Mujica, budget director of the State of New York, also gracing the cover of City & State magazine this month, where he has that big, warm smile that he's famous for. Today is day 95 of the situation dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, and it is day 10 of the situation dealing with the civil unrest after the murder of Mr. Floyd that we all saw on TV.

These are perilous times. There's a lot going on and we have to understand what's going on and the difference among the issues that we're dealing with. You have the COVID crisis, you have the murder of Mr. Floyd - two very different situations, but both critical in of themselves and both happening at the same time. It's then wrapped in an environment and a dynamic that is racially charged and politically charged. It makes it a very, very perilous time in this country and we have to be careful. We have to be very careful because the consequences are steep on both sides of this equation. Leadership, good government, responsibility is more important than ever before especially in these divided times.

COVID-19 is still a real threat. We're still battling that. I know it's not on the front pages today but it is still in people and in society. We're still battling that. That is going better than it has ever gone in New York. We have the lowest number of hospitalizations ever and we have the lowest death toll ever. God bless the people of New York for what they did. God bless the nurses and the doctors and the essential workers and the frontline workers because they saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the State of New York.

We have to remember what made us successful during COVID. That we're New York tough, but New York tough is multi-faceted. It means New York smart. If you're going to protest, protest intelligently. Remember the COVID virus is still out there, so protest intelligently. We're united. We're not black and white, we're not upstate, downstate. We're not red and blue. We are one state. One community and we came together that way. We're disciplined in fighting this COVID. We're disciplined in having our right to protest, but doing it peacefully and in a way that respects law and order. And we are loving at the end of the day. Yes, we have issues. Yes, we have challenges, but we've shown how good we can be as a community and how much we respect one another and the sacrifice we're willing to make for one another.

Let's keep that spirit that we developed over the past 95 days. Let's keep that going because that is pure magic. If we stay united and we stay loving and we stay smart, we're going to handle all of these issues and we're going to be the better for it. We've overcome the greatest challenge that this state has faced in my lifetime with this COVID virus. This was the beast that we didn't know if we could beat, but so far we've beaten it. We have to stay smart to make sure we control the beast. But we did it we overcame. We--the people--overcame together. Last words for today, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good, Romans 12. That, my friends, is New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving.

2020-06-04 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. To my right, we have Major West of the State Police. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To her left, Robert Mujica, Budget Director of the State of New York. Today is day 96 dealing with the historic COVID0-19 crisis. It is day 11 of the aftermath of the murder of Mr. Floyd and the unrest and protest that has stemmed there from.

I said yesterday, this is, dealing with the coronavirus in and of itself was the greatest challenge that government and society has had in modern day. You put on top of that the situation with the murder of Mr. Floyd and the unrest afterwards. Those two compound each other. You then wrap it in this hyper-partisan, hyper-political period of time. We are in the middle of an election year, a heated election year, so everything becomes political. You add the issue of race on top of that. It is as dangerous a time as I have ever experienced. So, keep the issues separate, stay smart, and be honest.

On the COVID-19 front, good news, continued good news. The total number of hospitalizations are down. Number of lives lost, 52, little bit higher than yesterday, but this is all within the, statistically these are irrelevant differences. I don't believe the system is this statistically accurate. So, we're seeing a continued decline there, although obviously 52 lives lost are 52 too many. But we see that overall movement is still in a positive direction.

A few more facts so people understand exactly where we are and how far we've come. The testing is the most immediate data on where you are. Testing is, you test people yesterday and you know how many people tested positive yesterday, okay? We do about 50,000 tests per day. Is that a lot or a little? It's more than any state per capita. It's more than any country per capita. One day we'll talk about how New York was able to ramp up their testing to be the testing capital of the world. But, 50,000 tests per day. That is an immediate snapshot of where you are. 50,000 tests yesterday. Long Island with 2 percent testing positive, New York City, 2 percent, Western New York, 2 percent test positive, Capital Region, 1 percent test positive, okay, which is remarkable, in many ways.

It's remarkable in comparison to the other, if you remember, New York City was much higher than Upstate New York. And now you see Long Island, New York City, Western New York, all about the same, Capital District still reads a little lower, but again, these numbers, when you get that close, I wouldn't rely on them. Long Island was 2 percent yesterday. Two weeks ago it was 4 percent, double that. I'm sorry, two weeks ago, it was 4 percent, double that. Four weeks ago, one month, it was 11 percent. Six weeks ago it was 20 percent. We went from 20 percent to 2 percent in 6 weeks. Well, what difference does this socially distance, masks make? I think it's all a bunch of malarky. Oh really? Then you tell me how those numbers dropped like that. Everything we have done is smart and is working and it's in the numbers. It's not my opinion. It's not my theory. It's not because I'm from New York. It's not because I'm a Democrat. It's in the numbers.

New York City was 26 percent 6 weeks ago. Two percent today. Western New York 15 percent down to 2 percent. Capital District 12 percent 6 weeks ago. Six weeks ago was like yesterday. So, we're making great progress, but as fast as these numbers came down, is as fast as these numbers can go up. As fast as these numbers come down, is as fast as those numbers go up. Speaking to somebody this morning, I used a bizarre metaphor. I lost five pounds over the past 10 days - yay. Okay, you lose discipline and you go back to your old eating habits and non-exercise habits, you'll put those 5 pounds right back on over the next 10 days. It came off, it'll go right back on. It is a tortured analogy for this situation. This is all a function of our behavior. Nothing more, nothing less.

On the reopening, reopen with caution. Why? Because we've seen too many examples of reopening where they didn't do it right and it boomeranged. Period. You look at the states that opened fast without metrics, without guardrails, it's a boomerang. And it's not just one or two states as an example. North Carolina, look at these numbers of these other states. Look at when they opened and look at the line after they reopened. North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona. Look at those numbers. This happens in New York with our density, we go right back to where we were. And it's not the exception, it's almost the rule. California, you look at them reopening and then look at the curve after the reopening.

California, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Utah. What am I worried about? I'm worried about that. Why? Because it happens quite often. As a matter of fact, it probably happens more times than not. If we're not smart, that's what's going to happen here. Sweden had a different policy. Sweden didn't do the full close down. They did a limited close down and everybody said, "Oh why didn't we do what Sweden did?" Well we're not Sweden and who's knows that Sweden is doing is actually right.

The lead person for Sweden who came up with the plan we don't have to close down, now says, oops. Maybe we should have closed down. More people died than had to die. Even the countries that did it right and then reopen see the second wave, the second spike where the numbers go up again. So, I'm not a nervous Nelly, I just read the numbers. With the protestors, they could actually compound this situation. Why? You have 30,000 people who have been protesting statewide. You look at videos as I look at the video.

Many of them wear masks, thank God, but there's no social distancing. You look at the encounters with the police, the police are right in their face, they're right in the face of the police. Twenty thousand protestors in New York City. Thousand protestors on Long Island. These are big numbers and yes, they're young people and they're superheroes and nothing can affect me. We're going to open the testing facilities for all people who were at a protest. The super-spreader, all these new new terms. Super spreader. What's a super spreader? Super spreader is what happened to us in New Rochelle, Westchester where we had the first hotspot, new term, in the United States of America. One person, one person can infect hundreds. If you were at a protest, go get a test, please. The protesters have a civic duty here also. Be responsible, get a test. Go to the website and find out the testing site nearest you. We have 700 in the state. You can get a test, get a test.

Also allow the police to do their job when you're protesting. The reason the peaceful protest is so important, not just so you don't get categorized, stereotyped as criminals, but so the police actually can focus on their job which is stopping the looting. Wear a mask and tell people that you may have been exposed to Covid. If you were at one of those protests, I would out of an abundance of caution, assume that you are infected. Tell people. When you go home, tell your parents. Tell your sister, tell your brother who may not be 25 years old and consider themselves a superhero. Tell people, I may have been exposed and act like you may have been exposed. Because by the way, you may have been exposed and you're not worried about yourself, that's a different conversation. Worry about your 55-year-old grandfather or your 62-year-old grandmother or your 60-year-old parent or uncle or aunt. They can die from this virus. By the way, you could too, but that's a separate conversation.

Also, there's a lag in the numbers, remember. If someone goes to a protest last night and they get infected, you don't find out today, you don't find out tomorrow, you don't find out next day. It can be four or five days until any symptoms show. Symptoms may never show, right. Asymptomatic transfer. If you're really seriously ill, you may be in a hospital in eight to 12 days. Eight to 12 days is a long time when we are measuring day to day to decide what to do. You saw the difference in the numbers and two weeks is a lifetime in the numbers. So if you have a viral spread through these protests we are not going to see it in the numbers for a while. In the meantime we are making all these decisions on reopening so it is important that people act responsibly for themselves. If you went to a protest, get a test, tell people, act as if you may have been exposed.

New York City enters Phase 1 Monday. With all of this going on New York City had the highest number of protesters. We have to be smart. The protesters themselves could wind up causing a spike so we have to be smart. The businesses that were looted, and look the other reason why I am saying to the district attorneys they should take these looters and punish them for what they did, many of the businesses they looted were mom and pop businesses in distressed communities that were struggling in the first place. In New York City and Rochester, many of these businesses were essential businesses for the poorest communities in those locales and they looted mom and pop stores that don't have the resources to rebuild and reopen. So we are going to do everything that we can do to help them. The Department of Financial Services, DFS, regulates the insurance industry, they are going to direct insurers to expedite all claims for all looted businesses, free mediation services to accept photos as proof. If a looted business has trouble with their insurance company, go to the Department of Financial Services website and they will provide relief.

Because the numbers today are good we are going to act on the data that we have. We are going to go to outdoor dining as part of Phase 2 and that affects all the communities that are already in Phase 2 and there are a number that are about to enter Phase 2. Westchester, Rockland, Hudson Valley go next Tuesday. Long Island goes next Wednesday. Remember what outdoor dining is: it is outdoors. That's why it's called, "outdoor dining." I know you have a lot of restaurants that want to open. This doesn't say restaurants open. The enclosed spaces are an issue. Outdoor dining— there's no roof, there could be a canopy, but it is outside space. It's open-air space. The wind is blowing. There's ventilation. It's open-air space. You're still six-feet apart, wear face coverings and there are points in the guidelines that are online. But I want to stress: this is outdoor dining space. It's not a restaurant with the doors open. It is outdoor dining space.

The school year is coming to an end. I know a lot of graduates are disappointed. We're going to allow drive-in and drive-through student graduations. We're going to keep evaluating. I get this. I get this on a personal level. My Michaela graduated college. Was supposed to graduate college this year. Well, she did graduate college this year. She just didn't have the ceremony. And you know, she worked so hard, and it's one of those real moments in life going to a college graduation or a high school graduation. So not to have the graduation is painful. I get it. As soon as we can do it, we will. If there's a way drive-ins or drive-throughs can be helpful, I hope that makes a difference in the meantime.

I talked to Michaela about it. Look this is just a bizarre time. It's a time they'll write about in the history books for years to come. They'll talk about it for years to come. I've said all along— it's also a time of reflection, value changing. You learn about yourself, learn about your family, learn about people. I said to Michaela, "what do you want for graduation?" Any other year, she would've said "money." She just goes for the money and that allows her to get what she wants to get. So, there's certain logic to that. This year, she said to me, "I want something that means something to you."

I said, "what does that mean?" She said, "well I want something that means something to you." I said, "how about I give you money and then you can buy something that you think—" she said. "no, no, I want something that means something to you." She would not have said that at any other time but for this. I think it's changed all of us. It's given us all a different perspective.

I'm going to give Michaela my watch. It made me think: what means something to me? What means something to me? I'm going to give her my watch. It means something to me. It's the best thing I have that my father gave me. My father gave me the watch when I was elected Attorney General. My father and mother. So, I've had it for about 14 years. But it means something to me. So. She won't be able to wear it, because it's a man's watch. But. Maybe she can. But it means something to me. And you know what? It's a smarter gift; it's a better gift. It means something to her and it means something to me. And this whole period has brought us to a deeper place as a family. My own family. And for myself. But I get what it's like to not have the graduation. Today at 2 p.m., we'll have a moment of silence statewide in respect for Mr. Floyd and his murder and his family's pain and grief. And as a symbolic moment to say we understand what happened, we're sorry, we grieve and this is an injustice that should never happen again. And we're going to act. We're going to act in the State of New York. We're going to pass 50 which releases disciplinary records, but we stand in solidarity with the senselessness of his brutal murder.

And that is part of being New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, loving. It's about being loving. Loving to one another.

2020-06-05 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Thank you for being here. To my right, is Major West, New York State Police. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. to her left, Robert Mujica, budget director. It was another long and ugly night in the United states of America. Last night, as it was in New York State. Day 97 of the coronavirus crisis, day 12 of the civil unrest dealing with the aftermath of Mr. Floyd's murder. And this, my friends, is a dangerous combination, colliding crises compounding each other. But, our job is to address what is presented, and this is the reality that is presented, and this is what we will deal with.

On the coronavirus situation, there's a lot to learn from what we just went through, and I believe it's a transformative situation for society and something we can really learn from going forward. Coronavirus was a medical issue, was a public health issue, was an economic issue, but more than anything it was a social issue. It was about how people behave, right. And to address coronavirus what we really had to do was change society. It was not a government operation. It was not something I could do governmentally. People had to do it. Government could provide leadership, and we had an operational component, but it was about people making the changes that had to be made. They had to accept it, they had to understand it, they had to change their behavior. That is a monumental undertaking, always.

COVID, coronavirus, well, do you want to save people's lives or reopen the economy? And you should reopen the economy and forget public health. Or you should take care of people's health, but not reopen the economy. It was never either or. It can't be either or. I know from a hyperbolic rhetorical partisan, it's one or the other, liberate New York, worry about health, close New York. It was never one or the other. That was unintelligent. It was always both.

It's the same situation here. It's not a question of public safety or civil rights. Whose side are you on, public safety or civil rights? It can't be either or. It can't be police safety or prosecutor safety. Pick a side, which are you on? Red or blue? Democrat or Republican? Who are you with? You have to be with both. Yes, you need public safety, and yes, you need civil rights. Yes, you need police to be safe. And yes, you need the protesters to be safe. These are false choices. We need both. Even in this hysterical moment, you need to be able to hold two truths in your hands at the same time. How do we change society to make these reforms happen? How do you have a new societal awareness? Can you do that? Can you change behavior to respect one another?

You're darn right you can. We know we can because we just did it through this coronavirus in a very fundamental way. You changed people's fundamental behavior, whether or not they leave the house, whether or not they go to school, whether or not they go to work, they changed themselves, remarkably fast and remarkably effective.

We have the lowest number of deaths from coronavirus that we have had since this started. 42 deaths, the lowest number since we started. Eight weeks ago, we had 800. Eight weeks. 800 people die to 42 people die in eight weeks. Amazing. How did you do that? I did nothing. The people of the state radically changed how they behaved. Look at that progress. Lowest number of hospitalizations to date, in a matter of weeks. So we know we can change, and we know we can change dramatically. People are focused, we have a plan, and that's when social reform happens, when people are motivated and people are focused. That was the Civil Rights Act nationally, that was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, which changed labor rights in this nation, that was the environmental movement after Storm King, that's was the revolution of LGBTQ rights after Stonewall, that's what we just saw in coronavirus, which will go down in history as one of the great transformational moments of society, and this is a moment to lead in terms of social change. And we will do it because we are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, loving, and that is what the moment requires. Thank you.

2020-06-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. To my right, acting major, I didn't see the acting before, it just said major. I gave you a promotion. Major West. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To her left, Robert Mujica, budget director. Today's day 98 of the COVID crisis. Feels like just yesterday. Today is day 13 of the civil unrest after the murder of Mr. Floyd. Today is Saturday. I can tell it's Saturday, it's a nice day here in Albany, I'm on time and a half, so I'm happy, overtime, comp time, none of which I get.

Today is a day of good news. We have one of the lowest hospitalization rates since this began and really good news, we have the lowest death rate, it's down to 35. I've been asking all the experts who will talk to me, what is the lowest that number can go, and when it gets this low, it's really a question of how what they're attributing as the cause of death. In other words, you have people who are gravely ill who are going to die of something, and if they get the COVID virus, they attribute it to the COVID virus, but there is a number, when it gets down this low it's really a question of what that hospital certifies as the cause of death. So, we'd like to see nobody die in the State of New York, ever. But, this is really, really good news and compared to where we were, this is a big sigh of relief.

We talked about calibrating the control of the reopening based on the metrics that we have seen. We said this from day one. We then did this graphic that people mocked me for, but people mock me for a lot of things and it doesn't bother me because I like it. The reopening of the economy is a valve, and you can open it faster, you can open it slower. We've seen it open very fast, we've seen it opened all at once, we've seen states get into trouble, we've seen countries get into trouble, and then they had to close the valve. We said we were going to open the valve incrementally and then watch the metrics. Sounds boring. Yeah, a little boring, but it's actually very smart. What were the metrics? We're going to start to open the valve, watch the diagnostic testing rate, watch the tracing rate, watch the antibody testing rate, watch the hospitalization rate, watch the infection rate, which is the seminal factor. Rate of transmission. How quickly is the virus spreading? The RT, rate of transmission. If it goes over 1, red lights, alarms, beeping, you have a real problem, if one person is infecting more than one additional person. And you watch the gauges. And if the gauges are staying down low, then you can open the valve more. Why did the valve stay down low? Because people are smart, and when you reopen they don't just come out and act like they did, they understand it's a new normal and they act intelligently. Our metrics are all today very good. We're going to open the valve more than we originally anticipated because the metrics are so good. If the metrics change, that will change. But right now that is where we are.

We are going to accelerate the opening of temples, mosques, churches. In Phase 2 they can open to 25 percent occupancy of that building. I was speaking to a minister about this. He said 25 percent occupancy, that is good news because it is better than zero. He said but 25 percent occupancy, then I have to have four services to get everyone in. Then he said, well you know, I have to give the same sermon four times. He said hopefully by the fourth time I get it right. Yes. 25 percent occupancy is not as easy as 100 percent occupancy but 100 percent occupancy is mass gathering and you really can't do social distancing. So Phase 2, 25 percent occupancy. That begins immediately.

Be smart. Be smart. It does not mean you go to a temple or a mosque and you sit right next to a person. You have to socially distance. Watch on the entranceway and on the exit way when people tend to congregate going through the entrance or the exit. So we leave it to our faith-based partners to come up with a smart strategy about the way to do this. But this is an acceleration for us because we are doing so well on the metrics. But people still have to stay smart.

With this virus, you learn something new every week. Sometimes what you learn is different than what they told you in the first place. Who is the "they"? The they in this case are the global health experts. The information has changed. Some of the information I imparted when I received it turned out that it is different. Now the state of information is the virus can live in the air for three hours which is actually frightening when you think about it. It means if I am infected and I am speaking and we have air molecules that I am dispersing, they could linger for three hours. You walk in three hours later, you actually breathe in those air molecules. That is a frightening fact.

They now say surfaces are less important. It is not that they are not important. You can still get the virus from a surface, but the virus does not live as easily or as long on surfaces as they originally thought.

Originally children were not affected. Now we are seeing the inflammatory syndrome that is affecting children all across the globe. Not a significant number of children yet, but it is an area that is just being developed.

They originally said if you were infected you cannot be re-infected. That was theoretically a way for the workforce to go back to work. People who were infected were going to go back to work because they could not get re-infected. That's wrong. Infected people may be able to get infected.

A new piece of information that reinforces what we have been saying, the World Health Organization now says that masks are more important than they had originally recommended. They had originally recommended they were important for healthcare workers. They are now saying that they are helpful for the general population. On masks, if you remember, when masks first started, the CDC or the federal agencies were saying yes, they could not hurt but maybe they were not great. That has come a long way. The more people have learned, the more important the masks are.

A way to make sure people can gets masks, we're going to sign a bill saying that we will prosecute price gouging on PPE. To give you an idea of where we were, the N-95 masks which we needed during the middle of the pandemic for the health care professionals. Before the pandemic, we were paying 70 cents for a mask. In the middle of the pandemic, $7 per mask for the same mask. Whatever we can do on a statewide basis is statewide price gouging. Doesn't mean China can't gouge us or another country, but we'll have price gouging in the State of New York.

Next week on Monday, New York City opens, starts Phase 1. That's great news. You look at the numbers on New York City, they have dropped dramatically. They were at a high of positive testing at 57 percent, they're now down to 2 percent. You want to talk about a turnaround. This one, my friends, is going to go in the history books. New York was the hardest hit and in 98 days we have gotten to a much, much different place. There is no state in the United States that has gone from where we were to where we are. No state in the United States that has gone from where we were to where we are. You'd be hard-pressed to find a country that went from where we were to where we are. Hospitalizations went from 12,000 down to 1,500.

Phase 1 guidelines starts Monday. It's construction, it's manufacturing, it's curbside pickup. Pursuant to these rules, curbside pickup, in-store pick up where curbside is not practical, they're prearranged, you're not there to browse and shop, social distancing. Construction and manufacturing, masks must be worn. And again, WHO just pointed out how important they are. Employer must provide masks, no congregate settings. We're sending 1 million masks to the MTA, 25,000 gallons of hand sanitizer, made right here in the State of New York, two-ounce bottles for the MTA reopening. The MTA will reopen with disinfected train cars. Never heard of before, used to complain about how dirty they were, they are now disinfected for the first time. My house doesn't have disinfected bathrooms, but the subway cars are disinfected, the Long Island Rail Road is disinfected, buses, etc.

As office workers go back to work, we're allowing commercial buildings to take the temperature of everyone who enters the building. "I don't want anyone to take my temperature." That's going to be a problem because we're giving commercial buildings the right to take the temperature of everyone who walks into a building. It's not just your health, it's the people you could infect. And remember that when you go back to work, it doesn't mean we're going to go back to the way we were, there's no going back in life, it's about going forward and finding a new normal with new behavior and new patterns in the workplace, right. And we need everyone to cooperate with that as they've cooperated all along.

But, congratulations to the people of New York State because they did this, the people of New York City did this, the people of Albany did this. They heard the information, they reacted, they responded, and they were so smart in what they did, and so disciplined and they went through hell, but they rose to the occasion. We used to talk about flattening the curve. The signs that the State put up, "Do your part - flatten the curve." That's where we started. We didn't just flatten the curve, we bent the curve. Flatten the curve was stop the increase and get to a plateau. That is the flat of the curve - get to a plateau. We went beyond that in New York. We didn't flatten the curve, we bent the curve. And we went from the worst, to one of the best in a very short period of time. This is the New York curve, this is the rest of the nation. And they did not have the problem that we had. New Yorkers did it. Don't get cocky, don't get arrogant. They say New Yorkers are arrogant. I think they're talking about some of the people in this room. New Yorkers are arrogant. Don't get cocky, don't get arrogant, but all the arrows are pointed in the right direction and we're going to stay New York Tough, smart, united, disciplined, loving.

2020-06-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Just in New York City because New York City reopens tomorrow. Today’s day 99 of the COVID crisis, day 14 of the unrest after the murder of George Floyd. Two separate issues, and we’re working on both, and we’ll talk about both of them. On the reopening tomorrow, we’re going to have a big day with the reopening of New York City. Also this week, we’ll be taking up a reform agenda in the wake of the George Floyd murder.

In terms of reopening. We’ve been doing it based on the data and the facts. The number of hospitalizations are down. The number of deaths are up slightly, but overall, the trajectory is down. And, again, today’s Sunday. The Sunday numbers tend to be statistically… There’s a variation with the rest of the week. But overall, the numbers are down and the numbers are good. Number of lives lost continues to drop. We are now doing a tremendous number of tests.

As I said, testing is the best mechanism to get a snapshot. Where are we today? You test today and you find out where you are today. What is my weight today? You get on a scale, gives you a number. That’s where you are today. We do more testing than any state in the United States. We do more testing than any country per capita on the globe. So we have the clearest definition of a snapshot. Yesterday 60000 tests performed in the state of New York, Saturday. 781 positive tests, lowest since March 16th, which is before we even closed down. About 1% positive. That’s where we are today. That is very, very good news. And we said the reopening is calibrated to the metrics and the data. If that’s where we are, that’s good news. It means the plan is working. It means we bent the curve, and on those numbers we can advance the reopening.

Hudson Valley is on track for Phase II on Tuesday, long islands is on track for Phase II on Wednesday. We’re going to allow socially-distanced graduations outdoors with up to 150 people total, beginning June 26th. That’s when the schools start to graduate, high schools. And it gives us a couple of weeks between now and then. God forbid the number changes, but schools need to plan. With the progress we’ve made so far, and if we continue this trajectory, we’ll be able to do that. But again, we have a little time to see between now and then.

In terms of New York City, New York City is middle of the metrics. We are going to open New York City tomorrow for Phase I. Period. That will happen. When we begin Phase I in New York City… Remember, New York City had the highest number of cases. New York City has the highest density. New York City has also been the location for the protests with the most number of people. We are concerned that those protests may have increased the spread of the virus. We’re going to do 35000 tests per day, just in New York City. Snapshot, snapshot, snapshot, so we’ll watch it on a daily basis to find out exactly what is happening. Remember there was a lag on the infection rate. So if you were at a protest several days ago, probably wouldn’t show up. But when you get to about seven days, you’ll start to see a pop in the number, if those protests actually increased the spread.

We’re going to increase the number of testing sites in New York. And I’m going to ask again, if you were at a protest, I understand your point. I’m with you. We also have this situation with the coronavirus. Act responsibly, get a test. Get a test. We’re going to open 15 sites that are dedicated just to protesters to get a test so you can get it on an expeditious basis. But please get a test. My opinion, not a fact, I would act as if you were exposed. And I would tell people who I’m interacting with, “Assume I am positive for the virus,” because you could be infecting other people. But please get that test. That is the one variable in this equation that we’re not sure of. We’ve tested everything else. We’ve measured everything else, everything was going fine. Then we had these large number of protests. We don’t know what the effect of those protests are, and we’re concerned about it. All the health experts I’ve spoken to were concerned about it. So while we’re waiting to see if there’s any result, get a test in the meantime.

But New Yorkers have bent the curve by being smart. And there are always voices out there who say, “Everything’s fine. I can’t see the virus.” I’ll tell you a person said to me on the street, “Look around, do you see the virus?” Yeah, no, you’re not going to see the virus. But you have these voices that say, “Just open. Everything is fine. Disobey the rules. Just open.” Look, there are still facts in life. Everybody can have an opinion. And then there are still facts. “I believe my ideology is, government doesn’t have a right to tell me to do this.” I understand your ideology. Let’s look at facts.

Look at what is happening around the country. Look at the facts after countries and states reopened. And look at what is happening with their curve. Arizona is seeing an increase in the numbers. South Carolina, a new record with more than 500 in a single day. Hotspots across the South and in California, as Northeast slows. That’s us. California posted the highest number of new coronavirus cases on Thursday. Florida, 1000 for the fourth day in a row. U.S. 1.8 million spread rises with turmoil. These are facts. This can happen. This can happen. We know it can happen, because it happened here. We’ve made all this progress. Please, please. I know it’s been 90 days. Please stay disciplined, stay smart, because it is working, and we’ve come a long way, and a lot of people have suffered to get here. And a lot of people have died. Let’s not be foolish now.

And again, look at what we did. Flatten the curve? Forget flatten the curve. I’m going to change the state signs. We bent the curve. We bent the curve. We intended to flatten to get to a plateau. We bent it. And look at the rest of the country. We are curved benders, if there is such a thing. New Yorkers should be proud of their accomplishment.

And in light of that, we’re going to light the landmarks across the state in blue and gold in honor of our New Yorkers, our tough New Yorkers. This is going to be in Manhattan, which is very cool. New York tough. The Mario Cuomo bridge, the education building, that’s the Corning Tower in the left. But these will be the landmarks that will be lit blue and gold to celebrate our accomplishment, because it was an extraordinary accomplishment, because we are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving. I am mostly loving, Mark. Don’t you forget that.

2020-06-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Let me introduce the people who are with us today. From my far right Robert Mujica, Budget Director of the State of New York. To my immediate right, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my left, Janno Lieber who is the President of the MTA Construction and Development Corporation. I thank all of you, smiling faces, for being here today.

Today is day 100 and it is a day that New York City begins to reopen. It's a day that I am so glad to see finally come. Day 100. Day 100 since we had the first case in New York. First coronavirus case. That's when we first started counting. Day 100. When we first started, all the experts - I talked to all the global experts. People who had studied this all across world. I said, "What's going to happen and where are we going to go?" Nobody knew. Nobody knew if you could control the spread of the virus. Nobody knew how fast you could control the spread of the virus. 

They all said the same thing: It's all going to depend on what people do. It's going to depend on what people do. It's going to depend on whether or not people take it seriously, people accept the warnings, people understand the virus. Do we understand how serious it is? I am just so proud of how New Yorkers have responded. Look, I can say this, I'm a born and bred New Yorker all my life. We can be a tough crew and New Yorkers heard the message. New Yorkers did what they had to do. They did it with discipline. 

If you had told me 100 days ago that we would be reopening when we didn't even know how bad it was going to get. We had some dire predictions. Remember what those early projection models said? That it would overwhelm our hospital system by doubling the capacity in the hospital system. We have 50,000 hospital beds in the State of New York. They were projecting we would need over 100,000 hospital beds. It was frightening, but New Yorkers did it. New Yorkers did it. It's that simple.

We said thank you yesterday. We lit up all the city and state landmarks with colors of the state to say thank you because we're not out of the woods, but we are on the other side certainly. That's why we're starting the reopening in New York City. As you know, we've started it across all the other regions of the state. I want to thank the people for what they did. 

New Yorkers always rise to the occasion. Always. They rose to the occasion after 9/11. In many ways, New Yorkers - I think - represent courage and unity and when things are tough, New Yorkers are tougher and that's what they did here. I'm so proud to be Governor of New York and I'm so proud to be a New Yorker. I want to say thank you to the people of state. I also want to thank all the essential workers, the police officers, the fire fighters, the health care workers. The nurses, the doctors - everyone who stepped up. You know, if those essential workers hadn't showed up, you would have had total anarchy in society. If those essential workers said, "Well, if it's so dangerous, I'm going to stay home too. I'm not going to open the grocery store. I'm not going to open the pharmacy. I'm not going to drive the truck to bring the groceries to the grocery store. I'm not going to drive the train. I'm going to stay home like everyone else." If they had done that and there was no food and there was no transportation, you would have seen bedlam. God bless the essential workers.

I'd also like to thank my team. One hundred days. They haven't had a day off. We've done these briefings every day for 100 days, sometimes twice a day, and it's been hard. It's been emotionally hard. It's been exhausting dealing with the unknown. We've never gone through a period like this. We've gone through a lot. I've gone through a lot, but never anything like this. They did an extraordinary job and I want to thank them. And I want to thank you guys for talking to me every day for 100 days. The joy of our interaction and our dialogue. The joy that you had dealing with me. The joy that I have dealing with you. I think you have more joy, but we can discuss that over a beer sometime. Congratulations. We are back. We are back.

Not only are we back, but we went from the worst situation in the nation - frankly, one of the worst situations on the globe - to not only flattening the curve, but to bending the curve. Remember we talked about how we had to flatten the curve? That means we had to stop the increase. We didn't just stop the increase, we bent the curve and we brought the spread down dramatically. And you look at where we are today 100 days later, we are continuing our decline, the rest of the country is still spiking. How remarkable is that? How remarkable is that? So congratulations to New Yorkers.

Reopening of New York City— we did it all based on data and facts. There was no political ideology at work here. We're talking about a virus. The virus doesn't do Democrat or Republican. It doesn't do liberal or conservative. It's based on facts and we have followed the facts. You look at where we are now with our testing results. On Sunday, we did 58,000 tests across the State. We're at 1.2 percent positive— the lowest level in the State since March 16. That's a fact. Over the past few days, 58,000 tests we did on Sunday: 1.2 percent statewide. Saturday: 60,000 tests: 1.3. Friday: 77,000 tests, 1.4 Thursday: 66,000 tests.

Why are we reopening? Because these numbers say we can. It's no guess. There's no ideology. Based on the numbers, we can reopen. We are doing more tests than any state in the United States. We're doing more tests than any country on the globe per capita. That's why I have confidence saying to 19 million people that we can do this. Based on yesterday, 58,000 tests— that is a lot of tests. That is a large sample. And I feel confident making a decision on these numbers. Now, we can change the numbers, just like we changed the numbers the first time and reduced them. New Yorkers get sloppy, you can see those numbers go back up.

Those numbers go back up because they're purely a function of behavior. You tell me what New Yorkers do today, I'll tell you that number tomorrow and we literally study it on a day-to-day basis. If you look at yesterday's numbers- just yesterday across the state New York City 9 weeks ago- 59 percent were testing positive, four weeks ago 10 percent with testing positive, 2 weeks ago 4 percent were testing positive, yesterday 2 percent just yesterday. And you see the other numbers for the other regions. Mid-Hudson: percent, Long Island: 1 percent, Western New York 2: percent, Capital Region: 1 percent. That's how we're making decisions.

Westchester, Rockland, Hudson Valley will enter Phase 2 tomorrow. Long Island is on track to enter Phase Two on Wednesday. What does Phase One reopening mean? It means companies/businesses can reopen pursuant to specific guidelines-this is not reckless reopening we know what happens when- it is done by the guidelines. Construction and manufacturing wear masks, no congregate meetings. In terms of businesses, curbside pickup- how curbside pickup happen? In-store pickup only if curbside is not practical and that has to be with prearranged orders. You're just going into the store to pick up an order because you can't do curbside. That's all. Curbside obviously in New York City is a different phenomenon than curbside in other markets with less traffic but that's what store shopping is. These guidelines work they have been enacted in every other region in the state.

Those other regions have entered Phase One follow these guidelines and there has been no spike. We know that it works if it's followed, so the same guidelines applied to New York City and if we follow those guidelines in New York city there should not be a spike, just like there hasn't been a spike across the rest of the state. We're also going to keep a special eye on New York City to see what happens we'll do 35,000 tests per day in New York City, take a snapshot every day. If you see any increase in the infection rate then react immediately. And 35,000 tests per day is a healthy snapshot, then watch it literally every day and calibrate what you're doing.

Again I'm asking all the protesters to please get tests. That is a new question that has been dropped into the mix- we had all these at-home measures and then we had thousands of people show up for protests, did that did that affects the spread of the virus? We don't know. So I'm asking the protesters, please go get a test. It's free, it's available. If there is a chance that you were in proximity to people. Again we've gone through this, what they call a super spreader. One person in a crowd of 100 people can infect dozens. We've seen it so please we have 15 testing sites in the New York City area that are prioritized just for protesters. Were also focusing on the hotspot neighborhoods in New York. These are zip codes where we know there's a much higher infection rate than other parts of the city and it's dramatically high. Overall the infection rate in New York City is about 19 percent. Some of these communities are over 50 percent, so we're targeting these hotspots. More testing, more treatment in these hotspots and more awareness.

We're also setting up additional testing- thank you very much Northwell Health and SOMOs Community Care. More testing sites in those zip code areas for people in those zip codes to get tested. So 240 testing sites alone in New York City, so you can get a test it doesn't cost anything and there are 240 sites available so there's no reason not to do it. There's a website where you can go, punch in your address, find the availability, call and set it up. I'm asking the protesters to get tested and take as a precautionary act as if you have been exposed. You may want to tell people that who you're interacting with- stay away from people who are in a vulnerable population until you take a test and you know that you're not infected. People in those zip codes where you have that high infection rate, get tested. And that's all on that website.

Also as we're working through this, we're going to extend the deadline for filing property taxes and tax abatements by 90 days that gives businesses some assistance. We're going to restart elective surgery an ambulatory care in New York City. The MTA is reopening. Roma Torre asked me on an interview, "How do you know the subway is going to be safe on re opening day?" I said because if it wasn't safe I wouldn't ask anyone to go on the subway. I make these decisions. And for me, it's very simple. I just assume I'm making the decision for myself and for my children. And I said to Roma if the subway isn't safe for me then I wouldn't ask anyone else to go on the subway. And today I took a ride on the 7 Train.

The MTA has done phenomenal work. You know, I'm old enough to remember the bad old days in New York City. And when we would talk about how dirty the cars were and the garbage that was in the subway cars and the stench, frankly, that was in the subway cars. The subway cars are cleaner than they have ever been in my lifetime. I mean they had to disinfect the subway cars. Just think about it, I mean it's almost a bizarre task, right? "We're going to disinfect a subway car." So many years they couldn't figure out how to get the newspapers and the coffee cups out of the subway car. Now they're disinfecting and they are disinfecting the cars and the stations.

They've done 30,000 station cleaning disinfections. 500,000 subway car cleaning disinfections. They've applied anti-microbial treatment to the surfaces in the subway cars and the stations. They're using UV light technology to clean facilities. So, they are doing everything they can. We are giving them an additional 1 million masks and 25,000 gallons of hand sanitizer that we make in the state, 500,000 2-ounce bottles. I think after the ride on the subway I have about 10 2-ounce bottles that I collected.

Masks are mandatory when you are riding public transportation, subway, bus, you are in a station. Stay six feet away when possible. Use the hand sanitizer, use the hand sanitizer and observe the guidance that is on the trains, et cetera. The MTA is also launching the "It's Up To Us New York" campaign. You'll see this if you're riding the subways or the buses. It's up to us. How do you stop the spread? It's what we do. Are the subway safe? It's how we act. Are the sidewalks safe? It's how we act, right? If you're wearing the mask, if you're keeping distance, yes, it's safe. But it is a function of us, each one of us and us as a collective.

While the ridership has been reduced, there was also an opportunity in the reduced ridership, right? One of the ongoing challenges the MTA has on construction is to do construction you have to reduce the train usage. You reduce the train usage, you inconvenience commuters. When the ridership was reduced the MTA smartly increased their construction because the ridership was reduced. So, fewer riders were inconvenienced by the construction. And they accelerated $2 billion in capital projects, rehabilitating the F Train using the lessons they learned in the L train, where I want to applaud Janno Lieber and his team for literally setting a record in smart government construction. Smart government construction does not have to be an oxymoron. 

You can have smart government construction and Janno Lieber showed that. They're accelerating 11 ADA stations, 24 new elevators, rehabbing the 138th Street Grand Concourse station. Accelerating steel and concrete defects and leaks on the 2345 Eastern Parkway line in Brooklyn.

New Yorkers did what many experts told me was impossible, 100 days. I don't think I've had a good night's sleep in 100 days, knowing some of the things they've told me. New Yorkers bent the curve by being smart. We're celebrating. We're back. We're reopening. We're excited. Our mojo is back. Our energy's back. Great, stay smart. Stay smart. Look at facts around us. Other states the spike is going up. California, the numbers are going up. Florida, the numbers are going up. Texas, the numbers are going up. Look at the reopening date and look at what happened after they reopened. That is the cautionary tale, my friends.

Gentlemen on the subway car just said to me he has family in Arizona. They reopened and they're seeing a spike. He's right. Look at the spike in Arizona. You have to stay smart after the reopening, because if you don't you can see a spike. That is the last thing that we want to see, but I don't believe we will because we are New York Tough. Smart, right there second word, Andrew, smart right after tough. Smart, united disciplined. Last word is for me, loving.

2020-06-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to be back at New York Medical College. I want to thank Dr. Kadish and all his colleagues for your hospitality. It is a beautiful day. To my right is Dr. Howard Zucker, who is our great health commissioner, who has been doing an extraordinary job under very difficult circumstances. To my left, we have Melissa DeRosa, who's secretary to the governor. Let's talk about where we are today, it's another busy day.

Day 101 of dealing with the coronavirus, yesterday was day 100. And it's a time worth pausing to look at all the progress we've made, thank all the people who've worked so hard. Day 101, that's 101 days from our first case, and it's been a long 101 days, but it has also been extraordinary in many ways and the progress that has been made, if you had told me 100 days ago that we would be reopening, I would say, that would be the best scenario. And it only happened because many people did really great service.

On the reopening, Westchester, Rockland, Hudson Valley, enter Phase 2 today. Congratulations, long time coming but you did it, the numbers are down, because you brought the numbers down. This is not government action. It's not an act of God. It's an act of the people. They got disciplined, they got smart, they did what they had to do, they brought the numbers down. And the numbers are dramatically down. And this is a national, if not international, success story.

What New York did, we had the worst situation and we handled it the best. Oh, you just say that because you are a New Yorker. No, no, no. The numbers say that. The numbers say that all across the board. Number of positive tests: 73 tested positive. Look at where we were— close to 2,000 at the peak. God bless what you did. We're reopening— Metro-North is taking unprecedented steps to be ready and to be safe. People must wear masks when they're on Metro-North. We're delivering hand sanitizer. When you get on, people will give you a mask and sanitizer if you don't have it, but the masks are mandatory for your sake and everyone else. Social distancing— stay six-feet apart, use hand sanitizer and observe the decal guidance. I think when you get on Metro-North, you will notice those cars are cleaner than they have ever been. We always complained about dirty cars. I know, because I've been complaining for many, many years about dirty cars. The cars are so clean! I was on the New York City subway system yesterday. It was remarkable. We now disinfect subway cars, Metro-North cars. Disinfect! Not just clean. Disinfect. Imagine that? Who would have ever imagined you could do that? Well, we are doing that.

Long Island is going to enter Phase 2 tomorrow. We have a global team of experts that is going over all the data, but they have said all signs are positive so Long Island will open tomorrow. Their numbers are also down. They've have made great progress. One death. We were losing over 100 at one time. And on the confirmed tests, they also continued to drop to 1 percent positive. The Long Island Railroad, like Metro-North, like the New York City subway system, is up and ready to go and is in better shape than ever. New York City entered Phase 1 yesterday. You see the daily test results here. Their numbers are way down. And that was also a really dramatic turnaround. Congratulations to them.

We still have a problem in New York City in certain zip codes and this is a phenomenon across the state and across the country. The virus did not attack equally. It hit lower income areas, more minority areas harder and in New York City, that's probably most demonstrable. New York City— the overall infection rate was about 20 percent. We had some zip codes where the infection rate was over 50 percent. That gets back to our conversation about injustice and inequality. Why do more poor, more minority communities have a higher infection rate? One of the reasons is, they've had less healthcare service up until now, they have more comorbidities, hypertension, high diabetes, heart disease. But we are attacking these hotspots and we start with testing and increasing testing. People who have been extraordinary in this because this was a function that never happened before. All of a sudden, we had to do 50,000, 60,000 tests per day. We had never done that. It was an operational and logistical nightmare and we put up testing sites overnight. We now have 800 testing sites in the state of New York.

This is all new, all created and we have people who have helped us, who have done extraordinary, great public service on a voluntary basis. Sean Penn is the co-founder of CORE, the chairperson of the board. They have been extraordinarily helpful all across the board, all across the world in responding to pandemics and emergencies. And I talked to Mr. Penn about this problem in our hotspot zip codes and asked that they help get more testing into those areas because we don't have a lot of infrastructure there and his group came in, they mobilized and they did great work opening up testing sites in a very short period of time that will ramp up the testing in our hotspot clusters and i want to thank him very much for his good work. He was really, not just that he chose to do it, that just says something about him and his heart and his soul that is positive, that he's is an extraordinary person. But his organization delivered. And that combination of good intent and good results— that doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's special and it happened with Mr. Penn and CORE. And I want to thank him. I think he may be with us today. How are you, Sean?

Sean Penn: I'm very well, Governor. Thank you.

Governor Cuomo: I just wanted to thank you so much and Core for what you did. Those hot spots are really an injustice on a lot of levels also that's the place where we'll see the virus spread so what you've done, opening up those testing sites getting it done as quickly as you did, I can't thank you enough.

Sean Penn: We're proud to be in partnership with you. You've been a time capsule of reason that we need in this time and with Core we're looking at the Fall and saying, 'let's work backward and say we did the right thing.' And in trying to work with governments, your leadership has been so significant and such a guidance and we are excited to be taking your direction to get into those zip codes at the most marginalized communities. Communities that have multigenerational housing and so on that are difficult to communicate with to animate- there can be a lower digital fluency, etc., and all of those things so we're very excited about the partnership. So thank you.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. And we'll keep going because I'm with you. As we discussed when we were together you know, everybody's in the here and now right now but we also have to think about a second wave to this virus; We have to think about the next virus, so the next bacterial infection because this was not the last rodeo that I think all informed pieces would admit. So we're learning from this we're going to build an infrastructure and the next time we go through this we'll be in better shape. We'll pray that it never happens again but we'll plan that it does.

Thank you, my friend. Thank you so much and thank your whole team for what they're doing. Every New Yorker thanks you. we owe you one.

Sean Penn: We thank every New Yorker. The extraordinary commitment to that they've made in flatting the curve and all of those extraordinary, heroic frontline workers have been a real inspiration to all of us.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Let me know when you come East. I owe you a meal.

Sean Penn: I'll take it.

Governor Cuomo: Thanks, buddy. Thank you, Sean.

So we thank you Mr. Penn for what he's doing. We're going to keep doing that. Every region of the state is now reopening so we need to look at the facts and the numbers through a different lens now. We're all reopening. Everything is reopening, the question now is could there be any spike in the rate of transmission upon reopening? That is the relevant question. This is a whole different universe for us now. You re opening. People are getting back on Metro-North and getting back on trains, could you see a spike in the virus? You have a lot of protests, people in close proximity, could you see a spike in the virus? About 600,000 people are coming back to work in the Metropolitan region, can you see a spike in the virus? So now what we want to look at is the day-to-day testing that we're doing, okay? In some ways, the number of deaths right now is not important. The number of deaths are so low that really comes down to how they classify the cause of death for those people. Was the cause of death heart disease or hypertension or heart attack or was it the COVID virus? But the number of deaths are so low, thank God, that that that number is no longer really that informative. The day-to-day testing is. What does that mean? We do about 50,000 tests every day. Watch that daily number. That's like getting your blood pressure reading every day, your cholesterol count every day. You know exactly how healthy your body is if you get those numbers on a daily basis. You look at that day-to-day testing number you will know on a day to day basis what is happening and that's what elected officials should start looking at and that's what citizens should start looking at.

So we're going to design a new dashboard. When we started this we put up a dashboard so that citizens and elected officials could go to a website. They look at the dashboard, they'll know exactly where they. And when we started this, a big part for me was about informing the people because people were going to do this. Government was never going to do this. I could just provide the information but then they had to get the information, accept the information and be smart about the information. So, last time we went through this and we were designing a dashboard, I wanted to be creative so because I wanted people actually to look at this and understand it and want to go to a website and take the 30 seconds it takes to pull up the website. So, I said to my team, the most attractive dashboard that was ever created is in a 1967 Corvette - that happens to be my opinion. But I said now that's a really attractive dashboard you know, you like to look at that dashboard. If we can put up a dashboard and design a dashboard that looks like that, believe me, people will go to the dashboard and check it. Right, you can go to any website. But if this is the website, you say, "Let me go." And then I said with miles per hour, you could put day-to-day infection rate, where the RPM is, you could put the hospitalization rate and just look at it as gauges and I explained this to them and they all looked at me and they all nodded and this is the dashboard they gave me. So, you know, I said alright, you didn't really fully capture what I was trying to say, but I said it nicely. So, now we need a new dashboard. So, I went back to the same team after this miscommunication last time and I said look, I want you to think about a 1968 GTO dashboard which second end to a 1967 Corvette is the second nicest dashboard. I said, now that's a dashboard you like to look at - that fake woodgrain, and put the numbers in those gages. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." This is the dashboard where they gave me.

Okay, so it's not the most artistic or creative but this is the new dashboard. And this is what people should look at every day - hospital administrators, elected officials, citizens. The percentage of positive tests per day by region and then you can look at it by county. This is the number to focus on. How many tests did we do yesterday in the region and what percent is positive of those tests? So, Capital Region we did 1,889 tests, just yesterday. 18 people were positive - one percent is roughly what the 18 is. This will tell you on a day-to-day basis if you start to see tremors of a spike, and if those numbers start to move then you want to know right away why and how.

You see the numbers start to move, you go to those 18 people who tested positive in the Capital Region and the tracing operation then talks to those 18 to try to find out who those 18 were in contact with. Who do you live with? Who do you work with? Where were you? Who did you get infected possibly? And then you call those people. But tracing can also lead you to a situation that caused the infection. Maybe five of those 18 or work in the same place. Oh, now let's go look at that employment center. So, this is the new dashboard. This is the new focus. We're all concerned about the same thing, is there increasing spikes, and this is going to do it.

You can look by region and by county. And these are the numbers by county. Westchester County, 2,500 tests yesterday - just yesterday. Snapshot 35, 1.4 percent. Now the numbers are relatively small so day-to-day you'll see some up and some down. That shouldn't set off any alarm bells. But if you see it's ticking up and it's ticking up for a number of days, then it's something that people have to pay attention to. So, we're in a new phase. We're feeling good. We've done great. But we have to stay smart because reopening resets the whole game.

When you reopen and people start coming out in some ways, you go right back to day one and we know as a fact that reopening has very often caused problems. We know as a fact that reopening other states, we're seeing significant problems. Florida has the highest number of cases yesterday. Wall Street Journal, 12 states that reopened and are now seeing spikes. This is a very real possibility. Countries around the globe that reopened are seeing spikes. Just because you reopen does not mean you will have a spike, but if you are not smart, you can have a spike. We need to be as smart and diligent as we were up until today, going forward. And my hesitancy is, well now people think it's okay. Oh, we're reopening, well then we're fine. No. No, we're not fine. We've made great progress, but we have to stay smart, we have to stay disciplined.

We will handle these situations, and we will handle these crises, and we will be the better for it, because we are New York tough, smart, united disciplined and loving. Thank you for having us. Thank you Dr. Kadish.

2020-06-10 NYS Gov. Cuomo

On dealing with the COVID crisis, over the past 101 days, we're now at a different point. We're at the point of reopening the economy and moving forward on that. And that is an entirely different situation than everything we've done up until now. Everything we have done up until now has been fighting the virus, how do you contain it? How do you isolate it? How do you quarantine people? How do you do the medical research to find a vaccine or a treatment? Reopening says, how do you now restart the economy and control the virus at the same time? And all of this has never been done before. There is no blueprint, there's no book written on it. There is no expert on the globe who can say, "Yes, I know how this should be done." And I speak to all of them. The situations where you have seen reopenings, countries around the world, they're very mixed results. So, this really is going down a path that no one has traveled successfully, but if any place can travel it successfully, it's going to be in the State of New York.

Every region in the state is now reopening. New York City entered what we call phase one this past Monday. Westchester, Rockland, Mid-Hudson Valley started phase two yesterday and Long Island entered phase two today as the number of COVID cases came down. We did the reopening. We measured the reopening to a set of metrics we established from day one. As we now go forward in this new phase, there is a new focus and again, the focus is watching the data, watching the metrics, watching the numbers, we're not doing this by political ideology. We're not doing this by gut instinct. We're not doing this by feel. We're not doing this by political pressure. You're dealing with a virus. The virus does not know from Democrats or Republicans or liberals or conservatives. The virus is a virus and it spreads wherever it can. It is a pure opportunist. But you can measure this. It is public health. It is science. Measure it and follow the numbers.

What numbers are important now? The numbers to watch now are the daily testing results. New York tests more than any state in the United States per capita. It tests more than any country on the globe per capita. We do about 50,000 tests every day. Think about that. 50,000 tests every day. And you know exactly where you're doing the test and you know the result of those tests, so you have that data. You can monitor what is happening on a daily basis. Well, do exactly that. Watch those daily numbers and if you're going to get in trouble you'll see it in the numbers. You'll see them starting to increase that is exactly what we're doing. And we present them to every local official, we put them on the website. Every citizen should want to know what's happening their community and their region. Look at the number today, look at the number yesterday. Look at the number the day before. See if there's any movement; see if the movement is up, see if the movement is down and see if we have to worry. If there's a cautionary tale or see if the reopening is proceeding without increasing the viral spread. That's where we are and that will be the most informed reopening of any state in the country. Just have the discipline to follow the numbers.

These numbers, for example, on Long Island. Today, Nassau is .8, really yesterday. Monday was .1, Sunday was 1.1. There'll be slight deviations up and down. These are not the largest statistical examples when you break them down, but you'll be able to see movement and you'll know when there's an issue. All of us have a role to play. What determines the virus spread? We do. We do. Not government. Not state government, not city government, not the federal government. This has always been about what society does. It's been a social issue. Can people change their behavior? Can they learn? Can they learn quickly? Can they actually wear masks? Can they actually socially distance? Can they actually use hand sanitizer? Can they stay away from large gatherings? If they can, the virus spread will be contained. If they can't, you'll see an increase in the viral spread.

My role has been to inform people. To educate people. To motivate people about what can be done, what should be done and what are the consequences. It has worked brilliantly up until now. Now with reopening we have to actually double down on our diligence. Business owners, employers that are reopening like we see here today, provide the right equipment. Have employees socially distanced. Store owners have responsibility, employees themselves have responsibility. Each one of us as an individual has responsibility and the local governments have a responsibility to make sure their Department of Health is out and making sure things are working well.

Well, we're reopening we're out the woods, everything is fine. No. Reopening is actually much harder than closing. Closing was abrupt and disruptive, but it was simple. Everything is closed. Reopening is more delicate and more nuanced. If you look at the states and the countries that have been reopening, more of them have gotten into trouble than not. As we sit here today, states are getting into trouble. Newspapers will tell you more than a dozen states are now seeing increases. Texas, 36 percent increase since Memorial Day. Reopen, reopen, reopen. Be careful, be careful, be careful. California, the cases are still going up. Florida, the cases are going up. Look at those curves around the nation. Why? Because if you just reopen, if you just increase activity, the virus spread is going to up compared to the virus spread when you were closed.

That is common sense. Well, we want to reopen. Okay, but you have to reopen smartly, and safely, and intelligently. Otherwise, you will see the increase, especially in a place like New York City with that density. People on sidewalks, people on buses, people on subway cars. It has to be done right and we have to stay disciplined and the evidence is all around us, what happens if we're not.

2020-06-11 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, pleasure to be back. Wish you were with us yesterday, get a glimpse of the New LaGuardia Airport which is unbelievable, incredible, people are going to be blown away. It is day 103 in dealing with the COVID crises, day 18 in dealing with the civil unrest after the murder of Mr. Floyd. And this is as tumultuous as we have seen. 

You have these two major crises going on at the same time. They actually intersect with the protestors being a mass gathering at the time of COVID. And then you have an overall dynamic, an overall environment, you have terrible political divides, this hyper partisan, nasty political season. There is racial division after the civil unrest and watching the Mr. Floyd murder on television. But what does New York do when the going gets tough? New York gets going. New Yorkis the progressive capital of the United States. You look back at history. You look at when there was a pivot point in society and more often than not New York was the point of pivot. You have a problem. You have an issue. New Yorkwas the one that stepped up to the plate and resolved it, boldly, and the nation followed. And we're doing the same on police reform. The disciplinary record release, more transparency, banning chokeholds, the attorney general as special prosecutor, hate crimes. I applaud the New York State Legislature for moving as quickly as they did. 

On reopening, we've been talking about following the metrics, following the science, we've been talking about the hospitalization rate, the intubation rate, the hospital capacity, the ICU capacity, the number of tests, the number of tracers. We've had the most science-based, most informed reopening I think it's fair to say in the country. It is nothing about intuition, nothing about politics, look at the numbers follow the numbers. And we have more numbers, we're doing more testing, we have more reports from the hospitals, so we've been following the data. Now at this point, there's one number to watch closely and that is the daily testing number. Why? The others are status of the system or they'relagging indicators. Hospitalization rate is definitive but the hospitalization rate is probably two weeks lagging behind the infection rate. If you're getting your information from the hospitalization rate, you're closing the barn door after the horse is gone, right? The daily testing, we do about 50,000 tests per day, 50,000 tests per day, just think about that. No other state comes near 50,000 tests per day. We report those numbers the next day. So, every day you have a snapshot of the day before with 50,000 tests all across the state. That's the number that we have to watch. 

So, daily test results by region. New York City for example. Monday was one 1.8. Tuesday was 1.5. Yesterday was one 1.7. Watch those daily numbers. There a certain bounce little high, little low. You're not dealing with the largest numbers in some of these locations. But you want to watch, you want to notice any trend line, you want to notice any bounce,and then you want to find out why, okay? So let's say you see region going up. You then look at those people who were tested and see if you can find something out from those people who were tested. This is what the local officials should be doing. This is the testing and then there is tracing, right? So, New York City they do tests, they find 200 people who were positive that day. The tracers then go back and look at those 200 people. What can we learn from those 200 people? Well, of to 200, 25 all work at this one place. Of the 200, ten were at the same party. Of the 200, 13 went to this restaurant. So, you look at those that test positive. But first watch the daily numbers. 

You do it by region, and then you can look within the region by county. So New York City that just reopened that will be watching closely, you see the deviation among the counties, but then you watch the trend line. Bronx 2, 3, 2, 1, to 4. Brooklyn 1, 9, 1, 3, 1, 9, Manhattan 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, and again you'll see plus or minus deviations but you want to look for an increase and then a continued increase. Overall, the hospitalizations are still headed down. Overall the number of deaths is close to its lowest point. Also, on the number of deaths when you get this low on the number of deaths, I don't know what it is really telling us anymore. This can be a question of how doctors happen to certify of cause of death. Many of these people have comorbidities, so you could have a heart disease, you could have diabetes, you could have hypertension, you could have a respiratory illness and COVID. What is the cause of death between cancer and COVID, right? But it's overall great news again, and you see the number of lives lost continuing to go down.

We have five regions that we have reviewed all the data, we have global experts who then go through the data, because sometimes if you look at the data you look at the underlying numbers you look at the underlying test you can see something but. We have the best experts that you can possibly have reviewing this. And they've reviewed it and five regions will enter Phase 3 tomorrow, Friday. Phase 3 is clearly indicated on the website what businesses can open, what businesses can't open. Also, a point of caution: I know businesses are anxious to open, everybody's anxious get the economy going. Please follow the guidelines and do what is permissible to do. People are very wary right businesses that are violating the opening rules. Restaurant's outdoor capacity that doesn't mean anyone inside. So, people call and we get complaints. The rules are clear some businesses say when you know my mayors said, this is my Aunt Tilly said this would be ok, my town councilman said this would be ok, and that doesn't count. Follow the rules and you can lose your liquor license you can lose your right to operate. So, this is very serious. Short-term gain isn't worth long-term pain.

As we're entering the summer public pools and playgrounds we're going to leave to open or keep closed in the discretion of local governments. But they have to use their judgment here. Again, they have the test data, they should be studying the test data, they should be looking at those positives and see where the positives are coming from. If the positives are in a cluster, a neighborhood that has that pool, don't open the pool. Well everybody wants to swim, I understand. Everybody doesn't want to see a spike in COVID again. So, use your judgment. Sometimes yes is not the right answer. It's the easy answer.

In this overall situation, I don't have to say it - we need caution. We have to beware, we need warnings, you take your pick. The numbers are good, everything we've done has been exactly right up until now. But that's up until now. And you can make a mistake today that wipes out everything we've done, so we have to stay smart. This COVID has not gone away. Doctor Fauci spoke to it, the CDC speaks to it. We have done extraordinarily well because the people of this state have responded in a way no one predicted, and they'll actually research in talk about for years I believe.

But Covid is still out there. It's increasing in 21 states. 14 states highest number ever of Covid cases. And if you look at what's going on it tends to be after the reopening. Why? Because the reopening is the point that increases the activity. Just look what happened in these other states. California, they reopen and then look at the increase after the reopening. And it's not one state. It is the pattern, my friends. And it is to be expected, because we brought down that number because we closed everything down. You open that value, you increase the activity, you will see it spread. Look at Florida, May 4. Texas, Arizona, it's the same story. We want to reopen. We want to reopen. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. No, it's fine until it's not fine. Kentucky. Look at South Carolina. Look at North Carolina. Look at Missouri. I mean, it is all across the country. Look at Utah. Look at Arkansas. Look at Nevada. It is all across the country.

We are the exception and an outrageous exception. We so far have the exact opposite phenomenon. We reopen the number continues to go down. We reopen the number continues to go down. How can that be? Because our reopening is different than their reopening. Our reopening is based on the numbers. Our reopening is phased. And because New Yorkers have been smart and they've been diligent. And you can say reopen, not reopen. They've been informed in this state. They have been informed. They know what's going on.

I run into people on the street who know things about my briefing that I forgot. Remember you said this. Remember you had this number. No, I don't remember. They remember. They are smart. They're informed. So, they're protecting themselves. And they dismissed the politics. But we are the exception. To date we're the exception. And that can change and that can change overnight.

Also, beware because we are a more dense state and we have more crowding. You look at some of those other states, they are rural states. They don't have large congregations. They don't have apartments buildings where everybody goes into one elevator. We have the density. We have the crowding. You start to see an increase it's going to take off and that's how we got here in the first place. I don't know how many other ways to say it. We also have the largest number of protesters out there and we're still not sure what the effect of the protesters is. And that won't show up, I've asked them to get tested. We've made testing available for protesters, but that may not show up for a couple of weeks.

So, caution people have to do their part. Be smart. It is all up to you. It is all up to you. Government did nothing. I did nothing for the past 100 days. All I did was give information to people and then people acted intelligent. That has been our success story and that's what we have to keep doing. And that's what I meant by being New York tough. Be smart. Be united. Be disciplined. Be loving.

2020-06-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

When it comes to the reopening, the number for us to watch now is the daily testing number. We've been talking about a lot of numbers over the past couple of months, the hospital number, the ICU number. The number to watch now is the daily testing number. We do 50,000 tests per day, okay, more tests than any place in the country. Those 50,000 tests tell you immediately what's happening with the infection rate.

We're starting to reopen. we watch those daily testing numbers to see what's happening. And they're on a website, I tell the government leaders all the time, study these numbers, look at what's behind them. But for example, New York City was at 1.5 percent, which was the infection rate from the testing, then 1.7, yesterday it was 1.5. So we're watching those numbers, you'll see a little up and down, but if you see anything significant, then we would have to really take a deeper look. You can look at where it is in the boroughs. The boroughs have very different infection rates. One of the sad facts in this is the lower income communities, higher percentage minority communities have a higher infection rate. That's another symbol of the injustice in our society. They have less healthcare coverage. You see some zip codes in the outer boroughs, twice the infection rate of the city. The city's about 19 percent infection rate. You have some zip codes up to 50 percent infection rate. So, we're paying special attention to those.

Number of lives lost is 42 yesterday. You see the overall trend on this is down, and the numbers are probably at such a low level that I don't know if they'll drop much more than where we are. But this is also far away from where we've come. We wish all the families who lost loved ones that they find peace and we'll remember them in our prayers. You can see the journey over the past 100 days. We went right up the mountain, the number increased quickly, and then it took us a long time to come down.

But where we are today is a pivotal point in this entire situation with the coronavirus. You see states all across the nation where the infection rate is going up dramatically. You have states now that reopened that are scaling back their reopening. That's how bad the spikes are. Yesterday, 21 states said they had increase in COVID, 14 the new highs. Today, 23 states, 15 states hit a new high. We've seen these numbers increase before. We've been here. This is déjà vu. We have to be aware, and we have to be alert.

You look at what's happening to these states, they reopen and then the number goes up which is common sense on one level. The number came down because you closed everything down. When you reopen and you increase activity, don't be surprised when the infection rate goes up, unless you were very smart and disciplined about the way you reopened. That is the whole difference here. But the states that are having trouble reopened, and everybody wanted to reopen, reopen fast, there were protests, reopen fast, everything is fine. I had one person on the street tell me I can't see the virus, can you see the virus? There is no virus. I mean people had all sorts of theories. States that have reopened too quickly or uncontrolled are now starting to close down.

So we are the exact opposite. We, since we've reopened, the number has continued to go down, believe it or not. We reopened. It continues to go down because we've been disciplined in our reopening, and that's what we have to continue to do. This is a website where the founders of Instagram now track the rate of transmission of states across the nation. New York State, the lowest rate of transmission, meaning the virus is spreading at the lowest rate in the State of New York, of every state in America, that is incredible. We were the number one state in terms of infection, number one in the nation, number one on the globe per capita, and now we're the last state in terms of rate of transmission. That is because New Yorkers stepped up, they were smart, they were disciplined, they did what they had to do, and we have to stay there. We have to stay there. Now is no time to forget what got us here. We have to stay smart.

2020-06-13 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to be here this morning, beautiful New York City. To my right, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To my left, Dr. Howard Zucker, commissioner, New York State Department of Health. Let's talk about where we are today. On day 105 of the coronavirus crisis.

On reopening, we're following the data. The data that we should be watching now is the testing data. We talked about hospitalization data and ICU data and tracing. It's the day-to-day tests. We do 50,000 tests per day across the state. You know what the tests were yesterday city by city, county by county. Look at that data. That's what's gauging our reopening, and it's visible, it's on the website and literally day by day. So you take New York City, yesterday it was 1.7%, but you can see it over the week. Monday was 1.8, that's when New York City started to open. 1.5, 1.7, 1.5, 1.7, great. You'll see little deviations, little fluctuations. It'll be up a little bit, it'll be down a little bit. That's fine. What you do want to watch is if you see it start ticking up and continue to tick up, right? We're looking for a direction more than anything else. But you see it by region and then you have a breakdown within that region so you can drill down on the numbers.

In New York City it's by borough. You look at the Bronx, when we opened it was 2.3 then 2.1, 2.4, 1.6, 1.8. Okay, up a little bit, down a little bit, but you see it's basically constant. That's what we want to be watching. That's what's gauging our reopening. All the news is good. All the news is very, very good. Number of hospitalizations, lowest since March 20th. That's when this nightmare began. So, we've done it. We have tamed the beast. We are now 180 degrees on the other side. The best number, lowest number of deaths that we have seen since this started. And that is the number I know turns my stomach and turns everyone's stomach in this state. This is the number that is the most painful. And it is the lowest level since this started. The people of this state, by their actions, have saved thousands of lives. That is not overly dramatic. That is not rhetorical. That is not metaphorical. That is factual. They saved thousands and thousands of lives.

Moving forward, Western New York is expected to move to Phase Three on this Tuesday. Capital Region should move to Phase Three on Wednesday. But as usual, we have to stay smart. Look around the nation and look at what is going on. We're not in a vacuum. This virus spreads. We learned the hard way through cases in California for weeks when this started before they came here. Look at the signs across the country and the signs across the country are frightening. The COVID virus is increasing in just about half the states. Half the states, it's going up. You have 14 states that have seen a 25% increase in the past week. Think about that. This is a frightening time. We thought that we were past it. Well, the beast is rearing its ugly head. Half the states are seeing an increase. Fourteen states, a 25 percent increase this past week. Be careful. Be careful. New York is the anomaly. New York is exactly the opposite. All the other states, virtually all the other states, reopened and saw the number go up, right. They all have the same chart. Reopening and the number goes up. New York, we're coming down. We reopen, the number continues to drop. That is anomalous to the rest of the nation. Our infection rate, which is the key number, how fast the virus is spreading, our rate of transmission, that's the most important factor in all of this. How fast is the virus spreading.

We were spreading at the highest rate in the nation when this started. We are now at the lowest rate in the nation. Think about that. You want to talk about a dramatic turnaround. New York was in the worst situation. Highest number of cases, fastest rate of transmission. 100 days later, either the lowest rate of transmission in the nation or one of the lowest rates of transmission in the nation. From the worst infection rate to the best, that's what New Yorkers has accomplished. The most dramatic turnaround in the country. We're looking for comparisons, it may be one of the most dramatic turn arounds on the globe dealing with this COVID virus. But you can literally rank states by their rate of transmission and this is an independent web site. Has New York literally as the lowest transmission rate in the United States of America, .77, which means it's under one. One is the demarcation line for rate of transmission. Over one, which means one person is infecting more than one other person, that's what they call outbreak. It means you've lost control of the virus. Under one, you're containing the virus. We are .77, lowest rate of transmission in the United States. And that's all a function of what New Yorkers have done, nothing else.

For local governments I had the local governments on the telephone yesterday on what we call Regional Control Groups. The local governments have a vital role here, and they have to do it. The local governments have to enforce compliance. It's not popular, it's not fun. Everybody wants to be out, everybody wants to reopen, everybody wants freedom. I get it. Discipline matters. Local governments have to do their job. They have to enforce compliance. They have to study their local data. When they find those positive cases, they have to trace those cases back. Where are people getting the virus? Are they getting it at work? Are they getting it at a restaurant? Are they getting it on the street corner? Are they getting it at protests? That's the function for the local government. And when you see a cluster in that infection rate, the local governments have to attack it. I know it's tedious, but it's also very important. And I said to the local governments frankly yesterday, this is their job. And if they don't do their job, then they're going to have a really unpopular task, which is explaining to their local community why they have to slow or stop the reopening. You have some states that are now stopping the reopening. That is the last thing anybody wants to do, and that is totally counterproductive. So, I said to the local governments, I say to them again, mayors, county executives, do your job. Because that's what's controlling the spread of the virus and you have to continue doing it.

I say to the citizens of this state who are the ones who accomplished the impossible, they are the ones who reduced that transmission rate, you have to stay smart, keep doing what we're doing, don't let up, don't think, well, now we're reopening, everything is fine, the weather's better, everything is fine, I hear New York is doing well. It is, but only because of what you're doing. That's been the secret from day one. You stop doing what you're doing, you'll see those numbers turn. So we have to stay smart, stay disciplined. To the protesters, I say wear a mask. It is the law. I signed an executive order that says it is the law. If you cannot socially distance, you must wear a mask. i also say, especially to my young friends, this is nothing. This is nothing. I don't know what this is. This is like a form of a chin guard. That's what this is. It may be a fashion statement, it may be cool, but this accomplishes nothing. It's not a mask, it's nothing. Well, I'm just taking a break from my mask. No. this accomplishes nothing, right? It's nose and it's mouth. Nose and mouth. For me, the nose and mouth is a big job, covering the nose and mouth, all right? But this is a mask, this is a chin guard. Nobody told you to wear a chin guard. Wear a mask. It is the law. So, wear a mask. It is the state law. It's not an option. And stay New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving.

2929-06-14 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello, hello, hello. Beautiful Sunday morning in Albany. Today is day 106. To my right everybody knows Robert Mujica, to my left everybody knows Melissa DeRosa. Day 106 since the coronavirus crisis befell New York.

Let's talk about COVID. New York State has been following the data and, on the numbers, we're making really great progress and today is another great day in terms of achievement by New Yorkers. We're looking now the daily testing numbers most importantly we started reopening, we're looking for reaction to the reopening that's what we have focused on and you'll see the immediate reaction to reopening in the daily testing numbers. 50,000 tests statewide today plus or minus. Watch that daily testing numbers. Today New York City 1.5, 1.7, 1.5, 1.7, 1.4 yesterday, you're looking for basic consistency if it goes down that's great if it goes up that's bad. We'll see an up and down, but if you see pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, then start to worry. You watch the individual regions and then you can look at your county and see where your county is within that region. New York City for example which we'll be watching closely because it just reopened and it is a volatile situation. But you look at the Bronx 2.1, 2.4, 1.6, 1.8, 1.4- you see the numbers are basically consistent all across the board. Staten Island you have a pick up. That can be a Saturday aberration but we're watching it total. Hospitalizations- lowest level since we started this horrific journey so that is great news. 1,600 hospitalizations. Great news. Number of deaths lowest number ever. 23 are in our thoughts and prayers but as the health experts tell me when the number gets this low it's basically a question of how people are recording a cause of death. Across the nation and you have situations where, a person dies from multiple causes you could put down COVID you could put down cancer you could put down heart disease, so at one point it becomes fairly random and we're basically at that point. But this is really great news. This has caused a lot of New Yorkers a lot of pain. I know everyone at this table has felt that pain with them so we breathe a deep sigh of relief today because of all the numbers we've been talking about. That's the one number we can't change, that is the one number we can't fix, which is the number of lives lost. So, personally that is great news we just have to keep going now. And we will.

We're going to expand the timeline to enroll in our health exchange. We're going to extend that another 30 days. That health exchange works. We have one of the highest rates of health coverage ever, in this state. It is a great, great accomplishment and we want to keep it going and get it even higher, so we're extending the deadline.

We're also opening low-risk youth sports and Phase 3. Young people can engage in sports. Two spectators per child so that's another step towards return to normalcy. Understand the facts-New York State is leading the nation's reduction in the transmission of the virus. New York State where we had the worst numbers on the transmission of the virus. Worst numbers on the number of cases. Now has the best numbers in terms of reducing the rate of transmission. That is a startling turnaround that they will record in the history books. And when we get past this and we have a little perspective, they'll look back and they'll study how New York State did what it did. And my answer is going to be the same: because New Yorkers rose to the occasion, in a way nobody could have anticipated and nobody did. You look at all those projection models early on — go ask yourself what happened? Why were all those projection models wrong? Because there was a factor they didn't consider, which is the resilience and the strength of New Yorkers. So, we're leading the nation.

And at the same time, you have another fact: the virus spread is increasing dramatically in post-reopening states across the nation. So, hold two facts in your hands. One: New York is doing better than any state in reducing the virus. Fact. Another fact. States post-reopening are seeing a dramatic increase. Not New York. Not yet. But that is a serious caution for us. And that's what I am focused on. You look at the rate of transmission: New York, first dot. All the way on the left — lowest rate of transmission in the nation. This is an independent Web site that has been started by the founders of Instagram, which we've been following. You see the states up at the top red, those are the states that have the highest rate of transmission. The green to red is one or more. Because at one — a transmission rate of one — they classify the virus as an outbreak, or an epidemic. So, we have the best rate.

But we're seeing all across the nation, this same warning: new lockdowns. Second waves. Increase. WHO is talking about it. Dr. Fauci is talking about it. The CDC is talking about it. You couldn't have more warnings from any additional sources. They're even talking about Italy having a rise again and Italy had a horrific situation. So, if there's so it is a country that should be showing caution in the reopening — it is Italy.

You see this all across the globe. You cannot ignore it. These are facts and if you ignore the facts — it's going to be to our peril —I promise you that. The reason we made the progress was because we followed the facts even though it was hard. Don't disregard the facts: 22 states are seeing increases. And these are states that don't have some of our inherent issues. They don't have the density. They don't have the population. They don't have the crowding. And they're seeing increases. It's much easier to reduce the viral spread in states with smaller populations. it's much easier to reduce the viral spread in states with less density and less crowding. Where you don't have tall apartment buildings, where everybody's getting in the same elevator. Or in the same lobby, or in the same park outside. We have natural obstacles to controlling the viral spread and we're controlling it despite that. Alright? So just hear the facts. Washington State — which had the first case in a nursing home, which was devastating — they're seeing an increase in coronavirus cases. South Carolina is seeing it. Some states — Utah and Oregon— are rolling back reopening. Imagine how devastating and dramatic an action that is. Imagine how dramatic and dangerous this situation has to be for a state to say — we're stopping the reopening. What makes the determination? It's what we do. It is our behavior nothing more nothing less. Well the numbers a good those numbers can change in a week. They can change a week. You get undisciplined, you'll see those numbers change in a week once they change you can't change them back that quickly.

Now we're getting reports from all across the state that there are large gatherings, social distancing is being violated, people are not wearing masks. We have gotten 25,000 complaints to the State of businesses that are in violation of the reopening plan - 25,000 complaints. We have never received more complaints in a shorter period of time. 25,000 - just think about that.

What's alarming about the 25,000 is the volume but it also shows how smart people are and how offended people are that they're calling and complaining. This is a time in history we've never seen before. Think about how concerned New Yorkers are not just to see the violation but then to care enough to come back and write a letter or call registering the complaint. You know why? They're afraid for themselves. They walk past the business. They see the businesses violating the rules and they are saying my health is jeopardized - my health - and that's why they're complaining. 25,000, especially at bars and restaurants. Okay? This is the situation and these are the facts. Well they're not being ethical, they're not being moral, they're not been good New Yorkers. Great.

They're also violating the law. This is a question of violating the law. Not just feel guilty - you're violating the law. All right? This is a very serious situation and I want to make sure everybody knows the consequences here. A bar or restaurant that is violating these rules can lose their liquor license. State Liquor Authority inspectors are out. We have a task force of State investigators who are out. You can lose your liquor license and that is a big deal for a bar or restaurant. We are not kidding around with this. You're talking about jeopardizing people's lives. It's a legal violation and the SLA inspectors are out there. I am telling you that. I called a couple of bars and restaurants myself where I saw the pictures of the situations that were in their bars and restaurants and I said to them you're playing with your license. There is no excuse. Well, I told people and they did it even though I told them. You are responsible for the people in your establishment. There's no excuse.

Well, the local legislator told me I could do this. No one can tell you that you can violate the law. There's nobody who can tell you that. Well, my brother said as long as I I don't care what your brother said. You violate the law, you can lose your license and you will. We're not kidding around about this. If you are an individual you can't violate the open container law. There is an open container law. You can't stand on the sidewalk drinking a beer. You're violating the open container law.

The social distancing, mask-wearing, these are legal violations. Protesters and police, the law applies to you. "Well, I'm protesting." Yeah, I understand that. You can protest. The law still applies to you. Police department, your job is to enforce the law. Why don't you follow the law? It's a very bad signal when you see police people who are not wearing a mask and not following the law. How can you enforce the law if you're not following the law? So, wear a mask, and also to locally elected who are in charge of the police department, it's your responsibility to make sure your police department follows the law. The local governments, you are responsible for monitoring the compliance with the reopening plan. That is the local government's responsibility. We've been very clear about this from day one. We go to phase one, we go to phase 2, we go to phase 3 - the local government is responsible for compliance. 

Mayors, county executives, you have to do your job. I understand it's an unpopular position to have to enforce the law. I understand nobody wants to go to a sidewalk with people drinking and say you can't drink on the sidewalk. I understand that. I understand nobody wants to say to a bar, restaurant, you know, you're only supposed to be in an open-air area and you're not supposed to be violating social distancing. I understand that. I understand it's not popular. I get it. You know what's more unpopular? If that region closes because that local government did not do their job. That can happen. 

Utah, Oregon had to reverse their reopening plan. Before I reverse a statewide position, I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I'm going to reverse it in those areas that are not in compliance with the rules. I'm going to reverse it in those areas where those local governments did not comply with the law. That is what is going to happen here. I am warning today, in a nice way, consequences of your actions. We have 25,000 complaints statewide. I'm not going to turn a blind eye to that. New Yorkers deserve better. 

Manhattan and the Hamptons are the leading areas in the state with violations. These are not hard to spot violations. People send video of these violations, you can look it up on social media. You don't need a detective squad to go out and find them. They are rampant and there's not enough enforcement. I am not going to allow situations to exist that we know have a high likelihood of causing an increase in the spread of the virus. 

If we increase the spread of the virus in Manhattan because of bars and restaurants, well then everybody in Manhattan is going to suffer. That's not fair either. Local government, do your job. Local government do your job. If we have to close, then people are going to hold you accountable. Bars and restaurants, do your job, or you can have an SLA violation and possibly loss of your license. Individuals who are violating the law, you can be held liable also. We got here because people did the right thing and if we stop doing the right thing we'll see a very different trajectory. 

I am telling you that you look at all the other states - it's not hard to figure out what is happening here. It's happened in half the states in the nation. So far, we have been the exception. We're not going to go back to that dark place because local government didn't do its job or because some individuals exploited the situation besides the legal violation. Because our success here was not based on what government did. Our success here was based on individual action and social action. That's why this moment was so special. It's what 19 million people did and they did what they had to do not because there was a legal sanction, not because I was going to knock on their door and hand them a ticket, that's not why they stayed home. That's not why they closed their business. They did it because it was the right thing to do. To these people who are now violating it. It's illegal. It's also wrong. It is just disrespectful not to wear a mask. It's disrespectful to the health care workers and the essential workers who sacrificed themselves for 100 days, some of whom died and gave their life to crush this COVIDvirus. They gave their life. It is disrespectful not to have the courtesy, the decency, to wear a mask. We all celebrate them, demonstrations, TV ads, God bless the health care workers. Yeah, good, act that way. Act that way. Show a modicum of respect and wear a mask.

It's also disrespectful to the people who you could infect. Well, I'm 25, I'm a superhero, it's not going to bother me. First of all, you're wrong, it could kill you, but that's your life. It's disrespectful to the other people who you could infect. It's disrespectful to a parent, to a grandparent, to a cousin, to a brother, to someone who you run into on the sidewalk and you don't even know, but happens to have a compromised immune system because they're battling cancer or because they're battling HIV and you in fact them you and wind up killing them. In some ways, we're in this great moment where society is so caring of the rights of one another and that's a beautiful thing. Well then let's be caring about the rights of each other and respect people's health and respect people's lives. We're not asking for much. It's basic decency of a society and again that's what we did so well to get here in the first place.

That's who we are - we're New York tough, smart, united, disciplined.

2020-06-15 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to be in Westchester today, thank the Thruway Authority for these very cool, special edition New York Tough masks. It is a beautiful day today. Let me recognize the people who are with me on the dais. To my right, we have Matt Driscoll, who runs the Thruway Authority, who done an extraordinary job, an extraordinary job with this new Mario Cuomo Bridge that we're here to celebrate again today. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, who's secretary to the governor. We also have with us Jamey Barbas and Rick Cotton. Jamey works with me, Rick Cotton runs a little organization called the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. But before Rick went to the Port Authority, and before Jamey came to the governor's office, they were the ones who were working very hard on making this bridge a reality, together with Larry Schwartz. But they really did an extraordinary job and it's a pleasure to be with them today as we open the pedestrian shared use path on the bridge that I think is going to be a big hit, a big success.

This bridge has energized the economy for the entire region. And I think the shared use path, you're going to see people coming to enjoy the bridge even more, so it's a pleasure to be with all of them today.

Let's talk about some of the facts before the sun melts us here today. Today is day 107 since the COVID crisis started in New York. 

In terms of our reopening here after COVID in New York, we've been following the facts, and the facts are that New York is on the right track. That is an objective fact. You look at the numbers which we watch every day now, watch those testing numbers every day. We're doing the reopening. Let's make sure there's not an increase there's not a spike. How do you do that? You follow the numbers on a daily basis by region, by county in the state, and you can see exactly what has been happening since the reopening. All of the numbers so far have been very good in New York. We're hitting a new high which is really a new low, but in this case low is good, the lowest number of hospitalizations since this has started - amen. The lowest number of deaths on the three-day average since this has started. Now, we'd love to see that number at zero but really you'll never get to zero because this is now, the number is so low, that it's coming down to what a doctor certifies as the cause of death. Many people who pass away because of COVID have other underlying illnesses. They're battling heart disease, they're battling cancer, they're battling another disease, and they contract COVID. But this is the lowest number since we have started. And that, my friends, is a cause to celebrate in and of itself.

We are now entering Phase Three for some regions across the state. We're going to modify Phase Three given this new data, and we're going to allow gatherings up to 25 people in Phase Three, which is up from ten people. Again, because the numbers are good in most parts of the state. Western New York will enter phase three tomorrow and that's exciting. The Capital Region will be entering phase three on Wednesday. That's exciting. The rules and regulations of phase three are very clear. They're all set out. People should follow the guidelines because the guidelines have been working. They have been working. We have months of data now that says the guidelines make sense, keep following them because they are working. And everyone has a role to play in all of this as we're reopening. Employers have a role, store owners have a role, employees have a role, individuals have a role, and local government has a real responsibility.

And to the local governments, I say do your job. Do your job. Local governments are supposed to be enforcing compliance. Compliance is hard. Why? Because people have been cooped up for a long time and they want to do what they want to do. I want to do what I want to do. I'll tell you the truth. I get it but we have to stay smart. And if the local governments don't enforce compliance, they're not doing anyone a favor, because if they don't enforce compliance, you will see the numbers start to go up. And if the numbers start to go up, you're going to have to see that area take a step back. So to local governments, I say do your job.

We know the alternative. You're seeing all across the nation the virus actually increasing. We have 22 states where the virus is increasing. It's a dramatic national turnaround. We are the exception here in New York. God bless us, but we are the exception. We don't want the same plight of these other states. Talk about great irony, one of our concerns now in New York is that people from the other states that have a high rate of increase of COVID virus may start traveling to New York. Remember when we started, other states were saying we don't want people from New York coming to our state because we're afraid they'll bring the virus? Well, now we're afraid people from the other states might come here and increase the viral spread. One of the great ironies in life, you look at what's happening in New York, you look at our curve, the curve we all live by, on our reopening, since our reopening, the virus spread has continued to go down. That, my friends, is an extraordinary exception when you look at all the other states around the country. Where they did the reopening, they didn't do it smartly and you saw the virus go up.

Here in New York, we reopened and the virus continued to go down. And that is exactly what we want to do, because we have been smart the way we've done this. We have been smart. It was hard but we stayed smart because the question was never to reopen or not reopen. That was a political question. That was all a political game that people played. "Well are you in favor of reopening or are you against reopening?" Nobody was against reopening. What an absurd frame. That's what politics does. It defeats intelligent conversation. Nobody was against reopening. The question was always how to reopen and reopen smartly. And what we said here in New York is if you don't reopen smartly, it's not going to work anyway. If the reopening doesn't control the virus, it's going to make the economy worse. That's what we said. And all the voices said, "NO, just reopen, reopen, reopen. Liberate. Free us." Yeah, free us, free us to hurt ourselves and decline. And you know what? That's exactly what you see happening right now. Reopening, reopening, reopening, wasn't done smartly, wasn't done on the facts, wasn't monitored, and now people are seeing the second wave. 22 states, numbers going up. "Oh my gosh, the coronavirus is here and it's growing." Yes, because you didn't reopen smartly. Let's stay smart in New York because we were right.

Moving forward, we have to do two things. One, monitor the virus, look at those numbers every day, and, two, let's get affirmative and aggressive and start building back even better. Let's jump-start the economy with essential projects and create those jobs. Let's re-energize this economy, let's re-energize society. We've all been closed down for three months. Okay. Everybody caught up on their sleep? Everybody rested? Everybody ready to go to work? Well then let's go to work and let's set the goal of not just reopening but we're going to build back a better New York.

Over the past 106 days, we confronted a challenge that we had never faced before. No one had faced a challenge like this coronavirus— no one. It was the greatest challenge that government and society faced in a generation. And there were days where everyone said, "can we do this? Can we handle this? Can we close down? Can we come back?"

It challenged us to the core. When we were talking about a curve— I never saw a curve. I saw a mountain. That's what I saw. I saw a mountain that we had to scale and we didn't know where the top was. The top was up in the clouds somewhere when we started scaling this mountain. But we had to get to the top. We had to then get over the crest and come down the other side. And that's what we did for the past 106 days. It had never been done before. Nobody knew where it was; nobody knew how high the mountain was. But we did it. And our accomplishment over these past 106 days will go down in the history books. Just remember what we did here: when we started on the base-side of the mountain— we had the worst infection rate in the United States of America. Today we have the best infection rate in the United States of America.

You want to talk about a turnaround? You want to talk about an accomplishment? You want to talk about people doing something they never did before? Yes. New York scaled the highest mountain and went from the worst situation with this COVID virus to the best situation with this COVID virus. New Yorkers did it because we did it together. That's what was so different, so challenging, but so exciting. The only way for each of us to be healthy was if all of us were healthy. The only way to protect my health was if you were willing to protect my health. And we did it together.

Challenge for all of us, but a challenge for each of us. Each of us had to battle our own fears and our own demons to be ready for moment. And this Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge— we're here today to say, "happy birthday." I'm here today to say, "happy birthday." It's my father's birthday today. And he would be very proud today. I miss him very much. I miss him every day. But in a lot of ways, he's still with me. There were many nights that I went to sleep during this past 106 days, and I laid there in the bed and I said, "what would my father tell me to do today?" And I could hear his voice, and he gave me great advice and great comfort in some of the longest nights. And I knew exactly what he would say. He said, take responsibility, own it, don't point fingers, don't get into a blame game. You're governor of the State of New York. Take responsibility. Take responsibility for all of it, and be accountable for it. My father would have quoted Winston Churchill. He loved Churchill saying never give up, never give up, never give up. My father said to me, rise above the politics. They're going to play politics, they always do. Don't sink to their level. Don't listen to the naysayers. Speak to people's better angels. And he would say, trust the people of the state. Tell them the truth, and they will do the right thing. And that's exactly what I did for 106 days. I told the people the truth, I told them the facts, I didn't sugar coat it, I told them what we had to do, and they did the right thing, and they wrote a beautiful chapter in the history of this great state and in the history of this nation.

My father always spoke about the fundamental philosophy of operating as a family. As a family, we take it for granted. I'll help you, you'll help me, we're family. We're all family. We're all family, the state is one family. When they murdered Mr. Floyd, they murdered a member of our family. That's what the protests are saying. When one of us gets sick, we're all suffering in this state. So we're all supporting one another. I think my father would have loved where we came out of this because his dream, his moral leadership, was just that simple. Came down to love, care about one another, and act like you care about one another and you love one another. And that's what we did. Tonight we're going to illuminate the bridge in blue because blue is my father's favorite color. And when he's looking down, I want to make sure tonight he sees his bridge lit up blue, and I think it'll put a smile on his face.

2020-06-16 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Beautiful day in Albany. Good news today. Good news on the numbers. Good news on the facts. Today is day 108 since the coronavirus crisis started. 

On the reopening— New York's path forward is dictated by the facts. We've said that since day one. There's no political theory here. We're dealing with a virus. The virus doesn't understand Democratic politics, Republican politics. It's a virus. It's a public health issue. It deals with facts and that's what we've been using to decide what we do from day-to-day. 

The facts in New York are very, very good and I am so proud of what the people in this state have done. At this point with the phased re-openings— we look at the testing on a daily basis because we're making decisions on a daily basis. And you see the past five days— New York City was 1.2 yesterday. When we started opening New York City: 1.5, 1.7, 1.4, 1.3, 1.2. So, the number hasn't gone up. If anything, it's relatively constant. You see these little ups and downs. That's basically true all across the board. You see little fluctuations, but nothing concerning.

We have the lowest number of hospitalizations since we started. Amen. And we have the lowest number of deaths since we started; once again, the same number as yesterday, but on the three-day average— we are at a new low. You want to talk about congratulations and something to celebrate— that is something to celebrate. And we're basically at a number that is so low, it may even be statistically questionable because when you get down to 24— you're talking about literally how doctors decide a cause of death— in some situations— that may have multiple reasons behind it.

So, we went up the mountain, we came down the mountain. That is the configuration of the mountain that we climbed together. The highest mountain. And we did it with a smart reopening. We have done over 3 million tests now in the State of New York— more tests than any other state; more tests than any country per capita. We do two types of tests: we do diagnostic tests, which are positive or negative today. And we do antibody tests, which are— have you had the virus at any point?

We just did another sample on antibody tests. 12,000 test sample, which is a very large sample— right? All across the state to find out where we've been. 12,000 starting 5/1-6/13. So about six weeks, we did 12,000 samples to see where we are today versus where we were six weeks ago. Overall, the number in the state has gone up about a point. Positive. Last time we did the survey was 12.3 statewide—it's now 13.4. So statewide, we've gone up a point. New York City has gone up about 1.6 percent. Long Island has gone up 2.7 percent. Hudson Valley, basically flat. Mohawk Valley has gone up 2.8 percent. Western New York— down 2.8 percent. These numbers are telling and are significant because we watch the numbers. We watch the numbers on a day-to-day basis, but we watch them geographically also. And these are numbers that local communities should pay heed to.

New York City— it's not good to see the number going up, but it's manageable. Long Island— we have to watch. Mohawk Valley— we have to watch. And congratulations Western NY and the other areas that have actually declined. When you look at the increases by race— you see the African American number is higher, Latino number is higher. And that's something we've been talking about. You further snapshot, New York City, you can see the same basic factors and patterns in the numbers borough by borough. Bronx is up. Staten Island is down. Brooklyn is up a little bit. Queens is up a little bit. With these numbers, again the numbers look very good statewide. They look very good for the regions, some areas better than others, but there's always been a variance from region to region.

We're going to allow hospitals to accept visitors at their discretion. This was always a balance of public health versus the personal relationships and people who are in hospitals who desperately want to see loved ones and loved ones who want to see people in hospitals. But we're going to allow hospitals to start accepting visitors at their discretion pursuant to State guidelines that have limited visits, PPE, temperature checks, et cetera. Obviously we need to be careful but we'll allow visitors in hospitals. Same thing with group homes. This Friday the group homes can allow visitors. It is up to the discretion of the group home. They have to tell the State if they're allowing visitors and again they have to follow State guidelines, masks, et cetera.

We've reviewed the capital region data and we're going to go to Phase 3 tomorrow in the Capital Region so we're excited about that.

We're excited about the US Open - is going to be held in Queens August 31 to September 13. It will be held without fans but we can watch it on TV and I'll take that. The tennis authority is going to be taking extraordinary precautions but that's going to occur in Queens. Again, it will be televised but no fans there.

There are two theories on the reopening when we started and they were just theories and nobody knew. One theory was we should reopen immediately. This was all overstated, there was nothing to worry about, just reopen and reopen now. That was a theory and there were political overtones to the theory. There was a second theory which said you can't reopen right away. You'll increase the spread of the virus. You should phase the reopening and you should follow the data and the facts on the spread of the virus on reopening.

Those were two very different theories and we had political debates about those two theories and we had competing demonstrations right here in front of the Capitol and there would be one group that said reopen and you guys would ask questions, well they say reopen, why don't you reopen, don't you think they're right, and the next day the other group would come, don't reopen immediately, have a phased opening, and then you'd say, well why don't you do a phased reopening, aren't they right. But they were two very different theories and different states did different things and different elected officials took different postures and argued two different postures.

I said I think the phased opening makes more sense. That was my position and I said it wasn't a political theory. It was a science-based theory because we're dealing with a virus. But we had a political debate. Nobody knew who was right. Nobody knew who was wrong. Well, now you know. Why? Because you tested the theory. You went into a laboratory and you tested it and some places opened with very little control and some places opened on a phased reopening that was driven by the data. So now we actually know what happened. Now we don't have to say, well maybe, maybe, maybe. Now you can just look at the numbers and the numbers say and the results say that it has been better for public health and better for the economy when you have a phased reopening and you follow the metrics.

As we sit here today, 21 states are seeing an increase. As we sit here. Why? They reopened quickly. They did not have the same phases; they did not have the same controls. They are seeing the number of cases go up. That is a fact. What then happens is, there are articles about how the virus is increasing, the cases are increasing and that destabilizes the market and then the market actually responds in the negative. And that actually hurts the economy. From a public health point-of-view, the number of projected deaths because of these re-openings and the spike in the virus have increased dramatically. The projections by these scientific groups- they changed the projections based on the spread of the virus. So ask yourself, "how much have the projections changed since they have the data on the virus spreading."

IHME which is the Washington-based model, Gates Fund model, which is the model that the White House apparently follows has deaths by August- April 17th they projected 60,000; April 29th 72,000; June 15th they project 149,000. That's roughly 90,000 more deaths. 90,000 more deaths. Why? Because the spread of the virus has increased. That's the public health consequence. Why did their projection go from 60 to 149,000? Because the spread of the virus increased. Those are not Democratic numbers. Those are not Republican numbers. Those are just numbers; my friends and we're not talking about 1,000 deaths. We're not talking about 2,000 deaths. We're talking about tens of thousands of deaths by that projection.

Last week, they projected 169,000 deaths by October; this week 200,000 deaths. In one week they went up 30,000 deaths. In one week, based on what? Based on the increase in the virus's transmission. That's why the phased reopening was always smarter and New York State- from a website that is run by the founders of Instagram, they studied the rate of transmission of the virus. We had the highest rate of transmission. Today New York State has the lowest rate of transmission of any state. These are not theories any more. These are undeniable facts. You tested the theory. Don't have results anyone can say anything.

I can sit here and say, "I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and tiny button nose." I can say that. But then I run into a problem which are the obvious facts that defy what I'm saying. "Well, he said he has blonde, hair blue eyes, and a tiny little button nose." Yes, except I'm looking at him and he doesn't. "Well, I know but the governor says." I would say you might want to add a line that says, "however he doesn't," right? So, you can have a theory but then you have facts. And these are facts.

So, what does it tell us in New York? Stay the course. We were right. We have the lowest rate of transmission. The phase reopening is working; stay the course. Stay the course means, you have to stay smart and you have to stay responsible and we all have to stay responsible. We're going to Phase 3 in the Capital Region: employers be smart; storeowners be smart; employees be smart; individuals be smart; local governments be smart and do your job. And to everyone, stay smart because smart works. Smart normally works in life, by the way. But smart works as a collective, and smart works for the society, and smart works for New York. Wear a mask and be New York Tough and smart, united, disciplined, and most of all loving.

2020-06-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Changed seats, trying to confuse me. I know who you are, I know who you're not. This is one of the best days for New York since we have started this long journey into a dark night. Day 109 since we started this, a life-changing journey.

On the reopening, we're continuing to follow the data and the metrics. Our number of hospitalizations, lowest level since we started, amen, 1,400. Number of deaths, 17 deaths in the state of New York. 17. Lowest number since we started. The only way I can feel better is if that number ever becomes zero. But 17, we remember in our thoughts and prayers the 17 lives lost, but this is great, great news compared to where we've been. Lowest level on the three-day rolling average.

That is the mountain. There it is. We always were wondering about the configuration of that mountain. What did it look like? How high was it going up? When would it crest? What was the plateau? How do we flatten the curve? How long would it take us to get down?

And then to add to the good news, we almost have too much good news, we did about 60,000 tests yesterday. Put that in context. 60,000 tests on one day. No state in the united states is doing that. 60,000 tests across the state. Number who tested positive, less than 1%. That is the lowest percentage of positive that we have had since we have started. Period. That is one of the lowest levels in the United States of America and we once again have demonstrated that we've gone from the worst infection rate in the country to the best infection rate in the country. Just think about that for a minute. Those are not words. Those are powerful facts. We had the worst infection rate. The rate of transmission was the highest. We now have the lowest rate of transmission.

Just think about what this state accomplished, what the people of this state accomplished. If I told you 108 days ago we were going to accomplish that, what would we have said? What would I have said? I would have said I didn't believe it. I would have said I didn't believe it was possible.

But facts are facts and you look at these facts and I'm telling you today the federal government is making a mistake and it is making an historic mistake and that is not a political comment. That is a fact-based, objective comment that this federal government is making a mistake on the way it is handling this COVID crisis and how it is now advising states and the people of this nation.

On the facts it is a mistake. We had the political debate. How do we reopen? We should just reopen immediately, this is all overblown, it's fine - that was theory A. There was a partisan divide to it. More conservatives argued that. Government should just get out of the way, let the free market do it. Right? That was The Wall Street Journal, New York Post conservative theory. Just open the doors. And then there was another theory. Let's reopen based on data. Let's not just reopen blindly as an expression of political ideology. We're dealing with a virus. The virus doesn't have a political ideology. No doctor ever said to me, oh, we did a COVID test, found out it was conservative. Found out it was liberal. It's a virus. It moves as a matter of science. But there were two theories.

We tested the two theories. We went into the laboratory and we tested the two theories and now you have numbers. And numbers don't lie. You have 20 states where you have the COVID virus increasing as a matter of numbers. Fact. Look at the headlines. Facts. The COVID virus is increasing in 20 states across the country. The states without the smart reopening plans are going up. That is a fact. It's not a Democratic fact, it's not Republican fact. There are no Democratic facts and Republican facts. There are just facts. There's Democratic opinion, Republican opinion, but there are no Democratic or Republican facts. That is a fact.

Well what's New York's interest in the rest of the nation? First of all, we're Americans and we care about other Americans. Second, on a parochial level, if those states are going up, they could spread the virus to New York. They have a higher rate of infection than New York. What happens when those people get on planes and fly to New York? That's how we got here in the first place. People landing at our airports. So we do have a selfish interest. Same interest as so many states expressed when we were at the beginning of this and they were worried about New Yorkers going to their states. We lived through that and now it's the inverse.

Now people are getting on planes, they're traveling, they could actually be bringing the virus to New York. Well, you hear from the federal government the numbers are going up because we're doing more testing. That is just not true. As a matter of fact, as a matter of mathematics, as a matter of the data, that is just not a true statement. Forget the testing, hospitalizations are going up. The number of people going into hospitals is going up. How do you explain that? Are they pretending to be sick? Are they not really sick? You see the number of hospitalizations going up in those places where the percentage is going up in testing. First, their argument on testing doesn't make any sense because not only is testing going up but the percentage of positive is going up. Even put that aside, because it's complicated for people.

People walking into the hospitals are going up. Which, by definition, means more people are getting sick. Otherwise, more people don't go into hospitals. That's Arizona, that's Texas. And by the way, it tracks with the increase in the testing. But it is undeniable but that more people are getting sick when more people are going into hospitals. New York, the number of people going into hospitals is going down. The percent testing positive is going down. These are facts. This is undeniable. When I say the federal government is making a mistake, these policies have real consequences. This is a moment in history where it's not going to be about the partisan divide when they write the books.

They'll talk about the absurd politics. There's going to be real life and death consequences to this. They are now projecting, by the model that the White House uses, they have increased their projections to show almost 90,000 more people are going to die by August. Ninety thousand. What these projection models do is they change their projection when the facts change. In other words, when they see numbers going up in states, they increase their projection. So they watch today's numbers, they see more hospitalizations, they then increase their projected deaths because they see more people going into the hospitals, so they increase their projected deaths. In April, they projected 60,000 deaths by August. May, they projected 134,000 deaths. Now, they're projecting 149,000 deaths.

Why? Because they're seeing the virus increase and they're seeing the hospitalizations go up. So this federal policy has increased the number of people who they project to die by almost 90,000. It's not a Democratic projection. It's not a Republican projection. It's the projection of the model funded by Gates which is relied upon by the White House. 90,000 people, think about that - 90,000 people. "Well, that's the cost we have to pay to get the economy back up and running." Really? That hasn't helped the economy. When the virus goes up, the financial markets go down. When the virus goes up, consumer confidence goes down. When the virus spread goes up, people get more nervous and less confident about government and about the plan and about their future. "Feel good, invest in America. Oh, more people are dying. Oh, we're reopening, but it's actually increasing the spread of the virus. But feel good! Come out and shop." People aren't stupid. They're not. People are smart.

In New York, we stay smart. Being smart, Westchester, Rockland about to enter phase three. Long Island is on track for Wednesday. New York City is on track for Monday. New York City will have been phase one for 14 days. You look at all the numbers, all the numbers are good. You look at the number of tests, the positive tests. You look at it from the point of reopening. The numbers are good. Hospitalizations since reopening, the numbers are good. So New York is on track to enter phase two on Monday. The same metrics we use in New York City are the same metrics we've used in every region across the state. And they have all shown to be accurate and effective. We don't change the rules for New York City. We don't change the rules for Long Island. It's one set of rules for everyone. And they have worked everywhere in the state. They work when we are responsible in what we're doing.

So New York City, do what every other region has done thus far. Employers have to be responsible, store owners have to be responsible, employees have to be responsible, local governments have to be responsible and do their job. They have to have their testing in place. Their testing has to be ramping up. Part of the phasing is allowing the local governments to increase their capacity to handle the additional burden. They like to leave that out.

The role for local governments, the responsibility for local governments, has been going up. Every time you hit a new phase, they have to have more sophisticated tracing, more sophisticated testing, more sophisticated compliance because the number of people are coming up. The phases are not just automatic. The phases are allowing the local governments to get their act together. And they have to because this only works if the business owners are educated, if they're ready, if they have the plans in place, if the employees are ready, and if the local governments are ready.

Today I'm going to be signing legislation to protect the rights of healthcare workers who speak out, quote unquote whistleblowers should be protected. But New York has climbed the mountain, and it was the highest mountain in the State of New York. I'm going to declare the COVID mountain the highest mountain in the State of New York. It's not really a mountain because it doesn't exist. But it's a mountain to me, and it's a mountain to many people. And it's a mountain that we had to climb, which was unlike any other climb, because it went straight up and you couldn't see the top because the top was in the clouds, but the only strategy was every day to take the next step. Take next step. Take the next step. Take the next step. It's hard. It was exhausting. It hurt. But you'll find the top, even if you can't see the top through the clouds. Just keep climbing, you'll find the top, almost blind faith. And we determined the top by flattening the curve. You flatten the curve, you create the plateau, you create the crest. We created the crest. But then we had to come down the other side and that was a long journey. It was about 42 days up the mountain, about 66 days down the mountain, when you look back. Who's counting? I was counting every day. We climbed the mountain and we're on the other side. There are other mountains to climb and remember that we didn't create this mountain. We didn't create this crisis.

This crisis was created because the virus did not come from China. It did not come from China, mistake. The virus came from Europe. The virus came from Italy. The virus came from France. The virus came from Spain. How did that happen? I never heard that. I know. Because nobody ever said that. Nobody ever told us. The virus left China and went to Europe. That's what happened this past January. And then the virus came here from Europe. January, February, March. Federal government didn't do a European travel ban until when? March 16. January, February, March. How many flights flew into JFK and how many people came? Three million. Three million. JFK, Newark international. Did we screen those people? The federal government didn't screen those people because the virus was supposed to be in China according to them. That's how the crisis was created in New York. That's why New York had the high infection rate. It had nothing do with New Yorkers. Had nothing do with a blue state. Had nothing to do with anything about New York. It's because we were misled. We were misinformed and the virus was coming from Europe. That's what created the crisis. So, we had nothing to do with the creation. Then we had the worst crisis in the nation. And then we were left on our own by and large, but we managed it.

It is a lesson that will go down in the history books and a lot of lessons for us to learn on many levels. But we did it and in many ways we should be invigorated because of it. That which doesn't kill you can make you stronger. We are stronger for it. I believe that. We're stronger as a community. And now we have other situations that we have to confront, other mountains to climb. But we have confidence after the last thing we've been through. And we will climb those other mountains and we will do it together because we are New York tough, and smart, and united, and disciplined, and loving, and we are empowered to do that. And I look forward to doing that now that we are on the other side of this mountain, we'll climb new mountains together, and there are many new mountains to climb. For me, seeing those numbers back down, we went up, we came down, and we're back where we should be. It means we have to move on, stay vigilant. It could come back, if we don't stay smart, it will come back. Could be a second wave. But we did what we had to do, my friends, and we did it together, and we did it every day. And now we're going to move on to other things.

These daily briefings, while fun, take a lot of time, and I'm going to finish the daily briefings on Friday, and then we'll do briefings as necessary, and I'm sure they will often be necessary. But we're going to turn the page on the immediacy of this crisis. I hope people learn from what we accomplished here in New York. I hope people around the country look at New York and say, how did they do that? How did they go from the worst situation in terms of transmission to the best? How did they do that? I hope they look around and say, how can all these states be going up and New York is going down? How can that be? I thought New York had such a terrible problem. All that density, all that crowding. How's New York going down and our states are going up? What's the difference between what we're doing and what New York is doing? Isn't that peculiar? How can New York be going down and we're going up? That would be the logical question to ask. And there is a logical answer, and that answer can save lives. We have saved tens of thousands of lives, New York. And that is more important than any of this other stuff. I sign the executive order.

2020-06-18 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Pleasure to be in New York City this morning. Pleasure to see all your smiling faces as usual. Okay, not all smiling. Let me introduce the people who are here today, besides just introducing them. Let me just say to them on behalf of myself and the people of this state, I want to thank the people who are at this table. And many people who are on the team who are not at this table, who have just done extraordinary service for the people over these past 108 days. This was a degree of difficulty and a challenge for government dealing with this coronavirus, challenge for society. Unlike anything we have seen in my lifetime and my lifetime is pretty long. I can tell the people of the state this they could not have had a more talented, smarter, more professional team working for them than the team that was in state government. I’ve worked with a lot of government pros, but no team holds a candle to what this team did.

To my left is Robert Mujica. I’ve worked with him for 13 years. Been on the other side of the table with him. He was working for the Senate before he came to work for me, one of the most talented, smart people I’ve ever worked with in my life. And we’re thankful that he was there. Melissa DeRosa did every one of these briefings with me been with me for seven years was in the attorney general’s office before that and whip smart works around the clock. And what she did was just phenomenal. Dr. Zucker, five years health commissioner, he’s dealt with the most significant public health crisis of a generation. Nobody’s gone through this before and he’s done exquisitely well. Gareth Rhodes is here, young fella, but he’s been with me for about 11 years and his energy and his talent and his creativity got us through every day.

So they had a handle, the coronavirus pandemic. They had to do it with very little help from anyone else, get into other people’s responsibilities at another time. They had to do it carrying me on their back. So they really had a burden to carry and it was a long road, 108 days every day, every night, without a break, without a moment where you could say, “Let’s relax.” Every moment had a new challenge and it was just my honor to work with them through this. I’m proud of what they did. I’m proud of what the government did. I’m proud of what the people of this state did, but you needed every piece working together to accomplish what we accomplished. I want to thank them for that. Today is day 110, 25 days since the civil unrest for Mr. Floyd’s murder.

On reopening New York has been smart about handling the coronavirus crisis. Smart means, we follow the facts. We did testing yesterday. We do testing every day. We did 68,000 tests yesterday. Just think about that. 68,000 tests in one day. Okay. Sounds like a lot. It is. It’s more than any state, more per capita than any state, more than any country on the globe per capita. Yay, New York.

68,000 tests, big sample. What did it say? Point nine less than 1% positive. Lowest percent positive since we have started. Lowest percent positive since we have started. Highest number of tests, lowest percent positive. Highest number of tests because we’ve been ramping up testing, ramping up, testing, ramping up testing. So that is just great news. And that’s why I’m in such a happy go lucky mood. That’s why I am a cool dude in a loose mood. You look at all the numbers in the chart. All the numbers in the chart are good. New York City, we reopened, yesterday we are 1%. when we started on Saturday, 1.4. So 1.4, 1.3, 1.2 1.21. Great, great, great, great. Only caution sign, of course the state central New York, 0.61, 0.31, 0.41, 0.1. How did you go from 0.6 to 1.3 to 1.4, something happened, maybe. That’s right. So then we go back to the tracing function, which is up and running.

Go trace the positives and see if they lead us to anything. They did. In central New York, Oswego, there is an apple manufacturing plant, where they take apples and they process apples for sale. There is a cluster of cases in that Apple manufacturing plant about 34 positives in one plant. That’s bad news, but it’s also good news. That’s the way this is supposed to work. You see an increase in the numbers. You trace the increase. Does it lead anywhere? Where they at the same party or are they at the same employer? Where they at the same protest? In Oswego, they were working in the same plant, get to that plant, address it. But other than that, all the numbers have been good. New York City, you see by borough, we can look at the numbers and it’s all been good, lowest number of hospitalizations since we started. Amen.

Number of deaths ticked up a little bit, but the overall curve is the lowest we have seen. So it is all good news all across the board. Our New York City reopening the way we do this, the way we’ve done it in every region across the state is we compile all the data. When we get near the end of that phase, we have state officials review it and we then have global experts review that data to make sure there’s nothing in the data that we’re missing. We don’t look at just the top line data that I show you. Not that you are not public health experts also and statisticians and scientists and you would be able to see things in the data. I believe that about you, Andrew, not Zach. We have global experts who look at the data and when they sign off, then I sign off. I do not sign off until they sign off.

So they’re reviewing the New York City data. It’s supposed to go on Monday. They’ll watch it Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they’re studying it now, but all the indications are good. So I’m saying today, you’ll get a final announcement tomorrow, but I am saying businesses should plan on reopening. We just had a call this morning where we went over the New York City data and everybody’s feeling good. So my advice to New York City businesses is plan to reopen Monday on phase two. Now phase two is phase two. This only works, this whole process because every phase has rules and if you follow those rules, it is a controlled opening…

It is a controlled opening of the economy. It controls how many people are introduced into the city, onto public transportation, onto the sidewalks, et cetera. As that number is increasing, local governments can then get their act together and deal with the increase. That’s part of the phasing. But there are rules. It’s not, “We reopen. Hallelujah.” No, no. That’s what other states did and that’s a mistake. We reopen in phases and a phase has rules, and that’s what makes it a phase as opposed to an overall reopening. If you ignore the rules, then it’s not a phased reopening. People need to know the rules and they have to follow the rules. They are on the website, but they’re specific for specific businesses. There’s occupancy rules. There are barrier rules. There’s signage, there’s distance, there’s congregations, small meetings, no sharing of food beverages. Please be aware of the rules and follow the rules.

There’s rules about retail shopping and how it works and overall occupancy. We have done this in every region across the state. It has worked overall. I can tell you from experience, it works better or worse depending on the compliance and the enforcement and how people follow the rules. The issue going into phase two or phase three is compliance by people and enforcement by local government. That is the issue. So, how is this going to work? It depends on how people act, which is how this has always been determined, and people, especially in New York City, Long Island, compliance matters. It matters. It’s not just moral and ethical, communal. It’s legal. These are the laws also. So, be aware of the law. Follow the law. Local government has to do the compliance and the compliance and the enforcement, the function of local government, gets more difficult as we go through these phrases because it gets more complicated, and more people are coming into the system. So, the phases are also allowing the local government to come up to speed and develop the expertise and the capacity to do the enforcement.

We’re going to take an added step where I’m going to increase the state’s enforcement capacity by executive order, where violations of the rules and regulations could allow State Liquor Authority to do an immediate suspension of an alcohol license, which means a bar or a restaurant that are violating the rules could have an immediate suspension of their license. Business that is violating the rules could have an immediate shutdown order. So, we’ve made great, great progress. I want to make sure we don’t slide back. I want to make sure we don’t get careless. Weather is nice. Everything is good. Governor said the numbers are good.

We don’t have to worry. Hallelujah. No, the numbers are good because we’re doing what we are supposed to do, and we have to keep doing what we’re supposed to do. I’m also signing an executive order that gives bars responsibility for the sidewalk, the outside area immediately in front of their premises. The state SLA will enforce that also. But I need local governments to do their part. As we go through the phases, the responsibility of the local governments increase. The state cannot do enforcement on these local issues all across the state. I would, we don’t have enough people. SLA doesn’t have enough investigators. We need the local governments to do their part. I know nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news. This is not bad news. When people follow the rules, the infection rate stays down. That’s called good news. But local governments have to do their part.

New York state is also issuing guidance today for colleges and universities that are planning September full reopenings. We are asking them to develop plans. We still need more data between now and September to make a definitive determination, but we want to make sure we’re starting to prepare. We’re starting to prepare plans for K-12. We’re doing the same with college guidance and colleges can go and get examples of considerations, but we need reopening plans, monitoring plans, containment plans, and shut down plans. Last point, but a big point. This is a pivotal moment in this country. You look at what’s going on across the nation and people should be concerned. You’re seeing the virus go up across this country. Concerns me, and you see other states going up, concerns me as an American. Also concerns me on a parochial level, because those people in those states may get on a plane, may land at JFK, and this could start all over again.

That’s how we got here the first time. How did the number of cases get so bad so quickly? People came from Europe to JFK, and nobody told us that the virus was in Europe. That’s the fact for the history books. Everybody said the virus was in China. Look at China, look at China, look at China. Yeah, baloney. It wasn’t in China. It left China. It went to Europe, came here from Europe, and 3 million Europeans landed at JFK, January, February, March. March, the nation did the European travel ban. By then, 3 million Europeans had come, and that’s how the virus came. We now have the virus under control, yeah, but Florida doesn’t and Texas doesn’t. These other states don’t, and what happens if they get on a plane and they come to JFK? So, we get the infection rate down, and then because other states are high, we could have a problem.

This country has to wake up and smell the coffee. And let’s realize the facts that are going on as we sit here this morning because my father’s great speech tale of two cities. You now have a tale of two countries going on. You have two very different situations happening in states across this country. Some states, the numbers are going down. Some states, the numbers are going up. Why? Same country, same virus. Why? The federal government’s attitude is an undeniable mistake when it has come to dealing with COVID. Their guidance, their doctrine, is an undeniable mistake. It is a political theory, a public relations theory versus a science-based fact-based theory. The White House from the day one has been operating on a pure political ideology. We should reopen, get the economy going, government shouldn’t be slowing down the economy. It was all political.

It was all public relations. Based on what fact? Based on what science? None. It was all political ideology. We said here in New York, this is not about politics. Virus never said to me it’s a Democrat. Virus never said it’s a Republican. No test ever said that. Dealing with a virus is a matter of science. It’s a matter of fact. That’s how you deal with a disease. You don’t deal with it politically, and you now see states that have dealt with it politically versus states that have dealt with it on a science fact basis, and you see the virus spreading in states that have an unmanaged reopening. Well, because they always have an excuse. It’s not really increasing. The number of tests are increasing. I don’t even know what that means. More testing does not mean the viral spread is increasing. You know how you know that they’re being disingenuous? The number of people in those states who are getting sick is increasing. Forget the numbers.

More people are walking into hospitals. They’re not walking into hospitals because they’re feeling well. You walk into a hospital when you’re sick. And the number of people who are getting infected and getting sick and walking into a hospital is going up in these states undeniably, and you can go state by state. It’s Arizona, it’s Texas, it’s Florida, it’s North Carolina, it’s South Carolina, it’s Utah, it’s Montana, it’s Alaska. It’s 20 states are on the increase. And then compare that to New York where we are on the decrease day after day after day. We’ve been on the decrease for the past 60 days. Two months of decline. They’re going up now. How do you explain that?

What happened with this virus? What happened with this pandemic? From the get-go, was always going to be dependent on what we did. There was no preordained path. There was no pre-ordained curve. Nobody knew. I spoke to every expert on the globe. Nobody knew. Second myth. Listening to them last night, all the projection models were wrong. No, the projection models weren’t wrong because the projection models were never projection models. The projection models were really extrapolation models. What does that mean? The projection models never said this is what’s going to happen in New York. The projection model said, if this is what you do, this is what will happen. It’s not really a projection. If this is what you do, this is what will happen. That’s what the models did. If you tell me you are losing one pound per day, they say, I will tell you, you’re going to lose seven pounds per week.

If you tell me you’re going to lose two pounds per day, I’ll tell you, you’re going to lose 14 pounds per week. Yeah. Thank you. But it’s all based on what we said we were going to do. The White House knew this. March 31st, their White House coronavirus taskforce. What’s going to happen with the COVID virus? Oh, two options, depending on what you do. Option one best-case scenario with mitigation. What is mitigation? Close down, social distancing, wear a mask, hand sanitizer, all those mitigation efforts that the states without reopening plans, without a managed reopening, they have no mitigation. The White House says with mitigation 100 to 240,000 deaths if this nation uses mitigation, if you don’t use mitigation, 1.5 to 2.2 million deaths. The White House said it. The White House said it to the extent the White House-

The White House said it, to the extent the White House lets science speak ever. To the extent they have science in the White House, they said, “If you mitigate, 100 to 240. If you don’t, 1.5 to 2.2.” Then their reopening plans don’t provide for mitigation. Well then, by your own projection, what did you think was going to happen? That’s why the CDC and Dr. Fauci are in such a difficult position. Because they said, “Without mitigation, you’re going to kill a million more people.” They said that.

Now, they’re part of a federal government that is telling states, “Just reopen, just reopen, just reopen,” contrary to their own science because they abandoned it. The model that they rely on, which is the Gates-funded IHME model, last week, they projected 169,000 deaths by October, last week. This week, the projection changed, 200,000 deaths.

Why did the projection change? They’ll say on Fox TV, not to pick any particular network, the model was wrong. No, the model wasn’t wrong. The model isn’t a model. It’s an extrapolation. They’re saying, by this number of deaths last week, which is now increasing, we extrapolate to tell you more people are going to die. Based on what you did and what you’re doing and the rate of death you’re causing, factor that out, factor out what you are doing, more people are dying. Because of what you are doing, more people are dying.

This is the model the White House relies on. That model says, because of what you are doing, the number of people who are going to die by October increased 18%. 30,000 more people are going to die because of what you’re doing. That’s what they say to you. Then the question is, what do you say, America when they tell you 30,000 more people are going to die because of what you’re doing? Did you keep doing it?

Do you keep doing it? Or do you say, “I don’t want 30,000 more people to die. I’m going to change what we’re doing?” That’s why I say, wake up, America. Look at what they’re telling you. This is not rhetorical, conceptual, hyperbolic. They told you, based on what you’re doing last week, 30,000 more people are going to die.

This is New York. I want someone to put this up in my eulogy. PowerPoint eulogy. Make a note. You’re going to be there. Be the first time Rob smiles, I think. These were the projections in New York. Gates-funded IHME said 73,000 people would be hospitalized. Columbia said 136,000 people, just in New York City. This is Columbia University. We’re not talking about a mail-away, matchbook university here. McKinsey, 110,000. McKinsey moderate with mitigation, 55,000. What actually happened? 18,000. They were all wrong. No. We changed what we were doing. We changed what we were doing.

What they were saying is, if you keep doing what you’re doing and that transmission rate continues, you factor it out, you extrapolate out, 73, 136, 110, that’s what’s going to happen. We said in New York, that’s what’s going to happen? Then we’re going to change what we’re doing. We’re going to change. We don’t want that to happen. We don’t want those people to die. We changed it to 18,000, a fraction, because we changed what we did. You’re talking about tens of thousands of lives, tens of thousands of lives.

What are you going to do, America? They’re telling you, based on what you’re doing, you’re killing more Americans, 30,000 more projection in one week. This is what we did. We changed. We changed what we were doing, and we saved tens of thousands of lives, and that’s what America should do.

There are two different visions that we’re talking about. One is based on science and fact. One is based on political ideology and public relations and politics, and the results are in. New York, it’s working. We’re saving lives. The virus is down. The rest of the nation, it’s going up. At the end of the day, New York tough works.

Last, last point. I’ve had the pleasure for the past 108 days to not only speak to the people of New York and all across the country, all across the world. I get emails from countries, people in countries all across the world. But I’ve also been able to talk to the New York press all across the state. They’ve been there every day, showed up when it was hard. Their coverage of this situation will be a force in journalism class one day, I believe.

It was the most complicated, most stressful, most consequential government issue. They had to do it during a very difficult time. You had to show up when people were afraid to leave their homes. You had to stay with it seven days a week because I refused to take a day off. It meant all of you had to work.

The questions, the dialogue was as informative to people as my briefing. I actually think the back-and-forth with the press was in some ways more communicative for people. They all commented on the emails and texts. They’d say, “Boy, that New York press corps they’re really nasty. They’re tough.” Yeah. But you were asking the really probative, pointed, direct questions that got information that people needed. So if you are me, it’s not always fun to sit up here and take the direct question. You feel a little bit like a pin cushion, boop, boop. But I have tremendous respect for what you did and how you did it. You did a great public service, and it worked. The government-journalism dynamic, I studied all my life, I lived all my life. My father had a lot of great friends in journalism, and I watched it at the kitchen table. I watched the dynamic work between great journalists and my father, who was a great government official.

I watch it now with my brother, Chris, on a different level that we don’t have to get into. But it worked. It worked here, and I want to thank you, and I want to applaud the press all across the state. I’ve been everywhere during this period of time because I wanted it to be, from Buffalo to Long Island. I’ve been before all the press, and you’ve done a great, great service. I think it all worked. The totality worked.

We had 59 million people tune into the briefings over the past 108 days, 59 million people. We only have 19 million people in the state of New York, and that counts everybody. 59 million people. It was the briefings, and it was the dialogue, and it was the drama. We communicated, and we gave people information, and we gave people comfort, and we gave people hope, and we gave people a plan, and we gave people a vision, and we empowered them.

I think, most of all, they got the information they desperately needed so they could make decisions about their own life and their own health and what to do with their kids. They needed that desperately. Information they could trust, credible information that they could trust. We did that.

I’ve been through a lot of challenges in government, but I’ve never been through this before, and I hope none of us go through this again. But I just wanted to thank you on a personal level for that. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you because it was hell for me, and we all lived it together. So you have my deepest respect.

2020-06-19 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Today is Friday, Juneteenth, and New York is declaring it a holiday in recognition of the ending of slavery. So, I gave everyone today off, and I can handle this last daily COVID briefing alone. After 111 days of hell, they all deserve a break. They all do. Today's facts are more good news, and I don't even need a PowerPoint to explain them. The hospitalization number's, 1,284, the lowest number we have seen. We conducted 79,000 tests yesterday, which is a record high for us. And we have the lowest weekly infection rate, less than 1 percent. And we have the lowest weekly average of lives lost, 25 souls each day, and we'll remember them in our thoughts and prayers. All regions of the state have lower infection rates, and the state experts have gone over all the data and they will allow New York City to begin Phase Two on Monday.

But, COVID isn't over. We still have much more to do. We have to monitor the local infection rate, local governments must ensure compliance and do tracing, we have to watch out for a second wave, we have to watch out for possible infections coming now from other states, and many people need help to get their lives back to normal. But with all of that, it's clear that over the past three months, we have done the impossible. In the beginning, this virus hit us hard because it actually came from Europe after we were told that it was coming from China. When this started, we had more cases per capita than any state in the country or any nation on the globe.

But today, we have done a full 180, from worst to first. We are controlling the virus better than any state in the country and any nation on the globe. Even more, by reducing the infection rate, we saved over 100,000 people from being hospitalized and possibly dying, just think about that. It is an unimaginable achievement. I'm so incredibly proud of what we all did together, and as a community. We reopened the economy and we saved lives. Because it was never a choice between one or the other, it was always right to do both. Today, we are seeing the virus spreading in many places. More people will die, and it doesn't have to be that way. Forget the politics. Be smart, open the economy intelligently, and save lives at the same time. That's what we showed works in New York.

We owe thanks to so many people, to our heroes, the healthcare and essential workers, to our legislature, our colleagues in New Jersey, Connecticut and neighboring states, local governments, the Army Corps of Engineers that did a great job, and most of all, to the great people of the state, who rose to the occasion, who joined hands and did what they had to do. I want to thank all the people that helped me personally, my team in state government, led by Melissa DeRosa, with Rob Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Jim Malatras, Stephanie Benton, Linda Lacewell, Gareth Rhodes, Jill DesRosiers, Larry Schwartz, and so many, many more. I want to thank my Cara, Mariah and Michaela for keeping me grounded and making me laugh at times that I thought I would cry. Thank you to all the people who send me letters and tweets, and wave on the street, or give a thumbs up. I can't express how much it means to me. Your energy keeps me going, and your smiles lighten my soul, and I thank you. To the 59 million viewers who shared in these daily briefings, thank you. Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt, thank you for believing in me and giving me support.

Good Lord knows I needed it, and don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. Someone said to me, they were concerned because she relied on me to know what was happening. I will still do what I do. We just don't have to do it every day. And that's a good thing, and let's hope it stays that way. I know this period has been incredibly hard on all of us. I thought about it every day as climbing a mountain, the Mount Everest of social challenges, 42 days up the mountain and 69 days down the other side. Every step, every day, hurt and was hard. It was frightening and sad. But I really believe we will be the better for it. I believe we are. I was talking to Michaela the other day. She was supposed to graduate from college this year and she was going to have a great ceremony and a big party. I said that I was sorry that she would miss that, but she said something interesting. She said she was disappointed about missing the ceremony, but that she had learned a lot over these past 3 months. She learned about herself, she learned about government, she learned about people. She had gotten an education just when she thought her education was over. She's right.

After 62 years. when I thought I had seen it all, I've had an education too. A few weeks ago, I had been thinking that I was disappointed that we didn't get to unveil our new State seal that our legislature just changed to add the words, "e pluribus unum" - out of many, one. We did it back in April because we thought the country needed to remember at this time of division that Americans are one, that we are united. To remember that our nation's founding premise and enduring promise is unity. Then I realized, in many ways we did something even better.

We didn't just put the words on our State seal, we made the words come true. We made the words come to life. In this crisis we were united, we were there one for another, we did act as one. It was extraordinary. I've never seen or felt anything like it. I ask myself and today I ask you: Why did it take a crisis to bring us together? Why does government usually appeal to the worst in us rather than the best? Why do our politics today play to our fears and weaknesses rather than appeal to our strengths? Why doesn't government challenge us to reach higher and speak to our better angels? Why can't it motivate us by love rather than hate? Why doesn't government urge us to realize we are members of the same community, the same family? That we all benefit when we work together. Isn't that what we really showed over the past 111 days? That working together works. That the only way forward is if I protect you and you protect me. I wear a mask for you and you wear a mask for me.

If you care for me and I care for you, we showed that in the end love does win. Love does conquer all. That no matter how dark the day, love brings the light. That is what I will take from the past 111 days. It inspires me and energizes me and excites me. If we could accomplish together what we did here, this impossible task, of beating back this deadly virus then there is nothing we can't do. We will be better and we will be stronger for what we have gone through. It shows us how capable we are when we are at our best. It shows us that we have great potential to do even more and we will.

Now New York must lead the nation on police reform and lead the way on building back better. We must lead the way on reenergizing our economy and protecting our environment and welcoming a new era of civil rights and social justice. I know that we can. We learned that our better angels are stronger than our demons and sometimes we just need to listen for them.

Over the past 111 days, we heard them and it was beautiful.

Let's keep listening together. Thank you for everything and God bless.

2020-06-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Good to be in New York City, good to see all of you smiling, masked faces. To my right, you know Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my left, Dr. Howard Zucker, Health Commissioner of the State of New York. We are joined by my colleagues today, Governor Murphy from the great State of New Jersey, Governor Ned Lamont from the great State of Connecticut. It's a pleasure to be with them again and we have a joint announcement that we're going to make.

First, I want to personally thank the governor's on behalf of myself and behalf of all the people of the State. They've been extraordinary colleagues through this situation. We've been mutually supportive, they've been mutually helpful beyond the normal government relations or political relations. This was a situation that nobody had really faced before and I am thankful that they were personal comforts and sources of strength for me in being able to talk through this situation with them and come up with coordinated plans really made a difference. There were no states that were handed a worst hand, if you will, when this started than our states.

Remember what happened. We had some of the highest infection rates because we had people coming from Europe who brought the virus. They traced our virus in this region back to Europe and we had a federal government that told us the virus was in China, it's in China, it's in China. It wasn't in China, it had left China and went to Europe and then it came here from Europe. January, February, March 3 million Europeans came in to our region of the country and they brought the virus. By the time we found out, by the time the federal government figured it out, we had viral spread all through the community.

We had the highest numbers to deal with in the country and you look at where we are now, we did a full 180 degrees. We went from the highest cases, the highest viral transmission rate to some of the lowest rates in the country. No one else had to accomplish as much as we had to accomplish in such a short period of time. No one else had to bend the curve as much as we had to bend the curve. When people take a deep breath and the political rhetoric dies down, those are going to be the facts.

I applaud my colleagues for doing an extraordinary job. We now have to make sure that the rate continues to drop and that's what keeps me up at night and I'm sure keeps them up at night. We have to make sure we're doing everything and we're diligent and our citizens are diligent. We also have to make sure the virus doesn't come in on a plane again. We learned that lesson. Be there, done that.

We're announcing today a joint travel advisory. People coming in from states that have a high infection rate must quarantine for 14 days. We have a calibration for the infection rate and any state that goes over that infection rate, that state will be subject to the quarantine. It's only for the simple reason that we worked very hard to get the viral transmission rate down. We don't want to see it go up because a lot of people come into this region and they could literally bring the infection with them. It wouldn't be malicious or malevolent, but it would still be real.

We are jointly instituting that travel advisory today because what happens in New York happens in New Jersey, happens in Connecticut. I think it's right, I think it's smart and I'm glad that we're doing it together. We've done a lot of good things together and hopefully we're on the other side of this mountain and we'll continue to see the numbers go down and we'll continue to see the economic activity go up.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to my neighbor, Governor Phil Murphy. Phil, thank you again for everything Thank you for what you've done, not just for New Jersey, thank you for what you've done for New Yorkers. There's no doubt that our partnership has made it better for both states. So thank you very much, Governor Phil Murphy.

Governor Murphy: Andrew, thank you and I echo your words of thanks and deepest appreciation for the partnership with you and with Ned. We live in the densest neighborhood in America, we've been clobbered by this virus. No region in the country has paid a bigger price with the loss of brothers and sisters. We've lost just under 13,000 members of our New Jersey family. New York has paid an enormous price. Connecticut has paid a big price as well. I can't thank you enough for your partnership, guys.

We need to do things right inside the four walls in our respective states. We need the federal government, but boy, have we needed our neighbors and I can't thank you and Governor Lamont enough for your partnership and the spirit of teamwork in this extraordinary chapter in our states and our nation's history.

My echo is simple: This is a smart thing to do. We have taken our people, the three of us, these three states, through hell and back. The last thing we need to do right now is subject our folks to another round. This virus is risky enough on it's own in terms of the potential to flare back up. So, doing something common sense as this is to say to folks, "Listen. It's time for personal responsibility. If you've been in a state that has a high infection rate, do the right thing and that and that is taking 14 days and self-quarantining. It's the right thing to do. It's the common-sense thing to do. It's the responsible thing to do."

So I'm honored to be alongside my fellow governors today in support this notion wholeheartedly and I know the details will come from our respective health departments on exactly what this means, but it's a really smart common sense, step, particularly as we have the three states have really broken the back of this virus. Thank you again for a for everything and for having me today.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you - thank you very much, Governor Murphy and again I do believe we're all on the other side of the mountain, but we do determine what happens. It's what our people do. It's our policies and it's not over until it's over and I think this will be it will help us all. Thank you very much, Phil. And our other colleague and partner, Governor Ned Lamont from Connecticut. Governor, thank you very much for your partnership. Thank you for the personal support and personal friendship you've given me. Nobody wanted to go through this but you see sometimes in life when the pressure is on, you see the best and the worst in people and society and I think we saw that here and one of the high points, one of the best facets that came out of this was strong people got stronger, and strong relationships got stronger. And New York and Connecticut and New Jersey really stood together and I want to thank you very much. Governor Ned Lamont. Technical glitch. Can we get Governor Lamont back?

Let me give you some details.

Governor Lamont: Hi, but it's not going to leave on that airplane. It only goes by working together with New York, New Jersey and the other states in our region are to make sure that we maintain the protocols, the social distancing, the masks, everything we have done successfully over the last few months to bring our positivity rate to less than three percent.

And I got to say, I am blessed to have you guys as fellow governors as well as Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the northeast region has taken this seriously. And that's allowed us has a region to power through and get our positivity rates very low. But we're not an island. And as we look around the rest of the country, you know, we have seen not just spikes, but we've seen real community spread of a better than 10 percent positivity rate in a number of these states that we're talking about right now, and if was limited to you know the nursing homes, or the prisons are something containable perhaps we would not be as concerned, but right now we're seeing places within some of these states where we have a positivity rate of a 20, 30, 40 percent. In many cases younger people, folks who travel, 18 to 35 who are maybe not at risk themselves but are highly infectious.

So, you know working with Phil and Andrew over the last you know week or two, we reluctantly came to the conclusion, that this is what we've got to do to make sure that our region stays safe and our state stays safe as we make sure that we can safely get our businesses back in our schools back up and operating this fall. We will be monitoring this carefully. We've got the quarantine in place will be doing publicity and social media, reaching out to the travel agents, doing everything we can to tell people, if you come to Connecticut, you come to New York, you come to New Jersey, you come safely and you follow the protocols starting with a quarantine. Andrew, Phil, great being with you guys.

Governor Cuomo: Governor Lamont, same here. Thank you very much and hopefully we're on the other side and we stay on the other side. Governor, thank you very much. Ned, thank you.

Okay, let me give you a couple of more details on this the infection rate formula will be 10 per 100,000 on the seven-day rolling average or 10 percent of the total population positive on a seven-day rolling average. So, any state that has an infection rate above that would require 14-day quarantine. As of today, the states that are above that level are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah, Texas. That's as of today. The states themselves can change as the infection rate changes. And we will update daily what states are above that infection rate. But as of today, those of the states that are above the infection rate. And again, it's just common sense it's. It's the spirit of community.

If you're in a place that has a high infection rate, we understand that and we'll help you any way we can and we've been helpful in reaching out to every state across the nation. But we don't want to see the infection rate increase here after what we've gone through, and that's the 14-day quarantine. That is a uniform policy across the three states. Each state will be responsible for the enforcement of that policy within their state.

Let me give you a couple of other faxes as we are here on day 116. The number of hospitalizations is 1,071, that's the lowest level of hospitalizations we have seen since this nightmare began. Again, when I say we're on the other side of the mountain, sometimes I'm talking to myself, I'm often talking myself, but this is the mountain I'm talking about. We're on the other side on the decline. We just don't want to see us reverse and we are at the lowest level we have been on hospitalizations since this started. We paid a very dear price for it. 

Our tests, we did 58,000 tests yesterday, highest number of tests in the United States. Without to test, you don't know where you are. We are at 1.1 percent positive. You can see the testing by region and all the regions are constant since the reopening, including New York City, which we're watching very carefully. But we watch it on a day-to-day basis and right now all the numbers look good.

Within New York City, we look at the numbers by borough. We also look at the hot spots in the boroughs. We know that there are some zip codes that are much higher than other zip codes. So we also study those hot spot zip codes. The number of deaths is 17 today. This is right about where the lowest numbers have ever been. Again, that's more great, great news. And again we don't want to see these numbers reverse. Number of lives lost on the three-day average, again, is just about as low as it's ever been. So, all the numbers are good. What we're doing works. Our approach has been vindicated and the phased reopening by data works.

I said from day one I think these states, this theory over handling it politically, that people had a political theory of how to deal with the virus, you can't have a political theory on how to deal with the virus. You can't. It's a virus. It doesn't respond to political theory. It responds to science and data. So we're going ahead with our metrics and our phased reopening. Five regions are set to enter phase four on Friday. Those are the five regions on the map.

On phase four, we have low risk outdoor arts, low risk indoor arts entertainment, museums, film and movie production, higher education and professional sports. By the way, the spring training for the Yankees and the Mets starts July 1 in the great State of New York. I spoke with the Yankees and Mets organization today and confirmed that we are on track. And our Health Commissioner is going to be working with Major League Baseball on the protocols that are in place. Phase four, we are going to increase the number of people who can be at a religious gathering from 25 to 33 percent. We'll also increase the number of people who can be in a social gathering from 25 people to 50 people.

We are continuing to study of malls, movie theaters, and gyms. There's new information that comes out on this virus every day and anyone who thinks this is a static situation is wrong. So we are continuing to study the most recent developments. We're looking at what happened in other states. There are some reports that malls, bars, certain social clubs with air conditioning that air conditioning may not be cleansing the air of the virus and just recirculating the virus. So we are studying that and as soon as we get some more information we will make an informed decision.

MTA subway system was up to the highest number of riders since this started. The MTA subway system, you know, there can be a silver lining in the middle of a storm. The system is cleaner than ever. I am a lifelong New York City boy, board New York City person, and I've seen the subways, and we've had numerous discussions on how to clean. "The subways are dirty and they should be cleaner." They are cleaner than they have ever been period - period. I defy anyone to find a time when the subways have been cleaner.

Remember, we were talking about trying to clean them, get out the old newspapers, coffee cups, et cetera. We were for years stymied to help the homeless who are on the subway system, which was really a terrible crisis for the homeless and for society. They are now cleaner than ever. They are literally disinfected. Forget cleaning, they are literally disinfected and that is a positive that has come out of this, and I applaud the MTA for doing this. To disinfect the subway was not a simple task. You had to figure out how. What equipment, what technology, what's safe, what chemicals, what's safe for the employees to put down, what's safe for the riders the next morning. But they did it.

On the reopening, we had a great debate in this nation as to how to reopen. Well, reopen fast, reopen fast, government shouldn't be in the way, this is all overblown, this is just the flu, reopen, reopen. Okay. Some states did that. There was a different theory, theory that I advocated, the state followed, which is it's a virus, don't use political rhetoric, use science and metrics, and phase the reopening by the data. The results are in. We tested both theories. The arguments over. Two different theories, we tested them. And now we know what happened.

The reopening, done smartly, done intelligently, done on the data, is better for the public health, we saved lives, and it's better for the economy. It was never a choice between saving lives and reopening the economy. It was always, you have to do both or you do neither. The concept that you could open recklessly, see the virus transmission go up, and think that was going to be good for the economy, was bizzaro land. And you see that today because you see states with an increase in viral spread, it's up to about 27 states that now have an increase in the virus spread, and you see the stock market going down every time the virus goes up. Why? Because it was never one or the other. And now you see countries around the globe saying we may not want to travel to the United States because of the virus. The only way to get the economy back was to have a smart reopening plan. That was always, always true. And now, the proof is in the pudding. Because we're seeing it all across the board. And what New York is doing is counter to what you see across the nation. They are going up, and we are going down. 27 states going up.

So, nationally, we should admit the reality. Denial is not a life strategy. It never is. Those 27 states are going up, more people are being infected, and more lives will be lost. They're offering excuses. "Well, it's because we're doing more testing that the numbers are going up." That is just factually not true. The numbers aren't going up because you're doing more testing. The numbers are going up because more people are getting sick. You know how more people are getting sick? More people are going into the hospitals. When more people are going into hospitals, you know what it means? It means more people are getting sick. And don't tell the American people anything different. They know that when people go to a hospital, it's because people are sick. And you look at Arizona, you look at Texas, you look at all these states, you know what you see? You see an arrow going up, because it was misguided to say we're going to reopen the economy. What you're doing is you're putting people's lives in jeopardy, and you're hurting the economy.

New York is the exception. Dr. Fauci, who is, in my opinion, one of the sane and smart voices in Washington, yesterday said, that New York is an example of actually doing it right. In New York, we have to remain vigilant. Everybody has a role to play. Individuals, businesses, and government. Look, this is a different moment in history. Government has to work now. This is not normal politics. Political rhetoric, tweets. This is government actually having to perform a job. Government, people expect government to work now. You see how engaged people are, how they're following government? And they know when it works and when it doesn't work. Their complaint with the federal government right now? They have been incompetent in how they handled the situation, because they have been, and local governments have a role to play.

We have to keep that infection rate down. The key to that is the local governments being diligent on compliance, and I had this conversation with local governments all across the state five times a day. The state is in charge of opening or reopening. The state put the metrics in place, the state closed down the businesses, the state is responsible for reopening. Local government has no authority. That took a big political burden off the local governments. Nobody wanted to shut down the economy. The President didn't want to shut it down. Nobody wanted to tell people to stay home.

I took the responsibility for shutting, the state has the responsibility for reopening. Local government can't shut anything. Local government can't reopen anything. They can't shut a school, they can't open a school. They can't shut business, they can't open business. That's all the state's responsibility and I assume it 100 percent. I get 100 phone calls every day from angry people who want this open or this open or this open. Okay, local governments have a responsibility. They have to ensure compliance. Social distancing, mask wearing, businesses following the rules. Bars, restaurants, people on sidewalks, local government has to do that.

I understand it's not easy. I understand it's not popular. Welcome to government in the middle of a global crisis. They have to do that job and they have to be competent at doing that job. The worst case scenario is what Governor Murphy just said. After we've gone through hell, imagine if we have to go back and do it again. The other piece of the equation is people have to do their part.

You know who bent the curve in New York? New Yorkers. Nobody else. They wore the mask and did the social distancing. They did it. Weather is warm, the news is good in New York. Yes, it is, but that does not mean people can now relax. The news is good because we did what we had to do. The news is good because we were New York tough and smart and united and disciplined and loving.

2020-06-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, pleasure to be here. Beautiful New York City, beautiful day. Let me introduce you to the people who are here. From my far right, Kevin Bruen is the First Deputy Superintendent of the New York State Police. To my immediate right, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my left, Dr. Howard Zucker, Health Commissioner for the State of New York. To his left, Colonel Tripodo from the New York State Police.

Thank you for being here. I hope everybody had their coffee this morning because it is time to wake up, America. The White House has been in denial on coronavirus from the get-go and their federal response has just been wrong. That's not a political statement. You look at the facts, that's exactly what it says. You have coronavirus increasing in 32 states across the nation. The rate of increase is only getting worse and a number of excuses have been made for this over the past weeks to further the denial. First they said "Well, it's because they're doing more testing, and that's why the number of infections are going up." Not true, because the number of hospitalizations are also going up. People don't go into a hospital unless they're sick, hat is a fact, or because they think they're sick. So, it's not a question of the numbers going up in the testing. It's the number of hospitalizations that are going up. So, you know that the virus is increasing.

And this has been getting worse, it's not getting better. You look at where the United States is now globally, Europe that got hit first before us - We didn't know it, but the virus went from China to Europe, came to New York from Europe, that's why we had that big spike - but America now trails Europe in the recovery from coronavirus. The White House has been saying "Reopen fast because that's good for the economy and we have to get the economy going." Yes, we have to get the economy going, but reopening fast was not good for the economy. What has been happening is when that virus spikes, the market goes down, not up. This was not a smart policy to rush reopening. It did not help the economy. It's the exact opposite, the volatility, the instability, the concern about the path of this nation has roiled the markets. And at the same time from a public health point of view, the number of deaths is increasing. IHME, the model that the White House follows, just increased by 10,000 their death prediction - number of people who will die. Why? Because they're extrapolating out from the increase in infections and the increase in hospitalizations.

The White House has been saying "Well, it's up to the states, it's up to the states." But the President didn't really leave it up to the states. The President has been pressuring states to reopen quickly. "Liberate your state. Liberate New York." Demonstrations that I've been dealing with all across the state pressuring governors to reopen. The denial by the federal government of the severity of this virus was followed by the federal government's abandonment of responsibility. If you don't believe it's a problem, you don't try to find a solution, and that's what happened with the federal government and coronavirus. They never believed it was a problem, so they didn't believe they needed to solve it. The key barometer in all of this has been testing. Everybody said that from day one, every federal official, every state official, get the testing up, get the testing ready. How many testing sites across America has the federal government set up and operated? 41. Well, is that a lot or a little? Well, for comparison, you know how many sites we have in the State of New York? 750. The federal government has put up 41 sites, FEMA and HHS, that they operate. How can that be? Because from day one, they told you they didn't believe it was a problem. They started day one, "It's like the flu." If it's not a problem, you don't try to solve it, and they didn't try to solve it. And as a matter of fact, they have been advocating from day from one, "Reopen the economy, reopen the economy," and now we see the results. It just plain hasn't worked, and it has been a failure. Will Rogers, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." Not a New York quote, but it's right.

Where are we in New York? We've been smart. We didn't do this politically. We followed the facts. We followed the data. And it works. We have the lowest level of hospitalizations since this nightmare began, 853. Amen. We had the lowest three-day average death total. We're down to eight deaths yesterday. We remember the eight in our thoughts and prayers, and we don't want to lose anyone in this state, but you look at where we are compared to where we have been, you remember at one time we had 800 deaths per day. Today we have eight. We do more testing than any state in the United States. We did 46,000 tests yesterday on a Sunday. And the infection rate was 0.8. When you're below 0.1, that's our goal, and 0.8 is lower than it was some points last week. You look at all the different regions, the numbers have been good all across the regions, regions that are opening, going through phased reopenings. The numbers are all constant. You look at New York City. Within New York City we studied the boroughs because there's a wide variance in the infection rate. It tends to be worse in the outer boroughs. But you can follow that day by day, and that's good.

We have a very elaborate tracing system so that when we find a positive case, we trace it back. That has been working very well, because we have found, traced back to clusters of cases. Westchester County graduation, where there was a young man who apparently came up from Florida and attended a graduation that generated 13 cases. There's an aluminum factory in Montgomery, 500 employees, 74 positives. Washington County, a slate quarry, 12 cases that we traced back. Oswego apple factory, 82 cases. This is actually good news. It means the system works. You find a positive, you trace it back, you find the common denominator, and that's how you stop the spread. You look at our curve compared to the rest of the country, you see the rest of the country is going up and we're going down.

As we continue to test, we continue to trace, we have the data, we're continuing on our reopening plan. Phase Four is ready for Western New York tomorrow. So, we're excited about that. In New York City, we have complications that we are studying now. New York City's currently Phase Two. Phase Three will begin on Monday. But there are issues we have to think through. One is there's a lack of compliance with social distancing in New York City. You can see it in pictures. You can see it if you walk down the street. You can see the crowds in front of bars. You can see the crowds on street corners. It is undeniable. That is partially the responsibility of citizens not to do it. It's also the responsibility of the local governments to enforce compliance. We ask everyone to comply, but we ask the local governments to enforce the compliance. I've said from the very outset of this to all the county executives, all the mayors across the state, look, the state is more than doing it's part. The responsibility for the local governments: help with testing, help with tracing but do the local compliance of the socially distance and mask wearing. That is a complication in New York City. 

The other complication is the spread across the nation is also problematic for us. We are not a separate country in New York. Some people think we are, but we're really not. We're not an island. People from the other states travel to New York and New York is a hub. If other states have a high infection rate probability is they're going to wind up increasing the spread and the infection in New York. We learned that the hard way. 

Why did New York have that big spike when we started? Why was New York so different from every other state? Because the virus came from Europe. When the federal government was telling us the virus was in China, it had left China, it went to Europe. We had 3 million people come in from flights from Europe, January, February, March. That's where the virus came from in New York. Likewise, we're bringing the rate down. Other states it's going up. People get on planes in the other states, fly through New York, fly to New York probability is they're going to bring the infection. 

One of the issues we're working on in New York: Indoor dining has shown that it has been problematic. That a virus spreads in closed, indoor areas that have air conditioned systems. We know that indoor dining has been problematic. Outdoor dining has worked very well all across the state, New York City included. The state's going to be reviewing the data and consulting with stake holders in New York City. I've started speaking with restaurant owners, business owners about the risk, reward on indoor dining. We've been speaking with Comptroller Scott Stringer who raises a lot of good points about the risks of indoor dining. Speaker Corey Johnson, the same thing. The Mayor, the same thing. 

I'm talking to business owners about it. We're going through the data, but this is a real issue. Our reopenings have worked very well. We're not going backwards, we're going forwards. Lot of these other states have actually had to go backwards. They started to reopen and they had to stop. But, we want to study this issue primarily New York City on indoor dining and we'll have a final decision by Wednesday so people who operate those types of businesses will know what we're doing. 

The increase in viral spread across the nation is also a problem. Especially in New York City. New York City is where most of the flights come. New York City is where most of the travelers come. We have offered help to any state that is experiencing a spike. We have personnel who know this better than anyone in the United States. We learned it the hard way. We have equipment. We have testing capacity. Any state that needs help, we stand ready. I will never forget how good this country was to New York when we needed help. The door swings both ways in life. Relationships work both ways. 

When I asked for help, we had 30,000 people from across the country, health care professionals, who volunteered to come to New York at our peak. That was an amazing sign of generosity. We don't forget as New Yorkers and we'll be there for other people. 

A few additional announcements: The Video Music Awards are going to be held Sunday, August 30 at Barclays Center. There are air filtration devices— air filters that can actually help with the COVID virus and NASA has studied these. There are HEPA filters, which are High-Efficiency Particulate Air filters that can actually filter out the COVID virus. The COVID virus is 0.1 microns. There are HEPA filters that can filter out 0.01, so any malls that will open in New York— large malls— we will make it mandatory that they have air filtration systems that can filter out the COVID virus. For many of these systems, it depends on what filter you install, called the MERV rating of the filter. But they have different filters that filter out different sized particles, and they have filters that can actually filter out and catch the COVID virus. For large mall re-openings— which we haven't done yet— but we're going to make this mandatory. I would recommend— the state recommends— for all businesses and offices, they explore the potential for their air conditioning/ air filtration system, adding a filter that can filter out the COVID virus. We have been looking at this issue because we look around the country and you're seeing malls, you're seeing air conditioning systems, indoor spaces that have been problematic. And we think this offers promise. 

Also, I'm a Queens boy and I want to remind New Yorkers that fireworks are dangerous and fireworks are illegal. Fireworks are illegal. Some nights in New York City, it sounds like the wild west with all the fireworks going off. I've never heard it like this before. They're disturbing. They bother people. And they are dangerous. And children, people, get hurt every year. It is illegal. You can't do it. It is illegal. And the Police Department needs to enforce the law. But the State Police are going to start a fireworks enforcement detail. We're going to try to prevent the fireworks from coming into the state in the first place before they get distributed. And I want to thank the State Police and the first deputy is here and the colonel is here. The primary supplier for New York State is the State of Pennsylvania. Not the state itself, but fireworks companies within the State of Pennsylvania. And we're going to be focusing on that route for the transmission of the fireworks. We'll also be helping local governments deal with this issue, but I need the local governments in this state to take it seriously. I know there's a lot going on a lot of levels, but this is illegal and it's dangerous, so we have to stop it.

And to the president— because if we're going to turn this around in this nation, it's going to take the White House— and to the president, I say today, if you want to help stop COVID-19, then they should start telling the people of this country the truth. And the truth starts with how large a problem this is and how real a threat COVID is. It's the leadership to stand up and tell the American people, "look at the increase across the country, look at what's happening to this country vis-a-vis the other countries, look how it's hurt the economy, it is a real threat."

And to start simply, the president can do two things. First, sign an Executive Order directing everyone to wear a mask. How we're at this point as a nation and we still haven't done the simple, easy, minimal step of saying you must wear a mask when you're in public. The president doesn't have to pass a piece of legislation, doesn't have to call the Congress, just sign an Executive Order saying wear a mask. We did it two months ago in this state. The other states are just starting to do it now. States that were recalcitrant. Governors that said, "We don't need to do this. Masks don't work." All the political nonsense we heard, now they're doing a 180 and you have the same states now wearing masks. Let the president have the same sense and do that as an Executive Order. Then let the president lead by example and let the president put a mask on it because we know it works. We've proven that it works in the state of New York. The president can still be New York tough and New York smart and united and disciplined and loving. I want to show you one other thing that makes the point.

This - do we know what this is? This is the mountain. What is the tallest mountain in the state of New York? Mount Marcy. This is the mountain that New Yorkers climbed. You know, I keep showing the curve, this is the curve. Factually proportionate. We started on day one and the numbers kept going straight up for 42 days. 42 days, New Yorkers dealt with that increase. Why did we have the spike? How did we get to day one? Because the virus came from Europe and nobody told us it was coming from Europe because the federal government didn't know.

We dealt with it. We paid the price. We dealt with that spike and we climbed right up the mountain. We got smart, New Yorkers stepped up. We wore masks, we socially distanced, we closed down and we stopped the curve. We plateaued. You look at the projections - they all projected that this spike would continue killing tens of thousands more people. New Yorkers came together and they turned the curve. Then we plateaued on day 42 and then we had to reduce the infection rate and that decline went from day 42 to day 111.

This was the trajectory of COVID in our state. We don't want to climb this mountain again. We don't want to climb this mountain again. That's why the phased reopening, staying smart, staying disciplined, and that's why the spread across the country that if that spread comes to New York, we could have to do this all over again. That's why we put in place quarantines, that's why we're offering help to all the other states, that's why we're saying the president has to step up because doing this once in life is enough.

We don't need to climb another mountain. One mountain was enough. We don't want to climb a mountain range. One mountain is enough. We don't want to do it again.

2020-07-01 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, good morning, good morning. Pleasure to be back in New York City. Everybody knows to my right, Melissa DeRosa. To my left, Dr. Howard Zucker, Health Commissioner extraordinaire. Let's talk about where we are today in the state, in the world, in the country, in the cosmos.

Facts: We're in the middle of a national crisis and we have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have dark clouds on the horizon and we've made tremendous progress. We've been through hell and back but this is not over and this can still rear it's ugly head anywhere in this nation and in this state. We're seeing troubling signs across the country that we should be concerned about. And I am concerned about them.

The situation across the country is getting worse, it's not getting better. Thirty-five states now see increasing COVID infection rates. Dr. Fauci, who tends to be a voice of reason, now says he wouldn't be surprised if he sees 100,000 cases a day. All they're doing, all these models are doing, is they're extrapolating from the facts they see today. That's a very important point to understand. I didn't understand it in the beginning. I thought they were projecting like a weather forecast. Weather is nice today, but we project it's going to be bad on Friday.

That's not what these projections do. They say given your numbers today, if you just factor out your spread and rate numbers, this is what's going to happen. They're taking your situation today and they're saying by where you are today, this is what's going to happen. When Dr. Fauci says the case rate could go up to 100,000 per day, he's saying by the current rate of increase, it could go to 100,000 a day. That, my friends, is frightening.

You look at where this country is compared to the European Union, which is the great irony. They had it first. We got it from them and didn't know it - that's the story of New York. They are now on the decline, we're on the incline and they have done a travel ban against us. Think about how ironic that is. They had it, they sent it to us, they dealt with it, we're going up higher and now they ban us. Look at what's going on around this nation. These are facts, it's not editorial comment. Facts.

Texas: Oh, there's no problem. No virus. This is all a Democratic delusion. Oh, the cases are going up that's only because the testing is going up. Really? Then why are more people going into hospitals? People don't go into hospitals unless more people are getting sick. Fact. Arizona. States that were in denial that underestimated the virus. Now, they're all singing a different tune. Now, they're starting to say we better take this seriously. We better start wearing masks. They're going backwards on their reopening plan which is just what we talked about happening.

You were in the room many times. I said if you reopen too fast, what's going to wind up happening is you're going to have to close. Then, that's going to be one of the worst situations. It's going to be worse for the economy, it's going to be worse for people and you're going to lose more people in the meantime. That is exactly what is happening. That is exactly what is happening. States are now having to roll back their reopening plan.

Fact, he buck stops on the President's desk. That is a fact. That's what it means to be the President of the United States. The buck stops on my desk. In this state, the buck stops on my desk. I am the Governor of the State. It stops on my desk. It doesn't just stop on the President's desk because he's the President. This is also the words that came out of his mouth. He was in denial of the COVID virus from day one. "It's just the flu. It's going to go away. It's going to be a miracle. It's not going up. It's only the testing that is going up." He denied the reality of this situation from day one. "Reopen right away, reopen right away. Liberate those states. I had all the demonstrations every day, liberate, liberate, liberate. You are artificially keeping the economy closed. There's no reason." That came from him.

You know what is funny in this country? Sometimes if the President speaks people listen - even if the President is Trump. Sometimes they listen, and those Republican governors listened, and a lot of Republicans listened and won't wear a mask. He's holding rallies, bringing thousands of people together in close quarters, no masks. What signal does that send to the American people? Couldn't be a problem, here's the President of United States bringing thousands of people together, no masks. Can't be a problem. If there was a problem, the President wouldn't do it.

Wrong, buck stops on his desk and it's what came out of his mouth. He denied the reality of the virus. Well, you know what Mr. President, reality wins every time. You don't defeat reality. Denying reality does not defeat reality and he has lived in denial and he has been denying the scientific facts from day one. He has been denying what every health expert in the United States of America was saying. He denied what his own CDC said. His CDC when they first projected this March 13th, said at a minimum, 2 million people would be hospitalized - at a minimum - his CDC.

You know how many 2 million is? The nation only has 900,000 hospital beds and they said 2 million will require hospitalization. Look at what they were saying. The Peter Navarro memo in late January, 1 million could die. He denied it all. Denied his science advisers, denied the CDC, denied Dr. Fauci, denied them all. Reality wins and reality won. And now the country is suffering because of the President, and its time for him to change course. When you're in a hole, stop digging - Will Rogers.

It's time for the President to actually tell the truth. The first thing he can do: Come clean with the American people, admit the threat of this virus. Admit you were wrong. It's not an admission. Everybody knows you were wrong. It doesn't cost you anything. At least have the courage to admit what everybody else already knows: you were wrong. And send a message to this nation that we have to mobilize our citizens, we have to mobilize our government, and we have to start doing something about this. And you want to take one easy step that will send a powerful message? Put a mask on it. Put a mask on it. Next time you're smiling at the camera put a mask on it, Mr. President. It's the best thing he could do.

Meantime, New York State is doing great. On the numbers, we're doing great. But I feel that there are storm clouds on the horizon, you look at our numbers today they're still great. 879 hospitalizations, four straight days on the 900 lowest, five-day average since we started the nightmare. Number of deaths is 11. We don't want to see anyone die, but the highest was 800, and 11 is just about as low as it's ever been. The three-day average on number of deaths, we had 10, 8, 8 and 11. So that's headed in the right direction. We did 56,000 test yesterday positive rate of one 1.1, which is also very good news. You look at all across the regions, the numbers are all solid and the numbers are all steady.

You look even within the city of New York and the numbers are good and the numbers a steady we don't see any red flags anywhere. We have the data fully analyzed every day. Remember, the key to what we are doing is the testing. People talk about that from day one - nobody really did it to the level we're doing it. We just finished 4 million tests in New York. We only have 19 million people in New York. So, it is an extraordinary number of tests, and that's what's been guiding us.

This is extraordinary to me, but I have a weird sense of what's extraordinary. New York State is doing more tests per capita than any nation on the globe. Look at that chart. South Korea, Canada, UK, the rest of the U.S. States, Italy. And look at how many the state of New York is testing per capita. That's the key to our success. If you test, you will find people who are positive. And if you find people who are positive, you then have the tracing in place. You can find out where they got it, you can isolate them, and you reduce the spread. That's how it works - that's what we always said it worked. We just had to make it work, which was the challenge, right? You want to lose weight? Eat less, exercise more. Simple formula. You will lose weight. Caveat: That eating less is hard, that exercising every day, that's a pain in the neck. But you want to manage the COVID virus? Test, trace, masks, social distance. That's the formula. Hard to do. We have 750 testing sites across the current state. Think about setting up 750 testing sites. They never existed before. Hard, but we did it.

We're now expanding our testing criteria. We have so increased our testing capacity that we can expand our testing criteria. We prioritize testing criteria in the beginning, if you remember people who were exposed to a positive person, people who were essential workers, people who are in nursing homes - we prioritized them. We never put members of the press on the priority list. Nothing personal. We're now opening testing to all New Yorkers. We have that much capacity. All New Yorkers can now go get a test, and what I'm saying to a New Yorkers today is, "Go get a test. It doesn't cost you anything. It doesn't hurt. I did a test - I've done a number of tests, I did a test on TV. I didn't flinch. I cried afterwards, but on TV, I didn't flinch." It doesn't hurt. Take a test. And it's now open to everyone.

Capital Region enters Phase Four today. New York City, we have new problems. These are the storm clouds I was talking about. What we have done from day one is we've been smart about what we did in handling COVID. What does that mean? It means we didn't get political, we didn't get emotional, we didn't get hysterical, we didn't panic. We were smart. We did what we had to do, testing, tracing, et cetera. And also, we anticipated future issues, right. If you're only dealing with the issue you have in front of you, you're going to lose. You have to anticipate the issue coming down the pike. And you have to get ahead of it.

In the beginning I was always saying this virus has been ahead of us, and we're reacting, we're always reacting to the virus. The virus did this, now we have to scramble, the virus did this, now we have to scramble. You never win that way. You have to get ahead of the virus. So what we now do is we anticipate what could happen and anticipate the issue before it happens. In hockey they talk about, ice hockey, they talk about don't skate to where the puck is, skate to where the puck is going to be, right. Anticipate and get ahead of it. That's what we've been doing with the COVID virus. Factor forward, what's going to happen, how do we get there. Stay ahead of the virus. And we have to stay ahead of the virus.

Citizen compliance is slipping. That is a fact. That is a fact. Look at pictures. Look at any street in Manhattan. Go to the east village, go to the west side, go to Brooklyn, go to Queens, go to the Bronx. Citizen compliance is slipping. I get it, I understand it. Been inside a long time, the weather's warm, I miss my friends, governor says everything's good, governor says everything's good. I bring a mask, I don't really wear it. I do that chin move, you know the chin move, feel good that I have my mask, doesn't do anything. I get why the compliance is slipping, but it is a very real problem. Even if you are young people, and even if the compliance is slipping among young people, young people can get sick. Look around the country, look at the places where young people are getting sick, and they're now sitting in ICU beds. That was old information and bad information that young people don't get sick. And, young people can infect older people, inadvertently. You can go home, see an aunt, see your parents. You can walk past someone, have a conversation. You infect older people, older people can die. That's what we're talking about. So even if you want to risk your own young life because you believe you're immune and you're a superhero, why would you risk someone else's life? That's a problem.

Second problem, government is supposed to be enforcing compliance. That is the governmental role. And that is not happening to a sufficient basis. I have said from day one, we have been clear from day one. Local governments don't have any legal authority to determine opening, reopening, of schools, businesses, restaurants, offices. That's not what the local governments do. That's a function of state government. All the openings and all the reopenings. They're done all by the state government. Every county in the State of New York, every city in the State of New York. That's my job.

Their job, local government's job, testing, tracing, enforcement of compliance. That is their main job. I take all the abuse for the opening and reopening: too slow, too fast. I don't have a problem with that. They had one job. Testing, tracing and enforce the compliance. They must do it. If you have citizen compliance dropping, and you don't have local governments enforcing— then you're going to see the virus go up. Period. One plus one equals two. One plus one equals two. And you see it. If you open your eyes, you see the citizen compliance slipping. You see government compliance not correcting it. What's going to happen? The virus is going to spread. It's that simple; it's that clear. That is the reality. The virus spreads— we're back to the mountain. Some of you weren't here yesterday. I'm going to bring my mountain back just to remind you of what happens. I left the mountain in Albany. My bad. I'm bringing the mountain back.

Citizens slip, local government doesn't comply— we're back to the mountain. That is what's going to happen and that is an arguable fact. The state's going to create its own enforcement capacity to supplement the local government's enforcement, but I do not have the resources, the personnel to do this statewide. We have State Police, we have health inspectors, we have state and local authority— but there are 500 police departments in this state. 500 police departments. I cannot supplement 500 police departments, so the local governments have to do their job.

Second problem, second storm cloud: we know the virus is increasing. We have 16 states that are now quarantined from New York. Last week it was only eight. Now it's 16. We don't pick the states. We have a rate of infection. And if a state is above that rate of infection, then they're quarantined. Sixteen states. That's how fast the infection is spreading. Chances are, whatever we do, people from those 16 states are going to make their way here. And that's how we got infected the first time. We got infected from people coming from Europe through our airports. Now we can get infected from people coming from Florida, Arizona, other states through our airports. Our infection rate is low— we know that. How does it go up? People come in from the outside or we start to get lack of discipline on the inside.

Phase Three dining, we are going to postpone. And it's going to be postponed until the facts change and it is prudent to open. But the facts have to change. Because at this point, it isn't prudent. Everything else is going to continue. Everything else is continuing all across the state. This is a New York City-only modification because frankly, it's a problem that is most pronounced in New York City. 

The Capital Region today goes to phase four. All the numbers are good across the state, but we do have a problem in New York City. And again, it's partially the other states going up and we're worried about that. And it's partially lack of citizen compliance and lack of local government compliance enforcement. I've asked the people to do it 157 times. I understand they're getting bored. I've told government that is their job. And I've told them "do your job." If they don't— those two things happen— the virus goes up, period. We're also urging people to wear masks. We have a number of national franchises agreeing to have their stores wear masks in the states where it's appropriate. So this is not just a New York thing: "wear a mask." We were the most aggressive on masks; we were the first on masks. California just went the masks like last week, believe it or not. So, we did it right and these national manufactures and now joining with us.

We've been following the facts and following the data and it's working. We did the impossible. We went from worst infection rate in the United States to best infection rate in the United States. Isn't it amazing what New Yorkers did? I mean, it's really incredible when you think about it. And we have offered our help to states across the nation who may need it. Stay New York, tough, smart, united, disciplined. Most of all, loving. Loving.

2020-07-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Nice to see your socially distanced faces. Beautiful day in New York City. Let's talk about where we are today. Day 128. Everybody knows Melissa DeRosa to my right, Secretary to the Governor. Gareth Rhodes to my left, Deputy Superintendent, Special Counsel at Department of Financial Services and he's been working on the COVID crisis for 128 days.

Total number of hospitalizations, 817. That is the lowest number since March 18. That is very good news. We have the 5-day results by region and all the regions are performing well. You see a little blip up, a little blip down day-to-day. That's really not a concern. You want watch the rolling average which is all good. Also, the numbers we get on Sunday are always a little bit skewed for some reason but that's been going on since we started. You look within New York City, again you see the variance among different boroughs. The numbers are all good, so that's good.

Best news are number of lives lost and we're down to 9. It's unimaginable at one time, that we would be this slow. Obviously, you don't even want to see 9. You don't want 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. But this is great, great news. The rolling average for number of lives lost is 9 yesterday. We did 54,000 tests yesterday. On average we do about 60,000 tests per day - the highest testing rate in the nation - .95 positive. We normally run about 1.1, 1.2, somewhere in that range, so that's all good.

What does this mean? What it means is since we started reopening, which was May 15, we started our phased reopenings. The numbers have actually declined since we started reopening. You see that gold line under May 15. That's where we were when we started reopening. Every expert warned us on the reopening that you could see the numbers start to go up because you're increasing activity. Our premise was, you could moderate the activity so you could start the reopening, but monitor the number of cases and control the phased reopening to keep the number of cases down.

That's just what we've done for the past 7 weeks. We're actually down from where we were when we started reopening which, as you remember, no one predicted. The question was when you start reopening activity will go up, number of cases will go up. Can you control the increase? That was the question. We haven't needed to control the increase, we've actually had a slight decline and now we're basically running flat and that is great news. That is really great news.

It's what we said from day one with my great graphic that nobody liked at the time I originally did it and nobody still likes, but I like it, so sometimes it's nice to be Governor. You have a valve: Control the activity and watch, monitor the valves to see if the infection rate is going up, the hospitalization rate is going up and keep your hand on the valve. If you see it start to go up, slow down the valve. If you don't see the numbers going up, then you can open up the economic activity valve.

That's what we've been doing and that's what you see with these little corrections. New York City goes into Phase Three, but no indoor dining. We have the phases and then we have certain adjustments that we make to the phases. The numbers show you that we are right where we want to be. New York City goes into Phase Three today, no indoor dining. There are rules on Phase Three - it doesn't mean go out and have a party. We have 50 percent occupancy for personal care services. You have to wear face coverings, customers must wear face coverings, 6-foot distance. Prohibited services that require the removal of face coverings, such as facials, you can't get a facial. I did that against my own self-interest. I was supposed to get a facial today. Closed the waiting rooms. Employees providing services must be tested every 14 days. There are rules.

Tomorrow is Phase Four for Westchester, Rockland, Hudson Valley. Long Island is on track for Phase Four on Wednesday. Their numbers are all good. School reopenings, just to make sure there's no confusion. There's 700 school districts in the State. The State has directed all 700 school districts to come up with a plan on how they would reopen. There's two levels of discussion: Should they reopen and then if they reopen what does a reopened school look like in the quote, unquote new normal? We've asked every school district to come up with a plan on what reopening would look like in your district.

New York City is coming up with a plan, presumed to that request, on what it would look like to reopen the New York City school system in September. There has been no decision yet as to whether or not we are reopening schools. We obviously very much would like to. Nobody even knows the effect that this is going to have on students, socialization of young students, et cetera. We want kids back in school for a number of reasons, but we're not going to say children should go back to school until we know it's safe. We have some time. This is a very fluid situation. When we get the data we will make a decision. In the meantime, I am telling all school districts to come up with a reopening plan.

We don't yet know if we are going to reopen and we'll follow the data and we'll make a decision on the data. The Department of Health is also working on this. Every school district is coming up with a plan to reopen, that doesn't mean they are reopening. Nuance sometimes is important. Not often, but sometimes it is.

On casinos and movie theaters, we're still looking at the data, but for now they're going to be closed. We are not going to open the State Fair in Syracuse. This is a really tough one. Fairs all across the nation are not reopening. We have a fantastic State Fair in Syracuse. We've invested a lot of money. We've had record attendance, 1.3 million people last year, we broke the attendance record. We invested money, we redid the whole State Fair. We built a new expo center, 110,000 square feet, it's really amazing. It's been an economic boon for the whole region. This year we're going to have to cancel it and that makes me personally very unhappy, but that is where we are.

On the COVID transmission, following the facts, the facts and changing as they learn more about this virus. There's less concerned about surface area transmission, more data that it is primarily an airborne transmission. That then raises the question of what can we do with air filtration technology. In here this is an air conditioned building, it's bring air up into the HVAC system, it then runs through the HVAC system and gets recirculated. What kind of filtration can you have on the HVAC system that may be capable of catching the virus as it's attached to the droplets?

There are filters that systems install - HEPA filters are one of them - and then a series of filters that are rated by the Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value - MERV value. And the most dense filters can actually filter out the virus, which is remarkable and interesting. Nothing is simple with this virus. It depends on the air conditioning system you have whether or not it can take one of these higher filters and still operate. And different systems take different filters. And we're working through that now. We're spending time on it because I think there's a real possibility that we could actually have a positive contribution here. And different HVAC systems have different capacities, but we're working through this now because if there is a way to filter the air and there's a way to get COVID out of the air, then we want to do that. And if we can do that without an exorbitant expense for existing HVAC systems it's something we have to look at. So we're in the midst of that now and as soon as we know something we will make it public.

New Yorkers did the impossible. We went from the worst infection rate in the United States to the best infection rate in the United States. I like to say that we crossed the mountain. There's the mountain. We don't want to have the challenge of crossing a mountain range, right? One mountain was enough. The last thing we need is to see this virus spike again, and there are two threats in that area. One - New Yorkers getting complacent. 'This is great, New York's doing great, the numbers are down. I heard the Governor, he said everything is great.' We get complacent, we get cocky, we get a little arrogant. That is a real threat and it's a threat that I'm concerned about. You look at the festivities over July 4th, you see gatherings that are not socially distanced, they're not wearing masks. You see it in Manhattan, you see it on Fire Island.

There are reports Upstate of gatherings where people aren't socially distanced and people aren't wearing masks. You know, I don't know how else to say it: Actions have consequences. Our success was a function of our action. You change your action, you change your behavior, you are going to change the outcome. It is that simple. That curve was purely a function of what we did. If we change what we're doing, you're going to change the trajectory of the virus. I understand people are fatigued. We've been doing this for 128 days. I get it, but it doesn't change the facts and we have to stay smart. I need, we need, every person in the state needs the local governments to enforce the law. And I talk to local governments about this all the time. Mayors, county executives, et cetera and I'm going to have another round of conversations today.

I understand that it is not politically pleasant to enforce the mask law or the gathering law or the socially distanced law. I get it. I get that politically, it's difficult for the local governments to do it. But it is the law. And if we don't do it, there's going to be a serious problem. It's not a local government law. It's a state law, so I get the politics and I said to them, "I have no problem taking responsibility. Mr. Mayor, tell your police when they go out to enforce the law. They can say, 'Don't blame the Mayor. It's the Governor. Blame Governor Cuomo.' County Executive, tell your police when they hand out a summons, say, 'This is not a county law. It's a state law. Blame the Governor.'" I don't have a problem with that, but they have to enforce the law. We do not have a state police department that is a large enough to enforce the law in the entire State of New York. That's why we have local police agencies, but they have to do their job and they have to enforce the law and the law is clear. And I want to be difficult or unnecessarily difficult but I'm telling you, if we don't follow these behaviors, the numbers are going to go up. It's that simple.

The second threat is you now have 38 states in this country with an increasing virus rate of infection. It's only getting worse. It's not getting better. You look at states like Texas, you look at Arizona, you look at those curves. I mean we know those curves. We've seen them. We've been there, done that. This is a frightening situation across this country. Look at California, look at the look at the curve on California. We've been here. We've seen this. Déjà vu all over again. AJ Parkinson said that. No? Will Rogers said that. Just seeing if you're paying attention. I know it's a Monday morning, you're a little sleepy. Will Rogers did not say it. Yogi Bear said it. Two points, but it's déjà vu all over again.

This is how the virus came to New York in the first place. It got on a plane in Europe and it landed at JFK and Newark and that's why we had the spike. Nobody knew it at the time. Everybody was saying China virus- the China virus had gotten on a plane, went to Europe and then it came here from Europe. Three million people got on planes and landed in New York in January, February, and March. That's how we had the problem we had. Now you're going to see people getting on planes from the 38 states in this nation where the virus is going up going to land at JFK, Newark, et cetera. You know an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. That's the new mentality we have to have.

We can't protect ourselves as an island, because we're not. We have people coming in and out all day long. And when you have these spikes in China and Europe - that's how it happened the first time - now people can come from Florida or anywhere else. We are already seeing it. We have had significant clusters where people came from out-of-state. They came in, they attended a function, by the next day we have an increase in the infections. We're doing so many tests and so many tracings that we can trace it back to patient zero and they're very often from out-of-state. We have downstate, we have it upstate - it is inevitable. So yes, New Yorkers have to be smart, but we also have a problem that if the virus is increasing anywhere it's going to travel here and then we're going to have a problem. 

Denying COVID is really advancing the COVID virus. I know this is a politically charged environment right now and somehow COVID has become a political issue which, I've never heard of those virus becoming political but in this environment that has, but if you deny the problem then you will never solve it. We're not the United States of Denial we have never been a nation that is excelled because we refused to admit the problem. We admit the problem and then we overcome the problem if we do not, as a nation, acknowledge the COVID viral increase, it is going to continue. Those upward numbers don't change on their own. They only change when you change them. That number keeps going up unless you bend the curve. The bend doesn't happen naturally.

The bend happens when people change their behavior and actually reduce the transmission rate. So, you look at those numbers in those states, those upticks are just going to continue. That mountain - that didn't just plateau because God said to plateau. It plateaued because we did masks, and social distancing, and closed down and all those activities, and testing, and tracing. That's how we bent the curve. If we are in a state of denial, you're going to see that curve continue to go up. Now, how do you bend the curve? We know how to bend the curve because we did it. You have to be aware of it. You have to admit it and you then have to take action and you have to be committed to it. And it starts at the top with leadership.

The President said over this weekend, "if we didn't test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases." Think about that for a second. What he's really saying is if we didn't test, we wouldn't find the cases. And if we didn't find the cases, we wouldn't have a problem. That's incredible, but that's what he is saying. So, let's just extend that logic. 

If we don't test, then we won't know. And if you don't know, then you have no problem. It's a great way to go through life, isn't it? So, on that theory— let's do no more cancer tests and that will solve the problem with cancer. No more mammograms because we don't want to know and that will solve breast cancer. No more prostate checks. That will solve prostate cancer. No more TB checks. That will end TB. No more HIV tests and that will solve the AIDS issue.

No. Not knowing doesn't mean you don't have a problem. And in this case, if you do not admit it and if you don't confront it— it is only going to increase. We know it has to be done because we lived it here and we did it here. To bend the curve, yes— you have to test. Yes, you have to trace. Yes, you have to isolate. Yes, you have to phase the reopening and you have to socially distance. But by the way, phasing the reopening is better than reopening recklessly where you have the states, "Okay, we're reopen." Everybody comes out, the virus goes up, the stock market goes down and now the states are saying, "we have to close again." A phased reopening is better than reopening and closing. That is not just a premise. It's been proven by the past experience. Look at the states that reopened recklessly and are now closing again. Who did that help? It actually set us back. 

So, Mr. President. Don't be a co-conspirator of COVID. Do one simple thing: acknowledge to the American people that COVID exists. It is a major problem. It's going to continue until we admit it and each of us stands up to do our part. If he does not acknowledge that, then he is facilitating the virus. He is enabling the virus. How did this become a political statement? This is common sense and let the president start by sending that signal very simply: just wear the mask. I've been asking him to do it for weeks. Just wear the mask, and say to the American people, "this is real and it's a problem and we have to do our part." We started masks April 15. First state in the nation to start masks. They make a difference. July 4: true patriots wear masks. True patriots are New York tough and smart and united and disciplined and loving.

2020-07-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Pleasure to see all these smiling faces, all these masks. To my right is Ms. Melissa Derosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my left is Dr. James Malatras, intellectual superpower who has been helping us all through this.

Let’s talk about where we are today. Today is day 130. Feels like just yesterday that we started with COVID. No, it doesn’t. We have good news, bad news, just like every other day of the past 130 days. We will start with the good news, because we are glass half full kind of people, right, Marcia? The good news is, number of hospitalizations is 841. Number of intubations is 97. It’s the first time it’s been under 100, and it is the first time it’s been this low since March 16. Intubations have been a bed indicator. The number of people who once intubated, once they were intubated actually come off the intubator is very low, but 80% of the people who are intubated don’t survive, so the fact that this number is down is very positive.

All the numbers are where they should be, and you can look at them by region. Within a region, you can look at them by county. You see some slight variances among the counties, which we have been seeing, and we’ve been watching, and you get a little uptick, a little downtick, but they’re basically all in good shape. Number of lives lost: 11, and it’s been about that level for the past week or so, and that’s also good news. That you can be at a place where you lose 11 people and you say, “That’s good news,” is, welcome to our new reality. Our thoughts and prayers are with those 11, but relative to where we were, that’s very, very good news. The rolling average, three day average is 10. We did 57,000 tests yesterday. No state tests more than New York tests. I don’t believe this country, that per capita tests more than New York tests. So we get the information, and the information can then lead us. If we have a problem, we see a problem, and then we can attack the problem. 1.2% positive on the 57, 000 tests yesterday. Long Island enters phase four, which is the final phase, today. We’re excited about that, but as I’ve said every day for the past 130 days, we’re making progress because we’re acting smart and we have to continue to act smart, because if we don’t act smart, you’ll see those numbers change quickly.

Bad news is everything around us, frankly. Tale of Two Cities, our father’s speech. We now have tale of two different kinds of states. 36 states are seeing an increase in the COVID infection rate. That is the bad news. Now, the federal government still insists on perpetuating myths, and the federal government says, “Well, the cases are going up because we are testing more.” That makes no sense whatsoever, and the American people are smart. You’re not going to fool them. You’re not going to calm them. Hospitalizations are going up. That is the indicator. People do not go into a hospital unless they are sick. Nobody goes into a hospital for a vacation. Hospital won’t keep you if you’re well, and you’re just going there for a respite. The hospitalizations are going up because more people are getting sick, and that is undeniable, and you see it in states all across the country. You look at the numbers in Texas, they’re afraid they’re running out of hospital beds. Florida, you’re seeing a tremendous spike there. Some hospitals, they’re out of ICU beds, which is a really frightening situation to be in.

We’ve offered help to all these states, whatever they need. Florida has said that they might need some assistance from us. Whatever they need, we will provide. But you see the same story all across these states. Now, it’s bad news for them. It’s bad news for us as Americans. It’s also bad news because it threatens our situation. We understand this because we’ve lived this already. We had that spike because the virus went from China to Europe, and we now understand that the planet is small, and a virus anywhere has to be considered a virus everywhere. “Well, it’s only in China. It’s only in Italy. It’s only in Spain.” Yes, until it gets on a plane, and then in our backyard, which is exactly what happened. January, February, March, three million people came from Europe and they brought the virus, and that’s why New York had the spike that we had.

We are expanding the list of states that are quarantined. New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York are acting in unison. We have a formula where if a state is above a certain infection rate, then it is on a quarantine list, and three more states are now over that threshold because the infection numbers in these states are increasing. Total is 19. The airlines have agreed to hand out forms on the flights coming into New York, where on that form it will ask you where you’re coming from, where are you staying, and we need you to quarantine.

New York, New Yorkers know, New York State has proven two things as a fact. We know what works and we know what doesn’t work, right? We have results in New York. We’ve lived this. We were the laboratory, and we know that smart, data driven approach worked. We brought down the curve. New Yorkers did it. We’re now in reopening, different regions in different phases, but you have numbers. You have proof. You don’t have to guess. It’s no longer a question of theory. “I think this. I believe this. Well, maybe this.” Look at the results. Look at the numbers.

This chart, United States is the red line, and that red line is going up. Look at the lines on the bottom. That’s EU, that’s Canada, that’s Australia. They are all down and basically flat, so the infection is not increasing. And then compare that to New York. New York, we were higher than any of them. We had a situation that none of them had, because that virus came from Europe and nobody told us, we had that initial spike. We had to get the spike down. Those other locations just had to make sure the infection rate didn’t increase. We had an added burden. We had to first bring down the infection rate, which we did, and then we had to keep it down, which we are doing.

None of those other countries started where we started. Nowhere near it. The country didn’t start where we started. We were ambushed by the virus. Federal government didn’t track it, didn’t know it, didn’t tell us, but we’ve shown what you can do, and that is proof positive of what works, and we’re continuing to do that. Following the data, following the facts, which informs our reopening.

All county fairs will be canceled. We canceled the State Fair, which is a really beautiful annual event, but we canceled that last week, and we’re also going to be canceling county fairs. We’ve had a lot of consultation. I’ve done work on air filtration. There are air filtration systems that can take COVID out of the air. There then winds up a series of questions. What filters work on what HVAC systems? But the filters are rated, the HVAC systems are rated by what they call a MERV rating, so what we’re saying is the best filter we would like to see installed is what’s called a MERV 13. It goes to the density of the filter and what it can actually filter out. MERV 13 filters out the COVID virus. Some systems can’t take MERV 13, so it’s either 13, 12, or 11, but one of those three filters, and then we have ventilation protocols. And the mall reopening date is July 10, in phase four.

On schools, we are, and we have been consulting all stakeholders on guidance, on how a school would reopen in September. We have 700 school districts in this state. They range from rural districts to urban districts, suburban districts. Localities are very involved in their schools and school decisions, so we have been meeting with them. Jim is on a commission that talks to the different districts and their representatives about reopening. We’ll have finalized guidance pursuant to those conversations on July 13. On July 31, local school districts will submit their plans on how they would reopen, what their precautions will be. If they want to have a phased reopening, if they want to have a partial reopening. Those plans would come in on July 31.

August 1 to 7, the state will announce the decision on whether or not those schools reopen. We want to make that decision with the best available data. The facts change here day to day, week to week. I understand there’s a drop dead date, where you have to make the decision by a certain date, but wait until that date to make a decision, because the facts may change. As we see, a week can be a lifetime with this COVID virus, because everything changes so quickly. The schools say they need a decision made by the end of the first week in August so they can then turn on the switches and get everything ready for September, and we’ll look at the data in that first week, and then we’ll make the decision.

I heard the President speak yesterday and what he was tweeting about today on schools. And look, this is getting a little old, as far as I’m concerned. And I heard what the President said on schools, but this is been there, done that, right? School reopenings are a state decision, period. That is the law, and that is the way we’re going to proceed. It’s not up to the President of the United States. There is something called the Constitution that guides government power, and then there are a series of laws that are based on that Constitution. And the President does not have the authority to open schools. We will open the schools if it is safe to open the schools.

Everybody wants the schools open. Everybody. Nobody wants the schools open more than I do. School reopening also ties to the economic reopening, right? Because you can’t really reopen the economy fully if you have the schools closed. Schools are important, not just education, socialization of young people. We don’t even know what this means, to have kids who are out of school for this period of time. So yes, we all want to open schools, but we want it to be safe, and the tests that I bring to all of these things, day camps, overnight camps, is my child test. I am not going to ask anyone to put their child in a situation that I would not put my child, and that’s how I make these decisions. If it’s not safe for my child, it’s not safe for your child. So we’ll get the data and we’ll make that decision in August. But just to be clear, the federal government has no legal authority when it comes to school openings, and this is just a redux of what the President did on the economic reopening. If you remember, he didn’t want to have anything to do with the closing of the economies. He said, the governors should do that. Governors will decide if an economy closes. But then the president declared, I have the authority to reopen the economies and I’m going to order a reopening of the economies.”” No, not true, Mr. President. It’s not what the constitution says. I made that point and then the president said, “Okay, it’s not up to me. It’s up to the governors.” The same is true on education. He wants the schools reopened. It’s not up to him. It’s not up to him. It’s not his legal authority, just like it wasn’t his legal authority to say he’s going to decide when the economy reopens in this state. And this is a redux because he poses a false choice and he’s posed a false choice that is one of the reasons this nation is now in the situation that it’s in.

On the economy he said, it’s a choice between the economy and public health. And he chose the economy and said to states all across this nation reopen the economy right away. We have to get the economy running and that’s what we have to do. It was never a choice between reopen the economy or take care of public health. It was never a choice between reopen the economy or have more Americans die. That was never the choice. And the states that made that choice are the states that are now suffering. It was of course reopened, but reopen the economy and be smart about the way you’re reopening. It wasn’t binary. It wasn’t just open the flood gates, everybody go out, no precautions, no data, no monitoring. And then you’re shocked when you see the infection rate going through the roof.

Everybody warned him. Everyone said, if you just reopen, you’re going to drive that infection rate up and then it’s actually going to hurt the economy. And that is what happened. His premise is now the same thing with the schools. Open those schools, open those doors. His own CDC puts out guidance on a semi intelligent way to reopen the schools. He then says, don’t listen to the CDC. I disagree with them. Oh, really. Do you know, Mr. President, better than your health experts how to protect the health of students? Do you really want to disregard children’s safety? Do you really mean that when you say that? And it’s not a choice of open the schools or not open the schools. Of course, open the schools, just like everybody wanted to open the economy, but be smart about it. Look at the health guidance, make sure children are protected, have precautions, do the testing, monitor what happens. This has been the story throughout this COVID crisis. New York has proven what works. There’s no theory here. There’s 19 million people. We had the worst situation on the globe and we took certain steps and we know what works because it has been proven in the laboratory called New York and you cannot deny the results. Testing worked. How did we get into a situation where these other states don’t have testing in place? It’s been seven months, seven months we’ve been talking about this and you have states where people are waiting on line, eight hours lines, miles long to get testing. We talked about overwhelming the hospital capacity. We talked about ventilators. We talked about emergency hospital beds. We talked about that when this first started, and now you have states that are saying their ICU beds are filled. Yes. If the infection rate goes through the roof, you’re going to overwhelm your hospital system. We talked about this months ago.

We talked about having contact tracing in place and other States saying they don’t have contact tracing in place, they can’t get it together. States are running out of PPE. We talked about PPE six months ago and planes going to China to pick up masks. We talked about having a phased reopening based on data, monitor. And when you see the data says, it’s safe, open up a little bit more, do the calibration. And we talked about masks. New York State, first state in the United States to mandate masks. Look at the numbers. The projection model that the White House uses, the Gates funded IHME model shows extrapolating from this now increased infection rate, an additional 15,000 Americans die by October. An additional 15,000 Americans die than they had projected. Well, what changed? The spike in the infection rate changed so when they extrapolate out based on the infection rate increase another 15,000 Americans die.

Wear a mask. IHME says 45,000 more people will die if they don’t wear masks. Think about this. If a mask order is not in place, 45,000 more deaths. You’re not going to save everyone’s life, I get it. I struggled with it for 130 days, but how can you lose a life when it was totally preventable? Totally preventable. All you had to do was have a mask policy and you save 45,000 people’s lives. Why on God’s green earth wouldn’t you have a mask policy when they are telling you that it works and that if you don’t do it, 45,000 more people will die? What has happened to basic common sense in our government leaders? Why wouldn’t you? What is it, hubris? That you were against masks and you made them a political symbol. So now you’re going to let 45,000 more people die.

