Cuomo Press Releases Transcripts January 24, 2020 - March 15, 2020
Cuomo Press Releases Transcripts January 24, 2020 - March 15, 2020
January 24, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Outlines State Response to First Two Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in United States. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-outlines-state-response-first-two-confirmed-cases-novel-coronavirus-united
State Health Department Issues Clinical Guidance for Healthcare Providers and Hosts Readiness Webinars for Hospitals, Local Health Departments, College and University Medical Professionals
DOH, Port Authority and New York City working with CDC on Passenger Screening Protocols
Governor Directs Port Authority to Display Signs at International Airports to Raise Awareness of Symptoms and Necessary Travel Precautions
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.
January 26, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Announces State's Continued Response to Novel Coronavirus as Three More Individuals are Identified for Testing in New York State. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-states-continued-response-novel-coronavirus-three-more-individuals-are.
Seven Individuals Total Have Been Identified for Testing, CDC Determines Three Cases were Negative, Four Results Still Pending, No Confirmed Cases in New York State
New York State Department of Health and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Directed to Post Multi-lingual Airport Signage Outlining Travel Precautions
Health Department Launches Informational Web Page
Department Provides Guidance to New York's College and Universities on how to Identify the Virus, Update Students and Promote Prevention Measures
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 busses.
Information about the novel coronavirus is available here.
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.
January 27, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Issues Update on Novel Coronavirus as Two More New Yorkers Identified for Testing Bringing Total to Nine. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-issues-update-novel-coronavirus-two-more-new-yorkers-identified-testing-bringing.
Samples From Four Found to be Negative at CDC, Five Results Still Pending
No Confirmed Cases in New York
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."
For more information on New York State's continued response to Novel Coronavirus, see: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-states-continued-response-novel-coronavirus-three-more-individuals-are.
January 28, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Issues Update on Novel Coronavirus as One More New Yorker is Identified for Testing Bringing Total to 10 https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-issues-update-novel-coronavirus-one-more-new-yorker-identified-testing-bringing
Samples from Seven Individuals Found to be Negative at CDC with Three Results Still Pending
Still No Confirmed Cases in New York State
Governor Directs State Department of Health to Closely Monitor and Continue Preparations
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.
For more information on New York State's continued response to NovelCoronavirus see:
January 30, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Provides Update on Novel Coronavirus While Reminding New Yorkers Flu is Still Prevalent. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-provides-update-novel-coronavirus-while-reminding-new-yorkers-flu-still.
Still No Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in New York State
Since Start of Flu Season the Number of Laboratory-Confirmed Flu Cases and Hospitalizations Continues to Climb
Find Locations Where You Can get the Flu Shot Near You Here, and Track Flu Cases in Your Area Here
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:
February 02, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Issues Update on Novel Coronavirus and Announces New Hotline Staffed by State Health Department Experts. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-issues-update-novel-coronavirus-and-announces-new-hotline-staffed-state-health.
New York State has Zero Confirmed Cases; Of 12 Samples Tested, 11 Have Come Back Negative and One is Outstanding from New York City
New Yorkers Can Call 1-888-364-3065 with Questions or Concerns About Travel and Symptoms
State Health Department Website - NY.Gov/Coronavirus - Provides Coronavirus Updates for New Yorkers and Guidance for Healthcare Providers
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 12 New Yorkers have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. Of those, 11 have come back negative. One sample, from New York City, is awaiting results from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are no confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in New York State.
Additionally, today the Governor announced New Yorkers can call a hotline at 1-888-364-3065 where Department of Health experts will be available to answer questions regarding the Novel Coronavirus. The Department of Health has created a dedicated website as a resource for New Yorkers.
"In situations like this, we take every precaution necessary to ensure the safety of New Yorkers," Governor Cuomo said. "At the same time, perspective is key - and I want to remind people that New York currently has zero confirmed cases of this virus. We want all New Yorkers to know that the State and its agencies and authorities are on top of this situation and we will continue doing everything we can to keep people safe."
The Department of Health continues to provide preparedness guidance to New York's health care facilities and local health departments and are 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 will take effect Sunday evening.
New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "We are working hand in glove with our federal, state and local partners, as well as healthcare providers all over the state to ensure the health of New Yorkers. Bottom line, as this public health response evolves, we continue to be prepared."
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Executive Director Rick Cotton said, "The Port Authority is working closely with federal, state and local partners to implement the mandated screening of international passengers. Protecting the public health and ensuring the smooth operation of our airports is our number one priority and we are taking all appropriate steps to do that."
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 the sea read should call ahead to their healthcare provider before presenting for treatment.
February 02, 2020.
Video, Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Issues Update on Novel Coronavirus and Announces New Hotline Staffed by State Health Department Experts. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-issues-update-novel-coronavirus-and-announces-new
New York State has Zero Confirmed Cases; Of 12 Samples Tested, 11 Have Come Back Negative and One is Outstanding from New York City
New Yorkers Can Call 1-888-364-3065 with Questions or Concerns About Travel and Symptoms
State Health Department Website - NY.Gov/Coronavirus - Provides Coronavirus Updates for New Yorkers and Guidance for Healthcare Providers
Governor Cuomo: "We take situations like this very seriously. We understand the density of New York, the complexity of New York. Whatever happens internationally, it ends up at our doorstep eventually...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 everyone seriously, but don't have an overly anxious reaction to any one situation."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced an update on the status of testing for the novel coronavirus in New York State. As of today, samples from 12 New Yorkers have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. Of those, 11 have come back negative. One sample, from New York City, is awaiting results from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are no confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in New York State.
