Searchable compilation of Press Conference Raw Transcripts
New York State Governor Cuomo 2020-01-24 to 2020-07-08

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