Look, leadership starts at the top, sign an executive order, wear a mask, follow the science, follow the data, stop dividing people, stop playing politics, inspire the nation to act as one. I wear a mask for you. You wear a mask for me. That’s what you’re supposed to do as president. That’s what you’re supposed to do as a leader. And this is not about politics. It’s not about who gets elected and who doesn’t get elected. This is far more important, this point in history. When they look back at this point in history, the decisions we make will determine how many people live and how many people die. And that is not being overly dramatic. And that’s not being rhetorical.

These decisions decide how many people live and how many die, period. And that’s why this is more important than any other time that I have been in public service in any other position. Never was it as clear the consequence of government’s actions. Never was it as clear how important government is and public services and the decisions that are made. You’re talking about thousands of people’s lives, tens of thousands of lives. That’s why thank God we’re in a state that is New York or New York tough and smart and united and disciplined and loving.

2020-07-13 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everyone. It’s our pleasure to be here this morning in New York City. To my left, we have Dr. James Malatras. He’s been working on, among other things, the school reopening plan. He’s here to talk to us about that today. To my right, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To her right, Rick Cotton, who is the head of the Port Authority. He’s been doing an extraordinary job overall building LaGuardia Airport, first new airport in the United States in 25 years. Re-doing John F. Kennedy Airport. Then if that wasn’t enough, he had to deal with something called COVID, which obviously, impacted the airports. We are so lucky to have him and I want to thank him very much for everything he’s been doing.

This morning, we’re going to be joined by Mayor Bottoms, Mayor of Atlanta, she’s going to join us this morning.

Good morning, how are you, Mayor? I don’t know if we can hear her.

Mayor Bottoms, we’ve been watching you. We’re your neighbors to the North. We’ve been watching you and what you’ve been going through. First, I hope you’re feeling well and I hope your family is feeling well. On top of everything, you have to be dealing with the COVID virus yourself, then you have your hands more than full there. Not only with the COVID virus but the virus of racism and division and what was going on with Mr. Brooks. We just want to tell you, on behalf of New Yorkers, after what we’ve gone through that you are exactly right, Mayor; what you are saying and what you are advocating.

It is no longer a question of theory or a question of politics, we have facts. We have data. We went through it here in New York. We went through it in a worst case scenario. It is about following the data and following the science and taking the precautions and doing what’s right. It is about masks. Masks work. We can tell you that here in New York.

We had the worst spike per capita on the globe and we brought it down. Now you see these other states are going higher than New York. Those masks work. We were the first state to start mandatory masks April 15. All the science now says for sure masks make a big difference. One of the models last week, the IHME model, the Gates funded model that the White House uses, actually projected 40,000 more Americans will die if we don’t have a national mask policy. It’s clear.

We just wanted to tell you that we feel for you. We are all one. We are one community. I applaud your leadership. You really get to see what an elected official is made of when the pressure is on and you have more than risen to the occasion. You’ve been inspiring. They refer to you as a rising star and they are all correct. We are with you.

Anything we can do for you, for the city, we stand ready. We remember how good the people across this country were to us. When we were in the midst of it, I asked for volunteers from across the United States: nurses, doctors to come help in our hospitals. Thirty thousand people volunteered to come to New York in the midst of it and work in our hospitals. It was such an act of generosity and love that was really touching.

We are here for you. The concept of paying it forward – whatever we can do on any level. We have people who have been through this and actually know and we stand ready. You’re right, keep going, stay strong. The facts will bear out. It’s about saving lives and you’re doing exactly the right thing. The numbers are going to show that.

Thank you for taking some time to be with us today. Mayor?

Mayor Bottoms: At the beginning of this pandemic, my charge to my team was simple: God bless the child whose got his own. I had no idea that we would have to go it alone in so many ways. I thought that it was more geared toward the lack of leadership we have at the federal level, but it has been equally challenging at the statewide level.

My family is an example of what’s happening across this country. We had an asymptomatic child in our home for 8 days before we knew that that child was asymptomatic and by that time, my husband and I had contracted COVID. Unnecessarily I would imagine, because we would have taken precautions to protect ourselves.

Thankfully, by the grace of God, we don’t have underlying health conditions and we are all on the mend. My husband is feeling a lot better, but for so many people across this country that is not their story and their outcome is so very different.

In Atlanta, when we saw that we were in a very different place than the governor’s leadership was taking us, we convened an advisory committee in our city compromised of health experts, small business owners, Fortune 500 representatives, college and universities – it’s just really a representation of our community. They made some very clear recommendations of where we needed to go with reopening with a phased approach.

We had made it into the second phase, but given where we are, I see that capacity is maxed out in some hospitals by the day we’re getting closer to maxing out. The numbers are ticking up. I look at the numbers daily. I have seen numbers that I have not seen since April. As of yesterday afternoon, we were up almost 23 percent over a week period of time. We’re headed in the wrong direction. ?So the city, we've recommended we go back to phase one, which is essentially a stay at home order. Also, we've instituted a mask mandate. The benefit of that is one – us taking a very clear position as a city that we recognize that wearing masks helps save lives, but also even in the world’s busiest airport - Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport – one of our largest job centers, we can also mandate masks there as well.

And it's very simple, unless we have a coordinated approach across this country we are going to continue to unnecessarily watch people die. And what makes it even more frustrating and even more disappointing, we didn't have to look to Italy, we could look to New York, and you told us very clearly that if we didn't do things differently in our cities and states we will find ourselves in the same situation that New York was facing, and unfortunately you were correct because throughout the south especially we are getting there in rapid order.

And so I thank you for your leadership. I know that as a city, in the same way New York was able to get to the other side, I know that we will get to the other side but it is going to take us taking responsibility for ourselves and taking actions that look at data and science and not just our opinions.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, Mayor. And you're right, the unfortunate and really frustrating point here is why did other states have to go through this? I mean, we knew what we were dealing with, New York went down the path before, we lived exactly this. Just learn from what New York did, learn from the numbers, learn from the data. And we knew that if you reopen recklessly the virus was going to take off again. If you're not doing pre-cautions the virus was going to take off. Now New York's problem is we have the infection coming from other states back to New York. We’re worried about our infection rate going up because of people coming from other states where the infection rate is higher.

We have a cluster of cases in an upstate county called Rensselaer - people came up from Georgia, they had the virus and they infected New York and then it took off. So, you are on exactly the right track. Anything we can do to help, we’re at a stable period now, we have the virus way down low. We went from the worst infection rate in the country to the best infection rate the lowest. So, we have a little breathing space here, anything we can do for you that you need, any help on the testing, setting up the testing and the tracing, that is so, so important. And we've been through that, so you have an open offer, whatever you need, but we're also 100 percent behind you. And we wish you Godspeed in your health recovering and we hope that Atlanta under your guidance comes back quickly and anything we can do we stand ready.

Mayor Bottoms: Thank you Governor, and that’s exactly what we need assistance with. Testing that gets people results very quickly, and also the contact tracing because we know that’s extremely important for us to help slow the spread. So I appreciate your offer to help and we certainly would be appreciative of that assistance.

Governor Cuomo: Well we can do that. We have, I’ll arrange it with your team, but we'll put people who've done the testing for us and the contact tracing. We actually worked with Mike Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City. And because nobody knew what a contact tracing program was, and we worked with the former mayor who stepped up and brought Johns Hopkins to the table and we came up with a training program and a whole software program. So I’ll send a team down to Atlanta and they can work with your people and whatever we know and whatever we can share we will do.

In the meantime, send my regards to the former mayor there who I worked with, send my regards to all the people at the Centennial Park. When I was HUD secretary I did a lot of work in Atlanta, a lot of good work, I have a lot of fond memories. So send my regards to everyone. I’ll get that team together and they'll come down to Atlanta as soon as it works for you. Thank you for being with us, Mayor.

Mayor Bottoms: Thank you so much Governor. I appreciate it.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. My pleasure, thanks. Okay. Godspeed to the Mayor.

Where are we? Today is day 135. Let's talk about some facts first. Where are we? 792 hospitalizations today, that is very good news, lowest since March 18th. You look at our rate of transmission, all across the board, every region we see good numbers. And again, we have more data than any state in the country, so we live and die by the data and all the numbers are good. You look across New York City, the county numbers, they are all good and they are all consistent. You have a little deviation from day to day, that’s statistically irrelevant. But there's all good news in the numbers across the state and across the city. Death toll for yesterday is 10 people. Again, we'd love to see that number at zero, but compared to where we have been that is a very a good place to be.

You look at the three-day average and you see there the whole slope of what we've gone through. You see the descent and the experts say to me, “You'll never really get to zero on the number of deaths because people die, this is a condition like pneumonia, it attacks the respiratory system. So people who are very ill can contract COVID and it can be the cause of death.” But that's where we are now.

We did 51,000 tests yesterday and it was just over one percent. ?It is all good news on where we are as a state, and the numbers show that what we have done in terms of our reopening strategy and our plan has worked. We have been reopening for weeks now. Over one month, we started reopening. And we expected, after the reopening we expected the numbers to tick up. They haven’t ticked up they’ve actually gone down. So the reopening strategy has worked. New York State smart has worked. And it shows that this nation can defeat COVID.

There was no reason to have these states on the increase. New York inherited a spike. Remember where we started. we were handed this high infection rate, because nobody knew the virus had come from Europe. So we started with a high spike. We had to get that spike down. The other states didn’t start with a spike. They just had to stop it from increasing. And with all we did in New York and all we knew, they were just blind to the reality. and again, I want to congratulate New Yorkers who really stepped up to the plate and they did what they had to do, and it was hard. Social distancing, close businesses, close schools, stay at home, it was hard. But, they did it.

We now get to the question of reopening schools. There is a state formula that will determine if it is safe to reopen schools, okay? So open schools or not, there’s a state formula that determines it. There are then state guidelines as to how that school reopens, right. State formula determines if it reopens. If it reopens the second question is how, and that will be done by state guidelines. But the question of school reopening is like the question of reopening the economy. Reopening the schools, reopening the economy, it’s the same conversation. And by the way, it’s the exact conversation with the president of the United States.

We talked about reopening the economy, and he said just reopen. Just reopen the economy. There’s no reason for any of this stuff, phases, data, masks, it’s all baloney, just reopen. Yeah, we saw how well that worked. Go ask Florida, and Texas, and Arizona how well that worked. On schools, what does he say? Reopen the schools. Just open them up. Don’t worry. Yeah, he was wrong on the economic reopening. He’s wrong on the schools reopening. Everybody wants to reopen the schools. I want to reopen the schools. Everybody wants to reopen the schools. It’s not do we reopen or not. You reopen if it is safe to reopen. How do you know if it’s safe? You look at the data. You don’t hold your finger up and feel the wind, you don’t have an inspiration, you don’t have a dream, you don’t have an emotion. Look at the data. We test more, we have more data, than any state, look at the data. If you have the virus under control, reopen. If you don’t have the virus under control, then you can’t reopen. Right? We’re not going to use our children as the litmus test, and we’re not going to put our children in a place where their health is endangered. It’s that simple. Common sense and intelligence can still determine what we do, even in this crazy environment. We’re not going to use our children as guinea pigs. I say to the experts, it’s very simple. If I’m making the determination as to whether or not I would send my daughter to school. If it’s safe, I’ll send her. If it’s not safe, I’m not going to send her. And you can determine that by science. So the formula is this:

Schools will reopen if that region is in Phase IV, and the daily infection rate remains 5 percent or lower over a 14-day average. Okay? You’re in Phase IV, and you’re under 5 percent infection rate. That means the virus is under control. That means it’s safe to reopen. And then the schools can proceed to reopening in that region. Exactly how, you look at the state guidelines. This determination will be made the first week in August.

Second question is, what happens if between the first week in August and the day school opens, the virus spikes? I don’t want to be in a position where we made a determination August 7, and then the virus spikes, but we already said the schools are going to reopen. So the safety valve, there’s a floor, schools will close if the regional infection rate is above 9 percent on a 7-day average. Okay? So you get a green light, reopen in a region, if you’re in Phase IV, and the infection rate is 5 percent or lower. If the infection rate goes over 9 percent, on a 7-day average, that means the virus is moving rapidly and it is not intelligent to open. That’s the green light, and that’s the red light, and it’s the way we’ve done the economic reopening, it’s purely on the numbers. Purely on the numbers. It’s on the science.

We’ll make the first decision, we’ll look at the numbers the week of August 1 to 7, the week because it’s a rolling 14-day average, different regions are in different positions on the 14-day average. Between August 1, you get a green light on August 1, between August 1 and the day the school opens we continue to monitor every day, and if the infection rate goes over 9% then we hit an emergency stop button. It’s very simple, it’s clear. Once you get a green light to re-open, then how you reopen you follow the guidelines and we leave it to the 700 school districts across the state to come up with a specific plan pursuant to those guidelines.

We have done state health guidelines; the State Department of Education is doing state education guidelines which will incorporate our health guidelines. We had a great Reimagine Education Advisory Council that did a lot of work to come up with the guidelines. Jim Malatras ran it for me, I want to thank them all very much for the good work they did. They’re education officials from all across the state. They came up with guidelines that will say the districts have to have flexible plans, there has to be safeguards, they’re prioritizing safety, maximizing available space, focusing on arts career technical education. They have to be innovative. How do you use remote learning? How do you use innovative models, best practices? And all the guidelines will be up today.

We want masks and PPE whenever students or staff cannot maintain social distancing. Masks work. They work for children, they work for teachers, they work for everyone. We have social distancing, six feet separations. We have cohort structures in the guidelines. Guidelines on transportation, food service, after care, extracurricular activity. Every child and person entering will be screened. Tracing has to work in the schools, cleaning and closure procedures. That’s all in the guidelines, and again we’ve done the health guidelines. The State Department of Education, which I do not run separate agency, they’ll do the education guidelines incorporating ours. Well then, what’s the bad news? All our numbers are good. All our numbers are good.

The bad news is, we have to keep them that way and there are challenges. There are two threats. First is lack of compliance by New Yorkers. We get arrogant, we get cocky, the weather’s warm, the numbers are good. I heard the Governor said everything was good, there’s nothing to worry about. I never said there’s nothing to worry about. I never said that. I said the numbers are good. I worry every day. Well, you just worry a lot. No, I’m not really worried by nature, the circumstances cause me to worry. We have to remain compliant and the local governments have to do their job and enforce compliance. Well, it’s hard with younger people. I understand. Well, some people don’t like to wear a mask, I understand. Well, social distancing is difficult, I understand. We have to do it. If you don’t do it, the virus will increase. Period. Period! I mean, this is not my opinion, I’m not guessing. We know it as a scientific fact. That’s the first threat.

Second, is the virus comes to New York, and this is a very real threat and it is déjà vu all over again. The first federal debacle was losing track of the virus that was supposed to be in China and not knowing that it left China and went to Europe and then it came here from Europe, and the federal government has now admitted this. It was one of the great federal blunders in history…cost thousands of lives in New York and billions of dollars. They just missed it. Yeah, it was a terrible miss and a terrible mistake and it’s what created the spike in New York. The second federal mistake, is even after everything we went through, they allowed and pushed the other states to reopen recklessly. And you now have the virus out of control in other states and it’s going to fly back to New York.

The first mistake brought it from Europe to New York. The second mistake will bring it from Georgia to New York, and Texas to New York, and Arizona to New York, and the 38 states that see the virus going up. Both times New York did nothing wrong. It was the federal government that caused our problem and then, frankly, wanted to have nothing to do with the solution. They caused the problem and then said, you’re on your own. Literally you have 39 states that are now seeing the virus increase and come to New York. So, we talk about the valve…I talk about the valve. The reopening valve, we talked about monitoring it all along. You now have to add two additional measures, or dials, to the valve. One is, now you have to watch the effect of non-compliance and make sure the local governments are doing their job. The second dial is now the effect of the national outbreak and people coming here to New York with the virus.

Those are the two new complications that have been added to the mix. And look, it is the federal government because it is the federal government. Sometimes it is what it is, and this has been gross negligence. They have been denying the reality of the situation from the beginning. It doesn’t exist, it’s going to go away, by Easter we’ll reopen, when it gets warm it will go away like it’s a miracle. It didn’t go away! There was no miracle.

You denied reality. This is their political agenda over public health policy. That’s what this is. This is politically inconvenient in an election year. So, deny it. Yeah except you are jeopardizing public health and you're losing lives by your denial and your political agenda. And then when the federal government didn't step up and handle this, this was a federal crisis. Why is New York state or the state of Georgia, or the state of California, or any of these states handling the COVID virus. It's a national issue. The President did a federal emergency declaration.

You know what a federal emergency declaration means? It means a federal emergency. You know who's in charge of federal emergencies? The federal government. That's why they use the word federal in all of those expressions. I was in the federal government. When there's a federal emergency it's the responsibility of the federal government. They just abandoned their post and said it's up to the states. And by the way, they got offended when the states asked for any resources or help from the federal government. If they're not going to step up and address a problem that hurts every state in the United States. Then what is the point of the federal government? I mean if you don't see that as your role. What is the role?

Now the President is attacking science. What a surprise. No surprise. He's been attacking science from day one. The denial of reality was to deny science and he's done that from day one. At the end of the day, science trumps politics. Politics does not trump science. You don't defeat a virus with politics. You defeat a virus by using science and medicine. That was true from day one. The President now says his own health officials are lying about the virus. His own CDC health officials are lying about the virus. Well, if the President is telling the truth, you know what he should do? He should fire them. He should fire them. You know what I would do if I believed my Health Commissioner was lying? I would fire him. If I said in this room, my Health Commissioner is lying about the coronavirus. You know what your first question would be? Governor, if you say he's lying, how do you not fire him? How do you keep him in charge of health policy if you say the person is lying? Because someone is clearly lying to the American people. And people are dying because of it.

Trump's COVID scandal makes what Nixon did at Watergate look innocent. Nobody died in the Watergate scandal. Thousands of people are going to die in this COVID scandal and that is all the difference in the world. You look at the facts. The facts clearly demonstrate Trump was wrong from day one and New Yorkers have been right from day one. There's no argument. There's nothing to tweet about. The facts are in. The numbers are in. Look at the number of bodies. Look at the infection rate. New York's numbers have declined while the nation is going up. New York is down 70 percent. These other states up over 800 percent. Florida up 1300 percent. Who's right who's wrong? What's there to argue about? Those are the numbers. Tell me the numbers are wrong. It’s all across the country and it is undeniable. And it’s now a threat to the state of New York.

We have done a quarantine for the highest risk infection states. We know there have been instances of noncompliance. Non-compliance can lead to outbreaks; we're seeing it in Rensselaer County now where people came up from Georgia. We're going to have the Department of Health issue an emergency health order today that will mandate that out of state travelers from the states that are quarantined, must provide a location for form before they leave the airport. The airlines will hand it out on the plane. It will also be available on the web. You can fill it out electronically or you have to fill out the piece of paper on the airplane. You must give officials at the airport your form as to where you came from and where you're going before you leave the airport. It will be enforced in every airport in the state of New York. Downstate, the Port Authority will enforce it. If you leave the airport without providing the information, you will receive a summons immediately with a $2,000 fine. If you leave the airport without filling out the information not only can you have a $2000 fine, you can then be brought to a hearing and ordered to complete mandatory quarantine. None of this is pleasant, but we've gone through this before.

We went through this when Rick Cotton and people at the Port Authority watched three million Europeans—people from Europe—come into this state and bring the virus. Fool me once. We can’t be in a situation where we have people coming from other states in the country bringing the virus again. It is that simple. Again, Port Authority will do the enforcement in downstate New York, the other airports will do it in upstate New York. The general point is we have to stay diligent. New Yorkers have been truly amazing and what they did was historic. They tamed the beast because they are New York Tough, which means smart, united, disciplined and loving.

Those were the facts, and now I’m going to give you an opinion. This case, it’s a very personal opinion. Personal opinion, but very personal. There’s personal, then there’s very personal, which is even more personal than just personal. We went through 111 days of hell. Everybody processed it their own way. I saw it as climbing a mountain and you had to climb that mountain and every day was hard and every day climbing the mountain you didn’t even know how high the mountain was. And at the same time you were designing the mountain because our behavior was going to design the mountain and design the plateau and the peak. When will the virus stop? When you stop the virus, is what the experts would say to me. It was like a cruel riddle every day. When do the deaths stop? When does the infection rate stop? When you stop it. What does that mean? When the social distancing works. When the closedown policies work. When the masks work. So you’re climbing a mountain and you are designing the curve of the mountain. It ends when you say it ends, right? This was traumatizing for people. And on a personal level, economic level, it was frightening, it was isolating. Everyone had their own demons they were dealing with. I had my own demons and my own fears. I’m afraid for my mother, afraid for my kids, afraid for my brother. Everyone had their own pain and their own trauma to deal with. But what we went through and what we did was historic because we did tame the beast. We did turn the corner. We did plateau that mountain. And then we came down the other side. And they will be talking about what we did for decades to come. It really was an historic moment. Personally traumatic, socially traumatic, and historic.

So, I love history. I love poster art. Poster art is something they did in the early 1900s, late 1800s, when they had to communicate their whole platform, candidacy on one piece of paper, right? They wanted to run a campaign, they didn’t have TV commercials, they didn’t have mail, they didn’t have any of these things. So they got their whole message on one piece of paper and it always fascinated me—I use so many words—what if somebody said, okay no words. Paint me a picture that tells the story of what you’re trying to say. That’s poster art. And it’s helped me because it’s been like a relief valve, not that I don’t have joy every day dealing with you guys, but I could go and just use a different side of my brain. And this was the most famous—the William Jennings Brian with the octopus. He’s fighting the octopus and the octopus is corporate trusts that are taking over the economy, right? You could almost do that again today.

So over the past few years I’ve done my own posters that capture that feeling. I did this one for the State of the State. Ship of State that was sailing in the Sea of Division, right? Back in January. Well, in any event, so I did a new one for what we went through with COVID and I think the general shape is familiar to you. We went up the mountain, we curved the mountain, we came down the other side and these are little telltale signs that, to me, represent what was going on. That big arrow that goes right up through it. That was the economic models, right? We needed 120,000 beds, we needed 140,000 beds, and those models shot straight up. We had to bend the curve despite those models. We needed 30,000 ventilators, that model said.

We almost get to the top of the mountain—Economy Falls—get it? Economy Falls like Niagara Falls, but then the economy drops, the economy falls. And the economy comes running down. Timeline on the bottom. From day one to day 111. It’s roughly scaled and then little visuals of what was going on. Starts on day one—little octopus is the tell back to the William Jennings Brian poster. Zack got that right away. First comes on a cruise ship—the COVID virus, right? We start the daily briefings. It’s Jim Malatras and Stephanie Benton. Hand sanitizer, we have the winds of fear are blowing, everybody’s afraid. We have the plane bringing three million people from Europe and that’s how COVID came through the clouds of the federal government, CDC, et cetera. Testing, hospital surge, Javits Center. We’re pulling down the curve together, right? One hundred and eleven days of hell.

The New Rochelle hot spot, first hot spot cluster. Testing, tracing. Nasal swab, cute little button nose. I’m driving once again – one of the few benefits of this, I get to drive myself now. Subway disinfection. We’ve turned the corner, mask up, social distancing. The sun is on the other side of the mountain. We just had to make it to the other side of the mountain. There’s the man in the moon. It’s just the flu. Phase one, we’re now coming down the other side. Boyfriend cliff is there. Tell the people the truth, they will do the right thing. They made the boyfriend look like Zack Fink, I’m not sure why.

Who’s pulling down the curve? New Yorkers, healthcare workers, the essential workers, out of state volunteers. 30,000 people from out of state volunteered to come help us.

I have my three daughters there. That’s Captain. They have him a little paunchy – he’s on a diet. He’s not that bad, but he’s on his way.

Stock market reopens. We come down the other side. There’s the briefing table. Out of state ban. Follow the facts. That’s Arizona, Texas, Florida going up. Last little sign, “caution ahead.” We’ve climbed the mountain, we’re down the mountain. Be cautious. What we’re talking about today. Do compliance, watch people from other states, and we’re still in the sea of division, which I talked about in January, even worse. George Floyd murder, racial tension, protests. Even worse than it was.

So, New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, loving. In case you haven’t heard that before because love wins at the end of the day. Love is the rainbow. Timeline on the bottom. We forged community and community wins. You were part of it. And I’m going to give you a poster because you were a part of it.

2020-07-16 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, thank you very much, operator. Thank all of you for being with us today. I have on the telephone - Budget Director Robert Mujica, Department of Financial Services head Linda Lacewell, and State Liquor Authority head Vince Bradley. We also have a special guest: Mayor Sylvester Turner from Houston, Texas. And it's our pleasure to have him on for a few minutes. The mayor and I have been talking about the COVID situation. As you know, Texas has significant issues. Harris County, where Houston is located, has one of the worst problems in Texas and I've been talking to the mayor. I said, anyway we can help, we offer our assistance in New York. New Yorkers are very grateful for what everyone did across this country to help New York when we needed help. Over 30,000 volunteers - we'll never forget it. And that's the way America should operate. That's America at its best. We sent teams down to Houston. They've been on the ground for a few days. I want to thank all the nurses and doctors that went down. We had them go down from the Greater New York Hospital Association from Mount Sinai, from Montefiore, from Northwell. And they've been working on setting up testing sites and doing what we did here where we partnered with churches - especially in low-income communities. What we find all-too-often across the country is that, lower-income communities have a higher rate of infection. So, working with churches in the communities has turned out very well to set up testing sites and getting people to come in. We also sent out PPE - sent down PPE, hand sanitizer, testing kits, etc. And the mayor says it's been helpful. I want to say to you, Mr. Mayor - all New Yorkers stand with you in solidarity. Anything you need, know that we are here and you can call on us. Unfortunately, we learned these lessons in New York the hard way. We had to go through it. Why we have to repeat the mistake across the country, I have no idea. But it's unfortunate, but we are where we are. We'll deal with it, and then we'll right the wrongs afterwards. But it's been a pleasure to work with you, mayor, and we're not going anywhere. We're here, so anything you need going forward - but I'm glad we were able to help. Mayor Turner.

Mayor Turner: Thank you, Governor Cuomo. And let me just start out by acknowledging and thanking you for the leadership that you provided to the State of New York and quite frankly, the leadership that you provided to all of us across the country. I've watched your daily briefings on a regular basis. I learned a lot from what you have done and your people have done in New York, so let me commend all of you for your efforts. Let me also thank you for the support that you all are providing to the City of Houston here in Harris County. As you indicated, we are facing a situation where our numbers have surged. More people have been testing positive, showing up in our hospitals and our ICUs. Testing is a big issue. And you're also right that this virus is having a disproportional impact on communities of color, low-income communities, and where even more testing is needed. And people - a lot of people - who are wanting testing, needing testing and they've having to wait a long time. So, let me thank you and your team for reaching out, you know. You all did not wait for example on us to call you all. You reached out to us in the City of Houston. So, I want to thank you for your teams that are already on the ground since the past weekend. I want to thank you for the doctors, the nurses, the staff, the PPE that you have all already sent. There are two testing sites that you always have to stand up: one in northwest Houston at Fallbrook Church; another in southwest Houston Higher Dimension Church. Those testing sites are up and running. They started them yesterday and they'll be up and running for the next two weeks. The reports that I've received, people are taking full advantage of those testing sites and those sites will help us out immensely. So, thank you, Governor Como. Thank you. Thank the people of New York. I really appreciate it. And I will tell same to you just like you are paying it forward, we will pay it forward as well so thank you so very, very much.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, my friend. You stay strong. Anything you need you know where to find us and as soon as we get past this I'll come down and visit with you. It would be my pleasure to come back to Houston. I have a lot of good memories. I did a lot of good work when I was HUD Secretary. You have a great city. We'll get through this will be the better for it so God bless you, Mr. mayor. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership, sir. It's been a pleasure to watch what you are doing for the people of Houston. I'm proud of you.

Mayor Turner: Thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay, let me make a few announcements and then we'll take questions.

The big picture is that nobody could have expected that we would be in the situation that we're in today. We had spoken at the beginning about the potential for a second wave of COVID. The second wave we anticipated was that the virus would mutate and come back in a mutated form. That was the second wave theory, the global pandemic of 1918, the virus mutated and came back for a second wave. What we're experiencing is something different. This is a second wave, but this is a situation where we just failed to learn the lessons of the first wave. We failed to learn that we missed the virus in the first place. That it was coming from Europe and then New York showed what you needed to do. You needed to close down, you needed to come up with testing, you needed to come up with contact tracing and attack this virus with the same strength that it was attacking us. We failed to do that. The virus is now spreading and states all across the country and now we're fearing a second wave which is really just the rebound from those states and the increased infection coming back to New York. That's not what we were anticipating as a second wave. This is just a rebound of the first wave, rather than the wave coming from the East and hitting New York, the wave is going to come from the West and hit New York and it's going to be man-made, all self-created.

There's no reason for this nation to be going through what it's going through now. We learned these lessons months ago. Months ago. Remember the first case was back in January and here we are in July and states still don't have testing and contact tracing, don't have the PPE, don't have the medical equipment. We had seven months to get ready. Seven months to get ready. And many places in this country are just as unprepared as they were seven months ago. And that's one of the things we're worried about in New York is the virus coming from the states with the high infection rates. It's our pleasure to help Houston, to help Atlanta, to help states across the nation deal with it. It's the right thing to do as Americans. It's also in our self-interest because we are all in this together and if people get infected in Arizona or Houston or Atlanta and get on a plane and come to New York, now it's New York's problem. So, that's the situation we're dealing with. Our numbers are good but what we are looking at - what we're dealing with is the potential of a "second wave," from these other states.

Today's day 138. New York conducted 72,000 tests yesterday and again that is per capita higher than any state higher than any country. We said New York Smart - smart means get the facts, get the data, act on the data, and we have more data and smarter data than any other state that's dealing with this. Of the 72,685 tests, 769 were positive. That's just about 1 percent, 1.06. 14 New Yorkers passed away yesterday which again we don't want to see any New Yorkers pass away but compared to where we were with this disease, where we had 800 deaths in a single day we're obviously in a much, much better position. 813 New Yorkers were hospitalized - that's down 18 from the previous day, so that is all good news as far as we're concerned.

But again, New York Smart, look ahead and be prepared. We still have an issue with compliance. I once again call on the local government officials to make sure they are doing compliance enforcement. I understand that there's tension with police departments and ongoing demonstrations after Mr. Floyd's murder. I understand that. But we can deal with that situation and still enforce the law. We have to and these, the compliance enforcement of these rules and regulations is essential. If we do not enforce compliance the virus will spread. It is that simple. If you eat a piece of cheesecake today, you will see it on the scale tomorrow. Our actions create the response of the virus. So local governments need to be diligent and I ask them to do that once again. I am asking them to do it publicly. I am asking them to do it privately. I understand enforcement is not politically popular. I'll tell you what's less politically popular: if we have to close down a region because compliance wasn't done. That would be less politically popular.

New York City, we have compliance issues and we're going to announce a couple of actions today. We have additional regulations on the bars and restaurants. That is a primary area where we're seeing problems with compliance and we're taking additional actions. As you know we've been stepping up enforcement on bars and restaurants. Bars and restaurants are licensed by the State Liquor Authority. Bradley is on the telephone. New York City, we let bars and restaurants open for outdoor service on June 22. There is significant evidence of failure to comply. The State itself has looked at over 5,000 establishments in downstate New York and found many cases of a failure to comply. It's wrong. It's dangerous. It's selfish. It's unacceptable. It's also illegal, so today beginning in New York City we're going to enact a "three strikes and you're closed." Any establishment that receives three violations will be closed for business. Egregious violations can still result in an immediate loss of a liquor license but three violations and you're closed. We're also going to post the names of the establishments facing disciplinary charges. New Yorkers are outraged at these establishments. We're getting thousands of complains, pictures, videos, et cetera. This is a question of public health and New Yorkers paid a dear price for COVID and they are equally upset with these violations.

Also, today all establishments must only serve alcohol to people who are also ordering food. The concept here was bars and restaurants would be allowed to do outdoor dining. That is a dining situation. You go with several people, you sit at a table and you have a meal. That would limit the exposure to the people at that table and then the tables are socially distanced. That's if you're eating a meal - if you're not eating a meal and you're just drinking, then it's just an outdoor bar and people are mingling and they're not isolated and individual tables, and that's what we're seeing. Also, no walk-up bar service - all service at bar tops must be only for seated patrons who are socially distanced by six feet. So those regulations will go into effect. Second, in New York City - New York City is headed for Phase 4 on Monday. We will have a definitive announcement as to whether or not New York City goes into Phase 4 by 4 o'clock tomorrow. We want to get the numbers from tomorrow, we want to have them analyzed, and we'll make that announcement at 4 o'clock tomorrow, so businesses would have noticed for Monday. At this rate they are on track to enter Phase 4, but we will not know until we get the final data and we get it analyzed.

In any event, even if we going to Phase 4 on Monday, we are not going to allow any additional indoor activity. Phase Four opens malls, cultural institutions. If we go into Phase 4, we would go into Phase 4 without any additional indoor activity. We are still seeing issues not just in the bars and restaurants, but all across the country, you see as these inside, interior spaces, air-conditioned spaces where the virus is tending to spread. So, we're going to take that precaution in New York City. We are also announcing today a national advertising campaign for people to wear masks. This campaign is not just in New York, these ads will run all across the country and they really are special. I had the opportunity to see them. Jane Rosenthal, we want to thank, who is the producer and CEO of Tribeca Enterprises. Jane organized this and got it together. We have an Academy Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow to directed the ads. The Ad Council will be distributing the ads. But I also want to thank the actors who lent their talent to these ads. Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Jeffrey Wright, Anthony Mackie, Ellen Pompeo, John Leguizamo, Rosie Perez, Jamie Foxx and Kaitlyn Dever. But they are great - they are making the point about wear a mask. The IHME projection which is used by the White House said 40,000 more Americans will die than would have died if we had a national mask policy. Just imagine that. Some states are saying, local governments can't mandate masks. I mean we're still playing politics with this COVID virus after all of this which is really shocking and disturbing. Also, we are fully enforcing our quarantine rules against the 22 states with a high infection rate. We've made progress and we're now up to about a 92 percent compliance, but I want to make sure people know who are coming to New York, we're very serious about that. Also, we're troubled by the cybersecurity attacks, the Twitter hack. That is frightening and that can be highly disruptive, and the Department of Financial Services in New York has jurisdiction and I am directing them today to do a full investigation of those Twitter hacks. They have significant consequences for the security of our financial system, as well as our election system, but it can really wreak havoc. So DFS will be doing that. 

Hello, thank you very much, operator. Andrew Cuomo. I'm joined by Commissioner Zucker and Jim Malatras and Gareth Rhodes, who have been working with me on the COVID crisis.

The CDC just put up a report that is a stunning admission of the federal government's failure to adequately diagnose or address the COVID virus. And I just want to walk you through some of the facts here. As you know, Mount Sinai issued a report earlier that found the virus that came to New York had come from Europe and not from China. They did that by studying the genetic makeup of the virus, and when the virus had gone from China to Europe, the virus mutated in Europe and the viral strain that came to New York was from Europe. Mount Sinai found that first — a great New York institution. On May 1, the CDC confirmed — and the Principal Director of the CDC said and I quote — "the extensive travel from Europe, once Europe was having outbreaks, really accelerated our importations and the rapid spread." The Principal Deputy Director went on to say, "I think the timing of our travel alerts should have been earlier." That was the CDC in early May. The CDC says today in a report that they put up called, "The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" — not a really cheery name for a report, but descriptive. The report they just put up says, that although travel restrictions are an important mitigation strategy, by the time the European restrictions were implemented, importation and community transmission had already occurred in New York. OK? That is a really powerful fact that explains definitively what happened in New York. The virus came to New York — not from China, but from Europe.

The federal officials, the federal government just missed it. The President likes to talk about his travel ban that was effective. His own CDC says the travel ban was too late. The President loves to talk about his China travel ban, February 2nd. By the time the President did the China travel ban it was too late because the virus had left China and went to Europe. The President does a travel ban from some countries in Europe in mid-March, March 30. That's too late also says the CDC. By the time they did the travel ban from Europe on March 13th it was too late. The virus was in New York; it had been in New York for weeks. The virus came from Europe. The virus had infected many and had already reached community spread in New York by the time the President did the European travel ban. That's what the CDC says. The CDC is a federal agency. Why is this important? Oh, one other fact - between February 6th and March 16th, which is the period that the authorities now believe the virus was coming from Europe and was moving through New York, 2,758 flights from Europe land at John F Kennedy; 1,200 flights from Europe land at Newark Airport. This definitively explains through federal authorities what happened. The virus came from Europe. They missed it. It was circulating in New York before they ever figured it out. By the time they did the Europe travel ban it was too late. The horse was out of the barn and then they were closing the barn door, by federal officials, alright? So, no politics, no - these are facts. It was terrible failing on behalf of the federal government because this was their job. This country's public health system is monitored by the federal government. It's managed by the federal government. Their job is to monitor against possible global pandemics. This country spends billions of dollars on an alphabet soup of federal agency charged with that specific responsibility.

The federal CDC, their mission, quoted from their website, "to protect America from health, safety and security threats. Both foreign and in the United States." The NIH, National Institute of Health, their mission quotes "seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health and lengthen life and reduce illness." Department of Homeland Security, quote "with honor and integrity to safeguard the American people, our homeland and our values." They failed. They failed. And the virus came to New York, and Americans died, because of government failure. Period. These are facts. They missed the science.

Government failed in this job, and, they are still failing, they are still failing. And they still are not following the science. And their government is still not competent and that is the increase we are seeing now all across the country.

There will be a second wave but not the second wave that we thought might happen. The second wave is not going to be a mutated virus. The second wave is going to be a rebound of COVID from the other states that now got infected transmitting it back to New York, so New York will have been failed by the federal government once, in the virus coming to New York undetected from Europe, and then the governmental incompetence is going to hurt New York a second time when the virus was allowed to increase in other states and then come back to New York. It will have been a double barrel shotgun of federal incompetence.

Follow the science, Mr. President. Open your eyes, listen to the federal health officials, listen to your own NIH, your own CDC that says, "We missed it. Our mistake." You're your own CDC and your own NIH that now says, "Treat this as the medical emergency it is, follow the science." It is a Fool's errand to try to defeat a virus with politics. The only way you defeat a virus is with science and medicine and this federal government still doesn't understand that fact. The real virus we're fighting is not COVID. We're fighting a virus worse than COVID. You know what virus is worse than COVID? The virus of American division and federal incompetence. That's the virus that is wreaking havoc on this country: American division, where the only way we stop this virus is if we are unified and we protect one another. Community spread - you know what it takes to beat Community spread? Community. Community, coming together, protecting one another, wearing masks, being smart one for another. That's how you defeat community spread - by community. You know how we get to National leadership to do it? Competent federal government, which we do not have. That's the virus. American Division and federal incompetence. This is from the CDC. It's their own words. His own officials. Now maybe that's why the President is trying to take us authority away from the CDC. I wouldn't be surprised.

2020-07-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

How are we doing? Andrew Cuomo, thank you very much for being with us. I'm joined by Robert Mujica, budget director, Commissioner Howard Zucker and Dr. Jim Malatras. We want to give you a briefing as to where we are today. 

Today is day 139. New York conducted 78,239 tests yesterday. 776 were positive. That is lower than 1 percent were positive, so that is very good news. 10 New Yorkers passed away yesterday. Cause of death, COVID. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 765 New Yorkers hospitalized, that's down 48, so that's very good news. It's the lowest daily total of hospitalizations since March 18. So that is very good news.

We had the full team go through the data. As you know, we accumulate more data than any state that's now testing. We then have that data reviewed by two teams of experts, really. We have an in-house team, Department of Health, et cetera, and then we have global experts that have looked at this data all across the world, and we ask them to look at the data to make sure there's nothing that they see that is troubling. And they've done that. 

And New York City will enter Phase Four on Monday. That is a hallmark for us. Every region of the state will now be in Phase Four. There are no more phases. Then Phase Four, so we are all in the final phase of reopening. And that's great. Every region has made it through the four phases without having to close. And the numbers are consistent through all phases of reopening. And this is what we said from day one, reopen smart, and if you reopen smart and you reopen in phases, and you follow the data, it's actually a better way for the economy to reopen because if you rush the reopening then you risk the probability of a viral increase. If you have a viral increase, you're going to have to go back and close again. 

So that whole question of well, if you reopen quickly that's better for the economy. No, wrong. Not only is it worse for public health where you actually lose more people to COVID, but it's not even good for the economy because then you go back and you're going to have to close, and that's exactly what we're seeing all across the nation. There are no theories left here, my friends. We don't have to guess, it's not about opinion. we tested the theories. We have the data and the results on the theories. You don't have to guess, he's right, he's wrong. Just look at the numbers and look at the facts. 

Look at the states that opened quickly, and look at New York where we had a phased reopening. And let any objective person look at the numbers and tell me what they see. So we're feeling very good about what we've done and I applaud all New Yorkers, because the New Yorkers did it. Government did nothing here. It's what people did. All we did was explain the facts to New Yorkers and then New Yorkers rose to the occasion. So I'm very proud to be a New Yorker.

The Phase Four allows schools to reopen pursuant to the State guidance. It allows low-risk outdoor activities and entertainment at 33 percent capacity. It allows outdoor professional sports without fans and that is happening as you know. It allows media production.

In New York City as I announced yesterday we're not going to have any indoor activity in malls or cultural institutions and we'll continue to monitor that situation and when the facts change we will let o know.

What we're really looking at now is the potential of a second wave - not the second wave that we originally discussed. The second wave that we originally feared was from the theory of the 1918 pandemic where there was Phase One and then the virus mutated and came back in Phase Two. That's not what we're looking at here.

This second wave would be man-made, not made by Mother Nature. It would not be mutation of the virus. It would be a wave that comes from the West and the South, a southwesterly wave that comes back to New York from the increase in the other states. We are painfully aware now that an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. That's the lesson this nation should have learned last December when there was an outbreak in China and this past January when there was an outbreak in China they should have realized an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere, that if the virus is in China it's a matter of days before the virus gets on an airplane and is in the United States or is in Europe and that's exactly what happened. The virus was in China. The virus got on a plane, flew to Europe, the virus stayed in Europe a little bit, then got on a plane and flew to New York, and that's where the spread came from.

Now, the second wave it is understanding that lesson, the virus is in Arizona and is in Texas and is increasing in states all across the country and the virus will get on a plane in one of those states and will come to New York, or the virus will get in a car and will drive to New York, or the virus will get on a train and come into Penn Station in New York and that is almost inevitable. 

The question is, can we control the viral spread coming into New York, but I feel like we're standing on a beach and we're looking out at the sea and we see the second wave building in the distance, so I want all New Yorkers to be on high alert. The virus is spreading. It's all across the country. It's getting worse and it will have an effect on New York. How bad we don't know, but we cannot stop the virus at our borders. We're trying everything we can, we've quarantined, we have done a very good job at all the airports with police and the quarantine forms, but the virus will still get through the border, the only question is to what percent. And that's what we're looking at - the inevitability of a second wave, the only question is how hard this hits.

And the second wave is being created by the negligence of our government. We knew what needed to be done to stop the virus. New Yorkers did it. We have a president and a federal government that still lives in the state of denial. The White House said yesterday, we're going to reopen schools, the president wants to reopen schools, and quote, "The science should not stand in the way," closed quote. "The science should not stand in the way." No, the science governs. The science wins. That's what we learned about the economic reopening. The science wins. The science defeats your political theories. They are continuing in the misguided path they have taken from day one. They've denied the virus, the virus won. They denied science, science won. They denied to take the necessary precautions recommended by every health official, and the virus won. So they continue on a losing strategy and the people of this country pay the price.

2020-07-20 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Top of the morning to you. Beautiful day in New York City, but hot, hot, hot, hot. We are going to flee the heat, go to Savannah, Georgia. It may not be that effective. 

I think everybody knows the people who are joining me. To my left, Jim Malatras, President of SUNY Empire College. To my right, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To her right, Robert Mujica, Budget Director. I'm going to thank the team for putting today together. We're going to be visiting Savannah, Georgia which I'll discuss in a moment.

I also want to thank JFK Airport and their staff for accommodating us this morning. And the Port Authority has done an excellent job. And I want to thank JetBlue for making it possible for us to get to Georgia. We have Billy Kaplanidis with us today and I want to thank him very much for JetBlue's hospitality. They have been a great friend to New York and a great corporate citizen, so we thank them very much and they stepped up in a big way here today.

Let me tell you where we are. Day 142 but it feels like just yesterday. It's a day for good news. Our hospitalizations are at the lowest level since March 18: 716, great. Number of lives lost to COVID, eight. Again, we don't want to lose any life and they are in our thoughts and prayers, but that is a great number relative to where we've been. The three day average is down low. You see the overall curve there and it's at about 11. Number of tests yesterday with just under 50,000 tests. It was a Sunday, so the sample is always a little different on Sunday. But 50,000 tests is an extraordinary number. We still test more than any state in the nation per capita, more than any nation on the globe. And what does that mean? It means we're making informed decisions. We know where we are because we're taking 50,000 tests. Just think about that. Every day, 60,000 testssome days. The positive rate is about 1 percent. That's where we've been so we're holding steady. We would like to see it at zero, obviously, but 1 percent is very good so that is good news. 

You look across the regions of the state, we see good news all across the regions. No warning signs or no trouble spots. Same is true in New York City, we have a little tick up in the Bronx that we will watch. But Sundays we often tend to get slight deviations, but the progress is all very good. So we did the impossible as New Yorkers, they really stepped up and conquered the COVID virus. Now we just have to stay there. We have to protect the progress that we have made. You see the numbers, you see where we are, our goal now is to stay there and not let that infection rate tick up. We are not in a static environment. A lot is going on, so we have to remain vigilant. 

We have two main threats. The first threat is the number of congregations that we're seeing across the state, but especially in downstate, primarily of young people. I have talked about this before. We saw it again over the weekend and it is a problem. It is a problem. We know enough about this virus. We know that there are inevitable consequences to our actions. If you have congregations of people, they are going to spread the virus. Now, many of these conversations tend to be young people and young people, as a general rule, believe their super heroes. I understand. I was a young person once, just last week. Okay, maybe not last week. "Well, we can't get sick." First of all, that's not a fact. There are facts and there are wrong pieces of information. You can get sick in your 20s. You can get sick. You can die in your 20s, people have. Even if you live by the theory of you're a super hero, you will take the virus and you will give it to someone else. Unless you live in a hermetically sealed bubble, that will happen. You will go home and you will transfer to someone else who will transfer it to someone else, and you could kill someone. So from an aspect of any social responsibility at all, it's not just about you. It's not just about you. It's about who you could infect and who you could hurt. And it has, it has continued unabated and it's getting worse. I am telling you it is a problem. It's not a new problem but it is growing.

To the partiers who come out, I understand the frustration. I understand you've been inside for a long time. I understand you're young. I understand people like to socialize. Iget that it's the summer. I get that the work environment is not as tough, so you have the flexibility to go out. I get all of that. I really do. But, I'm telling you it has to stop. And I'm telling you in plain, New York speak, as a born and bred New Yorker, it's stupid, what you're doing. It is stupid. Well that's not a governmentally appropriate word. It's a true word. Don't be stupid. That is good advice in life. Take it from a person who's lived a lot of life. Don't be stupid. What they're doing is stupid and reckless for themselves and for other people. And it has to stop.

To the local governments, I've said repeatedly that the local governments are in charge of compliance and enforcement. If young people are going to come out and do something stupid, the local governments have to enforce the law. That's how it works in life. And the police department has to enforce the law. And they are not doing it. And that is their job and they have to do it. I will tell you what's going to happen. I spoke to a number of restaurant owners yesterday. We've had numerous conversations. The bad restaurant and bar owners are going to make it worse for the good ones. Most restaurants and bars are complying, they're going through a very tough economic situation, but they're living by the rules. The bad ones who are exploiting the situation and breaking the law, by the way, this is not just morality, they're breaking the law, are going to make it bad for everyone. The local governments are not doing their job. We cannot allow those congregations to continue. If it happens, I'll tell you what's going to happen. We're going to have to roll back the opening plan. And we're going to have to close bars and restaurants.

That is what we are going to have to do. So to local governments I say look, you don't want to enforce the law because you think it's politically unpopular, and you don't want ot do something that's politically unpopular. I'll tell you what's more politically unpopular. When you're going to have to explain to the people why we had to close all bars and restaurants. That's going to be more politically difficult than telling the NYPD to do their job. This is not a point of sending out the police department to inform young people to wear a mask. They've heard that message. The police department is not there to inform them of mask compliance. Police departments have to enforce the law. They have to enforce the law. That is the only line between anarchy and civilization. They have to enforce the law. And they're not.

The bad bar, bad operators in terms of restaurants and bars, they're going to make it bad for everyone and for themselves. We will have to roll back the bar and restaurant opening. If congregations continue, if the local governments don't stop it, that is what is going ot happen. One plus one still equals two, right, and there's a logical consequence of actions, and that's where we are. That's the first threat.

Second is, we see the infection rate increasing all across the country. It's a fact, it's not getting better, it's getting worse. The theory that well, New York is going to be immune from what's happening everywhere in the country, that does not work. We were not immune from what was happening in China, and what was happening in Europe when the virus went from China to Europe, and then it came here from Italy and from France and from Spain, and the federal government never knew, and that's how New York got the virus. An outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. That's the saying that I'm going to put on plaques and give to people. If the virus is going up in the other states, we have a real challenge and a real threat, because those people come to New York. We put in place an unprecedented quarantine program, we're enforcing it, but, it's virtually impossible to enforce with total certainty. People take trains, people drive, you know, states don't have border control agencies. We don't do border control. When you drive in from another state, you don't show your passport to anyone, right? There is no "New York passport." We don't do border control. So, that is a very real threat and I don't see it turning around in the rest of the country any time soon. That is that is a predicament that we'll do everything we can to help the other states, and we are, but that is beyond our control. That's not like the congregations and the party. Those are the two threats.

Now, we're going to go help Savannah today. When we were in the thick of things, and we were in the thick of things, when we had those numbers going through the roof, I sat at a table like this one and I asked Americans, people all across the country, I said, "We needed help. Please come help us." 30,000 health professionals from around the country volunteer to come to New York. 30,000. Think about that. When New York was at its worst point, to come into our emergency rooms, come to our hospitals to fight this dreaded disease, 30,000 people came to help us. I was floored. I was touched - I'll tell you the truth, I was inspired. You want to talk about courage and heroism and love and generosity, "Come volunteer to help in a New York City emergency room when COVID is going crazy." 30,000 people say yes. I said that day, we will never forget it and we will honor it and we will reciprocate it. Those people did not come for me. I just asked on behalf of all New Yorkers. And I know New Yorkers - we don't forget. We don't forget and we live by the same code of generosity and love and community. So, we're doing everything we can now to pay it back. And states and people all across the nation but not just governments, California gave us ventilators, Oregon gave us ventilators, NewEngland Patriots owner was flying a plane to China from Massachusetts to get PPE. They did us a favor, put PPE on the plane from China for us. I mean people just did amazing things.

I said, when I was younger and healthier looking, when we get past our apex, we will be there for anyone who needs help and whatever they need, we will be there. I said I'll drive personally and provide them with assistance. And again, that was a promise to pay forward that. I made on behalf of New Yorkers and we're going to honor it. We are honoring it. We're sending drugs to Florida. We've been working with Atlanta, Georgia on their needs. We've been working with Houston, Texas. And we're going to go to Savannah today.

The federal government is still in denial about this virus. It still refuses to follow the science. It still thinks it's going to be this virus by playing politics. And I've said to the president from day one, this virus does not respond to politics. It doesn't respond to bullying. It doesn't respond to rhetoric. It doesn't respond to denial. It is the science. What did we do in New York? We did it as a science. We did it on the numbers. We did on the data. You're fighting a virus. The solution is medicine and science. It has nothing to do with the crazy politics of today. Five months later, this country is still totally unprepared to deal with this. Been talking to other states and mayors and governors about testing, they still don't have testing. They still don't have tracing programs. They still don't have PPE. It's a like we were on day one of COVID. They've done nothing in five months. This is so unnecessary that we are here and we're seeing these Americans lose their lives. It did not have to be this way and we're going to do everything that we can to make it better. We're going to meet with Mayor Van Johnson and his team today, I've been speaking with the mayor. And we'll be in Savannah, Georgia - we'll tell them about what we did will help them with testing programs, tracing programs. We're going to bring thousands of pieces of PPE and whatever they need from us they're going to get, because we are New York Tough, which is smart and united and disciplined. And today's about the last word, we are loving. Thank you, America for what you did for us and we won't forget and we'll be there for you when you need it and today is one of those days when you need it.

2020-07-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you very much operator. Good morning guys. Want to give you an update on where we are today. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Rob Mujica, Jim Malatras and Gareth Rhodes. Let's do the New York numbers first.

Today is day number 144. New York conducted 67,000 tests yesterday. 705 were positive. That's a rate of about 1 percent, technically 1.04. Nine New Yorkers passed away from COVID yesterday. And again, they are in our thoughts and prayers. 714 New Yorkers were hospitalized, that's 10 fewer than the day before, that's the lowest numbers since March 18. So New York is doing very very well.

And we are in Phase IV of reopening all across the state. We expected the infection rate to go up after we reopened. We thought we could control it, but we thought it would go up. Actually it hasn't even gone up, it's gone down. So we are doing better than we had anticipated, and the phased reopening worked. We still are very concerned about the growing number across the country, versus Americans. We hate to see other Americans suffering. Also there is a COVID ricochet effect that we're now seeing where the infection rate will just bounce throughout the country. To say New York will be fine when you see the increases in Florida, Texas, Arizona, California. We know that's not the case. We know that the infection rate travels across the country because people are mobile and the virus travels with people.

We have offered our assistance to localities across the nation, anything we can do to help. First of all, because everybody was there for us when we needed help, and I said that we would repay that, and we were grateful for it. Also, practically, if we don't get the infection rate down in the rest of the country than we can anticipate that this is going to be on the upswing in New York sooner or later, and the people in New York paid too high a price for what we've accomplished to see it go backwards.

The President said yesterday that he suggested people wear masks. I think that was a positive step forward, especially from where we had been. I think the President should take the next step and should have a federal mandate on masks. You are in public service to make a difference. I can't think of a time when the experts said "If you take this action you can save 40,000 lives." That is the President's opportunity on the mask mandate. The IHME model funded by Gates, which is the model followed by the White House said if there was a national mask mandate you would save 40,000 lives. Just by signing a piece of paper, the President can save 40,000 lives. Why wouldn't you do that? And I would urge him once again, as I have repeatedly, to do that.

I spoke to the President yesterday. The President had suggested that he was considering sending federal agents to New York among other cities - New York City. To deal with what he saw as an increase in crime problem. I spoke to the President about it. I said that I was also concerned about the increase in crime in New York City and that people in New York City are concerned about the increase in crime. I also said that at this point I think situation can be managed by the state to the extent anything has to be done, and that I am totally prepared to do that, that there was no need for federal involvement. If the federal government had any concern about a federal asset that they thought needed to be protected, I was more than willing to protect any federal asset that the federal government had a bona fide concern for. And we left the conversation that if the President had any additional concerns, we would talk before he took any action.

So, that was a good conversation. And again, he expresses concern about the crime in New York City. People in New York are concerned about crime. They are very familiar with what is going on. The State is willing and able to do what it needs to do; it falls within the jurisdiction of the state. The city is a creature of state law and the state understands and respects the constitution of the United States, and we have no need at this time for any assistance from the federal government. Again, if the President has additional thoughts, we would talk before any action was taken.

We are also very concerned about what we hear from Washington on the bill that they are talking about to help the nation and the economy recover from the COVID epidemic. The Republicans still are refusing to include assistance for state and local government. That is wholly inconsistent with their stated goal of getting the economy up and running. Wall Street Journal, Chairman Powell, there have been numerous experts who have pointed out the proven fact that there will be no national economic recovery if you starve state and local governments. If the Republicans care about the economy, they'll put their politics aside and they will fund state and local governments. This is no longer just Democratic states that have been hurt. When the Republicans first failed to fund state and local governments they were primarily Democratic states and the Republican senators put their politics first and wouldn't fund Democratic states even though they were suffering from COVID. You now have states all across the country that are suffering, Republican states are suffering also. The National Governors Association has called for funding; not Democratic governors, not Republican governors - all governors.

Again, this is a matter of basic economics. Every study has shown that when you starve the state and local governments the economy does not recover as quickly. Also, it is really the epitome of hypocrisy for these Republican senators, particularly from the southeast, to say they refuse to fund state and local governments, because they're concerned about the amount of spending that the federal government is doing. If they were really concerned about the amount of federal spending then the suggestion would be don't take as much money for your state from the federal till. Kentucky takes $37 billion more every year than they pay in to the federal government. If a Senator from Kentucky was concerned about the federal budget, well the first place to start is in your own home, the first place to start is in your own activity. If you're taking more than you are giving, if you are taking $37 billion more every year, and that is your bona fide concern, federal government is spending too much money, obviously the starting place is to say, "I'll go first. I won't take more than I put in." That would at least be a genuine effort.

It's not genuine to say a state like New York that has suffered from COVID shouldn't get federal assistance at a time of an emergency when New York has subsidized your state for years. You find savings in places of excess. Why should the people of this nation fine any state more than it puts in? And that's true for Virginia and Maryland and Kentucky and Alabama and Florida. If you're sincere, that's where you would start - save money from the excess and save money by rejecting the largesse of states like New York and New Jersey and Massachusetts and Connecticut and California and Illinois. These are the states that are subsidizing you and have been for years. So, I understand political speeches, I also understand that actions speak louder than words.

2020-07-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Beautiful day in New York City. My mask matches my tie. Always a good way to start the day, even if it is coincidental. We have from my far right, Commissioner Tony Annucci, who is the Commissioner of New York State Department of Corrections. Tony has been with me from day one. He has done an extraordinary job. It is one of the hardest positions in state government I think - running the corrections system. And Tony has done an outstanding job, so I want to thank him. It is a pleasure to be with him today. To my immediate right, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my immediate left, Gareth Rhodes, Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services. Kelly Cummings, to Gareth's left, Kelly as you know is Director of State Operations and she has done a remarkable job.

You know this is been a stress test for governments all across the country. Government had to perform. It was not about just talking, right? It was not about rhetoric and pontification. It was about performance. That's what government is supposed to be able to do. We lost sight of that for a long time. Government became a political exercise and if you took the right political positions than you did your government duty. No, no, no government has to work. It has to operate. It has to function. And we've seen under this COVID stress test what governments could actually perform and what governments couldn't perform. All those logistical things, setting up testing sites, coordinating labs, doing the contact tracing - it was hard. Government never had a challenge like that before, not in my lifetime, and I'm very proud of the way the employees of New York state government responded and I'm proud of Kelly Cummings leadership.

Let's talk about today where we are. We are at day 145, a bright sunny day. Good news, all good news. 706 hospitalizations, lowest since March 18th. Number of deaths, 13. We don't want to lose anyone obviously and they are in our thoughts and prayers, but that is also good news relative to where we were. Three day average of lives lost is down to eight. That is good news. Number of tests yesterday, 69,000 tests. 811 positive, that's a 1.1 percent positive rate. That is also good news.

You look across the regions of the state. You see all good news. You see a little tick in the Capital Region. You see Albany, Capital Region, we had just about 30 positives from one July 4th party: one party, 28 positives. You understand why we say one bad event, one bad group, can be a real problem. One party, 30 people. Remember what we went through in New Rochelle. One super spreader, first hot spot in the United States. One person can make a difference. But all the numbers are good.

You look across New York City, likewise, all the numbers are good. Because it's good, we then say good news. Data is clear. We congratulate New Yorkers because they climbed the highest and hardest mountain, and we are on the other side. The big caution, the but is but we don't want to climb anymore mountains. It was not fun. It tested the character of the people of the state. It tested the competence of the government. And New Yorkers did it, but we don't want to do it again.

And we're wary of new threats that are on the horizon, and that is the bad news is the concerning trends that we're seeing around the country - primarily. It is important that we learn the lesson of what we have gone through. This is not that COVID descended on us yesterday. It's been six months. In New York, we were ambushed. The virus came from Europe. Nobody knew, nobody told us. We woke up one morning and the spike was already happening. We were ambushed.

That's not where we are today. It's been six months. We know what COVID is about. We've been talking about testing and tracing and quarantine. It's been 6 months. Let's at least to learn the lesson of the past six months. Let's learn the facts of the past six months. We are still having this same inane political discussion. "Well, you should reopen, reopen right away." No, no, that was never the question and now we have six months of experience to know what happens when you do that, right? It wasn't about do we reopen or not. The question was always yes, you reopen. Of course, you reopen. You re open as quickly as you can, but you have to be smart in how you reopen. You have to follow the science and the metrics. You still have today people who are operating politically suggesting "Just reopen. Just reopen."

Even President Trump isn't saying that anymore. And he was the main booster that theory, right? And we see what happens when you rush a reopening. We have the proof of six months of experiments. Some states reopened right away. Some states, New York said, "No, let's do a phased reopening. Let's study the metrics and let's do it intelligently. And in the long run, that will be better because if we just reopen immediately, we run the risk of the virus going up and then we have to close." That is exactly what has happened. It's not a question political theory - "He said, she said, conservatives say this, this one said." We have the results - we went to the laboratory, we tested it. New York began reopening May 15th. I said at that time we expect the virus may go up which you start reopening. Why? Because the activity's going to increase. More activity, more spread. We started reopening - you know what happened? The number went down. It didn't go up. It went down. I was wrong. To the positive, I thought it was going to go up, the number went down. Because it was a smart reopening, because we're on top of it, we're studying the data, et cetera.

Look at the states that rushed to reopen, and look at what is happening. Look at our curve versus their curve. It's undeniable. So, why are we still having the same political argument? We know that rushed reopenings don't work and the states that rush to reopen are now reclosing. That's another new COVID word by the way. I don't think there is any such word as reclosing. I'm sure Zack will point out that I used a word that doesn't exist, reclosing. It's a new word in the State of New York. I just proclaimed it a new word. They are reclosing. How did that help the economy? It didn't. It set the economy back. You look at where this country is versus other countries on the globe. We're behind the other countries. We got the virus from Europe, Europe now has the virus under control. They're quarantining us because they did a better job. So, learn the lessons and let's stop this non-productive political debate that is still going on in this state and in this country. No politics - follow the facts. And that's what we did from day one.

We do face a threat from the states that rushed the reopening and were not ready. You turn on the news you listen all day, there's still problems in testing. States don't have tracing operations. States have some counties opening, some counties closing, some counties have this plan, some counties have that plan. They rushed the reopening. They were not ready for the reopening, or they just were not competent enough to handle the reopening because it was rushed. And we're seeing that increase, it's undeniable, and it is a threat to New York. We now have 39 states with an increasing threat. We know that this virus travels. We know that. We know we are not an island in the State of New York. We know that we cannot hermetically sealed the State of New York in our own little bubble. So, when you see the virus going up in these other states it poses a threat to New York. Our quarantine enforcement is serious, and I want people coming into this state to know that. States have never done border control before, we had to scramble, it was another COVID first. But we have police at airports when you land, there is a police officer there, you have to fill out a form as to where you're going. It is illegal to leave the airport without filling out the form. And then we can follow up from the form. We have some people come to New York saying, "Oh I didn't know that there was a quarantine." I don't know how they did not know there was a quarantine. There is a quarantine and we are serious about it.

At the same time, we stand ready to help our fellow Americans and the other states. I have said very clearly, anyone who needs help, anytime, anywhere we will be there. Why? Because first of all, it's the right thing to do. I sat here and I said to people across this country who watch the briefings, "We need help." I said, "Please help us." New York was in the midst of the crisis, I asked for doctors and nurses from across the country to come help us in our emergency rooms. 30,000 people volunteered. I mean how awesome is that? Think about that - 30,000 nurses and doctors who knew the threat. If you're a nurse or a doctor you know the threat about working in an emergency room, right? It's not like you're going in blindly. 30,000 people volunteered. I mean how beautiful? How generous? How courageous? I'll fly to New York and I'll go into your emergency rooms. I said, at that time, we will never forget what people are doing for us. And I said at that time we will repay your gratitude. New Yorkers mean what they say and New Yorkers are an honorable people. When we will never forget and we'll be there for you, we mean it. I represent New Yorkers. The words came out of my mouth. I said them on behalf of all New Yorkers and we are going to honor what we said.

We will be there for you and we're working with governments now: Atlanta, Houston, Savannah, we're working with other governments, whatever they need. We understand they're struggling. We understand the pain. We were there and anything we can do, that's the right thing to do. Also, practically, we know that if we don't control the virus in the other states that we are then in danger of dealing with the second wave. Not the second wave they talked about which was a mutated virus comes back. It's a second ricochet of the first wave so, we're still in the first wave but the wave bounced to the West coast and is now bouncing back like a wave in a bathtub and that's our quarantine, etc. So, we understand that we have a self-interest in all of this and the expression I like to use: A virus anywhere is a virus everywhere. That's what we should have understood. That's what we should have understood when we first saw the virus in China. It was in China and it was a matter of days before it was here and by the way it was a matter of days before it was here.

Also, we are monitoring a second threat which is the rising Covid rates among younger people. You look at the age brackets, it's basically flat or down except for one group: 21 to 30 years old. And it has picked up four points; that is a significant increase in a short period of time and we know why. We have been talking about it. You can see it on the news, you can see it in the newspapers, you can see it in social media. It's not hard to understand what is going on. It's hard to deal with it but it's not hard to understand what's going on. You get groups of young people, it's warm, they've been locked up for a long time, we like to socialize - I get it. You don't socially distance, you don't wear masks, the virus spreads and it is happening.

To young people, this is not the time to fight for your right to party. I respect your right to party. I fully respect it. I would enshrine it into state law if you want to know. You have the right to party but let's be smart about it, right? There is an attitude that young people are immune. You are not. 21 to 30, the virus can kill you and if it doesn't kill you, you can bring it home and give it to someone inadvertently and it can kill them. So, they are laboring under false pretenses and I've had dozens and dozens of conversations and I've heard the most inane responses they just don't know the facts. They are dealing with assumptions that are just not true. So first, the local governments have to step up and do the enforcement job. I understand it's not politically popular. I understand it's hard. Some parts of the state, we have health personnel and local health personnel who have gone in who have been accosted - I understand that - but you have to enforce the law. Just because people don't like the law that you're enforcing doesn't mean you don't enforce the law. Send them with a local policeman. If you need help, we'll get you help with the state police but we have to enforce the law and the local governments have to do it. New York City, NYPD has to enforce the law, not just the Sheriff's Office. When New York City wants to enforce the law, you know who enforces it? The NYPD. Enforce the law. State Liquor Authority and the State Police are going to step up their efforts dramatically, but they can't do it without the local police. I have said that from day one. Also, we need to get the facts to the young people who are participating. And they need the facts. And we are going to start a video ad campaign that is targeted to young people to communicate some of the facts and the misimpressions that they have. Can you run the ad, please? 

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That's what you hear when you talk to a lot of young people. There is a total misconception of their vulnerability to this disease. And we hope that that makes a difference. Also, Washington is now discussing a supplemental bill to help with the COVID crisis. This gridlock and dispute as to whether or not they're going to fund state and local governments to help. It's very simple. If they want to get this economy back running, you have to fund state and local governments. There is no economic model or research that says the economy is going to bounce back without funding state and local governments. The economic research says the exact opposite. Listen to Chairman Powell. 

Even the Wall Street Journal says the data shows if you don't fund state and local governments and they have to do dramatic cuts— that's going to hurt the economy. These Republican senators who say, well, they don't want to make the taxpayer pay to bailout blue states, Democratic states. Initially, Democratic states are the states that had the most COVID cases. Not true anymore. You now have Republican states that are suffering worse than Democratic states, right? And this hyperpolitical Washington attitude: "why should a Republican senate give funds to Democratic states?" It's not even true. It is the epitome of hypocrisy. These Republican states have been taking money from the Democratic states for years. For years. You look at who gives and who takes— if you want to get to that basis— New York gives $29 billion. New Jersey gives $18 billion. Massachusetts, Connecticut, California— they all pay more into the federal till than they take out. You know who takes out? The Republican senators who are making this argument. Virginia takes out $82 billion. Maryland takes out $42 billion. Senator McConnell, Senator Rand: "we want to save taxpayers money." 

You know you save taxpayers money? Don't take so much money out of the till. You take out $37 billion more than you put in. You want to help taxpayers? Put some of the money back that you have been taking for years. That's how you help taxpayers. 

Long term, for New York City, we will need a significant effort to restart the economy and I've said that from day one. Reimagine the economy, rebuild the economy. You have a lot of people who left New York City when COVID was at its height. You then have this transformation in the economy where people were home for four or five months working from home and they were introduced to a new way of doing business and you're seeing businesses across the country starting to modify their behavior. Maybe I don't need to be in the city. Maybe I don't need all that commercial space. Maybe I can have half my work force work from home. Maybe I can stay in my summer house and work from my summer house and not pay the New York City income tax.

So this is a very delicate moment that we're in. You put on top of that the crime increase, put on top of that the scenes of looting that we've seen, put on top of that issues with the homeless, issues with graffiti. It's a bad combination that we're going to have to address. Now, one thing at a time, we have to get through the current crisis, which is dealing with COVID. And we have to make sure there's no second wave, er cetera. But we're going to have work to do to restart and rejuvenate the economy. There's no two ways about that.

One of the best things we've done is the amount of testing that we have done. You look at these other states that are still having trouble on testing. They're having long turnarounds on testing. Testing is your eyes and ears in this situation. Everything is anecdotal without testing. You have the number of hospitalizations, but that is a lagging indicator and it's too late when the hospitalizations are going up. The testing was the only facts to tell you where you were today, and you need facts, you need guideposts the plan your strategy. We test more than any state, we test more than most countries.

We've also tested, we do so much testing that we can refine the testing and we can test subgroups. We tested our subgroups of essential workers, because I was always worried we made essential workers continue working that we put them in harm's way. Essential workers were below the level of the overall community. New York City the overall community is 19.9. Fire department was 17. Transit workers, 14. Health care workers, 12. NYPD, 10. Why is the fire department high? It's fire department and EMT workers, so the EMT workers are really on the spot, right? They're the ones who are showing up. Look at the health care workers, 12 percent. How can the health care workers be at 12 percent when overall in New York City it was 19? How can people working in an emergency room have a lower infection rate? They're dealing with positive people all day long. How can that be? Because these work, these work. That's why and that's why New York State was the first state in the United States to have a mask order.

But, we've done more and more testing and we did testing in DOCCS facilities - Department of Correction facilities, okay? I've talked enough, press test. You're the press, this is the test. We tested incarcerated rated individuals 55 and over. How many individuals are there in the state prison system that were 55 and over? See, you like to ask questions but you're not so good on the answering questions. Any guess? Come on. How many? 39,000 were 55 and over. And why 55 and over? Because COVID affects older people more. What was that percent positive? How many people, percentage wise, how many people of the 3,900 tested positive? How many? Three percent. Any other bids? How many people? What's your number?

77 positives out of 3,900 people tested, which is 1.9. So, I just want to applaud Commissioner Annucci and I want to applaud Kelly Cummings. This is a congregant population, 55 and older, they were all asymptomatic by the way, because symptomatic people had been tested. These were asymptomatic people, the entire population. So that was a job really well done because again these congregate facilities are where we've seen a lot of trouble. So very good because we are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving.

2020-07-27 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hey, guys. Andrew Cuomo. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Rob Mujica, Jim Malatras and Gareth Rhodes who can assist on any questions. We have more good news today. Today is day 149, and it is a very good day. 57,000 tests yesterday, 608 positive. Infection rate of about 1 percent, which is what we like to see. 11 New Yorkers passed away yesterday, they're in our thoughts and prayers. 642 hospitalized, which is just about where we've been which is where we began on March 18. So, that is all very good news. 

New Yorkers have to remember that where we are is a function of what we do - there's a direct cause and effect. The numbers are the numbers that we make happen, and that's why every day in these briefings it's two sides of the coin. The numbers are very good today because we made the numbers very good today. We want to keep the numbers very good, so we have to be diligent about our actions. We have two possible situations that we have to watch, because I don't want to get complacent for myself or for anyone else. The situations we're watching are the national increase and the probability that we will be subject to the national increase at one point. We are a destination, New York. People come here, they come here to do business, they fly through here. If you have the virus going up in other parts of the country, it's almost inevitable that it will have an effect. You can try to minimize the effect, but it will have an effect, and we're still seeing increases across the country.

So, we have our quarantine in order. We have a quarantine enforcement in order. We've notified everyone across the country that if you're coming here you're going to be impacted by the quarantine. So, we're continuing that, but we won't be out of the woods totally on COVID until COVID is contained all across the country, if not globally. You know, you can screen international visitors, but at a minimum you need to get it under control in this country before we can really take a full deep breath. Taking partial deep breaths, but a full deep breath you'd have to know it's in control all across the country.

The second situation that we're watching is lack of compliance, that's particularly among young people, that's particularly among bars and restaurants. That's not unique to New York. Even the President of the United States said young people shouldn't go into packed bars. He said packed bars. But it's a national problem. I've said every day for weeks local governments are not doing what they need to do and they have to step up. The state will be doing everything they can with the most aggressive enforcement mechanism. That continued last night, Sunday night, which is basically a more quiet night than Fridays and Saturdays at the bars and restaurants. But even last night 27 establishments were issued violations. Saturday we had 53, Friday we had 52. But again, Sunday is a more quiet night, but even on a Sunday 27 more violations. This is primarily New York City based, we had people in Nassau and Suffolk, no violations were issued in Nassau and Suffolk, but they were issued in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Manhattan and Queens and Staten Island.

So, I want the establishments to know that we will continue to diligently enforce the law, that's what this is, it's enforcing the law. I understand their position that this closedown has been very tough on them, I understand it, I appreciate it, I respect it, I'm sympathetic with their plight. But, we also have to protect public health and we accomplish nothing if we have to roll back some rules and regulations on bars and restaurants. Most of the bars and restaurants have been great, really have been great. It's always the same - it's a handful of bad actors who ruin it for everyone and it's the bad actors who wind up hurting the good ones. And that's why you see many of the major groups that represent bar owners and restaurants are 100 percent supportive of the enforcement because if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have to worry about the enforcement. But if it's a way to stop the bad apples, great.

I was asked the other day about Kawasaki disease and what we're seeing on that. The number of cases in New York has gone up slightly, we're at about 240 cases now. That was about 15 or so more in the past month. But, New York is not a good gauge for this because the number of cases is coming down across the board, right? We are seeing the numbers increase in other states where the cases are increasing, and what we're seeing is the more you look for it, the more you find it. If you're not aware of it, you don't see it. But, the findings of our State Department of Health here in New York have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and we're proud of that. So, we're getting the word out to the other health departments that they should look for this. And as they're looking for it, they're finding more across the country. But we have not seen it increasing significantly in New York, but then again we haven't seen the cases increasing significantly in New York.

Last point, as we work through this situation, there's a number of levels here, right? It's three-dimensional chess. You want to number one - keep the number low and that's my main priority and we're doing that and we've been successful at that. Number two, you want to look ahead on the horizon - do you see any waves building that could be problematic? Is there a second wave? Could the increase nationwide have a more dramatic effect? Anticipate, anticipate, anticipate. The third level is what have we gone through that we can learn from and start to correct now and that level is actually exciting and positive and we're exploring that all across the board.

We're going to have a significant economic development challenge in the New York City area going forward. How do we start to prepare for that? How do we learn from this? Tele-educate, remote education, telemedicine, and how do we make sure we're better prepared for a health crisis in the future? The country could be doing a number of things, Defense Production Act, there's been a lot of conversation. A state doesn't have a state production act. Maybe they should but they don't. We can get to the same basic point by encouraging the manufacture of necessary medical equipment and supplies in this state so as a security matter we don't go through what we went through last time which is you can't get the PPE, you can't get the gowns, you can't get the masks, you can't get the gloves, you can't get the vials, you can't get the testing agents. That should never happen again.

Empire State Development has identified 20 companies that we will be investing in that will increase their manufacturing capacity of PPE and part of that agreement will be that those companies will make that PPE available to the State of New York for our health care facilities when and if we need it. So we have 20 companies who we are working with now but the Empire State Development is going to renew that request for proposals. I encourage companies across the state to look at that. If you are in a similar manufacturing line and you want to expand or if you're actually making the equipment and you want to expand, we have companies in Manhattan who were old clothing manufacturing businesses that are now making medical gowns, so there's a lot of opportunity and there's also significant necessity.

We can't go through what we went through last time. We can't be scouring the globe and paying exorbitant prices for medical equipment. You know, an N95 mask, before COVID started we paid 70 cents per COVID mask. When the crisis was at the high point, $7 per COVID mask. So it's not just a necessity. It's also an economic reality that the price gouging happens and we don't want to be subject to either.

2020-07-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you, operator. This is Governor Andrew Cuomo. Thank you all for joining us today - I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, Robert Mujica, Budget Director, Dr. James Malatras, academic extraordinaire and Gareth Rhodes, who's also an extraordinaire. 

The numbers today are very good, which is more good news for New Yorkers. Today is day 150. Happy anniversary. New York conducted 57,000 tests yesterday. The infection rate was 0.9 percent, 0.93. So, that was very good news yesterday. Congratulations to all New Yorkers who have produced that result. Nine New Yorkers have passed away from COVID - they are in our thoughts and prayers. 648 New Yorkers were hospitalized. The intubation rate was only 81 New Yorkers. The intubation is something that I watch - the overwhelming majority of people who are intubated never successfully leave intubation and 81 is the lowest number of people intubated since March 15th. If you remember how the numbers worked in a dynamic, when the intubations went up, it signaled that the number of deaths would increase and there were many days where the number of intubations went down but this was the lowest number since March 15th, so that's great.

Our job is to make sure we're doing everything we can to control COVID, which we are doing - anticipate possible future issues that might come along, and in that regard the future issues that we watch are the infection rate across the country spreading, number one. Number two our compliance of the rules that we now have in place across the state. On the situation across the nation, it is still very bad, and there are more states that have exceeded our thresholds for quarantine. Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Washington, D.C. are now added to the list. Puerto Rico is also added to the list so that means there are now 34 states, DC and Puerto Rico who are now on the quarantine list.

In terms of enforcement, I once again appeal to the local governments to do their job. This has been their prime function all through this COVID crisis. Their prime function has been to ensure compliance with the rules that we know are working. Our economy is reopening, the infection rate has stayed down because we have done compliance, if we have not done compliance, if we get lazy, if we get sloppy, you will see those numbers go up - I need the local governments to do their job. The state government cannot substitute for every local government's enforcement role - we just don't have enough resources on the state side. I need the NYPD to do a better job in New York City. There are some locations that have been especially problematic - the concert that happened in the town of Southampton was just a gross violation of not only the public health rules - it was a gross violation of common sense. It was grossly disrespectful to fellow New Yorkers and the Department of Health is going to do a full investigation as to why the town of Southampton issued a permit; as to what the promoters thought they were doing; how the event as it was going on was allowed to get out of control; how the local law enforcement didn't do anything when they saw that they had an event that was out of control and all the rules were being violated. So that investigation is ongoing. We're taking it very seriously. There have also been reports that we have been receiving about behavior in the village of Southampton that has been ongoing and recurring that also violates the public health regulations. The village of Southampton is located within the town of Southampton and both the town in the village leadership will be involved in that inquiry. So that is ongoing and has been used by the Department of Health. Violation of the public health law has civil fines and a potential for criminal liability so we're taking that very seriously. At the same time the State Liquor Authority has sped up its enforcement efforts. We teamed them with the New York state police that has been going on for about the past two weeks, the more intensive effort. Last night they visited 644 establishments across New York City and Long Island and an additional 26 violations were found and were issued, and that will continue. The 26 last night were from Manhattan primarily, 17 in Queens county - my home County - 9, so again when we talk about local compliance efforts and local government efforts, obviously we have more to do there. 

I want to speak about the Republican Senate and their COVID bill and their response: Republican Senators, as you know, put in a bill that does not have state local aid funding and what it really does is give more flexibility to some of the states for all the money that was previously appropriated. That does New York no benefit because we don't need flexibility for money unspent. We don't have money unspent. We need additional funding. This is designed to help the Republican states who got funding for COVID in the previous bills who can't spend the money because they don't have the number of COVID cases. Why were they then appropriated the money, is a good question. This was pure politics. This Washington bill is not like the normal Washington bills, you know. Here's what's going on in Washington as far away, it's abstract, it's complicated, does it really make a difference in their lives, at the kitchen table - this bill does. Because if you tell me how much state and local aid we get from Washington, I will tell you the impact on day-to-day lives. This Washington legislation the — what the House passes, what Senator Schumer passes — this is going to determine people's property taxes. If they repeal SALT as they should, as they did in the House bill, your property taxes effectively will be lower. If they don't, they will raise your property taxes. If they don't provide school aid — state aid — your school aid will be roughly 20 percent less of what it was. That could also affect your property taxes. That will be determined by the state, state aid level of this federal bill. It will also determine the fares on the Long Island Rail Road and the New York City subway system. If the MTA does not receive funding, if the state doesn't receive funding— then we can't provide our funding to the MTA. That will raise fares for the New York City subway system, tolls on bridges and the fares on the Long Island Rail Road. The funding has to come from somewhere. If Washington plays politics, if the House members don't stand firm, if our two Senators, Schumer and Gillibrand, don't stand firm — you're going to see New Yorkers paying a higher subway and Long Island Rail Road fare. If they don't provide funding to the Port Authority, you will see construction slow or stop at LaGuardia Airport and JFK Airport. OK? There is nothing conceptional or abstract to this exercise. It is going to have a dramatic practical effect on New Yorkers. And I want New Yorkers to know the consequences. Because I want our federal representatives held accountable. This will determine your property taxes, your school aid, whether or not LaGuardia and JFK are rebuilt, and will determine the fares on the Long Island Railroad and on the New York City subway system. And the tolls on the buses — the fares on the busses and the fares on the rivers and the bridges, crossings.

Additionally, for the Senate, not to provide state aid is totally hypocritical to their professed goal. Their professed goal is to help the economy, create jobs, right? It's all about the economy. All through this, their emphasis has been on the economy. "Reopen, reopen, reopen. Don't worry about public health." People die. That's been their argument. When it comes to state aid, they're totally hypocritical. Every economist says if you do not provide state and local aid, you will hurt the economy. They all say it. Federal Reserve Chairman Powell said it to the Senate Banking Committee in May that when you look back on what happened on the 2007, 2009 financial crisis, the lack of support for state and local governments slowed the nation's economy. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the same thing, that the country would face a more significant problem and protracted recession than 2007-2009. The National Governor's Association, bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans, by the way there are more Republican governors than Democratic governors, made the same point and said we need an additional $500 billion dollars. Harvard University economist Gabriel Chodorow-Reich said the same thing, that the stimulus, for every dollar in state spending that is cut, it hurts the overall economy by $1.50 to $2 dollars. So, on that theory, on the pure Republican, conservative theory, on the Wall Street Journal theory, Fox TV theory, Rupert Murdoch theory, "help the economy," state aid helps the economy.

So, from their political, hyper-political position, this is what their philosophy calls for. There is going to be total transparency and accountability on this. I just wish the consequences were not so high. But this is not the normal federal dance that they are playing where nobody will know what happened, where they can deceive the American public with their fog that they create. New Yorkers are going to know and Americans are going to know. They are going to know whether or not their property taxes went up. They are going to know whether or not the fares went up. They are going to know whether or not LaGuardia was rebuilt and JFK was rebuilt. And they are going know whether or not there were dramatic layoffs by their state and local government. And they are going to know whether or not the economy came back quickly or whether just more politics were played in Washington or if there was more incompetence - either way people are going to know.

Last point, we have Republican members in the New York delegation. Their silence has been deafening. I understand political allegiance. I understand that many of them have sworn their loyalty to their Republican, conservative philosophy, but once in a while they could stand up and actually represent the people of their district. And again, we are talking about the people of their district's property taxes, aid to education and economic recovery. There is no state budget this year. There is a federal budget. The state budget this year is effectively being crafted by the Congresspeople and the United States senators. They are making these determinations and everybody talks about transparency and accountability so let's have it.

Last point, the Major League Baseball is struggling with the challenges of playing ball in the COVID crisis. I have said from day one I thought that it was a very good idea to get sports back without fans, but it would be televised, et cetera. I think it would be good for the economy, I think it would be good for the psyche, I think it would be good for the nation's soul. We want everybody to stay home, curtailed activity, don't go to the bar, don't drink. Okay, let's stay home and watch a ball game. But then there has to be a ball game on TV. And I understand that Major League Baseball has had problems with that.

I have offered suggestions to Major League Baseball over the past, getting spring training for the Yankees and Mets in New York was a big deal. Getting the Blue Jays to play in Buffalo, that's an exciting, big deal, it's great for Buffalo, great for New York. Here's my suggestion, I understand the challenge they're facing - New York State could host any Major League Baseball game that any teams want to play and they could play those games in our stadiums. New York State has one of the lowest infection rates in the United States. New York State has a full Department of Health protocol system in place, we have a testing system in place.

I offer to Major League Baseball, if you're having problems playing in other states, come play here. We will set up a health protocol - they could fly their team in on a private aircraft, they could go from the airport to a hotel where they would be quarantined, we would test everyone, we would get the test results back and then they could play ball in our stadium, then they could get on a plane and fly home. We have the ability to do it. We have the testing resources to do it. We have the Department of Health experience to do it. It would be great for the New York State economy. And I think it would be great for New Yorkers and Americans. So, I offer that to Major League Baseball. The way we made it work for spring training camp, the way we made it work for the Blue Jays, we offer the same assistance here. I understand every team wants to play in its own city in its own state, I get it and that's great. But if that's not practicable for any reason, come play here. There's no fans anyway so it's just about the coverage, and New York is the media capital. So I offer that for what it is worth because I would love to see a robust baseball season.

2020-07-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: We have a special guest with us today who I would like to speak about and speak with at the beginning of the call. Then I'll go through the numbers for the day. We have a team on the ground in St. Petersburg, Florida today, and we're joined by Mayor Rick Kriseman. The team has been working with St. Petersburg over the past few days. We'll be setting up a testing site today. Working with St. Petersburg and we're sending down some necessary materials. We're sending down 7,500 test kits, 7,500 gowns, 11,000 pairs of gloves, 7,500 N95 masks, 124,000 surgical masks, 7,500 face shields, 1,250 gallons of our New York clean, special hand sanitizer. You try that hand sanitizer, mayor, your hands will never be the same, I can promise you that. But it will kill the COVID virus, and it'll give you a special tingling sensation.

Mayor, it's our pleasure to be of help. You know, I was, as you know, New York went through this first, and I asked, at one point, on one dark day, when I was doing the briefing, I asked Americans to volunteer to come help us. We were overwhelmed in the hospitals, and I asked for doctors and nurses who could come help New York. And 30,000 people volunteered, 30,000 doctors and nurses. And I'll tell you, it was one of the really powerful experiences of my life, actually. 30,000 doctors and nurses volunteer to come to New York, to go into an emergency room at the height of this frightening COVID pandemic. I was so shocked at just the generosity, the courage, the love that people showed. I said at that time, I can't express the gratitude, I said and, we will be there for you. It was really America at its best, you know, it was that neighborliness, that barn-raising spirit, I help you, you help me, I'm your neighbor, you're my neighbor.

I had seen it after 9/11, where people from all across the country came to New York to be supportive. But I tell you, I was really personally touched, and I said on behalf of all New Yorkers, whatever anyone needs, we will be there. And I spoke for all New Yorkers when I said that and they have reinforced that and I want to honor it. And we've been doing that. We know what you're going through. We've been watching the numbers. We've been watching the news. We're sorry that you have to go through it. You're in our thoughts and our prayers.

I want to personally applaud you, mayor. You were right early on. You were right on the stay-at-home order. You were right on the intelligence of wearing masks. Literally if we had followed your advice in those calls, this nation would be in a difference place. I was saying basically the same thing in New York that you've been saying in St. Petersburg. The stay-at-home order works, the masks work, we should have taken this seriously sooner. I also agree with you on the young people. That's where we're seeing the increase in the numbers. We're struggling with it here in New York with bars and restaurants. But I applaud your leadership, I know it's hard to speak, especially when you're the first one uttering the thoughts, and these are not popular thoughts, you know. Nobody wants to stay home, nobody wants to have to wear a mask. But it's a test of leadership, and it's also a period in history where you really see what people are made of, you know. When the pressure is on, that's when the character comes to life, and we've seen a lot of character and we've seen people who were under pressure and they didn't stand up frankly but you did stand up and you were right and you've been doing a great job in St. Petersburg before this.

I was the former HUD Secretary so I had a lot of experience working with mayors all across the country and I know a good mayor when I see one and you are a good mayor so it's our pleasure to be helpful.

The testing site, I spoke with them this morning. They said that's going well today. I'm sure you need the supplies. Anything else you need we're here but in the meantime just keep going. We're together. We're Americans. We're your neighbors to the north. We obviously have a lot of New Yorkers who go down to Florida and I grew up in Queens. Everyone moved to Florida when they were finished in New York so there's a lot of commonality and we're with you in spirit and we're with you as a neighbor. Anything you need we're here. You stand strong but thank you for joining us this morning, mayor.

Mayor Kriseman: Well, thank you, Governor, and first off, thank you for the very kind comments. I do remember when you made some of the comments about wanting to provide assistance and I've been in elected office now for almost 20 years and I know politicians oftentimes will say a lot of things and make a lot of promises but you, sir, you follow through and you did exactly what you said you were going to do and that's not something that a lot of politicians unfortunately do and I agree with you it is a test to leadership and again, Governor, you and your team, the leadership that you have provided, the assistance that you've given us and the donations but equally important how you've communicated. We're not getting good, clear concise, factually-based communications from Washington, a lot of state capitols it's not coming from, but we've gotten it from you. Your residents have, really the entire country, I think has really benefitted from how clear and concise and just accurate you've been in everything that you said and commanding and I certainly appreciate it. It helps me as a mayor do my job when the message that's being put out is clear.

In St. Petersburg and the county that we're in in Pinellas we've tried to be leaders. We were the first to take, among one of the first, to take actions related to a safer at-home initiative, mask mandates, and I think it's really helped get our numbers on track to really start reducing the positivity rate. Our county in Pinellas is one of the most densely populated in the state of Florida and yet we're the largest county over the past several days, the past week, that has a positivity rate that is now under 7 percent and it's because mask orders work and you, sir, you showed us that. You showed it in New York and we're following it here and we wish all of Florida quite frankly would have a mask mandate. I think our state would be doing better but I got to thank you again for the support.

I agree widespread testing is key. Our hospitals have been overstressed and so the PPE that you're sending us, the supplies you're sending us, is really critical and I'd like to give the press a really clear example of the impact that you and the State of New York are having on us here in St. Pete. We are the home of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital which is the only Hopkins facility outside Baltimore and it's here in St. Pete and they're taking care of kids that are suffering with COVID-19 and they emailed us and said if they could have more iPads that could help them meet the increased request for virtual appointments and therapies and you all delivered and you've made that request a possibility and a reality and it's going to impact the kinds and our community and the families of these kids and so again I can't thank you enough - and then the testing site.

It is in a neighborhood where we have disproportionately impacted zip codes, a couple of zip codes where we are seeing our highest levels of positive testing and they are the neighborhoods of our largest minority population and so for us to be able to do testing there and be able to get the data related to that test really will help us in trying to address and target what steps we need to take to try and reduce the positivity in those zip codes too. So, again, on behalf of the entire community and the 270,000 residents of this great city I have to say thank you, thank you, thank you.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, Mayor, very kind of you. I appreciate it. I truly do. And I agree with everything you said. On the testing in those hotspot zip codes, that's very important, you know, and SOMOS Community Care is working with us up here and we brought them down there and they're the ones setting up the testing site. You're also right that at the end of the day leadership mattered here, you know? Government has been sleepy for a lot of years in many ways. You didn't really need government to step up on a critical mission, this is a critical mission. And you said you've been in public service 20 years, experience shows, character shows and yours did, my friend. Anything you need, we are here. Thank you for your kind words. It's unfortunate that we're in this situation, you know, I thought that New York went first because we had the virus that came from Europe, nobody realized it, everybody was talking about China. The virus left China before any of these geniuses knew it, it went to Europe and then it came to New York from Europe, literally on the plane that's where the flights landed. So we got hit very hard, we were ambushed. But, we would have liked to think that we would have learned the lessons as New York was going through it and that we knew what the future was and we handled it differently. We didn't do that. But you stood up, you led and I'm proud to call you a friend. Anything you need, we are here, we are here. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much.

Mayor Kriseman: Thank you so much, Governor.

2020-08-01 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being with us. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa and Rob Mujica, Budget Director and that's it. Saturday staff, short staffed. What day is today? Today is Saturday. Today is day 154. Today is August 1. Today is five months since we had our first case. Five months.

Today we hit a record number of tests done on a single day, 82,737. That is the most tests every conducted in a single day in this state. Of those 82,000 tests, .91 positive, 753 tests, great news. Four New Yorkers passed away yesterday. They are in our thoughts and prayers but compared to where we were relatively it's great news. 581 New Yorkers hospitalized. That's good news. 147 ICU patients, 72 intubations. That's all great news.

We're in the stage where we are protecting our progress to threats, quarantine, which continues from other states with high infection rates and compliance in New York, especially young people, especially bars and restaurants. Once again local governments have to step up. Some are doing better than others.

This state has a task force that's been working. New York State Police and the SLA. Last night there were 41 establishments that were given violations, 2 in the Bronx, 1 in Brooklyn, 5 in Queens, 1 in Staten Island, 3 in Nassau, 2 in Suffolk, 27 in Manhattan. Twenty-seven in Manhattan. We need the NYPD to step up and do enforcement. The SLA did 7 more suspensions yesterday, 3 in Manhattan, 3 in Queens, 1 in Staten Island.

There was an alarming development in Georgia that we just want to bring to your attention. A sleepaway camp for children - 76 percent of the campers and the staffers at the camp tested positive for COVID. That was about half the camp, less than two weeks after the camp opened. So, we made a decision here about camps, we said there was a great risk, I feel good about that. But we're talking about reopening schools and young people, and the possibility of infection. So, these are real circumstances that have to be considered.

The point I want to make on schools, the school districts were supposed to put in their plans yesterday on alternatives or how they would reopen. We're going to watch the overall infection before we make a decision. We're going to make a decision this week, an initial decision. If at this point, schools should plan on reopening and then we'll watch to see what happens with the infection rate. But one of the big variables here is going to be the parents' comfort level. You know, the discussion basically assumes if the schools opened all the parents will send their children back to school; that is not the case. I am talking to parents all across the state. I'm getting deluged with phone calls from parents who are concerned, and they should be concerned. You hear about the Georgia camp, you get concerned. You hear about the Kawasaki-like syndrome, you get concerned. You hear scientists and health officials who say they don't know the long-term consequences for a child who has antibodies, you get concerned.

So, it's not flicking a switch; it's like all of these decisions, it's more complicated than we often think. You can say, "Okay, school reopens." If the parents are not comfortable, the children will not be sent. You have some school districts in parts of this state that are seeing record numbers of enrollees. Some of the school districts, on the east side of Long Island, are seeing an exponential number of enrollees. Parents are taking this decision very seriously, and the reason we need the school districts to put in their plans is because the parents need to review the plan, understand the plan, and they have to have confidence in the plan. If they don't have confidence in the plan, I don't care what the school district says. They are not sending their kids back. Now, there will be some parents who don't have a choice but to send their child back because they don't have alternative childcare, et cetera, but there are going to be many parents who if they think their child might be subjected to failure they are just not going to do it. That was the point of this pre-opening period. The school district puts in their plan, the parents get to the review it, the parents ask questions, the parents get to provoke the discussion. The parents then feel comfortable. Okay, now you can reopen. This is not a dictatorial decision by the school district. This is a cooperative decision where it is the parents' choice. It is not the school district's choice. It is the parents' choice to send their child. So, this is supposed to be more of a dialogue that we are having now and that is why these plans are important. I am disappointed that New York City didn't have their plan on time because that is one of the main districts where there is a lot of discussion and dialogue, and until there is a plan people are not going to feel that there is an informed dialogue. And to have that whole process, have that discussion, get it done in two weeks is going to be hard, and if parents are not comfortable and confident I am telling you they are not going to send their child. So you will open a school, you will have partial attendance which will serve no one.

My two cents on the plans, the concepts are not enough. I understand the concept of remote learning. We have a lot of experience with the concept of the remote learning and the experience that we went through. Remote learning, if not done well, can be a vehicle of division. Remote learning tends to work better in the wealthier school districts and tends to work less well in the poorer school districts. It tends to work better in wealthier homes and less well in poorer homes. The measures to correct that are vital to any reopening plan, and it is not just understanding the question - it is having a complete answer. I have had a number of conversations with school districts. Yes, we understand remote learning. Yes, we understand the challenges. Yes, but how are you going to meet them specifically? Where is the personnel? Where is the equipment? How are you going to do this?

All through this COVID crisis there are no conceptual discussions anymore. The conceptual discussions would have caused problems all across this country. Conceptually, we understand reopening. We'll have to do testing and tracing. Yeah, but if you didn't actually know how to do testing and tracing and you didn't operationally implement it, now you have Florida and Texas and Arizona, et cetera. If you didn't know how to do an emergency response legislation, then you wound up with this hodge podge approach that some states have now. The devil is in the details and parents are going to want to hear the details.

The second place, besides remote learning, is on testing. How are you going to test the students? How many are you going to test per day? How long will it take to turn around the tests? Where are you going to get that testing capacity? That has to all be in addition to what they are doing today. If a locality today is doing 20,000 tests, okay, how many are you going to do on the first day of school? Oh, we're going to do 10,000 in the schools. Oh, so you will have an additional 10,000 tests in capacity? Yes. How? And if you have an additional 10,000 capacity, why aren't you using it now? What will the turn arounds be on those tests? We know the turnaround times are going up with these national labs.

Those are the vital questions and those are the questions the parents are going to ask. These are very informed parents. I made it my business to inform the people of this state with exhaustive briefings every day. They know the questions. They're going to ask the questions and if we don't have answers for them, then they're going to conclude that we haven't thought through the plan and they're not going to send a child.

Remote learning is more of a policy, societal issue for me. The testing question is going to be the question that every parent asks. So let's ask it today before we get further down the road and find out we don't have the answer. Then it's too late to fix and we lost the confidence of the parents and then we're going to have a real problem. With that, Rob, Melissa, do you have anything else to add?

Melissa DeRosa: Nope, I'm good.

Rob Mujica: I think I'm good, Governor.

2020-08-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Morning guys, Andrew Cuomo. I have Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Jim Malatras and Gareth Rhodes on the phone with me. Happy Sunday. Today is day 155. We did 58,961 tests yesterday, that brings us to over 6 million diagnostic tests since March, which is really good news. The 531 tested positive, that's 0.9 percent yesterday, so that's really good news. 3 New Yorkers passed away yesterday, they're in our thoughts and prayers. 556 hospitalized, that's the lowest number we've had hospitalized since we began, so that's great. The ICU numbers are down to 143. The number of intubated down slightly to 71. So, all very good news. All very good news.

The context is important; it's all very good news. The numbers are just about where we want them to be, but - I always add the but - we have to stay diligent. What this says is our plan is working, which means stay with the plan. When the plan is working, it doesn't mean you deviate from the plan or you throw the plan out, right? Silly metaphor: we had to lose weight, we had to get the numbers down. The diet is working. "Well then let's get off the diet." No, no, no. The diet is working and we need to get the weight down, we need to get the numbers down. So, it's working, but you have to stay on it.

We also have threats that we're worried about: lack of compliance and the situation across the country. Last night the SLA State Police Task Force did 36 violations. They visited about 1,000 establishments. Since we've started, the Task Force has visited 13,000 establishments, which is an extraordinary amount of work. On the national threat, the outlook is not good. The New York Times has a story today that says no patch of America is safe. New York is in America last time I checked, and we see increases across the country. We see increases across the world, right? Japan is up 50 percent in July. Australia now has a second wave in Melbourne. Israel is fighting a second wave after they opened schools. Hong Kong, Spain. So, if you look at the facts, you look at the data, you look at history, you look at the other experiences, it all says the same thing: we have to be careful.

2020-08-03 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good to see you all here today. I'm joined by Mr. Rick Cotton today, extraordinary Executive Director of the New York State and New Jersey Port Authority. He's been doing an extraordinary job at the Port Authority. Does, among other things, the administration of the airports, building the new John F. Kennedy, rebuilding JFK, so he's been doing double duty and we have a great announcement today that we've joined in this morning, which I'm going to chat about in a moment. 

Today is day 156, for those who are counting. If you're not counting, it's still day 156. Number of hospitalizations, 536. What does that number mean? It is a new low since we were in the midst of the battle. So that is great news. Number of COVID patients in ICU, 136. Also a new low since the height of the crisis. Number of intubations, 62. Also a new low, so that's great news. Number of lives lost, a new low on the 3-day average, 3 people passed away yesterday. This is really all great, great news and I congratulate New Yorkers because this is purely a result of the actions they've been taking. 

The progress is even better than we expected. Remember when we started reopening, all the experts said, expect the infection rate to increase when the activity rate increases. That's what you've seen all across the country, that's what you've seen in other countries, and that's what we expected here. We then were talking about calibrating the increase and making sure it didn't go that high, but it was supposed to go up. After two and a half months of reopening, the numbers have actually gone down; which nobody suggested. That is really to compliment New Yorkers. 

We started reopening May 15, that's where it was on the curve - we call it a curve, I call it a descent of the mountain. We get to the same place we just have different metaphorical images. That's where the reopening started. Since the reopening, the numbers continued to go down. No expert predicted that. New Yorkers are doing better than anyone else, even expected. Cautious still, but why shouldn't we be celebrating? Because look around, that's why. 

Look at what's going on across the country. Look at those increases. Look at what we're dealing with in terms of now 39 states on the quarantine list and look at incidents of lack of compliance. The numbers are a result of the actions and we have been disciplined and we have to stay disciplined. In terms of enforcement, local governments have to do a better job. I don't know how else to say it. We're doing everything we can on the state side. The SLA and the State Police are working double duty. We have a problem with young people and lack of compliance. We have a problem, especially at bars and restaurants. 

Last night, they did another 29 violations. They checked 874 establishments. Over the weekend, they checked 3,000 establishments and did 106 violations. All this to say that the bars and restaurants follow the rules because if you don't follow the rules, chances are, likelihood is, someone's going to be there to watch and to check. That's the way it should be. If you're following the rules, fine. If you're not following the rules, if I were you, I would be worried. That's the way it should be. 

We're seeing continued situations that are just not intelligent and local governments have to crack down on these, whether they're in New York City or Long Island or they're in upstate New York. How a charter boat could put together a crowd on deck and leave - it's just disrespectful, it's illegal. It not only violates public health it violates common decency. Look at all the people you endangered. What if one of those people on that cruise gets sick and dies? What if one of the people on that cruises gets sick, goes home and gives it to a parent who dies? It is just really reckless, rude, irresponsible and illegal. Under the Kosciuszko Bridge apparently dozens of people partied. We need better enforcement all across the state. 

On the issue of schools, I want to be clear: We have 700 school districts in this state. The districts are putting in plans for how they will handle the reopening. I'll make a determination later this week on the infection rate whether or not we're going to reopen schools. But, just because a district puts out a plan, doesn't mean that if we reopen the school, parents are going to come or teachers are going to come. It's not, "Well the government said the schools are open - now everybody must go." It's not going to happen that way. I'm talking to parents - I am telling you it is not going to happen that way. They are not going to trust the school district. This is an issue of public health.

Just because the school district says, "You shouldn't worry about your child's public health," that's not going to be enough. Not in this environment. Not when you're dealing with situations that everybody knows that nobody has the facts. Parents are going to want to understand the information for themselves. I'll tell you what they're asking me, I'll tell you what they're going to ask every school district. "How are you going to test? How many tests are you going to take? Are you sure you have them lined up? Are you sure those are enough tests? Is it a representative sample? How long is it going to take to turn around the tests - is it two days, four days, seven days?" They're informed, parents. They're the most informed people on this issue probably in the country. They've lived through it. They're going to have questions. This is not going to be the school district puts out a plan and then by fiat, by dictatorship, that is the plan.

You need the parents to be comfortable. You need the teachers to be comfortable. You need the children to show up at school and there's going to have to be a discussion. You look at some of these plans - they're indecipherable. Even if you can understand the plan, they raise questions and parents are going to need to talk it through. I encourage every school district: Set up a discussion room now, start explaining to the parents now, have those conversations now, you can't call people into a conference room but you can invite them on to a video chat or onto a chat room, but they have questions and they need answers and time is short. That should start now because the parents are going to make the decision.

"Nobody is going to tell me whether or not I should send my child to school I'm going to make that determination. And I'm going to want to make sure send informed determination. And I'm not going to trust just what's on some school district's plan. I'm not going to do that." And parents have to be comfortable and they should be comfortable because they're the ultimate decision makers. Just because I say the infection rate is low, that's not going to cause a parent to send the child back to school. Just because the school district says we have a safe plan, I'm telling you it's not going to work. They have to feel comfortable which means they have to be part of the process we have to have a dialogue.

I want to congratulate the Port Authority, Rick Cotton who runs it, Chairman Kevin O'Toole. The Saint Nicholas Greek Church has been a long saga for New York. It was destroyed in 9/11, it was supposed to be rebuilt, there were fits and starts, bureaucracy was slow, this was slow, but I was just with His Eminence the Archbishop and it is now being rebuilt. It is magnificent. It really is a beautiful structure - it is the only church on 9/11. Part of it is going to be a bereavement center - it's not just a Greek church it's a universal center for reconciliation. It is a spiritual place and we've been trying to get it done for a long time - sometimes God works in funny ways that it is now being rebuilt at this moment all these years after 9/11. Why this moment, maybe because God says he needs or wants a symbol of renewal and rebirth at this moment. Maybe it was God's way of saying to New Yorkers, yes, this is a tough time. Yes, we've been dealt a hard blow. But we can rise up. We can build back. And we can build back better. St. Nicholas is better than the church that was there before. We didn't just rebuild St. Nicholas. This is a vastly improved physical structure from what it was. This is going to be a national landmark— St. Nicholas— when it's done. And I think is a symbolism there for all New Yorkers. We're going to have to build back. There's no doubt about it. We don't even understand the extent of the economic damage that has been done. And it's going to be hard. I'm telling you that, but we've done it before and will do it again. And that's what St. Nicholas said to me today when I was there. 

In terms of the national situation— and I want to speak plain truth on this. We said we have two threats: we have the lack of compliance and we have the national situation. The national situation is getting worse. It's not getting better. That is a fact, as I like to say. It's an inarguable fact. You look at the numbers— look at what's happening in Florida, look at California, look at Texas. Look at the numbers. Look at what's happening all across the Midwest where you're seeing a dramatic rise. Look at what the White House is now saying where you entered "a new phase of COVID." What's the new phase? Extensive spread. Oh, that's a new phase? What was the old phase? If the new phase is extensive spread, what was the old phase? That was limited spread, what we went through? I mean, it's absurd. It's not a new phase. It was entirely predictable. It was the progression of a virus. It's exponential increase, which is what a virus does.

One person affects two people, two people infect four. It is the exponential pyramid of viral spread. It's not a new phase. It was a mathematical equation that you just had to factor out. You have medical experts who are now saying we should hit the reset button. That the nation should shut down and start over. That that's the only way to stop the virus. That's what medical experts are saying: hit the reset button, shut down everything and start all over again. That's a damning commentary on where we are: hit the reset button. Just close all the states and start over. Look, you want to start over, you want to hit the reset button. I'll tell you how we hit the reset button in this country. We start this time with the truth. We do something different than was done in this country six months ago when this started.

Start with the truth. Tell the American people the truth. And it starts with a reset with the President of the United States telling the truth, which he did not do six months ago. And if you want to hit the reset button, and you need to hit the reset button, and I believe we need to hit the reset button— then hit the reset button. But do it honestly. And it has to start with the President telling the American people the truth. The truth is: it was a mistake to deny COVID. It was a mistake to downplay COVID. It was a mistake to say it's just the flu. It was a mistake to say it's gone by Easter. It was a mistake to say it's going to magically disappear when it gets warm. It was a mistake to say I see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a mistake to say yes, we're going to do testing, but I don't think we need it. Those were all mistakes. Those were all untruths. And they sent the wrong message to the American people because some people heard the President and believed him. And if you believed him, you wouldn't take COVID seriously. And if you didn't take COVID seriously, then you wouldn't take the precautions that people were saying you should take. But that's what the President of the United States was saying six months ago.

The President of the United States said five months ago, "reopen the economy! Liberate the states. Liberate the economy. These governors are slow-walking reopening. They're just playing politics. That's what they're doing. There's no reason not to reopen the economy. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up." 

Florida jumps. Texas jumps. Arizona jumps. Yes, we're just going to reopen the economy. That was a mistake. It was an untruth. It denied the science. It denied what they're saying now. The virus will spread if you do that. Tell the truth. The truth is, it was a mistake that when you saw what was going on in New York five months ago you didn't heed the warning. It was a mistake when you saw the spike in New York you thought somehow those people were different and your people were immune - your people aren't immune. New Yorkers had no different immune system that made them more contagious to the virus it was a mistake to deny the reality that happened in New York, that was broadcast across the country.

That was a mistake. It was a mistake to see what we had to do here in New York: the testing; the hospital system; the contact tracing; the closed down; the phased reopening and pay no attention to it. No attention to it. Six months later, the states still don't have testing and contact tracing. How can it be? You had six months. Here in New York, we had two weeks. We were ambushed because the virus came from Europe and nobody told us. These are the states had six months. How did you not set up a testing operation? How did you not expand the capacity of your hospital system? How did you not locate additional staff? How did you not locate additional PPE? You had six months. The reason they didn't? Because they were listening to the president. "There is no issue. There is no problem." It was a mistake.

Tell them the truth. The truth is COVID is serious, it is deadly serious. And it's deadly serious for all of us. It's not deadly serious for Democrats. It's not deadly serious for blue states only. COVID kills Republicans and COVID affects red states. It is deadly serious. This was not a political issue and it shouldn't have been politicized. This is public health that's what this was and it should have never been turned into a political symbol which is what this president did. Start with the truth and the truth is an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. That's what we should have learned in China. What we should have learned from MERS and SARS and Ebola and swine flu and H1N1 - an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. It's still true. And the truth is none of us are safe until all of us are safe. That is the truth. If we don't tell the truth on the reset, COVID will never end and it will ricochet across the country. It will just bounce back and forth and you see how it's bouncing now? It's ricochet. It's Florida, it's Texas, it's the Midwest, it's California - oh it's back to New Jersey is on the rise, oh it's back to Massachusetts is on the rise. It will continue this ricocheting across the country because that's what viruses do. It will never end. This was a colossal blunder how COVID was handled by this federal government. Colossal blunder. Shame on all of you.

Six months, lives loss, hit the reset button, yes. But the way the medical experts are talking about it won't work it. It won't work unless you hit the reset button and you start with the truth because if the American people are continued lying to, the confusion in the chaos and the denial will continue. Hit the reset button. It's called the truth. It's called the plain truth. The American people are smart. If the president actually tells them the truth and says I made a mistake, he's not going to be telling them anything they don't know. Every American knows he made a mistake. Every American knows this was the worst government blunder in modern history.

Not since the Vietnam War have Americans sat in their living room to see the numbers on the TV screen every night saying what a mistake it was. During the Vietnam War, every night you saw the death toll, you saw the injury toll on TV. Every night they've seen this virus increasing all across the country in the death toll going up. You don't think they know it was a mistake, then you don't know the American people. They're smarter than you think. Trust the American people and if you don't trust them and you don't trust their intelligence and you don't trust their ability to handle the information, then you shouldn't ask to be their leader.

I trust the people of New York. I told them the truth, I told them the facts, I never sugarcoated, I never shield it - I told him the truth, so they knew what to do and they did it. That's what we call being New York Tough and smart and united and disciplined and loving. They should try it in Washington.

2020-08-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, this is Governor Andrew Cuomo. I'm on the phone with Melissa DeRosa, Rob Mujica, Jim Malatras, Beth Garvey and Gareth Rhodes. Let me make a couple of points and then we'll take your questions.

Today is day 159. We did 72,000 tests yesterday and the infection rate is .9. That is very good news. Three New Yorkers died of COVID yesterday. They're in our thoughts and prayers, but that is also relatively very, very good news. Five hundred and seventy New Yorkers hospitalized. That's just about where it was the day before. One hundred and thirty-two COVID patients are in the ICU, that's down 2. Sixty-nine patients were intubated, that is right where it was the day before.

Incredibly, all the numbers on New York are very good, even though around us we see the virus spreading. New York State is, in some ways, an island in the United States where our numbers are still holding because we work at it every day. There's no secret to how a virus spreads. This is mathematics, this is science, this is a function of behavior and activity and we're now all about protecting our progress even though we're an island in a sea of spread.

To protect the progress there is two fronts. We're seeing the national surge and we're trying to be protective with our quarantine efforts, et cetera, and enforcing compliance within the state. On the enforcement of the compliance within the state and the enforcement of the quarantine rules within the state, I need the local governments to be of more assistance in compliance and the enforcement of compliance. I've said this for weeks. The state is doing everything it can to do the enforcement compliance, but I need local governments to be more active in enforcement compliance. Not informational efforts - I don't need them to hand out brochures - everyone knows the rules. It's enforcing the compliance, not informing the compliance. I once again ask all local governments to do that.

What we're doing on the state side is we're enforcing. SLA, State Police are doing violations. It's not politically advantageous, but it is politically advantageous when you know that's your way of keeping the spread down. It's illegal for somebody to leave the airports. It's not that we just say to them, here are the rules, it's illegal to leave the airport. It's illegal for a bar or a restaurant to violate the rules. SLA, State Police did 26 more violations yesterday. Eight in Brooklyn, 5 in Manhattan, 6 in Queens, 2 in Staten Island, 2 in Nassau, 3 in Suffolk. I need the local governments to step up.

On the issue of schools, I want everybody to remember the broader context. We will have at threshold decision in terms of the viral rate spread region by region across the state. We're not going to open any school unless the viral transmission rate says we have the virus under control. If the viral transmission rate increases significantly then we will close the schools but there is more to this equation than just the viral transmission rate. The situation is very different across the state because regions are in different positions across the state and parents and teachers have different opinions across the state. Just as you see the situation in schools across the country has variation, the situation across the state there are variations.

It is not just a question of the State or the local school district pronouncing that the schools are going to be open. The parents are going to make the ultimate decision on a practical level, right? The State can say it's okay for the schools in Buffalo to open. The Buffalo School District can say, "here's our plan on how the schools re-open." The parents in Buffalo are going to decide whether to send their child. And it's the parents that are the final determination. The parents have to be actively included in this discussion. It's not a discussion just between the state and the Buffalo School District. It's a discussion among the Buffalo School District and the parents of Buffalo and the teachers of Buffalo— because if the teachers say "I'm not coming back" or the parents say "I'm not sending my child," then whatever the school district says is irrelevant. And I field calls from teachers and parents all day long. I'm telling you, they have significant questions.

They're watching what's happening across the country. They're watching what these other school districts are doing. They're watching outbreaks when school is open. They have serious concerns. And they should. I'm not minimizing their concerns. If you look at the facts, you will have questions. We're several weeks— within the next several weeks, the parents have to be included and the parents have to believe the plan makes sense. The teachers have to be included and the teachers have to believe the plans make sense.

So I once again say to our 700 school districts across the state, please be consulting and communicating with the parents and the teachers because they are the vital stakeholders. Not only are they vital stakeholders, they are the ultimate determination. So please, be consulting with them. Talk to them because if they're not comfortable with the plan nothing is actually going to counteract their feelings. If a teacher doesn't show up, you can't open the class. If the parent doesn't send their child, there is no child to educate. And that is inarguable.

I became the Chairman of the National Governors Association yesterday. I've been the Vice Chairman before. I've announced my agenda for this coming year. I called it "America's Recovery and Revival" agenda. The recovery is because we're still recovering from COVID. Once we recover, we have a vaccine, then we have to talk about the American revival. This economy has taken a terrible beating. It's not going to come back spontaneously in my opinion. It's going to take significant work to make it comeback and that's going to require a partnership between the federal and state governments all across this country. On the recovery aspect, we are not going to recover from COVID until we realize that until we stop the spread everywhere, we can't stop the spread anywhere. That is a fundamental truth.

We are learning that every day. We're here on the island of New York State. We're watching the spread all around us. We're quarantining other states. We're creating bulwarks against the virus. The only way to handle this was to make sure it's reduced in every state. That is inarguable also at this point. We then have the question of what do we do about people coming in from outside the country? That we can actually manage better. The mobility among the states is something that we cannot handle and we don't want to handle. We don't want to create walls among the states. The virus will continue to ricochet across this county until we realize that. And I said that to the NGA in my opening comments yesterday. That's what we're seeing. It will be a constant ricocheting of the virus from state to state to state to state. It will bounce to Florida to Texas to Arizona, then to California, then it'll bounce to Oregon, and then it'll bounce to New Jersey, then the bounce to Rhode Island and here we are in New York putting up walls, hoping that we can stop the ricochet from hitting New York. You have to resolve it in every state.

That's one of the downsides of what we've done here which is no national strategy, it's a state-by-state strategy, and now you are seeing states that didn't take it seriously - the number goes up but when that happens you see a ricochet. That's why it's FDR where we started this. When your neighbor's house is on fire, lend them a hose to put out the fire. Why? Why would you lend them your house? Because it's in your best interest to put out the fire on your neighbor's home because if you don't put out the fire on your neighbor's home, then don't be surprised when the fire comes to your home. 

On the recovery in the revival, what Washington does on this last piece of legislation is everything. It is everything. If they do not fund state and local governments, you will see an economic recession that has been proven. Chairman Bernanke, Chairman Powell, all economists across the board have said when you don't fund state and local governments and you cause them to do layoffs and cut back, that makes the national economy worse. What I have said to our congressional members and I want to repeat today, they're working on a piece of legislation for the next two years. We need 30 billion dollars for New York State to cover our shortfall: 14 billion this year; 16 billion next year. That's 30 billion over two years. Their legislation is over two years. If we do not receive 30 billion dollars from the federal government, if our congressional representatives do not make sure that New York has 30 billion dollars, we're going to have to take very dramatic action and these dramatic actions, I believe, will be counterproductive.

We will have no choice because I don't have a printing press like the federal government does. But if we don't get 30 billion dollars, we're going to have to take very dramatic actions. If the MTA does not get 12 billion dollars over the next two years, they will have to take dramatic actions. Their dramatic actions are limited to- all they can do is raise tolls and raise fares. If the Port Authority does not get 3 billion dollars, they will have to curtail their capital plan. That means LaGuardia and JFK. The Port Authority it is funded by a percentage of the transportation facility fees. When people don't take airplanes, then the funding to Port Authority dries up and that's just what happened over these past few months. So, it's 30 billion for the state; 12 billion for the MTA; and 3 billion to the Port Authority. Those are the numbers. When they sign a federal bill, when the House members raised their hands and say, "I," when the senators agree to pass the bill, if it does not have 30 billion, 12 million, and 3 billion, they are deciding on the actions of the state budget.

This state budget is not done in Albany. This state budget is done in Washington. Normally, when they pass a bill in Washington it's unclear what the consequences, because it's complicated. There are a lot of numbers and a lot of acronyms. This piece of legislation is unlike any other piece of legislation Washington has passed. They are deciding the state budget. You tell me what they pass in the bill and I'll tell you the consequences in New York. And I want to be clear on that because the next day after the federal piece of legislation passes, when I say we're going to do X, Y and Z, nobody should be surprised. It will be a pure function of the legislation that they pass in Washington. 

Okay. I know that's a lot but there's a lot going on.

2020-08-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello. Good morning, happy Sunday. It's a beautiful day, and it's great news. Maybe that's why it's a beautiful day. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Jim Malatras and Alexander Cochran, my Washington representative. Today is day 162. New York conducted 65,812 tests yesterday and we had the lowest one-day positive rate since we started: 0.78 percent. We are normally about 1.0, a little below or a little over, but 0.7 is the lowest rate since we started. Congratulations New Yorkers. Incredible. Really an incredible achievement by New Yorkers. 7 New Yorkers passed away yesterday, they're in our thoughts and prayers. 548 hospitalized, down 25. And 131 in ICU, that is the lowest number of people we've had in ICU units since this started. So, that's also great news. 

Protect the progress, protect the progress. Local governments do the enforcement. I know I repeat myself, but I'll repeat myself until they hear me. The State Police and the State Liquor Authority are continuing to try to fill the vacuum left by local enforcement in some parts of the state. They issued 26 violations yesterday for bars and restaurants that were violating the rules: 1 in the Bronx, 2 in Brooklyn, 5 in Manhattan, 16 in Queens, 2 in Nassau. Come on, Queens. We need the NYPD to step up and help in New York City and we need local governments across the board to also be doing their job. 

On schools, I announced the other day that by the viral infection rate all school districts in the state can open. If and how is left to the local school districts. The point I made about the consultation with teachers and parents was not just a helpful hint, that is required. I had some school districts that said well do we have to talk to the parents. Yes, you have to consult with the parents. That is a requirement that every school district must have at least 3 online zoom, however they want to do it, consultations, discussions with the parents explaining the plans and answering questions. The big 5 school districts have to do at least 5 by August 21, and they have to have a separate one just with the teachers. I don't get what people or school districts could be confused by. If the teachers do not agree to come back, it is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to operate school. If the parents don't agree to send their children back to school, I don't know how you have school without students. 

Even in this new COVID crisis creativity you still need teachers and you still need students to operate a school, best I know. And you're not going to get them back just because the school district says this is what we're going to do. I'm telling you that. I talk to the parents and I talk to the teachers. They have real issues, and real concerns, and there has to be a dialogue, and there has to be a discussion. These plans were not sent down from the heavens. They're constructed by the local school district. I applaud the local school districts for their activity, and their work, and their creativity but they have to have the consultation with the parents and the teachers, and time is short. Several school districts have sent in plans. Several school districts have updated their plans. New York City sent in a second supplemental plan and the Department of Health is working over this weekend going through that. We'll have a status tomorrow.

President Trump announced some executive orders. The executive orders will not be a substitute for legislation just by law you're not going to be able to do what you have to do by executive order. Take it from someone who understands the power of executive orders and has often considered an executive order when he can't get legislation. He can't do it with executive order. It's on shaky ground legally but even to the extent that he's executed executive orders they aren't going to meet the demand.

The concept of saying to states you pay 25 percent of the unemployment insurance is just laughable. The whole issue here was getting states funding, state and local funding. You can't now say to states who have no funding, and you have to pay 25 percent of the unemployment insurance cost. I mean it's just, there's no funding for schools that are now trying to reopen and according to the White House they want them to reopen so they need legislation. It's the only way to do it. If they don't get it passed, if the President is not willing to get it passed, it is just an additional failure in a series of failures in the handle of this COVID crisis and my advice is when you are in a hole stop digging. When you are in a hole stop digging. It is good advice.

2020-08-10 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning everybody. Joined today by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Jim Malatras, Gareth Rhodes, and we have Mike Kopy who is the head of emergency management of the State of New York, on the phone. 

Today is day 163. New York conducted 54,000 tests yesterday - 276 were positive. That's .88. That is a great number for us. Pardon me if I sound excited but these things in life make me excited but that's really good news. 

Two New Yorkers passed away. They are in our thoughts and prayers but I think all New Yorkers should feel very satisfied with the progress we've been making to see just two New Yorkers passed away. We don't want to lose anyone but once you accept reality that we will lose people from this COVID virus, that number is extraordinary relative to where we've been as you all know. 

535 New Yorkers were hospitalized - that's a new low since this began. 127 in ICU - that's a new low. 62 intubated, and that is a new low so on the numbers God bless New Yorkers. They're doing what they need to do and we've made tremendous progress and now we're focusing on protecting the progress we've made and that is the same two main issues we're dealing with, the spread across the rest of the nation and continued compliance in our state.

State Liquor Authority, State Police have been working on the bar and restaurant issue which is a serious issue for us. They did 19 violations last night, seven in the Bronx, one in Brooklyn, two in Manhattan, three in Queens, and six in Suffolk. Again, New York City, we need the NYPD to step up. I understand the sheriff's office is helpful and that's good news but the sheriff's office is relatively small - it's like 150 people. NYPD is something like 35,000 people. This is an enforcement issue. It's not an informational issue. People have the information. They know what they're supposed to be doing and what they're not supposed to be doing. This is an enforcement issue and I need the local governments and the local Police Departments to do the enforcement. It's that simple. 

On the schools, there are 107 school districts that have not submitted their plan. For those 107 school districts, how you didn't submit a plan is beyond me. But they didn't submit a plan to DOH or SED. If they don't submit a plan by this Friday, they can't open. So, maybe they just have determined that they don't want to open, which is the only logical conclusion. But if they think they're going to open, then they have to have their plain in by Friday. Period. Now, let's say we're near August 15 for these places, these districts, that haven't sent in their plan. August 15— we're talking about a couple of weeks. The main arbiter here of whether a school district has an intelligent plan to reopen and whether people have confidence in that district's plan: it's going to be the parents and it's going to be the teachers, and that requires discussion, and that's going to be a dialogue. You're not going to dictate to parents that they have to send their children. They don't have to send their child. The parents are responsible for the health and safety of the child, and they're not going to send the child if they don't believe the plan makes sense. I've said that from day one, and I'm with the parents. A teacher is not going to come back into the classroom if they think the classroom is not safe, and that's right. The school district has to have that dialogue. I said mandatory you have to have at least three open dialogue sessions with parents and teachers on the plan by Zoom, by online, however a school district wants to do it, and they have to have mandatory a dialogue with the teachers separate, because teachers do have different concerns, or additional concerns beyond just the student population. The big 5 school districts as we call them have to have 5 sessions. We're August 10th, you have to have 5 sessions. They have to start and they have to start soon, because you don't want to rush these conversations, you don't want to create more anxiety for the parents and for the teachers. So, that's what the school districts need to do, and they need to do it ASAP.

Besides the 107 districts that just didn't put in a plan, some put in an incomplete plan and the Department of Health will be advising them of that. New York City put in a supplemental plan over the weekend or last Friday and that is being reviewed. Again, that plan for New York City, for all these school districts, schedule the parent briefings. Schedule the teacher briefings satisfying DOH, satisfying SED. That's a bureaucratic approval. This is not a bureaucratic approval process. This is a parental approval process and this is an approval process where the teachers feel safe to go back.

That conversation is the real conversation and again, they have to do a minimum of the state mandates. Three sessions with parents, one separate one with teachers, five with parents, four with the big five.

The federal government has taken actions over the weekend. The President issued some Executive Orders on the possible federal legislation, unemployment insurance, FEMA costs. I will have comments on that at 1:30 this afternoon. I'll be doing a briefing on the federal response at 1:30. Anyone who would like to join us at that time would be our pleasure.

Governor Cuomo: Thanks guys very much. You have two governors today. I'd like to welcome Governor Andy Beshear from Kentucky to join me today. Governor Beshear and I have worked together through the Governors Association. I've been watching him and the good work he's been doing. I'm a big fan of his. I've been watching his career. There are a couple of parallels - former Attorney General and the son of a governor. Son of a governor. Andy's father, Governor Steve Beshear, was the 61st governor of Kentucky, 2007 to 2015. So we have a lot in common.

We want to make some comments about the current situation with President Trump and the Executive Order and the legislation that we hope they pass in Washington. I'm now serving as Chairman of the National Governors Association. I've been speaking to governors, Democratic and Republican, all across the board today and I think the concerns are fairly consistent.

States have significant financial deficits all across the board. Now this originally started as more of a blue state problem when COVID began. It was a New York, it was a California, it was Illinois, it was Michigan, so it was a blue state problem. That's no longer true. It's now a blue and red problem, Texas, Florida, etcetera. States have expended a lot of money to deal with COVID. States have seen significant economic loss because of COVID and they have serious financial issues. We have been talking about them for months, literally. I was the Vice Chairman of the National Governors Association before we did a statement on every CARES Act that they passed, saying we need state and local funding. They kept saying, don't worry, don't worry, the next time, the next time, the next time.

We're now down to the final piece of legislation. This piece of legislation, the big fight was whether or not there would be assistance to state and local governments and we said there will be no economic recovery without assistance to the state governments. Every economist of all stripes said that. The research from the last recession said that if they had done more to help state governments recover the recovery would have been faster all across the board.

New York State, we need $30 billion over the next two years just to get to a hole. We need $12 billion for the MTA or they'll raise fares and tolls; if we don't get 3 billion dollars for the Port Authority, they'll have to stop construction on the airport. So that's what the conversation was. Now in the Senate they didn't want to put in funding for state and local government. They - remember where they started - this was a blue state problem and the states could go bankrupt, they weren't going to bail out blue states. That was still the discussion. The conversation broke down and then the President issues an Executive Order because he wants to address the unemployment issue and by the Executive Order makes the situation more complicated and virtually impossible. First of all, I understand the temptation to do Executive Orders and the ease of doing Executive Orders I'm sure Governor Beshear also enjoys Executive Orders. We also understand the limit of an Executive Order. You cannot make a law with an Executive Order. You can't avoid legislation that would require- you can't do with an Executive Order that which would be required by legislation. And his Executive Order actually would increase the cost on the states. 

Now first, the Executive Order will be challenged in court. I don't believe, I think there's serious legal questions. It'll be challenged. No one will get anything, and the situation will get even worse than it is in the country today. But even if you got past the legal challenges, you make it impossible for a state. It would cost New York State 4 billion dollars between now and December to pay 25 percent of the unemployment insurance. His executive order says the unemployment insurance could be $400 but the state has to pay 100 of the 400 - that's 4.2 billion dollars. We started with a 30-billion-dollar hole and your solution is to cost me another 4 billion dollars? Thank you. That's handing the drowning man an anchor. "Hold onto this maybe it'll help." No, not an anchor does not help a drowning man. So, I hope this was just a tactic by the president but if he thinks this is a resolution, this only makes a bad situation worse. And this is a president who's trying to show leadership because the American people are demanding leadership in the midst of this crisis and this only sets him back. My advice to the President is, when you are in a hole - stop digging. This Executive Order only digs the hole deeper. It's the last thing the people of this country needed.

Let me turn it over to my colleague, Governor Beshear. Andy, thank you for everything. Thanks for being with us today. And thank you for the job you're doing. I love watching you. I love working with you. And again, thank you for all the help— you've been working together as a colleague. Kentucky Governor Beshear.

Governor Beshear: Thank you, Governor Cuomo. And for those on the call, I'm the Andy with a slightly different accent. I think we all know by now that COVID is not a red state or a blue state challenge. It is a 50-state challenge. It has turned every part of our lives upside down and I will tell you— I have felt that not just from being a governor, but from being the dad of two young children and the challenges it creates for all of us. It changed the way we work. It's made massive and likely permanent challenges in our healthcare system. It's changing the way we're having raising our kids right now. I've become a math tutor, and apparently, I was meant to go into government instead of math tutoring and it's hit our economy very hard. Here in Kentucky and across the country we are seeing the highest short-term unemployment certainly of my lifetime and our question now is, do we want this economic recession do be a short-term recession, which I believe it can be - one where we can bounce back as we come out of this virus -, or do we fail to take the steps we need to take and our recession goes longer and possibly turns into depression? We've already seen some of the steps that we can take that help our states cope with this downturn and put ourselves in a position to make sure we can come out of this. That we can get our economy up and running as soon as we have that vaccine and ultimately, we can get it administered throughout our population. 

I want to make sure I mention that the Commonwealth of Kentucky has worked well with the federal government during this pandemic and we've worked well with the federal administration. Just a couple weeks ago, we had Dr. Birx down in Kentucky. She made some strong but correct recommendations to us that we are using and we are working hand-in-hand both with her and the entire federal administration. And so, my motivation today is not to criticize and it is not to suggest that the President's Executive Order wasn't intended to help but simply to make the point that it's not workable in its current form. We know that the $600 additional unemployment payment worked. I can show you our last fiscal budget, which ended, and where we would have ended in the red and we ended in a solid financial position and we can attribute a significant amount of that to the correct federal actions in providing that additional $600, which when put in was supported by the federal administration and others.

In Kentucky, people are spending those dollars. It is something to keep our economy afloat and our automotive sector and retail and across just about every other area of our economy, and it's absolutely critical that it or the largest portion of it that they're willing to authorize continue. That will be the difference between whether we are just dealing with this for months or for years. The current form where states would be expected to do a 25 percent match is something virtually no state can afford or if they break down the current version can afford for very long. In Kentucky, while the federal government were paying $300 of the $400, we'd be looking at $48 to $60 million a month. But based on calculations as how much money was set aside, the federal program might only last 5 weeks, meaning states would be left picking up that full $400, looking at the last three months to get through the year, we'd be looking at over $1.5 billion, something that's just not possible for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

That this is something that pushes further Congressional action, maybe it's a move that needed to happen, but I think it's important to know that it's not red states and blue states - look, I'm a Democratic Governor in a state that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is also from. This is just about what it's going to take to help our people get through a very difficult time to make sure that they can stay in their homes and afford the food they need for their kids and also keep an economy moving in a way where we're able to deal with this one-in-a-100-year pandemic successfully, not just from a healthcare standpoint but also with rebounding with our economy. I think it's really important that we see ultimately a Congressional solution, and I'd like to see it at the $600 level but if it's at $400 it needs to be fully federally-funded with administrative cost attached to it. Right now in the current Executive Order, it's silent on administrative costs, which would hit the states. States may have some state law issue they have to address to put dollars into that program and a lot of other uncertainty. Right now we're faced with do we enter an agreement when we're not even going to see the guidance expected for another month? But our people need the help right now.

So I think what the President and what Congress have the opportunity to do, at whatever level up that $600 they're willing, is a need to do it through the current system that is out there, that was developed for the $600. In Kentucky, we're dealing with an icy infrastructure for an unemployment system that was put in in the year 2000. 

When we make major changes on where dollars come from or how they have to be handled, that can take weeks to months that our people don't have. From an administrative standpoint, whatever dollar level is going to be decided on needs to work through the current system that was set up under that initial $600 program. Otherwise, it's going to take longer to get in the hands of Kentuckians and individuals all around the country. 

I come from a standpoint that I'm sure the President and others come from in that any plan we put in, needs to work. The very first thing we all do to evaluate on any plan, whether it helps red states or blue states, or it's Democratic or Republican, it's just whether it will work. Right now, we're either going to need some changes in the Executive Order or Congressional action to make sure we have something that actually works to help our people. 

Again, my comments today I hope are not seen in any way as a criticism of the attempt by the President and his administration to move this ball forward, but just knowing in it's current form that it's unworkable and that states, whether we speak out or not, we need changes to make sure that we can keep providing for our people. If we don't, our people who are already suffering under the threat of COVID or active infection from COVID, are going to suffer economically and our states are going to suffer economically. 

This is something that we all should be able to come together on. If a one in every hundred year pandemic can't get us out of horse trading and simply doing the right thing, I'm not sure what can. I think it's time as patriotic Americans that we all come to the table and we just do the right thing. 

Back to you, Governor Cuomo. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank very much, Governor Beshear. Very well said. The Governor's point on that it is unworkable is very placed. We had a meeting with the National Governor's Association last week. Virtually every governor pointed to the fact that administering the unemployment insurance process is very, very hard. 

Every time they make a change in Washington that requires a state to change the administration, it takes weeks to implement. We just went through, nationwide, I'm sure it was in Kentucky, I know it was in New York - we had to implement the last federal bill and then there was a backup in changing the entire administration facility. You have to change the SALT, you have to do additional information. It took weeks and everybody knows that there was then a backup and we had a lot of Americans who were unhappy. 

So Governor Beshear's point is workability. Don't redesign the mouse trap because the state's won't be able to implement that for weeks and time is not on our side and you have that on top of the financial cost that you're asking states to pay, which they can't pay in any event. 

Governor Beshear, thank you very much. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for being with us today. I hope to see you soon. It would have been nice to see you up in Portland, Maine for the Governor's Association, but we'll find another opportunity. 

If you head North, give me a holler and when I head South I'll do the same. Thank you for being with me. Thank you, Governor. 

Governor Beshear: Thank you, Governor Cuomo. Next time I see you, we'll bring you some quality Kentucky bourbon. Thanks.

2020-08-14 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hi guys, good morning. I have Melissa DeRosa, Rob Mujica, Jim Malatras, Gareth Rhodes on the phone, Beth Garvey on the phone. It's a sunny beautiful day in Albany, and it is all very good news.

New York conducted 85,000 tests yesterday, which is more than any state in the United States. 727 positive. That's .85. That is fantastic. This is the seventh straight day that the positive rate under 1 percent. That is fantastic. We are doing a tremendous number of tests. New York State has averaged 87,000 tests a day over the past three days. So, .8 is a great number and it's based on a very large sample size. Largest sample sizes that we've been taking. So on the numbers, it's been extraordinary. Congratulations to all New Yorkers, because their actions result in these tests. [Three] New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 554 were hospitalized, that's about what it was the day before, down one. 127 COVID patients in ICU, 59 intubated, that's about where it was.

While the other states are seeing real trouble, we are doing very well. We have to protect the progress, quarantine from other states, and compliance in New York, SLA found 12 violations yesterday. That number's somewhat lower. I hope institutions and establishments are actually getting the message.

On testing, Ag and Markets is going to work with the New York State Department of Health to dispatch mobile testing units to farms in rural counties. We're seeing several clusters, several outbreaks at farms, basically from the workers and we're dispatching mobile testing sites.

In terms of education, let me just say what I've said: by the infection rate, all schools can open, can - they have the ability to open. That does not mean the parents and the teachers, or the local school district, must open. They can open doesn't mean they must open. They can open if they are safe. What is safe? Safe means they have the proper precautions in place, and the teachers, and the parents, they are safe to open. They have the protocols in pace, the cohorting in place, contact tracing in place, whatever testing requirements they need in place, and they consult the parents and the teachers. I then said they had to do a number of sessions where the parents get to ask questions. I'm now getting calls that the school districts are doing online calls, but they're not really allowing the parents to speak or ask questions, and they're not really discussions. I got calls from teachers saying that a district had a call for teachers, but that it was a manipulated call. School districts want to manipulate conversations, school districts want to stonewall conversation, it's going to show up on the first day that school is supposed to open, because the parents won't send the kids and the teachers won't show up. So, full discussion, candid discussion, these are important issue. People are nervous.

Then some updates: bowling alleys. Given the results that we have and given the progress that we've made, we're going to make some more changes and adjustments. Bowling alleys will be allowed to open on Monday. 50 percent occupancy. You must have a face covering. Every other lane closed. The parties stay with their party at the lane that they're bowling. The establishment has to have cleaning and disinfecting protocols in place, especially on the shared and the rented equipment.

Food service, alcohol service: Only by wait service at the party's location. You're at a lane, you're bowling, you can order food, you can order alcohol, they come to you. You don't go to a bar, you don't go to a food concession. They come to you. That's bowling alleys. They open on Monday.

Low-risk indoor cultural activities, museums, aquariums, other low-risk indoor cultural arts can reopen in New York City August 24 so they can get their protocols in place. Twenty-five percent maximum occupancy, timed ticketing required with pre-set staggered entry. Face coverings enforced and controlled traffic flow.

Gymnasiums, we will put out protocols on Monday for gymnasiums to open which follow the protocol.

We're also doing a joint pilot program with four cities to analyze waste water. Believe it or not, you can find the presence of COVID-19 in waste water. The Department of Health here in New York has been working on that and we're going to start a pilot project on that basis.

On the federal funds, I don't know what to tell you. They're playing politics. They've always been playing politics. COVID-19 didn't bring any responsibility to Washington. They started early on, we're not going to do any blue state bailouts. McConnell, McConnell let the states go bankrupt - I'm still waiting for that law to pass, by the way. This has been a total disgrace and the current Executive Orders by the President, the states are under dire financial circumstances so his suggestion is we now pay part of the unemployment insurance makes absolutely no sense.

COVID-19 and the mishandling of COVID-19, I'll make a projection for you, COVID-19 is going to be the main factor in the November elections and Washington is going to fail the leadership test on COVID-19 and you will see it in all elections - Congressional, Senate and presidential. This is an historic crisis. People are afraid. You name the last time you had a situation controlled by government that had this impact on every American's life. By the way, you can go back to drafts - affected a large number of Americans. The children were drafted, families. You find me a time when you had a government issue that affected every American to these consequences, life and death.

GAO made an interesting finding that Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Wolf and his Deputy Cuccinelli were wrongfully appointed. Surprise, surprise. They extorted New York. They're unethical and it turns out they didn't even have any business being in the job. Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways.

2020-08-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to be here today. To my right, everyone knows Melissa DeRosa. To my left, Beth Garvey, special counsel to me. To her left, Dr. James Malatras. Insists that I call him doctor as an official title, but he is not a real doctor. Someone has a health emergency, he can do absolutely nothing. He can do a paper on it.

Today is day 170. Right now, New York has one of the lowest infection rates in the country. Our infection rate, positivity rate yesterday was .7 percent. That is the lowest it has been since this began. So that is really great news. You can see the curve that we talk about, flattening of the curve, reducing the curve and flattening of the curve. That is just a beautiful image to me. Art is in the eyes of the beholder, to me that is beauty. Look at that slope.

Right now, we are averaging 1 percent or under since June. That is exactly where we want to be. Remember we said, we were told by the experts, quote unquote experts, that once we started reopening the infection rate would go up. We said well maybe if we were very careful and we do it right and it's phased, that we can avoid that. And we avoided it. So that's great news.

The hospitalizations are at 534. Up a tick, but basically flat. ICU patients 133, basically flat. Intubations flat. Number of lives lost, 6, which is the same and again those families are in our thoughts and prayers.

The 3-day average is just about the same also. But look at where we were at the peak, 763 deaths. When you look across the regions, they're all basically consistent. When you look at the boroughs across Manhattan they're all basically consistent. On all the numbers, it's good news.

Again, congratulations to New Yorkers. They did what people said couldn't be done. There was no way that we could reduce the rate of the infection and we were going to over burden our hospital system and our hospital system was going to collapse because we wouldn't be able to handle it. New Yorkers did it. New Yorkers did what they said couldn't be done because that's what New Yorkers do.

Going forward, protect the progress, keep that rate down. One of the areas we're focused on, bars and restaurants. Quote, unquote younger people. Wish I could consider myself a younger person. At one time I could. The State Liquor Authority and the New York State Police are attempting to supplement what the local police departments are supposed to be doing. That is their job. Local police departments are supposed to be enforcing these laws. Frankly, they're not doing it in some places to the extent they should be doing it.

State Police and the State Liquor Authority are supplementing. They did 66 violations over the weekend. I hope establishments are getting them message because I said that we were serious about it. I said we were going to take enforcement actions and that's exactly what we're doing. These are serious enforcement actions. If the police and the locality aren't going to enforce compliance to the extent they should, I want the establishments to know that the state is going to do it. And the state is doing it and these are serious violations.

Gyms. The guidance goes out today on gyms. Basically, the outline is 33 percent capacity. There are health requirements that are in the guidelines that have to be maintained to their ventilation requirements. This is a whole new topic where we can actually do a lot of good work and we are in New York with the HVAC systems and the filtration.

The gyms can open as soon as August 24. Oh, it tricked me. One of the requirements is mandating masks at all times. Gyms can open as soon as August 24, but the locality must open them by September 2. The localities have a role here. They have to inspect the gyms before they open or within 2 weeks of their opening to make sure they're meeting all the requirements. That variation is to give localities time, if the localities need it. If the localities can get the inspections done or be ready to inspect, then they can open up August 24.

If a locality can't get ready to do inspections, then they get another week. They can do it September 2. Localities can also determine whether or not the gyms have classes inside it. Some gyms have classes - localities can decide whether or not those classes can be undertaken. The local elected will make the decision in a jurisdiction and the local health departments must inspect before or within two weeks to make sure the guidelines are in place.

On the issue of schools, we said that the by the infection rate they can reopen, right? If schools can reopen in the state in the country, they can reopen here. But it only means they can. The question then becomes how and that is the big question. How do they reopen? When do they reopen? Is it hybrid is it remote? Is it with cohorts? That's up to the local school district. And the people who are going to make the decisions are not a bunch of bureaucrats. It is going to be the parents and the teachers. And I'm telling you, I have spoken to hundreds of parents and teachers. There are many questions that they have.

These are good questions because if you look around opening schools has proven problematic - by sophisticated governments, it's been problematic. Israel had an issue, Hong Kong had an issue, in this country, we've had issues. So the parents are right to be concerned. It's only natural for the parents and teachers to have questions - they're not being obstructionist. And I want the local school districts to understand that. Local school districts are not doing the parents a favor by talking to them. They're not doing the teachers a favor by talking to them. If the teachers don't come back, you don't have a school. If the parents don't send their students, you don't have a school.

So, the mentality of some of these school districts, "Well, we're going to announce that the schools are open." I don't care what you announce - if a parent is not going to send their child, it doesn't matter what date you pick or what plan you have. You have to make sure the parents and the teachers are comfortable and confident with it. And that's why when I was getting a lot of calls from parents and teachers saying, "We don't understand the plan, they're not explaining it. It's up on the web. I can't understand what they're saying. I don't understand how they would find out if it's a child is positive or not. How many tests are they going to do?" They have many good questions. Those consultation processes and sessions have to be real. They can't be short, "Submit your question via website and nobody gets through," because if they're not comfortable it's not a pro forma consultation, it is a determinative consultation because those have to be the people who feel good about accepting this decision. Otherwise, it's all moot, right?

If a school district does open and there's a COVID spread, the state will close the school. So, parents who are concerned and they are, "Well what if something happens?" If something happens and there's a spread, then the state will step in and we will close the school. But we don't want to get to that point. That's exactly what we want to avoid and that's why the how and the plan is so important.

Tonight I have the honor of addressing the Democratic Convention in a speech. It's a remote convention, virtual convention, whatever they want to call it, but it's the opening night and I give a speech. I'm going to speak about a national crisis that we are in. Because I believe this nation is in crisis, COVID in many ways was the symptom and not the illness. The COVID virus showed us how weak we were and how unprepared we were and how divided we were. I say in the speech, it takes a strong body to resist the virus because it really is a great metaphor, right? When does the virus wreak havoc? When the body is weak. And America's body politic is weak. We're divided. Our government was not ready to respond so I speak about that.

To me, this period of time has really re shaped not just our national dialogue, but our impression of government, right? Ask yourself when was the last time government was as essential as it is today? When? When did government matter the way it matters to you today to everybody today. Maybe the last time we went to war? Maybe the Depression? Maybe the last time they said they were going to draft your child to go into an army? Government affects every person's life— and not in some political, theoretical, abstraction. What do you politically think? Are you politically a progressive? Are you politically a conservative?

Government is making life and death decisions. I think it's going to reshape the way people think about government for a long time because I don't care what you thought about government yesterday pre-COVID: "it was a waste of time. 'm not political. Government doesn't matter." It all changed. Government matters today. Democratic, Republican, upstate, downstate. Government matters. Leadership matters. Leadership matters. Performance matters. Strip away all the rhetoric: Did you get the job done or not? Performance matters. It was the great crystallizer of truth and fact—what we've been going through. Social unity matters.

How did New Yorkers bend the curve? How did New Yorkers bend the curve? That's the great question, right? It's what all the experts now ask me: how did you do it? How did you do it? I said, "I didn't do anything. I communicated information to the people of the state and the people acted intelligently and they were smart. And they acted as a community." You know, we talk about the word "community." We're a community. Community: from the Latin "communitas" of the common, right? The Constitution speaks about common good, common good, common good. Yeah, what the founding fathers didn't anticipate was people not acting in the common good. New Yorkers acted in the common good. I wear a mask for you, you wear a mask for me. I respect you and you respect me. That's community. New Yorkers forge community. "Well, how? We're so fractious, we're so divided?" 

No. they overcame the divisions and found the commonality. It matters. If we were divided, this would never happen. If a significant portion of the population said, "I'm not doing the social distancing. That's a Democratic idea. I'm not doing masks. Ah, I'm not doing that." If you had a significant portion of the population that did that, those numbers on that curve would be dramatically different. I also say in the speech, which probably is one of the most important things to me personally, I say thank you to all the Americans who came to help New York. I don't know that you felt it the way I felt it, but one day I said, "We need help. Our medical staff is getting overwhelmed and they're working too hard." And I asked people across the country who are nurses or doctors, "could you please help? If you're not busy in your state, could you please come help?"

I just asked the question. I didn't talk about it before it wasn't pre-meditated. It was just common sense and it was just spontaneous. 30,000 people volunteered. 30,000 nurses and doctors volunteered to come to New York in the middle of the pandemic at the hot-spot— nurses and doctors to go into an emergency room. 30,000. I mean, I was so touched. I was amazed. You know, sometimes we underestimate the goodness of people and the courage of people. I had seen snapshots of it.

You know, after 9/11, there were all sorts of people who just showed up here. After Superstorm Sandy, there were all sorts of people from other parts of the state who just showed up, and people who had plates of cookies, and people who just brought supplies. 30,000 people: "I'll come and help." God Bless the American people. And I've tried to say "thank you" on behalf of New Yorkers in a lot of different ways. I've said anything you need, anywhere in the state— we'll be there. Because remember, we had Oregon sending us ventilators. We had people from upstate nursing homes sending ventilators. We had all sorts of people doing beautiful gestures. And I said, "New Yorkers will never forget." New Yorkers will never forget.

That's not who we are as our value. We'll never forget and we will reciprocate: that is our value as New Yorkers and we're sending supplies now to Houston, to Savannah to Florida. It's our way of saying thank you for being there for us and we appreciated it and we feel the same about you that you felt about us. You showed us love and we show you love. So, I had an opportunity to say that in this speech also. 

2020-08-19 NYS Gov. Cuomo

I have Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Jim Malatras, Gareth Rhodes, Kelly Cummings, Beth Garvey on the phone with me, whole ensemble.

On coronavirus we have good news today. I'm going to give you a disclaimer afterwards but today is day 172. We did 80,000 tests. 631 were positive - that's .7 percent. That is great news. Numbers are just, the numbers have been great - it's the 12th straight day that we're under 1 percent so that is great news. Six New Yorkers passed away from COVID. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 548 were hospitalized - that's up 11. 131 in CU - that's up 5. 60 intubated - that's flat.

The numbers are very good news. The numbers have been very good news for months. The numbers have been extraordinarily good news - 12th straight day under 1 percent.

What's the disclaimer? The disclaimer is I say that and people think, oh, everything is great. COVID is over. We've handled it. We've mastered the situation. It's over for us. That's factually not true. Maybe we are at half-time in the game and we ended the first half in good shape after a brutal first half and we're in the locker room. COVID is not over by any stretch of the imagination and the feeling of complacency poses an obstacle in and of itself. I've been saying don't get cocky, don't get arrogant but then on the other hand I've also been saying great news today, great news today, great news today.

I understand the mixed, the duality of the truth here. But the reason we're doing is because we're being smart and if people's behavior doesn't remain disciplined we're going to have a problem and you'll see the numbers change. The compliance we see, gross violations of the rules we see them - bars and restaurants. We're using the SLA and the State Police to complement the local police and the SLA last night found another 5 establishments in violation but people have to be as diligent about their compliance. Local governments have to do their job. The SLA and the State Police cannot substitute for local police departments. The NYPD has to do its job, not the Sheriff's Department in New York City. There's something like 150 sheriffs. There are 30,000 NYPD. This is law enforcement. We need the NYPD doing this. We need the Nassau County Police Department doing it. We need the Suffolk County Police Department. We need the Town of Southampton Police Department. So, complacency is the issue because we are very much in the midst of it.

I said, I announced that I'm doing a book on COVID. Some people say, "oh you're doing the history of COVID." No, my book is not about the history of COVID because it's not over. It is what we have learned, what we should learn, what we must do, how we handle this and what we need to do in the second half of the game. We are still in the midst of it, my friends. Don't write about it in the past tense. And — we are — as we sit here today, just to give you a dose of reality, we need to prepare for the second wave. Now the second wave is not the second wave that they originally talked about. When they said "second wave" originally, they were referring to the 1918 pandemic, which had one wave and then a second wave, quote unquote. The second wave was a mutated virus. The virus mutated and came back as a second virus. Once it mutates, it's technically a second virus. When we started talking about COVID, we talked about a second wave: could COVID mutate and come back in a second wave?

We're still in the first wave. The virus hasn't mutated but we do have in effect a second wave, which is the flu season is starting. You put the flu season on top of COVID — this is a very difficult situation to deal with and that is going to be the second wave. Dr. Fauci talks about a terrible fall; that's what he's talking about. The CDC says we're going to have a terrible fall. Why? It is a, poses a host of complexities. Schools are doing temperature checks on the way in and they're looking for symptomatic children. First of all, symptomatic children. You don't have to be symptomatic as we've learned; it can be asymptomatic. But second of all, symptomatic children. You're in flu season — who doesn't have sniffles or a cough? I mean, to pick symptomatic children out of a line is going to be very, very hard. Second, all across the board, you're going to have the same complexity. How do you do the flu tests and the COVID tests at the same time? Meaning, we have deployed almost all our lab capacity to do COVID tests. You know what our lab capacity normally did? HIV tests and flu tests. We now have everybody deployed doing COVID tests. They're going to now need to reduce their COVID tests to do flu tests. We were so effective at commandeering testing capacity for COVID tests that there is no flex in the system.

Department of Health, state Department of Health, is going to send out a letter today to every county health department asking just this question: what plans have you made to perform the necessary flu tests, which commence basically in September, and COVID tests simultaneously? That letter's going to go out today. This is going to be difficult and challenging. It will require a reduction in the number of COVID tests or in the turnaround time on COVID tests, and we already had issues on the turnaround time on COVID tests. So we want to get ahead of this and that letter from the Department of Health is going to do that, and that letter goes out today. But I'm telling you, there's going to be no easy answer to that riddle.

Number two, I want the schools that are doing their plans to reopen to take into consideration what we've seen in other schools, K to 12, what we've seen most recently in UNC, Notre Dame, 130 infected in one week, and they closed. The lesson to learn there is, yes, when you bring back a lot of people and put them in a congregate setting, you can have an increase. Well, we told the students, socially distance. Yeah, I know. We've been telling young people to socially distance for the past six months. Go look at Manhattan on a Thursday night, Friday, Saturday night, and tell me how well they've been listening. You think their behavior's going to change when they go back to school? 130 students in one week. That is a failure of the testing and contact tracing operations. It shouldn't get to 130.

Look at that, and then look at your school reopening plan, and how would you make sure you don't wind up in that situation. What was your testing procedure? Could it have gotten that big that fast? Now, frankly, on a college, in some ways it's not as bad, because the student was infecting other students. K to 12, if you had a 130 students positive, it's not 130, it's 500, because the student would have gone home and dealt with people in their immediate family. You know in some ways being on a college campus is less problematic from a spread point of view than K-12. But I want the schools to take this situation into consideration and answer the question would this have happened in your school? Could you have caught the spread before it got to 130 students? And if you can't answer yes, then there's a problem. But the basic point on both is opening schools, risky and problematic. That happens in September. In September the flu season starts. It's going to make it much harder to diagnose symptomatic people; it's going to make some people sick with the flu which will then make them in a more serious situation if they get COVID, and then it's going to really stress our testing capacity. That all happens in a matter of weeks. This is not over. The second wave is coming. It's going to be more challenging.

On top of that, we still have states all around us getting infected and quarantine facilities and procedures, and lack of compliance in bars and restaurants, which if I had to guess that lack of compliance is going to be transferred to college campuses all across the state. And we still have local police departments that are not stepping up and doing their job. So, there's a lot yet to come and a lot yet to be written, and yes, 12 days of great news. Yes, months of great news. Yes, much to be proud of. It's half-time. I'm not writing history, because the situation is still ongoing, and there's still much to learn, and eyes that need to be opened across the nation, and federal lessons to be learned quickly.

2020-08-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. It's a pleasure to be in New Hyde Park today. Let me introduce from my far right, Mr. Gareth Rhodes, who's been working with us from the beginning of this COVID crisis. To my immediate right, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa. To my left, Mr. Janno Lieber, who is the chief development officer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the MTA, and to his left, Beth Garvey, who is my special counsel.

First I want to thank the Clinton G. Martin Park Community Center for giving us this opportunity to be here today. Let me give you some facts and some briefing material and then we'll take whatever questions you have.

Today is day 177. I know it feels like just yesterday that this started. not really. Question is, when we get up in the morning, where are we with COVID on day 177, and what kind of progress are we making? And today is a great day. The infection rate today is .66. That is the lowest infection rate that we have had since we started this. So that is really great news. And it's not just that the .66 as one day is great news. It's consistent with what we have been seeing all along. If you've been looking at our infection rate over the past couple of weeks, it has been below 1 percent. So it's not an analogy, the .66, it's basically tracking what has been going on, which is we've been doing a great job keeping control of this virus.

Congratulations to the people of New York. It wasn't rocket science, just took the nation a long time to understand it. we're dealing with a virus. It's a question of science, not politics. You can manage a virus but you have to understand what you're dealing with. It's a virus. It's a function of medicine and science and biology and you have to treat it that way. We made a mistake early on. We made a lot of mistakes early on with this European virus. I call it the European virus. Some people call it the China virus. The virus did not come to New York from China. The federal government missed that. The virus came to New York from Europe. That's why it's the European virus. That's why if somebody knew what they were talking about, they would call it the European virus. When they say the China virus, which some people refer to it as, it actually makes the point of the mistake that the federal government made. They believed the virus was still in China. The virus was not in China. The virus had left China and gone to Europe and had come here from Europe and they never knew that the virus left China. And that's why New York was ambushed.

But, we then had an issue in this country where we treated this as a political issue as opposed to a medical issue, as opposed to a public health issue. And that caused the virus to raise out of control in other parts of the country. That's not what happened in New York. New York was a pure ambush because we didn't know it was coming from Europe. But, in New York, after the ambush we treated it seriously and we made a difference.

The other numbers, 482 hospitalizations, 122 ICU patients, 54 intubations. The number of lives lost is seven yesterday and they and their families are in our thoughts and prayers. The 3-day rolling average is 5. If you look across the State, the numbers are good all across the state with one exception, but you see Long Island over the past few days: 0.8, 0.7, 0.7, 0.8. Today from yesterday, 0.6. It's true all across the New York City boroughs.

Western New York we have a caution flag and we're focusing on it and trying to understand exactly what is happening. The number of positive tests is somewhat escalated. Not a cause for serious concern, but it is a caution flag and we're looking at it. There have been several clusters in Western New York. There was a steel plant in Erie County, a food processing factory, two nursing homes, people coming in for hospital procedures; a number of them have tested positive. There's seasonal labor forces that come in for farms. But, we do more testing in New York than any other state, so we can identify when you start to see an increase, a "cluster" as we call it. That's very important, so you can then attack that cluster and you can stop the spread at that cluster. So, that's what we're looking at in Western New York.

We have done a number of initiatives to protect our progress, as we call it. Our infection rate is low; the question is how do you keep it low? How do you make sure you're not getting infected from people coming in from other states where the infection rate is high, and how do you make sure you're maintaining compliance, bars, restaurants, young people? We're actually setting up testing sites at our airports to be able to do faster testing of people coming in, also hospital staff. We have beefed up our compliance efforts. I've said many times that's a responsibility of local government to use their police to make sure the health orders are being enforced in bars and restaurants. To supplement their efforts, we have the State Police and the State Liquor Authority that is inspecting bars and restaurants to make sure they're in full compliance with the rules and regulations. They've looked at just under 4,000 establishments and 34 additional violations. There was a drive-in in the Village of Westhampton over the weekend. It was a concert series, and it was a matter of concern. We've had bad experiences with several towns and villages on Long Island, but I want to thank the Village of Westhampton, the Trustees, Mayor Moore, and County Executive Steve Bellone. The concert series happened over the weekend and the village police force was there and they were enforcing compliance. I asked County Executive Bellone if he would have the county personnel also attend the concert and make sure that all the health ordinances were complied with, and I want to thank them very much. That's a positive sign. You can do these types of events, but people have to comply, right? The event is safe a prudent if people comply. The problem becomes when you stage the event, you host the event and people don't comply, and the local authorities aren't prepared to deal with it. We've seen that in Southampton. That's not the case in what happened at Westhampton - the exact opposite happened. That's why I want to thank them very much.

The MTA. The MTA had one of the really extraordinary challenges of all time, when you think about it. The MTA had to continue their service all through COVID because the MTA was the way that the essential workers get to work. The quote, unquote essential workers who are the heroes of this COVID situation, they are middle class, hard working New York families. They rely on public transportation to get to work. So we had to keep the subways, the Long Island Rail Road, the Metro North running all through COVID. All through the toughest times of COVID. And they did that, the MTA.

We then had to find a way to disinfect the trains. Just think of that concept for a second. Disinfect the trains. We've been fighting for decades to get trains clean and train stations clean and subway stations clean - clean of refuse, clean of garbage, et cetera. Nobody ever talked about disinfecting an entire public transit system. Nobody ever talked about disinfecting a transit system in the middle of a COVID crisis. But they did that. Phil Eng is here from the Long Island Rail Road and God bless what they did because it was really extraordinary. Buses, trains disinfected. So thank you very much, Phil, for everything.

It was really a masterful feat. One hundred and fifty thousand stations cleaned, 2.5 million cleanings of subway cars and commuter rails. It's really been fantastic and it was our responsibility to make sure the essential workers could get to work and could get to work safely. We as a society asked them to show up every day so that people could stay home and stay safe. You needed the essential workers to go to work and they did. Our obligation was to make sure they were safe or as safe as they could be and the MTA, doing what it did, is part of that.

It's not that the MTA slowed down during the COVID crisis. They actually used the opportunity to accelerate. What's the silver lining to less traffic and lower ridership? A lot of negatives. What's the silver lining? Well if there's less ridership and there's less traffic, maybe you can accelerate construction because you're inconveniencing fewer motorists and fewer riders. That's exactly what the MTA did. They completed the L train tunnel under budget, 6 months ahead of schedule and that was predicted to be one of the great construction complexities of all time. And again, they used this period to actually get more done than they would have normally gotten done.

September: schools are back, and working through that issue. The question of youth sports has come up. The state has done a lot of research on youth sports and the guidance we've come up with is this. What's called lower risk sports: tennis, soccer, cross-country, field hockey, swimming can start in all regions of the state - can practice and play - starting September 21. So schools will be coming back, there will be a little bit of a period to gauge what's happening and on September 21 they can start to practice and play all across the state. There is guidance posted by the Department of Health on just how they should do it. But there will be no travel, practice or play permitted outside of the school's region. So, a school can play in the region. They can play with the contiguous region our county but nothing outside of that until October 19th. Again we're doing this in phases. We want to see what the effect is; We want to see how it works. Schools opening in general is a big question mark. What would the effect be? The Fall is a big question mark. Many of the experts are suggesting that may be a second wave or reoccurrence so phasing it will allow us to watch it. The "higher risk sports," where there is full physical contact, like politics: Tackle football, wrestling, rugby ice hockey, may continue to practice but they're not authorized to play at this point.

Last point, I signed several bills last into law that make it easier to vote. Allowing a voter to get an absentee because of risk of illness (that's COVID); Counting the ballots postmarked on or before Election Day or received by the Board of Education without postmark the day after election day; Eliminating the requirement that voters wait until 30 days prior to election before requesting an absentee ballot. Those were good bills. I signed them, that will make a difference. We're going to make the system even better I'm issuing five Executive Orders today extending the temporary illness option to elections not administered by the board of elections so the COVID exception will apply across the board. Mandate county boards send a mailing to all voters notifying them of the deadlines and methods to request an absentee because by law, you still have to request an absentee, you know just get an absentee, you have to request an absentee. They send it to you. You fill it out you send it back. There are two steps. There have been issues about the paperwork that board of election used. So they're going to make changes to that to make it simpler.

All board of elections make sure they have everything in place, the staff in place, to count the ballots as soon as possible. And the board of elections have to report staffing plans and any needs for additional staff. If they don't have the staff. Tell us tell us before. So you can get the staff because you have to be able to count the ballots. You have to be able to tabulate the vote. We want it done and we want it done right, but we want it done timely. We don't want to hear after-the-fact excuses for why you couldn't do it. Tell us how you're going to do it before-the-fact, and your staffing plan from the board of elections that will actually do that. This election is going to be one of the most critical in modern history. It will be controversial. You already hear the statements questioning the vote, and the accuracy of the vote, and mail-in ballots. We want to make sure that every vote is counted; every voice is heard and that it's fair and right and accurate. And we will do that because we are New York tough, and smart, and united, and disciplined and most importantly loving.

2020-08-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you very much. Good morning. Andrew Cuomo here. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Dr. Howard Zucker, Gareth Rhodes, Beth Garvey and Robert Mujica.

Today is day 179. New York did 71,000 tests yesterday and it's continued good news for New Yorkers who are continuing to act smart and united and disciplined. .79 percent is the infection rate. That's the 19th straight day that it's under 1 so that's very good. Three New Yorkers passed away from COVID and they're in our thoughts and prayers, 492 hospitalized, 136 in ICU, 54 intubated. The situation was good all across the state.

We still have a caution flag for Western New York which is at 1.4 percent today. It's better than it was but not where it should be so we're focusing on Western New York and we'll continue to do that.

Our enforcement efforts are continuing. The infection rate isn't staying down by anything other than the consequence of our actions so we're continuing the enforcement actions. We did one in Brooklyn, one in Queens, one in Staten Island, one in Suffolk. Those are done by the State Liquor Authority and the State Police. Again, call on local governments - they're supposed to be doing the compliance. They don't make the decisions of what opens and what closes but they do do the compliance and they have to do a better job. New York City needs to use the NYPD. New York City relies on its Sheriff's Department to do compliance. It's not going to be effective. There is only 150 people in the Sherriff's Department. There is 30-something thousand NYPD. I understand the issues they have in New York City but they have to do compliance. Otherwise you're going to see the numbers go up.

Talking about the hyperpolitical nature of this administration, the CDC put out new guidance that really strains credulity. The CDC on Monday changed the guidance to say if you have been in close contact with a person who was infected with COVID, you do not need to get a test. Okay? This reversed their previous guidance, which was if you were in close contact with a COVID-positive person, you needed to get a test. They reversed their own guidance: if you are in close contact with a person, you don't need to get a test.

I've spoken to health experts from around the globe. None of them will say that this makes any sense from a health point of view. The only plausible rationale is they want fewer people taking tests because, as the President has said, if we don't take tests you won't know that people are COVID-positive and the number of COVID-positive people will come down. Yes, that is true. That is his policy of "deny the problem." If you don't take your temperature, you won't know that you have a fever. Yes, that is true. But it totally violates public health standards and rationale and just fosters his failed policy of denial - "COVID's not a problem. It's going to be gone when the weather gets warm. It's going to be gone by Easter. There's only a COVID problem because we take tests."

He now has CDC carrying forward his political agenda and it is frightening and it is alarming. And when you can politicize public health, which is actually politicizing national security. Now, he's consistent in his politics over government because he is politicizing national security when he nominates Chad Wolf to be the head of the Department of Homeland Security who was just a political operative. The Department of Homeland Security is what the President uses to build his wall, to put children in cages - that's all done by the Department of Homeland Security. So, he made the Department of Homeland Security a political operation and now he's making the CDC a political operation. It is frightening. It should be frightening. This is the same CDC that was supposed to guard public health. And was supposed to track the virus that was in China last December. It's the same CDC that showed that they either lied to the American people or they're incompetent because they didn't track the virus in China. And they didn't track the virus leaving China and going to Europe in January, February, March. And that's why New York was ambushed. That is a fact. It's not a political statement, it's not hyperbolic, it's not rhetorical - it's a fact. And that's why New York had the number of cases it had. Because the flights from Europe came here. It's not the China virus. It's the European virus because it came here from Europe. And the CDC either totally missed it or they were ordered not to speak about it. And this just evidences once again political control over what is supposed to be a public health organization.

The history books are going to record this. Shame on the people in the CDC. These will be indefensible actions in the light of history. Indefensible. What possible rationale is there to say, "You're in close contact with a COVID positive person and you don't need a test." What plausible rationale? And this from the same CDC that already disgraced itself when they said there's no such thing as asymptomatic spread and then totally reversed themselves. This is the same CDC that said the transmission is when a person who is symptomatic coughs or sneezes. And then did a full 180 and said, "Whoops they can also transfer it if they're asymptomatic." When, by the way, doctors around the world were already saying that. And how do they rationalize their position where you can have asymptomatic spread by now saying you don't even have to have a test? They also did a 180 on the quarantine rule. Where no they say you don't have to quarantine if you're coming in from a country that is a hotspot. On what theory? Why would you reverse yourself on the quarantine order? Because they don't want publicity that there is a COVID problem. Because the president's politics are that COVID isn't a problem, we're passed COVID and it's all about the economy. "The economy is doing great and we're going to focus not he economy." And that's his reelection strategy. So he's using the CDC as a campaign, rhetorical device. This is all his political/public relations.

Thank you. Dr. Zucker?

Dr. Howard Zucker: Thank you, Governor. Regarding the CDC situation, this is indefensible from a public health point of view and I have to say it makes absolutely no sense and I've spoken to the scientists at the CDC and they say it's political, so I concur with all you're saying that this is just indefensible.

2020-08-27 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Andrew Cuomo here joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Beth Garvey, Gareth Rhodes, Jim Malatras.

We have a number of items to go over so let me do them quickly and then we'll take some questions. Today is day 180. New York conducted 83,000 tests yesterday, .9 percent positive 20th straight day with a positive rate under 1 percent so that's really good news. 

Four New Yorkers passed away from COVID yesterday and they're in our thoughts and prayers; 490 hospitalized, 126 in ICU, that's down 10; 52 COVID patients were intubated, that's down 2. So that's very good news and again congratulations to New Yorkers. Stay with it, stay with it, stay with it. 

On the enforcement effort, ongoing enforcement efforts on compliance, as you know the State Liquor Authority and the State Police have supplemented actions where the local police have not been doing significant compliance efforts. They've done a really good job, the task force of the SLA and the State Police. They did 1,000 visits yesterday so that's really amazing and they did two violations in Queens, New York City, but what we're finding is compliance is much better than it had been so the establishments are getting the message, following the law and if you notice over time the number of violations has been dropping. That's because the establishments know that we're serious and we've been doing this for a couple of weeks and we've stayed with it and think about it - just one night, 1,000 visits. Look, 99 percent of the establishments were following the law. It was a handful of bad actors. That's what it always is - people who were exploiting the situation and I think they got the message and the numbers suggest they got the message.

Western New York, we have a caution flag out and we're going to fly it a little higher today. The infection rate in Western New York was 2 percent so that's not good news and we're going to deploy a SWAT team from the Department of Health that are going to do additional testing at eight sites. Three in the city of Buffalo, one in Niagara Falls, one in Lockport, one in Williamsville, one in West Seneca; one in Dunkirk with what are called the Abbott testing machines at these sites, which will get same-day results. Literally, within an hour. People will have to make an appointment but we are focusing on Western New York and we're going to continue to focus on it.

We have colleges that are reopening. We're seeing around the country situations where colleges reopen and then have an outbreak of cases. We're going to set a threshold that says if a college has one hundred cases or a number of cases equal to 5 percent of their population or more - whichever is less - they must go to remote learning for two weeks at which time we will reassess the situation. Let me say that one more time because it's a little confusing. One hundred cases or 5 percent. Whichever is less. The 5 percent is the population that are on-site: students and faculty. They must go to remote learning for two weeks and then we'll reassess in consultation with the local health department. We should anticipate clusters. When you have large congregations of people, anticipate a cluster. We know that. Also, that's what we're seeing. You see it around the country. Be prepared for it, get ahead of it. Be prepared for it, get ahead of it. It's what I say to my team five times a day. So, we expect it. We want to be prepared for it. And that's a threshold that we're going to put in place.

We're getting a number of phone calls from some establishments that are raising questions specifically about indoor dining in New York City. We said numerous times: state laws governs openings, reopenings, closings, and there are a number of areas where we're still calibrating the reopening. Casinos, we're working on. Malls, we're working on. Movie theaters, we're working on. Indoor dining in restaurants is an issue that we are reviewing and monitoring on a daily basis. These are fluid situations depending on the facts. We will make determinations at the appropriate time. Numerous people have opinions about what they think is going to happen. I used to have an opinion about what I thought was going to happen, but I turned out to be wrong on every occasion. So now I just keep my opinions to myself and I just follow the facts. But indoor dining in New York City, casinos, malls, movie theaters— we're monitoring the situation, recalibrating the situation, it's governed by the state law as you all very well know, and we'll make a determination at the appropriate time.

We made a state determination that would allow certain high school sports to commence and we put out guidance and deadlines on that. That does not mean that high school sports must commence. It means they can commence. Can, not must. It's up to the individual school districts to determine if they want to go ahead with a sports program. Different school districts are making different decisions, and that's fine; it's up to them. But we gave guidance as to for those that decide to go forward, this is how you should do it, right?

The CDC, and we spoke about this yesterday, the CDC changed their guidance yesterday morning and said that people who are exposed to COVID-positive people don't need a test if they don't have a symptom. My opinion - many public health officials have agreed with me - is that is really bad advice and it is dumb-founding, to use a word. Also, I said yesterday I believed it was political propaganda rather than public health advice and Dr. Fauci - who I believe is the most credible voice on the federal side - the administration said that Dr. Fauci was involved in the decision. Dr. Fauci then later said that he was under general anesthesia at the time. So if he was involved, he was involved while he was on general anesthesia, which is probably not the most effective way to participate in a decision if you're under general anesthesia. But having watched Dr. Fauci and knowing him as a I do, I think the only way he would've agreed with the CDC's guidance is if he was under general anesthesia. So, I believe it's political and we're not following it in the State of New York and I want to make sure all people are aware of that.

2020-08-30 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everyone. Happy Sunday. I'm joined on the phone by Melissa DeRosa, Howard Zucker, Jim Malatras and Gareth Rhodes.

Let me give you some numbers to start. Today is day 183. Yesterday we did 100,000 tests. That's the most tests that we have ever done in a single day. On that number of tests, 100,000, the infection rate was .69. That is great, great news. That's the 23rd day we're under 1 percent so that is really great news, especially when you consider what's going on around the country and around the world which I'll get to in a minute.

Eight New Yorkers passed away yesterday. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 429 hospitalized - that's down by about 30. That number is a new low since March 16, the 429 New Yorkers hospitalized. 12 COVID patients in ICU - that's down a couple. 47 patients intubated, down 1, but the number of intubated is also a new low since mid-March so you have, the number of intubated are a new low, the number hospitalized are a new low, highest level of tests, 100,000, and the infection rate .69, 23 days under 1 percent.

So the state is doing extraordinarily well and again, kudos to all New Yorkers because there is no mystery as to how this happens. It's a social action. We talk about social action. This is social action. This is the community of the people of the State of New York acting out of mutuality and concern for one another - community action. Worked at it all my life but never seen it on this scale before and it's all good.

Western New York for those of you who are interested, we've been watching Western New York. It has been, we have a caution flag up on Western New York. The infection rate yesterday was 1.6 percent. That's still the highest in the state. Every other region was below 1 percent. We've started a focused testing effort with rapid turnaround. We set up eight sites. We did 1,000 people. Those numbers for 1 day show about a 3.4 percent infection rate for one day. That is a very high number but that is not a random number. These are people who decided to come in to be tested. Normally you get a high infection rate under those circumstances because these are people who think they may be infected, right? That tends to be the driving motivation for people who show up so 3.4 is high but again it's not random.

What is interesting is you do see different geographic variations. The City of Buffalo was at 5.5; the County of Erie, 1.5; County of Niagara, 2.9; Chautauqua, 1.5. So we're going to use that information and continue testing and start to focus on those geographic areas that are showing higher numbers.

In general, we have not hit what people talked about as the second wave. The second wave discussion was on the theory that the virus would mutate and come back and that was going to be the second wave parallel to the 1918 flu pandemic. We're still in the first wave but what we're seeing across the world and across the nation is a difficulty in the first wave. It's a rebounding of the first wave, right? And it's the one wave going back and forth and we're still struggling with that first wave. And it's troubling. You look at places in Europe, you have France, you have Spain, you have Germany that are seeing numbers tick up, parts in this country where you're seeing numbers tick up. New York is very much the exception to what's going on around the world with COVID and I'm very pleased with the progress. All New Yorkers should be but we have to protect that progress and what you see again going on around the country and around the world should keep us on high alert. We're especially seeing the challenges that will come in the fall when people start to go back to school.

Colleges are opening - colleges open sooner than K-12 and high schools. And colleges are having issues. There are already 25 colleges across the country that are having significant issues, over 250 cases. The 25 colleges are all around the country. It's Florida, it's Texas, it's North Carolina. It's also Michigan. It's also the state of Washington. So colleges to me are very much a canary in the coalmine. Colleges very much show what happens when you bring back a concentration of people. Even with all the precautions. Even with everything we know, because you still run into human behavior. I've spoken to a number of college presidents, private college presidents, and I've said to them, look, I get it, you go back to college, you want to see your friends, part of the college experience is socializing, I know many people who are on this phone call when they were in college, they socialized, I know many of them went to parties, many of them consumed alcohol and did all those things. I studied when I was in college but I know not everyone was in the library when I was there. I understand, and I understand that colleges want to have a good relationship with the student body, but if the students act irresponsibly or the precautions are not in place, then the virus will spread and more dramatic action is going to have to be taken and needs to be taken. And if there is an outbreak on a college it's a concern for the college but it's also a concern for that community, local community and for the state.

We have a new chancellor of the State University System of New York and he happens to be on the phone with us, Jim Malatras. SUNY, I think, is lucky because Jim has been involved with the entire COVID management system from day one so he gets it clearly. He's brought that orientation to SUNY - he's action today at Oneonta that I think is right and we have him on the phone and I'd like him to speak about the situation at Oneonta and the actions he's taking today. Chancellor Malatras?

Chancellor Malatras: Thank you, Governor. Thank you, everyone. We have had reports of several large parties of our students at Oneonta last week, and unfortunately because of those larger gatherings, there were several students who were symptomatic of COVID and upon testing we found that 20 were positive for the COVID virus. As a result, we deployed the SUNY Upstate Medical Team to down to SUNY Oneonta, one of our premier medical research facilities to test all students, the nearly 3,000 or so at Oneonta, which began on Friday and right now as of this morning we have 71 positive confirmed cases up from 20. And because of our efforts, we're confirming another 34 tests, so we're about 105 positive tests at SUNY Oneonta, which is about 3 percent of the total student and faculty population that are on campus at SUNY Oneonta this year. As a result of the increase of tests - the positive tests for COVID - we are going to be closing the SUNY Oneonta campus for two weeks for instruction and we will assess the situation working with the state and local health departments after two weeks. I want to thank the Governor and Commissioner Zucker; they've deployed case investigators and contact tracers to help with the situation and the state is deploying a SWAT team to come into the Oneonta community to set up three rapid results testing facilities so that any resident of the Oneonta community can be tested. It's a 15-minute test. The hotline will be, and the locations will be, released on Monday and we will start testing on Wednesday because many of the students, of course, live off-campus. There's a lot of interaction in the community. There's a private college nearby, so we want to manage the, any potential spread and address it immediately. But we're taking this action because we think it's necessary in order to show folks that this can spread quickly and we have to address it quickly­­ - and the other piece that we wanted to mention, because the Governor mentioned it, we understand students are coming back, we understand people want to party. But individual responsibility plays into the collective good, so your individual actions have enormous consequences on everyone else in your college community. Five students in Oneonta have been suspended for holding parties against the college policy. Three organizations, campus organizations, have been suspended and that goes along - we're going to be tough not because we want to ruin their fun, but this is a different time and this goes to what other campuses have been doing. We had to suspend 43 students at SUNY Plattsburgh for similar things because we have to address this during the new-normal. So, we will be doing that today. We're going to be meeting with the local community leaders and the school to go discuss that at 1 p.m. today, so thank you, Governor. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, Jim. And just to echo what Mr. Malatras discussed— and this should be a message to the private colleges also. I understand college life. Jim said, "students like to party." I never used the expression "party;" I said "socialize," which I thought was a more appropriate term to use in the academic setting. But we understand that and I understand the tension between the school administration and the student population, but if you— the lesson is always the same. If you are not prepared, if you don't have the right precautions, or if you don't enforce the precautions, then the virus spreads and then you have to take more dramatic action which is more disruptive and generates a more energy, a more negative energy. So private colleges, I think if you are slow to enforce the rules, then the virus will spread and then you will have to take more dramatic action. If a private college doesn't take the dramatic action, the local health department can make the college take close-down procedures. If the local community doesn't do it, the state can do it. A 3 percent infection rate, you know, that's a high infection rate in a congregate situation. Three percent is high in a dense environment, like a dense urban environment where you have people taking public transportation; it's a crowded environment. Three percent is high, so I think the Chancellor is doing the exact right thing at Oneonta and I think he's taking the right actions across SUNY, and I think the private colleges should really follow the example. As I said before, I think the colleges are the canary in the coal mine. I think what we're seeing at colleges we're going to see at the K-12 setting when those schools start to reopen. I know there's a lot of conversation in districts across the state. I speak to many school administrators, many parents about this. They have to have the right plan in place. Look at the colleges. Look at what's going on. Have the right plan and be in a position to actually implement the plan. Some school districts were having conversations about testing and what they'll do in terms of testing.

It's one thing to have a plan that says you're going to do X number of tests. It's another thing to actually have the capacity to do that number of tests. So it's not just the plan. It's the implementation of the plan, right? And bureaucracies are not the best change-oriented systems and this is a major change for a bureaucracy and this is a test that has to be completed quickly so it's an entirely new system, an entirely new task that has to be completed very quickly so a plan on paper is one thing. Being able to do it is a second question that has to be asked and my advice to the K-12 is the same - air on the side of caution. Air on the side of caution. If you go to in-person education and you are not prepared or you can't actually implement the plan and do it on day one, you will see the numbers go up and then you'll see more disruption. So air on the side of caution, smart plan you can implement, and if you're not ready, better you start when you are ready. You know? Everybody is anxious to get back to school. I get it. But everybody should be anxious to get back to a safe school, right? We're opening safe schools this year - that's what we're doing. Not just schools - we're opening safe schools. With that, Dr. Zucker has an announcement and then we'll take questions. Dr. Zucker?

Dr. Howard Zucker: Thank you, Governor. With flu season around the corner, the Department of Health will put out regulations tomorrow saying that all deaths involving respiratory illnesses need to be tested for COVID-19 and for the flu. This will maintain the integrity of our data. It will remove any reporting of presumed cases. This is very important information to have. I want to add that I urge everyone to get their flu shot unless there's a medical reason not to do so. Every year I urge people to get their flu shot and this year is no different, especially with the COVID-19 virus that's circulating the community, so we will have those regulations out tomorrow. Thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, Doctor. I'm ready for my flu shot whenever you're ready. I will take it without grimacing. Like I did that test with the nasal swab.

2020-08-31 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everyone. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Gareth Rhodes, Robert Mujica. Let me give you some numbers.

Today is day 184. 66,000 tests yesterday on a Sunday. We had 418 New Yorkers hospitalized - that's the lowest number hospitalized since this crisis began. 109 in ICU - that's the lowest number since this began. 51 patients intubated - that's up four from the prior day. We had a positive rate of .9 so we're under 1 percent or just barely and we had one New Yorker pass away from COVID. That is the lowest number that we have ever had.

One New Yorker passed away and that New Yorker's family is in our thoughts and prayers but I'd just like everyone to pause for a moment on that fact - one New Yorker passed away. There was a time when we were going through this when we literally had hundreds of people dying every day. I'm sure you all remember. And I asked New Yorkers, I beseeched New Yorkers to understand the facts and to act responsibly and I said that what the future holds is determined by what New Yorkers do and quote/unquote flattening the curve - we've used that expression over and over again - but flattening the curve actually saved lives.

Remember the initial projections were 110,000 to 140,000 New Yorkers would be hospitalized. A percentage of those would pass away. We never got anywhere near the 110,000 to 140,000 projection and that projection was the projection of all the internationally renowned models. Right? 110,000 to 140,000 - that was the same modeling firm that the White House Coronavirus Task Force used, the IHME model. The projection 110,000 to 140,000 - we never went over 20,000 hospitalized. That's how significant the flattening of the curve was, the reduction of the viral transmission was. No expert believed we would be that successful and I spoke to all of them. They just did not believe that a government could institute policies that quickly. Or, even more important, that people would follow policies with that level of compliance. Right? This is the United States. This is not China. China can dictate a policy and there is no conversation. And this isn't just the United States. It's New York. No expert believed that New York State could enact a policy and that New Yorkers would follow it to a level that would bring down the numbers the way the numbers came down.

One New Yorker passed away. New Yorkers have saved tens of thousands of lives. If New Yorkers did not do what they did tens of thousands of more people would have passed away. That is a fact from the projections so God bless the people of New York because they saved lives.

Western New York still has a caution flag flying. We did rapid testing yesterday. The number yesterday was at 2 percent. The hospitalizations are ticking up, so we need a real alert in Western New York and we're going to continue testing, but we need increased compliance and we need the local governments to respond in Western New York. 

Oneonta, we are continuing our efforts in Oneonta. Chancellor Malatras— I have to get used to saying that— I think made the right decision and the courageous decision, but we're setting up sites for our SWAT team testing in Oneonta. 

I believe colleges are the canary in the coal mine. I believe what you're seeing across the nation is going to continue. When colleges open, students come back, congregate settings, socialization, the infection rate goes up. Either the college administration is rigorous and disciplined in their administration of the precautions, or the viral transmission rate goes up and then the college has to close and go to remote learning. What we're seeing with colleges, I think is going to be replicated— excuse me— replicated on K-12. I think you will see schools, school districts reopen. I think they will have plans; the plans will say, they're going to test this percent and this percent and this percent. The school district will say here are our compliance measures. If they are not followed, you will see students come back. You will see students get infected. You will see the transmission rate go up and then you will see schools closed. Now, some of that is inevitable: 700 school districts. It is inevitable that when you bring a concentration of people together, the viral transmission is going to go up. The question will become, like on colleges, how well did that administration actually enforce compliance and what was their parameter for number of students infected before the school takes quarantine measures, goes to remote learning, etc.? That's a decision for the school district. That's also a decision for the local government. A local government could close a school district, or the state could close a school district, but school districts would be well-advised to look at what's happening in colleges. Colleges have a somewhat more complicated situation, I understand that. You have more socialization on the college campuses, but the basic dynamic is the same and you will see it replicated. So don't be shocked when we get to September and school districts say, "we're starting with in-person and the in-person will have a percentage of testing" and then schools wind up going to remote or cancelling certain classes, etc. That is going to happen.

Enforcement with the SLA— again, what we're seeing on college campuses. I've told the local governments until I'm blue in the face, they have to enforce the bar and restaurant regulations. They're not doing that uniformly across the state. The State Liquor Authority and the State Police are complementing it. Last night, they observed 1,000 establishments and found five violations, so the rate of compliance is getting much better, but remember with the super-spreader concept, one bad bar situation, one bad restaurant situation, can infect dozens. The five establishments were in Queens and no actions were taken outside of Queens. I again say in New York City, they're using just the sheriff to do compliance with limited NYPD enforcement is a mistake. 

We're releasing a letter today on the need for federal funding. The letter goes to our Congressional delegation. It's signed by myself with George Gresham from 1199, Gary LaBarbera, John Samuelsen, transport workers; Michael Mulgrew, teachers; Andrew Pallotta, teachers; Henry Garrido, DC-37; Wayne Spence from PEF; and Mary Sullivan from CSEA. What it says to the Congressional members is we need federal funding. If we do not receive federal funding there is no way that the states and the local governments can cover the deficit. There is no combination of savings, efficiencies, tax increases that could ever come near covering the deficit and we need the federal government to assist in doing that. Period.

If the federal government does not pass an economic relief program, they will, in effect, be responsible for the consequences. The consequences will be significant reductions across the board. It is mathematics, my friends. The gaps are so large, $30 billion for the state, $9 billion for New York City, $12 billion for the MTA, $3 billion for the Port Authority; $4.5 billion for the local governments outside of New York City - which New York City is 9.

Well, increase taxes. I don't care how much you increase taxes to you couldn't make up that deficit. I don't care how many savings you find, you couldn't make up that deficit. I don't care how many efficiencies you find, you couldn't make up that deficit. There would have to be cuts. Then all the labor leaders, because it's a half truth, which is a half-falsity - as people say cuts, but don't cut day care. Cuts, but don't cut education. Cuts, but don't cut CSEA. Cuts, but don't cut DC-37. It doesn't work. It's not true. It's not real. Fully fund hospitals, okay, fully fund hospitals - and what? Get the money from where? Deeper cuts to education? Well, fully fund education, that's a top priority. Okay, and cut where? Hospitals? Well, increase taxes. Yeah, mathematically it doesn't get you anywhere close to the deficit.

It's numbers, it's math. I understand politics if anybody can say anything, but you may want to ask before you quote them and write it in an article. Just explain to me how this coincides with reality. Fully fund this area and decimate every other area. We're going to release that letter to the Congressional delegation. It's unclear whether the White House is willing or the Senate is willing to actually be reasonable, but if they're not, then I want them to understand the consequences.

Last point, the New Jersey and New York and Connecticut coordinate very closely. We coordinate with our 7-state Northeast coalition. New Jersey has gone to 25 percent on indoor dining. Today they've done that all across the state. New York State has already been doing indoor dining and restaurants all across the state, except New York City. When New Jersey goes to 25 percent indoor dining, I understand that - especially for Southern New York and New York City area - you will now have restaurants right across the river in New Jersey that are open for indoor dining and restaurants in New York City that are not open for indoor dining.

I understand that that means people can go through the tunnel or go over the George Washington Bridge and go to a restaurant in New Jersey where they can't do that in New York City. I'm aware of that competitive disadvantage for New York City restaurants. We're coming in to Labor Day. Labor Day we'll see more people going back to school. That is a factor we have to watch. We're coming into the fall, flu season. Flu season is a factor that we have to watch. I'm very aware of the balance. I am aware that the restaurants in New York City are very unhappy with doing no indoor dining. I understand the economic consequences. I understand their argument will be exacerbated when they say New Jersey can go to 25 percent and it is something we are watching and we are considering.

I want as much economic activity as quickly as possible. We also want to make sure the transmission rate stays under control. That is the tension. I get it with restaurants, I get it with casinos - I get it - and we're trying to find the balance and we're calibrating every day. I understand this argument from New Jersey will exacerbate the discussion. By law, it is a state decision. It is not up to Queens, the Bronx, Westchester, Nassau - it's a state decision. It's not up to New York City. I understand and we are calibrating.

2020-09-03 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much to the operator. We have on the phone Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Chancellor Malatras, Beth Garvey, Gareth Rhodes.

There is a number of items that I'm going to go through. We have the Labor Day weekend coming up and hopefully people are going to be able to enjoy the weekend somewhat being as we haven't had a summer thus far and I'm sure members of the press are going to be also enjoying the weekend so we want to get out a number of items that are going to be coming up over these next few days.

Today is day 187. We did 88,000 tests - 889 were positive - that's .99. Seven New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 430 were hospitalized - that's down 15. 117 were in ICU - that's about the same. 61 were intubated - that's about the same. So the overall numbers are good news.

Western New York is not good news - 1.9 percent yesterday. The state's effort on the rapid testing that we started - we did 6,400 tests this week. It's a 4 percent positivity overall which is high. Again, it's not a random sample. These are people who think they may have the virus and that's why they come in. Chautauqua County was 4.5, Niagara 2.8, Buffalo City 5.9, Erie without Buffalo 2.3.

Casinos, we said we were reviewing and we'd have an announcement. Casinos can open September 9 on the condition that they have the enhanced air filtration system in place before they open. They would open at 25 percent maximum occupancy, masks, social distancing, six feet, no table games or beverage service on the gaming floor, additional staff to monitor the traffic and ensure compliance. State Gaming Commission will be monitoring that.

Malls in New York City again September 9 they can open, 50 percent capacity, as long as they have the air filtration MERV 13, et cetera, masks and social distancing will be required, additional staff will be required to control traffic, no indoor dining, loitering, or unnecessary congregating.

The SLA did 900 establishments by the Task Force with the State Police. They found seven establishments in violation: 2 in Brooklyn, 1 in Manhattan, 4 in Suffolk. That is an ongoing issue with the State having to supplement what local governments are doing.

On schools reopening, many of the school districts have testing protocols that will be in place as part of their plans. Those plans I said from the beginning are only as good as their implementation. Parents and teachers are obviously concerned about schools reopening. They should be. As I said we've seen a lot of problem situations with colleges. Colleges have complicating factors with the socialization but the congregation will be a constant. Dr. Zucker, the State Department of Health, will set up a dashboard for teachers and parents. They're sending out a letter today to every school district. As soon as the school district gets their testing report on a daily basis they must send the State that information as well as whoever they send it to, the county, the local board of education, and that information will be posted online as soon as we get it so parents, teachers will know how many tests were conducted and what the results of those tests are. I hope this will give teachers and parents some confidence that the plans are being implemented and if the plans aren't being implemented— we want to know that also, right? Because if there's a problem, the sooner you find out about the problem, the better.

On restaurants in New York City, I understand the tension on the issue. Speaker Corey Johnson said yesterday— I believe or the day before— that he thinks the restaurants in New York City should open. First, that's not a decision that's going to be made by New York City. They have no legal authority to make that decision. The state will make that decision. I happen to agree with the Speaker. I'd like to see the restaurants open. However, there's a but. B-U-T. The but is, our rules and guidance on reopening is only as good as the compliance and the enforcement. So, we can say, "50 percent of casinos or whatever," but it then has to be enforced. There has to be compliance. 50 percent are malls. 25 percent on casinos. It has to be enforced. We have major problems in New York City with the compliance on the bars. I had beseeched New York City to do a better job on compliance and enforcement. We have put together a task force to do the enforcement on Long Island and New York City. We are taking State Police resources from many places to put on that task force. The State Liquor Authority has investigators, not just from the State Liquor Authority, but all state agencies have deployed investigators to do the compliance on the bars. We now open restaurants, that's going to complicate by the hundreds if not thousands the number of establishments that have to be monitored. How is that going to happen? I don't have any more state resources to do it, so we're going to contact the Speaker today and say look, if New York City can say "this many police, NYPD, can be put on the task force to monitor the compliance," that's something we can discuss. I'm going to say to the Restaurant Association that desperately wants to open — and I understand the economic pressure — can you tell me how we're going to enforce it and how we're going to monitor compliance? Because the facts with what has happened on bars are damning and you've all heard me on this phone for the past month saying, "there's a lax and an ineffectiveness in the compliance and that's why I did the task force. But the state task force cannot take on the issue of restaurants just by personnel. It's not going to work, so to come up with a plan — akin to schools. We have a great plan. "All restaurants can open, but they have to have this, this, and this and this." Yeah, but the plan is only as good as your ability to enforce it and right now, we have no ability to enforce it. And again we just had a very bad experience when it came to bars.

So, if the Speaker — and look, you have I don't know, 34,000 NYPD — there's a lot of questions about the NYPD and their activities. Put together a task force of NYPD, Speaker Johnson, and say, "there are going to be 4,000 police who are going to be doing restaurant compliance." Not sheriffs. There are only 150 sheriffs. We have to do airport compliance, we have to do bridge and tunnel compliance. We're now opening malls — mall compliance, casino compliance. All of these and then school compliance, so that's a complication of opening the restaurants in New York City and again, if Speaker Johnson, his opinion is they should open; my opinion as they should open. The question is how? 

The President says he's going to have a vaccine. CDC is talking about a vaccine in early November. How convenient. It's going to be an Election Day miracle drug. Some people are concerned that the vaccine may wind up being hydroxychloroquine, so the State Department of Health before we recommend that New Yorkers take a vaccine, the State Department of Health will be reviewing all the protocol and research by the FDA and whatever federal authorities say it's safe and effective. So, we will, before we recommend New Yorkers take any vaccine, we will have the state Department of Health review it. 

The President has been tweeting up a storm. This is his way. I believe the President is fundamentally a bully which I've said too many times and I've known him very well for a very long period of time. It doesn't work in New York because you can't bully New Yorkers. We just don't get bullied. We don't respond well to it and I want to talk about facts. You know the President says a lot of things but facts still matter even in this political environment, right? When it comes to protests in New York City and public safety, and I'm concerned about public safety in New York City also, New Yorkers are all concerned about it. City residents are concerned about it. But public safety is not a federal responsibility - not constitutionally in New York City. It's a state and local issue. The federal responsibility for public safety is national security and that has been a great failure by this President. He said that his protection of Americans against these protests is akin to World War II. No. World War II - I'll tell you what's akin to World War II: It was the COVID attack. This nation has not been attacked by an enemy who has killed more and ravaged more than COVID since World War II and the President as a commander-in-chief has been an abysmal failure in the war against COVID. That's on the facts. You look at the number of deaths from COVID just the past couple of days: Spain: 42; France: 25 Germany: 8; Italy: very badly hit. 6. You know how many were in the United States? 1,074. 1,074. Commander Trump, you're losing. You're losing the World War. Other countries are doing much better and losing far few people then the United States is losing.

Second point, the President said New York did not do a good job in handling COVID. No. It's not that New York didn't do a good job. COVID problem in New York was a function of the federal government's negligence. How do I know that? Because they admitted that they were negligent. They admitted it. The virus came from Europe, not China. The President calls it the China virus. It's not the China virus. It's the European virus and it came here because the federal government was negligent in protecting Americans and New Yorkers.

How can I say that? I'm not saying that. The federal government admitted their failure. Dr. Fauci on June 23, 'Everybody was looking at China and it came from Europe.' That's Dr. Fauci.

Dr. Fauci on April 9: 'We cut off the travel from China relatively early, but we were seeded with a relatively few number of cases from China but very quickly the epicenter switched to Europe. Particularly Northern Italy. Given the travel and air traffic from anywhere in Italy, but also particularly Northern Italy, it's just not surprising that unfortunately and inadvertently, New York was seeded before we knew what was going on.'

Well that's Dr. Fauci, President doesn't like Dr. Fauci. How about CDC Director Robert Redfield, who he appointed. His CDC Director. Sworn testimony March 10: 'Right now the new China is Europe. And there's a lot of people coming back and forth from Europe that are now starting to seed these communities.'

CDC Report, July 17: 'Although travel restrictions are an important mitigation factor, by the time the European restrictions were implemented, importation and community transmission of COVID had already occurred in New York City.'

CDC. CDC Principal Director Anne Shout, May 1: 'I think in retrospect, taking action earlier could have delayed the further amplification or delayed the speed of it. The extent of travel from Europe, once Europe was having outbreaks, really accelerated our importation and the rapid spread.'

CDC Robert Redfield, July 28: 'The introduction from Europe happened before we realized what was happening.'

The introduction from Europe happened before we realized what was happening. CDC, Dr. Fauci - these are federal agencies who have admitted that the virus came to New York from Europe and they blew it. They missed it. It was their failure. It was their negligence. They have admitted it in their words. This is not a back and forth. It's not a political discussion; well he said this, they say that. He says the world is flat, I say the world is round. No. The world is round. That is a fact. Well he says it's flat. I know, but he's wrong. The situation in New York with COVID came from Europe because the federal government was negligent and they admitted it. It's their words.

President says he's going to win New York State in the election. President says a lot of things. Whatever he would like to wager on his winning New York, I would take him up on it. If he is serious, old expression put your money where your mouth is. How much do you want to wager that you're going to win New York? He's going to lose New York. Why? Because those who know the President best like him the least. New Yorkers know him. He grew up here. We watched him as tabloid fodder for years. We know him and those who know him, know he's unsuited to be President.

Not just New Yorkers, people who know him best. You know who knows him best? His family. You know what his sister said? His sister, by the way, is not just his sister. His sister is a former federal judge who's a credible person. His sister said, quote, 'The change of stories, the lack of preparation, the lying - holy s**t. He has no principles. He doesn't read. Donald is cruel. He was a brat. You can't trust him. It was all about him.'

Who said that? His sister. Former federal judge. Now look, there's only two options: Either the sister is mentally not competent or she's accurate. I don't hear anyone trying to overturn her decisions based on a lack of mental competence. So, former federal judge says that about her brother. Those who know him best, like him least. Those are the words, quoted, from his sister a former federal judge.

President then says my puppet prosecutors are illegally prosecuting him. We don't have public prosecutors in New York. I don't appoint the prosecutors. The President appoints public prosecutors, he appoints William Barr. Who, I understand from the President's point of view, yes, William Barr is his puppet. Yes, William Barr is a prosecutor. That doesn't happen in New York. That's a federal situation. Cy Vance, the District Attorney in Manhattan, gets elected. He ran in Manhattan. There's an election, people vote and he's the District Attorney. Cy Vance has asked for his taxes. It's not illegal. Judges have sided with Cy Vance and I'm sure Cy Vance, who's an experienced prosecutor, has a probable cause to ask for his taxes.

The President desperately is trying to secret his taxes. I don't know why. I release my taxes. I don't understand why the President has such great fear about releasing his taxes. To go through all this extent, there must be something he really doesn't want people to see. Otherwise, it's wholly illogical what he's doing. Cy Vance is not a puppet of mine. He was elected. He's not William Barr. The prosecutors aren't acting illegally. The prosecutors are seeking to prove illegality and that's why they want the taxes.

Those are facts, my friends. They're not he said, she said. They're just facts. If he wants to refute the facts, a thousand people didn't die in the United States. Forty-two people didn't die in Spain. Okay, refute the facts. My sister didn't say that. Okay, except she did. Redfield didn't say - well, Redfield did say you missed the virus coming from Europe. They didn't do the European travel ban until mid-March. It was too late. They all admitted it. It's his negligence, it's his liability that brought it to New York.

If this was an actual war he could be court-martialed for dereliction of duty. He brought it to New York. World War II, COVID was World War II and you have the worst performance on the globe of any commander-in-chief. If these were missiles rather than a viral transmission, the United States would have been devastated. These are all facts, which I say in response to the President's tweets.

2020-09-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy post-Labor Day. Go Islanders! Very excited about the Islanders. First game was yesterday. Not successful, but that's okay - giving Tampa Bay a false sense of security. It's a good tactic.

To my right, we have Mr. Gareth Rhodes, which everybody knows. To my immediate right, we have Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my left, Robert Mujica, Budget Director, State of New York. To Robert's left, Dr. Zucker, Health Commissioner extraordinaire.

Let's talk about where we are today and the number of issues and then I'll take whatever questions you have. Today is day 192, but we're entering a different phase. This is now a post-Labor Day phase. The situation started in March, then blended into basically people starting an early summer vacation in April, May. Labor Day starts a different phase. Labor Day people start to get back to work. Labor Day schools are opening, activity is increasing, colleges are opening. You see traffic starting to increase, which we're seeing now. More road traffic than ridership and public transportation, which other cities have also seen on the reopening. People feel more comfortable being in their car to commute than being on public transportation and being in an environment with other people.

We anticipated that. That's to be expected. That has consequences. We'll see more traffic on the roads, longer commutes. We will be encouraging people to take public transportation. The trains are clean, they're disinfected - first time in history - but you're going to see different factors in this new phase.

Flu season is starting. Flu season is going to be a complicating factor. Flu season means there will be more stress on the testing system. Same testing that does COVID testing does flu testing. You'll see more stress on the testing system. Flu symptoms are much like COVID symptoms so people are sneezing, people who are sniffling - could be the flu, could be COVID. That will cause additional complications. So keep that in mind as we move forward.

On the numbers today - and remember, these were Sunday numbers which are always a little different than during the week. Four hundred and forty-five hospitalizations, 114 ICU, down 1; intubations down 5. The number of lives lost is 5 yesterday and they're in our thoughts and prayers. Three-day average of deaths lost is about 5. You look across the state, basically it's stable everywhere. Western New York was actually down yesterday and we've been watching Western New York. Again, that was a holiday sample so I take this with a grain of salt, but it's better news for Western New York. We'll see where they are tomorrow.

All across the city, the numbers have basically been good. The infection rate, .96, which is extraordinary. Means it's been below 1 percent for over a month now and it is an obvious outlier to what's going on across the rest of the country. Under 1 percent for 32 days and my hat's off to New Yorkers. Who's doing this? The continued compliance and discipline of New Yorker's. That's who's doing it. Who's wearing the masks? Who's doing social distancing? Who's being smart? New Yorkers. The infection rate is a pure function of what New Yorkers are doing. I know these are tough time, et cetera, but at one point you have to take a step back and say what an extraordinary accomplishment by the people of this state. It really has been.

What is our priority now going forward? Protect the progress we've made. You're under one percent. You're not by any practical measure going to get much lower. Just make sure you don't go up and that's what we're doing, protecting the progress. Protecting the lead, if you will, in a sports game which is always hard.

There are certain, special conditions that we are watching. Bar non-compliance, that means non-compliance in bars. We're not barring non-compliance, we want compliance. We are promoting compliance and we want compliance in bars. A little unartfully worded, I hope you'll excuse it the way I excuse your stories when they are unartfully worded - not that you would ever do that.

Visitors from out of state, which is an ongoing problem for us. You look at the clusters that we've seen developing, many of them are from out of state visitors. Colleges are a problem and will continue to be a problem. K-12 schools are opening. This is an entirely new enterprise and entirely new world and it's something that we have to be very careful about.

Then voting - making sure people vote and they feel safe in voting and they're participating, but making sure voting does not become a cluster. We don't want a lot of people on long lines. On the enforcement with bars, the local governments did not do the level of enforcement that we believe necessary and we've put together a task force of the State Liquor Authority and the State Police to supplement local governments. That has been working well. They did 4,000 establishments and found 37 violations.

The rules we put up we promulgate. A rule is only as good as the compliance. I can say anything from up here. But, it's only as good as people's willingness to follow it, and it's only as good as the establishments that follow it. And we have learned, frankly the public has been more accepting and more compliant, there are establishments who are not compliant. And if you're not doing enforcement, then they're going to violate the rules. It's human nature, they're under economic pressure, and if they can increase economic activity by violating a rule, and nobody's going to catch them, then you tend to see violations.

There's an old expression. Locks keep honest people honest. Have you ever heard that? No. Locks keep honest people honest. Don't tempt people to cheat or to steal. Do the compliance. Let them know you could do compliance. Somebody could walk in the door. Locks keep honest people honest. We have all our state resources on this task force. We don't have any more resources than we can put on this task force. We have all the State Police we can spare and investigators from all across the state, from all different agencies, have been put on this task force, and they're doing a good job. But, we're at the state's max, which will be relevant in a moment.

Individuals coming from other states continue to be a problem. We now have 35 high-risk states in this country, which is incredible. Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia have been added. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands have been taken off the list.

Colleges across this country are seeing outbreaks. To be expected, commonsense, young people going back to college, first thing they want to do is study, study, study. That's the first thing I wanted to do, study, study, study. Let me get in the library, be alone, study, read. Some students, unlike myself, want to socialize. So they come back to college, I want to see my friends, I want to enjoy libations, we want to go to a bar, we want to have a party. Yes, those situations are increasing the spread. Why? People coming from around the country and around the world to these colleges. And in many ways, your people, the same point we're trying to protect against on the quarantine from other states, you have students coming from those states to the colleges. And then they go out to party and they wind up spreading the virus.

Nationwide, 108 colleges have already reported more than 100 cases. In New York, we have a problem, SUNY Oneonta, Cornell, Buffalo, Hofstra, Oswego, Colgate, Fredonia. That's all across the state. that's the entire state, it goes from Long Island all through upstate. So this is going to be a problem. I am telling you that. One of the lessons we learned is just anticipate what's happening and be ready for it.

NYU in Washington Square Park this weekend in New York. They had large gatherings in Washington Square Park. Frankly, NYU security didn't do anything about it. The local police didn't do anything about it. You will have NYU students who come from other countries. You have a large gathering, many people without masks, it went on for hours, what do you think is going to happen? You know that 108 colleges nationwide have this problem, you know we're closing colleges all across the state. What do you think is going to happen?

You know, we say we're New York Tough. That is not tough, that is not tough by the NYU administrators, who as soon as they heard about it, they should have said stop it. Send the NYU security, break it down. It's not tough by the New York City enforcement. They saw the large gathering, violation of social distancing, it wasn't smart. It's totally contrary to everything you know. We're not acting in a spirit of unity, it's not disciplined, and it's not loving. Violates everything.

Department of Health is going to do a regulation, any school that goes over 100 COVID-19 positive cases has to report to the Department of Health immediately. And if they go over 100, then the school can be closed down to do remote learning, alright. So who gets helped? It's not good for the students, except for those students like myself who want to be in the library and only want to read a book. But, the students who want to socialize and party, now you're going to do remote learning. It's not going to be helpful to the school administration, but it is going to happen. I am telling you that as I sit here. It will happen. And 100 cases can happen very easily. You saw all the other colleges that have it. That Department of Health regulation is going to go out today. It is going to be unequivocal. And as soon as the college has notice from any source they have to immediately report it.

On K to 12 schools, some are opening in person, some have hybrid, we have 700 school districts, you have every flavor and variation all across the state. Parents and teachers are anxious. They have been all throughout this I've been speaking about this from day one. I've received thousands of phone calls from parents and teachers. They don't understand the plan the plan changed all of a sudden last week the plan changed. Over the past 2 weeks the plan changed; they're confused and they're anxious. Why? Because it's their child. That's why. And they want to make sure their child doesn't get sick, right? As a parent, your first instinct to protect your child; they're nervous, teachers are nervous.

Some teachers are older, they're in a more vulnerable category. The teachers are nervous. School districts say "well I have a plan." Plans are only as good as your ability to implement a plan. I've seen many bureaucracies with plans and the plans sound great on paper. The rubber hits the road when you go to implement the plan, and can you actually do it, and can you take all those tests, and do the tests come back, and are the tests right, and when the tests come back are you actually following up and doing something? That's what parents want to know and that's what teachers want to know. And they're right. I said from day one I'm with the parents and the teachers. If I'm going to make a decision to send my children back to school I'm going to be darn sure that the plan is smart, they can do the plan and then I want to know if they're implementing the plan. 

So, that's where we are; plans, are they actually happening, and the parents. And the teachers don't want reassurances, "don't worry it'll be fine, the board of education said this, local school district said this." They want the facts. You know what they wanted all through COVID? They wanted to facts. I do the briefings; they separate facts from opinion. Why? They don't really want my opinion. I want the facts. Tell me the facts and then I'll come up with my own opinion. The facts empower people and the facts give people comfort. If a fact is a fact, not a political fact, but a real fact. We're doing a regulation every school district has to report every day to the Department of Health as to how many tests were taken, what type of test, what was the result. State Department of Health is going to put that all on the web site. They're going to have a COVID report card for every school in the state.

Any parent, "how's my school doing?" Thank God they didn't have this for students. Can you imagine if you had a daily report card for a student on how the student is doing? That would have been bad for me. Daily report card, how is this school doing on implementing their plan. The state will maintain it. They have to provide the information to the state -- by the way to school district has to provide the information. The local health department has to provide the information. The lab that does the test has to provide the information. So the department of health is getting the information from 3 different sources so we'll know if it's right. But a simple web site even I could use it. If you go to the website, you punch in your address, it tells you what school district that your child is in.

Once you go to that school district it will tell you everything you need to know about where that school district is with COVID; how many tests they've taken, how many they took yesterday, what the results were, who's doing the tests, what's the turnaround on the tests. So, positive cases by the date of students and staff by school and school district, whether that school or schools district is remote, in-person, hybrid, because if a student tests positive but the student is doing remote learning, that's one situation, right? If a student tests positive and a student is in the class with your child, you want to know that. The number of students and staff that are on site. Percentage of on-site students and staff who test positive. The number of tests being administered, what type of test, what lab was used and the lab time.

Some labs have a 7-day turnaround. Some labs can do a rapid test, which can tell you in an hour whether or not a person is positive. There's a big difference if you're giving me data that's 7-days old or if you're giving me data that was current as of that date. And the date of the last submission and the update. It's a big undertaking. I thank the Department of Health in advance, but it is very important. I think this will give parents confidence, and teachers confidence. They will know on a day-to-day basis exactly what is happening. They won't be reliant on communication from the school district, from the principal, from anyone else. Once the reporting starts, the website will go live. The website has the very catchy address of schoolcovidreportcard.health.ny.gov. It rolls of your tongue: schoolcovidreportcard.health.ny.gov. That's because we try to make things simple, creative and attractive.

On voting, we want fair voting, we want easy voting and we want accurate voting. Because of COVID this year. you can vote by absentee or you can vote early. Vote in-person on election day if you choose. You can get your ballot online; you can do that now. The request for the ballots. If you have concerns about COVID, you can call it a temporary illness, which is what makes you eligible for absentee voting. You can then drop off a ballot at locations and polling sites in your area. You can drop off a completed ballot today at a board of elections, or any early voting site in your county during the early voting period October 24th to November 1.

So you request a ballot, you get the ballot. Now I have the ballot. Fine, you can drop it off anywhere at an early voting site from October 24th to November 1st, so you have about a week to drop it off. This is our way of developing a drop box system, right? People talk about drop boxes, basically set up a substitute U.S. Postal Service where you have of metal box where everybody can go to a metal box and put the ballot in the metal box. Cause us to create a whole new the post office system all across the state. This, I think has the same purpose and effect, it's just easier. You drop it off at a location where it's secure some will actually have a box, some will take it from you in person, but it is in effect a drop box system. And you can early vote or you can drop it off October 24th to November 1. To find out where you can do it, ny.gov/earlyvote.

On restaurants, in New York City, I'm very aware of the economic pain that restaurants are dealing with. It's bad for the restaurant owner. It's bad for the staff, the sheriff, the waiters. The entire team that works there. We have experience in this area. We opened bars, and it turned out to be a nightmare. There were many violations and there was very little ability to police the violations, to enforce the compliance. I talked about this every day for two months. I beseeched the local governments to help. They didn't. We then put together the State, SLA, State Police Task Force. And we did local bar enforcement. As you saw earlier, we did about 5,000 visits in the past couple of days. That is the maximum capacity for the State Task Force. If you now increase indoor dining, you are going to have to have a compliance and enforcement function. If you go to indoor dining, you are roughly doubling the number of places that you're going to have to monitor.

There would be about another 10,000 establishments in New York City that could do indoor dining. You know you had a bad experience with bars. You know that you're at your maximum in terms of enforcement capacity. You're now going to double the number of establishments that you need to monitor. How do you do that? That's the conundrum that we face. You also know that when we opened indoor dining in Upstate New York, we had issues. When we opened indoor dining, we had clusters in Upstate New York. This is not without risk. Right? We're managing risk. But there is no zero risk. So we know in the indoor dining is problematic from our own experience in Upstate New York.

We know there's a risk of noncompliance because we went through it with bars. We know the local governments were very slow to provide additional enforcement. We know the state had to step in to do the enforcement and we know that the state is that the maximum capacity for enforcement. That's the issue that we're dealing with. I would need additional enforcement capacity from local governments. And the additional enforcement is not that complicated to function. Right? It could be a local police department or it could be local health inspectors.

This is not vis-a-vis the public - it's vis-a-vis the establishment owner. If you own a restaurant, and let's say the indoor capacity is 25 percent. If you are in the restaurant and it is exceeding 25 percent, you're not out of compliance, the restaurant owner's out of compliance. It can be a health inspector. We have on our task force now, on the state side, environmental inspectors, industry inspectors. It is any regulatory compliance officer who could be detail to do this. If we have the enforcement mechanism in place, then we can talk about opening restaurants. It would be negligent and reckless to open indoor dining, knowing that you have issues in Upstate New York, knowing that compliance is going to be a problem, and knowing that you have no enforcement mechanism. And we're still working through that because I believe local governments could help us accomplish this goal if they wanted to.

The good news is this: reopening is proceeding and our strategy is working. New Yorkers are doing a better job than any state in the United States of America— period— and I'm proud to be a New Yorker. The bad news is we have after-effects of COVID, social after-effects. We have economic issues. we have quality-of-life issues. We have increasing crime issues. We have habitability issues.  

I can't tell you how many phone calls I get from people, especially in New York City, who are literally worried about the degradation of New York City— and much of it stems from the economic problems. And Washington is doing absolutely nothing. They're going back and forth with gridlock. This was the last piece of legislation that they were supposed to pass to handle the aftermath of COVID and they haven't done it. The Republican Senate doesn't want to fund state and local governments and that's the sticking point. Not to fund state and local governments, but to provide all the money that they did to businesses— but you're not going to provide funding to state local governments, who basically support police, fire, hospitals and schools is just totally ludicrous to me. And it starts with the President.

There was a headline in the Daily News once: "Ford to City: Drop Dead," and the city was outraged Ford wouldn't provide financial resources. What Ford did pales in comparison to what Trump is doing; not only did he tell New York City to "drop dead," Trump is actively trying to kill New York City. It is personal. I think it's psychological. He is trying to kill New York City. He passed SALT, which was targeted just at New York City tax reform; it cost us $14 billion. He's refused to fund the extension of the Second Avenue Subway from 96th to 125th Street. Every prior administration has funded the Second Avenue Subway. It is always been a federal-state partnership. Only this President, a former New Yorker, refuses to fund the Second Avenue Subway— even after we opened it up to 96th Street and did an amazing turn-around on the construction project that everybody celebrated.

This weekend, they stopped FEMA funding from cleaning schools and trains. "We want students to go back; we want schools to reopen." But you don't want to clean the schools? Students should go back to a dirty school? Is that what you want your child to do? Gratuitous and arbitrary, and now no federal funds for New York City and New York State post-COVID.  

Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York. That is a fact. It's a fact that he admitted and the CDC admitted and Fauci admitted. "The China Virus, the China Virus, the China Virus." It was not the China Virus; it was the European Virus that came to New York. They missed it. They missed it. The China Virus went to Europe. It got on a plane and went to Europe. They never even thought of the possibility and then 3 million Europeans got on a plane and came to New York and they brought the virus. January: they brought the virus. February: they brought the virus. March: they brought the virus. And in mid-March, the federal government does a travel ban from Europe. Mid-March. Too little too late, Mr. President. He caused the COVID outbreak in New York. Donald Trump and his incompetent CDC and his incompetent NIH and his incompetent Department of Homeland Security.  

Department of Homeland Security- "We're going to protect the people of this nation "We're not going let the immigrants come across the southern border; we're going to create a wall" Why didn't you stop the virus? The virus killed many more Americans than anything you were worried about on the southern border. This nation loses more people per day to COVID than any nation on the globe. Do you hear that point? We lose more people per day to COVID than any nation on the globe. You know who did that? Donald Trump's incompetence. And now they won't provide federal funding to help repair the damage from the ambush they created. That's where we are. The federal government must provide a response; if they don't provide a response the national economy will suffer for years. Every economist says that They don't want to provide a response, why? Because they're playing politics. They don't want to help Democratic states. They don't want to help Democratic cities.

This is a war on cities: New York City, Portland, Chicago. Right? These are the enemies from the president's point of view. Look at his tweets. "These are the locations and the outposts of the enemies, so don't provide them any funding even though we caused the COVID virus. it is an unsustainable position for the federal government. Either this president will figure it out or the next president will figure it out. If Congress doesn't figure it out, there will be mayhem in this country and there will be a different Congress in January. That is my political opinion. In the interim we have to be smart. We've gone through tough times before, New York, we had the fiscal crisis of the 70s; post 9/11 - I experienced it was a whole disruptive period - we went through the Great Recession, but we have to be smart we have to be smart we have to be financially smart and we're going to have to come together and figure this out in the interim before we have a federal government that is sane and functional.  

The good news is, this is going to be a challenge, yes, but nothing like the challenge we just went through. COVID was the challenge of our lifetime. COVID was the challenge of our lifetime. I hope and pray. But compared to what we went through with COVID, dealing with the fiscal crisis is a mere bump and we'll get through it, and we'll get through it together because we're New York Tough, Smart, United, Disciplined and most of all: Loving.

2020-09-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Pleasure to be with you. Let me introduce the people who are joining me today. To my far right, Gareth Rhodes. To my immediate right, Melissa DeRosa. To my left, Robert Mujica. I think you know who they are by now. If not you can Google them, G-o-o-g-l-e. My name is Andrew Cuomo. Today is day 193. 

The facts today are 463 hospitalizations, that's up about 18 from yesterday. 121 ICU patients. We have 59 intubations. We lost 3 New Yorkers yesterday and they're in our thoughts and prayers. Three-day average is 3. You look across the state all the numbers are constant. We still are watching Western New York; Western New York is at 1.5 percent. That's not good, but we have been taking a lot of actions in Western New York and I think people got the message and we still have a caution flag, but the number's not increasing and that's good news. 

Across the city the numbers are all good and the outer boroughs. Infection rate .9 yesterday. That means we're under 1 percent for 33 straight days which is great news and a credit to New Yorkers and what they're doing. And by the way, that is with more testing than any other state. If you want to see something interesting, go look at how many tests different states are taking. Remember the President said I told my people not to test as much because if you don't test as much, you won't see that there are more cases? Some of these states are testing at very, very low levels. If you don't do many tests, you won't find many cases. And the number of cases will drop. Yeah, but that is false comfort. If you want to see a reduction in the number of people with cancer, take fewer cancer screenings. You can then say, look, we have fewer people who have had detected cases of cancer. Yes, but that's only because you're not looking. 

That's what's happening across this country. It's a scandal, frankly, because it allows more people to get sick and more people to die. But that's what's happening, exactly what the President said. If you listen to him, he will tell you the scandal that he is about to perpetrate. States are testing less. Just look at the number of tests. New York, it's the opposite. We're testing more than anyone else. So when we say this is how many cases we have, that's accurate because we're testing more than anyone else. 

The SLA and the New York State Police have a special task force that is working on compliance on bars. They've observed 969, they did 5 establishments. Compliance on bars is way up, 99.2 percent. Compliance on bars has increased dramatically from when we started. Why? Because if you know someone is going to check, if you know there's monitoring, people tend to increase compliance. For a bar or a restaurant, if you lose your liquor license, that is very serious business. So they're making a calculated decision. The bad actors who were violating the rules now know they could very well lose their license. What has happened? Compliance has gone up. That's good news. Rules are only as good as their compliance. I can sit here all day and promulgate rules. Wear a mask, stay home, six feet. The rule is only as good as the compliance, and the compliance is only as good as the enforcement. Bars, you must do X. Well, bars want to do business. I understand the economic pressure. The compliance, the bars, is only as good as the enforcement, and the enforcement was lax. The state put together the task force, there's now real compliance, they've heard about it every day, they've heard about the enforcement, they've heard about the number of enforcement actions. They knew that the chance was very high that somebody may check. What happened? Compliance went up. That's good news.

I want to thank New Yorkers for the increase in compliance, and because the compliance has gotten better we can now take the next step. That takes us to restaurants. Opening restaurants, I understand the economic benefit. I understand the economic pressure that they've been under. A restaurant is not just the restaurant owner. Restaurant is the kitchen staff, the wait staff, there's a whole industry around restaurants. And restaurants also pose a possible risk, right, concentrations of people inside, indoor dining. But there's also a great economic loss when they don't operate.

We had a caution flag with restaurants and indoor dining for two reasons. Number one, we're doing indoor dining at 50 percent across the rest of the state. we have seen clusters outbreak from restaurants. So that was a reason for caution. Second, we knew that compliance was lacking in New York City. That was a reason for caution. We've been speaking with stakeholders, we've been working on this issue every day, and we're now announcing today that we can go to 25 percent of indoor dining with certain restrictions that will be enacted on September 30th.

Indoor dining, the rules will be temperature checks for anyone who comes in at the door, one member of each party has to leave information, phone number, email, so that there's contact tracing information if there is an outbreak. One person from every party. No bar service. The bars will only be for service bars for wait staff. They can make drinks, they can transfer them over the bar, but nobody will be sitting at the bar. Masks must be worn at all times except when you're sitting at the table. All tables must be six feet apart. Restaurants will close at midnight. Strict adherence to the State guidance that has been promulgated. Restaurants will have the air filtration requirement, the enhanced air filtration requirement that is specified in the State guidance. There will be limited air recirculation, we want air from the outside to provide additional ventilation. Outdoor dining can continue along with 25% of indoor dining.

How do you do compliance? The State will expand the SLA State Police Task Force. New York City will provide ultimately 400 code enforcement inspectors to work with that task force. The number of places that are going to have to be checked for compliance are about 10 thousand. So, even with the State expanding the task force and the City adding 400 code compliance inspectors to that task force, 10 thousand is still a very large universe. So, I have a new idea. The new idea to assist with compliance is this: New Yorkers themselves will help with compliance. New Yorkers will keep New Yorkers safe. The New York Community, community of New Yorkers, is the best compliance unit. New Yorkers have shown all through this that they have forged community, right? What does community mean? Community means I look out for you and you look out for me. Community means I understand our connection; I understand our interdependence. I understand that I can't keep myself safe and you can't keep yourself self, and the only way we'll be safe is if we work to protect each other. That has worked extraordinarily well.

The Restaurant Association and New York State will run public service announcements asking New Yorkers to be part of the compliance of this 25 percent rule. New Yorkers, I'm asking to report violations of that 25 percent capacity. We call it "New Yorkers Protecting New Yorkers." We'll have a special alert phone number, text number, that will go to the task force. And we ask people if you're in a restaurant and you see more than 25 percent in that restaurant and indoor dining, you text the violation, the information to the task force; it will all be anonymous. The restaurant will not know that you were the one who provided information, but it will help that task force, because then the task force can send an inspector to that specific restaurant. And again, you have a universe of about 10 thousand beyond the bars that we're already monitoring, and we're asking New Yorkers to be part of the solution. Every restaurant will post their 25 percent capacity of indoor dining. Every restaurant will post that text number, that phone number where people can call and report the violation and I'm asking New Yorkers to be a part of the solution.

I believe in New Yorkers. I believe in New Yorkers' ability to do the right thing. That is not blind faith. That is a result of the experience we've had going through COVID. New Yorkers got the information. We did the briefings every day. New Yorkers I think are more informed about COVID than anyone in the country and New Yorkers stepped up, right? Mask compliance— I put out the rule; New York was the first state to have a rule on mask compliance, but I couldn't enforce it. We don't have enough police to enforce it. New Yorkers enforced it. The society enforced it. If you all were to pass somebody without a mask, they gave you a look and it became socialized in the New York community that you should wear a mask.

You look at our infection rate, why is it so low? Why is it lower than any other place in the country? Because New Yorkers are doing the right thing That's why we're below 1 percent, so I believe in New Yorkers. They put a lot of trust and faith in me. They believed in the actions that I was proposing and trust is reciprocal. They trusted me, I trust them, and I trust that if they have the right information, they will do the right thing. We will continue to watch the infection rate the way we do every day. If there is a spike in the infection rate, then we can always hit the emergency pause button. We can do that at any given time. If you see an increase in the infection rate, the first thing we do is to look for a definable cause— something that generated a cluster. That actually is good news when you can find something that generated a cluster because then you can go stop that source.

If you can't find the origin of the increase and it's just community spread across the board, then you hit the pause button. We can hit the pause button on restaurants' indoor dining. You can hit the pause button on any of these activities we're allowing. So, we always have that as a backdrop. It gives us comfort, and especially because the information we're receiving is timely, and it's based on a lot of tests, and we can identity it all across the state. That's the good news about having the amount of data that we have, so if the infection rate goes up? Bang. Hit the pause button. 

At the same time, if the infection rate doesn't go up and these restaurants have gone through very tough economic circumstances, we can always reassess the guidelines and go from 25 percent to 50 percent, would be the next increase. And we can do that at any time, but we've set November 1 as a deadline to determine whether or not we can go from 25 to 50. Again, we can do it at any time before November 1, but we have November 1 as a benchmark where we could go to 50 percent.  

On the issue of childcare, people are coming back to work. It's after Labor Day. We want people to come back to work; we want people to come back to their jobs in Manhattan. To get people to come back to work, they need childcare. The state is going to release $88 million today in additional childcare funding so we can provide that childcare so people can come to work. Post-Labor Day is normally a time when people start to come back to work. 

As a lifelong New Yorker, I can tell you, you can always tell post-Labor Day because the traffic increases. That's normal. We're seeing the traffic increase dramatically in the downstate area - the commute from Long Island and Westchester into New York City - I experienced it myself. Vehicle traffic is heavy, and it is disproportionately heavy. Public transportation is still very light. What's happening? People are starting to come back to work but they're commuting by their cars why because they're nervous about public transportation. This has happened by the way everywhere across the globe. When urban areas have reopened people have tended to commute by car rather than using public transportation because they're nervous about public transportation.

Public transportation is safe. These cars - commuter cars, subway cars, buses -are disinfected every day. They have never been cleaner, that's the silver lining to this entire debacle of COVID. We're cleaning our public transportation system more than we ever have in history. Ridership is relatively low compared to what it was. Public transportation is safe. Leave the car at home; take public transportation. Try it. I think you are going to be favorably impressed with what you see but we're not going to get back to normal if the new normal is everybody is driving their car into Manhattan. The traffic back up will be horrendous. It's bad for the environment. It's expensive. Try public transportation. I've been on it. I know the condition of it. I think you will be pleasantly surprised but please try it. 

In terms of federal help, the U.S. Senate put in a proposed package on relief, again it has no state and local aid. It is malpractice for this Senate to suggest a relief package that doesn't have state and local aid. Remember what state and local aid goes to. It goes to all the essential workers who we've relied on and we continue to rely on. We're talking about having a vaccine and being able to dispense a vaccine: How many nurses? How many schools? How many police? How many firefighters? How many EMS? How many medical personnel is it going to take to handle a vaccine? And now you want to cut funding for essential workers? It's ludicrous.

If they don't provide state and local funding it will be financial chaos. The deficit is so large that we would have to do everything. We'd have to cut the budgets and cutting the budgets hurts, especially now. We have to raise taxes on the state and local level, which should be done at the federal level. We would also have to borrow, and you would see continued urban decay because you know how a state government and local government cuts its budget. You're going to lose essential workers when you're supposed to be doing a vaccine. The streets would get dirtier and by the way, they're too dirty already. Cities would not be as safe and by the way, there's increasing crime already in New York City. You would have to raise taxes which would put states and cities that had the COVID concentration at a competitive disadvantage and it would destabilize the national economy for years.

Every economist says the same thing. Looking at past recessions, when you starve the state and local governments and you cause more layoffs, that destabilizes the national economy. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. I'm head of the National Governors Association. This is every state. This is Democratic governors, Republican governors, all saying the same thing. It's an American issue. Senator McConnell- they have to stop this political nonsense. This is their own politics that they're playing, and they have to remember that they're supposed to be serving in the best interest of the nation.

These people took an oath. They took a constitutional oath. This is a nation in crisis. Remember your constitutional duty. You raised your hand and you took an oath. It meant something. Your word means something. The constitution means something. Do your basic duty. Step up to the plate. Do the right thing, the way New Yorkers did the right thing. And New Yorkers showed that they were tough and smart and united and disciplined and loving. We need a little bit of that in Washington D.C.

2020-09-16 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you all for coming out today. What a day. We needed this. Little bit of a break from the usual that we've been doing. I think you all can appreciate that. You know it's been a bizarre summer when this is the first time I've been on the water all summer, first time I'm on the boat, which is saying something for me.

We have a lot of great friends here today, and it's a good day. I want to start by acknowledging Commissioner Basil Seggos, who's doing a great job. We have Kelly Cummings, who's the director of operations, who just makes things happen, and that's so important, especially now. We have our great Nassau County Executive, Laura Curran, sporting her Islanders mask, go Islanders, what a game last night. We're going to do it. We are going to do it. I believe it, that's the New York spirit. Let's thank Captain Nick Dionisio and the Atlantic Pearl for hosting us today, thank you very much captain. We have my colleagues from Albany, we have Senator John Brooks, Senator Gaughran, Senator Kaminsky, Senator Kaplan, Senator Martinez and Senator Thomas and Assemblyman Steve Englebright, thank you all very much for being out today. 

Let me talk about, even in this setting, we're still dealing with COVID, obviously. Today is day 200 that we've been dealing with COVID since is started. We are the most advanced state in the nation in terms of doing testing. People talk about COVID, how are we doing. In New York, we know how we're doing because we have data. We have more numbers than any state, more numbers than any nation on the globe pro rata. Yesterday we did about 75,000 tests statewide. To give you an idea of what 75,000 tests means, when we first started COVID, we had the capacity to do 500 tests per day. 500. We're now up to 75,000 tests. No one had ever talked about testing like this before, and many of the other states are still struggling because frankly they haven't been able to come up to speed the way we have. But 75,000 tests. Statewide the infection rate was .87 percent, which is very good. We had four New Yorkers we lost yesterday from COVID. 483 who are hospitalized, which is just about where it was. 138 people in ICU, which is actually down a couple, which is good news. Long Island, the infection rate was 1.3 percent yesterday. 

Our calibration now between managing COVID and managing businesses, right. That's an ongoing tension. We're opening businesses all across the state. We have precautions, we have regulations on opening businesses, but every business wants to be open. Movie theaters want to open, concert theaters want to open. New Yorkers want to get back to life, normal life. Yes, I understand. But we're not yet at a point where we can get back to normal life. That is just the fact. They talk about the new normal. We still have to manage COVID. "Well, it's not a crisisthe way it was." It's not a crisis the way it was, because we managed it. Had we not done what we are doing, it would have been a crisis. You look at these other states where you see the infection rate going through the roof, what's the difference between those states and New York? The virus is the same. It's just that we are managing it, and we are informed, and we're taking the tests, and we're disciplined. 

What is the calibration between opening businesses and managing COVID? It's actually as simple as math. It's a mathematical equation. We don't want to see the COVID infection rate go over 1 percent for any period of time. So calibrate the economic activity, open as much economic activity as you can to go up to that 1 percent infection rate. 1 percent means 1 person is actually infecting one other person. That is a rate of spread that you can manage. That's what 1 percent means. So, keep opening up economic activity to get right up to that 1 percent. Okay? You want to drive from here to Pennsylvania as fast as you can. Fine, the speed limit is 55 miles an hour. Do 55 miles an hour all the way. Do 55.9 miles an hour. That's the fastest you can go. The fastest we can go is 1 percent. Yesterday we were over 1 percent statewide, first time in about 40 days but we were over 1 percent. Today, .87. Some days we're at .9, so we're right up at that limit of 1 percent. Why don't you open more movie theaters, open more concerts? You're at 1 percent. Why don't you increase restaurant percentages? You're at 1 percent. It's not like we have a margin of error here my friends. We are right up against it and that's the smart calibration on managing COVID so do as much economic activity as you can without going back into an outbreak crisis. 

And by the way if you go back into an outbreak crisis, you know what you do then? You have to close down the economic activity that you opened. That's what happened in all these other states. We have to increase economic activity right away. Let's get back to normal. Bang - the infection rate went right back up. They had to close everything back down. That is the last thing we want to do. But when people say, you know, we want to get back to normal, we want to do more, we are doing as much as we can and still managing the infection rate and you'll see it on a day to day basis. Yesterday being over 1 percent, I didn't sleep last night. You do not want to be over that 1 percent for any prolonged period of time and that's why today being back at .87 is actually good news for us. 

Another point about COVID - COVID was a trauma for this country. COVID was like being at war. I don't know that we've even fully appreciated all the effects of the trauma that we've gone through. There's going to be PTSD from COVID. This was frightening. This was a science fiction movie come to life and you have seen people struggling with it. People struggle with it psychologically. Next week we're going to be talking about the mental health consequences of COVID. We are so much in the middle of it right now dealing with it every day, every day, every day, we haven't really taken a moment to step back, but you tell me what the effect on school children is going to wind up being. You tell me the effect of the increase in domestic violence, the increase in substance abuse that we know has been going on. So COVID, yes, deal with it today but this is a profound transformational moment in society and there are a lot of lessons from COVID. 

One of the lessons to me about COVID is it shows you how dangerous denial is. Well, COVID, who would have known? Anyone who was paying attention would have known. That's who would have known. We had the SARS outbreak in 2002. A coronavirus from China that came from a wet market. That was 2002, SARS. We had Ebola. We had Zika. We had H1N1. We had Dengue. We had MERS in 2012, a coronavirus that came from China. What did we do? Nothing. Nothing. And then we have COVID. It's not that it came out of the blue. It's that we denied all the warning signs. Why? Because to make the kinds of changes we had to make was hard. We knew that the World Health Organization had missed MERS and had missed SARS. We knew the CDC was not ready for this. We knew we needed a public health emergency response that we didn't have in this country. But, warning, warning, warning, and then COVID happens and now it's undeniable. That is a dangerous pattern in life. 

This is a time where everything we're doing is hard and complicated and difficult. Opening schools is hard and complicated and difficult. Fighting COVID is hard and complicated. Regulating the economy is hard and complicated. But we are New Yorkers - we thrive on hard and complicated. New York is a community of people who took on a tough place and a tough community and they rose to the occasion. We did it during COVID- no community rose to the occasion like New Yorkers rose to the occasion. We went from the highest infection rate in the nation to the lowest infection rate in the nation. That's what the history books are going to say. That happened for one reason: Because New Yorkers stepped up and were loving and believed in community and cared for one another. That's why New York has made the progress it's made in COVID. It's not over; there's more to do. We're still wary but God bless New Yorkers and God bless the state of New York.

2020-09-21 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning everyone. Let me give you an update on a few issues and then I'll take whatever questions you have. Today is day 205. We did 58,000 tests yesterday, 573 were positive, that's .98 percent. Only 1 New Yorker passed away from COVID yesterday. That's the lowest number we've had since this began and I, once again, want to thank all New Yorkers for their extraordinary efforts. The spirit of community, the spirit of unity, the efforts they're making literally has saved thousands of lives. The health that you're protecting is not just yours and your families, you're protecting all New Yorkers health. It's not just a question of rhetoric, it's reality. Only one New Yorker passed away. We won't stop until that number is zero, but when you at what's going on around the country, frankly, if you look at what's going on around the world it's a really extraordinary accomplishment that New Yorkers have achieved and I congratulate them.  

Four hundred and fifty-eight were hospitalized, that's relatively unchanged; 134 in ICU, that's about where it was; 66 patients were intubated. That's up 6 from the day before. 

On the continuing enforcement, we have to keep down the infection rate and we stay disciplined. The bars, colleges have still been an issue for us. The State Police, SLA Task Force, they found 18 violations. Two in Brooklyn, two in the Bronx, one in Manhattan, eight in Nassau, 5 in Suffolk. They're been focusing primarily downstate, the task force, but overall the compliance has gotten much better because we did over 4,000 visits. I want to thank the Task Force for doing extraordinary work. Over 4,000 visits, 18 violations of those 4,000. Overall the compliance is still good, but this has always been about the bad apple. We caution New Yorkers about that on a continuing basis. 

Also, FYI, for your information, over the weekend, I signed an Executive Order extending the commercial eviction Executive Order, which extends the Executive Order that says the business cannot be evicted from a space because they can't pay the rent as a result of the pandemic. That Executive Order extends until October 20th. The residential eviction Executive Order continues to be effective. We said that is effective until the end of the crisis, and the crisis is still ongoing.

2020-09-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello guys - guys being gender-neutral - Melissa DeRosa, Rob Mujica, Beth Garvey, Jim Malatras, Gareth Rhodes.

I just want to give you more, an update on what we're seeing in the numbers when we look at the zip codes. The top 20 zip codes in the state - remember there are 1,769 zip codes, okay? - if you look at the top 20 zip codes in the state, they have an infection rate of about 10 percent. The statewide rate is about 1 percent if you don't count those top 20 zip codes. In those zip codes it's about 9 percent. If you focus on the top 10, the infection rate in the top 10 zip codes is about 15 percent. Those top 10 zip codes represent 2.9 percent of the state's population and 25 percent of the cases. 2.9 percent of the population, 25 percent of the cases, positive cases. So that's what the testing and the data does for you so target those top 10 zip codes.

Rockland County, zip code 10977, 30 percent tested positive. Rockland County, 10952, 25 percent positive. Orange, 10950, 22 percent positive. Kings, 11219, 17 percent. Kings, 11210, 11 percent. Kings, 11204, 9 percent. Kings, 11230, 9 percent. So, Queens 11367, 6 percent.

Focus on the clusters. We have 200 rapid testing machines that we're going to make immediately available today. The private schools that are in those zip codes, I strongly encourage to request a rapid testing machine and have them start testing their students. Rapid testing machines are 15 minutes turn around for a test. You can do 4 per hour. We can make those available today, tomorrow. We can provide staff, Department of Health staff, to operate those machines if the local governments can't. That's every private and public school in those zip codes.

To the local governments in those zip codes, it's the same offer. We will deploy rapid testing machines, 15-minute turn around, to local governments to focus on those cluster zip codes. Also, local governments should focus on those cluster zip codes in terms of mask enforcement and compliance enforcement in addition to testing. Testing, mask compliance, social distancing requirements - those zip codes, bars, restaurants, masks and additional testing. We have 200 machines that we will earmark just for that cluster.

The key to these clusters is to jump on them quickly, attack them from all sides, get the testing so you can do contact tracing and you can isolate. Get mask compliance up, hand sanitizer and gathering compliance - bars, restaurants, et cetera. We will be contacting the local governments and the schools. To accelerate this, I'm calling on the local governments and the schools to contact us if they need the machines, if they can use the machines and we'll send staff. Public schools, private schools and local governments.

One other point - there are a number of homeless encampments, primarily in urban areas across the state. People have been complaining about them, as they should. Not only is a homeless encampment a violation of that homeless person's dignity, it's also a public health threat now. People get nervous when they walk passed them. So, it's a public health threat for people who come in contact with homeless people on the street and it's a public health threat for homeless people.

A number of local governments closed shelters during COVID. The state will put out guidance; they should reopen those shelters and they should open COVID-safe shelters. We know how to open schools; we know how to open restaurants; we know how to open flexible art space; we know how to open shelters.

The weather is getting cold. Nobody should be living on the street. Nobody should be living on the street, especially in the middle of a global health pandemic. The public is anxious for their own public health and I understand that. I'm anxious about the health of homeless people. The cities - counties also - should reopen their shelters.

We'll put out guidance early this week on COVID-safe, but they know, basically, how to make a facility COVID-safe because they've all been doing it on a number of applications but, the shelters have to open. It's getting cold. Get homeless people off the streets and into a safe shelter.

2020-09-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

I hope those, our brothers and sisters, who celebrated Yom Kippur yesterday had a good day. We wish them a happy holiday. We have with us today from my far right, Dr. Howard Zucker, Health Commissioner of the State of New York. Beth Garvey, Special Counsel to me. Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, and happy birthday to Melissa DeRosa. How do you celebrate a birthday when you're in State service? You do a briefing. To my left, Robert Mujica, Budget Director of the State of New York and Gareth Rhodes.

Let's go through some facts and then I will outline the strategy that we are going to begin deploying. Which we have been deploying but I haven't articulated yet. Today is 213. Statewide infection rate. We've been doing a lot more testing and a lot of targeted testing, so I want to make sure you understand all the data.

When you look across the state, Western New York 1.3 percent. That's not great, but it is better than it has some days, but we still have a caution flag in Western New York. Finger Lakes, .9 percent, North Country .2 percent. Capital Region, .9 percent. Long Island, 1.2. New York City 1.3. The findings are really within those numbers. Hudson Valley 2 percent. We've do more testing than any state in the nation, more testing than any country on the globe per capita. Why do we do that? Because when you have that level of data, you can really identify what's going on geographically across the state.

That's why we do all the testing and you can identify hotspots very quickly. Then you can target those hotspots. We have seen hotspots before, if you remember. We had some factories upstate that had clusters. We had certain gatherings that developed to clusters. But this is probably the largest cluster that we have addressed before.

The clusters are Brooklyn, Orange, Rockland. That's where we're seeing clusters. The activity in the cluster is very different than what's going on in the rest of the state. If you look at the top 20 zip codes and to put zip codes in context, there are 1740 zip codes in the State of New York. When you're talking about 20 zip codes, you're talking about 20 out of 1740 zip codes. You're talking about very targeted areas. We have zip codes where you have 18 percent positivity, 10 percent positivity, 8 percent positivity, 7 percent positivity. Orange, Rockland, Rockland, Kings, a couple in Queens and then you go back to Kings basically.

You see a much different story happening in these clusters. That's actually good news in some ways because you have effectively identified the genesis of the potential growth of the virus. You now, once you have this information, aggressively target these clusters. These are embers that are starting to catch fire in dry grass. Send all the firefighting equipment and personnel to those embers and stamp out the embers right away. That's what this data does.

Local governments need, we share all this data with the local governments. They're the first line of defense. They must respond. They have been very uneven across the state, as you know, and I've expressed my frustration with candor as the moment required. They have to respond and they have to respond directly.

We've also asked public schools, we've also asked private schools in the area. We've made rapid testing equipment available to them. Rapid tests does a test in 15 minutes so you can find a student, a teacher who is infected, get them out of the school right away. The rapid tests allow you to do a number quickly. We've also made them available to local governments.

Attack these clusters. That's what it is, attacking the clusters. Testing and compliance. Testing and compliance and the discipline and the capacity and the competence to do this. Government these days has to be competent. This is not about rhetoric and giving speeches and slogans. Do your job. You have a job. Do it. Competent government must do compliance and enforcement.

A cluster today can be community spread tomorrow. A cluster today can be community spread tomorrow. I don't know who first said that, but if nobody claims authorship, I'm going to claim it. A cluster today is community spread tomorrow. They have to do their job today.

I'm going to be meeting with religious leaders of the Orthodox community and local officials. If you look at those clusters and you look at those zip codes, you will see there's an overlap with large Orthodox Jewish communities. That is a fact. I will be directly meeting with them to talk about it. This is a public health concern for their community. It's also a public health concern for surrounding communities. I've said from day one, these public health rules apply to every religion, atheists - it just applies to every citizen of the State of New York. Period.

I happen to be Roman Catholic. I had to cancel the St. Patrick's Day Parade, which in many ways, is a holiday that's near and dear to the heart of many Catholics. Public health comes first. I'll be meeting with the leaders of the Orthodox community and the local officials in those areas to make sure we're all on the same page. Compliance and enforcement is key. I can't say it any more bluntly than that.

Mask wearing is a state law. It's a law. It's not, "it would be nice if you could;" "I really think you should;" "every health official says it's a good idea;" "it's a sign of respect." It's also a law, OK? So, yes, health officials say it. Yes, it's a sign of respect. Yes, it's good citizenship. It's also a law. I don't care what your political opinion is at one point. I don't care what your religious opinion is. Mask-wearing is a law. "Well, I'm politically opposed to masks;" "I'm religiously opposed to masks;" I'm ideologically opposed to masks;" I'm opposed to masks because they're a bad fashion statement." 

I don't care. It's a law and the local governments are supposed to be enforcing the law and they haven't been— many of them. And then we're shocked that there's a cluster. Don't be shocked. This is a very clear period of time. Your actions determine your consequences. That's it.  You enforce the mask ordinance; you'll have a lower infection rate. If you don't enforce the mask ordinance, you will have a higher infection rate. Those are the facts. We know the facts.  

Compliance and enforcement is key. Now, we have targeted many more tests and testing resources into those clusters. As I said, this is a firefighting drill for us, so we have really two sets of numbers in some ways today. We have the overall normal testing numbers, and then we have this effort that's been in these clusters where we have done a disproportionate, accelerated testing schedule, right? 

The 20 hotspot zip codes— if you average the 20, they're at 5 percent. As you saw, some of them were up to 18 percent. But if you average all 20, they're about 5 percent. That is five times the normal state rate, OK? That's why they're hotspot clusters. Statewide positivity is about 1, 1.1, and those hotspots are five times what the statewide positivity is. If you take all those tests from those hotspots, which again are disproportionate because we poured so many tests into those hotspots and add them into the overall state number, then we would be at 1.3 with that over sample. But we're at 1.1. 1.1 is— 1 percent is, basically the lowest infection rate in the nation and where do you want to be as a state? Ideally you want to be the lowest infection rate in the nation. That's 1 percent. These hotspots are five times that number.

The number of deaths are two. They're in our thoughts and prayers. Number of hospitalizations: 571, ICU was 147, intubations: 61.  

New York City— I understand there's a high level of anxiety in New York City. COVID has been very disruptive on almost every level in New York City. It has been disruptive to how people work, how people live, how people travel. Question of children going back to school: Yes, they are. No they're not, yes they are, people trying to make plans. 

The level of disruption has been extraordinary. That's not a New York City phenomenon alone. That's all across the state, that's all across the nation, that's all across the world, right? Disruption is in and of itself a force to be acknowledged and recognized. You're going to have a lot of PTSD from this period of time. We're already seeing substance abuse up, mental health issues up. This was a traumatic period. Don't underestimate it, and you're going to see the consequences of that trauma for months if not years in many different ways. Acknowledge that. The disruption causes anxiety, yes.

Many people in New York City are anxious, yes. I talk to them all day long. I'm a Queens boy. That's my orientation. Born and bred, not an import to the state; we love the imports. Come, move to New York, move to New York. But I'm the original species. I get it. I get the anxiety, but we have to keep it in focus and we have to address it. And remember, at the end of the day, we are New Yorkers. We've gone through difficult times before.

We've gone through 9/11. You can knock us down but we get up, we dust ourselves off and we come back stronger than ever. That is the definition of being a New Yorker. That is the culture of this place. This is a difficult place. It's a difficult place to make it here. The competition is intense. The energy is intense, but have we gone through tough times? Sure. And we come back better again and again and again. And we will again.  

In the meantime, what's the treatment for anxiety? What pill can I take? I can't distribute pills, I've tried, the Health Commissioner stopped me. I was going to issue - that's a joke. But he would stop me, if I went to do it. Here's my treatment for anxiety: facts. Facts not rumors, not hearsay, not anecdotes. Logic and action. Facts, logical facts, correct facts and action. This is about doing things, accomplishing, doing things. Accomplishing. Doing things that are responsive to the problems you've identified.  This is no time for incompetence. It's no time for apathy. It's no time for indecision. It's a time for action. COVID is real. If you don't do the testing, you don't do the compliance, you don't have the hospital beds— more people die. That's the reality of the situation. You make a mistake on testing, you open schools and you're not ready— people get sick. That's the reality that causes me anxiety. 

It should. It should. Constructive anxiety, not negative anxiety, but the anxiety is the body's way of saying there's possible danger. By the way, there's possible danger. Deal with it factually. Deal with it logically. Take action. People have seen the New York State government acting all through this, every day. I said here's the problem - deep breath - the problem can give you anxiety, but here's the solution and this is what we're going to do where the action actually alleviates the anxiety because people know that intelligent action is being taken and that makes them calmer. When they are calmer and they have confidence, then they actually start to think more logically, alright?  

We are announcing the New York City Stabilization and Recovery Program. Stabilization and recovery. Stabilization means all this disruption, first stabilize the situation and then let's talk about long-term recovery.

On the stabilization, let's talk about schools. Many many New York City school parents are anxious. The principal's union came out and increased the anxiety because the principal's union said, the schools aren't ready to reopen. That increased parents' anxiety. Why? Because they're principals. When you're called to the principal's office that was real. When the principal's office calls a parent, "I have to talk to you about Johnny." That's real. They are principles. I respect their opinion. I respect the statement from the union. I knew and I know that they did not do that easily or cavalierly. I take their opinion very strongly.

At the same time, you have Michael Mulgrew and the teacher's union saying that the schools are safe to reopen. Why would the teacher's union be saying the schools are safe? Why would Michael Mulgrew want to endanger his teachers if the schools were unsafe? You have the mayor saying the schools are safe. Who's right? Who's wrong? Who knows. New York City did a plan. They say we will do X number of tests and we will do this cohorting. We have these policies in place. We will know tomorrow by the data. The schools must report to the state the data. They're doing testing. The numbers will tell you the facts and once you have the facts you can operate logically. If the schools are not safe, I'm not going to allow them to operate, period.

For me the equation is very simple. Would I send my child to that school tomorrow knowing the facts I know? That's my decision point. We'll get the facts and we will know. And will operate logically. And I say to every parent in the city of New York, if those schools are not safe, I will not allow them to operate. How do we justify the principal's union versus the teacher's union versus the mayor? We get the facts. We get the facts. Everybody has this theory. Nobody's been here before. This has never been done before. Who's right? Who's wrong? Who knows? You'll know when you have the facts.

This state can close down any school in the State of New York. That gentleman right there with a very attractive blue tie signs a letter and closes down any school in the state, New York City, Buffalo, Long Island. You have my word as a parent, as a citizen, as your representative. If a school is not safe, I will not allow it to operate. Take a deep breath and we're going to have the facts. They'll need to report the testing data - or by the way they won't report the testing data and if they don't report the testing data it means they already violated their own plan, that they were supposed to be taking tests, right? So, if you don't get data, that's the answer. They can't get the data but we also all agree, if you can operate the school safely, we want children back to school. That's best, by every expert, if you can operate safely you want the students back in school. The question is, can you operate safely? We will know by the facts. Okay, that's schools.  

New York City's different than Buffalo, is different than the Adirondacks, is different than Suffolk County. You design the approach that works for you. local governments, have that collaborative, put people in the room. It can be fun. It can be exciting, right? nothing is static in life. We're redesigning our education system now, remote learning, who ever heard of remote learning a few months ago? We're redesigning education, we're redesigning medicine. Tele-medicine, who ever heard of tele-medicine? We're redesigning medicine.

People are dying. That's a fact. It has to be resolved. Politically it's a quagmire for a local politician to step into. Why? Because it's controversial. You know what politicians like to do? Avoid controversy. That's what politicians like to do. I'm a little exceptional that way. I'm wired a little differently.

Government is about action and progress. You want to be a progressive? Make progress. That's how FDR defined the word progressive. Everybody talks about it like it's a new word. Zack Fink talks about it like it's a new word, I'm a progressive, I'm a progressive, new, new, new progressive. No. Zack Fink did not make up the word progressive. Nobody made up the word progressive one year ago, two years ago, three years ago. You know who was the progressive? FDR. Al Smith. Big campaign poster in my room in Albany. Original. FDR for progressive government. I brought in Zack Fink. I said you think you came up with progressive? I want to show you a poster. You know what he said? FDR stole it from him. How can that be? But anyway, that's a different conversation.

Third is the economy in terms of stabilizing New York. And here's the economy in a nutshell. We have tremendous losses because of COVID. We're not liable for them. I'm not accepting liability. I'm not accepting the premise that New York State or New York City should pay. We didn't do anything wrong. The federal government should pay. The federal government was wrong. It's the federal government that allowed us to be ambushed by COVID. It's the federal government that missed that the virus went from China to Europe, and they missed it for three months. And it's the federal government that missed people were getting on planes in Europe and coming into New York. It was the federal government that does the border control at the airports. It was the Department of Homeland Security that was supposed to be protecting the border. You know how they wanted to build the wall in Mexico? Protect the country. Protect the country. Protect the country. Yeah, in the meantime COVID is walking in the door at JFK and Newark International Airport. While you're spending billions keeping us safe from Mexicans, we were invaded by Europeans with COVID. And you were totally asleep at the switch, and we had no notice.

The other states at least had several months' notice. We had no notice. So, the federal government is liable, they're going to pay that bill -- not us. You know when you're at a dinner table and they put down a check and you're there with a number of people? If you're not liable for the check, don't touch it. Once you pick up that check and look at it, now you're liable. How is New York City, New York State going to solve the deficit? We're not. It's Donald Trump's deficit. He has to fix it. Rupert Murdoch says New York City and New York State should pay. Yes, because he is a Donald Trump supporter. No, Mr. Murdoch, Donald Trump pays, or you could pay, but New York City and New York State is not going to pay. Either the Congress could come up with a package. I spoke to Speaker Pelosi yesterday, she is talking to the White House about coming up with a relief package; or in November Donald Trump could lose, Joe Biden could win. Joe Biden will do a state and local relief package, or the Senate could become Democratic. Senator Schumer becomes the Senate Leader. He will do a state and local package. He will make sure New York is covered in the state and local package. Why? Because he's a great Senator. Why else? Because he's a New York Senator and he has to come home to run. 

So, those are very real possibilities. Either Congress passes, or Joe Biden wins, or the Senate goes Democratic. In any of those cases, it's a federal problem. Worst case scenario from New York's point of view, Donald Trump wins and the Senate stays Republican. Then what happens? Yes, then they try to kill us, which is what they've been doing from day one. And then we have all bad options. To close a $50 billion deficit, which would be a historic deficit, you would have to do all of the above. You would have to raise taxes, raise income taxes, number one. You'd have to cut the budget and cut expenses, and you would have to borrow. You'd have to do all three. None of them positive for the economy. It would only be a question of how much damage you do for how long, but you can't close - it becomes math. 

You can't close $50 billion without tax increases, millionaire's tax, billionaire's tax, wealth tax, cutting expenses dramatically, and borrowing. If we did that, you're looking at a bad spell for New York City and New York State, and I'm not going there. We'd have to do a financial control board for any locality that borrows. I would never sign a bill that allows borrowing for a locality in this environment without a financial control board. All the financial decisions couldn't be political, which is the political process now makes these budget decisions, right? I'm going to give this much to this union, but I'm going to lay off this union. Right? Those are political decisions. These would have to be financial decisions, and they'd have to be done by a financial control board. But, I'm not picking up the check because I don't assume, or accept, any liability; it's all Washington. And if Trump wins again and the Senate Republicans win, yes, we have a terrible economic forecast. 

Cleanliness. I'm getting a lot of complaints in New York City about the cleanliness of the city, the garbage piling up. That adds to schools, crime, economy, and now garbage piling up. Literally people saying there's an odiferous environment because of the garbage piling up. I don't know what's going on in New York City. If they can't do it, I have offered to send in the National Guard to come help pick up the garbage. The State can bring in trucks, personnel, and clean up the city. I think that would be important. This is a public health pandemic. Cleanliness matters. You know, we made millions of gallons of hand sanitizer, right? Cleanliness matters. So if the New York City Department of Sanitation and resources can do it for one reason or another, I can deploy the National Guard who will come in. I understand there's a higher level, because people are staying at home, but in this environment, we don't need people complaining about cleanliness of the City.

On the issue of homeless. It's getting cold. There are homeless encampments. There are homeless people living on sidewalks, living under scaffolding. There's no reason for it. We're better than that. I've worked on the homeless issue since I've been in my twenties on every level. I ran a not-for-profit, I managed it in the federal government, I did a plan for the nation in the federal government. Homeless people should be offered safe shelters with services. Many of the cities and the states closed their shelters during COVID. It's time to reopen those shelters. You can open schools, you can open bars, you can open restaurants, you can open gyms, you can open flexible art studios, you can open a shelter; you have to open it with precautions, but open the shelter. Get homeless people off the street. Keep them safe. Get them a test. Get them treatment. This is imminently doable; it should be doable. It should've been done a long time ago. Remember, we had homeless on Subways for years, remember?

We had the same circular conversation. It doesn't make sense to let people sleep on the subways, put themselves in danger. What kind of society says, oh yes, I respect you, you can sleep on the subway all night? That's not respect. We fixed that problem and we can fix this problem. Homelessness is now a public health concern. If there is a homeless person on the corner who is sick with COVID and people are walking past that person, now it's a public health concern for that homeless person and also for all New Yorkers who are walking past that person. So there's no reason for it. Reopen the shelters. There are 680 shelters across New York State. New York City, there are 130 shelters for adults, 32 percent are empty, 27 at less than full capacity. We're putting out guidance on how to operate a safe shelter but, you know, it's common sense. We've done this on a number of facilities now and we know how to do it.   

On the long-term recovery, I'm focused first on the stabilization of New York, the long-term recovery, we have to find out how many of these changes we're seeing, how many of these disruptive patterns are permanent. You have people working from home, people who don't want to go into the office, people who are living in other places, is that short term or is that long term, when do they come back or have they just readjusted their lifestyle so they're saying I'm not going back to the office five times a week and I'm not having my employees come back, I like it better. They give up the office space, they work from home or some hybrid. We don't know. We have to assess that and I also think there are some factors that will still be calibrated in that equation and one of them is when you get a vaccine.

If a vaccine is safe and ready by the end of this year that's one situation. If it's ready by the end of the beginning of next year, but if you start to say spring, summer, and I mean the full vaccine. You have to have it, it has to be safe, and you have to administer it to 19 million people. How do you do that and how long does it take you to do that? And that safe question is already complicated because there is a sense among the American people that the vaccine process has been politicized. Why? Because the vaccine process has been politicized. Because the President says he calls the FDA and thinks the FDA is being political on their approval process. The President accuses the FDA of being political. You wonder why the American people don't trust the vaccine. Because the President said the FDA is political. Now what happens? The FDA approves it while the President says it was political. The President overrides the FDA and then for sure it's political because I never saw a doctor certificate hanging on the wall when I went to visit President Trump. Rob came with me. Did you ever see a doctor certificate in the Oval Office? No. So he's not a doctor so people have to feel that it's safe.

We want to make sure we can tell New Yorkers it's safe and then we want to have a distribution plan and we're putting together our own group to determine, once the FDA says it's safe we'll have a New York group of doctors and some of the best doctors around the world who will review what the FDA did so I'll be able to say to New Yorkers it is safe. At this rate you could have a vaccine, polls that say half the American people wouldn't take the vaccine right now because they don't believe it's safe. I want to be able to say to New Yorkers it is safe, take it, and I want to have the best distribution because ideally we want to be the first COVID-safe state in the nation. What's out goal? New York is the best. Highest goal, first state to immunize, vaccinate everybody. That's our goal. You set the bar high. Yeah, it's New York. You set the bar as high as you can. This is the group that's going to review a vaccine once the FDA says it's safe. If this group reviews the FDA data and protocols and efficacy and if they say it's safe I will say to the people of New York it's safe, we're going to administer it, we should take it.

Again, we want to have the best vaccination program in the nation, be the first COVID-free state. Think of all the lives you'll save if you're the first COVID-free state and think of the business opportunities if you're the first COVID-free state. I said this last week and President Trump tweeted New York is now going to be the last on the list to receive the vaccination. You know what that is? It's called a threat. It's called a threat. If you have your own state review I'm not giving you the vaccine. That's what he's saying. It's a threat. It's also unethical. It's also illegal. He can't use government power to stop the distribution of a vaccine to New Yorkers because he is personally upset. But that's what he said and what I say is don't threaten New York. It doesn't work. I know you're mad at us. I know we rejected you. I know you feel that you are a subject of scorn and a joke in New York when you were here. I know the tabloids mock you. I know the people in this state overwhelmingly voted against you. But be bigger, be better, remember the oath you took and try not to threaten and try not to do anything criminal. That's my advice but the treats don't work. We know how to handle bullies in New York. We've come across our lot because we are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving.

2020-09-30 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hey guys, "guys" being gender-neutral, good morning, joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Gareth Rhodes, Jim Malatras, Beth Garvey.

Today is day 214. We did 97,000 tests yesterday. We're dealing with the cluster situation. We've had clusters in the past as we've discussed, factories, churches, bars, restaurants, weddings. Remember we started with New Rochelle, first hotspot in the United States which came from a religious gathering and then attending a wedding and that was the first super spreader event so we're quite familiar with this. So when there's a cluster we are very aggressive on it and we're oversampling in this cluster. We've deployed rapid testing machines, etcetera, so you have two infections really that you want to pay attention to - the statewide numbers and then the cluster numbers, okay, because we're analyzing the clusters separately.

The cluster is about 20 hotspot zip codes. Again, 20 zip codes, that's out of a universe of 1,740 zip codes, just to put the size of it in perspective. The 20 zip codes are the same ones we were looking at yesterday, Rockland, Kings, Orange primarily and a little bit in Nassau. Rockland, the number one zip code in Rockland was 10952. It was a 17 percent positivity. Second one was 10977 and that was a 14 percent positivity. You then go to Kings, Brooklyn 11230, 8 percent; Brooklyn 11204, 6 percent; Brooklyn 11219, 5 percent; Brooklyn 11223, 4 percent; Brooklyn 11229, 4 percent, Brooklyn 11210, 4 percent; Brooklyn 11234, 4 percent.

The overall positivity rate in all 20 is 5.5 percent. That's about 5 times the infection rate statewide. The infection rate in the state outside of the hotspot zip codes is .82 which is very good. If you include the oversample in those hot spot zip codes in the overall state number which be definition is going to skew it because you've oversampled the zip codes that have average of 5 percent it's 1.02 but it's those hotspots that we have to watch because if you don't, if you don't control a cluster, a cluster becomes community spread. If we didn't control the New Rochelle hotspot early on, it would've become community spread. If you remember, we created a containment zone around New Rochelle, which was actually an unfortunate use of words. "Containment zone" scared people. It made it sound like we were containing people in the zone. We didn't do that. It was a containment zone meant to describe containing the virus. People were afraid to come and go, but I called it a containment zone, which was not the best choice of words when people are anxious. But drew a circle around New Rochelle and then we did a lot of testing, etc. So, we're going to be just as aggressive with this cluster.

These 20 hotspot zip codes have 23 percent of all the positive cases reported in the state, but they're only 6 percent of the population. Just to give you an idea of how different these zip codes are. Nine New Yorkers passed away yesterday; they're in our thoughts and prayers. 605 were hospitalized; 144 were in ICU; 67 were intubated. If you look across the state — Capital District: .5, great. Central New York: .4, great. Finger Lakes: .3, great. Long Island: 1.3, not great. New York City: 1.2, not great. Hudson Valley: 2.4. Really not great, but that's going to be Orange and Rockland. Mohawk Valley: .3; North Country: .2; Southern Tier: .6; Western New York: 1.1, not great.

Rockland: 6.5.; Orange: 1.9; Brooklyn: 1.8. And what's driving Orange, Rockland, Brooklyn are the hotspot zip codes. Now, I spoke to the leaders of the Orthodox community this morning and we had a good conversation. I have worked closely with the Orthodox community for many years on many unique issues. The Orthodox community in Orange, Rockland, Brooklyn has presented in the past unique issues in terms of housing, in terms of education. We've had community issues, especially in New York City with the surrounding community, so I've worked with them on a number of issues. I explained the situation frankly and candidly and we had a good exchange. The — I think it's fair to say that the leaders of the community understand and they're going to take action and we're going to come up with an action plan. There will be a second discussion at 3 o'clock this afternoon with the Health Commissioner Dr. Zucker, who's on the phone to come up with an action plan.

How do we educate the public? How do we use the media? How do we use the newspapers that circulate in the community, the radio stations in the community? How do we have community meetings? How do we get the word out? We have another religious holiday coming up this Friday and how do we make sure that we have a different sense of behavior? And they have said that they are committed to taking a more aggressive stance. We talked through the myth of herd immunity. The President has spread misinformation about herd immunity. We're nowhere near herd immunity. Senator Rand Paul went through this with Dr. Fauci, and Rand Paul was just wrong on all the facts that New York has herd immunity. New York City: we have about 18, 19 percent infection rate. Herd immunity: you need about a 50 to 60 percent infection rate. To get from 18 to 50 or 60 percent- a lot of people have to die to get to that percentage. And all that means is that the majority has been infected; the remainder, if they get infected, they have a possibility to die. And with this disease now we're learning people can get infected a second time. The scientists were wrong. "If you're infected once, you have the antibodies and you can't get reinfected." Now we're finding out that you can. Sweden tried herd immunity and it was a debacle extraordinaire and they then reversed themselves. That's the only place that really tried it.

The local governments must do compliance. I've said that a number of times. It is a State law and the localities must enforce it. The localities - and we're talking about Orange, Rockland, New York City, Nassau that has a couple of communities affected - they have to enforce the state law. And they're not doing it with enough diligence. Period. It is not up to them to say, "Well we're not going to enforce the mask ordinance, we're going to offer a mask." It's too late in the game to do that. We have done all the public information on masks that you can. We have done dozens of mask public service announcements. Dozens of celebrities. We've spent millions of dollars doing television ads on masks. The cable news is filled with reports on masks. It is not a function for the local government to say to someone, "It would be nice if you wore a mask. Can I give you a mask?" We're passed that point. That's not compliance. That is public education. We're past public education. We've been doing this since February. It's not about public education. Enforce the law. The local governments failure to enforce the law has exacerbated this problem. They've made it worse, not better. It's not that people don't know there's a mask ordinance, they know there's a mask law, they're defying the law and that's when you need to enforce the law.

I understand the sensitivities of this political environment and no one wants to enforce a law because then you make the other person unhappy and nobody wants anyone unhappy. You know what makes people really unhappy? Dying makes people really unhappy. Loss of a loved one makes people really unhappy. Their child going to school and getting COVID makes people really unhappy. The infection rate going up and then having to close businesses makes people really unhappy. So local governments, enforce the law. If you are unwilling to enforce the law, I will enforce the law. The State Police - I don't have the numbers to do statewide enforcement. I have about 5,000 State Troopers. New York City has 35,000 NYPD. If they don't want to enforce the law, I will enforce the law. I would need the local governments to assign a number of their police to the State Police for a task force and then I will enforce it with a task force. And I will ticket people who don't wear masks, because that will save lives at this point. We know how to keep the infection rate down, we're just not doing it in these clusters and that's a failure of the local government. We've seen this with bars, restaurants. I put together a State task force and the compliance went way up. Why? Because people didn't want to be ticketed, and they didn't want to lose their licenses. So, we know that compliance works; we know it. And we know the bars and restaurant situation was much worse until I did a task force that did bars and restaurant compliance because the local governments wouldn't, and the situation got markedly better. Bars and restaurants are a relatively small universe because they're licensed by the State. Mask compliance among the general population is a massive undertaking. They're not doing it, and they have no discretion to change the state law, and when a local government says, "I've warned people. I offered them a mask." No, it's you're breaking State law, local government. Those initial publication efforts are over. So, you are complicit in this situation. You don't want to do it politically. I don't have the personnel. Assign a number of your police to a task force. I will do it in my name and you can blame me. I have no problem with it. I put my head on the pillow knowing I saved lives. That's how I sleep at night and I know we have. I know this type of activity, incompetent ineffective government will cost lives. We've seen it from Trump. He has cost lives. Why does this nation lose more people than any nation on the globe? Because we have an incompetent federal government.

I'm not going to let that happen in the State of New York and I'm not going to let it happen because we have incompetent local government. It's that simple. It's not about politics. It's not about personal - we're well beyond that. It's a matter of life and death. Either you do the job or people die. It has that clarity of situation. It's like in war. Either the troops execute the plan and they win the war and they have as few casualties as possible or they fail to execute the plan and more people die then necessary. Slightly dramatic, but not that dramatic. When you talk about 200,000 people dying. You're talking about 1,000 people dying a day. It is deadly serious. That's where we are.

2020-10-01 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning to everyone. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Gareth Rhodes, Beth Garvey and a special guest appearance, reappearance, from Lawrence Schwartz, who has been helping us out as a volunteer during this COVID situation. As you know, he's former Secretary to the Governor - former Secretary to two Governors, actually. 

Today is day 215. 109,000 tests results were done yesterday. Stay with me, because the numbers are important today, and we have to keep apples to apples, oranges to oranges. We are now testing, basically, the overall state the way we've been testing the overall state, and then we are oversampling the hotspot ZIP codes, the clusters that we're seeing in Rockland, Orange, Brooklyn, mainly. The 20 hotspot ZIP codes, the positivity is 6.5; that's up from 5.5. Within those hotspot ZIP codes, there are increases primarily in Brooklyn, where we've seen ZIP codes 11223 went from 4 percent to 8 percent. 11210 from 3.8 to 7.4. 11235 from 1.9 to 4. Also, we've seen an increase in Rockland, most notably 10901 from 4 to 12. And 10950 from 3 to16 percent. The Rockland numbers are small samples, so I would take them with a grain of salt. But the overall hotspots have gone from 5.5 to 6.5; that's up a point and we've seen growth in Brooklyn and a little bit in Rockland. 

These 20 hotspot ZIP codes require full attention, and effectiveness, and action. As I've said before, a cluster today can become community spread tomorrow. These ZIP codes are not hermetically sealed, right? People from these ZIP codes go to the surrounding community. They shop in the surrounding communities, they take buses, et cetera. And that's how you have community spread. I've said to the local governments we need an all-out compliance effort. It has to be enforcement; it's no longer about public education. The public has been educated about masks. I don't think there's been a topic in my lifetime that has been more exhaustively communicated to the public, in terms of public health, than mask wearing. If they're not wearing masks, there should be fines, there should be enforcement. Enforcement works. If you speed in your car, you get it a ticket. That's how it works. If you don't pay a toll when you go over a bridge, you get a ticket. That's how it works. Compliance works, enforcement works. We're in this situation partially because the local governments haven't been doing the compliance, and we need them to do it. Or, if they don't want to do it, assign personnel to the state and I will do it the same way we did the SLA task force in the bars and the restaurants, which is a very analogous situation to this. But we need enforcement and compliance.

If you take out the hotspot ZIP codes, the rest of the state without the ZIP codes is where it's supposed to be -- better than where it's supposed to be; it's 0.98. So, it's under 1 percent. And again remember, 1 percent is the lowest infection rate in the United States of America. So, it's a very high standard. It's the highest, it's the gold standard in the country. If you included the oversample of the hotspot ZIP codes in the state number, it's 1.2, but including the oversample, really is not statistically relevant. The 20 hotspots are 26 percent of all cases in New York State and remember, 20 ZIP codes — that's out of 1,740 ZIP codes. The 20 ZIP codes are only 6 percent of the state population. 

Eleven New Yorkers passed away, 612 were hospitalized, 141 were in ICU, 63 were intubated. When you look across the state: Capital District, .5, great. Central New York, 1, great. Finger Lakes, .7, great. Long Island, 1, great. Mid-Hudson, 2.8, not good. That's Orange and Rockland. Mohawk Valley, .8, great. North Country, .1, super great. Southern Tier, 1, Western New York, 1.7, caution flag. New York City 1.3, and New York City proportionately is the largest region by far, so that's driving the number and within New York City, it's Brooklyn, a little bit of Queens. Those are the numbers.  

The SLA Enforcement Task Force has been continuing. They have done a great job and they turned around the bar and restaurant situation, which would have been the most problematic situation. The bar and restaurant lack of compliance was throughout New York City and throughout Long Island. If we hadn't gotten a hold on that, it would have really increased community spread right away, but compliance is way up. We had 99 percent compliance yesterday. The bars and the restaurants have gotten the message: we're doing enforcement, you will be ticketed, you can lose your license. And it works. Bars and restaurants are not happy if they're getting tickets. I understand that. But I also understand that it worked, and that's what I need the local governments to understand. They wouldn't do the compliance in the bars and restaurants; we did. They're not doing the compliance in these hotspot ZIP codes and that's why we have the problems. 

Enforcements actions by the SLA yesterday: two in the Bronx, one in Manhattan, four in Suffolk. On the education dashboard, the education dashboard is up. It will provide facts to parents, anxious parents, and teachers across the state. There's been a lot of controversy about opening schools. Principals in New York City think it's a mistake. Teachers Union Mike Mulgrew thinks they can do it. Parents have gotten mixed messages and they're unsure. I said we'll provide the data and we'll make a decision on the data. I understand everybody's theory, but let's get the actual numbers. The dashboard is up; the dashboard will show you that there are 1,206 positives reported both on-site and off-site from teachers, staff and students. A total of 1,206 positives on the school system statewide, and then they will tell you where those 1,206 positives are. So, you can look up your school, your school district, you can see how many teachers are positive, how many tests were done, how many students are positive and that data then can inform an opinion. Dr. Zucker, do you want to give any more information on the dashboard? How that 1,206 breaks down? 

Dr. Zucker: We're working on that right now, Governor, what the percentages are. Don't have it right this second, Governor, but we'll get it to you in a few minutes here.  

Governor Cuomo: Okay, well then people can go look at the 1,206 and see by their particular school district what they're most interested in. I've spoken to the Orthodox community with the hotspot zip codes. We had a good conversation. They're going to take action on their own- community action and I appreciate that. We're going to have public education. I appreciate that. We're going to be handing out flyers and mailing and that's a good step, but the community also says government is in charge of enforcement. And I told them it's going to be stepped up and they understand that.  

We have a very exciting announcement that has taken a lot of work and it's really creative and smart and I think it can make a big difference. This is a technology-based contact tracing app. Larry Schwartz has been working on putting together the contact tracing operation for the state. As you know, testing is only as good as your contact tracing, right? Testing is to identify a person but so you can isolate and quarantine that person and then find the connections from that person. This contact tracing, we have about 15,000 people statewide who do contact tracing. They call them disease detectives. But we've been looking for a technology-based solution and Larry has been working with Bloomberg Philanthropies on this. They brought in Google, they brought in Apple and some other technology companies: NearForm, Tech: NYC, and the Linux Foundation. Today we are announcing an app that you can download for free from the app store called COVID Alert. What this app will do is, it will tell you if you were within 6 feet of a person who tested positive and if you were within 6 feet of a person who tested positive for 10 minutes. So, it will tell you if you're "in contact" with a COVID positive person. How does it work? It works from your cell phone data. The app knows where your cell phone is; the app will know where a person who tested positive was through their cell phone, and the app can tell you if you were within 6 feet of that person. The way it will work is when a person tests positive, the Department of Health contacts that person and asks that person if they have an iPhone and then gives that person a password. That person types in their password for their phone and then any other phone that comes within 6 feet of that phone is on the app. It doesn't give names. It doesn't give any private information. it's voluntary. You have to download the app but it's a great tool to alert you if you happen to be within 6 feet of a person who tests positive. It's called COVID Alert. Not only will it be for New York residents, but it will be New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Connecticut will be coming online soon. So, even if you're traveling in the Metropolitan area it will tell you if you were in contact with a person- it's using technology, really, on a level it's never been used before. Google has been very helpful on this. Apple has been extraordinarily helpful on it. And I think it's going to not only bring contact tracing to a new level but it's going to give people comfort. Larry, do you want to correct any misstatements I made or give some more information on how it works?

Larry Schwartz: I will add to some of the things Governor that you had mentioned. So as the Governor stated the COVID Alert NY app is live today. It works on both Apple iPhones as well as any Android phone so you can either go to the Apple store, the Google Play store and download that app. The notification tool is an enhancement to the traditional contact tracing that the State is currently using, so this is an additional tool. We've been adding tools since May 15, as the Governor has alluded to, to minimize community spread, which is the ultimate goal of contact tracing and we did two pilot tests. We did one with SUNY, with Albany, Plattsburgh and Oswego with 1,000 students. We also did a pilot test with Columbia Engineering. This is an open source app so anyone can go in there and take a look at the app and the actual program. It's completely confidential. We don't collect any data. We don't track people so if there's any concern it's a completely voluntary program, it's for 18 and above, it's ADA-compliant, we've had security experts review the app, it's also in the top six languages spoken in New York State and what will happen is, as the Governor mentioned, if you have the app, if Governor Cuomo and Larry Schwartz both had the COVID Alert NY app on their iPhones and I tested positive and I was with him six feet for at least 10 minutes with Governor Cuomo, which would be my pleasure, I would get a notification and the notification would tell me to quarantine, to stay at home, and to call my physician or call the New York State or the New York City hotline about either getting tested or getting additional information. So again, it's an easy technology, it's an additional tool to our traditional contact tracing program to prevent community spread throughout the state.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, Larry. We believe this is the first in the nation usage of this. It really is an advancement, an advancement that was done very quickly. Again, it's going to be for the states that we work in concert with because people do travel throughout the region and all the states in the region will be on this. I want to thank Larry Schwartz very much. I've known Larry for more years than I care to say. He's been a total government professional and I called him up and I asked him for a personal favor to come help here once again to do public service and he's done an extraordinary job and I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg who took on this contact tracing task and Bloomberg Philanthropies. We were overloaded when this first started. We had to put together a surgeon Flex system, we had to put together a testing system and then we had to put together contact tracing so Larry Schwartz and Mayor Bloomberg really took this task on and as I said we will make it available to any other state in the country that wants to use it and it's a great, great tool. It will not only help us do contact tracing but can also get people a sense of security and confidence. You know anxiety is very high, everybody is wondering, I was next to this person, I was next to this person, but this can actually give you some data and facts can help reduce anxiety and that is a good thing. Sometimes facts can increase anxiety but that's more in my position in life.

2020-10-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning to everyone. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Jim Malatras, Beth Garvey. A lot going on today, obviously. First, I've expressed my best wishes to the President and the First Lady. I hope the symptoms they get are mild. We've all had enough experience on this now. Some COVID cases are relatively mild, some are more significant symptoms, and I hope they have a mild case and I hope they have a speedy recovery. Politics is politics and we can disagree on policy issues, but on a human level the President grew up in New York, he's from Queens. I know the First Lady, I've spoken with her, so I sincerely wish them the best for a speedy recovery. Also I'm sure there's a certain level of anxiety that goes with this diagnosis. Nobody really knows that much about COVID, obviously. So, They're in our thoughts and prayers.

The President has reported that he's feeling mild symptoms. The White House scheduled this morning a briefing call for the White House with the Governors, I don't know who else is going to be on the briefing call, on healthcare related issues for 12:15 PM. So, the President is supposed to be on that 12:15 PM call, which would be good news because it would mean he's working, the symptoms are mild. So, I'm going to do this relatively quickly and then get ready for the 12:15 PM call. I then also have a briefing call with the Governors as Chairman of the National Governors Association, which will be right after the White House call. So, a lot going on today, but let's do this quickly here on the home front.

Today is day 216. We are tracking the hotspots is the bottom line here, and the hotspots are a significant problem. Overall, the hotspots have an infection rate of about 6.4 percent. The State outside of the hotspots has an infection rate of about 1.03 percent. So, it's all about the hotspots for us. The hotspots are Orange, Rockland, New York City and a small area in Nassau. You've seen the Orange hotspot go up in some ZIP codes. Brooklyn, we've seen it go up in some ZIP codes. We see some spreading into Queens, the Kew Gardens, Rego Park, Forest Hills area. So, that is our priority and our focus. 

The Department of Health is going to have people on the ground in those ZIP codes today. The Department of Health is sending a what's called Section 16 letter to the local governments advising them that they have to step up the compliance, that it is the law and if the local governments don't step up the compliance they will actually be in violation of the law and they can be fined. I've asked the local governments many times to actually do the compliance. Compliance is enforcement. Compliance is not public education. People know what the rules are. They've heard it every day. Local governments have to do enforcement, whether or not it fits with their political agenda really is pointless. It's the law and their job is to enforce the law.

We have a religious holiday starting tonight - Sukkot. It starts Friday night. It goes through the week. We extend our best wishes to our brothers and sisters who are celebrating that great Jewish holiday. The celebration for Sukkot is outdoors. It's normally held under a tent-like setting with open sides so that should not be a complicating factor when it comes to the spread of the virus.

The school dashboard is up. We have 1,258 cases. We've had a number of call and questions, why are there no, very sparse reporting from New York City schools? New York City schools are open but by the New York City plan, there was no specific testing being done. The plan in New York City was testing regimen would start October 1 but not necessarily their testing would start on October 1. The testing they said would be done over a month but no specific start date and that's all we know about that but for any New York City residents who have been asking, parents who have been saying where is the New York City data, they're not reporting it because their plan never said they would be doing it. So we'd refer them to the New York City Board of Ed. Other than that we have 1,258 total positives. That's onsite, offsite, that's teachers and students and the data is on the website.

By region, we have Western New York at 1.2 percent which is better than it was. Southern Tier, 1.1. We had the issue in Broome County with a cluster around a pub. North Country, 0.2; Mohawk Valley, 0.4; Mid-Hudson, 2.6, but that's Orange and Rockland; Long Island, 1.3. That has a little bit of the Nassau cluster in it but it's a small cluster in Nassau. Finger Lakes, 1.0; Central New York, 0.7; Capital, 0.9; New York City, 1.4, and that's what's driving the number.

2020-10-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. To my right, we have the esteemed secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa. To her left, the esteemed budget director Robert Mujica. Thank you all for being here. Appropriately social distanced.

Today is day 220, believe it or not. The fall is here. What happens in the fall? Leaves come down, Jimmy Vielkind spends a lot of time with the foliage up north. What else happens in the fall? The virus goes up. The leaves come down, the virus goes up. They've been talking about this for a long time. They predicted this and on this prediction they happen to be right. You see the virus increasing across the country, you see it increasing across the globe, you see countries that had it under control are now struggling again.

In New York, statewide, we are doing very well on the numbers. We have what I call a COVID cluster problem. But a cluster problem is serious because a cluster problem can grow. The virus spreads in mass gatherings. We know this from our own experience, from what we've seen, and from what every expert tells us, right. The outbreaks, which is when the virus is spreading out of control, it starts with a mass gathering and then it expands from there, especially indoors. We've seen it in colleges, state colleges, private colleges, you have that congregate mass gathering indoors or frequenting a bar in the case of colleges, and it take off. We've seen it in factory settings around the country, we've seen it in produce plants, apple plants, in New York. We've seen it in a single restaurant, can be a mass gathering. We've seen it at July 4th parties, we've seen it at Labor Day parties. We've seen it in the Rose Garden. That was a mass gathering, outdoor, by the way, and we've seen it. You see that growing list of all the people who were infected from that mass gathering.

We see it in places of worship. We've seen one church infect people, we've seen synagogues infect people, we've seen mosques infect people. We had the first hot spot cluster in the United States of America. New Rochelle, a super spreader who attended a temple service and then attended a wedding, and that was it. We were off to the races. So, it's to be taken very seriously. A mass gathering causes infections. Infections cause a cluster. A cluster causes community spread. That is the natural evolution of things unless we intervene and we stop the cycle. If you just let the cycle run, that is what's going to happen.

We see clusters now across the state, colleges upstate. We have a cluster in Binghamton, Orange Rockland, Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau. The cluster is just that, it's a cluster of cases, a high density of cases. And it seeps, it grows from that cluster almost in concentric circles. Drop a pebble into the pond, pebble goes in, then there's one ring, two rings, three rings, and the rings continue across the pond. That's how the virus spreads. When you see the cluster, you have to stop it at that point. What's our strategy? Crush the cluster and stop the spread. And we're announcing a special initiative to do just that, the Cluster Action Initiative. Catchy name.

Step one, you take the most dramatic action within the cluster itself, where you have the highest density of cases. Understanding that the people in that cluster interface with the surrounding communities, take additional action in the communities surrounding the cluster, and then on a precautionary measure, take action in the communities that are out line that area, so three steps.

First, identify the cluster. You can identify the cluster because we do so much testing and we have so much data. We can tell you where there is a cluster by the actual number of cases. We have the addresses of people who are COVID-positive. So we have mapping software where you can see exactly where the cluster is. That's the highest density of cases. That's where you have to take the most dramatic action. The surrounding area is where that cluster is going to seep. Why? Because that's where people interact in the grocery store. That's where they interact at the bus stop. That's where they interact in the local recreational areas. So cluster, the area around the cluster, and then as a precautionary measure, the area around that's. That's how you attack a cluster. Most intense action on the cluster itself and then precautionary action as you pull back.

Clusters, all of these areas, you can look at them exactly by the cases. It's not by zip code, it's not by census tract, it's not by any political metric, it's only by the number of cases. So for example, Brooklyn New York - we have one area. This is an actual map of Brooklyn. The cluster is the red area. That is the area in, this is basically south Brooklyn, that has the highest number of cases by actual data. The surrounding area, orange, that is the second ring. That's the warning area because the people who are in that cluster, they're going to the same store, they're going to the same church, they're going to the same bus stop as people in that surrounding area. These are there are no walls here. The third area is the yellowish area around the perimeter from that line straight line down. That we call a precautionary area because they may very well also be coming in contact with the people in the cluster. Or, the people in the middle of that cluster may have infected somebody in the orange zone who may be in contact with someone in the yellow zone. It goes red is the cluster, orange is surrounding the cluster, yellow is the periphery. So that's the actual south Brooklyn map.

Queens, there are two areas that will be mapped just the way Brooklyn is mapped but same concept. There's a central cluster, there's a surrounding area and there's a precautionary area surrounding that. Two smaller areas in Queens. The Brooklyn area is larger than either of the two Queens areas. Binghamton we have a cluster.

Binghamton we're declaring a yellow zone which is the precautionary zone which is a less intense action plan than in a red zone. Why? Because there's just fewer number of cases in Binghamton. The density is less, the cluster is less, but it still requires precaution.

Orange County, we have an intense cluster and then what we call a precautionary zone around that cluster.

Rockland County, same thing. We have an intense cluster and then we're establishing a precautionary zone around that cluster.

These are relatively small areas geographically. Maybe a cluster is one mile in diameter. Maybe with the orange warning area it's a mile and a half. Maybe with the precaution area it's about 2 miles. These are geographically circumscribed, relatively small but that's why they're clusters. The trick is to keep it small. Keep the infection from spreading. Small, but intense targeted efforts in that area. We have new rules for red, orange or yellow communities.

The red, which is the most impacted area, houses of worship will be 25 percent capacity up to 10 people maximum. If it's a church or a mosque or a temple, there will be a maximum of 25 percent capacity or 10 people. No mass gatherings, only essential businesses open, only take out dining and schools are closed.

In the orange areas - that's the second ring - houses of worship 33 percent capacity, 25 people maximum. Mass gatherings, ten people maximum, indoor or outdoor. Businesses, we closed high-risk, non-essential businesses. High risk are defined businesses like gyms, personal care, et cetera. Dining, no indoor dining, outdoor dining only. Four people to a table.

Yellow, which is the precautionary zone, 50 percent capacity in a house of worship. Mass gatherings, 25 people. Businesses are open; dining indoor and outdoor, but 4 people maximum per table. Also, the schools in yellow areas, public or private, must do mandatory weekly testing.

The students are people who are very likely to interact with people within that community. We saw this in New Rochelle. All the kids go to different schools, I know, but they meet at the playground or they're on the little league team or they're on the hockey team or they went to somebody's birthday party and they interacted. The schools are important because you will very often see the schools be a place of transmission. If two students interact at a birthday party on a Friday night and then go to school, they then bring it home to their parents and now we're off to the races again.

We're increasing the fines for sponsors of mass gatherings to $15,000. We are going to be providing the local governments with the maps that we did in their areas. We'll be consulting with them. These were done specifically from the actual case numbers themselves. If there's some peculiarity, local governments have a comment, we'll do that today. The rules can go into effect as soon as tomorrow, that's up to the local government, but no later than Friday. If local government says we want time to get adjusted, fine. Today is Tuesday, get adjusted no later than Friday.

Testing for schools in the yellow zones starts next week. I am more and more concerned about schools with the more experience we have. The more we get into this the more important I think it is that schools do random testing. Well, students are young and they're resilient. First of all, we don't really know that. What do we know about this virus? And not only do you have young people in schools, you have teachers. We all think we're young, I think I'm young, you have teachers and I want to make sure we're protecting all lives. So the schools in those yellow zones must do weekly testing. The Department of Health will set a sample number. We want to make sure it's statistically representative and they'll set that sample by Friday. If a school needs additional testing equipment, they should contact us - we can to help them. If they want to do pool testing, they should contact us, we can help them. These rules will be in effect for 14 days, and then we'll see where we are and we'll see the numbers and we'll adjust from there.

We've gone through this evolving situation with some of the best people on the globe who have been advising us and I want to thank them very much for their help. Local governments most enforce the law. I know I've said this several times. But we can sit here all day long and come up with laws and rules - they are only as good as their enforcement. And a lack of enforcement has contributed to this problem. There is no one who say they didn't see this coming. We've had concerts in the Hamptons that should have never happened. We've had bars that have attracted crowds over and over again that should have never happened. We've had college parties that have happened offsite that should have never happened. We have had religious gatherings that have been circulated on social media for weeks and action was not taken. There can be no surprise - the rules are only as good as their enforcement. "Well we have COVID fatigue. We're tired of wearing masks." COVID isn't tired. The virus isn't tired. The virus - still energetic to strong enough to kill you. It's no time to be fatigued. We don't have the luxury of fatigue.

And I understand it's a politically difficult situations - I've tried everything with local governments. I said that I would fine local governments if failed to enforce the law because these are laws that they're enforcing. A law doesn't work if you're too incompetent or too politically frightened to enforce it, period, said A.J. Parkinson. I also said to local governments, "Blame me." I understand these are difficult acts to enforce. These are state laws. Blame me. I have no problem with that.

Moving forward, I'm not going to pass more laws that are not enforced. This is a government that is competent, this is a government that is capable, this is a government that has helped the people of the state through this horrendous situation. We'll continue to do it - we do it because we're effective, that's why. Local governments need to assign people to a State Enforcement Task Force, because I want to make sure that that is happening. New York City must provide 400 personnel to the New York State Task Force. I want to thank our government partners in this Cluster Initiative. I've spoken to many of them myself today. But we have in Binghamton, Broome, Jason Garner has been very helpful, Steven Neuhaus in Orange, Ed Day in Rockland County, we spoke through some issues today - I want to thank him very much for his cooperation. New York City we've been working with, Laura Curran in Nassau we've been working with. Together we're going to get this done - it's not easy. But we know where the cases and we know what we have to do.

So, government has to do its job, but individuals have to do their job also. And organizations have to do their job also. We're all citizens, and it's not government's job to catch you. It's citizen's obligation to do the right thing, right? You don't speed on the road, not just because you're afraid to get a ticket, because you don't want to kill anyone. Right? You act responsibly with COVID because you want to protect yourself, you want to protect your family, you want to protect other people. And organizations have to do the same thing. I am informing all houses of worship today. Obviously these new rules are most impactful on houses of worship because this virus is not coming from nonessential businesses. That's not what this is about. It may be spread by nonessential business. It's not starting in schools; it may be spread by schools. This is about mass gatherings. And one of the prime places of mass gatherings are houses of worship. I understand it's a sensitive topic but that is the truth. You want to solve the problem? Acknowledged the problem. Deny the problem, look at a red herring, and then the problem gets worse. The problem is mass gatherings and houses of worship, colleges and some miscellaneous foolish behavior in bars, outdoor venues, etc.

I spoke to members of the Orthodox Jewish community today. I spoke to the leaders myself this morning. We had a very good conversation. These rules will apply to all houses of worship. Many of these communities have a large Orthodox population. I have been very close to the Orthodox community for many years. I understand the imposition this is going to place on them, and I said to them I need their cooperation. I need their partnership. They're very cohesive communities. And I asked for them to work with me to follow these guidelines and that was positively received. I said to them that I'm doing this for a very simple reason because I have such respect and love for the Orthodox community. I have been friends with them all my life and my father before me by the way. We go way back and it's out of respect and it's out of love and it's because I want to protect them. In Jewish teaching, one of the most precious principles is saving a life. To save a life. The Torah speaks about how certain religious obligations can be excused, if you are going to save a life. This is about saving a life. That's what this is. No large gatherings in synagogues to save a life. You look at where the infection rate is, you look at those clusters, people will die in those clusters and this is about protecting people and saving lives. And I felt very good about my conversation with the Orthodox community and I thank them for their help in their cooperation. Seasons change, circumstances change, and we change with it. That's what we do. This is not a New York State phenomenon. If you look at what's happening in our region of the country, New York is about 1.2 percent; Pennsylvania's up at about 8 percent; New Jersey is about 2.4 percent; Connecticut - which God bless Governor Ned Lamont has always had a lower incident rate than we have, but there are still facts in life: one plus one equals two; night follows day, the world is round. These are facts, OK? There's another fact: if the rules are not complied with, and enforcement is not done, then the infection rate will increase. If the infection rate increases, we will be forced to close down. We know that. We've been here. This is déjà vu. So, let's do what we have to do in these clusters, let's save lives, and let's continue the economic advancement that we're making.

Today's specific numbers — top 20 zip codes — we're doing two types of testing now. We're testing in the hotspots and then we're doing the normal testing statewide. In the testing just in the hotspots, the infection rate is about 5.5. Statewide the testing is about 1.2. If you roll the hotspots into the state numbers, which now oversamples the hotspots, you're at 1.4 percent. Nine New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 705 hospitalized, ICU 158, intubation 72.

We're going to do this the way we've done it all along because we are New York tough, smart united, disciplined, loving.

Last point is I'd like to make a comment about the President, what he's been saying. We wished him well when we heard about his diagnosis with COVID and we wished the First Lady well. We sent them a great New York special care package, and I hope he's back to 100 percent as quickly as possible. I think the President has an opportunity that he is missing and I think he has an opportunity to do a public service and I think he's right now doing the public a disservice. To say to the people of this country, "Look at me! Don't worry about COVID. Look how well I'm doing!" First of all, this is a funny disease. We hope you're doing well, but the disease still has not run its course and it's a little premature to say "I'm doing great," right? You're not really doing great until you test negative and then, by the way — there are people who test negative and have consequences that continue for weeks and months and months. This is a frightening virus. But the President is not analogous to the average person in this country, right? The average person gets COVID, they don't get flown by helicopter to Walter Reed Hospital, and have a team of 20 doctors, millions of dollars of medical talent attend to their needs, receive experimental drugs that haven't been available to the public and are administered just to the President under Compassionate Care, right? So, there's no analogy there. From the public service point of view, 210,000 people died. More people die in this country than countries around the world that were doing much worse than we were. From a public service point of view, "Don't be afraid of COVID?" No. Be afraid of COVID. It can kill you. Don't be cavalier. You This is just more denial. This is where it started and you know, the President — God bless him — he tells you where he's going. We know that when COVID started, he knew how bad it was going to be and he just lied about it. We know that he had the White House memo done by Peter Navarro that said millions of people could get infected and he just lied about it. Woodward's book, he actually has him on tape saying, "I know how bad it's going to be, but I don't want to tell the American people." Yeah, that cost this nation, and that confusion cost this nation, many unnecessary lives and expense and pain and hardship. I was saying at that time, "Take it seriously." The President was saying when it started, "It's a hoax. It will be gone by Easter. It's going to disappear like a miracle." Yeah, none of that was true. None of it was true. He knew it wasn't true and it's not true now to say, "Don't be afraid of COVID."

Denial doesn't works. It never does in life. It never does. "I don't have a drinking problem. I don't have a substance abuse problem. I don't have a gambling problem." Denial never works. Acknowledge the problem: it's a frightening virus. Be smart, be careful. Don't hide under your bed. We're reopening, go about your business, but do it smartly and that's what the President should be saying.

2020-10-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning guys. Andrew Cuomo here. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Commissioner Zucker, Beth Garvey, special counsel, and Gareth Rhodes. Today is day 221. We did 108,000 tests yesterday, 108. The testing now, we do two types of testing protocols. We are oversampling the hot spots, as we call them, and then we do the normal statewide testing. Testing in the hot spots was 5.1 percent, and I'll give you a breakdown in a moment. Testing for the state overall was 1.05, so basically 1. So, statewide rate is 1, the hot spots, the infection rate is 5. The infection rate in the hot spots, 5 times what it is statewide. Positivity rate if you rolled it all together, 1.25.

The hot spots are the issue that we're focused on. Eight New Yorkers passed away yesterday from COVID. 748 were hospitalized. That's up 43 from the day before. The increase in the hospitalizations is we're seeing the hot spot clusters adding to hospitalizations at over three times their population rate. 176 COVID patients were in ICU. 72 patients were in intubated. When you look across the state, Capital Region, .9, that's good. Central New York, .9, Finger Lakes, .5, that's good. Long Island, 1.2, that's okay. Mid-Hudson, 2, that's Orange, Rockland. Mohawk Valley, .4, North Country, .1, so that's New York City, 1.5. That's the hot spots in primarily Brooklyn. Southern Tier, 1.4, we have a hot spot in Broome. Western New York, .9, which is good for Western New York. It's a good number in general but it's especially good for Western New York.

Hot spots, we have Orange at 3.9, Rockland at 4.5, Broome at 6.1, and Brooklyn at 2.2. So, it's about focusing on the hot spots. The school data, you can find on the dashboard if you're interested. But, it's about focusing on the hot spots. The hot spots are generating people at three times their population rate who are becoming hospitalized. The infection rate in the hot spots is five times the overall infection rate. So the focus is on the hot spots. Why? Number one, we want to save lives in the hot spots. Number two, we want to make sure the infection rate in the hot spots does not spread. The spread is inevitable if we do not control the hot spot. There are facts, even if they're unpleasant. And we know because we have lived it, and every expert will tell you, and our experience shows it, if you do not control the infection rate it will spread. You're not talking about hermetically sealed areas. You have people with a high infection rate, they go to the store, children play with children, they go to schools, and that is how the virus spreads.

So we announced a Cluster Action Initiative yesterday and we're focused on it and we're enforcing it and we will continue to do that. Some people are unhappy. I understand it. These limitations are better than going back to closedown which is what happens when the infection increases. It's what we've seen in states all cross the nation, right? Open up, infection rate goes up, they close down. We have been more phased and more calibrated in our response so when you see the infection rate go up, I have a great graphic that I like - that probably only I like - which shows a valve, you start to close the valve when you see the infection rate going up. Infection rate is going up, we're backing off on the valve, reduce the activity, get the infection rate under control.

These rules are in effect for 14 days. If we get the infection rate under control then we can extend economic activity but there are no options here because the facts are that blunt. If you don't slow the rate of infection it will increase and if you don't, you need to take action to slow the rate and that's what it is.

To the extent there are communities that are upset, that's because they haven't been following the original rules and that's why the infection spread - because they weren't following the rules and the rules weren't being enforced. The rules weren't being enforced because the communities didn't want to follow them. I understand that but that's why we are where we are - make no mistake. And this can't be just, we come up with a new rule because if it's just another rule and the rule isn't enforced, then we'll be right where we were. So a rule is only as good as the enforcement and if we had enforced the first rule we wouldn't be here in the first place so let's not make the same mistake twice.

Last point, I don't understand what the President is doing now on the state and local aid, why he would say there should be no negotiations. I mean that's the height of unreasonableness. "I won't talk about it." what do you mean you won't talk about it? You're talking about the national economy. You're talking about billions of dollars. You're talking about providing assistance to states and localities that were hurt by COVID and every economic expert will tell you if you starve the state and local governments you will hurt the overall national economy. This is no time to get petulant. I won't talk about it - that's your job. That's your oath. Try to find a way through. Try to find a path. Try to find compromise. Try to find a solution. "I won't talk about it." That disrespects the office and the oath and will do tremendous economic damage.

2020-10-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys, guys being gender-neutral. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Dr. Zucker, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Gareth Rhodes, want to thank them for all their hard work. Today is day 222. It's been 222 days for them every day. Every day. 

Yesterday we did 145,000 tests. That is a new record for the State of New York and I want to make sure you understand the facts here because some of them have misreported because it's complicated. 

145,000 tests, that's more tests than anyone is doing in the United States, a new high for us. The tests and the reason we're increasing tests is we're testing two universes - the normal statewide testing which is what we've been doing and then testing just in the hot spot zip codes. 

The hot spot zip codes yesterday were 5.8. The rest of the state 1.01 which is very good and it's lower than it's been and it's down from 1.05, the day before. 

Some have reported it that the state's infection rate is going up. That is not a fact. That is incorrect. The clusters are what we are watching. The clusters are 6 percent of the state population. I don't think there is any other state that does enough testing to even know what 6 percent of the population is doing. So we're focused on 6 percent of the population because we have enough data to know what 6 percent of the population are doing.

The statewide infection rate is actually lower than it has been. The 1.01 is down from the past several weeks so don't confuse 6 percent of the population and say it's representative of the state because it wouldn't be a fact. You can say whatever you want to say. You do, but it's just not a fact. 

Ten New Yorkers passed away yesterday. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 754 were hospitalized, 172 in ICU, 67 intubated. Regionally, Capital region is .5, that's very good; Central New York 1; Finger Lakes 0.3; Long Island 1, that's good for Long Island; Mid-Hudson 2.2, that's Orange and Rockland; Mohawk Valley 0.5, that's good; North Country 0.7, that's good. Southern Tier 1.3 - we have that Broome cluster there. Western New York 1.4 - we have to do better in Western New York. New York City, 1.2. New York City disproportionately in a sample is larger so the 1.2 is not good. 

Six percent of the population in these clusters and we know exactly where they are. Binghamton was a peculiar situation and we are dealing with that. Otherwise Orange, Rockland, Queens, Brooklyn, we're dealing basically with five towns. 

The Orthodox Jewish community, ultra-Orthodox Jewish community - what's happening there is the rules were never enforced in these communities. You know, remember the new rule if you will for the cluster in the red zone says the synagogue would have maximum of 10 people which is a minyan. At one time, we had rules that closed down houses of worship. Synagogues, churches, mosques, et cetera. Closing down is more dramatic than the current rule. Why are they so upset about the current rule when there was a previous rule that was more dramatic? Because the previous rules were never enforced, that's why.

That's why this rule seems harsh because they never followed the first rules and because they were never enforced. That's why I said to all of you 57 times the local governments have to enforce the rules. They were never enforced in these clusters. 

Now, we didn't have enough testing and enough data to actually zero in on 6 percent of the population before. The longer you don't follow the rule, the higher the infection rate spreads and the more obvious it becomes. The only evidence is the fact that they never followed the first rules. You can't have more than 10, I'm very upset. What do you mean you're very upset? The rule was you couldn't have anybody. This rule is more liberal than the first rule. 

That's what's happening here. Facts, common sense, self-preservation all makes the argument of follow the rule. They are now inarguable. A large part of the community is but, obviously, there's some opposition. There's always been opposition to some of these rules but the rules have been proven over time to work. This is still science and math at the end of the day. Everybody can have a theory. Well this person thinks this and this person thinks this - okay. I think there are people who come down from Mars every night, but there are still facts. So follow the facts.

Also, remember, this is not the first time we've had this discussion with members of this community. We went through this just recently with the measles vaccine. Same argument. Same argument. Well, measles will spread through your community. Well, measles will infect the larger community. Same conversation.

Oh so just to include: The rules are inarguable. They will save lives. Jewish tradition, which - and you haven't had a Governor who's a greater friend of Israel and the Jewish community than I have. I've tried to purposefully do that. My father was very close to the Jewish community, I'm very close to the Jewish community. He was close to the Orthodox community, I'm close to the Orthodox community. Nobody has traveled more to Israel. Two of my brothers-in-law are Jewish. Nobody's fought anti-Semitism more aggressively than I have. First Governor in the nation to do BDS. That didn't stop the controversy over measles and it's not going to stop the controversy over this situation either.

The President of the United States says today New York is closing down parts of the economy because we want to hurt the economy until after his election. The President, once again, is disconnected from reality. The President, once again, is either lying, purposefully deceiving, or ignorant. We're not closing down anything, we're talking about 6 percent of the population. These are limitations, but again are limitations that are in many ways more liberal than past ones. "Well they want to hurt my economy until after my election." The rules are in place for two weeks. There's a calendar. The calendar on it has months and weeks and days. Two weeks is before his election, not after his election. So if he looks at a calendar, you find election day and you look at where we are today and you add 14 days, that's before his election date. That's a fact. So the President is wrong, which happens to be the norm.

2020-10-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning guys. Guys being gender-neutral. Today is day 223, 223 days. We did 139,000 test results yesterday. And here are the numbers. 20 hot spot ZIP codes, 5.4 percent positive. 20 hot spot ZIP codes, 5.4 percent. The State of New York, without the oversample of the hot spot ZIP codes, is .9. The positivity for the state, if you include the oversample of hot spots in ZIP codes, 1.1. 

Now, let me just say something that I said before, just so you don't mislead people. We are oversampling a very small part of the state that has a very high infection rate. That oversample, when added to the statewide number, is a skewed number because it oversamples a very small area that has a very high infection rate. When you report the statewide infection rate and you include the oversample without saying it's an oversample, that is misleading at best, right? So, just understand the two facts. You have hot spot ZIP codes, we're oversampling those because you have those under a microscope. They are currently 5.4 percent. The rest of the state is .9. It is misleading when you report, well, if you put the two together, this is the number. Yeah, but it's not statistically accurate, right? 

Here's another number. This is going to shock you. Well, it shocked me, I don't know if it shocks you. Over the past three weeks, if you look at the red zones, the red zones are the cluster zones that we identified in our plan announced two days ago, the red zones, not ZIP codes, the red zones. The red zones are 2.8 percent of the state population. 2.8. "All these new rules in the red zone." It's 2.8 percent of the population. And by the way, the new rules are less restrictive than the old rules, which were total shutdown. Now, they weren't followed, but the old rules were more restrictive. 

Anyway, red zones, 2.8 percent of the population. They are 20 percent of the state's cases. 2 percent is 20 percent of the state's cases. Ten times the population. The infection rate overall in those red zones, 6.6 percent. Without the red zones, over sampled, the State is .9, which is right where we are today. Alright? 

Now, this actually shows how advanced our testing system is. We do more tests per day than most states do per week. When you do 140,000 tests you get data that is so granular that you can track it to the block. We've tracked it to 2.8 percent of the population of the State. We're now attacking the virus within the 2.8 percent of the population. You understand that? That's because we have so much testing data that we can get that specific. When you see it growing anywhere, then blow the whistle, send all the fire fighters to put out those embers. That's what we're doing - 2.8 percent. 

Six New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. Seven hundred and seventy-nine were hospitalized yesterday; 168 were in ICUs; 78 were intubated. Across the State, New York City is still a problem: 1.2 percent. That's primarily Brooklyn. Capital Region .7 is good. Central New York .9 is good. Finger Lakes .8 is good. Long Island 1.0, which is okay. Mid-Hudson is 2.1, but that's Orange, Rockland. Mohawk Valley .5 that's good. North Country .3 that's good. Southern Tier 1.0, that's that bar cluster in Broome. Western New York 1.3, not good. 

In the hot spot counties: Orange 3.6, right about where it was. Rockland, 5.6; Broome 3.2; Brooklyn 1.9, up from 1.7. We're doing enforcement in bars and restaurants. We're doing enforcement in the hot spots. We've sent rapid testing teams all throughout the State. On the school testing, I suggest you look at the dashboard. There were 4,500 new school reported tests yesterday; 1,800 by school districts; 2,600 by non-public and charter. It's a total of 66,000 tests reported since the beginning. Twenty-nine thousand by school district, 36 by non-public and charter schools. 

Yesterday, 648 school districts submitted data. That's 94 percent. Forty-two schools are receiving orders for non-compliance in submitting data. Okay? There were 97 new cases reported yesterday off-site and on-site students, teachers and staff. 58 student cases, 39 new teachers, staff cases. 

In terms of Brooklyn, again I want people to understand the red zone, as opposed to ZIP codes, we've been talking about 20 ZIP codes, the red zone are the red circles that we've identified in our new plan. 2.8 percent of the population 20 percent of the cases. We have always attacked clusters. This cluster happens to be predominantly the ultra-orthodox in Brooklyn and Queens. We have always attacked clusters. When restaurants were creating clusters and the local governments weren't enforcing against restaurants, I enforced against restaurants. When bars were creating clusters and the local governments weren't enforcing against bars, I enforced against bars. When colleges were creating clusters we closed down colleges, right? This is not the first time the state has taken this action. "Oh, unprecedented state action" No, it's not unprecedented; it is the pattern of behavior that we have used from the beginning. Bars, restaurants, clusters, concert in the Hamptons - whenever there is a cluster, we have attacked it. So, this is nothing new.

Last point, Governor Gretchen Whitmer was threatened by a group that was threatening harm to her, and the Governor suggested that the President was inciting or facilitating this kind of division. There is no question but that the President of the United States is a divisive force. He has been from the day of his election. His campaign was premised on division. His campaign was the oldest political strategy in the book used by the Roman empire - divide and conquer. He exploits divisions. Old immigrants versus new immigrants. Racial divisions. Class divisions. The KKK in Charlottesville, "well there are good people on both sides of the argument." No. The KKK are not good. Racism is not good. Discrimination is not good; it violates our principle. It's anti-American behavior. He has advocated anti-Italian American behavior to further his political goals. I agree with Governor Whitmer. There is no doubt that he is exploiting division and fomenting division to help his campaign. I also believe his campaign is fomenting the ultra-orthodox in Brooklyn. Well, that's wild speculation by the Governor. No. I don't do wild speculation. Let me play you a recording of a call that went out. Okay, hold one second?

Call: [Inaudible] We just hung up the phone with a group of us [inaudible] that are in touch with the Trump campaign. They're urging everybody to come out with signs, "Cuomo killed thousands". Come to 13th Avenue and hold big signs, "Cuomo killed thousands," as many as possible, as big as possible. The more signs we have, the bigger the national outcry will be. Tonight, on 13th Avenue or wherever Heshy Tischler goes, everybody should hold a sign, "Cuomo killed thousands". The Trump campaign is urging us to hold as many and as big signs as possible. Please send this message around, make it go viral. 

Governor Cuomo: Okay. Then there's a tweet from Heshy Tischler, and I'm reading it: urgent: who can print, "Cuomo hates Jews" and "Cuomo killed thousands" on flags, urgent, who can print Cuomo hates Jews and Cuomo killed thousands on flags, 2:06 p.m., 10/7/20 is the date. The phone call you heard, the robocall, the Heshy he is referring to is Heshy Tischler so the robocall says the Trump campaign wants us to do this. Heshey tweets, who can print "Cuomo hates Jews" and "Cuomo killed thousands" on flags. How ugly, how divisive, how poisonous, how disgusting, how hurtful, how painful. New York just showed solidarity and unity that was unprecedented. For seven months, I've been saying let's listen to our better angels. Let's act in commonality. The antidote to community spread is community. Caring for one another. Here, the Trump campaign wants to enflame divisions. Meanwhile, they're putting people's lives at risk. 20 percent of the cases coming from these districts. 20 percent from 2.8 percent. Some of those people will die. What's the Trump campaign saying? Play politics, play politics. It's disgusting.

2020-10-11 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys. Happy Sunday. Today is day 225. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Commissioner Zucker, Beth Garvey, and Gareth Rhodes. Let me give you the numbers for yesterday. We did 118,000 tests. Let me just repeat myself for context here. We're dealing with a very specific situation, which is the clusters. The state itself is doing very well. Overall, the state is doing very well. We have such a sophisticated testing mechanism, where we take now more tests per day than most states take per week. That allows us to do a very granular analysis. Most states don't have that capacity, or don't have that desire.

If you look at the statewide numbers, which is what most states present, we are doing very well. The statewide numbers today without the hot spots in them: 0.84. That's doing extraordinarily well. We haven't been that low since September 24th. If you add in the hot spots, which is then a skewed sample, it's 0.96. 0.96 is the lowest it's been since September 24th, and that is very good. That's normally where the state's efforts stop. A state would announce a statewide average. They would say 0.96. Because we test as much as we do, and because we have such an ability to target, we then see clusters and we can track cases in very small clusters.

We're now tracking a cluster in about 2 or 3 percent of the population. No other state has this discussion, because no other state has the ability to target that way. We do, and that's a good thing because when you can target a specific cluster it means you can attack a specific cluster. Attacking a cluster is much easier than trying to attack a statewide increasing rate. A rifle is more targeted than a shotgun, right? Other states see the statewide number increase, and then they have to do statewide closings because they can't target the clusters. So, the cluster analysis, which you don't hear about in any other state, is because we have the sophistication to do it. The testing in the clusters is 5.7, which is not good. Now, even to put the 5.7 in a focus, the positivity rate of 5.7 in our clusters is lower than many states overall positivity number. So, the number in our clusters is much less than most states' positivity.

So, the context here is very important, and I think it's important for people to understand. The clusters are generating the new cases proportionately, because that's what clusters do. They are generating the new cases. The clusters are in the same areas that we've been talking about. 5 New Yorkers passed away from COVID yesterday, they're in our thoughts and prayers. 820 New Yorkers were hospitalized, that's down 6 from the prior day. These numbers are all weekend numbers. As I've cautioned you before, take them all with a grain of salt because they're weekend numbers. 186 were in ICU. 84 were intubated. By region, New York City: 1.1, that's what's obviously driving the number up. That's not good. Capital Region: 0.6 is good. Central New York: 0.9. Finger Lakes: 0.9. Long Island: 1.0. Mid-Hudson: 1.1, that's Rockland, Orange. Mohawk Valley: 0.2. North Country: 0.2. Southern Tier: 0.9. Western New York: 1.4.

We've had an ongoing issue with Western New York, and it is not getting dramatically better; it's not getting dramatically worse, but it's not getting dramatically better, either. Hot spot counties, Orange: 2.5. Rockland: 2.1. Broome: 3.4. Brooklyn: 1.5. That is where we are. What do you do about clusters? You do enforcement. You do aggressive enforcement. That's what you do. Well what does aggressive enforcement mean? When we did the bars and restaurants we identified them as problem areas that were generating clusters. We put together an SLA State Police Task Force. We've done almost 100,000 establishment visits. 100,000 bars and restaurants. We've taken about 15,000 enforcement actions on those 100,000 visits. That's enforcement. 100,000 visits is hard to do. I know. It's also called the job of government. It's the job of a regulator to pass a law.

You don't enforce a law, the law is useless. If accomplishes nothing. It actually accomplishes a negative. The negative is people see that law isn't enforced, they dismiss the law. The other negative is government issues another law but government can't enforce it or doesn't enforce it, incompetent government, ineffective government, waste of time government, why do we pay these people, government, government isn't the solution, government is part of the problem, government is impotent, let's all join together and be anti-government because the government is useless. 100,000 visits, 1,500 enforcement - when I say I'm looking for enforcement from the local governments, that's how I define enforcement.

The hotspot clusters as you know are primarily in the Hassidic community but they are in those geographic areas and anyone in those geographic areas is obviously more likely to come in contact with the virus and that's the geographical significance of the hotspot areas. Hotspot areas are not done by any arbitrary means. They're not Census tracks, they're not zip codes, they are literally from the cases. If you look at where the cases are, you put the points on a map, that's the geographic area.

To the Hassidic community, I've spoken to the leaders of the Hassidic community many times. I've longstanding relations with them. I understand the desire to hold large religious ceremonies. I understand that. I understand how important it is to their culture and to their religion. I also understand that it, as a matter of fact, jeopardizes human life.

This is not academic. The number of hospitalizations are coming from those communities. We know what happens. People get the virus, people get sick, people go into the hospital, people die. That is the trajectory. Not as many people as died originally. We know have more information about the virus, the doctors are in a better position to treat the virus, there are different therapeutics, there are different experimental drugs, President took Regeneron, Eli Lilly has a drug, Remdesivir has shown to work, hydroxychloroquine has shown not to work, but people die.

I say to my friends in the Hassidic community, the Hebrew faith teaches us pikuach nefesh which means, save a life. Under the Hebrew teachings, participation in a religious ceremony can be excused for matter of health and life and safety. Leviticus, love your neighbors, yourself, and the point here is to save a life and not to endanger others, not to endanger others in the same congregation, not to endanger others in the same community, and that's what is happening with these large congregations. It's an unfortunate situation. I wish it didn't happen but it is the reality. I wish none of this happened. I wish COVID didn't happen but that is the reality and you deal with reality, especially when it's about life and death.

2020-10-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Happy Columbus Day. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Gareth Rhodes, Beth Garvey. Sorry for doing the briefing late, but I was out celebrating Columbus Day, like I'm sure many of you on the telephone were doing. Before we go to the numbers, I want to make a larger point. I've been watching the news, TV news, reporting 30 states are showing an increase in the number of COVID cases and putting numbers on the screen on the increase of COVID cases. Many of those numbers come from extrapolating from the infection rate that the states report. I think we're in a place where numbers are losing their meaning.

Second, COVID, I don't believe goes away anytime soon. They talk about the fall and we're seeing an increase across the country, which is what they projected, but this is not a second wave. A second wave is the virus mutates and comes back - that's the second wave, right? And we're still in the first wave, and this is just an inability to deal with the first wave nationwide. Even if they come up with a vaccine, you then have to administer the vaccine. There will be people who will not receive the vaccine for one reason or another. We went through this in the past with vaccines - some people don't believe in vaccines and they won't take the vaccine. Some people will be nonresponsive, some people will be hard to reach, some people won't be able to afford it, some people will be afraid of it. So, I think it's realistic to say, at least for a year, you will be dealing with COVID. That's without the mutated virus, et cetera, and that may be an optimistic scenario. Doesn't mean that once they start with the vaccine, some people won't have the vaccination, and by the way, the vaccine, some people say you need two dosages of the vaccine, but you will still have COVID outbreaks, let's say for a year. So, you'll still be needing to manage COVID outbreaks for optimistically, one year of time. How you do it is very important because that's the difference between a cluster and community spread, right?

The President has been promoting the politics of denial on COVID and he's done that on day one. He's doing the politics of denial even after he had COVID. "It's not a problem, you get COVID, you get in a helicopter, you go to Walter Reed, Walter Reed sends a team of doctors and they give you experimental drugs that nobody else can get and then you're fine." Yeah, that's denial. And it's a disgusting denial when you see the number of lives lost. There are some states that have followed the politics of denial and have turned it into science fiction. The theory was if you test less, you will find fewer cases, and if you find fewer cases, you have less of a problem. That's almost a laughable concept. But you are now seeing it in the numbers as if it is an actual representation. You look at the chart that I sent you, take a state like Florida. Florida was doing 428,000 cases - I'm sorry - 428,000 tests at their peak on a high week. 428,000 tests in a week. Last week, they did 153,000 tests. Close to a third. Why? That's the Trump politics of denial. We only have cases because we're testing. If we test less we will have fewer cases. So Florida goes from 428,000 tests per week to 153,000 tests.

Texas goes from 520,000 tests to 349,000 tests. Georgia goes from 210,000 tests to 132,000 tests. Arizona goes from 94,000 tests to 70,000 tests. How can your testing numbers be going down? Our testing numbers are going up because this was all about ramping up testing. Getting your state labs sophisticated on how to do testing. Acquiring the reagents. When we started testing, we could only do 500 tests per day. Five hundred tests per day. We now do 120,000 tests per day because you ramp up.

You would have to purposefully ramp down the number of tests. Why would you do that? Because it's the politics of denial being implemented in the public health system, which is based on science-fiction. Science-fiction is if you don't test, you won't find the positive cases and therefore, they don't exist. That is science-fiction, but that is what you see happening in some states in this country.

When people are listening to the news or reading the news, this is how many cases, this is in this state, this is in this state, here's the map with all these different colors. Part of it is all science-fiction because it's not accurate because they're not collecting data that is accurate because they don't want to. It's the politics of denial actualized in state data. How do you go down in the number of tests and why? And, by the way, why isn't that reported - which would then dispel the myth, right? Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona - this is how many cases we have. No it's not. It's the number of cases you have discovered with your reduced number of tests. That's just a sample.

New York, we're doing the exact opposite. New York, our strategy is now to identify micro-clusters. What is a micro-cluster? I've never heard that before. You're right, you've never heard it before because it's a new term that we use in New York. We do more testing than any other state so we have more data. We also are obsessive about getting incoming case numbers from the hospital. You map those cases and you find the greatest predominance of cases in a geographic area. That is a micro-cluster. For us, the greatest number of cases in a micro-cluster is relative only to us in New York. In other words, we have a 1 percent, just about, infection rate. We find a 2 percent cluster, to us that's a micro-cluster. To other states that's nothing, because relatively our numbers are so much lower. So, we say in our micro-clusters we have an infection rate of 3 or 4 percent, okay? Today, for example, the micro-cluster is 3.7 percent, alright? The Red Zone. You look at the chart we sent out, 3.7 percent -- Illinois statewide is 4.2. Texas is 7.6. Ohio is 3.7. Michigan is 3.3. North Carolina is 6. Jersey is 3. Florida is 11. Virginia is 4.8. Right? Georgia is 6. Pennsylvania is 7. Arizona is 6. How can you call a hot spot a micro-cluster, a micro-cluster or a hot spot if it is lower than all these other states? It's not a national hot spot. Nationwide those numbers are better than many states. Only relative to New York do we consider it a micro-cluster. Only when you're at 1 percent does 3 percent seem like an issue. Most of these other states would celebrate if they had 3 percent. 3 percent in a lot of states would be a safe zone. In New York it's a micro-cluster, and we're going to be doing more of this wherever we find a concentration of cases relative to our norm, that is a micro-cluster. It is only relevant to New York, because every other state is in a much different situation. So, when we say Red Zone, micro-cluster, Brooklyn, Queens, yes, but that is not accurate to say New York State has hot spots, which is a term we used in the state, but it's not nationwide. A hot spot, it's nationwide. A cool spot compared to where other states are, right? And it's because we're this diligent that we keep the number down. I talk to Governors all day long. They say, "how do you stay at 1 percent?" I say, when I see two cases on the same block, I run to that block. That's how. So, yes. Hot spot, even though it's a lower percentage than many other states. Okay? I just wanted to make sure we were clear. Because if we're going to continue to do this we're getting more refined in our targeting. And as we go into the Fall, and the numbers nationwide are going up, we want to purposefully keep our numbers down. Even one percent, by the way is an absurdly low margin to operate on, and unrealistic. I understand intellectually, however emotionally I want to set the bar very high, or very low if the case may be. But that's what the chart will show you, and I just want to put this conversation in some sort of, since it's red nationally it has to be in the national focus. Look at the New York State infection rate compared to other states where 1.1, right, and again, our hot spots are doing better than many states.

Today's numbers, the hot spot number is 3.7. That's actually down but this is a holiday weekend so again take these with a grain of salt.

The state is 1.05, so we're at one. The state, if you add in the micro-clusters, the red zones, it is at 1.1. Now, that number is also misleading because it oversamples areas that you know have an abnormally high rate, okay? Some of you reporters are political reporters. If I released a poll and said normally Democrats in a poll are 44 percent, this poll has 60 percent Democrats, you would say, yeah, but then it's skewed. Yes. We don't do weighting in these polls but I'm telling you we take, we've been oversampling the micro-clusters because we want to know what's going on there. If you add that oversample into the statewide sample, it skews a statewide sample and that's 1.1 but if you like to report skewed results then be my guest.

12 New Yorkers passed away, 878 were hospitalized - that's is up 58. The largest single identifiable addition is from the micro-clusters. The hospitalization rate: 878. Remember we were at 18,000 hospitalized so the hospitalization number to us is more relevant as an indicator for where people are, where the cases are coming from again, right? We can do it testing tells you where the cases are, hospitalizations tell you where the serious cases are, and that's why we track the hospitalizations the way we do. 185 in ICU, 86 intubated, and that's basically, be region, 1.1 New York City, that's a problem, that's Brooklyn and Queens; Capital Region 0.9; Central New York 1.4; Finger Lakes 0.8; Long Island 1.2; Mid-Hudson 1.9, that's Rockland and Orange; Mohawk Valley 0.4; North Country 0.2; Southern Tier 0.9; Western New York 1.1. Western New York is better than it has been but we would like to see that at 1.0. Orange is 2.3; Rockland is 4.0; Broome, we have that one cluster as 3.0; Brooklyn is 1.2.

2020-10-14 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you very much. Good morning everyone. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Gareth Rhodes, Dr. Zucker and Richard Becker. Let's start at the top, which is always a good place to start. COVID has been with us for about 7 months. Let's learn the lessons and let's be smart. Smart works when you're dealing with a virus. Politics doesn't work. Unintelligent doesn't work. New York Tough, but part of New York Tough is New York Smart. 

If we did testing the way most states are doing testing, the report today would be very simple. Our testing shows that we are .95 statewide. That would be the whole report. I'd say, "Thank you very much," hang up, .95 is very good, we're below one percent. That's what testing means, nationwide. We tested statewide, did 100,000 tests and we're at .95. We go beyond that and we do more tests and we now do a series of tests where we over-sample. We test just certain, small geographic areas because the way of the world going forward is going to be that the virus will constantly flair up in certain locations. 

The trick, the art form, is going to be identifying these small sites where it flares up and be able to stop it before it spreads. That's the art form. A doctor said something interesting to me a couple of weeks ago. He said, you know, every week the body is attacked by dozens of viruses, but the immune system responds and defends against the virus. The ones that make you sick are the ones where the immune system fails to respond or gets overpowered by the virus. We've never actually killed a virus. 

That metaphor works for this larger scale. We have multiple viral attacks per week: Bars, one bar that has too many people; one birthday party with too many people; one religious gathering with too many people - that's a viral attack. Now, most states you don't realize it, you don't even know it, because you don't see it. All you have is the statewide number. We have the capacity given our heightened testing to see things that normally you don't see. 

We do the testing, we do the data analysis and we now can find these micro-clusters. These micro-clusters will continue, I would say, for at least one year because you need a vaccine, you have to administer a vaccine, there will be certain populations who won't take the vaccine. There will be certain populations who don't believe in the vaccine, religious reasons, the anti-vaxxers, and you'll continue to have clusters at least a year. By the way, this could go on for years, alright? Unless you assume that 100 percent of the population is going to be vaccinated. So, let's remember the context because if you don't have the context, then we report inaccurate data or misleading data.

So, statewide we're at .95 percent. We then oversample — separate test — on the micro-clusters and we call the micro-clusters now "red zones," right? The micro-clusters, we are at 6.2 today. If you take the oversample of the micro-clusters and roll it into the statewide numbers, you are at 1.1. That, however, is misleading. I used the analogy, I think the other day: if I did a political poll and I oversampled Democrats and included the oversample of Democrats in the poll and then said, "Oh look, my favorability is 99.9." You'd say, "Yeah, yeah, but hold on for a second — that's an oversample of Democrats in the poll," and you'd be right. You have an oversample of the highest infection rate in the state, the clusters, so it skews the number. So, it's 1.1 skewed in the state; it's .95 without the skew. Those are very good numbers. The 6.2 in the red zones, that number is actually lower than many statewide infection rates right now, so we call 6.2 a "red zone." In many states, it's less than the statewide infection rate. Orange is 7.4, Rockland is 7.2, Brooklyn is 6.4. 

When you look across the regions, New York City is 1.2. That's pulling us up. Capital is 1.2. Central is 1.2, Finger Lakes .7, Long Island 1, Mid-Hudson 1.6, Mohawk .1, North Country .1, Southern Tier 1 — which is actually good. Western New York 1, and that's actually good also.

Seven people lost their lives. Hospitalizations. Hospitalizations we have been tracking. Today it's +15, but it's the trend line that matters, OK? Let me give you the last 10 days on hospitalizations so you get the trend line. Ten days ago, it was +18, +69, then +43, then +6 which was an anomaly, then + 25, +47 +58, +45, today + 15. So, in that trend line, +15 is good, right? We also have education numbers on the dashboard that I would suggest you look at because all these school districts have plans, "We're going to do this, we're going to do this, we're going to do this." The dashboard actually shows you the reality of what's going on in the school system. The number of people who tested positive is up 334, that's on-site and off-site. It's 240 on-site which means teachers and students who were in school. New York City it's up about 86: 54 in public schools, 32 in private schools, but you can go to the dashboard for more information on that. 

The micro-cluster we're focusing on is the ultra-Orthodox communities. As you know, it is still the same. The question now is enforcement. It is enforcement. This is no longer a question of public education, its enforcement. I've made it very clear to members of this community what the law is, what the rules are, what the science is. I've had personal conversations, dozens and dozens of them. It's not a question of education, it's a question of enforcement. Local governments must do enforcement. The primary responsibility in this entire situation for local governments is enforcement. They do two things: they do testing, which then goes back to the state, and they then do the enforcement. I don't have the resources to do enforcement statewide. If I had to do this all over again, one of the lessons learned, I would have had the state takeover or hire statewide enforcement. Because the enforcement from the local governments is very uneven especially when it's politically sensitive. And that's what we're running to with lot of these ultra-Orthodox communities, who are also very politically powerful, don't kid yourself. 

Suffolk County, Steve Bellone, kudos to him he just did a sanction against the Miller Place Inn. The Miller Place Inn is a restaurant in Suffolk County. They had a Sweet Sixteen party - how sweet. Yeah, it wasn't that sweet. Dozens of people from the Sweet Sixteen party got sick it just shows you how one event can generate so many cases. He took enforcement action so good for him. There was a concert out in Southampton sponsored by a group called the Chainsmokers, they are going to be found today to have violated an Executive Order and what we call Section 16 of the Public Health Law. They're going to be fined $20,000. The town of Southampton that authorized the outdoor group gathering they are going to have a sanction placed where they cannot approve permits for group gatherings without first receiving State approval. So, if they want to approve an outside group activity, they're going to have to get it pre-approved by the State. I've spent time talking to the people in the town of Southampton - frankly, I don't know what they were thinking.

Moving on, we also know that in the red zones the schools are supposed to be closed, public and private. We know there were violations where yeshivas were operating; we know there were religious gatherings happening that exceeded the guidelines. WABC and N.J. Burkett, kudos to him, he did a great piece where he had a yeshiva that was operating in plain view. Gothamist also had a piece to the same point - so kudos to them for good reporting. This is especially a problem in Brooklyn and Orange and Rockland Counties. We are taking three actions today. Number one, we are sending a notification to local governments saying they must enforce public health law under Section 16, enforcing the public health law especially in the red zones. Especially when it comes to closing schools and religious gatherings. If the local government does not effectively enforce the law, we will withhold funds from the local government. The local governments that are receiving that are New York City, Orange County, Rockland County, Town of Ramapo, Village of Spring Valley. If these schools are operating, it's easy enough to find out, N.J. Burkett did it, Gothamist did it. You would think a local government would have that capacity to do it. If they don't, we will withhold funding from the government. I don't like to do that. Budgets are tough all across the board. I don't know how else to get them to do the enforcement they need to do. So, hopefully that will motivate them, because nothing else I have done has motivated them - not my rapier wit, not my sense of humor, not my guilt, not my blame, not my admonition, and not my pleas. Maybe money works.

We're also sending a letter to all schools in the red zones, saying to them they must be closed. If they violate the Section 16 order - we will withhold funding from the schools. Many schools receive funding - the yeshivas receive a significant amount of funding. I, in past budgets, increased funding to yeshivas, Rabbi TAP, additional funding per child, that all went up. If they violate the health order they will not receive funding. Third, for the schools that have been identified as violating the closure order they will be served today with a notice mandating they close, and we are withholding funding from those schools and we're withholding funding until the matter is resolved to our satisfaction. We do not know at this time when that will be, but we are commencing withholding funding against those schools.

There is a difference, just so you know, between providing child care and operating a school. You cannot operate a school and then say, "well, tomorrow I've turned it into a child care center. So, now I'm operating the school, but it's not a school it's a child care center." There's an apple, and there's an orange. There's a school, and there's a child care center. A child care center has a separate license, separate regulations, separate age categories, separate operating guidelines. Child care facilities can operate, but they have to be licensed child care facilities and then they have to be inspected to make sure they're following the rules. But a school is not a child care facility, and you fool no one by saying, "oh no, they're not walking into a school they're walking into a child care facility." Maybe you can fool some people, but you can't fool the State of New York.

The ultra-Orthodox community, the Hasidic community, we're not talking about a monolith here, right? Many groups have been cooperative and have been helpful, and I want to acknowledge that also. These rules were in effect for 14 days. We don't look at ZIP codes, we don't look at Census tracks, we don't look at any districts that are in any way arbitrary. We look at where the actual cases come from. If at the end of 14 days there are some areas where the cases have dropped, we will relax the regulations on those places. If there are places where the cases have gone up, we will increase the regulations on those places. Just because we're talking about Brooklyn, or we're talking Borough Park, we can distinguish block by block and we will. So, for those groups that are getting the numbers under control, God bless, and if the numbers are under control, we'll reduce regulations. For those areas that are not, we'll increase the regulations.

2020-10-15 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. I have Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker and Beth Garvey on the telephone with me today.

Let's start off walking about the overall situation we're in in a national context. We've been talking about the fall and the challenges that the fall has brought for COVID and we see an increasing number all across the nation. We see it all across the globe and we're in the midst of dealing with that.

I think it's also very important that the next time that we start to think ahead. Dealing with COVID is not checkers. It's chess. So, let's start to think ahead. We're dealing with the fall. The next step is going to be dealing with a vaccine. We all hope and pray that the vaccine comes sooner rather than later.

There will be a question when the vaccine comes out. The first question will be do the American people trust the vaccine. We've anticipated that in New York. We said we'll put together a committee of professionals that will review the protocol and efficacy of the vaccine. If that committee tells me that the vaccine is safe I will tell the people of the state that the vaccine is safe. I do believe there will be distrust about the vaccine because I believe there is distrust about this federal administration's reliance or lack thereof on science.

That'll be the first hurdle but let's get past that first hurdle, so the vaccine comes out, people believe it's safe, people are willing to take it. You then have to administer it. How do you do that? How do we administer 20 million vaccines in the State of New York and how do you do that quickly and how do you do that safely? How do you do the vaccines all across the country?  Government does not do these large operational complex functions easily or well. "Well, government just administers it." It's not that simple and the federal government has shown that it doesn't have the operational capacity to do these things. That's why the federal government at the beginning of COVID just delegated it all to the states. All right and then you handed the state the responsibility but the state wasn't in a position to procure PPE and we weren't in a position to manage an entire hospital system that was a private system or do hundreds of thousands of tests.

When we started we could only do 500 tests a day. Our Department of Health is not an operational agency. It's a regulatory agency. We are now doing over 100,000 tests per day. We could only do 500 when we started.

Well, then we administer the vaccine. It's not that simple and I want to anticipate that and I've been speaking to my colleagues around the country on and the National Governor's Association, of which I'm Chairman this year, is sending the President a letter today that says, in essence - we released the letter, I believe, "Dear President Trump, The States have been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, working tirelessly. Governors are willing to assist your administration on the national vaccine program to make it's smooth and efficient. However, guidance and clarification is needed on the roles and expectations of the states in that vaccination distribution implementation program. To that end, we request a meeting with you and your team to discuss what is required to ensure a strong partnership. Delineation of state responsibility, funding needs, with those responsibilities and the planned supply chain management and vaccine allocation process." 

That letter will go to the President today. It is a massive, monumental undertaking and if you listen to the White House it could be just a matter of weeks away. I'm telling you, there's no simple answer. "Well, the military will do it. The states will do it. Well the CDC will do it." It's not that simple and it's very expensive and it's very complicated. And, by the way, there is going to be a subset of people who will not take the vaccine. 

We went through that in this State with measles. You will have a group of people who, they call themselves the anti-vaxxers. You'll have a group of people who will say, "We're not taking the vaccine." How do you deal with that? It means you'll have ongoing small flare ups of COVID. That letter goes out today. I hope we get a response. It's clear the states won't be able to do it on their own. We don't produce the vaccine, there's also very specific storage requirements for the vaccine. There's also some specifications that some people would need to receive two doses of the vaccine - it would have to be the same vaccine. It gets very complicated very quickly and we need to know what is the plan, what does the federal government do, what do you expect the states to do. When does it start? Who funds it, et cetera? Let's figure it out now because this virus has been ahead of us every step of the way. It's about time this country catches up. 

Next point, we talk about the fall. Very few of the outbreaks that we have had in New York - the clusters that we talk about in New York - would have happened had we had compliance and had we had enforcement. In other words, if you look at where the outbreaks are coming from, there are situations where there was a lack of compliance. Lack of compliance matched with a lack of enforcement. If it was just a lack of compliance but there's enforcement, then the situation is corrected. If there's a lack of compliance and there's a lack of enforcement, then there's an outbreak. 

If you go through the outbreaks we're looking at, which are I call them micro-clusters, which Is a word - another new word - a new expression, that we just designed during COVID, but in New York we talk about micro-clusters. These are small situations. This is a Sweet Sixteen party on Long Island. This is a bar in Broome County that violated the rules. They are episodic, but one episode can create dozens of cases, so it's a lack of compliance and a lack of enforcement. 

I was in a briefing one day when, a transportation briefing, and a point was made that stuck with me: something like the overwhelming majority of all traffic fatalities are involved with speeding — that if people weren't speeding, you would dramatically drop the number of fatalities. So, speeding enforcement actually saves lives. You can have an accident, but the fatalities are much less if you're not speeding. If we have better enforcement with COVID, we will save lives and that's what we're trying to do with the enforcement. Some of the complexity on the enforcement here, especially with members of the Ultra-Orthodox community — they have never complied with the rules and I have had dozens and dozens of conversations. It's not that they are not complying with the current "red zone" rule, they never complied with any of the close-down rules going back to March. That's why some find this shocking because they didn't follow many of the rules all along and that's why they think this is abrupt. What is abrupt is that they would comply with any rule. I also want to make the point that the majority of Ultra-Orthodox groups that I've been speaking with are cooperative. There are a relatively small number — loud but small — that are uncooperative and just believe that they should be exempt from these types of government regulations. But what's complicating it for this smaller number of groups is that they really have not ever followed any of these rules back from March, which is surprising. But, that's why I want to be nice and clear with local government because it's not that they haven't enforced the rule in the past couple of weeks. Some of them have not enforced the rules for months, and that's the shock to some of these communities and that I find inexplicable at this point, you know. Local enforcement, which I've been talking about every week, and when you're talking about whether or not a school is open, or a yeshiva is open, or a church is open, you're not talking about fine detective work, right? If a yeshiva is open, you can tell because you see school buses with children in them. School buses are normally large and yellow - they're designed to stick out, that's why they paint them yellow, from a safety point of view. It's not that I'm asking local government to take fingerprints, right? Just see the school buses, guys.

Let me give you the numbers for today - oh, one other point. I also asked local governments to do testing in the schools surrounding the red zones, what we call a "Yellow Zone," where we've asked local governments to do testing in those schools in the "Yellow Zones," they're basically buffer zones. Some of the local governments have said they don't have enough test to do it. I said if you need something tell me and I will provide it for you. We're going to give New York City 200,000 test kits so they can do the tests in the schools in the "Yellow Zones."

Okay, today's numbers - today's day 229. The "Red Zones" are 4.84; the state without the "Red Zones" to 0.99. The state with the "Red Zones" is 1.09. Thirteen New Yorkers passed away - they're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalization is down 41 to 897. 197 ICU, 95 intubated.

Last point, I've asked you all please to watch the school dashboard. Many parents have anxiety about the school re-opening - I've said that the anxiety is justified, these are frightening times. School districts put out the plans but that we would see how the plans were implemented, and if there was a problem we would react and we know if there was a problem because we were watching the testing data. And the testing data are the only facts we receive. The dashboard is up - if you look at the testing data on the dashboard, yesterday 131 positive test results from 111 schools. 95 onsite, meaning students, teachers who were onsite at school, 36 offsite. 672 public school districts submitted data. New York City showed 38 positives, 31 onsite from 28 schools. Two schools showed two or more student cases - PS 131 in Queens, PS 194 in the Bronx. Two or more cases in New York City triggers a review by the New York City plan. And I think that is the bulk of the information.

The regional positivity - New York City 1.0, Capital District 0.8, Central New York 1, Finger Lakes 1.3, Long Island 1.1, Mid-Hudson 1.6, Mohawk Valley 0.5, North Country 0.5, Souther Tier 1.1, Western New York 1.6. 

2020-10-19 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thanks, guys, for getting on the phone. Guys is gender neutral. I have Melissa DeRosa, Secretary; Robert Mujica, Budget Director; Beth Garvey, Special Counselor; Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health; Gareth Rhodes, Deputy Financial, Safety Supervisor, but he's been assigned to be at Chamber during this situation.

Today is day 233. We're testing both red zones and statewide. In the red zones the infection rate, positivity rate is 3.3. That's way down from where it was. The red zones are Brooklyn, Queens, Rockland, Orange.

Statewide without the oversample of the red zones, 1.1, which is great. Positivity for the entire state with the red zone oversample, 1.2. As the red zones come down the differential between the oversample goes down so it's 1.1 without the red zones and 1.2 with the red zones.

Fourteen New Yorkers passed away, they're in our thoughts and prayers; 934 were hospitalized. There are two numbers in the 934 hospitalization rate. One is the discharge, how many were discharged, second is how many were admitted. The 934 is a net number between discharge and admissions. The discharges go down over the weekend. They don't do a lot of discharges over the weekend. The good news in the 934 is the admissions were down over the weekend so that is good news. Fewer people went into the hospitals, 198 were in ICU, 106 were intubated.   

By red zone, one week, Brooklyn went from 5.8 to 5.2, Queens from 3.3 to 2.3, Rockland 9.7 to 4.5, Orange 12.4 to 4.6.

By region, New York City is 1.3, Capital District 1.1, Central New York 1.1, Finger Lakes 1.5, Long Island 1.0, Mid-Hudson 1.4, that's predominantly Orange and Rockland, Mohawk Valley 0.3, North Country 1.3, Southern Tier 1.2, Western New York 0.9. That's a good number for Western New York today. Again, these are weekend numbers which we take with a grain of salt. I get many questions when I say New York is 1.1, et cetera.

In a lot of the stories after I report the numbers say "Governor said today the number is 1.1" and the people say to me, is that good, is that bad, is 1 high, is 1 low? There is not context reported for the number. I think the context is important so people know what 1 percent means or what 2 percent means, which means New York has one of the lowest positivity rates in the nation. It depends on the day but we're like the second or the third lowest depending on the day. You know states like Maine or Vermont which tend to be very low. New Hampshire can be low but that's it. You look at the big states and the positivity rate is much higher and some of the states the positivity rate is really much, much higher. So, we're talking about 1 percent in New York State, right? Iowa: 50 percent, Nevada: 37 percent, South Dakota: 36 percent, Idaho: 29 percent, Wisconsin: 24 percent, Wyoming: 20 percent, Nebraska: 18, Kansas: 17, Mississippi: 16, Alabama: 16, Utah: 15, Florida: 11, Indiana: 10, Montana: 10, North Dakota: 10, Pennsylvania: 9, Arkansas: 9, Arizona: 9, Tennessee: 8, Oklahoma: 8, Texas: 7. So, you see, these states are much, much higher. California: 2.5. Even Jersey and Connecticut are higher. So, put the 1 percent in context and I think people will understand that we're doing very well. They should because of the number says we're doing well. Why are we doing well? Because we're very aggressive about it and when we see a flare-up or a hotspot we jump all over it, as you know because you are subject to our aggressive action. 

The micro-clusters are, I think, are the most sophisticated way in the country to go about this. I did some of the morning shows this morning, they were talking about the Fall, and the viral surge, and the numbers going up across the country and nobody wanting to close down, because of COVID fatigue. People are tired and there's very little tolerance for reduction of economic activity. And see most of these states only have statewide data or region-wide data. So, if they were to do something, they'd have to do it across the state or across the region. The micro-cluster approach, first of all, targets the outbreak sooner and faster and tighter, and the restrictions are only neighborhood-wide. Now, that neighborhood may not like it, but it's only a neighborhood. It's only a piece of Brooklyn. It's only a piece of Orange. It's only a piece of Rockland. It's not the region. It's not even the county. It's not the city. So, there are significant advantages to this micro-cluster approach. 

The unemployment rate in the state is something to notice. It was as high as 16 percent during the pandemic. It's now down to 9.7 percent. So, that is also very good news. We have a long way to go but it's moving in the right direction so that is good news. 

I wanted to chat about the vaccines for a moment to put this in focus. Let's look ahead. We've been behind on this virus from day one, and you don't win when you're behind. We're looking at the fall and the winter. The fall: you will have increased viral transmission. Everybody has said it. We have been prepared for it, and our micro-cluster strategy is going to be our response. It's the fall, more people come indoors, more schools, more colleges, more flare-ups. More aggressive targeting, quick on restrictions — see an ember, crush the ember. That will be the fall. The flare-ups will be different across the state. They'll come and they'll go. Flare-up: suffocate it, another flare-up somewhere else. That's what we expect for the fall. 

Winter will be the season of the vaccine, we hope. We all hope and pray for a vaccine. The federal administration literally says, HHS Secretary Azar, "when we have the vaccine that's when it's over." No. When we have the vaccine, that's only the beginning of the end. The beginning of the end. Once you have the vaccine, step two is convincing the American people it's safe, which I think is easier said than done. Third is administering the vaccine. "Oh, that's just administration. That's an operational task." Hey, my friends, life is an operational task. Testing is an operational task. Social distancing is an operational task. Having enough hospital beds is an operational task. Acquiring PPE from China is an operational task. Government does operations, sets policy. We need a vaccine. Great, we all agree with the policy. Now, develop a program, administration of the vaccine, and the program is always more difficult because it's more complex and more detailed. You can tell the quality of a government by how it produces, right? It's about the results. It's not about the words; it's about the action. It's not about do we have a vaccine that the science community developed because they're going to make a lot of money at it? It's going to be, do you have the capacity to administer it quickly, fairly, efficiently and safely? This is going to be one of the operational challenges of all time. I believe this is going to be the hardest operational challenge that we've faced since COVID began because the only second runner-up for operational challenges was testing. Testing was organizing the labs, putting up testing sites, acquiring the reagents, explaining to the people why they should actually get tested and that it was safe. We had to put up 800 testing sites, we had to coordinate 300 labs, and that was the most challenging operational task. We do more tests pro rata than any state in the nation, and we believe in it fundamentally. Administering a vaccine is going to make testing look simple, and to give you an idea of the level of difficulty we're talking about, I gave you the New York State numbers. 7 months all hands on deck to get testing in place, right? Every local department of health, every hospital, every clinic, every lab; everyone doing everything they could to get ready to take tests. 900 PSAs, get a test. Paul Rudd, get a test. National Guard setting up testing. Everything we had we threw at it. In 7 months how many tests did we do? 13 million. How many vaccines will we have to do? 20 million, and that's if they just require one vaccine. The vaccine's they're talking about require 2 dosages 21 to 28 days apart. So, it would be 20 million people twice, which is 40 million. But even take just 20 million, we only did 13 million tests in 7 months. How long is it going to take us to administer 20 million vaccines? And remember, a test is just a nasal swab. A vaccine is probably a needle. That's true across the board. Ohio did 4 million tests; they have 11 million people. Texas did 7 million tests; they have 29 million people. They'd have to do fourfold. Florida did 8 million tests; they have 21 million people. They'd have to do threefold. Our testing was much higher, so the differential isn't as great for us.

But just to make it simple, you don't like a lot of numbers, the United States of America has done 124 million tests. It has 328 million people. That's only about a third of the population in number of tests in 7 months. You tested a third in 7 months. How long does it take you to vaccinate 100 percent, and how does it happen? The federal government made a terrible blunder at the beginning of COVID. They were not ready, they were unprepared, and they didn't even try to get prepared. It was the federal abdication. What the president said was the states have to do it. Oh, how convenient, the states have to do it. When you have a situation that effects all 50 states, by definition that is a national problem. That's the definition of all 50 states - it's a national problem. This federal government says I'm abdicating my responsibility and delegating it to the states. That's how they handled it the first time and it was a terrible mistake. How are they handling the vaccine? The same way. The CDC asked them, what's your plan for distribution? It's basically going to come down to we're going to deliver it to the states and then tell them they need refrigeration equipment to keep it at -80 degrees and you have to do 2 dosages, 21-28, fine. Then why have the states do it? It's testing redux where the states had to scramble, the states had to find reagents. The states had to get to China. It's the same mistake we made last time.

What is your estimate in how long it's going to take? Seven months, you did a third of the population in number of tests, how long will it take you to do vaccines? If you want to see the American people lose more trust - as soon as we get a vaccine, we're fine. Then, when the vaccine is ready to be given out, the first vaccine, there will be a White House ceremony, I'm sure. Back to the Rose Garden, super spreader event. The President will stand up and say we did it. Here it is. I'm holding up the vial that is the vaccine. Happy days are here again. Go back to work, open the economy. I told you it was all a hoax and here it is now, I have the vial. Okay, you have the vial. You just need 328 million more and then you have to actually administer the vaccination to the entire population.

We are just repeating the same mistakes again. Caveat, the governors learned this lesson and I think the American people did too. The NGA, National Governor's Association, Democratic governors and Republican governors, sent 35 questions to the President on the distribution of the vaccine and the administration of the vaccine. Why? Because the governor's know, because the governors are the ones who got handed the bag. They're the ones who are going to have to administer the vaccine and they learned from the testing. Remember, on the testing, the federal government will say they helped. CDC helped with setting up some sites, et cetera. Even with the federal help, you only did 38 percent of the size of the population in 7 months.

Fool me once. We only have several weeks before they say a vaccine is ready. Let's understand now how it's supposed to happen. Let's not deceive the American people again, once we have the vaccine, it's over. No. Doesn't work that way. That is not the truth. Let's start telling the truth.

2020-10-20 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello guys. I am joined by, guys being gender neutral. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Gareth Rhodes. Dr. Zucker is on the phone. Let me go through the numbers and then we'll take it from there. 

We track two distinct populations: We track statewide numbers, which we've always been doing and recently we've been tracking the red zones. Red zones are micro-clusters. Other states don't track micro-clusters. New York is unique in this regard. Other states just give you a statewide number. We do so much testing and it's so targeted that we can focus in on micro-clusters, small areas that generate higher rates of infection so we can focus on them. Our micro-clusters have the higher infection rate in our State, but the rate of infection in our micro-cluster, our red zone, is lower than most states statewide number. The relativity is important here. 

What we consider a priority area, a high infection rate, other states do not consider a high infection rate. As a matter of fact, most states would welcome the infection rate in our red zones. The positivity rate in the red zones is 2.9. That is down from where it has been and down greatly from where it started. Red zones are Brooklyn, Queens, Rockland and Orange as you know. The number in statewide without the over sample in the red zones is 1.2. The positivity rate with the over sample is 1.3. 

12 New Yorkers passed away yesterday. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 942 were hospitalized, which is about where it was. 194 in ICU, about where it was. 99 intubated, which is about where it was. The infection rate, by region: New York, 1.3; Capital District, .8; Central New York, 2.1; but the County of Cortland had a 7 percent infection rate and there is at least one micro-cluster there that we are dealing with related to a SUNY school. 

Finger Lakes, 1.4; Long Island, .9; Mid-Hudson, 1.7 - that's with Orange and Rockland, by the way, so that's good. Mohawk Valley, .4; North Country, 1.3; Southern Tier, 1.8; Western New York, 1.2. Orange County, 1.8; Rockland, 2; Queens County, 1.4; Brooklyn County, 1.8. 

COVID is now the third leading cause of death in America. COVID has killed more Americans than stroke, than lower respiratory disease, than Alzheimer's, than diabetes or kidney disease. The President said COVID effects virtually nobody. Maybe we shouldn't be afraid of COVID and it was a hoax. That was a lie.

State enforcement is proceeding with local law enforcement. Cooperation with local law enforcement has been better and we thank them. Not universal, but better and we thank them.

We are going to extend the commercial eviction and foreclosure moratorium through January 1. That will now align with our residential eviction moratorium rule so they both are extended until January 1.

As far as travel advisory, we are now in a situation where 43 states are on our travel advisory. This is really a bizarre outcome. New York had the highest infection rate. We now have 43 states on our quarantine list. It just shows you how different the situation is now - 43 states on the list.

Connecticut and New Jersey have seen spikes and infection. I'm going to be speaking with the governors today about how we can help them with their spikes. There is no practical way to quarantine New York from New Jersey and Connecticut. There are just too many interchanges. There are too many interconnections. There are too many people who live in one place and work in the other. It would have a disastrous effect on the economy and remember what we're fighting, this public health pandemic, we're also fighting to open up the economy, so we're going to be working with Connecticut and New Jersey to see how we can help them with their spikes and also talk to Connecticut and New Jersey about making it clear that to the extent travel among the states or between the states is not essential, it should be avoided, and I'll have more to say on that tomorrow.

The fall, as we said you're going to see the viral rate increase. That is where we are. Scientists have said that. We have been prepared for it. We developed a more sophisticated strategy, more sophisticated testing. A micro-strategy has been developed in response to the anticipation of the increase in the fall. Many other states, federal government disregarded the scientific community. We never have, and now they're caught by surprise by the viral increase, and that's why we have 43 states on our quarantine list.

We'll see this through the fall. Micro-clusters will pop up. We will attack them. We will abate them and another micro-cluster will pop up somewhere else and we will attack it and we will abate it and then another micro-cluster will pop up. Welcome to the fall. That is going to be what is happening.

The current micro-clusters in Queens and in Brooklyn, we've been working with not just in terms of analyzing data which is what we normally did, but these areas are so small, we work in partnership with the local communities and organizations to find out exactly where the spread is coming from and abating it and we've had good success with that. Tomorrow we will be listing changes to those micro-clusters/Red Zones which will be a product of both sound analysis of the data and a coordinated strategy with those communities to bring the number down. And we hope to have a progress to announce tomorrow because you have seen progress in the numbers, which again validates the approach. Nobody wants restrictions imposed - COVID-fatigue, we want open, get back to normal, but the only way to stop an ember from becoming a flame is by affirmative intervention. That is a fact and we have done it, I believe, better than any other state, and I believe that is shown by the numbers, right? Highest infection rate to literally one of the lowest. And the interventions and the affirmative actions are welcomed by no one because everybody wants to get back to life as normal, but we're not in life as normal, and that is the painful reality of the situation.

The numbers in New York, I mentioned this yesterday, "What does 1 percent mean?" Stories will say "New York today is at 1 percent," and then people say to me, "What does that mean?" And that's why I say context is important, and I tease my reporter friends, "No-Context-Campbell." The numbers don't mean anything without context, and that's why you're going to get and receive today the list of infection rates in states, so there'll be a context. But again, you start at the top, states like Nevada 45 percent, South Dakota 37 percent, Idaho 28 percent. The bottom of the list is Maine, at 0.3. Maine does a different testing protocol than we do - I don't believe they do daily testing, I think they do periodic testing. And then you have Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, which are all about 1.1, so that's the relative context for the numbers.

And the next chapter, after the fall chapter is going to be the vaccination chapter - it is, I believe, a challenge that the federal government doesn't even realize. I believe they're in denial again; I believe it's going to be much, much harder than they think. The federal government believes their role is to have the scientific community develop a possible vaccine and stand up in the Rose Garden, hold up a vial and say, "Here it is. Here's the vaccine. We did it - we solved COVID." That will be another lie - that will be if anything the beginning of the end. That vaccine then has to work; that vaccine then has to be trusted; that vaccine then has to be administered 328 times in this country, possibly 650 times in this country, if it's the vaccine that says two dosages are required. So, it's a long way - a long way before this is over, and to give Americans false hope about the expeditious resolution, it just plays into their denial which has going on from day one and it's why this virus is ravaged this country worse than most of our counterpart countries. Because denial doesn't work; lying doesn't work; the truth always catches up to you - and the truth has caught up to the federal administration, and Americans are dying because of it.

2020-10-21 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Happy morning. Good to see all of you. Good to see most of you. Just kidding. From my far right, Mr. Gareth Rhodes. To my immediate right, Dr. Howard Zucker. To my left, Melissa DeRosa. To her left, Robert Mujica, Budget Director. Today is day 235. Statewide positivity rate continues to be good news for the State of New York. We have a lot going on with COVID internationally and nationally, so keeping it all in focus is important. You see numbers going up all across the country. Some people write second wave; it's not the second wave, that's not correct. Second wave was the virus mutates and comes back. 1918 pandemic - the virus changes, comes back; that's the second wave. This is not a mutated virus. This is failure to deal with the first wave, okay? And you see it all across the country, and you see it selectively all across the globe.

This is where the United States is. Nevada, top of the list, 58 percent. South Dakota: 35 percent. Wyoming: 35 percent. Idaho: 29 percent. Iowa: 21 percent. Kansas: 19 percent. Nebraska: 19 percent. Mississippi: 17 percent. Alabama: 16. Utah: 16. Florida: 12. North Dakota: 10. Pennsylvania: 9. Where's New York? Go look at the other column, we're third from the bottom. The only state below 1 is the State of Maine. Great governor in Maine. That's where New York is, so we are doing very, very well and this is the comparison. It's not just the comparison, this is one of the problems that we have. The fact that the cases are increasing all across the country is a problem for us. 

First, it's a problem with our quarantine program, because we're now up to 43 states that are quarantined. Technically by the quarantine formula New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania would be quarantined. There is no practical way to quarantine New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Remember, this whole concept of states quarantining other states is novel to say the least. I don't think it has happened in the past 100 years. The way we basically enforce the quarantine is at airports when people fly in, because normally you fly in from another state. Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania you don't fly in, you drive in. There are numerous roads that are interconnections. You would have to do some theory of border checks all across the state, and from an economic point of view there's too many interconnections with Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey. People live and work one place, work in the other place. It would be devastating for the economy.

The quarantining of 43 states just shows you how the world has reversed. Remember, when we started New York has the highest infection rate in the country, because of the COVID ambush because the President was wrong; it was not the China virus, it was the European virus. By the way, there's a movie called Contagion, you may have seen it in 2011. Go back and watch the movie Contagion, 2011. It's almost an exact formula for what happened with COVID. It's amazing. But anyway, in that movie the virus spreads from a poultry market in China, which is how SARS spread, and MERS spread and COVID spread. In that movie it spreads from a bat to a pig. The COVID-19 virus they traced back to bats, and in that movie there's an American who gets infected in China and then comes immediately back to America, and it goes from China to America in 48 hours. How this federal administration thought that the China virus would stay in China for 3 months is wholly inexplicable when you think about it. The President brags about his China travel ban at the end of January, he doesn't do a Europe travel ban until March 16. That allowed 3 months for the virus to come here. 

So anyway, we go from the highest infection rate after the ambush, post-ambush, now we have one of the lowest infection rates but now our problem is the other states - quarantining 43 states. We are working with global experts to see if there's a difference in methodology to quarantine. How do you use technology? How do you use testing? Because our current method is you come here and you have to stay here for 14 days before you leave. The enforcement of that is highly problematic. We're not equipped to do that. 

It also has a negative effect on businesses. People want to come in for a business meeting, but you would have to stay here 14 days before you could have the business meeting. So, there's new testing technology, there are rapid tests. Is there a better, smarter way to handle a quarantine? Again, this is all - none of this has been done before. We're figuring it out as it goes. We're now up to 43 states - is there a better way? And that we're researching. 

For the fall, there are significant stressors, which the scientific community advised all along, by the way. Nobody can sit there today and say "oh, wow. Fall is seeing a surge." They all suggested a surge and New York prepared for the surge because we follow the science. This is a virus. The virus doesn't follow politics. They have never found a Republican virus or a Democratic virus, despite all the research. They have never found a red virus or a blue virus. It's always just a virus, so science matters. 

What happens in the fall: schools open, colleges open, people come indoors, the outside activity is much safer. There's a COVID fatigue factor that I want to talk more about in a moment. Flu season starts, the symptoms in flu season look like the symptoms from COVID and, added bonus problem, other states are coming to New York with higher infection rates. These are all stressors for the fall. The good news is, we have prepared for it. We have, what we believe, is the most sophisticated COVID detection and elimination system of any state because we've spent time, we've invested and because New Yorkers are invested in it. 

What's the best you can do? Detect the smallest outbreak as soon as it happens. Patient zero. Trace it back to where it starts, find a small outbreak, a small cluster and jump on it. Quick action to contain it and eliminate it. That is the best you can do in this situation. You see an ember land in dry grass, ring the alarm, everyone runs, stamp out the ember. The embers are what we call micro-clusters. We can identify them from the testing data from the hospitalization data and mapping software. 

We identify the micro-cluster, that's called a red zone. We then put a buffer around it, that's called an orange zone, we then put a buffer around the orange zone which is a yellow zone. Why? Because these areas are so small that people walk to a store, people walk to a restaurant and you see the viral expansion will be a series of concentric circles. It just works it's way out. You drop a pebble into a pond and you have that first ring and the second ring and the third ring - that's how COVID spreads. We will focus on the intense cluster and then set up buffer zones and that's what we did. 

Most restrictions in the red zone, reducing the restrictions in the orange zone and the yellow zone. Reduce the restrictions in that area - much better than what we were doing and what many states are doing where they only have statewide data. The only mitigation program is close the entire state. Reduce activity in the entire state. We went from that to regions. There's a problem in a region, reduce the activity in the entire region. We now have the data that takes it to such a small level, we say we're going to reduce activity, but only in that small area — so we reduce disruption. It's only in your neighborhood. It's not five miles one way and it's not five miles the other way. It's only in your area, which allows the economy to continue to run with less disruption. And then we said, we put in place the restrictions: we then watch the data for 14 days, we come back after 14 days and we make whatever adjustments. The adjustments we're going to make are these: to exit a red zone, under 3 percent after 10 days, 4 percent in less populated areas. What does that mean? The virus spreads faster in a denser population than in a more rural population. In a more rural area, you come into contact and proximity with fewer people than in a denser environment. If you are in the middle of New York City, you have one factor for spread. If you're in the middle of the North Country, you have another factor for spread. An orange zone: under 2 percent after 10 days, 3 percent in less populated areas. A yellow zone: under 1.5 percent after 10 days, 2 percent in less populated areas, right? 

So, the differential between a populated area and a less populated area is also a more sophisticated analysis tool, but it's also inarguable. Additional considerations — now remember, you're talking about very small communities here. Look at the hospitalization numbers. Are the hospitalization numbers are going up or down? Where are the cases coming from in that community? Is there a congregate facility that is starting the spread? Has the local government been cooperative in increasing compliance and enforcement? I've talked about this a lot, but guys — guys being gender neutral — a cluster does not happen unless two things happen: a lack of compliance and lack of enforcement. That's the only way it happens. That is the only way it happens. People didn't comply, went to a party with more people, went to a bar with more people, had a private party in a backyard with more people. People weren't wearing masks. A lack of compliance and a lack of enforcement by the local government. Where people don't comply, the local government has to enforce. If you have no compliance and you have no enforcement, you know what you have? Spread. That's it. There's no rocket science here. How did it happen? People didn't follow the rules. The government didn't enforce the rules and now you have spread. And then everybody says, "oh my gosh, this is terrible. Here we go again." Yes. One plus one equals two. No compliance, no enforcement, more spread. Period. So that's a factor — is the local government actually doing the enforcement and we know that has been spotty. And then, since you're dealing with small community, is the community cooperating or is the community taking a hostile attitude and saying, "we're not doing it. We're not wearing masks. We're going to violate the gathering rules" etc.? So, these are additional considerations and this is literally conversations that we have with people and groups in the community.  

The current micro-clusters, this is what they did. First, what this shows is it is working. It is working. Again, because one and one equals two. If you talk to the community about increasing compliance, if you increase enforcement — the spread will come down. Brooklyn went from 7.7 to 5.5. Queens in Kew Gardens, 4.1 to 2.5. Queens in Far Rockaway, 3.2 to 1.8. Rockland, 13 to 4. Orange, 34 to 4. All areas 7.9 to 4.5.  

That's good news. Celebrate. Don't panic. Don't fear. "Well, it's out of control." No, we have it managed. We know how to do this. We just have to do it. "Oh, I'm gaining weight. We can handle it. We know how to do it: back on the treadmill, no cheesecake. We'll get it under control." This is a manageable problem. When we make progress, we adjust the targets. Brooklyn had a red zone, an orange zone, and a yellow zone. Brooklyn: the red zone remains the red zone, the orange zone becomes a yellow zone, and the yellow zone remains yellow. Okay? So, in Brooklyn the orange zone will go to yellow zone. There were less restrictions in the yellow zone than in an orange zone. So, this is what South Brooklyn will look like.  

Queens in Kew Gardens - there are two areas in Queens - overall the red zone went from 4.7 to 2.5. Great. Orange 1.9 to 1.6, yellow 1.9 to 2.1. In Queens: the red zone goes to yellow, the orange goes to yellow, the yellow stays yellow. We are also adjusting the Queens map to add in the Ozone Park neighborhood, which has seen an uptick in cases. So, ozone park becomes a yellow zone and that is what it looks like. And that is the cluster of cases and there you see Ozone Park. Far Rockaway, red zone went from 3.7 to 1.8, orange went from 4 to 1.7, yellow went from 4.4 to 3.5. That's real progress. Queens: red goes to yellow, orange goes to yellow, yellow goes to yellow. Far Rockaway is all yellow.  

Rockland red zone went from 11.6 to 4.8, yellow went from 9.1 to 6. We made progress but not enough. Rockland: red remains red, yellow remains yellow. Orange went from 12 to 4, yellow went from 19 to 1. That's really significant progress. Red remains red, yellow remains yellow. Although we made a lot of progress, the numbers are still not acceptable. So, we have more to do.  

Broome County same thing. 4.8 to 4.6 - that's marginal progress at best. It remains yellow. We also are tracking some new micro-clusters. This is the statewide map of micro-clusters but we're seeing recent upticks in counties along the Pennsylvania border. That could be from a couple of causes. Pennsylvania has a high infection rate. You could have people going from those counties into Pennsylvania. You could have people from Pennsylvania coming into those counties. In a lot of those counties, people worked in one place and live in another and we're working to find specific events that triggered it. We haven't found them yet. It looks more of a widespread, community spread at this point. We're going to do more testing to try to find out exactly what's going on, but Steuben County has been about 4 percent for three weeks and that is not good. And again, we're going to try to drill down but right now part of the County is going to be in a yellow zone. Chemung County has been at about 5 percent for about 3 weeks - that's a problem. Again, we're trying to find out a specific cause of the spread, but it may very well just be the proximity to Pennsylvania. So, we're focusing on that but Chemung County is going to have an orange zone and a yellow zone buffer and you see the concentration of cases in this slide on your left. It's always the same concept that concentration of cases become the most intense zone and then we have a buffer zone. Buffer zone because that's where it's going to spread next. These will be overall numbers. Red zone positivity rates are 6.6. Statewide without is 1.4; with is 1.6. Seven New Yorkers passed away, they're in our thoughts and prayers. State hospitalization 950; ICU 201; intubations 103. This is what the state looks like, taking out the over-samples- the hot spots for the two past two weeks.

It's my last point - this is the fall. We talked about the fall and winter. People want to know what's next, what's happening, what's happening. We're in the fall. I'm wearing my very attractive fall tie today. If you can't make it out these are leaves that are falling. Very attractive is a personal opinion. It's not a fact. It's my opinion that I'm offering. I want to separate fact from opinion. I think it's an attractive time. Several members of my team commented otherwise. But what's going to happen in the fall, micro-clusters, this conversation, will rise and they will fall. They'll rise; they'll fall. That's going to happen with micro-clusters, new ones, because these are so small, these areas. They're going to flare up and then you run and you put them out. The next day there's another flare-up somewhere else. That is going to happen. That's going to be the way through the fall.

Don't get unduly alarmed by a micro-cluster. The infection rate in our micro-clusters is lower than the infection rate of most states. We talk about 4 or 5 percent in a micro-cluster. Pull up the chart again please, Jack, of the chart of the states. Just to give you a sense of how we're doing relatively, we say a micro-cluster is 3, 4, 5 percent. All hands on deck. 3.5 percent statewide you would be like you're in the numbers 34 level of statewide infection rates. Many states would love to have the infection rate that we have in our micro-clusters as their statewide rate. Do you get that point? Can you go back to where we were, please? So that's going to rise and fall.

Fall turns into winter. Winter is going to be the season of the vaccine. That may very well be the most challenging operation government has had to perform all through COVID. You think testing was hard? You think testing and tracing was hard and putting them up and getting them moving and that was a challenge to government? It pales in comparison to administering vaccines. Just to put the numbers, we did 12 million COVID tests over seven months, moving heaven and earth. We have to do 40 million vaccinations and a COVID test is a lot easier for a person, than telling them take this vaccine, getting past the skepticism, roll up your sleeve, I have to give you a shot, then you have to come back in 21 days and you have to get a second shot. This is going to be a massive undertaking. The National Governors Association - I'm  the chairman this year - we sent the White House 35 questions as to how is this supposed to work so it's not the redux of the debacle that was testing seven months ago.

But the White House is going to stand up at one point say, here is the vaccine, we have the vaccine, happy days are here again, it's over. No. No. The identification of the vaccine is maybe the beginning of the end. Now, you need 300 million doses, you have to convince the American people to take it, you have to prioritize who gets it first, and then you have to put together a logistical operation not seen since World War II to actually administer them. You know the federal government always forgets that government actually has to operate.  Okay, go do testing. But there are no tests. Okay everyone go get PPE. Except you can't. And no tests and no states can buy masks and gowns, et cetera. I hope they learn the lesson and the 35 questions from the National Governors Association asks just that.

Last-last point - people talk about COVID fatigue. You know first I said about COVID fatigue, look, I heard COVID fatigue to mean, I'm tired of wearing the mask, I'm tired of doing the social distancing, I'm just tired and I don't want to do it anymore. To that I said, you don't have the luxury of fatigue because the virus is fatigue and until the battle is over you can take a nap. That's how I heard fatigue. But there are different facets to fatigue that are frankly more problematic. COVID has caused tremendous stress on society and tremendous individual stress.

It is - it is frightening, COVID, and it has caused significant anxiety among many people. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not a medical doctor. I'm telling you from talking to people and hearing their voice and hearing their concerns, I'm telling you we have a serious problem of the emotional stress and anxiety that COVID has caused. And the longer it goes on, the worse it is getting. COVID in the early stages, I think, was almost a form of adrenaline that kicks in and you do what you have to do, and you function and that get you through. The adrenaline phase, and now you have this overwhelming emotional sense and people are feeling it. And, it is worrisome to me - not as a Governor, just as a person. Yes, we see it in the numbers, you see it in substance abuse, you see it in domestic violence, you see it in the number of people calling for mental health treatment. But I'm just telling you as a member of society, I have friends that I'm worried about. I speak to friends and my family who I am worried about - you can hear it in their voice. There is an emotional toll - one day they will be talking about PTSD from COVID. They will be. And then they will be up here with some mental health experts and some psychiatrists who are talking about the PTSD effect on children, on seniors, on all individuals who are suffering from the anxiety and stress from COVID. That is going to happen.

We're all now so functionally oriented that I think we're missing the emotional and mental health that has gone on. What do I do about it? We're trying to increase services across the board, but it's just percolating. Today I would ask New Yorkers, just change the prioritization of who we think we are and move loving up to the top, you know? Don't do what I do - I get someone on the phone or I'm talking to someone, and I say, "How's everything? Everything good? Good. Let's talk about this. You're feeling good? Family, good? Good, let's talk about this." The "How's everything going?" "How do you feel?" "How are you dealing with this?" is more important than ever before. And slowing down and asking the question and slowing down so the person can answer the question and get past the trite, quick response - "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, oh yes, I'm fine, everybody's fine." Nobody's fine. Nobody's fine. You can't be going through this and be fine. You can have issues that you feel you're dealing with fine, but nobody can be fine. This is a terrible period. And just take that moment to show some love and then we do everything, we're smart, we're united, we're disciplined, we're tough.

2020-10-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys, guys being gender neutral. We have Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Howard Zucker, Gareth Rhodes.

Let me give you some of the numbers today and some highlights. Today is day 236. We did 135,000 tests yesterday. The numbers were very good yesterday.

After 14 days of data, you know, we've been adjusting our focus in the micro-clusters, we rearranged the restrictions in Queens, Brooklyn, and we added focuses to Broome and Chemung. As I mentioned, through the fall you will see micro-clusters come and go. They are such small geographic areas and the numbers are so small they can literally be generated by just a couple of events that violated rules. So you will see them rise and you will see them fall and that is going to be the way of the world as we know it for the foreseeable future until we get the vaccines.

The positivity rate in the red zones, micro-clusters - because they're not just red, they're red, orange and yellow - was 3.2 percent. That is very low comparatively. The state without the micro-clusters was 0.96, and let me just make sure you understand the methodology because I don't want any confusion. We oversample the micro-clusters because we are trying to do a lot of tests, because we are trying to do a lot of contact tracing, because we are trying to isolate the affected people, because we are trying to bring down the number in that micro-cluster and it's an all hands on deck, so we oversample very small areas of the state. That number is 3.2 percent today. 

The rest of the state without the micro-cluster - the micro-clusters remember, let's say they're 3 percent of the population, 4 percent of the population, so they're very small - the rest of the state is 0.96.

Those are the numbers that we use. If you add the two numbers together todayit's 1.2. That number fluctuates. Why? Because it's statistically not relevant. It's a function of how many tests you did in the oversampled area. That's all that's really telling you so yesterday it was 1.6, I believe, so it was, oh, my God, 1.6, so high. This number is not statistically representative the way the other two individual numbers are. 

The infection rate in the micro-cluster is relevant. Is that going up or down, the statewide number is relevant. You put the two together, that number is relevant. 3.2, .96, 1.2 - those are the numbers.  986 hospitalized, 209 in ICU, 106 intubated. 

Regionally, New York City, 1.1; Capital 0.9; Central, 1; Finger Lakes 1.4; Long Island 1; Mid-Hudson 1.5; Mohawk Valley, 0.6; North Country, 0.5; Southern Tier, 1.5; Western New York, 1.5. Western New York now has the issue of the counties along the Pennsylvania border where we're seeing upticks. Less in the Buffalo area, it's the more the counties on the Pennsylvania border. 

Note early voting begins this Saturday in New York. Note, when you're talking about the relative situation of New York, there's only 1 state that is below 1 percent. That's Maine at .5. Today, we're at .9, which would put us second to Maine at .5. 

I'd like to comment on something that's in the news, recent today. Secretary Azar, the HHS Secretary, he reportedly is considering firing the FDA Director, Dr. Steve Hahn. The White House has been unhappy with the FDA because they were unwilling to accelerate the approval of the vaccine because they wanted it done for Election Day, is what the President had said. The FDA has resisted timing the approval to Election Day. 

You don't make governmental decisions based on the election calendar. You especially don't make public health decisions based on the election calendar. You especially don't decide that a vaccine is safe to take based on an election calendar. For Azar to say he's going to fire Hahn because he hasn't been compliant with the political gospel of the Trump administration. That is unethical. I am shocked that the HHS Inspector General, assuming it was a real person, didn't say they were going to investigate that. You're talking about life and safety on the approval of a vaccine. Trying to rush the FDA to approve it for a campaign platform for the President is abhorrent to the Hippocratic oath that doctors take. To Dr. Hahn I would say remember your oath and do your duty as your medical profession requires. Save your soul, Dr. Hahn. Save your soul. For these doctors to totally lose credibility and become politicized in the middle of a global, historic pandemic is just ludicrous, the entire concept. Also on vaccines, this is why the American people are skeptical about vaccines. Spectrum did a poll yesterday that again pointed out in New York how people are skeptical about the vaccines and whether or not they're going to take the vaccine. This whole vaccination process is going to be the next chapter in the COVID debacle. The way they'vedone it they have spread distrust among the American people, where American people now say a great percent are not willing to take the first vaccine. That'sbecause the way they have handled it. I said that we will put together a state task force that will review the vaccine. I said to you the state is in charge of administering the vaccine, and we will do that on a statewide basis. There is no local role in managing the vaccine process in the state. The state will have a statewide plan. The localities will be responsible for fulfilling their role pursuant to the state plan. They won't have a separate plan. They won't have a separate vaccine approval process. This is all under state law. There's still a law, and thelaw is the law, and I don't want any confusion about that going forward. Like, up until now, with this whole COVID situation, the state made the rules, the locals were supposed to enforce the rules. That was the locals' responsibility. They have no authority to make rules. They can have opinions. I have opinions about what President Trump does, but that's all they are is opinions. I don't want any confusion about the vaccine. The federal government has done enough confusion already. Some of the reporting I've seen is not accurate. This locality says they're going to do this, this localities says they're going to do it. Localities have no legal jurisdiction, that's the law. One would think the law is relevant in reporting. But I'm an old timer.  

Also, with Mr. Azar, the states are going to be responsible for administering the vaccine. All the discussion of the vaccine has been when it will be available, when the scientific community will develop it, how the scientific community will keep it cold, ship it, and all the conversation ends with, and then they will ship it to the airport and put it on a truck and deliver it. Yes, and what happens after they deliver it? Oh, then the states are in charge. Okay, this is like testing; this is like contact tracing; this is like PPE; this is déjà vu all over again. And when you deliver it to the states, how are the states supposed to administer 40 million vaccines? I've only done 12 million tests-moving heaven and earth-in seven months. How do I do 40 million vaccines? These are the questions that the governors have. You know in the relay race, one runner hands the baton to the next person? Well before you hand the baton to the governors, called 'administer the vaccine', the governors need to know what resources? What funding? What is the timetable? What can they expect? I'm chairman of the NGA. We sent 35 questions to the president. We have gotten no answer. Time is short. They want a vaccine by Election Day. They are upset that they're not going to have a vaccine by Election Day. Okay, forget the day you're going to have the vaccine and stand up in the Rose Garden holding up the vial. That day is almost meaningless. How does that vial get reproduced 300 million times in this country and then get administered by all the states? Does that take six months? Nine months? One year? Two years? Does it cost New York State 1 billion? 2 billion? 4 billion? 5 billion? Where does that funding come from?  

As far as the president's claim about anarchist states, once again Mr. President, read the Constitution. There is a law, it's the 10th amendment: the federal government doesn't have police power. That's a power that is reserved to the states by the 10th amendment. Look at the Slaughterhouse Cases in 1872. Powers that are not explicitly federal are reserved to the states and police power is reserved to the state. I'm the head of the state.

2020-10-25 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys. Guys, gender neutral. I wonder if I have to say that every time? We have Melissa DeRosa, we have Robert Mujica, we have Dr. Zucker, we have Beth Garvey, we have Gareth Rhodes on the phone. Today is day 239, but who's counting? We did 120,000 tests. The micro-clusters, Brooklyn, Queens, Orange, Rockland, Stueben, Chemung, positivity rate of 3.1. To give you an idea of the progress we've made in that, Brooklyn was 4.4 this week, down from 5.3. Rockland 3.6 this week, down from 4.5. Orange 2.6, down from 4.6. That is great news. 

The focus works and it says we can get the positivity rate under control and as we saw with Queens this past week, we get the numbers down, we then open up the areas. It's just math. Statewide, without these hot spots, 1.06. The positivity with the micro-clusters, 1.3. 

Twelve New Yorkers passed away, they're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalization is down 30, 1,015; 227 ICU; 118 intubated. Context is everything here. We have had the highest number of cases for three days this past week in the country. We're seeing a real national surge oh and we are battling that national surge, that national high-tide, right? Because although we like to think we control our own destiny, we still have people coming from around the country into New York, and the numbers nationwide are really high and getting higher. Thursday, Friday, Saturday saw the three highest one-day counts nationwide - 85,000 cases on Friday was a one-day record. So, we are fighting the national tide, and so far, we are defying the national tide. 

Mr. Meadows said something interesting today - Chief of Staff to the President. He said, "We can't control the virus." That was a very telling statement that he said that. Because it basically admitted and encapsulated the way they've handled COVID from the start. Remember back in January they had that Navarro memo that said millions would get infected. The President then denied it and then lied about it. They have believed from the beginning that they can't control the virus. That's the only rationale that explains the denial and the lying. If you believed you could control it, then you'd try to control it; if you don't believe you can control it, then you lie about it and deny it and you minimize it.

Meadows spoke the truth today, as to their opinion, "You can't control the virus." Now, he is fundamentally wrong on the facts, because we are in the state of New York and New York proved definitively you can control the virus. When you go from the highest infection rate in the country to one of the lowest it means you controlled the virus; it's not rhetoric, it's not subject to interpretation. You had a very high infection rate. You took certain measures and reduced the infection rate. What term do you use to define that situation? You controlled the virus - controlled. You didn't eliminate the virus, but you controlled the virus. If New York didn't control the virus, then the curve would have continued to go up and we would have had hundreds of thousands of people in our hospital system and we would have been overwhelmed. Flattening the curve is controlling the virus, right, by definition, friends. This is not political discussion; this is just the English language. Flattening the curve is controlling the virus. Controlling is a different word than eliminating. We controlled the virus, so he is wrong, but that's what they believe and that's why they never tried to control the virus, and that is why this country is in in the situation it is in, because they didn't believe they can control the virus. They could have controlled the virus - we are still controlling the virus. Look at the numbers going up all across the nation. We are still controlling the virus. They believed you can't control the virus. 

They capitulated. They surrendered. They surrendered without firing a shot. It was the great American surrender. Americans don't surrender. And they didn't even put up a fight and what we learned in New York was if you put up a fight you would have won because New York won. Other states won also. 

"We can't control the virus." Trump's theory: preemptive capitulation. Don't even try. Just surrender preemptively. President Trump, Commander-in-Chief, gets attacked by an enemy and his policy: preemptive capitulation. That's what they did and now we had 217,000 people dead because of preemptive capitulation. 

They were wrong then. They're wrong now. Simplest thing they can do now is what Fauci said, what CDC says, what Birx says - wear masks, do a national mask mandate. Preemptive capitulation, you did Americans a disservice. Americans don't surrender. Americans fight and there was no reason to capitulate to this enemy because we can control it.

2020-10-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Let me introduce people who are with me on the dais. My far left, Robert Mujica, budget director. My immediate left, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. Far right, Beth Garvey, special counsel. Gareth Rhodes, deputy superintendent, DFS, and he's been working with us in the chamber. My immediate right, Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, my daughter. She has been volunteering to help since COVID started with my other two daughters, Cara and Michaela. Mariah's been working on the mask effort, Mask Up effort, and she's made more progress we're going to speak about today. She's doing it as a volunteer. Of course, she gets certain benefits. Room and board at the Governor's house, no charge. Credible amount of time with me, which is questionable worth.

Today is day 240, but, I had a revelation over the weekend. The great federal COVID mystery resolved for me over the weekend. I couldn't understand why the federal government had been taking the approach that they had taken on COVID from the very beginning, right? Why, when they knew in January, and they got the Peter Navarro memo, that 100 million people could be infected, why did they do nothing back in January? Why do they keep denying COIVD? Why did the federal government basically abdicate responsibility and leave it to the states? Why was the federal approach devoid of following the science? I couldn't understand it, until I heard the chief of staff on television this weekend and sometimes people actually will tell you what they mean. And the chief of staff said "we are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics, and other mitigation areas." That, my friends, is their theory.

"We're not going to control the pandemic, all we can do is develop a vaccine and a therapeutic." That's what they believe. That's what they believed from day one. They can't control the virus. And, that was, in my opinion, factually a wrong premise back in January. And it was the wrong conclusion. It is a threshold issue, because if you believe you can't control it, then you don't even try. And the federal government has never tried to control the virus. And their focus has always been, "we need to get a vaccine quickly." It was, in effect, preemptive capitulation. The virus attacks in January, they say "we can't control it", they put their hands up. That was preemptive capitulation. The federal government, think back in January, the federal government sees the projections. This is how many people are going to get sick, this is how many people are going to die. They're watching what happened in China and Italy at the time, and you saw that number going straight up, right. And they believed there were only two options. Option A is closedown the economy. Option B was let the virus spread. That's what they saw and that's what they believed. Either we have to close down the economy, or we have to let the virus spread, and they were not going to close down the economy, because as the president has said 100 times, for him it's all about the economy. And he was not going to close the economy. So, let the virus spread.

There was a third option that they didn't consider, that you can control the spread of the virus by having a phased economic reopening. That was the right answer back in January, February, March, and it is the right answer today. It was never binary. It was never "let's keep the economy open" versus "let's attend to public health." It was always both. And not just in the retrospective, it's what they're doing today that's the problem. They're following the same approach today. It has always been both. Remember when we talked about opening the economy. They see the valve as all on or all off. Either it's on, or it's off. We said no. You phase the economic reopening, turn the valve a little bit, let the economy start, and then watch the viral spread on the gauges. If the viral spread starts to go up, then you back off on the valve for the economy. This is not a political debate. It's not a theoretical debate. These are facts, right. We now have numbers and we have facts. New York State controlled the virus, and we're controlling it now. Chief of staff says you can't control the pandemic. New York says you're wrong, because we did. Fact: January, February, March, COVID came to New York, we call it an ambush because the federal government didn't know that it was on its way. Fact: every projection model said between 110 and 140,000 people were going to be hospitalized. That was a fact. Every model said that. You let the virus take its course, you're going to have 110, 140,000 people hospitalized. That's Columbia, that's Gates, that's McKinsey, that's all of them. What did we do? We flattened the curve. Rather than the virus going up, we flattened the curve.

Flattening the curve is controlling the virus. By definition it is controlling the virus. That's what the White House thinks you can't do, except we did. By the virus spread, 110,000 to 140,000 people were going to be hospitalized. We only had 18,000 people hospitalized. Why? Because we controlled the spread. God didn't intervene and change the numbers.

We controlled the spread, so ask yourself, how did New York reduce the infection rate if you can't control the virus? If they were right and you can't control the virus, then we would've had 110,000 to 140,000 people hospitalized. But they're wrong. You can control the virus because we did control the virus. You can't eliminate it but you can control it and that's important today because we have to control the virus through the vaccine period.

And my friends, the vaccine period is not when they announce the vaccine. That's not the vaccine period. That at best is the beginning of the end. They announce the vaccine, the President stands up, "I have the vial that is the cure." Yeah, good. Now make 330 million doses and figure out how to administer it to the American people.

You have to continue to control the virus spread and you have to do that now and that's why it's important that we have this threshold discussion on whether or not you can control it. You have to control it. Otherwise too many people are going to die. And you can control it. When you see it spreading, when you see small spreads, you have to stop them from becoming larger spreads. That's what we call the micro-cluster strategy. So you see a little spread starting in one part of the state, you run and you attack it and you put it out, and then there's another spread starting in another part of the state and you run and you attack that and you put it out, and then there's another neighborhood with another spread and you put that out, and then there's another neighborhood and another spread and you are the firefighter that sees these small spreads starting and then you run an you attack those small spreads.

With the micro-cluster strategy you will have little peaks and then you put out that fire and it comes down and then there's another little fire and then you put down that fire and it comes down. Over time you can have an incline, an increase in the number of cases with the micro-cluster strategy.

But without the micro-cluster strategy you're going to see that number go straight up. It is the same conversation we had back in March. The projection models are mathematics and they go back to the "are not." Remember the "are not" conversation, one person infects more than one person? It's then math, and if you don't do anything and just let math take its course, that arrow goes straight up.

What is the micro-cluster? You see a spread, you run, you attack it, you keep putting out these flames. It is COVID Whack-A-Mole. Okay? One pops up, bang, one pops up, bang, one pops up, bang. You have to be quick, government has to be competent, government has to be effective, but it is a way of controlling the spread and slowing the spread to get you through the vaccination period and save lives.

How do you do it? More testing, more targeting, more focused attack, but it starts with more testing because you need the facts. But when you have more testing. Then your actions are localized and not statewide.

See statewide actions are hard. There is not a politician out there now who is willing to close down their state. They are afraid of the political backlash. All right. So then take more localized actions. You don't want to take statewide actions? You don't want to take regional actions? Then take localized actions on the neighborhood level. You still get political blowback, Brooklyn, Queens, et cetera, but it's localized to a neighborhood level and what you're really doing is you're stopping the spread before the spread gets too large and if you have to do restrictions better you do restrictions on a neighborhood than an entire borough or a city or a state.

The federal approach allows the virus to spread uncontrolled. They don't believe they can control it so they don't try. They're actually reducing testing which is the key to getting the information you actually need to control it. Why do you reduce testing? See no COVID, hear no COVID, speak no COVID. Reduce the number of tests, that will reduce the number of cases, and then the problem goes away. Here's the analogy: Police, don't arrest anybody and then we can say the crime rate is very low because there were no arrests. We have no arrests, so we have zero crime rate. Don't take the tests, then you won't have the positives and then it will look and feel like there's nothing going on. Are you kidding me? How do you deny a virus? How do you deny a shooting? It's a crime that occurred. 

The State of Florida, President's home state, were doing 65,000 tests. Now they're doing half that number. Half. Remember, testing ability is iterative and increases. When we started testing, remember how many tests we could do a day? 500 tests a day. Now we're up to about 120,000 tests a day. Florida, is going down. Georgia, going down. Arizona, going down in the number of tests. Why? So they can say we have fewer cases. Yeah, you have fewer cases because you have fewer tests. It's more preemptive capitulation on the theory we can't control the virus. We just can't. 

It's giving up. It's giving up before you fired a shot, by the way. It was giving up before you knew whether or not you could make a difference. Well, we have to get to a vaccine. Too many people are going to die by the time you operationalize the vaccine. This could be one year. Easily, one year. You're talking about vaccinating 330 million people. You're talking about vaccinating double the number of COVID tests that you have done nationwide in 7 months. It is a massive undertaking and the federal government is approaching it the same way they did testing and PPE and the hospital surge. 

The President says I have generals, the generals are going to do it. I'm going to give it to the generals. What does that mean? You know what they're saying? The general is going to deliver it to New York State and California and Florida and say, "Here you go, governor." Here's a million doses. Then what do the state's do? Remember this is a federal government that has taken no responsibility from day one. You have another 160,000 people who are going to die by February. 160,000 die by February if you don't control the spread of the virus. 

Another 160,000 if you assume you can't control it. Also, why did America give up? Why did America give up and say they can't control it? Other countries, they can control the virus. How did America, the greatest country on the planet, how did America give up and lose this war? Average daily new cases per million residents, last 7 days: Japan, 4. Canada, 68. Mexico, 44. Mexico. Mexico, you know Mexico. You know what the President says about Mexico. They're doing a better job than the United States of America, 208, because they didn't give up. They didn't give up. They didn't start with this premise that you can't control the virus. 

The federal government was just wrong. Look, this is a highly charged political atmosphere and it's a polarized society and people are almost falling in to this modality of polarization. I'm on this team, I'm against that team. You feel it. People are polarized. You're dealing with a virus, keep the politics over here. You're dealing with a virus and you're dealing with life or death. It's not a question of who's a good guy and who's a bad guy. Well, pick sides. Black and white, you have to pick a side. It's not a question of who's good, who's bad. It's not a question of Republican versus Democrat. It's not a question of red versus blue. If you wear a mask then you're a Democrat. If you don't wear a mask, then you're a Republican. It's not that. It has nothing to do with federal versus state or me versus the President. There's none of that. It's what's the right approach on the facts versus the wrong approach because we're talking about 160,000 lives and we have evidence and we have facts and we know that people will do it. 

I kept thinking, why would they assume you can't control the virus? There's only one answer: Because we don't think people will do what they need to do to control the virus. You underestimate the American people. We know that people will join the effort. We know they will follow. We know that they will do the right thing because we're doing it here in New York. New Yorkers are the example. First state to mandate masks in the United State of America. The country still hasn't done it. 98, 99 percent mask compliance. Why? Because I run around giving people tickets for masks? No. I can't enforce a mask order. Then why are 99 percent of people doing it? Because they're smart and they heard the facts, and they care about on another, and they care about themselves. That's why. Don't underestimate the 99 percent. Do underestimate the American people. Don't underestimate their goodness, their intelligence, their smarts. Get the political garbage out of the way and lead a way forward. 

On the numbers: positivity in the red zones are 3.2; statewide without the red zones 1.1; with 1.4. 82,000 tests, which is a relatively low number of tests. It was a Sunday. Twelve people passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalizations were 1,059; ICU 337; intubations 118. Here are the micro-clusters. You see that the compliance, the enforcement, works. Compliance and enforcement work. If people comply, the infection rate is going to be lower. 5 to 4; 9 to 4; 12 to 2; 6 to 3; on all red zone positivity. We know that micro-clusters work. This is where New York is compared to the other states, which is just incredible. You can't control the virus. Well then, New York has to be above Mississippi- New York has to be 1, 2 or 3, if you can't control the virus. End of discussion.

You can't control the virus? Well New York State had the highest infection rate in the country, if not on the globe. Why is it not number one if you can't control the virus? Mr. federal government, why isn't New York number one if you can't control the virus? Oh, because New York did control the virus. "But I thought you said you can't control the virus?" Come on people. Facts, right? The easiest way to control with the maximum amount of effort is the mask. This is going to be really one of the great, great governmental derelictions of duty and responsibility. Even if you believe, "you can't control the virus," blah blah blah, why not tell people to wear masks? Why not? Your own CDC says it; Dr. Fauci says it; Dr. Birx says it; the White House Coronavirus Taskforce says it; every scientist says it; every person with a brain in their head says it; 98 percent of New Yorkers say it. Why not? 130,000 lives just by saying, "wear a mask", why not?  

As I was saying before, New York was first in the nation to call for a mask mandate. I'm proud of it; I wish I'd done it even sooner. Mariah has been working on publicizing masks. The approach, the benefit, etc., and there's an effort today that is exciting. The RealReal is working with top designers. The designers are going to design masks; the RealReal is going to make them available through their website, and the profits from the mask sales will go to charities. So this is a win-win, across the board. The campaign goes for five weeks. They'll unveil a new designer mask. You can buy it on the RealReal and the top designers are going to donate their designs and God bless them.

They want to help and everybody can use their talent to help in the way they can best. The RealReal will sell them and the profits will go to COVID relief organizations. Public Schools, which is a very cool designer, is going to release their New York Tough mask. It's going to be released today. So thank them very much. I already have one. Julie Wainwright who the CEO of the RealReal has put this all together. She's done a great, great job so I want to thank her and again I want to thank all the designers who really stepped up to do this. To keep masks in the spotlight we're kicking off the Mask Up challenge today on. All are invited to join. Post a selfie and challenge five friends to do the same with five friends challenge. Stay New York tough, smart, united, discipline, and loving. Anything you want to add on Mask Up.  

Mariah Kennedy-Cuomo: I think you covered it but just to reiterate, we're so thrilled to be launching this campaign with the RealReal and incredible designers who are deeply connected to New York. In doing so, we hope to harness the power of the fashion community to convey this critical, but simple message of the importance of masking up to stop the spread and save lives. 

Governor Cuomo: Well done. Well done. Thank you.

2020-10-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you guys for getting on - guys being gender-neutral. We're joined today by Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor; Rob Mujica, Budget Director; Beth Garvey, Special Counsel; Gareth Rhodes who is Deputy Superintendent at DFS who works with us; Dr. Zucker. I also have members from the Long Island delegation of the Assembly and the Senate for an announcement that I'm going to make and then we'll hear from them.

Today is day 242 for those people who are counting. We did 129,000 tests yesterday. The positivity in the micro-cluster focus zones, right, we're doing two sets of tests, we test the micro-cluster zones and then we test statewide.

In the micro-clusters the rate was 3.8 percent. That's in Brooklyn, Queens, Rockland, Orange, and we're also looking at Broome, Steuben and Chemung.

The positivity rate statewide without the inclusion of the micro-cluster zones is 1.3. That's actually down from 1.5. The overall statewide number including the oversample of the micro-clusters is 1.5. That's down from 1.78.

We said with these micro-clusters and the overall state number you will see a day-to-day bouncing. This is, when I said we're playing Whac-A-Mole with the micro-clusters, which was not the most scientifically accurate term, but it's what it feels like from my point of view. You get a micro-cluster that flares up, we attack it, more restrictions, it drops, another micro-cluster pops up and what we're seeing obviously nationwide is a very threatening rate of increase, and so far, knock wood, New York has defied that rate of increase.

Fifteen New Yorkers passed away yesterday and they're in our thoughts and prayers, 1,085 hospitalized which is just about flat, 236 in ICU.

In terms of adjustments of the micro-clusters, Orange County has made very good progress. So have other micro-clusters but in terms of changing the restrictions, in Orange County we're going to change the red zone to an orange zone. In Orange County the red zone was at 12 percent three weeks ago. It's now 2 percent so that's obviously dramatic progress and the hospitalization number is flat, so the red zone will go to orange, the yellow zone will stay yellow.

There has been progress in other areas in micro-clusters but nothing at this point that would cause us to change any classifications this week and we'll watch it over the next week for possible alterations next week.

Nationwide, our positivity rate, we are now the second lowest in the United States of America. We've actually made progress nationwide. We are 1.3 percent and in the Johns Hopkins nationwide state survey we are number 2 from the bottom, second lowest rate in the nation. Only Maine is lower than we are. Maine doesn't test every day. They have more of a periodic testing regimen. But besides Maine, it then goes New York at 1.3; above us is New Hampshire at 1.5; Massachusetts at 1.59; D.C. at 1.6; Hawaii 2.2. At the top of the list: South Dakota 43 percent; Idaho 34 percent; Wyoming 31 percent; Wisconsin 27 percent; Ohio 26; Alabama 25; Nebraska 21; Pennsylvania 12; North Dakota 10. I mean, these numbers are really incredible. Alaska: 7. Georgia: 7. Delaware: 7. North Carolina: 6.9. Michigan: 5. So, New York, second lowest, only to Maine. Congratulations, New Yorkers. God bless New Yorkers.  

A couple of specific announcements, talking about the nationwide increase, which by the way was predicted by the scientist. They said it would get worse when it came to the fall. We prepared our full strategy which is a micro cluster strategy. People are asking if we have a travel ban. We do not have a travel ban in the state of New York but we never said people can't travel out of the state or into the state. You could travel wherever you want to travel whenever you want to travel. There's no travel ban. There is a quarantine policy that we have in effect, but you can go travel wherever you want for Thanksgiving or for any holiday that you choose to travel. If you're asking advice, I have said publicly that I think, my personal advice, is you don't have family gatherings. Even for Thanksgiving. My personal advice is the best way to say I love you this Thanksgiving, the best way to say, I'm thankful for you and love you so much, I'm so thankful for you that I don't want to endanger you and I don't want to endanger our family and I don't want to endanger our friends. So, we will celebrate virtually, but that is my personal opinion. Factually and legally, New Yorkers can travel wherever they want. People can come into this state, but you have to live within the quarantine policy. My personal advice is based on the fact that more and more, we're seems spread from small gatherings. The problem, at one time, was large gatherings: bars, restaurants, right? And we had significant enforcement efforts on that. We're now getting it from small gatherings. We have a wedding that was in Genesee-Orleans areas, 18 people. 15 cases from one wedding. A church in Lewis county, which is not a highly dense county, in upstate New York had 57 cases from one gathering. We had a birthday party in Suffolk with 22 positives already from one birthday party. So, it's these small gatherings that are creating issues. A small Thanksgiving gathering, "Well, it was twelve members of my extended family," I know but that could be dangerous, but again that's my personal opinion. You can do it if you want to do it.  

Next point, in our school planned we had left it to the local school districts to determine whether or not children needed to wear a mask. I spoke to County Executive George Latimer in Westchester county, who is a very good guy. And he asked, can the county impose a mask mandate on the students in schools in the county? Can they have that authority. And I agreed. I think the County Executive is right. His point is, he's seeing numbers go up. Not as much in Westchester, frankly, as other parts but he wants to have his county Department of Health impose a mandate on schools in the county and the state will allow county governments, city governments to impose a mask mandate on students in those counties, so we will do that and then it will be up to the county government, it will be up to a city government if they want to impose a mask mandate on students in their schools. So, we're going to do that.

Next point is, on the vaccination — we have to get through the fall. What happens after the fall? The winter. What happens in the winter? It's going to be the vaccination, season of the vaccine. Everyone is focused on when the drug companies will come up with a vaccine. Is it November, is it December, is it January? Who knows. How much political pressure is being applied to the vaccine? That is an issue. My point is, once the vaccine is created, that is only the first step. The drug companies will create a vaccine as soon as they can because that's the business they're in and the economic incentives for the first company that has the vaccine, the first few companies, is phenomenal, right? We're talking about billions of dollars for whatever drug company is successful. I have no doubt that they're working 24 hours a day to develop a vaccine. I have no doubt that the President will pressure the FDA to approve a vaccine as expeditiously as possible — if not recklessly. But then, how do you administer the vaccine? That's the real question and let's learn the lesson from the first phase of this pandemic. Where government has struggled is in implementation and execution. We have to do testing, yes, but then the how was the problem. How do we implement vaccinations for 330 million people? The Governors across the country sent questions to the President through the National Governors Association. We sent 35 questions: how do we do this? And thus far, we've gotten no answers from the White House. If you listen to the federal government, the President says he's going to develop the vaccine and then the Generals will be in charge. Yes, but the Generals will be in charge, and the way they've defined the mission is the Generals will deliver the vaccines to the state. Yeah, so the Governors say, once again, you're going to turn everything over to the states and then the federal government wipes its hands. How do the states do this? I've done 12 million COVID tests in seven months — more than anyone else. I then have to do 20 million vaccinations and by the way, I have to do them twice, and by the way, the vaccine has to be kept in a deep freeze? And by the way — I haven't gotten any state or local funding, and by the way, if we don't get state or local funding, we're going to have to lay off essential workers and the essential workers are the ones we need to do the vaccines? So that is the looming debacle for this nation and we need people to focus on that point and it hasn't happened thus far.

2020-10-30 NYS Gov. Cuomo

I was on a call today held by the White House Coronavirus Task Force to talk about the vaccine process. Dr. Birx made the point on the call of asking the governors to make sure they're urging masks. It would be nice if that's what the CDC and the White House Coronavirus Task Force is urging if the president was consistent and had a national mask mandate rather than lose 130,000 Americans.

On their vaccination plan, I think it's deeply flawed because the premise of the plan is what they call a public-private sector partnership, which sounds great. But, the main distribution would be private pharmacies. CVS, Walgreens, et cetera, and private providers. That is a very limited distribution mechanism. They do not provide for a state to organize vaccination with state personnel on any scale. So you have a limited distribution network.

That same network they're talking about is the network we currently use to do the COVID testing, right. We've contracted with these pharmacies to do COVID testing. First you now have this same network doing COVID testing and asking them also to do vaccinations on top of it. You'd have to sacrifice one or the other, either the number of COVID tests you're taking or the number of vaccinations they could perform. Secondarily, you do not get the necessary scale to do the vaccinations on an expeditious basis. For example, we've used this network to do the COVID testing. We have done, in New York, 13 million tests over seven months with this network. Nationwide, we've done 130 million COVID tests with this network. In New York, instead of doing 13 million COVID tests we have to do 40 million vaccinations. It's every person twice - two dosages. Nationwide, it wouldn't be 130 million tests, you'd have to do 660 million vaccinations. We know the capacity of the network because we now have it engaged. It could take one year to vaccinate the population using only a private sector network. This country can't afford to take one year to do vaccinations. So, I think their fundamental plan, while simplistic, is deeply flawed.

2020-11-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello. This is Governor Cuomo. Today is day 247. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Beth Garvey, Gareth Rhodes. Positivity in micro-cluster zones: 3.5 percent. Positivity statewide without the micro-cluster zones: 1.4. Positivity with the micro-cluster zones: 1.7. We are still the third lowest state in the nation -- only Maine and Vermont are lower than we are. 14 New Yorkers passed away from COVID yesterday, they're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalizations: 1,151. 276 in ICU. 116 are intubated. 

New York is in the midst of the sea of division and COVID increase. All around us the COVID infection rate is going up. You see it in states all across the nation. You see it in countries around the globe, and you see it in contiguous states, New Jersey, Connecticut. Connecticut may be changing their restrictions. New Jersey may be changing their restrictions. Pennsylvania has a real issue. So, we should be on high alert, and we should be even more diligent because the virus spreads and it just goes across state boundaries, and we're in the party season; Halloween, coming in to Thanksgiving, students are going home. All I can do is warn New Yorkers and ask them to remember what worked for us, and what worked for us is discipline and smart; that's what worked for us, and we have to keep it up because these are dangerous, dangerous times. We're going to stay with the micro-cluster approach; it has worked. But I'm telling you these are danger signs all around us. 

Another topic that is very important that we need to focus on -- we the collective 'we' -- the vaccination program is going to be the most labor intensive task that we have undertaken. It will be the greatest operational task government has undertaken through this COVID pandemic. What you've seen is governmental incompetence exposed, right? My theory is you've had government that has atrophied. You have government leaders now who are not really government leaders. They're politicians who said the right thing to get elected, but many of them are not competent, qualified government leaders and you're seeing the difference now between government competence and incompetence, and you're seeing the difference between a government leader and a person who was elected to office but was not a government leader.

When you see what we have to do for vaccines it's going to be even a more rigorous test. Testing, management of the hospital system, contact tracing were the most rigorous governmental challenges we faced to date, required hiring thousands of people, setting up hundreds of sites, massive coordination. Some states did it better than others. Our state, he says with all due humility, on the numbers New York State has done it better than anyone else.

Vaccination is going to be more challenging than anything we've done. The federal government is designing the vaccination program. The vaccination program they designed is very simple - big pharma will produce the vaccines, as they're produced they will become available, the military will be in charge of shipping them although the military says they're going to use commercial shippers like FedEx and another company called McKinnon and they'll ship them to the states and then the states will be responsible for the distribution except the distribution mechanism that the federal government has designated is the traditional private health infrastructure.

The same way you'd get a flu vaccine, you can go to a CVS, you can go to Walgreens, you can go to your doctor's office, you can go to a hospital - that infrastructure, number one, is incapable of expediting the vaccination process. How do you know that? It is the same infrastructure we used to do testing and that infrastructure has produced 120 million COVID tests over eight months. The infrastructure would have to do 330 million dosages twice, 660. If it took that infrastructure eight months to do 120 million COVID tests, how long does it take that same infrastructure to do 660 million vaccines? It's math.

Second, the infrastructure will have a discriminatory effect because the infrastructure does not exist to the same extent in poor communities and Black and Brown communities, and the Black and brown communities are the communities with the highest COVID infection rate and the highest COVID mortality rate. So if you had to do any prioritization you would say get the vaccines to the communities that have the highest infection rates. That would be the Black and Brown communities. Give the vaccines to the communities that have the highest mortality rate. That would be the Black and Brown communities. Give the vaccines, on a priority basis, to essential workers because they have to go to the hospitals every day, etcetera. That would be the Black and Brown community. This infrastructure doesn't exist to the extent necessary in the Black and Brown community.

Yesterday, you heard from the Attorney General Tish James, you heard from the national head of the NAACP, Mr. Johnson, you heard from the national head of the Urban League, Mark Morial who all made the same point. 

New issue: The federal government just sent out a data sharing form agreement to the states. The federal government says before we send you the vaccines, we want a data sharing agreement where the states will share patient information with the federal government. Now, health information is normally private, HIPPA laws, et cetera. The federal government, why they need any patient data, I have no idea. For a state to be eligible to receive the vaccines, they want a data sharing agreement. What information do they want from the patients? 

They want the name, they want the address, they want the date of birth, they want the ethnicity, they want the race, the sex and then they want the ID number. What is an ID number you ask? Well, you would ask if you could ask. The ID number is normally a driver's license number or a passport number or a social security number. That is what the ID number normally is. The data use agreement says that the information will be used by, and I quote, CDC, HHS and "other federal partners." 

Now, I have been down this road before. This is an administration that has, from day one, with the wall, been relentless in their pursuit of undocumented people. When we did the driver's licenses for undocumented, they extorted the State, they broke the law to try to get the undocumented driver's licenses. They removed us from the Trusted Traveler Program to extort me to give them the undocumented driver's license list. They caused us great damage by removing us from the Trusted Traveler Program; which actually facilitated national security. 

It was done by the Department of Homeland Security and their ICE thugs: Chad Wolf, Ken Cuccinelli, who are just thugs and criminals. They extorted the State. They lied - oh how can you say that? Because the U.S. Attorney said that when they threw out their lawsuit, because they lied in the court papers and it's now being investigated by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, who is their Inspector General. Do you know how egregious something has to be for a Trump inspector general to investigate a Trump agency on an immigration matter? So now, this is a redux. For the vaccine you have to give us the information of everyone who will receive the vaccine including the ID number, which will be shared with other federal partners. Other federal partners include Department of Homeland Security, include ICE. Why would you possibly need a person's driver's license number or Social Security number or passport number before they receive a vaccine? Why? There is no legitimate health reason. This is just another example of them trying to extort the state of New York to get information that they can use at Department of Homeland Security and ICE that they'll use to deport people. That is what this is. I will not do it. I wouldn't do it when they extort me on Trusted Traveler Program, and I won't do it now. Any Democratic governor that agrees to give them this information, I think, either doesn't understand what they're doing, or he doesn't understand what it means to be a Democrat.

So I am saying back to the CDC and HHS: I'll give you the name, and the address, and date of birth, ethnicity - that's all relevant - sex, but why do you want the driver's license number, passport number or Social Security? What legitimate health reason do you have? And that's the question I'm posing to President Trump and Secretary Azar and Dr. Redfield of the CDC today. Why do you want that information to administer a vaccine program? This is on top of the question I posed yesterday, how can you expect the private health providers to adequately provide for the black and brown community? I believe not providing state government with funds to supplement the private provider network is discriminatory and I believe it's illegal. If they provided me funds, I could supplement the private provider network just like it did with COVID testing. We could provide it in public housing, we could use faith-based organizations like we did with COVID testing; I could supplement the private network. Second question, why do you need this information from people? What other federal partners do you want to share it with? Will you say it won't be used for immigration or is this just another backhanded way to extort the state?

2020-11-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hiya guys, guys being gender-neutral. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Gareth Rhodes and Beth Garvey and Howard Zucker. As a matter of context, day 251, we are obviously in a different phase with COVID and we've been talking about it for weeks but we have to fully acknowledge it. The fall phase the scientists all predicted was going to be worse. You're seeing global and national surges that are dramatic, and that's the new reality of COVID, okay?

So the numbers are all changing, all across the globe, all across the country. The challenge for our state, like other states, is managing the increase. How do you manage the increase? We manage the increase by the most aggressive testing in the country and our micro-cluster strategy, which is identify a small spread, increase enforcement, increase restrictions.

Numbers today in the zones, 3.16. Statewide without the zones, 1.8. Statewide with the zones, 1.9. Relative to the nation, we are doing extraordinarily well. We're something like, only Vermont and Maine is doing better than New York. And these states are very rural states with very low density, and they never had a COVID problem, period. So relatively, New York is doing very, very well. Numbers going up, yes, because the numbers go up. Temperature drops in the fall. That's not remarkable. Temperature drops, question is how do you manage the drop in the temperature? So, the state is doing very well.

Interesting phenomenon is we have a disparate scene across the state, and what's happening is what we said would happen, which is people are in control of the spread of the virus. How you behave today determines whether or not you get sick tomorrow. Individual action, it's all about individual action. If you take it seriously, and you act that way, you will be safer. If you are reckless, you will be less safe. If you don't believe there's a risk, you will be less safe. And we're seeing that vividly.

In general, downstate New York is doing better than Upstate New York, which is a total reversal from the first phase of COVID, where it was primarily a downstate problem and Upstate New York said oh, this is not a problem, this is not a problem. It's a total reversal.

If you look at the numbers, Queens, the micro-cluster approach is working. We had two micro-clusters in Queens. We had one in Far Rockaway, and that micro-cluster is going to be extinguished as of today, because the numbers were under control, the micro-cluster worked, and the micro-cluster for Far Rockaway is being terminated. The micro-cluster in Queens in the Kew Gardens area is unchanged. The Brooklyn micro-cluster, the red zone, is working, and it's working well, and we're going to reduce the size of the red zone by 50 percent. And we'll put out a map today that shows the exact parameters of that reduction, but it's a reduction of 50 percent and the yellow zone is also reduced 50 percent. So it's working in Queens, it's working in Brooklyn.

Long Island is basically flat. Mohawk Valley, basically flat. Southern Tier, making progress. Broome has done a good job and Broome is even down. But by and large, the Southern Tier is flat. North Country is flat.

Westchester is basically flat but for Port Chester, which is right on the Connecticut border, and Connecticut has taken serious dramatic action, because the numbers in Connecticut are not good, and Port Chester is going to become a yellow zone. I spoke with County Executive Latimer today. The state is going to work with him on that Port Chester yellow zone. We're going to set up rapid testing, and County Executive Latimer is a real pro and truly knows what he's doing. But we want Port Chester to understand this is every public servant's job to do, right? I'm a policeman, I'm a fireman, et cetera. But every public servant has to work on COVID also. So, it will go to a yellow zone. Hold one second, please. Sorry.

Western New York is a problem. The infection rate in Western New York has gone from 1.5 to 2.8. Erie County has the highest infection rate in Western New York at 3.1. Within Erie County the highest clusters are Buffalo, Hamburg, Tonawanda, Orchard Park. Finger Lakes, Monroe County is a problem. It's gone from 1.7 to 2.6. Monroe: Rochester, Pittsford, Webster, Penfield. Central New York is a problem. 1.1 to 2.2. Onondaga: Syracuse, Cicero the number of cases doubled. Now, when I say it's a problem these numbers are below states all across the nation. You have New Jersey, you have Connecticut - these states are 5 percent in New Jersey, 3.7 in Connecticut. Pennsylvania is 14. So, when I say they're a problem, they are lower than states surrounding us, but with relative to New York they are the high spots in New York, and frankly I compare New York to New York, right?

Western New York -  Dr. Zucker, who's on the phone, said that given the dramatic increase we're seeing in Erie County, it would be reckless from a public health point of view to open the stadium to spectators at this time, which I find disappointing on a personal level but this is a public health issue first, and as I've said I follow the advice of the public health experts. Hopefully we get the numbers under control and we continue to monitor the situation on an ongoing basis. If we get the numbers under control I would very much look forward to watching a bills game myself. In these areas, Western New York - well, let's just call it Erie, Monroe, Onondaga; in these areas we're going to study them over the weekend. We're going to talk to the elected officials over the weekend and try to find out exactly what is going on so that we can design a micro-cluster strategy that is responsive. But at these numbers and in these areas a micro-cluster response is appropriate. We tailor the micro-cluster strategy to the particulars of that area and, therefore, we want to have conversations over the weekend and then I'll have an announcement on Monday as to exactly what we're going to do. Again, in Erie: Buffalo, Hamburg, Tonawanda, Orchard Park. Monroe: Rochester, Pittsford, Webster, Penfield. Onondaga: Syracuse, Cicero. Those are the highest places in the state. Again, before you scare people, they're lower than Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, but relative to New York they're high. Congratulations to Queens, Far Rockaway. Congratulations to Brooklyn, which made real progress. Also, Rockland County is going from a red zone to an orange zone so congratulations to Rockland County. Also, congratulations to Orange County, which is going from orange to yellow.

When I said there's a different picture across the State, individual actions matter: Orange, congratulations; Rockland, congratulations; Queens, congratulations; Brooklyn, congratulations. Long Island, good news. Southern Tier, good news. North Country, good news. Mohawk Valley, good news. Erie, Monroe, Onondaga - not good news. So that's that.

A few things we're doing: Number one, we're worried about the holiday season. We're worried about behavior in the State, we're worried about behavior out of the State. I've cautioned before, people should beware of small gatherings this year. I've said that we have a very strict quarantine policy in place for the holiday weekend travel, period. We're going to be increasing enforcement personnel at the New York airports. You should not land if you do not have proof of a negative test upon landing. You're supposed to take a test where you're coming from within 3 days and it is supposed to show a negative test. I'm increasing the National Guard. I spoke to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio about increasing the New York Police Department at the airports, but I want people to know we're serious.

Second, colleges, which have been highly problematic: SUNY is going to send kids home for the Thanksgiving break. They're going to do what's called exit testing, another new concept. They're going to test every student on the way out so students that are infected will know where they're going and what to do and how to get there. SUNY is also going to cancel the return from the Thanksgiving break and do remote learning for the rest of the semester which takes us to about February and then we'll figure out in February what we do. In other words, from SUNY go home for Thanksgiving, don't come back, go to remote learning and then we'll figure out next semester, next semester.

I'm asking private colleges to review what SUNY did, take that action into consideration, but announce what their policy is going to be because I need to make a decision whether the State should set a policy for private colleges. To send children home for Thanksgiving could then bring them back, basically for a couple of weeks, from across the country and then end the semester literally 2-3 weeks later, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The SUNY policy does make sense, I applaud them for that. I'd like to hear what the private colleges are thinking.

2020-11-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys - guys being gender neutral. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Gareth Rhodes, Dr. Zucker, Robert Mujica, Kelly Cummings, Beth Garvey and Peter Ajemian.

Today is day 254. As I think is clear to all we have definitely entered a new phase with COVID. The fall season has brought the expected increase in COVID as all the scientist predicted. The numbers are undeniable across the globe, across the country, 10 million cases.

So the rates will all go up. We expect the rates will all continue to go up through the fall and into the winter. The long-term prognosis is get to a vaccine as quickly as possible, administer the vaccine as quickly as possible, administer the vaccine fairly and equitably which is a whole different conversation, have a governmental apparatus ready to administer the vaccine which is a whole different conversation because this is much more challenging than the COVID testing we have done thus far, but in the meantime we're going to see the rate going up. The only thing you can do, or the best you can do, is manage the increase. But it will be increasing. The fall, much like the flu virus, there are certain conditions about the fall the increase the spread of the virus, more people inside, holidays, fewer outdoor gatherings, etcetera.

The rate in New York, now New York we're different than other states because we do more testing and we're more aggressive in both our remediation efforts and were more aggressive in our goal setting. Our goal setting is much more aggressive and rigorous than other states - all by national organizations also. Like the WHO says, you want to stay below 5 percent. We're much more aggressive and from my point of view being more aggressive just allows you a buffer, but ideally you'd want to see no one sick so I think you can't be aggressive enough.

In terms of numbers, micro-cluster zones are 4.3 percent positive today. The zones that we now call micro-clusters which I will explain to you in a moment because we have additional micro-cluster zones, the Statewide rate with the micro-cluster zones is 2.8. Without the micro-clusters it's 2.6. The micro-clusters are 4.3.

Twenty-six New Yorkers passed away from COVID yesterday. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 1,400 hospitalizations. 282 in ICU. 125 intubated. Overall, New York State is doing much better than any state in the country. Except for rural states, we have the lowest infection rate, Vermont and Maine. So we are doing very, very well, but as I've said, we're very aggressive, and we want no one sick.

The micro-cluster approach works. The micro-cluster approach is inarguable. Do more testing, more targeting. As soon as you see any increase, be more aggressive. There's nothing more you can do, but, that's everything that you can do. Watch a small increase, attack a small increase. And it works. How do you know it works? Because the numbers show that it works. Broome County was at 8 percent. Declared it a micro-cluster, additional remediation. What is remediation? Enforcement, enforcement, enforcement. Discipline, discipline, discipline. And restrictions. Broome has gone from 8 percent to 3.5. Orange County has gone from 12 percent to 2 percent. Rockland County has gone from 9 percent to 3 percent. Those cases are interesting to me because they are rural, more rural and suburban cases.

Brooklyn, which is a truly urban area, as we all know, Brooklyn has made great progress, and we reduced the red zone by 50 percent last week, based on the progress. The progress has continued, and now we're announcing for Brooklyn the red zone will be all eliminated and what is now the Brooklyn red zone will go to an orange zone. Okay? So that is all very good news. Broome, Orange, Rockland and Brooklyn. And Brooklyn, if you remember, there was quite a fuss when we made a red zone. People don't like the restrictions, I understand that. But it works. And as complicated as this is, is as simple as this is, okay?

You know I like to torture simple analogies. You have a house, five people live in the house, one person - any virus, the flu, any virus - you tell that person, "stay in your room, don't come into the kitchen." You tell the other people in the house, "don't go into the room, don't share utensils, don't spread the virus. If you want to say hello, open the door, wave hello, talk from the doorway, don't go into the bedroom." It then becomes a question of discipline and enforcement. The person comes out of the bedroom, walks down into the kitchen and makes themselves a cup of coffee, touches the coffeepot, touches cups, sits down at the table, touches the tablecloth, now the virus spreads. This is a virus and it spreads like a virus. It's a question of how disciplined- "Well we have COVID fatigue; people are tired." Yeah, I know people are tired. The virus isn't tired and that's all that matters. So, the red zones are our way of saying, and orange and yellow, is our way of saying the virus is making headway and we're going to increase restrictions and we're going to increase enforcement. 

I've had a continuing lament, L-A-M-E-N-T: local governments have to do enforcement, even if they feel it's not politically popular but they happen to be wrong. Because I'll tell you what's not politically popular: people dying, that's not politically popular. It's better you do enforcement than people get sick and people dying. So, the micro-cluster zones have done well. We've made progress. 

We are now announcing new micro-cluster zones: parts of Erie; parts of Monroe; parts of Onondaga, will go to yellow zones. No red zones. Yellow zones have certain restrictions. 25 percent maximum for mass gatherings. Four people at a table maximum for dining. Schools get 20 percent testing. Bars and restaurants close at midnight, which was already the rule in New York City when they went to zones. We worked over the weekend our officials with the County Executive Poloncarz and his team and his health officials, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon and Monroe County Executive Adam Bello and are all in agreement plus or minus, I think it's fair to say, about the zones and these restrictions. They are yellow zones; they are not red zones and that's basically it. Again it's a virus, we know how the virus spreads and the zones are increased discipline, restrictions and enforcement, but if the person with the virus stays in the room until the virus is resolved and doesn't go into the kitchen, the virus doesn't spread. It is that difficult and it is that simple. We will have an issue with the — we had great news today — Pfizer's saying their drug is 90 percent efficacy and 90 percent would be fantastic. The federal government says that they want to start to ship within a matter of days the Pfizer vaccine so that when it's fully proven, states will be in a position to distribute it. That's great.

I have serious questions about the distribution methodology that the federal government anticipates in terms of the volume necessary to do it operationally. I think the federal government has always been wrong throughout COVID and has been incompetent in their operation so we have to get it right this time — and the fairness, the equity. Going to just private market participants, hospitals, clinics, drug stores compounds the injustice that has been done because that infrastructure doesn't exist in poorer communities and black and brown communities and we already have a higher infection rate, so I have questions about the distribution method.

I'm working on them and working with other governors and organizations but overall that is very good news. I just want to make sure the vaccine gets to more people, faster and more fairly.

2020-11-11 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Howard Zucker, Gareth Rhodes. Guys is a gender-neutral term. Today is day 256, happy Veterans Day to everyone.

Let's talk about COVID. We have done 164,000 tests yesterday. The state rate without the micro-cluster zones is 2.5. The state rate with the micro-cluster zones is 2.9. The micro-cluster zone positivity is 4.9. 21 New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 1,628 hospitalized, 304 in ICU, 135 intubated. 

What we're seeing is what they predicted for months. Who was listening. The scientists all predicted. We're seeing a national and global COVID surge, and New York is a ship on the COVID tide, right. Yesterday, we actually saw, no I'm sorry, today, we've seen the country set a new record in terms of COVID cases, believe it or not. Record established on April 15th. So it is really getting much, much worse by the day. 

You look at the states surrounding New York, on the theory that we're only a ship on the COVID tide. You have New Jersey, which is about a 5 percent infection rate. You have Connecticut, which is about a 7 percent infection rate. You have Pennsylvania which has about a 15 percent infection rate - those are the positivity rates - and you have Massachusetts. If you look at the places in our state where we're having issues, they're very often near the neighboring states. We have issues in the Southern Tier near Pennsylvania, we have issues in Staten Island near New Jersey, Port Chester near Connecticut, et cetera, so if the national numbers are going up and the states around you are going up, be prepared.

In New York we follow the science. We do it more rigorously I believe than any state in the nation and I believe we use more science than any state in the nation and that's primarily the testing data. The reason we have been successful in reducing the spread in New York is we have been a step ahead of COVID. You know where it's going. Stop it before it gets there. And you know where it's going by following the science. You follow these number, you look at the line, you look at the trajectory, you know where it's going, and it is going up and we have always been good at staying ahead of COVID and this is the calibration that we've talked about: increase economic activity, watch the positivity rate, positivity rate starts to go up, back off on the economic activity. It was never a light switch. It was never binary, economic activity or public health. It was always both. That's my great graphic that nobody likes of the valve and the calibration of the valve. You want economic activity to increase, you open the valve, you see the positivity rate going yup, you close, back off on the valve. There is something honest and clean about the mechanics of a valve which is non-binary.

We're taking several actions today. If you look at where the cases are coming from, if you do the contact tracing, you'll see they're coming from three main areas and we're going to act on those three areas. 

First is bars and restaurants. We are going to have a requirement that statewide SLA, State Liquor Authority, licensed establishments close at 10 o'clock. What is a state licensed facility? It is a bar, it's a restaurant overwhelmingly, is the majority of it. Bowling alley with a liquor license, but it's about bars and restaurants. That's one of the main spreaders of COVID. 

In theory, indoor dining, outdoor dining, you're at a table. You only take down the mask to eat or drink, but what happens is that setting is very hard to police, it's very hard for people to maintain the discipline of sitting there eating and drinking and chatting and having a good time and laughing and keeping a mask on. 

Bars and restaurants are one of the identified spreaders. They will close at 10 o'clock. A restaurant can do curbside food-only pickup after 10 o'clock, but food only pick up after 10 o'clock. 

Second, gyms. Gyms have to close at 10 o'clock. Gyms are also an identified spreading element. It's bars, restaurants, gyms. 

The states surrounding us have done a thing that I think is intelligent and we're going to follow suit because I try to keep symmetry with the surrounding states whenever possible. New Jersey, for example, closed their bars and restaurants. I don't want to then drive their traffic to New York. States around us have capped parties at private residences to no more than 10 people in a residence. Unless your household happens to be more than 10, then it's your household. 

Halloween parties, football parties - just let's get together and have a party - this is the third, one of the three great spreaders as identified by our contact tracing. So, the states around us have done this. We're going to do it also because, again, symmetry. I don't want people in Connecticut saying well we can't meet at my house so we'll go meet at your house in New York. You don't want the traffic being steered. No more than 10 in a private residence for a party. Bars, restaurants, gyms, house parties - that's where it's coming from primarily, and those are the ones that we can address. Some specifics, Port Chester was a yellow zone, it will now go to an orange zone; it's right on the Connecticut border. By the way, the 7-day average for Connecticut was something like 10, which is very high. Steuben, good news. It was a yellow zone, they've gotten it under control and that is now eliminated. In Tioga, Waverly will become a yellow zone. And Staten Island will become a yellow zone - parts of Staten Island, and we'll have a map.

Staten Islanders spend a lot of time going back and forth from New Jersey, and New Jersey has a very high rate. I think that's part of what's driving the high rate in Staten Island, which is higher than the rate in the rest of New York City. But I think that's the proximity and the mobility with Jersey. These rules go into effect Friday at 10pm. Last point, you can make rules, but the rules are only as good as the enforcement. Period. Local governments are in charge of enforcement. There are only two fundamental truths in this situation: it's individual discipline and it's government enforcement. Period. End of sentence. Individual discipline: how you act, COVID fatigue, "I don't believe it". Individual discipline and government enforcement. 

I need the local governments to enforce this. We went through this with bars and restaurants once before if you remember. We put rules in place. There was widespread lack of compliance and local governments- some did a good job, some really did not. We then had to put together a state task force to do the enforcement. This is statewide. I don't have the resources to do it, so I need the local governments to do it. I need the NYPD to do it in New York City. 150 sheriffs are not enough. It's just not enough to do all COVID safety: airports, borders, trains, buses, bars restaurants. So, I need local enforcement to do it because the rules are only as good as the individual discipline and the government enforcement. That's where we are. We will watch the numbers. We will continue to adjust as the facts adjust. You see some micro-clusters have been relaxed. We're making good progress on other micro-clusters and I think you're going to see in the coming days some more micro-clusters relaxed. Steuben was relaxed. So we know it works. 

But, you have to do it. Eat less, burn more calories. You will lose weight. You just have to do it.

2020-11-14 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Gareth Rhodes, Beth Garvey. Happy Saturday to everyone. Today is Saturday. Today is day 259. Happy Diwali to our brothers and sisters who celebrate that holiday, the Indian festival of lights.

Let me give you some number updates. We did 184,000 tests yesterday. The overall state number with what we call micro-clusters is 2.9. Overall state without the micro-clusters, 2.5. The micro-cluster positivity is 4.8. It was 4.58 yesterday so that's up a tick.

Twenty-four New Yorkers passed away; 1,700 New Yorkers were hospitalized, 1,788; 367 COVID patients in ICU; 146 patients intubated.

We are seeing basically more of the same. It is a rising tide of COVID internationally. We see it in countries all across the globe. We see it in states all across the country. The rate of increase is less in New York but it is an increase. We have like the third lowest positivity rate in the country and I'm proud of New Yorkers for that.

But we're still seeing an increase. We don't have the same problem that other states have, not nearly so, but we're seeing an increase and the increase is continuing. We know the factors, COVID fatigue, winter, holidays, restaurants, gyms, living room family spread which is a new factor that we named.

Immediate problem, you still have flights coming in from overseas where they have high infection rates. We have surrounding states that have higher infection rates, Jersey, 6.8; Connecticut is 4.8; Pennsylvania, 9.6; and people go back and forth all day long within the Metropolitan area and that is a problem. If you have infection all around you, probability is you are going to get infected and we have infection all around us.

What's going to happen? Will we shut down? Will we have more restrictions? What has worked for New York from day one is it's a pure consequence of science. It's a pure factor of the numbers. There is no political decision making, no ideological decision making. Look at the numbers. If the numbers go up and if they are increasing and they are not slowing then you have to restrict activity. It's a pure consequence of actions.

Some people offer a false choice: I want no restrictions, but I want to take no precautions. That is not an option in life. If you take no precautions - I want to have a big Thanksgiving celebration, I want to be able to invite people over like everything as usual - then the infection rate goes up. But I want no restrictions. That is not an option. If the infection rate goes up more people get sick, more people go into the hospitals, more people die, and if the infection rate goes up too quickly you overwhelm the hospital system, which we are now seeing in Italy once again. It's like we saw this movie. So that reality does not exist. I want to do everything I want to do and I want no restrictions. I want to eat everything I want to eat. I don't want to exercise. It's too restrictive, but I don't want to put on weight. It doesn't work. It just does not work. It's unrealistic and that's what we're battling right now. It's not even logical, that position. That is nothing new.

I know, I understand COVID fatigue. I understand the holidays. I understand there's a vaccine coming. The vaccine is coming, not tomorrow. The President said in April. Well, he's not going to be here so take that with a grain of salt. But April - January, February, March, April - that's 4 months. We can't have the numbers increasing for 4 months. We've only been at this for 8 months. That's the overall situation.

I want to make a comment on New York City and the schools closing. I spoke with the Mayor. I understand we have 700 school districts. The State set parameters and then we left it to the local school districts to make decisions within those parameters. I think it was very important that the parents be involved in those decisions because if the parents didn't have confidence then the parents wouldn't send their child back to school. Then it would be an phyrric victory. Schools are open, but no students came.

I was insistent that parents be involved, teachers be involved, et cetera. The local school districts went through that process. New York City went through that process and determined that at 3 percent positivity they would close down. I understand that and I understand that we're near 3 percent in New York City. Now, remember, 3 percent is a relatively low number. Just in context, New Jersey is at over 6. Connecticut is close to 5; Pennsylvania is 9. Three is relatively low number.

What I would suggest for the parents of New York City and the teachers of New York City and the Mayor and the leaders of New York City: I would consider adding a factor of the positivity in the schools themselves. Since the 3 percent was set, we have become more sophisticated and have more capacity than we had at that time. We now are testing extensively within schools. It's not that you just have the positivity for the jurisdiction, New York City. You're testing in the schools.

Add to your calculus a positivity rate in the school. If the school is not spreading the virus or if the school has a much lower positivity rate than the surrounding area, then the school is not part of the problem and you could argue that keeping the children in the school is part of the solution rather than the children spending time on the street in the neighborhood where the infection rate is higher.

We have that capacity now, we can test in schools. Even in what's called our micro-cluster zones; when we declare a micro-cluster red zone - the red, orange, yellow - the red zone is the highest infection rate. The red zone kicks in at 4 percent. But, a school can test out of a red zone. What does that mean? A school in a red zone, close the school because you're in the middle of a hot zone. But, you can test out of the red zone. You test the students in that school and if that school is not presenting a problem, then allow the school to operate.

I think New York City should seriously consider that. Again, I want the parents part of the decision and making the teachers part of the decision making. Closing the schools has ancillary consequences that people don't often think of. You close the schools, you make it much harder for parents to go to work because now they have to worry about who's going to take care of the children or at home. You close the schools; you create a whole issue with nutrition and delivering free lunches, breakfasts, et cetera. You close the schools; the children then are circulating in that neighborhood that you just said had a very high infection rate.

So, I think New York City should consider that. Now again, this assumes that New York City gets to three percent and closes. But even if that happens, I think they should consider reopening safely but I think added a calculus for that school is opening safely, that is my opinion. If the parents don't agree, then it's pointless. If the teachers don't agree, then it's pointless. But I think people should consider that. And again, it's the same logic that we use in our micro-cluster zones. You're in a red zone, you close until you test out by proving that the schools is not part of the problem, as a matter of fact the school is part of the solution.  

The President made some comments yesterday and was tweeting today. The President tweeted, basically, "I love New York," and then went back to his point about the vaccinations in New York. "I love New York," if that's what the President thinks, then he just has an abusive personality. He has been nothing but hostile to New York from day one. Look at every action he took, it started when he passed that SALT tax. The Republicans are supposed to be against redistribution of income. They took wealth from New York and gave it to Republican states. $14 billion a year. He wouldn't repair the Hudson Tunnels that he owns because he owns Amtrak, that are in danger of collapsing. They never approved the LaGuardia train. They stopped Second Avenue funding. First federal administration in decades that refused to fund the Second Avenue Subway, which is a joint project. And then he won't fund state and local governments, which is a current issue. No stimulus package for state and local governments when we're suffering mightily.

The President says he created the vaccine - that is not a fact. There is still something called reality and truth. The federal government did not create the vaccine. Private drug companies, pharma companies are creating the vaccines. And the pharma companies internationally have worked very hard to create the vaccine because of their civic duty and also their economic interest. The pharmaceutical company that develops the first vaccine is going to have a significant commodity to sell. Pfizer, a New York company, developed a vaccine that shows promise and we are very, very excited about it. But Trump is not Pfizer. Pfizer is a company and Trump is a member of the federal government, so he did not develop the vaccine.

He has created problems for the vaccine because the vaccine is only relevant if people will take it, and we want people to take it. It's analogous to schools - yeah, we want to open schools, but parents have to send their children. If the school reopening plan doesn't make parents feel safe and they don't send their children, then the school reopening plan is worthless. Having a vaccine available is worthless if Americans don't trust the vaccine. Now, every major national poll has demonstrably proven that Americans believe Trump politicized the approval process. CNN poll: 45 percent of respondents said they wouldn't take the vaccine. Pew Research - not a part of the media so it's not fake news ­- 49 percent said they wouldn't get vaccinated. Kaiser Family Foundation poll: 62 percent of respondents said they're worried that the pressure from the White House could lead the FDA to approve a vaccine before it's determined to be safe. 62 percent. That's the Kaiser family. ABC News poll headline: Americans report no confidence in Trump to confirm vaccine safety. Fewer than 1 in 10 have a great deal of confidence in Trump to confirm vaccine effectiveness; 18 percent only a good amount, and 69 percent don't have confidence in the president vouching for a vaccine. Okay, that's a shocking number.

So, we need to develop confidence in people to take the vaccine. How do we do that? We will set up an independent panel of experts, ours is headed by a Nobel Prize winner, that can review FDA's approval and build confidence. New York set up such a panel. Seven other states set up such a panel, because everyone sees the same problem: Connecticut, California, West Virginia, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, they all set up these independent panels to create confidence in the vaccine, so people take the vaccine. That is smart and many states did it. It will not take any additional time. It's not that these panels are going to do tests, they are just going to review what FDA did, so it's just a review on the FDA process. It will take no additional time. We are ready now to receive the vaccine and then simultaneous with the FDA approval our panel will be looking at it. So, there's no delay. We're ready now. Send me a vaccine today; I will distribute it this afternoon.  

Now, I'm chairman of the National Governors Association and I have raised questions about the vaccination process because I don't want to see this country make the same mistakes twice and this vaccination process is going to be the hardest governmental operation we have undertaken. It is going to make the testing operation look like a Little League activity compared to vaccination and I don't want to make the same mistake we made with testing where the federal government says, "Okay states, you're in charge of testing." That was their proclamation. "You're on your own." And then the states couldn't find the reagents, and states couldn't find a nasal swabs, and states were all competing for the same companies that were producing the tests. It was mayhem and chaos and should have been coordinated by the federal government. We now, after eight months, nationwide, did 130 million COVID tests. 130 million. Vaccines, we have to do 330 million. 330 million compared to 130 million. The vaccine also has issues of trust that we didn't deal with the COVID test. The vaccine is also more invasive. It's one thing to have a Q-tip put in your nose, it's another thing to have a needle put in your arm. And some of these vaccines say they need two doses, cold storage- two doses that is 260 million vaccinations. It is a massive undertaking, and the federal government is once again saying the states will do it. With what resources?

It's exactly what they did with testing except it's worse because now states have all these tremendous deficits. How am I supposed to pay for a comprehensive distribution program? And they're going to give it to the private health agencies to distribute. Yeah, but how do I get it to the black and brown community that doesn't have as many private health institutions? How do I get it into the poorer communities? Who's going to pay for that? I can't. There are also questions about how undocumented people get the vaccine, and the federal government wants information on who receives the vaccine that might very well trigger questioning their status as to whether or not they're undocumented. That'll just build more suspicion. So, yes it's a massive undertaking. Yes, I believe the federal government is not prepared to do it. Yes, I believe they're making the same mistake they made with testing and with PPE: we leave it to the states and then they provide no resources. Yes, I think it's worse because the states have less financial resources than we did when we started. But, as far as the panel and the review, that will actually help build confidence and people will actually have more reason to take the vaccine, and again if they don't have confidence in the vaccine it's all for naught.

The bottom line is the President has been unhappy with New York. He was unhappy with New York the day he took office. He was unhappy that he lost New York. He was unhappy that New Yorkers criticized him. New York is home to media that criticized him, and he communicated this to me. He moved his residence to Florida if you remember because Florida is going to be a swing state and he thought it'd help him and he thought he was rejected by New York. He bet a few weeks ago that he was going to win the State of New York in this past election. He lost by a huge margin. He's unhappy that the prosecutors in New York are investigating him and there's a chance that he could be indicted for tax fraud by New York prosecutors. That makes him unhappy. He was unhappy when they painted Black Lives Matter in front of Trump plaza. That makes him unhappy. I understand that, but to the extent he says that he wants to say we haven't done what we needed to do, or he wants to be critical of our operation, that's not even consistent with what he has said or the facts, because the facts, remember, we had the highest number of cases because the federal government blew it and the cases came from Europe because the federal government incompetently and negligently didn't follow the spread from China. So, we had that COVID ambush. We had a tremendous number of cases, more than anyone, and we went from the highest infection rate to one of the lowest, and as we sit here today we're still one of the lowest.

And the President said, and I'll quote him, "I spoke with Governor Cuomo. He's doing a great job." The President said, "I'm proud of the relationship my administration has forged with the state. They've been terrific to work with." The President said, "I thank Governor Cuomo. It was a very good job." "I'm dealing with Governor Cuomo. We're dealing very well together." "I spoke with Governor Cuomo. He's working really hard; we're all working hard. The relationship has been amazing." "I watched what happened in California, and with Governor Cuomo I applaud him. He's taking strong, bold steps." "I can say with respect to Governor Cuomo we had a great talk. We're both doing a really good job." So, that's all his words. It's all his words. But I understand he lost the election. I understand he's unhappy, and I understand that I have a job to do as Governor of New York, and I'm not going to allow New Yorkers to be bullied. I'm not. I wouldn't be doing my job. And that's how this President operates. He bullies. I'm going to tell the truth, and I'm going to protect the people of this state, and New Yorkers don't back down to bullies.

2020-11-15 NYC Gov. Cuomo

Reverend Michael Livingston: Good morning and welcome to worship in the Riverside community here in New York and wherever you are. I'm Michael Livingston, the interim senior minister. You'll be able to follow the service online and you can also download the bulletin. I hope you'll share the video with family and friends and expand the screen to focus entirely on the service or you can participate in the lively chat if you're watching on YouTube.

The virus is surging and that means we'll continue to worship online from the safety of our homes. As much as we'd might like to gather in person we aren't going to do so now before late April or the beginning of May.

In light of the expected second wave of the virus, the utter seriousness of this moment, we are honored today to be joined by the 56th Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo. During the last nine years in office Governor Cuomo has been a champion of social justice. He raised the minimum wage, passed paid family leave, and enacted sweeping criminal justice reform, setting a model for what progressive government can achieve.

At the same time he has spoken out against hatred in all forms. Dr. King said our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. We know Governor Cuomo isn't silent about the things that matter. While the Trump administration has remained silent during the civil unrest of this summer, or worse, tweeted conspiracy theories, Governor Cuomo wasn't afraid to speak truth to power. He said forcefully and with conviction, Black Lives Matter.

Governor Cuomo is a people's governor with a sensible approach. We are regularly in touch with his office on issues affecting our community. We talked about the importance of Juneteenth and I was thrilled that he made this an official state holiday.

Many of us have tuned in to watch his COVID briefings over the last 260 days, but who's counting? He showed the nation what true leadership looks like by delivering the facts, but also advocating for compassion, equality and unity.

He's been a great leader and we're honored to have him here today. Please join me from the safety of your homes and here in the sanctuary in welcoming Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much. It's truly my pleasure and honor to be here and first, to the Reverend Michael Livingston and Riverside Church, this church is such a great part of history but it is not resting on its laurels. It is shaping a better future for all of us and Reverend, we are all grateful for your leadership and we thank you for what you're doing. Let's give the Reverend a round of applause.

I'm joined by my colleagues in government here today. We have Speaker Carl Heastie and members of the Senate and the Assembly delegation. It's great to be with you, Mr. Speaker and my friends. We have Congressman Adriano Espaillat, my partner in Washington. Thank you for joining us. We have the godfather of the federal government here with us today. We all learned at his knees, the great Congressman Charles Rangel. Thank you very much for being with us, Congressman. We also have the President and CEO of the National Urban League, once a Mayor always a Mayor, Marc Morial, pleasure to be with you. We have our great Hazel Dukes, my second mother, the president of the NAACP, let's give her a round of applause. We're also joined with Hawk Newsome and Chivona Newsome, who are the cofounders of the Black Lives Matter movement. Pleasure to be with all of you. And to all the members of my administration, my special guests in attendance, thank you, thank you all very much.

2020 will go down in the books as a truly bad year, we all know that. I can't wait for it to be over and celebrate a socially-distanced New Year's Eve party. We saw great division. We saw anger, we saw violence, we endured great economic pain and fear. And we lost too many lives. There were some silver linings. Families came together. The quarantine brought my three daughters home. They are 25 and 25, twins, and 23, three girls. And they had flown the nest to make their own way because they needed liberation and individuality and freedom. And because Dad just didn't get it. So, they flew the nest, but then COVID happened and they all flew back to the safety of the nest. And apparently Dad had gotten a little bit smarter while they were gone.

We spent quality time together, and one of the issues we talked about was the reality that we will make mistakes in life. we try not to, but we do. The key is to be strong and secure enough to admit your mistakes and admit your shortcomings. Don't get defensive. Denying the mistake only assures repeating the mistake. We have made mistakes during COVID. I wrote a book on the lessons to be learned from the COVID crisis. I think of COVID as low tide for America. Do you know how when you stand on the beach, and you look out at the water, and the tide is high, and all you see is the surface of the water, and the waves, and everything looks nice and beautiful. But you stand at the same point at low tide, when the water goes out and the sea bottom is revealed, and you see rocks, and you see debris, and you see the ugliness that the water was covering.

COVID was low tide in America, and it showed us the ugliness and flaws deep down in our society. And if we are smart, and if we are secure, we must now acknowledge the ugliness and correct it as we go forward. COVID low tide showed the lack of trust in the federal government. We have a vaccine on the way, truly great news. But polls say 50 percent of the American people say they would not take the vaccine if it were available today because they don't trust the way this federal government has politicized the process. So New York, and other states, seven in total, will simultaneously review the vaccine approval with independent medical experts so people know it's safe.

Undocumented people distrust the federal government and believe they may use the vaccine process to identify them for deportation. New York must make sure they doesn't happen. We must restore trust in government, because a vaccine will only work if people trust the government enough to take it, and that has to be our mission here in the State of New York.

COVID low tide in America showed us the federal government's incompetence. We needed to test people for COVID, remember COVID tests. But we didn't have enough nasal swabs. Nurses and doctors battled brilliantly in emergency rooms, but we didn't have enough masks and gowns. Now we have to vaccinate 330 million Americans. This is a massive operation and by far the most challenging to date. For scale, just think about this: over the past eight months in this nation with everyone doing COVID tests- hospitals, doctor's offices, governmen­t- we've done 120 million COVID tests. How long will it take us to administer 330 million vaccines? The federal government must learn from its mistakes and dedicate the resources and supplies to get the job done right this time. Rhetoric only goes so far. We don't want to hear anymore. We want actions because it is results that matter at the end of the day. 

COVID low tide in America also showed us the deep inequality in our country and the systemic discrimination in this nation. That is the sad reality and we must have the courage to face it and to admit it because you will never solve a problem that you are unwilling to admit. The truth is COVID killed Black people in this country at twice the rate of white people. The truth is COVID killed Hispanic people at 1.5 times the rate of white people. Those are ugly facts. The COVID infection rate was 2.5 times higher among Black and Hispanic people and the hospitalization rate for Black and Hispanic patients was over three times higher compared to white patients. Those are ugly facts. COVID low tide showed that the existing health disparities in this country made it more likely that Blacks would die from the virus. Black populations are 1.7 times more likely to have diabetes; 1.4 times more likely to have hypertension; 1.3 times more likely to face obesity; and three times more likely to have asthma. Those are the ugly facts. So now the vaccine is on the way, great news, but the big question now is who gets the vaccine? How is it going to be distributed and will it be equitable and will it be fair? The Trump administration is designing the distribution plan and their plan basically has private healthcare companies administer the vaccine: hospitals, big drugstores, doctor's offices, et cetera. It sounds fine, right? But hold on. We know that our Black and brown and poor communities have fewer health care institutions. Their communities are all too often healthcare deserts. That's why we have more underlying conditions and that's why the COVID death toll is so high for Black and brown communities. We're not going to make the same mistake again. Period. Majority Black zip codes are 67 percent more likely to face a shortage of primary care doctors. The president talks about CVS and Walgreens and national chains. Sure, but they are mainly located in rich communities not in poor communities. My friends we can't compound the racial injustice that COVID already created. Let me be clear, the Black and brown communities that were first on the list of who died cannot be last on the list of who receives the vaccine, period. 

We cannot and we will not let that happen. The Reverend Dr. King who spoke in this magnificent church said of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane because it often results in physical death. COVID proved Dr. King right. We need to make special efforts with the vaccine to reach the underserved Black, brown and poor communities. The private market alone will not do it. 

We need to enlist community groups to distribute the vaccine in their community. We need faith-based groups that the community trusts to distribute the vaccine. We need medical teams and outreach teams going into public housing projects and low-income communities. New York State will mobilize an army to vaccinate all New Yorkers fairly, equitably. No State will do it better. 

Speaker Carl Heastie is here, the Assembly is here, the Senate is here. We've discussed it. We will do a better job than any state in the nation. That is our promise. But we ned the federal resources to do it. New York State already has a $15 billion deficit. The federal government has been starving state and local governments and they know it. Their own federal government CDC says it will cost $6.6 billion to do a fair distribution program. They've only provided $140 million. 

All this federal government does is point fingers. It's about time they look in the mirror. Don't tell us it's a state's responsibility without giving the state the resources to do the job. You fool no one. We call that in New York passing the buck without passing the bucks. You're not going to get away with it anymore. 

President Trump must learn the lesson: Stop the abuse. Stop the division. Stop the anger. Stop the hatred. Stop the narcissism and spend your last months actually trying to help people and repairing the damage you have done. Who gets the vaccine and who doesn't get the vaccine is not just a question of morality and principle, it's a legal question. 

I've tried to work with the Trump administration and argue morality and principle for 4 years. You're better off trying to argue with a rock. But, it's not just about morality. I hope that Trump administration opens their eyes, but i'm dubious. I'm not going to allow New Yorkers to be bullied or to be abused. I'm not going to allow the injustice to continue. Let's look at the law. 

There can be no more fundamental right in this moment than access to the vaccine. Any plan that intentionally burdens communities of color to hinder access to the vaccine deprives those communities of equal protection under the law and equal protection is enshrined in the Constitution of these United States. The Supreme Court held in Plyler v. Doe, 1982, denial of certain basic rights to and, I quote, "An isolated group poses an affront to one of the goals of the Equal Protection Clause." The Trump Administration's proposed plan is such an affront. I tell you today if the Trump Administration does not change this plan and does not provide an equitable vaccine process, we will enforce our legal rights, we will bring legal action to protect New Yorkers. The State of New York will join with the Urban League and Marc Morial and Arva Rice and the NAACP, Hazel Dukes and Derrick Johnson and we will fight to make sure every life is protected equally, because enough people and have died and enough injustice has been done during COVID. It stops now. It stops with this vaccine.

And it's not just right for the Black and brown community. It's smart for everyone, because the virus shows us the simple truth. Unless everyone is protected, no one is protected. COVID doesn't discriminate - neither should we. As Dr. King said, "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny," whatever affects one whatever, affects all indirectly affects all indirectly. COVID was low tide and we saw our ugliness. The truth is, COVID is not the only virus attacking us. We are being attacked by other viruses. COVID weakened our immune system. And when your immune system is weakened, then you get attacked by other viruses. And that's what happened to America - we're being attacked by multiple viruses at the same time. And we must fight them all, because racism is a virus; and sexism is a virus; and discrimination is a virus; and injustice is a virus; and division is a virus; and distrust is a virus; and abuse of power is a virus; and hatred is a virus. And our America is better than this. Our America is strong enough to admit her mistakes and to grow from them. Our America is not a low tide America. Our America is a high tide America. Our America rises up and confronts that which diminishes our belief in our America's potential and promise. Remember Langston Hughes: "Our America is the dream that dreamers dreamed let it be that great strong land of love. Oh yes, I say it plain. America never was America to me and yet I swear this oath America will be." And New York will lead the way. Thank you and God bless you.

2020-11-18 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning socially distanced people. Today is day 263, if you're counting. I know some of you are counting because it has not been pure joy every day. Day 263 is different. We're in a different phase, as I've said before, but I think this is also a dangerous phase that we're in right now. And danger normally happens, and situations normally get complicated, when you have a number of factors that compound each other and that's where we are now. We have a number of factors that are compounding each other in, what I call a negative synergy. I think there is no such term, but I think I made it up. A negative synergy. We normally talk about synergy with the implication that it's positive. There's also a negative synergy. COVID fatigue; we're tired; we've been dealing with this for eight months. It's cold; you can't be outside; everybody goes inside. Holidays are a major factor, and another factor is that some places haven't yet experienced the full pain of COVID. They've read about it, but it's been happening somewhere else. It hasn't been happening here and people are parochial. If it isn't happening here, it's not as real as when it is happening somewhere else. I'll come back to that in a moment.

The numbers today: positivity in the micro-clusters is 4.7; statewide without micro-clusters 3.1; statewide with micro-clusters 3.4. Statewide deaths 35 - they are in our thoughts and prayers. Statewide hospitalizations 2,200; Statewide ICU 423; statewide intubations 192. New York State yesterday 3.4. Seven-day rolling average - which balances it out and is more accurate because one day you get a blip here or a blip there - 2.9 percent. New York City yesterday 2.9; their seven-day rolling average 2.5.

We talk about these numbers all the time. What you don't talk about is what they mean or the context. You write a story- "Today New York City is at 2.5. New York State is at 2.5. Buffalo is at 2.5." Yeah, what does that mean? You have no state in the nation now that is below 2 percent. Isn't that shocking? Remember just a few weeks ago we were at 1 percent in New York? No state in the nation is below 2 percent. Lowest states: Vermont, 2; Hawaii 2; Maine, 2.1; New York 2.8. Lowest in the United States. Vermont, Hawaii, Maine, New York - how does New York wind up fourth? Vermont, Hawaii - low density. Maine - low density, rural - and then New York. That's because New York has done a phenomenal job and New Yorkers deserve credit because they have done a phenomenal job. I know you guys don't like to write context, that's where we are, 2.8. Which, is great news relative to everyone else. 

Look at the highest percentages. South Dakota, 56; Iowa, 51; Kansas, 43. Look at those numbers. Here's a test: What was our positivity rate at the high point? That's why you get the big bucks, the New York Times. Forty-six percent. We're at 2.8. By the way, where were? 46. But now look at South Dakota and Iowa. You're at 56? You're at 51? You're higher than New York was when it was ambushed 8 months ago? How can that possibly be? 

That's the story of this nation and COVID. Remember we were at 46, but remember we were ambushed. It was coming from Europe, nobody told us. It exploded, it was like sending a bomb over in a tanker. Eight months later, South Dakota is at 56. Iowa is at 51. That, my friends, is the story of what's going on in this country. 

A couple of specifics: 2.5 percent you go into a yellow zone. Parts of the Bronx go into a yellow zone. You know the details of what a yellow zone is. Dan memorized them and can tell anyone who has any questions. Queens yellow zone has expanded northward to cover - West, really - basically to cover the Astoria area, so the Queens zone gets a little bit bigger. 

What comes after a yellow zone? An orange zone. Yellow is 2.5, orange is at 3. New York City could go to an orange zone if it hits 3 percent. You're at 2.5, what comes after 2.5? 2.6 - I know, if you're a wise guy. 3 is the next demarcation to become an orange zone. What happens at 3 percent? Houses of worship, mass gatherings, business restrictions, dining restrictions, schools close. We've done a number of orange zones already. Brooklyn was an orange zone, Queens was an orange zone, Brooklyn was a red zone, Queens was a red zone, Rockland was an orange zone. Those are the rules of the orange zone.

Western New York, worst situation in the State of New York. Worst situation. 5.1 percent. Those are the regions. And after Western New York, Finger Lakes. Look at that and think of this. What is the parallel between what happened in the country and what's happening in this state? I'm going to give you my theory in a second. But that's where we are. Western New York and then Finger Lakes. And then Central New York. New York City, only 2.5 percent. In Western New York, these are the highest rates. 9.7, 9.4, 7.5, 7.3, 6.8. Dramatically higher than anywhere else. Parts of Western New York are going from yellow zone to an orange zone. The chart on my left, your left. Niagara County, part of Niagara goes to yellow, that's Erie above Niagara which is orange, on the right is the part of Erie that goes to orange, that's Buffalo and surrounding areas. But again it's those areas which are astronomical compared to the rest of the state. What happens at a three percent orange zone? Houses of worship, mass gatherings, business, dining and schools.

Remember with schools, there's what we call a test-out option: Schools close in an orange zone but the schools reopen if they stay closed for four days, they clean and then they test people who come back in, as well as faculty, staff. So the schools can reopen in an orange zone. Okay? And then there's ongoing weekly surveillance. If New York City hits three percent, makes it an orange zone, and if New York City wanted to reopen the schools, we'd have to design a different formula for New York City because by volume we couldn't test every student in New York City. The volume is just so much higher in New York City. We just, the volume is so much higher in the New York City school district. If they hit 3 percent, if they went into an orange zone, and if there had to be a reopening plan.

What's the good news? The good news is, micro-clusters work. Following the rules work. Broome County was a yellow, and an orange. Broome County was a yellow zone. It's now under control and is back to normal. Orange County was a yellow zone. Little confusing. It is now back to normal. Brooklyn was an orange zone. It's being dropped to a yellow zone. So, the restrictions work. And just to make it very simple, if you socially distance and you wore a mask and you were smart, none of this would be a problem. It's all self-imposed. It's all self-imposed. If you didn't eat the cheesecake, you wouldn't have a weight problem. It's all self-imposed.

Here's my personal opinion and my personal theory, because I know I'd disappoint you if I didn't have my own theory. You look at the states that are now surging, South Dakota, Wyoming, these are the states that did not get hit hard in the Spring. When New York was going through it, when some cities, New Jersey was going through it, that was eight months ago, they did not have anywhere near the problem. It was a problem that effected somewhere else. It effected someone else. "Yeah, well that was New York. That was New Jersey. That's the eastern seaboard. That's not happening here in our state. Yeah, I saw it on the news, but it's not happening to us. It's happening to them, over there."

There can be a sense of denial that we're immune from this. It's not going to happen here like it happened in New York or New Jersey. Yes, it is, and it can, and it's happening. Even in places like South Dakota, and in Wisconsin, and in Iowa. Why? Because they didn't think it was real or a real probability eight months ago. And they didn't take the precautions, and they didn't adopt the behavior, and now it's real. That's my theory, that's why it says "personal opinion." Personal opinion: Western New York never lived the full pain of COVID's wrath. Western New York read about New York City, they read about Long Island, they watched it on the TV news, but the numbers were never as bad in Western New York and you want people to change dramatically their behavior. For me to make these dramatic changes in behavior I have to believe this is real, and it wasn't real because it wasn't real to me. You know when it becomes real? When it's real to me. I get it was real in New York City, but I'm in Buffalo. Buffalo is much different than New York City and it wasn't real to me, like South Dakota. I believe that. I believe they didn't have the same level of fear and what caused so many people in New York to change their behavior? It was the fear. Why do you guys wear the masks now? "Oh, because you said we have to. There is a law that says it." No, you wear the masks because you're afraid of COVID and because you're concerned about other people, but because you think it's real because it is real for you. Western New York never felt that same level of reality.

Thanksgiving is coming up. Here's my next personal opinion and theory: you will see a tremendous spike after Thanksgiving. A tremendous spike after Thanksgiving. No scientific data, no health commissioner said that - that's my personal theory. Why? Because Thanksgiving is a holiday and people come together and if you don't have a real fear about COVID you're going to come together, and you see people saying, "nobody's going to stop me from coming together. That's my family, you can't tell me don't socialize with my family." It's going to happen. It is going to happen, and it's going to happen because it's human behavior. I had a conversation with my mother, several conversations about Thanksgiving. "We have to get together for Thanksgiving." Mom, we can't get together for Thanksgiving. "Oh no, no, I know. It has to be a small group. Just us, just your sisters, and your brother, and your family. Just us." No mom, we can't do that. I can't be with my sisters. "They're your sisters. Just us, just us. Just the family. Your sisters, they miss you, they haven't seen you, they're crazy about you, they love you, stop."

It's counterintuitive. What I thought was the safest place and the safest situation, in my home at my table, with my family, it can't be any safer than that - that's a dangerous situation.

Canada, after Thanksgiving, number went right up. I've said this 150 times. It's going to happen because it's human behavior. I hear it with my own family. Be smart. I get it. I understand it. It's wrong. It's wrong.

My advice on Thanksgiving - don't be a turkey. You don't want to be the turkey on Thanksgiving.

You know what love is on Thanksgiving? I love you so much and I'm so thankful for you that I'm not going to see you. That's how you show me you love me. I'm not going to see you. That's how much I love you.

2020-11-19 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello guys - guys being gender-neutral. Today is day 264. I am joined once again by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Gareth Rhodes and Dr. Zucker. 

State positivity rate today with the micro-cluster zones, 2.7.  That's with the micro-cluster zones. That is down from 3.4 yesterday. State without focus zones, without the micro-cluster zones, 2.3. That's down from 3.1. It's a big drop. Micro-cluster zones had 4 percent. 

Thirty-one New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 2,276New Yorkers hospitalized. Context: we had 18,000 New Yorkers hospitalized at one time. We have about 50,000 hospital beds. 437 COVID patients in ICU - that'sup 14. 200 intubated - that's up 8.

Around the state: Capital Region 2.3; Central New York 3.5; Finger Lakes 3.8; Long Island 3.2; Mid-Hudson 3.8; Mohawk Valley 2.4; New York City 2.5; North Country 1.7; Southern Tier 1.1; Western New York 4.8. 

Western New York has been and continues to be the problem. After Western New York it's Finger Lakes, 3.8, and then it's Mid-Hudson, 3.8. Then it's Central New York, 3.5. Again, context: we have an orange zone that is at 3 percent on the micro-clusters, red zone which is at 4 percent. Those are very conservative guidelines. California just went through a closedown. Their closedown number's 8 percent. Chicago is at 15 percent. So our 4 is half the California number. 

We're going to add some micro-cluster zones today. While some areas have improved over the past weeks, other parts, the Hudson Valley, have seen a higher positivity rate. Mid-Hudson is at 3.8 on a seven day average, but there are some higher areas within that. In Rockland County, we're going to expand the zone to include Pearl River, West Haverstraw, Stony Point and Suffern. Orange County will be adding a yellow zone for Newburgh, New Windsor, Middletown and Highland Falls, right near West Point. Westchester County, adding a yellow zone in New Rochelle, Ossining, Tarrytown, Yonkers, and Peekskill. 

Remember the concept of the micro-cluster zones. Targeted restrictions but targeted restrictions so you don't disrupt the economy in areas when you don't need to distribute the economy. It's also a warning sign for that community. New Rochelle is a yellow zone. The people in New Rochelle, I'm not saying there's a problem in Essex, I'm not saying there's a problem in Suffolk, I'm saying there's a problem in your backyard in New Rochelle. So I hope that gets your attention because it's your community, it's your block, and this is personal to you. And I think that helps get people's attention. You know, one of the, when the problem is somewhere else, it's a lot easier to dismiss.

I've worked on this every single day for 260-plus days. The virus is complicated, but the virus is simple. You know what it is going to do. You know what it is going to do. You know what's going to happen at Thanksgiving. People will travel. People will come together. I am telling you- I will wager you that if people are not extraordinarily diligent and act in a way they've never acted before, you're going to see a very large spike. 

The travel is a real problem for us because this state still has the lowest infection, except for Vermont or Maine. If people are coming from Vermont or Maine, they don't pose as much of a risk. If they're coming from anywhere else, they pose a greater risk. It's your family, it's your home, it's your table, these are all environments where you feel safe and that is the beauty of Thanksgiving. I'm at home with my family. I'm in my safe zone. Your safe zone, it's not a safe zone. Your safe zone is dangerous this year. Please- love is sometimes doing what's hard. This year, if you love someone, it is smarter and better to stay away. As hard as that is to say, and hear, because if I had to predict, you're going to see a significant spike post-Thanksgiving. It is then going to run into the Christmas holidays, and you're going to see these numbers go very high. 

New York's triggers are some of the most conservative in the country. Our 3 percent, our 4 percent, that's half of California's, most states are already above our triggers. Okay? The overwhelming majority of states are already above our triggers. But, better safe than sorry. And we went through this once before, and we want to minimize the damage, and that's why I'm comfortable with the low triggers. But please, this is not just rhetoric. I am telling you, Thanksgiving, you look at the infection rate, 5, 6, 7, 8 days after Thanksgiving, it will be up. You'll then be in early December. Early December, I'll meet you for a Christmas drink, let's celebrate Hannukah, let's get together, celebrate end of year, 2020 is ending, it was the worst year in my life, let's get together and have a drink, and you're going to see a further spike. 

From here to January is very dangerous. A vaccine is on the way. Not in any timeframe that is going to make a difference to the immediate future.

2020-11-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. You can hear me with the mask off. Everybody knows to my right, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To my left, Gareth Rhodes, deputy superintendent for the Department of Financial Services, who's been working with us on this project over the past few days.

Today is day 267. Everybody asks me the same question. Where are we, and what's going to happen? That's all that people ask me. Where are we, just to get our bearings, today is Sunday. We're in New York City. That's in the United States of America. We're four days until Thanksgiving. Five days until Black Friday. 33 days until Christmas, 39 days until New Year's Eve. That's where we are.

This is the challenging period. Lot of discussion about COVID. You listen to the talking heads on cable news, you come up with all sorts of different variations of what's going to happen. "It's going to be terrible, it's going to be an apocalypse," another station will say "don't worry about it, it's all going to be fine." What is the problem we're trying to deal with and what are the consequences? The problem is that this is a dangerous period because you have increased social activity by definition. That's what happens between now and New Year's Eve. There are more parties, people are shopping, students are coming home from college in states with higher infection rates, there are more family gatherings.

37 days between today and January 2nd of significantly increased social activity. That's what's going to happen, right. What do we expect? We expect people will eat more than usual, and on average will put on five more pounds. Why is that relevant? It's not really relevant. Then why did I put it in there? Because it evidences the social behavior of the season. People put on average of five pounds. Why? Because they're eating a lot. Why? Because they're at family gatherings and sitting at the table, and visiting, and that is the season. That's what happens. Well, what is going to happen to the COVID rate. I believe the COVID rate will increase, just as I believe most New Yorkers will put on weight. The only question is how much, and how fast. And nobody knows, and there are scenarios.

You have moderate trajectory, you have a low trajectory that goes up, or, you have a terrible spike. Nobody can tell you because nobody knows, because it depends on how we act. How much weight are going to put on? It depends on how much you eat. "That's a silly analogy." No, it's not. It is a function of social behavior during this period. It's up to individuals and it's up to individual communities. Communities across this state behave very differently than other communities. This state as a whole operates much differently than other states across the country. So it's literally up to you and it's up to your community.

That's what we mean by the micro-cluster strategy. It's up to you in your community. A micro-cluster is small. It's your neighborhood. It could be a couple of miles in geography. It is literally your community. The advantage is, we get to say to people, "beware of your own activity in your own community." We get to target more closely enforcement activities. If we put in economic restrictions, we don't have to restrict everyone. Just because Hollis, Queens has a high infection rate, it's my hometown, I can say it, doesn't mean all of Queens has to close down just because Hollis, Queens is out of control. And then the micro-cluster zone increases if the zone increases, right.

Three levels of action, yellow zone, orange zone, red zone. Going up with the infection rate. You hit 2.5 percent, outside of New York City it's 3.4 percent. Why is it lower in New York City? There's more density. You go to a yellow zone. "What happens if I'm in a yellow zone?" House of worship goes to 50 percent, mass gatherings, 25, indoor dining, 4-person max. Schools are open, but you have to do mandatory 20; percent testing in the school. Up one notch is an orange zone. 3 percent in New York City, 4-5 percent outside of New York City. Orange zone scale up the restrictions. Houses of worship goes to 33, mass gatherings go to 10, businesses, we close the high-risk non-essential, such as gyms, personal care. Dining, 4 people, outdoor only. Schools must go to remote, no in-person, with a test out option. What does that mean? It means the school closes for a couple of days. You clean the school, the school can either go remote or the school can test the students and reopen.

You go to a red zone, that's our highest zone, red zone, 4 percent. Houses of worship 25, mass gatherings prohibited. Businesses, essential only. Dining, take out only. Schools remote, again with the test out option. Even in a red zone the school isn't closed. The school can be open, but you have to test the students and make sure that they are negative. Those are the three levels of zones. You get beyond 4 percent, you're in a different arena altogether and you're in serious territory.

Up to 3 percent, which makes the State orange zone, school districts control what they do with their local schools. Why? Historically, education is controlled locally. Local school district, local superintendent, they have local elections for the school board. Localities are very proprietary about the control of their school. New York City, you have mayoral control. The mayor is basically in control of the schools.

What the law says is up to 3 percent, local governments, you're in charge. Do whatever you want to do: Remote, hybrid - whatever your parents agree to, you can do. At 3 percent, State law governs because you go into an orange zone. Okay, is that clear? So they have local control up to 3 percent and you 700 school districts across the State. You have a whole variety of options. Some are in-person. Some are remote but at 3 percent, local control goes away, State law governs, and you go to an orange zone, the school has to be cleaned, you have to do additional testing, and you can reopen the school if the positivity rate is low. All right?

As you can see we want schools open. All the leading experts say keep K-8 open. The positivity rate in the schools is lower than the positivity rate in the surrounding community. It's safer for the child to be in the school than in the community, not to mention the child is getting an education, parents, etcetera, so we want to keep schools open. Junior high and high is a different story. There the students are less responsible and there's generally a higher infection rate.

Now I want to just clear up a little confusion. 3 percent - when is 3 percent not 3 percent? Because nothing is easy. 3 percent, the way the State determines 3 percent is it's an average over the past seven days because day to day the number bounces like a basketball going down the court, it's 2-4, 3-1, so it's a seven-day average and then that number has to hold constant for 10 days. All right? We don't want zones going in and going out, so we want to make sure they're based on solid data, so it's a rolling average and then the zone has to stay at that number for 10 days. Local governments across the state publish their own numbers. How does this happen? The Sate collects all the testing data and then we send it to the local governments. Some local governments change factors and will have a slightly different number than the State. I believe it's confusing and unnecessary but it is also irrelevant because the State law governs and once the State says it hits 3 percent or 4 percent, that's what matters, but when people say, "Well my county says this, my mayor says this." We do all the testing; we send them the numbers. Sometimes they change which tests count because of timing sometimes they change- they don't remove duplicate positive cases, so there will be some fluctuations. It's confusing but it's also irrelevant.

Is 3 percent safe? Three precent is the safest margin being used in the United States of America. Three percent gives us a margin of error that if we hit 3, we have time to correct before the situation gets out of control and remember, the 3 is a real three, which will then designate a micro-cluster and then we work with that micro-cluster to reduce the number. How safe is 3? It is so safe that 46 states are now above 3 percent. If 3 percent was a national standard, 46 states would be a zone. Isn't that amazing. It's because New York State's overall infection rate is so low. We have the fourth lowest infection rate in the United States of America. God bless New Yorkers. The only states with a lower infection rate: Vermont, Hawaii, and Maine. Beautiful states all of them and more rural than New York, lower density than New York, doesn't have the big cities of New York. So, Vermont, Hawaii, Maine, and then New York, every other state is higher. Three percent is right above New York. Massachusetts 3.2, that's how safe 3 percent is, and look at how high these numbers are going in the country. Wyoming is at 51 percent. We're talking about 3 percent and Wyoming is at 51, South Dakota 46, Iowa 45. I mean it's amazing what's going on in this country and it's amazing how good a job New Yorkers are doing at keeping the rate down.

Context is important. What people should be asking now is, what is my community's infection rate? Not what is the state rate, because it's different across the state. What is my community's infection rate because it's your community that's going to determine if you go into a yellow, orange, or red zone, right? The highest rates we have in Western New York, 6 percent. Lowest is the North Country 1.3 but look at that variance. Finger Lakes 2.5, Mohawk Valley 2.1, Central New York 2.6, Southern Tier 1.5. You see all across the state the variance. You see by community the variance. Tonawanda 6.8; Orchard Park 6.9; West Seneca 8 percent; Lancaster 9 percent - that must be the highest in the state Lancaster - 9 percent. So, it's not it's not what's the state infection rate, it's not even what's my regional infection rate. What is your community's infection rate? Look at the difference even on Long Island. You go from Massapequa 3.6; Freeport is 4.5; New Rochelle 5.4; Port Chester, Westchester 6.4. Look within New York City. If you're in Fort Manor 3.9; you have parts of Staten Island 5.6; Sheepshead Bay 2.9; Bensonhurst 3.2. Where's Queens? A Queens boy always looks for Queens. Elmhurst 4; Corona 4; Woodside 3.3. So, you see the variance even within New York City.

How high will the infection rate go? I don't know, but there's going to be two points of, I believe, increase. We don't know how significant. December 1 to December 10 you'll start to see the results of what happened over the Thanksgiving weekend, right? People get infected, you need an incubation period for the virus, they then start to get sick, they then start to show up at the hospital. So, December 1-December 10 you'll see the results of Thanksgiving weekend. After Thanksgiving, you go into that period of hyper social activity. I think after New Year's Eve January 2nd, January 10th, January 15th, then you'll see the collective impact of all 37 days, right? After New Year's Eve, everything slows down a little bit. New Year's Day everybody has a little bit of a hangover, they go home, they go to sleep. Hopefully the infection rate stops. I didn't mean that you personally have a hangover, I'm just saying generally. But, if you ask me when are we out of the woods here, this increased activity period, you'll know where you are January 10th, January 15th. So what if the rate goes up? So what? Everybody's talking about the rate going up, let it go up. The rate goes up; there are more restrictions to slow the economy -- that's bad for business. Rates go up, you overburden the hospital system, you overburden doctors, nurses, you can have possible equipment supplies. Numbers go up and people die. People die. Period. It is a mathematical equation. More people will die the more the rate goes up. Unless you are extraordinarily casual about human life, it matters. Even if you say, "I don't care what happens to the economy, close everything. I don't care about the hospitals." People will die, and that's a fact.

Best I can do - warn people and then show them the scale every day. Show you your numbers every day in your community, because you can change what you do, and you can change how your community acts. An aside, people say, "oh don't worry, there's a vaccine. I understand there's going to be a vaccine, what difference does it make? The vaccine is coming." The vaccine is starting to come in December, January depending on who you believe. It will be for first high need populations: nursing homes, et cetera. I will wager you dollars to donuts it's six months at a minimum before you hit critical mass with the vaccine. You can't take six months of unrestricted increase. The numbers for today, the micro-cluster zones: 4.3. Statewide with the micro-cluster zones - I'm sorry, statewide without the micro-clusters: 2.2. Statewide with the micro-clusters: 2.7. 196,000 tests. 30 deaths. 2,562 hospitalizations. 500 ICU. 234 intubations. 30 people passed away, they're in our thoughts and prayers. That's the only number on that chart that really means anything to me.

We have several communities that are in the warning track. I hate sports analogies. For those people who don't know them, the warning track is the track just before the fence when you run to catch the ball it's going to be a home run, a warning track turns into dirt so you don't run into the wall. I always ran into the wall anyway. Parts of Staten Island will go into an orange zone. Parts of Staten Island will go into a red zone at the current rate. Staten Island is a serious problem. Staten Island is also a problem in terms of overburdening hospitals, and we're running into a hospital capacity issue on Staten Island that we have to be dealing with over these next few days. Parts of the City of Syracuse will go into an orange zone at this rate. Parts of the City of Rochester will go into an orange zone. Upper Manhattan will go into a yellow zone. Parts of Nassau will go into a yellow zone. Parts of Suffolk will go into a yellow zone. How much weight will I put on over the holidays? How high will the infection rate go? It depends on what we do. You have a trajectory where it goes so high the whole scale changes. You know, we're now down there as the fourth state at 3. You see those other states, 20, 30, 40. You could see our whole scale change by the time this is over. I would not be shocked if they said on January 10th, January 15th we're up at 7, 8, 9, 10 percent. That could very easily happen if we are irresponsible. It could even be higher if we're irresponsible. It's purely a function of what we do.

2020-11-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

This is not a normal Thanksgiving. It's just not a normal Thanksgiving despite the commercialization. I'm sitting there last night. I'm watching television. All these commercials, Thanksgiving is coming, here is Thanksgiving, 20 people around a table, everybody drinking, passing turkey, laughing, kissing, hugging. Yeah, all beautiful pictures of Thanksgiving in the storybook setting, the way we wish it could be. Those commercials have nothing to do with what this Thanksgiving should be because those commercials are selling cranberry sauce and they're selling liquor and they're selling turkey stuffing so they're trying to say this should be a normal Thanksgiving, buy our product. I understand that.  

This is not a normal Thanksgiving. My daughter Mariah calls, you know Mariah. She's in Chicago and she calls and very calmly we have a very rational conversation, she says she talked to the doctors, it would be risky for her to come home for Thanksgiving, she's in Chicago. Why? Well, they say even if I get a test I have to get on an airplane, an airplane is risky, I have to go through the airport, the airport is risky, it's such a time now where I can actually test negative but have the virus but the antibodies haven't shown yet, which is true, there is a lag. So she said I'm not going to come home for Thanksgiving because it's unsafe.  

And we talked through alternatives, I said look, I'll get in a car, I'll come and I'll pick you up. She says that doesn't make sense, then we're in a car together for 10 hours and then I'm there, anywhere I can infect someone else. So we go through all the logic and we decide she's not going to come home for Thanksgiving and then she starts to cry and she said I feel so bad, I feel isolated, I feel trapped, I feel like I was looking forward to seeing you and I can't get there and those of you who have children know when your child cries it kills you. You feel pain worse than they feel pain.  

I hang up the phone, I'm talking to my other daughter Michaela, I said boy, Mariah is upset, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to do it. Michaela, who is the baby but the baby sort of watches everybody else and sometimes has an insight on wisdom, she said, well, this is not a normal Thanksgiving. This is a special Thanksgiving. This is better than a normal Thanksgiving because it's more powerful and it's more meaningful and it's not just about the commercialization and the toppings.  

Let's think about what Thanksgiving really means and really should mean when we say we give thanks because this is a year when we really should be thankful. And she's right, this Thanksgiving is more special than most Thanksgivings. It has a deeper meaning. Let's think of Thanksgiving as a time to yes, really give thanks to the people who really did phenomenal things this year, those doctors and nurses who were just amazing, all the essential workers, all the neighbors who went out and shopped for their neighbor and helped them out. All the senior citizens who had the worst year, who couldn't see their family, who were in nursing homes with no visitation, who were scared for themselves because they were the number one targets for COVID. Every person who wears a mask be thankful for them that they care enough to do it. Every restaurant owner, business owner, bar owner who lived by the rules and who suffered economically to keep their business open. Every police officer, every EMS worker. Every bus driver and train operator who had to stand there with hundreds of people walking past them all through COVID. Every reporter who goes out there to cover the story to tell people the truth. Those National Guard people. I remember looking at the National Guard when we were setting up the Javits Center and I saw fear in their eyes. It was like a stage from a movie, it was so frightening with all green uniforms, green trucks, army rations, army nurses. It was frightening. They were scared, but you know what? They were there. They didn't call in sick. They showed up.  

Think about all the people who left their homes every day so that we could stay at home. Think about what I was saying to people every day, "It's dangerous. Stay home. I'm not kidding. Stay home, but not you essential worker. You have to show up, and you have to leave your house so everybody else can stay home." What a beautiful gesture. Be thankful for that. How about the thousands of families who this Thanksgiving know the person who's not there, because thousands and thousands of families lost someone. Why don't we really honor that this Thanksgiving? And saying yes, we're going to be alone physically but we are spiritually together celebrating in a way that is even deeper than just the proximate location of sitting next to someone. Yeah Mariah is going to be in Chicago, but you know what, the feeling of this Thanksgiving and my love for her and her gesture, and the way she helped me this year, and the way she helped other New Yorkers - she did the #MaskUp campaign - the fact that she cares enough not to come home was such a beautiful gesture of love. Thank you, Mariah, for thinking more of me than yourself and not coming home. We have to think of Thanksgiving that way. It's not that table. You're giving thanks and honoring your global family, and the family of New York, and everything that we did together this year. That's what we're thanking. That's what New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving means for this Thanksgiving. It's not a normal Thanksgiving. It's not the traditional Thanksgiving. It's better than that. It's deeper than that. It's more spiritual than that. It's more profound than that. Never in my life has there been a Thanksgiving that is more significant to me on such a deep level. It was about life and death this year. That's what we should give thanks to.

2020-11-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning to everyone. How you doing today? All getting ready for Thanksgiving? Beautiful day, socially distanced. It's a pleasure to be on Long Island. It's a pleasure to be at the Wyandanch-Wheatley Heights Ambulance Company.

One of the things with everything else we have going on today, you also have a lot of families in need. In need and at an especially difficult time. You know, today is day 269 of this COVID situation. 269 days. It's a long time, certainly, when you live it every day the way we've lived it every day, it feels like an eternity, right. But in the scope of life, it's not that long a period of time. They'll be a day when we look back at this and we say remember when we went through COVID? Remember when? You know, remember when we went through 9/11? How terrible 9/11 was when we were going through it? But then life brings perspective. And the question is, are we being smart now?

So today is day 269. Turn on the TV, and everyone is talking about the concern about Thanksgiving, and why we have to be safe during Thanksgiving, and the fear of COVID during Thanksgiving. I was watching the news this morning. Airline traffic is way up, and they're all concerned about the increase in airline traffic. Why is everybody worried about thanksgiving? Because we have to be on high alert. We have to be on high caution. About the COVID increase. And let me just give you two facts, because we're getting ready for Thanksgiving, but two facts that people need to understand that explain why this whole level of concern.

First of all, first fact, by the current rate of increase in COVID, we're going to see a major spike. By the current increase. Nothing else happens. You just look at the line of the COIVD increase right now, you see it going up. Over three weeks it's gone up 128 percent. Three weeks. Why? All the reasons they told us. Remember they said beware the fall, beware the fall? What happens in the Fall? It gets cold people start to stay indoors, college students start to come home, there's less outdoor activity. They talk about COVID fatigue. "I'm tired of being disciplined; I'm tired of wearing the mask." You're seeing that spike go up now. In three weeks, we went from 1,200 cases in the state to about 2,800 cases now. Just by that current line, factor out that line, and it just keeps going up. We used to talk about flattening the curve. Long Island, 149 percent increase in three weeks, higher increase than across the state. It went from 141 cases per day to 351 cases per day. That's Long Island, worse than the statewide increase. Okay, so that's the current situation and then what happens? Now you have the holiday season. Thanksgiving isn't just Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the start of the holiday season and the holiday season is 37 days. "What do you mean?" Look what happens. Thanksgiving, next day Black Friday, everybody saying, "We have to get ready for Christmas; Hanukkah is coming; Kwanzaa is coming" Right away, day after Thanksgiving, you go right to the Christmas season. The music changes, everybody starts shopping and then that increased activity goes all the way through New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. And that is a period of increased social activity. "Come over for a drink; we're going to have an office party; I'm having a house party; let's get together for the holiday season." Right? We do that every year. That's increased social activity. The more increased social activity, the more that virus is going to spread.

Let's say that we have that current rate of increase, let's say the holiday season only increases at 20 percent - which is the low end of what the experts suggest - so that holiday season the increase in activity only increases the current rate by 20 percent, look what happens. New York State today we have 2.9 percent positivity; we go to 12 percent positivity. That's a problem. Long Island today has 3 percent positivity; that goes to 18 percent positivity. That's a problem. Today 351 people go into the hospital about every day because of COVID; if it goes up 20 percent that's 1,400 people per day going into the hospital. That my friends is a real problem. So, Thanksgiving, we urge caution. Really it shouldn't be about just Thanksgiving. Really this is us saying that this holiday season we have to be smarter and different than we've handled past holiday seasons because it's not a normal holiday season. Celebrate with your family. State rule is no more than 10 people in the household.

You know, nowadays, everybody has a different opinion about everything. Everything is politics nowadays. You notice that? Everything is political. This is not political. Donald Trump, his administration, his CDC, Centers for Disease Control, says celebrate only with your household. Only with the people you've been with. Only your pod, they talk about a pod now. Only you family. That's Donald Trump. President-elect Biden's advisers say the same things. When is the last time you heard Donald Trump's advisors and Joe Biden's advisors saying the same thing, right? Never. This is the only thing that I have heard them agree on. So this is not about politics. This is about just health experts looking at those facts that you just saw. It's going up anyway, it goes up a little bit, we're going to have a problem.

This is not a normal Thanksgiving. It was not a normal summer. It was not a normal Labor Day. It was not a normal Memorial Day. It was not a normal school year. Nothing is normal. Because it's not normal. "You want me to ask different than I act normally." Yes, because it's not normal. "Well, that's hard." I know it's hard. It's all been hard. Every day of COVID has been hard, and Thanksgiving is especially hard. I feel it. For me, thanksgiving was the goal that I was looking forward to. When we were going through all those COVID cases, I would say, well, when we get to Thanksgiving, that's when we can be together and that's when things are going to be normal again, by Thanksgiving, by Thanksgiving. And now we're Thanksgiving, and things are not normal. They're not normal. And it's sad, and Thanksgiving is the one time, it's family, it's about family.

I have one daughter, three daughters. One daughter, twins, and Michaela. One daughter's in Chicago, I had her on the phone, she was going to come home, she's crying on the phone, the doctors said it's not safe for her to come from Chicago. Because even if you get a test, then you have to get on an airplane, then you go through the airport, who knows what's going to happen. So she's crying on the phone. And you know as a parent, when your child cries, it just goes right through you, right, and you melt. Just melts.

I had my mother, who is a senior citizen. She does not admit that she is a senior citizen. My mother somehow became younger than me in age. I don't know how she did that mathematical equation in her head, but you talk to her, she's younger than I am. But she just doesn't understand it. She just does not understand. I had to talk to her last night. She called me back this morning to go back through the same thing. "I don't understand. You haven't seen your sisters in a long time, you haven't seen your nieces, you haven't seen your nephews in a long time, I don't understand it, I don't understand it.

She doesn't understand it. This is a Thanksgiving, 89 years old, never been a Thanksgiving like this in her life. But that's the fact, and it is hard. And it's hard to do, and it's so much easier just to say, "We'll do it the way we normally do it." That's the easy way. "Come over. We'll be careful." It's a mistake. It's a mistake. I wanted to say to Mariah, "Come home." I said to Mariah, "I'll come pick you up." That's a long ride, Chicago. That's how bad I felt. I said, "I'll come pick you up." But she said, even if I don't take the plane, then she's in the car with me for a number of hours, and then she still winds up home in front of people who she can infect. I didn't want to disappoint my mother - you know, 89 years old, she's thinking how many Thanksgiving do I get, right? You start to think that way.

But it's hard, but sometimes hard is smart. The way I try to do it in my mind to help me sleep - it's not a normal Thanksgiving, this is a special Thanksgiving. This is more special than the other Thanksgiving. Because this is truly about giving thanks and honoring people who sacrificed for us this past year, and there are a lot of people who sacrificed to get us through COVID. There are people who gave their lives to get us through COVID. There are nurses who died to get us through COVID. There are doctors who died to get us through COVID. There are police officers who died to get us through COVID. There are National Guards-people who died to get us through COVID. That's why this is a special Thanksgiving. And for that special Thanksgiving, yes, the celebration is different, but it is special. But it is in many ways more profound and more meaningful than the past Thanksgiving. So yes, it's going to look different, it's going to feel different, but in here, it's more special, it's more powerful than past Thanksgivings.

I give thanks to all those essential workers who showed up for work every day so we could stay home safely. Think about that. Every day, I'm standing at a briefing, sitting at a briefing, doing what I'm doing today, saying, "Stay home, stay home it's dangerous. Don't send the kids to school. Stay home, stay home, stay home, except you, essential worker, you have to wake up and you have to go to work. Why? So we can stay home. You have to drive the bus and have hundreds of people walking past you and put your life in danger. You have to drive the train. You have to be at the food store to keep food on the shelves because if we don't have food on the shelves you're going to see panic. You have to show up at the utility company because if people flick that light switch and there's no light in their homes and there's no heat, there's going to be panic." How brave were those people? They went out in the face danger. I give thanks for them. And that is special. So, celebrate Thanksgiving. Celebrate Thanksgiving with your bigger family. Your extended family. Your extended family is the family of New York. Your extended family is representative of all those people who did the right thing this entire year for one and other and acted as a family. When those essential workers went outside, they were your brothers and they were your sisters and they did it out of love for you even though they didn't know you; but because they were part of the family of New York. The family of humanity. The family of community. They believe that. That's what they were honoring otherwise they would have stayed home in bed and said I'm going to stay safe. Just like you're staying home, I'm going to stay home. Because we acted like a family. We acted out of love and we acted out of duty and honor and respect for one another.

That's what I'm going to celebrate. I won't have my family at the table, but I have my broader family at the table and I am honoring them this Thanksgiving. This Thanksgiving, as usual, we remember the less fortunate, but this is a special one and we have to be careful. New York set the standard for the nation in how people respond. We went from the highest infection rate in the nation to the lowest infection rate in the nation. How does a state do that? How about a state like New York? So complicated, so diverse: Black, Brown, white, LGBTQ, upstate, downstate, Democrat, Republican. How did New Yorkers do that? Because we were together. We came together.

We rose above the differences. We didn't focus on differences, we found the commonality that we are all connected. You're my sister. You are my brother. You're my sister, you're my sister. I feel that responsibility and that connection to you and that's the family of New York. That's what we call New York tough. We're smart, we're united as a family, we're disciplined, putting on this thing. We love one another. We love and we're tough enough to say we love. We're strong enough to say, "I love you." I love you and we're acting out of love. That's what New York tough means.

We have a special mask for Thanksgiving because you know we're also creative in New York. We are creative. We do things a little different. We have a special mask. Don't be a turkey this Thanksgiving. Wear a mask. Don't be a turkey. How good looking is this mask? Look at that. How beautiful is that? Tell the truth. Especially good on me. Covers my nose and everything. I'm better looking with the mask.

[later]

Good morning. No, correct that, good afternoon. Pleasure to be here. I want to thank the New York Common Pantry very much for having us. I want to thank Steve Grimaldi, who runs the Common Pantry, who's done great work. Steve, God bless you. I was looking at the numbers of how many meals you've served. You've done a fantastic job, thank you.

This is thanksgiving time and we have to remember how many people are in need and how difficult this period has been for so many on top of COVID. Washington is play games and play politics, and people aren't getting relief. So especially this Thanksgiving, let's remember the people we have in need.

Turn on the TV news, listen to the radio, everyone is concerned about Thanksgiving. Everyone is concerned about COVID and Thanksgiving, right. That's consuming all the news, all the chatter. Why are people concerned about Thanksgiving and COVID? And I want to make sure New Yorkers understand the facts. I don't know that they believe everything they hear on TV. I don't know that they should believe everything that they hear on TV. So I want to make sure they know the facts and they make the decision for themselves.

And two simple facts to keep in mind. COVID right now is on the increase. And we know how this works. There's a trajectory for the virus. When it's increasing, the increases form a line. The line goes up, goes up quickly, goes up gradually, but the line is going up. And you can factor out what's going to happen. New York has been smarter, frankly, than many other states on this, so you can see where the number's going.

By our current rate of increase, current, we're going to see a major spike. Okay? Over the past three weeks, statewide hospitalization rate has increased 128 percent. That means that line is going up. "Well what happed over the past three weeks?" the fall happened. And by the way, every expert said this was going to happen. "Oh, I'm shocked, oh, I'm surprised, oh, I can't believe it." Every expert said come the fall, it's going to get cold, more people will go indoors, there will be less outdoor activity, students will be coming home, the numbers are going to go up in the fall, everyone said it. What happened? The numbers are going up in the fall. You look at our statewide numbers, 1,200 people to 2,800 people per day in three weeks. That is a dramatic increase. Look at New York City, nearly 100 percent increase in three weeks. 484 people to 931. That's where we are today. We're experiencing that increase.

Add a second factor - we're entering the holiday season. It's not really just about Thanksgiving - it's the holiday season. We know what happens after Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday. And the day after Thanksgiving they start playing Christmas music and the TV commercials are all, "Oh, it's Christmas time. Hanukkah time. Kwanzaa." And now there are Christmas parties and holiday parties and office parties - it starts a period of celebration and more social activity. Thanksgiving to January 2nd, 37 days. 37 days of increased social activity - that's what it is. Increased social activity will increase the rate of the viral spread. Fact. Fact. Fall will increase the spread, fact. The holiday season will increase the spread, fact. Fact.

Let's say, the holiday season increases the spread 20 percent. Some people estimate it will increase the spread more; some people estimate it will increase the spread less. Nobody really knows because nobody really knows. And it depends on what people do, but let's say it increases the spread 20 percent. The day after New Year's, New York State positivity will go from 2.9 to 12 percent. We'll be at 12 percent January 2nd. That's just taking our current rate of increase, adding 20 percent for the holiday season. 12 percent is a high number. New York City would be at 9 percent on January 2nd. Number of hospitalizations would go from 900 to 2,700 on a daily basis in New York City. Those numbers and that rate of increase is more than troublesome. Today, the micro-cluster positivity is 4 percent; statewide positivity without the micro-clusters, the micro-clusters are the areas that have the most intense infection rates, right? It's 2.6, overall it's 2.9. We did 164,000 tests. 47 deaths. That number is up again. And these are not numbers, right? Hospitalizations are up 132, ICU up, intubations up. We've seen this movie. We've all seen this movie. Positivity goes up, number of people going into hospitals goes up, number of people going into the hospitals goes up, number of people who go from a hospital bed to intensive care goes up. Number of people from intensive care to intubation goes up and then number of deaths go up. That is the trajectory. This is all too predictable at this point. Positivity goes up, you will then see the hospitals go up, you will see the ICU go up, you will see the intubation go up and you will see the deaths go up. That is exactly what is happening.

So this Thanksgiving we urge caution. It's really not going to be just this Thanksgiving. It's really this holiday season is the problem. It just starts on Thanksgiving. Everyone is talking about just Thanksgiving. It's the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday - it's going to be the same message. When we start to get into the holiday season, it's going to be the same message. New York rule is celebrate with no more than 10 people in your household. This caution is not a political issue. Everything now gets politicized. It's amazing how divided the nation is.

It's politically divided on everything and even on this issue of safety precautions on COVID, it's somehow become a political issue. This is has somehow become a political issue. I don't know how, but it's become a political issue. You hear the opposition, pro and con, on these safety measures for Thanksgiving, it's now a political issue. This is not a political issue because it doesn't matter what side of the political line you're on. Both parties agree on this one point.

Well I'm a Republican, I voted for Donald Trump. Donald Trump's CDC, his Center for Disease Control, reports to him. His CDC says only celebrate with people who are currently in your household. Only celebrate with people currently in your household. That's Donald Trump's administration. Don't invite people over. Don't bring Aunt Nancy over, don't bring Uncle Joe over. Currently in your household. That's the Trump administration saying that.

The Joe Biden advisors say the same thing. When is the last time you heard the Trump administration and Joe Biden agree on anything? Name one thing that they agree on. But they both agree on this. What does that say to you? What does that say to you that both sides agree on this? And what is the basis for the political opposition? Both sides agree on this. If you voted for Donald Trump, this is what he says to do. If you voted for Joe Biden, this is what they say to do.

Maybe they're right. Maybe we shouldn't politicize it. So, that means this is not going to be a normal Thanksgiving. This is not a normal Thanksgiving. It wasn't a normal Labor Day; it wasn't a normal Memorial Day; it was in our normal Summer; it's not normal in school; it's not normal at work; it's not a normal Thanksgiving. I know and it's hard. I know. I know and we all live it. It's hard for all of us. It's hard for me. I had thought that Thanksgiving was going to be the end point. My rationalization in my head all through COVID early on, through the summer, was when we get to Thanksgiving, then we can all be together again. I just needed to believe that it would be over. So, I said to myself Thanksgiving. That's when we will all be together, it'll be Thanksgiving. it'll be Thanksgiving and now we get to Thanksgiving, and it's not Thanksgiving. By the way, I believe we're going to get to Christmas, and I believe it's not going to be Christmas. The vaccine will not be distributed by Christmas. I think you're going to see the numbers going up through the holiday season.

I had my daughter Mariah, who's in Chicago, on the phone crying that she can't come back. She feels isolated in Chicago. She talked to a doctor who said, you know, if you get on a plane - even if you take a test - you then get on a plane, you could get exposed on the plane, you go through the airport you could get exposed through the airport. And by the way, you can take a test today, but if you've been infected in the past few days, you can test negative and still have the virus.

My mother, I didn't have the heart to talk to until last night. She's older and she just doesn't understand it. And I had the conversation last night. I had the same conversation with her this morning. She just does not understand it. She's 89 years old and you start to think, you know, how many Thanksgivings do I have left. And she says, and she's right, you know, "I haven't seen my sisters. I haven't seen my nieces and nephews." Yes. I know. It's all true but is not a normal Thanksgiving. So, I think of it this way: it's not a normal Thanksgiving; it's a special Thanksgiving. It's special. This Thanksgiving is more profound and deeper than most Thanksgivings. This one is more symbolic because this year we're giving thanks for all the people who sacrificed for us through the year. All the people who were heroic through the year. All the people who gave their lives for us during this year. All those essential workers who I asked to go to work and they did it. I mean it still amazes me. I was saying to New Yorkers, "It's dangerous. Stay home. Keep your children home. Close schools; close businesses. Stay home. Stay home. Stay home, but you essential worker, you have to show up tomorrow morning because we need you to drive the bus, we need you to drive the train, we need you to run the utility plant, nurse we need you to go, doctor we need you to go, ambulance driver we need you to go, food store clerk, minimum wage earner, we need you to go to work, so everybody else can stay home." And they went, and they died. That's why this Thanksgiving is special. There are tens-of-thousands of families who lost a loved one this Thanksgiving — tens-of-thousands who lost a loved one. Their father's not there, their mother's not there, their grandmother's not there. Tens-of-thousands. This Thanksgiving is more special and this Thanksgiving reminds us: we have a bigger family than we think we have. Our family is not just our immediate family. It's not even just the extended family. What we did together in New York showed that we are the family of New York. Those essential workers showed up like they were your brother or your sister or your mother or your father. That's the dedication that they showed. That's the love that they showed. So, this Thanksgiving we're celebrating it with the broader family of New York, and this Thanksgiving, we're remembering the less fortunate. Why? Because we're New York Tough and part of being New York tough is to be smart and to be united, and to be disciplined and to be loving.

And to remind people, because we're creative in New York and we have style, fashion capital of the world. We have style. We have a beautiful new mask design: "Don't be a turkey. This thanksgiving, wear a mask." We also cut to the chase as New Yorkers, right? We have a way of saying things where we cut to the chase. "Don't be a turkey. Wear a mask." And you look good wearing this mask. Jealous, aren't you? Jealous, jealous. I've been told I look better in this mask than without this mask. I've been told, the more I cover my face, the better I look. That's what I've been told. So, wear a mask. You can have this special edition turkey mask. We're going to be giving them out today and tomorrow and just think of the family picture standing with these masks on.

2020-11-25 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, still morning, just a long morning. Pleasure to be with you all, to see you again. It's a pleasure to be in Rochester. I want to thank the Baber AME Church for their hospitality today and the Rochester Rise Up.

I also want to thank the National Guard who are here today to help us distribute turkeys. I want to thank the National Guard for everything they've done all year. They are just fantastic, what they've done all through this COVID situation. National Guard is always there when New Yorkers need them. The workforce for the New York State government is the National Guard, whether it's a snowstorm or Storm Irene or Storm Leigh or Superstorm Sandy or whatever it is, they are there so let's give them thanks this Thanksgiving season.

Today is day 270. It is also Thanksgiving Eve. The State is distributing 50,000 Turkeys statewide to people who are in need and less fortunate because there are many New Yorkers who are struggling on top of what's happened with the economy and on top of the fact that the federal government still hasn't approved financial subsidies for families who are struggling so we're doing everything that we can.

It is Thanksgiving eve and people are getting ready for tomorrow, people are starting to prepare their turkey, so we're going to do this in an expeditious way because I understand people have to get their turkey ready, I have to prepare my turkey and use my grandmother's hints in preparing the turkey so the turkey is not dry. She believed in the aluminum foil tent theory. You know the aluminum foil tent theory? Build a tent on top of the turkey with aluminum foil, keeps all the moisture in? Never worked. Turkey was always dry anyway, but then my grandmother didn't really take the complainers. Some say, oh, turkey's dry. That's why you have gravy. It's like a lubricant for dry turkey. Turkeys are dry. I'm not making turkey anyway.

Numbers today, positivity in what we call the micro-cluster zones, yellow, orange, red, 5.2. Statewide without the positivity, without the micro-cluster zones is about 3.  Overall positivity with those zones, 3.6.

We did 173,000 tests. What does that mean? We do more tests than any state in the nation, more tests pro rata than any state in the nation, so we just have more data to make decisions on and that's a welcome relief. You know everybody has an opinion on COVID. We have facts that we deal with on COVID and that's the way to make decisions based on facts.

Forty-one people passed away. That number has been going up steadily again in this new phase and they're in our thoughts and prayers. Statewide hospitalizations has been going up steadily. It's up 126, 2,900. Number of people in ICU beds, number of intubations up.  

We know what this means, right? The positivity rate goes up. That means you're going to see the hospitalization rate go up. That means you're going to see the intensive care unit number go up. That means you're going to see the intubation number go up. That means you're going to see the death rate number go up. That is the progression.

People get COVID, they're home for a few days, they get worse, they go to the hospital, they go to the ICU, they're intubated, and they pass away. So we know what these numbers mean. We've been here. We've seen this movie.

Why do health care officials say that we're now in a dangerous period with thanksgiving? Because two things. One, the COVID rates are already increasing.

You saw an increase today. You've been seeing an increase over the past few weeks. Now we said the COVID rate would increase over the fall because that's what was diagnosed.

All the experts said you get into the fall, what you're going to see is the weather gets colder, college students are going to be coming home, and college students will be coming home from other states, they'll be bringing the disease with them, there will be fewer outdoor gatherings because it's cold so people are going to be coming inside, and the COVID rate will be going up. They diagnosed that for the fall and that is exactly what we're seeing.

We have tremendous increases statewide here in Rochester in Monroe County that have been going up through the fall. We expected it. We knew it. We now have an added problem that we run into Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving will be an added accelerant. Why? People travel, more social activity. The more social activity, the more the infection rate goes up. We know that. What was the point of the closedown? The point of the closedown was reduce the social activity, reduce the spread. What's the inverse of the closedown? Thanksgiving holiday. I'm going home to see my family and that's exactly what has been happening. The travel is way up. The airports are reporting travel that is way up and we're going to see an increase post-Thanksgiving. We expect that.

That is going to take a bad situation and make it worse because the numbers were already going up, we then have increased Thanksgiving travel that's going to be an additional accelerate. Those numbers are going to go up again. Those are the facts of where we are.

How much do the numbers go up over Thanksgiving? Nobody knows. It depends on how people perform. If you look at the facts we know, the increase in air travel, we expect there will be a significant rise. When do you see it? You'll see it about 10 days after Thanksgiving. Again, you get the virus there is a period where the virus is growing in your body and it can be seven to 10 days before you actually see the symptoms. You get sick and you move to a hospital and the hospitalization numbers go up but we expect that. 

The global experts have all basically been recommending the same thing to us now which is start to develop what they call a winter plan. We have been dealing with COVID in phases. We had a summer phase, we had a fall phase which we're in and we're going to move into a winter phase and the experts have advised us to prepare a plan for the winter and that's what we're going to be doing.

To give you some aspects on the winter plan, December, January, February is what we're looking at. First thing we want to do as we're preparing to plan - prioritize highest infection rates with the highest hospitalization rates. What is the greatest fear during COVID? Greatest fear is you overwhelm the hospital system, that the infection rate goes up so high the hospitals can't keep up with the hospitalization rate. We're going to take a serious look at that hospitalization rate increase. We have an area in the state, Staten Island, where we have already opened a field hospital. I've been talking to governors across the nation. They are starting to open field hospitals again. Massachusetts is opening filed hospitals again. This is reminiscent of the bad old days when you had these emergency field hospitals that look liked something that you would see in a World War II movie because the hospitals were overwhelmed, so prioritize zones, orange, yellow, red, with hospitalization rate by the capacity in that local area because we don't want to overwhelm the hospitals.

Second in the preparation of the winter plan, we want schools open, K-8. Junior high, high school is different. K-8, the infection rate in K-8 is generally lower than the local community, so you want children in school because it's safer, not to mention they're getting an education, their parents can go to work, et cetera. So, how can we get schools open safely and keep them open safely with the amount of testing necessary to keep them open and safe?

Third, we have to move towards operationalizing the vaccine. Everyone talks about the vaccine like it's a silver bullet. God bless, it's great news that we have a vaccine. One caveat. You have to administer the vaccine, which is much easier said than done, I can tell you. so, we have to monitor Thanksgiving. Then we have to monitor what happened at Thanksgiving, where the increase is worse, and we expect it. We'll be developing a plan for the winter. Yellow, orange, red zones, adding the hospitalization factor and the hospitalization rate, and coming up with a plan to keep schools open, especially K to 8, where we can do it safely, and operationalizing a vaccine plan for the state.

The vaccine plan is not going to happen tomorrow. A lot of people say, "well, the COVID problem's over, we have a vaccine." Yes, we have a vaccine, but that doesn't mean the COVID problem is over. I guarantee you, it will be months and months before we distribute enough vaccine to actually solve the COVID problem. I've been speaking with governor's all across the country. I'm chairman of the National Governors Association, Democratic governors, Republican governors. The states are going to have to administer this vaccine program. It's going to be very hard. This afternoon I'm going to speak again with the Joe Biden COVID advisory team. And I'm going to be talking to them about just this. How hard it is for the states to actually administer the COVID vaccine program, and what states actually need to do. But, I can tell you it's going to be much harder than anticipated.

Think about this fact. Nine months, everyone across the country has been focused on one thing: doing COVID tests. Every hospital, every drug store, every doctor's office, it's been an all-hands-on-deck to administer COVID tests. A COVID test is relatively simple, right. Nasal swab, to the nose, that's a COVID test. With everyone doing everything they can, in nine months the nation administered 180 million COVID tests. Nationwide, 180. To do vaccinations, you have to do 330 million vaccinations. And you have to do them twice. Twice. If it took you nine months to do 180 million COVID tests, how long is it going to take you to do 330 million vaccinations? You do the math. But it's not an easy process at all.

The current vaccine plan that's on the table is going to have to be improved. First, the states are responsible for distribution, the states are going to need funding. The states are broke, to use a technical term. Washington never approved the state and local funding. They estimate that the cost to the states to distribute a vaccine — national guardspeople, trucks, vans, refrigeration, advertising, $8 billion. So far the federal government has provided $200 million.

Second, it's not like everyone is going to say "okay, here I am, give me the vaccine." Kaiser poll, which is a healthcare foundation, nonpolitical, 62 percent of the people said they were skeptical about the vaccine because they thought that the approval was politicized. 62 percent. Now we're going to set up a state panel that will affirm the federal approval to try to give people comfort. Btu just think about that number. 62 percent said they think the vaccine is political, politically approved. How many people are going to refuse to take the vaccine until you explain to them that it's actually safe?

Third, and this is a real problem, there have been no provisions to fund the distribution to Black, Brown, poor and rural communities. No public education effort, no outreach effort and no supplemental distribution effort. It's not going to be as easy as saying go to your local, national drug chain and you can get the vaccine. A lot of places don't have the same access to health care facilities. That's what caused the disparity in the death rate to begin with.

You want to hear something frightening, and something that should trouble everyone? The death rate from COVID was twice as high in the Black community than the white community. Two times more Blacks died than whites from COVID. One and a half times more Browns died from COVID than whites. Look at that disparity. Why? More Blacks, Brown and poor people had underlying health conditions, because there are health disparities in this nation. 1.7 times more likely to have diabetes, 1.4 times more likely to have hypertension, 1.3 times more likely to have an obesity issue, 3 times more likely to have asthma. Why? Because they don't have the same access to healthcare. And now we're going to go to that same healthcare apparatus to do the vaccinations, after you know that it is uneven and discriminatory in this nation? It makes no sense. There are just fewer healthcare private facilities in Black, Brown, poor and rural communities. That's why they have more underlying conditions. That's why you have twice the death rate in the Black community.

So you have to recognize the mistake and the injustice, especially when it comes to the vaccine. If you're going to prioritize the vaccine, shouldn't you be prioritizing it for the communities that have the higher death rate? Majority of Black zip codes, 67 percent more likely to have a shortage of primary care doctors. This is a social justice, and racial justice and economic justice issue. The NAACP, "any introduction of a vaccine plan devoid of the infrastructure we know is effective in the Black community reinforces the same incompetence that has affected so many thus far." Urban League, Mayor Marc Morial, "the current administration's plan is thoughtless, careless, and needs to be taken back to the drawing board." So, this vaccine is not tomorrow, and is not as easy as we think, and, it has to be done fairly and equitably, and it has to correct for the mistakes that we have made so far.

For today, the focus is Thanksgiving. There's a lot to be thankful for this year. We give thanks for the way New Yorkers have come together and the spirit of community that has managed this COVID-19 illness. New Yorkers have done an incredible job. That is not rhetorical. That's on the facts. We had the highest infection rate in the United States of America and now we have one of the lowest infection rates in the United States of America. Who did that? Who took us from the highest rate to one of the lowest? New Yorkers did it because it's all about the behavior and the actions of New Yorkers. What New Yorkers do determines infection rate in this state. Their actions, their discipline, their respect that [inaudible] rate next week. It's a pure function of social responsibility. We talked about community action, social action. This is it. What a community does is the infection rate in that community and New Yorkers have done an incredible job. You look at where we are today, New York has an infection rate of about 2.9 percent. The only states with a lower infection rate: Vermont, Hawaii and Maine. Now, Vermont, Hawaii and Maine - beautiful states, I've been to all three - less density, less urban, fewer cities. After us the entire United States has a higher rate. The entire United States has a higher rate. Wyoming 57 percent, South Dakota 43 percent. And by the way, that is without the density of New York and that's without the fact that we were at 50 percent at our height. They are now higher than we were at our height. How incredible is that? And that's all because New Yorkers are smart and we gave them the information and they acted intelligently. Added issue: Thanksgiving travel. If anyone is coming from another state into New York, they're coming from a higher infection rate place and they pose, by definition, more of a threat. Connecticut is at 5.4 percent; Massachusetts 2.97; Delaware 5.2; New Jersey has a higher percentage than we do. So, all the surrounding states are higher than we are, but I give thanks for the intelligence and the action of New Yorkers.

This Thanksgiving though we have to stay smart. We have to work together to keep the infection rate down through the Thanksgiving holiday and well, "I can be smart. I know what I have to lookout for." Oh, really? Twenty-four percent, according to the CDC, people who gave COVID to someone else never had symptoms. You don't have to have symptoms. It's not like you're going to walk into a person who's sneezing and coughing and is obviously sick, 24 percent never developed symptoms; 35 percent of the transmission is pre-symptomatic, which means you had COVID and you had no symptoms. "I'm going to be with my family. My family safe. My family would never infect me." They don't have to know. It's not that they have to be malicious or reckless. "My brother would never do that to me. My sister would never do that to me." They don't have to know because they don't have a symptom. That's why this disease is so insidious. Thirty-five percent never had a symptom, but yet they're going to spread the disease. You can't just assume because you have no symptoms that you're safe. That's why the advice here in New York is no more than 10 people. Celebrate, but celebrate with your household, meaning the people who you have had in your household - not inviting over uncle John and, Aunt Nancy, Aunt Marie. "Their part of my household." No, your household is who you are currently living with. This is not a political issue. Today this nation is so divided, more divided than it's ever been, and it's so divided politically. Everything is a political division. Every issue- this is now a political symbol. How did this become a political symbol? "Well, if you're a Democrat you wear this and if you're a Republican you don't wear this. If you're a Democrat you support this if you're Republican you know super with this." This is about public health. I don't care about your politics. I really don't care about your politics and you don't care about mine. I care about your health. I care about if we're overwhelming our hospital system. I care about how many people die. That's what I care about. Forget the politics. It's over. The election's over.  

Even through the political lens, the CDC is Donald Trump's administration. Donald Trump's CDC says celebrate only with your household - that's Donald Trump. Joe Biden's COVID advisers say the exact same thing. So, even if you're in this political mindset, "I can't trust the other side. I can't trust Democrats. I can trust Republicans." They both agree on this issue to celebrate only with your household. They both agree. So, even in this hyper-political moment this is the one thing both sides agree on. And by the way, can you name one other thing that Donald Trump and Joe Biden agree on? One other thing? I can't. They both agree on this advice. So this is not a political fight. It's the one thing everybody agrees on and the one thing everybody agrees on is that, this is not a normal Thanksgiving. "Welll on Thanksgiving my uncle Joe always comes over." Yeah, I understand that. This is not a normal Thanksgiving. It wasn't a normal Labor Day. It wasn't a normal Memorial Day. It's not a normal Summer. It's not a normal anything - this is not a normal Thanksgiving, and to act like it's a normal Thanksgiving is to deny the reality of every health expert in the nation, Democrat or Republican. "Well, I know better." Then you know better than every public health expert on both sides of the aisle in the United States of America, so I don't know what to tell you, but I think that this is not a normal Thanksgiving. I think it's a special Thanksgiving and rather than the commercialized Thanksgiving, let's think about a spiritualized Thanksgiving, and let's think about what Thanksgiving really means as a matter of principle. We have a lot to be thankful for. I mentioned the National Guard; we have a lot to be thankful for the people we lost during COVID. The essential workers who showed up to keep us safe, who left their homes so everyone else could stay in the safety of their home. The bus drivers who showed up, the doctors who showed up, the nurses who showed up, the utility workers who showed up, many of whom died so other people could stay home. Think of how many thousands of families are celebrating Thanksgiving without a loved one this year. There are tens of thousands of families celebrating without a loved one. People who gave their life during COVID to help others -- that's something to be thankful for, and remember the less fortunate. 

Everyone has to do their part, that's why we have this very attractive and pithy fashion statement mask, that I know you are all jealous of - I can see it on your face. Don't be a turkey. Wear a mask. You know New Yorkers, we cut to the chase, we say it as it is. Don't be a turkey. Wear a mask this Thanksgiving. Be smart. Let's get past this, let's get through the winter, get the vaccination done and then the end is in sight, but we're not there yet. They say, "Run through the tape". We have to finish it. Get through Thanksgiving, get through the holiday season, get through the winter, get vaccinated and then we'll get on with life. Don't be a turkey.

2020-11-26 NYS. Gov. Cuomo

Hello, guys. Happy Thanksgiving. I have Melissa DeRosa, Rob Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Beth, Gareth Rhodes on the phone. Happy Thanksgiving, and I gave you all a break today. I will do this on the telephone so you can enjoy the day with your family as long as we're all doing it safely. 

The numbers today, today is day 270. We did 200,000 tests. Positivity with the micro-clusters, 3.1, which is down from 3.6. Positivity without those zones, 2.6, down from 3. The micro-cluster zone, 4.9, down from 5. Death rate is up - 67 New Yorkers died from COVID yesterday, 3,056 hospitalized, that's 74 plus, 628 in ICU, that's up 32, 286 intubated, that's up 9. So the rate is down a notch. 67 passed away and plus 74 hospitalized.
 
The numbers, we know what's going on and the numbers tell the same story because we've seen the movie in New York. We've seen the movie across the country. The positivity goes up, more people get sick, more people go into the hospital, more people go into the ICU, more people get intubated, and the death number goes up. Relative to the rest of the country New York State is still doing phenomenally well and that's thanks to the good actions of New Yorkers. Across the state the highest rate is Western New York, 5.4, and then we have basically Finger Lakes 3.85, Mid-Hudson 3.86, Central New York 3.5, Capital District 2.3, Long Island 3.3, Mohawk Valley 3.2, New York City 2.5, North County 2.1, Southern Tier 1.3. Southern Tier has been a real turnaround. Congratulations to them.
 
I talked at length to the Biden COVID transition team yesterday and that was a welcome relief. It's a much different federal posture. They get it. They understand it. They've been studying it and it's about the facts and it's about the science, but that was a very good conversation. We've been speaking with many of them all throughout this and our New York approach really is the one that incorporates the most science so that was productive and helpful. We do have issues with the current federal administration on the vaccination plan, the immigration data, as well as the lack of outreach for the Black and Brown communities, poor communities, rural communities.
 
What we're going to be doing through this Thanksgiving weekend and into next week, we're going to be working on our winter plan. All the global experts say the same thing. This virus has phases. As the phase changes your plan should change. Phases can be seasonal. Summer plan, fall plan, winter plan, can be triggered by the numbers, when you're flat, when there's a gentle increase, when it's a large increase, you get to the same point. You see an increase with the numbers across the country. It started with the fall. It's going to continue and probably worsen in the winter.
 
What stops it, not the vaccine, because the timing of the vaccine is going to be more attenuated than the publicity about the vaccine. It's great that we have the vaccine but when you get into the details of the production level of the vaccine, the delivery of the vaccine, the administration of the vaccine, then the prioritization, start with nursing homes, healthcare personnel, etcetera, you're talking months and months before you get to the general public or a critical mass where it will make an actual increase in the net infection rate, so we have to now reconfigure for a winter plan and we want to assess the consequence of Thanksgiving.
 
There are a number of theories about how bad the increase will be after Thanksgiving but they all project an increase post-Thanksgiving. We see the air travel is increased, we see the car travel is increased, and we know that the more social activity, the higher the infection rate. We know we have more social interaction, period.

On the winter plan, we're going to stay with the micro-cluster approach because that targets the spread, it minimizes economic impact, and it stresses individual and community accountability and responsibility. So that's working very well and all the experts think that is the state-of-the-art. The yellow, orange, red - we want to add factors, most notably, hospitalization rate and availability of hospital beds, ICU beds. That is the worst-case scenario is you run out of hospital beds. We had to do a field hospital in Staten Island. Massachusetts is opening field hospitals; other states are opening field hospitals. We want to add a number of factors to the yellow, orange, red. Criticality has to weigh hospital capacity and infection rate in a place that has a shortage of hospital beds is more serious than an infection rate in a place that has fewer hospital beds. 

That's one of the exercises we're going through now and we're working with experts. Also, second factor in the winter plan is going to be keeping the schools open, especially K-8. Junior high, high is a different situation. Keeping the schools open and keeping them open by setting a safe positivity rate, all the data says the schools are safer than the surrounding community. We want to continue testing in the schools, but we need a sustainable testing rate in the schools. 

In other words, if you want to keep the schools open, it has to be a level of testing that the local school districts can provide for a prolonged period of time. Winter plan, you have to get through the winter. How many tests can you now dedicate just to the school system? That number varies across the state. How many tests do you need to be monitoring the schools to make sure they stay safe. Then you have to balance the number of tests that you do in schools with the number of tests you do in nursing homes, the number of tests you do for essential workers, et cetera. That's something we're working on in the winter plan. 

The winter plan is also going to develop a vaccine distribution plan that does it fairly and effectively and prioritizes the vaccines in the most judicious way. Those are the three elements that will be in the winter plan. The zones, micro-clusters, adding of the factors, including the hospitalization, ICU bed availability, et cetera. In that calculus is also elective surgery, second, and whether or not we need additional field hospitals. Second, the schools and the testing of the schools to keep them open at a rate that's sustainable. Third: a vaccine distribution plan. The more data you have, the smarter the decisions you make. 

We want to see what Thanksgiving actually did. If it did it evenly across the state, if it caused a spike in some parts of the state. We can't tell now if there's more social interaction proportionately to Thanksgiving in certain parts of the state. I can't tell you if Buffalo is seeing proportionately more social activity because of Thanksgiving than New York City, than Long Island. There is a lag on the infection rate. Somebody gets COVID today at a Thanksgiving; you won't see that show up for days, possibly. Days, certainly, but how many days. The more data, the better. We're talking to local governments also in developing this winter plan. 

One other point, the Supreme Court made a ruling. I think that Supreme Court ruling on the religious gatherings is more illustrative of the Supreme Court than anything else. It's irrelevant from a practical impact because the zone that they were talking about has already been moved. It expired last week. I think this was really just an opportunity for the Court to express its philosophy and politics. It doesn't have any practical effect. In terms of religious gatherings, look, I'm a former altar boy. Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school. Jesuit college. I fully respect religion and if there's a time in life when we need it, the time is now, but we want to make sure we keep people safe at the same time. That's the balance we're trying to hit, especially through this holiday season and the coming Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, et cetera celebrations. 

Last point: Happy Thanksgiving. Celebrate, just do it safely. Let's not create more of an issue. Again, people have to appreciate the dichotomy: 'I'm going to be home; I'm with my family, that is the safe place in life. That's the safe place where I go for refuge with my family in my home or in someone else's home, but with family with friends. That's my place of refuge. I need refuge.' Yes, except that's not necessarily a safe place. The CDC numbers, the spread is going to be from pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic people - people who don't even know they have the virus. It's not that they're going to be malicious, it's going to be accidental, it's going to be involuntary. So, what appears safe is no longer safe in this crazy world.

2020-11-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello guys. Happy Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend. Today is day 274. We did 157,000 tests. The number of tests we're doing are astronomical. When you test that many, obviously the positivity, the number of positive cases, is going to go up proportionate to the number of tests. It's the percentage increase that is relevant, you know. So we had 6,723 tests reported positive. The other day it was 8,000. Doesn't mean we're down. It means the number of tests were down. So it's the percentage that matters, right.

Overall, with focus zones included, 4.27, which is up from 3.9. It was the highest since back in May. The state without micro-cluster zones is 3.75. Micro-cluster zones is 5.8. 55 New Yorkers died from COVID yesterday. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 3,000 New Yorkers were hospitalized, that's up 85. 667 COVID patients were in ICU, that's up 13. 326 intubated, that's down 5. Western New York leads the show, 6.6. Finger Lakes, 5.1, Central New York, 4.6, Mid-Hudson, 4.4, Mohawk Valley, 3.8, Long Island, 3.6, Capital Region, 2.9, New York City, 2.7, North Country, 2.5, Southern Tier, 1.96. Statewide, 3.5.

If you look at New York versus the other states, New York is doing very, very well, relative to the other states. Congratulations, New Yorkers. If you look at New York relative only to New York, you see the numbers going up, not as fast as in other states, but the numbers are going up, and it's nice that we're doing better in a national context and global context, but it's irrelevant to one extent, because we have to deal with the issues that we have here in New York relative to New York, right? And that's why when you hear that Dr. Fauci say today, we're for looking at a surge upon surge- it's interesting how language develops through this COVID situation. We talked about waves at first. We are still in the first wave. People say, "Oh we're in the second wave," but we're not in the second wave. A second wave is a mutated virus as a wave. This is a first wave with additional surge. Dr. Fauci then says today, "surge upon surge," so the first wave is increasing, and surge upon surge, it's going to continue to increase. And he talked about through the Holidays and New Years. That's what we've been talking about. We've been talking about the 37 days of the holiday season starting at Thanksgiving, and then you got a Black Friday, and now all the songs are Christmas songs and holiday songs, and holiday shopping. And all the TV commercials are holiday shopping, buy this and buy that. So you are in the holiday season and that is increased social activity and that means increased infection rate. That is where we are. And that is what we're going to see. 

I expect, as I've said before, you're going to see the rate going up through the holiday season, which ends after the New Year. So, after New Year's Day, look a week or 10 days afterwards, hopefully the social activity slows at that point and the infection rate starts to level off. And then you get to a vaccine which is the answer ultimately, but the vaccine, then you have to have discussion about how quickly and distribute it and how effectively, and what's the critical mass point of the vaccine. But that is months away by every professional's estimate. So that's what we're looking at.

This is a new phase for COVID. You want to call it the winter phase; you want to call it the holiday phase; you want to call it the surge upon surge phase; you want to call it the dramatic increase in COVID rates nationwide phase; you want to call it the international increase in COVID rate phase. Italy is using the army now to enforce close downs. California announced another basic shutdown. That's where we are.

We are spending this weekend finishing leftover turkey and talking to health officials and local governments about a winter plan, next phase plan. We'll be speaking to that tomorrow and this week with more details.

New York City announced that they are reopening schools. I think that's the right direction. The schools, we do have new facts and new information on schools. Just about every professional says the schools, especially K-8, should be kept open whenever it's possible to keep them open safely. We have done testing in schools and we now know what we're looking at in schools. The positivity rate is much, much lower. It's literally safer for a child and the teacher to be in the school than in the community.

2020-11-30 MYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. I'm sure you know everyone who's here. In case some of you are forgetful, to my far right Robert Mujica, Director of Budget, to immediate right Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, to my immediate left Dr. Howard Zucker, Commissioner of the Department of Health, to his left Jim Malatras. If you ask him a question and expect a response, you have to refer to him as Chancellor Malatras, otherwise he does not respond. To his left, Gareth Rhodes who is the Deputy Director of the Department of Financial Services but has been working with us on COVID.

This is a little different today. We will be joined by a number of participants on Zoom and we'll hear from a couple of them after the presentation. This is a different phase that we're entering now and we've been working on it over the weekend. I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving weekend and a safe one. I hope you were not a turkey. We've been spending a lot of time talking to hospital administrators and local officials all across the state this weekend to design strategy going into this new phase because we're all seeing new facts. Today is day 275 and it's a new phase in the war against COVID. The war against COVID because I think of this as a war. It's a war of attrition. It's a war in terms of preparation and mobilization. It's a war in terms of mindset. COVID is an enemy that we're dealing with. it's attacking people. it's killing people. So, I talk about it and think about it in terms of a war. And the war has changed. Sun Tzu, "Just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there were no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent thereby succeeds in winning." When the facts change, when the attack changes, change your situation and your defense or offense. COVID is shifting the battlefield dramatically and we have entered a new phase. It came with the colder weather. All the experts talked about what was going to happen when we reached the Fall, right? Cold weather, more people indoors, more people traveling. There has been a change in behavior among people. They've been informed; they've been educated. They've learned. They've changed their behavior. We have government policies on what businesses operate and how they operate, and that has had an effect. So, the chess board has really changed. And then we are coming into the holiday season and the holiday season is going to have a profound effect - it already has. When people start to travel for the holiday season, when students start to go home, when people start to shop, when they start to move around: increased mobility, increased social activity, increased viral infection rate.It is directly proportionate, and we talked about this before Thanksgiving. You are not just going into the Thanksgiving weekend. You're starting a 37 day holiday period. That's my Dr. Fauci, over the weekend, was talking about how there is now going to be on a "surge on the surge." So, we had a Fall surge - my words - we now have a holiday surge on top of the Fall surge. That's Dr. Fauci's surge on top of the surge, and it's not going to be a one or two day affair. It's going to be the entire holiday season which is 37 days.

Now, the mindset for the holiday season is, "Alright, we're now all happy and cheery and we're going to come together. We're doing gift buying and we're going to do holiday celebrations. We're going to start to have meals together. The family is coming back together for the holiday season. Students are all coming home. Religious celebrations during the holiday season" COVID is the Grinch. Think of it that way. 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. So, this is the season of the COVID Grinch also. When you hear that holiday music COVID Grinch and be on alert because that is part of this holiday season.

We've also seen behavioral shifts by the policies that we put in place and by the data that we have received. The bars and restaurants protocols, we've seen a reduction in the level of spreads from bars and restaurants. We've seen a reduction in the level of spread from personal services, hair salons, et cetera. Gyms, we have seen somewhat of a reduced spread, not as dramatic as bars and restaurants or personal services. Mask wearing - great. New York was the first state in the nation to have a mask mandate. Our mass compliance is up near 98 percent. Great. All social action, the school protocols and the school testing are great. It's highly effective. Astonishing how low the levels of infection are in schools especially K to 8. The really bad news: family gatherings and smaller social gatherings have exploded as places where the virus is spreading. So, we understand the cause, we understand the effect, and we understand the effect is dramatic. This is the bottom line on all of this: COVID rates go up, as COVID rates go up, what happens? The hospitalization rate goes up. And the hospitalization rate is increasing dramatically. End of June, we're about 900 - we're now at 3,500 since the end of June, and that is before feeling the effect of the holiday season. So, this, my friends, is the problem. And we are seeing the rise in hospitalizations all across the state. And it's not a situation where it's only happening in one part of the state and we can then shift resources from one part of the state to the other. Remember, the first go-around, it was primarily New York City, downstate, we had upstate resources we could share with downstate. That is not the case this time. It is statewide.

So, we will have a limited ability to bring resources from upstate to downstate like we did in the spring or from downstate to upstate because literally every region is dealing with a hospital issue now. And you look at those curves, they're all going up at an alarming rate. So in the new battlefield, hospital capacity is the top concern, period. It's about hospital beds, it's about the ICU and it's about having enough staff and enough equipment. That's the effect and that's what we're going to have to deal with.

We have five strategies that we're announcing today that we're putting in place. First, we're going to shift the focus to the number of hospitalizations and hospital capacity, we're going to add to our zone designations, the yellow, orange, red, the hospitalization rate. We know by address where people are coming from that are going into the hospital, the death rate, the case rate, the available hospital beds in that community, the available ICU beds, and the available staff.

We are now worried about overwhelming the hospital system. And if those numbers continue to increase, which we expect they will, you will see serious stress on the hospital system. So, we're adding those factors into the equation. Also, the patient load management of that community, how effectively they're dealing with the patient load. Also, PPE and equipment availability. Everybody remembers the nightmare we went through with PPE and equipment. We are going to set some specific metrics for each one of those factors. I want to wait and see what the numbers are post-Thanksgiving. We don't know what the Thanksgiving effect has been yet - you sat at the table with your in-laws, they said, "Don't worry. I've been very careful, I've been quarantined." Yeah, doesn't have to be your in-laws, in-laws can be nice people. They're not the only people who can infect you. Thanksgiving, you'll see three, four, five, seven days, until you see people who were infected during Thanksgiving travel. So there will be a week to ten-day lag before we see that number come to effect.

We're also talking to hospital administrators across the state. We want to know where they are today with their capacity, with their PPE, et cetera. We learned this lesson the hard way. We have about 54,000 hospital beds in this state, we were told we would need about 120,000. We lived this nightmare. We learned from this nightmare, and we're going to correct for the lessons we learned during this nightmare. It was the first time ever the hospital system, which is essentially a private hospital system, needed to be managed governmentally. And that was a very difficult transition, but we learned from it. We're going to add on top of yellow, orange, red, an emergency stop provision, where we hit a real hospitalization crisis, we could potentially do a New York Pause. California Pause, which is essentially a stop or move one zone to another if we have a critical hospital situation.

Today, the New York State Department of Health is going to initiate emergency hospital measures. Number one, every hospital has to identify retired doctors and nurses now. We're already experiencing staff shortages. Staff just gets exhausted after a while. They've had a horrendous year. To now go through this again with emergency rooms and a high number of patients coming in. They start tired, they start sick. Start identifying retired doctors and nurses now. We did this last time, it works very well. We're going to stop elective surgery in Erie County as of this Friday. Erie County has the most critical hospital situation in the state, so Erie County must stop elective surgery. Catholic hospital system in Erie County voluntarily stopped elective surgery just to be responsible. I thank them. It's now mandatory. They must all stop elective surgery as of Friday. Let's start to free up those hospital beds. If the situation continues to get worse, we'll stop elective surgery in other parts of the state also. Elective surgeries are those surgeries that don't have to be done at that time, and we want available beds for COVID people, so stopping elective surgery does that. The individual hospital network load balancing is mandated as of today. Let me explain to you what this is, talk about learning this the hard way. There are hospital systems in this state that have a number of hospitals in their system, and they can be private or they can be public. Northwell has a number of hospitals in their system. Montefiore, ECMC, Erie County, URMC, Rochester, Kaleida, New York City H+H. They are systems unto themselves, and they can have seven, eight, 10, 11, 30 hospitals in their system. It is mandatory as of today that they balance the load within their system. They balance patient load. So you distribute the patients among your hospitals in your system. The nightmare we went through last time was that a hospital would be overwhelmed, but that system had other hospitals that had capacity. Well, then, why didn't you shift patients from the overwhelmed hospital to the hospitals that had capacity in your own system? "Well, that's not how we operate." Yeah, I get it. I learned that lesson. Forget how you operate. This is a mandate from the state Department of Health. You must distribute patients across your system so one hospital does not get overwhelmed. "Well, the patients don't want to go to other hospitals." Then let's just end elective surgeries now, and we'll make it simpler. But, no patient wants to be in an overwhelmed hospital, because you're getting less care, the staff is stretched thin, it's in the patient's best interest, distribute the patient load over the system. We're not going to live through the nightmare of overwhelmed hospitals again. So those individual systems, they must do that now. If a hospital gets overwhelmed, there will be a state investigation. And if the result of that investigation is they did not distribute the patients, that will be malpractice on their part. This was a serious issue last time. It was a case of first impression last time. This time it's not a case of first impression. I don't mean to be difficult, but difficult is when people die because they didn't get the right healthcare. That's really difficult. So preparing for that is important. That goes into effect immediately.

We also have to prepare emergency field hospital plans regionwide. Plan now for adding 50 percent capacity to your hospital. If you have 100 beds, you go to 150 beds. We did this last time, it was highly effective. We bought a system from 50,000 to a system of 75,000. Prepare to implement statewide surge and flex. Statewide surge and flex moves patients among systems, right. What I was just talking about was movement within the system. Moving Kaleida patients within Kaleida facilities. Statewide surge and flex moves patients among different systems. So theoretically a patient could go from NYU Langone to Mount Sinai. You move them among different systems. That's a different level of coordination with a different level of emergency.

And prepare to staff the emergency field hospitals. Also, confirm the PPE stockpiles. Department of Health did regulations as to how many PPE you needed. 90-day stockpile of PPE. Confirm that you have those PPE stockpiles in place because we don't want to run through that again. We'll be announcing a hospital capacity emergency tracking system that's going to track these metrics statewide, and that's the first initiative.

Second is on testing. We do more testing than any state in the nation. We have the highest amount pro rata, I'm very proud of that. You can't do enough testing. The more testing you do, the more you know, and the more you know, the better you do. It is just that simple. Local governments, the state, hospitals, have to work to increase the gross amount of testing. And we have to have a balanced distribution. We're trying to serve a lot of needs and a lot of populations. We have to test healthcare workers, we have to test nursing homes, we have to test schools, we have to test essential workers, we have to test business professionals where we put in a protocol that they have to be tested. We have to test the personal service protocols. And you have a general population of students who come home, they want to make sure they're not infected, people just went to thanksgiving, they get a cough, they want to know if they're infected. The localities have to distribute the testing equally or fairly among these groups. Essential workers, they're out there every day. The police, the fire. They have to be tested. There's not enough tests to go around, I get it. But we have to be fair in the distribution, and local governments have to work on coordinating that.

Third, keep schools open. All the testing says schools are safer than the surrounding community. We focus on special ed, K to 8, doing testing in schools on a sustainable basis for long-term operation. If they're in an orange or a red zone, the state mandate is 20 percent over a month. Red zone, 30 percent over a month on a rolling basis. They're doing weekly testing. They can pool test. Again, we're very aware of the need to balance the tests, because a lot of people need tests. The local district can exceed the minimum state testing level, but, they have to make sure that they are meeting their other needs also. It's not enough to test all students, and not test essential workers. Test all students, but not test all nursing homes. Test nursing homes, but not test schools. You have to fairly distribute the tests. We've talked to all sorts of experts all across the country. No state has the testing school protocol that we have in place. No state and no city, so we feel good about that. We have a mandatory close level for school districts. School districts can close lower than the State threshold, we've gone through that in various parts of the State. Our advice is you don't. We believe in keeping, especially K-8, open. The schools are safer than the surrounding community and children get an education and parents can work, et cetera. We understand local school district prerogative. They can close below our level.

The small gathering spread is now the number one spreader. That is 65 percent of all cases. This is a dramatic shift. Part of it is the holidays. It's what happens during holidays. Part of it is reduced social options. I can't go to the bar and hang out. I can't go to a restaurant and hang out. I can't go to the movie theater and hang out. Come over to my house and we'll hang out. It's just an adaptation of social behavior to the circumstance. We have a rule in effect, no more than 10 at an event. There are other states that have rules of no more than 10.

People say oh I can't believe the New York rules, no more than 10. Many states have a rule of no more than 10. By the way, Kentucky just announced they're going to a rule of no more than 8. This is a nationwide problem. I understand that people say I don't like the restrictions, I have COVID fatigue. How can you say I shouldn't have more than 10 people in your house? Look, the truth is the government doesn't have an ability to monitor it. You want to know what is smart, what is reasonable, what is protective of other people and yourself? This is where the spread is coming from. It's the small gathering spread.

We have to communicate this now to people the way we communicated masks. Seemingly the safest place, my home, my table, my family - yeah, even that place is not safe and we're going to have a new public education campaign that speaks just to this. This is not government being overly dramatic, these are just facts. Look, I've heard the political back and forth. Oh this is Democrats saying this. First of all, this is probably the only issue President Trump's people and Joe Biden's people have agreed on. Both of their health advisors say small gatherings are the problem.

The CDC under Trump, the regulation was no more than your household for Thanksgiving. That's what the CDC said. So all those people who want to say this is political, I'm standing up against it. Your president, President Trump, his administration said do it. Joe Biden's administration health advisors said the same thing. Whose politics are you playing? If Donald Trump says the CDC mandates it and Joe Biden's advisors say it's smart, whose politics? Your own politics? You're waving the political flag; whose flag are you waving? It's agreed to by both.

It's a fact of being smart and, luckily, most of us are smart. I had a conversation with someone over the weekend. Well, nobody is going to tell me how many people I can have in my house. It's my house. I want to have my family over, I'm going to have my family over. I said you're right, I'll make a deal with you right now. You do whatever you want in your house, invite whoever you want, but here's the deal: If somebody gets sick from what you did, you handle it. He said what do you mean? I said, don't call an ambulance and expose an ambulance driver. Don't go to the hospital and expose a nurse and a doctor and an 1199 worker because you wanted to be reckless. You handle it. Stay at home and take care of yourself, but don't expose people and don't ask people to risk their lives because you undertook risky behavior. Oh no, I don't agree with that.

I see, I see. So you want to be able to behave in a risky way and then if you get sick, then other people have to risk their lives because you were risky. Is that fair? But that's what they're asking. Well, I'm going to stand up. You want to be a tough guy - guy being gender neutral? I'll tell you what a tough guy does, go volunteer in a field hospital in Staten Island and help COVID patients, if you're a tough guy. You want to celebrate Thanksgiving, bring your whole family and your extended family and go volunteer in a hospital and help COVID people. That's how you celebrate Thanksgiving. Don't create more COVID positive people and then expect other people to come to your rescue. That's not the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Vaccinations, that is going to be the weapon. That is going to be the weapon that will end the war. The only question is when. We're going to be very robust and aggressive on the vaccination program. We're building it around fairness, equity and safety. We're going to have a very inclusive process. I'm reaching out with other governors to the federal government, which is now funding a Black, Brown, poor community outreach program for the vaccine. Blacks died at twice the rate that whites died. Brown died at one-and-a-half times the rate that whites died. They are less served by the health care facilities. We need a special outreach effort. The federal government has provided no funding to do that.

There are also concerns with the undocumented community that they're not exposing themselves to legal action, so we're working through that. But the vaccine critical mass is still months away, and until the vaccine hits critical mass, keep operating at the maximum safe level. We want the economy open. We want people working at the maximum level that is safe. So to recap — it's about hospital capacity, increase in balance testing, keep schools open, small gatherings are the number one cause and we have to alert the public. Small gatherings are difficult. It's not about government enforcement. Government is not capable of enforcing what you do in your home, but again it's people being smart. And we're getting ready for vaccine distribution.

Personal opinion: if I have to wager, you'll see these numbers continue to increase all through the holiday season probably until mid-January. You have not yet seen the effect of Thanksgiving. There will be a lag and you will see the effect a week out from today, but I expect those numbers will continue to go up. If I'm really going out on a limb, I would say, guess you start to see a stabilization mid-January at a higher rate raised by the holiday season. After New Year's, it starts to settle down, you see the rate stabilize, but the rate will be much higher than it is today. That's why it's about the hospitalizations. You won't see a real end until the vaccine hits critical mass and I would wager today you won't see that until late-spring, early summer at the current rate. It could change. So, we have to settle in, but the good news is New York is doing better than almost any other state on the numbers. New York is better prepared than any other state and it is all in our control. It's not in your control, but it's in our control. This is all a function of human behavior and social action. It's all a function of what we do. If you wanted to get the rate to zero virtually, you could do it if you all agreed to a certain behavior pattern. We have to work, we have to function, but it's all in our control. Good news: I believe in New Yorkers. They did this before at a much harder level with less notice, and we'll do it again. But we have to do it. We see the goal line; we just have to get there. Today's numbers: micro-cluster areas 6 percent. Statewide without micro-cluster 4. With micro-cluster 4.5. Test results 148,000. 54 people passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalizations are up to 35,000. ICU up to 681. Intubations 325.

"Tough times don't last because tough people outlast them." Who said that Marcia Kramer?

Marcia Kramer: Oh, what's his name? Your father's favorite person.

Governor Cuomo: A.J. Parkinson.

Marcia Kramer: A.J. Parkinson.

Governor Cuomo: You're right. You get the first question.

Marcia Kramer: [inaudible]

Governor Cuomo: At one point. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You still get the first question, but we have a number of guests who are with us on the Zoom call and we're going to hear from a couple of them. We're going to hear from Ken Raske, and Mayor Bill De Blasio and County Executive Ryan McMahon from Onondaga County. We also have with us Michael Dowling, Beatrice Grause who's the head of HANY's — the Hospital Association of New York State; County Executive Adam Bello from Monroe; Steve Bellone, County Executive from Suffolk County; Laura Curran, County Executive of Nassau County; George Latimer, County Executive, Westchester County. I want to thank them all for all their help over the weekend. I didn't, I would never have thought to call you over a holiday weekend and bother you, but Commissioner Zucker said I had to. Otherwise, I would have never have done it because I don't believe in that. You know, I'm a 9 to 5 kind of person myself. So, thank you for allowing us to bother you because the Department of Health mandated it. You know how that is, Mike Dowling. But let's hear from, we'll hear from Ken Raske and then Mayor De Blasio and then County Executive McMahon.

What do you think, Ken Raske, and thank you for all your good work. And Bea Grause, thank you for all your good work. What do you think about the hospital situation and what we're looking at Ken?

Ken Raske: Well, good afternoon, Governor. I think you're right on target. The hospital capacity issue has gone to the top of the agenda again. The spring was brutal. You make no bones about it. We were all worried about replicating the situation we saw so vividly in Italy with people lined up in the hallways. That never came to pass, thank God. We learned a lot, sir. We learned an awful lot, and working hand in glove with the New York State Department of Health, with your office particularly, we've come to terms with a lot of issues that we were confronting in the spring such as PPE, the stockpiling of PPE. You provided enormously great guidance there. Surge expansion and planning, including 50 to 100 percent expansion. This new balancing within systems is critical on the load side of things. And I think that your plan as outlined, sir, makes a lot of sense to the hospital community. The new triggering metrics as it relates to obviously hospitalizations is extremely important and creates, is built on a foundation that we absolutely need as we go forward. I'm confident sir, based on what I've seen and what our hospitals are experiencing currently that our ability to cope with this is going to be a total team effort as it has been and our ability to respond to the needs of the public including all their healthcare needs will be assured by the kind of plan you just outlined. So, we look forward sir to working hand in glove again with you as we have and I think New Yorkers should be reassured that their healthcare system is in good hands.

Governor Cuomo: Well, Ken, with your leadership this health care system managed an epidemic that no other state had to deal with. We had the worst problem in the nation by far and thanks to you and your partnership we managed it and we learned a lot along the way so we're in for round two. With any luck at all, round two is not what round one was and we're smarter and were better for it but thank you. I'm just sorry that we have to go through it again but the vaccine is coming and it will end. It will end. Thank you.

Let's go to Mayor Bill de Blasio. I know he didn't get a chance to enjoy Thanksgiving because I kept interrupting but he was very good at speaking with a mouthful of Turkey. He was very good at doing that, continuing to eat but do business at the same time. I respect that.

Mayor de Blasio: You got to enjoy it when you can but, Governor, thank you. I thought the conversations this weekend were very helpful and I appreciate the plan you've laid out. I want to accent the fact that our hospital systems, our health care leadership really deserve tremendous praise for how much they have learned and the adjustments they've made and I thank Ken Raske and all the hospitals that he represents and our New York City Health and Hospital system and Mitch Katz and his whole team and the amount of strategic improvement that has occurred. You right, we found ourselves in the middle of hell out of nowhere in the spring but since then tremendous work has been done and we're seeing very different outcomes and this is part of the good news even in the midst of the challenge that you are focusing on today, that our hospitals, our health care workers are handling cases with really innovative new approaches. Thank God we're not seeing so far the same stress on our ICUs here in New York City. Thank God we are not seeing people pass away as we did in the spring. We got a long way to go and I think you're right to focus us on this whole holiday season and the weeks after but I want to sound a hopeful note that I think our health care system here in New York City is holding strong, we're monitoring it obviously daily, hourly, but I like what I see. I also like the fact that New Yorkers are getting tested. Governor, we have had record levels in the last couple of weeks, the number of people lining up to get tested, we're trying to make it easier, set up more and more locations all the time, the expansion of testing is a crucial strategy for us, all over the city equitably distributed as you said and obviously more deeply in our schools as well. What we're seeing is New Yorkers are responding. They're coming out and they're getting tested and it's helping us to do the work we need to do to keep everyone safe so that to me is part of the heroic story of the people of New York City and New York State and folks really have gotten engaged. We need them to keep getting engaged so a reminder of course, everyone coming off the holidays, that you need to follow those testing protocols if you traveled and you need to have certain quarantine if you don't test out. We're going to be out there in force to make sure people get the support they need if they need to quarantine but also to do the good enforcement work to make sure people realize how serious it is. So, Governor, thank you for the plan you've laid out. We're going to work closely with you and I know that we learned a lot of lessons from the spring, we're applying them successfully here in New York City, and you're right we got a couple of tough months ahead but there is a better day coming, but everyone needs to be part of the solution in the meantime and that's what we're going to keep doing here in New York City. Thank you.

Governor Cuomo: And Mayor, I think opening the schools I thought was the right idea and your testing in the schools is great so we know that they're safe and you want to talk about good news and silver linings, the fact that the positivity rate is so low in the schools compared to the surrounding community so children can continue to get educated and their parents can go about as normal a life as you can have I think that's going to be very helpful and I think it's going to be very helpful as soon as we hit January, we get through this holiday season. So that's also good news, right?

Mayor de Blasio: Amen.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you for being with us, Mayor. And we have County Executive Ryan McMahon from Onondaga County.

County Executive McMahon: Governor, how are you? Governor I want to thank you for your collaboration and your team's collaboration. As you know the data driven approach to making decisions in this pandemic is one that both sides of the political isle should respect and appreciate and I want to thank you for that. In addition to that, because of the testing and tracing programs that have been set up throughout New York State and every county. This allows us to have accurate data so good decisions can be made, and specifically in Onondaga County we just went from a yellow zone for many of our school districts and some of our school districts went into an orange zone and what we learned from the data to your point and to the Mayor's point was that in-school testing showed us that we had a positivity of under 0.4 percent in our districts so keeping kids in school is safe. The regulations and protocols that your team helped put forward are working and as we move forward I really want to specifically thank your team for working with the county executive and the Mayor over the weekend to look at the orange zone protocols so we can do it in a safe way, a sustainable way where we can still address the testing resources and other parts of the academy as well but right now we're very happy, Governor. We look forward to working with you. As you know in Onondaga County, Syracuse basketball, we're in basketball season and we're in the second half of this pandemic. We just got to grind out together.

Governor Cuomo: You're right. Thank you, County Executive, and you're exactly right. We've been through the worst. We're not done yet but we've learned a lot. It is good news on that school testing, and making the testing sustainable and making sure we balance so we can hit all the needs on the testing is going to be very important but we'll watch the hospitals, we'll get through the hospitalization issue and then hopefully we start to turn the corner with this new vaccine and next conversation we're going to have to have is on the vaccine distribution and making sure that we do it here in New York better than any other state in the nation. I want to have the fastest, fairest and safest vaccine distribution program in the country, and we will. Thank you for all your time over the weekend, all of you. And again, I would never, Bill, Steve, George, Mike, you guys know me, Adam, Laura, I would never have interrupted your weekend if it wasn't for Howard Zucker making me with one of those state mandates, and it was an unfunded mandate.

Thank you all very much.

2020-12-01 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys. Thanks for getting on a little bit earlier. I have a call with the National Governors Association after this. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Howard Zucker and Gareth Rhodes. Today is day 276, and the overall state with the micro-clusters, 4.96. State without micro-clusters, 4.4. The micro-cluster positivity, 6.2. 66 New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalization is 3,774, which is up 242. 718 COVID patients in ICU, up 37. 348 intubated, up 23.

Western New York, still the highest infection rate in the state, 7.2. Finger Lakes, 6.2. Central New York, 5. Mid-Hudson, 4.7, Mohawk Valley, 4.4, Long Island, 3.9, Capital Region, 3.4, New York City, 3.1, North Country, 2.8, Southern Tier, 2.6, statewide, 3.9 on a seven-day average.

The numbers are going up. We expected the numbers to go up. My projection is that the numbers will continue to go up through the holiday season. We focused on Thanksgiving as a day, or as a weekend, but Thanksgiving was not a day or a weekend. It was the commencement of the holiday season. And the holiday season is a season of increased social activity. And increased social activity increases the viral transmission. The COVID grinch seizes the opportunity of the holiday season for increased viral transmission rate. COVID grinch is an opportunist. You can quote Dr. Howard Zucker saying that. It sounds more official when it comes from a doctor. Sounds kind of silly when it comes from me.

So I think the rate will continue through New Year's. I hope the rate stabilizes post-New Year's Eve, New Year's Day. That would be seven to 10 days afterwards, so I think you're looking at mid-January for stabilization of the rate, I hope, I hope, I hope. But that's just a projection. But the numbers are going up. The number one priority when you get into this situation, hospitalization, and overwhelming the hospitals, and we announced we're focusing on along with a five-part strategy, and we're continuing to do that.

The light at the end of the tunnel is the vaccination, and that will end this epidemic. The question is, when does the vaccination hit critical mass? If you listen to the experts, they will project summer, late summer, September, before it hits critical mass. So that is a relatively long period of time, although we can see the goal line. That also depends on how effective we are at distributing the vaccine. Distributing the vaccine is going to be the greatest governmental undertaking since COVID began. It is much more ambitious than COVID testing, which thus far has been the most ambitious governmental operation undertaken since I have been in government. How do you now vaccinate the entire population of the State of New York?

I use these numbers with you, I use them with President-elect Biden, who repeated the numbers because he found them striking. The country has done about 120 million COVID tests nationwide, with everybody focused on doing COVID tests. Now you have to do 330 million vaccinations. It took you 9 months to 120 million COVID tests. How long is it going to take you to do 330 million vaccinations? Likewise, New York State - we have not yet, we're the number one state in the nation on taking tests - 9 months working on it every day. We still haven't done a number that reaches the total population of the State of New York and that's 9 months.

That's a COVID test which is not a by and large a frightening test or a test that has a lot of skepticism about it. There's a lot of skepticism about this vaccination and there's going to have to be public education and outreach unparalleled to get people to the point where they're going to take this vaccine. I mentioned the Kaiser polls, 60 percent of Americans don't trust the FDA approval process. Pew poll, 50 percent.

The vaccination program is going to be a major governmental undertaking and it has to be done right. As we sit here today, there are 3 problems that I have been focusing on and bringing to the attention of the federal government that I think are gross omissions that are going to fundamentally impede effective vaccination. Number one: It is an expensive undertaking and the federal government has provided virtually no funding for the states to do this. Literally $200 million has been provided by the federal government. The states are not in the position to fund the vaccination process. The states are running deficits. The federal government hasn't even funded the current deficit. Now you think the states are in a position to fund the vaccination program? They're not. They're pressing the states and local governments to actually cut the budgets, lay off essential workers, who would be the same people who would implement this vaccination program.

The first issue is there's been no federal funding to actually implement the vaccination program. The pharmaceutical companies developed the drug. Why? Because it's what they do, it's their business, it's also their responsibility. Corporate responsibility. Also because they are going to make large profits, so they did what they had to do. Pfizer, God bless them, New York company, developed the first. By the way, Pfizer did not participate in Operation Warp Speed. They didn't take any money from the federal government. They did it because there is a market opportunity, so we have the drug.

Government's responsibility is now the administration and the federal government has no plan to do it and no funding to do it. That's number one. Number two, this is going to be especially difficult to administer to Black, Brown and poor communities, just like we went through with COVID tests. They're underserved by healthcare facilities and their rate of skepticism is higher.

It's going to be an extensive effort to outreach to Black, Brown and poor communities. You're going to have to partner with Black churches, you're going to have to go into public housing projects, you're going to have to run public information campaigns. We just went through this with the COVID test. There's no such provision in the federal program. I believe that is discrimination either by intent or by effect, and I believe it's illegal and I am notifying the Congressional Black Caucus and other groups. We're working with NAACP, we're working with the Urban League to inform the federal government that if they don't have an outreach program for the Black and brown community, they are furthering the discriminatory effect and unequal effect of COVID. The death rate was double in the Black community. The death rate was one-and-a-half times in the Brown community. Those are the facts because they have more underlying illnesses because they have less healthcare services, and they received fewer COVID tests than the White community. So that's the second issue - discriminatory intent or effect of the vaccine program for the Black, Brown and poor communities.

And the third issue - which I am sending a letter today to President-elect Joe Biden to notify him as well as Congressional Black Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus and is going to be addressed to the Trump administration - is in the vaccine process as outlined by the federal government they have said the states must sign what's called a data-sharing agreement where the states share data with the federal government as to whom they vaccinate.

The data sharing agreement from the federal government specifically says the states should identify recipients using such identifiers as social security number, driver's license ID or passport number. These are proxies for citizenship. The data sharing agreement also says that HHS can share this data with other federal agencies. Anybody who reads that language knows what they're talking about. A little bell goes off and it says they're going to share it with ICE. Déjà all over again. This is what I went through with them on the driver's license and Trusted Traveler Program. They specify that they want indices of citizenship in the vaccination program that the state would provide to HHS and then HHS can share with anyone they want. That will dissuade the undocumented community from going near the vaccine. That will then impede the health of the undocumented community, but it will also impede the effectiveness of the entire vaccination program because the vaccination program only works if everyone is vaccinated. You need to get up near 80 percent of the community for the vaccine to be effective. And if you are not reaching out to the Black community and the Brown community, and then you're alienating the undocumented community, you are making it virtually impossible for this vaccine program to work.

We have been speaking to HHS about this. There's no reason why you need a Social Security number. We can identify people without using indices of citizenship. There's no reason why we have to send citizenship data to HHS about a vaccine and I'm releasing a letter signed by 54 of New York group that work with undocumented people: immigration groups, legal groups, all protesting this. I'm sending it to the New York delegation. I'm sending it to the Congressional Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, President-elect Joe Biden. I am confident knowing President-elect Joe Biden and his team, that they would not stand for this, but they're not there till January 20, and this vaccination program is all being put in place by the Trump administration. So, it sounds like President-elect Biden takes over very soon, but sometimes very soon isn't soon enough because the Trump administration is making states sign these documents now because they're going to start distribution of the vaccine before President Biden takes office. So, we are releasing that letter today. As I said, I think it is illegal and I think it is discriminatory. And I think it's a pattern of discriminatory acts taken by this administration and HHS.

2020-12-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. For those of you who may not know who is here, to my very far right is Mr. Gareth Rhodes, Chancellor Jim Malatras, we have Commissioner Howard Zucker. To my left, we have Melissa DeRosa, Secretary the Governor, and we have Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

Today is day 277, believe it or not. Four important questions that are on everyone's mind, I get asked all the time: Where are we in terms of COVID now? Where are we going in terms of COVID? And when is COVID going to be over? There's talk about vaccinations, sounds like the end is imminent. Fourth question is, what do I get my spouse or significant other for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and other holidays. I have no good advice on the fourth question. Gratuitous advice is to get something that is easily returnable so if it doesn't work, then they return it - no harm done. A little more gratuitous advice,I have a birthday coming up, one of my daughters called me up this morning and said, "What do you want for your birthday?" I said that's up to you but not a sweater or a tie, which I consider default gifts. If a person can't figure out what to get you, what do they get you? A sweater or a tie. No sweaters, no ties.

The holiday season is 37 days. We talked about Thanksgiving. It's not about Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the commencement of a holiday season, and it goes from Thanksgiving, to post-Thanksgiving, Black Friday, to commencement of holiday parties, to commencement of holiday travel, to commencement of holiday celebrations. That is 37 days up to New Year's Day and I see that is one period of time that is a period of increased social activity. Increased social activity will increase the infection rate. My personal opinion is that you're going to see the increase continue all through the holidays. You'll see it continue through January 2 and then the lag for the testing and hospitalization which takes you to about mid-January. The question is, how fast do the cases increase? Nobody can tell you because it depends on what people do. It is up to us. There is no pre-determined fate. It is a pure function of what New Yorkers do. It's a pure function of social action. What can government do during this period? We can warn people. We can educate people. We can enforce restrictions. We can do testing and tracing.

What is the biggest fear? The biggest fear is overwhelming the hospitals, period. That's where we are and that is a serious, serious concern. We announced a five-point plan the other day. I'm sure you all recorded it to memory but for those of you who were out sick, first was my managing the hospital system and managing the load of the hospital system. We know the capacity of hospitals - 54,000 statewide. We know it by region. Manage that load. Increase and balance the testing. There is a lot of demands on testing. You have to test nursing homes, you have to test essential workers, you have to test business professionals who have licenses, who have to be tested as part of their work. You want to be fair in balancing that testing.

Keep schools open K to 8. Positivity rate in schools is amazingly low and shows that the schools are much safer environments than the surrounding communities both for the teachers and for the students. Small gatherings are now the number one cause for spread and that's new and that is different, and the public has to understand that. Fifth, get ready for the vaccine distribution. We hope for a flattening of the increase in mid-January. We hope that the increase in social activity is through the holidays and after January 2, people settle down, the social activity slows down, the travel slows down, and the increase in the rate slows down. Okay, then what happens after January 2?

We then turn to how effective is the vaccination program going to be because the vaccination program is really the end game here, right? And there are big questions on that. How fast does the vaccination program go into effect? How fair is the vaccination program? How inclusive is it? How many people partake in the vaccination and how much does the federal government provide for a state to actually do the vaccine and the percent of participation. You have a very high skepticism rate about this vaccine specifically. You have a high skepticism rate about vaccines in general. Remember what we went through with the measles vaccine where you had a lot of parents who just did not want their children vaccinated for measles. There's a whole anti-vaxx movement of people who are skeptical about vaccines. 

On top of that, you have added skepticism about this vaccine. How long is the plateau? How long is the drop on the other side? Depends on the vaccine production and delivery schedule and the effectiveness of it. When do we get back to the normal economy? Experts will say you need 75-85 percent of the population vaccinated. That is a tremendously high percentage on every level - administration of it and acceptance of it. There is a range when the experts say you can get to that point; Some say as soon as June, some say not until September. Again, nobody knows because there are too many variables. It may also vary state to state, depending on how well that state does and depending on the receptivity of that state's population. 

On the vaccines, we've spoken to the FDA. Dr. Hahn is the commissioner of the FDA. We have a New York panel. The New York panel will review the FDA's approval. Why? Because we know we have existing skepticism about the vaccine. Our panel did not create the skepticism. The skepticism existed and that's why we created the review panel. The Kaiser poll says 60 percent of Americans are skeptical about the vaccine approval process. Kaiser is not a political organization. Pew poll says about 50 percent of Americans are skeptical about the vaccine. That is very, very troubling. If people think the vaccine approval process was politicized, they're going to be less likely to take the vaccine. You saw the numbers we need to participate. You need 75-80 percent. 

If you start with a public where 50 percent are skeptical about the vaccine, that's a major problem. To combat that problem, about seven states said, I understand you're cynical and skeptical about this administration's approval process. We'll set up a New York panel, California panel, to review the approval to help build confidence and to counter that existing cynicism. It's not that the states panels created the cynicism. The cynicism created the state's panels. The FDA and this administration created the cynicism. What happened on Hydroxychloroquine created the cynicism. The overt political influence that this administration has shown, repeatedly, that has been imposed on public health officials created the cynicism. So, it is real, and it exists and every poll has said the same thing. 

We've also spoken to the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield. We communicated to him and I believe he understands: This has to be an inclusive process. The Black, Brown and poor community has paid the highest price for COVID. Why? Because it exposed an inherent discrimination in our health care system. They live in communities with less access to health care, they had a higher level of preexisting conditions. Blacks died at twice the rate of whites. Browns died at one and a half times the rate of whites. COVID testing was at a lower level in the Black, Brown and poor community. I'm not going to enhance and aggravate the discrimination that has already been manifested by now excluding them or discriminating against them in the vaccination process. New York State will not do that. I believe it's unconstitutional. I believe it's illegal. I believe the vaccine should be made available to everyone regardless of race, income, religion, et cetera. And we know that the Black, Brown and poor community has already paid a disproportionate price for this COVID virus. And we know the Black, Brown and poor community made up a majority of the essential workers who we relied on to do the most important work for us all through this. We also know that if you don't have the full participation of the Black, Brown and poor communities, you're never going to hit the goal of 75 to 85 percent. And that means the vaccination process will fail for all New Yorkers and all Americans.

We also know that you can't dissuade the undocumented population from participating. Federal guidance has the states signing something called a data-sharing agreement. The federal government suggests we identify recipients by using social security numbers, passport numbers, or driver's license ID numbers. Those are also proxies to determine citizenship. The federal agreement then says they can share that information with other federal agencies. That triggers ICE and Homeland Security. We have lived this fight in New York with the Trusted Traveler Program and the driver's license program, where we know they were trying to get our list to have ICE use it for enforcement actions.

And the third variable is going to be the vaccine funding. I'm working with the National Governors Association. The federal government is not providing any funding to speak of for the states to do the vaccinations. Who's supposed to pay for this? How am I supposed to do the distribution? We have a deficit from COVID. You have local governments who are starving and may lay off essential workers. Those are the essential worker you need to do the vaccine program.This vaccine administration will cost the state a billion dollars. The federal government has not provided funding to states anywhere near that amount.

I've also been speaking to congressional leaders across the board, senate leaders across the board. If they do a package, there has to be funding to administer the vaccines. It's not enough to say, "We'll deliver them to your state." That's very nice. FedEx can deliver them to the state. How do we then distribute it? How do we do the outreach? How do we do the public education? How do we convince 85 percent of the people to take the vaccine? How do we get into public housing? How do we get into Black and Brown communities? Who's going to do this and who's going to pay for it?

Yesterday, the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices issued four more prioritization recommendations. They recommended front line healthcare workers and elderly people living in long term care facilities. That recommendation coincides with the priorities that we had established already so the CDC's recommendation reinforces the priorities we established.

The first vaccine delivery to New York will be 170,000. The federal government distributes the vaccine by percentage of population of that state. So, the state's population divided by available dosages is what the state gets. There's no discretion in how much the state gets. It's purely a percent of population which is what they say at least. We expect if all safety and efficacy approvals are granted, those doses will arrive on December 15.

By the end of December, the administration suggests that there will be enough to vaccinate 20 million people with two dosages, which is 40 million dosages. That means 6 percent of Americans - gives you an idea of where we're going to be coming into January, and those 6 percent will be prioritized as the health care workers, seniors in congregate facilities, et cetera. But 6 percent of Americans, having available dosages by the beginning of January, you see how far we have to go.

New York State also expects additional allocation of the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine which has also been approved and we expect them later this month.

We're going to have to take two operations simultaneously. One is the hospital management situation, which is critical. We have to reduce the spread. We have to reduce the number of people going into hospitals, and we have to manage that patient load going into hospitals. We don't want the hospitals overwhelmed. At the same time, you have the vaccine management program. The vaccine management program, we need the federal funding, we need a real aggressive outreach effort, we need social acceptance and confidence to take the vaccine.

This is going to be the largest government the operation not just through COVID. This will be the largest governmental operation undertaken since World War II in my opinion. To give you an idea of how massive this is, I said this to President-elect Biden at an NGA meeting, this nation has done about 130 million COVID tests over the past nine months - 130 million from day one of COVID. We have to do 330 million vaccines, twice. How long does that take you? This state, more testing than any state in the United States, we have done just about the population of the state doing everything we could and that's taken us nine months to do a COVID test.

A COVID test, very few people refuse a COVID test. It's not a frightening test. It's a nasal swab. Now you're asking a person to take two vaccines and you're asking them to take two vaccines which is a more elaborate medical processand they're distrusting about the vaccine going in. So this is going to be an incredibly challenging period to undertake both of these at the same time.

We are going to bring back former Secretary to Governor Larry Schwartz who came and helped us out at the height of the pandemic. You can see by his face that he's very happy to come back and help once again. I thank him for the joy that is on his face and his willingness to come back and participate. Larry was former Secretary to me, former Secretary to Governor Paterson, Deputy County Executive Westchester, Deputy County Executive Suffolk. He'sprobably one of the most skilled government officials I've ever worked with. He ran the Surge the Flex program, the PPE shortage program the first time around, so he's going to come back and help. Linda Lacewell is going to come back. Simonida Subotic is going to come back. They helped the first time around. You can see they're also very happy to come back. They're also very big with hand gestures, both of them, if you notice which is a good way to communicate using the hands. I use hand gestures also, but they were very helpful in the first tranche and I thank them for coming back and helping again.

We're going to have a- this is a period where we need the public to understand the changing dynamics, and how this COVID is now spreading and how dangerous a period we are in with hospitalizations so we're going to going to do briefings every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and we'll start that next week.

These are the numbers for today: Micro-cluster zone, 5.8; statewide positivity, 4.2, overall positivity with the micro-cluster, 4.6. 193,000 tests, 69 New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 3,900 hospitalizations, that'sup 150. 742 ICU, 373 intubations. You can see - we're looking at this now by region - the regional increase over the last three weeks, and you see the same basic curve on every region of the state. First time around, we had a New York City, downstate, Long Island, Westchester problem. That was actually beneficial in a way, because we could bring resources from Upstate to help downstate. We don't have that option here because you see that the increase is statewide.

These are the charts that we're going to focus on going forward. This is the increase in hospitalizations by percentage, okay? Highest increase in hospitalizations, Western New York, Mohawk Valley then Finger Lakes then Long Island then Central New York, Mid-Hudson, New York City, Capital Region, North Country, Southern Tier by percentage, and those are alarming percentages. And we take that into consideration. By number of cases, the prioritization shifts for obvious reasons by number of cases, it's New York City first, 600 additional hospitalizations over three weeks, then Long Island 366, Western New York 307. Now if you adjust for population you see Long Island's very high, Western New York is very high, Mid-Hudson is very high by population. And it's important to see it both ways, because, remember, the hospital capacity is roughly relative to the population of the region. So, New York City is up 600, yes, but New York City is many more hospital beds. So, you have to look at the percentage increase and you also have to look at the number of cases.

Bad news, we have another mountain - I know how much you like mountains. I've heard many of your comments about the mountains. I may make another mountain to symbolize the mountain because I know you like it. That's the bad news we have another mountain to climb. The good news is the goal line is in sight. And the goal line is a vaccine that we administer that people accept. That could happen as early as June, could happen as late as September. It depends on us. Depends on us, how many people go into the hospital; depends on us, how many people get vaccinated, how quickly. More good news: New York is starting in a much better place than the other states. We are just starting at a much better place. We have a lower percentage of hospitalizations, lower percentage of hospitalization increase, less burden on our hospitals pro rata, less of a hospital emergency than the other states.

Because New Yorkers have been smart - they did the best job in the country the first time around, going from the highest infection rate to the lowest infection rate, and I have no doubt if we do what we have to do, New Yorkers will handle this surge better than any state in the country. I also think New York State is going to be stronger and better for it. I know that you don't see it now, but this has been a global period of disruption. People say "Well, when are we going back to normal?" You're not going back to normal. Life doesn't go backwards; life goes forward. The question is, who finds the opportunity in this period of disruption? You're going to have new business practices, you're going to have new housing practices, you're going to have different development patterns. There is opportunity for the entrepreneur economy and entrepreneur government that seizes those changes, and that's what New York will do because New Yorkers are tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving. 

Before we do questions, we have a PSA that we want to show you, which is going to try to talk about the new situation with COVID and how it's changing. Do you want to run the PSA? 

***PSA highlighting the dangers of covid-19 transmission through 'living room spread' plays***

Living room spread. Living room spread. So that's what we have to explain to people. It's not mass gatherings, it's not what it was. It's literally living room spread, which when you think about it, is understandable. People change the socialization pattern. Where did you socialize? We're social beings. We like to be with each other. Where did you socialize? "We went to the restaurant and sat around the restaurant and we talked and had fun." Okay, that doesn't work anymore. "We went to the bar and we sat around, and we talked to each other, and we had fun." Well, that doesn't work anymore. "Okay, come to my home and we'll socialize in my house. We'll go to Jesse's house on Friday night. We'll watch the game, bring the family, we'll hang out and we'll have fun." When you eliminate those other options, socialization is not going to stop, especially during the holiday season. It went into smaller gatherings in homes and that'snow over 70 percent.

That concept of living room spread is hard to communicate because the whole orientation is, "I'm in my house with my family and with my friends. This is my safe zone. I'm sitting in my living room. Of course, I'm safe. This is my best friend Jesse. He would never get me sick." It's not intentional. It's not that he knows. He was asymptomatic. Yeah, "I was with my kids. I was with my family." That's where it's happening. That's where it's happening. That's why states — dozens of states — went to no more than 10 people in a home. Kentucky went to no more than eight people in a home. The Trump administration, CDC says you should not be in a gathering besides your immediate household with whom you are normally with. That's the CDC, that's Trump. That's why these people want to play politics with this — whose politics are you playing? If Trump's CDC, Joe Biden's COVID Advisory Board says the same thing — the one thing Trump and Biden agree on is this concept of spread in small gatherings. Trump's guidance is more strict than the state's guidance. It's no politics. I mean you can't dismiss every health official. Every Republican health official, every Democratic health official, President Trump, President-elect Biden. "I know better than all of them." Okay, maybe you do, but maybe you don't.

2020-12-03 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Sparsely attended, because it caught you unaware. I said next week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Not this week. Spontaneously still works. Today, day 278. Update on the numbers, because the numbers are changing. Positivity in micro-clusters, 5.91. Statewide positivity without micro-clusters, 4.49, with micro-clusters, 4.8. Over 200,000 tests, which is a lot of tests. 61 New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 139 up on hospitalization, 41 up on ICU, 4 up on intubation.

It's all about hospitalizations. Hospitalization rate, hospitalization capacity. Over the last three days, okay, that's how many people entered the hospitals from those areas over the last three days. Southern Tier has done really remarkably well since we had that problem. I think it really communicated to people. This is change in hospitals over the past week, okay, past seven days. New York City, up 249, Long Island, 181, Finger Lakes, 142, Mid-Hudson, 123. Obviously, highest number, New York City.

So really you want to look at this compared to the population in that area, right. Yes, you're going to get more people out in New York City, because New York City has 9 million people. This is the hospitalization by percentage of the region, which I think is probably the most telling tale. Western New York and Finger Lakes both have .03 percent of their populations hospitalized. .03. You then get to Central New York, Mohawk Valley, Mid-Hudson, Long Island, Southern Tier, Capital Region. You're at .02. New York City, North Country, .01. Got it? That is how many people were hospitalized as a percentage of that population. And that is, I think, probably the most relevant chart right now.

In the broad scope of things, we're dealing with hospitalizations and increases. We are doing dramatically better than virtually every other state in the country. Who's doing better? Maine, Vermont and Hawaii. Maine, Vermont and Hawaii are in a different situation than New York. Less population, less cities, less density, et cetera. We have been going back and forth with Massachusetts, but Massachusetts is now higher than New York is today.

Total scope of things, total number of hospital beds in the state is what? 53,000. Hold it a second, go back. That's not totally accurate. 53,000 until we what? We flex, of the flex and surge. We can increase the 53,000 beds up to 75,000 beds, which we did last time, right. We added 50,000 beds, do you remember that? How many beds are currently occupied? 35,000 beds. How many beds are currently occupied with COVID patients? 4,063. So that's the dimensions that we're dealing with. We're dealing with hospitalization rate, hospitalization capacity, you start with 53,000 beds, you can end elective surgery, reduce the number of people who are in those beds. You can expand the system. It's difficult but you can do it. We did it last time, by 50 percent. That brough you to about 75,000 beds. Today 4,000 people hospitalized with COVID. At our height, how many people did we have hospitalized with COVID? At our peak about 19,000, just to put all these numbers in perspective.

The legislature passed a rent assistance bill. The rent assistance bill appropriated $100 million, up to $100 million, but had eligibility requirements on what income levels could qualify. We ran the program. The number of eligible applicants, only brought us to $40 million in rental aid by the parameters of the law. By executive order I'm going to change the law. I've spoken to the legislative leaders about this - reopen the application window, extend the eligibility requirements to help more New Yorkers.

Washington is considering passage of a bill which would help with state and local financing, unemployment insurance, transportation aid, vaccination funding, et cetera. They have been going back and forth. Speaker Pelosi put forth the Heroes Bill months ago. They were then talking about a possible compromise bill. Senator McConnell has been extraordinarily difficult. His statement was let the states go bankrupt. Fifty states go bankrupt, that's bad for the country because the country is 50 states.

Senator Manchin has proposed basically a bipartisan compromise bill of $908 billion. I spoke to Senator Manchin. He explained his reasoning which I think is sound. I spoke with Speaker Pelosi. I agree that, as Governor of New York, that we need help desperately and something is better than nothing and as a first down payment I urge them to get something done before they leave for Christmas. Families will not have a holiday if they don't act and if there isn't some aid. President-Elect Biden also urged them to get something done. Senator Manchin who I have great respect for by the way says that he believes this is the best they can get done. Again, it's a first down payment. Doesn't come near to the need. It would be a short-term bill until March and I would urge them to get this first down payment bill passed before they leave just so families have funding for the holiday season and it takes some pressure off state and local governments. They would then have to come back and do a real bill next year.

Also, as Chairman of the National Governors Association, National Governors Association, we asked for $500 billion in state and local funding. National Governors Association is Democrats and Republicans. We sent a letter supporting a $500 billion state and local package. This bill has $160 billion in state and local funding so it's not nearly what the governors asked for of this country but again something is better than nothing and we will support a first down payment bill.

The next chapter is going to be vaccine distribution and vaccine acceptance. This is the weapon that wins the COVID war and we have to get serious about this. The distribution is a massive undertaking by government. I've said a number of times it has to be fair, it has to be equitable, state has to have funding to do it, we have to be able to get the black and brown communities and poor communities. Blacks died at twice the rate that whites died; Browns died at one and a half times the rate that whites died. They've had less COVID testing, they have higher infection rates, there is no justification not to have a very aggressive outreach program for the Black and Brown community, but government is going to have to do its part. People are also going to have to do their part. They're going to have to accept this vaccine and right now all the current data suggests people are very skeptical about the vaccine. The estimates are you need about 75 percent of the population to be vaccinated for it to be effective, and you have 50 percent of the population, roughly, saying they're not going to take the vaccine. Mathematically that doesn't work. You can't get the 75 percent if 50 percent say they aren't going to take it. But this is here and now. This vaccine distribution is going to happen in the next couple of weeks. New York State is going to be very aggressive about the distribution. I believe there's a great advantage to the state that most effectively vaccinates all people, and we'll be reaching out and educating people in the state. I would never ask anyone in the state to take a vaccine that I was unwilling to take myself, that's always been my standard. I'm not asking you to send your child to school if I wouldn't send my child to school. I'm not asking you to put yourself in a situation that I wouldn't put myself, and I won't ask New Yorkers to take a vaccine that I wouldn't take myself, but it is real, and we need people to start to focus on it because we want to get it done very quickly, and I want New Yorkers to start to think about it seriously. We're not going to get to the general population for a while but you will start with nursing home distribution. So, you'll have parents asking their family, "What do you think? Should I take it or not?" You'll have health care staff having to decide whether or not they take it. And people should start focusing on it because it's real and it's here and again, New York wants to do it as quickly as we can.

Just to show you how real it is. In this box- What's in this box? Maybe it's Christmas present. Who would I give a Christmas present to at this point? Let's not ask. This is a box of vaccines. Pfizer, which is a great New York company, made the vaccine. Pfizer developed the vaccine without any assistance from the federal government. They did it all on their own, and we're very proud to call them a New York company. The vaccine process is a complicated process, and the distribution is going to take a lot of work and a lot of effort. The package itself comes with a Geo tracker GPS tracking device that can track the program, and a thermal monitor so it monitors the temperature of the package. You want to know where the package is and the package has to stay at the right temperature, because if it doesn't then the vaccine is destroyed. It comes wrapped in dry ice. The dry ice because it has to be ultra-cold. When you receive the package, you have to replace the dry ice and then you have to replace the dry ice every five days. Under the dry ice is the actual package that has the trays in it. The trays have the actual vials in it. By the way, the vials are made of glass from Corning Glass, another great New York company. A vial contains enough for five dosages. The vial comes with a diluting liquid and the actual vial gets diluted before the vaccination actually happens. One tray, they call this a tray, one tray can hold up to 195 vials. Each vial, this is a vial, can do 5 dosages. The package itself can hold 5 trays. So, roughly 5,000 dosages could be in this one box. The storage and handling of the box itself is complicated. You can only open the box two times a day for 60 to 90 seconds each time, because keeping it the right temperature is very important. So, it's either in ultra-cold storage, or it has dry ice, but then you can only open it twice a day for 60 seconds to 90 seconds each time. When you actually do the vaccine, you take out the vial. The vial is frozen. You have to allow the vial to thaw at room temperature for about 30 minutes. You then dilute the vial and let it stand for 2 hours, and then you have 6 hours to administer the dosage, okay? So this is a complicated procedure. That's one dosage and then the person has to come back and receive the second dosage about 21 days later.

So, the package comes; it either has to be stored in ultra-cold storage or the dry ice is replaced and the dry ice can keep it. Up to 5,000 dosages, per vial and then there's a procedure to de-thaw the vial, dilute the dosage and then administer the dosage within 6 hours thereafter. And it's one dosage, second dosage is 21 days later, and the vaccine is really isn't effective until after the second dosage. So, it's not easy, but it's real and they're being manufactured, and they're going to be shipped, and we're very proud of Pfizer, we're very proud of Corning, and we are working very hard to be ready for the distribution and training people on the distribution to make sure it's all done correctly. But, this is the weapon that is going to win the war, and that is the light at the end of the tunnel, right? So, it's not tomorrow, it's not a short tunnel, but we know the way through this. We just have to get there, and we have to get there with as little as loss of life as possible.

2020-12-04 NYS. Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon guys. I want to make sure everybody's working on a Friday afternoon. It's not even 4:00 o'clock, so I don't feel bad about keeping people late. I have on the telephone Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Jim Malatras, Howard Zucker, Gareth Rhodes, Beth Garvey. Follow the data. Follow the data. Give love, get love. The data says today is day 279. The overall state with micro-clusters 5.4, overall state without micro-clusters 4.7, micro-clusters 7.3. Sixty New Yorkers passed away. They are in our thoughts and prayers and that's the most important number of the day. Hospitalizations up 159. 795 people in ICU, that's up 12. 403 intubated, that's up 26. If you want to look at the numbers across the state, positivity by region: Western New York 7.4; Finger Lakes 6.6; Central New York 5.7; Mohawk 5.7; Mid Hudson 5.4; Long Island 4.8; North Country 4.2; Capital Region 4.1; New York City 3.8; Southern Tier 2.75. Good for the Southern Tier.

The infection rate is not that relevant anymore. We're really focusing on the hospitalization rate and hospitalization capacity. Hospitalization rate as a percentage of population, right - it's not just the raw number, it's the percentage of the population. Western New York and Finger Lakes are at the top at about .03; Central New York is also .03l Mohawk Valley .03; Mid Hudson .02; Long Island .02; Southern Tier .02; Capital Region .02; New York City .02; North Country .01.

When we talk about hospital capacity, this is something that I think is important for people to remember, we do something different in New York. We do a lot of things different in New York, but when it comes to the hospital management, we do things that other states don't do. We start with about 53,000 hospital beds, okay? We then have ended elective surgery in the past. We ended elective surgery in Buffalo as of today. Of the 53,000 current hospital beds about 35,000 are occupied. If you end the elective surgery, you vacate a percentage of those 35,000 beds. It depends on the hospital, but if you vacate 50 percent of the beds, that's another 17,000 beds, right? if you vacate a third of the beds, that's about another 10,000 beds, right? So, that is an option that we will exercise if we need to.

Second, we have in the past and we are prepared to again, mandate a 50 percent increase in hospital beds. That takes the 53,000 up to 75,000 hospital beds. So, when it comes to hospital capacity: we have elective surgery cancellation, mandatory 50 percent increase, and then we have emergency bed creation capacity where we can create several thousand hospital beds relatively quickly. We know that, because we've done that, and we can do that again. So, that's on the hospital capacity issue - we have flexibility in our capacity, hence the "flex and surge" plan. It's not that we were that creative in the name; it's just very descriptive.

On the ICU capacity, some states, California, is putting in restrictions because they have an ICU bed capacity issue. Our ICU bed capacity is about - we have about, rough numbers, 6,000 ICU beds. Right now, we have about close to 40 percent of those beds available, okay? California has an issue because they have about 15 percent of their ICU beds available - we have about 40 percent of our seat our ICU beds available, so that is also good news for the State of New York.

Another factor that you need to understand: We all have mild version of PTSD from what we went through in the spring. The spring, the hospital protocol, the medical protocol, was very different for COVID. Listen to this: In March and April, 25 percent of those hospitalized went to the ICU. 85 percent of those in the ICU were intubated - that then drove the ventilator crisis. Currently, instead of 25 percent going to ICU, 18 percent go to ICU. Instead of 85 percent intubated, only 45 percent are intubated. The length of stay in the hospital in March, April, 11 days. It is now less than half that. It's down to five days is the average hospital stay. So, when you're talking about hospital capacity, people are in the hospital for less than half the time they were before. Even when you're talking about ICU capacity, the ICU capacity when we had an ICU issue, it was because the ICU beds, we couldn't get ventilators for the ICU beds. They're not using as many ventilators on the ICU beds anymore. And then the most encouraging number: March, April of those hospitalized, 23 percent died. That number is down to 8 percent, so God bless the medical professionals who have learned more about how to treat COVID, have more therapeutics, have better medicines and better practices, but the death rate has gone from 23 to 8 percent. I have inquired, because you know me, I make many inquiries, most go unanswered, but I've inquired if the viral strain has actually weakened. Nobody will say that it has, but the death rate going from 23 to 8 is truly significant.

Another development - the federal government is now offering an initiative where they will do the vaccinations for nursing homes and nursing home staff. They contract with medical companies, drug companies to actually do the vaccinations of nursing home residents and nursing home staff. A state can opt in or opt out. We're going to opt in to that program. So, the federal government will be vaccinating nursing home residents and nursing home staff. They do the staff on a rotating basis. What we also are planning is there are about, let's say 700,000 health care workers, of the 700,000 about one third are considered high risk healthcare workers. We had this conversation - not all health care workers are classified as high risk, all 700,000, have a risky job, and I totally respect them. But of the 700,000, one third are classified as high risk, treating COVID people in emergency rooms with COVID-positive people, etcetera. Within the next two weeks we should have enough vaccines to vaccinate about one third of that one third, if the federal government delivers as they say they will, and nursing homes and high risk health care workers, they are up at the top of the list of prioritizing people to get the vaccine.

Also, as I mentioned yesterday, we have about 30,000 data points on where COVID is coming from. Over 70 percent are coming from household small gatherings which are really beyond government control despite CDC saying you should only stay with your household. New York and about 20 other states have a rule of no more than 10, but it's really beyond the government's ability to enforce. But there are restrictions and bars and restaurants and gyms, there are capacity restrictions, there are protocol restrictions. I need the local governments to enforce those restrictions.

The lack of compliance is a problem. I understand COVID fatigue. I understand people are resentful of these regulations. I get it, but if you don't enforce the restrictions and if the restrictions are violated, then they're pointless and they have to be enforced and I need the local governments to do the enforcement of the restrictions.

Our largest two problems right now, 1) the 70 percent spread small gatherings aggravated by the holiday season, and 2) lack of compliance on the restrictions which is social fatigue, social resentment, social noncompliance and lack of government enforcement. You know, because the law. "Well, people don't like the law." You know, there are laws that I don't like but the law is the law, and the law has to be enforced. I need the local governments to do it because that is an increasing problem, the lack of people following restrictions and the lack of local governments enforcing the restrictions.

Now, people say, oh it's political, Democrat, Republican. This is a narrative that's out there, let's be honest. Certain publications are pro-Democrats or pro-Republican. They each make their case. This is not a political issue. New York State said no more than 10 people, but 20 other states said no more than 10 people. President Trump's CDC says no one beyond your household. So, the Republican rule, no more than anyone beyond your immediate household, is much stricter than this state's rules. President Trump's CDC just came out and said you should wear a mask indoors if it's not in your own home. That's a Republican administration that said that today.

Forget this narrative, this hyper-politicization. New York Post, we're Republicans. Democrats are bad. Democratic rules. If President Trump gets his CDC director, they are proposing restrictions much stricter than any restrictions we have imposed. If President Trump believes in the restrictions; if President Joe Biden believes in the restrictions, then stop with this political narrative dividing people because there is no politics. I understand everyone wants to do everything through a political lens.

We're in the holiday season. People don't follow the restrictions, they don't follow the CDC guidance, you're going to see an increase. One plus one equals two. One plus one, plus one equals three. One plus one, plus one, plus one equals four. Right? These are facts in life. I'm just giving you facts. I'm giving you data. These are numbers. There's no spin, there's no politics, there's no ideology. These are just numbers. Let's leave the politics at home.

At the same time, New York State still lowest infection rate in the nation, except Maine, Hawaii, Vermont. We're at 4.4. Above us is Massachusetts, 4.8. Above Massachusetts is Connecticut, 5.4. Above Connecticut, Alaska, 6.2. Maryland, 6.2; Delaware, 7.6; California, 7.6. Relative to the nation, we are doing very, very, very well. By our hospital capacity, we're doing well. By our ICU capacity, we're doing well. By the household spread and small gathering spread, that's our problem. People not following the restrictions, local governments not enforcing, that's a problem. That's where we are.

The vaccine is the weapon that ends the war. The question is how long it takes.

2020-12-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: So, a couple of questions for you Dr. Fauci. That's what we're doing in general, your opinion has always been valuable to us. The holiday spread, I think it continues through Christmas, Hanukkah, et cetera. I'm trying to guess, and I know it is a guess, when we could see the peak of this holiday spread? Is it after New Year's? Is it mid-January? Do you have any guess, an educated point about that? And again, thank you very, very much for being with us.
 
Dr. Fauci: Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to listen to what I found to be a very interesting plan that you have for New York. It seems really sound, and you have a lot of backup contingencies, which I like so you're not going to get caught shorthanded on this, I'm certain. So, thank you for that.
 
In regard to the issue of the holiday spread and the peaks, they are going to be superimposed on each other. So, you would expect the full brunt of the travel and family setting gatherings with friends that you alluded to as a problem, you would expect the effect of the Thanksgiving surge in probably another week and a half from now. It's usually two weeks from the time of the event. The problem is, that's going to come right up to the beginning of the Christmas and Hanukkah potential surge. So, you have a surge upon a surge, and then before you can handle that, more people are going to travel over Christmas, they're going to have more of those family and friend gatherings that you accurately said are an issue.
 
So, if those two things happen and we don't mitigate well and we don't listen to the public health measures that we need to follow, then we could start the seeing things get really get bad in the middle of January. So, I think not only for New York State but for any state or city that is facing similar problems, without substantial mitigation, the middle of January can be a really dark time for us, but as you said in your presentation coming up there were some things that we can do to mitigate against that. I think particularly the appreciation that it's such a natural thing to think when I have family over, eating and drinking and you don't realize that there may be somebody that you know, that you love, that's a friend, that's a family member, who is perfectly well with no symptoms and yet they got infected in the community and brought it into that small gathering that you're now having in your home. So, that's the reason why I want to underscore what you said, that's one of the issues, but bottom line for your first question, mid-January is probably going to be a bad time.
 
Governor Cuomo: The small spread, family spread, living room spread - we call it living room spread here - like 16 states have done an order of no more than 10 in a home. The CDC guidance, that's President Trump's CDC, says no more than 10. Some states have gone to no more than 8. Compliance is very low on that. Do you think that is a sound rule, the no more than 10 in a home?
 
Dr. Fauci: Governor, I think that's a very sound rule and I feel 10 may even be a bit too much. It's not only the number, Governor, but it's the people that may be coming in from out of town. You mentioned in your presentation that you don't want somebody who's from New York who wants to go to a restaurant that's closed in New York, they go to New Jersey and then they come back. They travel back and forth in addition to the number of people in a home for a gathering or a social setting.
 
You want to make sure you don't get people who just got off an airport or a plane or a train and came in from Florida or came in from wherever. That's even more risky than the absolute number. Not only the number of 10 seems reasonable, but make sure that when people come in, that they're not people who have no idea where they've been or who they've been exposed to. You want to be friendly, you want to be collegial, but you really got to be careful about that.
 
Governor Cuomo: You're so right, doctor. The practical implications are so difficult. As I mentioned, I had a birthday yesterday. One of my daughters who wasn't with me wanted to come up. She had to quarantine before she could come to my birthday. So, you want to go travel and see someone, it's not just that weekend, it's the whole quarantining process before. In this state, we have very strict regulations of when you come in and what you have to do.
 
On the vaccinations, looking ahead, 75-80 percent is going to be very hard to reach. New Yorkers are tuned in and we're going to be very aggressive on public education, outreach, et cetera. But what does your crystal ball say? When is 75-80 even feasible? You know, I hear anywhere from May, June, July, August, September. What would you guess there? Which is when it's really over, right, when the vaccination hits critical mass.
 
Dr. Fauci: Yeah, when you have 75 to 80 percent of the people vaccinated, you have an umbrella of protection over the community that the level of community spread will be really, really very low. The virus will not have any place to go. It's almost metaphorically, if you think the virus is looking for some victims, when most of the people are protected the virus has a hard time latching on to someone. When that happens, Governor, is going to be entirely dependent upon how well we do, how well I do, you do, your health officials, in getting the message out of why it's so important for people to get vaccinated, because if 50 percent of the people get vaccinated, then we don't have that umbrella of immunity over us.
 
But let's say it works out well, let me answer your question specifically, and we do a really good job of convincing people between now and the end of December, you'd likely get a substantial proportion of healthcare providers and people in your nursing homes. As you get into January, you'll get the second level, and then February, the third. I would think by the time you get to the beginning of April, you'll start getting people who have no high priority, just a normal man and woman New Yorker on the street who's well, has no underlying conditions. If we get them vaccinated in a full court press, get them really going, and you do that through April, May and June, by the time you get to the summer - because remember it's a prime boost, which means you get vaccinated today, you get a boost 28 days from now, and then seven to 10 days following that, you're optimally protected. Even through you could get some protection even after the first shot, but optimally it's within seven to 10 days following the second shot. If we do that well, by the time we get into the core of the summer and get to the end of the summer and into the start of the third quarter of 2021, we should be in good shape. That's what I'm hoping for, and that's the reason why it's so important to extend ourselves out to the community, particularly to the Black, African-American, Latino, the people who are undocumented, the people who we really need to get vaccinated.
 
Governor Cuomo: Well doctor, I couldn't agree with you more on that. I'm pushing the Congress right now. New York, look, I think it would be discriminatory not to understand the situation that exists with the Black and Latino population, who, by the way, had- Blacks had the twice the death rate of whites, Latinos had one and a half times the death rate of whites. Higher infection rate, higher percentage of essential workers. We're going to need a whole effort just to educate, and outreach, and get into public housing, and communicate with their communities, because otherwise, they're not going to flock to the local Walmart or K-Mart or Walgreens to take this vaccine. I think we're going to need an affirmative effort to do that.
 
Let me ask you this, our school positivity rate is amazingly low. Even in communities that have higher spread, we're seeing much, much lower infection rates in schools. It's almost a universal statement that the school is the safest place to be in the community. Does that surprise you?
 
Dr. Fauci: You know, it originally did surprise me because we were always concerned, if you look at the influenza model, the issue is the kids are in school, they get infected, they come home and they infect their parents and their relatives. We're not finding that with this coronavirus. In fact, to our, I think, real positive spinoff of this is the realization that schools appear to be a place where the positivity rate just like you all are seeing it in New York, the whole state including New York City, you're not alone. We're seeing that in other parts of the country that the test positivity rate is actually really low which is really a good thing which is one of the reasons why when we were talking about what the best strategy would be we would say something like close the bars, keep the schools open is the best thing to do, so long as you subsidize and help the restauranteurs and the bar owners so that they don't go down and essentially crash because of the economic strain. But if we can keep those things under control, subsidize those people, as well as keep the schools open, we'd be in good shape.
 
Governor Cuomo: And I think you're exactly right. The CDC says more restrictions on indoor dining which I understand, and again, changing positions when facts change is intelligent. People say, well, remain consistent. I'm not going to be consistent when the facts are inconsistent and if I see a different situation I'm going to change my opinion. But the Congress, Washington, also has to understand those bars, those restaurants, they need financial assistance because this has been a long year and they have bills to pay so you can't tell them we have to close you down without saying here is the economic reality and we're going to help.
 
Dr. Fauci: Absolutely.
 
Governor Cuomo: On the question of this state's infection rate versus other states, we're lower than all states besides Vermont, Maine, Hawaii - does that surprise you and how do you explain that?
 
Dr. Fauci: You know, I have to say, being a New Yorker, Governor, it doesn't surprise me. You guys, as you and I have discussed on many phone calls that we've had, you got hit with a sucker punch right from the beginning when the cases came in from Europe and the Northeastern corridor, particularly New York State, particularly the metropolitan area got hit really, really badly. You recovered from that - was after you got hit badly, your baseline level went way, way down and very, very low, and then you did things which were the appropriate way to avoid getting, resurging. So the bad news and it's painful for me to see it from a distance to my place of birth, but you guys got really slammed and then you rebounded. And you rebounded in a way that you kept your test positivity low because you did the prudent things that you need to do. I was following it from here in Washington and I was seeing that whenever it looked like things were getting a little out of hand, you'd tighten the rope a little bit and then when things went back, you eased up a little bit. So I'm not surprised that your infection rate is really low because I think you were doing the right things after you had a really serious hit in the beginning when you were there in the late-winter, early-spring.
 
Governor Cuomo: Doctor, on this education of the population — on both the small spreads and even more the vaccine, take the vaccine it's safe — I think that's going to be difficult to do. I think you have tremendous credibility, not just across the country but across this state and I think your voice on saying that the vaccines are safe would be important. I said that as soon as the vaccine is deemed ready and safe, I'll be the first one to take a vaccine. Maybe we enlist you, I'll do it with you — we'll do an ad telling New Yorkers it's safe to take the vaccine, to you know, put us together. We're like the modern-day DeNiro and Pacino. You can be whichever one you want. You can be the De Niro or Pacino. Fauci and Cuomo. Who do you want to be: De Niro or Pacino? Which one do you want to be?
 
Dr. Fauci: I love them both. I love them both. I don't want to insult one or the other. If I say one, I don't want to hurt the feelings of the other, so either one.
 
Governor Cuomo: Yeah. Who's the politician? Alright, last question. I know you're down in Washington, you're doing great duty, but I know you miss New York. What — we want to figure out what to send you for Christmas — what food do you miss the most that you can't get down there that you could get if you were back here in New York in Brooklyn?
 
Dr. Fauci: You know, Governor. Whenever I need some comfort food and I dream back on my days in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, the thing that comes to my mind are two things: a nice Nathan's hot dog and a really steaming pastrami sandwich. That would be really great.
 
Governor Cuomo: Alright, so no cannoli, no meatballs? Nathan's hot dog.
 
Dr. Fauci: I don't want to overdo it. I don't want to overstay my welcome. I'll take them all.
 
Governor Cuomo: Alright done. Doctor, thank you so much for everything you've done for this country. God bless you. God bless you.
 
Dr. Fauci: Thank you very much, Governor.
 
Governor Cuomo: You know, this was a moment we really got to see what people were made of. When the pressure's on, you see the weaknesses and you see the strength — and the pressure was on and it forged you into a rock that really stabilized this nation, so God bless you for what you did, doctor. And I know what to get you for Christmas. Send the bill to Christopher. Thank you very much. God bless you, doctor. Be safe.
 
Dr. Fauci: You too, Governor, and thanks an awful lot. Appreciate it.
 
Governor Cuomo: Thank you, thank you.

2020-12-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good to be with all of you. For those of you who may not know people who are with us today, from my very far right, Mr. Gareth Rhodes; Chancellor Jim Malatras; Commissioner Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health, Dr. Zucker; to my left Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor; to her left Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

Today is day 284 of the COVID crisis experience journey. As I mentioned I'll be doing regularly scheduled briefings Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 11:30. Depending on the circumstances we may do additional briefings. We're now following additional CDC guidance that they have been updating and offering, very partitions that we now have which are part of CDC guidance.

The numbers for New York State for today, the statewide positivity without the micro-cluster zones which are our high intensity zones is 4.86. If you include statewide with those high intense owns it's 5.4 percent. The positivity in those micro-cluster zones is 7 percent.

We did 194,000 tests. Again New York does more testing than any other state. That gives us more data, more information, we make decisions based on the data, the more tests the more data. Statewide deaths, 95. That is a sad number. Number one numbers of death is a said number. Number 95 is extremely sad and those New Yorkers are in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalizations up about 158, ICU up 46, intubations up 28.

We now are conducting three COVID operations basically at the same time. First, we're managing hospitals under what we call "surge and flex" program. This is a hospital capacity crisis and more and more it's becoming a greater crisis for hospitals as their capacity is further diminished. We sent a letter to all the hospitals in the state talking to them about the situation and what they're going to need to do. They're going to have to be extraordinarily flexible and nimble to handle the additional case load that is coming up. Hospital systems have to work as a system and balance caseload among hospitals in their system. We then may get to the point where we have to shift patients before they're admitted to hospitals to other hospitals that have a greater capacity, so it is a management logistical nightmare and the more cases go up, the harder it gets. We released a letter that went to all hospital administrators and there's going to be a meeting with them today. So that's one operation that's going on.

Second operation is continuing to work to slow the spread of the virus. We have the Thanksgiving surge if you will and we're starting to see the full effect of that now and we're analyzing the data on the Thanksgiving spread. We also talked to, literally we've been blessed with international experts who have given us guidance and are looking at our data and our situation and actually recommend adding new factors to our plan which I think is good advice and we're going to do that and will announce a new plan on Friday.

And then third, we have the vaccine which is the weapon that will win the war. If people take it, if we get it produced, if we get it delivered, distributed and actually in people's arms, right, so those are the big ifs and that's what we are working on and that's what we want to talk to you about today with the vaccine.

First, we're going to have a real public education campaign to battle of the skepticism. Just think of the math on this - you have to get to 75 to 85 percent of the overall population vaccinated for the vaccine to be affective. Fifty percent of the population says right now they don't want to take the vaccine. They don't trust the approval process, they're worried about vaccines in general, but 50 percent are now saying they don't want to take the vaccine. You cannot get to 75 percent if 50 percent don't take it. Even I can do that math. So we need a real public education to dispel the skepticism that already exists.

Second and very important to us here in the state of New York, this has to be done in a way that protects social justice. The health care system discriminates against Black, brown and poor communities. By effect you have fewer health care facilities in poor communities. That is a fact. Higher death rate in these communities, higher infection rate in these communities, higher percentage of essential workers in these communities. We want to make sure when we do the vaccine that it is done in a just and fair and equal way.

And third, we want to expedite it. It's a massive undertaking. I think frankly people have not focused enough on the extent of what this undertaking means. I can't think of a government operation that has been commenced that is more difficult and intricate than what governments will be asked to do here. The scale of vaccinating every person in your state is just massive. New York has been very good at scaling up and we've been very good at tackling challenges during COVID, like COVID testing, but this is going to test capacity all across the board.

The way the vaccine is going to work is the federal government will be responsible for the procurement and the distribution. The military is doing the transportation. They're actually using private companies in part. Fed-Ex, other private companies, to distribute the vaccine to the different states. The federal government looks to the state to set the distribution locations. They will send it where we ask them to send it. We then set the priorities for not only where it goes but who gets it as a first set of priorities. Our priorities have basically tracked the federal governments suggestion on prioritization.

The first shipment is allocated on the base of number of health care workers and nursing home residents in the state. The first allocation is for nursing home residents, nursing home staff and high-risk health care workers. That's how we're allocating what Buffalo gets versus Monroe versus Essex versus New York City.

The state has set up 90 regional distribution centers that are capable of cold storage. This is a different definition of cold storage. This is like really, really cold storage. Not every facility can do it. Not every hospital can do it. We've identified 90 regional centers that can keep the vaccine at the required temperature and they'll act as distribution centers for that region.

Pfizer's vaccine is expected to be approved by the FDA tomorrow. Immediately after that, our New York State panel will convene and review and approve it. They've already been speaking to the FDA about the process. I think the New York panel as a second panel to approve is going to go a long way toward battling that skepticism about the approval process. We hope that it does.

If the FDA approves, it's expected to be 6 million doses available nationwide. Half of those will ship immediately, the other half will be held for the second dose for those individuals who receive the first dosage. Remember, everyone who gets this vaccine, you have to get two vaccines. They'll ship now the number of vaccines to do the first vaccination; they will then ship the - 21 days later - the appropriate amount to vaccinate the people who received the first vaccination.

New York expects the initial allocation of 170,000 doses. The federal government is doing the allocation based on state population. Again, they distribute it to the state, the state then turns around and does an allocation within the state. It could arrive as soon as this weekend. That assumes the FDA does act right away. The FDA does approve it and the military turns around and ships it immediately. It could actually be coming this weekend. Further allocations will be in the following weeks.

Our state priority: Nursing home residents first, nursing home staff. There was a discussion about if you do the residents or do you do the staff. New York, we decided to do both residents and the nursing home staff. Then you go to high-risk hospital workers. We have about 700,000 hospital workers in this state so its's a very large population. We'll prioritize the high-risk hospital workers within that overall health care population. We have rules that we have established that we will send to hospitals about what is a quote, unquote high-risk health care worker. The hospitals will select the actual individuals who will get the first vaccines within that guidance. Emergency room workers, ICU staff, pulmonary department staff.

The allocation by region, again, this is based on number of nursing home residents, number of nursing home staff and number of high-risk health care workers. The 90 locations across the state that can provide the cold storage will receive enough doses for roughly 90,000 patient-facing hospital staff. That is 40 percent of the total hospital patient-facing workforce of 225. The 225,000 is a subset of the overall 700,000, obviously. By the end of week two, if all goes well and the federal government sticks to the schedule, we expect all high-risk staff will receive the vaccination. Staff at every hospital will have access to the allocation, even if their hospital doesn't have this cold storage capacity. They will have access to the vaccine by a hospital in their region that does have that storage capacity. After we take care of all the high-risk healthcare workers, we'll then move to all long-term and congregate care staff and residents. NEMS and other healthcare workers and then essential workers, general population, starting with those who have the highest risk.

The federal government offered a program that New York State opted into, whereby pharmacies will do the vaccinations in nursing homes, which will take a burden off the nursing home staff, and New York has opted into that program. It's run by the federal government, but basically they subcontract with private companies to do the vaccinations in nursing homes. Flu vaccine we do this way. New York by participating in that program, we provide part of our allocation to that program, so we actually have enough vaccinations to cover all residents. Part of the future allocations will ensure enough doses to make sure we complete that program. Completion is all nursing home residents and staff.

We expect deliveries to begin next week. The federal administration says they're going to start by 12/21. New York is dedicating part of our initial allocation to the program, but we do expect to have enough to cover all residents and all staff. The staff is actually vaccinated on a rolling basis to make sure they have staff that's receiving the vaccine and staff that's working at all times.

We're also pleased that the New York National Guard has been selected by the Department of Defense as a pilot program where they will vaccinate people from the National Guard who have been working on our COVID-19 task force. And New York is pleased to participate in that. And the National Guard who have been doing a phenomenal job for the past nine months as we've worked through this barrage, they'll be eligible for the vaccine also.

The fairness of the vaccine is paramount, and I mentioned it before, but we have to make sure this nation understands that we can't make the same mistake twice. Death rate among Blacks, twice what the death rate among whites is from COVID. Death rate among Latinos, one and a half times the death rate among whites. COVID testing, fewer tests taken in the Black and Latino and poor communities. It was just a manifestation of the disparity in healthcare, and it has to be corrected during the vaccination program. we have to get into public housing. We have to partner with Black churches and Latino churches, community groups. This has to be a fair distribution, and New York will lead the way. We've made these concerns known to HHS, I've sent letters, I've done speeches, I'm working with civil rights groups across the state. Made these points to Congress on several occasions, we're working with the NAACP, Mr. Johnson, we're working with the Urban League, Mayor Marc Morial. But this is a point that we have to bring home and we have to be successful.

We do have good news that we waged a similar effort on the rules for vaccinations for undocumented people. The way the federal government constructed the program, basically they wanted the states to collect social security numbers, passport numbers or driver's license numbers for anybody vaccinated. These are all bells for people who are undocumented, alarm bells. And it sounded like you were trying to use the vaccination to identify undocumented people. We have gone through this with the federal government at length wit the trusted traveler program previously. If undocumented people don't get vaccinated, it compromises their health and it compromises the whole program. again, the program only works if you hit a critical mass of the population. If you say, well, the undocumenteds we're going to exclude practically because they don't come in and participate, you have 50 percent of the population that's skeptical, if we're not going to reach out to the Black, Latino and poor communities, it's never going to be a success. So, we raised this point again. We did letters. I did speeches. I've spoken out publicly and HHS has agreed. The CDC specifically has agreed that the State will not send individual data identifying a person in a way that could be used to document citizenship or deportation, et cetera.

We insisted on that in what's called the data-sharing agreement, data use agreement, and the CDC agreed. So, that is a better vaccination program for this country and for this state. It took a lot of work, but I want to congratulate all the advocates and people who stepped up and spoke up, because it was a good service.

We want to raise one of the topic which is very important. The congressional back-and-forth on financial relief for state and local governments is essential. We sent a letter to Congress today that was co-signed by myself, elected officials, the Speaker of the Assembly Carl Heastie, the Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Mayor Bill de Blasio, all our partners in labor. We need federal aid. Period. We have been very good at dealing with economic circumstances in the state of New York. I have closed many budget gaps. I've closed the largest budget gap and the state's history. I am telling you, we can not close this financial gap without federal aid and that's what the letter to Congress says.

Our most important point is, whenever they come up with a program, there's now a bill for $908 billion, I believe President Biden will come in and will propose a large package. The funding should be distributed by need, not by politics. The funding should be distributed by need. By need, not by politics. The other funds that they have passed, what they call the CARES Act, they distributed that money politically. Everybody got X, they just cut it up like a piece of pie. This is supposed to be funding that goes to help states recover from COVID. To help cities recover from COVID. It wasn't supposed to be a political pork barrel. And the distribution should be by need. Who got hurt by COVID and what is the need from COVID. That's what taxpayers were told they were funding.

New York State paid the greatest price in the nation for COVID. Not because I'm the New York State governor, that is a fact. We were misinformed. We were misled. It was the negligence of the federal government that created the situation in New York. We were all there in the spring, when the federal government was saying the virus is coming from China, it's coming from China; a few cases in California because people from China to California. The virus was in China. It was in Europe. And either they didn't know it or they didn't tell us. I don't know which is worse but the virus was here in January, February, March from Europe. Three million Europeans came and brought the virus, while they were still pointing to China. The China travel ban was February 1st. There wasn't a ban from Europe until March 16th. March 16th the horse was out of the barn.

We had thousands of cases in New York. Planes landing in JFK, and Newark, and LaGuardia airports. If we do not get federal funding, the consequences are going to be devastating to this state, and the families and governments within the state. You can see the layoff of several thousand government workers unless the federal government is truly responsible and accountable, and really gives New York the funding it deserves, you'll see tax increases. You probably will see tax increases in any event, pardon my skepticism about Washington, but you could see dramatic tax increases that would hurt families and hurt the economy. If the MTA doesn't get funding they could lay off 7,000 MTA workers. They would have to raise bus and train fares and tolls. That's the last thing we need now. You have to borrow money for New York City for New York State, just to make the ends meet, and you put all of these things together: government borrowing, tax increases, layoffs - this is the last thing you want to do now. Not just on the state level or city level or a local level. This is the last thing you want to do nationally. You want this economy picking up, not slowing down. Every economist from every ideology says if they starve states and local governments and make states and local governments lay off workers, you will hurt the economy and you could cause a recession. Why you would want to lay off essential workers now when you're just starting this ambitious vaccination program, I have no idea. I mean, more of obnoxious coincidence of facts you could not have. Greatest governmental undertaking on the vaccination program — oh, now we're going to start state local government so they have to lay off the people who do the vaccination. I mean, it's a level of idiocy that is unparalleled, and forget government. You hurt people. You hurt people. You hurt families who don't have a paycheck. You hurt small businesses that have been hanging on by their fingernails for months. It's not politics. I talk to Governors all across the country. Every state is in basically the same situation. They have to act responsibly and they have to act quickly and that's in the best interest of everyone.  

I'm pleased today to be joined by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is going to discuss this topic with us today. We're also joined by Mario Cilento, who's the President of the AFL-CIO.  

Obviously, this has a dramatic effect on the people who work for the state, the people who work for businesses that rely on the state. And New York City, which really dealt the brunt of the burden in the spring. Remember those planes? They landed at JFK, they landed at Newark, those people were going to downstate New York and the need, the cost, the human sacrifice was nowhere higher. We're dealing with it nationwide now, but New York was ambushed. We were ambushed. We never saw it coming. We had no warning. We had no notice, and we went from one case to literally thousands of cases in a matter of weeks, and I do hold the federal government responsible. New York City, New York State — we don't do international global pandemic watchdogs. That's not what we do. It's what the federal government does. It's what the CDC does, and the NIH does. They track global pandemics, and they missed it on this one. Or they didn't miss it and they didn't tell us about it, but that's the issue that we're facing now.  

Mayor Bill de Blasio, thank you very much for being with us today. Were all meeting these new CDC protocols. I don't know if I need a piece of Plexiglas between me and a Zoom screen yet. That's probably next week's protocol, but good to be with you and thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today.  

Mayor de Blasio: Thank you, Governor. Plexiglass does not solve every problem. I just want to say it's like it's like duct tape — it solves a lot of things but not everything. But Governor, look. I want to join with you emphatically in reminding our colleagues in Washington what really happened here. You are [inaudible] right, the federal government was not there for us. You know, we found out months and months later that the disease was already spreading in New York City in February when we had no testing resources from the federal government. They wouldn't even let us do our own local testing; when we said we are ready, they said, "no, no, no, no." Think about the lives that were lost because the federal government was missing in action. And Governor, we all experiencedwe were at those hospitals. I went to Elmhurst Hospital. I went to Bellevue Hospital. I talked to the families who lost their loved one. I went to public housing. I heard the pain of New Yorkers who felt this silent killer arriving. They wondered how on earth this could happen in America? But the truth is our federal government did not warn us, did not prepare us, did not support us even when we raised a warning. You did it. I did it. We begged for that testing. Couldn't get it. So, is there anyone who wants to debate these facts? I don't think they'll be able to. Is there anyone who wants to contest the fact that this state bore the brunt? That this city was the epicenter of the United States of America? In March and April, we went through the worst of this entire country and [inaudible] New Yorkers [inaudible] forever. They can't be here with us to testify, but we testify in their memories. How much pain we went through. So, it's as simple as the way you laid it out. I'm going to amplify it. State and local aid it is absolutely necessary, or else we are ignoring the pain and the death and the suffering that went on in this city and this state. It is literally an insult to the families who lost their loved ones if Congress does not give us the support we deserve. You have to have support for the State government. The State of New York is going through well. We need a strong State of New York. I can say on behalf of all cities, towns, counties in New York State, we all need aid as well or we will not able to stay on our feet. We will not be able to provide the services people need. Governor, people  need the services more than ever. The vaccination as you said, but all the other health care services, keeping our schools going for kids, providing safety for people, folks need that more than ever and if we cannot provide those services how are we going to have a recovery? And this is the part that bothers me the most, the people who say they want a strong economy, they want to see America come back, how do you have recovery if cities and states are collapsing all around you if you can't provide basic services? If you cut basic services you cut off the recovery. That is the bottom line here, so I know what we went through. I felt it, I lived it with my fellow New Yorkers. I know we deserve help to recover from a crisis we did not create and our federal government did not [inaudible]. I know states and cities and towns and counties will do our all if we're just given the opportunity to get back on our feet. I also know this city and this state are among the strongest engines of the America and let's not leave this out this discussion. If you want the United States of America to come back you need New York City to come back, you need New York State to come back. In good times, and those good times were as recently as January and February, we were [inaudible] in a strong economy. Now we've been hit back on our heels. Do you really think United States Americans is going to come back without New York City and New York State, returning to our full strength? It's not going to happen. So, Governor, [inaudible] I say to [inaudible] our Senators, our Congress members, but we need you guys now, we need you more than ever. We need you to tell our story and ensure we get just our fair share. That's all we're asking for so we can come back strong for the people of this city and this state. Thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Well said, Mayor. And by the way, Mayor, what you say is exactly right and there's no disagreement on the facts. We know that the virus was now here in February. We found out too late but scientists will attest to that fact. We know the virus came from Europe. Scientists will attest to that fact. You had Dr. Redfield of the CDC and Dr. Fauci testify before Congress, April, May, that we missed it. We missed that the virus left China, went to Europe, and then came to New York. We missed it. That's what happened to New York City, New York State. They missed it. Okay. It's a quite different conversation about their competence and how much they communicated, but they missed it and they said they missed it. They created it, and your point about you want to bring back the national economy - you don't bring back the national economy without the New Yorker economy. You're exactly right. Thank you very much, Mayor, it's a pleasure to be with you even though we're on Zoom, but at least we don't have Plexiglass.

Mayor de Blasio: No Plexiglass.

Governor Cuomo: I'll see you soon, Bill. Mario Cilento, our partner, President of the AFL-CIO, good to be with you, Mario. Thank you for the help on this.

Mario Cilento: Thank you, Governor. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it and let me just say this - first I want to thank you for your leadership in the effort to secure funding from Washington. You continue to set a standard for leadership that we can all be proud of and as you said federal aid has to be proportionate to the damage we've already incurred as a state. Working men and women in New York have suffered more than any other state in the country and in every possible way. The damage done economically to New York and to New Yorkers is incalculable, but in addition to the economic hit we have taken, [inaudible] as well as the emotional stress is something so many working people continue to deal with. Workers not knowing, Governor, they don't if they will have a job next week or next month, not being able to buy presents for their children for the holidays, families not sure where their next meal is coming from [inaudible] pay their rant and as a parent myself it kills me to think. So many New Yorkers are going to have to disappoint their children this year and I know Governor you as well, a father of daughters like me, I know you feel the same way and that's why we desperately need the federal aid. This isn't a New York issue. This isn't a union issue. This is a matter of humanity of taking [inaudible] extreme need [because] more harm on those [inaudible] so much [inaudible] who risked their lives and the wellbeing [inaudible] seen their coworkers sickened and in some cases die, and as you said Governor [inaudible] doesn't receive a minimum, as you said, of 15 billion dollars in federal aid we're going to see additional tens of thousands of workers out of work, essential and non-essential-- and I believe everyone is essential. But a cycle keeps to churn: the more people out of work, the more funding we're going to need to help those on unemployment, in addition to funding we're going to need for those who need public assistance, who doesn't qualify for unemployment. And then the higher unemployment hurts the mom and pop stores locally because if you don't have, if you're not getting a paycheck, you can't go to the store and buy a candy bar for your daughter or your son, buy a newspaper, go to the dry-cleaner, you can't afford it. So they're out of business. No federal aid for our state and local governments means a reduction in the services that we all rely on. No money for the MTA means fewer busses and trains to take us to and from work, so now parents and children suffer—as if children haven't enough already through the last year. And worse than that; we hurt our ability to get essential workers to and from work so that they continue to serve the rest of us. It's insane. So, no money for state government and local governments means less money for our schools, for our health system, for our sanitation workers who I think, many of us forget sometimes that they're there every day, fire fighters, on and on. But Governor I strongly believe this: that the measure of an enlightened society is helping those who need our help the most, and it's also defined by having a standard of living and a quality of life we can all be proud of. And without federal help Governor we are pushing the limit on our enlightenment, not just as a country, or as a society, but as human beings. And I pledge to you here today Governor that the labor movement will work with you in all capacities to ensure federal funding, and to ensure that New York continues to have a standard of living and a quality of life that we can all be proud of. My two and a half million brothers and sisters in the labor movement in this state, Governor we will stand by you side by side and shoulder to shoulder, continuing to reach out to Congress and Senator McConnell to let them know how critical the funding is for all of us, and Governor I want to say thank you, and thank you Governor for leading this fight.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, thank you Mr. Cilento for being with us. You said it so well and it's so true, you know we celebrate the essential heroes, and they are heroes, God Bless what the working men and women did in this state, and all across the nation, and now we want to turn around and lay off the very people who we celebrate as essential heroes? We're going to lay off the people we need to bring this economy back? To do the vaccinations? It is idiocy. We'll stop it, we'll stop it, the way we stopped the undocumented exclusion, the way we'll make sure the vaccination is done fair, we'll stop it. We'll stop it together Mario. God Bless you, thank you very much for being with us.

2020-12-14 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Good to see you, Michael Dowling, who is the president and the CEO of Northwell health, which is the largest health system in the State of New York. It's very good to be with you. Dr. Chester, pleasure.

Michael Dowling: Good morning.

Governor Cuomo: And to you, the person who is going to take the first vaccine in the State of New York, maybe the first vaccine shot in the United States. Sandra Lindsay, an ICU nurse. It's a pleasure to be with you. And you are in Long Island Jewish Medical Center, which is in the borough of Queens. Good things come from Queens. Let me start by saying thank you. Thank you, doctor. Thank you, nurse. Thank you, Mr. Dowling. Thank you for everything you've done for all New Yorkers through this pandemic. I know how horrific it was. It was a modern-day battlefield, and that's why the word heroes is so appropriate to what you do. Put your fear aside, and you stepped up every day to serve others, and you did it magnificently well, so I can't thank you enough. This vaccine is exciting because I believe this is the weapon that will end the war. It's the beginning of the last chapter of the book, but now we just have to do it. Vaccine doesn't work if it's in the vial, right? So New York State has been working very hard to deploy it, get it out. We have trains, planes and automobiles moving this all over the state right now. We want to get it deployed and we want to get it deployed quickly, and we're here to watch you take the first shot. So, Michael Dowling, Dr. Chester, Sandra Lindsay, we're all with you.

Michael Dowling: Governor, thank you so much, and let me also express our thanks to you for your extraordinary leadership during this whole pandemic over the last number of months, and obviously today, and the fact that you committed to science and data to guide your leadership is absolutely extraordinary. And as you said, we're in eastern Queens, and as you know, Queens was the epicenter of the COVID issue back a number of months ago. This is where it hit the hardest. And this facility, Long Island Jewish, was right at the center. And here at Northwell, you know, we've seen well over 100,000 COVID patients, and at one point in April we had over 3,500 patients in our hospitals. And as you said, we are the largest health system in New York, and we are very, very proud of our frontline staff, and of course of the frontline staff of all of the hospitals and all of the facilities across the region, their spectacular work and as you said they are the real heroes, so it's a pleasure to be here with Sandra and Dr. Chester and I don't think we need to delay any further because this is a special moment, a special day. This is what everybody has been waiting for to be able to give the vaccine and to hopefully see this be the beginning of the end of the COVID issue but I just would like to say something though that just because we're giving out the vaccine is no excuse for the public out there not to continue wearing masks, not to social distance, etcetera. You have to continue to comply with safety standards even though the vaccine is going to be distributed over the next couple of months. You have to do both if we're going to be successful here as you know very well, so again, Governor, we thank you, thank you for your extraordinary leadership and with that let me turn it over to Dr. Chester and Sandra here. Sandra is a critical care nurse, has been on the frontlines all during the crisis, is a director in critical care, she has seen a lot, and she is very, very happy to be here to receive the vaccine and Dr. Chester is the director of our employee health services, so with that, Dr. Chester, we'll turn it over to you.

Governor Cuomo: Sandra, you didn't flinch. I take it that Dr. Chester has a good touch.

Sandra Lindsay: She had a good touch, and it didn't feel any different from taking any other vaccine.

Governor Cuomo: Great. Dr. Chester it all worked, the kit from your end?

Dr. Michelle Chester: Everything worked perfectly. Thank you.

Governor Cuomo: You're feeling well?

Sandra Lindsay: Governor Cuomo, I'm feeling well. I would like to thank all the frontline workers, all my colleagues, who've been doing a yeoman's job throughout this this pandemic all over the world. I am hopeful. I feel I hope today, relieved. I feel like healing is coming and this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history. I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe. We're in a pandemic and so we all need to do your part to put an end to the pandemic, and to not give up so soon. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we still need to continue to wear our masks, to social distance. I believe in science. As a nurse, my practice is guided by science and so I trust that. What I don't trust is that, if I contract COVID, I don't know how it would impact or those who I come in contact with, so I encourage everyone to take the vaccine.

Governor Cuomo: You said it very well Sandra. We trust science here in New York. The federal government approved the vaccine. We then had a separate panel that also approved the vaccine and we've been following the science all along. I hope this gives you, and the healthcare workers who are battling this every day, a sense of security and safety and a little more confidence in doing your job once the second vaccine has been administered. In New York we prioritized healthcare workers at the top of the list to receive the vaccine, because we know that you are out there every day putting your lives in danger for the rest of us, so we want to make sure we're doing everything we can to keep you safe. And the point about New Yorkers and Americans having to do their part and take the vaccine, because the vaccine only works if the American people take it. They estimate we need 75 percent to 85 percent of Americans to take the vaccine for it to be effective. So every American has to do their part, and your point is right, it's going to take months before the vaccine hits critical mass. So this is the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's a long tunnel, and we need people to continue to do the right thing and the smart thing all through the holiday season, and hopefully when we get to about June, they estimate, the vaccine can hit critical mass. But the healthcare workers will get it first because we know that you're super stressed during this holiday season. So God bless you. I want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for what you do. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows how brave you are, and skilled, and talented, and selfless. When they use the word heroes, we don't mean that lightly. We mean it deeply and sincerely. What you do, showing up every day, you really are heroes and we wish you and your families a blessed holiday season. Michael Dowling, thank you very much for your leadership once again, my friend.

Michael Dowling: Thank you Governor, and we will beat this. We will win.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. when my time comes, I want Dr. Chester. I like her style. Thank you guys. Thank you very much.

2020-12-16 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Mr. Larry Schwartz, former secretary to me, former secretary to governor Patterson has been helping us on the surgeon flex and vaccination process. As a good volunteer and is a good friend to the state chancellor Jim Malatras, please refer to him as chancellor. Deputy director of operations, Kelly Cummings, who makes everything work and run and gets things done. Amen. Dr. Howard Zucker, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. Robert Mujica budget director, and many other hats, MTA, CUNY, and the best sense of humor in the place. Where we are today’s day 291. Here are the numbers for today. Statewide positivity without micro-clusters, 5.8. With micro-cluster, 6.2. Micro-cluster positivity 760,000 tests, 95 deaths. They are in our thoughts and prayers. Statewide hospitalizations, 115. ICU up 33, incubations up 31.

Percent of population hospitalized, this is important and it’s varied. Western New York knock for Micah, seems to have flattened and is reducing, they’re at .04. That is good news. We’ve been steadfast on the message there, and I think people get it and people are understanding and we want to get Western New York in good shape. The Bills are doing great. So that’s good news. Southern tier is doing well. Mid-Hudson’s doing well. Finger Lakes is not doing well. That’s been a problem for the past couple of weeks. Finger Lakes is now more of a problem than Buffalo. North country, Mohawk Valley capital region, Long Island, New York City is actually the lowest percent, second only to the North country, in the state. So that is interesting. Positivity rate basically tells the same story. Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes. I spoke to a number of hospitals in the Finger Lakes area, Monroe, et cetera. But we need to really focus there. Western New York, again, we’re seeing some progress. But Finger Lakes, central New York, we have to watch. Southern tier lowest positivity than New York city. So that’s interesting also.

Within New York City, look at this variance. Manhattan, 2.7. Staten Island, 5.3, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, all about the same. Staten Island higher than Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx. There’s no reason for that. Staten Island is not as crowded, it’s not as dense. Doesn’t have as much mass transit as some of the other boroughs. There’s no reason for that. So we’re continuing to focus on Staten Island. Where is New York overall compared to the rest of the nation? We are doing very, very well. Were still lower than anyone besides Maine, Hawaii, Vermont, which is extraordinary. Remember, this is an international phenomenon. It’s a national phenomenon. That tide goes up. We’re a boat on the tide. Somehow we have resisted the surge of the tide and we’re doing better than almost any state in the nation. God bless New Yorkers. I believe in New Yorkers, and that’s what that is.

You look at the headlines, New York is on a path towards full shut down. New York headed for shut down. Shut down coming after Christmas. Prepare for shutdown. Is a close down possible in January? Yes. Yes. First of all, anything is possible. Second of all, you look at these increases nationally. Of course, it is possible. You already see states, other states closing down. Big states closing down. Why are they closing down and we’re not? Their numbers are higher than our numbers, that’s the chart I just showed you. So the states with the higher numbers are already closing down. But there’s a big, but, and that’s a big but. Big B-U-T. But, no one knows because it is up to us. What will happen in three weeks? What will happen in four weeks? You tell me what you are going to do over the next three weeks or four weeks and I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, right?

We know there’s been an increase over the past few weeks. But, that doesn’t determine what happens going forward. I put on a pound a week for the past four weeks. Well then in another month I’ll weigh four pounds more. No, it depends on what you do, and that’s where we are. There’s a great quote, “Don’t speculate about the future. Create the future.” You know who said that?

AJ Parkinson, right. Don’t speculate. Maybe this, maybe this, maybe this, maybe that. Create the future. It is all in our control. New Yorkers can stop a shutdown, New Yorkers can save a lot, save lives. It depends on what we do and we just have to do it. And New Yorkers are good at doing it. Slow the spread, manage the hospitals, administer the vaccine. Slow the spread, personal responsibility small home gatherings. It’s happening in your living room. Personal responsibility, I’m not going out. I’m just staying home and inviting friends over. Danger alert Will Robinson. You have to be smart, personal responsibility. Local governments, do your job and enforce the rules. Enforce the rules and get the information to the general public. We’re starting a new series of PSA campaigns. Celebrate the holidays smart. Be smart, healthy holidays. They always say happy and healthy holidays. Focus on the healthy this year. Healthy holiday season.

Hospital management, Dr. Zucker is sending a letter to all the hospitals. Hospitals have to shift to crisis management mode. Crisis hospital management is a different state of mind for hospitals. Hospitals run as individual hospitals or as systems, and they don’t really interact that much with each other. That culture has to change 180 degrees, and what has to happen is a hospital system, meaning a hospital group that has more than one hospital. They have seven hospitals, 10 hospitals, big ones, 30 hospitals. You have to operate as a system. One hospital is in an area where you know there’s a high COVID rate, start to transfer to this other hospitals. “Well, that’s not how we work.” Well, it’s how you have to work now. Also form an agreement with a neighboring hospital system, that if one system starts to run into capacity, you can cooperate with the neighboring hospital system to share the burden. What we call a patient load balancing. Balance the load so you don’t have one hospital getting overwhelmed, which is what we saw in the past. We had one hospital overwhelmed and five blocks away we had a hospital with plenty of capacity. That can’t happen again.

And then you have some hospitals in the state that are just individual hospitals and they’re not part of the system. They are the most problematic because they don’t have a system to fall back on. In Dr. Zucker’s letter he says to them, “You must form an alliance with a system.” So if one hospital gets into trouble and they don’t have any other hospitals in their system they control, have a relationship with one of the other systems so you can go to them for capacity. And then what they’re looking at is the same math that we’re looking at. They know what zip code they’re in. Look at the increase in your zip code, factor it out, and make sure you can manage that and make sure you can load balance. They need to watch the numbers and they need to be prepared. Greater New York Hospital Association Ken Raske is a real pro. He’s going to be working to coordinate the downstate hospitals, find the individual hospital’s partners and making sure the systems cooperate.

HANYS B. Grouse likewise is an experienced professional. She’s going to be coordinating with the upstate hospitals. They’re going to be working with Dr. Zucker. Northwell Health is the largest hospital system in the state of New York, Michael Dowling, a former health commissioner. So he understands it from both sides and he’s going to be providing technical assistance statewide, and we appreciate that. Also, I want hospital managers to know that this is serious. It’s one thing to run a hospital on a sunny day. It’s another thing to run a hospital in the middle of a pandemic. They have to run hospitals in the middle of the pandemic. We went through the spring. This is not a case of first impression. We learned lessons from the spring. I understand it’s a culture change, understand the bureaucracy doesn’t want to do it. I also understand they have to do it. And if they are competent hospital administrators, they will do it.

Vaccines, which is the third piece. We have started phase one of the vaccinations in New York. I believe we did the first vaccination in the United States out at Northwell, nurse Sandra Lindsey. This woman is a champion. I don’t know her, except her face did not flinch when she took that needle, and I respect that. I remember when I had to take the COVID test on TV. It is very hard to have someone poke you, probe you and show absolutely no emotion on your face. So, good for her. What’s happening now is as the vaccinations go up, COVID will come down. But, it’s a foot race, and it’s a foot race over a six to nine month period. We have to get the vaccination out as soon as we can. That will start to bring the COVID rate down. But it’s just a question of logistics and supply and make making it happen, and making it happen is hard. The priorities are we have to have a public education campaign, because as I’ve said before, we have to hit the 75 to 85% of the population has to take the vaccine to hit what they call herd immunity. Right now we have 50% of the population who says they won’t take it. You cannot get to 75% without the number 50. So we need a real public education campaign. We have to make sure it’s fair and we have to reach out to the communities that paid the highest price; the black community, Latino community, poor community. And we have to expedite the distribution and administration. And that is just 9,000 logistical pieces that have to work. That’s trains, planes, automobiles, everything working. It’s the most ambitious governmental operation that has been undertaken, period. And we have been planning for it and we’re now implementing. We so far received 77,000 doses yesterday. Total we’ve received 87,000 doses. That’s about 170,000 doses that we were speaking about from Pfizer.

We expect an additional 80,000 in the next few days. That will go for residents at nursing homes. And that’s part of that 170. Pending approval, we could get another 346,000 doses from Moderna. What happens is the state gets the vaccine, the state then distributes it proportionately to regions. Don’t double count numbers. When you listen to a lot of broadcasts or read the stories, Buffalo got 57,000 vaccines, New York State has 87,000 vaccines, New York City has 42,000 vaccines. No. The only number that we have is the number that the state has. We then distribute that to Buffalo, New York City, North Country, et cetera. So it’s a little misleading as to how many vaccines we have. We have the 170 from Pfizer, and then we’re hoping for an additional shipment from Moderna. Those are all allocations of the 170. And this is all in Phase I, which is vaccinating priority healthcare workers, congregate care workers, et cetera.

We will then move to Phase II. Phase II are essential workers and priority general public. What’s priority general public? General public who have underlying health conditions, et cetera. How are we going to do that? Good question. Glad I asked it. We’re setting up regional vaccination hubs. They’re going to be led by local hospital systems. Why? Because this is a medical operation, not a political operation. If you remember with the COVID testing, there was a lot of back and forth, well who got it first and was there favoritism, et cetera. Medical professionals are going to administer Phase II by state guidelines, but it’s going to be done by medical professionals. The state has done guidelines for Phase II. Those regional hubs, we call them, will create a regional plan for that region for Phase II. Again, it will be done pursuant to the state guidelines and then sent back to the state, the state approves or disapproves that regional plan.

We have designated the vaccination hub coordinators. So Finger Lakes, UofR is going to manage the vaccination starting with Phase II. Catholic Health System, Western New York, United Health Services, SUNY Upstate, Westchester Medical, Greater New York Hospital Association in New York City. They will be administering the vaccination. Northwell and Long Island. It’s a medical procedure. It will be handled by medical professionals. There’ll be no political favoritism, et cetera. These hub coordinators will all coordinate with the local stakeholders. They will work with the city government. They will work with the county government. They will work with the community-based health organizations. They’ll work with community-based organizations to outreach to communities that are hard to reach, but they’ll come up with a plan that meets the needs of that region. You’re dealing with the North Country that’s different than when you’re dealing with New York City.

So the regionalization makes sense and they’ll have a plan that’s tailored to their area. Again, the state will then approve the plan. The state will provide the logistics, the support that they need to actually get it done, get it done quickly. They’re going to put in their plans the first week of January. Department of Health will go through them. We want to be in place and ready as soon as we get the Phase II allocation. When do we get to Phase II allocation? Right now we’re talking about probably late January for Phase II. The dates tend to change with the federal government. It’s not a criticism. I know they’re trying to move a lot of pieces and big pieces very quickly, but the one piece we need to start the chain is we need the delivery of the vaccines. And on the current schedule, we think we get to Phase II late January. Our goal, best vaccine program in the United States of America.

Why is that such an ambitious goal? Because we are New Yorkers and we always set the bar high on ourselves. We want to be the first COVID free state. The state paid more than its fair share for COVID and what we went through in the spring. And I want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to be the first state to kill this beast. So people have questions. When can I get a vaccine? How much will it cost? What comes next? We have a website you can go to that has all the information, Vaccinate New York. It’s a one-stop for all information. That logo, NewYorkTough, that is supposed to be a bandage that would go over a vaccine. If you look at the other page, you see that bandage. That’s what that is supposed to be. I don’t think anyone would get that, but that’s what that is. There it is the bandage again. But here’s a very important point. In New York State, no person will have to pay a penny for a vaccination. No person will pay a penny for a vaccination. We want people to get vaccinated.

It shouldn’t be about wealth. No one will pay a penny. And the New York State Department of Financial Services is putting out a directive today saying the insurers must cover any cost of vaccination. We’re getting the vaccine from the federal government, but theoretically an insurer could say, but I had to pay the nurse. I had to pay this one. State Department of Financial Services saying the insurers have to pay that cost themselves. So there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s a long tunnel. We have to hit 75, 85%. Don’t relax until that happens. You have to follow the same rules. And by the way, that means all through the holidays. And that’s the problem. Another topic, state finances. News papers today suggest that Congress suggests no state and local funding.

This is a major problem. It’s also a major disgrace. We have been talking about this for months since before the election. And then after the election, people were supposed to put their politics aside and actually do their job. Apparently that hasn’t happened. This is a purely partisan debate. Again, I’m chairman of the National Governors Association. I talk to governance on both sides of the aisle. Many Republican governors received a lot of funding early on from the CARES Act. As a matter of fact, they received so much funding that they need flexibility to be able to spend their money. The Democratic states that were hardest hit have run out of that money and need additional funding like New York, like Michigan, like California, like Illinois. Some people in Washington say, well, bankrupt the states. Bankrupt the States. If you bankrupt states, you bankrupt the nation. You really want to bankrupt New York? What would that do to the nation’s economy? Bankrupting New York. And you want to bankrupt New York now in the middle of this pandemic when the numbers are spiking, when we’re just about to start this ambitious vaccination program where I need hospitals and nurses and National Guard to do this unprecedented operation? Now is when you want to bankrupt New York? It is madness, madness, hyper political parochialism madness. You know how important New York is to the overall economy. You know how important California is to the overall economy, Chicago, Illinois. How do you just say, let these states go bankrupt? How do you expect me to administer the vaccine? And you know that unless we crush this virus everywhere, we don’t crush this virus anywhere. Virus is a national pandemic. In fact, the people from one state are going to the other state. That’s the problem. I’ve been fighting this fight for months. I believe President Biden will correct the situation. He has said it publicly, privately. He gets it. The problem is he has to get into office. So you’re talking about February, March of next year. The question is, what do we do to get from now until next February, March. We can’t lose essential workers and essential organizations, especially with what we’re doing now. So the state is going to advance $1.5 billion to organizations that need cash flow between now and next February, March, when we expect the federal government will tell us that they’re going to be helpful and what that amount of funding is. But we understand we have to get from here to there and we need them to function. So we’ll have up to 1.5 billion that we will advance until that point. Some people are talking about doing a tax increase. Look, at this rate, we’re going to need tax increases. The question is how much of a tax increase. And to determine how much of a tax increase you have to do that in the budget. Because a tax increase is only one mechanism to close the hole. You have a $15 billion hole in the budget. We need $15 billion. Well, we can do some in taxes. Okay. How much? And how do we fill the rest of the hole, which is going to be in cuts? You have a $15 billion hole, you want to do 5 billion in taxes? All right. Then we need to cut $10 billion. Where do we cut that $10 billion? And who do we cut on that $10 billion. You want to raise taxes? Fine, from who? And where do they go? You want to do cuts for the rest? Fine, from where? Education? Housing? Health care? And are there other ways to get revenue? How about marijuana? How about sports betting? Marijuana, we were supposed to have done for the past two years anyway and would raise revenue.

So if the legislature wants to do the budget now, we can do that. But we have to do a budget, not just a tax increase because you can’t do a tax increase in abstract. You have to do a tax increase relative to the budget. We could do a whole budget now, but then we’re going to close a $15 billion gap now, and it is going to be devastating to people because you would have to do massive cuts and massive tax increases without the federal aid.

ut those are the choices. You do the budget now with no federal aid and you solve for a $15 billion hole, that would lay off thousands of workers. The tax increase would be extraordinarily high. Also, doing the tax increase now gets you no additional funds than doing it in the beginning of next year. Legally, that is not correct. We’ve done tax increases in 2009 and had them retroactive and they’d been upheld. Or, we wait until next February, March, we do a budget when we know what the federal funds will be. Then we do the tax increases and the cuts to actually balance.

Those are the two choices, we can do it either way. I favor waiting until next year because if we close the $15 billion hole this December, I can tell you the cuts to education are going to cause school districts to lay off teachers all across the board. I can tell you, hospitals are going to have to lay off workers. I can tell you, government is going to have to lay off workers just when we’re doing vaccines, just when we’re fighting the pandemic.

And then Joe Biden takes office and comes up with a federal aid package to the states. Then what do we do? Call back the school and say, “Oh, by the way, now I can give you funding.” The school is going to say, “I just fired 500 teachers. How do I get them back?” So that’s where we are on that.

But a bridge to here and there is the state advancing $1.5 billion until we know where we are on the other side. If Joe Biden, as president, doesn’t provide state and local funding, or can’t get it passed, we’re going to have to close that $15 billion, on our own. If we have to close that $15 billion on our own, it is going to be devastating. You’re not talking about the tax increase they’re talking about, you’re talking about multiples of that tax increase. You’re talking to cuts in almost every service. This would be the highest deficit in the history of the State of New York and this is no time to be savaging essential services.

Look, this is all hard. This is all hard, and I know hard. The times test us. It creates pressure. Pressure finds the crack in the stone, a little crack, but you put it under pressure, and then the pressure explodes the crack. The weak crumble. But pressure also forges diamonds and New Yorkers are diamonds. We’re a necklace of diamonds, different shapes, different sizes, different colors, but a necklace of 19 million diamonds. That’s why when New York tough and smart and united and disciplined and loving.

Nobody knows what New Yorkers will do between now and Christmas and how they’ll act on Christmas week. The numbers are not predestined. The numbers are a reflection of what we do. That’s what I just said. You can’t say how New Yorkers are going to act. If New Yorkers are smart and if they celebrate smart and if they focus on healthy holidays, and if they’re careful, the rate will come down.

I think what the mayor … I think a helpful warning is right, saying to New Yorkers, “Look, if we don’t do anything different and these numbers keep going up, you could see a shut down,” I say probably in January, but that’s if all the numbers go up. Don’t have the numbers go up. We’ve seen many places where New Yorkers get it. They got it in the spring, they changed. They got it in Brooklyn and the number came down. They got it in Orange County and the number came down. They got it in Monroe and the number came down. They got it in the Southern tier and the number came down. They’re getting it in Western New York and the number is coming down. So we know that we can change the numbers.

I believe in New Yorkers. I believe they’re going to be more prudent through Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, et cetera, because I think they saw what happened at Thanksgiving, right? We predicted a Thanksgiving surge, but I think they actually saw that happen, and I think they’re going to be more careful through this next holiday season.

Call me a foolish optimist, but I think New Yorkers are capable of getting us to the point where there was no shutdown and getting us to the point where we save lives. I think New Yorkers are that good, that that can happen. We need New Yorkers to be personally responsible. We need the hospitals to step up and be in crisis management mode, and we need to start communicating with people with PSAs, et cetera.

But I believe it’s possible that there’s no shut down. It’s purely a function of our action. Nobody has knowledge. These are all opinions. I talk to 50 experts a day. Some say, it goes up some, say it flattens, some say, it goes down. They don’t know because the intangible is how people act. I’ll tell you this, in the spring, nobody believed we were going to flatten the curve. Nobody I talked to. Nobody believed you could have a population react as responsibly. I’m an optimist. If New Yorkers are responsible, if the hospitals do their duty and step up their game, we might not have a shutdown, period, and we’ll save lives. So that’s where we are.

Now to the extent elected officials want to say to people, “You need to be careful unless,” I understand that. But that’s what that is. I think their warning, which is what I’ve been doing also, we have to be careful or else, but, or else is not an inevitability, it’s not a foregone conclusion.

2020-12-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Let me also talk about the COVID update for today. Today is day 292, believe it or not, of dealing with COVID. 292 days. We did 200,000 tests yesterday. We test more than any state in the country and the COVID tests really give us firm data that we can react to.

So it’s not anecdotal. It’s not I think this, I heard this, my cousin said this. We test more than anyone, so we have more facts to base our knowledge on. Overall, the state with the micro clusters, and the micro clusters are our high case load areas in the state, was about 5.3. That’s actually good news. That’s down from about 6.2. Bad news is 120 New Yorkers passed away yesterday, and they are in our thoughts and prayers. And I have been doing these numbers for 292 days. And the hardest number every day is the number of New Yorkers that we have lost.

And 120 New Yorkers, that’s 120 families. That’s mothers and brothers and children who are coming into the holiday seasons losing a member of their family. So we remember them today. 6,147 hospitalized, that’s up about 50 from yesterday. 1,095 in ICU, that’s down about three from the day before. 611 patients intubated, that’s about flat. When you look across the state on the positivity level, which is an indicator of the spread in that area, Capitol Region is at 6.2, central New York, 6.9, Finger Lakes, 8.2. Finger Lakes are a real problem area in the state for us right now.

Mid Hudson, 6.1, Mohawk Valley is a problem, 8.03, New York City, 4.1 North Country, 4.4, Southern Tier, 2.3. Southern Tier is a great turnaround story on COVID. They have had real micro cluster problems. They had real intense spread in small areas and they got it together and they turned it around. 2.3, they are now the lowest in the state, the Southern Tier. Western New York, 6.5, that’s also a flattening of Western New York. We saw Western New York going up for a long period of time. People got the word out, they took it seriously. We’re now seeing a flattening of that increase and that’s good news.

Now, Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, statewide, that’s 5.2%. On COVID, let me say this and let’s get at a simple message that we can all agree with. We want to slow the spread. We want to avoid shutdowns and together we can do it. Slow the spread. How do you slow the spread? We’re smart during the holiday season. It’s a difficult situation. Holidays, people come together. There’s a feeling of safety in your home. There’s a feeling of safety when you’re with your family, but it just takes one person who is infected and doesn’t know it. Doesn’t know it.

Half the cases are from people who had no symptoms. So normally holiday season, you’re in your home. You’re in your living room. Uncle Joe comes over, Aunt Nancy comes over and they’re your family. But Uncle Joe or Aunt Nancy can be infected and not know it. And you sit at a table and you have a nice meal and you have a good conversation and the next day you could have issues. So we have to keep that in mind through the holiday season. But if we’re smart, we can slow the spread. If we slow the spread, we can avoid any more economic shutdowns.

And that is the number one goal, save lives and avoid economic shutdowns. We just have to make it to the point where the vaccine hits critical mass and we’re working like mad to get that vaccine there, but we have to be smart. Slow the spread, avoid the shutdowns. Together, New Yorkers can do it. New Yorkers did the impossible in the spring, the impossible. I had every global expert telling me there was no way that we were going to flatten the curve in this spring, every expert. And you know what, New Yorkers did it. I believe in New Yorkers.

We slow the spread. We won’t have to shut down anything. We take the vaccine and we turn the page in life and we get ready for 2021. 

2020-12-18 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: From my far right, Mr. Gareth Rhodes, Chancellor Jim Malatras, Director of Operations, Kelly Cummings, Dr. Zucker, Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica. Today’s day 293. That’s incredible, isn’t it? 293 days. Numbers for today. Statewide positivity without the micro-clusters, micro-clusters are the intense zones, 4.6. Positivity with the micro-clusters, five. Positivity in the micro-cluster, six. 249,000 tests, highest number ever for us. And we test more than any state in the nation. So we have more facts. 120 deaths. Hospitalizations down, 66. Those negative signs are actually good news. 120 deaths are in our thoughts and prayers. And that is terrible news. Reduction in ICU, reduction in intubations. Those are good signs. What does it mean? We’ll find out if it continues tomorrow, but it’s good news.

COVID patients hospitalized by percentage of population. Western New York down, knock formica, whatever good that does. Southern Tier, 0.03. Central New York, 0.05. Mid-Hudson, 0.03. City, 0.02, New York City. Long Island, 0.04. Capital Region, 0.03. Mohawk Valley, 0.04. Finger Lakes. Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes. Finger Lakes in red, which has been consistent over the past several days, growing for a couple of weeks. Positivity, Western New York down from where they were. And now the picture has changed. It’s Finger Lakes and Central New York, believe it or not. So this is not different than we’ve really seen. We’ve seen areas where the infection goes up. We then place a lot of attention, a lot of focus. We get the word out, people react, the number comes down. But Finger Lakes is really much higher. And Finger Lakes has a problem, significant problem. New York City 4.4. So Finger Lakes double the positivity of New York City. Just for a sense of balance. Double the North Country, almost six times the Southern Tier.

So Finger Lakes, it’s not just a situation of the times. It is particular to the Finger Lakes, and that’s how you should understand it and react. Positivity in New York City. Manhattan, 2.75. Staten Island, 5.11. And this is, again, it’s why is Staten Island higher than anywhere else? There is no explanation. If anything, Staten Island should be lower. There’s less missed transit, there’s less density. So it’s not a statement of times, it’s a statement of the particular circumstances in that area. And that’s just a matter of fact from the data. Right? There are still facts. New York is still at the bottom of the national curve, and that’s good news.

Big question. Will we have shutdowns? That’s the question everybody asks me. Nobody can answer that question today. People can have opinions, but it is purely up to us because it is a question of future actions. It will be determined by us by what we do over the coming weeks. I do not believe that we are destined to have a shutdown. There is no destiny here. Destiny is what we make it. The future is what we make it. It is totally in our control and a shutdown is totally avoidable. Totally. I believe New Yorkers can slow the spread and that hospitals can manage the increase. Those are the two variables. Can you slow the spread? And can the hospitals manage the increase?

On the hospitals, we’ve spent a lot of time working with the hospitals, their capacity, their communication, their ability to deal with a surge. And we’ve spoken with many of them. They have now shifted to crisis management. We have added capacity, especially in downstate New York. And we have about 31,000 available hospital beds now in downstate New York, which is after our Department of Health mandate saying add an additional 25% capacity. Northwell, which is the largest hospital system, and in Greater New York will back up, quote unquote, the independent systems plus New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. We went through this in the spring, right? So look at the game tape and be honest about what you saw in the game tape. And what you see in this game tape from the spring is you see the same breaks in the wall in the same places. So fortify the wall where it broke before.

You have two types of hospitals. You have hospital systems. You okay? You have hospital systems where you have 10, 11, 30 hospitals in a system. And they have to work better amongst themselves, but they have other facilities in their system. Their question is challenges coordination, making sure they’re coordinated amongst each other and they’re not operating as separate independent countries. But they have backup inherent in that they’re a system. You have some systems that do not coordinate as well. That’s H and H, in my opinion. That’s where Elmhurst Hospital happened. That was the most dramatic problem we had in the spring. The other hospitals are coordinating with Health and Hospitals to back them up if there’s a problem. What does that mean, back them up? It means before a person walks into a hospital, we have an ambulance out front. And the ambulance takes the person to the neighboring hospital that has more availability. This is a phenomenal management coordination issue because the world doesn’t work that way for hospitals, but it has to work that way. And Greater New York Hospital Association, which is the representative of all of the hospitals, is going to work to backup H and H and the independent hospitals that don’t have a system to rely on. So Jamaica Hospital, Flushing Hospital, One Brooklyn that has fewer facilities. They will be backed up by the larger systems. So if they have a problem, the larger systems will help them with capacity. H and H has an issue like last time, the other systems will step in. The hospital systems are the predominance of the hospital beds in New York City. And they’re the predominance of the hospital capacity in New York City. So that’s all been in the works. We spoke to Erie County hospitals, Monroe, HANYS, which is the organization that represents the upstate hospitals. They are doing a very good job for the increased capacity and they’re coordinating and they feel good. The Department of Health regulation added 25% additional capacity and said if they had a capacity issue, they would have to cancel elective surgeries.

Now remember, the Department of Health law says, executive order is a law, says if a hospital believes, given the numbers, the rate of increase, they could hit 85% of their maximum capacity in three weeks, they must notify the state. It’s a little confusing. They’re looking at a rate of increase. Hospitalization is going up X percent a day. They’re predicting post-Christmas X may go to X plus one per day. Factor that out for three weeks. If you think in three weeks, hospital, you may be at 85% of maximum capacity, you have to tell us today. Why? Three weeks, so you have a three week buffer, three weeks, they think they’re at 85, you have an additional 15% buffer. So basically, it gives the state one month notice, at least. And at that point, we would shut down the economy. If that regional hospital system says, “We’re going to hit 85% in three weeks,” we’ll have a 15% buffer. That’s when we would shut down the economy.

That’s when we would shut down the economy. Now, no hospital in the state has given that three week notice, no hospital in the state, which means what? Three weeks from today is roughly January 8th. No hospital in the state believes they’re going to hit 85% by January 8th, no hospital in the state. That’s good news because you have no hospital in the state saying they think they’re going to hit 85% of their maximum by January 8th. So that is very good news. Ken Raske, who is the President of the Greater New York Hospitals Association, who was tremendous in the spring getting us through the spring crisis and is really one of the best hospital executives in the country, in my opinion, and I’ve worked with a lot of them, he issued this statement.

Ken is also a somewhat verbose person, uses a lot of words, but he said, he’s spoken to all the hospitals. They understand the consequences. They’re comfortable about handling the capacity. And if they’re not comfortable about the capacity or they’re concerned about the rise in hospitalizations, they would be the first one to call for an economic shutdown. I’m not kidding. I’m kidding about him being verbose, just looks like he’s verbose on this slide.

I believe hospitals are going to be able to manage this. We learned a lot in the spring. They worked together for the first time ever with that collegiality in the spring and that operational facilitation in the spring. And frankly, we’ve had more time to get ready and they’ve done more preparation now. And also, we’ve gone through this before. We did this before and I believe we can do it again. I also believe, so that’s the first factor, hospital capacity. I believe we can manage it.

I also believe New Yorkers can slow the spread. I believe New Yorkers can flatten the curve because I saw them do it. We went through the spring where I had every global expert telling me there is no way that we could flatten the curve that fast, no way, no government rules, no social action could reduce the curve that quickly. New Yorkers defied all the odds and New Yorkers did it. So I believe New Yorkers are totally capable of celebrating the holidays, celebrate Christmas, open the gifts. I actually think I’m going to get good gifts this year. I think I deserve good gifts this year. So open the gifts, enjoy, celebrate but be smart, be smart. It’s a virus. We know how to deal with it. Be smart. Take precautions. You know, they say happy and healthy holidays. They always say that in a card.

I wish you a happy and healthy holiday. Yeah, focus on the healthy this year. Right? Focus on the healthy. I believe New Yorkers are capable of doing that. I believe New Yorkers are seeing the numbers and the increase from Thanksgiving. And I think they’re going to learn from it. What happened after Thanksgiving? I sat right here, I said, “Thanksgiving, you’re going to see the numbers go up. People are getting on planes. We saw it in the airports, more airport traffic, more car traffic. We’re going to get together. We’re going to have a great turkey dinner. If we’re not smart, you’re going to see an increase.” You know what happened? Bloop. We saw an increase. New Yorkers get it. They see the numbers. New Yorkers are smart. I think they’re going to learn from Thanksgiving. And I think you’ll see a smarter response through the holidays.

So I believe we can avoid a shutdown. And I believe we will avoid a shutdown. I’ll go that far. I understand local officials, a warning of a shutdown if the growth increases, I understand why. The public needs to know the status and the consequences. I have said, if we don’t slow the spread, we could be headed for a shutdown. But we can slow the spread and the hospitals can manage it. And this is in our control and shutdowns are very, very harmful. They hurt a lot of people. They hurt businesses. They have mental health consequences. They hurt children. Shutdowns have many negative consequences. And this has been a long year, and the last thing anybody wants is a shutdown. So I’m working as hard as I can and hoping, and I believe that we can stay open and we will stay open.

We need a new mantra. Our mantra has to be slow the spread, stop the shutdown. Slow the spread, stop the shutdown. Slow the spread, stop the shutdown. It’s that simple. Focus on that. Focus on that. Holiday season, sitting at the table, slow the spread, stop the shutdown. That’s the consequence and the connection. At the same time, we have to accelerate the vaccine. This is now a foot race between the vaccine and COVID. The faster we vaccinate people, the quicker COVID comes down. They’re talking about a six to nine month timeline. That is all in our control. It’s how fast we do it, how many people do it. We had the first vaccination in the country. I believe because New York is mobilizing faster, I believe and more organized than any other state, we had the first superhero, nurse Sandra Lindsay. She is my role model. She took that shot and her face did not flinch. I respect that.

And she’s my role model. And at one point, I’m going to get this shot right here. And I want to keep my face as still as Sandra Lindsay kept her face. No movement in the eyes, no flinch. God bless her. I respect that.

Good news, FDA Advisory Committee has recommended Moderna. Now you have Pfizer vaccine and Moderna vaccine. Our clinical advisory task force approved Moderna this morning. So we talked about the skepticism about the federal approval process, which is nationwide. We said we were going to set up a New York panel to affirm the federal approval. Some people have said, “Oh, that’s going to slow it down. You’re suggesting that the federal approval isn’t trusted.” I’m not suggesting. 50% of the American people said they don’t trust the federal approval process. They did that to themselves when they all decided that hydroxichloroquine was going to cure COVID and cure male pattern baldness.

That’s when they lost their credibility. The New York panel was going to fortify that. They then said, critics, “Oh well, you’ll delay New York getting a vaccine. And maybe New York won’t get the vaccine because of the New York panel.” Yeah. The New York panel acted faster than the federal government. So there was no delay whatsoever. And now the people of this state know it’s not just trusting the federal government. The state government also affirmed it. And I will take the vaccine based on that affirmation. Next week, we receive 346,000 Moderna doses. Remember how this works. The state controls the dispersal and guidelines on the vaccine. They’re allocated regionally. The vaccines are going to be distributed medically, not politically. What does that mean? When we went to the COVID test, there was a whole question of who gets the test first. Do the rich and famous get to the front of the line?

I anticipate that with the vaccines also, who gets it first. Was there favoritism, et cetera. Did the politicians have their buddies get to the front of the line? This is not going to be done by the political system. It’s not going to be done by the county executive. It’s not going to be done by the town supervisor. It’s all being done by medical facilities. So there will be no politics in the distribution. We have distributed the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine to 292 sites across the state. We have what we call regional hubs that are the medical facility that is working on the distribution plan for phase two. These are those hub facilities, and this is how many vaccines they will distribute in that region. This combines the 170,000 from Pfizer and the 376,000 from Moderna.

Even better news, surprising news, a little bit of a mistake, but a mistake that turned good. The supply of vaccines is bigger than we thought. The initial shipment of Pfizer vials were supposed to have five doses in them. If you remember, when I showed you the Pfizer package here, I held up the vial and I said there were five doses in this vial. It turns out that there’s 40% more doses in the vial. When they’re measured in the syringe, there was more than five doses. The FDA has authorized using those doses. DOH is authorizing them today. So there’s more than five doses. There can be six doses or seven doses and that is actually increasing the number of doses that we have. We’re still on Phase One, which are health care workers, nursing home congregate. Late January, we go to Phase Two, essential workers, priority general. 19,000 New Yorkers vaccinated so far. You want to know how to get a vaccine. You can go to that very attractive website, Vaccinate New York, arm, bicep, harkens back to New York tough, but doesn’t say it. New York state vaccinations are no cost to the public. That is not true in other parts of the country. In this state, you do not pay for a vaccination. Period. So there’s one less obstacle.

New York has been through hell, but the finish line is in sight and we just have to get there. Bump along the road, Washington is going to pass a bill with no late state and local funding, but it could have education funding, and it could have healthcare funding. That would be good. Short term options on the cities, on the state’s fiscal issues. Option A is to do the budget now. Do a tax increase and do the budget. Some legislative sources are talking about a tax increase of about 1.5 billion to $2 billion. Is that the right amount? Is that too low? And who would you tax and who would you give the money to?

We have overall, a $15 billion deficit. You raise 1.5. All right, where do you put that 1.5 in the scope of a $15 billion deficit? That is a budget decision. That’s why you have to do a tax increase as part of the budget. And where do you make up the 13.5 billion? If you only do a $1.5 billion tax increase, even if you did a $2 billion tax increase, the $3 billion tax increase, you still have to make up $12 billion in cuts. I would be open to doing the budget now with the legislature option, but it’s going to be ugly.

Option B, wait until we know what the federal aid is and do a budget in April. The state can advance 1.5, either from reserves or from borrowing, to make up for whatever you get with a tax increase, to allocate that funding on an essential basis and then let’s find out what Washington will give us to find out where we really are. We can’t do $13 billion in cuts. And if we cut 13 billion now in December, and then we get money restored in April, it would be totally disruptive. To do $13 billion in cuts, you have to lay off public employees. You have to lay off teachers. Why would you lay off teachers just before Christmas and then possibly rehire them in April? It doesn’t make sense to me.

Again, I would do either, but I prefer Option B, but I’m not going to do a tax increase without doing a budget because that’s just a political statement and we have to know how much and it has to be enough to be meaningful. Option B would avoid any disruption. The AFL-CIO supports waiting till April, and they were part of a coalition that called for the tax increase. Again, 1.5, $2 billion. That is a drop of water in the ocean. So that’s where we are on that. I spoke to the labor leaders who are most directly involved and they support waiting until April and doing it right.

We are also, we understand 100% the situation that the restaurants are in. We’re extending the sales tax deadlines for the New York city restaurants by waiving interest and penalties on sales tax due on Monday, December 21st; sales tax were due on the 21st. We’re going to waive that. I understand the fiscal pressures they’re under. I hope Washington actually provides relief to restaurants and we’re doing everything that we can.

The light at the end of the tunnel is insight. It’s a long tunnel, but there’s a light there. There’s a light there. And that’s a lot better than where we were. So just stay doing what we are doing and we’re going to be okay and we’re going to be the better for it. You know, generations have gone through tough times. Generations have gone through wars. They’ve gone through depressions. They’ve gone through a terrible disease outbreaks. They’ve gone through cholera. They’ve gone through typhoid. They’ve gone through TB, World War II. I missed by just a little bit age wise, going to Vietnam. I mean, every generation gets its test and it forges that generation and I think we’re going to be the better for it.

2020-12-20 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Happy Sunday. Go Bills! Today is date 295. 197,000 tests reported. Interestingly on the number of tests, we saw before Thanksgiving and we're starting to see this week and my guess is we'll see it more through the week, just before the holidays people tend to get tested, which is probably prudent, because they want to make sure if they're positive and negative before they start to socialize with people. In any event, overall state with the micro-clusters 5.05, down from 5.18. 123 New Yorkers passed away yesterday. They are in our thoughts and prayers. 6,185 hospitalized, that's down 23. 1,045 COVID patients in ICU, that's down 43. 600 intubated, that's down 10.

Finger Lakes: 8.34. By the way, Finger Lakes- my Executive Orders, as you know, just for a point of fact, my Executive Orders can be overwritten at any time by a simple majority resolution of the legislature. Legislators have convened several times. Any executive order that they want to overrule and negate, it's just a simple majority resolution. So, this concept of, "Oh Executive Orders trump the legislature," they don't. It's just not true. They are an expediting action, but the legislature can negate it. But, Finger Lakes 8.3. It's the highest number in the state of New York. Mohawk Valley 8.18; Capital Region 6.8; Central New York 6.7; Western New York 6.3. Go bills, go Western New York. We're making progress. Mid-Hudson 6.3; Long Island 6.3; North Country 4.9; New York City 4.2; Southern Tier 2.4. Southern Tier is the turnaround story. New York City is 5.3.

Looking in New York City, 5.3 Staten Island; 4.9 the Bronx; 4.8 Queens; 4.3 Kings; 2.7 Manhattan; 5.3 Staten Island; 4.9 Bronx; 4.8 Queens; 4.3 Kings; 2.7 Manhattan. There is no politicizing the virus. Staten island 5 .3, why does it have the highest percentage in New York City? It's not the most dense. It doesn't have the most transportation. Why? COVID affects Democrats and it affects Republicans. Period. Don't play politics with COVID. You lose.

Hospitalizations by percentage of population - Capital Region 0.03; Central New York 0.05; Fingers Lakes 0.06; Long Island .04; Mid-Hudson 0.03; Mohawk Valley 0.04; New York City 0.02; North Country 0.02; Southern Tier 0.03; Western New York 0.03; statewide 0.03 - 0.03 being the relevant number in that discussion.

Two points I'd like to make - one, we're doing some research which I will report on tomorrow. The virus is an evolving situation and the circumstances change and the virus changes. The overwhelming spread is now coming from holiday spread, socialization spread. When you close bars, restaurants, people are careful at work, density comes down. The main spread overwhelming is living room spread, socialization spread, holiday spread, call it whatever you want. If you look at the places that had the most travel during the Thanksgiving holiday, they had the greatest Thanksgiving spike, so the places with the most travel have the greatest Thanksgiving spike. New York, Connecticut, Jersey had less travel during Thanksgiving and it appears proportionately less of a spike. Now that could be one of two things. It could be you're importing the virus through people coming in which we have the quarantine protection which should help. Or it could just mean increased socialization - more people are flying in so there is more parties, but that is something to keep in mind for Christmas and the Christmas season, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, et cetera, because that is what we're going to be looking at.

Next point, we're joined by Rick Cotton today. Rick Cotton is the head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. You remember Rick Cotton - he was on the cover of the New York Post, got COVID very early on from the work at the airports but he answered the front door, anyway, and looked very attractive on the cover of the New York Post and I sent it to him framed. But that's besides the point. We also have Dr. Zucker, Melissa DeRosa, Gareth Rhodes on the phone.

There is a disturbing story coming out of the UK with this new variant of the virus which according to Boris Johnson is 70 percent more transmissible. The World Health Organization is aware of the new variant. They say the death rate isn't higher, but it's 70 percent more transmittable according to Mr. Johnson. A number of countries have banned people from the UK, a number of countries. The Netherlands has banned people from the UK, Belgium and Italy. Ireland, France and Germany are considering a ban of people from the UK. The UK shut itself down again after finding this variant. This is after Boris Johnson said last week, "we're not cancelling Christmas, we would never do that." They find out about this new variant and now they do 180 degrees, and it's so apparently dangerous the UK imposed its own shutdown. What are we doing? You have 120 countries who demand that a test be taken on the UK side before a person gets on the fight to come to their country. 120 countries demand that before you get on a flight in the UK to come to their country, you have to have tested negative. The United States does not require it. As I mentioned before, other countries are just banning people coming from the UK. We have about 6 flights a day coming in from the UK and we have done absolutely nothing.

Now, to me this is reprehensible because this is what happened in the Spring. Coronavirus is in China, it's in China, it's in China. No it wasn't. It went to Europe, and it came from Europe, and we did nothing. The European travel ban was March 16th. The China travel ban was like February 1st. The virus left China, went to the UK, came here from China. Right now, this variant in the UK is getting on a plane and flying to JFK. Right now, today. 120 countries require a test, we don't. Other European countries have done a ban, we haven't, and today that variant is getting on a plane and landing in JFK. How many times in life do you have to make the same mistake before you learn? Be one of the 120 countries that requires a test before they get on the plane to come to the United States. This is the mistake we made. Where is HHS? Where is the CDC? Where is the NIH? This is the same mistake and literally 6 flights a day, and all it takes is one person. All it takes is one. The Port Authority has no authority to ban passengers, health monitor passengers, it's federal. Why at a minimum you wouldn't require a test like the 120 other countries, or why you wouldn't consider a ban like the other European countries? But doing nothing is negligent; it's grossly negligent just like the Spring, because doing nothing is doing something. Every day the federal government does nothing on this problem they do something. They allowed another 6 flights to come into New York. Sometimes in life doing nothing is doing something, and this is one of those times and that's what they did in the Spring.

2020-12-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello, this is Governor Cuomo. Today is day 297. We did 154,000 tests, we have a statewide positivity without microclusters 5.5, with microclusters 5.8. Positivity in microclusters 6.8, 139 New Yorkers passed away, 6,661 New Yorkers hospitalized. That number is a two-grains of salt number, because the admissions into hospitals has been about flat, but the discharges are lower than they have been for some unexplained reason, so the net number is higher. But the admissions is not necessarily higher. ICUs up 31, and intubations are up 1. 

If you look across the state, the highest positivity over the seven day average? Mohawk Valley, 8.5. Second, Finger Lakes, 8.3. Capital Region 6.9, Central New York 6.5, Long Island 6.5, Western New York 6.4. That's a big turnaround for Western New York. Mid-Hudson 6.2, North Country 5.2, New York City 4.3, Southern Tier 2.4, statewide 5.4. 

Positivity by borough in New York City: Bronx 5.03, Brooklyn 4.4, Manhattan 2.75, Queens 4.9, Staten Island the winner, or in this case the loser, 5.5, with the highest positivity in New York City. A couple of points: the hospital capacity is a concern for New York, you see California actually now has a hospital emergency and is rationing healthcare, so that gives you a sense. The ultimate collapse here is a collapse of the hospital system, and that was Italy.

We're keeping a fine eye on our hospital capacity, our metric is if a hospital is 21 days from 85% of capacity, ok? A little confusing. 21 days from 85%, meaning they only have 15% capacity left, then they have to tell us - high alert, high alert, high alert -  if they're 21 days from only having 15 percent capacity left. That would effectively give us a month before notice, before you run into a real hospital situation. No hospital in the State has told us that they are at that point in 21 days, including all the hospitals in New York City. Including the hospitals that New York City runs, which is called the H+H system, Health and Hospital System. 

We do have Christmas coming, we do have Kwanzaa coming, we have Christmas week coming, we have New Years Eve coming, we have New Year's Day coming so we expect the numbers to go up. The model on my unofficial season's greeting card and the model that the State is going to be promulgating through various means over the holidays: Celebrate smart. Stop shutdowns. Celebrate smart, stop shutdowns. It's been a long year. Celebrate. I'm going to celebrate, but celebrate smart and stop shutdowns.  

This U.K. variant news is a real issue. I want to make sure we understand it. There's been confusion in some of the stories I've read because it's complicated. Boris Johnson shut down the U.K. one week after he said he would never shut it down for Christmas. The reason he shut it down, he said and did a total 180 degree shift, was because they found a variant of the virus.

Now, there are hundreds of mutations of the virus. The reason we know the virus came to New York from Europe rather than from China is it mutated in Europe and came here and they traced the New York virus to Europe in the spring from the mutation, so there have been hundreds of mutations. Yes, but one mutation can be deadly and that's what everyone is worried about. That's the 1918 flu pandemic second wave. Yes, the virus mutates but there is a chance it mutates into something that is much more deadly.

Boris Johnson says it's 70 percent more transmittable than the original COVID virus. That would be a real problem. 120 countries do a ban or require testing. The United States does nothing. I never said we should ban the flights. I said countries have banned or are requiring testing but that the United States should do something, that the United States should either ban or test.

I contacted the airlines that fly into New York from the UK - Virgin, Delta and British Airways. They have all agreed to test people before they get on the flight. I then said, okay, you have 120 countries on the list and the State of New York. The United States should say the same thing that New York said, say that people need to test before they come from the UK. 

I think actually the United States should say we should test before anyone comes from any country because the UK variant now has already migrated. Learn the lesson from the spring. The virus is in China, the virus is in China. The virus got on an airplane and within days the virus goes global. The UK variant is in the UK. Yeah, but within days it gets on a plane and it's now global and that's where the UK variant is. 

So I would say to the United States, mandatory testing of anyone coming from any country and flying into the United States. Well, why doesn't New York do that? I can't because we don't control the borders. The federal government does that with Customs and Border Patrol. If I could do that I would do it. 

What I did yesterday was an extraordinary measure where I called airlines and asked to be added to a country protocol. The other 120 countries are countries, and they agreed, so it's 120 countries and the State of New York. But, that's what I think the United States should do.

Dr. Fauci said he doesn't think a ban is necessary. He does think that testing would be appropriate, but not a ban. Dr. Fauci also said something that is frightening. He said he thinks the variant is already here. Not that he has evidence of that, but I assume he's referring to the phenomenon of global spread and how quickly it spreads. If the variant is here, I want to know, because that would be problematic. We have the state is now contacting hospitals all across our state to test for the variant specifically. And there are tests that can test for the variant.

We're working with Montefiore, MSK, Northwell, University of Rochester, Albany Med, Greater New York Healthcare Association, and the state lab at Wadsworth is coordinating it. They're also going to reach out to Upstate today, Medical, and ECMC. We want to test for the variant. If it's here, we want to know it, we want to isolate it immediately. But let's learn from the spring. Dr. Fauci says he thinks it's here. If it's here, where? Where is it?

On the vaccine, as of yesterday we had done 38,000 vaccines. Today we have done 50,000. Up to today total we've done 50,000 vaccines. We are very aggressive about our vaccination program. We have 630,000 dosages that we have received thus far. We expect about 300,000 additional doses by the end of next week. We have 618 nursing homes that we believe will be vaccinated within two weeks, which would be very good news.

Again, there is no politics in the distribution of the vaccine. No mayor is in control, no county executive is in control, no supervisor is in control, nobody can put you at the front of the list. Local governments have absolutely nothing to do with this. This is all done by the hospital system, the medical providers. I am asking the hospitals and the nursing home operators and the medical personnel who are providing services for vaccinations in the nursing homes to work over the holidays in providing the vaccinations.

I understand it's been a long year and everybody needs time off, but we are in a foot race; it's the increase in the COVID spread versus the vaccination rate. So, I'm asking them to continue to vaccinate over the holidays. In many ways, in a nursing home a vaccine is the best gift that you could give a nursing home resident. The best gift that you can give a frontline healthcare worker is a vaccine. So, let's give them that gift over this holiday season.

Just to clarify with the Buffalo Bills, we are talking to the Bills, we're researching teams and protocols across the nation. The Department of Health is looking at an experimental model working with data and testing to see if there's any way we could safely allow some fans into the game. We're working with the Bills, it's all a work in progress. You should know I have been to the stadium many times. The State has invested in renovations to the stadium. I worked on the renovations of the stadium. So, I haven't been to the stadium in the past couple of weeks for obvious reasons, but I spent many days going through design drawings of the stadium and I'm quite familiar with it.

2020-12-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Welcome everyone. From my far right, Gareth Rhodes, Chancellor Jim Malatras, Kelly Cummings, Director of Operations, Dr. Howard Zucker, Health Commissioner, to my left Melissa DeRosa Secretary to the Governor, to her left Robert Mejica, Budget Director of the state of New York. Today is day 298.

Numbers for today: statewide positivity without microclusters, shouldn't say without all microclusters, it's just without microclusters, they put that in there just to test me, and test you. Today it's 5.37, it was yesterday 5.58, overall positivity with the microclusters 5.8, it was 5.89, positivity microclusters 7.09, was 6.81, 200,000 tests, 164 statewide deaths. They are in our thoughts and prayers, especially during this holiday season. What a terrible, aggravating circumstance to this miserable year. 

Statewide hospitalizations 6,800, discharges 672, admissions 1,008, ICU up 40, intubations up 19. By percentage of population, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes. Finger Lakes has been a problem for the past several weeks. It is not getting better. It's a serious concern for us. I'm going to be speaking to the elected officials in the Finger Lakes and to the hospitals, and we're considering several options, because that is a serious and deadly situation. And it's not getting better. 

Western New York, we've made progress. The rest of the state is basically flat.Positivity, it's Finger Lakes and it's Mohawk Valley. 

Mohawk Valley is actually higher now than the Finger Lakes, so the same situation with Mohawk Valley. New York City when you look at the numbers, Staten Island 5.51, and there's no reason for that. Follow the precautions, save lives. 

The issue of the new strain is very serious, and I don't believe this country is taking it as seriously as it should, and more importantly, I don't think country is taking the action that it should take. So let's just talk facts first. 

Fact: it is in the U.K. and it is more dangerous. Boris Johnson says it's 70 percent more transmittable. Boris Johnson closed parts of the U.K., other European countries have banned travel from the U.K., but it is more dangerous. How much more dangerous? We don't know. We don't know if it's more deadly. We don't know if the vaccine works on it or not. 

We think the vaccine works on it, that's our quote unquote "working assumption," but it is real and it is dangerous. It is traveling around the world as we speak, right? It's on planes, and it is transmitting, and other people are getting on planes, and it's the holiday season, and it is traveling around the world. That is a fact, it's not a personal opinion. 

120 countries now require testing before people leave the U.K., or ban people from the U.K. That is not a personal opinion. That is a fact. 

Number 4: France went so far as to stopping truck traffic from the U.K., caused massive backups by stopping the traffic coming into France. That's how seriously France took it, and then you have federal officials in this country who say, "Well, it may be here already." Ok? Those are five inarguable facts. 

When you hear those facts you have to say to yourself what? What happened, and what are we doing, and why are we not doing what 120 other countries that are far less sophisticated, that paid far less of a price for COVID, that didn't have the experience that we had-- why aren't we saying test the travelers in the U.K.before they get on a plane? 

Why aren't we saying test travelers, period, before they get on a plane and come to the United States? Why wouldn't you do that? This is what happened in the spring. It is deja vu. It is the same mistake the federal government made that killed thousands of people and cost billions of dollars. They lost track of the virus. They knew it was in China and then they lost track of it. What happened is the virus got on a plane and went to Europe. Then it got on another plane and flew to the United States and nobody knew it. That's what the history books will write was the gross negligence of this federal government. That will be the legacy and we are doing the same thing again and it makes no sense. 

When did common sense leave government? When did government become so bureaucratic and so apathetic and so slow that basic common sense alludes them? That's what this is. 120 countries around the globe, any official who hears anything, test before they come. It's not banning, it's not impeding. Test before they come the way we did 200,000 tests in this State - just this State - yesterday. Test travelers before they come. 

That HHS and the CDC have not acted on this is really reprehensible. I don't know if they're just checked out and if they're checked out, they should resign. I don't know if it's a transition, then you should say Mr. Joe Biden, why don't you make this decision. To do nothing when you know the virus is coming here, when you say it may already be here - which would then mean you would be concerned that you want to isolate it and stop the spread. It's the greatest failure to do ones job. This is not a special insight and this is not political, it's the U.K. Every other European country has done it. It just - why? Why would you put people's lives at risk? 

Dr. Redfield, Secretary Azar - they were part of a political administration and they're going to have to answer for their political activity over the past 4 years. It's over now, the politics. Why didn't you do your job now, Mr. Secretary? Why didn't you do your job now, CDC Director Robert Redfield? I'm sure the President isn't pressuring you anymore, so just do your job. 

New York Times, which I believe in the free exchange of the free press. When I disagree, I say I disagree. When I agree, I say I agree. The New York Times wrote a smart editorial today. A contagious variant of the coronavirus has been detected. Trump administration is doing little to address it. Because the federal government doesn't act, it puts the onus on states. It doesn't help me or help the people of New York. I'm not in the finger pointing business. Well, the feds should have. Okay, but at the end of the day my job is to protect New Yorkers. If the feds don't act, I'm going to do whatever I can do. 

We made tremendous progress. The airlines that fly into New York, there are 3 airlines, all 3 agreed to do testing before those flights land in New York. New York is the only state that has made that request. 

New York now is safer than any other state because the people who are landing here are being tested. If I could do it why can't the United States do it? I did it in three phone calls. They didn't fight me. Why wouldn't the United States do it and the Times says this is reminiscent of the early days when the virus was first detected in Wuhan, China. They enacted a travel ban against China but it was already gone. They closed the barn door after the horse left - my expression, not the Times. The Times would never speak in such colloquial terms. 

But that is the situation. Well, there are limitations to Mr. Cuomo's plan. I think that's a little pejorative. No. my plan can only affect the state of New York and they're right that you can fly into another state and I can't prevent flying into another state. Only the federal government can do that and the federal government should do it and they should have done it already. 

One of the great political hypocrisies of 2020 - here is one of the great political hypocrisies, elected officials, don't you worry about COVID, it's a hoax, it's overblown, the government is being over reactive, freedom, they're trying to shut us down, don't worry about those restrictions, protest, go to the bars and the restaurants, don't wear a mask, that's what you should do, maybe I want a vaccine. If your constituents shouldn't worry about it because it's a hoax and it's overblown and it's oppressive, then why do you Mr. Politician want to take the vaccine? You know, that is one of the great hypocrisies, don't you worry about it, but me, I'm taking a vaccine as soon as I can. 

United States, CDC, HHS, do something, do your job on the way out the door. Just tell the U.K. test travelers before they land in the United States. State lab is doing specimens from across the state. We're looking to find out if it's here, where it is. We want to isolate it. If it more easily transmitted we want to catch it in the crib. That's what contact tracing is all about. Find it, Patient Zero, where is Patient Zero, we want to find Patient Zero on that variant and in the meantime stop other people who are infected from coming. 

This is the holiday season. The next 10 days are going to be key for us. If you look what has happened around the nation you see a spike that has increased since Halloween. It got colder, people when indoors, but then you see a spike that happened in other parts of the country in Thanksgiving and coming out of Thanksgiving. Those parts of the country had more travel at Thanksgiving than we did. More travel is a proxy for more social gatherings, more social gatherings, fewer precautions, more spread. We did not have that same post-Thanksgiving spike because we were more cautioned and more intelligent about it. The question is what happens through Christmas and Kwanzaa and Christmas week and New Year's. Do we stay as diligent? Or does that number go up, does it stay flat, how high does it go up, how fast does it go up? We are not destined for a shut down. 

I want to do everything I can to avoid a shutdown. The shutdown this tremendous economic damage and collateral damage to families. We can't survive with these economic shutdowns and no hospital in the state, no hospital, has advised us that they are within 21 days, three weeks of 85 percent capacity, on the fear of overwhelming the hospital system. No hospital has said that they're within 21 days. But, that could change if the spike goes up dramatically. And that's what we need to watch over these next 10 days. Celebrate, I'm going to celebrate, I deserve to celebrate, I was good, I'm on Santa's good list, I have that on inside information. 

Celebrate. But just be smart about the way you celebrate, right? Avoid the density, open the windows, take a walk outside. Just be smart about the way you celebrate. Celebrate smart, stop the shutdowns. that's what's going to be on all our travel signs and flashing signs. Kelly Cummings is doing that to remind New Yorkers, celebrate smart, stop the shutdown. Celebrate smart, stop shutdowns. Smart is part of being New York tough, right. It's part of our DNA. In the meantime we're in a race between the vaccinations and the increase in the COVID rate. 89,000 New Yorkers have received the first dose. Nursing home program in the first two days, 90 facilities, 22,000 vaccines administered. Great job.

More good news. Well, more surprising news. The Pfizer vaccine, we found out, had more dosages than they said per vial. That's good news. This is the Moderna COVID-19 vaccination kit. This is the Moderna vial. The Moderna vial was supposed to have 10 doses. This vial would do 10 doses. Actually, they're getting 11 doses per vial, which is different but good different as opposed to bad different, and after a year of having a lot of different pop up, and 90 percent of it being bad, I'm glad that this is different but good. So, we actually have more Moderna vaccines than we thought because there is more vaccination in the vial. That was also true for Pfizer. So, they both made a mistake, but it was a mistake in a positive direction. 

I'm working on the State of the State now. State of the State I issue in the beginning of the year. The overall balance for the State of the State is how do you stay open safely and how do you reopen safely, right? And the balance is going to be how do you use vaccinations and testing to determine safety, okay? You have two tools. We're now the most proficient state in the nation on testing. We have vaccinations coming. There will be people who will receive two vaccinations shortly and they will have been vaccinated. 

How do you use the vaccinations and the testing to define or determine safe in terms of reopening? You can't wait for the vaccine to hit critical mass. 75 to 85 percent of the population. That is months and months away. And by the way, the more they talk, the further the timeline. First it was going to be June, then it was going to be September, now some people are suggesting even longer. We can't go through nine months with restaurants shut. We have to come up with a smarter way to do this, and this is going to be a different period in history. You're going to see a global competition and a global sorting out where certain states, certain regions, figure this out first and better than other places. And there will be winners and losers through this period. And that's the really smart long-term vision that we have to have in this state. 

But we're talking about a demonstration. Can you reopen venues using rapid testing? Ancillary question, can you reopen venues using vaccinated people? We're not there yet with vaccinated people, but can you reopen venues using rapid testing? That's the question the Department of Health has been analyzing because I want to speak to it in the State of the State, but we're looking to test a hypothesis.  
The National Football League currently does games without testing. The Buffalo Bills are going to have a playoff game. Could we allow fans to the game with testing and then contact trace after the game? That's what the Department of Health has been working on. The Buffalo Bills proposed 6,700 fans. Department of Health is working on a model where you would test the fans before they go in. If they are negative, they go in and then contact trace afterwards to see what the effect was and Commissioners Zucker and Robert Mujica have been working with the Bills on this and I'm going to ask them to comment. 

Commissioner Zucker, in the picture he's using his hands, that's because he's Italian and they tend to talk with their hands. Robert Mujica is not smiling, that's because the man is incapable of smiling. I have known him for 10 years and I've yet to see him smile, so don't take anything from his facial expression. There's no negativity intended. That's just his face in repose, but Dr. Zucker would you like to make a comment?  

Dr. Zucker: Thank you. Thank you, Governor. So, as the governor mentioned, this would be a demonstration project. It's a public health model that's never been done anywhere in the country before. As the governor mentioned, what we will do, we will work with the team to get all the fans tested who are coming in beforehand, 6,700 people prior to the game. We will have proof of a negative result prior to entering. We will work with the team and we will do contact tracing afterwards and as I said, this is a demonstration project.  

My concern here is, we can control how fans come into the stadium. We can control other factors as well dealing with the stadium, but the ancillary events, the parties where this virus can spread, the events of the airport is a classic example which we saw the other day. Thousands gathered without masks and that's how disease spreads. So, how do we control that? That is really the question. That's what we are working on as well and this is all obviously community spirit. We are extremely proud of the Bills. We are all New Yorkers. We work on these things together. We will get through it but that is our plan as a demonstration project, governor, and no one else has done this in the nation before. Thank you.  

Governor Cuomo: Mr. Mujica? 

Robert Mujica: So, the Bills have submitted a plan that the state is reviewing, and we've gone back and forth with them on the elements of the plan, but they will control ingress and egress in the stadium. They will have social distancing within the stadium; masks will be required at all times. Fans who are not wearing masks or won't wear masks would be ejected from the stadium if they if they are not. There will be ushers in every section, some sections will be closed off and as Dr. Zucker mentioned previously, the Department of Health actually went to another stadium to see how some of these protocols could work, and they're comfortable with that. The testing is the newest piece which no one else is doing anywhere in the country, but as the governor points out, this would be the beginning to start to show how you could start events with testing and all of the other mitigation factors we have. This would be the first in the nation and the first in the northeast. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much. Countdown to Christmas: two days. We're distributing 7,300 toys, coats, school supplies. New Yorkers are the best even with everything that's going on, they were so generous, and we want to thank them all. We want to thank Walmart and the China General Chamber of Commerce and the literally hundreds of New Yorkers who donated toys. Even though the economy is terrible and everyone is suffering, New Yorkers are just beautiful people. I mean I don't I don't even have another way to say it.  

Happy Festivus for those who celebrate Festivus. Today is Festivus, if you're putting up your pole today, we hope you enjoy. My Festivus gift to the LCA is no Christmas briefing. We're not going to do a briefing on Christmas. So, you have the day off. The LCA, for those who don't know, that is the Legislative Correspondents' Association. Those are the reporters who we work with here in Albany, but Friday is also the airing of grievances for the LCA, which is our extended family. You know where to get me on the airing of grievances. If you're not going to be here, I have some grievances that I would like to air, so I would just ask people who are not going to be at work, if they could leave their home numbers with the press office so I can contact them to air my grievances.  

10 days. 10 days. The holiday season is 10 days. What we do in the next 10 days is going to be key. Let's be smart, it's part of being New York tough.

2020-12-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Welcome, Gareth Rhodes to my far right, Chancellor James Malatras. We have Kelly Cummings who is our Director of Operations. Dr. Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To her left Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

Day 303. We made it. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. Santa was very, very good to me, maybe better than I deserve. I hope New Yorkers took our caution and celebrated smart. Celebrate smart, avoid shutdowns. That's what my season's greeting card says this year. Celebrate smart. I can understand the celebration, the religious significance. Lord knows after this year we need a break but be smart. And if we're smart then we can avoid shutdowns because we control our destiny. There is nothing preordained here. What will happen will be a consequence of our actions. A year where we felt out of control, we're actually in ultimate control because we control the spread of the virus by our actions. Celebrate smart and avoid shutdowns.

This is what the numbers say today, which we're not quite sure what it means, but we're studying it. Statewide positivity without micro-clusters 7.8; statewide positivity with micro-clusters 8.3. That is an increase from the 5.9 seven-day average. Positivity in micro-clusters 9 percent and 124,000 tests taken. This is a jump from Friday, Saturday, to Sunday. Now Friday was Christmas. Sunday is two days after Christmas. We have been talking about potential for spread during Christmas. For it to go up in two days is dramatic and very, very fast, so we're studying what the uptick in that number actually means.

If you look around the country you've seen significant upticks in just the past couple of days. California went from 8 to 13; Florida went from 8 to 11; Texas went from 2 to 9; New York went from 5.8 to 8. Is that even possible? It's statistically improbable. Now, if you look at the numbers you also see that the number of people getting tests is actually much, much lower. So, these are people who got tests after Christmas and it a lower number of people who got tests, so it's a smaller population. So, one of the theories that we're going to look at is, people who were going to get a test because they were traveling because they were concerned about spreading the virus were getting tested up until Christmas and anyone who went and got tested post-Christmas, over the weekend, was a person who was showing symptoms and thought they might be positive, and therefore they went for a test. So, the sample is artificially skewed. Fewer people got tested and more of those people were showing symptoms, that's why they went, and they got tested. The number of positive cases didn't go up. It's that the number of people being tested went down by almost half.

So, fewer people get tested. Same number of positives, but proportionately it's a higher number. Evidencing that theory: the number of tests in an urgent care clinic went way up. Urgent care clinics tend to be the places where people go when they feel symptoms and they want to get a test. That's when you tend to see in urgent care clinics, and that's the number that went up: in urgent care clinics.

So, it may very well be that, and that may be a national phenomenon that we're seeing, but, we don't know, and we'll see what the numbers say over the next few days, and that will explain if this is a circumstantial situation post-Christmas, less people getting tested, and they have a higher positivity because the people who are getting tested are symptomatic, or was there spread pre-Christmas that's actually is being evidenced now?

You see the test results, 124,000 - we were doing 220,000 tests some days, so the number is significantly low. And again, these tests are not random, right? They are people who go for tests. So who went to get a test after Christmas over this past weekend? Possibly, people who were symptomatic, because people who were just doing it as a prophylactic went before, but we'll see over the next few days.

Statewide deaths 114, the hospitalizations up 376, discharges 425. Fewer people get discharged over the weekend so the net number goes up. Not necessarily the new admissions, but the discharges go down. ICU up 35, statewide intubation up 30. But the general caution remains the same: social gatherings spread the virus if you're not smart. A fact, not opinion, a fact.

You see statewide where the positivity is. Finger Lakes, again, is the most a highly problematic area. Western New York has actually made good progress, but that's on the percent of hospitalized. Positivity, you have Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, Capital Region, other places that we have to focus on, and places frankly that have to focus on themselves.

If you live in those areas, then it's you and your community and the behavior in your community that is affecting the numbers. And again the numbers make it plain. It's not about theory, it's not about, "Well, I believe this. I believe that. Here's my theory. My opinion. My culture. Here's my politics."

Numbers are numbers, and there's no denying numbers. This is not testing a political theory or your medical theory of the virus. They are numbers, they're telling you the facts. Again, New York City, Staten Island has the highest positivity. Why is Manhattan 2.8 and Staten Island is 6? That defies logical explanation.

Manhattan is much more dense. Manhattan you're taking more public transportation, you're on the subways, you're in busses more than you are in Staten Island, you have more people on the sidewalk in Manhattan. it is the precautions that people are taking in those areas. Again, I think this, I think that, every politician has an opinion. Ask your local politician, explain the numbers to me? How does your political theory jive with the facts? And see what they say.

Post-COVID future, we're getting to the New Year, I'm going to do a State of the State. What does 2021 look like? 2021 looks like what we're going to make it look like. It's going to be what we do. And clearly, the key is going to be the vaccines. It is the one really good piece of news we had in 2020, was that the research community, the medical community, came up with highly effective vaccines. So, it's about getting those vaccines now in people's arms, right? It's nice they show you the vial or the box but what matters is getting it in people's arms. 140,000 New Yorkers have already received one vaccine. That would put New York at the top of the national chart on number of vaccines that have actually been given to people. We expect another 259,000 vaccines this week; 139,000 from Pfizer, 119,000 from Moderna.

Where are the vaccines going? This is where the vaccines will have gone to-date by the end of this week. They're shipping as we speak and by the end of this week, this is how many vaccines will be given out all across the State. They will not have been necessarily administered, but they will have been delivered. "Well why does one place get more than the other?" This is, again, math. This is proportionate the number of people eligible for the vaccine in that region. It's probably roughly proportionate to the population, but that's how we do the allocation. It's not that we like the Capital Region more than Central New York, it's all on the math.

Who's getting the vaccine? We have priority populations. As we have more vaccines, the priority populations expand. We're going down the list. You have the number one priority, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 more vaccines. You just work your way down that list. This week it's going to be urgent care center employees. Individuals who are administering the COVID-19 vaccines, for obvious reasons, including the local health department staff. Resident of OASAS facilities. These are congregant facilities, congregant facilities are problematic. It's where you have a lot of people in concentration. Nursing homes are obviously the most problematic because they're congregant plus older, vulnerable people. OASAS - what we call the O facilities - they're congregant, not necessarily older, but congregant facilities.

We'll then continue with high-risk hospital workers, federally qualified health center employees, EMS workers. They're the people who show up, God bless them, and respond to calls. Coroners, medical examiners, funeral workers, other OMH facilities, et cetera. These are all congregant facilities where you have a number of people in one location.

Who's getting the vaccines next week? We expect to open to ambulatory care health workers, public facing public health workers. Again, including those administering COVID-19 tests. We now have a whole group of people who are interfacing with the vaccines, with the testing, we want to make sure they get the vaccine.

Another issue popped up because every day is a new issue to deal with. Possible fraud by a health care provider. You're going to see more and more of this. The vaccine is a valuable commodity and you have many people who want the vaccine. You'll have fraud in the vaccine process. It's almost an inevitable function of human nature and of the marketplace. Vaccines are valuable and there will be people who break the law. We're looking at one health care provider who may have done that.

The New York State Police has actually been pursuing an investigation. They're going to refer that case to the Attorney General's office. Attorney General Letitia James and her office is going to take it on and make it a priority. We want to send a clear signal to the providers that if you violate the law on these vaccinations, we will find out and you will be prosecuted. I'm going to sign an Executive Order that says we're very clear, the vaccines are a priority, there's not going to be any politics at play as to who gets the vaccine. We look to the CDC, federal government, for guidance and we will not tolerate any fraud in the vaccination process.

Anyone who engages in fraud is going to be held accountable. The executive order I'm going to sign today says a provider could be fined up to $1 million and revocation of all State licenses which frankly may be more of a deterrent than the $1 million and that will apply to a provider, a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist, any licensed health care professional. So if you engage in fraud on this vaccine we will remove your license to practice in the State of New York so we are very serious about this and this is the type of fraud that will be uncovered on the old adage that people talk, people talk, and somebody gets a vaccine and goes out and tells his buddy, I got a vaccine, how did you get a vaccine, you're not ready, you're not on the priority list, well, you can go to this place. I was the attorney general for four years. People talk, we will find out, and it's not worth risking your license as well as a possible civil and criminal penalty.

We're also going to be extending the housing eviction moratorium by executive order. We are working with the Legislature. The Legislature is going to reconvene this week. We've been working with them on a piece of legislation that will also extend the eviction moratorium. We want to make sure that homeowners are protected, that it doesn't affect their credit rating, there's no mortgage foreclosure, the Legislature convenes today, and we have an agreement with them on a housing moratorium bill. We want to get to May 1 and we'll see what happens by May but we want to protect tenants. We want to make it simple. We don't want people evicted. We don't want them to have to go to court to fight the eviction. But we want to make sure they're not committing fraud either so they will make representations that will be legally enforceable. And again, we have an agreement and as soon as that bill is passed I'll sign it.

Today I'm also signing an executive order to withhold pay increases for all State commissioners and statewide elected officials. This is the right thing to do I think. Obviously it's easy for me to propose something that's going to affect myself. This also affects all commissioners and statewide elected officials.

Dr. Zucker for example won't be getting a raise this year. It's no reflection on what these commissioners have done. They probably worked harder this past year and performed better than any commissioner in their position frankly in decades. There has been no test like this test for a government official. But I appreciate their sacrifice and their showing of solidarity for the people of this state during this difficult period and during this difficult financial period. I also want to thank the Lieutenant Governor and the Attorney General and the Comptroller for the same statement that they're making. They've all worked incredibly hard this year and this is another sign of their commitment and their public service so I thank them very much.

The Bills and the New York State Department of Health continue to work together to develop a pilot plan that would allow the Bills to operate. Now this is not just about attending a football game. I want people to understand we are trying to find a way to reopen businesses and use our technology to reopen businesses. It is not going to be an option for us to keep the economy closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The experts are talking about hitting critical mass on the vaccine, herd immunity, maybe June. Some say September. Some are now saying the end of the year by the way and the percentage of the population that has to be vaccinated keeps changing also. It started at about 60 percent and I want to talk about 70 percent, now it's about 80 percent. Some people are saying as high as 90 percent. That is going to take many months. If you wait to hit critical mass for the vaccine, you are talking about closing the economy for six, nine, 12 months going forward. If it goes to 12 months, that means a longer period than since this began. That is not possible. It's not possible economically, psychologically. It's just not possible.

So how do you start to reopen businesses safely? How do you use our testing capacity to reopen businesses safely? And that's what we're working on and that's what Department of Health is working on. "Well, you should be giving tests to other groups." First of all, we have rapid testing that we provide to any nursing home, any county, any local government, free of charge, as much as they request we can provide. We have never not provided an amount of rapid testing that has been requested by a local government, local department of health. So it's not that we have a shortage of rapid tests, but we do have to have a model that shows we can start to reopen businesses. And anyone who thinks that we're going out make it another six, nine, 12 months, with a closedown economy, that's just not a realistic possibility. So that's what we're trying to work on and demonstrate. Can you do it? Can you use testing to reopen a business safely? And can you do it on a large scale, which would be the Bills. Also, many stadiums across the country are already open, and without any testing whatsoever. But the model DOH is working on is smart. How do you use testing to start to reopen businesses? Because that is going to be the challenge in 2021, and we're still working through that.

Western New York has also done a good job in getting ahead of their positivity rate. They had the highest positivity rate in this state. Today they're the fourth-lowest in the State of New York. So I think Western New York has heard the message. We now need Finger Lakes to understand it, Mohawk valley to understand it, Staten Island to understand it. But they are in control of their own destiny. And you see the variance across the state. There's also a story in that. Why is Manhattan 2 percent and the Finger Lakes four times the infection rate in Manhattan? How do you explain that, except the behavior of those people in that place.

2021-01-04 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good Monday morning. From my right, Gareth Rhodes, Dr. Jim Malatras, Beth Garvey, Special Counsel, Dr. Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health, to my left Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, to her left Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

Today is day 310. Happy New Year. I hope everybody celebrated and celebrated smart and we will find out over the next few days. This is where we are today on the numbers. The positivity without the micro-clusters, 7.7 statewide. With micro-clusters 8.34. The micro-clusters themselves, 9.35. 

We did 134,000 tests which is down from the high level of testing. More people got tested before the holidays, we believe as a prophylactic before people were traveling. Number of statewide deaths is up to 170. That is a terrible way to start the New Year. Statewide hospitalizations is up 288. The discharges are 537, the admissions 925, ICU is plus 13, intubations is plus 28. 

If you look around the state there's no change in the regional allocation. Finger Lakes still the highest percentile in terms of hospitalizations. This is not a fluke. This has been going on for weeks. I've been speaking to people throughout the Finger Lakes. They have to take it seriously. This is a function of that region's behavior. People in the Finger Lakes should be more cautious than people in other parts of the state, taking more precautions because it's more likely people you're coming in contact with could be infected. That is just a mathematical fact. 

Positivity, you have Finger Lakes again and Mohawk Valley, which was also a problem last week, but again if you are in those areas of the state, take it seriously. You should be using more precautions than people in other parts of the state. Downstate New York, we have the Bronx has ticked up, Staten Island still 7 percent, Manhattan only 3.52. You look at those numbers, you see the difference that behavior makes. Manhattan, you tend to have a higher percent of compliance to precautions and you see the result in the numbers. They have a lower positivity rate. 

2021, we're going to be focusing on controlling COVID and defeating COVID. They're two different functions, control the spread, control the virus and then put a harpoon in the beast and actually defeat COVID, and we're working on both simultaneously. 

On controlling COVID, we are seeing the spike that we talked about here, that experts have talked all across the country. We're warning about holidays and gatherings and we're seeing the spike that came from increased social gatherings. It is a fact. Yes, we had the holidays, yes, it was a long year, yes, we want to celebrate but when you increase social activity you're going to increase the spread of the virus if people don't take precautions. That's what we're seeing in New York State. That's what you're seeing all across this country and that's the growing numbers of hospitalizations, of infections and of deaths unfortunately, and it is a consequence of our actions. 

If you look at, really this started at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was the first holiday and we saw an increase in Thanksgiving, but if you look since Thanksgiving which really triggers the holiday season, that triggered the 37 days I was talking about of the holiday season, the net daily growth went from 1.35 to 1.44.  Number of people walking into the hospitals went from 6.99 to 8.99, so it is clear that the increase through the holidays, increase the infection rate and increase the number of people who are now walking into hospitals. 

We have the hospital system all across the state being monitored daily and we're having those hospitals do what they need to do to the greatest extent possible within their capacity to manage the surge, what we call surge and flex. This is a totally new operation for hospitals and for the State but they're adding capacity, they're the closing down units that they don't need to add capacity, and we're watching very closely hospital capacity because that is the red line. That's the red zone. You are limited ultimately to your hospital capacity. 

Right now, no region has less than 30 percent capacity. If you remember, when any region gets to within striking distance of 15 percent capacity, that's going to be a red zone closedown for that region. Right now, no region is above 30 but they're all hovering in that range. North Country obviously has more availability, Southern Tier has more availability because the Southern Tier is an example of the region that had a high infection rate, had a micro-cluster, and actually turned it around. Good for the Southern Tier. New York City is about 49 percent but where are you lowest? You're lowest in the Finger Lakes which makes sense because that's where you have the highest hospitalization rate in the state. 

So we know what is going on and the numbers relate. If you have a high hospitalization rate you're going to have lower capacity for your hospitals and that's where we see right now the greatest problem is in the Finger Lakes. 

How do we defeat COVID? We defeat COVID the way we've been controlling COVID for the past year. It is a function of our activity. It is the social gatherings. I know people say, how can you say we shouldn't gather socially? I understand. We are social beings. But it's how you do it. It is how you do it. Are you safe? Are you doing as much as you can outdoors? Are you wearing a mask? Are you keeping windows open? Are you keeping the crowd small? It's being smart. That is all this is. It is a virus. You've all had someone in the house with a virus. You know how the virus spreads and it's a consequence of being smart and being responsible. Those numbers go up, you overload the hospitals, the region will close down. We know what is going to happen. There's no unknown here. There's no arbitrary decisions being made. If the infection rate increases then the region closes and that's the last thing anybody wants, so if you don't want that then don't bemoan reality. Do something about it and be smart and reduce the infection rate.

In the meantime, while we're trying to control COVID with one hand, we're trying to defeat it with the other and a vaccine is the weapon that will win the war. Now, nationwide, there have been issues with the delivery of the vaccine, which, by the way, is no surprise. We've said many, many times that this was a much more aggressive undertaking than anyone thought, that this nation was not prepared, that the vaccine administration and delivery was going to be more testing than anything we had done before, because we had just gone through the testing for COVID. Testing for COVID is much simpler. It's a nasal swab. And by the way, nobody says no to a COVID test. Not like a vaccine. You don't have that same resistance, those same fears. We need to do more vaccines than we have done COVID testing, all across this country. Only this state, which has done more testing than any other state, has actually more COVID tests than the number of vaccines we're going to have to administer. But it is a massive undertaking for this nation. 

Now, it's important to understand how we're doing the vaccine. And think of it in three tranches if you will. We're doing vaccines in nursing homes. Then it's being administered by hospitals, and then it's being administered through what we call special efforts. And I just want to go through one at a time so people understand this. 

In nursing homes, we participated in a federally-run program that would send the vaccines directly to the nursing homes and the pharmacies, and the federal government contracted with pharmacies, national pharmacy chains, to do the vaccinations in the nursing homes. That has not been going as quickly as we would have liked. New York is now going to step in and actually expedite the federal program in nursing homes. We have about 611 nursing home facilities statewide. About 288 of them have completed the first dose for residents. You have residents in nursing homes, and then you have the staff in nursing homes. Both are being vaccinated. For the residents, about half of them have gotten the first dose. You won't get more than the first doses yet because the first doses, then it's 21 days to get the second dose. 

We are going to supplement and expedite the federal program, and 234 additional dosages will happen this week, which will get us up to 85 percent of the nursing home residents by the end of this week. And that would be significant progress on the nursing home residents. That will leave about 15 percent of the nursing home residents that need to be vaccinated, and we want to get that done over the next two weeks. So the goal is, over the next two weeks, all the nursing home residents vaccinated, and simultaneously we're doing the staff. Under the federal program, they do one third of the staff in three tranches, just in case any staff member has an allergic reaction or something like that, they decided to do one third, one third, one third of the staff, and that will be expedited. 

We'll be sending in additional personnel into nursing homes to do the vaccines. Some nursing homes can actually do the injections themselves. Nursing homes have staff, many of them, that can actually do vaccines. If they can do it themselves we're going to go to them and let them do it themselves to further expedite it. But the nursing homes have always been the most vulnerable populations, and we want to get that done and we want to get that done quickly. The federal program has not worked as quickly as we would have liked. We're going to step in and make it work. 

That takes us to the hospitals. The hospitals are doing the administration, and that was purposeful. It's also the federal guidance. But it keeps politics out of it. There are two types of hospitals in the State of New York. There are public hospitals and there are private hospitals. There were 194 total hospitals in the state. 24 are quote unquote public hospitals. Public meaning they are managed publicly. And 170 are private hospitals. So clearly the bulk of our healthcare system are our private hospitals. That's been a challenge for us here because these are private hospitals that basically run as private entities, but they effectively are private hospitals, and they've never really been managed as one system before, and we're doing that here. So 24 public and 170 private. 

The public hospitals are several in upstate New York, SUNY has six, the University of New York, runs six public hospitals, and then we have eleven public hospitals in New York City, which are run by the Health and Hospital corporation, which is run by the mayor of the city of New York. Westchester County has two, Nassau County has one. We need the public officials to manage those public hospitals. As I said, there are 24 of them, and they are in public control, we need those public officials, here they are, good looking, all of them, handsome, smiling. I need them to take personal responsibility for their hospitals. This is a management issue of the hospitals. They have to move the vaccine, and they have to move the vaccine faster. 

The hospitals have been receiving vaccines over the past three weeks, roughly 46% of the total allocation. These are the hospitals that have used the existing allocation the fastest, and those who have used the existing allocation the slowest. I don't mean to embarrass any hospital, but I want them to be held accountable. So what this is saying is the highest performing ten, the lowest performing ten. 

For example, the highest performing hospital, New York Presbyterian hospital healthcare system. They administered 99% of their allocation. Great. Oswego Hospital, 99%. Richmond University, 93%. Adirondack Medical Center 87%. Now, in fairness, some of the smaller hospitals, it's easier to do a higher percentage when you have a smaller base, obviously. And we understand that. But, Northwell Health, 62%, Northwell is the largest hospital system in the state. So, it's not just a function of size, it's a function of administrative capacity. We want those vaccines in people's arms. 

I understand they're private hospitals. I understand that everyone has a job to do. We need them to administer the vaccines faster. These are the highest performing, these are the slowest hospitals. Samaritan Hospital has only administered 15% of the allocation they've received. AO Fox, Nassau University, 19%. Montefiore only 30%. New York City H&H only 31%, Westchester Medical Center only 32%. H&H, Westchester, Nassau - those are public hospitals. 

I need those public officials to step in and manage those systems. You have the allocation, we want it in people's arms as soon as possible. New York State Department of Health sent out a letter yesterday to all hospitals that said if you don't use the allocation by the end of this week, the allocation you've received, by the end of this week, you can be fined and you won't receive further allocations, we'll use other hospitals who can administer it better. It also says from the day you receive the allocation you have seven days to use that allocation. 

This is a very serious public health issue and Department of Health Commissioner Zucker is very firm about making sure the hospitals step up and deliver here. So, any provider who does not use the vaccine could be fined up to $100,000, going forward they have to use the allocation within seven days otherwise they can be to be removed from future distribution. As you saw, we have almost 200 hospitals. If one hospital isn't performing, we can use other hospitals and if you're not performing this function, it does raise questions about the operating efficiency of the hospital. So, we are very serious about it.  

Third level of operation is going to be special efforts. Special efforts are efforts that the State is going to take to supplement the pharmacies and the hospitals. The State is going to be establishing drive-throughs for public distribution. We're going to be using public facilities, convention centers, field hospitals, et cetera, for distribution and we're going to be using additional retired personnel, nurses, doctors, pharmacists, et cetera to staff those facilities. So, we want to finish the nursing homes. Hospitals are doing health care workers. Hospitals will then be doing members of the general public and essential workers, but the State will also be opening its own distribution effort to accelerate those vaccines. 

Part of the State's effort will be a special focus on poorer communities where they don't have those pharmacies, they don't have the hospital, so called healthcare deserts, and will be working with health care partners to have pop-up vaccination centers, where we can transport equipment to a church, to a public housing authority, to a community center, and open up a vaccination center. This has been a priority for New York State. I have said personally that I think this is an issue that has not gotten enough attention or sense of urgency. COVID revealed many ugly things. One of the most ugly to me: Blacks died at twice the rate of whites; Hispanics at one and a half times the rate of whites. Higher infection rate, lower COVID testing rate, and more comorbidities. That's not America. So, to make the point about equality of distribution, I will receive my vaccine - and I want to receive a vaccine. I believe in the vaccine 100 percent - but I'm going to receive my vaccine when my age group is eligible and it's available in Black and Hispanic, and poor communities across the state through State efforts.  

The next groups that are open today for availability who are now eligible to receive the vaccine are all doctors, nurses, health care staff who come into contact with the public. We're following federal guidance at this point which is working down the list of what we call 1A, the first priority in vaccinations. It's primarily health care workers which makes sense. Health care workers are the people who are in the greatest danger of contracting the virus because they are dealing with people who come in who have the virus. Also, if a health care worker gets infected, they can infect more people then probably any other worker. You know, if you have a nursing home staff or a nurse or doctor who is infected, they're dealing with hundreds of people. They would be a superspreader in and of themselves. So, we're making 1A- basically all health care workers are going to be eligible today and that is the first priority.  

Also, these vaccines are about valuable commodity we appreciate how valuable yet. You're going to have some people who don't want to receive the vaccine, I understand that and we're going to talk about that we go through this, but you're going to have a lot of people who want the vaccine desperately. I would take the vaccine today. It could be a lifesaving situation. If any entity falsifies who they are; if there's fraud or fraudulent sale or fraudulent vaccination, that is very serious. That provider will lose their license, period. They'll be out. I don't care if you're a doctor, you're a nurse - it's a crime, in my opinion. 

I'm going to be proposing a law for the Legislature when they come back to make it a crime. This vaccine can be like gold to some people. If there's any fraud in the distribution, letting people get ahead of other people or friends or family or if they're selling the vaccine, you'll lose your license. I do believe it should be criminal and I'm going to propose a law to that effect. 

On education, State guidance for counties: There are some counties in the state that are over 9 percent on our numbers. Again, this is on State numbers. Different counties count differently, but for legal purposes, it's the State numbers that matter. For counties that are over 9 percent, they're doing school testing. If their schools are below the level of positivity in the community, then they can keep the schools open. It is up to the local school district to make that decision. My position has always been if the children are safer in the school than they are on the streets of the community, then children should be in school. 

We're testing in the schools, so we know the positivity rate in the schools. We know the positivity rate in the community. If the schools are safer then my opinion, just an opinion not a fact, my opinion is leave the schools open. That will be up to the school districts across the State. I understand the privacy and the history of local control of education. I respect it. I gave my opinion, but it will be up to the local school districts to decide. 

2021 State of the State will start this coming Monday. It's going to be a different kind of State of the State because it is a different time and adjust to the times. That will be this coming Monday.

As you know, the State Department of Health has been aggressively looking for the UK strain of COVID, and we're doing more testing than any state in the country and we're doing more testing for the UK strain. The Wadsworth lab confirmed a case of the UK strain in Saratoga County, New York. It's a gentleman who is in his 60s. He was symptomatic, but he is on the mend and he's doing better. He did not travel recently, so this suggests that it's in the community, it was community spread as opposed to having traveled to the UK, et cetera. He's affiliated with a jewelry store in Saratoga. The sample was originally done in Saratoga Hospital and then was one of the samples that Wadsworth received as part of their UK testing program. There are 3 other cases in the jewelry store. We don't know if they are the UK strain of COVID, we're testing for them now. So, Wadsworth will run those, but we have 3 other people in the jewelry store who did test positive for COVID. The store was closed from December 24th through today, but we want people who visited the store from December 18th until the store closed on December 24th to get a test. The name of the store is "N" as in Nancy - N. Fox Jewelers. It's located at 404 Broadway in Saratoga Springs. 

So, if you went to the N. Fox Jewelers store in Saratoga Springs from December 18th through December 24th you should contact us and get a test immediately. From a public health point of view now it's about contact tracing, and this UK strain is reported to be 70 percent more contagious than the normal COVID strain. So, we want to make sure we're doing everything we can to do effective contact tracing on this case. And we're going through the employees of the jewelry store, but as it was a retail establishment we need the cooperation of the public. With that, I'm joined by Dr. Zucker, and Melissa DeRosa, and Robert Mujica, and Beth Garvey, and Gareth Rhodes. We will take questions at this point. You know that the UK strain is technically the B117 strain, and it's been identified in California, Colorado, Florida and 33 countries. And my guess is the states that are effective at looking for it will find it.

2021-01-05 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Let's start from the left today, sort of a change of pace. Robert Mujica, Budget Director; Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my right, Commissioner Howard Zucker; Beth Garvey, Special Counsel; Kelly Cummings, Director of Operations; Gareth Rhodes, from DFS whose been working with us on this. 

Today is day 311. Here are the numbers. Statewide positivity without micro-clusters, 8.21; with micro-clusters 8.3. Micro-clusters, 8.8. Total results, 152,000, still a lower level of people getting tested so it's going to change somewhat the sample. Statewide deaths up to 149. Hospitalizations up 339; ICU plus 35; intubations plus 8. 

Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes. Highest percentage of hospitalization and you see the numbers across the State. Again, this makes the point that that variance is due to the behavior of those communities. Your behavior matters, depending on the behavior of your community is how fast the virus spreads, how many people get sick. Positivity, same thing. 

New York City positivity, Staten Island and the Bronx - Staten Island is higher than the Bronx today. Again, Bronx, Staten Island, Queens, you're double Manhattan. Doubled Manhattan. I'm from Queens, born in Queens. Queens is a residential community, more residential community. Manhattan is much more dense, more multi-family, more public transportation. What is the demographic explanation for a higher infection rate in Queens, in the Bronx and Staten Island than Manhattan? It's the behavior. 

Let's talk about the vaccine. There are two elements to understand the vaccine. One is the amount of supply we have as a nation, as a State. Then one is the distribution. Two very different elements that have to be considered. The supply, the production by the drug companies, the purchasing by the federal government - that's all a national responsibility. How they can spur the drug companies to do more, how they can wind up buying more from the drug companies? The entire supply is controlled by the federal government. 

We have been getting about 300,000 per week. That's roughly 1.2 million per month of vaccines. The State needs 20 million people vaccinated. You have to do that twice. That's 40 million. Obviously, it's a very long timeline at this supply rate. The supply rate has to increase and the supply rate is the limiting factor now. I've been talking to the federal government about this, there are possibilities that they're working on. You can acquire more Pfizer and Moderna vaccine. You can approve the AstraZeneca vaccine. You can approve the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is a single dose vaccine, which is a lot easier. There other drug companies that are also working on vaccines, so we hope, pray and expect the supply from the federal government will be increasing, but we need it to increase.

You then go to the distribution side. On distribution, the federal government is in charge of some of the distribution in the state, and then the state is in charge. Distribution, as we discussed yesterday, think of it in three tranches: nursing homes, hospitals, and what we call special efforts. The nursing home program is run by the federal government and it is a national federal program, where they said, we will do the nursing homes and will contract nationally with pharmaceutical change to do the nursing homes. That has not moved as quickly as we would like to see it move. The state is now going to step in and expedite that program. We would like to see all nursing home residents vaccinated, first shots, within two weeks. They're doing the staff along with the residents. That would be a very big deal if we can get the nursing home residents vaccinated.

You then go to the hospitals. 194 hospitals: 24 public hospitals, 170 private hospitals. Obviously, the overwhelming effort is done by the private hospitals. We need them to operate and we need them to operate quickly. We put in place the 7-day use it or lose it. You know, there are 194 hospitals. If a hospital is not competent and can't do this, we'll use another hospital. It's very simple. We have 194 hospitals, we have other hospitals who can do it, so I need the best hospitals with the best management in the best systems as part of this effort because it's literally a matter of life and death. And 194 hospitals, like anything else, some are better at certain things than others and here we need the best with the best management because the stakes are just too high.

On the special efforts, that's where we're going to talk about state sponsored efforts: drive-ins and the social equity efforts, the churches, the community centers, et cetera. Hospitals have been the primary focus because 1a, the people we're now vaccinating, are health care workers. How do you get health care workers? You get them to the hospitals. That's why the focus has been on the hospitals. Why has the focus on health care workers? That's the CDC guidance, basically every state in the nation has accepted health care workers, because they are the frontline. They are exposed to people with the virus. If a health care worker gets sick they are then a super spreader. We have it opened for all health care workers. All health care workers are now eligible, and the hospitals are focusing on the health care workers.

So far, 900,000 vaccines have been distributed for 2.1 million health care workers. Obviously, we don't have enough vaccine distributed for all health care workers. Well let's open it up to other people, forget the health care workers. These are the nurses, these are the doctors, these are the people on the front line, and it's, they are in the greatest risk, and they're also the greatest threat. We have a Saratoga jewelry store employee who has COVID, that we're doing the contact tracing. He was in a retail store, a lot of people walk in and out of a retail store. Super spreader.

What happens if a nurse or a doctor is COVID positive, and see 100 patients during a day? Healthcare workers at the first priority for both reasons, and we've only allocated half the vaccine to do the size of that population. That's why I say a lot of this is a supply issue as well as a dissemination issue.

If a hospital has done all their healthcare workers and saying "We're maxed out, we've done everyone." Fine. Then contact us, and we'll take that supply back, and we'll go to the next traunch, we'll go to essential workers. But as a group, we've only allocated, we've only distributed half the vaccine necessary to do the healthcare workers. After we finish 1a, healthcare workers, then we go to 1b, which is essential workers and people who are 75 plus. That's roughly 2.5 million. So again you go back to the supply issue. How long will it take you to do 2.5 million people, right?

On the hospitals, there's two dimensions. The hospitals now are the focus, because the hospitals are focusing on the healthcare workers. Once you get to 1b, essential workers and 75 plus, then you're dealing with members of the public. Then we're going to shift from the focus on the hospitals to what we call the retail network. What is a retail network?

The retail network is a public distribution for essential workers and the general public, and that is already underway. We have 5,000 pharmacies in this state. You can call a pharmacy and get it. We have federally qualified health centers. County health departments. Urgent care clinics. The doctor network. We'll be supplying all of these outlets with the vaccine to do the distribution when we get to the general public. So the distribution system is going to outpace our supply system right now, which is the way it should be. We should have more distribution capacity than we actually have supply. Right now we've employed 3,700 provider sites statewide, and we're continuing to grow that.

What are the providers who are going to be doing this? Medical practices, pharmacies, long-term care facilities, federally qualified health centers, hospitals will still be doing it, urgent care facilities will be doing it. Then community centers, rural centers, et cetera. We've signed up hundreds in every region across the state. We have 845 signed up distribution centers in New York City that are ready to go, 700 on Long Island, 150 in the North Country, so, we have a retail network. Retail network is not the best expression because also people don't have to pay for this vaccine. There'll be no co-pay, there'll be no charge. So retail can be a little misleading. But I couldn't come up with a better word.

Of the 3,700, 636 already have vaccine. They are distributing vaccine to the health care workers along with the hospitals. So health care workers can either go to the hospitals that we've been discussing or they can go to 600 sites that are across this State. Of those sites that actually now have vaccine for health care workers, 244 federally-qualified health centers, then the hospitals, urgent care centers, local health departments. This is where the sites are that can now serve health care workers. New York City, 200, Long Island, 105. So, there's a network out there besides these hospitals where people can go if they're eligible, if they're health care workers, right now.

In addition to the hospitals and the retail, there'll be what we call special efforts. First, I'm asking police departments, fire departments, transit workers, who are going to be essential workers, if they can operationalize their own vaccination system. In other words, New York City Police Department, NYPD, they can organize their own distribution system and vaccination system. The FDNY, New York City Fire Department, can operationalize and organize their own system. They have their own employees who can do the vaccine. To the extent we can have the essential workers use their own employees or their own health system provider to do their own vaccines that removes a burden from the retail system, if you will. It removes them from the hospital system, right.

So, New York City Police Department, they could go to the New York City public hospitals for vaccine, which would then overload the New York City hospitals, or, they could do their own vaccines. FDNY could do their own vaccines. The teachers union, the transit workers union, all these frontline essential workers, please now think about organizing your own system so it alleviates the burden on the retail system, which is going to have to be dealing with the general public.

If a police department doesn't have the capacity to do it, fine. Fire department doesn't' have the capacity to do it, fine. If a teachers union doesn't have a local health provider, then fine. But for those larger workforces, and those larger unions that can do this, I want you to start thinking about it now, and I would appreciate it, because it will take that much burden off the distribution system. And the larger police departments, Buffalo PD, Albany PD, Rochester PD, Syracuse PD — I think many of the larger police departments in the state, we have over 500, but many of the larger ones can handle the vaccine themselves. Same with the fire departments, EMS, EMT people can do these vaccines, so I'd like them to start thinking about that now because I'd like to reduce the burden on the hospitals and the private system whenever possible.

On the special efforts on top of this retail system, you're then going to have large state sites that are set up: Javits Center, we're going to use SUNY/ CUNY, where you'll have drive-thru vaccine operations. Again, we need the supply to do that, but we are already setting those up. We did it with the COVID testing. We'll do it again here and then I made a point to say that this State is going to make a statement as to social equity and we're going to make sure that the social injustice and the healthcare disparities that we've seen are not replicated. I'm going to be getting my vaccine when it's available for my age group in black and Latino and poor communities and we're going to be setting up pop-up vaccination sites in churches, in community centers and pharmacies and that's a priority for me.

The distribution system I'm outlining can deliver millions of doses. Again, we're getting 300,000 per week and we have to wait for that to increase. Again, there's a lot of possibilities for the feds to increase supply, but they have to.

Last point, the U.K. strain is highly problematic and it could be a game changer. First, for the Capital Region: we have the case in Saratoga. Anyone who was exposed, or anyone who was exposed to someone who was exposed, please contact us. There's nothing to be ashamed of. This is a virus, it travels, but we have to know. Containment is vitally important here. This is a virus we have to be extra careful with. We spent the morning talking to global experts on this viral strain. The numbers are frightening on the increase of the transmittal of the virus. Even if the lethality doesn't go up — the fact that it is so much more transmittable is a very real problem.

We are in a footrace right now as we've said between the vaccine implementation versus the infection rate and hospitalization capacity. That's the footrace. This U.K. strain changes the whole footrace because the U.K. strain, the rate of transmission goes way up, the rate of infection goes way up, and it's no longer the race that we were running. Apparently the U.K. strain can actually overtake the original COVID strain in a matter of weeks, that's how quickly it can transmit. This is something that we have to watch and we have to pay careful attention to.

The U.K. strain is not only in the U.K., it's in South Africa, it's in 33 other countries, but it dramatically increases our challenge and we have to be aware of it. You know this virus has been ahead of us every step of the way, and this country has been playing catch up every step of the way. It's time we stop, it's time we become more competent. Government was competent, government is supposed to be competent, government leaders are supposed to be competent. They're not supposed to be about excuses, and apathy, and bureaucracy.

Why do we not have mandatory testing of everyone flying in to this country? I mean why not? Not a travel ban, just mandatory testing. We have gone through this. Just test all international travelers before entry. Tell the airlines you have to test them before they got on a plane to come to this country, or say if you land in this country we're not going to allow you in until you take a test. 140 countries banned or required testing of U.K. travelers before the United States acted. 140 countries. New York acted before the United States. I called the airlines and I said I want New York to be added to the 140 countries, and they added New York to the 140 countries.

What's really infuriating, this is what happened to us last spring. Learn the lesson. The virus left China, the virus went to Europe, it was in Italy, it was in the U.K., people got on a plane and came to New York, and that's why New York had the explosion - that's what I call the COVID ambush. We've learned nothing? So now there's a second strain and it came from the U.K. again. And again, the USA did absolutely nothing.

Secretary Azar, Dr. Redfield - how you can explain to the American people your lack of action, your negligence, your irresponsibility. 140 countries banned people from the U.K. and you did nothing. You know that there are viral strains in other countries now. You know that is a fact. Why wouldn't you mandate testing? How many times do you have to learn the same lesson over and over? What happened to competent leadership in government? The USA must act. If the United States won't act, then New York State will act, but I can't allow people to fly in to this state who we know are coming from countries that have other viral strains.

New York loves being the gateway. We welcome people from all across the globe. We are on the eastern seaboard. That's always been our role, that's how we all wound up here. We celebrate it, but to allow the virus to be landing at our airports and to make New York a petri dish and the federal government does nothing, I can't allow that to happen. I wouldn't be doing my job as Governor of the State of New York.

2021-01-06 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. From my right, Gareth Rhodes, Chancellor Jim Malatras, Kelly Cummings, director of state operations, Dr. Howard Zucker. To my left, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To her left Robert Mujica, budget director. Today is day 312 and it is a bright sunny day in the State of New York, all across the State of New York, even if the sun isn't shining. The metaphorical sun is shining in the State of New York today. It was a late night last night, but it was a good night for the State of New York, which I'll mention in a moment. 

Numbers today, 8.13 without the micro-clusters, 8.41. Micro-clusters are 9 percent. 161 deaths, and those people and their families are in our thoughts and prayers. Terrible way to start the New Year. Hospitalizations are up 75, discharges 940, and admissions, 1,161, ICU up 16, intubations up 26. We're seeing the continued increase from celebration of the holidays. It's the holiday COVID hangover. Celebrate smart, you reduce the infection rate. If you don't celebrate smart, you have a hangover. COVID hangover is increasing infection rate, increasing positivity rate, increasing hospitalization rate. And that's what we're seeing, that's what we're seeing all across the country. 

In this state, Finger Lakes is still the highest percent hospitalized. Highest positivity, Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley and Capital Region. In New York City, Staten Island has the highest infection rate. In New York City, Manhattan still at 3.9 percent. That variance is just incredible to me, and really shows how personal behavior can make a dramatic effect. The numbers, the variance all across the state makes that point also. Why is the Southern Tier 5 and Finger Lakes is at 10? Why is Western New York, which had a real problem, at 8, and Finger Lakes is at 10? It is a function of personal responsibility. There's a basic truth to this. It's not about government. It's personal responsibility.

This situation we're in I describe as a footrace between the infection rate going up, the hospitalization rate going up and our ability to vaccinate. What wins? Does the infection rate go up so far, so fast, that it closes down hospitals and then we close down the economy, or can we slow the infection rate until the vaccinations can kick in? that's what this is all about. You add to that the UK strain, and it's a dramatically different proposition. Once you say the infection rate can go up double or triple or quadruple, then it's no longer a race. Then we lose the race. Because the vaccine supply is what is the limiting factor on the vaccine, not the distribution. And if you dramatically increase the infection rate, the race is over. If you dramatically increase the infection rate, the next step would be overwhelming the hospitals. And that's the very real fear that we're dealing with now. 

So three priorities. Slow the spread, increase the vaccination rate, and stop viral mutations, which his something that we're not paying enough attention to in this nation, in my opinion. On the vaccinations, there's two sides of the equation. There's the supply of vaccine, there's the distribution. Federal government is doing the supply. Distribution is done basically by the state with the federal government participating in the nursing home distribution. We are not satisfied with the federal government program to do nursing home distribution. State has stepped in, we're expediting it. We believe we'll have all nursing home residents vaccinated over the next two weeks, and that is s a very big deal. It's on the first dosage, but that is a very big deal because they are the most vulnerable population and finishing that is extraordinarily important. 

Second, it's about protecting the hospital capacity in the hospital staff, okay. If the hospital staff get sick, then you hurt the hospital capacity. Many hospitals are now complaining that they have the beds, they don't have the staff. why don't they have the staff? Because the staff is stretched, the nurses are stretched, because the capacity is so high, and because they're getting sick from COVID. The UK strain now complicates that issue because if more nurses get sick, if more doctors get sick, it reduces your hospital capacity. And if you reduce your hospital capacity, then you have the worst-case scenario. 

And the worst-case scenario is a very real possibility. This is not overly cautious or overly dramatic. We're cautious, but we're realistic in New York. And this is a realistic possibility. We know that because we're seeing the situation develop all across the nation, all across the globe. You overwhelm the hospitals, people die. That's what happens. You overwhelm the hospitals, you have to close down the economy again. There is no choice. Once the hospitals say we're at capacity, you have to close down the economy. We have a warning track, if you will, where when we get to within 21 days of overwhelming the hospitals, we start to close down the economy. So, it's game over when the hospital is going to be overwhelmed. And again, the UK stream greatly complicates this entire equation. The worst situations in life tend to be a combination of bad effects. We have a problem with the infection rate today and the hospital capacity, and we've been balancing that on a daily basis. You add to that equation the UK strain and a higher infection rate, that's when the train is going to come off the tracks and we're seeing it all around us. 

That is California. The California the hospital system is overwhelmed, and more people will die because the hospital system is overwhelmed. We went through this in a spring. In the spring when we saw Italy overwhelmed with the hospital system and people die on gurneys in the hallway. I lived through these nightmares. So did every New Yorker and we're seeing it happen around the globe. The UK closed down because of the UK strain. In several weeks, the UK strain took over the original COVID strain. That's how strong it is. We see it in Germany. We see it in Italy, again they have to close down because they are overwhelming the hospital system. So, this is a very real possibility that we are worried about. 

Vaccinating hospital staff is vital. They should be vaccinated because, first of all, they are the frontline. Everybody talks about, "our heroes, our nurses, our doctors." New Yorkers have celebrated nurses and doctors, we're celebrating nurses and doctors, and they deserve that celebration. You know what they deserve more than celebration? They deserve a vaccination. That's what they deserve, and they deserve it because they are the frontline workers. And they deserve it because selfishly, if our hospital staff gets sick it's going to reduce our hospital capacity. 

Now, I've made this point before and we have seen a dramatic improvement in hospitalization vaccination. Hospitals are doing a better job, you'll see the numbers in a moment. If a hospital hits the refusal rate, if the staff in the hospital says, "I don't want to take it," then fine. We'll reallocate that to another health care or nursing home that needs it, but we want to give every health care professional who wants the vaccine, who will take the vaccine, the ability to take it. 

We need an acceptance rate of between 70 to 90 percent of this vaccine society-wide. Herd immunity is somewhere between 70 to 90, if you listen to the experts, if you listen to the Dr. Faucis of the world, they'll say the goal is 90 percent, but you have to hit at least 70 percent society-wide. And society-wide, there are going to be a lot of people who don't want to take this vaccine. You have a lot of cynicism and skepticism. You have it especially in the black community, you have it in the antivaxxer community. Ninety percent is incredibly high. If you were giving out cash to New Yorkers, you wouldn't hit 90 percent, but the hospital staff, they're informed. They have to be above 70 percent and they want to be. 

We have done a survey of hospital staff across the state. We're still in the midst of it but about 85 percent of the hospital staff say they want the vaccine. That is, by the way, hospital staff without doctors. Doctors are an even higher percentage, so the hospital staff want the vaccine, and they deserve the vaccine. We just have to get it to them, and hospitals are doing a better job. 

The daily rate of vaccination over the past three weeks was about 10,000 hospital staff per day. Since Monday, they've been doing 30,000 per day. So, the vaccination rate has tripled since Monday. So, I'm glad they heard me, but you have to keep it up, because we need that hospital staff vaccinated. We need them vaccinated quickly. When you get to the point where your hospital staff says, "the only people left won't take it," fine. Tell us and we'll move the allocation to another hospital or nursing home. 

This is again the top ten performing hospitals in terms of vaccinations and the bottom ten, and you see the gross disparity. Highest performing New York Langone 100; Oswego 100; Richmond, St. Barnabas, SUNY Downstate- Congratulations Chancellor. Chancellor Malatras was at SUNY Downstate yesterday. One day and it went to 100 percent. The Chancellor did 7,000 vaccinations himself yesterday and he's not even authorized to do them. New York Presbyterian 99; Kaleida-Buffalo, SUNY Upstate also 94 percent. That's a turn-around. Adirondack Medical Center, Lenox Hill 87 percent. On the other end, Montefiore Mount Vernon 11 percent; Montefiore New Rochelle 23 percent; Brookdale Hospital 24 percent; Wyoming 26; New York City Health + Hospitals/Queens 29; Catholic Health - Saint Josephs 29; Catholic Health - Saint Charles 33; New York City Health + Hospitals/Coney Island 34; and Vassar Brothers 37; Carthage Hospital, 39. So, you see the variant. Performance has increased. We want it to stay increased more Congratulations to those that are doing well. For those that are not doing well, pick up the performance or let's get another hospital to help you get it done more quickly. 

Supply is still going to be the issue. Just to give you an idea, we have received about 900,000 so far. We have 2.1 million health care workers and nursing home people. So, nurses, doctors, nursing homes, which are the first priority, 2.1 million. We haven't even received have the number of dosages yet. So, we're pushing on the distribution side and I'm pushing the hospitals hard, but we don't even have half the dosages that we need to do all the hospital staff and nursing home staff. We're still receiving about 300,000 dosages per week from the federal government, and that means we still need about 1.2 million dosages just to get through the health care workers and the nursing home. Everyone asks me the same question: when can I get vaccinated? And I hear this all day long. I hear it from my mother Matilda, who is 75+, let's say, let's leave it at that. But, she would be eligible for vaccination when we get to 1b. So, everybody wants to know when will they get vaccinated. 1a is the health care workers, that's what we're doing now. 1b are the essential workers and 75+. 1b, just to give you an idea of the numbers, there are about 870,000 teachers, 200,000 first responders, 100,000 public safety workers, 100,000 public transit workers, 1.3 million 75+, which is surprisingly large, but it's good news. 

So, we're getting 300,000 dosages per week. Obviously it would take us weeks to work through this population if not months. In 1b there are about 5 million essential workers and that 1.3 million 75+, so that's over 6 million people in 1b. You're getting 300,000 dosages per week, it takes a long time. Flip side is that the federal government will be increasing production. They say they will, I believe they will, and frankly the private market is increasing production. Pfizer and Moderna will be increasing. Johnson & Johnson, we're keeping our fingers crossed for their efficacy test, that would be then available and that's only one dosage, it would be a pleasure. Oxford-AstraZeneca. So, there are other vaccines that are coming online. The supply will go up. I can't say to my mother or to any New Yorker right now how long until we know what the supply actually is going to be, and we talk to everyone all day long. As soon as we have a more definitive answer I will tell you. The experts are talking about March/April for large scale general population distribution. We will have a truly extensive distribution network with literally thousands of distribution points across the state, plus drive-through vaccination centers, just like we did drive-through COVID tests, that the state will put up. We're going to be using SUNY facilities, CUNY facilities, but we will have thousands of points of distribution. We need the supply, that's what it comes down to and that's what we're working on.

Another issue, news flash: viruses mutate. We know that. We've known that. 1918 pandemic, we know that. We know that recently because we paid a terrible price when the Wuhan Virus left China, went to Europe, mutated and came here from Europe. The virus that arrived in New York last Spring was a mutation from Europe, it was not the Wuhan Virus. Now, you see the UK strain, you see a South African strain, they're now finding a Nigerian strain, and the COVID virus mutates every couple of weeks and there have been hundreds of mutations of the COVID virus. This country is playing mutation roulette. "Well the virus is going to mutate." Well, is the next mutation going to be more lethal? Is it going to kill more people? Is the next mutation going to affect children in a way COVID-19 didn't? Is the next mutation going to be vaccine resistant, which means you'd have to go back to the whole vaccination development process all over again? Is the next vaccine going to create organ damage? They don't even know what the long-term consequences of this COVID virus is, right? They're still doing studies of the long-term effects of COVID-19. Are we sure that the next mutation won't be more dangerous or more transmittable, which we found out it is in this UK strain? That is what is happening now every day, and we are literally playing Russian Roulette with it. Many countries around the world have said, "the virus is mutating, before any international travelers come into our country they need to be tested." Not a ban on travel, but they need to be tested. That makes all the sense in the world. This country hasn't done it. We talked about the UK strain days before this country took any action, New York State took action before this country took action, 140 countries took action before this country took action, And now we have the UK strain - surprise, surprise - which is creating a real complication for us. Where is HHS? Where is the President? Where is the Vice President? Technically they're in office until they're not in office and they should do their job but if they're not going to do it at least let New Yorkers protect themselves. We have the airports here. The flights from Europe come here. They come to JFK, they come to Newark, people in the LaGuardia Airport. Let us protect ourselves.

As Governor I don't have the legal authority to say international travelers must be tested. When it came to the UK strain, I called the airlines myself and asked them to voluntarily agree and they did. But the gateway, the entrance, is handled by the federal government Customs and Border Patrol. The State runs through the Port Authority the airport facility but Customs and Border is all done by the federal government. I am asking today the Customs and Border Patrol to either require in New York airports that the person shows that they were tested before admission, or allow the Port Authority staff to request that people coming through customs whether or not they were tested. But we don't want tens of thousands of people coming through our airports every day from countries around the world who were not tested. It's just that simple and it makes total common sense.

We have a UK strain case that we found in Saratoga. Doctor Zucker has been very aggressive about contact tracing. It appears now that there is evidence that that UK strain case in Saratoga Springs was actually connected to UK travel. So if we had tested people from the UK before they got here we wouldn't have had the UK travel spread. It's common sense and why common sense defies government I don't know.

But last night Georgia - and Georgia changes everything, changed the tone, the mood, now we all hear the music. Yes, they were Georgia Senate seats but it changes the US Senate, and one of the races still has to be completed but even the one victory is going to the landscape of the Senate, and the Senate has been a horrific to the State of New York and they have been political about it and it's been really devastating for the state and I would want to congratulate the incoming Senate Majority Leader Senator Schumer who obviously is a New York senator and now he's going to be the Senate Majority Leader and this was a very, very big win for the Democratic Senate and it bodes well for the State of New York.

Look, Washington has abused New York State for four years and that is not rhetorical. They have been unethical. They have been political. They've taken money out of this state and sent it to Republican states as a pure political exercise. They've used New York as a political piñata to appeal to the conservatives around the country by demonizing New York and New Yorkers. They enhance the divisions in this country by using New York as an example and they've had not just moral and ethical violations but they literally have taken billions of dollars from us. That was a function of the Senate and the President and they are both gone and today Washington theft ends and compensation for the victims of the crimes of the past four years begins. New Yorkers have been crime victims as far as I'm concerned by the theft of the federal government. Our message to Washington is going to be very clear. We want a return of the state's property that was stolen by Washington over the past four years.

They wouldn't pass state and local funding even though this state has a $15 billion deficit caused directly from COVID which was caused directly by federal negligence and they were expecting this state to find $15 billion. We've had the lowest Medicaid reimbursement in the United States because they don't believe in providing health care coverage for low income people and we do. So they penalize penalized us through Medicaid. Basic infrastructure programs that every federal government passed and funded they didn't fund. They stopped the Trusted Traveler Program - which was illegal and then lied about it and got court by the prosecutor's office - as a political statement.

We had all sorts of great projects around the state that should have been going forward. Second Avenue Subway was funded by every administration in Manhattan. The Gateway tunnels, the President didn't fund them just ahead of political pique. I-81 in Syracuse, we could have been rebuilding, the Buffalo Skyway, they've done tremendous damage and then they literally changed the tax code to redistribute income from the state of New York to Republican states. That's all SALT was. They're against distribution? No, they did the greatest income redistribution in history. They took from a rich state and gave to the poor states. New York happens to be a rich state. The Republican states happen to be poorer states. They took our tax dollars and handed it to the Republican states, then raised our property taxes four billion dollars per year. An average family's taxes, property taxes, average, 26 hundred dollars a year for three years, average. It cost New Yorkers 30 billion dollars over the past three years. Pure cash, 30 billion dollars. We now have a 15 billion dollar deficit. They took 30 billion. At a minimum we have to get 15 billion dollars this year to cover our deficit.

So, the State of the State is coming up Monday. Given what happened in Georgia I now have to rewrite the State of the State, because it's going to be a totally different State of the State. My State of the State was talking about the issue we had closing a 15 billion dollar deficit when we couldn't count on Washington for any help, because Washington has been an enemy of the state for many years. So how do you close a 15 billion dollar deficit, the largest deficit in the history of the state, that's what I've been working on for weeks. Just to give you an idea of how big 15 billion dollars is. If you raised the income tax in this state to to the highest rate in the nation, which is now California. If you raised the income tax rate higher than California, and you taxes billionaires, multimillionaires, any income over one million dollars, just plain old millionaire, like a millionaires' tax would suggest, highest rate, any millionaire, it only raises about 1.5-1.6 billion dollars. We have a 15 billion dollar gap. That tax increase only raises 1.5. It just shows you how difficult closing the 15 billion dollars was going to be. 

That was going to be the State of the State. This State of the State is going to be much different. It's a different Senate. The Senate knows darn well what they did to us over the past four years. And they did it over the objections of many good Senators, like Senator Schumer. Now they have to make it right. 

So the good news is it's a good, very good development for the state of New York. The bad news is I'm going to have to rewrite the State of the State. And the really bad news is since I'm going to rewrite the State of the State, I'm not going to be able to get to the Bills game this weekend, which is going great. We started the drive through testing this morning, four thousands people will be tested in twelve hours, five minutes per car. It just gives you an idea of what you can do to scale in terms of testing. And again this is a model for us to see how testing works to open venues, because we have to get the economy moving. 

But, I'm going to give my Bills ticket to a nurse from Eerie County Medical Center, ECMC, as a way of saying thank you and honoring all healthcare heroes, and I will be doing that, so I'll be here working on the State of the State, which will be a labor of love actually, because it's going to be better news, and we deserve better news.

2021-01-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hello, friends. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Commissioner Zucker, Beth Garvey and Gareth Rhodes. Some update on today, we had a number of discussions with local governments around the state on the vaccine. We are very worried about the quote unquote UK strain. We still have only the one case confirmed here in New York but we believe there are more, the CDC announced something like 50 cases across the country. We believe we have more, it's very hard to test for the virus, for that strain of the virus. In the UK it overtook everything in three weeks. Local governments as well as I am very concerned about the local hospital capacity. We are continuing to see an increase in the hospitalization rate and the red line is overwhelming the hospital system. That's where California is, that's where other states are. If the UK spread catches on in New York, hospitalization rate goes up, the hospital staff is sick, then we have a real problem, and then we're at shutdown again.

The hospitals, the primary problem in hospital capacity now is staff shortage. We have increased beds, we have equipment that we had in the spring. But the problem all hospitals are reporting are staff shortages, primarily nurses, and that's why we reinforced the necessity to get the hospital healthcare workers vaccinated, you know in the airline when the announcement comes on when you're sitting in the plane, in the event the oxygen mask falls from the compartment, first put the hospital mask on yourself and then put it on your child. The equivalent here is protect your hospital systems, keep your hospitals open, so if you need them there is a bed and a staff to assist you . The prioritization of healthcare 1a is federal guidance, state guidance, and it's virtually universal across the country. We have mixed performance by hospitals across the state in doing the hospital workers, we have some hospitals that are lagging and we have some hospitals that are doing much, much better.

I think they heard me on Monday when I said they had to get the vaccines in the arms by Friday. We have seen a dramatic increase in their performance. They were doing, statewide, about 10,000 vaccinations per day for the first several weeks. On Monday, that number went to 30,000. Tuesday, it was a little over 30. Wednesday, the number went to 50,000 and today we're going to be in excess of 50,000. That's 5 times the rate they were doing.

Tomorrow, if they haven't used their allocation, we will re-allocate the allocation and we'll talk about how we're reallocating it tomorrow. In total, we have 2 million healthcare workers in the state. In total, we only have 900,000 doses for the 2 million. Statewide, we don't even have enough vaccines for half the number of health care workers. That's why I've been saying any hospital that has reached their refusal rate - refusal rate means I've offered it to everyone and the ones who want to take it, take it and the ones who don't want to take it don't take it. The refusal rate varies depending on the hospital, depending on the workforce.

Doctors are taking the vaccine at a much higher rate. This is anecdotal, but I would expect to see numbers in the 80 percentile for doctors and doctors know best. Nurses, there's a variation among nurses, but I would expect to see that a low of 70, a high of 80. 70 is the minimum threshold for viability of the vaccination program. The vaccination program to hit herd immunity, you have to be between 70 and 90 percent. If we're under 70 overall, then the vaccination program is not as effective because you don't hit herd immunity. We would hope that we're higher than 70 with the healthcare community because they're the most educated and most informed.

Refusal rate, say 70 percent is acceptance, 30 refusal. Any hospital that hits their refusal rate - I offered it to everybody, nobody else wants it - fine, tell me, we'll reallocate it, because again, overall, we don't have enough dosages for half of the population of health care workers and we want to get them vaccinated. We owe it to them ethically, frontline heroes, everybody celebrates them. Well let's actually not just celebrate them rhetorically, but let's in reality by giving them the vaccine. Also, if they get sick, the hospitals are going to close. It's that simple.

After 1a we will go to 1b. 1b is our essential workers and 75+ year old. Essential workers: police, fire, teachers, public safety, and 75-plus. 1b is over 3 million people. Again, we're getting 300,000 dosages per week, so the supply is our issue. 1b, the distribution mechanism is going to be different. 1b, we're going to use thousands of points of distribution across the state: pharmacies, doctors' offices, what's called FQHCs, community groups that are going to be making special efforts in our Black and Latino communities and poor communities across the state. So those areas will be served across the state with thousands of points under 1b, they will not primarily be distributed by governments.

In 1b for large groups like police, firefighters, et cetera, we said to the local officials today, to the extent a police force or the firefighters or the teachers or the transit workers can self-administer, that would be great. In other words, police have EMS/EMT, firefighters have EMS/EMT, transit workers have their own health network. A lot of the large unions have their own health network. To the extent we can just give them the vaccine and they can self-administer - great, and that frees up the pharmacies in the doctors to do the 75-plus, but it's not going to be a distribution problem, because we'll have thousands of distributors under 1b, it's going to be a supply problem. Again, right now, we have 2 million health care workers with 900,000 doses in hand. 1b will be 3 million people and we're getting 300,000 a week so you see why the supply is going to lag behind the distribution.

On the overall distribution, high performers, this is hospitals- 1a is hospitals distributing, not local governments, and the reasons the hospitals are distributing is because they're health care workers in 1a. That's why we used hospitals. 1b is general public and essential workers that's why we're using private facilities. High performers, NYU Langone Tisch - it's a very long name - 100 percent. Oswego, 100 percent, Richmond, 100 percent, St. Barnabas, 100 percent, SUNY Downstate, 100 percent - congratulations, Jim Malatras - NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, 100 percent, Cayuga Medical Center, 100 percent, SUNY Upstate, 100 percent - congratulations, Jim Malatras - Kaleida-Buffalo, 98 percent, Adirondack Medical Center, 98 percent.

On the low end, Montefiore, 17, Clifton Springs Hospital and Clinic, 18, Brookdale, 22, A.O. Fox Hospital Tri-Town Campus, 22, Calgary Hospital, 27, Olean General Hospital, 28, New York City Health + Hospital Queens, 29, New York City Health + Hospital Coney Island, 34.

New York City overall - and these numbers by the way are from their own submissions. There is no argument about numbers because the numbers are sent in under penalty of perjury, but New York City overall has 917,000 eligible health care workers in 1a. New York City has done 144,000 vaccines. 917,000 eligible health care works, 144,000 vaccines. That's roughly 14 percent of the health care population. Even if you want to say the City says their refusal rate is 30 percent, that means the acceptance rate is 70 percent but they've only done 14 percent. That's the problem with New York City and I discussed that with local governments also today.

We have to get the health care workers immunized. That's federal guidance. That's State's guidance. If you hit the refusal rate, fine. But New York City, you have vaccinated 14,000 percent. How can you say you hit the refusal rate which you say is 30 percent? That's a long way from 14 to 70, and again, we don't have enough vaccine. We're only at 900,000 doses against 2 million health care workers, so anyone who hits the refusal rate tell us, and we'll reallocate.

When we got to 1b, some local governments said they want to prioritize police. They can't do that. First, some local governments have said, well police are health care workers because police give CPR. First of all, this plan has been out there for months. It's clearly said, 1a are health care workers, 1b are essential workers like police. Every police officer is trained to do CPR. That doesn't make very police officer a health care worker. That's just silly. And when we get to 1b, no local government can prioritize one group over the other. You can't prioritize police over firefighters, you can't prioritize police over teachers, and you can't prioritize police over 75-year-old New Yorkers who have the highest death rate in the state. It is one group and they're going to be treated fairly and I'm not going to pick police over teaches, over firefighters, over grandpa and grandma and mom in my case at 75-plus. That just will not be allowed, period.

But the hospitals have made good progress. They're doing five-fold what they were so I'm glad they heard me. Tomorrow we'll announce a reallocation plan. We have to get the health care workers done, and with that let me stop there and I will take your questions.

2021-01-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Good Friday afternoon. This my friends is a moment in history. There are moments. What did you do at the time of 9/11? What was your reaction? What was your response? There are moments that define you that are a picture of your character and a picture of your soul and what you believe and who you are fundamentally.

COVID was a snapshot, a long snapshot but a snapshot. What did you do when COVID happened? How did you react? Did you stand up? Did you run away? Were you competent? Were you incompetent? It was a moment.

This is a moment in history and we're going to be defined by what we did in this moment. Certainly elected officials are going to be defined by this moment. Certainly federal elected officials are going to be defined by this moment. It's what statement we make as a people about what we believe about government and democracy.

Show that yes, there is some common sense left to government and some decency left in elected officials despite the crazy political times. And if you don't, you will live with it. You will live with it. The question will always be, what did you do when Washington anarchy descended? What did you do when they were climbing through the windows saying six million dead Jewish people wasn't enough? What did you do at that moment? And you will live with the consequences.

The numbers today - statewide positivity without micro-clusters 7.49, with micro-clusters 7.7, micro-clusters 8.3, 243,000 tests which is a large number of tests, 161 deaths, we remember them in our thoughts and prayers, statewide hospitalization up 13, discharges down 23, hospital admissions up 18, ICU plus 51, intubations plus 53.

We know these numbers. We know what is happening. This was all predictive. It is all predictive. Thanksgiving, holidays, socialization, holiday spread, the number goes up. We've said that since before Thanksgiving and we said celebrate smart, stop the spread, social gatherings, the infection rate went up.

You look across the state, Finger Lakes still highest percent of people hospitalized. Positivity rate, still the Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, Capital Region. Still makes the point, it depends on your behavior, your belief, and your community. It is community spread. How do you resolve community spread? The community acts differently. That's the simple truism here. New York City, Bronx is now spiking. Manhattan 4.4, Staten Island 7.8, Brooklyn 6.7, Queens 7.4.

We are in a foot race. What's the foot race? How fast the infection rate goes up, how fast the vaccination rate goes up, and who wins. That's the whole predictive equation going forward. How fast does infection rate go up, how fast does the vaccination rate go up.

I'm telling you we are in a danger zone. The infection rate is going up quickly. The faster the infection rate goes up, the faster the hospitalization rate goes up. The hospitalization rate goes up, the hospitals reach capacity. Hospitals reach capacity, economy shuts down. That is what happens.

Add to that foot race a new factor, the UK strain. The UK strain is here. One case in New York, two cases in Connecticut, one case in Pennsylvania, 26 in California. This is one nation. People get on a plane. They travel. It's here. It's here and it's spreading. This infection rate is frightening. I've spoken to global experts, UK experts, this is the Usain Bolt of infection rates. Usain Bolt was a phenomenal sprinter, holds records. That's what the UK strain is. It took over the UK in three weeks. The train is so powerful it overtakes the original strain.

So in the foot race, between the infection rate and the vaccine, you just add Usain Bolt on the side of the infection rate.

On the vaccine rate, New York receives 300,000 doses per week from the federal government. That's the entire dosage amount that we receive. You have to vaccinate 70 to 90 percent to achieve herd immunity. We have 20 million people. That means we have to do 14 million vaccinations at the low level of the herd immunity, 70 percent.  That's 14 Million. How long does it take you to do 14 million vaccines?  If you get them in the arms as soon as you get them, if you're getting 300,000 per week, 47 weeks.  47 weeks.  You know what that means? We lose the foot race. That means hospitals are overwhelmed. We don't win that race. Hospitals we will close when you're 21 days or 15 percent capacity. You see the hospital capacity reducing across the state. We've done everything we can to increase capacity, adding 50 percent hospital beds, we're balancing patient load, we're finding additional staff, so we've increased capacity and we're still climbing.

If have hospital capacity continues to climb we are going to close regions and you can see where we are. We're 22 percent in the Capital Region. North Country is doing better for demographic reasons, but 21 days from 15 percent we close. Why? Because we then have 21 days to try to come up with alternative accommodations for hospitals and hopefully 21 days of a closed economy will slow the spread somewhat. It won't slow the spread entirely. This is not like the spring because this spread is more in social gatherings and many of the economies are partially closed, but that is what we are looking at. Do I have a crystal ball? No, but it's math. It's math and you can extrapolate out the numbers.

Look around. It's happening everywhere. You have hospital systems overwhelmed. UK closed, Germany closed, Italy closed, California, the hospitals have been overwhelmed. Hospitals get overwhelmed. You call an ambulance, the ambulance doesn't come because the ambulance has no place to take you. That's how frightening this situation is and how serious it is.

Well, how do you slow it? There is only two options.  You slow the spread, slow down Usain Bolt, or you increase the vaccine supply. We can't increase the vaccine supply. We don't control the vaccine supply. It's all done federally and then we get a proportionate amount. What we get we have to get into people's arms. We started with group 1A, which are the nurses and the doctors, the hospital staff. Why? I said yesterday, silly analogy which I am prone to do, in the airplane they say when the oxygen mask drops down, put it on your face first before your child's face. Why? Because you're no good for your child if you're dead, that's why, to be blunt. We need the hospital staff safe. First, if they're infected, they won't show up to work, that reduces the hospital capacity. Second, if they're infected and they don't know it, they are then super spreaders. So, put the mask on the hospital workers first, keep that hospital capacity open, and the hospital capacity right now is most limited by staff shortages. We've increased the number of beds, we have a staff shortage, and we have nurses who are getting sick. That's why 1A is healthcare workers. And by the way, that is universal across the country. Universal.

Federal guidance, State guidance, anyone who has a head on their shoulders, do the healthcare workers first. Healthcare workers are called group "1A," they are all now eligible. There are 2.1 million healthcare workers in the State of New York. They are all eligible. Where do they live? This is where they live, regionally. And again, it's basically a breakdown of the population in the state. But they're all throughout the state in concentrations of population. We know who there are, we know where they live, we know where they work. The percentage that has been vaccinated to date, and this is the problem. North Country had done 37 percent of the healthcare workers. Finger Lakes 26. Buffalo 23. Southern Tier 23. Central New York 24. Mohawk Valley 23. Capital Region 29. Long Island 25. New York City has only done 13.

New York City not only is the lowest number, it's also one of the places of the greatest density, so we're concerned about it but those numbers are very, very, low, and they're just nowhere near where we need to be.

What is the percent of healthcare workers you still have to do? The inverse number. 63, 74, 75, New York City 87 percent of the healthcare workers still have to be done. Well not all healthcare workers will take the vaccine. That's right. Not all New Yorkers will get the vaccine. But we have to get to 70 to 90 percent. If you don't get to 70 percent, you don't have herd immunity, the vaccine doesn't work. The healthcare workers have to be a minimum of 70, all the expectations were they would be much higher than 70, because you can't have the general population below 70, and the healthcare workers are the most informed. Now doctors overwhelmingly are taking the vaccination.

Nurses are somewhere between 85 to 70 percent depending on where you are, where the facility is. But the minimum we can have with the healthcare workers is 70 percent. We hope to get that number up to 80 percent because you are going to have drop off with other groups in the population. For the healthcare population, 1A, 2.1 million total, 479,000 have been vaccinated. That's 23 percent. That is not 70 percent. We have 430,000 unused doses. We need a million additional doses just to take care of the healthcare workers.

The plan was to use the hospitals to distribute to the healthcare workers. Why? Because they're healthcare workers, and they're in hospitals. That's why. And use the hospitals to do the healthcare workers, because 1A is all healthcare workers. That's why we used the hospitals as the primary source of distribution.

The hospitals were slow. Week 1 they did 30,000 vaccinations, week 2 they did 102,000, week 3 they did 148,000, and they said they were ramping up, they were ramping up, they were ramping up. I understand. But they're ramping up too slowly. This Monday I said to them, you have until Friday to ramp up, use it or lose it. This week, they did 195,000, which is more than they've ever done, and that's week 4 to date. We haven't finished week 4.

This week will be over 200,000 which is significant progress. And I was direct with the hospitals, and they have responded plus or minus. You have some hospitals that have done a great job and they're at 100 percent of the allocation. You have some hospitals that are not doing a great job. Why? Because there's levels of competence in these organizations. It's not that everyone doesn't want to do it. Everyone wants to do it, but this is reality, and that's life. If you have 200 institutions you're going to have a range of competence in those institutions. That's a fact of life. If you have 200 barber shops, you're going to have a range of competence. If you have 200 plumbing companies you're going to have a range of competence.

And the most competent, most efficient hospitals are up near 100 percent, and the less competent administrations are lower. The hospitals have increased, I thank them for their efforts, but it's still not enough. So, we're going to accelerate the distribution, and what we're going to do is add new distribution networks to supplement the hospitals. Again, the thought with the hospital workers were, that's where the healthcare workers work, and that's where the healthcare workers are comfortable, but we're not pleased with the rate of distribution so we're going to supplement the hospitals with additional networks. We're now recruiting and organizing thousands of new providers.

The larger distribution network will include private doctor networks, what's called FQHCs, county health departments, ambulatory centers - this is the urgent care, CityMD, et cetera, and the pharmacy network. There are 5,000 pharmacies in the state of New York. Pharmacies distribute the flu vaccine, they do this, they know how to do this. We have 1,200 pharmacies that are already committed and will be ramping up next week and we'll continue to use the hospitals also, but we're going to bring in a much larger distribution network to do this. Five hundred pharmacies will come online next week, and we'll have hundreds of additional distributors coming on next week. 

On Monday they will begin accepting reservations for vaccinations. I'll discuss in a moment. This is a very large group of people and it can't just be show up at the pharmacy, it's going to be, much the way it was with COVID testing, go to a website, find out the location nearest you, make a reservation, and that will happen on Monday. The network will distribute to 1A and 1B. The new providers must prioritize their health care staff. Why? The same reason 1A is a priority. We don't want a nurse who is COVID positive treating 100 patients a day. Healthcare workers can be superspreaders, so the new providers, pharmacist, vaccinators, et cetera, get your people vaccinated first. Hospitals continue to prioritize the unvaccinated 1A because again, we have to get those healthcare workers up to at least 70 percent. So, keep them as a priority. 

The large union groups that have the ability, I'm asking them to attempt to organize their own administration of the vaccine. Many of the police department I have spoken with, they have EMS, they have EMT, they have medical offices. They can administer literally their own vaccine. Fire departments, same thing, they have EMS, they have EMT. Many county health departments can administer for their police, volunteer fire, et cetera. So, whenever we can get a large group to have an alternative distribution, that's good, because it relieves pressure on the remaining distribution network.

Transit workers, we're speaking with. If you have a provider network that you work with, which many large unions do, then let that network do the vaccinations. Teachers union, et cetera. So, wherever possible we want to get those distribution mechanisms segregated. The local health Department in those cases will give the police, the fire, the teachers, correctional officers an allocation on a weekly basis and then, to the extent they can take care of themselves, fine. If they can't fine, we'll take care of them in the larger network, but to the extent we get groups to organize their own distribution, that will free up the distribution mechanism to focus on the largest group in 1B: 75 plus New Yorkers. 

75 years old and older. This is the group that is most at risk. This is the group with the highest death rate is by far the largest group in 1B are New Yorkers who are 75 years old. And these are people who have been hyper-cautious now for many, many months, and they've been in their apartment, they've been in their home, they haven't seen their family, they are afraid to go out, they are afraid to get COVID. This is the group that desperately needs the vaccine.

 The Department of Health is going to hold a webinar on Monday for all the new providers and people who want to participate. Again, there are 5,000 pharmacies, we want to make sure they all understand the rules of how to participate. There are hundreds and hundreds of doctor networks that will qualify. We want to make sure they all get signed up and they know the rules. All the county health departments and the unions who are thinking of doing administration themselves, the webinar will be for you and that will be on Monday. 

1B is a very large group; 3.2 million New Yorkers in 1B.  1B: 870,000 teachers; 200,000 police and firefighters; 100,000 public safety workers which is correctional officers, et cetera; 100,000 public transit workers; 1.4 million 75 year olds. That's why, to the extent we can get those public employee groups to manage their own vaccine allows us to focus on the 1.4 million 75-year-olds. And again, that's by far the largest group and those are people who desperately need it. 

Where are the 1B population? They are spread across the state again by population centers. The state will allocate vaccines to the distribution network proportionate to the group and the region. In other words, the United States government distributes the vaccine dosages by population. New York gets its relative population to the rest of the nation. I worked very hard to make sure there was no politics in the distribution. The federal government doesn't always love New York. I worked very hard to make sure we got our fair, proportionate population percentage and we do. That is the way that I am going to distribute the vaccine: purely on the numbers by the percentage and that is the way we will distribute the vaccine locally. Police officers, firefighters, whatever the percent you represent of 1B will be the percent that is allocated to your group. All treated fairly and proportionately by group and by region.

Capital Region, Western New York, New York City, Long Island — it's all numerically proportionate to where that population exists. Within that region, the police get what the police represent, the firefighters get what the firefighters represent by percentage and the 75-plus get what they represent by numbers. So, for example, 75-year-olds and older are 1.4 million. That's 45 percent of the 1B population.  Whatever we get, we'll distribute regionally by percentage and 45 percent of that will go to 75-year-olds. For example, Capital District has 5.9 percent of the 75-year-olds, they get 5.9 percent of the portion for the weekly allocation.  All groups will be treated equally and fairly and if there's willful fraud, they will be disqualified.

I spoke to a number of local officials over the past few days. One of them said, "you know, I'm a former police officer. I believe police officers should go first." One of them said to me, "I'm a former teacher. I believe teachers should go first."

Let me be clear, I can argue that police officers should go first, I can argue that teachers should go first, I can argue that 75-year-old people should go first, I can argue that corrections officers should go first. I can argue for any of them. I will argue for none of them. I will argue fairness for all of them. No local official has discretion to prioritize one group over another. No provider, no pharmacy, no doctor's office can decide they want to give vaccines to firefighters over doctors. This is a crisis. Everyone needs it. We're going to do it fairly. We're going to do it fairly. This is a valuable commodity. I understand there'll be fraud. I understand there'll be theft. I'm telling you, we are going to monitor it carefully.

Also during IB, the state will mandate social equity distribution by local health departments: public housing, houses of worship, low-income tracts. The state will mandate. The state doesn't like to mandate. "Oh, the state has mandates. They're telling us what to do." I'm very reluctant to mandate. In this case, I'm not reluctant. This has to be done with social equity and social justice in mind. Blacks died at twice the rate of whites. Latinos died at one-and-a-half times the rate of whites. The infection rate was higher in poor communities. The COVID testing was lower in poor communities. We're not going to decide in this state who lives and dies by race or income. That is not going to happen.

If we just use the pharmacies and the doctors' networks, the healthcare deserts that have fewer pharmacies, fewer doctors' offices, less access to healthcare are going to be once again at the bottom of the line. That's not going to happen. I said from day one, and I believe the nation should've done this but New York will do it; we're going to make sure it's done fairly and we'll have special efforts and I understand we'll require special efforts to get it into those communities but that is a state mandate and the state will itself implement social equity programs. To the hospitals, I say continuing vaccinating. If it was up to me, I would have the hospitals open 24 hours, seven days a week. If I ran the hospital, that's what I would do. The numbers are low, many, many healthcare workers who are clamoring for the vaccine. I would say 24 hours, seven days a week. Get the numbers up, but my two cents is they should all stay open. 

I'm signing an Executive Order that is going to make additional staff available to do vaccinations, so hospitals, this new network will have more people who they can hire. In addition to the thousands of distributors we're bringing on line, DOH is going to set up mass distribution sites over the next several weeks. For example, we're going to use the Javits Center, which is going to open next Wednesday, where we will just do mass distribution sites and we can do thousands of vaccines. Now — and I want to make sure we all understand this because I guarantee you, this is the song we're going to hear for the next several months.

Our distribution network will far outpace our supply. Our supply is the problem. Here's the reality, dose of reality. It's a good line. To finish 1A, we need 1 million doses. 1B, we need 3.2 million doses. Put 1A and 1B together, you need 4.2 million doses. We get 300,000 doses per week. At this rate, it will take us 14 weeks to do 1A and 1B, 14 weeks. 14 weeks. 14 weeks is an eternity of time. But it will take 14 weeks to do 1A and 1B. 14 weeks, that's April 16th before we get through 1A and 1b, which is just the healthcare workers, the public employees, high risk, and 75 plus, okay? 75 plus leaves a lot of members of the general public out. But, even if you're 75 plus, it's 14 weeks before we can get through the entire population. And again, 75 plus, that's 1.4 million people. It's the largest single group.

So, when you're talking about 14 weeks, we're talking about more of a scheduling and a planning operation than anything else. Don't say "well, the Governor said I'm eligible, I'm over 75 years old, but I can't get a vaccine done." It's going to take 14 weeks to get all 75-year-old people done. We'll start to identify pharmacies next Monday. You'll call the pharmacy. The pharmacy will give you an appointment. Don't be surprised if the appointment is three months from today. That is the necessity by the supply we receive. Well get more drugs. I can't. If I could, I would. Pfizer, Moderna, hopefully the supply increases.

President-elect Joe Biden is making some moves that I think are very smart. I'm working with his team on moving supplies as quickly as possible. Maybe Johnson & Johnson comes online, maybe AstraZeneca, maybe the supply goes up. But, we can only distribute what we receive, and 14 weeks is a long time.

I'm going to put a new unofficial rule in effect, which is Matilda's Rule. Matilda is my mother. My mother is 75 plus. Barely, 75 plus. I know what's going to happen. My mother wants the vaccine. My sisters call regularly and say, when can mom get a vaccine? They're now going to hear, "oh, Mom is eligible for the vaccine." Yes. That doesn't mean, mom, that you can get the vaccine tomorrow. Monday you can make a reservation, but it's going to take 14 weeks. My mother is very sweet, and my mother's a very loving person, but my mother also has a stern side. So I just want to be clear with my mother, and with everybody's mother, and with everybody's father, and with everybody's grandfather. We're talking about 14 weeks until the federal supply is increased. So, let's calibrate our expectations.

This is about planning and this is about scheduling. To the local teachers, et cetera, plan on one fourteenth of your allocation per week. I would suggest you then schedule and prioritize within your group who should go first. Teachers, and I leave it to you, teachers who are in the classroom go first, teachers who are older go first, you know. I leave that to the union. Police, who goes first? You'll be receiving roughly one fourteenth of your total allocation per month. Same thing with transit workers, et cetera. This is going to be more of a planning tool than anything else. Federal government increases, knock Formica they do, as soon as we get an increase, we'll increase the supply. It's very simple.

But, the one refrain, which everyone will say, is "I need more." Every local health department's going to say "I need more". Every police department needs more. Every 75 plus needs more. Everyone is going to say "I need more." And they're all going to be right. We are rationing a scarce commodity that we don't control. It's from the federal government. And by the way, the first person to say "I need more" is me. I've signed numerous letters to the federal government saying I need more. I believe the federal government should be releasing the second dosages now rather than holding the second Pfizer dosages. I think they should be expediting the approvals of the other vaccines. I need more. So before a reporter asks me next week, "well, I was speaking to the local health department and they say they need more."

Let me preempt that. I need more. 300,000 just for 1A and 1B is 14 weeks. Somebody like myself, I'm not even in the planning stage right now. That's the reality. So, let's prioritize and quickly use what we can. We have many distributor options. The slow distributors of the vaccine will not be used from the program. If we have a slow distributor, we'll just move on to a faster distributor, because we want needles in arms.

Couple of other points. On Monday, we're going to have the State of the State. This is going to be a different State of the State than past States of the State because these are different times. It's going to be a much more specific, action-oriented State of the State. Fewer global abstract policy proposals and more specific initiatives, because that's what we have to do. We have to deal with this COVID today, deal with the vaccine, and then post-COVID reality. Post-COVID is a different world, post-COVID is a transformed world, post-COVID is a transformed economy. How do you rebuild an economy? How do you take advantage of the new opportunities post-COVID? That's going to be the State of the State. 

A couple of items that are going to be in the State of the State, which I'm going to talk about now, so they won't be in the State of the State. At a time when the Trump administration seeks to strip Americans of their voting rights we did see a lot of concern through the election time, and we want New York to be a champion of democratic reforms. I'm going to propose legislation to speed up the counting by requiring County Boards to process absentee ballots as soon as they're received and begin counting and reporting them on election day. We're also going to extend the time for absentee ballots from 30 to 45 days before an election, and extend Early Voting hours. It worked well, extend it.

One of the most horrific results of the pandemic has been a striking increase in domestic and gender-based violence. I'm going to propose a new office to address just this, but also authorize the courts to make abusers pay damages, including housing and moving costs related to domestic violence. I worked, I ran a not-for-profit called HELP. I worked with many victims of domestic violence. I can't tell you how many times I heard, "I couldn't leave the house because I had no place to go. I couldn't leave the house because if I went to my family's house he would follow me, and my family didn't want that trouble." Too many people stay in the house because they don't have an alternative. That has to stop, and it will stop in the State of New York. We also want to create a new crime, which is a misdemeanor for domestic violence people who buy guns. Right now there is a loophole in the law, we want to close that. If you're an abuser, you should not be allowed to buy a gun in the State of New York. 

We also have to do more on eviction protections for tenants. We've made great strides in New York, but we need to do more. We have to advance legislation, and I will, that places a statewide moratorium on commercial evictions until May 1. You have a lot of small businesses that can't pay the rent and are getting evicted, and we should have in law that you can't evict those small businesses until May 1. Also, I'm proposing a law that says no penalties for late or missed rent payments during the pandemic through May 1. In other words, when a tenant gets a bill for backed rent it can't then have all these penalties, and late fees, and charges that make payment of the past rent even more onerous. 

And then on the good news side of things, Pier 76 on the West Side of Manhattan, which is just a phenomenally amazing site. You know, if you can just imagine - that's the Hudson River, and that is the West Side and this is a pier that just goes out into the Hudson River. It has been used as a tow pound for many, many years. The City of New York said 20 years ago that they would stop using it as a tow pound because it's just a phenomenal piece of real estate. Last year the legislature passed a law saying that the NYPD had to vacate by this January 1 and penalizing the NYPD if they didn't, a $12 million penalty.

That piece of real estate will then be transferred to the state. The state will transfer it to the Hudson River Park Trust and it will be a public space. And we're going to put out proposals for designs that are going to start this month. But this is going to be a magnificent asset to the West Side, and especially during these tough times and tough days - a beautiful open public space that will just be a great place to take in New York. I think it will be a visitor attraction. Long-term, the Hudson River Park Trust will decide what the use of it is, but in the interim we'll make it a great public space, and I'm very excited about that. I want to thank the people who worked on this for a long time. Sometimes government can be slow, and sometimes you have to really fight the fight to get it done. I especially want to thank Deborah Glick who championed this effort and wouldn't take no for an answer, and I respect that. But that is good news and I feel good about that.

And I feel good about this: go Bills! I have to work on my State of the State tomorrow because with the new Washington alignment and the new Senate it changes my State of the State, so I can't go. I wanted to go, I was planning to go, I can't go. I said I would give my ticket to a nurse as a token of all the appreciation we have for our frontline heroes. And I asked ECMC, Erie County Medical Campus, to ask the nurses at ECMC who did the nurses in the center believe deserved that ticket. The nurses picked Brianna Brandon, and Brianna is bringing her mother to the game. So, congratulations, have fun. I wish I were there, but in some ways I'm even happier that you're going to be there instead of me because we love you, and we love what you did, and we love what you represent, and we want to show you this respect and this gratitude. Go Bills.

2021-01-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, still. Thanks for getting on the phone. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Dr. Zucker, Gareth Rhodes, Peter Ajemian. I want to get through this call relatively quickly because 1 o'clock, we have to be ready for the Bills game, and I have to make sure I'm all situated, TV's working, right snacks.

Today is day 315. 258,000 tests. That's a new record in the number of tests. The numbers vary. Positivity rate, et cetera, varies with the number of tests. We're 258. Some days, we only have like 100,000 tests, 120,000 tests. When the number of tests is lower, we believe it tends to be more symptomatic people who are going for tests. But in any event, 258,000 tests, that's a one-day record. The positivity is 6.5. That is down from 7.7. Now, is that a function of more people being tested? You could suggest that, but 6.5 is down from 7.7. 188 New Yorkers passed away yesterday, which as I've said before, that's the most significant number to me. 8,527 hospitalized, that's down 34 from the day before. 1,400 in ICU, that's down 47. 876 intubated, that's down 36. So that is good news. Again, highest testing number ever.

Looking across the state, Mohawk Valley has the highest number. So that is the worst news. 10.5. Finger lakes, 9.8, Long Island, 9.7, Capital region, 9.5, North Country, 8.4, Western New York, 8.4, Central New York, 8.2, Mid-Hudson, 7.9, New York City, 6.2, Southern Tier, 4.9. Statewide, 7.7. New York City, Staten Island, 7.95. Bronx, 7.91, so Staten Island is highest. Queens, 7.51, Brooklyn, 6.7, Manhattan, 4.2.

Again, these variations tell a story. Hospitalizations, the highest rate is still the Finger Lakes, .07. Then Mohawk Valley, .06, Capital Region, .05, Central New York, .05, Long Island, .05, Mid-Hudson, .04, New York City, .04, Western New York, .04, Southern Tier, .03, North Country, .02.

Vaccines, 543,000 dosages given. Just to give you an idea of how that has increased since we have been focusing on the hospitals, and I have been direct with the hospitals but just to be clear, my friends, this is a matter of life and death and getting these vaccines administered is a top priority. I have been direct, but sometimes direct communication works.

In week one, hospitals administered 33,000 vaccines. In week two, 102,000 vaccines. In week three, 148,000 vaccines. This past week where we did a full court press, to-date 259,000. So, that's double but it was basically last week, this week hasn't ended yet. So, 33,000 week one, 102,000 week two, 148,000 week three, 259,000 to date, but the week is not over.

Bad news, because what would a day in the COVID War be without bad news, three more cases of the UK COVID strain have been found. Two cases are related to the Saratoga Springs jewelry store where we identified the first case. So, two additional cases related to that one case, that's the read from the Saratoga situation. Also, an additional case in Nassau County, it appears to be unrelated to the Saratoga case. What we know about the case in Nassau County is a 64-year-old male from Massapequa, New York. The sample was received from a private lab sent to the state Department of Health, which has been doing sampling. That brings the number of UK cases in this country to just about 55, and we believe that it is more widespread than that number would suggest. That is, again, as far as I'm concerned, a situation with the federal government was asleep at the switch. If you remember, we heard about the UK strain, you had 120 countries that had required testing for people from the UK. New York required testing for people from the UK. The nation did nothing.

On the vaccine, we are greatly expanding the distribution network. We're adding thousands of new distribution sites, primarily by bringing in now pharmacies, doctors' offices, et cetera. The Department of Health is talking to distributors over the weekend. 1a and 1b are open. Hospitals will continue to prioritize health care workers. It's most important to get the health care workers vaccinated, especially with this UK strain out there. The UK strain is incredibly virulent and dangerous, so the hospitals will continue to prioritize healthcare staff, it's what's called the group 1a. The Department of Health is communicating with hospitals this weekend. It's essential that they offer the vaccine and make it available to all hospital staff. We're hoping for an acceptance rate close to 80 percent with a minimum of 70 percent. Hospitals can do 1b after prioritizing the 1a workers. County Health Departments we're speaking with, we want them to focus on the allocations to the public employees in 1b.

I've asked the public employees where possible to organize a distribution network where police can do it, fire departments can do it, etcetera, and we're asking the health departments to primarily attend to those public employees. If you have volunteer firefighters and they cannot administer, organize their own administration, let the Health Department help with those. If you have a school district that needs help, let the county health department help with those but focus on the public employees. That will allow the pharmacies to focus on the largest group which is the public, 75-plus - that's 1.4 million people. 75-plus is by far the largest group in 1b. So that's the allocation of responsibility if you will. Hospitals, continue to prioritize health care workers. Simple question for a hospital - have you made the vaccine available and accessible to all your employees, prioritize health care workers, hospitals, but they're open to 1a, 1b. County health departments, focus on the public employees and the groups of public employees, 75-plus, pharmacies, doctor networks, reservations can become available on Monday. All this with a caveat of Matilda's Rule.

At this rate of supply, 300,000 per week, the State receives 300,000 dosages per week, it will take 14 weeks to do 1a and 1b. It will take 14 weeks to do 1a and 1b. Just because the reservations become available, don't expect everyone is going to get a reservation right away. By the rate of supply it will take 14 weeks. It will take 14 weeks for the public employees to get fully vaccinated. So if a police department starts vaccinating, prioritize your workforce assuming it's going to take 14 weeks. Teachers who start to get vaccinated get allocations from the local health department. Assume it will take 14 weeks and the question to the public employees we're not answering, if it take 14 weeks do you want to prioritize certain workers within your workforce? Query, teachers, do you want to prioritize teachers who are often in classrooms? Do you want to prioritize older teachers? Do you want to prioritize teachers in communities with higher infection rates? That's what the public employee unions should be thinking about. And I will stop there so I can get my potato chips ready. Questions?

You know Gareth, or Rob, I'm going to ask you after the first question if you can give an update about how the stadium is going today, if you have any update.

Gareth Rhodes: Sure. So we, all sides there has been very smooth administration so far. The test results, the full test results from the effort, there were 7,200 negative tests, 137 positive tests, 1.9 percent positivity. That was all the testing done before the game. Thirty lanes of drive through testing to get this done at a rapid pace. There is limited point of care testing available on game day if needed. So far, all the reports are that it's gone extraordinarily smooth and people are excited for the game.

2021-01-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys. Melissa DeRosa, Commissioner Zucker, Robert Mujica, Kelly Cummings, Beth Garvey, Gareth Rhodes on the phone. 

The CDC made another change in the vaccine policy. Seems change is constant with the CDC and I'll tell you the truth I'm looking forward to the incoming administration to get ahold of this because this federal policy is making it extraordinarily difficult.

The CDC just announced that states should open up vaccines to 65-plus. This is another major change in a very short period of time. It's not just 65-plus. They suggest we open it up to 65-plus and immunocompromised and they don't define immunocompromised. Immunocompromised is a category that can be defined a number of ways Obviously it's people with cancer, chronic kidney disease, COPD, Down syndrome, heart conditions, obesity can be considered immunocompromised, pregnancy, sickle cell, smoking can classify a person as immunocompromised, type 2 diabetes is immunocompromised, asthma, so that has to be defined. 

But just so we understand what's happening now, the federal guidance started with prioritizing health care workers which made sense because if nurses and doctors get sick then the hospitals collapse and that's what we're looking at as a worst case scenario around the country. That's California. That was Italy at one time, and if a nurse or doctor gets sick, they come in contact with a lot of people, they can be a superspreader, and for us keeping the doomy open is all about the hospital capacity.

The prioritization for the health care workers then melted into prioritization for essential workers, police, fire, et cetera. That then morphed into prioritization for 75-plus because they have the highest rate of mortality and that now morphs into 65-plus and immunocompromised.

Just to give you an idea of what that now does. That is a population of 7 million New Yorkers. 1A was 2.1. 1B was 3.2.  You just added 1.8.  The immunocompromised number we don't even have yet because it depends on how you define it, but you have a population that's eligible now of about 7 million.

We receive 300,000 dosages per week That has not changed. The federal government didn't give us an additional allocation. That's 300,000 per week. How do you effectively serve 7 million people all of whom are now eligible, without any priority?

So in other words if I'm 90 years old, I'm in the same class as a person who is 65-plus. If I'm 90 years old and I have cancer and heart disease, I'm in the same category as a person who is 65-plus. 

Nurses and doctors who still haven't been vaccinated, and there is hundreds of thousands who haven't been vaccinated are now in the category of 7 million, so the policy and the intelligence of the federal system alludes me. But we will do the best we can but this is a - I happen to be Christian - loaves and fishes situation. 7 million eligible people, 300,000 dosages per week, and 7 million people who desperately want the vaccine quickly. 

Now we've open up the largest distribution system ever operated in the State of New York. All the pharmacies, and there are thousands of pharmacies that are coming up to speed, and State-operated sites, and county-operated sites, and doctors' offices, and federally qualified health centers, so, and the unions of the essential workers have been very helpful. A lot of the teachers' unions are self-administering, police are self-administering, firefighters are self-administering. So the entire distribution system is open. But at the end of the day you only have 300,000 dosages for a population of 7 million on the other side. I said in the State of the State patience - we need patience at an impatient time in history.

This compounds the request for patience because how do you say on one hand 7 million people are eligible and then on the other hand say we only have 300,000 dosages per week?

But there will be a new federal government and the new federal government at the top of the list has to be increasing the priority of production of dosages. You need more vaccine, whether it's Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, or they no longer stockpile the second does and they release the second dose - those are all decisions they have to make, but they have to make those decisions.

They did a webinar here. I did a message on the webinar. The priority is open, 1A, 1B, and now 65-plus, and we have to put out a list of what's immunocompromised but within the distribution network, the hospitals and the country departments of health, I'm sorry, the hospitals have to continue to prioritize hospital workers because our number one risk is still collapse of the hospital system. That is our number one risk and we're seeing it in states all across the nation and we are balancing on the head of a pin our hospital capacity.

This U.K. strain is the X factor. I'll get to that in a second, but if that U.K. strain increases the infection rate the way they expect and the way we are seeing, we're going to overwhelm the hospital system.

The biggest capacity element in the hospital system is we're losing staff. We're losing staff because the staff is getting sick from COVID. That's why continued prioritization of the hospital staff is key and in the webinar we said hospitals must continue to prioritize hospital staff.

The county health departments should focus on the essential workers, police, fire, et cetera. That's who they deal with. City health departments and pharmacies, the general public because they're best equipped to handle the general public. Remember, pharmacies do the flu vaccine. Fifty percent of New Yorkers take the flu vaccine, but pharmacies have these, are accustomed to scheduling vaccines and dealing with the public and now there's going to be a massive number of public between 75-plus and now 65-plus. But that we're going to have to do. So, focus on the populations especially doctors, nurses so we don't overwhelm the hospitals.

The U.K. strain is the x factor. The federal government, CDC says the reason they're moving up the population to 65-plus is because they're afraid of the U.K. strain. Again, if you don't have the vaccines to give them, I don't know what opening up the eligibility does, but U.K. strain nationwide is up to 80 cases and this again, is just a situation that did not have to develop.

The United States did not ban or test people from the U.K. even though 120 other countries did. When you don't close the front door, don't be surprised when you have the U.K. strain here. It's now up to 80 cases nationwide. It's up to 12 cases in New York. We found eight more cases, so we have 12 in New York and we have 80 in the country and that is what's panicking the federal officials with good reason because this is a much higher rate of infection.

As far as our numbers are concerned, today is day 318. We did about 196,000 tests. Our positivity rate without micro-clusters is 7.6, with micro-clusters is 7.7. Positivity in micro-clusters is 8. 154 New Yorkers died. May they rest in peace and may their families have peace. Hospitalizations are up 281 to 8,926. ICU up 66, 1,492; intubations up 18, 909. If you look at the numbers over the past two weeks, you could see a flattening in the numbers after a spike from Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year. We said we would hope, hope, aspire for a flattening in late January. You could argue that you start to see a flattening now. Positivity in almost every region is down from the high during this holiday spike. Number of hospitalizations, this is from just about Thanksgiving, okay: new hospitalizations was about 100 a day. Let me give you this per week: 100 per day, 131 per day, 152 per day, 164 per day, 100 per day, 165 per day, 111 per day, and this past week plus 48 per day. So, you could see a post-Thanksgiving increase growing through Christmas, growing through New Year, and starting to flatten. By region now, 7-day average: Mohawk Valley tops 9.5, Long Island: 9, Capital Region: 9, Finger Lakes: 9, Mid-Hudson: 7.8, Western New York: 7.6, North Country: 7.6, Central New York: 7.2, New York City: 5.9, Southern Tier: 4.6. Statewide average is 7.2. By borough in New York City: Bronx is highest: 7.4, Queens: 6.7, Staten Island: 6.6, Brooklyn: 5.9, Manhattan: 3.5. Good news to see Staten Island no longer at the highest amount, and I hope - it seems like that community is responding.

In terms of hospitalizations: Capital Region is 0.05 - well, let me give you this in order. Mohawk Valley is highest and Finger Lakes is highest at 0.07. Then Long Island at 0.06. Everyone else is 0.05 or 0.04. We are going to accept the federal guidance of the 65+ and the immunocompromised. I don't want New Yorkers to think that we are not doing everything we can to make them eligible for the vaccine, because I want to keep people in New York as calm as we can keep people in these anxious times. And I don't want people to think that people in any other state are eligible when they're not. But, the dose of reality is great. Now we have 7 million people eligible, and we still have a drip, drip, drip from the faucet of federal dosage availability at 300,000.

2021-01-20 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning all. To my far right, Mr. Gareth Rhodes, to my immediate right Dr. Howard Zucker, to my left Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, to her left Robert Mujica, Budget Director. 

Today is day 326, but in many ways today is like day one. Interestingly, today is the one year anniversary of the first case being found in the United States, first COVID case. One year ago today, it was in Seattle, Washington and today, one year later, it's like day one because we start with a new president, President Joe Biden, and it thrills me to say President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. I'm very excited about the president and the change for this nation. This is going to be a different country. It's going to be a country that needs healing, needs direction, needs a new agenda, but Joe Biden is the right person, I believe, for this time. I have known him many, many years. He's been a great friend to me personally and I've tried to be a great friend to him. Good days and bad days, he's been a great friend to New York State. He's been with us on many projects that we've done, many important milestones here in New York, that he helped make possible when he was vice president. He was, in many ways, our go to person during the Obama administration. If I needed to cut the federal bureaucracy and get something done, the Vice President was always there and his team was always there, and many of his team as vice president are now on his team, obviously, as president. So, it's exciting. It really is exciting in many ways. 

I'm also excited about the rescue plan that he's laid out. It's what the nation needs. By the way, it's what the governors had been arguing for for the past year - state and local financing, which is very important. As I said my budget yesterday, it's now very important that New York gets its fair share of state and local financing, and we're going to fight very hard for that, but Joe Biden, to his credit, put it in his plan, $350 billion for state and local financing. Now it will go to the Senate and go to the House, and they will carve up that $350 billion, right, they'll divide it. What does New York get? What does California get? What does Florida get? What does Texas get? So, we have to make sure in that process that New York is represented, but he put the plan on the table that he said he would. So, all good news and a new day, and a new sense of hope, and a new tone and a new spirit. A more loving, more healing and uniting presence in Washington. And the president sets the tone, you know, the president is not just another person on Twitter. Normally, people look to the president; people listen to the president. The president is a leader and a tone setter and when he is strong enough to use words like "love," like "healing," that's a special person, because it's hard to show your soul in that way. It's hard to be that honest and that authentic, and that's who Joe Biden is. 

Overall today statewide positivity: 6.8 percent. Number of tests: 185,000. Statewide deaths: 185, that's 185 families that are grieving today and we grieve with them. 400,000 deaths in this nation and it didn't have to be, it didn't have to be. If we learned the lessons from COVID in the spring, if it hadn't been politicized the way it was, if the government was more competent - it did not have to be 400,000 people. We learned many of these lessons, we should have learned these lessons if we were smart and we were quicker. We knew what happened in the spring and we knew what was going to happen. Our leaders, our government failed to make the adjustments. Our political system failed and people died. 

Statewide hospitalizations up 37; ICU up 7; intubations up 5. When you look across the state by region of percent hospitalized, Finger Lakes is still right up there. Finger Lakes, that number is not going to change unless the Finger Lakes changes that number. I don't know what else to say to them. Their positivity rate has been among the highest. Their hospitalization rate is among the highest, that means more people go into your hospital. Your nurses and doctors are working harder. That means more people are going to die, it means more elderly people are at risk and it's a function of your behavior. One point in life is it's up to you. It's up to you, it's a function of your behavior. 

Mohawk Valley and Long Island, which is new to the list and concerning, but that's the top three places in the state in terms of hospitalization. Positivity, Mohawk Valley and Long Island, Finger Lakes is not in the top 3 and I hope that remains; but Mohawk Valley and Long Island have the highest possibility. You look at New York City, the Bronx and then look at the variance between the Bronx and Manhattan. Double, double the positivity rate. Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. 

The period we're in now is a footrace between the vaccine and how many people you can get vaccinated, which is becoming more and more a question of how fast can you produce the vaccine and how quickly is the infection spreading. Right now, the vaccination rate is a function of the supply - as you'll see in a moment. The infection rate is a function of people's behavior. Right now, the infection rate is on the decline. Caveat. Caveat is if one of these new strains of the virus don't take over, that's the caveat, but this is the basic dynamic that we're in right now. 

Overall, it's good news. Overall, the positivity rate has been dropping and it's been dropping across the State and that is good news. It's in different rates of decline in different parts of the State, but this is the overall statewide average on the 7-day. If you look at the regions, you see all basically follow the general curve where it went up, flattened a little bit and then is coming down as the holidays are more and more in the past. We hope this continues and we hope a new strain, like the UK strain, doesn't take over which could change these numbers. 

Hospitalization rate is what they call a lagging indicator. What does that mean? That means you get infected, you go to a Hanukkah party and you get infected. Several days later, you start to feel ill. You think maybe it's just a cold, maybe it's the flu. Several days later, you're more concerned and you go get a test. Now you know you have COVID. Several days later you get sicker and you go into the hospital. You're in the hospital for several days, if you don't get better you go into the ICU. If you don't get better you go under intubation and then question marks. But the hospitalization rate lags the infection rate and the positivity rate, so you see the positivity rate going down, you can still see the hospitalization rate going up. Why? It's the time lag between the infection and the hospitalization rate. 

When you look at the vaccine administration rate by region, it's up across the State, still with variance. 96 percent, North Country. Who wins, who's doing the best? Southern Tier, 99 percent. North Country, 96 percent. Long Island, 90 percent. Western New York, 89 percent, Central New York, 87 percent, Mid-Hudson, then Capital Region, then Mohawk Valley, then, nope, then New York City. So it's up, which is the good news. It's varied, which is the bad news. Glass half full, glass half empty.

On the vaccination of hospital workers, which I am telling you is a priority. If the nurses and doctors get sick, you lose hospital capacity. Hospital capacity will be determined by staff. That's what it's going to be. No hospital is going to call up and say "I'm out of beds." No hospital is going to call up and say "I'm out of ventilators." No hospital is going to call up and say "I'm out of PPE." A hospital will call up and say "I don't have enough staff, because my staff is sick." Especially if the UK strain hits. Vaccinate the nurses and doctors. That's why they were the top priority by every federal guidance and by every state guidance.

We're now up to 65 percent. That's better. It's not great. Herd immunity was supposed to be 70 to 90 percent. I would have liked to see the healthcare workers leading the charge, just as a sign of confidence to New Yorkers. If nurses and doctors take it, it must be safe. But, they're at 65 percent. Again, that's varied across the state. Some areas are doing better than others. High of 81 in Central New York, goes down to a low of 61, 62, Long Island, New York City. So, that's a priority, and it's a priority we're going to continue to follow.

The pace of the distribution of the vaccine is way up. Week one, this was a new experience for these institutions. we did 34,000, week two, 54,000, week three, 120. We got more aggressive, talking about percentages, showing transparency, people across the state what regions were doing what, what facilities were doing what. Publicized it, talked about it, it went up higher, 235, we're now at 329,000 in week five. Week six is going to be even higher and dramatically so. Overall, statewide, total doses, 1,156,000. First doses and second doses. But that's way up. 86 percent of the dosages have been administered, which means they are now in arms, and that's great news.

There are 145,000 first dosages that are remaining on hand. We're averaging 65,000 doses per day. So that means at this rate we only have two or three days of supply. We'll start to get the next week's allocation, but what's clear now is we're going to be going from week to week, and you will see a constant pattern of basically running out, waiting for the next week's allocation, and then starting up again. We're trying to smooth it out, but we're also trying to get it out as fast as possible. But, that's where we are now. It's going to be a week to week allocation situation. And at this rate, we're going to be out in two days. We're going to have to start to move the next allocation quickly.

We have 1,200 vaccine distributors around the state now. It's a very large network of distributors. We also have other distributors who are ready to come online, who we have prepared to come online. Frankly, the 1,200 distributors are more than we need right now. We have more of a distribution network than we have product, so to speak. We have 1,200 distributors, but, we have so many distributors that we can't supply them all and you will see distributors who run out of supplies. When distributors say "I'm running out," they're right. We want to make sure distributors don't schedule any appointments for which they don't have a definitive allocation, because we don't know what we're going to get next week, and we don't know where we're going to distribute it next week. So don't schedule an appointment unless you know your allocation for the next week. Otherwise you have to cancel appointments and it adds to the chaos, which is already inherent in the system. When the federal government decided to say 65+ were open, and this was open, and this was open, and this was open, but there was no supply they created tremendous anxiety. Only Jesus with loaves and fishes could handle the situation that the federal government created, because they created such a demand and then they never increased the supply. But this large distribution network that we're putting in place we're anticipating more supply. I'd rather be in the situation where we have more distribution waiting on supply than supply waiting on distribution. As soon as we get it, we want to be able to send it out and that's why we have such a large distribution network. 

I also believe you're going to see more production, knock on formica, and Johnson & Johnson may be coming online, now we hear maybe March. AstraZeneca may be coming online. More Pfizer production maybe in the second quarter. More Modernaproduction. So, our distribution network is up and running, we're just waiting on the supply. But we're in a position that when we get the supply we will be able to move the supply, and that's the position we should be in and I feel good about that. What else is happening is as we move allocation faster, the vaccines are becoming more scarce and harder to find. Fairness becomes more important, alright, because now you're getting down to -- we only have very few vaccines that we're allocating because so many are going out the door. Fairness is important, and I want to remember where we are in general. There are three groups that are now eligible. The healthcare - nurses, doctors, patient-facing staff, therapists, et cetera - healthcare; you then have what's called 1b. - essential workers, police officers, firefighters, public safety officers, transit workers, grocery food, teachers - that's 1b.; and then you have 65+ - just general members of the public who are 65+. Why? Because older people are more susceptible to COVID. Those are the three categories that are open. 

I want to keep it fair among those three, right? So healthcare workers, there are about 1.3 million who haven't been vaccinated, that's about 21 percent of the eligible universe. Essential workers, there are about 1.7, that's about 27 percent of the eligible universe. 65+ is 3.2 million people, that's 52 percent of the eligible universe. Theoretically and ideally, if you had 100 vaccines and they said, "how do you distribute those 100 vaccines fairly among these eligible individuals," you would say 21 percent go to healthcare workers, 27 percent go to the essential workers, and 52 percent go to 65+. That would be fair among those eligible people, and that's what we're trying to do to the extent practical. The way we distribute it is we distribute it by region. A region gets an allocation. The region's allocation is based on pure percentage of their population. If a region is 14 percent of the state population, they get 14 percent. It then goes to the provider network.

The provider network is in two parts. One is the governmental, the public side and they basically operate the local health department: county department of health, city department of health, that's what they run. If they have a public hospital they run the public hospital. The private sector runs the majority of the providers: hospitals, pharmacies, Federally Qualified Health Community facilities. The hospitals to give you an idea in this state, we have about 200, roughly, we have about 15 public, and the rest are all private. So, hospitals are private. Pharmacies are private: CVS, Walgreens, et cetera. And the community healthcare facilities are private. So, that is duplicated in every region. The County Executive is in charge of the local health department. The private facilities are private facilities. Each provider has a priority and this is important. Pharmacies should be doing people who are 65-plus. Hospitals should be doing the health care workers. Why? Because health care workers are related to hospitals and we don't want 65 year olds walking into hospitals. Pharmacies are better accommodated to handle 65-plus. The city and county departments of health are supposed to be doing the essential workers, police, fire, teachers, and the police, fire, teachers are supposed to be working on self-administration programs. So, the local county department of health can just hand them an allocation and say, here you go, Chief of the Police, you have your medics administered. Here you go, Chief of the Fire Department, you have your EMS administered. Here you go, teachers, you work with your local provider to administer it. That's how this should be working. Each provider must follow the priority or else the allocations are unfair. That's why we push and stress the prioritization and that's why it's in the law.

If everybody vaccinates everyone then it's going to be unfair to someone. If a local health department receives an allocation which is calibrated to their number of essential workers but they give it to people who are 65-plus, then the essential workers are going to have less of an allocation. The pharmacies that are supposed to be doing 65-plus, if they give it to essential workers, it depletes the allocation for the 65-plus. That's why it's important, because we want this fair as possible. I understand everybody wants it. I understand people under 65 are saying, why not me? I understand there are thousands of people over 65 who can't get a vaccine. I get dozens of calls every day from people who are 70, 80, 90 years old who say, "I try calling all day, I try on the internet all day long, my daughter tries all day long, my son tries all day long, we can't find an appointment to get a vaccine." That's true. That is very true. I talk to police officers who say, "I can't get the vaccine yet, my police department says they don't have enough. That's true.

The best we can do is be fair to everyone and that's what we're trying to do. We don't have enough supply. We don't. At this rate of supply, it takes seven and a half months to get enough vaccines for the currently eligible population. I'm 63. I know I look older, but I'm only 63. I'm not eligible. At this rate, I'm not going to be eligible for eight months because the current eligible population, it's going to take seven and a half months to get to them. I get the frustration but I want to at least be able to say, we were fair with what we had.

So how do we allocate? First, geographically by region. Every region gets their population allocation. Period. Then by eligible group, 21 percent healthcare, 52 percent 65 year olds, 27 percent essential workers, then a priority for the more effective providers. You've all seen the provider list. Some providers are much more efficient than other providers. You want to get the vaccine out the door so we prioritize within that group the providers that are higher performing. On top of that, we have a mandate for social equity. I don't want it to be the poor places and Black communities, Hispanic communities wind up getting left out because they don't have a hospital and they don't have a doctor's office and they don't have a chain pharmacy. So special efforts in public housing, in churches and through community groups which we have been doing. I've been myself with public housing. The State has set up sites in public housing with Black churches. We have SOMOS that is doing a beautiful job, and Northwell that is setting up a lot of pop-up sites for us. So, the equity is also very important to us.

But the issue is supply and that's not going to change. We got 300,000 doses. Then we went to 239. Last week we were at 250. At this rate, if you were to receive 300,000 vaccines, it's going to take six months. If you receive 250, which is what we're receiving right now, it's going to take seven months. We just received the allocation number for next week, it's 250,000 again, so it didn't go up. I urge the President to do whatever he can to increase the supply. Pfizer and Moderna can not sell, by law, to a state, I tried. Apparently they only have what's called an "Emergency Authorization Use," an EAU. They're not licensed to sell to states, it's a very limited federal approval, so states can't buy, private individuals can't buy, it's not allowed by the Pfizer-Modernaapproval. So, it's going to be up to the federal government. But whatever they can do, that's going to be job one. 

Something else I'm concerned about, on the theory of, it's been one year, learn the lesson in life, it's okay to get knocked on your rear end, it's really not okay but it's unavoidable, life is going to knock you on your rear end. Two pieces of advice: get up, get up. Second: learn the lesson that knocked you on your rear end, and this country hasn't done that. We know this: viruses mutate. We know that. This virus is mutating, we know that. So far the mutated strains are different and are more dangerous. The UK strain spread much more quickly, CDC casually mentions that the UK strain can takeover by March, in which case you'll see our infection rate go like this, and then you'll say, "Why didn't we vaccinate the nurses and doctors?" 

There's a South African strain that may or may not be more lethal. There's a Brazilian strain that may or may not be more lethal. We're seeing the UK strain spread. We have two more cases linked to the Saratoga Spring spread and two cases in Suffolk County. Wadsworth is testing, we have not found the South Africa strain, or the Brazilian strain, in New York. I believe it's just a matter of time. 

And I believe it's just a matter of time until there is a strain that is much more lethal. And unfortunately, I believe you have to anticipate a strain that is vaccine-resistant. It is almost a matter of probability, when we talk about these strains, there are dozens and dozens of mutations. Probability suggests there will be a strain, there will be a mutation that is vaccine-resistant, as frightening as that sounds. The flu mutates every year. There's a new flu vaccine every year. There could be a strain that requires a new vaccine, that's a possibility. And we've done so much vaccine work, it's also possible that we could come up with a quick new vaccine. But you'd then have to administer that vaccine all over again. 

So, you are playing with, now, Russian roulette with this virus. You know it's mutating around the globe. Why are we still allowing international people to fly into our airports without tests? Why would we do that? One year later, one year later. Why didn't we learn the lesson of a year ago? How did New York wind up in this situation? It flew here from the UK. It flew from Italy. It was never the China virus. It was the mutated virus from the UK, and from Italy, and from France. 

And you know what's happening today? The UK virus is still flying in to JFK. The Brazil virus is still flying in to JFK. Why? Why wouldn't you say that all international travelers have to be tested? It is just basic common sense, and realizing the lesson of last year. 

Moving forward in this new year, our new President, we are ready, we are energized, I'm feeling good, we are strong, this state is stronger than it's ever been, we had a horrendous experience last year with COVID but it made us stronger. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And we are the stronger for it. 

And I feel it and I believe it. We're going to battle COVID, we're going to deal with the economics in the budget, we're going to make sure Washington gives us our fair share of state and local financing. We're going to reopen the economy as we're now doing, safely and smartly. And build baby build, my own expression. 

This is the perfect moment in time. Listen to FDR, listen to all the greats. Private sector is slow, private economy is slow, people are out of work. Money is cheap. Build, build, like we built airports, and bridges, and subways. Build. And build a New York that's better than it has ever been, and that's exactly what we're doing. And we're building today and we're waiting for no one. We create our own destiny, I truly believe that. And no one is better at creating destiny and shaping the future than the people of New York State, because they are New York Tough.

2021-01-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Okay, Happy Friday. To my far right, Gareth Rhodes, changed positions, try to confuse me, but they can't. to his left, Dr. Jim Malatras, Dr. Howard Zucker, Secretary Melissa DeRosa, Budget Director Robert Mujica. 

Today is day 328, and we welcome common sense and competence to the federal government. It is a relief for us here in the State of New York. President Biden's inauguration was beautiful, and it was uplifting, and it was entertaining, lot of great entertainers. We want to thank President Biden for including the state and local aid in his first announcement of the America Recovery Act. State and local aid is something we fought for for about the past two years. All the governors were united. State and local aid is just what it sounds like. It is aid to the state governments, aid to the local governments. The Senate refused to put it in the previous bill. The Senate leadership is now changed, obviously, and President Biden put in $350 billion. 

The next obstacle on the federal side is $350 billion is in President Biden's plan. They could raise that if they wanted, by the way. Speaker Pelosi had a higher amount in her Heroes Act. I would urge them to raise it. National Governors Association, Democrats and Republicans, asked for $500 billion. But, the real fight is going to be the allocation of the $350 billion. What state gets what? What's the distribution formula? And that is a slicing of the pie function, which is going to be done in the House and the Senate. We made it clear that New Yorkers are firmly committed to two things, our fair slice of the $350 billion, which we believe is modestly $15 billion, which we need for this year's budget relief, and repeal SALT, which is not state and local but it was something that every Democrat was outraged that when it was passed, it crushed New York. Everyone said they would repeal it. Well, now is the time. 

Also, President Biden's team is a welcome relief. The COVID task force coordinator is Jeff Zients. Jeff I've known for 20 years. He is a true pro, and you see even on day one, the actions they're taking are just long, long overdue. Use the Defense Production Act. I had a number of conversations and statements going back over a year urging the Trump Administration to use the Defense Production Act. Wear a mask. Look at that, common sense. Lightning bolt from above. So congratulations on implementing common sense. And international travel procedures. We see these strains walking in our airport. It's easier to bring a COVID strain through an airport than it is to bring fruit from another country. It has defied common sense. Sothis is a welcome relief. And it makes us feel, frankly, like we're not alone. The federal government is actually doing something positive. And it's a real partnership. Jeff Zients is going to work in partnership with the governors. The governors are the ones who are administering this COVID vaccine. governors are the ones who've been fighting this COVID battle. We felt like we've been battling it on our own. But, we're going to have a weekly meeting with Mr. Zients, hear from the governors, hear what they need, and it's a real functional partnership. So I thank them all very much for that. 

Where we are in this footrace, how fast does the infection rate go up, how fast do we vaccinate? This is where we are today. 5.65 positivity, 268,000 tests. Statewide deaths, 165. Deaths, talk about lagging indicator, which is a sort of antiseptic term, but you get infected, you go into a hospital, if you're in a hospital long, ICU, intubation, and too often death. And that's what we're seeing now. Good news is, we're seeing the hospitalizations decrease over these past couple of days. Significant decrease, 400 over the past couple of days. So that's really positivenews. ICUs down 14, intubations down 19. 

Positivity rate is down, continues to go down, and that's very good news. Hospitalizations are also a lagging indicator, but eventually they follow positivity. If fewer people are getting positive, fewer people are getting infected, fewer people going into the hospitals, and that's what we are seeing also. This is a confusing chart, but just to make it confusing, as if it wasn't confusing enough, start at the bottom, December 7th. December 7th is when you start to deal with the surge from Thanksgiving. People gathered for Thanksgiving, social gatherings, if they weren't smart, infection rate went up. Week later or so you start to see it in the hospitals. Sofrom the bottom up, we had 150 new people a day, 164 new people a day, 97 people a day, 165 a day. Then it starts to turn. 111 per day, 48 per day, 32 per day, five per day. So this, again, is more good news. We just need to keep the arrows pointed down. But, never get cocky with COVID. Truer words were never spoken. I'll take credit for that quote. Never get cocky with COVID. 

The new strains are frightening. The UK strain, Brazil strain, now the South Africa strain, and there are going to be more strains, I would wager on it. The UK strain has been spreading, should have never been here, if this federal government had done the testing and the quarantine mandate that other countries did, but, we are where we are. We're up to 25 cases in New York. CDC has said the UK strain is going to overtake the COVID-19 strain by March. That's how quickly this strain spreads. If that is true, you could see the infection rate go up again. So, hence don't get cocky with COVID. Two cases in Westchester, one in Kings County. I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I still call Kings Brooklyn. So, we adjust, right? We are in a war with COVID. It's a fluid situation. Government normally takes a position and stands there, that doesn't work in war. In war, when the enemy moves, you move. They try a new tactic, you try a new tactic, and that ability to flex and adjust is very important. Stay on the balls of your feet - mixed metaphors.  

Hospitalizations: Finger Lakes. Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes, and now Long Island. We have seen Long Island ticking up but now it's Finger Lakes and Long Island with the highest percentage hospitalized. Highest positivity: Long Island, Mohawk Valley. Highest positivity in New York City: Bronx, which has been growing for a while. Staten Island seems to have stabilized and that's good news. Thank you very much, Staten Islanders. And again, these numbers are function of behavior. How you act is how the virus will spread. It's that simple.  

Where are we in terms of vaccinations? Remember what happens. We get a supply from the federal government. We've tried to find the allocation on our own, purchase on our own. Pfizer and Moderna how are both operating under something called an Emergency Authorization Use, they call it EAU, it's a federal program. Everything has to be an acronym because that's the federal government. Emergency Authorization Use does not allow them to sell it, so they cannot sell directly to the State of New York, so the supply comes from the federal government.  

We have used 97 percent of the doses we've been allocated thus far through week one to five. This is the allocation usage by region for week one through five. Best, highest level of vaccination rate, kudos, Southern Tier: 100 percent. And the Southern Tier is a real turn-around story, so hats off to the Southern Tier, and to those county executives and supervisors. North Country 99; Central New York 98; Long Island 97; Western New York 96. Kudos to all of you. Lower performing regions in the state: Mohawk Valley 77, that has to improve, and it should improve. People are in desperate demand for the vaccine. We want to make sure as soon as we're getting it, we're getting it out. Capital Region 82; Mid-Hudson 84; New York City 90; Finger Lakes 94. Overall statewide 1,329,000 thousand doses delivered. We run out of allocation today. The week one to five allocation will be exhausted by the end of the day Friday, it may already be exhausted, frankly, midday on Friday and we now going week to week on the next week's allocation. We have 28,000 dosages left in the state from week one to five. If you add up all the dosages that are not in arms in the state, it's 28,000. The problem is we administer about 80,000 dosages per day, right, so 20,000 does not get you through the day when you're doing 80,000 dosages per day. We will, by the end of today, fully utilized all of the dosages that have been delivered.  

Week six dosages are being delivered as we speak. They come in throughout the week. They are delivered by the federal government through various means, one of them interestingly enough is through the Federal Express, but they're basically delivered through private carriers, and they arrive at different times across the week. Some jurisdictions are starting to receive them already. That's 250,000 dosages and they are now being delivered.  

Week six allocations are arriving. Providers should only schedule appointments for allocations they know they will receive. In other words, in this confusing situation, the last thing we want to do is cancel appointments. So, don't schedule an appointment unless you know you have an allocation. A person who had a first dose, they have an appointment for a second dose, they are going to get it. If you made an appointment at a pharmacy, we told the pharmacies we're going to give you X next week, but only schedule an appointment for an allocation you know you are going to receive. Don't gamble. Don't bet. Some providers think if they schedule the appointments ahead of time, people will feel comfortable because we have waiting lists. Not if you cancel those appointments, so don't schedule any appointment unless you know you have an approved state allocation coming and appointments will be honored.  

The moment the vaccines arrive, our goal is to get them in arms as soon as possible. 80,000 per day; 250,000 doses per week is not enough and in truth, we can be doing more than 80,000 dosages per day. We have about 1,200 distributors. We can ramp that distribution network up very quickly. The 1,200 distributors are more distributors than we need. I can't provide the 1,200 distributors with all they could use now because we only get 240,000. We want to have that distribution network in place because we're hoping to get more production and I want to anticipate more production and have that distribution network in place. I'd rather have more distribution waiting for vaccine, than having vaccine sitting on a shelf waiting for distribution. So, we have about 1,200 distributors. We could go to 2,000, 3,000 distributors, just like that, and we could easily do 100,000 dosages per day. That would be 700,000 per week. So, we're limited by our supply. When we get the supply, we distribute it by region, right? The region distributes it by subgroup by the different providers, so just stick with me for a second, it's not that complicated, but I want to be clear once again. 

You have three groups, basically. You have healthcare workers, you have essential workers, police, fire, teachers, public safety, food workers. And you have sixty-five plus.  Three separate groups. We want to be fair in the allocation. Well then do it by percentage of population -- we are. Healthcare workers are about twenty-one percent of the eligible population. So we distribute twenty-one percent of that region's allocation to healthcare workers. Essential workers are about twenty-seven percent, so we allocate twenty-seven percent of that region's allocation to essential workers. Sixty-five plus are more than half, fifty-two percent. So we distribute fifty-two percent of that region's allocation to the providers who serve sixty-five plus. No one is happy, everybody wants more, what do you do, you just be as fair as you can possibly be with the allocation you have, and that's what we're doing. 

Different, the three different groups, are provided for by three different providers. Essential workers are done by city and county departments of health. Why? Because that's the normal liaison with the police and the fire and volunteer fire, they have the most accessible relation to the city and county governments. We're also asking the large unions, the large forces to self-administer, so the city and the county don't even have to do the administration, they just hand it to the police departments, and let the police departments, medical officers do it, hand it to the fire departments and let the fire departments, EMS, EMTs administer. Again, the vaccination is not rocket science, with all due respect to Doctor Zucker. It's a vaccine. And EMS workers, EMT workers administer a vaccine in the normal course of business. 

So, essential workers, and the percent that essential workers represent, twenty-one percent, goes to city-county departments of health. Healthcare workers go to the hospitals. Nurses and doctors work in the hospitals. Doctors offices are affiliated with the hospitals, or FQHCs. But that's the normal accessibility for them. Healthcare workers get twenty-seven percent, so, twenty-seven percent goes to hospitals, and then sixty-five plus, we don't want them walking into hospitals. There are a lot of other people who are ill in hospitals. We don't want them walking in toCity Hall, so retail establishments, pharmacies, mass sites are where we're doing the sixty-five plus. 

It's important that the provider follows the prioritization, because otherwise they're giving that group's allocation to someone else, and I've said this repeatedly, but I understand the stress level and the anxiety level. At least we have to be able to say we are fair. If you give the police dosage to sixty-five plus, then the police don't get it. If you give the sixty-five dosage to hospital workers than the sixty-five year oldsdon't get it. So please follow the department of health prioritization. Otherwise, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. That's all you're doing. 

The Trump Administration, and I said this not because he's out of office, I said it while they were in office, this was all unnecessary chaos and confusion and anxiety. Everybody agreed nursing homes were the top priority. Everybody agreed with that. All Americans agreed with that. You have vaccines, they're limited, give it to the people in the nursing homes. Everyone agreed with 1A. Nurses, doctors -- give it to them. They're on the front lines, they're dealing with COVID positive people every day, I'm not, they are, and if they get it they're super spreaders. And if they get it the hospitals close down. 

Everybody agreed. First responders, essential workers, everybody agreed. They could all be potential super spreaders, they're more exposed. They then opened it up to seventy-five plus, which made sense, but again you are already way over capacity. By the way, we still have not received enough supply just to do 1A and 1B. If they had only opened it up to nursing homes, healthcare, and police officers, we still have not received enough supply, even to get past nursing homes and 1A. We wouldn't even be in 1B yet if they opened the categories sequentially. Then you open seventy-five plus, then they opened sixty-five plus, all at the same time. Soyou now have seven million people, all who are eligible and they're chasing 250,000 vaccines per week, it made no sense. 

What should have been done, nursing homes first. You finish nursing homes, go to 1A. You finish 1A, go to 1B. Then after 1B, and again we still wouldn't be through 1B, we wouldn't be through 1A, we've done 1.3 million dosages, how many people were in 1A? Who remembers? 2.1? 1A is two million people, we've only done one million dosages, we would still be in 1A. Then go to 1B, and then if you open the age groups you should have opened it as a priority by age. 

I'm ninety years old, I should go before the person who's sixty-five. I'm ninety, I should go before the person who is seventy. And it should have been opened as you had allocation. Anyway, that is not what we did. It's not what they did and now you have a period of confusion and anxiety because you're trying to get 7 million people with 250,000 a week. That would take 7 months. 

President Biden has said he would produce 100 million dosages in 100 days. That is about 1 million per day. New York State is about 6 percent of the population. That means New York State would get about 60,000 doses a day. That's about 420,000 per week. That is higher than we are now. Even at 420,000 dosages per week, you still have to do 7.1 million, that still takes you 17 weeks. All this to say, this is going to be a long several months in distribution of this vaccine and the anxiety that has been created. I'm hopeful that the Biden administration can figure out how to increase production and shorten that 17 weeks. I think the President is right - I'm not accustomed to saying that - increase production through the Defense Production Act. We should have done it a year ago, but increase production because that is the bottleneck right now. 

With all of this said, hospital capacity is still our top priority and hospital capacity is going to come down to how many hospital staff get sick. That is what is going to happen. Much of what has happened since the first onset has not been a surprise. I feel like I'm standing on the beach and you see in the distance a large wave building and we're standing on the beach and the wave is building and the wave is getting closer. Don't be there when the wave hits. The UK strain is here. The UK strain is spreading. We still are only at 67 percent vaccination rate of our hospital workers. This is a problem. We're supposed to be at 70-90 percent for herd immunity and the hospital workers are the people that if they get sick, the hospital capacity would collapse. 

The hospital capacity collapses, we have to close the economy. We're working very hard on this message and we're working very hard to get the hospitals to get their staff vaccinated. I've spoken to dozens and dozens of hospitals. There is a broad disparity. Some are at 100 percent. Some are 50 percent. Average is 67. It's picking up. It was 65 on Wednesday, it was 62 last week, but we have to do more and we have to be faster. 

This is the percentage of hospital workers across the region and you see the variance. Central New York is 82 percent. You then go down to 61 percent on Long Island; 62 percent in Western New York. What accounts for that? 82, Central New York; 78 North Country; 69 - we need the hospital staff vaccinated, that's why they were 1a. 

More good news, we completed the first round of vaccinations of nursing homes because they were the most vulnerable population. 70 percent vaccinated so far. The vaccination rate among nursing home residents is higher than the vaccination rate among nursing home nurses and doctors. Social equity is also a pressing issue. 

We have a COVID-19 equity task force and want to make sure that everyone has access to the vaccine. There are two issues there. One is accessibility and we're working on that. The second is the willingness to accept the vaccine and we're doing everything we can on accessibility. We're going directly to public housing projects, but we have a problem with skepticism about the vaccine, especially in Black and Brown communities. I'm working with clergy, I'm working with community leaders, I'm working with respected doctors, nurses. I understand the skepticism about the federal government and the past federal government and their vaccination approval. It gave the sense that it was political. I get the historic skepticism, especially among the Black community with the Tuskegee experiment, et cetera. 

That's why we had New York doctors approve the vaccine in addition to the federal government approval. People said at that time, oh why would New York State do this? It's redundant. If the FDA says it's safe and if HHS, federal HHS says it's safe, then it's safe. No. Because people did not believe that administration and they did not believe that HHS and that FDA. By the way, as I say to members of the Black and Brown community every day, I don't believe them either. I had my own level of skepticism and cynicism about the previous administration. But, I'm not taking their word for it. We had New York doctors go through it. 

We have the best hospital network on the globe in New York. They have all gone through the vaccine, it is safe and it can save your life. I need the clergy members, I need the medical community - we have to get past this skepticism problem and we have to do it quickly. Otherwise, without this vaccine, the UK strain hits, you're going to see the death rate go up. 

As I announced on the State of the State, New York is operating on multiple levels right now. Track one, defeat COVID, vaccinations, stop the spread, manage the hospitals, win the COVID war, stop the strains, win the COVID war, job one. At the same time, we are anticipating the post-war reconstruction and we're actually energized by it. There is going to be a transformation moment and places are going to rebuild all around the world and we think we can be the first and the best in the rebuilding and that's why "build baby build." I love that expression. And you know who's going to be the first to build? The first one with shovel ready projects who can actually deliver. When President Biden passes an infrastructure bill, which he will, which he will, he's been dedicated to it all his life. He's going to look for projects that are ready to go. I know that. He said it. I've been in the federal government. Nobody wants to fund a project that's going to take three years to break ground. That doesn't stimulate the economy. New York is going to be ready to go. That's why were' queueing up all these projects, ready to go, ready to go, as soon as that federal bill is passed, we are ready to go. And we're going to be starting on our own, not even waiting for Washington, because I've been waiting a long time. So, simultaneously, all of this is happening. Win the war, post-war reconstruction. Do both at once. "It's hard." It's not hard. We're New York tough. We're smart, we're united, we're disciplined, and we're loving.

2021-01-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

It's my pleasure to be back in Brooklyn. I love that mask, love. Want to get one just like that. Let me introduce some guests who are here today, great friends to New York. First, we have Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who is no stranger to this district and is no stranger all across America. He is a superstar, he's a leader in the house, and he is so important to us now because what happens in Washington is really going to make a major effect on what happens in New York State. So we're so glad to have Hakeem Jeffries with us today. Let's give him a round of applause, Hakeem Jeffries, you'll hear from him in a moment. We're waiting on Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, who had a previously scheduled event, but we think she's going to be here shortly. And we have Henry Munoz, who's head of SOMOS. Henry is a unique blend. You know, you have people in life who are nice and sweet, and you have people in life who are highly effective at getting things done. It's rare to find someone who is both. That's Henry Munoz. Beautiful heart, beautiful soul, does the right thing, but gets things done. SOMOS, we've called on SOMOS for almost every hard task that we've been dealing with during COVID. In New York and around the nation, by the way, and SOMOS is always there. So let's give a big round of applause to SOMOS.

Guess what I'm here to talk to you about today? COVID. Good guess. First, let me give you some ideas on where we are with COVID today. Today is day 329. The positivity rate is 5.26. New York City, it's 5.71. 144 New Yorkers passed away, and they're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalization is 8,802 people. That's actually down 44 from yesterday. And we have 1,500 people who are in ICU and we have 1,023 people who are intubated. That's where we are today.

Let me say this about COVID. I was talking to a group last night. COVID fatigue, "well, we're tired of COVID. We're tired of COVID. 329 days." Yeah, I'm tired of COVID. You see these bags? These are not for carrying groceries, these bags. It's been a long 329 days. But this is a war. Think of it like a war. And we've had generations who went to war, and 329 days is not long when you are at war, right? We had generations that spent years at war. Concept of fatigue, "well, I'm tired." This is a fight. And when you tire before the enemy tires, you know what happens? The enemy wins. We don't have the luxury of fatigue. We let our guard down, that beast will rise up and will defeat us. There's also a notion that, "well, you know, people get sick with COVID, but people survive, so I'm not that afraid of COVID." Don't get cocky with COVID. Don't get cocky with COVID. 144 people died yesterday. Don't get cocky with COVID.

The other point about COVID is it created a different dynamic in this country. I call it low tide in America. Last year was low tide in America. Low tide, you go to Shirley Chisholm Park, which is beautiful, which you should go to, and you look at the bay, and you look at the bay at low tide. And at low tide, you see all the ugliness that was on the bottom, right. When the water's up, high tide, it covers everything. Looks beautiful. Low tide, you see all the ugly and it's on the bottom. We've seen low tide in America and all the ugliness on the bottom. And you know what's on the bottom? Racism, discrimination, inequality. That's what we've seen on the bottom. And it is undeniable. Blacks died at twice the rate of whites from COVID. Blacks died at twice the rate of whites. You can't just go past that fact. How did you have one population die at twice the rate of the white population? Latino population died one and a half times the rate of whites.

Why? Because low tide, you saw all the racism and discrimination in the system. You saw all the health care disparities, more comorbidities in the Black and Latino community and that's why they died. It's a fact and it's death. It's not the differential in income. It's not the differential in promotion rate. It's death. It's who lived or who died.

We now have a vaccine. The vaccine will save lives. Two issues with the vaccine. Can you get it, and will you take it? Can you get it? That is access and what happened in COVID testing was while the Black community and Latino community had a higher rate of death, they had a lower rate of COVID testing. Wealthier, whiter communities had more COVID testing. Black communities, poor communities, Latino communities that had a higher death rate had less access to COVID testing.

When it comes to this vaccine, access has to be fair all across the board. We're working with 300 churches to distribute the vaccine. We're working with public housing authorities all across the state. We're going to do every NYCHA senior development in the City of New York. All 33 will have access. So we will break our hiney - hiney is a technical governmental term, H-I-N-E-Y, it's an acronym, someday I'll explain it to you what it means - we will get the access.

Our big problem is the acceptance, especially among the Black and Latino community. Why? Because they're skeptical. They're skeptical of vaccine approved by the Trump administration, a Trump administration that seemed highly political, that politicized health care, that made political decisions rather than scientific decisions, and then the Trump administration says, this is a safe vaccine - and people say I don't believe you. By the way, I don't trust the Trump administration. I'm cynical about the Trump administration. I wouldn't just believe the Trump administration and I know the Trump administration. That's why we had a second panel of New York doctors review the vaccine.

I'm not taking the trump Administration's word for it. We set up our own panel - best doctors not only in this state, in this country. They reviewed the vaccine. They said it's safe. I believe in the vaccine. My mother is going to take the vaccine. My mother is 65-plus. She doesn't like when I say she is 65-plus. I said, mom, I'm 63. How can you not be 65-plus? What am I giving away? Mathematically people can figure that out. My mother is 65-plus. She's going to take a vaccine. My daughters who I love more than life itself, they're going to take the vaccine. I'm going to take the vaccine. There's no politics here. My mother and my daughters, I would not let take the vaccine unless I believed it was safe. It is safe. Yes, the Black community in particular has reasons to be skeptical. Yes, there is racism, yes, there is discrimination, yes, there was the Tuskegee experiment. You can't explain that away. There are no apologies. But that's not the case with this vaccine.

Take the vaccine. It will save lives and it can save your life. We know Blacks have a higher infection rate. We know they're more essential workers. They're more exposed to it. Please take the vaccine. We'll make it accessible, but we need you to accept it, and that's what we're here to do today. SOMOS is going to run a vaccination site here. We're going to be doing in public housing all across the city, all across the state. But we need people to accept the vaccine.

With that, let me turn it over to the General of SOMOS. I can't thank him enough. He's gone all over the country with us, Georgia, other states. He's been working in Black and Latino communities all across this State. Talk about saving lives. Henry Muñoz has saved lives. Henry Muñoz, thank you.

Henry Muñoz: I think that you're understanding of what we're going through and who we are is why in our clinics across the city, we hear your name but when they call your name they call you Governor Andresco because you've earned their respect.

You're one of the few elected officials in this country that people still trust and they believe in you because of what you've done. I want you to know how appreciative we are for being one of us. That's what SOMOS means, it means we are, it means we're together.

First of all, I want to thank the people who live here at William Reid for welcoming us into their home this morning and for allowing us to be here and come back when we're needed to vaccinate the people who need this vaccination the most. This isn't unusual for my colleagues and the people of SOMOS. This is who we are. We live here. These are the places we've returned to after we got tested. Our families live here, our grandparents, our abuelos and our abeulas. We come to visit them here. I'm reminded of my own grandmother this morning, Donia Julia Molina, who - I must have been doing something wrong - she sent me down on a Saturday morning just like this and she said [Remarks in Spanish], which means tell me who you walk with and I'll tell you who you are.

From March the 5th when Governor Cuomo spoke to hundreds of doctors in the SOMOS network and asked us to join the army to fight this virus, we have gone wherever we've been asked to go. We have set up testing sites in parking lots and churches and schools and colleges and universities and places just like this to get the testing to people so that we could understand the impact of this virus on our communities. We have, hard to believe, but we have sent millions of people over the course of this pandemic and we've opened up our clinics at dangerous moments to our own staff without vaccinations and lost over a dozen of our own people to this virus.

We've never really hesitated to be a part of the effort that you have created. We're here in this complex today, this home, to people and we are opening up other vaccination sites at NYCHA and in churches and larger scale places where we know we can bring access to the people who need it the most and who will listen to the trusted voices in their community who are the doctors and nurses that have always taken care of them and their families and their children. We know that we can play a role in this war, we are deputized as your infantry because we think that we can have a real impact on the State's effort to vaccinate New York and to being this, what we call [Spanish 14:15], vaccination of hope to people because we know it's the only way that we'll ever be able to return to work, rebuild our businesses, make sure that our children can go back to school or to college.

We're happy to be a part of this effort, we're here today, we're happy to continue to bring vaccinations to people who need it the most. We're going to continue to ask you, Congressman and Congresswoman, to bring as many vaccines as you can to the State of New York and we're going to put them in as many arms as we have in the spirit of love and in the spirit of hope because that's our role. That's the sworn duty of the physicians at SOMOS. We thank you for your work, we're happy to be part of this collaboration and we look forward to continuing to be a part of this work with you on behalf of the citizens of New York. Thank you all. Congresswoman?

Rep. Yvette Clarke: Good morning everyone. It's certainly my honor, my privilege to be here today. I want to thank, of course, Governor Cuomo for not forgetting about Central Brooklyn and the 9th Congressional District. It's wonderful to have you back here, Governor. To Mr. Henry Munoz, and of course, my chairman and my dear colleague, Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, it's good to be here with you again, and for the opportunity to partner with you to ensure that this vaccination location opens right here in the 9th District.

Throughout the crisis, Governor Cuomo has been an outstanding leader and source of comfort for so many New Yorkers, and others, quite frankly, across the country. I've been especially grateful for his focus on communities of color, which have been hit the hardest. From the very beginning, Governor Cuomo has spoken out about one of the great injustices of this pandemic, that minorities are more likely to be affected, both economically and by the virus itself.

Today's work to expand the deployment of community vaccination kits is another step to ensure all New Yorkers can gain access to the services they so deeply need. As Governor has said, kits at four NYCHA sites, like the Reed Apartments, will administer first doses to more than one thousand senior residents today. It's a model we know works, and that we're already working together to expand. As the vaccine supply increases, more kits will be deployed to other public housing complexes statewide, and more than three hundred churches through the Governor's vaccine equity task force.

Additionally, we now have a President and Vice President with the new administration who understands the dire need for a national testing strategy. Their dedication to delivering one hundred million vaccine shots in their first hundred days will cover fifty million people nationally. It is a critical step to getting us past the COVID-19 crisis.

These efforts have to be fueled by hardworking Americans like all of you, which means telling everyone you know who is high risk to come and get vaccinated. So call grandma, grandpa, auntie, uncle, and let them know: we have to get vaccinated. It will save their lives.

In 2019, the World Health Organization named vaccine hesitancy one of the top ten threats to global health. Our district is a community. We know and love one another. And we know how to get the message out. And the message is clear: we believe in science. This vaccine will save lives. Seniors and high-risk communities must get vaccinated: full stop.

As your Representative in Brooklyn, I'm asking you to take this moment very seriously, to understand how important having a vaccination site in our community is, and get vaccinated to save your life and the lives of your loved ones.

As it stands, there have been almost 24.8 million cases of COVID-19, more than 410,000 deaths nationally. We all remember what it was like when we were the global epicenter of the pandemic, which is why we can not turn back. I personally have taken the vaccine and I'm here to tell you, as you can see, I am fine. Both of my parents are in their eighties, and I treasure every moment I have with them. They have gotten their first shot of the vaccine, and I pray that you and your loved ones will get vaccinated as well. We will, together, get through this.

I want to thank once again, Governor Cuomo, for his leadership and support of our community, and Chairman Jeffries for his leadership on the federal level. With that, I'd like to introduce my friend Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Chairman of the Democratic Conference of the United States House of Representatives.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Good morning everyone. Thank you so much to my good friend Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, she does such a phenomenal job. On behalf of the people of the ninth congressional district, the neighboring congressional district that I'm privileged to represent and the district that we are in right now.

I certainly am so thankful for Governor Andrew Cuomo and the tremendous leadership that he has provided from the very moment that this deadly, once in a century pandemic struck all the way through this time right now. He's led New York forward in such a phenomenal way and in a way that has been recognized by all of our colleagues down in Washington as setting the standard for how to exhibit robust and resilient science-based leadership for such a time as this and I'm thankful, Governor, once again for your presence back in Brooklyn. You are no stranger. You are here frequently, and we appreciate you. To Henry, thank you for your leadership. The network of clinics and sites across the city and the state has been phenomenal in communities of color. We appreciate your vision and your execution. To the NYCHA resident leadership for welcoming us into your home, thank you so much for your recognition, your hospitality, and for understanding then a community-based site is the best way to make sure that vaccines are administered to those who needed the most.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a lot of pain and suffering and death throughout the land in extraordinary ways, but most particularly to Black and brown communities that have traditionally been underserved and lacking in resources, under ordinary circumstances; these are extraordinary circumstances. As Congresswoman Clarke has indicated from the very beginning, the Governor has worked closely with those of us who represent communities of color throughout the city and the state to ensure that testing is available, tracing is available, treatment is available, and now vaccinations are available to those who need it the most. And we're so thankful for that.

The governor is also work closely with the congressional Tri Caucus, the congressional Black Caucus, the congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the congressional Asian and Pacific Islander caucus, which formed the Tri Caucus in order to deal with the equity issues, of course, here in New York State but setting a standard across the country and we appreciate that.

We are urging everyone to trust science and get vaccinated. COVID-19 will kill you and we have seen that particularly with devastating consequence in Black communities, in low-income communities, and in traditionally underserved communities. That is why the Governor and we are here at this NYCHA location to make sure that the services are being brought to the people as opposed to expecting the people to have to seek out, with desperation and futility, the services. That is a wonderful model and it's a model that worked when the Governor partnered with us to open up testing sites in churches and community-based locations during the early days of the pandemic and it will work right now to assure that all of us have the ability to be vaccinated regardless of race, regardless of income, and regardless of zip code.

So, thank you Governor Cuomo for your continued leadership. New York was hit the hardest, has battled the longest, and emerged the strongest through this pandemic. And a lot of the reason why we have done it is because of Governor Cuomo's leadership and the resilience of every single New Yorker. Keep it up. The best is yet to come.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much. We'll take a couple of questions one quick point, just to sum up, first, Serena Lezama, not only do you have a beautiful mask, thank you for your leadership in organization today as the tenant leader.

And just to highlight what Congressman Jeffries said and Congressperson Yvette Clarke, New York is doing more in terms of social equity and reaching out than I believe any other state in the country. And not only are we doing it here in New York, we are asking for federal support and federal awareness. This should be going on all across the country. And Congressman Jeffries has organized an entire coalition in Washington to make that point. What happened on COVID cannot happen on the COVID vaccine. We can't have fewer vaccines to Black, Latino, poor communities. We can't happen again. At least learn from what happened in the Spring. And I want to thank the Congressman for his leadership in that, and Congressman Jeffries, and Yvette Clarke, they are fighters. New York, we're fighters. And we need a fight now in Washington. We're pleased President Biden is there. We're pleased with his plan. But we have to get help for New York, because the Congressmembers are right, New York got hit hardest. Fairness dictates that this nation now responds to us with the appropriate aid. The nation in many ways learned from New York. We went first. We were ambushed by COVID. We had it for months, and the other states watched us and they had the advantage of notice. We had no notice. We went from one case to hundreds of cases. We had more pain in this state than any other state, and that federal resource allocation should reflect that. And I'm sure with Congressman Jeffries in the leadership, we have a phenomenally powerful position and a powerfully talented individual on our behalf, and Congresswoman Clarke and I have worked for many, many years together, back when I was in Washington, and nobody can make things happen like Congressmember Clarke. So they're the dynamic duo for us, and we need them.

2021-01-25 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, everyone. Let me introduce the people who join me, my colleagues today. To my right Mr. Gareth Rhodes who has been working on the COVID Task Force since we began, to my left a person who needs no introduction – our great Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul who has been doing a fantastic job not just with COVID but with everything and I thank her very much for all her great work, and Gareth and Kathy will help me answer all the tough questions that I don't know the answers to. 

It's a pleasure to be a Roswell Park today and I want to thank Dr. Candace Johnson for their hospitality here at Roswell. It’s always a pleasure to be here. And talk about great work and lifesaving work. Congratulations to all the people at Roswell. 

Let’s give you an update as to where we are. Day 331, Groundhog Day, but a little different. Overall positivity 5.47. Statewide deaths 167. That's always the most difficult number in this presentation and that's 167 lives. That's 167 families. It’s 167 wives and daughters and sons and husbands and they're in our thoughts and prayers. 

Hospitalization up 1.17, ICU down 5, intubations plus 8. If you look across the state at the hospitalization rate the percentage of population hospitalized by region, you see it’s Long Island and Finger Lakes once again. Highest positivity is Long Island. Within New York City it's the Bronx. And the, Finger Lakes which has made some progress over the past couple of weeks, but the Finger Lakes is still an issue for us. Long Island is an issue and the Bronx in New York City is an issue so we're going to be focusing on those three areas. 

We're working on 3 tracks simultaneously if you will. First, keep the spread down, control COVID. That's obviously the national priority. Second, vaccinate New Yorkers, and third, get on with life, rebuild the economy, get back to work. This is unsustainable, this situation that we're in. It was never a choice between public health and reopening the economy. You have to do both, but you have to do it intelligently. 

On controlling the COVID spread, the good news is the number is down and it has been continuing to decline. You look at our high point, we were at 7.9. That's in the beginning of January. We're now down to about 5.85. That then tracks to the hospitalization rate. These are all connected. The infection rate, a few days later, a person goes into the hospital so they call hospitalization a lagging indicator. But the number of people being hospitalized has gone down. You see this is true all across the state. These are the curves in different regions. I know they look like scribble from a fourth grader, but they're actually the curve in each region, a little different in each region but overall every region you see on the decline, some areas faster than others. 

One of the most important numbers we don't talk about every day is the rate of transmission, what they call the Rt rate. This for every person who is infected, how many people do they infect, and you can see at our high point, one person was infecting two-and-a-half other people. They say anything over 1, the virus is out of control, when one person is infecting more than one other person. Ideally you want to be under 1 and that's where we are right now but it's been a bumpy ride to get here. 

The projection models done by the experts in the field show New York's positivity rate continuing to decline. So not only are we on the way down, but the experts tell us that they believe that's going to continue so that's good news also. 

In Western New York, we also see the same basic pattern. Positivity is down. December 25, Christmas week, big socialization week and you see the numbers go up and then you see them coming down towards the end of January. Positivity in Erie County was 8.6. It's down to 5.2 and it's been on the decline for three weeks. You also see the hospitalization number on the decline so that is also good. 

We wish nobody went into the hospital but it's good to see that number dropping as well. We have a hospital capacity of about 48 percent in Erie County and that's very good because remember the nightmare scenario is hospitals run out of capacity and then you have to shut do. So 48 percent capacity is very good. 

We talked about this and actually what we talked about happened. We talked about the holiday spike. We started talking about it at Thanksgiving time because Thanksgiving really is the kickoff of holiday season. You go to Thanksgiving, the next day is black Friday, everybody starts shopping, and you go Thanksgiving, Christmas party, meet me for a drink, celebration into Christmas into Hanukkah into Kwanzaa, now it's New Year's Eve, now it's New Year's Day, and that's all increase social activity. We were saying celebrate smart, celebrate smart, celebrate smart, but just the increased social activity we were afraid you were going to see a spike. We said wear a mask, celebrate, Lord knows it was a terrible year, but celebrate smart and we saw that holiday spike. 

We said we hoped the spike would end after January 1, when people stopped socializing as much and then you start to see a trail off and we talked about mid-January and late January where we would see the spike dropping and that's right where we are frankly.  We're seeing that spike come down, that’s the positivity numbers down and the hospitalization numbers down, so now we can start making adjustments. I talk about open the valve, close the valve. When the positivity is down and the hospitalization rate is down and the infection rate is down and the Rt rate is down then you can increase economic activity. We’re through that holiday period. By the way, other states had a much higher rate of infection during the holiday period. I believe New Yorkers were smart about it. The increased activity was going to raise the rate, but I think they were smart about it, and I think that’s why you’ve seen the positivity rate did not go up the way it did in other states. But, I think we’re at a new place now, and we can start to adjust that valve, and start to open up more economic activity, and reduce some of the restrictions, and reduce some of the what we call micro-cluster zones, orange zones, et cetera. And we’re going to be talking more about that in the coming days. Department of Health is going through that right now. But, for example, elective surgeries had been stopped in Erie County because we wanted to make sure we had enough hospital capacity for that spike. That, we now feel comfortable about. Elective surgeries can start once again in Erie County, and as I said, we’re going to have some more adjustments over the next couple of days. 

But, don’t get cocky with COVID. It’s a great quote. I don’t know if it’s a great quote, it’s my quote. Don’t get cocky with COVID. This beast changes on us all the time. And you can watch TV news all day long, and not really know what’s going on, because I don’t know that anybody really knows what’s happening with the COVID virus. We were told the UK strain was more transmittable, but it wasn’t more dangerous. Now, they’re rethinking that. We were told the South Africa strain might be more transmittable, but, the vaccine worked. Now they’re saying we’re not so sure about that. 

They’re now talking about a California strain that developed in California that is a variant of the UK strain. So don’t get cocky with COVID. This virus has been ahead of us every step of the way. You know there are certain things to do that are smart. You know this is a changing situation. Socially distance, wash your hands, wear a mask, be smart. I know it’s been a long time, and I know the numbers look good today, but we have been down this road before, and the road has curves, and the road has potholes. So please just be smart. 

Second is on the vaccination front. We did over one and a half million vaccinations. Over 91 percent of the vaccine we’ve received has been put in arms. And that’s a great number, and I congratulate all the providers who were involved in doing this. When we say we’re at 91 percent, people say “oh, few more percent and they’re out.” We don’t run out of vaccine. We get a weekly allocation from the federal government, and it goes week to week. When we say we’ve used 91 percent of our vaccine, that means we’ve used 91 percent of all the vaccine that we have received to date, and then they start with a shipment every week from Washington. The shipment for week seven starts arriving tomorrow, the next day, the next day, the next day. It arrives throughout the week because literally it’s delivered, it’s mailed, FedEx, et cetera. So it arrives at different times. We have told the local governments a hundred times, don’t schedule an appointment unless you have a specific allocation. For people who took their first dose, you will get the second dose. The federal government protects that second dose allocation. So don’t worry about 91 percent, “will I get my second dose?” you will get your second dose. And if you have a scheduled appointment, that appointment will be fulfilled from the allocation that we’re receiving this week. But we are going week to week in terms of the allocation. And again, that will start tomorrow. 

So the issue with the vaccination plan is the supply. It’s how much vaccine we are getting. We’re getting about 300,000 dosages per week. Last couple of weeks we got 250,000, this week the incoming allocation is 250,000. But, we are ready for distribution of the vaccine in a much larger quantity. We have 3,000 distribution sites, 3,000 providers, already signed up. So we can get the needle in the arm, we just need the supply itself. But between the National Guard at mass vaccination sites, which are probably the most effective way to do volume, we have mass vaccination sites that could do 10,000 a day per site. So, we can literally do millions of doses. It is a national supply issue. And again, this is not a New York issue, it’s a problem all across the country. It’s a problem all across the globe. Every country is trying to get more vaccine, so that’s the situation we’re in. 

It’s also, this whole COVID situation has been an eye opener for Americans, and I hope they take it to heart. We talked for a lot of years about public health. There are great institutions dedicated to public health. There are great public health professors. People dedicate their lives to being public health experts. But, what we neglected to do as a nation was invest the money we needed to invest in actually having an operational public health system. It’s not just about studying it, it’s not the academic, it’s not the theoretical. It’s the operational, it is the practical. That’s where this country fell down. You have to be able to do the screening. You have to be able to do millions of tests. You can’t run out of Q-tips. Nasal swabs, which was the reason why you couldn’t do testing. A nasal swab was a big Q-tip. You can't run out of ventilators. You have to have this vaccination capacity set up, you have to have the contact tracing capacity set up. You have to have the quarantine facilities set up before. You have to have a communication plan where people get factual information so they don't have the same level of anxiety that people went through this last time. That's all the operational capacity and it's expensive. But plans alone are not enough if you can't implement them and you can't implement them to scale. 

You can do a desktop exercise, "This is theoretically how i would do it." Yeah, and then COVID happens, and it's bigger and it's badder than you expected, and we didn't have the operational capacity. New York State is using the opportunity to put in what I believe is going to be the best public health operation in the United States, of any state. We have a surge and flex management system that now manages all hospitals statewide. on how to handle a surge capacity, never done before. PPE stockpiles, you can't run out of the N95 masks. We're setting up a thousand people for just public health corps, trained experts to work with communities across the country. 

We're going to train citizens, free online training to be ready for the next public health emergency, so you can volunteer in your community and also inform yourself, so you know how to help your family and your children, what advice you should be giving. Cornell University's doing that curriculum. I'm very excited about that. We're going to train all the National Guard to be public health emergency responders. You have to be able to test people coming into the borders. It can't be, you land at JFK airport or Buffalo airport and they check your fruit at customs, but you can walk in with a virus. 

We have to have that screening capacity, we're setting up the quarantine facilities. We didn't have enough lab testing capacity in this country to do the number of COVID tests we needed to do. We didn't have any contact tracing capacity. We had plans for all of this, but no actual capacity to do it. So, we've all learned. The Biden Administration, I believe, gets it. And I believe they take public health seriously, and just in the past few days you've seen a big difference. And they've taken actions that I think we're long overdue. I think the mask mandate was long overdue. New York State was the first state to pass a mask mandate. It saved countless lives. They communicate factually, let the experts speak and give people information because when people don't get accurate information they are more nervous about the situation. 

They're increasing production of the vaccine. And they're going to give states projection allocations so states can plan. Right now we go week to week. And we don't know what we're going to get next week. So I can't tell Erie County what we're going to get next week, so they don't know what the schedule. Every week you get a new number and then you have to figure out how to allocate that number, how to plan that number. This, there's no operational intelligence to this. And I believe the White House is working on that. We're going to have a call tomorrow with the Governors with people from the White House to talk about these issues, but we've already had many conversations. 

The head of the COVID task force is a real pro named Jeff Zients. I've been talking with him. Our Secretary Melissa DeRosa is actually on the committee that is working to operationalize this, so I think it's going to be better and smoother, you're still going to have the fundamental issue of an international shortage of vaccine. Hopefully Johnson and Johnson gets approved in a couple of weeks, that would increase supply. Hopefully Pfizer and Moderna, which are the two big manufacturers now, increase supply. 

In the interim, the top priority on vaccination was health care workers. We're at Roswell today. You want to have hospital capacity. You want to make sure the hospitals don't reach their capacity limit. We've seen that in California, we've seen that in Italy. When that happens people die unnecessarily. They die because they couldn't get into a hospital. If you asked the hospitals across the state now, what is your mean capacity issue? When you say capacity, what do you mean? They have the beds, and they have the equipment. They're worried about staff shortages, they're worried about nursing shortages, health care professionals shortages, staff shortages. Why? Because they have staff getting sick. 

So, a top priority was vaccinate the health care staff, right? Vaccinate the nurses, the doctors so they are healthy and they can provide medical treatment. We remain focused on that priority, that was the top priority for the vaccine, that was what they called 1A, then was supposed to be essential workers, then older Americans, older New Yorkers. But 1A, the top priority was always the health care workers. We have focused on it, I've said to hospitals all across the state numerous times, personally, in these briefings, "You have to vaccinate your employees first." And it was initially a problem, but the focus has worked. We were at 63 percent last Monday of health care workers vaccinated. One week later, we’re at 72 percent. So, that is a huge improvement; 70 to 90 was the range for herd immunity, right? That was the goal for the vaccine, so we wanted healthcare workers to be above 70 percent and in one week we went up from 63 to 72. So, I applaud the hospitals. I know we literally said what the percentage of hospitals was across the state. I think that got their attention, but it made a big difference. There is still a variance among hospitals that we've never gotten a good explanation for so, while we’re above 70 across the state, you still have hospitals that are lower, and we need the local governments to focus on it. There are over 200 hospitals statewide. I can't call every hospital and our state Department of Health can’t called every hospital and work out local issues but, county governments, mayors, please, you know what hospitals are at what percent - congratulate the high performers and ask the people who are at a lower level what help they need to get their percentage up, because the variance is too great and there is- even if you look at regions within the region, you see a variance. It's not like you can say, well Western New York is different than the Capital District.  

Within the region there's a big difference, and again I want the county executives and supervisors and mayors to really focus on this. But Capital Region 85.5 percent at Albany Medical Center down to 72 is the low, so it's 85 to 72 in the Capital Region. Central New York is 98 to 65. Finger Lakes it's 85 to 48, right? Long Island you go from 100 percent in Syosset Hospital 97 percent Plainview to 51 Saint Catherine, 53 Saint Francis. Why? Why does it drop by 50 percent? Mid-Hudson you go from 93 to 40. Why? Why is Northern Dutchess hospital, Saint Luke's health alliance hospital, what's the differential among these hospitals? There are going to be a certain percentage of health care workers who say I don't want to take the vaccine. I get that, but why within the region that you have such a disparity? Mohawk Valley 89 to 42; New York City 100 Lenox Hill, 100 Staten Island University, 99 New York City Health+Hospital/Woodhall but New York City Health+Hospital/Harlem 38. How? Why?  

We'd like to see everyone as high as possible. I understand, again, there will be a certain percent that refuses. Fine. That's their right, but why do some hospitals have 100 and others have half that amount? Western New York, Roswell Park 88 - highest number in Western New York. Congratulations again Roswell Park. So, 12 percent didn't have it. My guess is, 12 percent said I don't want to take it, but then why do you get the Children's Hospital at 42 percent? So, that's for the local governments, but overall, we've made great progress.  

The vaccine is scarce so it's important that with fair in the distribution and this is how we distribute it. If you look at who's now eligible: health care workers are eligible, that's what we just talked about; essential workers, police, fire, teachers, public safety, their eligible; and then 65-plus. If you look at the numbers health care workers are 1.3 million workers; essential workers 1.7 million; 65-plus are 3.2 million. So, of the eligible population, from when we get an allocation, 21 percent goes to the health care workers; 27 percent goes to the essential workers; 52 percent goes to 65-plus. The way we do that is we give it to providers who are supposed to be prioritizing that population, right? The essential workers are being done by city or county departments of health, health care workers are being done by the hospitals and FQHCs, 65-plus by the pharmacies and the mass distribution sites. If the providers don't follow their prioritization, then you won't get a fair allocation. If the pharmacies use their vaccine for police, fire, et cetera, then the 65-plus won't get a fair allocation. So, everybody wants it. I want it, but it has to be fair, and providers please don't schedule an appointment unless you have a specific allocation.  

I'm the former attorney general. I said a few weeks ago, you're going to see scams on the vaccine. You have a high demand for the product. You will see scam artists and you will see fraud. I guarantee it. We've already seen it and there are a number of situations that we're looking at. If you get an offer that sounds too good to be true, 833-VAX-SCAM. Everyone wants it but beware of fraudsters.

2021-01-27 NY Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. For another 15 minutes. From my left, just to mix it up, because today is day 333, triple threes, Robert Mujica, budget director, Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor. To my right, Dr. Howard Zucker and Mr. Gareth Rhodes. Happy Wednesday. Middle of the week, going to get past hump day today.

Overall statewide positivity, 5.44. statewide deaths, 170. They are in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalizations down 60, good news. ICU, plus 14, intubations, plus 21. Across the state, percent hospitalized, North Country, .02, Finger Lakes, 05, Long Island, 05, Mid-Hudson, 05, New York City, .04. Positivity, Long Island, 6.8. Long Island, Long Island, Long Island. All the numbers are down across the state, so then we focus on who's highest, obviously. In New York City, it's the Bronx, 6.9 percent, which is significantly higher than surrounding counties and it has been higher for a number of weeks now. So, that's of concern to us. I'm going to mention it in a moment.

Overall, 96 percent of our dosages received are in arms. 96 percent, so we're functionally out of doses and we now go, what we say, week to week. The next week's allocation is coming in today, tomorrow, the next day. It's delivered by the federal government across the state. But, we are now going week to week waiting for the allocation from the federal government. And I have more to say about that in a moment.

It has been very difficult to plan up until now because we don't know what we're going to get next week in allocation. So literally you have to wait to find out what you're going to get from the federal government, what number of doses, and then plan the distribution. And that's very start and stop from week to week. We were getting 300,000, then we went down to 250,000 per week. After we were told we were actually going to be getting more.

President Biden made an announcement yesterday that is very, very helpful in this regard, that we're going to get 16 percent more allocation. So 250,000 per week, up 16 percent. And, frankly, just as important, that's going to be the allocation for the next three weeks. So now at least we can come up with a three-week plan. That doesn't sound great, but it's better than going from week to week. So this is one of the announcements that President Biden made yesterday, and that is very helpful.

The federal long-term care facility plan runs as a separate plan. That is a federal plan where we were vaccinating people in nursing homes, federal government uses pharmacies to run that program. All nursing home residents have been offered a vaccine. 72 percent have been vaccinated. So 100 percent have been offered, 72 percent have accepted the vaccine. Some people don't want to receive the vaccine. We're seeing that all across all subgroups. In nursing homes, that number's 28 percent. Some may change their mind, some may not have been ready yet, some may say "I want to watch other people go first", but that's 72 percent. The staff in nursing homes are being vaccinated in tranches, one third, one third, one third. The federal thinking was, they didn't want to vaccinate all the staff just in case there was a reaction through the vaccine, so they're doing one third, one third, one third. 44 percent have been vaccinated. They'll all be finished or offered by February 7th.

This is the vaccinations to date by the long-term care facilities, and you see there's a variance across the state. But all have been offered, and 72 percent is the overall norm. Some areas have taken a higher percentage, some have taken a lower percentage.

Little context, where we are, because things are changing as they've always been changing for 333 days. If we go back to day 277, which I don't remember, but let's call it December 2nd. What we said on December 2nd was, we were coming into the holiday season and we expected to see an increase through the holiday season, because the holiday season brought more socialization, more groups, more spread, how high would the spike go was dependent on what people did and how they acted, and we cautioned every day, be careful, be careful, masks, celebrate smart. That's what we were saying, and we then started the holiday season, starts at Thanksgiving, goes through really until New Year's. And we said, don't be a turkey, or I said don't be a turkey on Thanksgiving, playing at the Thanksgiving, turkey, be smart about it. At that time, Dr. Fauci said there could be a surge on a surge, if you remember. We came up with a plan for the winter, for that holiday season, and we adjusted the valve on economic activity, expecting a surge. We said we were going to get ready for hospital surge and flex, because the nightmare is always the hospitals get overwhelmed. Micro-cluster strategy, target areas of growth and cautioning about small gatherings, family gatherings, you think you're safe, "I'm only with family". But that can be quite illusory.

There was a spike, and it went from 2.9 percent to 12 percent. That was the positivity rate of growth over those 37 days. We said hospitalizations would increase, went from 2,800 to 10,500. So there was a dramatic holiday spike. We went up that high, but we did not overwhelm the hospitals for a number of reasons. With our surge and flex plan, it was an increased capacity of hospitals, roughly 50 percent. We grew our hospital system but we saw states and we saw countries where the hospital system became overwhelmed. If you did not manage your hospital system and you allowed just individual hospitals to operate, you would have overwhelmed this hospital system. You look at those numbers, 10,500, you would have seen individual hospitals overwhelmed, which by the way, is what happened in the spring if you remember with Elmhurst Hospital. That did not happen and congratulations to the hospital administrators who literally never operated this way before and they did a great job.

That was a statewide phenomenon all across the state. Remember the red line for hospital capacity is 15 percent availability. If any hospital gets to a point where they're under 15 percent availability, then we will go to a red zone and close down. Availability meaning beds and staff, beds and staff. What hospitals will tell you is they always have enough beds because we increased to 50 percent, the red line is really about staff shortages and that's a function of staff getting sick.

We've seen that in some nursing homes now where they will talk about staff shortages because the staff is getting sick. Hospital capacity today, we are in a good place all across the State. North Country is probably the highest at 51 percent capacity. Southern Tier is 43; Long Island, Capital Region, Mohawk Valley would be at 24, 24, 29 - but all obviously better than 15 percent which is the red line.

I think at this point it's safe to say the holiday surge was anticipated, the holiday surge did happen, but the holiday surge is over. If you look at the numbers over the past week, you see positivity on the decline, our high point was 7.9, we're down to 5.6. You see the hospitalization rate on the decline, first the increase slows, we've even had some negative days. Every curve in every region, this is not just scribbling of a 4th grader - different curves in different regions, but every curve statewide is down. That's good news.

We will then adjust the valves to those facts. This is not emotion, it's not anecdotal - follow the facts, follow the science and follow the numbers. The micro-cluster zones are down all across the State. You look at where they were, Erie County was 7.8, they're down to 5.1. Chemung was 7.1, they're down to 4.3. These are dramatic. Onondaga 8.8, down to 4.4. That's true all across the board. Monroe was up to 10.5, down to 4.5. On the yellow zones, Oneida, 11 down to 5. You see a drop in both the orange and the yellow zones. Turn the valve and these are now existing orange zones and yellow zones. Given the progress, they made, the restrictions are lifted in those zones. The remaining yellow zones, there are no orange zones remaining, the remaining yellow zones, two in the Bronx, one in Washington Heights, one in Queens and one in Newburgh. Those are the only zones remaining. These yellow zones, the orange zones are lifted.

New York City restaurants, I understand the situation on the restaurants. New York City, obviously is in a different situation given the density, given crowding, and we're hyper-cautious in New York City, but still following the data. We're going to be talking to all the health officials, we have been already. We'll be talking to them during this week. We'll be talking to the officials, elected officials, I'll be talking to the mayor, I'll be talking to the relevant local electeds, and the restaurant community from a planning point of view, and by the end of the week, we'll have a plan on New York City restaurants. I fully understand how difficult it is that they are closed, not just for the restaurants, but all the people who are employed there. On the flip side is how fast this virus can take off. But we'll have a plan for the New York City restaurants by the end of the week.

Good news, President Biden announced yesterday, we had an NGA, National Governors Association call with the White House team, and then President Biden made a public statement, but first they announced what's called FEMA aid. This will provide funding to New York State to perform vaccines, about $450 million. It's actually advancing a reimbursement. The federal government had been reimbursing. New York State would pay out the money to do the vaccine, the federal government would then reimburse. They're going to advance us the money rather than reimburse, which is helpful. They're going got provide funding assistance for the National Guard. States are relying on National Guard much more heavily than they normally do. There's a cost to using the National Guard, and that cost is normally borne by the state. The federal government is going to pay for the cost of using the National Guard, and that's very helpful, because one of the constraints, one of the factors that is relevant to a governor is obviously the cost of operations. Deploying the National Guard can be expensive. So now we have more liberty to use the National Guard. We don't have to worry about the economic consequences to the state budget as much.

Also, the Biden Administration announced that the federal government had not ordered enough vaccine to vaccinate 100 percent of the country, which was really shocking when you think about it. Federal government had only ordered 400 million vaccines. You have 300 million people in the country. Right now, people require two doses. 300 times two is 600 million. They had only ordered 400 million. That doesn't get you to vaccinate the entire population. President Biden announced that they are going to actually order 600 million, which is what you need, and they would be coming in by about six months. So, first it was good news that the federal government is actually ordering enough vaccine because that's what the governors are concerned about just, literally give us the supply. The federal government doesn't produce it but they do purchase it; A state cannot purchase vaccine. Pfizer and Moderna are operating under something called an Emergency Use Authorization. They cannot sell the vaccine. I contacted Pfizer and Moderna and asked to purchase it, they cannot legally sell it. Only the federal government can purchase it and distribute it, and the federal government had not ordered enough to do the entire population. So that was good news.

It's going to take six months to get the full supply but at least we know that there is an end point where we're going to get the kind of supply that we need. This is all great news from the federal government, but the federal government really is key right now in what they do.

The most important thing for the federal government to do is to provide state governments with financial assistance. Every state has paid a dear cost of COVID, just on the economics. Tears address to lives lost. The economics, New York State needs $15 billion to do a budget this year, and that's called state and local financing, and that's going to be key. And the federal government has to repeal the assault on New York when they passed a punitive tax measure ending state and local deductibility. So, those are the two big things and whenever I talk to the federal government, I remind them of those two things. I can assure you.

The Biden administration also announced a 16 percent increase in our allocation, as I mentioned, for next week and the following two weeks, so now we can actually plan. Now I can turn around and say to local governments, you have 16 percent more for the next three weeks, plan on it, and schedule appointments for it. Do not schedule appointments beyond the 16 percent increase because the only thing that can aggravate people more than not being able to get an appointment is people getting an appointment and then you cancel the appointment. So, don't schedule beyond the 16 percent increase, but schedule for your current allocation plus 16 percent over the next three weeks and that's for provider in city departments of health and county departments of health. To local governments, make sure social equity exists in your distribution. This requires forethought and additional planning, but we want to make sure that social equity is maintained in the distribution and availability of the vaccine. The state is open to partner with local governments to achieve social equity. If a local government believes is an area that has received uneven coverage, let us know. We'll partner with you, especially now that the National Guard has been freed up from an economic point of view. The National Guard is great at setting up logistical mass sites, that's what they do. They do it with military precision, pardon the pun, but we could partner with you to do that.

I spoke to Mayor de Blasio in New York City about doing a site at Yankee Stadium together where we set it up and make a real difference in through Yankee Stadium at a mass vaccination site. As I mentioned before, the Bronx has a very high positivity. Yankee Stadium is in the Bronx and we want to get that positivity rate down in the Bronx. So, partnering at Yankee Stadium mass site, state and the city, but the state will do that with any local government across the state that has that kind of situation. They should let us know.

The 16 percent increase does not solve the fundamental anxiety that has been created here which was due to the prior administration making so many people eligible with so little supply. Remember the prior administration said 65 plus, plus essential workers and healthcare workers were eligible. In this state that 7 million people. They said they would increase the supply to the state. We were receiving at that time 300,000, they said there was a reserve that they would send. That never happened. We didn't get more than the 300,000. We actually got less. They dropped us from 300,000 to 250,000. So, now you have 7 million people who have been told they are eligible for the vaccine, but the vaccine is scarce. So they go to websites they make calls all day trying to get an appointment for a vaccination, but there is no supply for the 7 million and they never did increase the supply.

Even when you increase the 250 to 300 with the 16 percent, you are still talking about multiple weeks before we can cover just the existing eligible population. We anticipated this. January 15th I said, everyone will say, I don't have enough still saying. Hospitals will say it. Local governments will say it. I will say it and by the way, I'm saying it. I said it on January 15th and I'm still saying it. We don't have enough.

What was startling was President Biden's announcement that the federal government hadn't even ordered enough which is really staggering, but we are where we are, my friends. And this is not just true in New York. This is every state in the country. Some states are still administering their inventory. They haven't used everything they've received. That's not the case in New York. We're functionally out today. When you get to 96 percent, you're out, so you're reliant on what you're going to get the next week. Also, we saw this coming, January 8th when they announced the eligibility, I announced Matilda's rule. Matilda is my mother who is 65-plus. She doesn't like that I say she is 65-plus. I am 63. Mathematically, it would be impossible for my mother not to be 65-plus. So mom, I don't think I'm giving anything away about your age when I say you're in the 65-plus group, but that's a personal family issue. I announced Matilda's Rule which was saying she was eligible, but making the point January 8 that we don't have the supply to get to everyone who is eligible, and we wouldn't for weeks unless the federal supply was increased. So this is not new. I asked on January 8, calibrate our expectations and I ask the same thing here.

The new strains are a real concern. Everything I said about the holiday surge, we anticipated it. It happened. It's over. The new strains are a real concern and the COVID threat is not over. We still have to be careful about hospital capacity. If we run out of hospital capacity I am telling you today. Why? It will happen. It will happen because a new strain happens and the staff winds up sick. The hospitals will say I don't have enough staff for the beds and their capacity will come down. The only way you prevent that is vaccinate the health care staff. That's why the first priority 1a was health care staff. When this started it was nursing homes and health care workers because they are the priority. Health care workers because they are exposed at a much greater factor than anyone else and if a nurse get sick or a doctor gets sick that's a super spreader and the hospital capacity comes down.

We have made good progress on vaccinating health care workers. We still see a disparity in the percentage of health care workers by facility. That is still of concern. We all have a 50 percent differential among facilities in the same region and that is inexplicable to me. I understand there's some demographic differences among staff and there are demographic differences among acceptance of the vaccine. But not 50 percent. Not within the same region. And we need the local governments to help in this regard. They have to look into the lower performing hospitals and get that number up on that disparity. In some regions it's not as bad as others. You see Capital Region, the high is 85, the low is 74; Central New York, 99 to 65; Finger Lakes, 85 to 48, or 50. You know, what accounts for that, and I need the local governments, county department of health in this case to check into this and help us. Long Island, 100 to 50, literally a 50 percent differential. Because we want to get this number up. This is possible. This does jeopardize the hospital capacity in these areas and if you're going to see a hospital run out of capacity, it's going to be these hospitals where the staff have been vaccinated at a lower percentage, and again it's almost a 50 percent differential in some areas and some areas it's even worse. What explains that? And you'll have hospitals by the way that are part of the same system. There are hospital systems that have a number of hospitals, so within the same system you'll have hospitals that are at 100 and you'll have hospitals that are half that, owned by the same company. So I need local governments to help on that. North Country, 89 to 54, 62, 65, 67. Southern Tier, 100 to 47, 47, 54. Western New York, 88, 42. 842.

Also, by the way, these numbers are submitted by the hospitals under penalty of perjury. These numbers are as of yesterday. Now, if you asked them today the number may have coming up a little bit. If you asked them tomorrow, it may have gone up a little bit, but these were the numbers as of yesterday reported by that hospital under the penalty of perjury so it's not a question of State numbers versus local numbers versus someone else. This is their number. Period. There shouldn't be any confusion.

Great quotes from me, "don't be a turkey," one of my most rhetorical expressions but appropriate for Thanksgiving. "Don't get cocky with COVID." These new strains are something to be aware of and something to anticipate and something to watch. We don't know exactly what is going on with the new straits and the concept of not knowing is very troubling for me but we haven't known what was down the road with COVID from day one. Let's be honest. From before day one, we didn't know that COVID was coming here from Europe for three months. And that's why New York had the explosion it had. We have been behind the curve on this virus from day one. Health care professionals will say, you just don't know. People have opinions but this is a virus that mutates and you don't know what it's going to do next week. This is a hard concept.

One of my daughters who shall go nameless called me up and said, and she was obviously amped up and she said, you know, dad, what's going on with this Brazil strain now and the South African strain and the UK strain, first they said it was not more dangerous, now they're saying it maybe is more dangerous, may be more lethal, they said don't worry, the vaccine takes care of it, and now they say maybe the vaccine doesn't take care of it. And she said, what's the truth? I said I don't know. You're right. They say this and then they change because they don't know and I don't know. She said to me, well if you don't know, who knows? First she thought I knew, but I wasn't telling her like it was a state secret. I said no, I really don't know and then she was more anxious and she said well if you don't know, who knows? I said nobody knows. And yes, this produces anxiety produces anxiety. It produces anxiety for me, you know we like to have control in life, right? That's a human condition, you don't like the anxiety of just not knowing. But we don't know. I can tell you where we are today. I can tell you that we're watching these strains. I can tell you that I've seen this with the health officials, and I talk to all of them. The best international minds on the globe, from World Health Organization to the best epidemiologists, all the talking heads you see on TV - I talk to all of them. They don't know. But, there's a big question mark on these new strains. And when CDC and Dr. Fauci say the UK strain may be the dominant strain by March, that's a big question mark, because that would suggest we're going to see the numbers go up.

So yes, it creates anxiety. And all I can tell you is, we watch it and we adapt. This COVID beast has morphed four times since we've been dealing with it. We just went through a morphing during the holiday season. If it changes, we will change, right?

We changed our plan in the winter to deal with the surge, it worked. The surge is down, we can reopen and calibrate to today, but tomorrow could be different. Tomorrow will be different if you asked me. And if something changes, we will change. We can only make decisions based on the facts we have today. If the strains come up with a different set of facts, then we will adjust to the new facts.

Vaccine will take six to nine months, by the production rate of Pfizer and Moderna. The federal government has put in the order, the federal government is buying it, the production rate is the factor that affects the federal supply, right? The White House doesn't make this in their basement. They ordered it, Pfizer and Moderna manufacture it, maybe Johnson and Johnson, which would be great, single dose, no cold storage, which is a very big deal.

But right now we're looking at six to nine months for the vaccine by the supply. We could do literally millions and millions of doses a month, we could probably vaccinate all of New York in a month. Remember we've done as many as 300,000 COVID tests a day, COVID test, nasal swab tests. We did 300,000 per day, we could use those sites to do vaccinations. So we could literally do millions. We'll never get that level of supply, because the federal government won't get that level of production.

Again, it would have been nice if the federal government had placed the order earlier, but President Biden is where he is also, so we're looking at six to nine months. I'm not going to wait six to nine months, and we're not going to wait six to nine months to reopen the economy, we're going to calibrate that valve with the facts, and we're going to start to build assuming the post-COVID reality, because COVID will transform the landscape. A lot of these changes are not going back in the box.

Zoom doesn't go away. This whole remote work style doesn't go away. People have adjusted to a new way of living, a new way of working, and that is going to change the economy. We want to anticipate those changes, not deny those changes, and adjust for it. In our cities, we have to start getting the arts and culture open again. That is what makes a city a city. If you don't have arts and culture, why be in a city? Move out, get more space, if you can't enjoy the assets of a city, and we're seeing that. We're going to start opening the arts, especially in New York City, I outlined a whole plan in State of the State, with our pop-up arts. We're building, it's about building, literally, the future, and we have the most reconstruction and construction program in the nation, and we're starting that now.

I think the federal government will have federal infrastructure funding, but also we're not waiting, because the future is what we make it, I fully believe that. I believe in our capacity and our potential, because we've demonstrated it. We get things done. We can build. And we're going to go ahead and start now, and not wait for anyone, because that's not what we do. We're New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, loving.

2021-01-31 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, everyone. I have Melissa DeRosa with me, Robert Mujica with me, I have Beth Garvey with me, Commissioner Zucker with me, Kelly Cummings with me, Gareth Rhodes with me, and Michael Kopy who runs our emergency services. When I say "with me" that is not technically true and I know you're technically minded, but they are on the phone. Bear with me in the conceptual sense.
  
On COVID, the post-holiday surge reduction continues. That is an awkward phrase, but I don't have a better one. We had a post-holiday surge. The surge has reduced and the reduction of the surge continues. The positivity rate is down to 4.4. State's positivity rate has declined for 23 straight days which is a significant trend. 138 New Yorkers passed away. Hospitalization is 7,976. That'sdown 200, but please remember the New Yorkers who passed away in your thoughts and prayers. Thank the essential workers and hospital workers who went through another surge after a very, very long year.
  
The seven-day average daily hospital admissions is at 913. That's the lowest level since December. Seven-day positivity is 5.1. That's the lowest level since December 14. The seven-day average for new daily cases is 61 per 100,000. That's the lowest level since December. ICUs are down 17 and intubations are down nine. What is happening — I'll give you the number by regions in a second — we anticipated the holiday surge. I spoke about it for all 37 days. I started with Thanksgiving. People teased me about being anti-celebration. I'm not anti-celebration. I'm very pro-celebration, but celebrate smart. The surge went up. That's because the social behavior went up, the social interaction went up, but now it's coming down. All the models show a continued reduction. Hence, reduction of the micro-clusters, the orange zones, 25 percent indoor dining New York City Valentine's Day, using testing, Buffalo Bills, marriage ceremonies. 
  
In the here and now, all the news is good. You look at all the trend lines, it's good. It's good. For me, I have been through this a number of times and I anticipate the probability of the future to be ready for it. "The lines are all going down. What is there to worry about? I should relax and liberate myself because the trend is all going down." That's true on one level if you look at just today's numbers. What to watch for are these strains and the quote unquote "variants of interest." I love it when they make up new terms. Variants of interest. Put in that the new dictionary of COVID terms. If the U.K. strain hits, if the Brazil strain, if the South Africa strain, if there's another mutation that comes down the pike — that could change the trajectory, so yes, feel good about how we handled the holiday surge. God bless New Yorkers. They step up. Don't fully relax. Appreciate the success, but these U.K. strains could happen and I don't want to be Governor Downer, but I don't want to be anything other than frank and candid with the people of the state. Today's news is very good but keep an eye on these U.K. variants and the other variants - and all of them suggest more diligence. 
  
The CDC is talking about things like double masks. Wear two masks, so that's the overall point. Positivity seven-day average, Long Island, number one: 6.3. Mid-Hudson, number two: 6.1. North Country, 5.8. That's a different place for the North Country. New York City: 5.2. Western New York: 5.1. That's a different place for Western New York. Capital Region: 5. Mohawk Valley: 4.6. Finger Lakes: 3.9, 3.9 Finger Lakes. That's a different position for the Finger Lakes, but that's a good, better position. 3.1 Central New York. 2.1. Southern Tier. Southern Tier, congratulations. They had that spike, they got it, they turned around. Looks like the Finger Lakes even understands what they're dealing with now.  Positivity by borough: Bronx is highest, 6.8, in New York City. Queens 5.6, Brooklyn 5.5, Staten Island 4.9. Looks like Staten Island understands what they're dealing with. That's a turnaround for Staten Island. Denial is not a life strategy. Manhattan's still 3.4. Manhattan has been the lowest for significant period of time in New York City, which when we get the time and we go back and we study the cultural and demographic overlays of how this virus spread, it's going to be interesting. My next life, when I come back as a research scientist.
  
Vaccine, 1.9 million doses administered, actually 1.919. 1.558 for first doses. 361 second dosages. The people are talking about using second dosages for first dosages. There is disagreement in the scientific community. That is not up to a state. People are saying "oh, the state should allow it." Yeah, I know. Except there's something called the law, l-a-w. The federal government would have to approve that. It is a very difficult call gratuitously for the federal government, because you better be very certain of what supply you have, and what production you're going to have. If you start using second dosages for first dosages, the federal government has to be sure the production level is going to increase so you can satisfy the increased first dosages and still have enough to do second dosages. No one is saying, do first doses and not do second doses.Actually, some people are, but they're a very small minority. But, if the federal government allowed it, we would do it, but we'd have to be prudent too, because it's very complicated. And the federal government has said a number of times that they don't really have their handle on the production level yet. Until you have a handle on the production level, I wouldn't start getting overcomplicated. Also, if the Johnson & Johnson dosages come online quickly, and they have a production level, that would be significant. 
  
New York was the first state to talk about social equity in the vaccines. We have a social equity vaccine task force, and we focused on two issues. We focused on accessibility of the vaccine, making sure it's accessible to every community. If you remember I started when the president was Trump. I said there's not enough talk about making sure the vaccine is available for everyone. Blacks died at twice the rate, Latinos died at one and a half times the rate, healthcare deserts, et cetera. There was a poll that was put out by, and we talked about, I'msorry, accessibility was first, and acceptance was second. Acceptance meaning would people take it? And this has been a general population issue. It has been more of an issue in the Black and the Brown community. There's more cynicism, more distrust of the system, Tuskegee experiment, and it's understandable. I don't believe it's justified for this vaccine, but it's understandable historically. There was significant distrust of the Trump Administration, but we put together a New York State panel to be able to say don't trust Trump. New York State doctors reviewed it, and we did it. People said "oh, it's going to take more time to have a New York State panel." They were wrong. The New York State panel acted very quickly, and now we needed the New York State panel, because we have a real hesitancy problem. There was a poll that came out during the week, the Association for A Better New York, conducted a poll. It had troubling news. It said that 2 out of 5 New Yorkers, or 40 percent, are hesitant to take the vaccine as soon as it's available - 60/40. That is not good. Remember, we have to get70-90 percent, 75-85 percent vaccinated.
  
It also pointed to, again, and this poll found what many other polls found, there is a differentiation in the white community, Hispanic community and the Black community. 78 percent of white New Yorkers said they would take a vaccine as soon as it's available. Only 39 percent of Black New Yorkers, 54 percent of Hispanic New Yorkers said they would take it as soon as available. That's a problem.
  
What's more of a problem is we are seeing that anecdotally, but with some data. We have data on the 1a population and if you want to talk about a controlled group, hospital workers and - you know we're concerned about getting hospital workers vaccinated because if they're not vaccinated, they'll get sick and if they get sick the hospital capacity comes down. Hospital capacity comes down, we close. Hospital capacity comes down, hospitals get overwhelmed, California, Texas, Florida, Italy. We've been hyper-focused on the vaccination of hospital workers.
  
Hospital workers are interesting because virtually all hospital workers have been offered the vaccine. They're probably the one population where you know with the most certainty everyone was offered the vaccine. You know we've been pushing that for weeks and we've seen the overall number go up dramatically. Every hospital now says they've offered everyone the vaccine. Of hospital workers, listen to this, 70 percent of the hospital workers statewide are white. 63 percent took the vaccine. Of Latinos, Latinos are 8 percent of statewide hospital workers. They are 10 percent of the people who took the vaccine. Asian-Americans are 11 percent of hospital workers. They are 16 percent of the people who took the vaccines.
  
Asians are over performing, if you will, by percentage. Latinos are over performing by percentage. Black population, among hospital workers, 17 percent. Only 10 percent of vaccine recipients. What we've seen in polls, what we see anecdotally is continuing. The hospital workers, when I say it's a controlled group, this has nothing to do with region of State. This has nothing to do with residents. This was at their place of work, where they were all offered, they didn't have to travel. It was in their facility, and I think it's the clearest demonstration of hesitancy. And again, it's what we anticipated, which I understand, but it's something that we have to overcome. Now, you have about 12 percent of respondents who declined to provide ethnicity. What the scientists will say is, "well they were probably more African-American, more Latino," but we don't know that with any certainty. I've spent -- I've made a lot of phone calls this morning to pastors and to leaders in the African-American community. The state is going to do an advertising campaign on vaccines, but specifically targeted to Black New Yorkers to build up the trust level, and have validators speak about the trust level that people should have in this vaccine. It has nothing to do with politics, the Trump administration's gone. The New York panel approved it. Leading Black doctors recommend it. Leading Black civic leaders recommend it. Leading Black elected officials recommend it. But, there is a definite trust issue that we have to get through. 

Okay, with that, operator, let's take some questions. While we're compiling let me ask Melissa - we're getting questions on people who have vaccination appointments tomorrow and what are we going to do if the snow is anything like the forecast. Melissa, do you have an update on that? 
  
Melissa DeRosa: Yes, so we're going to do a weather check early this afternoon and based on that weather check - people should assume that their appointments are going forward - however, if the weather is looking bad or as bad as we think it's going to be, then we figure that there is going to be issues with roads, then people will either get a text or email depending on how they signed up for their appointments initially, letting them know about the cancelation. If there are cancelations, which mainly we're looking at Aqueducts, Javits, Westchester, Stony Brook, Jones Beach, then you will get an email or text message letting you know your appointment has been canceled but it will be rescheduled for this week, so you will still get your appointment this week and you will be given a new time and date this week to get your appointment and if you have an issue with the time or date of the appointment there will be a phone number in the email or text message that you could call to reschedule, but you're guaranteed to get your appointment this week, should we have to reschedule for the snow.

2021-02-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning - survived another challenge. Think about this in this different world. You're a child, you're in school, you're waiting for a snow day, you get a snow day, except you're not in school. Can't even have a snow day. I don't think they have virtual snow days. New world, new times.

Today is day 339 since we've been dealing with COVID. These are the COVID numbers today. 5.47, seven day average 4.9, 146 people passed away, they are in our thoughts and prayers, hospitalization up 64, ICU up 3, intubations up 17. 

This is the percentage hospitalized: Long Island, Long Island, Long Island we've been talking about, and the Mohawk Valley has been problematic, but Long Island has been problematic for a period of time. Highest positivity, Long Island and Mid-Hudson. In New York City, highest positivity, the Bronx, 6.4, and that has been for a period of time, and again there's a significant difference. You look at Manhattan, you look at Staten Island, we've made good progress in Staten Island, and I want to thank the Staten Island community for that, but the holiday surge has tapered off, and we are on the decline, 4.95, that's the first time we've had that low a positivity since the beginning of December. 

In the beginning of December, was just at the start of the holiday surge, right, you had Thanksgiving, a few days later you start to get the results of infection spread on Thanksgiving, so, that's where we are. You see the hospitalization rate is going down. 

Vaccines, we've done almost two million vaccines, first doses 1.6, second doses 385. Healthcare workers are a priority, when we started this, nursing homes and healthcare workers were the two priorities. Nursing home workers we have vaccinated, and then it was hospital workers. Why hospital workers? Because they're the nurses, they're the doctors, they're the people who are exposed to COVID the most. If they get infected they're super spreaders, and if they get infected the hospitals will close. We've seen this all across the board. Hospital capacity is the key, hospital capacity, if you get into trouble, it's going to be because they don't have enough staff, not because they won't have enough beds. They won't have enough staff, because the staff got sick, so vaccinating healthcare workers. 

When we got off, when we started, we started off at about 63 percent, we're now at 75 percent. That's great progress, and I want to thank the hospitals. We still have a differential, and it's a dramatic differential, and to me it's all but inexplicable, some hospitals in the state, some hospitals in all regions of the state, have done a hundred percent of their frontline staff. Some hospitals are 39 percent, 40 percent, 42, 44. 

Hospitals within the same region go from 100 percent to 40 percent. How can you have a situation in New York City hospitals - sometimes in the same system - where some hospitals that are at 100 and some are at 40?  

The local health departments need to focus on this. Work on those low-performing hospitals to get the vaccinations up and that'll make a dramatic difference because these will be the hospitals that will get into trouble if we have a significant outbreak in COVID again. So, please local health departments, please focus on that.  

On vaccines, we say vaccine is a supply issue. That is a little bit shorthand. Yes, from a state's point of view it's a supply issue. We have 7.1 million people who are eligible; we have 300,000 doses per week that we get. Do the math, it's a supply issue. We have an extensive distribution chain, private pharmacies, local governments, hospitals, mass vaccination sites - which are the single most productive vaccination distribution mechanism - so we have the distribution, we just don't have the product, right? The shelves are empty. There's nothing we can do about that. That is dependent on the federal government providing us with a weekly allocation. "Well, why doesn't the federal government provide us with more," because the federal government isn't making this in the White House. The federal government is buying it from the private pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer, et cetera. So, they have to increase supply by increasing the production by the drug companies, and the White House has been working on that. President Biden has made it a top priority.  

We had a meeting this morning with the White House officials with the governors across the states and we actually got good news. Federal supply will increase again. If you remember, the federal government increased the supply to the State, what we call the state allocation, 16 percent last week - and they said that 16 percent would continue for three weeks. That was also a big deal, the knowing what we're getting so we could actually plan. Otherwise, we were going week to week and it was a surprise every week. "This week you're going to get 250, this week you're going to get this." So, knowing what we get three weeks in advance is very helpful. Knowing that we're going to get an increase is very helpful. 

The increase is now going to go from 16 to about 20 percent as a direct allocation. That means the State will then turn around and supply 20 percent additional to the local governments, so they can count on an additional 20 percent in the coming weeks. That's the 16 plus the five, 21, rounded to 20 percent. So, that's good news.  

The federal government is also starting a pharmacy program direct from the federal government. We now use private pharmacies. We give private pharmacies part of our allocation for private pharmacies to distribute the vaccine. Pharmacies are focusing on 65-plus. The federal government is starting its own program where they're going to supply private pharmacies also, which will expand the private pharmacy network. Private pharmacies do the flu vaccine every year, about half of New Yorkers get the flu vaccine and a large percentage of them get them through pharmacies. So, there's a belief that the private pharmacies can be a significant distribution model and we have started using private pharmacies. The federal is going to give an additional 10 percent of that state's allocation to the private pharmacies. So, private pharmacies going forward will have more. Ten percent in New York State is about 30,000 because we get about 300,000 vaccines per week. Private pharmacies will also have more. So local governments get an additional 20 percent from what they were getting - that's the 16 percent increase plus 5. Pharmacies are going to get an additional 10 percent directly from the federal government which will increase the pharmacy supply and those people making appointments at pharmacies. The White House is also going to reimburse the State government for FEMA reimbursement. It's a financial transaction for the states, but it's important for the governors and we thank them for that. 

When this federal government sends the vaccine, they send it in two allocations. First doses and second doses. In other words, when you take a first dose then in 21 days that person has to come back for a second dose if it's a Pfizer, in 28 days they have to come back for a second dose if it's Moderna. The federal government segregates the second dosage and basically reserves that for the people who received the first dosage. There's been a dialogue by some governors and some health experts saying start to use the second dose as a first dose. In other words, we have about 300,000 second doses this week, use them for a first dose. 

The federal government does not now allow them. Why? Because then you have to really know what your future production is. If you start using the second doses as first dosages that means your production has to ramp up very quickly because then in 21 days your numbers are going to exponentially increase. At this point in time, the federal government does not allow using second doses for first doses. They're reserved for people. This may evolve over the coming weeks when the federal government gets a better handle on what the actual production is but that's where we are now. It's just not allowed. 

Local governments are getting more, pharmacies are getting more. Not what anyone needs. We go back to Matilda's Rule which I announced on day one. The one thing you're going to hear here every day from everyone is I don't have enough. You know what I just said on the White House call? I don't have enough. You know what every county executive says to me? I don't have enough. You know what every hospital says? I don't have enough. You know what every person says who calls looking for an appointment? I can't get one. No one has enough. That's 7 million with 300,000. But local governments are getting more. 

Local governments across the State are getting more in a slightly different population and in different positions. Suffolk County is a little different than Erie County. Rochester is a little different than Binghamton. They are in different situations and we want to give them more flexibility. They're getting more vaccine. If a local health department, county government wants to add to their - what's called 1b - prioritization. If they want to add developmentally disabled facilities, if they want to add taxi drivers, Uber drivers, restaurant workers, they can do that if they think it works within their prioritization locally. In other words, some localities have already done a large percentage of their police, their fire, their teachers and they do have flexibility. There is no one size fits all here. 

Yes, we have statewide priorities which are set by the federal government, but if a local government is now getting more and they believe in their local circumstance, they want to prioritize taxi drivers, Uber drivers because they think that's been a problem or developmentally disabled facilities or restaurant workers, they have that flexibility. And again, they are getting more, so theoretically they would have additional supply to make those decisions, but that's going to be up to the local government to add in the 1b category if they think it makes sense. We're also going to look at targeting vaccinations by locations with high positivity rates. We're going to do a demonstration in the Bronx. The Bronx has a very high positivity rate in New York City and it has had for weeks. We're going to do a mass vaccination site at Yankee Stadium, which is only for Bronx residents. This is to accomplish two purposes. Number one: to vaccinate a large number of people, but also to bring the positivity rate down. So we are using the Yankee Stadium demonstration to see how that works. Mass vaccination, get the high positivity down, and target people in areas where the positivity is higher, which tend to have a high predominance of Black, poor, hard to access communities, Latino communities. So, we're also working on that.

Local governments are working on a public safety reform collaborative. Public safety is part of economic development. They have to have a plan passed by April 1. More importantly, they have to move forward with a productive police-community relationship. Crime rate is a problem in urban areas nationwide. The tension is a problem nationwide, I understand that. But we're in the problem solving business, right? COVID is a problem, snowstorm is a problem, police-community relations are a problem - I know. Solve it, and they have 58 days left to pass a new plan, otherwise they're not going to be eligible for funding in the State budget. But, forget the funding, they should be doing that anyway. 

So, take a breath, a little change of scenery, and yes it's been hard, and yes we're going to get through this together. And we are getting through this together, and the vaccine is coming, and we got through the snow storm, and I believe in New Yorkers. I just believe in New Yorkers and their ability to overcome, and their ability to accomplish, and that's what we've seen day after day, after day. That's what we've seen over the past few weeks after the holiday surge. So, let's keep going and one day we'll look back, and it will be a distant memory, and we will be the better for it.

2021-02-05 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. From my far right, Gareth Rhodes, Beth Garvey, Commissioner Zucker, to my left Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica. Good morning everyone. Today is day 342. These have been the longest 342 days of my life and I think most New Yorkers would say that. Most people who live in New Jersey would say that. 

This has been an extraordinarily difficult, stressful period and you really saw people rise to the occasion. We are working on three priorities: rebuilding and recovery, vaccination, and controlling COVID. 

To rebuild and recover we need help from the federal government. This has been a national pandemic. It's a national economic crisis and no state can recover on its own and we need federal help and it's in the nation's best interest to help the states recover.

What you go state and local relief has been debated for over a year. The prior administration was against providing states and localities with relief. President Biden said when he was running for election that if elected he would provide state and local relief. He was true to his word. He proposed $350 billion. It was accepted by the House, it was accepted by the Senate, so this is really good news. We've been waiting a long time for it. How the federal government ever thought the nation was going to recover if the states did not recover was always beyond me. The federal government is only a compilation of the states. You can't have a federal recovery without a state recovery but President Biden stepped up and did what he said he was going to do. 

Now the question is fairness in the distribution of the $350 billion. That $350 billion goes to Congress. They'll come up with a formula to distribute the $350 billion and that's the next chapter in this story, what is the fair distribution of the $350 billion, and i believe that it is factually inarguable but that New York, New Jersey, Connecticut paid a higher price for COVID than other states and other parts of this country. That is just a fact. COVID came to United States from Europe, not from china, and those flights landed in New York and New Jersey and they populated the tristate region. That's why we had the explosion in the numbers early on. That's why we had deaths here before they even had COVID tests, because the virus was coming for three months in the federal government had no idea. It was negligence by the federal government and when you talk about fairness, the federal government should allocate funds in a way that is fair and fair to this crisis. When a state gets hit by a hurricane that state gets relief. It's not that every state gets relief. The places that paid the highest price with the emergency, and our state and our region paid the highest price for the emergency.

We also need fairness in the tax policy. What happened during the Trump administration is it was highly political and they used taxes to actually hurt certain states and take from certain states. 

They took tax money from New York, New Jersey, other Democratic states and they transferred it to Republican states. That's what the quote/unquote SALT provision was all about. SALT is technical and confusing, state and local taxes. But they for the first time ever taxed the taxes that people pay. It was the first double taxation in history and it was a pure redistribution of wealth, saying we're going to take from the richer states and give to the poor states. They took from New York, they took from New Jersey, they took from Connecticut, they took from California, and they redistributed that money to Republican states. We still have an open litigation on it. 

So we say to the Congress now, be fair. Repair the damage that was done with a hyper-political administration that preceded President Biden and be fair in the distribution of the COVID relief funds and fair is to distribute the COVID relief funds proportionate to the damage of COVID. That's the next step. Repeal SALT because every day that SALT is still in place, you have people paying more in taxes that they shouldn't be paying, and it hurts this state and it hurts other states that were victims of the SALT attack and distribute the COVID relief proportionate to COVID relief. 

I want to welcome our friend and our neighbor, great colleague of mine, someone who we've worked hand and glove with all through this. Long, long year that really tested all of us and tested government, tested our individual strength to the core, but you got to see what people were made of and I got to be in the trenches with Governor Murphy and i can tell you that this is the kind of person you want to be in the foxhole with. He's been a great neighbor, a great friend, and an extraordinary public servant and I'm pleased to be with him today. Governor Murphy good to see your face. 

Governor Murphy: Good to see you, Governor Cuomo. Thank you very much for having me on today and same right back to you, period, full stop, not just for these 342 days that takes my breath away, but for the past three years since I've had the honor of serving as governor of New Jersey. I could not have had, we could not have had as a state a better partner across the Hudson then you and your team representing the Empire State, everything from tax fairness to battling the virus. People say, gosh, we don't see you, you guys as visibly with each other as we did in the spring and early summer. That may be true but I want to echo what you said. The partnership with you personally, with your team continues as strong as it has ever been, and it has been invaluable and that partnership has saved lives without question on both sides of the Hudson. I want to just echo very briefly two points that you raised, Andrew. 

Number one, the state and local aid, we desperately need it and I won't repeat your great comments in terms of not just the need which is inarguable but also the way that the need should be apportioned. We were clobbered with and Connecticut and Ned Lamont done a great job there and the metro New York region and that must be taken into not only getting the state and local over the goal line which I know President Biden is committed to. I spoke with Speaker Pelosi earlier in the week. The great news is the leadership in Congress gets this, but also the way that it is apportioned.

And then secondly repealing the cap on the state local tax deduction, which was done as you suggest not for any practical purpose, but completely based on politics and New York and New Jersey were already disproportionately giving more Washington than we get back from Washington to begin with. Also we're happy to do that if it's a fair deal but this deduction cap made that deal a very unfair deal, double taxation to subsidize other parts of the country ahead of our region, prioritizing the biggest corporations over working families, so it is high time that this thing gets taken off the books. The longer it stays on, the more people are going to get hurt. I think in New Jersey alone, Governor, I believe it's been an increment of $3 billion out of the pockets of our homeowners in the state. It's high time we got this thing off the books. I'm honored to be working on that with you and on so many other fronts and thank you again for your extraordinary partnership and leadership. 

Governor Cuomo: Governor, it's been my pleasure and it really has been, you know, so frenetic that we haven't had a chance to go back and study or analyze. But I feel the same way. I couldn't have had a better partner and if our delegations lock arms on this appropriation under $350 billion and how it's distributed and if they lock arms on the repeal of SALT which by the way every representative of New Jersey and New York stood up when SALT was passed and every one of them said it was unfair. Every one of them said it needed to be repealed. So now it's just a question of when and our point is time is of the essence. We'll get through this we'll be the better for it and I want to thank you personally for everything you've done. 

Governor Murphy: Same right back to you, Andrew. God bless you.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. God bless you, Phil.  Thank you. Governor Murphy mentioned the cost. Our cost per year of just SALT is over $12 billion dollars. Our cost per day is $ 34 million dollars. Every day that SALT is not repealed is another $34 million that is taken from the taxpayers of this state. Think about that, and that's why time is of the essence. $34 million dollars a day, New Yorkers are spending - and that's why I focus the way I focus and that's why we're going to continue to keep the pressure on until SALT is repealed.

Let's talk about controlling COVID. Statewide positivity rate, 4.3. Statewide deaths, 153. They're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalizations down, ICU up 10, intubations up 14. 

Percent of hospitalizations by region, Long Island, Long Island, Long Island. Every part of the state is down. This is again, we target the highest percentages and Long Island in terms of hospitalizations. Positivity, it's Long Island and the Hudson Valley. In New York City, it's still the Bronx. We have made good progress in Staten Island and I want to thank them very much because Staten Island was disproportionately high for a long period of time. More people got positive, tested positive, more people were hospitalized in Staten Island. But that's turned around so I want to thank the people of Staten Island and we are focusing on the Bronx. 

The numbers overall continue to decline, what we call the post-holiday surge. We're now down to 4.6. We were 7.9. It's the lowest daily positivity since November 28, so that takes us just to about Thanksgiving when people started to gather, started to celebrate, and we started to see that number go up, so we've flattened the curve a second time. Hospitalizations are down, lowest level since January 1, so congratulations to New Yorkers. They rallied, they pulled together and changed their behavior and they changed the curve. 

The curve is determined by behavior and New Yorkers once again rose to the occasion. We've been talking about vaccinations. We're over 2 million, 2.2 million, 1.7 first doses 495,000 second doses. We have used 99.2 percent of the dosages that we have received. Who's counting? We're counting.  That's why it's 99.2 percent. That is obviously just about using all the doses we have received. We now wait for the next week's allocation. But this is where we want to be. We want to use everything that we've received and get it into people's arms as soon as possible and that's what we're doing and then we're reliant on the supply and the more supply we get the more we can vaccinate. The Biden administration is working very hard to increase that supply. They have increased that supply. But the more they increase the supply the more we can actually vaccinate.

Hesitancy is a major obstacle in our path. Hesitancy is a new term for people who don't want to receive the vaccine. They're skeptical. They're cynical about the vaccine and they're not willing to take it. All the polling data has shown that you have a higher rate of hesitancy in Black and Latino communities. Association for a Better New York did a poll, recent one, but it said again, White populations more willing to take the vaccine than black or Hispanic New Yorkers. 

What drives the differential? It's difference of opinion in the effectiveness of the vaccine, what are the side effects, distrust of the health care system and distrust of government. Well, the Trump administration approved. Yeah, well I don't trust the Trump administration. I have that conversation 10 times a day. Yes, it was approved by the Trump administration. It was also approved by the New York State Department of Health and New York State doctors who have been studying it and the side effects, et cetera but this is a real challenge and I don't believe in camouflaging a problem because you never solve a that you're unwilling to admit. 

A perfect sample, look at the hospital workers, what they call the 1a population. These are people who work in a hospital. They didn't have to schedule a vaccine. They didn't have to get in their car and go drive and wait on a line. The hospital management said to the hospital workers, we have the vaccine, please take it, and they asked the staff to take it for now 8 weeks, two months, please take the vaccine, it's in the building that they work. Well, who actually took it and who didn't take it? 70 percent of the workers were white. 63 percent of the people who took the vaccine are white. 17 percent of the workers are African-American. Only 10 percent of the recipients are African-American, 8 percent Hispanic or Latino, 10 percent vaccine recipients, so of hospital workers, Hispanics and Latinos actually over performed. 11 percent were Asian and they were 16 percent of the eligible of the people who took the vaccine. So it over performed with Asian New Yorkers, over performed with Latinos, underperformed with African-American Black New Yorkers, not just the hospital workers which to me are just a very interesting sample group because there is no other answer. They had, all the obstacles to the vaccine were removed for the hospital workers. But even if you look at the essential worker population, what's called the 1b, police, fire, teachers, 75 percent of them are white, 74percent of the people actually received the vaccine. 17 percent are Black. Only 5 percent took it. 14 percent Hispanic Latino. 10 percent of recipients. 6 percent Asian. 7 percent of the recipients. So there you see a differential in both the Black and the Latino population, even for the 65-plus which is a more diverse group and a more complicated analysis frankly. But whites, you see about a proportionate representation. Blacks, you see a disproportionate - 13 percent were eligible, 65-plus, only 24 percent of recipients. 12 percent eligible Hispanic Latino, 5 percent of the recipients. So you see a significant differential there also with the over-65. Asian population, just about where they should be. 

So there are challenges in reaching the Black community and there are two challenges. One, access - can they get it? Is it accessible? And two, is the acceptance or the hesitancy. We have to address both and we are. The hesitancy must be directly addressed with facts and validation and I'm speaking to leaders in the Black community, pastors, community groups. We have to get the information out. Yes, there's reason for cynicism. Go back to the Tuskegee experiment. Yes, there are bona fide reasons for distrust of the system. I get that. But it's not true with this vaccine and that is going to be a process of communication and we're going to have to talk through it because we can't deny it. It's real. It has to be addressed. We're starting an advertising campaign working with validators in the community. But it is an issue that's going to have to be addressed. We expected it. We talked about it early on. We are addressing it but it still exists. Making special efforts to get into the community, to have the conversations, make it accessible, we're doing more in this state than any state in the nation in this regard. But, you can never do enough. One of the things we're doing is mass-vaccination sites in high-positivity areas which are also Black, Latino demographic. And one of the mass vaccination sites it opening today. It's at Yankee Stadium. It is only for Bronx residents. As you saw, the Bronx has one of the highest positivity rates in New York City, and it has been persistent in its high positivity. A landmark in the Bronx, landmark in New York City, is Yankee Stadium. And that is true for so many, many decades. I remember the first game my father took me to see in Yankee Stadium. That's back in the days of the Mickey Mantles of the world. But, we reached out to Yankee Stadium with a somewhat unorthodox request, which is would Yankee Stadium be willing to help us with this COVID crisis by making the stadium available as a mass vaccination site. It was an unusual request, I understand that. But, Yankees ownership and management said yes they would, and we now have a mass vaccination site at Yankee stadium. 

I want to thank SOMOS healthcare, who's actually providing the clinicians. New York City is a partner. I want to thank them. I want to thank the National Guard, which is doing a great job setting it up. They really are extraordinary. But also I want to thank the Yankees themselves, and I want to thank the president, Randy Levine, who's been a good friend to all New Yorkers, and always steps up to the challenge no matter how different it is, and this was a different request, I get it. And Aaron Boone, who's the manager of the Yankees, and they had a very strong season and we're going to see an even better one next year. And Mariano Rivera, who to me symbolizes in many ways the best of the Yankee spirit. And I'm just been a phenomenal fan of Mariano Rivera and his style, his accomplishment, his performance, and his spirit, and his smile. He just has an infectious smile. And we have with us today the president of the Yankees, Randy, good to see you, the manager, Aaron Boone, and the sandman himself, behind the mask, Mariano Rivera. Randy, I know this was an unusual request. You stepped up to the plate, pardon the pun. I knew I would get on the field in Yankee Stadium one way or the other as a kid. I never through it was going to be this way, but I'll take it. I said to everyone who's going to Yankee Stadium, I promised you we wouldn't destroy the infield. Any damage to the infield, the state is going to be responsible. I'll be there with the new sod and I'll fix any divots that we create. But Randy, thank you so, so much. Thank you for what you did. Randy Levine.

Randy Levine: Thank you Governor, and it's an honor to be with you today. Of course we've got our manager Aaron Boone, and the only unanimous hall of fame person ever elected, one of the greatest Yankees ever, Mariano Rivera. You know, from Hal Steinbrenner, the whole Steinbrenner family, let me just say that this is an honor and a privilege for the Yankees to be able to be your partner, and the city's partner and SOMOS' partner in this endeavor. You know, this stadium is historical. It's built into the fabric of the city and the Bronx, we're part of the Bronx community. And this is bigger than baseball. This is a bigger, bigger purpose than baseball. So we are so honored and privileged to partner with you. we will do whatever it takes to make it better. I came in this morning, there are hundreds of people out there, and Governor, I wish you could see their face, because it's hope, we're getting to the end of this, it's hope. And they're registering. Everybody here is communicating. The people on the ground are wonderful. Congratulations in the way this was set up, both to your staff and to our staff, it's just phenomenal. So, we're here to do whatever it takes, because this is the most important thing that each and every one of us are dealing with every day. So please don't hesitate to ever call on us for anything, and if it's alright with you I'd like Aaron and Mariano to say a few words. 

Governor Cuomo: Please. 

Aaron Boone: Thanks Randy, thanks Governor, this is an exciting day in the Bronx, and you know, this is a special place, Yankee Stadium, and has been the host of a lot of really special opening days, and I would say this is the most special opening day, the fact that we're able to be out there and really saving lives in this community, like Randy said, this is a day of hope, and it's really exciting to be here and to be a small part of it. Mariano? 

Mariano Rivera: Thank you for having me here because this is amazing, I consider this my house, and Dr. Ramon Tallaj of Somos, it's wonderful, what you guys are doing, because I mean I used to pitch here and save games, now this is about saving lives. Randy mentioned, as he said, and he could not have said it better than that. This is greater than baseball. I mean, we're talking about thousands and millions of people, and I walk around people there getting the vaccine, and I see so many smiles on faces, that's what it's all about. Hope is the name of the game right now. And thank god, yes, thank god for everything because Yankee Stadium has been providing, I mean many, many wonderful games and World Series, but now they're providing opportunities for the people of the Bronx, our people, to come here and receive vaccines, and I'm happy. That's why I'm here to support, they supported me for so many years, and I'm really here to support now. Thank you very much. 

Governor Cuomo: Well, Randy Levine, I can't thank you enough, and I can't thank you enough on behalf of all New Yorkers. Again, you're right, this is unusual times, and you really do get to see what people are made of. And when I called you, I knew how unique this request was, and you could have very easily said no thank you, but you were one hundred percent open, and your entire group has been fantastic to work with. So Randy Levine I can't thank you enough. Manager Boone, you had a great season, we'll have a better one. Mariano, your spirit means so much to the people of this state. The love they have for you, and your credibility, your credibility that you are there today, and you're saying that this is what people should do, I think is going to go a long way. And your words, the words you just used, that you've saved games in that stadium, which is totally true, and now you're saving lives. Truer words were never spoken, and there's a sweet poetic irony in that. You are saving lives, and this vaccine does save lives, and that's why it's so important that people know that and they accept it. Because this vaccine can save life. And your presence today is going to bring that message home to many, many people because they do trust you and they do respect you, so thank you very much for being a part of this today. 

Randy Levine: Governor, can I—

Governor Cuomo: Please, Mr. Levine. 

Randy Levine: To help get people here, what we're going to do, so all you Yankee fans and baseball fans, we're going have some Yankee, over the next couple of days, some little Yankee gifts and trinkets for people to help incentivize them for coming down here. 

Governor Cuomo: Randy, I'm coming. Save some for me, Randy. So put some on the side. Randy Levine, Mariano Rivera, Manager Boone— 

Randy Levine: We'll replace the turf, you can take any of it home.

Governor Cuomo: It's the one thing I'm competent to do on the field, is to do the seeding. It's all I can do. Mariano, you should know, I've gotten pretty good at hitting the curve ball in this job. I'll tell you the truth because they throw a lot of curve balls in my league. 

Thank you all very much. God bless you. Thank you very much. I'll see you soon. Thank you. 

Oh that was a treat and that's an important message. Yankee Stadium and the Bronx and Mariano Rivera, I hope people hear those words and I hope they take them to heart. 

We have maintained a priority focus on hospital workers on the vaccine or else. Or else if there is another variant, if there is another surge. If the hospital workers are not vaccinated, they will get sick. If the hospital workers get sick, the hospitals will fail. That's why the priority for the hospital workers. Also, nurses, doctors - these are the frontline heroes. Everybody says that. They are more exposed to COVID than anyone else. Everybody knows that. If they have gotten COVID, they would be super spreaders. Everybody knows that. So we prioritized and focused on vaccinating hospital workers. We've made tremendous progress in that. When we started January 18 we were at 63 percent of the hospital workers who were vaccinated. We then did a push. Every day I talked about it. We went up to 72 percent, we are now at 75 percent. That is exactly where we needed to be and we are there. It was a great effort on behalf of the hospitals to get there and I want to thank them very much because it has been a tremendous amount of progress in a relatively short period of time. 

Remember, they are also dealing with the hesitancy issue in the hospitals. They can offer it to the staff, but they can't mandate that the staff takes it. They did have to have the conversations and the education and the communication that we've been talking about. Many of the hospitals did a great job and overall they did a great job because we're at 75 percent. 

There is still a very uneven performance in this regard and this still has to be addressed. You have some hospitals that are at 100 percent and then you have hospitals that are at 40 percent. That is a major disparity and the differential between literally the higher performing and the lower performing is over 100 percent. That is a problem. I've asked the local health departments, please focus on the lower performing hospitals. Especially those local governments that run the hospital. These are your hospitals. Please get the performance up, but overall, it has been a great, great success. 

The hospitals have had 8 weeks to focus on their staff and that's how we achieved the 75 percent. We're giving them one more week to do the last workers. Please go back and appeal to them one more time to the people who haven't taken it. Talk to them about the facts, talk to them about the experience of people who have taken the vaccine. We now have over 2 million New Yorkers who have taken the vaccine. You have a lot of data on possible side effects, et cetera. We're not asking them to go first, they'd be number 2,000,001. Please go back and try one more time but one more week for this allocation. 

Then what we're going to do is re-allocate the doses that were set aside for the hospital workers and we will then give that allocation to the local health departments to do people with co-morbidities. That will start February 15. The hospitals will still get enough doses to do who they have to do and who they scheduled and any workers who they can convince to take it. An allocation above that will be given to the local health departments and we're going to open it up to people with co-morbidities. 

We do not have a supply that can reach everyone. We understand that so the prioritization is to reach those people who are most at risk or most essential to this period of time. February 15, we will open it up to people with co-morbidities. Co-morbidities and age are the major factors in COVID mortality. Just hear this one number: 94 percent of the people who die from COVID are people with co-morbidities or other underlying conditions. Ninety-four percent. 

Why don't we do this group of workers? Why don't we do this group of workers? You do every group in this State when you do people with co-morbidities. If you are a carpenter with a co-morbidity. If you are a teacher with a co-morbidity. If you are a homemaker with a co-morbidity, if you're a lawyer with a co-morbidity - whoever you are. Ninety-four percent of the deaths are people with co-morbidities. 

Yes, we had to do hospital staff. Yes, nursing homes. After that, ninety-four percent of the deaths, people with co-morbidities and that's why I feel comfortable about this decision. We have one week for local health departments to start preparing for it. Think about it. We are working with the CDC to establish the co-morbidities list. What is a co-morbidity? How do you define it? The CDC has guidance on that. We're working with the CDC to clarify some definitions, but we're basically going to follow the CDC guidance. Local health departments have a week. Hospitals, you have one more week to get your hospital staff to accept the vaccine and then we'll focus on the co-morbidities. 

Questions on the use of the second dose as the first dose. That is a federal decision. The State does not make that decision. The federal government controls the allocation. We get a first dose allocation, we get a second dose allocation. When we get it from the federal government, they say use the first dose for the first dose and the second dose for the second dose. That's why there's a first dose allocation and that's why there's a second dose allocation. 

The FDA has spoken specifically to this: "At this time suggesting changes to the FDA authorized dose schedules of this vaccine is pre-mature and not rooted solidly in available evidence." Not rooted solidly in the available evidence. 

"Without appropriate data changes in vaccine administration, we run a significant risk of placing public health at risk, undermining the historic vaccination efforts and protecting the population." 

Their federal position is clear. This is the Biden administration. We worked very closely with them and they are a very respected group of public health officials. CDC: "The second dose should be administered as close the recommended time as possible. The CDC continues to recommend that people get their second dose as close to the recommended time as possible." 

So the federal position is clear. Use the first dose for the first dose. Use the second dose for the second dose. I have spoken to them about using a percentage of the second dose for the first dose. It's complicated, but I think it could be done. The federal government is not there at this point. They have not approved it, but if they do approve it then New York is ready, willing and able to do it; but it's a federal decision. 

Johnson & Johnson filed for an Emergency Use Authorization. This is a big deal. The meeting is going to be in a couple of weeks. If they approve Johnson & Johnson, it's a game changer. It's a single dose, not 2 dosages - which makes a phenomenal logistical difference. And it does not require the cold storage chain that Pfizer requires. Pfizer requires significant cold storage that most facilities don't have. Hospitals do have the cold storage capacity for Pfizer, so we're using regional hospitals to keep the Pfizer vaccine. Many local health departments then have to go to that hospital to pick up that vaccine because they can't store it. Johnson & Johnson that's not the case. It's basically normal refrigeration equipment. So, single dose plus no cold storage chain that is a very big deal. They're talking about a possibility of 100 million doses by June, that would be a huge deal. So, fingers crossed, but this would be a massive supply differential.  

Variants of interest - another new term, it goes in the new COVID dictionary with hesitancy. Variance of interest, we've identified 15 new variants of interest cases. 59 total UK strains in New York now. That number is up. The UK strain is reportedly up to 70 percent more transmittable. That is a frightening thought. So, we're watching it closely. CDC is watching it, other countries are watching it, but we do now have 59 cases. This is where they are. It's all throughout the state and it is something that we are watching. All those numbers are now on the way down. All those numbers are on the way down. "Well what could change it?" A variant strain could change it. A variant strain that is more infectious, more transmittable, or more lethal or a variant strain that is resistant to the vaccine. Those could all be gamechangers.  

So, we deal with the here now. We deal with the facts that we have now. We deal with the reality that we face now, but we are aware of new possible threats in the future. If those new possible threats actualize, we will respond to them accordingly as we have all through this.  

Mariano Rivera - you don't know what the pitcher is going to throw. The pitcher throws the ball. You watch the pitch, and you adjust the swing accordingly, so we wait to see what the COVID pitcher throws. Depending on whether it's a fastball or sinker or curveball then we will adjust our swing accordingly, but right now all the numbers are down, but we are aware that the pitcher has the capacity to throw a curveball and we're ready for the curveball if that pitch comes.  

Yesterday, I sent a letter to congressional delegation and I had a conversation with them on the phone on the same topic that we talked to Governor Murphy about earlier. The allocation of the $350 billion is everything. And I understand the congressional process, I respect the congressional process. I understand that COVID has affected every state. COVID has not affected every state the way it has affected this state. That is the fact. My job as Governor of New York is to represent the people of the state. I fight for the people of the state. That's what I do. That's what I'm supposed to do. That's my oath. This state deserves a disproportionate amount of the federal aid because we had a disproportionate amount of the pain and the loss. We had more economic loss. We had more deaths. We had more disruption. In many ways, we did the nation a service because we dealt with this issue before anyone else and they could see what was happening in New York and learn from what was happening in New York. Going second, or going third, or not having the COVID issue until three, four, five months after New York dealt with the problem was a significant advantage. We had no notice. That's why I call it an ambush. We couldn't prepare our hospitals. We couldn't prepare our people. We didn't even know it was here because the federal government never told us. That's why it's their federal negligence. Now you're going to allocate funding to pay for the damage. We had more damage. A hurricane hits a block. There are 20 homes on the block. Some homes have more damage than other homes. You have to allocate funding to rebuild the homes on that block. The homes with more damage get more funding because they had more damage. All 20 homes don't say, "we should have the same amount of money and the same amount of funding because we were all involved in the hurricane." No. The house that had more damage from the hurricane should have more funding because they have more repairs to do. No house was more damaged than the house of the State of New York. That is a fact — and an inarguable fact — so put the politics aside and deal with the COVID facts. It's called the COVID Relief Bill. COVID Relief. Provide the relief that COVID caused. That's our point.  

Last point, Super Bowl weekend. "Yay, let's have a party!" Let's have a party, but let's celebrate smart, right? We just went through the holiday surge. Celebrate, but celebrate smart. Super Bowl, celebrate, celebrate smart and the Bills aren't even in the Super Bowl this year, so T.V. works fine. We are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, loving. Loving, loving, loving.

2021-02-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Monday. From my far right, Larry Schwartz, former Secretary to the Governor who has now volunteered to help us during COVID. We thank him very much for his public service. Commissioner Howard Zucker to my right. To my left Melissa DeRosa, and to her left Kelly Cummings, Director of State Operations. Happy Monday, again. Day 345 of Groundhog Day.

Meanwhile we're focusing on our three priorities - three tracks, right. You have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Government has to operate on multiple levels now and it has to operate well and efficiently and produce. Control COVID spread; Vaccinate New York; Reimagine, rebuild, renew, which is the reopening. All three tracks must continue simultaneously.

On COVID spread, COVID numbers are down. Congratulations to New Yorkers because their behavior, their actions, their responsibility, their discipline, their sacrifice is what brought the COVID numbers down. Positivity rate: 4.2 percent. Statewide deaths: 114, they are in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalizations plus 67, ICU down five, intubations down 18.

Long Island. Long Island. Long Island has the greatest hospitalization rate, not dramatically higher but higher, and we've been seeing this for the past couple of weeks. Highest positivity is Long Island and Mid-Hudson. We've been seeing this for the past couple of weeks. Again, it's relative, all the numbers are coming down, but we focus on the highest numbers in our state.

In New York City, the highest number is the Bronx and getting higher. So, the Bronx is a problem. We opened the Yankee Stadium mass vaccination site, but the Bronx is still a problem. The numbers- 4.4 on the seven-day average is way down from where we started. Post-holiday surge is over. We see it in the positivity, we see it in the hospitalizations, and we respond to the data. We respond to the facts that we face today. The facts may change tomorrow and then we will change with the facts. The enemy changes tactics, we adjust with the enemy, but the numbers are down now.

We were planning to open the restaurants in New York City, 25 percent indoor dining on Valentine's Day. They have made the point that they'd like to open a couple of days earlier so they can be ready for Valentine's Day, get the staff oriented, get supplies into the restaurants, and that's a reasonable request. So, we'll start indoor dining on Friday at 25 percent. That will go into effect on Friday. They can go to 25 percent on Friday and they'll be ready for that weekend and for Valentine's Day. Crossing out Valentine's Day is not really accurate. Valentine's Day should be a big restaurant day but we'll open 25 percent indoor dining in New York City on Friday before Valentine's Day so they'll have a big Valentine's Day.

We, overall, are in a footrace with the COVID spread. We are watching for variants. We're watching for increased infection from variants. We're watching vaccine effectiveness with some of these new variants of interest as they call them, but the footrace is clear. It's rate of vaccination versus rate of infection. Vaccinate. Vaccinate. Vaccinate. Vaccinate. Overall statewide 2.465 updating at 11:15, obviously that didn't happen.

We're at about 90 percent of all doses allocated used in arms and it's only Monday, right? So, we get an allocation during the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Depending on location you'll get the deliveries Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's Monday and we're already at 90 percent in arms and this is what I've been trying to communicate. We get a supply on a weekly basis. It comes in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's Monday, already 90 percent of that allocation is done. So, we go week to week and by the end of the week we have basically exhausted the entire week's allocation and then we wait for the next week's allocation.

What has been helpful with the Biden administration is we know what we're going to get for the next two or three weeks. So at least we can plan and we can tell the local governments, this is the number you're going to get next week, you don't have it yet, but this is what you're going to get, so it has moved out the scheduling but it's still week to week.

We have a much larger distribution network than we have supply. We have many more distributors than we have products on the shelves. That's the tension that we're facing and that's why you have so many people chasing vaccines every week and vaccine appointments.

But at one point the supply will increase and we want to be ready when that supply increases. We have prioritized health care workers, doctors, nurses, our frontline heroes. We focused on hospitals administering to those nurses and doctors. They're exposed most. They would be super spreaders if they get it and if they get sick the hospital capacity comes down. We went from 63 percent on January 18. We need a big push. We've got to 72 percent. Between the 25 and today we're at about 75 percent so we're really hitting the refusal rate or the maximum rate that these hospitals can get done.

Since we are at that maximum peak number there are still hospitals that are slower than other hospitals which I'll mention in a moment. I've told the local health departments four weeks to get after those low performers but we're going to take the excess allocation from the hospital workers and use it for people with underlying conditions, comorbidities. This week they have the vaccines to vaccinate their workers and finish. But this is it. It will have been over two months that they had the vaccine for their hospital workers and they were charged with the responsibility of making sure every hospital staff person who would take it has taken it. Hospitals can't say to a nurse, "you must take the vaccine." The nurse has the right to decline but I want to make sure every nurse had the option, every doctor had the option to take that vaccine. If they don't want to take it at one point we understand and we'll give it to somebody else. So this is the last week for that.

There is still a gross disparity in the high-performing hospitals and the low performing hospitals. And again, I asked the local health departments to look into this, but how do you have some hospitals at 100 percent and some hospitals at 40 percent, 50 percent? Something is just not right somewhere. I've been on the calls with the hospitals myself. I understand that there's a declination rate. I understand that there are racial differences in declination rates. I get that but it still doesn't add up in my book because you still have some hospitals in the same region with the same demographics of the same workforce and you have a gross disparity.

So, the New York State Department of Health is going to review those slow vaccinating hospitals. We want to understand why and how but we're also going to use the excess supply for those with pre-existing conditions. That will start on February 15. We have a list on the website of what the comorbidities are. That's basically a clarification of some of the specifics of the federal CDC guidelines and these will be statewide regulations defining comorbidity for any site in this state.

People with comorbidities can begin making appointments on the State's site February 14, to open February 15, on the local health department sites. The appointments can start on the 15th. We'll leave it to the local health departments about when they start scheduling. But they can't schedule an appointment to be performed before February 15. Local health departments want to coordinate with their hospitals, with the local doctor networks, that is up to them how they do that. You do need- this is for people with comorbidities as defined by the CDC and State guidelines and the State guidelines are just a refinement of the CDC guidelines.

There will be validation of the comorbidity. People will need to bring a doctor's letter or medical information that evidences that they have this comorbidity, or they now sign a certification when they get the vaccination. They'd have to certify that they have a comorbidity. Those three options are all available. We'll leave it to the local health department to determine what exact validation they want, but they have to validate, and the state will audit the local validation system in coordination with a system called Tiberius, which is the federal data system that we all signed on to that actually documents where the doses went. This is a precious resource. There will be fraud, there will be mistakes, there will be inefficiency. We understand that. But, we will also audit to make sure the rules are followed. New Yorkers are fair. If you have a comorbidity, they get that 94 percent of the deaths are people with comorbidities. They also understood the prioritization of nurses, doctors, essential workers. So New Yorkers are fair minded, and everybody wants this vaccine, but the rules should be followed. We don't want people abusing the system.

New York State Department of Health will do a call with the county executives, local health departments to talk through and explain the comorbidity validation process, but it is still clear, and let's just understand the scope of where we are, we need an increase in the federal supply because we still have many people chasing a very rare and precious resource, the available doses. The Biden administration has increased the federal supply. Again, they're not making it in the basement of the White House. They're buying it from the drug companies. We understand that. But, they are the only ones who can buy from the drug companies, so really they control the spigot on the supply. They've increased it over 10 percent already in just a few weeks. And they have told us what the future allocations were, as I mentioned, which really helps our administration. But we need more. And I said on day one, when this started, everyone is going to say the same thing, "I need more." Every governor in the United States will say "I need more". Every County Executive in this state will say "I need more". Every politician will say "I need more, and we should help this group, and this group, and this group, and this group." I get it. Everyone understands the dynamic. But, you have a precious resource, and only Jesus could figure out how to feed hundreds with limited loaves of bread and fish, right? So, we need to be fair in the allocation until the supply increases.

What could make a big difference in the supply? Johnson & Johnson. They filed for emergency use authorization. That could be a game changer. Single dose, no super cold refrigeration chain needed. That could make a major difference. So we need that major difference. We need that bump in the supply. Second doses now are allocated by the federal government. Here's your first dose, here's your second dose. The Biden administration is against using the second dose for the first dose. They're against delaying the second dose. Obviously we follow federal guidance and we have the added luxury of actually partnering and trusting this federal government when it comes to the professionalism. So we're following the federal guidance.

There is still a question on excess doses. There's a Long-Term Care Facility program, the program that does nursing homes through pharmacies, et cetera. There will be excess second doses. Some people will not come back for their second dose for one reason or another. But there will be some falloff. We want to make sure we're using every dose, so excess in the nursing home program, or excess in the pharmacy program, or excess in second doses where people don't come back. How do we reallocate and use those? And those are issues that we're working through with the federal government. But bottom line, which is the bottom line on this slide, you have 15 million New Yorkers who are ultimately in need of the vaccine. The supply is still about 300,000 per week. That takes one year at this rate. One year. So just a sober note, but also a realistic note, "Well, why don't I get a vaccine today? Why don't we do all the police today? Why don't we do all the teachers today? Why don't we do all the developmentally disabled today?" You don't have the supply to do it. And if you want to prioritize someone, well then you have to deprioritize someone. We have 15 million total population. We have about 10 million now currently eligible. "Well, I think we should add this group." Okay, then tell me who you want to take out. You prioritized nursing homes. You prioritized nursing home staff. you prioritized nursing home staff and police. Who do you want to take out if you want to add someone? These are all difficult difficult decisions. But you need an increased supply, because you will have months and months just to get to the people who are now eligible. That's just a fact we have to keep in mind.

At the same time, multiple tracks. Keep the COVID spread down, get the vaccinations going, and at the same time start to reopen the economy. You have to rebuild and renew this economy. Yes, the vaccine is a light at the end of the tunnel. There's no doubt about that. But we have to create that light. We have to make it happen. It's not going to be a situation where the economy will just come back, we have to make it come back. And we have an opportunity, because COVID caused a global crisis. You have states all across this nation, you have cities all across this planet that went through this, and the question is going to be who adjusts to the new dynamics fastest and best. And there's an opportunity in that.

Whatever economy most quickly adjusts to the new dynamics, that will be the economy that thrives the most, right? So, step one, we need Washington to actually provide state and local relief. President Biden has proposed it and promoted it with $350 billion in state and local aid. The House has agreed, the Senate has agreed. Now the question is going to be the fairness in the distribution of the $350 billion. And our point is, I know the federal government wants to help many sources, but our point is, provide the state with state relief that it needs, so we can balance the needs in this state. And our needs are $15 billion.

Fairness also means repeal the unfair SALT assault, which, when the Trump administration passed the SALT tax proposal, that was targeted at this state, and cost this state more than any other state, everyone said it was unfair. Everyone. We sued the federal government, the litigation is still open. Everyone said it was unfair.

Okay, now you're in charge. So undo the unfair law, the SALT tax reform under Trump, and reduce New Yorkers' taxes overnight. Every day SALT stays in place costs the people of this state $34 million. $34 million dollars every day. We have so many needs that we want to take care of, and bona fide needs, and it's all about resources, and every day we spend $34 million more to Washington because of this SALT law.

Anyway, the economy is not going to come back on its own fast enough. It's not about taking the posture of, "Well the economy will come back when the economy comes back." No. We have to bring the economy back. It's how fast we reopen. How we reimagine. How we rebuild. This is not a passive time in life. This is a time where our actions will dictate the consequences. So we want to be aggressive about the reopening.

Cities have taken a real blow during COVID, that's true internationally, for a confluence of events. But, what makes a city a city, and the reason that people live in a city, rather than a home in a rural setting, is that a city provides cultural and creative synergies. That's what makes a city a city, that's why people want to be in density, because they want that energy, they want that stimulation, they want that sharing.

A big part of that is the arts, and the culture, and that has been shut down all across this country. It's taken a terrible toll on workers, actors and performers. We're going to accelerate that with something called New York PopsUp. And this is really cool and creative. It's the first initiative in the nation that's going to accelerate the restoration of the arts, and performances, and creative energy.

You have an entire sector of the economy that has been out of work. We talk about the restaurant workers and people who have been hurt at work, when you shut down Broadway, when you shut down movie theatres, you stop an entire industry. Everybody understands why, but we have to now nurture that industry to bring it back. And again it is vital for our cities to survive.

The arts industry workers, many of them have been out of work since March, so we're going to accelerate that reopening with 300-plus pop-up arts events all across the state. 300 events in 100 days of pop-up performances. And these are just pop-up performances. They're free. They are not designed to be pre-scheduled and draw a crowd because we actually don't want the crowd, but we're going to have the pop-up events happening all across this state — over 300 — and they will be happening over 100 days and it's going to be exciting. These will then be in-person pop-up entertainments with really great entertainers and then they will be shown online so there can be a social media presence to these online performances. Again, we're trying to thread the needle. We want the performances. We don't want mass gatherings. We don't want large crowds, so pop-up performances that will surprise people and bring the arts back — it will engage the acting and artist community that is very excited about this and then it will have an online presence — is an organic effort. It's being driven by artists themselves who are organizing the community and organizing the events and they've already put together a list of really great performers who, many of whom, have been idle for months and they want to be part of restoring the arts. They want to be part of restoring New York and bringing joy to people, so they've already enlisted quite an impressive list of people who will be participating in the online pop-ups. Opening day is February 20. There's going to be a special performance at the Javits Center as a tribute to healthcare workers who really have been phenomenal heroes all through this. This is who's going to perform on the opening weekend. We're also going to have a special series of events in Brooklyn, New York, so this is going to be exciting. Sunday Garth Fagan's company will have a special performance at the MAGIC Spell Studios at RIT, Rochester Institute of Technology, as a tribute to the staff at RIT, which just did a magnificent, magnificent job.

So, this is exciting, it's different, it's creative — but these are different times and we have to address them. Pops-Up will start with these pop-up performances and then migrate to the reopening of venues for arts. Again, our rapid testing, our testing protocol: opening sites with testing is something where New York wants to lead the way. You have venues like the Shed, the Apollo, Harlem Stage, Alice Busch Opera Theater that we can start to reopen with testing. So we'll start with the pop-ups. We'll then move towards reopening venues with testing on a limited basis and this will crescendo through the summer with the 20th anniversary of Tribeca and the opening of Little Island at Pier 55. This is déjà vu: 20th anniversary of Tribeca. Tribeca started out in New York City post-9/11 to get people comfortable with downtown Manhattan post-9/11 and reintroduce them in some ways to downtown Manhattan post-9/11. And now the expansion of the Tribeca concept is to reopen the economy overall in the state and reopen it through the arts. So, what Tribeca did so well 20 years ago, we now need on a massive scale statewide.

Also, Little Island at Pier 55 is on the west side of Manhattan and it is a great development that is done on the Hudson River Park by Hudson River Park Trust, which is a state agency, joint state city agency and the Barry Diller Foundation, which has created an architectural marvel and it's a great venue for the arts. So, that will, it will build up to that in the summer months. I want to thank Jane Rosenthal and Scott Rudin, who are fantastic New Yorkers and fantastic professionals and they've been very helpful in organizing this and as I said, it's exciting and it's different, but it's going to make a difference and New York leads and we're going to lead in bringing back the arts because we're at a point in time where the future, my friends, is what we make it. The future COVID rate is a function of our behavior. How fast does the economy come back? How robust? It depends on what we do and in New York we are very good at the doing because we are New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving.

2021-02-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Hi, good morning. It's Andrew. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Gareth Rhodes, Dr. Zucker. And I want to give you a quick update, because I just got off a meeting with the White House and the Governors. Today is day 346. The positivity rate is 5.12. It's from the numbers, the post-holiday reduction continues. If you want to be specific, you can say the post-holiday surge reduction continues. The 7-day average is 4.3 today, and that's the lowest 7-day average positivity since December 1. December 1 really the Thanksgiving infection rate hadn't really kicked in, so we're back to where we started on the holiday surge. 138 New Yorkers passed away from COVID yesterday. They are in our thoughts and prayers. The number of hospitalized was up 159 from the prior day. Discharges were lower because the discharges over the weekend are lower. The number of patients in ICU went down 42, the number intubated were up 10. 

The 7-day average is what we watch because day to day there's a lot of fluctuation. These are not random sample tests on a daily basis, so. Positivity by region, Long Island, Long Island, Long Island, 5.36. Mid-Hudson, Mid-Hudson, 5.34. New York City, 5.1, North County, 4.7, Western New York, 4.1, Capital Region, 3.4, Mohawk Valley, 3.1, Finger Lakes, 2.9, Central New York, 1.8, Southern Tier, 1.8. Statewide, 4.3.

In New York City, the Bronx, the Bronx, the Bronx, 6.8. Brooklyn, 5.37, Queens, 5.34, Staten Island, 4.9, Manhattan, 3.2. Someone needs to do a study of the demographics of how this infection rate has traveled. Staten Island is down, and I thank the people of Staten Island, who have changed their behavior and changed the infection rate. But Bronx, first, then Brooklyn, then Queens, then Staten Island, then Manhattan.

On the vaccinations, we've done 2.5 million total doses to date. That means about 10 percent of all New Yorkers have received one dose. We're at about 92 percent of allocated first doses. So we're going week to week, as we've discussed on the allocation. And the whole question is the supply. You now have about 10 million New Yorkers waiting on 300,000 doses. Big question on the call with the White House coordinator, by the governors, is supply, supply, supply. When will the supply increase? The supply will really only increase when and if Johnson & Johnson is approved. The Pfizer, Moderna vaccines are ramping up but the ramp-up is relatively slow, so we won't see a major supply increase from Pfizer and Moderna, nowhere near what we would need to make rapid progress against the 10 million. Johnson & Johnson would be a major and significant increase in production, but that's over the next two weeks. We'll get more information on that.

The White House did announce a 5 percent increase in vaccine allocation and again announced a three-week projection for that allocation, so the allocation will go up about 5 percent to the state and that will be true for three weeks. The three weeks is a big deal from a planning point of view because the State did not know what they were getting next week literally until a couple of days before. We would then turn around and tell the counties and then the counties would say, well, I had no notice. I know because I had no notice, but the three-wee projection actually helps that.

The 5 percent increase doesn't sound like much but remember, that's on top of the first announcement which was 16 percent increase, then the second announcement of 5 percent, so this is a third announcement of 5 percent - 16, plus 5, plus 5, so over the past 3 weeks it has been relatively significant. Again, not proportionate to the need but that has been helpful.

The federal government also announced that they would directly allocate to some, what they call federally qualified community health centers in the state, and that allocation would be above and beyond the State allocation and that would be a direct allocation from the federal government. They're doing a million nationwide, but that should be a couple of extra percent. It doesn't go through the State. It goes directly to the federally qualified community health centers. The federal government also runs a program directly to the pharmacies which was announced last week, so you have the State allocation, you then have on top of that a federal program that goes directly to the pharmacies, this week they added a federal program that goes directly to FQCHCs, and you had pre-existing a federal program that provided the vaccines to the nursing homes through pharmacies. So it gets complicated - you have the State-run program, then federal program to pharmacies, then federal program to pharmacies for nursing homes, and now a federal program to the community health centers - four levels for those of you who are tracking it.

They also announced and discussed, they are adamantly opposed to using second does for first doses. Several health people have suggested that. The CDC and the FDA, Dr. Fauci publicly said over the weekend that they are opposed strongly to using second doses for first doses, that the second doses must be available for Pfizer and Moderna when they were supposed to be available - three weeks after the first dose for Pfizer, four weeks after the first dose for Moderna, and that is their position, and it was a strongly held position.

There is discussion about reallocating unused vaccines. We have an unused allocation in the federal nursing home program, the Long Term Health Care Facility program, where the federal government contracted with CVS, Walgreens, et cetera, to do the nursing homes. That program has been slower than anticipated and we believe it was overallocated, so we will be reallocating doses from that program into the general state allocation, and we're going to work to determine how much that is, but those are excess unused doses. And those are those they don't need for that program.

On the second dose program, if there are any unused vaccines, we can reallocate those. Unused on the second dose program means a person never showed up for their second dose. And this gets complicated too. If a person does not show up for their second dose, either three weeks on Pfizer or four weeks on Moderna, the state must keep it available for 42 days. In other words, on Pfizer you're supposed to come back on day 21; On Moderna, you're supposed to come back on day 28. If someone doesn't come back on day 21 or day 28, you must hold the vaccine for them until day 42. After day 42, you could use that dose for someone else. Forty-two days is also close to the date of the expiration of the vaccine, so if it's not used it would expire, but if that person comes back for the second dose, whenever they come back, you have to find a second dose for that person, even if it's after 42 days. So, frankly, from a numeric point of view, I don't think that's going to be consequential but the reallocation from the Long Term Health Care Program could be consequential, that could be in the tens of thousands of doses, so we're working on that also.

2021-02-10 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Good morning. Busy day, lot to do, so let's get at it. From my left, Robert Mujica Director of the Budget. To my immediate left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my right, Commissioner Howard Zucker, Dr. Zucker. To his right, Mr. Gareth Rhodes. To his right, Mr. Chatodd Floyd, who is in charge of legislative affairs and policy and has been handling our special outreach efforts. 

We're going to talk about COVID for a change - not really for a change, it has been the ever-present topic. COVID has done tremendous damage in the State of New York and the nation. It is continuing to do damage, continuing to lose lives every day. It's also been a moment of reflection, a time we should reflect, a time we should take stock. COVID taught us many lessons. COVID exposed injustices, fundamental injustices that existed all across the country. They're not new, they were there, it's what we call created low-tide in America. 

Low-tide in America. When the tide is high, the tide covers all sorts of problems that lurk underneath. When the tide goes out, at low-tide, then you see issues that were always there but which were not apparent. COVID created low-tide: it exposed fundamental issues that were lurking beneath the surface. Ugliness that was beneath the surface. It exposed the failures in the public health system; that we were just not prepared for COVID. Despite SARS, despite MERS, despite Ebola - we were just not ready for it. 

It exposed incompetence in government because government had to actually perform and you saw that when the federal government, for example, fails to perform people literally die. It showed failed leadership in government and it showed structural racism and discrimination that existed in America but was not readily apparent unless you wanted to see it. There are many who did see it. We talked about 2 Americas and talked about the structural injustice and structural racism in our society. At low-tide, there was no denying the existence of it. 

COVID killed Black people at twice the rate of white people. That is a fact. It is a fact that should make us uncomfortable. It is painful to say. COVID killed Hispanic people at 1.5 times the rate of white people. COVID infection was 3 times higher in the Black and Hispanic communities. Despite that, nationwide, Black, Hispanic and poor communities had less access to testing for the virus even though they had a higher infection rate. 

Majority Black zip codes, 67 percent more likely to have a shortage of primary care doctors. That's why there were underlying health conditions at a higher percentage in Black, Hispanic and poor communities. Any American rescue plan must rescue all Americans and must start with an awareness of the low-tide reality and must correct the structural racism and discrimination that we have all now seen. 

There's two obstacles: One is what we call here vaccine acceptance. Some people call it vaccine hesitancy, but actually it's worse than that. We believe you'll never solve a problem you're unwilling to admit and the language we use is important. It's more than acceptance. It's more than hesitancy. It is a lack of trust of the system. I understand it and we should all understand it. It is a lack of trust of the system and of the government. 

Well the federal government approved the vaccine to be safe. Yeah, the federal government also conducted the Tuskegee experiment. It is real and it's deeply rooted with valid cause. The second obstacle is the access to the vaccine. We've talked about access and fairness in the vaccine from day one. We were very outspoken in New York in saying that if you use the traditional health system to distribute the vaccine, you will recreate the same problem that we have seen for the past year and decades before that. 

If you just go to the existing public health system, it doesn't exist in health care deserts. That's why they're health care deserts. If you go to the traditional doctor network, you won't reach these communities. That's why they had already underlying conditions at a higher percentage. Any distribution of the vaccine has to take that into consideration at inception. 

We were also fortunate to have great voices and great leaders step up and lead the way with us. Reverend Al Sharpton, the National Action Network. Mayor Marc Morial, once a mayor always a mayor. It was my good fortune to work with the mayor when he was mayor of New Orleans, now as the President and CEO of the National Urban League and Mr. Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP. We pointed out this issue early on and we said that it had to be addressed and we're going to continue to say it. This nation has to learn the deeper lesson of the structural health care disparities that were revealed at low-tide. 

Today we're announcing a federal, state partnership to open mass vaccination sites where they are most needed, with what's called socially vulnerable communities. We're pleased and happy to announce two mass vaccination sites in socially vulnerable communities, one in Queens and one in Brooklyn. We're working on several sites in upstate New York. In Queens, it's going to in Jamaica, Queens - my old stomping grounds. This is a Queens accent, by the way, not just a New York accent. 

Mass vaccination site that will do approximately 3,000 vaccinations per day. That will be the largest vaccination site that the state has opened to date. The largest mass vaccination site in existence in the State of New York. Second one will be in Brooklyn. Again, 3,000 vaccinations per day at Medgar Evers College. And again, the 3,000 vaccinations is the largest in the State of New York. They'll open the week of February 24. We're going to do additional sites in Upstate New York in socially vulnerable communities in partnership with the federal government. And these sites are different than anything we've done before. The federal government is going to provide a special dosage allocation for these sites, and they will be staffed jointly by the federal government, federal Army personnel among others, and state personnel, National Guard among others. So these are going to be very large sites. They're complicated operations. But they're going to address a dramatic need in bringing the vaccine to the people who need the vaccine most. It's the first step, but only the first step.

We need more to do. New York, we provide ourselves on being the progressive capital of the nation, not just in talking the talk, but in walking the walk. Not just in rhetoric, but in really. We're not just a government that postures and pontificates. Get it done, get it done. It's about results. It's about making a difference in people's lives. That's how you judge a government. That's how you judge an individual at the end of the day. I want to thank Reverend Sharpton, who has been a great advocate on this issue, bringing attention to it early on. Same to Marc Morial and Mr. Derrick Johnson. Thank you for making the case, and making it over, and over, and over again, and bringing this nation's attention to this issue. And we're pleased and proud to do it with you in partnership with New York State. And I think the combination of talents and the approach has worked before. We've made great progress that no other state has made in many social equity issues, and we're going to do the same thing here.

I want to thank President Biden, who understands this issue and has addressed it. Jeff Zients, who is the coordinator of the administration's COVID effort, I've been working with him very closely, and he's been working with the Governors very closely, I want to thank him and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith. Again, we've had this conversation ongoing from when Mr. Zients first stepped into the office, maybe even before he stepped in to the office, and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, our neighbor from Connecticut, has been heading the equity task force, and that's a very important position. And again, life is in the doing, and today we are doing. So let me announce and introduce and invite Mr. Jeff Zients and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith to say a few words.

Jeff Zients: Good afternoon, Governor, and thank you for letting us join. I want to thank you for having us here today. I'm glad to have the Governor as a partner in this work, and thank him for his leadership since really the beginning of the pandemic. The people of New York State are fortunate to have him fighting for them each day. I also appreciate Majority Leader Schumer and the entire New York delegation for their help in this effort. Leader Schumer's work to pass the American rescue plan is critical to giving us the funding to do more of the important work we're discussing here today, including building more sites just like the ones Governor Cuomo has just announced.

We're grateful for the efforts of so many New Yorkers on the ground. The doctors and nurses, the teachers, the teams across our hospitals and schools and grocery stores and public transit. We know that New Yorkers have been fighting this fight for many months. Thank you. We also know that there's still much work ahead. Pleased to be here to share an update with you on our progress and highlight how we're making this work happen on the ground.

Soon after taking office, the President announced a comprehensive national strategy to fight the pandemic. This did not exist before. As part of the strategy, the President directed us to activate the full resources of the federal government to get more shots in arms. We immediately got to work. First, we're taking steps to increase the vaccine supply and get it out the door as fast as the manufacturers can make it. Yesterday, we announced another increase in the weekly allocations of vaccine doses to states, tribes and territories. We've achieved a 28 percent increase in the first three weeks of the administration. We are helping states administer the supply more efficiently and equitably by providing them with visibility into the supply they will receive across the next three weeks. That allows the doing that the Governor just mentioned.

Second, we're mobilizing teams to get shots in arms. At the president's direction, we are moving quickly to get more vaccinators on the ground, including retired doctors and nurses. We've deployed hundreds of personnel across the federal government, from FEMA, to the Department of Agriculture, to HHS and other federal agencies, to support vaccination operations nationwide. And we have plans to deploy thousands more.

Third, we're creating more places where Americans can get vaccinated. To do so, we've expedited financial support to bolster community vaccination centers nationwide, with over $3 billion in federal funding across 35 states, tribes and territories. We've launched efforts to get more vaccines to pharmacies and community health centers, and we're building new community vaccination center from the ground up in stadiums, community centers, school gyms and parking lots all across the country.

We're putting equity front and center in this effort, partnering with states to increase vaccinations in the hardest hit and hard to reach communities. This announcement today is a demonstration of what that work looks like on the ground. As you've heard from Governor Cuomo, we're pleased to announce a partnership with the state to build two new community vaccination centers in Queens and Central Brooklyn. These new centers will focus on serving the hardest hit, hardest-to-reach populations, and at the Governor's request, we're working with the state to identify additional locations throughout the state to get more shots in arms. We're meeting communities where they are, in places they know and trust. This is a central part of our strategy and we look forward to continuing to build on these partnerships with states and localities to scale innovative models that meet the needs of the communities we serve. And with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Nunez-Smith, who leads our Health Equity Task Force, who will speak about how today's announcement is bringing our equity work to life. Dr. Nunez-Smith. 

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith: Thank you so much, Jeff, and thank you Governor Cuomo, for having us here today. As you mentioned, I'm in charge of leading the Biden-Harris Administration's COVID19 Health Equity Task Force and our work is to ensure that we don't leave anyone behind in our response to this pandemic. You know, both the President and the Vice-President have made it clear since the beginning that they are committed to centering their administration's COVID-19 response on equity. We're grateful that Vice President Harris set a blueprint for how to advise this commitment during her time in the Senate and now, we're announcing the creation of our Health Equity Task Force. You know, President Biden agreed with the necessity for the task force and he signed on his first full day in office an Executive Order to bring this into being and today we're so excited that that vision for the federal vision of a COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force is becoming reality. And sir, before joining you for this event, I announced the 12 Americans that the President has selected to serve as the non-federal members on this task force. You know, their backgrounds are noteworthy, as is their expertise and they represent really a diverse range of racial ethnic groups and also represent many other key constituencies and they will help guide our administration's response to ensure equity remains at the core. Which brings us to the announcement that we're making here today with the State of New York. I mean, this is a perfect example of our equity work coming to life and this is a model for the potential we have to do this well across the country. You know, we're keeping equity front-and-center at these sites, partnering with community-based organizations to build trust — importantly in these communities. You know, focusing on local community residents, making it easier for them to get appointments and ultimately get vaccinated. The sites are offering extended hours to make vaccinations accessible and convenient for those who work late nights and early mornings and so importantly, making it clear that free, safe vaccines are available regardless on an individual's ability to pay or their immigration status. You know, through the new vaccination sites being announced today, we are taking the response directly to the communities that need it most, so thank you Governor Cuomo, for your partnership — and thank you to all of the frontline workers, the federal personnel, everyone who is going to vaccinate thousands of people at these sites. Fantastic news. Back to you, Governor. 

Governor Cuomo: Well, thank you very much, Dr. and thank you Mr. Zients and I can't tell you how welcome news it is. Someone in my position who has been making this case and fighting this case for over the past year, making the point that we need a special effort to reach left-behind communities and frankly, I made the case for a year and there was very little response. What you have done in such a short period of time with not only the commitment that we knew President Biden had made during the campaign and that this is an issue he fully understood — but now the actions you're taking — these mass vaccination sites are going to be great. The large number, the extended hours, these are no doubt the most effective way to get the vaccine out quickly and in the places, and in the community that needs them, so congratulations to you for moving this quickly. I was in the federal government at one time, I know sometimes it's not that easy to get the bureaucracy moving as quickly as you would like it to move. I have a doctrine here; we call it the Doctrine of Constructive Impatience. Constructive Impatience: I'm impatient with the bureaucracy, but in a constructive way. And Mr. Zients, who has stepped into a really difficult position and has all the governors who have been dealing with this for a long time and have a whole list of needs that he could never possibly meet. He's been a great partner to all the governors. He's been a special friend to the State of New York and in an amazingly short period of time, he has come up to speed and he's working seven days a week and again, the proof is in the pudding — you're delivering. You're delivering, and that's what we respect here in the State of New York. We appreciate the efforts and the good wishes, but we truly respect the product and you are making a difference in people's lives, so thank you. It's my pleasure to partner with you and we'll do a lot more good things, so welcome even in a virtual way to the State of New York. When you're here and when we can do it safely, we'll give you the full tour and we'll show you the community and the faces and the people that you truly helped, so thank you very much. Thank you, Dr., thank you Mr. Zients. My pleasure. 

Jeff Zients: Thank you. Thank you. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. OK, we now turn to three good friends of mine personally and of the State of New York, three champions for social justice who have made the case strongly and passionately and the case is right and the case was heard and you put the State of New York together with the intelligence and power and advocacy of these three individuals and we're going to do great things and today is evidence of the great things that we have done. So, I truly appreciate everything they have done, not just for New York, but for this nation. Let's start with Rev. Al Sharpton. Reverend, are you with us today? 

Reverend Al Sharpton: Yes. Thank you, Governor. First of all, it's a pleasure to be here with you and with my good friends and partners in civil rights, Marc Morial and Derrick Johnson. And I have to say this Governor, you've done a tremendous [inaudible] Covid-19. The vaccine equity task force is really a model for the nation and I hope those in Washington- in fact I'm proud of my own daughter Dominique in serving on the taskforce. So, I know it's not a showpiece, it's for real. 

Now you and I have known each other a long time and I've always I told you when I agree and disagree, but I've been impressed with your determination to make things happen - not just talk about things, but get things done, and the partnership with the Biden administration is good news for the neglected communities, the Black and Latinx, and poor communities, and finally having someone in the White House that knows which end is up and then a partner in New York, and fighting for vaccine equity is the recipe for us [inaudible]. It makes all the difference in the world, it's really a matter of life and death so, I want to thank both Dr. Nunez-Smith and Mr. Zients for leadership, but these mass vaccination sites in Queens and Brooklyn will have a huge impact so, I think the other additional states, the four additional sites in underserved communities that the State, and FEMA, and I believe CDC and the White House task force is working to identify throughout the State of New York will have major impact because I'm hearing every day as people want to move forward, they didn't feel they had access. For months now, I give you credit for saying that this healthcare system is biased, and you had that right. In fact, you called me one morning, went on my TV show and broke it national that we are not doing the right thing. You started that as a governor, and I give you credit for that.  

Many Black Americans live in healthcare deserts where there are no hospitals or healthcare centers and you stood up and brought that out and I'll give you credit for that. You know when I don't agree with you, I'll let you know that too but this one, I have to say you made a national impact and you didn't just talk about, you've been setting up these pop-up vaccine sites around the state for communities of color with high infection rates.  

Access is one thing but as you know we also have a big challenge with skepticism in our communities about the vaccine. Many in the African American community don't trust vaccine because of past abuses like the Tuskegee experiment and let's put it out front. Like the disgraceful treatment of Henrietta Lacks, like forced sterilization of women in Puerto Rico and in the South, but this vaccine is different, and we've had to get out there and say that. We are working around the clock to making people sure in our community that the vaccine is safe and effective, and everyone should take it when it's their turn because that's how we get everyone back to work and see our families and friends safe and together.  

Just last week Black churches around the country launched national education program to provide awareness, we work with the Conference of Black Denominations that [inaudible] Franklin Richardson, a friend of yours and now we have an awareness group, Choose Healthy Life with Reverend Dr. Calvin Butts. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Religious leaders should serve as the thermostat that transforms society, not a thermometer that takes the temperature and allows social pressures to influence it." So we plan to make this a national model, we know that it kicked off with you Governor, and we want to identify with specificity the NYCHA community rooms, the churches, the mosques, the synagogues and other places our people go so they don't have to get in a car or find a Walgreens that's not in our community.

We're in the fight, and we're fighting for our lives, and we're fighting with our lives. And in fact Governor, I've said, I've got a group of ministers that I and they are going to go to one of these facilities to take the vaccine ourselves - I have not taken one - so I'm one of those that want to be a symbol to those that are skeptical that this is safe and that we need to do this because it's made available to us. Thank you Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Reverend, let me thank you. Thank you for the kind words, but thank you for what you did here because you really stepped up and you stepped up at a time when it wasn't easy and people hear your voice and I thank you for all the help you've been. We have been doing public housing authorities and churches all across the State working together. This is going to make a dramatic impact because the numbers are so big. These mass vaccination sites, 3,000 per day. You're talking about 15,000 per week. That dwarfs everything. You take a place like Javits Center which is now our big vaccination site, Yankee Stadium we have in the Bronx, but they're like 1,000 a day. 3,000 a day is just tremendous numbers and the federal government is providing a special allocation for these places and that's how we get it done. 

Also, Reverend, your point about speaking the truth so we can address it. I don't like the term vaccine hesitancy, people are hesitant about the vaccine. They're not hesitant, they don't trust the vaccine. It's a trust issue. You're right, you call it what it is, put it up front, otherwise you're never going to get past it. I understand why they don't trust the government, trust the system. The government and system has never been fair with them. Now, all of a sudden, they should trust? Your voice, the minister's voices, I think are very, very important here. You're right, there are a lot of reasons for distrust but not on this one. 

Let's tell it the way it is and that's the case we have to make. This is a good start. You're right about President Biden's administration. We were banging our head against the wall for 4 long years here in New York and making the case with very little results. Fighting the good fight is one thing, actually winning a few is something different. President Biden does get it and this was a very dramatic and quick response so we thank him very much for it.

Thank you for everything you do. Let's go to Mr. Johnson and the NAACP, Hazel Dukes we have here, she's been a great champion. She calls herself my second mother because she gives me a tough time that is second only to my mother, I'll tell you the truth, but she has been fantastic on this and she's done ads for us and she's appearing everywhere to try to get people to take the vaccine and the NAACP has been such a great and formidable partner so thank you, Mr. Johnson. Thank you for being here. Sir.

Derrick Johnson: Thank you, Governor, for your leadership and Hazel giving you a hard time. She gives both me and Al a hard time, just in her nature.

You know your leadership is something to be modeled by many states across the country. As we begin to educate our members and work with communities, it is not lost on us that you jumped out early.

First, let's call racism what it is. It is structural in nature and [inaudible] to African-Americans created a pandemic on top of the pandemic. Secondly, you recognize that stating a problem is not enough. It's moving towards a solution. When we convened on a press call in November that was also critical to try to do all you could as a governor, as a leader, to get the vaccine closer to people, whether it's in public housing, whether it's in the Javits Center, whatever the case may be.

When I leave from this press conference, I'm going to take my mother to get her vaccine at one of the federally qualified health clinics, clinics that are trusted medical providers in our communities, particularly in rural America and especially in the South. At the end of the day, we must overcome the hesitancy because of the lack of trust. This government has not always provided trust that African-Americans can run towards, but the reality is the reality right now. We are facing a global health crisis that because of the neglect of the previous administration we lacked a federal response. Now that we have a new administration, we have the ability to develop a federal response but that only can happen through local and State leadership like the leadership that you have provided.

For the NAACP, we're not telling people to take the vaccine or not to take the vaccine. We are telling people that here are your options, here are your opportunities that you need to exercise your options based on the information that's been brought forward. This virus isn't race specific but because there are so many underlining health conditions, that because there are so many environmental concerns that are married to African-American communities because of bad public policy of the past, we must recognize that this should be a zip code-focused approach where we have high incidents of death and contraction of the virus, we need to have high incidents of deploying the vaccine so those who are most vulnerable are provided the necessary support so we can curb the spread of the virus.

What's logical to us oftentimes is political to others. What we see as solutions for us, others see as problems, but in this moment we all must see the same solutions to the problems that confronted us. We cannot open our economy, we cannot go to any place of normalcy, until we address and attack this virus as aggressive as possible.

But because of your leadership, Governor, we are postured to do so because of the Biden administration's willingness to do what's necessary, we're going to be able to get past this, but that only can happen if we continue this type of relationships through this type of partnerships, so thank you for your leadership and I want to thank my counterparts Al and Marc. They always tell me what to do so I hope I read their script appropriately.    
Governor Cuomo: They always tell me what to do also. I consider them my older brothers, you know, Al and Marc. They went down the path before me. They know what to expect so that's my story and I'm sticking with it. Mr. Johnson, thank you. You're so right it's a pandemic on top of a pandemic. It's the COVID virus on top of the racism virus but there is a poetic justice here. I saw behind you on your shelf a book that said Medgar Evers on it. This is going to take place at Medgar Evers College, so at one point justice is done. If you keep fighting the fight long enough you win when you're right, and we were right and we are right and these vaccines will be at Medgar Evers College so we take the victories where we can get them.

Let me turn now to last but never least, former Mayor, I had the good pleasure of working with the Mayor when I was HUD Secretary and he was extraordinary then and he's only gotten better. He is a great asset to this nation and again another older brother to me and his guidance has been helpful to me for many years. Marc Morial, thank you very much and congratulations.

Marc Morial: Governor, I checked your driver's license. I think you got me beat. First of all, let me thank you, Governor, for your leadership and for assembling us today and certainly to Al and Derrick for the continued partnership and collaboration amongst this generation's civil rights champions and leaders, and also to Jeff Zients and Marcella Nunez-Smith who have been on the case since President Biden has been elected and goes without saying that we want to express our appreciation and continued support for the Biden administration's effort to clean up the colossal confusion and chaotic mess that they inherited when it comes to the COVID response. Let me say this - it was in November or late October that my phone at home rang at 7:15 and it was one of those constructive impatience calls from Andrew Cuomo at 7:15 and I said Governor, you work at 7:15, I'm up working too, it was a Sunday morning. And the Governor shared with me that he had learned that the Biden, rather the Trump Administration's emerging plan for the distribution for vaccines would be wholly inequitable and [inaudible]. And he share with me what he learned, and we agreed at that point that there was a need to respond, there was a need to act. 

True to Governor Cuomo's preference for action over pontification for verification and rhetoric, he shared with me the thought to create a vaccine equity task force, a working group that would advise him, advise his administration, but also externally advocate for a more equitable approach to the distribution of the vaccine. So Governor I want to thank you because you saw, you recognized early, that this was going to be an inaccurate approach by the previous administration, and began at that point in time laying a framework and a groundwork for a broader approach. 

Now today, this announcement should be understood as the start, not the mass total of the mass vaccination sites, the community-based vaccination sites, the reminder that your administration with the Biden administration will stand up. 

Here, in New York, there are twenty million people roughly. Across the nation, three hundred million plus people. We need as many locations as possible to be able to vaccinate the Americans who want to be vaccinated, and I believe that number will continue to grow as people secure information, as their friends, their neighbors, their relatives, their allies. I believe there will be greater trust in the process as we go on. 

The Biden Administration has put science, data, and expertise first. On the trust factor, it's been my view, and it remains my view, that we need a broader engagement effort, a communications effort to meet people where they are, provide them with information, and encourage them to make an intelligent choice about taking the vaccine. Consult healthcare professionals, not online conspiracy theorists, to get the best information that they indeed need. 

So it is a very, very important part of our work today at the National Urban League, and within the Urban League affiliates of the state of New York, to align this effort to expand access, community based access to the vaccine, to expand the information that people need with respect to this vaccine. But Governor, you understood this early and first. Put your voice and your Administration's actions behind it, and my hope is that this partnership with the federal government will be replicated across the nation, as other states, Governors, Mayors, County Executives, and community leaders confront how they can create and produce access to the vaccine in communities across the land. 

So I want to thank you very much for your leadership and pledge the continued work of the vaccine equity task force to both push, prod, assist, help, and advise this very important effort. We will not get past this, we will not get beyond this, if we do not accelerate and effectively deploy this vaccine to every village and hamlet and neighborhood and barrio and community across the great state of New York. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank you so much. Just so you know, I wouldn't have called you at 7:15 in the morning. What happened is I got Reverend Sharpton on the phone at 7, and it was a brief conversation, he said call Marc and then call me back, and then hung up the phone. That's why I called you at 7:15. Poor Reverend Sharpton is muted. Yes I'm sure, preparing the sermon. 

But, poor Reverend Sharpton is muted. That's the first time -

Reverend Sharpton: Well, Governor Cuomo and Marc have been muting me for thirty years but I still break through. The reason you called me at 7 and I told you to call Marc is because I was on the elliptical working out. So I'd encourage you younger fellas to get in shape. 

Governor Cuomo: I'll leave it there, I believe it. The, but the Mayor's words are exactly right. Look we did make this case early on. And that's why we are where we are today. Because this is a bold step. The federal government having a separate mass vaccination sites in socially vulnerable communities is a bold step. Only the first step, we have to do more, but it's a bold step that we should all take some, take as a sign of hope, and acknowledgement of the problem. And you're right Mayor, we have to get at this trust issue, and we have to get at it locally and at it nationally, because it's not going to go away on its own. I've had, as I'm sure you've all had, many individual conversations. And it is a deep distrust. And a deep skepticism. And saying well you should go first, you should go in the first round, you know people say to me all day long, you go first and tell me how it goes, and then we'll see. 

So that's going to be an ongoing effort. But together we'll do it, and today was a great, great, great step. Thank you all very much. Thank you all, God Bless you, thank you. 

That is exciting and that is positive and that is real. Today is day 347. The post-holiday surge reduction continues, awkward language but the numbers are going down. The vaccine supply is going up, as you heard from Mr. Zients. We said yesterday after our discussion with the White House, New York State will get 5 percent more, and that will be the allocation for the next three weeks -- that's all we know. The local governments, pharmacies that say, "well we want to know what's going to happen beyond three weeks," we don't know, but we suspect the supply will continue to go up, but that's controlled by the federal government. So, all we know is the next three weeks have a 5 percent increase. Overall, statewide positivity is 4, basically flat. Statewide deaths: 136; they are in our thoughts and prayers. State hospitalizations are down. ICU is up about 11. Intubations down 16.

Overall the trajectory is down, and that is all good news. Hospitalizations are down, and that is all good news. Long Island has the highest number percentage of hospitalized in the State - that has been an ongoing challenge and problem. Positivity highest rate is Long Island and the Mid-Hudson, which has also been ongoing. And in New York City the Bronx is the highest positivity, then Queens and Brooklyn. Actually, Brooklyn then Queens, hence the sites in Brooklyn and Queens. Bronx we already opened the Yankee Stadium site, which is a mass vaccination site, and now with Queens and Brooklyn we'll be making real, real progress. So, I'm very excited about that.

Vaccines overall: 2.6 million 1.9 first doses, 700,000 second doses. 93 percent of what we have received has been used, that means we're virtually out of allocation and then we wait for the next week's allocation that comes in. While we're doing vaccines and while we're controlling the spread of COVID we also have to at the same time get this economy open intelligently and in a balanced way. The Buffalo Bills demonstration program, which I've spoken about before was an unparalleled success. 7,000 people in a stadium, everyone tested. Only stadium to open up for football with testing, believe it or not, was what we did here in New York. The testing to me is key. I can go see the President of the United States, take a test, and if I pass the test walk in to the Oval Office. Why? Because if you're negative, you are negative. So, the testing is the key.

We're going to now extend the Buffalo Bills example. Any large stadium or arena - hockey, basketball, football, soccer, baseball, music shows, performances - any large arena can open on February 23rd. Their plan has to be approved by the State Department of Health. It's 10 percent of capacity for arenas, 10,000 and above, which is what this is addressing. A negative PCR test with face coverings, with social distancing, and then mandatory assigned seating - it's not where people can sit wherever they want. But this hits the balance of safe reopening. And again, a PCR test is as safe as you can get. Barclays Center is going to open on February 23rd for Brooklyn Nets versus the Sacramento Kings using this model, they've been approved to do that. Anyone else who is interested should let us know. This is a difficult time on many, many levels. Personally it's very difficult, emotionally it's difficult, economically it's difficult, but we are fining the balance and we are going to be the better for it. I believe that. I believe we are going to be stronger individually, and stronger socially, and stronger as a community for what we went through and what we learned going through it, because we are New York tough, and smart, and united, and disciplined, and loving.

2021-02-15 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Happy Presidents' Day. Happy day 352. Happy Presidents' Day again. Let's go through the numbers today. We have a number of announcements. Overall statewide positivity, 3.53, good news. Statewide deaths, 103. Terrible news. They're in our thoughts and prayers. Statewide hospitalizations, 6,600. That's good news. Statewide ICU, down 15, intubations down six. Good news.

Good news overall. The positivity post-holiday increase has continued to decrease. Congratulations to New Yorkers. We went from 7.9 down to 3.7. That is very good news. Hospitalizations are down. Hospitalized percentages, .04 is the high, Long Island, New York City. Positivity, Long Island, 4.6, second, Mid-Hudson, 4.5. Long Island has been a problem for a number of weeks. It continues to be a problem. And in New York City it's the Bronx, 6.1. That is a continuation. We opened Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, but that is a problem. Manhattan is down to 2.7. Queens, Brooklyn, 4.6, 4.5. We have new FEMA sites in Queens and Brooklyn that we're doing jointly with the federal government, state FEMA sites. Those are going to be very large mass vaccination sites. And Staten Island is below Queens and Brooklyn, so that's good news.

Variants of interest. This goes in the new dictionary of new COVID terms. And we've been watching these. There is a patient in New York City who has tested positive for the South African variant. The South African variant is the variant that they're watching most closely. The UK variant is very transmissible, transmittable, but the South African variant they worry about how lethal it is and how it relates to the vaccine. But, but, and this is an important but, the patient was transferred from Connecticut directly to a New York City hospital. It was not a New York resident. It was a person in Connecticut who was transferred to a New York City hospital for a procedure. We have no evidence of any spread in New York State to date.

Let's talk vaccinations: 3.1 million, 2.1 million first doses, 1 million second doses. Over 1 million New Yorkers now have received doses one and two, which is great news. There's been a lot of confusion about the vaccinations, and I understand that. Buffalo News wrote an editorial asking questions which, frankly, are commonly asked questions. I've received them a number of times. So I just want to make sure people understand what's happening with the vaccinations. The Trump Administration had said they were increasing eligibility and they were going to increase the supply of the vaccines. States increased eligibility. What happens is the Trump Administration did not increase the supply. The Biden Administration comes in, basically the cupboards were bare of enough dosages. The Biden Administration, in a very short period of time, went back, secured more dosages. They're now talking about getting 600 by the end of July. 600 would do 300 million Americans twice so the nation would be fully vaccinated. But, there are more people eligible nationwide than there are now doses available.

Federal government, as I mentioned, increased the eligibility but never increased the supply, so now in New York State, you have 10 million people eligible, 300,000 doses per week. 300,000 people chasing the doses. 10 million people chasing 300,000 doses.

How does the federal government allocate doses? The federal government allocates to states based on the population of the state. Population of New York, population of California, you get an allocation based on your population. State allocates to counties, regions, by the population that is eligible for the vaccine. 1a, 1b, comorbidities, et cetera. The federal government set up multiple distribution points when the program first started. Local governments also wanted to be in a position to distribute themselves. This is now the distribution system that we have in place. Federal governments give directly to pharmacies, an allocation that goes directly to pharmacies. Federal government has an allocation to pharmacies for nursing homes, which is called the federal nursing home program. Federal government gives directly to what's called Federally Qualified Health Centers, community-based centers, directly from the federal government. Federal government then gives to the state for FEMA operated joint venture sites. We now have one in Queens and Brooklyn, and we're working for others Upstate. But that's feds directly to those joint sites. Federal government then allocates the state separate from all of that.

The state then also allocates to pharmacies. The state also allocates to Federally Qualified Health Centers. The state allocates to hospitals. The state runs mass vaccination sites. And the state then gives it to local governments. The local governments then allocate some to the Federally Qualified Health Centers, allocate them to pharmacies, and locals set up mass vaccination sites. That's why you have this massive distribution network. Many points of distribution, many options for people, but it also creates confusion. Let me have one site where I can go and find out where I can get a vaccine in Buffalo. That's now how the system was set up from day one. That's what creates the confusion. And if I could figure out how to get this slide to advance, that would be good.

When does this end? Because the system is set up the way it is, it's not really going to end until you have increased dosages. When you have increased dosages, that extensive distribution network will wind up being a positive and not a negative, because then you'll have multiple pharmacies getting allocations from multiple sources, multiple mass vaccination sites. But, there is a downside to coordination in the meantime. Again, with the additional purchase of the vaccinations from the federal government, June, May, you should see the situation flip where all those distribution points will make it easier for the consumer. But right now, yes, there are multiple distribution points. County runs a site, the State runs a site, the City runs a site, federal government gives to pharmacies, et cetera.

The NGA, National Governors Association, I met with the President last week. We sent a letter today asking for more coordination and clarification of this distribution site. The letter basically said, when CDC does their reporting, please separate out all of these different distribution points so it's clearer for people. In other words, when we receive allocations from the federal government, we being the state, some are for the first dose, some are for the second dose, some are for the first dose, some are for the second dose, some are for the nursing home program and then you have the federal government sending to pharmacies and the federal government doing the same thing to federally qualified health centers.

We need better coordination between the federal government and the State government so we know what pharmacies they're sending to, we don't send to the same ones. Local government doesn't send to the same pharmacies because some pharmacies do a better job than others. Some pharmacies are already getting a distribution so if the federal government is sending to CVS then I wouldn't send to CVS. We're asking for coordination with the federal government in those regards.

On COVID overall, follow the signs, follow the data. My great graphic with the valve that nobody likes. The COVID numbers are down so we adjust. We've opened indoor dining in New York City, we adjusted the curfew. Today we're going to talk about the MTA and increasing capacity there. We have two special guests, we have Sarah Feinberg and Pat Foye from the MTA and there they are. Smiling Pat Foye. Take off the mask so we can see you smile, Pat. There it is.

Pat Foye: How are you doing Governor?

Governor Cuomo: Sarah Feinberg. Good to see both of you. We've been talking about increasing capacity in the MTA. The numbers are down. Let's start with Sarah Feinberg and then we'll turn it over to Pat to tell us what the thinking is and who wants to go first? Pat, it's up to you.

Pat Foye: Governor, let me start and then I'll turn it over to Sarah.

Governor, thanks for inviting us today. We're today to update on two key issues, Governor. First is the safety and security of our system and second is a phased reopening of the subways coinciding with New York's gradual reopening from COVID-19.

First, a word on the events this weekend. The crime spree that occurred and resulted in 2 people tragically losing their lives was horrifying and shocking. We grieve with the victims of these terrible crimes and their families. I want to personally assure every customer and every single employee of the MTA that your safety is our highest priority. That's why yesterday my colleague Sarah Feinberg, the New York City Transit Interim President and I, sent a letter to Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Shea requesting that an additional 1,000 NYPD officers be assigned to the transit bureau of the NYPD to patrol subways and buses.

As you remember, the MTA began calling for additional police officers in the system well over a year ago. It was the right call then and it remains the right call now. Make no mistake, however, we also need more mental health resources from the City of New York dedicated to addressing the growing crisis facing the City so that those suffering have access to the critical services they need and deserve.

We and our customers and our employees need the City to meet its obligations on both these fronts. Additionally, this additional infusion of police officers will be crucial as we are planning a phased reopening of the subways, coinciding with the gradual reopening of the City of New York. We are seeing positive changes as you've outlined, Governor, with the deployment of the vaccine, a drop in the infection rate, the resumption of indoor dining, extended hours for bars and restaurants and the reopening of stadiums and arenas.

Today, we are announcing the goal of beginning a phased reopening of the subway on Monday morning, February 22. As we all know, the subways have been closed overnight from 1 AM - 5 AM since May 6. Under this plan's change, the subways will stay open until 2 AM and reopen at 4 AM. At the same time, this 2 hour service suspension will allow us to continue our enhanced disinfecting regime, which is lead the subways to be the cleanest they've ever been.

We will never stop doing everything we can to protect riders and employees. Now, I'll turn it over to Sarah Feinberg.

Sarah Feinberg: Thanks, Pat. First, I just want to echo what you said and say my heart goes out to the victims from the crimes of the weekend and to their families. No one should ever be victimized in our system and certainly no one should ever be victimized and certainly not in our transit system. I want to thank the NYPD for their effective work over the weekend which led to the apprehension of the individual they believe is responsible for the weekend acts of violence.

Since joining the board at Governor Cuomo's invitation 2 years ago and becoming President of Transit one year ago, I've had to be focused on the issues of safety and security to a significant degree. On this issue of crime and those experiencing mental health illness, we started asking for additional resources nearly 2 years ago. By my count, myself and the chairman have asked the City for additional policing and mental health assistance in the subway system more than 30 times in the last 18 months. We've called for more uniformed officers, we've asked for them to be in stations and on trains. We've asked them to assist in the overnight shutdown, but also at other hours.

I would point out that our understanding of the transit bureau's current staffing means that at current staffing levels, plus the additional 500 officers added by Commissioner Shea over the weekend, plus the additional 1,000 officers requested by us over the weekend, would bring the number of officers and the transit bureau to nearly 4,000. Four thousand officers is the number of officers we had in the system more than 2 decades ago prior to the NYPD transit police merger.

Additional policing will not solve the mental health crisis or the fact that so many in the subway system are experiencing homelessness and therefore are more likely to be victimized. We have to put additional resources to these items as well. To that end, we've called on the City to expand the 311 system into the subway so people using the system, including our own employees, are better able to report those who are clearly experiencing a mental health crisis. We've also called for additional resources to house individuals who do not have other options or those who don't feel safe in the shelter system.

Additionally, we've not just asked for more from the City, we've asked for more on our end as well. We surged MTA police officers into the subway system for the last year. A year ago, the Governor called for and the MTA approved, the hiring of 500 additional MTA Police Officers. We began executing on that hiring and hired and onboarded more than 200 and that hiring has now begun again. We've dramatically increased the number of cameras in our system. When our Capitol program had to be stalled due to the financial crisis, Transit took on cameras and started installing cameras throughout the system on platforms and trains. We started tracking incidents in the system in real time so that our officers and security forces could better predict and respond to hotspots.

We fought for and in cooperation with the Governor and Assembly and State Senate, passed legislation that will allow recidivist criminals to be banned from the system on a temporary basis. There's no question that we've been doing all we can, but there's also no question that these additional resources are needed in the system.

I feel responsible for every customer and every member of the transit workforce from the moment they enter our system until the moment they exit our system. Not only do they need to be kept safe and secure, they have to feel safe and secure. We need our customers to feel confident and safe as they use the system. Whether they continue to use it daily as they're commuting as an essential worker or whether they're contemplating returning to their commute as the City begins to reopen.

That confidence is critically important and we know how important it is to our customers because they've told us in survey after survey that the most important things to them are feeling safe in the system from both COVID and criminal activity.

We will continue to work on all tracks, policing, mental health and our all of the above approach to cleaning. On our phased reopening on the subway system for overnight service, one year into the pandemic and 10 months into our overnight closure, New York is starting to look at a return to normalcy. As we look at the reopening of the City and the economy, we have been planning in recent weeks for our own return of overnight service.

We have determined that certain overnight closure is an appropriate step forward toward the return of around the clock service. To be clear, we will continue our cleaning regimen. We've been doing so for many months now and we will continue to do so. We clean our system 24 hours a day. We clean and disinfect stations twice each day, we clean and disinfect subway cars multiple times each day. That will continue.

When we were closed from 1-5, we are able to clean much more efficiently without customers in the system. That window of cleaning will now go from 1-5 to 2-4. We are confident that we can maintain the cleaning and disinfecting that we have been able to do thus far. The CDC and New York State Department of Health, FTA and EPA all continue to advise that we should continue with our all of the above approach to cleaning and we will do so. Again, public confidence is paramount.

In order for the City to truly reopen, the subway system has to be safe and secure and our customers need to feel that. To our customers, I thank you for your patience and vigilance and for sticking with us.

Thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, Sarah and thank you Pat.

Sarah Feinberg: Thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Well, thank you Sarah and thank you, Pat. The MTA is critical to what we're trying to do. As you know we're proceeding down several tracks at the same time. We want to control the COVID infection rate. We want to, second track, we want to increase the vaccination rate, and third, we want to accelerate the reopening and stimulate the reopening of the economy. Many people have had significant pain and suffering with this economic shutdown. The MTA is obviously vital to the reopening and the stimulation of the economy and just so we're all clear from 2:00 to 4:00, you're reducing the closure period in the middle of the night. It is going to be reduced to 2 to 4. That goes into effect when?

Pat Foye: Monday morning, February 22, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Monday morning, February 22. Okay. You'll still be cleaning the trains which is very important. CDC says it, the health experts say it, the COVID virus is not transmitted as much as they originally suggested on surfaces, but it still can be transmitted on surfaces and I think it's very important, Sarah said it, you want to be safe in the MTA system from crime and from COVID and I think the cleanliness makes a very big deal. Also, when you're as old as I am- the trains have never been as clean as they are now. You know, silver linings. It is remarkable. I can't tell you how many people comment to me that you walk onto a train, you walk into a subway station, it looks different, it feels different - I think that goes a long way towards confidence. So kudos to you and to the entire team.

And on crime, I can't agree more. When you said, Sarah, we would be at 4,000 would be a level which is going back probably 30 or so years, at 4,000, 4,000 was if the city gave you an additional 1,000 from where we are now, right, you would be, with the City giving 500 more police officers we're at 3,000, not 4,000. If they honored your request for an additional 1,000 above the 500, then we would be at 4,000 and 4,000 is only where we were 30 years ago. Is that right? Did I get it right?

Sarah Feinberg: That's right. So you know, obviously I defer to the NYPD on their own employee list, but our understanding of the transit bureau staffing at this point is that they're at about 2,500 officers. With the addition of the 500 over the weekend, that gets you to 3,000. With the additional 1,000 that we're asking for would get you to about the level of officers that were in the system about 25 years ago, 1995.

Governor Cuomo: Well look, crime is a problem in the MTA. Crime is a problem in New York City generally. Crime is a problem across the nation, predominantly in urban areas. But if we're going to get the economy back we have to address this problem. You know people don't talk public safety in terms of economic development, but it is the number one issue. If businesses don't feel safe, if people don't feel safe, if your riders don't feel safe they're not going to go to a restaurant, I don't care how many, what we do with curfew, what we do with occupancy, if you don't feel safe, you're not going to get on the subway and go to the restaurant so that is a major concern in many areas.

Just please make sure you relate to everyone, to all the workers, TWU, you guys have done a masterful job all through this. I remember Pat got sick early on but you kept the system running. The system has to run. That's how essential workers get to work and you really did a masterful job and I want to thank you all very much on behalf of the people of the state. So thank you and I'll see you soon. Thank you very much for being with us. Thank you, Pat; thank you, Sarah.

Pat Foye: Thank you, Governor.

Sarah Feinberg: Thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Okay, as I mentioned public safety is a top priority. You want to talk about reopening the economy, you have to talk about public safety. We mandated last year after the George Floyd killing, every locality has to come up with a new public safety plan. It will be different in different parts of the state, but we have 500 jurisdictions that have police departments and I get the tension between the community and the police department and there is no easy answer and there is no one size fits all. But you can't ignore the tension. Ignoring a problem will never solve the problem. That is true in life and that is true in society and that is true in government, so put people at the table, let them vent their issues and they will vent, but then let's come to a collaborative and a consensus and let's move on. Many local governments are doing a great job and again this is a nationwide problem, but it's New York's mandate to lead the way and many local governments are doing a great job.

I applaud the New York City Council for putting out a set of proposals. I think that's a positive step forward but you now have to come to an agreement and get a bill signed and that's by April 1 and April 1, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, 45 days to complete.

We're also going to be sending amendments to our State budget which is also due April 1. We've had conversations about legalizing recreational marijuana. We don't have an agreement yet but I believe we're making progress. I'm sending an amended bill. Legalizing recreational marijuana is something we've tried to do for several years. It is overdue in my opinion. You have people who are incarcerated for crimes that frankly they shouldn't have a record on. We also need the revenue from legalizing recreational cannabis. It is a controversial topic. It's a controversial and a difficult vote. I get it. I believe if we don't have it done by the budget, we're not going to get it done and I think it would be a failure if we don't get it done this year and I think that would be a mistake. So we're sending up a new bill that reflects the conversations we've had. But I'm hopeful that we can come to an agreement and we can get it done, but I believe because I've seen this movie before, if we don't get it done by April 1 we won't get it done and again that's 45 days. 45 the sounds like a long period of time. In government 45 days is a blink of an eye.

On my emergency powers, first emergency powers have nothing to do with nursing homes. I have taken hundreds of actions. The Legislature can reverse any action that I take, not even by a bill, just passing 50 percent of the Assembly and the Senate. They have never reversed a single action. The virus cannot be managed by state boundaries. We've learned that. It can't be managed by county boundaries. We've learned that. I've always consulted with the Legislature. I consult with other politicians. I have no problem consulting with the Legislature. Anyone wants to stand up and raise their hand and say here's my position, great. But these are public health decisions. They're not local political decisions and they have to be made on a public health basis. This virus is serious and I understand these decisions are difficult politically. I get that. It's difficult to close schools. It's difficult to close restaurants. It's difficult to impose curfews. But otherwise people die and these decisions should not be politicized. If you made these decisions by a poll, none of them would happen and more people would die.

I want to clarify facts on the nursing homes, which has been an ongoing discussion. New York as everybody knows was ground zero for COVID and nursing homes were and still are ground zero for COVID and losing a loved one is very, very painful. Losing a loved one in a nursing home during this situation was extraordinarily painful. There was no visitation. You couldn't be with the person. You couldn't talk to the person. It was hard to get them on the phone. People in nursing homes are not as conversant and facile on Zooms and on FaceTime. I mean, it doesn't work that way — so I understand fully how difficult it has been and I want to make sure people have all the facts, the facts, the information.

This past year, there was a toxic political environment and everything gets politicized and there's political spin and then there are facts — two very different things and I just want to be sure people have facts. Last August, Department of Justice sent a letter to Democratic governors, four of them: New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania asking for information on public nursing homes. New York State Legislature also sent a letter asking for information on nursing homes. We paused the State Legislators' request while we were finishing the DOJ request. We told both houses, the Assembly and the Senate, that we had DOJ request for information and we were prioritizing that. We did give the DOJ request precedence and we told both houses that. The August request, we replied to fully. Separately, DOH got a DOJ letter signed by Jeffrey Clark, the attorney, in October — which we learned about from the New York Post. We didn't even get the letter. The Post called and told us about the letter and that requested information on private nursing homes and we have been voluntarily producing information on that on a rolling basis as recently as January 8 as offered by DOJ —' the rolling basis production.

Second, we paused the State Legislature's request. We paused the State Legislature's request. We voluntarily complied with the DOJ request for information. Two very different things, The New York State DOH has always fully and publicly reported all COVID deaths in nursing homes and hospitals. They have always been fully reported. Nursing homes had the most vulnerable population. We know that. Nationwide, 36 percent of the population of deaths are in nursing homes. Do you know what percent of the population are people in nursing homes? 1 percent. 1 percent had 36 percent of the deaths. New York is 34 in nursing home deaths as a percentage of total deaths. 34 out of 50 states. New York one out of only seven states that counts what's called "presumed fatalities" in nursing homes, where the nursing home presumed the cause of death was COVID. To give you an example, New York State, 13,000 nursing home-related deaths; that's 30 percent of total deaths.

Pennsylvania had 11,900; that's 52 percent of their total deaths were in nursing homes. Florida, 34 percent of total deaths in nursing homes. Massachusetts, 54 percent of total deaths. If you look at the entire country, and you look at the percentage of deaths, New York is number 234. If you look at the entire country, and you look at the percentage of deaths in nursing homes New York is 34. You have some states that have up 73 percent of the people who died in nursing homes.

COVID preys on senior citizens, older people, weaker people. We've always known that. That's a fact. Now, there is much distortion around what's called Department of Health Memo on March 25 and I want to make sure that we get the facts on this.

On March 13, federal Center for Medicaid and Medical Services — what they call CMS— and on March 23, the Center for Disease Control, the CDC, put out guidance sending people from hospitals back to nursing homes. New York State DOH followed that guidance. Twelve other states, at least, followed guidance. The CDC, CMS, DOH reasoning at the time — residents who were leaving the hospitals were not likely to be contagious because at that time, the viral load is so low that you're not contagious and they were going to be what's called "cohorted;" Cared for on areas that are separately with other people under the right precautions. Patients should now remain in hospitals longer than necessary because they can get a secondary infection. That's true all across the board, especially with seniors. They try to get the procedures done, they try to get people out of the hospital before they can come up with a secondary infection that's problematic.

The patients were not sent to nursing homes. The nursing home had to agree that they could agree to care for this person. That is a matter of law. They cannot accept a patient who they are not prepared to care for properly: staff, PPE, ability to cohort. That is in the law. If they don't do that, they violate the law. At the time, remember what was going on in March. The experts were projecting that our problem and our critical need was hospital capacity. We sat here every day with the hospitalization chart. We were looking at up to 140,000 people hospitalized. We have less than 50,000 hospital beds. That is the calamity. Remember, March 25, that's right when the New York City Health & Hospitals collapsed. It was national news.

I remember it like yesterday and we're watching the TV every night and we're watching Italy collapse and people die because they can't get into a hospital. We're watching China with a hospital capacity issue where they were building thousands of new hospital beds. That is what was going on. That's why the CDC and that's why the CMS made those decisions and at the time, CDC, CMS, there were White House Task Forces, there were daily briefings, Everyone was focused on this issue. This was not a little issue. All the best minds were looking at it.

Fact: of 613 nursing homes, we have 613 nursing homes in the state; 365 received a person from a hospital. Of the 365, that received a person from this March 25 guidance which was superseded in May — 98 percent of those 365 already had COVID in their facility.

COVID did not get into the nursing homes by people coming from hospitals. COVID got into the nursing homes by staff walking in to the nursing homes when we didn't even know we had COVID. Staff walking into a nursing home even if they were asymptomatic because the national experts all told us you could only spread COVID if you had symptoms and they were wrong.

COVID may have been brought into a nursing home because visitors brought it in and didn't know they were contagious because the guidance was, you can only be contagious if you have symptoms: if you're sneezing, if you're coughing. That turned out to be wrong. That's how COVID got into the nursing homes. 98 percent of the people who took a person back from a hospital, who was probably no longer contagious, already had it in the facility and they signed and agreed that they could handle it because they already had people who were COVID positive in the nursing home.

If you look at the rate of death before the March 25th order and after the order was rescinded, the rate of death is the same. By the way, if you look at the rate of death in the nursing homes in the spring overall and in the second surge­-the winter/fall surge- the rate of death rate of death is the same. These decisions are not political decisions. They're all made based on the best information the medical professionals have at the time. And in New York we talked to the best experts on the globe and I've said to the people of this state many times, nobody has been here before. Nobody knows for sure. COVID is new. They're all giving you their best advice at the time. And these are really quality people: Dr. Osterholm, Dr. Fauci, all the main institutes that were giving advice to the nation, we had people come from the World Health Organization who dealt with China who came to Albany, literally, to advise us. We are blessed to have Dr. Howard Zucker as our health commissioner. He's trained at Harvard, UPenn, Johns Hopkins; served at HHS, WHO, NIH. He teaches at Columbia and Yale University. If we had to pay him what he was worth, we couldn't afford him. And he gave his best advice on the information that he had at the time. I would trust Dr. Zucker with my mother's care. That's why I trust him with your mother's care. I wouldn't have anyone as the health commissioner who I wouldn't trust with my mother and that's why I trust him with your mother.

To be clear, all the deaths in the nursing homes and in the hospitals were always fully publicly and accurately reported. The numbers were the numbers, always. People did request information beyond the place of death - not just where, not just how many in a nursing home. Not just how many in a hospital. They did request different categorizations beyond those counts. "How many people died who were in a nursing home but then went to a hospital? How many people died who were in a hospital but then went back to a nursing home? How do you count presumed COVID deaths?" Everyone was busy. Everybody was here every day. We're in the midst of managing a pandemic. There was a delay in providing the press and the public all that additional information. There was a delay.

What did we learn from this entire situation? What are we still learning? There are hospitals that perform well and there are hospitals that perform less well. We still see hospitals performing less well. When you look at those vaccination numbers, hospitals with the same demographics of workforce in the same region with different vaccination rates of their staff, that's indicia of performance of those hospitals. There are nursing homes that performed well and there are nursing homes that did not perform as well. We have to learn from it, and we have to correct it before we have another surge and another pandemic and, by the way, we're going to have another pandemic. As I sit here, I would plan on it. And yes, this was never seen before and yes, hospitals had to deal with something they never had seen before and yes, nursing homes had to deal with something they had never seen before but they will see it again. And now we have to learn from it before it happens again.

Our focus, I believe, is going to be on the for-profit nursing homes, low-performing hospitals but also for-profit nursing homes. I have long believed that there's a tension in a for-profit nursing home because those institutions are trying to make money. If you're trying to make profit, it's too easy to sacrifice patient care. Everything becomes one or the other. Do you want to hire more staff, or do you want to make more profit? Do you want to buy more PPE, and stockpile more PPE, or do you want to make more profit? Do you want to buy new equipment, new beds, new sheets, new furniture, invest in the facility, or do you want to make more profit? That tension is a problem and that has to be resolved legislatively because I don't want to leave it to these for-profit owners to decide what's right and what's wrong. Let's learn these lessons. We have to implement hospital reform and nursing home reform and we have to do it in this budget cycle. COVID isn't done with us, implement the lessons now and we're going to propose them in the 30-day amendments.

If you're a for-profit nursing home I believe it should be mandated, how much you put back into the facility and how much profit you can make. I believe that. Hospitals that have these issues, they have to improve, and we have to take it into consideration when there's a surge. If there is an influx into hospitals, not all hospitals can handle it equally. And that's why you saw some hospitals fail.

If you could do it all over again, just rewind the tape: I understand the public had many questions and concerns and the press had many questions about nursing homes primarily, and I understand that they were not answered quickly enough, and they should have been prioritized and those requests prioritized sooner. I believe that. I understand the reasons. I understand that there was a lot going on. Everybody was working 24 hours a day. Everybody was overwhelmed. We were in the midst of dealing with the pandemic and trying to save lives. They were answering DOJ and nursing homes and the hospitals were also in the middle of Hell, and in the middle of a pandemic. And they were scrambling, and they were managing the crisis. I understand all of that. But the void we created by not providing information was filled with skepticism, and cynicism, and conspiracy theories which furthered the confusion.

Nature abhors a vacuum - so does the political system. If you don't provide information, something will provide the information. Most of all, the void we created allowed for disinformation and that created more anxieties for the families of loved ones. I've had hundreds of conversations. People couldn't get into the facility to see their loved one; they couldn't get them on the phone; they couldn't get staff on the phone to get answers. They were powerless. They were helpless. They were literally and physically removed and isolated. Loved ones died alone. Loved ones died alone. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters died alone. It was horrific. It was horrific and then the void in information that we created started misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories and now people have to hear that, and they don't know what the truth is. The truth is everybody did everything they could. The truth is you had the best medical professionals and advice on the globe. The truth is, it was in the middle of a terrible pandemic. The truth is COVID attacks senior citizens. The truth is, with all we know, people still die in nursing homes today. People still die every day. We're testing the staff twice a week, there's no visitation, and people still die. You would have to hermetically seal a nursing home - they actually tried this in France - where the staff lived in the nursing home. Anybody can bring it in. A delivery man brings it in; the heating repairman brings it in; the food service brings it in. A staff person goes home, meets with their family, someone in their family has it, the staff member comes back, they bring it in. Even when you're testing twice a week, you'll get people who have it, and you'll miss them twice a week. That is the reality. But, not providing the information creates a void.

The void allowed misinformation and conspiracy, and now people are left with the thought of, "Did my loved one have to die?" And that is a brutal, brutal question to pose to a person. And I want everyone to know, everything was done. Everything was done by the best minds in the best interest and the last thing we wanted to do- the last thing that I wanted to do was to aggravate a terrible situation. There is no good answer when you lose a loved one. I lost my father years ago. I still go through it over and over and over again. What should I have done? What could I have done? What should I have said to the doctor? I probably always will. The last thing I wanted to do was to aggravate that for anyone.

2021-02-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, guys. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Howard Zucker, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Kelly Cummings, Gareth Rhodes. Let me give you the latest and the greatest. Today is day 354, positivity 3.58, good news, post-holiday surge reduction. Maybe just the post-holiday reduction continues. Seven-day average positivity has declined for 40 straight days.  It's 3.6 today.  It's the lowest seven-day average since November 28.  109 New Yorkers still passed away with all that progress and they're in our thoughts and prayers.  Hospitalization is down 46 - 6,574. The ICU is up 2. The intubation is down 24. 

By region, number 1, not winner, a born loser, Long Island, 4.5.  Mid-Hudson, 4.4.  New York City, 4.3.  North Country, 3.7.  Western New York, 3.1, remember when they were on the top of the highest infection rate.  Finger Lakes, 2.2.  Capital, 2.0.  Mohawk Valley, 1.9.  Central New York, 1.6.  Southern Tier, 0.8.  Statewide, 3.6

In New York City, Bronx, 5.7, highest but down so that's good news. Queens, 4.5.  Staten Island, 4.4.  Brooklyn, 4.3.  Manhattan, 2.5.  Manhattan is still the lowest. 

Variants of interest - 82 UK variant cases, up 12 since Saturday. Eleven of the new cases are in New York City. One is in Broome.

Vaccinations, more than 3.3 million total doses, 2.2 million first doses, 1 million second doses, 94 percent of the doses of weeks 1 to 9 - that's what we're now administering - are in arms. Good news in President Biden announced another increase in doses for week 11. 

I spoke with the county executives yesterday and local health commissioners and mayors. I went through with them the number of distribution programs that are now running which I did in my presentation on Monday. The federal government runs a number of direct allocation programs. The federal government gives the pharmacies. The federal government gives to federally qualified health centers, community health centers. The federal government runs FEMA sites in concert with the State. The federal government gives to the State. The State gives to mass vaccination sites. The State gives to pharmacies. The State gives to FQHCs. The State gives to the local. Locals give to pharmacies. Locals give to FQHCs. Locals run mass vaccination sites. So you have a multiplicity of distribution outlets run by federal, State and local governments. Well, there is no central point of clearing. Yes, because there is no central point of clearing. NGA letter to the federal government said let's please coordinate what pharmacies you're doing, what FQHCs we're doing, so at least we know what pharmacies are getting what and what FQHCs are getting what. But there is a multiplicity of distribution. That is now creating confusion. Now this was a system set up originally by the Trump Administration and it does create confusion. 

At one point the situation will reverse, I believe, because at one point we'll have a significant amount of doses and when you have a significant amount of doses and they are available and you don't have an availability problem you don't have a supply problem, then the multiplicity of distribution points will actually be a positive. That's when you have enough supply and enough supply, they're talking about the end of June now. Why so long? Because when the Biden administration came in the cupboards were bare. They had to secure the doses from the pharmaceutical companies, which the Trump administration had not done.

March, April, May - it will continually get better as the supply increases. Right now it is, no doubt, confusing. I spoke to the county executives and mayors, it is essential that they are doing a fair distribution. Fair by geography and race. In other words, if you take a county, you can see where the distribution sites are and you can see who is getting the vaccine. It is very important that the distribution be fair. This is a precious resource. Everybody wants it. There's not enough. The best you can do is make sure you are fair. You're fair among 1a, 1b, 1c, 65-plus. You're fair geographically - that it's not just the urban areas that get a vaccine or urban areas don't get more vaccine versus rural areas. That when you look at the demographics that the vaccination rate is fair.

Now, we know we have a vaccine hesitancy problem, especially with the Black community. We know in the hospitals when you offered it to everyone, repeatedly, easily, just come to floor 3 and get a vaccine - you had a lower vaccination rate among Blacks. I know that, so let's make special efforts in that regard and that has to be done. The fairness of the distribution, I've asked all the locals to take a look at. Erie County, you have - and I'm going to announce in a minute - additional mass vaccination sites. You then have a county run site, you then have pharmacies. Erie County, when you look at the totality of distribution, when you look at the vaccination rates, look at the fairness and correct for the fairness.

If Cheektowaga is low, open up a second Cheektowaga. If the East side of Buffalo is low, open up a site in the East side of Buffalo. New York City, we're going to have a big FEMA site in Queens, FEMA State site, 21,000 per week just for Queens residents. We announced we're going to have a Brooklyn site, 21,000 per week just for Brooklyn residents. Alright, how about the Bronx? When you put that much vaccine into Queens and Brooklyn for those residents, the Bronx now has the highest positivity, how do you make sure the Bronx is equal? 

If you look at the racial data you are going to see a lower vaccination rate with Blacks. Part of it is access but we're working very hard on access. Part of it is hesitancy, I know. Then we have to work harder in those areas to get those numbers up. 

To date, we have set up 91 pop-up vaccination sites to help with the vaccine hesitancy with the Black community - churches, community centers, public housing complexes. Those sites have done about 43,000 first doses to date. We're opening 13 more pop-up sites this week, Onondaga, Rochester, Ithaca, Schenectady, Buffalo, Haverstraw, Port Chester, East Hampton, and one pop-up in each of the five boroughs. We're also announcing today, the way we announced Brooklyn and Queens as joint state-FEMA, federal sites, mass vaccination sites in what they called socially impacted, socially vulnerable communities. That's Queens and Brooklyn, 21,000 at each site for that county. We're opening another four in socially vulnerable communities in Buffalo at the Delavan Grider Community Center; in Rochester, Former Kodak Hawkeye Parking Lot at Avenue E; in Albany, Washington Avenue Armory; in Yonkers, the New York National Guard Recruiting Center. Each site will do a thousand per day, that's very large. That's 7,000 a week. They start on March 3. They get an allocation from the federal government, they're jointly run between the state and the federal government. We're going to use National Guard personnel to help us do that. But I want to thank President Biden for that and the coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients, this is a very big and aggressive effort to address vaccine hesitancy in the Black community, and I thank them very much for that.

Also, on vaccines, we have concluded vaccination of all nursing home residents and nursing home staff who would take the vaccine. There are some nursing home residents who refused. There are some staff who refused. But, they have all been offered first and second doses, and the only people left in that category are residents who refused or staff who refused. We'll continue to watch it, and if you have new residents who come in, people who changed their mind, new staff, we'll be able to provide them doses. But, of the people who are all there now, they have been all addressed. Okay? 

Amusement parks, let's look forward a little bit to some warm weather and some amusement. Beginning March 26th, indoor family entertainment centers can reopen. Department of health will list the guidelines, 25 percent capacity, face coverings, social distance, temperature checks, frequent cleaning and disinfection. Riders attractions that cannot be socially distanced or clean must remain closed. Outdoor amusement parks can reopen starting April 9. Outdoor amusement parks, April 9. 33 percent capacity, face coverings, social distancing, temperature checks, cleaning, disinfection. Tickets sold in advance, stagger entry, exit.

Summer camps, as of now overnight summer camps in New York can plan on reopening. That doesn't happen until June, and we hope the current trajectory stays until June, one eye on these variants of interest. But they can plan on reopening. They're going to have to have a testing protocol, but by the way, no parent is going to send their child to a summer camp unless there's a testing protocol anyway. 

Storm update, some of the deliveries from the federal government of the allocations may be delayed this week because of storms across the country. They made that clear on the White House call this week, and we are experiencing that. Not storms in New York, but storms at the transportation hubs. We also have potential of storms in New York starting tomorrow, lasting into Friday. This is a set of storms moving across the country and the State is acting appropriately but these are serious storms and people should take them seriously. 

Last point, I just want to comment on a story that was in the Post today, and look, I have been open and candid when I have disagreements with someone politically. I had ongoing disagreements with elected officials in the past, Mr. Trump among others, and I've been very honest about them. I've had a, my office more than me, has had a long and hostile relationship with Assemblyman Ron Kim. It goes back to the issue on nail salons. We passed a bill that we worked very hard to protect nail salon workers who were often victimized by businesses, exposed to dangerous chemicals, wage theft was prevalent. We passed a bill, Assemblyman Kim supported the bill, he then flipped 180 degrees because the nail salon business owners found the bill onerous. There was a big New York Times story on it at the time that said basically, and I don't want to paraphrase a Times story, but it basically said he supported the bill, he signed the bill, he was at the bill signing, then the business people in his community got upset, and then he changed his position, actually used his lobbying firm to lobby on behalf of the business owners, continued to use that lobbying firm and that political operative as his own, and then raised money from those business owners and continues to and I believe it was unethical if not illegal and I believe it's a continuing racket because he is still doing it. Citizens Union says in the New York Times piece that corrections are always needed when enacting policy but it doesn't look right when this new bill is coming on the heels of strong financial support from the nail salon owners.

The euphemism is pay to play and I believe that as I said Mr. Kim acted unethically if not illegally on that matter and my office is in that story so it's been a long running situation but as far as his point that we didn't provide the Department of Justice with information, that is 100 percent wrong, he knows it. We paused the State Legislature's request with information, which I've now said 15 times, so we could comply with the Department of Justice information and the Assembly and Senate knew we paused the State legislative and there is no obstruction of justice in not providing the State Legislature with information and they knew about it so that is 100 percent wrong.

As far as the suggestion that the immunity bill for hospitals and nursing homes was passed because of campaign contributions which is the allegation against Mr. Kim, that bill was passed in the budget by the Assembly and the Senate, so if he want to accuse his Assembly colleagues and Senate colleagues of the same conduct he's been accused of, pay to play, that's what his doing.     

Also with Mr. Kim, he has a meeting last week with the legislators and members of my staff. On the tape at the meeting, he says positive things. There's then a story that moves in the New York Post where he says the exact opposite and is very negative in quotes. I called him up and I said, "I don't understand, you were positive — you said positive things in the meeting — and then the Post has you saying negative things." He told me, "the Post has misquoted me and I called the Post reporter and she refused to correct it." I said, "really?" "Yes, she refuses to correct it." I said, "Well, my suggestion is, you then do a statement where you put out your correct statement because, you know, if the reporter doesn't want to include it — fine. Then do a statement that corrects it." "Yes, I will do that," he says and then he never did it.

So, so much for Mr. Kim's credibility, and I said to him on the phone, "You know, there is still integrity and honor and decency in politics," but that's that for Mr. Kim.

On the Post, look, the essence of this — the Post's continuing point on nursing homes, which is the Republican's point on nursing homes and it has been for the past year. Donald Trump started it. That is true. Fox News. New York Post. Tom Reed, Stefanik, Ortt, this is the Republican's point. They want to say the March 25 nursing home order was wrong. They want to say that the March 25 order brought COVID — is how COVID went into the nursing homes. Now, the coincidentally leave out that the March 25 order was done after guidance by Trump's CDC and CMS. How do you get to the fact that we were wrong following CDC and CMS without saying, "It was Trump and CDC and CMS?" I understand this is politics and you don't need facts, but this is a kind of blatant deception. We followed the CDC and CMS, so if you want to say it was wrong, then you have to say Trump was wrong and the CDC and CMS. My health experts don't believe it was wrong and we've gone through all the facts several times. If we did believe it was wrong, then we would say we believed it was wrong and we made a mistake following CDC and CMS guidance and then I would sue the federal government for malpractice on their CDC and CMS guidance. The same way I sued the federal government on SALT and sued the federal government on their immigration policy and sued the federal government for their global Trusted Traveler Program. I would sue the CDC and CMS for malpractice and we followed their advice, which was malpractice. That's what I would do if I believed the March 25 memo was wrong, but our health experts don't agree with that and the facts don't support it, so I understand the political argument, but even the political argument has to have some credible logical basis and leaving out the fact that we followed federal guidance is just wholly distorted. I understand it dissolves their theory and I understand they don't want to give up a political theory, but at one point, they think fact has to have some place in the dialogue.

NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Happy Friday. From my far left Miss Beth Garvey, Special Counsel and Senior Adviser, both titles; Robert Mujica, Director of the Budget; Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my right Dr. Howard Zucker, to his right Dr. James Malatras, Chancellor of the State University of New York, and to his right Gareth Rhodes who has been we're working with us through COVID.

Today is day 356. Coming up, day 365, just transpose those numbers, almost one year. 

We were anticipating heavy snow in New York. The snow has had an effect on the distribution of vaccines across the country. It's a nationwide snow storm, certain parts of the country more than others, but it has slowed down vaccine deliveries made by the federal government. So if cities, pharmacies, federally qualified health centers see a delay in receiving their vaccines, that is because of the snowstorm and the White House spoke about that. 

The numbers on COVID, good news, good news, good news. Overall statewide positivity 3.4. Statewide deaths, 116. Still, still we like to think that we're past this and we're getting past this. And we are getting past it but it is still dangerous, my friends. And remember that. 116 people, again, passed away. Hospitalizations down 279, ICU down 59, intubations down 29. 

This is a beautiful chart. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 7.9 down to 3.6. We had that holiday surge. The holiday hit, people socialized, holiday season, you get a little careless, lack of discipline. But we're down to 3.6 percent. Hospitalizations also down not only just day to day, but the overall trend is exactly in the right direction. 

You look across the state for hospitalizations, you see they are down all across the state, 1, 2, 3, 4, that's the range but they're down all across the state. Positivity, wide variety on positivity as you see.  2.09, Capital Region; 0.78 Southern Tier which has done a great job by the way.  4.4, 4.3, but all numbers down. 

In New York City, the Bronx still highest, double Manhattan, higher than Queens, higher than Brooklyn, higher than Staten Island. Staten Island has ticked up but it's the Bronx and we have to focus on the Bronx. The Bronx is not as bad as it was. They said it's now 6.2. It was 7.8 but the Bronx is high and they're down from 7.8 but that's not good enough. Relatively they are still high. We have to focus on the Bronx. The Bronx should be the place that gets the most vaccines, the most testing, because that's where you have the highest positivity and by the way that's where you have the most vulnerable communities, Black, Hispanic, and poor communities, so focus on the Bronx. 

Here's the slide that I love that nobody loves - opening the economy is the red valve, the economic valve. You watch the gauges so you calibrate reopening. Watch the infection rate, watch the hospitalization rate, watch the positivity rate, and depending on those numbers you open the economic valve or you slow the economic valve. The numbers are all going down so now is the time to start doing more reopening. If the numbers change, if those dials change, then you close the valve which we have done a number of times. This has been a constant calibration by data to what the virus is doing. Virus moves left, we move left. Virus moves right, we move right. 

Reopening New York City, restaurants are now 25 percent. They are 50 percent statewide. They're 50 percent in Connecticut. They're 50 percent on Long Island. New York City was closed. New York City is now 25 percent. In one week we will go to 35 percent in New York City restaurants which is consistent with New Jersey. What's happening now is people in New York City, Staten Island, Manhattan, are going to New Jersey to those restaurants. So it's not really accomplishing a purpose. So New York City restaurants will go to 35 percent next Friday. That will be consistent with New Jersey. Connecticut is still 50, Long Island is still 50, we understand that, but we're responding to the data. Obviously we're more sensitive to New York City because of the density, the concentration, the history. But we're headed in the right direction. We're making progress. The numbers continue to be good, we'll continue to make progress.

President Biden I think is exactly right. I've said this from day one. I respect local governments and their role in education, but schools must open. Schools must open. Vaccinate the teachers. Vaccinate the teachers. The teachers want to be safe. Yes, I understand that. I've spoken to dozens of teachers. Vaccinate the teachers. They are in the included class. Local governments can vaccinate the teachers, but the students deserve in-class teaching. This remote learning is a poor substitute for in-class teaching and this remote learning, when they do the studies, it will show discrimination in education caused by remote learning. It will show, this is my bet, it will show poorer families, Black families, Hispanic families, thosechildren did not do as well in remote learning. They didn't have the equipment. They didn't have the access. They didn't have people to help them. Every day you're not in class is a furtherance of discrimination in education and the great irony is education was the great equalizer. Education said I don't care how much money you have, where you grow up, you can become the president of the United States. Now there's a caveat - if you have a computer, if you have Internet access, if you have someone to help you were on the computer, so in-class teaching as soon as possible. Students deserve it. The parents need it. You're not going to reopen the economy without parents having children in school so parents can go on with their life and work. Also, keeping people at home, this has caused a whole set of ancillary issues that we're not even familiar with - domestic violence is up, substance abuse is up, mental health issues are up. So open the schools. 

The local governments should be aggressive on in-class teaching, unless there is a community or school that has an infection spike. That is different. That is different. But if the school doesn't have an infection spike and if the school is safer than the surrounding community, then why isn't the school open five days a week? Well, the teachers have concerns. Legitimate. Get the teachers a vaccination. Vaccinate teachers, reopen schools. 

Nursing home residents have now all been offered the vaccine. 100 percent of nursing home residents have all been offered the vaccine. 100 percent of nursing home staff has all been offered the vaccine. 73 percent of nursing home residents have taken the vaccine, which is the probably the highest umber we have of any subgroup, if you will. 73 percent are now vaccinated. The DOH is going to put out guidance, but they recommend reopening visitation for nursing homes. This is going to be a very big deal for nursing home residents and families. The guidance is going to be in accordance with CMS and CDC on visitation of residents in nursing homes. They have very specific guidelines. DOH is going to recommend that visitors take a rapid test before entry, and DOH will provide those rapid tests to nursing homes cost-free. Rapid test is very quick. It's not intrusive. And that's a DOH recommendation, and they'll provide the rapid tests to nursing homes. 

I've said from the beginning, I believe reopening is going to be accelerated by testing, and we've been moving down that path. Open up the Buffalo Bills stadium with testing, open up catering halls, weddings, with testing. If a person is tested and is negative, then you can reopen. I went to visit the president of the United States. I took a test, and I was negative. And I could see the president of the United States. Why? Because I took a test and I was negative. Well, if you take a test and you're negative, why can't I go to a movie theater? Why can't I see a play? So I believe the testing is the key to accelerating the reopening of the economy. But, you have to have the volume of testing. And we're opening rapid testing sites as we speak. We're opening 11 in the New York City area right now. Cost is less than $30. Not to diminish $30, but it's less than $30. It takes 30 minutes or less, 30 and 30. It's an FDA-approved antigen test. It gives you peace of mind, you know, everybody wants to know, do I have COIVD? Am I infectious for other people? It gives you peace of mind, and we can use it as a way to reopen the economy. These are the sites in New York City that become effective today, today. So, we're going to be reopening more of these, but I think this is going to be a big advantage for the State of New York. And again, those sites open today. And it will accelerate our economic reopening prior to reaching herd immunity, where everybody has a vaccine, which is June, July. February, March, April, May, June, July. Let's accelerate that period of time. And I think testing is going to be an opportunity to do that. 

Testing is also an opportunity to reopen colleges, and we're going to be doing that. They have to test at least 25 percent of the total on campus students, faculty, staff, on a weekly basis, and are required to go on pause unless the rate exceeds 5 percent. If it's under 5 percent, they can operate. If it's over 5 percent, on a 14-day average, then they have to go on pause. So 5 percent is the line. Colleges that are not testing 25 percent of the population weekly must go on pause if they have 100 individuals test positive, so if a college doesn't want to live with the 100 individual standard, test 25 percent of your people and if you're under 5, God bless America.

On vaccines, 3.5 million, 2.3 million first, 1.1 second doses. Twelve percent of New Yorkers have received a first dose. That's really good news. Frankly, I was surprised by that. I know it's hard, I know it's cumbersome. The federal government has a number of programs. Federal government gets the pharmacies, federal government gives to FQHCs, federal government gives to the states. States give to locals. Yes, it's very hard to navigate. This is true all across the nation. It's how the federal government set it up. Twelve percent have received the first dose. 

We're now going to do two sites that I'm excited about. Mass vaccination sites in New York City in Queens and Brooklyn that are targeted to communities where what's called, quote-unquote socially vulnerable communities, where we know the positivity is high and the vaccination rate is low. These are large sites, 3,000 vaccinations per day. They're going to open up on Wednesday and this is important and it's going to make a major difference. The scheduling for the Queens and Brooklyn sites is opening tomorrow which is Saturday at 8 a.m. Scheduling is open for one week just for the residents of the communities who are targeted by these facilities. After one week, the schedule will open to all residents of that borough. For one week we are targeting certain communities with low vaccination rates, high positivity rates. 

We have that targeting done by zip code for both the Queens and the Brooklyn site. These are the zip codes where you can see what the vaccination rate is and why we're targeting these zip codes. One week, they have a priority. I'm going to be reaching out to the churches and the community groups and the elected officials. Please get out the word. You have one week to make an appointment. You get priority on the appointment, but you have to make an appointment. You have to make an appointment. 

We're also opening four new FEMA sites March 3. Same basic concept. Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Yonkers. Sites again located in socially vulnerable communities with low vaccination rates. Scheduling will open on Wednesday at 8 a.m. Again, there's one week for residents of the zip codes with the low vaccination rates to make their appointments. Thereafter, the scheduling opens to all county residents, which will be March 3. Please be aware of that. Please take advantage of that. Please get the word out. These are the zip codes in those areas that are the targeted areas that need additional assistance. I'm not going to go through all the zip codes, but you can look it up. 

Local governments have received significant additional allocations since Joe Biden came into office. Remember the first problem, Trump administration opens eligibility, wide aperture, says don't worry, I'm going to increase the supply to meet that wide aperture. What happens? He doesn't increase the supply. Now you have 10 million people in New York State chasing 300,000 doses. Joe Biden becomes President, he finds out the cupboard is bare. They didn't order enough vaccine. They scramble quite effectively and they start increasing the allocation right away. Sixteen percent one week, an additional 5 the next week and an additional 5 the next week. 

Over 4 weeks, local governments have gotten 28 percent more. We then added on top of that an 11 percent increase because we re-allocated from the hospital worker allocation because the hospitals had 8 weeks to do their staff. We reduced the hospital allocation for their workers and we gave it to the local governments so they could focus on co-morbidities. The local governments and the county executives I spoke to the other day, they have to review all the distribution sites in their area. They're not in control of all their distribution sites, I understand that. I'm not in control of all the distribution sites. I understand that. Some are done directly by the feds, some are done by the State, some are by the locals, some are done by pharmacies; some are by FQHCs. 

The local government knows where all these distribution sites are. Look at your county, look at your city and make sure the coverage and the actual vaccinations are fair by geography and by race. How many is the City of Buffalo getting versus Cheektowaga versus the Northern part of the county versus the Southern part of the county. How many vaccinations have been given to the white community versus the Black community versus the Hispanic community? We're going to have to constantly adjust. I am telling you, as a fact, you're going to see lower vaccination rates in the Black community. 

There is a higher hesitancy issue and there's a higher accessibility issue in those communities. We have been addressing it directly. We go into public housing, we go into churches, we go into community centers, we have pop-up centers. These new sites that we opened with FEMA, they're targeting exactly this population. I need the local governments to do this also. We have big sites in Queens, big sites in Brooklyn. The Bronx has the high positivity rate, we have Yankee Stadium. That's not enough. How do we get more into the Bronx? Those calculations have to be done by the local officials. 

Additional good news, the FDA is allocating 4,600 doses of the therapeutic bamlanvividan. How do you pronounce that? 

Dr. Zucker: Bamlanvividan. 

Governor Cuomo: Say it again. 

Dr. Zucker: Bamlanvividan. 

Governor Cuomo: Yeah. Okay. Easy for you to say. Anyway, we have gotten 4,600 doses of this and it's shown to reduce COVID hospitalization and ER visits within 28 days. The doctor's think there's promise in this and we're going to be trying it in the State of New York. 

I want to set the record straight on nursing homes for a number of reasons, primarily for the families of nursing home deaths. We created a void by not producing enough public information fast enough. People wanted information, we did not produce public information fast enough. That creates a void. What happens in a void, especially today in this environment - in this toxic political environment? Something fills the void and conspiracy theories and politics and rumors fill the void. You can't allow inaccurate information to go unanswered. 

Twitter, bogus reports become a reality at one point. Social media, 24-hour news stations - you don't correct it, it gets repeated and it gets repeated and it gets repeated and then people think it's true. It's a very difficult environment to operate in. We created the void by not producing enough public information quickly enough. I get that, but then it was exploited with misinformation, people playing politics, Republicans playing politics, personal attacks, personal agendas. Now, this continues and people get confused and people who lost family members in nursing homes stop to say, "I wonder if this is true. I wonder if my father died because somebody made a mistake. I wonder if my father had to die." Those false statements must be countered. They must be or else people get confused. No one has a right to spread lies or misinformation that causes pain. I understand that politics is a nasty business in this environment. I understand people lie. I get it. I get it. I live it every day, but this is different. This is causing pain to families who've lost a loved one. That's what they did. And they did it because i hear from the families.  

Not only did we create a void, but we didn't fight back against the lies and the politics and the distortions aggressively enough. In retrospect, that is true. It is Whac-a-Mole. It is that Twitter 24-hours a day. It is politicians making up stuff to get their face on TV. I get it. But you have to knock it down and counter it and counter it aggressively otherwise people will believe it. And here, the people who were listening to it were people who were in pain and looking for answers. I was not aggressive enough in knocking down the falsity. We were busy. We were doing a job. We were trying to save lives. No excuses. I was not aggressive enough in knocking down the falsities. I heard them; I saw them. I dismissed it as politics. I dismissed it as personal agendas. I dismissed it partisan politics, which is at a fever pitch nowadays but I should have been more aggressive in calling it out because it wasn't hurting me - but it hurt the families who had questions about loved ones. That was a mistake and I make no excuses for that mistake.  

It is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with compliance. Compliance spelled the way Thomas Paine spelled it. Who am I to criticize his spelling, different spelling. I did not aggressively enough- we did not aggressively enough, take on the misinformation that caused people pain and, of course, pain for grieving families and that's what I regret, I'm not going to make that mistake again. If you're lying to the people of the State of New York, I'm going to call it out. If you are lying in a report, I'm going to call it out. If you're lying in a newspaper because you have your own partisan agenda, I'm going to call it out.  

I said to the people of the State of New York when I was first elected, I'm here to fight for you. That's my job. I was elected Attorney General. I said, I will represent you. I will fight for you. And I will fight as hard as I can for you. Fighting for the people of New York is fighting for the truth for New Yorkers, I'm not I'm not going to let New Yorkers be lied to. I'm not going to let you hurt New Yorkers by lying about what happened surrounding the death of a loved one. I see that is my job and I'm going to do it aggressively because you have no right to lie and you have no right to hurt people. I don't care if that's your politics. You can't lie in cause pain to people who are innocent bystanders to all of this. So, I'm going to take on the lies and the unscrupulous actors, especially when they cause pain and damage to New Yorkers. I should have done it before, and I should have done it more aggressively. There are facts. There are facts and I've gone all through this terrible situation with the facts. And there are facts that I want nursing home families to know specifically, because I think the facts will help resolve questions about how loved one died. Remember what happened here, a loved one died in a hospital or a nursing home, you didn't get a chance to see them. You didn't get a chance to talk to them. Having your loved on in a nursing home is a terrible situation to begin with. That they need a level of care that you can't provide. And then you can't visit, you can't talk, and then you know that there's COVID in nursing homes and they're vulnerable and there's nothing you can do. The powerlessness that you have, and then they died. And you don't even have closure. There was no goodbye. There's no funeral. There's no hug, there's no kiss. I mean it was a horrendous situation. It is a horrendous situation. You want to talk about the spring? 116 people died yesterday. 100 people will die today. This is a horrendous situation, but I want you to have the facts because I don't want you to have more pain from this noise.  

All the information that the state put out about all the deaths, hospital deaths and nursing home deaths, from day one, this is how many people died in hospitals this is how many people died in nursing homes. Total deaths: the same number. "Well how many people died in a nursing home but were first in the hospital" How many people died in the hospital but were first in a nursing home? How many people do you presume died after they left the hospital? How many people do you presume died after nursing home?" I'm understand many questions but, this information of total deaths was provided always.  

We get a request from the Department of Justice in August with other Democratic governors only, by the way. Nursing home deaths happen nationwide. Democratic states and Republican states. We get a request letter from the Department of Justice, same day, just Democratic governors. Okay, I guess that was coincidental. I guess that wasn't political by the Trump Justice Department. We provide to the Department of Justice with truthful information in our response. It is a lie to say any numbers were inaccurate. That is a lie. Total deaths were always reported for nursing homes and hospitals. New York State legislators requested information. Yes, they did. We said we would pause the state Legislature's request because we gave DOJ precedence - true. We paused the state request and we told them that we paused the state requests. They were told and they knew. And we gave DOJ precedence, yes, because that's how it works. Federal DOJ gets precedence. Well, some were offended that they weren't given precedence. I understand they are offended. DOJ takes precedence. I'm the former Attorney General, the former assistant District Attorney, a former cabinet secretary. The federal DOJ takes precedence over a state legislator. That's true. They find it offensive. I'm sorry, but that is true. I've spoken to the legislative leaders and we agree that we're in the midst of dealing with a real pandemic. We have a lot going on and we have to put the politics aside and move forward and have a more constructive dialogue. But, I said to them, I'm not going to allow people to lie to the people of New York without answering them, because I'm not going to allow the grief to be aggravated. I'm not going to do that. I have a very thick skin. I don't know if you can see it. I don't really care what people say about me. I get politics. I agreed to this nasty business because I believe I can do good things, but I'm not going to let you do nasty and cruel things to New Yorkers. That goes against my oath and that goes against who I am. I'm not going to let you lie to them. It's cruel to lie to a person who's looking for closure on the death of a loved one and not only was it cruel to the grieving families, it's cruel to the public health professionals who dedicated their lives to public health service. I have public health officials here who could be making millions of dollars in the private sector — millions. These are some of the best professionals you can find in this country. They are working seven days a week, 24 hours a day. They don't deserve political attacks and unfounded, unscrupulous attacks. It was untrue, it was unfair and also, you suggest to the people of the State of New York that they're not getting the best guidance? That's a lie, and you do it with no information, and you do it with no credential and you do it with partisan politics. New York follows the science and the data. New York has the best health minds in the country who are doing this and they talk and advise with the best health minds in the world. Our Health Commissioner is Dr. Howard Zucker — I've worked with a lot of people: federal government, state government, private sector. He's a nationally respected medical professional. He is a doctor and he is a lawyer, which is an extraordinary combination. You don't see it often. Harvard. UPenn, Johns Hopkins. He's been in federal HHS, the World Health Organization, theNational Institution of Health and taught at Columbia and Yale. He's gone through Ebola, Zika, Anthrax, Bird Flu, SARS and more. You couldn't find a more qualified man to do this at this time than Dr. Zucker. I would trust him with my mother's care. I can't offer a more ringing endorsement than that and it's his decisions that people now question with no credential. It's the amazing thing about politics: you can make any accusation — no evidence, no background. But we're lucky to have him and I'm sorry for the abuse that he's had to subject himself to do good things for the people of the state, but I want you to have an opportunity to hear from him because many of the questions question his judgment and they were wrong and I want New Yorkers to know to their doctor is on the state level. 

Dr. Howard Zucker. 

Dr. Zucker: Thank you, Governor, and thank you very much for those kind words. You know, I have thought about this a lot and we all have — about the March 25 memo — and all the decisions that we have made about the pandemic. So, let me give you some background and perspective here. You know, as a doctor, it's in my DNA to always ask myself whether a decision was correct. You play it over and over again in your head. You can ask your doctor. They're going to tell you the same thing. They'll say that you think about every decision and you play it back that night and the next day. But you can only review the decision with the facts that you have at the time and with the facts that we had at that moment in time, it was the correct decision from a public health point of view. So, what are the facts? Let's look at them. It's very important to do so.  

Firstly, hospitalizations and ICU. The modeling said that there was going to be a 140,000 COVID patients, including 37,000 in the ICU here in New York. The COVID hospital rates were growing at a staggering pace, doubling every three days. Every three days, when we looked at those numbers, every three days, they just kept going up and up. We were running out of ICU bed capacity. These numbers are frightening numbers, and so, one should look at this from a practical point of view — so let's put this in some perspective. New York has 50,000 beds total in all of the state in the hospitals. We have just 30,000 of those downstate where the problem was primarily concentrated. We had 84,474 New Yorkers who went through the hospital with COVID from March 25 to May 10. Now, this goes back to my experience as an ICU director. You know, as an anesthesiologist, as an ICU physician, as a cardiologist — I literally saw this picture in my head of the National Guard squeezing an Ambu bag attached to a breathing tube for a patient obviously intubated, working in shifts to keep people alive. This is what happens and the image of just all these beds filled with individuals lying there with a breathing tube and someone squeezing a bag to keep them alive. That's what happens we have 37,000 patients intubated. I'm telling you from experience, it's frightening. For anyone of the things that these models were an exaggeration, I suggest you go back and look at the Great Influenza before we had some of these medical technologies back in 1918, or better still, we could just go and look at Italy on the television every day back at that time and they, they have a sophisticated health care system. So, the question is what does one do? You protect the entire healthcare delivery system to save lives and to flatten the curve and remember what the goal was and still is: to flatten the curve so that you can accommodate the influx of ill patients into hospitals and also to decrease the number of cases as well and that's what happens when you flatten the curve. We need to protect the healthcare system by balancing the patient load. People die if you cannot get them into the hospital or staff are overstretched as a result of those numbers. It was also important, and as important and still is, to protect the nursing home residents. So how do you do that? Well, if people in the hospital and they don't need to be in the hospital, you send them home, right? Everyone knows that you would not want your relative, you would not want them to stay in the hospital they were ready to go home. I don't know how many times people said to me when I took care of patients, "can we go home," "can he go home," "can she go home," right? You want them to go home. You don't want to risk a hospital infection. You don't want to risk all the mental health effects of having someone particularly those who are elderly stay in the hospital. There are a lot of issues that happen. I remember when my own dad was in the hospital when he was elderly in the 90's and all the effects of having someone that age lying in a hospital bed with him trying to climb out of the bed and all the confusion all the issues that happen. There's an old doctor adage that says, "the worst place to be when you have recovered is the hospital." So, where is home? Well, for these residents, it's the nursing home, right? For others, it's going home, it's going back to your family, your relatives, loved ones, your friends and many people, just home alone. Those are the facts of the situation. Go home when you're better. So how do you do that, right? This is the big question. How do you do that? Well, for the nursing homes, there are criteria and let me quickly just a provide you with a few sentences because these are the criteria from the federal government, right? This is CMS guidance that's a March 13 guidance and I'm going to quote from it.  

"Nursing homes should admit any individuals that they would normally admit to their facility, including individuals from hospitals where a case of COVID-19 is present. A nursing home can accept a resident diagnosed with COVID from a hospital." 

End quote. As long as the facility follows the transmission [inaudible]. I will add that it's very important. The CDC guidance says on March 23, and I quote: "the covid-19 patients from hospitals should go to the facility with the ability to adhere to infection prevention and control recommendations for the care of COVID-19 patients. Preferably, patients would be placed at a facility that has already cared for COVID-19 patients, end quote. Now New York State has mandated cohorting, infection controls, PPE and many other things to care for the nursing home residents. And as always, if they could not accept a patient, they should not commit the patient. It is against the law to take someone that they cannot care for. We simply said, you cannot deny admission based on COVID status. You never said you must accept. You said you can't deny it. 

So now, a little bit in retrospect. So as we reflect back, what happened? While I have repeatedly presented the facts of how COVID got into these nursing homes. The answer is: it came in through the staff. We found 37,000 staff that have been infected. It came in asymptomatically, it came in inadvertently by dedicated staff. No one is criticizing the staff for this. We were back at a time when we didn't even know about asymptomatic spread. We didn't even know that you must wear a mask. The facts we had then were so few compared to what we know now and there's more facts that we will learn as time goes by. So it came in long before we even knew. That's what brought it in. 98% of the nursing homes that accepted a hospital admission already had COVID in that facility. It is unfortunate, it's tragic, but it's true, it's the facts. 132 facilities that never took a COVID admission from the hospital still had COVID fatalities. March 25th was not the driver of COVID infections. It was not the driver of COVID fatalities. The facts are the facts. 

Now let's look at the timeline, and this is very important to hear. Since May, no resident has been admitted into the facility without a negative test. We have still have restricted visitation. And the staff, the staff are the only ones coming in and they're tested twice a week. And yet, we are still seeing nursing home outbreaks and fatalities. The same rate of nursing home fatalities as we saw before March 25th, after March 25th and in the fall and winter. And if you just take New York aside for a second, put it aside and you look at the rest of the country, the states that did not do this or have any memo, they still have thousands of nursing home deaths. The fatality rate then and now is consistent with community spread. We have said this all along. What happens in the community happens in the nursing homes. 

So what if, what if we hadn't done March 25th? Hospital beds that ended up saving lives would not have been available because they would have been occupied by someone who could have been discharged and I can see the scenario people saying, well there was someone you could have left and gone back to their home in nursing home or back to home, and you left them in a hospital bed and that bed could have helped another individual who needed that bed. Because remember, the modeling—140,000 hospitalizations, 37,000 in the ICU. Those are the models. You make the decisions based on the information that you have at the time. We made the right public health decision at the time, and faced with the same facts we would make the same decisions again. And just as a personal note, I feel for all the families who've lost someone. I often think about the sorrow that they've experienced because of the loss. I do hope that they find strength from the memories of their loved ones. I believe in my heart and my head that's the only thing that helps get us through. It got me through my father died and I hope it gets all of you through during these difficult times as we move forward, and fight this pandemic to the end. Thank you, Governor. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, doctor. I'm glad New Yorkers had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Zucker. Of course his credentials are impeccable. But when you hear the facts from him, you hear the reasoning from him, you understand why these decisions were made and you understand the decisions were right. The hospitals were being overwhelmed, people needed acute care in those hospitals. They needed the ventilators. Lord knows they needed the nurses, they needed the intensive care. And the people who were coming from the nursing homes were only going to nursing homes who said, by law, they could handle them. And 98 percent of those nursing homes had COVID already—what's most informative, I think. 

The rate of death in nursing homes before the March 25 memo, which was then superseded on May 2. The duration of the memo, the rate of deaths in nursing homes was the same before, as it is after. And if anyone had the perfect answer to nursing home deaths, if anyone tells you they do, they're lying. Because people are going to die in nursing homes today. So if you have the perfect answer, then why will people die in nursing homes in this state and every other state? In this country? It really is cruel to say to people who've lost a loved one, maybe they didn't have to die. It's cruel. 

Another lesson that I learned—the trick is to keep learning in life. People died in hospitals and nursing homes. We must learn the lesson and be better prepared for the next pandemic because, my friends, there will be another pandemic. There was SARS, there was MERS, there was Ebola. We ignored it, we didn't learn from it and then COVID happened and the house collapsed. MERS and SARS were also coronaviruses. COVID is the 3rd coronavirus. But we didn't learn after MERS and SARS. We have to learn after this one and we have to make the changes. 

You have hospitals that are weaker performing hospitals. We know that because we just put the hospital system through a stress test. And you saw which hospitals stood up and which hospitals faltered. That is a fact. Try to shore up the weaker hospitals, but in truth, when you look at the list we've been trying to shore them up for a long, long time. More, create a redundant system so you have a strong hospital system backing up the weak hospital system. So when that weak hospital collapses on the surge, you have a backup strong hospital system. 

Second, we have, to have to reform the nursing homes. They were only supposed to take patients if they could. If they could. And that was by law to the moral obligation. It's by law. If they were prepared to handle them. Nursing homes need more and quicker staff and resident testing. Dr. Zucker said today, he said many times before and therefore I said to you many times before, COVID came in to the nursing homes from the staff. They got it at home, they got in the grocery store, they went to work and they brought in COVID. COVID came in from the staff because we didn't even know there was anything such as asymptomatic. All the federal experts told us the opposite and we didn't have any testing. So there was no way to test them. We have to fix that. Staff has to have more protection. They have to have more protective material. We have to have surge staff available. Because you can't ask a person in a nursing home to work seven days a week, 14 hours a day, under this stress. The nursing home has to have surge staff availability. They have to have a PPE stockpile because if you try to buy PPE once a pandemic hits, it's too late. We sent planes to China to buy masks. Have the stockpile now. More isolation rooms so when a person has a disease that might be contagious, you don't know what it is, you have the ability to isolate. More staff training, more family notifications so families can get through to their loved ones, and more regulation on the use of funding. Taxpayers spend a fortune on these nursing homes. And the funding should be going to the facility and the patient care. These are not designed to be businesses and money making machines, right? This is dealing with the public. We should regulate of the funding that we give these nursing homes, how much funding goes to staff. Salary caps for management, which I proposed years ago, and they wouldn't pass, because that's just another way of taking money out of the nursing home. They have a limited profit margin. You can't say to a nursing home, either you can buy new beds or you make more money. Either you can hire more staff and help people or you make more money. Either you buy a new tv for the patients, or you make more money. If they're in the for profit business, they're going to choose to make more money. No. Here's how much money you can make, everything else has to go into patient care. I'm going to propose that nursing home reform agenda today in my amendments to the New York State budget. I will not sign the budget without this nursing home reform plan. Period. And I mean that as New York tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving. 

I want to say to Dr. Zucker and all the health staff, thank you for a great job. I'm sorry you have to do it in a lousy political environment, but that's where we are. I'm sorry that you had to deal with COVID, I'm sorry that you had to deal with the pandemic, I'm sorry that you had to miss your family working seven days a week, and I'm sorry that you have to be abused in the partisan politics of the day. 

We should have provided more public information sooner. Yes. No excuse. We should have been more aggressive in fighting the misinformation. Most people would not say that one of my errors is lack of aggressiveness, but in truth I was not aggressive enough in fighting back against these crazy political theories and these crazy political opponents. I have developed an immunity to them, right? You have to remember I went through this with Donald Trump. It started with Donald Trump, started this whole nursing home thing and it was the Democratic Governors in the Democratic states. I've become immune. Local politicians who's running for this, who's trying to get their face on TV. I'm immune to that, but that's not who paid the price here. It was the nursing home families who were confused. And that's Thomas Paine. Complacence. 

I was complacent, because I thought the attacks were just against me. I was wrong to be complacent. The attacks were against Dr. Zucker and the healthcare team and the administration. I was wrong to be complacent because then New Yorkers said, oh does the healthcare team really know what they're doing? And I was wrong to be complacent because then the nursing home families said, maybe something happened that we don't understand. And that aggravated the grief that they were feeling. So I take responsibility for all of that, because I take responsibility for all of this, period. Whether it's Dr. Zucker in the Health Department, whether it's Jim Malatras at SUNY, I take responsibility. That's what I think the people of the State of New York deserve, but I'm not going to be complacent, or complacence, even the way Thomas Paine spells it.

2021-02-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Welcome all. Today is a very exciting day. We're at Medgar Evers today in Brooklyn, New York. It's light snow falling out, beautiful New York City day. Let me acknowledge the people who are here today, and you'll then hear from a number of them. First, I would like to acknowledge the elected officials who are here with us today. We have Assembly Member Latrice Walker, we have Assemblyman Dilan, we have Assemblyman Nick Perry. You'll hear from Latrice Walker in a moment. We have with us Reverend Adolphus Lacey, you'll hear from Reverend Lacey in a moment. Pastor Aker, Reverend David Brawley, Bishop Dr. Ismael Claudio, Reverend Al Cockfield II, Bishop Orlando Findlayter, Reverend Rashad Raymond Moore.

This is an exciting day. This is the largest vaccination site in the State of New York. This vaccination site can do 3,000 vaccines per day, 21,000 vaccines per week. So it really is extraordinary. It's a joint effort between the state and the federal government. Bob Fenton is here, who's the head lead for FEMA, and this is going to be staffed jointly by the federal government and the state government. You'll actually have federal officials here who are doing the administration of the vaccine. The National Guard, which you see here today setting up, they're going to help administer the actual site. The site will open for operation this Wednesday. So today they're all preparing for it and we thank them all very much for their good work.

The National Guard is just phenomenal. Whatever it is they come from all over the state, they drop everything, and they show up. You have National Guard here from all over the state, and whether it's a snowstorm, a hurricane, a flood, Superstorm Sandy, COVID, whatever it is, they're always there, and we want to thank them. Let's give them a round of applause.

We also have from the New York City Council, the majority leader, Laurie Cumbo, and we want to thank her very much for her assistance in setting this set up today. and the MTA officials, Pat Foye, who's the chairman, and Sarah Feinberg, who runs the transit authority. Part of this site is going to offer special transportation from the MTA so people can get to this site. 

The main point of this site and everything we're doing is this. The vaccine is the weapon that will win the war. We know that. The vaccine is coming. There are three obstacles. Number one, the supply of the vaccine. This nation does not have enough supply of the vaccine, period. When President Biden walked into office, the cupboard was basically bare. And the federal government had not procured enough vaccination from Pfizer, Moderna, et cetera. So we have more Americans searching the vaccine than we actually have the vaccine. In New York State, 10 million people are eligible. 10 million. Nursing homes, first responders, essential workers, 65-plus. That is 10 million people. We only get 300,000 doses per week. That's the problem we now have. It's not a problem just in New York. It's a problem in every state in the nation. Not enough supply for the number of people who need the vaccine. The federal government understands it, they've been increasing the supply week to week. The president announced last week by the end of July there will be enough vaccines for all Americans, and that's great news. We still have to get from today until the end of July, but at least the end is in sight. That's the first issue, is the supply.

The second is making the vaccine accessible and making it accessible in an equitable way. This is the truth about COVID: COVID discriminates. COVID highlighted the injustice and racism in society. It's not a pleasant statement but it is a true statement. I say that COVID created low tide in America. You know, at high tide when the water is up, everything looks nice because all you see is the surface of the water. Low tide the water goes down and then you see all the ugliness that was on the bottom. It didn't create the ugliness but it showed the ugliness. Low tide in America, COVID showed you the racism, the inequality, the injustice that was just below the surface. Under COVID Blacks died at twice the rate of whites. Just think about that for a second. Blacks died at twice the rate of whites. Hispanics died at 1.5 times the rate of whites. How shameful. Why? Because Blacks, Hispanics, poor communities, did not have the same health services, they had more pre-existing conditions, they had higher infection rates of COVID but less testing. So, now we get to the vaccine for COVID and what we're saying as a state is we have to be equitable in the administration of the vaccine and we have to correct for the injustice that we just saw perpetrated by COVID. You have to correct for the fact that twice as many Blacks died. You have to correct for the fact that 1.5 times as many Hispanics died, and you have to get the vaccine to the community where they are. And that's what this is all about.

Now, not only is this the largest site ever created in the State of New York, it's special because it recognizes the equity that must be achieved. And this site opens Wednesday but it has a priority for the surrounding community to make appointments first. So, East New York, Brownsville, Sumner Houses, Broadway Triangle, Ocean Hill, Stuyvesant Heights, Crown Heights Bushwick, Flatbush, East Flatbush, Canarsie, Bedford Stuyvesant. Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, East Midwood, Prospect Heights, Clinton Hill - these communities have a priority for appointments. They will get the appointments first. All they have to do is call or go to the website, or starting Wednesday, stop in if you're like me and you're not crazy about doing work on the website, stop in. Making appointment and then come back when your appointment is due, but these communities get the priority. Use it, once we get past the week of priority then it will be open to the entire borough of Brooklyn and that'll be good news too.

The third obstacle to the vaccine, and I'm glad the electeds are here and the pastors are here because they have to help us with this. It's what they call hesitancy, that the Black community especially is hesitant to take the vaccine. I don't like the word hesitancy. It's an antiseptic word. It doesn't really express what it is. It's not that people are hesitant; It's that people don't trust the vaccine. It's a lack of trust. It's a lack of trust in the system by the Black community because the Black community has gotten the short end of the stick by the system many, many, many times. People will go back to the Tuskegee experiment - they are right. There are reasons to distrust the system. People say to me, "I don't trust the Trump Administration, they approved it." I don't trust the Trump Administration! But, we set up a separate panel in New York, with the best New York doctors, and they approved this vaccine. The top Black medical professionals in the United States of America say trust the vaccine, it can save your life. We have a base of information. Nobody is asking you to go first. Two million New Yorkers have taken the vaccine over the past 2 months. Two million. You know what, the results have been great. We have every nursing home resident offered a vaccine - 75 percent took it. The results have been great.

There's a body science, there's a body of evidence and literally this vaccine can save your life and it can save the lives of others. If you get a vaccine, you are less likely to spread the virus. Save your own life, save the lives of others. We're making it accessible, we're getting the priorities. The MTA is going to set up special bus routes to get people here. We have a priority for the appointment, you can walk in and make an appointment. But the vaccine only works if people take it. It only works if there's a needle in the arm.

Ask Perry in the Assembly, ask Assemblyman Dilan, ask Assembly Member Latrice Walker, should I take it? Is it safe? And they will say yes. Ask the pastors who are here today is it safe, should I take it? They will say yes. Ask the top Black medical professionals in the United States of America, they'll say you should take it.

My mother took the vaccine. My mother took the vaccine. She's in the 65-plus category. She doesn't like when I say she's in the 65-plus category. She thinks I'm giving away her age. It's not really giving away her age. She looks younger than 65, but I am 63. Biologically, my mother has to be 63-years-old. I do not believe it is a betrayal of my mother's privacy to suggest that. She does look much, much younger than 65. I would not tell my mother to take the vaccine unless I believed in the vaccine. My daughters will take the vaccine when they're ready. Please, please, please, take the vaccine.

I'm going to now turn it over to Assembly Member Latrice Walker and then you will hear from Reverend Lacey. Thank you.

Assembly Member Latrice Walker: Greetings and I want to first acknowledge Assembly Member Diana Richardson and Senator Myrie whose district we stand in and thank them in their absence for allowing us to be here. We'll ask Council Member Cumbo if she will stamp my passport coming from the 55th Assembly District. Thank you so much for being here.

I also want to thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership and for all of the respected clergy members who are among us. It's important to make sure that not only we advocate and deliver this site to Brooklyn, but that we are also walking hand-in-hand in delivering each and every one of our constituents and the residents of Brooklyn to this very important site. It's historic, it's meaningful here at Medgar Evers College and not only that, it represents the best of State and federal partnerships and more importantly the focus is on fairness, it's on equity and it's on justice.

We know that this vaccine will end this crisis. It has already taken so much from communities of color, from our NYCHA residents, from our churches, from our families. Especially, especially here in Brooklyn. I encourage residents in the qualifying areas for this site to come down and get the vaccine. As we heard, the Governor mentioned, the vaccines are essential. The vaccinations save lives. The Governor heard our call, and he put this vaccine center right here in the heart of our communities, as well as opening up mass transportation to this site. I would like to take the time on behalf of myself, my district, and my colleagues to thank him, FEMA, and all of the essential workers, staff members, and administration members for hearing our call and for acting on this moment. Thank you.

Reverend Dr. Adolphus Lacey: Thank you, Governor Cuomo, and Acting Administrator Fenton for bringing these vaccines right to the heart of Brooklyn. Thank you as well to our partnering elected officials, who have always fought with this community, for this community, especially through crises. It is also my pleasure to be joined by my colleagues Reverend Al Cockfield, Bishop Orlando Findlayter, Pastor Rashad Moore, Pastor David Brawley, Bishop Ismael Claudio, Pastor Lawrence Aker. The last year has been very hard on our community. In the 138 year history of Bethany Baptist Church, this one will forever stand out for its challenges, losses, and lessons that we face. But the book of John tells us blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. COVID indeed presented many trials, but faith among Brooklyn residents remained steadfast.

Now we are stronger today, thanks to Governor Cuomo's leadership and our collective action, COVID is on the run. It began in May, when lines for testing at the Bethany Baptist Church, which we set up with the State, stretched down the block. It demonstrated the need for resources and people came out to trust the process. But it also showed that COVID was hitting Black and Latino New Yorkers harder than other communities. We know today that this virus kills black people at a rate twice as high as whites. This virus has demonstrated, has discriminated, but we must not. The foundation of this mass vaccination site is laid on the ideal of equity. It is the recognition that the communities it will target over the next week represent a vast healthcare desert, and these residents are wary of this vaccine. We see that in the numbers, so far as 6.1 percent vaccination rate. So, I speak directly to my congregation and to all congregations when I say trust this vaccine.

I have worked with the Governor for months, specifically on the issue of vaccine equity. Just this weekend, my fellow clergy members and I joined with the Governor, where he made clear that getting people down here will be an all hands on deck mission. We are ready to answer your call, Governor, to drive up the vaccination numbers in these communities because it's the only way that we can save lives. That's why we are hitting the phones this week to let people know in these ZIP codes that the vaccine site opens up Wednesday. The MTA is making it easier for you to get down here, so you have no excuse. And you can make appointments on-site or you can come in. I am glad to join my colleagues here in this endeavor. In this moment we must work like a community. The vaccine isn't only about keeping our lives safe. The more of us that get the shot, the safer we all are. First Corinthians reminds us that we are all one body, we have faith in each other, and that we will all fulfill our respective role. So, I implore you today to do your part. This shot will save all of us. Thank you again, Governor, for your leadership in ending this crisis.

Governor Cuomo: Well, thank you very much, Reverend. Corinthians has it right, as usual. I thank my colleagues, Assembly Member Latrice Walker, Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo, Nick Perry, Assembly Member Dilan, let's give them a round of applause. All the pastors, thank you very much for joining this effort. Everything has been said, now we just have to do it. This is the first site like it in the State of New York. It's the largest, it's a model of social equity, it has a preference, it has transportation, we're doing everything we can. The pastors, the elected, will get out the word, but it's up to you at the end of the day. God helps those who help themselves. We need people now to step forward and do this. To the people who are here today and exposing themselves to a dangerous situation, to the quote unquote essential workers, we have such a respect and debt of gratitude to all of you. You have shown us, the essential workers showed up so other people could stay home and be safe. Essential workers went out and put themselves in danger to keep others safe. There is no greater sign of humanity and love and courage by that action. And you will save lives in what you are doing at this site. We say, God bless you. Thank you all for being here.

2021-02-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Pleasure with all of you. Pleasure for me to be home. I'm a Hollis, Queens, boy. So it's a pleasure to be at York College. I want to thank Madame President very much for having us there today, and for all the work it took to set up this site. This was not done easily. A lot of organization, but it's going to do a lot of good. We're going to save lives at this site. This site is going to save lives, and I'm excited to be here, and I want to thank all the participants who are with us today. you're going to hear from Assembly Member Vivian Cook, who's been a long-time great representative for her community, a great friend of mine and my family's. State Senator Leroy Comrie, who's going to get his vaccination today. and that's a great sign, because part of this is about trust. I'm going to be doing the vaccination. I am a certified vaccinator by the State of New York, I took a 20-minute course yesterday. I get to select the part of the anatomy where I do the vaccine, and you'll be surprised, or maybe not, when you see the part of the anatomy that I pick. 

I want to thank Bishop Calvin Rice very much, you'll hear from him after Senator Comrie. And I want to thank the other electeds who are here. We have MaryAnn Tierney, who's the acting deputy administration of FEMA, which set up this site on the federal government side. We also have Assemblyman Khaleel Anderson who's with us, Council Member Adrienne Adams, Council Member Miller, Bishop Calvin Rice, York president, and we have a number of pastors who are here who are going to help us get out the word today, which is going to be very important, because we need people to take advantage of this opportunity. So I want to thank Reverend Frasier, and Diane Frasier, I want to thank Bishop Douglas, I want to thank Reverend Mullings for all his good work, but for being here today also. Reverend Patrick O'Connor, Reverend Thompson, and Reverend Wauchop. 

The message is simple. We want to do this and then let the facility operate at 8:00. The vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel. It is the weapon that's going to win the war. We know that it works. First obstacle is we don't have enough of the vaccine. That is true in this state, that is true in every state in the country. There is just not enough supply. President Biden walked in and the cupboard was bare for supply. To me, it's the hangover of the President Trump legacy. He never handled COVID right. He lied about it. He denied it. He didn't have the equipment. He didn't have the testing. He thought he was going to manipulate the situation. We here in New York stood up to President Trump. We told him that he wasn't giving this the serious attention it deserved. We told him we weren't prepared. President Trump did what President Trump always does, which is he attacks those who tell him the truth. And New Yorkers stood up and we told him the truth. And he attacked us for it. And he attacked me for it. He was the shoot the messenger kind of guy. But we were right. And then the last act of Trump was he didn't even buy enough vaccine to serve the people of the country. And that's why we have this supply shortage, because they didn't even buy enough vaccine from Pfizer and Moderna.

So now President Biden had to come in. He secured the vaccine by the end of July, we'll have enough vaccine for everyone. But, we have to get from here to July. And the amount of supply we're getting has been increasing every week. So it's supply. Then it's access, but not just access, what I call equitable access. COVID discriminated against people. COVID killed twice as many Black people as white people. COVID killed one and a half times as many Hispanic people as white people. Why? Because it showed the underlying injustice in society. COVID prayed on the health disparities, and the comorbidities that were existing in communities that didn't have enough healthcare service in the first place. So now, when it comes to the vaccine, my point is correct the injustice that you created during COVID, where you had more Blacks die, more Hispanics die, higher positivity rate, less testing. Make sure we get the vaccine to these communities. And that's what were doing here today.

This facility is the largest mass vaccination site in the State of New York. This facility, Medgar Evers in Brooklyn, 21,000 vaccines per week. The largest in the state. And this is the first in the state that says we're going to bring the vaccine to the community that needs it most, and we're going to give that community priority to get the vaccine. So, the community surrounding your college has a priority for the appointments here at York College. Between now and Saturday morning, appointments will only be filled for those people in zip codes that are surrounding this area. So, Jamaica, South Richmond Hills, Springfield Gardens, Laurelton, St. Albans, Rosedale, Queens Village, South Ozone Park, Cambria Heights, Richmond Hill, Jamaica, Queens Village, Hollis, 11423. That's me, baby. Jamaica, Queens Village, Far Rockaway, Arverne. Those communities get priority here because those communities were hardest hit. And basic justice requires you give the help first to the community that needs it most. And New York is proud to say, they are bringing social equity to the situation.

The third obstacle we have to get past with this is people have to trust the vaccine and that's why the elected officials and the pastors are so important. They say that there's hesitancy in the black community about the vaccine I don't like the word "hesitancy," because it's flowery and it doesn't call the problem what it is. It's not hesitancy; it's the Black community doesn't trust the vaccine. It's trust - they don't trust the system. "Well, the federal government approved it. I don't trust the federal government approving the vaccine," That's what the Black community is saying, and by the way it's what I'm saying. I don't trust the federal approval. "The Trump administration approved it, you should trust." No. That's why we had a separate panel in New York State review all the vaccine data and New York State's finest said the vaccine is safe. Two million New Yorkers have taken the vaccine, 2 million and the results have all been good. All top Black medical professionals in the country say take the vaccine. Take the vaccine.

My mother took the vaccine. Unless I was 100 percent sure I would never have told my mother to take the vaccine. Now, my mother qualifies because she's over 65 years old; Vivian Cook is a good friend of my mother. My mother got offended that I told people that she was over 65 years old, she thought I was giving away her age. She looks much younger than 65 but she still mad at me for saying that she was over 65. I didn't think I was giving a lot away because I'm 62. How, mathematically, could she not be 65 years old? I don't know but she's offended, but anyway she'll get over it. She loves me because I'm a favorite son so she'll get over it. But my mother took the vaccine. I'm going to have my daughters take the vaccine. I'm going to take the vaccine when I'm eligible. Senator Leroy Comrie is going to take the vaccine today. Take the vaccine, it will save your life and it will save the life of others, and to all the people who are working here today, to the National Guard, to the FEMA people, to all the volunteers to York College, people who are putting themselves in a dangerous situation to help other people - God bless you. God bless you and we thank you from the bottom of our heart.

Let's give the National Guard a round of applause and FEMA round of applause and let me ask Assembly Member Vivian Cook to come up and then we'll hear from State Senator Leroy Comrie and then we'll hear from Bishop Calvin Rice.

Thank you very much.

Assembly Member Vivian Cook: You see, just got a good sanitizing here. Good morning everyone and thanks for being here today and I want to thank the Governor for bringing us here and bringing the vaccine here to Jamaica, Queens. I want to thank him for coming home and for being the person that he is, okay, I stand with the Governor. I've worked with the Governor. I know where his heart is, I knew where his father's heart was, and his mother is my best friend. And I want to just say, I stand with him and I am going to keep standing with him. Alright, so, welcome to York College, South Jamaica and to Jamaica, the home of the Governor. Thank you. That's all.

Senator Leroy Comrie: Good morning everyone. I'm Leroy Comrie, I'm honored to be State Senator for the 14th Senate district. I want to thank everyone that has been involved in making today happen, the Governor, President Eanes and York College, my colleagues in elected office who have been championing for this to happen and asking for this to happen, and yelling for this to happen, since the first day that we found out that the vaccine was available. And the governor is right, unfortunately, the past president did a horrible job is making sure that the vaccination was ready and wide distribution for people. He did a horrible job because even a year ago today he was still not understanding that we had a crisis and hadn't dealt with it but, you know, now we have an opportunity with this site here today at York college and I want to say that I'm proud of our community. I want to thank all the ministers that on Sunday and even before as soon as they found out about the opportunity that the site was here and the link was up that we have over 20,000 people registered for this site already. So, I think we did give our ministers in our community and our elected officials in this area a round of applause.

I qualify, you can figure that, I qualify, so I'm getting my shot today and it's not going to be by the Governor because I have to stay healthy even though he's been salivating at the idea ever since he heard about it, but you know, I'm getting this shot because I want the community to see and Councilmember Adams got the shot over the weekend. Thanks to the Governor, we had a pop-up site there with 700 slots. We filled those 700 slots within a half a day those slots got filled. So, there is a desire in this community for the vaccine. There's a desire and a need to make sure that vaccination comes straight to the community so they can have easy access to it. So, that's why we're here at York College.

We have a parking lot for people so they don't have to worry about parking. I know people in the community are worried because it's near the train and normally you can't park here in the morning. We do have a parking lot for accessibility, it's right on the ground full level in the gym, so people can understand that you don't have to walk upstairs. You could come right in. It's a great site and I want to thank the Governor. I want to thank the FEMA person that is here, I didn't catch your name, and I want to thank all of my colleagues in government who we have been continuously working together closer than ever to make sure that we deliver resources for the community. Thank you all for being here this morning.

Bishop Calvin Rice: Thank you, Governor Cuomo, for your leadership throughout this crisis and thanks to our federal partners who are here this morning for bringing this site to Queens. This site is being opened specifically for our community in Queens. It's being made available to folks in this and surrounding zip codes. We need to come out and fill every spot and use every tool that's available for vaccination. You need to come and get it.

This site represents the Governors mission to make sure everyone can access the vaccine. He did not just say it, he did it. I think the vast majority of clergy here this morning in Queens would agree that this site is needed and it is welcome. I know those gathered behind me this early, this early Wednesday morning - they believe that and they rejoice to see this venue open.

Pastor Andrea Hargett, St. Matthews AME Church. Reverend Darryl Frazier, pastor of the Majority Baptist Church. Bishop H. Curtis Douglas, senior pastor Dabar Bethlehem Cathedral. Reverend Dr. Les Mullins, senior pastor, Community Church of the Nazarene and Founder and CEO of Challenge Preparatory Charter School. Reverend Patrick O'Connor, my good friend here in Jamaica right up the block, pastor of First Presbyterian Church. Reverend Jeffrey Thompson, pastor of the Amity Baptist Church here in Jamaica.

We have seen what our communities look like fighting COVID without the vaccine and it's painful. I cannot count the number of colleagues and friends and relatives that have been taken by this virus. Now it's time to show what our community can do when we get help and when we help each other.

I got vaccinated myself on February 8 and felt no pain, just a slight soreness in the arm. I got the second shot the day after the big snow. I went outside and shoveled snow, came back inside and felt a little fatigued. Told my wife, I think I'm fatigued from the vaccination. She said, oh no. You old. I took issue with that, Governor, because she's the same age I am. She said well I'm not tired. I said you didn't shovel snow. Thank God there were no repercussions from it.

Bottom line, I believe God is working through the hands of this vaccine and through the hands of those who administer this vaccine. I feel that you need to come and take advantage of it. My mother taught me not to bite the hand that feeds you. Neither should we bite the hand of God that is reaching out to save us. It is people of every color and faith coming together to get vaccinated that were in the worst days of COVID.

I believe the vaccine is safe, it is our best tool to protect ourselves and each other and to restore our communities and our cities and our State and our country back to a state of normalcy. My fellow clergy members and I heard the Governor's call to spread the word and we are here to help spread that word. We have joined together as leaders in faith to call on congregants, our community, our friends and our colleagues together to extend the clarity and call: come and get vaccinated. We have made it this far by faith and by believing in science.

As the scripture says, weeping may endure for a night. We've been weeping ever since last March, but joy comes this morning. Joy has come this morning. Come out and get vaccinated.

Governor Cuomo: Okay. This facility opens at 8 o'clock. We have a full schedule for today. Again, people in the zip codes that we're talking about in these communities, you have priority up until Saturday. Call, make your appointment. Get a vaccine. You heard from more convincing people than myself. It's safe, it's right, it saves lives.

I want to thank everyone for getting up especially early. For me it wasn't early, I'm normally in church by this time anyway in the morning. We're now going to get on with some vaccinations. We're going to have Senator Comrie get a vaccination and we're going to get the pastor. I want to tell you something about the vaccine. I want you to watch Senator Comrie's face when the vaccine goes in because you can tell a lot about a person the way they take that shot. You watch that face. It is a true test of character. I'm saying, I've known Senator Comrie for years, the man will not flinch.

Let's go get that vaccine.

2021-02-25 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: On behalf of all the governors it is my pleasure to welcome our new President and a dear friend to the National Governors Association 2021 Winter Meeting.

Traditionally the president has been invited to address the governors at their Winter Meeting and the president would often be kind enough to invite us to join him at the White House. Of course that was in the pre-COVID world. However, we do miss our White House visit, Mr. President and we look forward to a possible invitation next year, fingers crossed, and maybe even an extra special meal to make up for the absence. Of course I would recommend Italian food but the way the NGA operates I'd have to put that up for a vote.

Let us begin by thanking you, Mr. President, for your true spirit of partnership. Governors have been on the frontlines of COVID for the past year. Many of us have felt that we did not always get the federal support we needed. You reached out to us right after your election four our first meeting.

We then had a second meeting just as you were taking office. Your promise of an ongoing functional partnership has already come to fruition. Our weekly calls with Jeff Zients and his COVID team are truly extraordinary. They are genuine discussions and they are problem solving sessions and they've made real progress.

Mr. President, we thank you not just for your effort but even more for the results you have achieved. We understand the difficult situation you inherited upon taking office. You had a country anxious for vaccinations and that when you went to the cupboard it was all but bare. You have made amazing progress in securing enough vaccines so American now know that July is a workable timetable - certainty quells anxiety.  
 
In the meantime, you have secured enough vaccines to increase our state allocations by 70 percent, just since you were elected. You successfully provided the stage with 100 percent FEMA reimbursement through your executive action, which makes an enormous difference on the ground. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, after years of lobbying by the NGA, you proposed $350 billion in direct, unrestricted aid for states and localities. We sincerely thank you. We stand ready to help you pass the American Rescue Plan and please just tell us how we can help. And we also stand ready to help you pass a national infrastructure bill. Real federal infrastructure investment has been promised many times before, indeed by at least five former administrations. Some have said that we have airports that look like they are in a third world country, and they are right Mr. President, but we believe that you can get it done and that now is truly the time to do it because the nation needs it.  

We stand ready as your partners, shovels poised to hit the ground. So, governors, let's give a warm welcome to the 46th president of the United States President Joseph Biden.

President Biden: Thank you very much. Thank you, Andrew, I appreciate it a lot. Let me start by saying, guarantee if we're able to, we will not only have you next year at this time for Governors Conference but we'll have whatever food you want. We can go around to each one of and you just order individually.
 
But all kidding aside, I'm anxious to see, I wish you could all be here because that's better. We all do better when we're all able to look each other in the eye, know what we're talking about, but thank you. Some of you have been here, in the meantime and I hope to have the Governor Conference here next year, God willing.

You know, I've been talking to several of you quiet a lot a bit lately and as you know we've approved disaster declarations in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. In Texas, FEMA was already on the ground providing support for COVID-19 vaccination efforts so they were able to move quickly to supply generators, food, blankets and most importantly water. Governor Abbott, I don't want to ruin your reputation but I look forward to coming down tomorrow to Houston to be with you and I want you and the residents to know that we're here to provide the federal assistance you need to support your state, your local, and tribal response efforts.

It's clear that even when the immediate crisis passes there's going to be more work to be done to help constituents recover and my administration will be there every step of the way with you because when people in this country need help, they're not Democrats or Republicans, they're all Americans and people who need to work, they're the people getting sick from COVID and people facing eviction, people going hungry, people struggling with opioid crisis.
 
People need broadband and they're not Democrats or Republicans. They're our fellow Americans and I think the whole spirit of this Governors Conference and our administration is changing the attitude a little bit about how we deal with one another, at least I hope so.
 
As governors, you know this - you know that you have one job and that's to deliver. You're on the frontlines of lines. We overuse that phrase but it's hard to overuse it, and as the saying goes, you're the laboratories of democracy. Your challenges can provide lessons for everybody. Your success can prove to be a model for everybody.
 
The storms that hit the South were a painful reminder that so many of our challenges don't stop at our border of our states. They don't make distinctions based on how the state is made up.
 
Today I want to focus on two of those challenges that cross borders: COVID and the economy.  You know better than I do, as you know the ability to deal with one will determine our ability to address the other. On Monday, our nation passed a grim, grim milestone. COVID-19 has now taken over 500,000 of our fellow Americans. That's more than died in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. To most governors, that's more than the population of the largest cities in your state, or your territories, gone. And as a country, we have to remember those we lost but particularly those who are left behind, but as we remember, we also have to act to end the politics of misinformation that have divided families, communities and the country. This cost too many lives already. We have to fight this together as one to state the obvious. I know you all know this. As a friend of mine you say you not only understand me, you overstand me. We're the United States of America and this cruel winter is not over. If we come together, we can usher a more hopeful spring. That's what we're working to do together.
 
As you know I came into office and I set a goal which was mocked by some - none of you - but by some, I set a goal of saying we're going to do 100 million shots, get 100 million shots in my first 100 days as President. I directed Jeff Zients, my COVID response coordinator, to lead my administration and work with vaccine manufacturers to buy more vaccines and speed up delivery. We used as some of you have suggested the Defense Production Act to speed up production chains for key equipment like fill pumps and filters which have helped increase vaccine production. We've increased vaccine allocations as Andrew said, the Governor said, to your states by almost 70 percent since coming into office, whatever a number of days ago it's been, 37 or something like that. We secured enough vaccine to supply 300 million Americans. 300 million to take care of all their needs in terms of vaccination by the end of July. And we've all and we've all seen in the news that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, if the FDA approves the use of this new vaccine, we have a plan to roll out as quickly as Johnson & Johnson can make the vaccine.  

Of course, it is not just getting the vaccines, it's getting the vaccines into arms. And this is another place where your work and our partnership is making a big difference. I've signed in order to allow retired doctors and nurses to give shots. We deployed, as you referenced at least indirectly at least Andrew, we deployed over 1,500 federal personnel as vaccinators and we're funding 1,200 guardsmen and women to serve as vaccinators as well and we're paying for your guard for that purpose. We're working with you to create more places where Americans can get vaccinated, supporting communities in high volume vaccine centers and across your states. The result is that we have doubled the daily vaccination rate from where it was when we took office. And we've completed 50 million shots in 37 days and we're now giving more shots than any nation in the entire world.  

Nearly 60 percent of people over the age of 75 have now received at least one shot - it was 14 percent six weeks ago. Close to 50 percent, because of your help, of the people over 65 have received one shot - it was 8 percent six weeks ago. This is so important because people over 65, as you know better than anyone, account for 80 percent - 80 percent - of all the COVID deaths. Additionally, about 75 percent of the people who live in Long Term Care Facilities have gotten their first dose and those cases are at the lowest level since reporting began in May.  

At the same time, we're also delivering more than 25 million masks, ordered this last week. 23 million masks to over 60,000 food pantries, soup kitchens, community health centers all across America, helping protect some of our nation's most vulnerable people. And these are all necessary steps to helping the economy rebuild. Necessary steps but not only steps, it's enough to build back to where we were before- we need to build back better, and I think we all of us know how to do that.  
 
We remember what happened in the states back in 2008. Hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared every month in the Great Recession. And we passed the Recovery Act and provided state local fiscal aid. We sent funding to school districts to help save over 300,000 education jobs. We provided middle class tax review. We invested in the future, rebuilding roads and bridges, making the biggest clean energy investment in history and the single biggest investment in and infrastructure since Eisenhower's interstate highway program. We're creating the process- you all are creating the process over thousands- hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs. Now economists tell us it save us from a depression. Well, that's the approach I think we need to take today, but there's one big difference: we need to be more ambitious right now. The greatest risk from all the major economists from Wall Street to overseas to the major think tanks, is that we don't do enough of what is needed. We do too little. You know, in every one of your states and territories, red and blue, millions of Americans are hurting, badly. We see it in ways that we've never expected in America. 400,000 small businesses gone in an instant, gone. People who thought they had secure jobs out of work due to no fault of their own. The difference here is, people are hurting through no fault of their own. Lines miles long in your states. People who never, ever, ever, ever thought they'd ever have to worry about going hungry, waiting for someone to put a box of groceries in their trunk. Women's participation in the workforce, you all know this, is driven to its lowest level in more than three decades. So many women are facing the devastating choice between a paycheck and care and education of their child. Our cities and towns have shed 1.3 million jobs since just last March. Educators, nurses, cops, firefighters, other essential workers. The economic toll this pandemic continues to tear through our country as brutally as the virus itself. And so, we need to comfort, the economic, you know, we just have to step up.
 
The economic toll we have to address with the same aggressiveness and seriousness of purpose as we do the virus. And that's what the American Rescue Plan does. Instead of chasing COVID-19, it allows us to get ahead of it with more testing, supplies, vaccinations. It gets our kids back to school safely. Many of you are already doing that, so students can catch up and learn what they've lost, and parents can finally catch a break. The American Rescue Plan finishes the job, getting a total of $20,000 in direct payments to people, getting direct relief to people is a lifeline for them, and it bumps our economic into higher gear. And there's more to the American Rescue Plan and much more it will do. Provide flexible aid to your cities and states to help essential workers stay on the job, essential services keep going. Provides rent relief, food and nutrition, assistance to millions of children and families facing hunger. The American Rescue Plan also expands access to affordable childcare that's going to enable parents, particularly mothers, to get back to work. Provides assistance to mom-and-pop small business that are the engines of our economic growth and the glue of our communities, and it covers the cost of paid leave for business whose workers are sickened by COVID-19, and it fills an important gap in our nation's safety net that helps reduce the spread of the virus. I could go on, I'm probably already going on too long, but you know, you know a lot of it already because the plan was created to include many of the things you have individually, collectively asked me for in recent conversations.
 
The bottom line is the American Rescue Plan meets the moment. Analysis by Moody's estimates that it will help the economy create 7 million more jobs this year alone, and beyond the way to another 18 million jobs, Moody's estimates, would be created over the next four years with our Build Back Better Recovery Plan. Look, what we do now will determine whether we build from a position of strength, or that we lose years to sluggish and unequal recovery. The only way to contain this pandemic and help the American people as quickly as possible is passing the plan as quickly as possible. The vast majority of the American people from both parties support it, according to the data. I'm grateful that many of you, Democrats and Republicans, have expressed support as well. We are not the type of nation that can or will stand by and watch our people suffer needlessly through no fault of their own. It goes against our conscience. It goes against sound economics. It's not who we are. We're people who know that there's nothing we've ever failed to do when we've set our mind to doing it. So let's get this done. I've gotten over 400 mayors contacting me to get this plan passed. A lot of you have moved to do that. Send millions of Americans, wherever they live, whoever they voted for, a strong message that help and hope are on the way. We can do this, and I hope that Jill and I, as I said, can welcome you all to the White House for next year's meeting. And may God bless you all, may God protect our troops. We've got a lot to do, guys, but we can do it.

2021-03-03 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. From my far right, we have Ms. Kelly Cummings, Director of State Operations, to her left, Beth Garvey, special counsel, to my right, Dr. Howard Zucker, Commissioner of the Department of Health, to my left, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, to her left Robert Mujica, Budget Director of the State of New York, MTA Board Member, CUNY Board Member, many hats.  

Good news today - overall state positivity rate 3.53, 75 statewide deaths, still after all this time we still have New Yorkers dying, 75, those families are in our thoughts and prayers. Statewide hospitalizations are down 46, ICU down 29, intubations down 12. This is great news.  

Remember what happened - we hit the holiday season. We talked about it, Thanksgiving, holiday season, 37 days, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Christmas, more social gatherings, the number would go up, the number did go up, January 4 it peaks, when you think about it, holiday season is over, New Year's Day, New Year's Eve, it peaks and it has continually dropped. But it has dropped to a level below where it was before it started to peak. So, Christmas, a little bit after Thanksgiving, but before we saw any big increase, about 6,600, go up to 8,000, and now we're down to 5,400. So we've really made tremendous progress and this is really, really good news. It's not over and we have to continue, but this is very, very good news.  

Percent of hospitalized is down across the state and that's all good news. New York City is the highest at .04. COVID positivity which plus or minus relates to the hospitalization, Long Island, New York, Mid-Hudson.  

What people should get from these slides or these numbers, ask yourself, why is there such a variance within one state? Why is there such a variance in demographic areas that are basically very similar? Why is Central New York, Mid-Hudson, why is Mid-Hudson four times higher than Central New York? These areas, same state, same basic demographics - it is about behavior. It is about behavior. It's about what we do. You take Western New York, 1.9, Western New York for weeks was a trouble area and now it's 1.9 because the community changed.  The community adapted. The community heard and this is a function of personal behavior and that's why you're seeing these variances across the state.  

You look at New York City, the Bronx is down where it was but 5 percent. It's double Manhattan. Staten Island which was an aberration is now more in line but Staten Island, Bronx, Queens, are all about the same. It is about behavior.  

Vaccines, we have big news - just under 5 million vaccines done overall, really good news. We had a White House call yesterday. Johnson & Johnson vaccine has arrived in New York. This is from a practical of view, not a medical of view much easier than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It's one shot. You don't have to come back for a second shot. You don't have to schedule a second shot. It doesn't take a second appointment and there is no cold storage for the Johnson & Johnson. Soit's a very big deal.  

We are expecting an initial tranche each of about 164,000 doses and I'll explain in a moment what I mean by first tranche.

This first tranche which is large will be administered by radically ramping up the vaccination system. We had the Pfizer and Moderna. We were scaled to the Pfizer and Moderna. On top of that the federal government then adds about 160,000 doses which is a lot of doses for the state, so we needed extra ramp up of actual vaccination operations because of this Johnson & Johnson influx. It's good news but we have to then get it in arms as soon as possible. We've taken a number of measures but among them are mass vaccination sites, Yankee Stadium, Javits, State Fair, they're going to go to 24/7 and we want to thank the staff very much that is going to do that because that is a big deal and these are staff that are stretched to begin with.  But they'll go to 24/7. You can make an appointment.  

That will only last for the duration of that initial first large tranche of Johnson & Johnson. After that first tranche of Johnson & Johnson the production is actually going to slow and lag and then build back up again. So we have this one-time blip, one-time large tranche, good news, then it will slow, then it will ramp up again, but I'll ask Kelly Cummings who has been doing a great job getting these mass vaccination sites to transfer to 24/7 and ask Kelly if she has any additional comments.  

Kelly Cummings: Sure. Yankee Stadium will begin operations tomorrow night, Thursday night. The appointments opened this morning. It will be operating with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine during the overnight hours, as the governor said, as the supply lasts. The Javits Center in New York City and the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse will begin operations on Friday night and appointments will open tomorrow, Thursday at 8 a.m. for those two sites.  

Governor Cuomo: How many nights will these sites open 24/7 we're not clear yet. It's going to depend on how many people come in for the vaccine. I know there is a pent-up demand. I believe people will show up in the middle of the night to get the vaccine but we're talking several days to a week in that range and then once we run out of the initial tranche of Johnson & Johnson, then it will basically scale back down. We're also using other mechanisms to get out the additional doses: pharmacies, FQHCs, local health departments and hospitals because remember on top of the Johnson & Johnson, we also have an increase in Pfizer/ Modernavaccines. The Biden administration has increased the percentage of vaccines about 70 percent since they've taken office. It's really amazing what he has done, but again, the Johnson & Johnson increase is a one-time infusion, then a brief lag in production, then an increase. The overall picture is that President Biden says they'll be a vaccine supply for all Americans by the end of May. Now, that was the — it was the end of July.  He is now moving it up to the end of May and that is a very significant increase. Apparently using the Defense Production Act, they have accelerated the production of the vaccine and Johnson & Johnson and Merck have formed a partnership, so Merck is going to help produce a Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Normally, drug companies don't play nice like this, but the President used the Defense Production Act. This is going to dramatically increase the production. This is what's allowing them to move up the schedule until May. The President also says prioritize teachers and he wants the states, and then the local governments directed by the states, to prioritize teachers. I believe President Biden is right. We need children back in classrooms. Children not in classrooms hurts the child, it hurts their socialization, it puts additional stress on the family. Every expert will say it: as soon as you can get children back in the classroom, get them back in the classroom. We have classrooms where the infection rate is much lower than the surrounding community. The teachers need and deserve a right to feel safe. They do, and even before President Biden said this, I said last week local governments must report on how many teachers are vaccinated and coordinate with the school districts to report how many teachers are in the classrooms. In other words, I believe a teacher could say, "I want a vaccine before I go into to the classroom." OK, how many teachers have we vaccinated and how many are in classrooms? For cities, this information is easy to gather because the city is coterminous with the school district. Other areas, you'll have school districts overlapping counties, so they'll have to call the school districts and get the data. But this is President Biden's point. He wants a prioritization of vaccination for teachers because he wants teachers in the classroom. Now, you have a lot of prioritizations going on in this vaccination process. Nursing home residents were prioritized. Nursing home staff was prioritized. Hospital staff was prioritized, police, teachers, school teachers, so we have a long priority list but I think the President is right. This is about getting kids back into the classroom.    

Overall, COVID rates are down as we just went through. Vaccine rates are up, so we continue the smart reopening, right? The graphic that nobody likes. What we have done which has been very smart from day one: report, reopen based on science and data. "I feel this, I feel that." Feelings are nice; facts are better. And we have been calibrating by the science and the data.   

On the COVID emergency powers, we worked with the legislature. We have an agreement on a bill, where the legislature can repeal any Executive Order that I issue with over 50 percent, both houses. The COVID emergency powers continue past April 30. When we first did this, we thought the pandemic would be open over April 30. This is a year ago — we said about a year. At that time, it was implausible to think it was going to go beyond the year. It's gone beyond the year and it's not going to end by April 30, so they're going to extend, the legislation extends the emergency power to the point where the federal government declares an end to the pandemic, which the federal government does, it controls funds etc. We have more time in this situation, by and large. We'll give the legislature notice of any changes that we're making five days prior to effect. if it is an emergency change as determined By Department of Health, then it will be a shorter period of time. I don'tremember exactly what it was. Do you remember what it was, Beth?   

Beth Garvey: [inaudible] We will give notice as soon as possible.   

Governor Cuomo: OK, and during the five days, there will be legislative consultation and on the change orders that we make during the five days. And again, whatever order I put in place, the legislature can repeal it in 24 hours or whenever they choose and that's always been the way.   

Travel guidance: domestic travelers are no longer required to quarantine or test out within the 90 days of full vaccination. International travelers, you have to continue to follow the CDC quarantine guidelines. Gathering limits, we're going to change and let me go to Rob, who's done a lot of work on this.   

Rob Mujica: So, beginning March 22 for residential gatherings, the indoor limit remains the same. The outdoor limit goes from 10 to 25 outdoor, which is consistent with some of the states around us. The social gathering limit for public spaces on indoor events goes from 50 to 100, and then for outdoor events, it will go from 50 to 200, so all of those will still also require social distancing as well as mask requirements. And then beginning on April 2, we started up with opening large event spaces, which was 10,000 or more for arenas starting with the Buffalo Bills. Subsequent to that, last night, the Rangers had a couple thousand people at their game. That's last Saturday, also held a basketball game using those guidelines that we got from the Buffalo Bills. So, following from that for event spaces that are less than 10,000 — those can begin reopening at 33 percent capacity with up to 100 people indoors and again 200 people outdoors. Again, there still will be guidance for social distancing and masks. If we want to go above those limits, you can go up to 150 people indoor with testing requirements for, going from 100 to 150, and then for outdoor events, up to 500 people outdoors with testing. And again, social distancing and face covering will be required by all the attendees.  

Governor Cuomo: Rob, can you please mention the Empire Pass program?  

Robert Mujica: So on the Empire Pass program, so we have an app that we have been working with IBM on that app, when you get tested, if with your consent the results of that test can be reported automatically to the app and then you can then show proof of a negative test upon entrance to any of these events that require testing. That app has been tested right now, both at Barclays and Madison Square Garden, and those tests have been successful. So once we get the approvals, the app will be available for download on both platforms, on Google, on Apple platforms, people download to their smartphones. And that will allow someone to show the result of their test, whether it be a PCR test, which we valid for up to 72 hours, or rapid test, which will be valid for six hours. In addition, thought, if you don'twant to use an app, you will be able to download a paper result of your test that you can then print out and use that to demonstrate your negative test. So again, this is all tested, started with the Bills games, it has been tested at two events recently, the most recent one as early as last night, and that will be available and we'll start rolling that out, again, beginning within a week, and you can use that to go to some of these events when we want to get to the larger numbers, like I said, to go to 250 for indoor events, or up to 500 people for outdoor events.  

Governor Cuomo: Great. Thank you very much, Robert. Foundation to reopening, we talk a lot about reopening, and the values, and getting the economy back. Foundation to reopening is public safety. People don't think of it that way, but a community is not going to thrive if people don't feel safe. After the George Floyd murder, we have had localities working on reforming their public safety plans. Mr. Floyd's death was really just a point where there was an explosion of frustration, and we said to every local government we're not telling you what to do, but if you have a public safety department, you have to put everyone at the table, have a collaborative come up with a reform public safety plan.  

Cities are doing fantastic work, and creative work. But, not all of them are doing it. If they don't do it and we get to the budget, then they're going to be significant sanctions on the city. Please, you have 29 days, I know it's a hard topic, I know people would rather stay away from it, but public safety is one of the top priorities, for any mayor, for any county executive, any supervisor, public safety's a top priority. Yes it's hard, yes it's sticky, yes it's controversial, but, it's also the job.  

The light at the end of the tunnel is in sight, but we can't stop driving now. We'vehad critical moments all through this period, but this is one of the most critical moments, in my opinion. We have a number of things going on. We have a massive ramp-up of the vaccine operation by May. When President Biden says, oh by the way, I've found a way to produce million more doses, that's great news. But, now you have to ramp up a vaccination operation that goes from the end of July to May, in a very large state, which is what New York is. That's a challenge. The variants are still here. Don't think that there isn't an ever-present danger. And these variants are not just here. The variants are created all the time. The virus mutates all the time. And it's very possible that there's a mutation to the virus that is going to require a different type of booster shot. That's why this is so important to get all those vaccines done now, because the vaccines can protect you from the variant. But that is a lingering danger we're dealing with. And then you have the New York recovery, rebuilding, and finances. You know, when you deal with a storm, the first step is the emergency response to the storm. There's a hurricane, keep everybody safe, get people in out of the cold. Second step is, the water recedes and now you see the damage that you have to rebuild. The damage to this state, to this city is extraordinary, and we're going to have a lot of work to do. And this is all happening at the same time. Environmentally, we can't relax too soon. I get it - COVID fatigue. Everybody wants all restrictions gone. Everybody does. Yes, but you also have to be smart about the reopening. In my opinion, some states are going too far too fast and that is a danger because COVID is still a risk and you relax those restrictions too far, you will see the beast rise up again. 

Smart. New York tough, smart, united, discipline, loving.   

2021-03-07 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon. Happy Sunday. We have our Sunday team on today. We have Peter Ajemian, we have Beth Garvey, we have Robert Mujica, we have Kelly Cummings, we have Dr. Zucker who are on the phone. 
 
Good news, good news, good news: Positivity 2.98 percent. 59 New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. You look for relative peace in this. That's the lowest one-day death number since December 6.  4,700 New Yorkers hospitalized, down 165. Lowest number since December 6. 999 COVID patients in the ICU, down 13. First day ICU patients have been below 1,000 since December 9. Good news. 682 patients intubated yesterday, down 12. Good news. All good news. 
 
Long Island, 4.3; Mid-Hudson, 4.2; New York, 4; North County 2.55; Western New York, 1.99. Turn around, Western New York. 1.99, Capital Region; Finger Lakes, 1.7; Mohawk Valley, 1.5; Central New York, .9. Great turn around. Southern Tier, .7. Statewide, 3.1, which is way, way down. Bronx, 4.8; Staten Island, 4.4. Bronx, still highest, but making progress and we've done a lot of work in the Bronx and it's showing. 4.8 in the Bronx, 4.4 Staten Island, 4.2 Queens, 4.1 Brooklyn, 2.65 Manhattan. 
 
Someone should do a study on community behavior and COVID spread. Demographics study and a behavioral study. Vaccine, we are hitting an all-time record. The White House has greatly accelerated production, as you know. That has forced states to dramatically increase vaccine administration. It's good news that the federal government moved up production by 2 months, but now the states have to ramp up more quickly than they expected. 
 
We're going to do about 850,000 vaccines this week which we believe is going to be an all-time record for us. We've done more than 5.5 million total doses. 3.6 first doses, 1.9 second doses. We have opened 24-hour mass vaccination sites. Javits did 13, 431 vaccines yesterday in a 24-hour period. We believe that is the largest number of vaccines ever delivered in the country in a single day. 13,431. Yankee Stadium has gone to 24 hours. State Fair has gone to 24 hours. This is because this week we have a one-time additional vaccine bonus from Johnson & Johnson, but you're going to see the numbers continue to ramp up so we're planning to do more mass vaccination sites and more 24-hour sites. 
 
The 24-hour sites, we were worried that nobody would want to get a vaccine in the middle of the night. The 24-hour sites when we opened the night time hours, they were filled in 6 or 7 hours. Thousands of appointments which is good news because it means people are ready to take the vaccine. 
 
I'm signing today the legislatures emergency powers bill and I'm going to implement it today with a significant change. The numbers are down, when the numbers are down we adjust the economic reopening valve. Connecticut is going to 100 percent restaurant capacity on March 19. Massachusetts went to 100 percent restaurant capacity on March 1. New York on March 19, same day Connecticut goes to 100, our restaurants outside of New York City which have been at 50 percent, will now go to 75 percent. That is everywhere outside of New York City. That is all very good news. It's not just good news for the restaurant owners. Remember you have a lot of staff at restaurants, there are a lot of jobs, there are a lot of suppliers, so we'll go to 75 percent. We also think that 75 percent is what the consumer is ready for. All the same safety capacities remain in effect but we will go to 75 percent. Dr. Zucker adds a caveat between now and March 19. If the numbers change, if something happens, if there is a downtown, then obviously we will adjust.
 
With the new law that the Legislature passed, we will make this public, the Legislature has five days to review the change and we'll discuss it with any members of the Legislature or local governments who have issues. Legislature has the ability to cancel it with 50 percent of the vote.
 
Really good news is what's happened with the federal government and passing of the relief package. The big problem for this state besides COVID and doing the vaccines has been the economic deficit and then our long term recovery. The federal government providing the federal relief is a major, major boost for this state. The State gets $12.5 billion, New York City gets $6 billion, and there are additional aide packages in there. It's a great piece of work by President Biden. I spoke to him about it a number of times and his team, but it was a great piece of work. I applaud Senator Schumer, I applaud Senator Gillibrand, I applaud our Congressional delegation that fought very hard. We had multiple conversations about this, and you know, the state delegation worked very hard and we all advocated very hard for New York and this package is really very strong for New York. Congressman Jeffries, Congressman Nadler, they all worked very hard, so this is good news.
 
This does not mean this is going to be an easy budget. It means it is now a possible budget, not an easy budget. Why? You still have tremendous needs that COVID created. Rent needs, assistance needs, daycare needs, job and employment needs, so you have tremendous needs.  Also, this budget is going to raise two big questions. It's going to raise the question of taxes, how much do you need to raise in tax revenue given the federal bill, and what are the smartest and best ways to raise revenue? You can raise revenue in ways that actually cost the State revenue, so there is going to be a discussion about taxes. There is also going to be a discussion about a cliff. What does that mean? This federal aid is really the ultimate one-shot when you think bout it. You get, let's say $10 billion into the State, but it's what they call one-shot, it's a sugar high. It is non-repetitive, so how you spend it, where you spend it, how quickly you spend it, is going to be very important because this is not a sustainable level of spending. This is basically an emergency relief bill, and it is non-recurring, so you give an organization $10 million this year, there is no $10 million next year for the organization, right? You couldn't possibly match this level of revenue. That's going to make the budget tricky. It is also going to allow us to accelerate though our reconstruction program, because remember if step one was get the budget done, step two was you have to rebuild. You have to rebuild physically, you have to rebuild morale, you have to rebuild public safety, you have to rebuild public transportation, you have to rebuild New York. This is not going to be natural evolution, where New York just ascends naturally. We took a beating here, and we're going to have to build back. But with this federal aid, it's a big piece towards that role.
 
This next six months I believe will determine the future trajectory for New York State. What we do in this budget, how successful we are in rebuilding, how positive we portray this state going forward, how resilient we appear. We have to say to those New Yorkers who are looking at us and saying do they have a future or do they not have a future. Should I move to a warmer climate? Is New York ever going to come back? We have six months of an open window where we have to say you're damn right we're coming back, and we're coming back stronger than ever before, and not just say it, we're going to show it and you're going to see new public works, and you're going to see a real shot in the arm for this state. You're going to see us do vaccines where we're going to have the massive vaccination effort where people will see this is going to be a thing of the past. We're going to beat COVID. No government is better at doing its job than this government, and we've shown that all through COVID, and we're not going to be distracted from that.

Good morning to all of you. We are at the Jacob Javits Center today, and this brings back a lot of memories. First, let's thank all the people who are working here today, the nurses, the doctors, the technicians, the National Guard, let's give them a big round of applause. I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Howard Zucker, our health commissioner for the State of New York. We have reverend Gilbert Pickett, pleasure to be with him. Mike Kopy, who works on the state emergency management and has been heading up this operation, Alan Steel, who runs the Javits Center. And this is a phenomenal convention center, but what Alan Steel has had to do over the past year, no convention center on the planet has ever done. Let's give him a round of applause. And I want to thank the members of the clergy who are here who are making a very powerful statement today, and let me acknowledge them myself out of respect. Reverend Cockfield, Bishop Calvin Rice, Reverend Johnnie Green, Reverend Anthony Lowe, Reverend Reneè Washington, Pastor Sean Gardner, Reverend Carl Wauchope, Minister Stanley Smith, Bishop Findlayter, Pastor Duckett, Reverend Aker, Reverend Bolden, Minister Knight, Karina Aker, Reverend Byrd, Reverend Newton Rush, Reverend Williams, Reverend Carson, Reverend Trollinger, Pastor James Ose-Kofi, Reverend Merriweather, Reverend Dr. Carl Washington, Jr. Let's give them a round of applause.

I'm going to make some comments. Then you'll hear from Dr. Zucker, and then Reverend Pickett is going to be doing the real work today because he'll make some remarks and then he'll be receiving a vaccine. Coming to Javits, I was just chatting with Dr. Zucker inside, in many ways it's emotional being back here. Javits Center in many ways represents the beginning and the end. The beginning of COVID, Javits was turned into an emergency hospital, when we believed the hospitals were going to be overwhelmed. 2,500 emergency beds were set up at Javits. It had never been done before. The entire floor was a sea of basically army cots and partitions. 2,500, as far as you could see. And it was being staffed by National Guard and Army personnel. And we came down to supervise the setup of the hospital. And I remember speaking to the National Guard, and these are young people who came from all over the state. They're in this place that looked like it was a scene from a science fiction movie. It looked it was after the apocalypse, 2,500 hospital beds. And the National Guard were frightened. You could see it in their eyes. They're wearing masks, they're wearing gloves, they're getting a briefing on how the virus transfers. Everybody's nervous, everybody's frightened. 

But they showed up. They showed up. And that's what was so powerful to me. In this frightening scene, Jeeps, Army trucks, body bags, they showed up. They showed up. They had the courage to show up. And that was the beginning. And we made it through. It was a long year. It was a hard year, it was a challenging year, it was a frightening year, it was a painful year. Death, suffering, anxiety, loss, but we made it through. We are now at the end, at the beginning of the end. Why? Because we have a vaccine that can stop the virus. We have a vaccine that can win the war. We know that for a fact. Well then why is it that only the beginning of the end? Because we still have to get the vaccine and President Biden, God bless him, has been doing a beautiful job on that, ramping up the amount of time that this nation will actually have enough production for the country. Then people have to take the vaccine. We have to get it, we have to administer it but people have to come in to take it. 

Why is Javits symbolic of the end? This center is a mass vaccination center, runs 24-hours a day. This weekend, the Javits Center did more vaccinations than any place in the United States of America. That's what we're doing here at Javits. We're also doing vaccines at 48 houses of worship across the State. We're also announcing today another 10 new vaccination sites as the production from the federal government is increasing. 

As we're getting more, we are ready to distribute more but it has to be done fairly. It has to be done fairly and we learned this lesson the hard way over the past year. COVID discriminated. Two times as many Blacks died as whites. Two times as many Blacks died as whites. Think about that. Black population had a higher infection rate. Black population had fewer COVID tests available. Black population had more co-morbidities, more existing underlying conditions because there's a desperate health care system in this nation and there are health care deserts and there are communities that are left behind. Those people did not have the same level of health care and they fell prey to COVID at a higher rate. That is the God's honest truth before all these pastors and clergy members today. 

When it comes to the vaccine, let's correct that injustice that COVID has brought to this nation and this world. When we do this vaccine, let's make sure it's available to everyone and let's make sure everyone is coming forward to take it. Now, it is not currently being distributed or accepted fairly. New York City, 53 percent of the population is white. 57 percent of the people who have been vaccinated are white. 53 percent of the population, 57 percent of those vaccinated. Black population 27 percent of the people in New York City are Black. Only 18 percent of the people vaccinated. Only 18 percent of the people vaccinated. Hispanic, 28 percent of the population, only 20 percent vaccinated. Asian population, 16 percent of the population, 23 percent of those vaccinated. The white population, the Asian population are getting vaccinated at a higher rate than their population. The Black population and Hispanic population at a lower rate. 

Why is the question. We are making the vaccine available on an equitable basis: In community centers, in public housing projects, in houses of worship. Geographically, all throughout the State. There is a hesitancy problem in the Black community. Now, they call it hesitancy, I don't like that word hesitancy because it's a baloney word, hesitancy. It's not hesitancy - call it what it is. It's a lack of trust. It's a lack of trust. 

The Black community is saying I don't trust the system that says it is safe. The Black community is saying too many times we've been told to trust the system and the trust was broken. The Black community is saying do you remember the Tuskegee Experiment? And now you're asking me to take the vaccine. The Black community is saying well, the Trump administration said it's safe, but I don't believe the Trump administration when they said it was safe. By the way, I am saying I didn't accept the Trump administration when they said it was safe. But, here are the facts. 

We didn't accept the federal approval. We then brought together the best health care minds in the State of New York. They all reviewed the vaccine, they all said it was safe. Number one. Number two, I had no agenda besides representing the people of the State of New York. That's what I do. I don't represent or work for the politicians in Albany. I work for the people of the State. I am telling you, I have gone through the research, 5 million people have taken this vaccine. It is safe. I'm telling you, my mother, I recommended the vaccine to. I am telling you, I am recommending my daughters when they're available to take the vaccine. 

2021-03-08 NYS Gov. Cuomo

I'm telling you that the leading Black medical professionals in this country say take the vaccine. And, the pastors who are here today, who have no other possible agenda. No other possible reason to mislead the Black population say take the vaccine. Clergy, pastors who are here today, they only work for one person. They only have one boss. Their boss would not take kindly to them misleading their congregation. When they say it is safe to take the vaccine, it is safe to take the vaccine. 

We now have Johnson & Johnson. One dose, much faster, much easier and it's going to ramp up production. We'll make it available, we're doing it in this site faster and better than any place in the nation, but we need people to come forward and we need the Black population to come forward. We need the Hispanic community to come forward. They have to go first. We can't put the needle in your arm if you don't bring your arm forward. That's what we're asking you to do today. 

This vaccine can save your life. This vaccine can save your mother's life, your grandmother's life, your sister's life, your brother's life. It literally is a matter of life or death. COVID is over - no it's not. We lose people every day to COVID. Every day I have to go through the number of lives lost. Well, it's down from where it was. Yes, but you're still talking about hundreds of families affected every day, every day, every day. Save lives. Do what you can to save lives. Take the vaccine. 

Thank you for being with me today. Please welcome Dr. Howard Zucker. 

Howard Zucker: Thank you, Governor Cuomo. It is an honor to be here at the Javits Center this morning. After a long year, we now have 3 vaccines that will finally help us end this crisis. It's never been so important that we all do our part to get vaccinated. The sooner we can get vaccines into as many people as possible, the better off we will all be. Herd immunity will finally put COVID on the defense and allow us to move forward. 

Whether it's Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer or Moderna, each is safe and effective. New York State and the federal government have each done rigorous reviews to guarantee that is indeed the case. I'm especially relieved we now have the Johnson & Johnson vaccine which has been given our here at Javits Center overnight. It's only one shot, it doesn't require the ultra-cold storage that limits where it can be distributed. These factors will allow us to get as many doses of this effective vaccine into arms as soon as possible. The Governor has been right when he's said that the vaccine is what will end this crisis. Combined with our continued vigilance to wear a mask and other behavioral measures, the vaccine is driving down New York's positivity rate. All three reduce the risks of COVID taking a tremendous burden off of our hospital system. So please when it is your time get your vaccine. Do it. It's the only way we will end this crisis, reclaim our lives, and create a better future for everyone. Thank you very much.

Governor Cuomo: Reverend Pickett.

Reverend Gilbert Pickett: To our Governor, to all the clergy who are here today. It is a pleasure to be here as I am personally preparing to take the vaccine on today. Again, I want to acknowledge the clergy that the Governor has named, and I especially want to recognize my President, the Reverend Dr. Carl Washington of the Empire Baptist Missionary Convention. We stand here today united to encourage New Yorkers, especially those who are a part of the Black and Brown community, to take the vaccine today. Some of my colleagues have already taken the vaccine, and we are a living testament to the fact that it works and it is safe. The virus may be race blind, but it's not affecting anyone equally, it's hurting Black and Brown communities disproportionately. So, I want to thank the Governor, because he saw the need to get the vaccine to our communities. He is not just ringing the alarms of us taking the vaccine for months, but he's been planning and acting to get way ahead of this for nearly a year. I encourage more houses of worship to take part in the Governor's pop-up vaccinations, the drives in order to get members out to be vaccinated in our communities. We are not just lucky, but blessed enough to have three vaccines. I'll be taking the Johnson & Johnson today, and as Dr. Fauci has stated, take whatever vaccination is available. To God be the glory, for the great things that he has done and what he continues to do, now we must do our part, which means getting vaccinated to keep ourselves, our families, our communities healthy, otherwise we risk the ongoing cycle of this virus rebounding and mutating. We need to stop this virus here and now. In these moments, we must remember the lessons of the community in which John spoke of in Chapter number 15 of the Gospel: I am divine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you cannot do anything. The vaccine is safe, smart, and everyone should take it. That's why as a New Yorker and as a pastor, I am taking this vaccine today. Thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Reverend Pickett makes a powerful case. He's a beautiful orator, but today, the old expression, he's going to put his money where his mouth is. We're going to adapt it a little bit. He's going to put a needle in his arm to show that he truly believes in this message. I volunteered to do the vaccine for the Reverend. He deferred and said he wanted someone with a little bit more experience. I don't take it personally. Praise the Lord. Good decision on the Reverend's part. So Reverend, if you have a seat and we'll watch you as you have your vaccine administered. Thank you all very much for being here today.

2021-03-09 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, guys. Let me welcome Melissa, Dr. Zucker, Rob, Beth on the telephone. I was in Central New York today. We had a good day. Let me give you some statewide numbers. Positivity, 3.9. 75 New Yorkers passed away from COVID. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 4,800 hospitalized, 1,000 in ICU, 675 intubated, that's up six.

By region, number one, not a good thing, Mid-Hudson, 4.29. Long Island, 4.23, so they're very close. New York City, 3.9, North Country, 2.4, Capital Region, 1.9, Western New York, 1.96, wow, just be specific. Capital Region, 1.98, Western New York, 1.96, Finger Lakes, 1.7, Mohawk Valley, 1.5, Central New York, .9, Southern Tier, .7, statewide, 3.16. In New York City, Bronx, 4.8, Staten Island, 4.5, Queens, 4.2, Brooklyn, 4.05, Manhattan, 2.48.

Announcements today, which are a little complicated but they're important, starting tomorrow, March 10, the eligible age group drops from 65 to 60 years old. So anyone 60-plus will now be eligible. Beginning a week from tomorrow, eligibility will expand to public-facing government and public employees, not-for-profit workers who provide public-facing services to needy New Yorkers, essential in-person public-facing building service workers. That includes public works people, social service people, child service care workers, DMV workers, a lot of the CSEA employees, also election workers, et cetera.

We're also announcing that beginning next Wednesday, March 17, all providers can vaccinate anyone who's eligible to receive the vaccine. That means right now, the local health departments have certain categories they can do, FQHCs have certain categories, hospitals have certain categories. They will all be able to vaccinate everyone except for pharmacies. Pharmacies can only do 60-plus and teachers. Teachers is a federal mandate, part of Joe Biden's wanting to open school. Pharmacies are equipped to check ages, 60-plus, 65-plus, it's a driver's license, they sell cigarettes, et cetera, so they're accustomed to checking age. They're not accustomed to checking work group identification, et cetera. So pharmacies will just do age, 60-plus, and teachers who are also easily identified.

We did a White House call. The White House basically will have a flat allocation for the next two weeks. We had that very large Johnson & Johnson surge last week that we're administering this week. That's why we opened a 24-hour mass vaccination sites, et cetera. There is now a flat two weeks where basically the allocation will stay the same, so our sub-recipients also should expect a flat allocation, because we're not getting more so we don't have more to distribute. Last week of March, and then into April, it should start to increase dramatically. And that's why we will be increasing our production capacity, our distribution capacity, in anticipation of that increase. So we're opening 10 new mass vaccination sites. We're reaching out to houses of worship to partner with us. We still have a racial disparity. I don't think any state is working harder at breaking down that racial disparity, but it still exists. So we'll have houses of worship that can actually be pop-up sites themselves, and we encourage houses of worship to come forward to do that.

We're signing today the COVID-19 Emergency Protect Our Small Businesses Act of 2021 with a chapter amendment. The law now basically applies to businesses at 50 employees. We've worked with the legislature, we're going to increase that to 100 plus employees. And there's a further agreement that will further expand the protections to small businesses with 100 or fewer employees and businesses with 500 or fewer that were closed to in-person operations by executive order or Department of Health directive for two or more weeks between May 15th, 2020, and May 1st, 2021. So if you were closed by executive order, this bill will provide relief up to 500 employees.

We had a situation with the Long Island Rail Road with a reduced service due to reduced ridership. That did not work, certainly didn't work well. There are a lot of reports of overcrowded trains. We don't want overcrowded trains, especially during this period of COVID. So I'm calling on the Long Island Rail Road to reverse what they've done, increase service. You don't want crowded trains, crowded platforms, now. I understand the financial constraints. I understand there's a reduced ridership. But it's smarter to have fewer people on a train during this period, even if it's not cost-effective.

Overall, we've done 5,824,000 doses. That's about 94 percent of all the doses that we have. So we're running at a very high rate of what they call throughput, even with the tremendous increase of J&J. The Javits Center, Johnson & Johnson, the Javits Center over the weekend was the number one mass vaccination site in the country. The State Fair was the second largest mass vaccination site yesterday with over 9,000 vaccinations. So, these mass vaccination sites are highly effective, and literally they're doing more vaccines than just about any place in the country. So we're very excited about that progress.

2021-03-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, everyone. We have Melissa DeRosa, Dr. Howard Zucker, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey. Thank you for joining us today. I'll give you an update, COVID updated.  

Positivity, 3.11 percent.  74 New Yorkers passed away from COVID yesterday. They'rein our thoughts and prayers. Number hospitalized, 4,634, down 101, lowest number since December 6. That is great news.  935 patients in ICU, lowest number since December 7.  639 intubated yesterday. That is down 26. That's good news. Positivity by region: number 1, which is not a good thing, you don't want to be number 1 in this - 4.4, Long Island 4.2, New York City 3.9, North Country 1.9, Capital Region 1.8, Western New York 1.7, Finger Lakes 1.6, Mohawk 1.4, Central New York 0.8, Southern Tier 0.6 - that comes out to 3.13.

In New York City, take a guess, Bronx, number 1, 4.9; Staten Island, 4.8, which is a turnaround; Queens, 4.6; Brooklyn, 4.3; Manhattan still only 2.82.

On vaccines, we administered 6 million to date. Percent of New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose, 21 percent.  Percent of New Yorkers completed vaccine, 10 percent.  We've done 178,000 vaccines in the last 24 hours. More than 1 million doses have been administered in the past 7 days.  

The President's announcement last night is going to have a major ramification on states' vaccination capacity. He has moved up dramatically the amount of vaccines that are available and that is a good thing obviously. Remember when we started we were talking about June, July, August. The President is now talking about May 1. That means we have to have a tremendous increase in our capacity to vaccinate, and that is a logistical undertaking unlike anything we have done before so we're going to be preparing for that but the President's announcement that May 1 everyone will be eligible for a vaccine, what that means is in New York 15 million people will be eligible and we have to have the capacity to address those people as quickly as possible.Now the President said, it doesn't mean everybody gets a vaccine on May 1, but once you tell people they are eligible, then eligibility suggests, now I should be able to get it and we're going to have to dramatically increase our capacity to do that because we are not at that capacity now.  

The President has passed the federal budget bill which is good news for New York. In the federal bill we asked for $15 billion. It's still $2.5 billion short from what we asked for, but it is a major relief.  

I'm going to sign the death benefits bill today. In May of last year we signed a bill into law that provided enhanced debt benefits for families of public workers who died from COVID. I extended it by Executive Order. Today I'm signing a new bill into law extending that through next year, 2022.  It's the least we can do to say thank you and honor and remember the families going forward.

The vaccinations time off bill I'm also signing. It grants each employee in New York both public and private paid time off to get a COVID vaccine, up to four hours per shot. This corresponds to the President's new directive. This will ensure that all New Yorkers have an opportunity to get vaccinated. Our goal is to be the COVID-safe state.

There is also a bill on unemployment insurance benefit changes. Many states have overpayment waiver options. New York does not have that currently, but going forward we're going to ensure it.  You earn less than $150,000 of the federal poverty level, through no fault of your own, you've been overpaid. This would constitute a hardship, so we're not going to require people to repay or have deducted from their future benefits. The pandemic was brutal on everyone and brutal economically and if this is a way we can help then that's what we want to do.

2021-03-15 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Good afternoon, everyone. Let's get a better good afternoon than that. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be in Old Westbury today, back at Old Westbury today. Walking through the preparation for a mass vaccination site, it's amazing how different this world is. There was nothing called a mass vaccination site several months ago. We have a whole new language to walk through this facility now. You look at the way it's set up, it looks like something you would see after a science-fiction movie, but it is the reality that we're living. 

I want to thank Timothy Sams very much, the new president, for all his help today. Reverend Calvin Butts was here for many years, he leaves big shoes, but we're sure President Sams is going to step up and I want to thank him for his hospitality. We have our great health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, you'll hear from him in a moment. We have Tracy Edwards who's the President of the Long Island NAACP. We have Bishop Lionel Harvey, Bishop of the First Baptist Cathedral of Westbury. We have Kristen Jarnagin who is the President and CEO of Discover Long Island, which does great work here on Long Island. 

Michael Dowling, CEO of Northwell Health. Northwell has just been phenomenal, not just on Long Island. Let's give Northwell a round of applause for what they've done. We have more to do. We have John Dorsoe who is the epitome of a labor leader and progressive labor leader. Let's give him a round of applause. 

We have to get serious today. We have three major tasks that this State must complete simultaneously. First, is the vaccination. The vaccine is the weapon that wins the war. Great - it's developed, but you have to get it and then you have to get it in people's arms. Now, President Biden, whose done an amazing job, accelerated the acquisition of the vaccination. Now says we'll have enough by May 31 to make everyone eligible. That doesn't mean we'll have enough to vaccinate everyone by May 31, but we'll have enough to make everyone eligible. 

The vaccination task is massive. Just to give you an idea, all the vaccinations we've been doing, all these weeks, all these months, we have fully vaccinated 2 million New Yorkers. We have 15 million eligible New Yorkers to vaccinate. All this work, 2 million. We have to do 15 million New Yorkers. We have a long way to go. This is an operational, logistical situation that we've never dealt with before. It is a major, major task. 

The single most effective vaccination mechanism is what we call a mass vaccination site. This is a mass vaccination site. It is one large facility capable of doing thousands, in some cases keep them open 24 hours a day. From what we call a through-put from just getting needles in arms, these mass sites are the most effective. There's going to be one here. Obviously, Westbury is being set up right now. One at SUNY Stony Brook at the Southampton campus and there's going to be one opening at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood. They open on Friday, this Friday. They're preparing to open now, they open on Friday. 

They start taking appointments on Wednesday. Wednesday you can start making appointments. Wednesday also is the day that eligibility opens up for a new class of essential workers and that's on the website. Public facing essential workers. Between now and Wednesday, 60-year-old plus have priority for schedules. So, mass vaccination sites open Friday. They start taking appointments Wednesday. On Wednesday a next class of essential workers become eligible. Between now and Wednesday, the 60-year-old plus still have priority for appointments. I don't know anyone who is 60-plus. I'm still waiting for mine. I have to get down to 28-years-old before I'm eligible. Some of these people here though, they look to me like they're bumping up near the eligibility level. I'm still not there. 

Actually, I am there. I just don't look like I'm there. I'm going to take mine and I'm going to take mine at a pop-up center in a Black community, because I want to make that point and I want to take the Johnson & Johnson, because I want to make the point that the Johnson & Johnson is safe. I'm going to take mine in the coming days. That's vaccines overall. Massive undertaking.

Ancillary problem to the vaccines - we don't want to just distribute them, we want to distribute them fairly. COVID discriminated. COVID was race blind, but COVID wound up discriminating. COVID killed two times as many Blacks as whites, two times as many Blacks as whites. COVID killed one and a half times more Hispanics than whites. Why? Because COVID preyed on the underlying health disparity - the communities that were health care deserts, the communities that didn't have the same access to health care so they had more comorbidities, they had more underlying conditions. And that's why COVID killed, literally killed, more Black people and Hispanic people than white people. When it comes to the vaccine, we have to correct that injustice.

This vaccine has to be available everyone, equitably and fairly, and we have to do social justice with this vaccine. We are going to make this vaccine available in the communities that have been hardest hit. I am asking faith-based church leaders, pastors, let us use your church as a pop-up vaccination site. Opening up vaccination sites in public housing, opening up vaccination sites in community centers. We will bring the vaccine to those communities hardest hit. We've done over 120 pop-up sites already.

I want to get my vaccine in a church, predominately for the black community to make the point. But, we need the Black community and the Hispanic community to come forward and have confidence in this vaccine. You want to hear a frightening number? On Long Island about 11 percent of the population is Black, only 5 percent has taken the vaccine - half the eligible population. Hispanic community, about 17 percent of the population, only 8 percent. White community is actually higher than the population. We have to fix that. We have to fix that. Now, it gets complicated - and I want to be honest - they'll say, "Well, there's a hesitancy problem in the Black community." It's not a hesitancy problem - we tend to come up with polite definitions for problems we don't really like to acknowledge - there's not a hesitancy problem, there's a trust problem in the Black community. They don't trust the system. They don't trust the Federal government, Trump Administration said it's safe, they don't trust it. By the way, I didn't trust the Trump Administration when they said it was safe. That's why we set up a whole separate New York State panel to review it. But we did set up a New York State panel, and they reviewed it, the best doctors. We have done over five million doses - nobody is experimenting on anyone. The leading Black medical professionals in the United States of America say take the vaccine. I had my mother take the vaccine. I'll have my daughters take the vaccine. I'm going to take the vaccine. Please, listen to the leadership of the Black community and the Hispanic community. Listen to the pastors who are here. Listen to Bishop Harvey. They would not recommend a vaccine if it was not safe. And there's a risk to taking a vaccine - no, no - there's a risk to not taking the vaccine.

Second track that the State has to work on simultaneously - today the Legislature puts in their budgets, so the Senate puts in their budget, the Assembly puts in their budget. I presented my budget several weeks ago. This is the most important budget in the history of the State of New York. You tell me what we do in this budget, I'll tell you what the future of New York State is. We're recovering from COVID. We have a tremendous deficit - largest deficit in the history of the State. We have the greatest needs for the people of this State - unemployed, housing problems, mental health problems, food insecurity problems. We are at a pivotal moment in this State and what we do now will decide the trajectory. And the budget is more than just a budget - the word budget doesn't really work, it's like hesitancy. This is not a budget, this is the plan for recovery for the State of New York. And we have real issues on Long Island. 

New York City has serious, serious issues - growing crime, growing homelessness. Zoom has changed the world. COVID we will recover from. Zoom isn't going away. COVID may go away, Zoom's not going away. And Zoom said, 'you can live your life a different way. You don't have to get in the car and commute. You don't have to get on a train and commute. You can just do it by Zoom.' So, this is a very delicate moment and that's what this budget is all about and we have to do it in a number of weeks and we have to be serious about it. There are significant revenue raising proposals. How you raise revenue can actually raise revenue or can cost you revenue. If you're not careful with the way you do it, you may actually lose money for the state because businesses and residents will make changes. There are also pieces of legislation we have been trying to get done for a long time that we have to get done this year - passing marijuana reform and legalizing recreational marijuana. We tried it for the past three years, we have to get it done this year. There's been too many young lives that have been ruined because of the marijuana laws. 

I spent this past weekend on the phone with the Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes working through it. We're very close on marijuana. The truth is we have been very close before. Member Crystal Peoples-Stokes is from Buffalo, Buffalo Bills we all know play in Buffalo, I said 'Look, this is not about getting in the Red Zone anymore, we have to get over the goal line this time, we need the seven points.' So, a lot happening on that budget that we have to get done and that starts today. And thirdly, we have to reopen the economy. We have to get back to work. We have to get people earning checks. We have to get businesses moving. People need to return to normalcy. They need the mental stability of normalcy. Kids have to get back into classrooms. 

We have to reopen and part of that, which we have been moving all along, we're going to announce today that we are going to start again a great Long Island tradition which was the Bethpage Air Show at Jones Beach. And that is going to happen this year. We'll have masks, we'll have social distancing, but we're going to do that again. Last point, and I am sorry for going on so long, on the way here today, I went through a lot of places, a lot of memories. We have Superstorm Sandy on Long Island and we spent months with Superstorm Sandy. I mean, it devastated life - businesses, homes, jobs, people. And in the midst of it, it seemed like we were doomed. I'll tell you, it just seemed like we would never be able to build back. And it was a dark, dark period for people. And there were a lot of tears and a lot of despair, but we said, 'you know what? We can build back from this, and as a matter of fact, we're not going to build back, we're going to build back better.' We said that during Hurricane Sandy, that was our expression - Build Back Better. We're going to learn from it. 

Sometimes God comes, and he knocks you on your rear end for one reason or another. Or life comes and knocks on your rear end for one reason or another. Circumstances happen, things happen, people get sick, accidents happen, the question is what you do when you get knocked on your rear end and New Yorkers get up. And they get up stronger and they learn the lesson and they rebuild and they rebuild back better and that's what we did after Superstorm Sandy and that's what we're going to do after COVID. This is not the last time we're going to see a pandemic. It will happen again, but we will never be caught surprised and uninformed and unprepared like we were this time. And the silver lining, in this storm, you saw people come together and form real community and real resilience, and you saw love and you saw volunteerism. And you're going to see people volunteering to work in this mass vaccination site, putting their health at risk because they love their neighbors. And that is the silver lining and that is the essence of what New York is. And that is the essence of what New York represented to this nation through COVID. When the nation watched New York last year getting beaten up, they saw New Yorkers stand up and we gave hope to the nation and we're going to do it again. Thank you and God bless. Let me introduce our great Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker.

Howard Zucker: Thank you Governor Cuomo. It's a pleasure to be here with you, here at SUNY Old Westbury. Today's announcement is wonderful news that puts us another step closer to ending this awful pandemic. The science is clear that getting the vaccine, wearing a mask and keeping a safe distance from others, the devastation of the last year will finally stop. Long Island has done a great job on the vaccination front. The tremendous success we've seen here in Nassau County, where more than a quarter of the population has gotten at least one shot, is a model for the rest of the state. That's due in part to the mass vaccination site at Jones Beach, our pop-up locations throughout the island, and the advocacy of our equity task force and our community partners. With this site opening at SUNY Old Westbury, we will be able to get more vaccines into arms as soon as possible. But there still a long road ahead. We cannot rest on our laurels or let our guard down. This virus continues to adapt, and we are now in a race between the vaccines and variants. So the sooner we get a majority of New Yorkers fully vaccinated, the sooner we head off more strains of this virus that become easier to contract and are deadlier, or could be deadlier. So please, come get your shot here at SUNY Old Westbury, or Jones Beach, or the closest vaccination site that you can find. Take whichever shot is offered. They will all work. This is how we stop COVID in its tracks, we get our lives back to normal, and we create a stronger New York that Governor Cuomo has proposed. I'd like to now introduce Kristen Jarnagin, who's the President and CEO of Discover Long Island. Thank you very much. 

Kristen Jarnagin: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, and thank you Governor Cuomo, truly for your leadership thoroughly this entire year's crisis. It has been devastating to the tourism industry throughout the country. Long Island is no different. Tourism is the hardest hit industry related to COVID. On Long Island, that means about 100,000 tourism jobs. We've lost more than 30,000 of those jobs. I am so proud of how our industry came together and all of our businesses really pivoted during this time to offer takeout and to have igloos to try and bring people back. But really the key to bringing people back and to bringing this industry back are the vaccines, so this is an incredible announcement because not only do vaccines mean a return to normalcy for tourism and getting our jobs back, but it also means that we can look forward to that Long Island institution of the Bethpage Air Show, which we missed last Summer, we pretty much missed an entire year, and Long Islanders love our summers. We go through winter so that we can have summer, right. And Long Islanders know that the Bethpage air show is the unofficial kickoff to summer. That's how we all know it's finally year. So I want to thank especially Bethpage, Linda Armyn, the senior vice president, for their incredible sponsorship of this show. And you know, previous to COVID, tourism is a $6.3 billion industry on Long Island, and we feel like thanks to these great pop-up vaccines, it's going to return to that. We're going to have our Long Island summer, that we've all looked forward to, and we're going to be able to go to Jones Beach, and the vineyards, and our historical sites, and really enjoy this wonderful place that we all call home. So thank you very much for your leadership and for getting us return to normalcy as soon as possible. 

Bishop Lionel Harvey: First of all, I'd like to thank the Governor for his stellar leadership during this time of crisis. He has done a yeoman's job and we appreciate it so much. I want to recognize some of our trusted stakeholders who are here with us and some of our clergy who have assembled in this place. First of all, Dr. Debbie Salas Lopez, the senior vice president of community and population health at Northwell. Bishop Issac R. Melton, Pastor Sedgwick Easley, Pastor Sunny Phillip, Pastor Tristan Salley, Elder Mark Moses, Pastor Omar Jolly, Girish Patel, Habeeb Ahmed, the Islamic Center of Long Island, Brent Hill, the executive director of the Five Towns Community Center, Barbara Powell, the president of the Hempstead NAACP, Doug Mayers, the president of the Freeport NAACP, and Pearl Jacobs, the president of the Nostrand Gardens Civic Association, and then my friend Tracey Edwards, who is over here. 

I'm extremely pleased to be here. I'm ecstatic at this point. It has been an arduous, and a long, and a trying year. But the reality is we can feel a new season that is coming, a dawning of a brand-new day. And the new season that is ahead of us, if we do the things that are right, is going to be a blessing to so many. I'm not talking about the spring, because that is going to come no matter what. I'm talking about the season when we're safe from this dreaded COVID-19 virus, and we can enjoy life the way it was intended to be, and how it should be, each and every day, as we conquer this virus. To reach that season, we must do two things. We've got to keep being safe from COVID, and we've got to get vaccinated. It is imperative that we get the vaccine in our arms. The governor had said that it was a trust issue, and I have a saying that I teach that trust is only extended to the limit of truth. And that's why we have these trusted stakeholders that are behind us. Because they're not going to tell you something that is going to hurt you. they're going to tell you something that is going to help. And it's important in our Black and Brown communities that we get vaccinated. My mother has gotten vaccinated. My father has gotten vaccinated. I have received the vaccination. And so many others in our churches have done it. This is an important time for faith leaders and community leaders, and for every single person in our community to really take on the mantle of becoming leaders. 

Our community was hit hard, it was devastated. I stood in front of so many caskets during this season, and it is through the vaccine that we can best protect ourselves and each other. We know what the Bible says in Philippians 4:13, that I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. Christ will strengthen me through this life saving vaccine. God has our back, and he also has our heart. So, faith leaders are proud to partner with the State and with our Governor to open pop-up vaccine sites at our houses of worship to make it more accessible to our communities, and this is how we achieve equity and justice in the vaccine. I give the clarion call to my community and all communities across Long Island - get the vaccine in your arm, whether it's at your house of worship or a mass vaccination site like this one at SUNY Old Westbury, or any other site, get the vaccine in your arm. Get the vaccine because it will save your life. I'd rather have the vaccine than have the virus, so go to ny.gov/vaccine to make your appointment, and help bring in the season of healing, health and hope, love, peace and joy. Thank you so much.

Tracey Edwards: Well, thank you very much. It is an honor to be here. It is a cold spring day. I am surrounded by clergy, and our Governor is on Long Island, it's a wonderful, wonderful day. A wonderful day. You know, Governor, I want to thank you for your leadership. I want to look at you, I want to thank you for your leadership and for your resolve for this issue. We need you to continue going with this vaccine. COVID has devastated the State, Long Island continues to be one of the hardest hit regions, especially for our Black and Brown New Yorkers. We must take the vaccine. Now, I'm going to tell you a personal story off script. So, today right after this I am going to have an infusion, and I'm going to have an infusion because I want to make sure that the cancer that was in my body does not return. I'm not asking what's in the infusion, I'm not looking up all of the ingredients in the infusion, I am sticking out my arm and I am taking the infusion, and that's what we have to do. Our communities take insulin, Metformin, all kinds of - we can line up at the drug store so quickly because we want to save our lives, and that's what the Governor is talking about. We must take the vaccine. The vaccine is the weapon that wins the war on COVID, and we need our clergy because as Martin Luther King said, "religion and science are not competing interests, they are our trusted messengers." And when your pastor says to do something, you trust your pastor, you trust your doctor. That's what we need to do. This shot is the only thing that will get our lives back, whichever vaccine is offered to you. The Governor, our Governor, has done an amazing job for Long Island, for New York. It is there for you to take it, and we cannot have any excuses at all. We all need to do our part, not just for ourselves, but for our families, for our friends, for our community. So, Governor, I thank you for being here. You stay continuing to lead us through this crisis, because we need you. Thank you.

Governor Cuomo: Well, everything has been said and it's been said better than I said it. Tracey Edwards, let's give her a round of applause. Bishop Harvey, Kristen Jarnagin, Dr. Howard Zucker, who's done a great job all across the State, let's give him a round of applause. Get the vaccine. God bless you.

2021-03-17 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good afternoon, guys. Say hello to Kelly Cummings, Robert Mujica, Beth Garvey, Dr. Zucker, Melissa DeRosa. Let me give you an update as to where we are today on COVID.

Positivity rate, 3.41. 54 New Yorkers died from COVID yesterday. They're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalization down 33, 4,624.  ICU, 954.  Intubated, 601. 

Positivity by region: Mid-Hudson, number 1 in inverse, 4.6. Long Island, 4.5. New York City, 4.1. Western New York, 1.99.

Behavior matters. Community behavior matters. Western New York was at the top of the scale for a long time as people remember. It's now 1.99.

Capital Region, 1.7.  Finger Lakes, 1.6.  Mohawk Valley, 1.5.  North Country, 1.5. Central New York, 0.8.  Southern Tier, 0.6.  Statewide 3.28.

By borough, interesting, 7-day positivity, Queens, 5.2.  Staten Island, 5.2.  Bronx, 5.1.  Brooklyn, 4.8.  Manhattan, 2.87.  Again, community behavior matters. Bronx was the highest level as you remember. They're all close but now it's Queens, Staten Island, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, 2.87.  Manhattan has always been, not always but for a long time, has been down at the bottom.

Vaccines, a few minutes ago we did the 7 millionth shot in the arm. I got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this morning. I want everyone to understand Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Moderna, they all work. Take whatever vaccine you can get. We're working very hard at the equitable distribution. We now have 145 community-based pop-up sites. 14 State mass vaccination sites, which are the highest throughput sites. If you ask what are the single most effective, the mass vaccination sites have the highest throughput. We also have 6 mass vaccination sites in partnership with the federal government. 52 churches across the state are now doing vaccinations. We're opening 16 new pop-up sites across the state this week, including eight new church sites, new pop-up sites, eight in New York City, two on Long Island, two in the Hudson Valley, one in Saratoga Springs, one in Geneva, one in Buffalo, one in Wellsville. They should do 5,200 shots, those pop-up centers. People can sign up for an appointment today, ny.gov/vaccine, or call 1-833-NYS-4-VAX.

Reopening, today we're announcing that effective this Monday, March 22, the final five yellow zone clusters will be lifted, so all clusters will be lifted. The remaining clusters are in the East Bronx, West Bronx, Manhattan, Newburgh, New Windsor, Queens, Kew Gardens, Forest Hills. That means any specific restrictions in those locations that had been in place will be lifted and now will fall in line with overall State guidance but that means all the clusters will be lifted on reopening.

Indoor fitness classes will be reopening. That's primarily in New York City on Monday, March 22. Gyms were open, but indoor fitness classes were not open and that caused a certain amount of consternation. They will open Monday, March 22. They will also be subject to the protocols that have been in place all across the state, 33 percent capacity, sign in with contact information. They scheduled the classes to allow cleaning, disinfection, masks, social distancing, shared equipment cleaned, local health departments shall inspect.

Curfews on reopening, we're announcing starting April 5, the 11 p.m. curfew currently in place for casinos, movie theaters, bowling alleys, billiard halls, gyms and fitness centers will be lifted. The 11 p.m. curfew will be lifted. The 11 p.m. curfew for food and beverage establishments and the 12 a.m. curfew for catered events will remain in effect for the time being. We're evaluating both now and we will have an announcement on them in April.

Third piece of business is the budget. The budget is more important this year than any budget we have done and frankly, it's more complicated than any budget that we have done. The federal government has provided significant funding. The federal funding is the ultimate, what we would call, one-shot. A one-shot is non-recurring revenue. It's a one-time installment.

The trick with one-shots is that they don't recur. Whatever you fund with a one-shot then by definition once that one-shot is exhausted there's no funding for that activity. The one-shots create what we call a cliff. Raises spending to a very high basis and then for a very short period of time and right after that spending you hit a cliff and it's a long way down to the bottom.

It's also complicated because there are revenue increases and the federal government also proposes, rumored to propose, revenue increases. Many in the same area that we're talking about. We will do a tax increase and then the federal government in several weeks may also announce that tax increase nationwide. Trying to anticipate what the federal government is going to do and then align it with what the State is going to do is complicated. It's complicated.

Conversations are ongoing, but there's a long way from here to there and, as I said, there are more dimensions to this budget than normal. Normally you only have State revenue, what did you need, what did you raise, what do you want to want. This is an entire overlay of the federal government funding and then an overlay of the federal governments future tax actions which the Biden administration is talking about for their infrastructure bill, to fund their infrastructure. It's complicated. Everyone is talking and we're trying to work our way through it. But those are the three focuses, the vaccines, where this is going to accelerate very quickly.

The Biden Administration did a great job of securing more vaccines, but, the allocation to the state increases dramatically in a very short period of time. So we're going to have to do millions and millions of doses in a very short period of time. They want to increase eligibility for everyone in May. That would make 15 million New Yorkers eligible. We have only fully vaccinated about 2 million New Yorkers. Fully vaccinated. even let's call it three. But you'd be going from 3 million to 15 eligible, which means you'd have 12 million people eligible who haven't received a vaccine, and then a tremendous allocation coming in very quickly. So this is a logistical nightmare for the state to perform on the vaccine side. On the vaccine side, you also have the equity component, where hesitancy, lack of trust, access, we want to make sure it's done fairly. So that's an added complication. But that's job one.

Job two is we have to get the budget done, and that's extraordinarily complicated. And job three, reopen, and reopen with energy, and optimism, and with a real sense of progress that people can see so they have confidence in New York. New York has taken a beating during COVID. It's important that people, businesses, have confidence in New York. We have serious issues. It's not just COVID. COVID created a number of ancillary issues. We have tremendous public safety issue. We have a crime problem. Again, I remind local governments, April 1, they, I've been saying for a year, must have their new public safety plan in place, done in collaboration with the community. So public safety, you don't often think of public safety as a reopening issue, but public safety, crime, is a major priority for people in making decisions whether they want to stay in a community or not. And gauging the reopening with COVID, curfews, et cetera, that's an ongoing process and we've been continuing that, restaurants opening, et cetera. So those are the three tasks I'm focused on. Reopening, vaccination and getting the budget done.

2021-03-22 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning to all. It's my pleasure to be in Westchester County today. It's my pleasure to be in Mount Vernon. My pleasure to be at Grace Baptist Church with so many great community leaders and faith leaders here today. You'll hear from a tremendous leader for the entire State in a moment. Reverend Dr. Franklyn Richardson, who is the senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church and also the Chairman of the National Action Network. He has done phenomenal work, let's give him a round of applause for all his good help. 

We have Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard, who is the Mayor of the City of Mount Vernon. Pleasure to be with you Madam Mayor. We have our great health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker. I want to thank him very much for all his great work. We have Tyrae Woodson Samuels, Westchester County Legislator, pleasure to be with him. We have Henry Munoz from the SOMOS Healthcare Group which is going to be doing a vaccine center here at Grace Church. They have been phenomenal. All over the State, all over the country by the way. Henry Munoz and Dr. Ramon Tallaj. Let's give them a round of applause. If the technology works, we're going to be with Reverend Al Sharpton. 

First, what a beautiful day it is today truly. We are now in a new season. We are in the season of the spring and the spring says it is a time for renewal. It is a time for rebirth. That's what the spring is about. You can feel it in the air, you can see it on my face. This is not high blood pressure, this is a sign of spring and also forgetting sunscreen, but put that aside for a second. 

You see the Earth coming back to life after a long, cold, dark COVID winter. A winter, a year that has been unlike anything that we have experienced in modern times. More loss, more isolation, more fear, more anxiety than ever before. Today is a new day and it feels that it is a new day and the signs are all around us. Now, it's not enough that the seasons turn, God helps those who help themselves and we need to do what we need to do to rebuild and rebirth New York. 

First thing we have to do is take the vaccination. Take the vaccination. We have great news on the vaccine front. The production is ramping up, we've gone so many months not having enough. Over the next few weeks, you're going to see the production of the vaccine ramp up. We've got more good news, the Astra Zeneca vaccine, now another additional vaccine, is going for FDA approval. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Modernaand now Astra Zeneca. We will have enough vaccine to vaccinate people. We have to make sure we have the capacity and the willingness to take the vaccine. 

We're announcing today the "Roll Up Your Sleeve" campaign. Vaccinate New York and we're deploying a foundation of our society, which is our faith-based community. We have religious leaders here from all across the spectrum. We have rabbis who are with us today, we have imams who are with us today, we have priests who are with us today, we have pastors who are with us today. All across the religious spectrum and what we're asking is for faith-based facilities across the State to partner with local health organizations, local hospitals, local community-based clinics, local FQHCs and make the houses of worship, the faith-based facilities, vaccine centers. 

Invite people into the house of worship to receive their vaccine. It will create a network all across the State using those facilities and it will also bring trust and it will bring faith. Yes, the vaccine is safe. Yes, the medical community has said it, but I believe when the religious community says it, it's going to bring an added credibility. That's what the "Roll Up Your Sleeve" campaign is all about. Asking the faith-based community to partner with the health care operator, perform the vaccines in your facility and we will provide the vaccines to any facility that participates. 

Invite your congregation, invite your neighborhood, use your trust, use your relationship to get past this hesitancy, et cetera. Not only do we have to do the vaccinations, we have to do it equitably. We still, we still have not reached fairness and equity in the number of vaccines. Here in the Hudson Valley, 79 percent of the population is white. 86 percent of those who are vaccinated are white. 79 percent, 86 percent vaccinated. 14 percent of the population is Black, only 8 percent of those vaccinated are Black. 19 percent of the population is Hispanic and only 13 percent of those vaccinated are Hispanic. That discrepancy has to be remedied. 

COVID discriminates. COVID killed twice as many Black people as white people. COVID killed 1.5 times as many Hispanics as white people. Justice says let those who are afflicted most be the first in receiving the vaccine and that is our goal. 

Second, we take the vaccine, then we're going to have to rebuild. The storm came, first order of business during a storm, save lives. That's what we did for the past year, save lives. Storm passes, what's the second order of business? Now we have to go out in the light of a new day and we have to rebuild. We have to repair the damage of the storm. This COVID storm left much, much damage. Economic damage, personal damage, psychological damage, mental health issues. Children who spent a year out of school. Children in poorer communities who didn't have the same access to remote learning who were left behind more than anyone else. 

We have to rebuild and we're going to rebuild the same way we beat COVID in the first place. You know what beat COVID? You know how New York went from the highest infection rate in the United States to the lowest infection rate in the United States? We came together. We came together. It was the unity of New Yorkers that did it. We were like that, we were all in this together. That I wear this mask for you and you wear your mask for me. That from COVID unless we are all safe, no one is safe. 

COVID unified in this State. COVID divided in many other states and COVID was used as a tool of division in many states. But in this State it was the exact opposite. We said we're all unified it doesn't matter: Black, white, gay, straight, upstate, downstate, Christian, Jewish - it didn't matter. We had to protect one another and there is tremendous strength in that unity. We went from the highest infection rate - nobody had the problem we had in New York. No country on the globe had the problem that we had in New York. We were ambushed by COVID, but we brought it down and we saved thousands of lives. 

And that's how we're going to rebuild, with that same strength and that same unity. And we are going to do it, and we're not just going to build back because we've learned, we've changed, we've grown. Life sometimes will knock you on your rear end. Things will happen. You'll have a health issue. Something will happen at home, there will be a domestic issue, life will do that to you. The question is, who gets up and who gets up the smarter for the experience and who gets up having learned from the experience. And we know that our strength is unity and we're going to rebuild a state that is better than ever before.

Let me now turn it over to a hero of mine, our host for today. This facility, for all the good work it's done, Grace Baptist Church is now going to be a vaccine center starting tomorrow, thanks to Reverend Dr. Franklyn Richardson.

Reverend Dr. Franklyn Richardson: Thank you, Governor. That's our Governor, let's give him some love. I want to first of all acknowledge our Mayor, and then I want to acknowledge my colleagues in Ministry from all over this area. One of the things that's happened with COVID is it's united us across faith, across gender, across community. Sometimes hardships can bring you together in ways that your theology might separate you. But I'm thankful today that we are all one accord, trying to heal this nation, trying to heal this state and heal this community. 

And I want to acknowledge those who are here. Reverend William Mizell who is Senior Assistant Pastor at Grace Church. Reverend Dr. DeCohen who is President of the Westchester United Black Clergy and Pastor of the Congregational Heights Church in Mount Vernon. Reverend Stephen Pogue, Pastor of the Greater Centennial. You might raise your hand so they know who I'm talking about. And Bishop C. Nathan Edwers, Friendship Worship Center. Bishop Arthur Thomas, Oneness Rehoboth Apostolic Church. Reverend Jeffrey Wheeler, Mount Calvary CME Church. Reverend VeronHouse, New Life Fellowship. Imam Musa Abdul Ali, Yusuf Shah Islamic Center in Mount Vernon. Judith Watson could not be here today but she's our partner, she's the Executive Director of our Mount Vernon Health Center. She and I, Grace Church, have been partners in distribution and I'm grateful for our health center. Reverend Greg Merriweather, Calvary Baptist Church, Haverstraw. Pastor Jim Bostic, Executive Director of the Nepperhan Community Center. Reverend Shaun Jones, Star Bethlehem in Ossining. Reverend James Duckett, Fort Motte Baptist Church in the Bronx. Maury Litwack, Orthodox Union. Rabbi Joe Pasternack, Executive Vice President New York Board of Rabbis. There he is. Eli Forchhammer, Executive Director of Westchester Jewish Council. Rabbi Adam Baldachin, Congregational Shaarei Tikvah. and Dr. Mill Etienne, Westchester Medical Center, Hudson Valley Equity Task Force.

We are grateful to be here together. I want to thank the Governor for joining us here at Grace Church today. He's been here many times, I've been blessed by his presence and his partnership, and I admire his leadership. I also am honored to host you here today. Today's visit fulfills a commitment that you made last year to our community that those were first in line to die from COVID would not be last in line to get the vaccine. The vaccine that is helping us crush COVID and saving lives. That is one of the reasons I've always liked and respected you, sir. You are a man of your word, like your father. Governor, you've been a serving leader - during the darkest seasons of the pandemic, when there wasn't a map and little understanding of the pandemic, you relentlessly navigated all of us in New York with information and information. 

Your example has been modeled by multiple states across the country. Your leadership set the standard for how to address the challenges of COVID, and you were delivered the worst case of COVID that hit the United States in the earliest moments of this experience into our capacity to survive. Last year you established the New York State Vaccine Task Force to make sure that the vaccines would be safe enough for the people New York before you took your vaccine. In the short time after you created the Vaccine Equity Task Force, which I had the honor to serve as Executive Committee member, to ensure the communities of color would not be overlooked as they so often and tragically are. Dr. King told us that of all the forms of inequality, racial health injustice is the worst of them all. It often results in physical death and it causes us to be shocked by how far we are from each other. COVID magnified that painful truth. Racism is a public health crisis, but you have made it your business to get enough vaccines for our people and you have created mass vaccination sites all over the State that often have overnight hours so that working people can get the vaccine. More people can get the vaccine quickly as possible. 

You have created pop-up sites at churches and community centers all over the State. You are a man of your word and you are a man of principle and you are a man of action. A lot of people talk a good game, but that's all they can do is talk. You put words into action and you are saving lives. You said you wouldn't take the vaccine until the people of color of your age category were eligible, at some risk to yourself. 

You waited three months until last week to get your vaccination. You have modeled behavior, you have been a servant leader and you got the vaccine in Harlem surrounded by leaders like Mark Morial and Hazel Dukes and that community. You went to our community to raise the importance of the situation. I'm a preacher so you know I can't help it, but I'm going to tell you, I need to tell you that the Bible says that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can say to the mountain, get out of my way. Governor, you have demonstrated that kind of courageous faith and it has proven that we are moving the mountains that have blocked us. It's not the first time you've done it. Your whole career, your whole life, from serving people in housing in need, your whole journey has been architected and laid out the blue print for a better New York and rebuilding the economy. 

Last week I couldn't help but stare at the Mario Cuomo Bridge. Under your leadership that bridge connected our State. It is an architectural genius that we see all over the State, all over the nation, people are admiring it. This afternoon, I'm going to the new LaGuardia Airport. It wouldn't be possible without you. Across the street, the Thompson Public Housing Towers is a partnership between our State and you in building affordable housing in this community. 

Your work ought to speak for you and those of us who have been the beneficiaries of your commitment ought to stand up and speak. I have no question and I have no hesitation when asked to speak on behalf of the Governor because I know his works. I know his works. Some people are stuck on words, but I'm stuck on work. The Governor has demonstrated great work. 

You also made it clear that vaccines are safe, all three vaccines. I think you've done a magnificent job in letting the Black and Brown communities know that the vaccine is safe. You know, we have a history of distrust, that's one of the things we got to overcome. African Americans, not only the absence of supply that's not just our problem -- our problem is that African Americans and people of color have a historical reluctance, a history that takes away trust and builds fear. And so we have to go down deep to free people from misinformation and conspiracy theories that cause them to not want to take the vaccine. But your focus on our community is a welcome focus, and we are grateful, so, having access to them is key and you are making it a reality right here at Grace Church. We are launching, as you said earlier, a pop-up site today, tomorrow, but also a vaccine center. Please sign up, as the Governor said, somosvaccination.com and get the capacity to take it. 

This is the time to do it, and it will save lives, yours mine, our neighbors. Remember, taking the vaccine is not just for you. You take a vaccine to save the lives of others. You take the vaccine to save our grandmothers, and our grandfathers, and our children. You take a vaccine to make our city safe, our nation, and our state safe. Houses of worship have been and will continue to be a crucial part of ending the crisis. I employ my fellow leaders of all faiths to follow this model, which has worked so well in moments of real challenge. We reverends, rabbis and imams have come together to bring peace to our shared community. We must do that again, and now with today's announcement, people 50 or over will be eligible for vaccines. As we learn in the book of Romans, love one another with brotherly love and affection. Out do one another in showing honor. Governor, you have shown us great honor and today, we return that honor to you. You are saving lives. Thank God for your amazing leadership, and thank you. 

Governor Cuomo: That's why I spoke first; I'm not going to follow Reverend Richardson. As the Reverend said, tomorrow -- and I want to highlight this -- vaccines will be available for people 50 years old and above, so we are dropping the age as we're vaccinating more people. Tomorrow morning 50 and above, make your appointment and get your vaccine. It's now my pleasure to introduce Mayor ShawynPatterson-Howard of Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon is a great town; it has been for many years. I started working in Mount Vernon, in this city; I was in my 20s doing housing work. A lot of challenges in Mount Vernon, but this is going to be Spring for Mount Vernon also, Mayor, I want you to know that and this is going to be a rebirth that brings everyone with it, and it's going to bring Mount Vernon back even better than before. With your leadership, we'll do it together. Mayor, please.

Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard: Thank you so much, Governor Cuomo, for coming to Mount Vernon. You said it's hard to speak after Pastor Richardson. You preached this morning as well. I got a little Baptist minister in you. I see you've been hanging out. Thank you always, as well, Dr. Richardson, for being an incredible community partner for opening up Grace and working with our faith-based community, because this is how we develop greater penetration into our community to reach those who are most vulnerable, those who are distrustful, those who have hesitancy, so we thank you. We also want to thank our Reverend Sharpton for joining us through Zoom this morning. We're sorry that he couldn't be here, but the magic of Zoom is allowing him to partner with us. Mount Vernon has suffered greatly, as so many communities across the country have. But being the Blackest community north of the Mason-Dixon Line in this country, we know that we have many frontward facing employees. We have not only our first responders, but we have essential workers like health workers, that's 18 percent of our industry here. So, 18 percent of the industry in Mount Vernon is health workers, they were on the front lines. Childcare workers, restaurant workers, retail workers, people every day and even our government workers. We didn't have the option to stay home; we had to go out every day. 

And so we've seen over 8,000 confirmed cases of COVID in Mount Vernon, and when you have a population of 70,000 and we know that there's probably twice the number of people that were infected, but were not able to be tested in the earlier stages, because we were ramping up and New York was hit hard early, we're grateful that we have made it here today. In the beginning of the COVID pandemic we saw over 25 percent of our first responders infected, some were even on ventilators, and so this is something that we take very seriously in Mount Vernon. We know, it's already been stated, that the pandemic has killed Black Americans at twice the rate of White Americans; that is has killed the Hispanic/Latino population at 1.5 times White populations; and here in Mount Vernon, between our African American and our Hispanic/Latino population, that makes up about 84-85 percent of our population. So, understand the devastation that we've experienced. 

We know that the vaccine is the beginning of the end for COVID, it's the beginning of the end, and the only way that it can be the beginning of the end for COVID is if we take the vaccine. It's if we get vaccinations into arms of our residents, old and young, Black, White, Hispanic, North Side, South Side; it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, we need to get vaccines into the arms, and so we're excited about that. Governor Cuomo and the New York State Clinical Advisory Task Force have gone to great lengths to ensure that Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna vaccinations are available, and we know they're speaking about AstraZeneca going through the process now. And the State's Equity Task Force, and that's important. People talk about equality, but equality and equity are different. We've been infected at higher rates, we've died at higher rates, and so the vaccinations have to be available to us at higher rates. We have to make sure we're getting them to those who need it most. I'm encouraged to see that New York State is working with our faith community, because as we said already it's how we get deepest penetration into our community. Now the key is making sure that we have access to vaccines, and so I'm excited, Governor Cuomo, that you have brought another pop-up vaccine here to Grace Baptist. 

In the beginning of the pandemic they became a testing site, they did antibody testing, they've done several pop-ups and they're back to do a pop-up again. We're glad that you're working with our Federally Qualified Health Center, the Mount Vernon Neighborhood Health Center, as they've been incredible partners, and this will allow people to get more vaccines. I believe that we're doing the Johnson & Johnson, correct? And I'm excited about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and why am I excited about the Johnson & Johnson? I'm not saying it's better than other ones, but when you are working and managing under-resourced communities like ours, to be able to give one dose that has the same effectiveness, it's half the work. We want to make sure that we're using our resources wisely, that we're able to get out and vaccinate our homebound, our disabled, our seniors. 

Making sure we're able to reach out into our homeless community and make sure that they're vaccinated. It's going to be hard to find them for a second vaccination. And so Johnson & Johnson gives a different option that I think we have to understand how critical it is, and being the former secretary of HUD, you know, the homeless community is significant and increasing especially in this time of COVID. I'm looking forward to taking my vaccination tomorrow. Now that we're at 50 and above, I'm eligible to take it so I'll be here first thing in the morning. I'll be here first thing in the morning to take it and I'm just excited about that. We are looking forward to a permanent site being here in Mount Vernon. Grace Baptist, the neighborhood health center, working with our local pharmacies to ensure that there are multiple access points throughout Mount Vernon. 

You've created mass vaccination sites all over the state, and pop-up sites as well. So thank you, again, reaching down into the community. I'm calling on everyone. We understand that people have hesitancy. We understand the history. We understand clinical trials now and trials back then that we didn't even know were happening. We understand there's hesitancy, but there's plenty of things that we eat and we take into our bodies, and we're not paying attention to that. We have to trust the science at this moment. We have to trust the science. We have to understand that the social determinants of health like housing and economics and transportation, education, put us at a disadvantage. And our infection rate, as well as our comorbidities, are high. So we have to take advantage of this. We want to make sure that were' opening up our economy and that our community is rebounding. We've already said that we are rebounding and resilient. And the only way that we can do this is if our health is stable. Our public health is equitable to our public economy. The two cannot be disconnected. So the churches and the synagogues and the mosques will definitely be able to host vaccination sites, and together we will trust COVID. So thank you again. 

Governor Cuomo: You know, in closing I just want to say one of the biggest challenges that has been unique to Mount Vernon is not having a fully functioning hospital. We have not had an ICU since last July. And so that makes ensuring that we're working to open our hospital more, but more importantly, ensuring that we are vaccinated so that we can keep our community safe while we know that we have not necessary stable healthcare here fully, we have to make sure that we do this. So please, I encourage you, I implore you, to go out, to sign up, here through SOMOS, who's our partner, and make sure that we are getting everyone vaccinated. We look forward to more access to the vaccine on a continual basis and bringing our community back again. Like you said, it's spring, and we're ready to live and to open up fully and enjoy our lives, get back to a closer new normal. Thank you. 

Now the technology is with us, we are going to be joined by Reverend Al Sharpton. Let me say this about the reverend. He is a good friend. We've worked together for many, many years, more than either of us would care to admit. We've fought on the same side. We've tussled against each other. But we've always fought for the same goal, and I have tremendous respect for the reverend. On the issue of distrust, hesitancy, and I'm with Reverend Richardson. I don't like to use the word hesitancy because it's not hesitancy. It's distrust that the Black community feels when they hear the Trump Administration says the vaccine is safe. Yeah, I didn't trust the Trump Administration when they said the vaccine was safe. That's why we had a New York panel review it, et cetera. But now you have Black medical professionals across the country saying it's safe. You have 7 million New Yorkers who have already been vaccinated. I have said, I recommend it to my mother. I just took it the other day, so I'm not the best example yet, but here you have Reverend Sharpton, who, you know, took the first dose weeks and weeks ago, because the way the system works in New York is it works by age. I don't mean anything by that. I was just saying it works by age. So the more senior got the vaccine first because we respect age. With age comes wisdom, comes seniority, comes experience. What else comes with age? Swagger comes with age. He doesn't look happy. So the Reverend Sharpton has demonstrated his belief by his action. 

Last point, National Action Network. The word that matters is the middle word. Action, action. Reverend Sharpton, Reverend Richardson. It's about action. It's not advocacy for the sake of advocacy. It's not words for the sake of words. It's making a difference in life. It's about change. This Twitter politics that has taken over. I tweet, therefore I am. No. Make a difference in a person's life. Accomplish something. Make change. Reverend Sharpton has made dramatic change. He has brought action, and that's what the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was about. Action, change, progress. And the National Action Network and Reverend Sharpton have done just that. 

It's my pleasure to partner with him. He's going to take this message of the united faith-based community now all across the nation. He has a national voice and a national pulpit, and this is another place where New York State can serve as a national model. The Reverend Richardson said it right. Theology should not divide humanity when it is our time to be unified and come together, because in that unity there is strength. Reverend Sharpton, it's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.

Reverend Al Sharpton: Thank you Governor and to the mayor and to Dr. Richardson, and to all of the faith leaders that are there at Grace Baptist Church as we unveil this effort to get houses of worship to sign up to being sites in the Turn Up Your Sleeve Campaign. It is important that we do this. Let me say that Dr. Richardson not only pastors Grace Baptist Church, but chairs the National Conference of Black Churches, and chairs the board of National Action Network. The mayor, who has also been a hero in our community, and those faith leaders, many of whom we work with very closely, Bishop Edwards and others, on many issue. 

But there's no issue that is more important than this. And let me say this to the Governor. Despite these age wisecracks that you make, that we will never forget that in the later part of last year when people were looking at the racial inequity of how COVID-19 was impacting the country and the state, you stepped up and raised that issue first and made it a national issue, and therefore we will always remember that you had the courage that you had to stand up, and now we must stand up and take advantage of the state, again, showing the nation that faith-based buildings, buildings that are temples of trust, even those who do not attend a church or a synagogue or a mosque know that their families would always bury their dead there, and marry there, and would come to get hope when there was despair. So, there is some level of trust that houses of worship have. No better place could be a place to turn them not only into pop-ups but into vaccine sites where people can pop in and roll up their sleeves and get help. And that is why I joined Governor Cuomo. 

As he said, we've known each other for decades, even though we are both younger than Dr. Richardson. The only reason that I'm not there in person is that I just got my second shot about an hour ago here at Harlem hospital because I'm just keeping the schedule of when to get the vaccine. I want people to know, I was hesitant. I was one among many that said, we need to be sure because history has made us skeptical. But as I saw Black doctors like Dr. Kinsey Corbett step up and say I was part of making this vaccine. As we saw Black experts around the country speak up and as we saw people still being affected, we do not have the luxury of waiting. We must do all we can on the ground to save our people.

This is not over. In the last ten days, two members of my staff at the National Action Network have been found to be positive with COVID, so we need this, we must do this. We're beginning to see our way out of it but we're not there yet and I can say that from our own staff at the National Action Network, that is why we need churches all over the state, mosques, and synagogues to sign up with this campaign and we will take this model around the country. I have said to the governor at other sites, I will join him and others in being at those sites because we cannot allow anything to distract from the fact that we are fighting for our very lives and we're fighting with those who have stood up and said we cannot have a segregated way out of this. We must do this together and if Blacks have suffered disproportionately, we must disproportionately remedy wherever the suffering is, and that's what I salute and stand with you all and Governor Cuomo.

Let me make it clear, our appeal is to people everywhere, as we open these sites, all we ask you to do is roll up your sleeve. Roll up your sleeve and do it for your loved one. Nine years ago today, my mother passed on this day. Nine years ago. Not only was she my mother and father - I was raised by a single mother - she was my best friend. I know she would want me to say today what I'm saying with you Governor, and with you Dr. Richardson, and with you Madame Mayor that we need to save lives. The Bible says, I always say as a Baptist minister, that you must not turn the house from a house of thieves to a house of prayer, we must turn our houses to houses of prayer and not just let people be robbed by false information, misinformation, and conspiracy theories that will remedy them into harm's way. 

So, roll up your sleeve for your mother. Roll up your sleeves for your children. Roll up your sleeves for grandmama. Pull up your sleeves for the light and safety of your community. We're not asking you on this occasion to march; we're not asking you on this occasion to go to jail for civil disobedience; all we're asking you to do is come to a house of faith and roll up your sleeve and let's save our communities. Let's do it by putting our arm to the wheel or arm to a vaccination and let us become those that led us out of the pandemic.

Fifty years from now historians will say, what did they do during this critical time? What did they do when New York State and other states were closed down, when the Broadway lights were dim, the theaters closed, the restaurants closed? What did they do when they couldn't even go to church and had to do it virtually? Let history record that we came together across theologically and racial and denominational lines, across political lines. We may be of different colors and different faiths, but we together rolled up our sleeves to save one another. 

Thank you and God Bless. 

Governor Cuomo: Amen. Reverend Sharpton, as usual, beautifully said and correctly so thank you. I think everyone heard the message today, now it's just about doing it. Now it is just about doing it. Thank you for being here. God bless you. Amen.

2021-03-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

It is a beautiful day in New York City. Pleasure to be here. Let me introduce who’s with us today. Let’s start with on my left, Ms. Molly Reilly, Assistant Secretary for Resiliency and Economic Development. She works in the Office of the Governor. To my right, Kelly Cummings, who is the Director of State Operations, Office of the Governor. To Kelly’s right, Dr. Howard Zucker, our great Commissioner of Health. It is a coincidence that Kelly and Molly happen to have the same attire today. I believe it’s a coincidence. I know it is a coincidence. It’s not like any government regulation.

Okay. Let’s take a look at where we are today. COVID update, overall, on the numbers, today, 3.5% positivity. 71 New Yorkers lost their lives still to COVID. We have made tremendous progress, but anyone who says it’s over, they’re wrong. 71 people passed away. Statewide, hospitalizations are down 40, 4,600; ICU, down 7, 918; intubations, 596.

This is where we look like on the positivity curve. Remember, we peaked post-holiday surge, and we have come way down from there. As a matter of fact, we are lower now than before the holiday surge, right? So we’re stable. We went up for the holidays, and we’ve now come down to a lower level than we were before the holidays themselves.

You look at the hospitalization rate, across the state, it’s fairly constant, Long Island, New York City, but fairly constant. The positivity rate in Long Island and Hudson Valley, Long Island had a high positivity rate for a period of time now, and so has the Hudson Valley. This makes the point, again, it is up to us. It’s up to a community’s behavior. Why do you have the Southern Tier at 0.6 and Long Island at 4.3? Same state, same weather, same climate, same basic demographics, Southern Tier, 0.6; Central New York, 0.9; Mid, Hudson, right next door, 4.7. It is the action and the behavior of that community. in New York city, 4.5% in the Bronx. That’s actually good. The Bronx was highest for a while. Queens is now 4.8. Brooklyn’s 4.3. Staten Island, 4.75. That’s creeping up. Manhattan, again, 2.6. Makes the point again it is the behavior of the community. It’s how people act. It’s the virus, depending on our behaviors, how the virus spreads.

Vaccines are everything. This is the way we beat this situation. This is the way we turn the page. This is the way we end this chapter. But we have to do it, and the vaccination process is much harder and much more complicated than anyone, I think, fully appreciates. It’s a relatively simple process, but the volume is so large that it’s massive. We did another call yesterday, as I’m head of the National Governors Association, with the White House. The White House is working very hard to acquire more vaccination, more Pfizer, more Moderna, more Johnson and Johnson. We are now subject to how much vaccine they can acquire. We have more distribution capacity than we have supply. It’s a supply problem right now.

But they’ve made dramatic increases on the supply. They are promising more dramatic increases on the supply, and we’ll then have the distribution network to do it. Right now, we did about 8 million shots in arms. Just for relative purposes, we have about 15 million eligible New Yorkers. We’ve done about 8 million shots in arms, 5 million at least one dose, 2 million, close to 3 million fully vaccinated.

The main focus is vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. This is a logistical nightmare. Government has never operationalized a task this large. This is dealing with literally thousands of providers all across the state who have to get the vaccine delivered, who have to know guidelines, safety checks, et cetera. So it’s a massive undertaking. April, May, June, the focus will be vaccination, vaccination, vaccination. The government side is operational, organizational. The citizen side is you have to come and get it. You have to come and get it. We have to talk our way through this distrust, et cetera. But that’s what April, May, June are going to be about.

We’re also focusing on the equity in vaccinations. The vaccination rate among the Black community is still lagging. The vaccination rate among the Hispanic community is still lagging. We pointed this out very early on, and we’re working very hard to deal with that equity, but that’s going to be an ongoing issue.

While we’re vaccinating, because these are complicated times, at the same time, we have to be doing an aggressive rebuilding of New York. COVID is going to decline. Knock Formica. COVID continues to decline. More people vaccinated, we get it under control. Okay. Now you have to bring New York back. New York is not going to self-remedy. The economy is not going to come back on its own. It doesn’t automatically inflate. It is going to be dependent on what we do. We have to rebuild New York. We have to stimulate the economy. The public sector has to stimulate the private sector, and it is going to be a function of how good we are at doing that.

We have to rebuild New York comprehensively, holistically. Physically, we have to rebuild New York. Economically, we have to rebuild New York. We have people who have been out of jobs, who haven’t had funding, who are in debt. Socially, we have to rebuild New York. We have to reconnect with people. Organizationally, we have to reconnect. So this rebuilding is on many ways on an existential level. This is something that we have never done before. We had a taste of it post-9/11, where we were traumatized, but nothing like this trauma in many ways.

You have school children out of school for a year. What does that mean? You have people isolated. Dr. Zucker and I were talking about it this morning, the mental health issues that go with this, the trauma issues that go with this. But what is life about? You go through situations in life. You go through difficult situations in life. Things happen. Health problems happen. Family problems happen. Things happen. The question is do you weather it, do you learn, and do you grow from it? That’s going to be our question with COVID.

Now, disasters happen. I worked in the federal government before the state. I worked on federal disasters all across the nation, all across the world. Disasters happen. Floods happen. 9/11 happened. But you should learn from it when it happens. Disaster preparedness is basically yet a relatively new field for government. We talked about it for a long time, but until we really had these disasters, we didn’t appreciate it.

We have to learn the lesson post-COVID. In truth, this nation should have learned this public health lesson way before COVID, because we had warnings after warnings. But at least now let’s learn the lesson post-COVID, because, and I hate to say this, there will be a next time. Anyone who says with COVID, “Well, this is one and done. This is one in a lifetime,” no, my friends, this is not one and done. This is not one in a lifetime. This was in many ways predictable, because we had seen many warning signs before, which I’ll mention in a moment. But it will happen again.

Just look at the past 20 or so years. 1997, we had the avian flu. SARS, 2002, a coronavirus, coronavirus. COVID was not the first coronavirus. SARS was a coronavirus 20 years ago. Swine flu, 2009. MERS, 2012, a coronavirus. Ebola, 2014. Zika, 2016. Dengue, 2019. Every few years, we have had a warning, and what happened? We didn’t really make the changes and the remedies that we needed to put in place. Then COVID hits, 2020, and everybody says, “Oh my gosh, what a surprise.” No. Warning, warning, warning, warning. You do nothing to prepare. Now you have a real crisis with COVID-19.

Let’s not make the same mistake twice. Let’s make the changes to our public health emergency management system. We need an emergency management public health capacity that is much more sophisticated and operational than it is today. When we talk about emergency management now, we talk about it in terms of natural disasters. We talk about it in terms of floods, et cetera. We talk about it in terms of security needs. We have to get serious about a public health emergency management plan.

Look at all the things we had to scramble to do and do on the fly here in New York, an emergency medical staff to come in because we needed more nurses and doctors. We had to have the hospitals work as a system so we could balance patient load that we had to design on the fly. We didn’t have enough PPE. We didn’t have enough masks and gowns. We didn’t have enough manufacturing capacity for PPE. We didn’t have enough testing capacity. We didn’t have enough Q-tips, Q-tips for testing capacity. We didn’t have enough quarantine facilities. They weren’t set up. We didn’t have enough laboratories to test the results once we found enough Q-tips to take the samples.

There was no contemplation of how you regulate the borders and test people coming in to see if they’re sick. We’re still not as a nation testing people to what I believe is a sufficient degree to make sure they’re not bringing in variants from other nations. This is now an international complex. We know that COVID came in through the airports. We need a testing mechanism that’s run by the federal government that protects our borders.

Citizens have to be better prepared. I as a person have to be better prepared. You as an individual have to be better prepared. New Yorkers have to be better prepared to protect themselves and to be in a position to assist others. We have to be better educated and trained as citizens of the state. It can’t be that we’re watching TV and we’re glued to the TV to find out vital information and vital basics to protect ourselves. We should be prepared and have the information and the education so we can protect our own health, our families, and our communities.

We are launching a first of its kind in the nation New York State Citizen Public Health Training Program. What this is is a state-of-the-art public health training program for citizens so they are informed, they are educated, and they are trained for the next one, for the end of COVID and for the next one, whatever that may be. The time to get that education and training is now.

Cornell University has developed a curriculum for citizens to be trained about public health emergencies. It is an eight-session, 16-hour curriculum, eight hours of what they call self-paced content, where you can go online and do it at your leisure, your pace, eight hours of interactive sessions, where you hear Cornell professors, SUNY professors, national experts giving you the most recent, up-to-date, best information to educate yourself. The curriculum, and Cornell has done a fantastic job, talks about COVID-19, preventing COVID-19. But remember, COVID-19 is the third coronavirus we faced. SARS, MERS, COVID, all coronaviruses, all believed to come from bats, all believed to come from wet markets in China, and all similar.

So COVID, but not just COVID, COVID and being prepared for the next one. Health literacy, health priorities, public health for community resilience, public health preparedness, health impacts of emergency events. It will educate you so that you can protect yourself, your family, your community. Part of the course, there will be exams. They have a nicer word for exams. I forget what it is, assessments. If you pass the assessment, you will get a certified training program completion from Cornell and from the Department of Health that says you have been trained as a citizen public health leader. In the event of another healthcare emergency, this would be a body of people who could volunteer to help in their community. I believe we will ultimately attract thousands of people to do this, because first, why wouldn’t you want to inform yourself after the hell we just went through? And they would then be across the state, and available as a possible volunteer army.

The best person to protect you is you, an informed you. It’s about information and knowledge. Also having the information and knowledge I think will go a long way towards reducing the anxiety that people felt now. People felt out of control. Isolated, and out of control. “I don’t know what spreads it. I don’t know if I can accept a bag of groceries. I don’t know if I can touch a doorknob. I don’t know if I can go in an elevator with another person.” All these questions, when you’re dealing with a frightening disease. We’ve been in a state of emotional trauma, of anxiety, and a feeling of loss of control. The information and the knowledge I think will help reduce that anxiety and restore a sense of control. If you know what you’re dealing with and you know how to deal with it, you will be more comfortable in the situation, and we will be ready for the next time, and we’ll have a sense of security about the next time, because we’ll know what to expect.

The time to prepare for a disaster is before it happens. Once the disaster happens, it is too late to do the preparation. We learned that again with COVID. After COVID hit, it was too late to figure out where to get PPE. We had to send planes to China. It was too late to figure out where to manufacture Q-Tips and where to get emergency medical staff. The time to prepare is before. Learned that lesson from COVID.

This course is totally free. It is a Cornell course. If you had to go to Cornell and pay for this education, it would be very expensive. It’s online. It’s free. You take an assessment. You get a completion. Gives you a sense of knowledge, gives you a sense of control, and puts you in a position to protect yourself, and your family, and your neighborhood. And god forbid there’s another emergency, you could volunteer to help.

We’re joined by Dr. Lorin Warnick from Cornell University. I can’t thank you enough, Doctor. I know this was an unusual request. I believe that we are the first state in the nation to do this. We’re going to make the curriculum available to every state, because I think educating our citizens about this is going to be vital, because let’s be honest, most of COVID was about educating citizens about how to act and how to behave. “Wear a mask,” right, was basic public health information. “Wash your hands.” How it’s transmitted. This was all basic public health information that we were imparting to the public. If the public had known these things before, it would have been much easier to deal with this situation and the anxiety would have been lower. And frankly, there would have been less politics involved, because there would have been more knowledge and more science involved.

So you have been phenomenally cooperative. Cornell University is a great state asset, but you did a great job, a great curriculum. We’ve had many people go through it already. Everybody’s impressed. And this is one of the public services, Doctor, that I think is going to make a real difference, and a great part of the legacy of Cornell in New York State. So thank you very much, and thank you for being with us today. Please.

Dr. Lorin Warnick: Yeah. Thank you. It’s really great to be here today for the announcement of this innovative new program, and I want to thank Governor Cuomo and the State of New York for engaging Cornell and other research institutions to help New Yorkers during the COVID-19 pandemic. We at Cornell are really honored to be a part of this effort by developing the Citizen Public Health Training Program that’s being launched today, and it’s really exciting to see this being offered. The course will be available to any New Yorker. It will allow citizens of our state to learn from Cornell educators and to become public health leaders for their families and communities. As was said, the curriculum was developed by faculty at Cornell. They drew on expertise in our Master of Public Health program and from other departments around the university focused on health communication and community engagement.

The course uses the eCornell online learning platform, so that makes it accessible in any location. There’s four different learning modules that can be done in sequence, and the material will help people understand the principles needed to respond to COVID-19, including prevention and vaccination efforts, and these modules also motivate participation in personal and community health promotion, and this will in turn help build preparedness for future health emergencies. Our goal is to increase the understanding of social and environmental determinants of health and to improve public health in New York State. With so many informed and motivated citizens, New York will be better prepared to confront challenges that impact health, and these range from equity and sustainability, to food and housing insecurity, and much more.

I want to recognize the excellent work of the team from Cornell, from Northwell Health and state government who worked together to design and develop this outstanding program. And I speak for all of us here at Cornell University in saying that we’re excited to be part of what’s really a historic effort to help, first of all, stop COVID-19, and then support future public health needs. So thank you very much. It’s great to be with you today.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you, Doctor, and please thank everyone at Cornell on my behalf. Thank you very much for being with us.

Dr. Lorin Warnick: Certainly.

Governor Cuomo: I’d also like to thank the team at the Department of Health who worked very hard on this, Dr. Zucker, and Kelly Cummings, and Molly Riley, who really spearheaded this effort for us. I encourage everyone, everyone in the state to take this course. Being informed, having knowledge, having information, reducing that anxiety, so that when, god forbid, the next one happens, there’s not that same panic and tightness in our chest. I expect, I expect another pandemic. I expect it. You look at that timeline, every few years, there was something. I expect another one to happen. I expect another one to happen in the next few years, or a COVID variant, or a mutation from COVID. I expect it, because that’s what history tells us.

Let’s be better prepared. Let’s be better informed. The months that we spent coming up to speed on basic public health information, let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again. And that is a real positive lesson to be learned from what we went through. I’ve had literally thousands of conversations during COVID with people, and the lack of information drove, and anxiety drove a sense of being out of control, and that creates a panic. This can go a long way to avoiding that. It’s free. It’s smart. It’s well done. It’s 16 hours, and it will be the best 16 hours you’ve spent investing in yourself, and your family, and your community, and it will give you peace of mind. So it’s very well done. Please enroll, and we have enrollment open throughout this month.

It’s part of rebuilding, but it’s only part of rebuilding. And as we move into rebuilding, I want people in the state to think about rebuilding as a state of mind. I was going to do a song about that, but somebody beat me to it. But rebuilding is on every level. We went through a traumatic crisis. We’re rebuilding from a traumatic crisis, that was physical, that was psychological, that was economic. And think about rebuilding, and growing, and learning from that trauma. How do you come from that trauma and come out better? Think about reopening and what that means. Recovering physically, economically, socially. Re-imagining a different place. There’s now Zoom. People have had a totally different lifestyle for the past year. We’re not going back to where we were. You don’t put Zoom on a shelf. It doesn’t go away. And you don’t want to forget the experience. You want to learn from the experience and reimagine what we can be with what we have learned.

There’s a physical reconstruction to this. There is a reunification. What does it mean when all these fraternal organizations didn’t have a chance to meet, community groups that didn’t meet, social groups that didn’t meet, sports teams that meet, kids that didn’t go to school and participate in all those social activities? A reunification of the body politic, and a total rethinking. We went through the unimaginable. Nothing is now unimaginable. So rethink what we could do, what we can be, and let’s show signs of progress and hope.

It has been a dark winter, a dark COVID winter, an isolated, frightening, traumatic winter, where we were locked up indoors, isolated. You know what? Spring is here. It is spring as a season. It’s spring as an attitude. It’s spring as a philosophy. It’s rebirth. It’s renewal. The sun is back. The flowers will bloom. Rebuild, renew, rebirth, and show positive signs of progress. New Yorkers have been traumatized. New Yorkers are worried about New York. What’s going to happen? Are we going to come back? Are we going to be okay? Of course we are. And let’s start not just building and doing it, but showing it.

The goal of all of this? Create a New York post COVID that is better than any New York before. We are better for Superstorm Sandy. We are better for 9/11. We paid a terrible price, but we learned and we grew. And the same thing has to be true of COVID. We paid a terrible price on many levels, but life is about learning and growing and being the stronger for it. And we will, because we are New York tough. And that’s what New York tough means. Resilience is part of it. Being smart and understanding the challenge that lies ahead, to be united in that challenge, to be disciplined and focused and not to let life knock you off track and to do it with love in your heart. That’s our plan, and that’s what we will do.

2021-04-05 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Okay, good morning. It is a good morning, isn't it? We have a great, great group of people here today. I want to thank everybody very much for coming. We're setting up a pop-up site right here in Rochdale Village, and we want to get the word out. Let's give a big round of applause. We have a number of guests you're going to hear from in a moment, starting with Congressman Gregory Meeks, who is a new grandfather. Let's give the new grandfather a bigger round of applause. Look at that. You'll then hear from Jennifer Jones Austin, who's the CEO director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies. Jennifer Jones Austin has been such a force for social justice in this city and in this state in every way, fighting for equality. Thank you so much, Jennifer Jones Austin. We have Assembly Member Vivian Cook, who has been a great champion for Queens. We have Dr. Yomaris Pena, who is from SOMOS Community Care. SOMOS and Dr. Tallaj, thank you Dr. Tallaj. Kyle Bragg, president of 32BJ is going to be joining us. We have Councilperson Adams with us today, thank you for your good work. We have the head of the NAACP, the indominatable Hazel Dukes, who is with us today. Hazel Dukes is my second mother. I'm always nervous when she's behind me that she's going to give me a little wakeup call.

It's a pleasure to be home for me. Queens is home. When people say to me, boy, you have a New York accent, I say I don't have a New York accent. That is a Queens accent, that is the Queens accent, and I'm proud of it. I've been to Rochdale Village many, many times. The Cuomo family all was Queens. My father started in Jamaica, Queens, South Jamaica, moved up to Hollis Queens. That was the entire trajectory of the Cuomo family, was about three miles. We went from Jamaica to Hollis, Queens. My first apartment, Sunnyside, Queens, my first house, Douglaston, Queens. So it's a pleasure to be back. Queens is a special place. To me, Queens really represents the heart of what New York is all about. It's diversity, it's unity, it's strength, it's people who are finding commonalities rather than differences.

Queens people also have an attitude, I want you to know. There is a Queens attitude. I have a Queens attitude, always have, always will. They used to say my father had a chip on his shoulder, and my father would say that's not a chip on my shoulder, that's my Queens attitude on my shoulder. You know, you grow up in Queens, you grow up in an outer borough.

What is Queens? It's an outer borough. Now, there's a meaning in that, outer borough. There is no inner borough, right? Have you ever heard of an inner borough? There isn't an inner borough, it's only outer boroughs. Queens is an outer borough. Brooklyn's an outer borough. Bronx is an outer borough. Staten Island's an outer borough. But they called you an outer borough because you were different. The outer boroughs are where the working people live. The middle-class people, the poor people lived in an outer borough. There is no inner borough, but the inner borough was Manhattan. That's where the wealthy people lived, in Manhattan, and when you lived in Queens, the attitude was always, well, why don't you live in Manhattan? Well, because you're outer borough people. you don't have the same level of wealth, you don't have the same level of power, you don't have the same level of resources. True, and that's why Queens and the outer boroughs need fairness and equity and justice and representation to make sure there's equality.

Yesterday was Easter for those who celebrate it. I celebrated Easter yesterday, I'm a Catholic. Easter is the spirit of renewal. It's the beginning of Spring. The Bible says in song of songs, "Behold, the winter is past, flowers appear on Earth. The season of singing has come." We went through a long winter, probably the longest winter of my life. we went through the COVID winter. It was the coldest, the darkest, most frightening winter we have ever gone through. People were isolated, people were afraid, you couldn't go outdoors, you couldn't touch, couldn't hug. You couldn't see family members, you couldn't see your mother, you couldn't see your grandmother, you're afraid, literally, to see one another. How cruel a winter. How cruel. And then deaths on top of it. Deaths where people died in hospitals and you never even had a chance to say goodbye. People died, you never had a chance to go to a wake, you never had a chance to go to a funeral. It's that they just disappeared, they died alone. And there was no way to grieve. And then there were rumors on top of rumors, and fears, and it was worldwide. And then this terrible politics on top of it, and who's denying it, and who's telling you the truth, and who's lying. It was the winter of hell, is what it was. But to me, Easter says seasons change, and there's a cycle, and things move on, and Easter is about Spring and renewal. And as cold and as dark as everything was, then you start to see the flower appear magically from the Earth that you thought was baren and frozen. And we are in the season of renewal. And we have to make it a season of renewal. It doesn't just happen. Renewal requires effort. You have to see a different reality, and you have to make it happen, and that's where we are now.

The Bible says the Spring rains don't feed the flocks. We have to sow what we want to reap. It is our effort. And what we're saying at this point in time, with the Spring, with the sunshine coming back, with the flower coming out, we're going to rebuild this state. We're going to rebuild this state, and not just rebuild it, we're going to reimagine it, we're going to reinvent it. We're going to take it to a place it's never been before. When I was in the federal government, I did emergency disasters, and I'll never forget, I was in the Midwest of the United States and there had been a terrible flood. And we were standing outside a house that was flooded, and floods are nasty. They're nasty. You think it's just water that comes and goes. No, it's sludge, and it's silt, and it's mud. And there was a family standing outside the house looking at a house that was basically destroyed, and they're picking through to find belongings. And the father calls the family together, and the father says "see the house now? Imagine what it's going to be. Imagine when we can get rid of that old refrigerator that didn't work anyway. Imagine now we can finish the basement that we never finished. Imagine now we can build a big family room that we always wanted to build. Imagine the renewal and the opportunity that comes in renewal. So we're not just going to rebuild what was. We're working on a plan in Albany now that's going to build a New York that is reimagined, reinvented, rebuilt, reunited in a way never before. We're going to advance this state.

Let's take the moment and recognize the injustices that existed and correct them. And COVID showed us a lot of these injustices right up close and personal. The inequality in the education system. Now, we always knew we had two education systems, right? One for the rich and one for the poor, let's be honest, we're in Queens, we can say, honestly, candidly. But that remote learning exploded the injustice, remote learning. Yeah, remote learning works great if you have the internet, if you have the right computer and device, if you have someone who can help you. Otherwise, you got left behind at a hundred miles an hour, the speed of the internet. Worst income inequality in the history of this state and this nation. Not broadband accessibility for everyone. Let's rebuild with new airports like the Congressman is working on, and new trains, and new bridges, and new houses, and new home ownership. New job training that really gives people the skills, finally put in the green economy that we've been talking about and dreaming about, and everyone's been talking about, but nobody's been doing. We'll do that first here in New York in our renewal.

But the first step towards renewal is what? Is defeating COVID. Do not get cocky with COVID. Do not get cocky with COVID. "Well, it seems like it's getting better." It is. Do not get cocky with COVID. There are variants, this virus changes on you, it mutates on you, hundreds of times a week around the world. All you need it one mutation that is vaccine-resistant, and then we have a problem. We have to crush COVID, and we have it on the run, but now is a time that we have to crush it once and for all. And the fist step towards doing that is you have to take the vaccine. You have to take the vaccine.

Now there are three reasons why people don't want to take the vaccine. My terminology, my medical terminology. First is the superhero theory. "I'm not afraid of COVID. Let COVID try to attack me. I'm a superhero. Go ahead. I can't be beaten by COVID." Okay, maybe you're Superman, maybe you're Superwoman. You can get it and give it to someone else who is not a superhero. Don't just think about yourself, think about other people. 

Second theory is the I'm a scientist. Well, I haven't seen the full data on the facts of the vaccine and until I review the full data and the long-term effects. Yeah. There is more risk in not taking the vaccine than in taking the vaccine. The risk is not just to you, the risk is you're going to effect your mother, your grandmother, your grandfather or someone else. 

The third theory is the skeptic theory. I'm part in the skeptic theory. Well, the federal administration of Donald Trump said the vaccine is safe. That means nothing to me. I mean, that's good. We never took Donald Trump and his federal administration's word on whether or not the vaccine was safe. We put together our own New York panel of the best doctors, the best scientists and we checked that vaccine. 

On the skeptics, no one is asking you to be the first. Ten million New Yorkers have taken the vaccine. I've taken the vaccine. It is safe. We know that. We need people to take the vaccine. We have to do it in a way that is fair. Not only did COVID kill, COVID discriminated. COVID discriminated. COVID killed twice as many Black people as white people. COVID killed one and a half as many times Latino people as white people. Why? Because the Black community didn't have the same access to health care. They didn't have the same hospital system and the doctor system, the same primary care system. More underlying conditions. 

COVID exposed that discrimination and fed on that discrimination. When it comes to vaccines, my point is very simple. The people who should be at the front of the line are the people who are at the end of the line when it came to testing and being able to deal with COVID. We have work to do. In New York City, population is 53 percent white. It's 54 percent of the population that has actually received the vaccine. The Black community is 27 percent of the population. Only 19 percent of the people who have gotten vaccines. Latino community, 28 percent of the population, only 23 percent of the population who has received the vaccine. 

We are doing everything we can to get this equitable and fair. We are bringing the vaccines to the Black community, to the Latino community. 189 pop-up vaccine sites in communities of color. We're bringing it to Black churches so it's there and we have the faith-based community advocating it. We're bringing it to Rochdale Village tomorrow with SOMOS at the Grand Ballroom. 

We need you to come out and take it. We need you to come out and take it. We're going to start a new effort today, a public education campaign that reminds people that it's smart and it's right and it's caring to come out and get the vaccine. We call it the Roll Up Your Sleeve public education campaign. It's been done with some truly talented people. We have Jane Rosenthal, who is an artistic genius who runs Tribeca Productions. Tribeca helped New York come back after 9/11, if you remember, by bringing people back to downtown Manhattan. Let's thank Jane Rosenthal. Charlie King, let's give him a round of applause. Scott Burns, who's the producer whose done a magnificent job and Columbia University. 

Let's look at the Roll Up Your Sleeve ad. Get the vaccine because it's up to us. Then we'll hear from the great Congressman and new grandfather and great champion of Queens, friend of mine for a long time. We've worked together here in New York, we worked together in Washington, D.C. You'll hear from Congressman Gregory Meeks, then Jennifer Jones Austin, then Assembly Member Vivian Cook, then Dr. Yamaris Peña and then Kyle Bragg. We thank you all very much for being here. Thank you, God bless you. 

***

Rep. Gregory Meeks: Let me first thank the Governor of the State of New York for all the work that he's done. Let me quickly recognize the partners here at Rochdale Village. Let me thank the members of the board of Rochdale Village. All of the clergy that are here and community leaders and my partners in government. From the State Assembly, the Honorable Vivian Cook and from the City Council the Honorable Adrienne Adams. 32BJ, 32 - and everyone that is here. 

It's been a year. The Governor said it right, it has been a cold, cold, long year. Sometimes we forget where we were and how we progressed to where we are today. A year ago, it was almost day for a while somebody I knew was either hospitalized or dying because of this pandemic. It was confusing with all of the information that was coming out of Washington, D.C. New York had become the epicenter of the nation. Even the scientists and the doctors were trying to figure it out as we were dealing with this pandemic. We forget that the administration in Washington, D.C. did not have a clue or if they did, they were not telling us the truth about what was going on. 

Governor, I want to thank you because you were the one person that on a consistent basis stood up and said this is a long war and I'm not making it up because you've got the doctors and the scientists to tell us as they were learning it every day. Didn't happen out of a vacuum. He wasn't guessing. He was going to doctors and scientists and as they were changing what they were saying, he would come and give us that information on the spot.

The information that we needed at the time to move forward to save lives, because around the world, we did not know. We had never seen anything like this in 100 years. We needed someone to tell us the truth. As we started to figure out what was happening in this pandemic, we needed someone who would not just make it up out of thin air. Every day he was going to the doctors, he was going to the scientists, he was talking to the experts. He was looking for the facts all around the world and he was coming back to give us what we were not getting from the presidential administration. 

We owe him a deep need of thanks and gratitude for doing just that. As we come through and we start to see light at the end of the tunnel, we've got to not jump and think that we're out of the tunnel yet. We're still in the tunnel and we see that light and the nearer we get to that light, so that there's nothing that caves in before us is to make sure that we get tested and vaccinated. 

Thank you Governor. You've come through. I can testify right here in the 5th Congressional District, working in a partnership with FEMA, we are now over 113,000 vaccinations at York College in Jamaica, New York. Some thought we cut the deal and said what we needed to do 3,000 shots a day, some questioned whether we can do it, we made it every day because if you make it accessible we can get it done.

And so, yes there's been a trust factor for the African-American community. When people came along, when you look at the history of the country and what has taken place there, but the way that you destroy the doubt is with facts and accessibility. So if you, as we see this taking place now, at one point when you look and you went to the African-American community 31 percent had said that they would get vaccinated, only 31 percent. But if you look at it now, because of the tests, because of bringing and making it more accessible, now it's up to 63 percent. And by bringing it here in Rochdale Village to people, to seniors - you know Rochdale Village is really a city in a city. I see the pastors here - it then gives that example because then folks will start to say even more, they see York College, it's accessible, they care about us. It's that Rochdale Village is accessible, you care about us. It's at Aqueduct, you care about us. And when they see the communities taking the vaccine, I've got my two shots, it lets them know that the way to get to the end of that tunnel is to be vaccinated.

And we're going to join you, Governor, I pledge, as I see the new President's - the 46th President of the United States - $1.9 trillion stimulus package coming out of the Federal government and we're making sure that the State gets what it needs so that we don't just build back, we build back better. And when we finish with this infrastructure program that the President of the United States is putting forward to deal with infrastructure with deference to closing the wealth gap and education and housing and bridges and airport like JFK Airport. We will indeed build back together and better and we will make sure that we are better prepared in the future to make sure that tomorrow, our tomorrow, is much better than our today or yesterday because we will be a stronger state.

Jennifer Jones Austin: Thank you. Thank you, Governor Cuomo. I want to begin by thanking you for your very kind and generous words concerning me. You spoke of my modest efforts in leading the fight for social justice, and as you did, I was reminded of my dad - like you, I had a dad who was larger than life, the late Reverend Dr. Augustus Jones Jr. And I'm one of the fortunate ones who grew up never having to wonder whether my parents loved me. My daddy and my mommy loved me dearly, my mom still loves me dearly. What mattered most in our household was working to make sure our parents were proud of us. And so when you talked about my efforts it made me think if my daddy were here, perhaps he'd be proud, so thank you for that. Thank you so much.

I want to thank Governor Cuomo for his commitment to Southeast Queens and to all of the communities hardest hit by the COVID pandemic. As the leader of the FPWA - which is more than 170 human service organizations and faith-based organizations working in communities hardest hit by COVID and many other ailments that discriminatorily affect them, people of color, and as a member of the African-American COVID-19 Task Force for Vaccine Equity and education, I'm glad that we're all here today, and especially our Governor. I consider it pure joy because it is our purpose to be here and to do all that we can for the people who are suffering the most.

I'm glad to see that many of our fellow members of the COVID-19 Task Force are here as well. They are Dr. Hazel N. Dukes, NAACP New York; Kyle Bragg, President of 32BJ; Karen Boykin-Towns, Vice President of the NAACP National Board of Directors; Arva Rice, President & CEO of the New York Urban League; and Charlie King, Partner for Mercury Public Affairs.

We are grateful to you, Governor Cuomo, for creating and launching the Roll Up Your Sleeve Campaign and we are honored to be a part. This campaign will help spread the word that people in the hardest hit areas of our state can get the vaccine, and they can starting tomorrow if they are 16 or older. And everyone should get the vaccine, as the New York State Clinical Advisory Task Force has found the vaccine's Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna all are safe and effective. I've gotten my two, no side effects though.

It's been more than a year since COVID first began consuming so much of our lives, and sadly, since COVID began taking so many of our lives. So many have suffered. Thankfully, the COVID vaccine is proving we don't have to keep suffering unnecessarily. Throughout COVID, people of color have been talked about, especially those with health conditions and those who are essential workers, have suffered what once seemed unimaginable losses. But as the Governor has said, the first in line to suffer from COVID should not be the last in line to get the vaccine. And they shouldn't have to struggle to get it. Our communities have struggled enough - more than enough. And this is why community pop-ups like the one here at Rochdale Village are necessary. Fortunately, as the COVID vaccine proves effective, trust in it increases - the numbers are showing that trust in it, the numbers are increasing, trust is increasing. And consequently, demand for the vaccine is increasing. And Governor Cuomo is making sure that the hardest hit communities are not left behind, do not have to struggle anymore. We need the vaccine to be available in our communities, our communities deserve it. The Vaccine Equity Task Force and the Roll Up Your Sleeve Campaign have brought the vaccine directly to our doorsteps, and thanks to our Governor, you can begin tomorrow, getting the vaccine right here in Rochdale Village. I want to close by thanking the clergy from all faiths for opening their houses of worship to the Roll Up Your Sleeves Campaign. Your leadership, every day, day in and day out, serves as an example of the parable of Matthew 25 - 'What you do for the least of me, you do for me' said Jesus. In this season of renewal, we are thankful for our Governor for making sure that our communities are not left behind - that they're not left behind and they're not last in line. To overcome COVID, we need everyone, as the Governor has said, to take this vaccine. Thank you Governor, for making this possible.

Assembly Member Vivian Cook: My name is Vivian Cook. I'm a New York State Assembly Member and Rochdale Village is in my district which is in Jamaica, Queens and I want to welcome the Governor back home to Jamaica, Queens. We're always happy to see him because he is one of our sons and he has made a great, great difference in the state of New York and we thank him. I worked on his father's first campaign. A man called Saul Weprin called Tom and I and asked us if we would work on Mario Cuomo's campaign and Tom and I went to work there and this little boy grew up. And I can call him a little boy, but I want to thank him for being here today and I want to thank everyone in the audience for being here. I want to ask the Councilmember to come here - I want her to come here and stand beside me. This is one of the people here who is working in the district also. And I want to thank the Governor for bringing this vaccine here to Jamaica, Queens. York College, we opened, and now we're here in Rochdale, in Jamaica, Queens again. So the people of New York and the people of southeast Queens, please thank this son of Queens for making sure that we are taken care of. We have had syphilis, we have had polio, we've had measles, we've had chicken pox and we have had everything, but nothing like this. And I want to also say, everybody in this state is important. We want everybody to have the vaccine and whatever it is that they need to survive. So, thank you Governor and I want to thank my colleagues, I want to thank the Congressman, I want to thank everybody for coming here to Jamaica today, and to Rochdale Village which is a part of Jamaica, Queens. So, we're not going to separate Rochdale from Jamaica, Queens, we are a family here and we're going to take care of each other. And we have a Governor in this state who is going to be there and we're going to work with it and we're going to make sure he stays there, so do it loud. We are proud and we are proud of him. So, no matter what you say or what you do, we're going to stick by this man - he's staying with us. Thank you.

Council Member Adrienne Adams: At the insistence of my very, very capable Assemblymember, all I want to say is thank you, Governor Cuomo, for always being present in your home, Jamaica, Queens, and being raised in Hollis, Queens, where I was raised also. We thank him for never forgetting Jamaica, Queens, his home. As the Assemblymember said, welcome home and thank you. 

Dr. Yomaris Pena: Good morning, everyone. I am thrilled to be here. My name is Dr. Yomaris Pena and I belong to SOMOS Community Care, and I just want to thank you, Governor. I want to thank you for your leadership, and this comes from a place where we have been in the battle against COVID since day number one when you called us we were there. On March 16, I remember when we walked into the New York Stock Exchange and those were very gloomy and black days. I remember that. And being here right now in front of all of you, it's truly the saying that spring is here and we are here all together, and we're alive, and that is because of your leadership. Thank you. For those that don't know, COVID has been, because of you and your amazing team, in the communities. We do all these pop-ups for the communities, all the NYCHA buildings, we go into the churches, we take care of the Afro-Latino community, of the African American community, of the underserved. Those that, during the beginning of this pandemic, were the ones that were there, the people that are called essential. So, those are the ones that we serve with honor under your name, your leadership.

With that being said, I am very happy to announce to everybody that we have what we call the Roll Up Your Sleeve program. So, I am really happy that you roll up your sleeve and you go and get those vaccines into your arms. So New Yorkers, what does that mean? That means that we are here right now, we have the light and we are making all these pop-ups and all these sites accessible for you. In terms of science, this means that you have the opportunity to go back and hug your family and be with your family members, not being isolated. Because if we go to that threshold where we need that 70 percent where all of us will get vaccinated, 70 percent to reach what we call herd immunity, that's where we are going to say we are truly at the end of the tunnel, we could see the light. So, please I am inviting each one of you, each New Yorker that is out there, go and get your appointments. Go online. We have a program called Am I Eligible online, you can go on your website, you can go to your local doctors, you can go to all your pharmacies and to your pods and you can get your appointment. We're starting to roll up starting April 6th the universal eligibility, which will be 16 and over, so that is amazing. This is great. 

In that, I just have to say we are in mass vaccination sites, Queens, we are here right now in Rochdale, but we have been at the Aqueduct, where we have served more than 135,000 New Yorkers. So, that is in conjunction with you and SOMOS, and I am happy to announce that this community center will serve seniors, will serve the people that live around here, so the access won't be an issue. So, take advantage of this, and I would say roll up your sleeves and come and get vaccinated. So, now I'm going to say it in Spanish, because our people need to know about this.

Hemos comenzado un programa nuevo gracias al liderazgo gracias de nuestro Gobernador Andrew Cuomo. Yo represento a Somos Community Care, los doctores que han estado en su comunidad. Hablamos sus idiomas, entendemos su cultura y no nos importa el estatus migratorio de ninguno de ustedes, así que necesitamos que todos entiendan que debemos vacunarnos, ¡así que súbete la manga y vacúnate! independientemente de tu estatus, de tu color y de tu raza, ¡así que vacunémonos!

Kyle Bragg, President, 32BJ SEIU: Well, thank you, and good afternoon. I too welcome you to south Queens, Mr. Governor, my Hollis homeboy. I also want to thank all of our leaders here today, people who have led in this community, our elected leaders, but other leaders who have led in this community in trying to keep our community safe. I want to thank you Congressman, who's been fighting like hell down in Washington to make sure that we get our fair share of resources. I want to thank our leaders here for making this facility available to our communities. So again, I'm Kyle Bragg, I'm President of 32BJ. Our members have been on the frontlines of this pandemic for a year. I represent 170,000 members across the east coast, 85,000 right here in this city, with hundreds who work right here in Rochdale keeping these tenants safe and secure during this terrible pandemic. They have paid a heavy price for that. We have suffered over 153 of our members who have been lost to this pandemic, to this horrible disease. Thousands more have lost their jobs because of it. The coronavirus has obviously changed all of our lives. Our members live and breathe the collective grief that is shared in our city and our nation, that we all feel so acutely in this moment. But, as many have already said, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. 

The vaccine and the skilled nurses and doctors that will be administrating this vaccine is the light at the end of this tunnel. This vaccine will help us end the dreadful disease that has ravaged our city, especially our communities of color. The vaccine is our ticket out. I got my vaccine two weeks ago; I carry my card with me every day. My wife and daughter are actually getting their vaccination right now as we speak. I did it because I want to make sure that my family, my friends, my members are safe, that everybody that I come in contact with is safe. We run a strong program of education around this vaccine that the Governor talked about. We have many people that are doubters and skeptics, but we want to talk to them about the facts, the facts that have been given to us by our state, that they must roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated. We are strongly advocating for the 85,000 members to get the access to the vaccine, and we've been assisted in that effort by the State of New York, where we're getting thousands of doses of this vaccine to administer to our members at our union health center. This program is starting to look really good for our members, and they're looking forward to getting the vaccine and keeping their family, their friends, their coworkers safe. 

We are continuing to advocate for more vaccines, more doses, to get right here in this state, and I know our Congressman is working hard, I know our Governor is fighting to make sure that we get our share of vaccines to keep our community safe and bring us back from out of the darkness of this terrible pandemic. And we are focused on our robust education program with our members, and with the general public to make sure that people understand that this is the way out, that the vaccine is safe. I did mine publicly because I want to make sure our members understand how important it is for us to take this vaccine and to rebuild this city and our state. We know that protecting all workers that it's not only the vaccine but with the health and safety protections, health care and living wages that help get us on the other side of this dreadful pandemic. There's never been a more important time for unions to collective bargain and rebuild an economy that works for everyone, including the brave and dedicated working people that kept this city going during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

On a more personal note, this pandemic has wreaked havoc I know on many of us. Our next door neighbor lost two of her family members, her mother and her brother, within two weeks of each other. Her brother, the impact of that loss, of course the impact of a mother's loss is horrible, but her brother, Jermaine Miller, was someone who worked right here in this community with the youth, and that has impacted our community. We have now had the access to this vaccine thanks to our Governor and Rochdale Village right here for the community and the surrounding community to make sure that we get the opportunity to come out of this pandemic in a safe way. And these communities of color have been hit the hardest, but I want to thank our Governor for recognizing that and making the equity fair across the state. Thank you, Mr. Governor. 

Governor Cuomo: Wow, what a program. Everything has been said that needs to be said. Let me say this in closing, back to the Queens attitude. Sometimes we blame other people, other forces, they have to do this, they have to do that. We have come together as a state in a way that I've never seen before. People are working together in a way that I have never seen before. The federal government, this federal government - not the last federal government, this federal government - has stepped up to the plate and is doing the right thing. Congressman Greg Meeks fights every day. The federal government is doing the right thing. The state government is doing the right thing. Vivian Cook, thank you. Our partnerships are in place, the faith-based community is helping, the social agencies are helping, Jennifer Jones Austin is helping. Everyone is together, Hazel Dukes, the NAACP is together; the unions are in partnership, 32BJ, everyone is working together. You know who it's up to now? It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you to show up and roll your sleeve and do your duty as a citizen of the State of New York. We have an opportunity right now to crush COVID. We have it on the run. The enemy is retreating. We have to crush COVID. And only you can help us do that. Thank you and God bless you.


...

Good afternoon, guys. I have Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Beth Garvey on the phone with me. We have a lot going on so let me talk through a couple of items.
 
We're focused on vaccinations. We announced today the Roll Up Your Sleeves campaign which focuses on the social equity campaign on vaccinations, making sure we're getting it to the communities that have been hardest hit by COVID.

I did an event today in Queens on that. We are very aggressive in public housing, in churches, in community centers, in communities of color on the vaccination program. We have opened eligibility so more and more people are eligible and we now want to communicate that it's about making appointments and it's up to you - it's up to you to get a vaccination appointment and get a needle in your arm.
 
We're also working on the budget obviously and the budget is really a budget and COVID management and New York recovery. It's the most complicated budget that we've ever done and the most important budget that we've ever done because it's not a financial document primarily. It's an action plan primarily - manage COVID, learn from COVID, reform from COVID and rebuild New York for this post-COVID world.

On the COVID numbers, positivity was 4.3. We did 150,000 tests. 57 New Yorkers died from COVID yesterday on Easter, for those of us who celebrate it. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 4,400 hospitalized, that's up 61. 906 in ICU. 577 were intubated. The COVID numbers have basically been flat, slight uptick, slight downtick, but basically flat.

When you look at where COVID numbers are in the state, and this to me is probably one of the most important pieces of information that we talk about, number one in the state, Western New York, 4.7; Mid-Hudson, 4.6; Long Island, 4.3; New York City, 4.2; Finger Lakes, 2.6; Capital Region, 2.3; Mohawk Valley, 1.6; North Country, 1.6; Central New York, 1.3; Southern Tier, 0.7.

Western New York, back up at the top, that's on a seven-day average. In New York City, Staten Island, 4.9; Queens, 4.7; Bronx, 4.4; Brooklyn, 4.2; Manhattan, 2.7. Manhattan again the lowest in New York City. Staten Island which at one time was the highest, then actually reduced, now is the highest again on a seven-day average. Western New York if you remember, we had a real problem for a long time, Western New York, we communicated the message of the severity and Western New York improved. Western New York is now back on top. I'm not a scientist but to me it is undeniable that the behavior of the community makes the difference. Why do you have Manhattan at 2.6 and Western New York at 4.7?  Why do you have Manhattan at 2.6 and Staten Island at 4.9?  Why do you have the Southern Tier - which also had a dramatic rush of COVID at one point that was frightening for the state and for the Southern Tier - since then the Southern Tier has been very low. It is the behavior of that community. Wearing masks, social distancing, et cetera. "COVID fatigue, I'm tired, the weather's warm, there's a vaccine, the death numbers are down, hospitalizations are down, I think we're over it." Yeah, the community that accepts that philosophy first will have a higher transmission rate. I get it. We all get it, COVID fatigue, except it's not over, and there are still variants, and you can still get sick, and yes, people are vaccinated, but not enough. And it is up to that community's behavior. It is the same theory as when we had micro-clusters, because the micro-clusters were saying, you can identify behavior patterns by community, by neighborhood. And the micro-clusters targeted that behavior by neighborhood. And we targeted those neighborhoods. We closed down, we did heavy public education, people got the message, people said "oh, I don't want to get sick", they responded. Once people believe, "well, this is over, COVID's not serious, the behavior changes", and you're seeing communities where we did have problems, and then we had a very significant public education campaign, but more importantly, they knew in their community they had an issue. They saw people go into the hospital. They saw on the local news every night, numbers going up, X number died. And they responded. But, people are now relaxing. And as people relax with COVID, it's a problem. I said today in Queens what I've said before - don't get cocky with COVID. COVID wins when you get cocky. This is a formidable enemy. You put your hands down at your side, you think it's over, the enemy attacks. And that literally is community by community.

Vaccines, we've done 10.5 million shots in arms. One in three New Yorkers have gotten at least one dose. Over 4 million have been fully vaccinated. That's about 20 percent of the state. Tomorrow morning, all New Yorkers 16 plus will be eligible. 1-833-NYS-4-VAX, number four, vax, is the phone number. Or you can go online, ny.gov/vaccine. The supply is coming from the federal government, start and stop, but this week it's up. We have the distribution center. It's continued supply from the federal government and then it's citizen responsibility and citizen action showing up and rolling up their sleeve. We have 189 community-based pop-up vaccination sites. We have 13 mass vaccination sites operating now. We have six mass vaccination sites in partnership with the federal government. We have 69 churches that are now serving as vaccination sites. We're partnering with SOMOS, which is a doctor's physician network that runs community clinics. So we are hyper-aggressive on getting a vaccine to people and to communities of color who have had the highest COVID rate.

The mass vaccination sites are the highest throughput sites, and we're trying to balance both. In other words, Javits Center has one of the highest throughputs of any site in the country. And Javits, people who've gone to Javits Convention Center in Manhattan and gotten a vaccine. They all rave about the operation. The mass vaccination sites have the highest through-put, they are the most efficient, but you have to drive to the mass vaccination site. We have them located throughout the State, but you have to go there.

The pop-up sites, the community-based sites, bring the vaccination to you. We go to your public housing complex, we go to your church, we go to your community center. There we focus on reaching the communities primarily of color. They do not do as high a through put, but they are more effective at getting the vaccines to the communities that actually need them.

Today we launched the public awareness campaign in connection with the Equity Task Force which is the Roll Up Your Sleeves campaign. It makes the case to Black New Yorkers, Latino New Yorkers that this is safe. We're trying to get past that hesitancy and trust issue and the Roll Up Your Sleeves campaign will be running statewide.
 
We're also working on the budget at the same time. As I said before, the budget is probably the most complicated, the most ambitious and the hardest budget that we have done. This is a post-crisis budget. We have federal funds, we have State funds, we have reconstruction we have to do. We have relief that we have to do and we have to rebuild an economy in a post-COVID world where economies all across the globe are all trying to rebuild.

In many ways, I think it's an international competition. Who can rebuild first? Who can learn the lessons first? There's an opportunity for New York in that. The budget, yes, State finances like a normal budget, plus COVID relief, plus COVID reform - learning the lessons from COVID - plus reimagine New York, reinvent New York. Those are the themes I laid out in my State of the State and we put in the budget, but it makes it complicated. You put on top of that you can't be in the same room with people and yeah, Zoom is great. Zoom is not as good as being in a room with 20 people and being able to sit there for 10 hours and hash it out. That has been a complication to it.

2021-04-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

This is Governor Cuomo. We have Melissa DeRosa, Beth Garvey, Kelly Cummings, Robert Mujica, Howard Zucker.

Let me give you a quick number COVID update and some quick information. Positivity today, 3.75.  58 New Yorkers passed away from COVID yesterday, 4,118 New Yorkers hospitalized. That is the lowest number since [December], so that's good news because that's pretty holiday surge, even though holiday surge is a bit of an oxymoron. 860 patients in ICU, down 17.  That's the lowest number since early December.  571 were intubated.

Positivity by region, I keep saying this but some provocative academic will do this study someday - Western New York, back on top, 4.79.  Western New York as everybody remembers was very high, public information campaign, and then more publicity about consequences, people dying, more people in hospitals, people know someone who gets sick, the message came home, the compliance goes up, then positivity number goes down. We now have COVID fatigue and some places - some places - the number goes up.  COVID fatigue is different in different places. It is the behavior. I was talking to Dr. Zucker about this. It is human behavior. Human behavior.

Western New York, 4.79; Long Island, 3.9; Mid-Hudson, 3.8; New York City, 3.5; Finger Lakes, 3.3; Capital Region, 2.2; North Country, 1.8; Mohawk, 1.7; Central New York, 1.45; Southern Tier, 0.7. Statewide, 3.2.   The positivity by borough in New York City, take a guess, Staten Island 4.2 - Rob's home borough.   Queens, my home borough, 3.7.  Brooklyn, 3.5.  Bronx, 3.3.  Bronx is lower than it has been.  Staten Island was high, went down, is number one again. And Manhattan, 2.14, which has been consistent. New York City seven-day positivity, 3.5, lowest since early December also.

We were in Long Island today. New York State has done 12 million shots in arms. One in four New Yorkers has been fully vaccinated which is great. 38 percent of New Yorkers have gotten at least one dose. We're working on more supply. Supply is the limiting factor right now. But our distribution network is up and robust. Our distribution network is comprised of two types of distribution. One is a mass vaccination site, which is the most efficient, effective way of getting shots in arms. Javits Center is one of the highest performing and best vaccination sites in the country. Then we also have pop-up, community-based, to reach populations that are harder to reach and to make sure we're doing everything we can to have equitable distribution.

This morning we talked about getting college students vaccinated. This is more of a challenge than you might think. College students have been told early on that this doesn't affect young people as seriously. There's a certain amount, they talk vaccine hesitancy, I think with young people it's more complacency. It's not their problem, not their issue. Ironically, we're seeing positivity [share] go up among young people 18 to 24. Even if they believe in what I call the superhero theory that they can't get hurt by COVID, they can transmit COVID. And they can transmit COVID to someone who can get hurt.

What we're trying to do is get the student vaccinated in the schools before the schools are out. We're using SUNY. They have a medical staff, they can administer in the college on the campus. Same with CUNY, Rob is on the CUNY board, they can administer at the school itself. We're asking private colleges to participate. We'll provide them with vaccines and they can administer, but our hope is to get as many students vaccinated as we can before they take off for the summer to places unknown. As you know, all New Yorkers are eligible so there are no excuses, and the phone number is 1-833-NYS-4VAX.

Graduation ceremonies, I'll give you the outlines. If you have any follow-up questions, because this gets a little technical. This has been a long year, people are graduating, people like to enjoy graduations. My daughter graduated last year. She didn't have a graduation. She missed it very much and so did I. The graduation ceremonies we think are important and we hope schools have graduation ceremonies, we just want them safe and we want them smart. Effective May 1 we are going to have guidance on graduation ceremonies. It is dependent on the size of the location. For outdoor events, large-scale ceremonies of 500 people at outdoor venues, they are limited to 20 percent of the venue capacity with proof of a recent negative test or vaccination required. For medium-scale ceremonies, which we call 201 to 500, at outdoor, ceremonies at 33 percent of venue, negative test or vaccination. For small-scale outdoor ceremonies of up to 200 people, ceremonies at 50 percent of venue capacity, proof of negative test or vaccination is optional, that's up to 200.

Indoor events, large ceremonies of over 150 people, 10 percent venue, proof of test. Medium-scale ceremonies of 100 to 150 people, ceremonies at 33 percent of venue capacity with proof of recent test or vaccination. Small-scale indoor ceremonies of up to 100 people, 50 percent of venue, proof of recent test or vaccination is optional. For large events, colleges and schools will need to notify their local health department. For all events, face masks, social distancing, health screening, contact tracing information are required. All that being said, we continue to encourage virtual, drive-in or individual ceremonies. They are still the safest option for students and families. But, we deserve a break and students deserve their day for graduation and families deserve a little good news. It's been a long, long year.

2021-04-16 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Let me talk through the COVID numbers today. Overall statewide positivity is 2.8 percent. Statewide deaths - 43, we remember them in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalizations - 3,800, that's good news, that's down 79, that's the lowest since November 30, which is basically Thanksgiving, so we are fully back at this point before the holiday surge. ICU down 18, intubations down 16. Positivity continues to decline, you look at where we are now at 3.04 percent, it's a long way from January 4, so that is good news statewide. Hospitalizations also continue to decline, and that's also very good news.

Again, the positivity across the State varies and it varies widely. And we have some of the lowest and we have some of the highest. Western New York is again one of the highest positivities in the State and I want to speak to that in a moment. But, you look at Western New York at 4.9 percent, and then look at the Southern Tier at 0.8 percent, and ask yourself, "Why? Why? Why is the Southern Tier 0.8 percent and Western New York 4.93 percent?" Mohawk Valley - 2 percent. Central New York - 1.4 percent. Capital Region - 2.3 percent. New York City - 3.2 percent. Western New York - the positivity has gone up and down, but recently we have seen an increase and it is concerning. Western New York, we've seen again, on hospitalizations up and down, but we have seen an increase, and again it's concerning.

Our vaccination efforts are going very well, we are dependent on the supply from the Federal Government, but we have literally hundreds of vaccination distribution sites, we're spending millions of dollars on vaccinations and public education about vaccinations. As you know, it's not just a race between the rate of infection of COVID, the spread of COVID and the number of vaccinations, that's what this is. There are two lines: one line is the rate of increase of COVID, possible variants of COVID, the second is how many vaccinations are we getting in arms.

To Western New York, where the numbers are dramatically different than other parts of the State, I want to make it especially clear that it is the actions of a community that matter, actions of an individual, actions of individuals and then as a collective, actions of that community. It is a function of human behavior, it is that simple. As complicated as COVID is, is as simple as COVID is. It's a virus, and we know how the virus spreads. So it's a question of your behavior and your precautions. The more precautions you take, the fewer people get infected. The less precautions, the more. So we're at a point now where everyone knows the facts. We've communicated all the information that we can communicate. We've beseeched people to take it seriously, but it is now up to you. It's up to you as an individual, you as a family, you as a community.

What is going to happen in Western New York over the next several months? We want to get back to life as normal. We want to get back to going to Buffalo Bills games and Sabres games and picnics, and school as we knew it, and socializing as we knew it. It's going to be a function of what we do between now and then. It is that simple. It's going to be a function of how many vaccinations we take. I do believe that there is a civic and community duty for individuals to take a vaccine. No one can be safe unless everyone is safe. And I do believe that no person really has the moral right to transmit COVID. You can say I have a legal right, I don't have to get a vaccine. That's true. But ask yourself, do you have the moral right? Do you have the social right to infect other people?

Some people are healthier than others, some people are younger than others, and they say well, I don't have to take it. I understand that. But, you could infect someone who winds up dying. Some people say, "well, I don't want to be a scientific experiment." Twelve million doses in the State of New York, 12 million. No one's asking you to go first. Twelve million people have taken doses. We have international experience on Pfizer and Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson, which they paused, was one of the acts of hyper-caution. Six people out of 6 million people had a bad reaction. That's one in 1 million. You have a greater chance of getting infected by COVID and dying from COVID than even with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. So, those are the facts, and I would urge people to know the facts and to respond to the facts. Those who say, "well, I look at numbers, I look at facts, I look at statistics, I look at logic." They all point in one direction. And this should be a decision that is made logically and intelligently, and not politically or emotionally.

There is a reason why Western New York is higher than the rest of the state, and that reason is communal behavior. We got the number down once because Western New York was at a high point once before. We got the number down once, we can get the number down again. We just have to choose to do it.

2021-04-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Governor Cuomo: Good morning to everyone. Pleasure to be at the Mission Society once again. it's an exciting day. A lot of good news today. Today, don't forget, statewide, we go to walk-in, no appointments, for 60-year-olds, plus. We want to maximize the vaccines for people who are older. They're most at risk for the COVID if they get it for potential bad consequences. So, walk-in for 60 plus, and we're excited about that. Let me give you a quick update on the numbers on COVID for today, and then I'll acknowledge our guests who are here.

Positivity rate in the State of New York today, 2.03 percent. That's very low, that's very good news. Lowest positivity rate since November 5th, lower than the rate we had yesterday, so that's headed in the right direction. 3,300 people hospitalized, that's down. The number of people in ICU is down, the number of people intubated is down. By region across the state, which I say three times a week, but it is something that has to pay attention, the variety, the variation, the range of positivity across the state is something that people have to take seriously. We have some parts of the state with four times the positivity of other parts of the state. How can that be? It's the same state, same message, same resources, but, Western New York, 4.2 percent, Finger Lakes, 2.9, Mid-Hudson, 2.7, Long Island, 2.5, New York City, 2.5, Capital Region, 1.9, Central New York, 1.5, Central New York, 1.5, Mohawk Valley, 1.5, North Country, 1.4, Southern Tier, .8. Congratulations Southern Tier. Statewide, 2.45.

Here in the City of New York today, Staten Island, 3.3, highest in the city. Brooklyn, 2.9, Queens, 2.9, Bronx, 2.5, Manhattan, 1.6. In New York City, seven-day average positivity, 2.5, which is the lowest since November 26, and 1,600 patients hospitalized, lowest since December 9th. So people hear that and they say great news, great news, great news. Yes, but, it's not over. Don't get cocky with COVID. It's not over. 45 people died yesterday. So remember, it's not over. But, we are headed in the right direction, and we do have the tools to actually make a difference.

You're going to hear from some special guests today after I speak. You'll hear from Radhamés Rodriguez, who is the president of the United Bodegas of America. You'll then hear from Paloma Izquierdo-Hernandez, who's the president and CEO of Urban Health and a member of our vaccine equity task force. She is a legend, what she has done in healthcare in the community, and we're honored to have her. Stuart Appelbaum, who's the president of the RWDSU, one of the great progressive labor leaders in the State of New York, and has bene extraordinarily helpful all through COVID. We're also joined by Dr. Debbie Almontaser, who's the executive director of the Yemeni-American Merchants Association. She is an internationally and nationally noted speaker and expert on diversity. And you'll hear from Assemblywoman Inez Dickens, who is going to close out the show for us. So, after I speak, Radhamés, Paloma, Stuart and then Inez.

Let me make a couple of points if I can today. First, it's a pleasure to be with food workers and bodega owners. The Cuomo family started in a bodega, before we really called them bodegas. My grandfather, my father's father, Andrea Cuomo, I'm named for him, Andrew Cuomo, had a little grocery store in South Jamaica, Queens. That's what he did, that's where my father was born, they lived behind the store, and it was a small neighborhood grocery store/delicatessen, but it wasn't fancy enough, really, to be a delicatessen, so it was just a small neighborhood grocery store. The Cuomo family trajectory starts in South Jamaica, Queens, winds up in Hollis, Queens. So three generations made it about two miles.

My grandfather and I were very close. He lived just down the block. And I spent a lot of time with him because my father was very busy, and later in his life, my grandfather loved to tell the same story repeatedly, which is what tends to happen. But he told the story about running the store during the Great Depression. That's what he would keep talking about, he would go back to that. And nobody had any money. So they would come into the store for food, and he would give them what he called 'credit', he would give them food on credit. And I said, but Grandpa, nobody was working. It was the Depression. There's no credit because they had no work, there was no job, how do you call it credit because they couldn't pay back. And he said, "I know, I know, but people have to eat. People have to eat." He did it to such an extent that he was on the verge of bankruptcy with his store, because he couldn't pay his bills, because there was no income that was coming in. "What could I do? People had to eat. They had to feed their children. They had to feed their families." To him, it was just an article of faith. You did what you had to do at a time of crisis because it was the right thing to do. "Well, it could hurt you, you could have gone bankrupt." It was not a factor. You did the right thing, the right thing. There's no law in the state that says, this it the right thing. The right thing you feel here. "What could I do? People had to eat. They had to feed families."

We hit the COVID crisis. Bodega owners, food workers, show up, open the store, run the store. COVID, what are the precautions? We were just speaking backstage, nobody knew. But you showed up for work. Delivery people showed up and made the deliveries, and people opened their doors, and they exchanged money, and credit cards. Why did they do this? Because people had to eat. People had to eat and it was the right thing to do. Maybe you put yourself in danger. Radhamés and all his associates are running a store, people are going in and out, you're stocking shelves, you're talking to people. Why? Why put yourself in this danger? Because it was the right thing to do. Who told you you had to do it? Nobody. Nobody. Nobody could order somebody to go to work at that time. People did it because it was the right thing to do.

Stuart Appelbaum is here. We had our first meeting yesterday of a memorial committee because we want to do a memorial to the heroes of COVID. Heroes of COVID. Well, who's a hero of COVID? I had to get up before the people of the State of New York during COVID and I had to say two things and it bothers me to this day. First, I had to say everybody stay home. Close the schools, close the businesses. Everything closes. You have to stay home to stay safe. Remote learning, work from your house, keep the kids inside. Everybody stays home.

Second thing, not you, the essential workers. You, essential workers, you should go to work tomorrow. You nurses, you have to go. You doctors, you have to go. You hospital staff, you have to go. You teacher, you have to go. You bus driver, you have to go. You train operator, you have to go. You policeman, you have to go. You firefighter, you have to go. You delivery worker, you have to go. You bodega operator, we need you to go. Why? Because people have to eat. Because we need you to drive the bus because the people have to be able to get to the grocery store. We need the delivery people to deliver the foods. You have to go.

Well, Governor, how can you say both things? How can you say it's dangerous, stay home and be safe but then on the other hand say the essential workers have to show up for work? Why do some people have to put themselves in danger so other people can stay home safe? How is that fair? Is there a law that says that, Governor? No. No. There's no law. I'm asking you. Please, essential workers, please go to work because we need you so others can stay home and they did. And they did. And they didn't say I want more money, I want this. They just did the right thing. They're heroes. They're heroes.

My grandfather was a hero to me for what he did during the Great Depression. The essential workers are heroes. The truth is they were essential every day. They are the hard-working women and men who make this whole place work. It's not the fancy bankers, it's not the fancy lawyers - it's the hard-working blue collar women and men who show up every day. The essential workers. They are essential for us all.

We're going to do a memorial to them to thank them for COVID and food workers will be part of that. It's not just to thank them for COVID, that's what I was trying to explain to Stuart and the commission. It's to honor the working men and women of the State of New York who it day-in and day-out. Not because they get paid a lot of money and they work a lot of hours under dangerous conditions, because they do it out of their honor and their duty and their pride and their tradition because that's who they are.

Many are immigrants and they're proud to be here and they want to do their part to be Americans. God bless America. Life is reciprocal. We say thank you to the essential workers but also show thank you in your actions, not just your words. The door swings both ways in the relationship of life. We have the vaccine and we're getting out the vaccine and it's important that everyone gets the vaccine. It's important that everyone gets the vaccine equitably and fairly. Just saying we have a vaccine available isn't enough because people who are in the hospital, who have a doctor, people who have access, they can get the vaccine like this. People who know how to work that internet, they figured out how to get the appointment.

How about if you had to go to work every day? How about if it wasn't that easy for you? Then you're going to see a lag in the vaccine. You see a lag in the vaccine, it's in the numbers. The Black community in New York City, 27 percent of the population. Well then they should be 27 percent of the vaccine, right? They're only 19 percent of the vaccines. That's not fair. Latino community, 28 percent of the population. Well then they should be 28 percent of the vaccines. They're only 24 percent of the vaccines. Well that's not fair, that's not equitable. We have to do something about that.

There's vaccine hesitancy, yes, that's part of it. I'm nervous about the vaccine, who knows. Now, every major medical professional has said that it's safe but hesitancy is part of it. Part of it is people, especially new immigrants, new Americans, new arrivals are not that quick to go to a government sponsored facility to get a vaccine. Why? I don't want to go to government and answer a lot of questions. Well, government is here to help. No, no, no, government is not here to help me. I may be undocumented, I'm not so quick to walk in to a government sponsored facility. Okay, we'll make it easier. We'll bring the vaccine to you. We'll bring the vaccine to you. We'll bring the vaccine to you through somebody you trust. We'll bring the vaccine to you through not-for-profit community-based health providers who you feel comfortable dealing with because you have a relationship with them. Government won't even show up and we'll make it available to you where you work. We will bring it to the grocery stores where you work to make it easy and walk-up. You don't even need an appointment. We'll bring it to the grocery stores, to the Latino community, to the Black community, through community health providers, and you just walk up and you take it.

SOMOS which is a phenomenal health care provider that has done great work all across this state, all across this nation by the way, is going to be doing grocery stores in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and right here at the Mission Society in Harlem. Paloma at Urban Health is going to be doing the Bronx and they will be making vaccines available for grocery store workers, for delivery workers in the grocery stores on a walk-up basis. We want to make it easy, we want to make sure they are safe, we want to make sure the people they're dealing with are safe, we want to make sure the delivery workers are safe, we want to get those vaccinations up because that's what works for everyone. When do we beat COVID? When we hit herd immunity. That's when we beat COVID.

That means when we pull together, as a community, decide that we're going to get this vaccine done and we're going to crush COVID and that's what we're working on every way possible. It also says we need individuals to participate. I talk to people all day long, they say, well, you know I'm not sure that I want it, I'm worried, I don't like needles, I am strong, I'm a superhero, I'm 27 years old and nothing can hurt me, strong like bull.

It's not just about you by the way. It's not just about you. Sometimes in life it's not about you. It's about us, and you have a responsibility as a citizen because you contact me and then I contact other people and we are not living on a desert island. It's called New York State. A lot of people in a small place. We all get on a bus, we all get on a train, we all walk down the sidewalk. If I'm infected I infect you. I have a responsibility to you and we have a responsibility to each other. That's community. That's the connection. My father used to say it nice and simple. We're a family. The family of New York he used to call it. We're extended family. Just think of family and how you treat a family and how you relate to a family. We're the family of New York. A member of the family has a virus. That member of the family takes precautions to protect the family and that's what we're saying today and that is our spirit and our ethic and our relationship. Nosotros somos más que amigos. Somos hermanos y hermanas. Somos uno. Somos familia. And that's how we act. And with this vaccine there are no more excuses. No hay excusas. We are going to bring it to you through your local health provider. You take it for your own safety and the safety of the family.

With that, let me please ask Radhamés Rodriguez to join us. You'll then hear from Paloma Izquierdo-Hernandez and then Stuart Appelbaum and then our great Assembly Member Inez Dickens who is here representing Assemblyman Al Taylor and Robert Rodriguez, but before we do that we're going to show you an advertisement that we are going to run today that helps communicate this message a little bit better than I did but it lends itself the No Hay Excusas campaign.

Video: Hola neoyorquinos. ¿Saben cómo vamos a vencer por completo a COVID?

Vacunándonos. Y la gran noticia: en el estado de Nueva York ya todos podemos. Si tienes 16 años o más haz una cita hoy mismo. Las vacunas son seguras, eficaces y gratuitas. Regresa a las cosas y las personas que amas. Protéjate y proteja a tu familia y a tu comunidad. Se duro al estilo de Nueva York. Vacúnate hoy mismo.

Radhamés Rodriguez: Hello everyone. Thank you, Mr. Governor for inviting us here today. On behalf of United Bodegas of America, my name is Radhamés Rodriguez and I have to thank my partners with me: Mr. Diogene Nunez, Owner, Salcedo Supermarket, Cornelia W. Bello, Owner, Orquidea Deli; Eugene Brito, Financial Director, United Bodegas of America; Jose D. Collado, Owner, Yankee Deli; Luis Ducasse, Executive Director, United Bodegas of America; Randy Gonzalez, Owner, C Heights Food Corporation, Brooklyn; Carlos Herrera, General Secretary, United Bodegas of America; Maria Ortiz, Operations Manager, United Bodegas of America; Jose Luis Rodriguez, J&R Super Deli, Bronx; Clara Tineo, Owner, Firas Deli Grocery, Bronx. I thank all of them for being here with me.

It's an honor to be here today representing the United Bodegas of America. We went through a lot of challenges representing the grocery stores and supermarkets across New York City. The United Bodegas of America represent about 14,000 bodegas and employees only in New York. Bodegas are very important for New Yorkers. Daily life. We are essential business doing the work on the worst days of the pandemic. Our hard-working men and women put their lives on the line for our community. We are heroes. That's why I am so excited about this new targeted approach to reach out to all the bodega owners, employees and families in all the communities to make sure that they have the vaccine. Governor, you are the one who say based on justice requires you give the help first to the communities that needs it most. Our community and our employees, we serve this community. We need to vaccinate everyone to protect our families and to protect our community.

All this year, it was very difficult for us and New York with this pandemic because we put our life in danger. We have to protect our customers and I believe we have the opportunity to finish with this COVID-19 and we need everybody to be vaccinated. Otherwise we're not going to get the normal life like we used to be. So I'm very happy and I talked to every bodega, every owner of a bodega, all the families, all the employees to please get vaccinated. Many other counties wanted to be vaccinated. They wanted to be vaccinated, and they don't have the opportunities that we have. So we thank Mr. Governor to have the opportunity to have every New Yorker to have the vaccine. And we want everybody to get it so we take care of this problem that we have. Thank you very much.

Paloma Izquierdo-Hernandez: Good afternoon and thank you Governor for being here today. It really is an honor for me to be here. And like I said to the Governor when I first saw him here today, thank you for your extraordinary leadership during those very, very difficult first days of COVID. It was your strength and your resilience that kept so many going. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And I just want to share that like the governor, my grandfather from Puerto Rico started in East Harlem as bodega owner as well. And it was through his hard efforts that we're here today. And so it's just interesting that life has its circular ways of coming back, right? So I'm honored here to be representing Urban Health Plan. I'm Paloma Hernandez. I'm the CEO and president of Urban Health. And in a broader sense, I'm here representing all the healthcare professionals who have fought so valiantly over the past 13 months or so.

The last year has been painful for everyone. As someone who works in health care and as someone who works on their own home turf, the Bronx, Corona and Central Harlem, this is something I seen and felt up close and personally. But the pandemic hit some communities harder than others. Many of ours were those. The Governor knows this and that the inequities highlighted by the pandemic existed long before COVID arrived in New York State. So he took action. Governor Cuomo and the New York State Clinical Advisory Taskforce have gone to great lengths to ensure the vaccine is safe and effective. and that is an extra layer that did not have to be done but the Governor was committed to doing that. The Governor also created the state Vaccine Equity Task Force of which I have the privilege of serving on, to make sure that we give access to the vaccine to all who need it.

And the Governor brought vaccines directly into our communities. And to communities all over the state through pop-up sites in churches and community centers. Now he is making sure the vaccine is easily accessible for another essential population. My grandfather would be very proud. Our grocery and bodega workers are people so vital to our communities. I know firsthand. I see them. I visit them every day. How access to good food changes health outcomes. And we've worked with them just to do exactly that. These are people whose faces we see every day in our communities. They are pillars of our neighborhoods. They nourish our bodies and our souls. Their work helps us survive and flourish. Let's make sure we do the same for them. The ability for these grocery and bodega workers to schedule or walk into an appointment or walk into a pop-up near their place of work gives them much needed access to the weapon that will end the war on COVID. We are grateful to have the following: These five new pop-up sites opening across the city in all the boroughs. Manhattan will happen this weekend. SOMOS, a great friend organization, will open and operate the sites outside of the Bronx. And Urban Health Plan will unitize our existing facility in the Bronx starting Monday, April 26th.

So again, thank you Governor for your leadership over the course of the pandemic, your commitment to equity, and we welcome and encourage everybody to get vaccinated. That is the only way out of this mess. Thank you.

Stuart Appelbaum: Good morning everybody. I'm Stuart Appelbaum. I'm president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Governor, what you said this morning and what you're doing is so important. And I want to thank you. You have consistently supported the members of my union throughout this pandemic. Often when they couldn't find support anywhere else. The members of my union work in a number of jobs that are considered essential. Many of them work in supermarkets and grocery stores. They went to work every day throughout the pandemic despite the extraordinary fear they had. And if they had not, none of us would have been able to survive. Society would not have been able to survive. We understand that they are essential. They were essential before the pandemic. They are going to be essential after the pandemic. All too long, the were invisible, and the work that they did was underappreciated. That's why I thought it was so important yesterday when the commission met because while we are honoring the essential workers in New York, we are doing something else. We are also saying when the pandemic is long gone, that the work these people do is always essential and honorable and each and every one of them should get the respect they deserve.

We also know that the way we end this pandemic is through vaccination. That's the message the Governor tells us every day. It's a shame that our former president didn't tell us that, but the Governor gets it right. Everyone needs to be vaccinated. I am urging all the members of my union and all working people to get this vaccine. Do it not just for your sake, do it for everybody's sake. We all need to be vaccinated.

These five new pop-up sites opening across the city in all five boroughs is going to crucial for that effort. With this vaccine we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. But the vaccine only works if each of us gets it in our arms.

Governor, thank you for your leadership. It is appreciated. Thank you.

Inez Dickens: Good morning, good morning. I want first acknowledge Mission Society and because they have rolled up their sleeves, New York Tough, opened their doors to see to it that our bodegas, their members, the owners, will all be able to get vaccinated in their communities. Thank you, Governor Cuomo, thank you for bringing us here today. I also just want to say thank you for your leadership during this entire crisis. A lot of other people would've buckled under the pressure or shied away from addressing the injustices COVID exposed in our healthcare system, but not you, my man, not you. Governor, you have called out those injustices. You address them head on. Today and so many days in the last few months, you delivered real solution. You were concerned that grocery and bodega workers, many of whom from black and brown communities, were being overlooked when it came to vaccine accessibility. That's the truth.

I grew up not too far from here. I represented this community first in the city council and now in the New York State Assembly. Bodegas were a big part of my life and they still are. Their part of the lives of most of us in this community. Not only can you get your food and other necessities, but in some ways they are an informal community center. They're part of the fabric of our communities. The folks who work at bodegas and the grocery stores have provided vital lifelines during the pandemic. I am so thankful that we all are now recognizing that and that we're acting upon it.

You're bringing the vaccine to our heroic workers right to the communities where they work. You have fought to make sure that we have sufficient vaccines. Now we just need people to get the vaccinations. Vaccines don't do any good for people if they don't get it in their arms. I've been relentless in working with community leaders to let people know that these vaccines are safe. That we should take the vaccine, whichever one we're offered. I admire that you waited until you were technically eligible to get the vaccine before getting it last month just down the street at Mount Neboh. You didn't have to wait four months to get your shot. As governor, you are essential as they come. You waited until others were eligible. I admire that about you, sir. You are a man of your word. When you say you will do something, you do it.

I want to ask my two colleagues, Assembly member Al Taylor and Bobby Rodriquez to stand with me because in unity there is strength. We have councilmember Bill Perkins here. We stand with you. Today's announcements will give hope to our hard-working grocery and bodega workers. They have sacrificed so much in the last year so that we could have food and necessities. I, for one, will be forever grateful to them.

Five new pop-up sites across all five boroughs. Manhattan starts this weekend. United Health Plan will use their facility for the pop-up in the Bronx. And SOMOS, give it up for SOMOS, will operate the pop-ups in the other four boroughs. All five new pop-ups will allow walk-ins for bodega and grocery workers. Anyone who's eligible should get an appointment and get the shot. It's the only way we can stop this crisis.

So, thank you, Governor, thank you for leading this state through one of its darkest hours. When I speak to people in other states across this great nation as far as Oklahoma where my family comes from, they applaud you, they stand up for you. They're very pleased and wish they had had your leadership in their states. But the sun is rising on our new day. We will come out stronger thanks to your leadership.

On a personal note, this community stands with you. This community you are working now the hardest in the toughest time of your life, you're working hard for our communities. As a black woman, I know what it is to go without. I've seen my communities, the black and brown communities, to not have the availability of due process. The verdict that came out day before yesterday was not justice, because the man is dead. Due process is what's necessary. We must never forget this is America and due process is what we expect, what we want, and what we always demand from this country. So thank you.

Governor Cuomo: I just love to listen to Inez Dickens. She is such a powerful force. She does such a great job for her district, but not just for her district. She is a voice for justice for communities all across the state. Let's give her another round of applause. And to all our guests and our participants, let's give them a round of applause, please. The Mission Society for what you've done, God bless you. Let's give them a round of applause. Now we're going to have a couple vaccine shots just to show how easy it is. Are you ready? Now, just to show how easy the vaccine is, I'm actually going to administer your vaccine. To show that it's that easy even a governor can do it. That's how easy it is.

2021-04-29 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning to all. Pleasure to be back in Western New York. Yeah, that's it. Let's get a better good morning. Good morning. Beautiful day in Buffalo. A little rainy, could be worse. It could be snowing. As we know, it's a pleasure to be at The Belle Center for all the good work that happens here. And we remember Father Belle and his great contribution.

Let me acknowledge some of my colleagues who are here today. First majority leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes who - let me just say a word about Crystal. You know her as your representative, your voice and she does a fantastic job on that level, but majority leader means she is a leader in the New York State Assembly, and she is a powerful leader. We just went through what was probably the most difficult budget the state has done, but probably the most potent budget that the state has done and I want to thank Crystal personally for her leadership on the cannabis bill, she was fantastic. So thank you, Crystal.

Mayor Byron Brown. This COVID crisis was a test of people in general and it was a test of leadership. No elected official had gone through this before and you really get to see what a person is made of, frankly, when the pressure is on. And I can tell you a better partner I did not have across the state than Mayor Byron Brown. He really stepped up when things were at their worst. So let's give him another round of applause.

Eunice Lewin is a great community leader. She's also a great member on the SUNY Board of Trustees and she came up with a creative idea that we're going to be speaking about today. Let's give her a round of applause.

Lucy Candelario who's our host today. Thank you for opening up The Belle Center. Thank you for all your good work.

Reverend Mark Blue, who was the pastor of the Second Baptist Church. He's also the president of the Buffalo NAACP, which is doing extraordinary work. So thank you, Reverend Blue for being with us.

We have Thomas Beauford, who is the President and CEO of the Buffalo Urban League. He works with Marc Morial who is the national President, former mayor of New Orleans. They're doing great work all across the country. Pleasure to be with you. Thank you.

Thomas Quatroche, who has been leading the Erie Medical Center through this and talk about challenging times in great work. Thomas, thank you very much and thank the entire medical center. 

Dr. Raul Vazquez who's the president and CEO of G-Health Enterprises. He's going to be participating in the initiative we announced today. Dr. Vazquez, thank you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you.

Let me give you an update on where we are on COVID because this COVID situation changes almost day to day. It certainly changes week to week. And as the enemy changes tactics, then we adopt our tactics to meet the enemy, right? Because this is a war. You read about the great wars. You watch the enemy, the enemy moves, and then you move in response.

We track COVID on a daily basis to see what it's up to. It has tricks for us and it has changed tactics. Don't dismiss these variants of interest, they call them. The COVID virus changes all the time. It mutates all the time and they talk about the UK mutation. Now they're talking about the mutation that's in India.

We have to watch these mutations because whatever happens anywhere on the world, it winds up here eventually. And eventually is becoming a shorter and shorter period of time. The world is shrinking. One person gets on an airplane, comes to New York, it's here. It can be here within 24 hours. So we watch it every day today.

Today the numbers are good. Positivity rate statewide 1.8 percent and that's really good news. Remember when we were up seven, eight, ten percent. 1.8 percent. So let's give New Yorkers round of applause.

2,900 people hospitalized. That's down 183. That's the first day under 3,000 since November 24th. So that's really good news. Also 691 in ICU. That's down. 425 New Yorkers intubated. That's down - lowest since December 3rd. 

Positivity by region and this is fascinating because it's one state. We all get the same message. We all have the same access. But yet you see variations in the positivity across the state Western New York, unfortunately, highest positivity in this state. Today, 3.5 percent. Finger Lakes, 2.8 percent. Mid-Hudson, 2.1. Long Island, 2. New York City, 1.9 percent. North Country, 1.8. Capital Region, 1.5. Mohawk Valley, 1.5. Central New York, 1.4. Southern Tier, 0.7. Okay. Statewide that's 1.98 percent for the seven day average. That seven day average is the first day under 2 percent since November 7th, which takes us all the way back to pre-Thanksgiving, pre-holiday surge. The numbers are going very well. As the numbers move, we move. As the enemy moves, we move. So this is all very good news.

Well, good. Then let's throw off the masks and let's all go celebrate. We're not done with COVID yet. All those good numbers, 38 people died yesterday. 38 people died yesterday from COVID. So, yes, we're making great progress, but people are still dying every day from COVID. So we have to weigh those two facts, right? Well, governor said, you're governor, you said we're doing great and we're making progress. I did. Well then why can't we get back to normal? Because 38 people died yesterday. And people will die today. So we're not through the woods. Yet. 

3.56 in Western New York is the highest percentage in any region. We are working doubly hard in Western New York to get that number down. How do you get the number down? Two ways. Precautions and vaccinations. What are precautions? Precautions are precautions. Precautions are common sense. Wear the mask, socially distance, be careful. Well, I'm tired of all of this and we're making progress. I know, but we're not home yet. And we have to keep up with the precautions. We're relaxing. The precautions as the numbers are getting better, but we're not home yet. Precautions. And the ultimate weapon to win the war - the vaccinations. 

Get the vaccination. We've vaccinated 15 million New Yorkers so far. 45% of New Yorkers have gotten at least one shot. 45 percent. We have a massive distribution network. Pop-up centers. We're going into public housing. We're going into hard-hit communities. Mass vaccination sites. We have an elaborate distribution center. So, people who want the vaccine can get the vaccine. Unfortunately, the rate of people getting vaccines is slowing.

Partially, that's understandable. You're up to 45 percent of the population. Those who were most eager to get the vaccine came in first. You get to 45 percent, now you're starting to see a slowing in the number of people coming in for the vaccine. We were doing 175,000 vaccines every 24 hours statewide. We were doing about 115,000 shots, every 24 hours.

Did you reduce the distribution? No. We just have fewer people coming in. So we have to work harder to get people to come in for the vaccinations. We're focused on two groups: the doubtful and the youthful. Who were the doubtful? The doubtful are people who doubt the vaccine. Well, government says I should get the vaccine. You know, I don't believe government. To those people I say it's not government that says it. Yes. Governmental leaders say it, Democrats say it Republican, say it, tall leaders say it, short leaders say it, females say it, black say it, white say it. It's not government telling you. It's every major medical source in the nation says get the vaccine.

Well I'm worried I don't want to go first. 15 million New Yorkers went first. People all over the globe went first. Well I'm afraid of it. You have a greater risk to yourself not getting the vaccine then you have getting the vaccine. It is safer to get the vaccine. Well, I don't like needles. Nobody likes needles. Nobody. Take it from me: I get needled every day on various levels. Sometimes with a needle, sometimes other types of needles. Nobody likes a needle, but it will keep you safe. That's a doubtful group. 

And then we have the youthful group 16 to 25. The 16 to 25 is the lowest percent vaccinated. OK? Listen to these numbers because the mayor when I was here last time raised this point and I went back and I looked at the numbers and he was right. Statewide 75-plus in age, 72 percent vaccinated, 65 to 74, 80 percent vaccinated, 65 to 74, 16- to 25-year-olds, only 34 percent vaccinated. In Western New York, your vaccination rate is higher than the state rate in 75-plus and 65 to 74-plus. It's a little lower on 16 to 25. 16 to 25 is our target audience. Why? Why is that number lower? First, in truth, our emphasis on COVID from day one was always about older people. Older people are more vulnerable. Older people are more vulnerable. Second, younger people became eligible later than older people, right?

Eligibility for 16-plus just opened up fairly recently. But also, younger people are younger people. And, you know, they have been told this is less dangerous for them. They're young, they're strong, they're superheroes. Nothing can hurt them. They'll get over it. Well, my friend had COVID and my friend is fine. I'm fine. I'm young. I'm strong. That may all be true, but first of all, it's not true. Young people have gotten very sick from COVID also. Young people get what they call long haul syndrome. There's a group of people who get COVID and it lingers for months and months. And they're still studying this long-haul syndrome, but younger people.

Yeah, maybe it's not going to affect you. But you don't live in a world alone. If you said to me, I live in a cabin in the woods and I don't see anyone. Alright. But if you live in Buffalo, if you live in Western New York, if you go into a shopping center, if you go to school, if you have a family, if you would say hello to your grandmother or your father, or your brother or your sister, or you shake hands with someone on the street, then you are affecting other people.

So it's really not just about you, right? I know we like to think rugged individualism. I know, but we live in a community. We live in a society. I'm standing here today. Crystal is here. Byron is here. What I do affects other people. What we all do affects other people. Yes, you're young and you're strong, but what you do affects other people.

We talk about social responsibility, social equity, community, helping one another, supporting one another. Get the vaccine. It's the best way to help one another. You want to say, you care about me? You want to say, you care about us? Get the vaccine and say, you know what? I got the vaccine. I wasn't afraid for me, but because I love you and I care about you, and I understand that my actions can affect you, that's why I took the vaccine. And that is true for every 16 to 25-year-old. Now we want to make it easier to do it. And we are targeting the 16 to 25. 

Eunice Lewin came up with a great idea. Dr. Vazquez, tomorrow and Saturday, we're going to have a pop-up at the greater Buffalo United Accountable Healthcare Network, 1195 Main Street. It will be open to everyone, but primarily focused on 16 to 25.  NFTA has provided free bus vouchers for 1,000 young people so they can get to the vaccination site without having to pay the bus fare. Let's give the NFTA a round of applause.

Why? We want to get to a point where there are no excuses. There are no excuses. The vaccine side is available. It's been tested, it's safe and it won't even cost you anything to go and get it. To high schools: I recommend high schools do this as an organized effort. School is still in session. A high school should organize where they will take their students, 16-plus, to a vaccination site, put them on a bus, bring them to a vaccination site and get them vaccinated.

That's the population that we have to get up. Why? Because we want to get back to life as usual. We want to get the economy fully open. We want to get back to social life. We want to start to see people. We want to get back to the old days, right? Everybody talks about the future and I want change, I want change. Yeah. I want to get back to the old days. I want to be able to go to a restaurant with my friends. I want to be able to go to a bar. I want to be able to go to a ball game. I want to get back to the old days where life was normal. I want people working again and society thriving again. And the vaccine is the best way to do that.

We're taking another step forward since the COVID numbers are going to come down and we're going to announce that the Buffalo Marathon is going to return this year, June 26th and 27th. And we want to thank Greg Weber very much for organizing that, but the marathon will go on. So congratulations to Greg Weber and let's move forward with that.

So we are reopening. We're calibrating to COVID, but all the numbers in the right direction, we're opening more and more. The Buffalo Marathon is another example of that. We are in the home stretch. We use the marathon. We're coming around the last corner, the tape and the end of the race is ahead of us. Now is no time to slow down. Run through the tape. Let's bring it home. Get those vaccinations done. 

Let's get Western New York where you open. Let's get back to life as normal. Thank you for having me here today. Let me now turn it over to Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Majority Leader. You'll then hear from Mayor Byron Brown, and then you'll hear from, Ms. Lewin from the SUNY Board of Trustees who helped organize today. Thank you very much.

Majority Leader Peoples-Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Governor. Thank you for being here in our beloved Buffalo yet again. Folks already know every time you come, there's some good news and so I think this is also good news as well. I'd also like to thank Mayor Brown as well as Lucy Candelario for allowing us to be hosted in The Belle Center.

I want to thank Rev. Mark Blue, Trustee Eunice Lewin and Dr. Raul Vazquez for all of your hard work and partnership that's been going on during the course of this pandemic.

The last time you were here, Mr. Governor, we talked a lot about equity and what that means. You said it means basic justice requires that you give help to the communities that need it most. Based on the numbers that you just laid out of how the numbers are looking in the state of New York, it's clear that we need help. That help is here. Now all we need is for people to come and take advantage of it. Throughout this pandemic, some seniors told me this just a couple of weeks ago that they followed your lead on this, Mr. Governor, and so you have always taken the progressive steps forward in bringing us through what is probably the most horrific time in any of our lifetimes. And so for those seniors at the Gloria Parks Center, I want to thank you personally for them, because that's what they said to me when I went to see them. Thank the governor for me. So I'm thanking you for them.

You also took the opportunity which I think is awesome to create a vaccine clinical trial force that put New Yorkers together to figure out, how do we get the vaccine out? You created the Vaccine Equity Task Force, which is clear that everything needs to be done from an equity lens and you created the vaccine pop-ups here and across the state to literally meet people where they are, as opposed to someone needing to go to a hospital or a clinical setting. You created these pop-up centers so that they can go where they live.

Over the last three weeks we've seen COVID positivity rates increase in Western New York. This is a community that urgently needs the help and we are grateful to you for providing that. Our region has the lowest share of young people getting vaccinated and I think that can change based on the strategies that have been put together here today, under the leadership of yourself, Governor, as well as our SUNY Trustee, Eunice Lewin, a thought leader, a thought leader, for sure.

Everyone 16 years and older is now eligible to get vaccinated so I really liked the way you presented it. If you really care about the people who are around you, who live with you in your community, that should be one of the major reasons that you would get vaccinated. Not that you're concerned that you're going to get sick or it's not going to be good for you or in the long haul is not good for people of color, all of these great myths folks have talked about, but it's because you're concerned about the people where you live and are around. I've been vaccinated. I was vaccinated at the same time my mother was who is 95 years old and I was vaccinated because I care about her and because I care about my grandson and by the way, I would like to go out to a restaurant, have a meal and a glass of Pinot Noir or something like that. I would like to do that again. As much as restaurants are clamoring to have that access, I'm clamoring to get there, but I need everybody else to work with me so we can allow that to happen.

I also want to take this opportunity to, along with the Governor, thank NFTA for providing a thousand passes. I mean, that is really, people often say, I can't get there, it's too far, I'm going to walk. Well take the bus and you have access to do that because of the NFTA. Again, I want to thank the Governor for helping us all to understand why we need to get back to a normal life that we can all enjoy our families. Our President said this on the day that he was sworn in, that he would like to see us be able to hug our relatives on the Fourth of July. I'd like to be able to hug my relatives before the Fourth of July and if we can get everybody vaccinated and get our numbers down in Western New York, like they are across the state, and soon they will be zero, then we can start hugging sooner than later. With that I want to thank the Governor again for being here and welcome to the podium, our great mayor, you all know him well, he's none other than Byron W. Brown. Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Brown: Thank you very much Majority Leader Peoples-Stokes and thank you, Governor Cuomo, for being here today and coming back to Buffalo so soon. It's great to have you back in our city. I also again want to thank Lucy Candelariofor hosting us here at the Belle Center. Governor, the last time you were here we talked about the disparities highlighted by the COVID pandemic and the work you've done to increase equity and access to the vaccine. That is so critically important. I can share with all of you that last week I attended a funeral of a young man more than 20 years younger than me that passed away from COVID and any loss of a loved one, a friend, is a painful loss. The thing that was shocking at that wake is not only did that young man pass away, but COVID also took his brother and took his mother. So this thing is real as the Governor has said, and people in our community are still getting very sick and dying from COVID-19.

And while we are close to the end of this painful period in our lives and we often say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, we have to also continue to emphasize that we are not out of the woods yet and we can't take this lightly. These last three weeks, as you've heard, we've seen COVID positivity rates increase in Western New York, especially among our young people. We have got to stop and make sure COVID cannot make a resurgence in our community. The Governor saw this and answered our call, which is why he's back here today. As you know the Governor expanded walk-in access to everyone 16 and up at all state-run mass vaccination sites. Now, the Governor is expanding access to an increasingly vulnerable group by partnering with our community to create a pop-up for our youth population. This pop-up brings 1,000 doses of the COVID vaccine into our community for our young people and creates an opportunity for them to get vaccinated so that they can safely return to their normal lives. 

I want to just again recognize the partners in this. Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Reverend Mark Blue, the President of the NAACP, Thomas Beauford, the President of the Buffalo Urban League, SUNY Trustee Eunice Lewin, Kim Minkel, the Executive Director of the NFTA, Dr. Raul Vazquez, the president of GBUAHN, and his wife, Toni Vazquez. Tom Quatroche, of ECMC and many others that have all come together around this idea of a youth vaccination pop-up in this community to make sure that one of our most precious resources, our youth, are getting vaccinated. 

So let's be clear. COVID isn't defeated yet. We have to be careful and we have to get everyone vaccinated. And I want to send out a special appeal to our beloved young people in this community, please get vaccinated. Protect yourself, protect your family, your friends, and our community. Again I want to thank the Governor for his great leadership and partnership throughout the pandemic, and Governor, for your continued commitment to Buffalo and Western New York. Now, it is my great pleasure to introduce someone that was incredibly passionate about this youth pop-up. I think she called all of us who could listen, who would listen, around the clock, morning, noon and night, and that is none other than the great SUNY Trustee, Eunice Lewin. 

Eunice Lewin: Thank you, Mayor Brown. Good morning. Buenos dias. I like it. Governor Cuomo, Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Mayor Brown, Reverend Blue. It is an honor to be here with you on this very special day. Governor, thank you for continuing to fight tooth and nail to crush COVID-19. You are not leaving any stone unturned. For over a year, you have led the people of New York by focusing on what needed to get done to save lives. Early on, it was making sure communities had PPE and COVID tests. Since the fall, you on your team have made sure the vaccines are safe and have fought to get New York State the vaccine it needs. Governor, your efforts to bring vaccination to the underserved areas all over this state have been remarkable. We thank you. 

Standing up mass vaccination sites like the Delavan-Grider Community Center here in Buffalo and pop-up vaccine sites at churches and community centers all over this state have made it possible for New Yorkers, including our heroic essential workers, to get the vaccine more conveniently. I'm grateful to the Governor to his team for making a special effort to encourage young people, young people, to get the vaccine and for making available 1,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses for this group. Young people, especially for you, I'm grateful to the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority for providing 1,000 day passes to help eligible residents reach the pop-up site. We knew, and we learned early on, that transportation, Governor, was a challenge, so tomorrow we do not have that problem. We have free transportation. 

At a time when we are becoming more and more hopeful that the long nightmare is close to a conclusion, we are seeing the COVID positivity rate going up here in Western New York. We need to do everything, everything we can, to keep moving forward and not backwards. As a trustee of the State University of New York, I know that this has been a challenging time for young people. I'm urging you to hang on a little longer and get yourself vaccinated. Get the shot for yourself, for your family, for your community. It could be one of the most important things you do for your lifetime. Thank you once again Governor, our elected and community leaders for demonstrating that leadership, teamwork and partnership can save lives. Young people, I am a cancer survivor, I got the shot. Thank you.

Governor Cuomo: Okay. Let's give Ms. Lewin another round of applause for getting it done. I'm now going to ask Dr. Vazquez to administer two vaccines for us, two volunteers, two young people volunteers who are going to come up and receive the vaccine. The vaccine can be done faster than you text, faster than you post. I'll tell you, a very cool post is you getting a vaccine shot, that is a very cool post. Dr. Vazquez?

2021-05-10 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. A lot going on today. What's going on today? A lot. Let me introduce who we have here with us. From my far right, Kelly Cummings, Director of Operations. Dr. Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health extraordinaire. Sarah Feinberg, Interim President of the New York City Transit Authority, who is doing a great job. Chairman Patrick Foye, who has been shepherding us through this unprecedented time and doing a great job at the MTA. And John Ledecky co-owner of the New York Islanders. Congratulations to the Islanders who are making it into the playoffs. We are very, very excited on behalf of many New Yorkers.

Let's talk about where we are and then we have a number of announcements today. Watch the numbers. I know you all get up first thing in the morning and go to the website and check the numbers because the decisions are based on the numbers. Overall statewide positivity, 1.4. 2000 hospitalizations. ICU is down, intubations down. Statewide deaths, 27. When people say COVID is over, COVID isn't over. 27 people died. 27 families grieving today. So it's not over. They are in our thoughts and prayers.

Positivity. I say this a lot, but look at the variances across one state and ask yourself why. Why do you have such a wide range within one state? When we get the politics out of COVID, and politics has infected COVID from day one, thank you to the prior federal administration, but there's a lot to discuss and analyze here. For example, why do you have this variance? Western New York has had one of the highest rates for a prolonged period of time. Finger Lakes is now higher than Western New York.

Staten Island is back at number one. And you want to talk about in explicable range of positivity? Manhattan, 0.7. Staten Island, literally double Manhattan. How do you explain that? Brooklyn right behind Staten Island. Queens, Bronx.

How do you make decisions, Governor? We make decisions on the data, on the science, on the facts. We always have. It's worked very well for this state. This state made more progress on COVID than any state in the United States. Fact, we went from the highest infection rate on the globe to one of the lowest. That is a fact. And we did it on the science and the data. First metric we watch, the positivity rate and the positivity rate has been great. We were at 7.9, January. We are now at 1.4. 58 percent decline over the last month. 35 straight days of decline. Congratulations, New Yorkers.

You see the same trend all across the state. Little variance here and there, but the same basic trend all across the state. We're now focused on the places in the state that have the highest infection rate. And that right now is Western New York and Finger Lakes.

Second metric, hospitalization rate. This is what we were petrified of when we first started. People forget that. When we first started the COVID infection rate was going up so fast that the experts all projected an overwhelming of our hospitals. They were projecting a need for 140,000 hospital beds. We only had 50,000 hospital beds in the entire state. That's what aged Dr. Zucker and myself. But we fixed that and the hospitalization rate is now down to 2000. We were close to 9,000 in January. 49 percent decline over the last month.

Third metric is the vaccination rate. And this is now the most important metric to watch, is the vaccination rate. Positivity's good, hospitalization's good. Vaccination rate is key. Why? With all the political garbage and with all the different medical opinions, everybody agrees on one fact. As the vaccination rate goes up, the positivity rate goes down.

As the vaccination rate goes up, the positivity rate goes down. They are an inverse. Everybody says it, every country shows it. It's the one global fact, if there are any facts in COVID, it's the one global fact that everybody agrees on. Keep the vaccinations going up, the positivity rate will come down. That's why we are so aggressive on vaccinations. We're doing everything we can, every way we can. 16 million total doses. We're now over 60 percent of the population who had at least one shot. 48 percent fully vaccinated.

But, because this is a but, but the vaccination rate has declined. This is not a New York phenomenon. This is a nationwide phenomenon. As you know, I'm head of the Governor's Association. Every governor is talking about the number of people now coming in for vaccines is declining.

Why? Part of it is understandable. There was a group of people who wanted to get the vaccine right away and remember how people were fighting for vaccine appointments right away. Some people were hyper anxious. A lot of them are in my family. I'm going to get a vaccine. I want to get a vaccine, I want to get a vaccine.

So you had a hyper anxious population to begin with. Then you had a second tier population who wanted to get the vaccine. They weren't that anxious. They've gotten the vaccine. And you're working your way through really the population.

You have two groups. One, I call the youthful, one I call the doubtful. Young people are not getting vaccinated. Why? They were never the focus, they weren't even eligible early on. Everyone said the young people can get it and they're going to be fine. There was a transmission risk, but this whole COVID was introduced as young people really don't have to worry about it. And then we reinforced that when we said the eligibility was by age. The doubtful are vaccine hesitant people. I'm afraid of it. I don't understand it. I don't trust it. Government, I don't trust. I don't trust any of it. I don't want to take the needle. I don't want to put something into my body.

The doubtful is a problem unto itself. The youthful is a problem unto itself and we need to address both separately. You look at the age stratification on the vaccination, it is very clear. 75 plus didn't take it as much as 65, but I understand that. I've had a lot of conversations. There's 75 plus, they're anxious about a vaccine. They have other problems they're dealing with. 65 to 74 is the highest population rate, which makes sense when you think about it. And then it goes straight downhill. The 16 to 25, we're at 24 percent. So we're at 60 percent as a population, we're 24% with 16 to 25. 26 to 34, we're at 35 percent. That's where we have to get the numbers up, the youthful and the doubtful. The doubtful, I'd say a hardcore 20 percent is philosophical. It's fear-driven, it's misinformation driven. But we also have to attack the doubtful problem.

What's the key to supercharging your vaccination rate? Eliminate the excuses, increase access, and to the doubtful, communicate the facts. You have no factual argument against the vaccine.

So, today, no excuses. SUNY and CUNY boards will require vaccinations for all in-person students coming back to school in the fall. You're a young person. You go to a SUNY school, State University of New York, City University of New York, you must have a vaccine to come back in September. If you must have a vaccine, get it now, if you have to get it anyway.

I also encourage private schools to do the same thing. Let's make a global statement. You cannot go back to school in person in September unless you have a vaccine. That will be a major motivation for people to get the vaccine. And if you have to get it by September, you may as well get it now. Why wouldn't you get it now? OK?  

Second, there are some situations where people are discriminating against people who got a vaccine, which is almost inexplicably to me. There's a situation with summer camps saying if you are vaccinated, you cannot go to that camp. If you're vaccinated, you can't be a staff member that camp. We can't be in a situation where we're full throated, encouraging people to get a vaccine and then have people saying, if you get a vaccine, you can't participate in this activity. I want to propose a law that says you can't discriminate against the person who has a vaccine. I understand the anti-vaccine argument very well. We've been through this before, Dr. Zucker and I, when we mandated the measles vaccine a couple of years ago. I understand the anti-vaccine argument. 

In my opinion, there is no science to it. There is no science to it. You can have a theory. You can have a belief, but you can't use that to make public policy without science and without data. But we also have to start to get creative because you are seeing this all across the nation and we're good in New York are getting creative. We are very creative types. Here's the creative idea: Wednesday to Sunday, we're offering vaccines at subway LIRR and Metro North hubs. Get a shot and take a free ride on the MTA. You get a free seven-day Metro card for everyone vaccinated at a subway station and LIRR Metro North to free one way trips anywhere in the service area. 

It's Johnson and Johnson, so it's one shot. So think about this: You are walking into the subway station anyway. You are walking past the vaccination site. It's a one-shot vaccination. Stop, take a few minutes, get the vaccine, and then you get the incentive of a one week unlimited Metro card if you do it at a subway station or free tickets, Long Island Railroad Metro North. Why wouldn't you do it? No excuse. You're walking there anyway. It's Johnson and Johnson. One shot. You don't have to schedule a second shot. You don't have to go back to that station and you have a financial incentive. These are the places where we're going to be up starting this. These are major hubs Ossining on Metro North East 180th in the Bronx, Grand Central Station, Penn Station, Coney Island, Broadway Junction, Hempstead, Long Island, 179th Street in Jamaica.

That's my old stop, 179th Street in Jamaica. It's as far east as the subway goes in Queens. Different times because we want to see what timeframe works the best, what stations work the best. There's a theory that people are going to be rushed in the morning, and they're not going to want to stop in the morning, that they're more likely to stop in the evening on the way home. So we have a lot of theories. We're going to test them, see how it works, see what the receptivity rate is and then we can adjust. But it is a creative idea. We're trying many creative ideas, because we have to get that vaccination rate up. And in this tuition, we've always handled this as a community. Everyone should be doing everything they can to get people vaccinated. That's what mayors should be doing. And county executives should be doing. That's what the religious community should be doing. That's what sports teams should be doing. As far as I'm concerned, we all have one goal: Get people vaccinated. 

And that brings us to the Islanders. Congratulations to the Islanders. They are a great New York team. We're building a new arena with the Islanders out at Belmont. We were out there a couple of weeks ago, John, myself, and a few others. It is going to be amazing. Really an amazing arena and before we opened the new arena, they have now clinched a playoff spot. Tickets will go on sale tomorrow for the playoff games. Home games or the Nassau Coliseum. Fifty percent of the tickets will be sold to vaccinated people. And the rule then will be for the vaccinated section three feet distancing, 50 percent of the sales to the unvaccinated people, six-foot distancing. Everybody wears a mask. My point to business owners, sports, concerts, et cetera, the more vaccinated people actually the higher the capacity, because they only have a three-foot distance requirement. So it's actually increasing capacity to get people vaccinated. The playoffs start at the end of May. Tickets will go on sale tomorrow. The Islanders needed to set guidance and they had to do it cleared by our health commissioner, Dr. Zucker. And that's what they're going to do. So congratulations to the Islanders.  

Last point, remember the goal of all of this. Remember the big picture. Vaccinate new Yorkers and then build New York back better than before we are not going to have gone through the hell that we went through just to restore what we had. I'm not doing that. New Yorkers are not doing that. The house was demolished. We're not going to build back the same house. We're going to build back a better house. We have federal funds. We're going to take this as a pivot moment for New York. We weren't perfect the day before COVID. We weren't. So don't say we're going to rebuild what we had because the day before COVID that was Nirvana. No, recognize where we were the day before COVID. Recognize the problems and use this as an opportunity to improve and build the state better than it's ever been. That's our goal. That's our ambition. That's what's driving us and that's what you drive all of us.  

With that, let me turn it over to my colleagues for comments. And we will first go to Sarah Feinberg, interim president for the New York City Transit Authority. 

Sarah Feinberg: Thank you, Governor. The MTA is excited to be assisting in this important state effort to ensure that every New Yorker has easy access to a free COVID-19 vaccine. We're committed to doing everything we can to help lead New York's recovery. The MTA will provide eight convenient sites across the region from Wednesday, May 12th through Sunday, May 16th, where members of the public or employees of the MTA can walk up to receive a free one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccination without an appointment.

I won't repeat the sites that you already mentioned. The MTA is also providing free transportation passes for everyone who receives the vaccination, as the Governor said. If the region is really going to recover, we need as many people as possible to get the vaccine. Safety from COVID and safety from crime and harassment are what we need to get people back on mass transit. And while we continue to work with our city partners on the second issue, we have a golden opportunity here to tackle the first.

We're at a pivotal point for the city. The Subway is reopening 24-7, as the Governor has announced, curfews for bars and restaurants are being eliminated and we just hit a new ridership milestone on the Subways. Last Friday, May 7th, we've recorded 2.23 million riders, the most on a single day, since the pandemic began. Bus ridership hit a pandemic high on April 28th with more than 1.2 million trips taken. So it feels like New York is getting back to normal. We can't get complacent and jeopardize this progress, so I want to urge all New Yorkers who haven't been vaccinated to consider these sites because the more folks we vaccinate, the sooner the region can return to normal. Thank you, and I'll turn it over to Pat Foye.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, Sarah. Mr. Foye.

Pat Foye: Thank you, Governor. Thanks Sarah. In addition to the six New York city sites Sarah mentioned there were another two locations, one each in the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North footprints. One will be at the Ossining Metro-North station in Westchester County on the Hudson line and another at the Hempstead Long Island terminal at Hempstead branch.

We feel this is an important step to help the region reopen and build back better. We've we focused on high traffic sites where we can vaccinate many customers and employees, employees are eligible for this too, on a first come first serve basis. The MTA has already been administering vaccines to our employees since January 13th, shortly after vaccines first became available. The men and women of the MTA have been heroes in this pandemic, heroes moving heroes. And to date, nearly 30,000 employees have received at least the first dose through the MTA's program or as part of city or state efforts. Our vaccination program is part of the MTA's nation-leading and overall transit COVID safety. That also includes the MTA's mask force distributing free masks at Subway, bus, and railroad customers, enhanced disinfecting and cleaning efforts and partnering with the federal government and MIT to research best in class technologies.

Now the MTA moves from continuing efforts to vaccinate its employees, to helping vaccinate the public too. As Sarah mentioned, we will be providing free transportation passes to everyone that gets a shot at one of our locations, either a free seven-day unlimited MetroCard or a round trip ticket for Metro-North or the Long Island Rail Road.

We want to see more and more customers return to the system. Just as New York City Transit is surpassing new pandemic ridership milestones, so are the railroads. Last Friday, May 6th, Long Island Rail Road hit a pandemic high of 101,600 riders. Metro-North, too, saw 83,100 trips that same day, a new pandemic weekday high. Let's keep that going. We only get one shot, pun intended, at reopening strong and revitalizing the regional economy. That makes the coming weeks and months essential to recovery. I'm bullish on New York, we all are. I'm confident we will emerge from this crisis stronger and better if we all pull together. Thank you. Thanks, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Well said. Heroes moving heroes. That's so true. And it is one shot. This is our one shot, and it's our shot to take. And speaking about shots, Mr. Jon Ledecky, we're very proud of the Islanders. I want you to know you offered Mr. Ledecky, I said, you know, I could be a backup goalie. I have a lot of pucks shot at me every day. I'm sort of in that business. He didn't see it my way. Congratulations, Joh, we're all very proud, good news for New York, uh, and we needed it. Congratulations.

Jon Ledecky: Thank you so much, Governor. It's great to be here with you today, and it's great to be back in the playoffs for the third straight season. Today's news that you have increased the overall capacity and therefore the number of fans who can attend the Stanley cup playoffs is wonderful news for our fans, who are the most passionate and loyal in all of sports. Islander fans are the heartbeat of this franchise and we owe everything to them. It's a fitting tribute to our fans that they can be at the Nassau Coliseum in big numbers for the playoffs and can celebrate the many wonderful memories they have had there through the years. Our fans are truly the seventh player. They are now going, thanks to you, to rock the barn one more time at Fort never lose. We're also grateful to Commissioner Gary Bettman and the NHL for their support in delivering the Stanley Cup playoffs through these unprecedented times. Governor Cuomo, this is a wonderful gift to New York. Thank you for your leadership and guidance as you have taken forward the Islanders' amazing new home at UBS Arena at Belmont Park. Our fans have a cheer when we score. We say yes, yes, yes. Thank you for saying yes to Islander nation today.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. My pleasure, Jon. Commissioner Bettman has been great for us. Where's he from?

Jon Ledecky: Queens. Another Queens boy.

Governor Cuomo: There you go. What a coincidence.

2021-05-12 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Pleasure to be here. Beautiful day at Sahlen Field.

Let me introduce - to my far left we have Kelly Cummings, State Director of Operations who keeps the trains running on time. Pardon the pun. We have Mike Buczkowski from the Bisons. We have Kim Minkel from the NFTA who is the Executive Director. To my right, man who needs no introduction, Byron Brown, won a big award yesterday, I believe, from a mayors association for economic development. I was the former health secretary of Housing and Urban Development. I did economic development with all the cities. The mayor deserves that award. The economic development work he has done in the city is extraordinary. Let's give the mayor a round of applause. And to his right we have Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez who is the transportation commissioner for the State of New York, works with transit agencies all across the state. I want to thank her for being here.

Let me give you some facts today. A lot to talk about today because there is a lot to do.

There is a lot going on. So let's talk about today and tomorrow. Today's COVID numbers, some people get up every morning, they look at the stock market, some people get up every morning and look at the gambling sheets. I get up every morning and I look at the COVID numbers.

We have great news on the COVID numbers today. Our statewide positivity rate is 1.1. What does that mean? The national rate is 4 percent. We're at 1 percent. We're one quarter of what the national COVID positivity rate is and that's a function purely of the good work of New Yorkers, so let's give them a round of applause.

Hospitalization rate is down. The ICU rate is down. The intubation rate is down. And before anyone says, well, COVID is over, that's it, we can move on - 26 people passed away from COVID yesterday. So yes, we're doing great. No, we have not yet fully conquered the COVID beast and we have to remember that and we have to continue that.

We watch three basic metrics because we decide what to do not on an act of faith, not because we have special information, we just look at the numbers. We look at the science, we look at the data, you follow the science, you follow the data, and positivity rate, we've made great progress. Remember, back in January, we had that holiday surge and we were at 7.9 percent. We talked about it before the holidays, be careful, Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then Kwanzaa, then New Year's, people get together, they socialize., you can see the positivity number go up. That's just what happened. And we came out of New Year's, we were at 7.9 percent, we're now down to 1.28 percent, 37 straight days of decline.

You look at the positivity rate around the state - this is worth looking at, especially in Western New York. Why the variance? Why the variance? Why do you have New York City at 1.1, Western New York at 2.3? That question is for a better mind than mine, but it's something that should be considered. Look at the variance, and the variance I believe is attributable to the actions of that community. What's my chance of getting infected? Your chance of getting infected depends on your behavior and what you do, and that extends to a community also.

Hospitalizations way down - 2,000, that's lowest since November 19, which is before we even started the holiday rush.

To me, the most important metric now is the vaccination rate. How many people are we vaccinating? We've done 17 million shots in arms statewide which is phenomenal when you think about it and that's a function of all the good work that everyone has done. You haven't seen a marshaling exercise like this since World War II and this is, thank you to the city, thank you to the county, thank you to Thomas Quatroche at ECMC. This is everybody doing everything that they can. 17 million doses, 60 percent of people 18-plus have at least one dose. 50 percent of the people in this state are now fully vaccinated, but the rate of people coming in for vaccinations has declined. That's troubling.

It's partially explainable. People who were more eager to get a vaccine came in first, right? You have people who were very anxious about COVID and wanted to get a vaccine right away. They came in first and now you're seeing the number slow and that's what we're fighting against now.

Two areas of focus for us, what we call the youthful and the doubtful. The youthful are much lower. You see 16 to 25, only 25 percent, 26 to 34, only 36 percent. Why? Well, in fairness, everything we've talked about with COVID was always older people, older people, older people. Older people were eligible for the vaccine. Younger people weren't. Older people had more risk with COVID younger people didn't. That's been our message for the past year. Younger people just became eligible for the vaccine just a few weeks ago, but we have to change that mindset because first of all, even if a younger person tends to be less effected by COVID, they can transmit COVID just as easily as anyone. So we have to change the headset, change the culture. We have to get those younger people and we're working on that. And then the doubtful. Doubtful, I'm hesitant about the vaccine. I don't trust the vaccine. I don't trust government. I think it's all a bunch of baloney. I don't need it. I'm against vaccines. Period. A big population in this state, I just don't believe in vaccines. We went through this with the measles vaccine a couple of years ago. People wouldn't give their child the measles vaccine because they don't believe in vaccines. With that, I think it's about getting them more information.

But look, we have a lot of political differences in our society now. I deal with my colleagues in Albany in the State Legislature. We have the most rabid conservatives in this state and we have the most rabid socialists in this state. We have both ends of the political spectrum in stereo. We have the ends of the spectrums. The conservatives and the socialists, they can't agree on whether it's day or night. This is not about conservative, socialists. This is not about Democratic, Republican. It's not about political theory. There are still facts in life, okay? "Well, I think this, I think that, my opinion." That's all nice. You don't have to care about my opinion. You don't have to care about my philosophy, but a fact is a fact. The inarguable fact across the world is that as vaccinations go up, positivity goes down. That is a fact. Not a conservative fact, not a Republican fact, not a Democratic fact, a fact. Get the vaccine number up and the positivity rate will come down and we can get on with life. That's our focus. What's the solution? Eliminate excuses for not getting the vaccine, make it easy, and make the vaccine accessible, communicate the facts about the vaccine, and we're at a point where we have to get creative. 

"Oh, government can't get creative. That's not what you do." I happen to be a very creative person. Wouldn't you say I'm a creative person? 

Mayor Brown: Yes, sir. 

Governor Cuomo: Yes, see? Mayor says I'm a creative person, so let's get a little creative. Here's creative. Get a shot, take a ride on the NFTA. This Friday to Wednesday, we're offering J&J, one-shot vaccines, at NFTA hubs across the region. You are getting on the bus anyway. You're getting on the train anyway. Put a vaccine site on your way to the bus or the train. You don't have to go out of your way. You're walking right past it. Stop, get a vaccine, and you get a free seven-day pass on the NFTA, metro pass for anyone who gets a shot, so you have a financial incentive. In essence, it's $25 pass, if you get a shot, and it's on your way, and it allows you to do all sorts of things that give you more freedom and flexibility. What could be easier and simpler than that? Thank you NFTA and Kim Minkel for cooperating in this idea. We started this today in New York City with what they call the MTA. Their NFTA is the MTA. Trains, buses, et cetera. Just started this morning, early results were long lines of people who actually get it. They're on their way to the train, here's a vaccine, let me stop and let me get a free pass. And we hope it works the same way here. 

We're going to start with eight centers. Niagara Falls, Buffalo University Station, Utica Station, Buffalo MTC, AppleTree Business Park, and Cheektowaga. Different times, different places. Why? Because we're just starting this, because it is creative. There are different theories, maybe people will be more likely to stop in the evening because they don't want to stop in the morning, because in the morning they're on a rush, they're a little late, they want to get to work, maybe they'll have more time in the evening. So we're trying different hours, we're trying different places to see what works best, but it is creative, it's also common sense. And I'm hopeful that it will work. We're asking other transit authorities across the state to join this pilot. You have the NFTA, Albany has this CDTA, every region has a transit authority. We will partner with any of them who do this and I would consider, ask them to consider it, strongly. You get more shots in arms, you get more riders on the trains, it's a win-win. 

And most of all, getting these vaccinations done, it allows us to get on with life. You know, life is about living. This past year has been hell, and life has been on hold, and untold damage has been done. We're going to be assessing the damage of the past year for years to come. Everybody talks about the economic damage. How about the social damage? How about the damage of isolation of people not being able to see other people, not being able to hug, not being able to kiss? How about the damage to families, to senior citizens, who have been isolated? How about the damage to kids who missed a whole year of socialization, even if they didn't miss a year of school. And, you know, remote learning, yeah, remote learning is great, if you have a computer and if you have broadband and if you had someone who could help you. But, remote learning in my opinion discriminated between children who had that access and didn't have that access. The mental health toll has been extraordinary. Divorces worldwide have gone up something like 300 percent, alright? A lot of stress. We have to get on with life. We have to reopen, but we have to do it smart, and that's, that's our strategy. 

And we have to get ready for a great summer. The weather is turning, the winter is over, we have to get on with life and we want to have a great summer. Statewide, Memorial Day, beaches and pools open with six feet social distancing. Our goal is by the 4th of July to go to 100 percent capacity, all beaches, all pools. If the numbers keep going the way they're going, we're going to be able to do that. So we would actually be able to have a normal summer, finally, in beaches and pools, and that's what we're striving for. 

Also, summer's coming, let's play ball, right? Today we're announcing at the Sahlen Field, opening on June 1, 50 percent vaccinated section, normal seating, 50 percent unvaccinated section, six-foot, social distancing, masks for all. Tickets go on sale May 20th. This is another reason to get vaccinated. You go to a ball game, you want to sit next to someone. You want to sit next to your friends, you want to sit next to your family. That's the vaccinated section, where you sit right next to people in a normal ballgame setting. Unvaccinated, we have to keep the social distancing rule. So it's another positive incentive to get vaccinated, and creative, because we're creative, aren't we? We are so creative.  

We have a new team in Buffalo. Bisons, Blue Jays, ECMC and New York State Department of Health have come together and they've formed a new franchise, a little different than most franchises. Starting June 1 you can get a Johnson & Johnson shot at a Blue Jays game and you get a free ticket to a Bisons game next season. We would give you a free ticket to the Bisons game this season, but then you would have to go to Trenton to watch the game and we don't want that. So, a free ticket to the Bisons game next year, free shot at the stadium on your way in, easy, no reason not to do it. Not only a free ticket, but then there's going to be a Blue Jays raffle that has very cool prizes for anyone who gets a shot.

So, you get a vaccine, baseball, free transit, home team, we call that a grand slam. Last point, little bit of a personal point. Sahlen Field, Buffalo, New York opened 1988. It was funded by the state of New York, which was a little bit of a project of self-interest. My father loved Buffalo, as you know. My father also loved baseball, and they had a dream, Jimmy Griffin, my father, the Rich family that they would build the stadium for the Bisons, and they were very excited about the Bisons coming. But that they would build the stadium in a way that could be expanded to get a major league team to come to Buffalo. That was the dream. My father used to say, God bless his soul, remember the movie, Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner, "build it and they will come."  

My father would say, "You know, that movie field of dreams? They got that from me. Yeah. I was Kevin Costner before Kevin Costner." Then he would pause. "And I'm better looking than Kevin Costner," he would say. But that's, that's what the Sahlen Field is. It brought the Bisons, which have excited Buffalo and Buffalo loves them, but it had the capacity to expand. And that was the dream. And the Rich family, God bless them for what they've done. Mayor Griffin, God bless him for what he's done. I just asked the mayor, you see that little, the head in the background between my father and Mayor Griffin, you see that red head with glasses -- Gerry Crotty counsel to my father, part of the great Crotty family, which has been such a part of the Buffalo legacy. So the dream lives, the dream lives and amazingly with the Toronto team playing here, this is the first time in 105 years the fans will watch major league baseball in Buffalo. Isn't that extraordinary? Let's give them a round of applause. 

And the last, last point is this: New York better than ever. People ask me all the time what's going to happen after COVID? What does New York like post-COVID? and I say, I don't know. And nobody knows because New York post-COVID, any city post-COVID, is going to be what we make it. There was nothing pre-destined or pre-determined here. Nobody's been here before. Nobody in generations has survived the global pandemic that has transformed society. And we're not going back to where we were. You're not going to put Zoom back in a can. You're not going to put remote working back in a can. You're not going to put people's anxiety about public health. That's not going to disappear. The trauma of wearing this for a year, that's not going to go away. How do you adjust for that? How do you rebuild for that? How do you reconfigure for that? How do you reimagine Buffalo in Western New York for that and the State of New York for that? And who does that first? Because it's a challenge to New York. It's a challenge to California. It's a challenge to Texas. It's a challenge to Florida. Buffalo has to do it. Paris has to do it. London has to do it. Rome has to do it.  

The question is what place on the planet went through this moment of disruption and figured it out first on how to come out of the moment of disruption better and stronger for it? That's the challenge. Well, what's going to happen? What are we going to be? No. What are we going to make ourselves? What are we going to do to seize this challenge and to build this new future? And there is a moment of opportunity, because I took the governors all across the state. I talk to international leaders. Everybody's asking the same question. How do I change the city of Buffalo? How do I change Western New York to make sure I come through this transformation better than before? And it's almost a massive global competition and who can do it best. And that's what we're looking at going forward.  

One hand managing the COVID beast, but one hand building a new future and getting ready for a new future. And the stars are lined up and there is opportunity here. You have a federal government that is putting money on the table for urban development and infrastructure development like no federal government has done in 50 years. Fact. You have a state government that is a full partner to Buffalo and Western New York. I will do whatever I can do. You could not have a governor more committed to Buffalo in Western New York than me, and don't take my word for it. You know what I have done for Buffalo and Western New York, and I have put my money where my mouth is. I will be there.  

So, you have the federal government, you have the state government, and we just announced the regional economic development council competition the other day. You have to come up with the vision for your future. And here's my one word of advice to Western New York. You have great options on the table. What do we do about the Skyway? What do we do about the Kensington? How do we improve our health system so next pandemic, and there will be a next pandemic, there will be, we are better prepared than anywhere else? How do we improve our education system to make it world-class? How do we take this remote broadband access and make Buffalo and Western New York, the first place in the country where every home has not only accessible broadband, but affordable broadband? What an advantage economically. That's a vision that you have to create. Those are the decisions that you have to make. And you have to make it through this regional economic council in the next couple of months. And the caution is this: The worst thing you can do is to do nothing. The worst thing you can do is to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. 

I tease my friends in Western New York. You debated the Peace Bridge for 20 years. What color should it be? I like blue. You like red. You like yellow. I want to see an arch. No, no, I like flat. I like wide but you like narrow. Debated it for decades and never built it. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You know, the formula for success? Two steps. Step one: Decide what to do. Step two: Do it, do it. Government is about the action. It's about the accomplishment. Life is about the action and about the accomplishment. 

There's a moment for New York and there's a moment for Buffalo. Seize it and we'll do it together. Thank you for having me here today. Let me now turn it over to Buffalo's great mayor. Congratulations on the award. Once again, mayor, you deserve it. Congratulations for what you've done on COVID. Congratulations for your leadership and standing up to COVID. I worked with a lot of mayors and local officials across the state during COVID. You would be surprised at how people react when the pressure is on. And you had a lot of local officials who said not my job, not my job, too big for me. Not Mayor Brown. He stepped right up to the plate, as we would say here at SahlenField. Mayor Brown. 

Mayor Brown: Thank you, Governor. You can clap on that. Governor, certainly great to have you back in Buffalo so soon. We're grateful for your strong partnership and continued commitment to Western New York. Also want to just thank Mike Buczkowski and Jon Dandes for hosting us here at Sahlen Field. 

As we all know, Western New York is still experiencing increased COVID positivity rates. We have to put a stop to this and make sure COVID can't make a resurgence in our community. As always, Governor Cuomo is responding to our needs. The Governor was here just a few weeks ago, making sure youth in our community have easy access to the vaccine. And I want to thank our partners in that effort, SUNY Trustee Eunice  Lewin, School Superintendent, Dr. Kriner Cash, Dr. Raul Vazquez, the president of the Buffalo Urban League, Thomas Beauford, and the president of the NAACP, the Rev. Mark Blue, for making that such a successful effort. Now, Governor you're back again today, making sure that Buffalo and all communities hardest hit by the pandemic are getting the resources they need to defeat COVID once and for all. And clearly we all should know that the vaccine is the weapon that will end the war on COVID. But the vaccine means very little if we are not getting shots in arms. These additional pop-up vaccination sites will make it even easier for Buffalo and our neighbors across Western New York to get vaccinated and get back to our normal lives. 

And Governor, we want to thank you for this and thank you for your creativity. I'm also grateful to Kim Minkel and the NFTA. Two weeks ago, they provided 1,000 bus passes so our community could travel to their vaccination appointments. And today, as you heard from the Governor, they're doing even more to make sure that vaccination is quick, easy, and simple for the members of our community.

Let's give Kim Minkel a round of applause. 

OK. Another special thank you to our partners at the Buffalo Bisons and Sahlen Field for hosting this vaccination site and their generous donation of vaccination prizes, and tickets to Bison games next year. And I have to say, since we are here at Sahlen Field: Like the Governor, I am a big fan of the Mets and the Yankees. But this season with the Toronto Blue Jays playing here in Buffalo at Sahlen Field, I am only rooting for the Toronto Blue Jays this season, 

You know Buffalo is grateful to have these partnerships as we recover and work to build back better and stronger than before. Once again, I want to thank Governor Cuomo for his tireless and effective leadership throughout the pandemic and for leading us into a brighter, better future. Thank you, Governor. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, mayor. Mr. Mayor Byron Brown, big round of applause. Now we we'll hear from Kim Minkel in the NFTA . Creative. Government can be creative. It's just very hard. And the NFTA and Kim Minkelreally stepped up to the plate here and they thought outside the box and we want to thank them very much. Kim Minkel. 

Kim Minkel: Thank you, Governor, and thank you for your tremendous leadership. The NFTA is excited to assist in this important state effort. We want to ensure there's easy access for the COVID-19 vaccine for all transit riders. And for the public, we are committed to doing all we can to help the community. We want to build back better. The NFTA will provide five convenience sites at our busiest location starting this Friday, May 14th, Saturday, May 15th and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of next week. Transit riders and the public can walk up and receive a free one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccination without an appointment. As the Governor had mentioned, the locations are at our University Station Utica Station, our Buffalo Metropolitan Transportation Center, which is a block from here, the Portage Road Transportation Center in Niagara Falls and the Apple Tree Business Park, where we will have a mobile bus providing access to the vaccine. As an incentive, the NFTA is also providing a free, seven-day pass to everyone who receives the vaccination. If our region is really going to recover, we need as many people as possible to jump on the bus and get vaccinated. Already over half of our workforce at the NFTA is vaccinated. These essential workers have done an incredible job, keeping themselves and the public safe during the pandemic. I'm confident that we will emerge from this public health crisis and be stronger. Safety is our number-one priority, so let's work together for a safer, greener environment by getting vaccinated and taking public transit. Thank you and thank you, Governor. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you pretty much, Kim. Okay. I think the message is clear: The summer is right around the corner. We're ready for it. We just need to increase those number of vaccinations to keep us safe. Ride the MTA, ride the NFTA, take mass transit. Get a shot. Get a free pass. See a ball game, get a vaccine, get a free ticket. Life is looking good. Thank you all for being here.

2021-05-24 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Go Islanders! Good morning. It is a beautiful morning, isn't it? Let me acknowledge some of the guests who are here with us. First, Erik Kulleseid, who is the commissioner of parks and is doing a great, great job. Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell Health. Did you Northwell people know that Michael is going to be performing at Northwell Health? He actually sings a beautiful Irish ballad. Let's give him another round of applause. We have State Senator John Brooks, who's doing a great job. We have Matt Cohen, who's the new president of the Long Island Association, so congratulations to him. We have John Durso representing the brothers and the sisters of organized labor, good to be with John. We have Suffolk County Presiding Officer Rob Calarco, who's doing a great, great job, pleasure to be with Rob. And we have Suffolk County Legislator Jason Richberg, pleasure to be with you. Thank you.

I love coming to Jones Beach Jones Beach brings back all sorts of memories for me. As a kid, this was it, Jones Beach, right. This was where we went during the summer. My grandparents used to take me. My father was doing whatever he was doing. You know those politicians, they work all the time, those people. But the choice would be Jones Beach or Sunken Meadow. That was the big choice. That was the variety, where we would go. And I would come out as a kid with my grandparents and some of my sisters, and we would spend all day at the beach, just all day at the beach. I remember trying to explain this to my children, who are now 25, and they would say, well, what did you do when you were at the beach? I said, that was it. You were at the beach. You would go, you'd go into the water, you'd come back, you'd sit on the towel. "Yeah, but what would you do?" I said, that's it. That's what you did. You went into the water, you swam, you came back and you played, you know. But, think about it now. No telephone, no texting, no Instagram. So you sat there for five, six hours and you talk. You talk. And I was so close to my grandparents, I think partially because of that. You know, all the stories that they had a chance to tell, all the lessons they had to chance to tell. Different days. I remember thinking that the Jones Beach parking lots had to be the largest parking lots in the world. Remember when you would get a spot and then you'd have to walk all the way across.

I didn't appreciate, really, the marvel that Jones Beach was as an accomplishment. I mean, think about it. Robert Moses, say what you will, Jones Beach, seven miles of fill. Jones Beach, but there was no beach, right? It was all marsh. They filled seven miles with 14 feet of fill to create Jones Beach, and then built those magnificent structures, right? If you propose the project like that today, they would say it's impossible. Why did our ambition and confidence drop rather than increase? Think about it. Why were they so sure they could do it? The whole highway system that was going to come out. They believed in their capacity. They believed in what they could do. We need that. We need that back.

Let me give you some facts and numbers on where we are today. Today the positivity rate, really yesterday, the positivity rate, State of New York, was 1.09, okay? That's very, very low. To give you an idea of how low, 1.09, the national average was 2.6 percent, okay? So we are less than half of the national average. Give New Yorkers a round of applause. You see in the numbers and we've seen this all along, and we're going to have to study it at one point, but different regions in the state, different positivity rates all throughout the state. Why? One state, everybody gets the same message, same facts, same laws. Why do we have all these different positivity rates? Because it comes down to our behavior as individuals and our behavior as a community. You tell me how you act and what you do, and I'll tell you your likelihood of catching COVID. Tell me if you got vaccinated, tell me what precautions you take, but you see a different rate all across the state.

Finger Lakes, New York, highest positivity, yesterday 2.3 percent. Central New York, 1.5 percent, Western New York, 1.4 percent, Capital Region, 1.1, Mohawk Valley, .9, Mid-Hudson .7. Long island .7, New York City .69. Southern Tier, lowest in the state, .6. At one time Southern Tier was one of the highest, and that message communicated, and the community changed its behavior. Statewide, .9 percent. Our 7-day positivity, .9, lowest level since September 21, 49 straight days of decline. Isn't that great news? Long Island, 7-day positivity, .7 percent, lowest since August 29th. So that's really great news. We hit over 10 million vaccinations done. 64 percent of New Yorkers now have at least one shot. Long Island, 69 percent, the highest in the State of New York.

Just so we know, it's not yet time to fully celebrate. Some people want to say, "well, COVID is over now. It's over." It's not over. It's managed, it's not over. Fourteen people passed away yesterday in the State of New York from COVID. And a troubling trend, the number of vaccinations is dropping off dramatically. We're now doing fewer than 100,000 per day. That's a dramatic decline, 55 percent decline in how many vaccines that we've been doing. So, we have to make sure that this complicated message, we're managing COVID, we're doing well, the positivity rate is not misunderstood to say it's over. It's not over. We are managing it by what we are doing. And the tool that manages it is the vaccination. And that is key to keep that vaccination going.

But there's no doubt, on the other hand, that we are in a much different place in COVID. And we're on the beach getting ready for Memorial Day. Seasons change, right, and the season has changed. The longest night eventually gives way to the dawn, and the coldest winter literally yields to the sun at the end of the day. And COVID has been a long, cold, dark winter. But the season has changed and we're on the right side. We have the beast contained, but we have to continue to contain the beast.

Now, we're in the reopening phase. I talk to governors all day long. This year I'm chairman of the National Governors Association. And the governors are talking about, we have to reopen, we have to reopen. Countries talking about, we have to reopen, reopen. I don't talk about reopen. Reopen suggests we're going to go back to where we were the day before COVID. We're going to reopen, we're going to go back to where we were the day before COVID. No. Life is not about going back. Life is about going forward. I don't want to go back to where we were the day before we started COVID. I want to go forward, I want to learn from this past year. I want to learn from the pain. I want to learn from the positive of what we've learned, and make sure that not only do we reopen, but that we reimagine New York and we reimagine what we can be, and we build the back better than we've ever been before. That's what we do, we seize the opportunity.

What did we do after Hurricane Sandy? Nobody said let's replace everything that was there. That was an old goal. We learned a lesson from Hurricane Sandy. We got knocked on our rear end. open your eyes and learn from what happened and improve. There were homes that were wiped away, where I was there with the owners, crying, everything gone, their life gone. You go back to those homes today, they're elevated. Why? Because we learned. The electric grid was all under water. Why? Because the transformers were on the ground, and the water came up, and all the transformers were submerged. Elevate the electric grid, elevate the transformers, get it out of the water. And that's the new electric system we have. And let's take a moment to say, "What should we have done that we hadn't done?" We just announced a new Bay Park Treatment Plant - Bay Park Treatment Plant was a problem for 15 years. It would get overwhelmed and drop everything into the channel. And now we have an entirely new treatment plan with a pipe that goes three miles out into the ocean. Why? Because you learn and you grow. And that's what we have to be doing here. And that's what we have to be doing now.

So, things are looking good. We're reimagining, we're rebuilding, but we have to maintain our containment of the beast. That is the vaccines and the vaccines are dropping off. Two groups, the youthful and the doubtful. The youthful, because young people really, the way we introduce this, this was not a young person problem, right? It was introduced that if you're young, you may get it, but it's not going to kill you. Plus, you're young. You think you're a superhero anyway, when you're young, right? Nothing can hurt you. When we started the vaccines, we said it was for older people, not younger people. So we introduced COVID saying young people don't have to worry about it, but young people do have to worry about. They can get sick and they can transmit it to someone without even knowing. So focusing on young people to get the vaccines.

And then what I call the doubtful. People who are doubtful of a vaccine. I don't like needles. I don't know that I need it. Government tells me to do it. I don't believe government about anything. And I'm nervous. I'm just, I'm nervous about it. I don't know if it works. 10 million New Yorkers have taken it. It has been proven internationally. Almost every major medical official in the country will tell you, take the vaccine, it's safe.

So those are the two groups we're targeting and we're adding incentives. If you get a vaccine, you get a lottery ticket. Scratch off tickets, you could win $5 million. When you take the Long Island Rail Road, MTA, you get a free pass if you get a vaccine. To go to a baseball game, you can sit in a vaccinated area, you get more seating. You want to go see an Islanders game, better chance if you're vaccinated and then - which is a reason of itself. They're going to win tonight. Then they're going to come home and they're going to clinch the series at home in the Coliseum.

So today we announced a new incentive, a shot in the park. You like that? Shot in the park. I didn't come up with that. As a matter of fact, whoever came up with that one, shot in the park. Shot in the park is if you get a vaccine this week, anytime this week, you will get a two-day family pass to any state park.

If you come to a state park on Memorial Day weekend, if you get a shot, when you come - Jones Beach is perfect. Driving in, you have to go right past the vaccine center. Stop get a vaccine. You get a two-day free pass to come into any state park. This is for all 16 parks across the state. State parks have been rejuvenated the way Jones Beach has. This is a new Jones Beach and you should really take a look at it. But people have discovered our state parks and I think partially our work rejuvenating them. Last year, 78 million people went to state parks. Set a new record. On long island, 32 million people went to state parks. So, we're going to use those state parks, use Memorial Day, enjoy the park, come get a vaccine.

We're going to set up a vaccine site at every one of the 16 state parks. Northwell is going to set up sites at all of the parks on Long Island, right after Mike Dowling performs at the Northwell theater, because first things first. Then they're going to set up their pop-up sites for all the state parks on Long Island. It's easy. It makes sense. It's smart. You don't have to go out of your way. And it is the right thing to do.

My last point is this. It's Memorial Day, and we remember those who gave their lives on Memorial Day, gave their lives for this country, fought for freedom, because freedom isn't free. I also think we should remember this past year on Memorial Day, remember the 42,000 New Yorkers who died. 42,000. Remember the 1,000 essential workers who died giving their life, giving their life. Seasons change, but memories have to remain, lessons have to remain.

Remember how frightening COVID was when it started. Remember how frightened people were. They wouldn't come out of their homes. Walk into a hospital during COVID and it was like you were landing on outer space. People covered with garb, head to toe, face shields. You couldn't even see a person's eyes or face. They wore name tags with pictures in the hospital, just so the patient could see some humanity. Nobody knew how it spread. Nobody knew how really it was transmitted. And you had people who showed up every day to fight that disease. It takes a special person to run into a fire to save someone. It takes a special person, when every instinct in your body says, that's dangerous, don't go there run away, it takes a special person to say, no, I'm going in because I think I can help someone.

And the essential workers did that day, after day, after day, after day, every day, walking into the fire, not knowing, God forbid, am I getting infected? God forbid, am I getting infected and then bringing it back home to my child. Nurses, doctors, hospital staff, teachers, food delivery workers. All these brave people, bus drivers, Subway drivers. I stand up there every day and I say, stay home, be safe, stay home. Don't go out, keep your kids home, stay in. But not you. You're an essential worker. You have to go to work tomorrow so everybody else can stay home. And they did. And they did. You want to talk about brave or you want to talk about courage? You want to talk about selflessness? You want to talk about that question in your mind? What would you do? If the circumstances ask you to really stand up and put your life on the line, what would you do? Would you stand up and run into the fire, or would you walk away?

They walked into the fire every day, and we owe them a profound, profound, thank you. We went from the highest infection rate on the globe in New York, on the globe, to the lowest infection rate, and we saved tens of thousands of lives, because there were no people on this planet, like the people of this state. And they showed their character, and their strength, and their courage, and their unity. And remember them and their families on Memorial Day. Thank you and God bless.

Let's get my friend and a real - talk about an essential worker, talk about a hero. Michael Dowling's name is at the top of the list. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Dowling.

Michael Dowling: Thank you very much, Governor, and it is a delight to be here. And, you know, it's hard not to be here and just look around this wonderful park, which is like a wonder of the state park system and what has been accomplished here. And I reflect back on what the governor said about the people who built all of these years and years ago. It took vision. It took courage. It took perseverance. It took resilience.

It's the very kind of vision and resilience that the governor displayed and leadership that he displayed during the COVID crisis over the last 12 months. And the same as he's now projecting what we've got to be doing going forward, because we're coming out of this, but we're not fully out of it as the governor said. I will come back to that in a moment.

But just reflect again, following up on what the governor just talked about, this past 15 months. This has been a traumatic period, a difficult period, but just think, you know, where we've come from just 12, 15 months ago. I'll give you a couple of statistics just with regards to North Shore. Back in March or April, we had in our hospitals every day, 3,500 patients. Every day.

And as the governor mentioned, that was an experience that you want to have to go through once in a lifetime. You don't want to do it over and over again. You don't want to see it again, because when you were on those floors, as I was almost every day, and as the staff here, Northwell staff on the side who were on the floors every day, but they saw what you only want to see once.

Back then we had 3,500 patients. Today we got 195.

We actually saw all the 200,000 COVID patients at Northwell. That's what the pandemic does. So we've made lots of progress. We've come a long way. We're on the home stretch. We can see the finish line, but COVID is not gone. It's here. And this is a message for everybody. You know, COVID, the virus is sneaky.

It hides. It hides in the shadows. The biggest danger is thinking it's gone disappeared. I'm out. I'm having a great time. I'm going to the beaches and going to the restaurants and I don't have to do the things you should do. But no, it's hanging around and it's waiting to pounce on. We don't know who is going to pounce on. It can be anybody. There's only one short away that we can get to the finish line and that's to make sure that everybody gets vaccinated. That is the cure all.

So everybody, everybody here and everybody that's watching has to become an ambassador to say, if you want to get to the finish line, if you want to put COVID in the rear view mirror, and you want to say we are out of it, what we have to do was to make sure that everybody gets vaccinated. It works. It is safe.

The science works. Now we have people who are hesitant. I understand that, but that takes an obligation on the rest of us to continue to educate them, continue to inform, continue to advise, continue to say to them that they have an obligation and a responsibility to themselves, for their families, to their neighbors, and to the rest of us, because you don't want to repeat what we have seen for the past 12 months.

And it affected certain populations a lot more than it affected other populations. People of color were disproportionately affected. Raises the obligation for everybody, people of color and everybody to get vaccinated. Now, as the governor mentioned, we will be vaccinating over the next couple of weeks and all the parks around here, because what we want to do at the governor's direction is to make it simple and make it easy.

So we are going to bring the vaccine to where you are going to be. So it is our obligation and everybody's obligation -everybody who's watching -to basically be saying, I from now on, I'm going to convince people. I'm going to leave here today. I'm going to convince three people that I know who are hesitant to get the vaccine, because we want to put this behind this.

We want to rebuild the economy. We want to get back to a new, normal, not going back, as the governor said, the way it was pre-COVID because the world has changed. Every organization, including Northwell and including the state are all now re-imagining how to readapt to the new world that we're in. What are the new challenges? What are the new opportunities? How do we rebuild anew? And the governor at the beginning of his comments reflected, as I mentioned a while ago, the rebuilding of all of these parks, whereby they talk real vision. Well, we can do it again. The governor is demonstrating that by rebuilding what he talked about.

Penn Station, every time I drive past LaGuardia, right? That took vision. That took leadership, that took commitment, that took risk. Leadership is about taking risks. It's about walking into the unknown. It's about thinking of what can be, not what is, what can be. We can come out of this better. And I believe we all will because what did the COVID crisis prove that when we walk together, we become part of a community, we share when we have a common sense of purpose. When we have a commitment, when we have dedication, when we have courage, and when we have an attitude that nothing is going to beat us. COVID was not going to beat us. And it won't, if everybody does what everybody has to do. We're very fortunate. And again, we are, we have been doing an awful lot.

Recently we have at Northwell, we have a number of events coming up we call side-by-side, which is honoring veterans. By the way, let me make a plug on this: On the 27th of this month, we'll have an NBC show, celebrating essential workers and veterans and all we sit here and all looking around this beautiful scenery and being free, living in a democracy because of the work that other people have done to make it possible for us to be here.

So this is a special time to reflect, learn, and then move forward and rebuild stronger than we were before. And that takes leadership.

And that takes the kind of leadership that the Governor possesses. The leadership that I observed so closely all during the past 15 months, and of course, we've known each other a long time and I have observed it many years in the past. But that's the kind of leadership we need going forward. Optimistic, positive, not looking at a challenge, but looking at opportunity.

But in the meantime, now we put COVID in the rearview mirror. We say goodbye to it. We've had enough of you. You've lived with us for a year and a half, to hell with you now. You're gone. Vaccinate. OK? Thank you so much.

Governor Cuomo: A great friend, a great colleague, a great representative for all of Long Island, State Senator John Brooks.

Senator John Brooks: Thank you, governor. Good morning. And I want to thank the governor for the outstanding leadership he has shown through this whole pandemic process. I think the announcement he's making today is important, but I think the recognition that he gave to the essential workers across this state is something we all have to take heart and recognize.

All across the state, when there was a need, they went into the fire, as the governor puts it. Day in and day out. We can never, ever, ever fully recognize or reward all of the essential workers of this state. But we can remember what we saw. Heroes each and every one of them, all across the state,

We are in a situation today and we're joined with our parks commissioner, Erik Kulleseid, and the president of Discover Long Island, Kristen Jarnagin on a program that has been announced to allow families across this state to have the opportunity to enjoy our parks system. By doing what? By doing the right thing. By getting themselves and their families vaccinated.

Michael has it right. COVID is not gone. It's still there. And we've seen the wicked and nasty turns it can take. But we collectively, by getting a vaccine, can help put this to bed. So on this coming week, all of us have an opportunity to do the right thing, to go out to one of our state parks and be vaccinated. It protects you, your neighbors, your family, all of us, as we put this nightmare to bed. But never, ever, ever let us not remember the thousands and thousands and thousands of citizens across the state, the essential workers, who stepped forward and saved the lives of so many of us.

We have a lot to be thankful for. Let's take advantage of this proposal to get the vaccines that we still need and enjoy the benefits that state parks like this one make available to all of us. So for all of you that have gotten your vaccine, thank you. For those of you who are unsure, look around. Look around that everything that we have to offer. Protect yourself, to make sure you can continue to enjoy those benefits.

Thank you very much.

Governor Cuomo: I think the message was loud and clear. To Kristen Jarnagin of Discover Long Island, lets thank her for being here today and for what she does. Commissioner Kulleseid and the whole team at Parks that is going to figure out how to make this work seamlessly and flawlessly. And if there is any confusion, His number is nine one seven five seven five. Let's give Erik a round of applause. Senator Brooks, this state budget is going to build back a New York that we've never seen before. And it was about time. And thank you for the leadership center. Thank you very much.

And to Michael Dowling and Northwell. Not only did they come to the rescue on Long Island, they came to the rescue all across the state of New York. Michael I've known for many years. Michael was the health advisor to a gentleman named Mario Cuomo who served as governor of New York. And I worked with Michael then and my father had inestimable trust in Michael and he was right. And when COVID started and we thought we were heading into the apocalypse, the first phone call for me was to Michael Dowling to come and sit down and put a group together. We did it at the Javits Center, where we were setting up the largest field hospital in the country -2,500 cots. It looked like you were getting ready for the day after the apocalypse, all army personnel, jeeps, it was frightening. And Michael's leadership shown through.

So Northwell never says no, they were a champion all across the state. And then we helped other states and Northwell actually went to other states. I was going to get my vaccine at Northwell. I called Michael and he said, come in. No problem. I'll do it myself. It's six shots in your posterior. I think that was just the personal shot so to speak. Thank you, and god bless you.

2021-06-02 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning. Good afternoon, actually. Changed the time today, different schedule. Let me introduce the people who with us here today. From my far, far, far, right, Eric Gertler, head of Empire State Development Corporation, which is our reimagine nation agency, reimagining the New Yorker economy, how do we reopen better than ever before? To my immediate right, Kelly Cummings, director of operations, who gets things done for the State of New York. To my left, Mr. Alan Steel, who runs the Jacob Javits Convention Center. That was his job. It morphed over time to running a COVID site, largest in the United States of America. You don't expect that to happen when you sign up for position to run a convention center, but that's what we needed the convention center to do, and that's what Alan and his team did, brilliantly, I might add.

Let's talk about where we are today cause it's exciting. We are physically in the Jacob Javits Convention Center, which was a great vision by the State of New York. It was one of the projects that was done to bring the economy back as an economic magnet for New York State. It did that very well for a long time, but convention centers, like everything else, evolve, they grow. And we therefore had to re-imagine the Javits Center, but Javits morphed and Javits in many ways became ground zero for COVID. My, frankly, most frightening memories about COVID all happened right here at the Javits Center. When we found out that we had been ambushed by COVID and that it had been coming here, landing on planes at our airports from Europe, and had been coming for months before we ever knew, when we found out it was too late. We were at 48 percent positivity, highest in the country, some say highest on the globe at that time. And Javits became the largest field hospital in the country. Nobody saw it at that time, but it was frightening to be here. 2,500 cots, little sleeping attendant areas, National Guard here, federal military here, Jeeps, all sorts of military equipment. It looked like the scene from a movie on post-apocalyptic America, but it was set up to be the largest field hospital in the country. Now it's the highest throughput vaccination center in the country.

So it has seen both ends of the spectrum. And talk about a 180-degree development. New York State had the highest positivity in the nation. Today, New York state has the lowest positivity of any state in the United States of America. Let's give New Yorkers a round of applause. This is the seven-day positivity, the weekly positivity. We do daily positivity, we also do weekly positivity numbers. New York for the past week, .64 percent, Massachusetts .68, Vermont .79. And that will bounce around from time to time with these numbers, but it is extraordinary for New York, to understand what New Yorkers have accomplished. And not only did we bring the number down initially, we have kept the number down to this day, and that's what this chart points to. If you had told us a year ago when we were walking through this facility, don't worry, you're going to turn it around and New York is going to wind up with the lowest positivity, I wouldn't have believed you, because New York was in such a unique precarious position. But the people of New York did it. No one else, it was their behavior, it was their sense of community, it was their unity that actually turned everything around.

Today, .61, the ICU rate is down, the intubation rate is down. Is COVID over? No. Eleven people still died from COVID, and they're in our thoughts and prayers. Again, the number varies from community to community because it depends on that community's behavior. Are they getting vaccines? Are they social distancing? The Finger Lakes is the highest in the state at 1.4. You go down to .56, .50, but you see the various across the state. In New York City, you see the variance, Staten Island at .7. Manhattan at .35. It's always been extraordinary how low Manhattan is. Manhattan has been the lowest positivity in the city for many weeks. And it's hard to explain why. Manhattan probably is the highest density, but it's something that we're studying for the future. You see the .64 is 58 straight days of decline. Vaccinations, we're at 19 million, 65 percent at least one dose, that's very good news. And we have a very high percentage of people who come back for the second dose. The conversion rate from first dose to second dose is about 97, 98 percent, so that's good news. 57 percent fully vaccinated.

So we're making incredible progress. We have a lot to be proud of, but we have more to do. Priority remains, get shots in arms. Focus for us now? 12 to 17-year-olds, at 9 percent of the population. Why are they so low? Because first they weren't eligible for the vaccine until fairly recently. All our messaging has been young people don't need to worry about it, it's the older people who should be really concerned. But, that's changed. Federal government now made the vaccine eligible for 12- to 17-year-olds and we're working very hard to get them interested in taking the vaccine. It's smart, it's right, there's very little risk. So we're focusing on that population.

One of the things we did, because the vaccination rate overall is dropping, so we have incentives for people to get vaccinated, and we offered a great incentive for people who are between 12 to 17. Come and get a vaccination, which you should do anyway, and you will be eligible for a raffle. The winners get a full four-year scholarship to a state college or university. Full four-year scholarship, 10 winners per week, and it runs through [June 30]. Since we announced that, 45,000 young people have come up and gotten a vaccine. Today we announced the first 10 winners, and here you see them. They're located all across the state, obviously. We have a number in New York City, but it's from Victor, New York, Bronx, Bayside, Albany, Chazy, Westbury, Penfield, Westchester, Syracuse, Queens. Congratulations to them. They just won a full four-year scholarship, room and board, to any state college or university. It's the SUNY system, it's the CUNY system here in New York. This is about a $100,000 value, this scholarship.

So congratulations to them and congratulations to their parents, as a parent, because funding college is a nightmare for families all across America. And for the students, it's great, but for the parents, it's also great that they know this is something they're not going to have to worry about. So congratulations to all of them. Remember, this goes through [June 30]. Get your vaccine, be eligible for the raffle. The raffle is the cherry on the cake, as far as I'm concerned, it's something smart that you should do anyway.

In general, we celebrated Memorial Day, and it is time to get back to living. Living. What have we been doing for the past year? We've been surviving for the past year. We've been afraid of COVID. "I don't want to catch COVID. I could die from COVID." Wear a mask. Stay home. We've been surviving. Surviving is not living. Surviving is not thriving. Life is about more than just survival. But that's the mode that we have been in for the past year.

We just wanted to survive, just to live, to protect our life and protect the life of our family members. We're on a new day, now. It's time to start living again, get out of the house, start to see loved ones again, socialize again. Participate in activities. We said, follow the science. The science says it is now safe because the vaccine was always the weapon that was going to win the war.

And the weapon is now hitting critical mass. And that's why you see the numbers coming down. So get a vaccine, go out and enjoy life. I think we're going to see a tremendous burst of energy. You have an unprecedented period of time. You'd have to go back to a past pandemic to come up with another situation where you had a city, a state, a country, a world on lockdown for one year.

It altered every social interaction, altered life for young people, old people, everyone in between. It's over. And you're going to see a tremendous outburst of energy, people wanting to get back to life, back to socialization, back to enjoying what life is all about. The vaccine helps you do that.

You're going to see venues opening up with a preference for vaccinated people. Radio City, I think made one of the smartest moves early on. Radio City said we're reopening, 100% vaccinated. Why? Are they trying to promote the vaccine policy? No, they're not in the vaccine policy business. I believe they believe the vaccine is smart, but from a venue's point of view, they want to maximize attendance.

If you have vaccinated, people come into the venue. There's two things. Number one, it helps you sell tickets because when you can tell everyone don't worry, the person you're sitting next to is going to be vaccinated. So you know they're not carrying the virus. Secondly, by the reopening rules, if you're vaccinated, you can see people one next to another.

If people are not vaccinated, you have to socially distance, you have to leave seats in between. That reduces the capacity for the venue. The venue wants a full venue. They want the revenue from a full venue. The entertainer wants a full venue. The sports team wants a full venue, so you will see more and more venues moving to more and more vaccinations.

The vaccination card that you get. This opens doors and allows you to participate in life in a way you are going to want to do. You're going to want to go to Radio City Music Hall. The Mets are announcing that at their home games, 90% of the seats will go to vaccinated people. 90%. Why? Because they want a full crowd. Because the players want a full crowd. So they're going to 90% vaccinated, 10% seats for un-vaccinated. You will see other sports teams doing that. You will see movie theaters starting to do that. You will see restaurants starting to do that because it is a safer environment. And it's more conducive to business. It also allows more business sales.

So it's another reason to get the vaccine. You have your own safety, you have the safety of people who you may infect, if you're not vaccinated, the safety of your family, you then have the incentives now to get a vaccine. Then you have another incentive, which is a passport to allow you to start to enjoy life once again and get into these venues.

Our goal is to have New York State as the reopening and re-imagining capital of the world, meaning on the reopening to see a surge of consumer activity and a surge of social activity. We want it to happen here. We want to capitalize on this moment.

Re-imagining capital that we don't want to just reopen society, reopen to where we were a year ago. No, life is not about going backwards. It's about going forwards. We want to re-imagine and open up better and different and stronger than ever before.

Javits is a metaphor for that once again. Went from ground zero to now reopening as a re-imagined facility. It's 50% larger, 1.2 million square foot expansion completed during COVID. So the day before COVID to today, Javits is 50% larger. It's opening bigger, better, stronger than ever before. And it's reopening with one of the premier events in this country, which is the New York International Auto Show.

And I want to thank Mark Schienberg, who represents the New York State Auto Dealers, for working with us. The International Auto Show's going to be August 20th to 29th. Tickets go on sale June 30th. The goal is 1 million visitors to the Javits Center over nine days. 1 million visitors is the high number that we've had in the past, but we believe it's achievable because now Javits is even bigger than it was in the past.

And this message of New York Reopened and New York Safe in New York Re-imagined we want to broadcast this all across the world. We want people coming to New York and we want people to know they are welcome, and we want them to come make us the venue for their re-entry into living and thriving and enjoying once again. Our messages to domestic and international tourists, this is the place you want to visit. This is the one state where whatever you want to do, you can do it in this great state of New York.

To people who live within this state, to New Yorkers. You're planning your summer vacation. Forget traveling, forget getting on a plane, going to Europe where you still have COVID infection rates at a much higher than the United States, stay in New York. This state has anything you could possibly want to do. And staying in New York and vacationing in New York is smart and it is safe. You know, this state is responsible when it comes to handling COVID. So if you want to vacation and you don't want to have to worry about COVID, vacation in the state of New York.

Downstate New York, New York City, you think of New York City as New York. Upstate, they think of upstate as New York. You put the two together. Upstate New York has the most beautiful rural areas. It has the Adirondacks. It has the Finger Lakes. It has wineries. You can bike, you can fish, you can hike, as well as you can, anywhere else in the United States. You can go to Long Island that has beaches and vineyards that are remarkable and rival anything anywhere on the globe.

And then yes, of course you have New York City. Which is the cultural capital of the world. We're reopening the museums that people have missed for the past year, the greatest restaurants and the greatest diversity on the globe, the greatest history and history in this city that tells the tale of the nation, literally. As well as sports - that is sports teams that are reopening and that are doing great. The Islanders are doing fantastic. The Knicks, big game tonight, go Knicks. The Nets are doing great. The Islanders are doing great.

And tourism is also a big business for our bottom line. 2019, it was 265 million visitors. 73 billion in direct revenue, 117 total economic impact.

So our message is simple. It's time to reenter society. It's time to reopen, it's time to re re-imagine. There's no place better to do that than the state of New York. We want any tourists this year considering their vacation, put New York at the top of the list, because we want you here. To New Yorkers who are considering your vacation, there is no reason to go anywhere else. You have it right in your own backyard. We are going to advertise this message with our 'I love New York' campaign, we're starting an international ad campaign for tourism. New York is back and New York is the best and we want people to be part of it. Our phase one advertising plan is $5 million is being run by ESD and you will see a sample of the downstate ad that is going to run it.

Beautiful. I'm sold.

2021-06-23 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Today, I'm going to sign into law the safe staffing bills, which I believe is a major step forward in improving the quality of health care in our healthcare facilities. And what it says is, plan now for how to provide for healthcare systems going forward. Put everyone at the table, especially the people who are on the front lines because they know best. But the nurses, the administrators, the staffers who provide the direct care, how many people do you need to safely provide direct care to treat the patients and to keep the nurses and administrators healthy and safe?

Come up with that plan, come up with it by January 1, and then the Department of Health is going to police and regulate those plans to make sure they are implemented and to penalize any violations. We want to thank the nurses for putting it together, represented by NYSNA and CWA. We want to thank the healthcare workers and 1199. We want to thank 1199 and CWA for coming together as part of this effort with NYSNA and we want to thank the hospitals and the Greater New York Hospital Association [and the Healthcare Organization of New York State]. This is the first time we've done this. It was hard, but we did it. And we're going to sign the bill and move on to take a step forward today.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to make this a reality. I know it was hard, but New York is better for it, and your members are better for it, and the healthcare system in this state is the better for it. And we got it done. Congratulations, let's sign the bill. You think it's easy to sign a bill? Nothing is easy. Thank you very much. Let's give them a round of applause. I'm going to ask Aileen Gunther to say a few words, please, Assembly Member.

Assembly Member Aileen Gunther: This pen means an awful lot to me. It's 12 years that I've worked on this bill and I have to thank you because it means so much to me, means so much to all of my colleagues. I'm still an RN. I'm one of you and I want to thank you for your service during this awful virus. And this is something that you brought home to all of us, and we'll never, ever forget you for this.

And all I can say is that I want to thank all of the staff that worked with me, Dana and everybody, because it meant a lot. And here we are today, men and women. I worked all during COVID. I was giving out immunizations. I couldn't be prouder to work with you side by side for the last 40 years. This is our moment and thank you for this moment. 

Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you for making it possible. Thank you. Congratulations, and the essential workers, on Labor Day, we're going to see you at the opening of the Circle of Heroes right at Battery Park City. God bless you for what you did. Thank you.

2021-07-26 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Good morning, all. Pleasure to be with you. Let me thank you for being here. More, let me thank you for what you're going to do to help us, help this state, help all the people in this state. We see the COVID numbers and we see the reality. And we know what we have to do.

Let's thank the Yankees and their president, Randy Levine. Let's give them a big round of applause. They have really gone above and beyond. This has been a vaccination site for months. You normally don't have a baseball stadium as a vaccination site. I remember the first conversation when I called the Yankees and asked them about it. It was an unusual request, but I've made a lot of unusual requests as governor over this past year, but they stepped right up. They've been great. They really have been great.

And the good news is that 75% of adults in New York have been vaccinated. 75%. When the president first set 70% as a goal I can't tell you how frightening that was for us. 70% of the people in this state had to receive a vaccine. Seemed almost impossible, right? The diversity of this state, but we hit the 70% and we're now up to about 75%.

So that is really, really great news that New Yorkers stepped up and New Yorker stepped forward. That we could administer the vaccine to that many people and many of the people in this room made that possible because everyone has to be deployed to do this. But New York did it. New York did it, and I'm proud of the state. And I'm proud of what everyone in this room has done to make that a reality.

Well then what's the bad news? Bad news is when you do 75% it means 25% have not received the vaccine. And 25% may be a relatively small number, but it is a lot of people. 3.5 million unvaccinated people. These numbers are hard to put into context.

3.5 million is a lot of people. 3.5 million is larger than 21 states' total population. Think about that. We have an unvaccinated population larger than the entire population of 21 states. And then when you put this COVID Delta variant, which is transmitted much easier than the normal COVID virus, you put that variant together with 3.5 million people that spells spread of COVID. That is what is happening. We know that's what's happening. We see it in the numbers. 1900 positives yesterday, 1900 new COVID positive cases. Well, how does that compare to where we were? Last month, 346. Numbers don't lie. 346 to 1900 in just one month. And remember all the work we did to get here.

72% of the new positives, linked to the Delta variant. It is what they say it is. It is spreading faster than the normal COVID virus. The vaccines are working. Only 0.15 vaccinated New Yorkers have been infected by the COVID Delta variant. Think about that. Only 0.15 of the people who received the vaccines. The vaccines work, they work and it's proven in the numbers.

Those who are vaccinated reduce the risk of hospitalization by 94%. So if you're vaccinated, you are much, much less likely to get the COVID virus to begin with. And if you get it, it is not as severe and you're not hospitalized. Those are the facts.

What we're looking at is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. A pandemic of that 25% of the population that is still refuse to get the vaccine. So the problem now is vaccine hesitancy. We've had a lot of problems that we had to overcome over the past year. First, we couldn't get the tests. Remember? Then we got the tests, but we couldn't get the swabs. Then we couldn't get enough tests. Then we couldn't find enough places to put out the tests. Then we couldn't get enough vaccine. Then we couldn't get the vaccines distributed fast enough. All of that has been done. We're now closing vaccine sites. Why? Because there's no demand for the vaccine compared to the number of places that we have giving out the vaccine.

The problem now is vaccine hesitancy. They don't want to take the vaccine. And look, I've had thousands of these conversations. I get it. I truly get it. Some people, communities of color, have had really horrific historic experiences with vaccines. It is true. Tuskegee experiment. It is true. So the cynicism, the skepticism, some people ideologically, well, government says we should do this. I think it's all a government conspiracy. I don't think there is any such thing as COVID. We've all had all the conversations and then some people are just nervous of the vaccine. Well, it was created quickly. I don't know if they fully tested it.

I get it. These are not arguments that I am unsympathetic to, but on balance, they don't make sense.

There's no logical theory that anyone can advance now that says it's more logical not to take the vaccine than to take the vaccine. There's no logic to that argument. Well, we don't know the long-term consequences of the vaccine. We don't know what's going to happen a year or two or three or four down the road. Yeah. But you don't know what's going to happen on the long-term consequences of COVID either, do you? And you know that there's information about what they call long haul syndrome. People who get COVID and they don't just get better in two weeks to three weeks to four weeks. And they have lingering symptoms and nobody can tell you that COVID in two years, in three years and four years inside the body, isn't going to come back as something else, right? 

Once that virus is in your body, it's there and it can have other manifestation in years to come. Nobody can tell you today what it means to have COVID two years, five years. So, yes, we don't know the long-term consequences of the vaccine, but we don't know the long-term consequences of COVID either. And I would rather take my chances with the long-term consequences of the vaccine than with the long-term consequences of COVID. 

And then some people are just in denial. Oh, this is going to come, and this is going to go and there's no real problem. This is all the media and a political creation. Denial does not work as a strategy. Denial does not work in life. If you deny a problem, you are never going to solve it. If you deny that you have an issue, whatever it is, you're never going to solve it. And you'll condemned to living with it.  

Some states took the course of denial. Some political theories to this course of denial, it's not a problem. We're just going to live our lives. We're not going to succumb to COVID. We're just going to go out there and live our lives. Florida now has the highest number of cases of COVID and it's growing, right? Why? Because denial doesn't work. We know that for a fact.  

What do we do? Get smart target the communities that have high COVID spread and a low vaccination rate. Be smart. We have the data. We're looking for 25 percent of the population that has been unvaccinated. Target that population and targeted in areas where you're seeing COVID spread and you know you have a low vaccination rate. We have ZIP code across the state -117 zip codes. Only about 6.7 percent of the state has new positive cases above the average and the vaccination rate below the state average. So we're focusing on those 117 zip codes. In New York City, Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn. Tends to be communities of color, tends to be poorer communities, tends to be communities with less access to healthcare. And over 61 percent of those ZIP codes in the state are in New York City, which is not surprising because New York city has the larger population. You go to Long Island, 21 zip codes, 18 percent. And that's where the 25 percent of the population lives. That's where COVID spreading. That's where the vaccination rate is low. That, my friends, is what we have to target. We know where this is happening and where this is.  

Other parts of the state it's in the mid-Hudson, it's all over the state, but we know exactly where it is by ZIP code. And it is Capital Region and Central New York and mid-Hudson. It is the Mohawk Valley. It is the North Country, It is the Southern Tier. It's everywhere, but it's targeted and it's focused. We have communicated this message every way possible. You turn on the TV, you see everyone saying the same thing. President Biden says you have to get a vaccine. Every doctor you've ever could name has said get a vaccine. 

Every scientist, every health professional, everybody has said get a vaccine. I don't know that you can communicate any more than we have communicated how important it is. They get a vaccine I've said it 987,000. My children keep count of how many times I tell them something. Not that it sinks in or they listen, but they keep count of how many times I say something. We need a different approach. And the approach has to be community-based organizations who can have conversations in the community. With people who know them, who culturally know them, who know their issues and their fears. And it almost has to be a one-on-one conversation with that 25 percent, because it's not going to be a top down message. It has to be someone who speaks their language literally and figuratively and says, let's talk about this. Tell me what you're worried about. Tell me what your fear is. And then addresses that with facts. 

And that's what we're going to start doing today. We have great community organizations that are organized all across the state, and we're going to fund them to go out and literally have these conversations in these communities, Hispanic Federation, Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, the New York Immigration Coalition, the Asian American Federation. The Charles B. Wang community center, Apicha Community Health. They are going to organize to get into these communities door-to-door and have these conversations with people in the community to get those numbers up. We're also going to do another new public service announcement that shows New Yorkers, other New Yorkers and what we've done in an attempt to communicate and we'll show you that now.

Just in closing before I turn it over to my guests, we cannot go through what we went through over the past year. We can't. We can't, I can't, the economy can't, society can't - we can't go through it again. We did have the highest infection rate because we were attacked by COVID before we knew COVID was ever here. Remember what happened to us. Everybody was saying COVID was in China, President Trump, China, China, China, China. COVID left China. It went to Europe and it was in Italy and France and Spain, and nobody knew it. And all those flights were coming into JFK and were coming into Newark Airport and landing in LaGuardia and COVID was coming here for months and no one knew it.

Then when we discovered it, it was too late. We had COVID cases before they knew it was COVID and then it just took off on us. That's why we had the highest infection rate and we were alone. It was like a New York only phenomenon. I would talk to these other governors and they would said, well, I don't know what's going on in New York, but we don't have that here. It wasn't because of us, wasn't something about our immune system. It's just that it came here first and we had to fight back from that highest infection rates and it was hard and it was painful and we lost a lot of loved ones all along the way. We learned a lot, but we cannot now go back to where we were.

I am telling you, as I sit here, I have told you the facts on COVID from day one, whether they were easy, whether they were hard, I told you the truth. While a lot of people we're talking politics and a lot of people were talking theory and a lot of people were trying to deny because they didn't want to deliver bad news, I told you the truth. You know why? Because I believe in you, I believe in New York. I believe if they get the truth and if they get the facts, they will do the right thing. I am a lifelong New Yorker. I know New Yorkers, give them the facts. Yeah, but the facts are ugly. Doesn't matter. Give them the facts and they will do the right thing.

I am telling you as I sit here today, if we do not make progress on vaccinating that unvaccinated population, 25 percent, with the Delta variant, you're going to see the numbers go up. That is a large number and we're going to lose lives and it will be disruptive and we cannot let that happen. I'll do everything I can, but you know what it basically comes down to for me, is giving you the facts and you the truth so you can do what you need to do.

Who brought us from the highest rate of infection to the lowest? Not me. New Yorkers did because they got the facts and they did the right thing. We have to do the same thing here. Everybody's saying, oh the numbers are going up. The numbers are going up. The numbers going up. Yes. The numbers are going up. Do something about it. Do something about it. That's what makes us different as New Yorkers because we act we're not passive. We're not just going to sit there and let it happen to us. We see the problem coming. We see the cloud on the horizon. We see where it's moving. Let's get to work together. As New Yorkers, recognize our individual responsibility and get this job done.

That's what I mean by New York Tough. Everybody says, oh, you New Yorkers. You're tough, you're tough. When I was in the federal government, in the Clinton administration, I've worked in every state in the United States. Somehow they would figure out that I was from New York. I don't know how they did that. I think maybe it was my tie used to give me away. But they would figure it out that I was from New York and they'd say, oh you New Yorkers. You, you guys are tough. Yeah we're tough but we're tough in a good way. We're not tough in a bad way. We're tough in a good way. You have to be a little tough to live in this town, but we're tough in a way that makes us smart and it makes us united. Otherwise, this doesn't work unless we're united.

People from all over the globe in one place, we're united and we're disciplined. When we have to get a job done, we do it. And we're loving. We care about each other. I wear a mask because I care about you. I get a vaccine because I care about you. We understand that we are all in this together. We understand that as goes, one goes all in this city where we all live together. And in this state where we all live together. We have to get back to work. We have to get back to work and we have to get back to work now. We have to spread this message, or we're going to spread the virus. We have to get in those communities and we have to knock on those doors and we have to convince people and put them in a car and drive them and get that vaccine in their arm. That is the mission.

While everyone else in the country is saying, oh, the sky is falling, the numbers are going up New Yorkers are saying yeah that means we're going to get ourselves in gear and we're going to get the job done. The people who are with us today will be on the front lines and the people who were in this room will be on the front lines and I will be there with you. We went from the highest infection rate to the lowest. Now let's show this nation how to stop the spread of COVID among an unvaccinated population.

If anybody can do it, New York can do it. And we will. Thank you.

2021-07-28 NYS Gov. Cuomo

Thank you. Thank you very much, Steven. It's good to see you.  And you're right, we go back many, many years. I liked the beard, but I consider it a COVID beard and I assume when we're past this next challenge of the Delta variant you'll go back to the beardless, Steven Rubenstein. But Steven, thank you very much for everything you do for everyone, everyone in this city and in this state. Your friendship, your leadership has been key. And ABNY, thank you. Thank you for having me once again to speak at this critical moment, because Steven is exactly right this is a quote unquote intense moment and it's a pivotal moment and we all have to work together. And ABNY is key to that.

Let me talk through some facts as to where we are, because this is an ever-changing situation. You know, we talk about the state of the state, normally we do that once a year. We talk about the state of the city, normally we do that once a year. In these times, the state of the state, the state of the city changes on a weekly, if not daily basis, depending on what's happening with COVID.

As Steven said, the economy is coming back. The numbers statewide are very good. The economy in New York City is not coming back as fast as we're seeing the economy in the rest of the state coming back. So we do have a special concern for New York City. But, what happens is going to be a function of what we do. There is no pre-ordained path here, my friends. You tell me what we do, and I'll tell you where we wind up.  And there's no doubt that this is truly a pivotal moment. And you can see two paths - it's a path of promise and growth and there's a promise of peril. There are tremendous challenges, but there is also tremendous opportunity.

Now we have to do two things at once. We have to manage this COVID increase and it is real, but at the same time, we have to have an affirmative plan to bring back New York State and New York City. New York City is not going to come back on its own, I firmly believe that. It's going to require a strategy, a plan and execution. What makes this an especially difficult time is we have to do both of these things simultaneously. So you need a plan to do it and then you have to execute the plan. And when government often falls down is frankly on the execution. Government does very good with press releases, it's the actual delivery where government tends to fail.

Let's talk about the COVID increase first. There's no doubt that that the Delta variant is real. You see it in the numbers. Today we have 2,200 cases. One month ago, basically, we had 275 cases. So the increase in the numbers is real. It's not an overstatement, it's not a fabrication. Great news - 75% of adults have been vaccinated. That is higher than the national goal that was set of 70% and it is extraordinarily high when you think about it - 75 percent of New Yorkers. This is a diverse state. If you ever told me that we could get 75 percent of New Yorkers to do any one thing, it was a very ambitious goal, but 75 percent got a needle in their arm. They got the vaccination. However, that leaves 25 percent. 

Now you can say, well, that's only 25 percent, but 25 percent in the State of New York is 3.5 million people. That's larger than the population of 21 states. That's a very large population of on vaccinated people and what we're seeing is a pandemic among those unvaccinated people, but it affects everyone. 

We have to go back and remember what we learned painfully but successfully over the past 18 months. We did have COVID first and worst in the nation. Why? Because the COVID virus went from China to Europe and came here from Europe through our airports. We know that now. We know that this federal government failed to detect the COVID virus moving from China to Europe. We know there was a failure to detect the virus coming from Europe to New York until it was late. We look back now with retrospect, hindsight is 2020, we had COVID cases before we knew it was COVID. We had a period of time where people were dying from what they called pneumonia. It wasn't pneumonia. It was COVID. 

But we took that highest rate and we brought it down to one of the lowest positivity rates in the country. No one thought it was possible. We were on the verge, my friends, of pandemonium and chaos. We were about to overwhelm our hospital system, but New Yorkers rose to a challenge that they had not done in a generation. Now, when we were going through this, remember what was going on. Other parts of the nation were saying, well, this is just a New York phenomenon, almost as if it was something about the immune system of New Yorkers or the political ideology of New Yorkers. State of Florida, for example, said, well, New Yorkers should be quarantined. We don't want them coming to Florida. You had a lot of New Yorkers leave New York in the beginning days of COVID because it seems like it was a New York phenomenon and go to Florida.

Meanwhile, Florida was saying, well, this is not a problem that we have to address. Now Florida is seeing the greatest increase in COVID cases in the nation. What's the lesson? Denial does not work. Follow the science, follow the facts. We were aggressive, we showed leadership and it worked and we have to do the same here. We did make hard decisions, but in battling a virus you have to make hard decisions. We learned that also.

We know where this Delta variant is spreading. We have done a zip code analysis. You have 117 zip codes in New York State, which is only about 6.7 percent of the state, but in those zip codes you have high positivity and low vaccination rates and that's the dangerous connection. We can tell you exactly where they are: primarily in New York City, over of 60 percent, which is not surprising because that almost mirrors the population, but even in New York City, it's in certain locations and that tracks the vaccination rate and the positivity rate of COVID almost from day one. You also see it on Long Island, but 18 percent of the zip codes, but again, targeted in places in Long Island. You see it across Upstate New York, but again, targeted in certain communities in Upstate New York.

The CDC announced new guidance yesterday and they have different colors for transmission rates. They have orange zones, they have red zones, they say at the same time schools from K to 12, everyone should wear a mask in those schools, and then special precautions for these orange and these red zones. 

The state is going to do a full review of the CDC guidance. I was on the phone with them this morning. We're talking to federal officials. We're also talking to international health centers. One thing I learned from the first go-around is this is happening in other places, so learn from that experience, and we're doing that. But the CDC guidance should be carefully reviewed. Local governments in those areas should seriously consider the CDC guidance and the basic guidance comes down to what we know. Get the vaccine and the precautions are important, especially important for elderly and immunocompromised people. Take the mask precaution. It's not the hardest thing to do in the world. 

But the Delta variant is in many ways deja vu all over again. This is just another variant of a virus and we know how it spreads and what will happen.

President Biden is reported that he's going to announce soon that all federal employees must be vaccinated or get tested. New York State is doing the same and we're working with our unions to implement this quickly and fairly, but we want to get it done by Labor Day, and I encourage all local governments to do the same.

It's smart. It's fair. It's in everyone's interest, but we have to go further and New York led the nation in going down the path that made the most sense, even though it is hard, and this has been the frustration for this country from the beginning. Politicians don't like to suggest actions that are not popular. A politician who suggests too many unpopular options is not a long-term politician, but there's a choice of doing the political thing or doing the right thing and I've always chosen to do the right thing and I believe ultimately that is even the best politics, but I think we have to go further here. I think we need dramatic action to get control of this situation.

So in New York and our state hospitals, all patient facing healthcare workers must get vaccinated. There will be no testing option for patient facing healthcare workers. That is a point of contact that could be a serious spreading event and we want to make sure that those healthcare workers are vaccinated - period.

If the numbers continue to go up the way they're going up, I think school districts in those affected areas should strongly consider taking a more aggressive action - and it will be hard and I understand the politics but I also understand if we don't take the right actions, schools can become super spreaders in September. It will happen. We have seen it happen before and trepidation and politics that stops aggressive action feeds the virus. The virus feeds on our lack of action and on our apathy and on our fear. Schools in September will be places of congregation and they can be super spreaders, especially when you put it together with the fact that you already know you have a high concentration of infection in those targeted areas.

I also encourage the FDA to issue final approval of the vaccine. This vaccine right now is under something called emergency use authorization. Under emergency use authorization states are limited as to what they can mandate. Once the vaccine is finally approved, then the state has more legal authority to mandate the vaccine. For those local governments who have the targeted zip codes, we're doing that advertising, we're doing incentives, we've done all sorts of giveaways. There is vaccine hesitancy. It is real. I don't think we get past it with television ads. I think you have to talk it through with people who are hesitant, give them the facts. And I think it has to be done with people who they relate to -community representatives, who they relate to, but we know the targeted areas reach out to them, use it for community organizations.

We just provided $15 million in funding for community organizations. Hear them out, talk it through, get them the facts, and let's get people past their hesitancy. I also think private sector businesses can help. And I think you can play a major role. You can admit vaccinated only people into your establishment.

I can argue that it is a smart business practice because I want to go to a safe restaurant. And I want to go to a safe theater, and I wanted to go to a safe bar and I think it's good business for the private sector. I also think it provides a real incentive for people to get the vaccine. We have done this before. New York pioneered this. 

Radio City Musical Hall, Jim Dolan showed real vision back in May. Radio City opened up with only vaccinated people. It was the first main venue in New York to do it. I believe it was the first main venue in the nation to do it. And it worked. Others have followed that model. Theaters have done it. We have sports stadiums that have done it. More businesses should do it.

It will, again, I think be an incentive for the business and it will be an incentive for people to actually get the vaccine. And I urge you all to do it. Second challenge that we must do at the same time. We're fighting COVID with one hand. With the other hand, we have to get to work reviving the New York economy.

What are the challenges? And let's be honest about this. This is what I hear from people all day long. Zoom does not go away. Zoom showed society a different way of relating and working. And you know what? It has upside. A lot of people would say, it's not so bad that I can work from a remote location and do my work, but still be at home.

You are people right now saying what's going to happen in New York City. Is it going to come back? Is it not going to come back? Are those people going to come back from the Hamptons and from Aspen and from Florida? They don't know, show them the future, show them the promise. We know how to build. We do it better than any state in the nation. We have the vision. We have the plans.

FDR was a great builder. FDR. I now live in his house and I I've read his works. He enjoyed building, FDR. But you know, when he was building more than buildings in tunnels? He was building confidence. He was trying to say to the American people believe in America, look at it, look at those buildings, come out of the ground. Look at the longest tunnels. The longest bridges. That's America. Yes, we want to build buildings, but we're also building confidence when we're doing that. That's what the airports are about. Yes, we had to build a new LaGuardia and we have to build a new JFK, but people land and they walk through LaGuardia and they look up and they say, wow, that was beautiful. And that builds confidence in New York. 

We can do this, but we can't do it alone. We need federal fairness, federal fairness. 

There were no more excuses because my friends on these two issues COVID and bringing you back to New York, there is no tomorrow. If we don't act today and the stars are aligned for us. When it comes to the federal government, it is now or never. For so many years, well, if we only had a democratic president. You have Joe Biden. He believes in New York, he's a friend in New York. He's a friend to me, he's a friend to New Yorkers. He's there. What if we had a democratic Congress? You do. Well, if we only had a democratic Senate, then we could do these things. We do and it's headed by a New Yorker. If you don't do it now, when are you possibly ever going to do it? 

Last point, this is going to take everyone working together. And to my private sector friends, I want to say, you have to be part of this. Everyone has to be back to the office. I understand remote learning. I understand the trepidation, but the numbers are down. We know how to do this safely. We need private sector companies to say to their employees I need you back in the office. Remote working for short period of time, fine, but that's not how the entrepreneurial economy works. And that's not how the entrepreneurial spirit works. It's the synergy. It's the stimulation. It's having people in a room banging around ideas. It's the dynamic that is generated that I don't care what you say about Zoom. It's just a different experience.

We need people coming back. We can do it safely. We can do it smarter. Let's pick Labor Day as a date. Say to your workforce by Labor Day everyone is back in the office. We need that volume to support the restaurants and the shops and the services. It's not just about your business. It's about all the spinoff economic activity that your workers bring to the surrounding community. And that's what we need. 

Look, in short, we know what we need to do, and that is always the first step. And that's often the hard step. We know what to do with COVID. We know how to get back the New York economy. We have the plan. Yes, we can manage COVID. Yes, we have the aggressive government action. Yes, local governments will act. Private sector businesses can help. We know how to revive the New York economy. You have to get crime under control. We have done it before. We have to get homeless under control. We have done it before. We have to build the future and show people and generate optimism. We are doing it. We have done it and we're going to do more of it. And we have to reduce taxes and get that SALT reform passed, which everyone promised to do. All we're saying to our federal officials, is do what you said you would do. 

That's the plan, but we have to execute and it's going to take us all together to get it done.

The good news is this is who we are and this is what we do. We are a state of doers. We are a state of people who step up to the challenge. Otherwise you wouldn't be here. New York is a special type of energy and it is a special type of person. And we are people who are aggressive and we are New York tough. And we don't take no for an answer. And we don't fail when we put our mind to something. And I believe we're going to overcome this. And I believe we can open a generation of progress for this state and city by being the first to do it. Los Angeles, Phoenix, Florida, Paris, Rome. They were all in the same competition. They all have the same obstacles, but nobody's as good at getting it done as New York. And that's why I feel good about where we are in this moment. It's going to be hard. It will be controversial, but it is doable and that's where we excel. And that's what makes us the greatest state in the nation. 

Mr. Rubenstein together, my friend, we're going to do this.