Additionally, today the Governor announced New Yorkers can call a hotline at 1-888-364-3065 where Department of Health experts will be available to answer questions regarding the Novel Coronavirus. The Department of Health has created a dedicated website as a resource for New Yorkers.
VIDEO of today's event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's event is available here.
A rush transcript of today's event is below:
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.
February 04, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Issues Update on Novel Coronavirus. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-issues-update-novel-coronavirus.
There Are No Confirmed Cases in New York
11 Tests Returned Negative with Six Still Pending
New Yorkers Can Call 1-888-364-3065 with Questions or Concerns about Travel and Symptoms
State Health Department Website - NY.Gov/Coronavirus - Provides Coronavirus Updates for New Yorkers and Guidance for Healthcare Providers
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.
February 07, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Updates New Yorkers on Novel Coronavirus and Urges Continued Awareness While Flu is Still Prevalent. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-updates-new-yorkers-novel-coronavirus-and-urges-continued-awareness-while-flu.
Still No Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in New York State
Number of Laboratory-Confirmed Flu Cases and Hospitalizations Continue to Rise in Latest Report
Find Locations Where You Can get the Flu Shot Near You Here, and Track Flu Cases in Your Area Here
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 22 New Yorkers have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. Of those, 16 have come back negative. Two samples from New York City and four 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.
The Governor also issued updates on the number of flu cases, which continue to rise, and urged all New Yorkers to take recommended precautions as we approach the peak of flu season.
"While we do not have a confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in the state, we are continuing to take every necessary precaution to protect New Yorkers from this dangerous virus," Governor Cuomo said. "I also want to remind New Yorkers they are more likely to be exposed to the influenza virus than the coronavirus, and urge everyone to take commonsense precautions to protect against both, 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.
The latest influenza surveillance report shows seasonal flu activity continues to increase across New York State with at least one lab-confirmed case in all 62 counties. The number of laboratory-confirmed flu cases and hospitalizations continue to be widespread since the flu season began in October. Flu season occurs primarily from October through May, and the 2019-20 season has yet to peak.
Last week 1,889 New Yorkers were hospitalized with lab-confirmed influenza. This season, there have been 13,460 flu-related hospitalizations. In addition, last week, 17,231 laboratory-confirmed flu cases were reported to the State Department of Health, a 15 percent increase in cases from the week prior. The most lab-confirmed influenza cases reported during a single week in a flu season was 18,252 in 2017-18.
There has been a total of 89,597 lab-confirmed cases reported in New York State 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.
Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "While New York does not have a confirmed case of coronavirus, the flu is here and can be very serious. Taking simple preventive steps such as washing hands often, covering a cough or sneeze with your arm 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 State Health Department recommends and urges that everyone six months of age or older receive an influenza vaccination. 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.
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's dedicated website which was created as a resource for New Yorkers is constantly being updated. The website now includes movement and monitoring guidelines for local health departments and a letter from the Department of Health and State Education Department offering guidance for schools.
February 7, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Updates New Yorkers on Novel Coronavirus and Urges Continued Awareness While Flu is Still Prevalent. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-updates-new-yorkers-novel-coronavirus-and-urges-continued-awareness-while-flu-0.
Still No Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in New York State
Number of Laboratory-Confirmed Flu Cases and Hospitalizations Continue to Rise in Latest Report
Find Locations Where You Can get the Flu Shot Near You Here, and Track Flu Cases in Your Area Here
Governor Cuomo: "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."
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 22 New Yorkers have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. Of those, 16 have come back negative. Two samples from New York City and four 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.
The Governor also issued updates on the number of flu cases, which continue to rise, and urged all New Yorkers to take recommended precautions as we approach the peak of flu season.
VIDEO of today's event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.AUDIO of today's event is available here.
PHOTOS of today's event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is below:
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.
February 10, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Updates New Yorkers on Novel Coronavirus. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-updates-new-yorkers-novel-coronavirus
Still No Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in New York State
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.
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.
February 10, 2020. Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on The Roundtable with Alan Chartock on WAMC Northeast Public Radio. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-roundtable-alan-chartock-wamc-northeast-public-radio
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest The Roundtable with Alan Chartock on WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Alan Chartock: Did you say hello Governor?
Governor Cuomo: I said hello I am glad to hear you are glowing this morning.
Alan Chartock: Oh yes, we are glowing. We did extremely well in our fund drive - $1 million. And we were only on a couple hours this morning. Our famous locked box is doing very well. People put money in it. The President's budget is out. Apparently he wants to do away with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the CPB, and kill public radio. But we are not going to let him. Let's start, Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo are battling over the Federal government's ban preventing New Yorkers from enrolling in Trusted Traveler Programs. Trump wrote in his tweet that "Governor Cuomo wanted to see me this weekend. He just cancelled. Very hard to work with New York, so stupid."
Governor Cuomo: Yes, and your question is fact or fiction?
Alan Chartock: Yeah, fact or fiction?
Governor Cuomo: Dream or reality?
Alan Chartock: Dream or reality.
Governor Cuomo: It's a dream except the dream is a nightmare. We are not actually fighting about TTP right? It is actually more basic than that. We are fighting over basic disagreement on immigration policy and he is running for reelection on his immigration policy, which is anti-immigration. And he uses it as a wedge to divide the body politic and give them a simple answer to all their problems: it's the immigrants. It's the different people, different religion, different race, and different creed. Simple political device, it's called divide and conquer. It has been around for a long time. Ugly, mean, untrue, but effective - divide and conquer. That is the disagreement. The manifestation is New York and fifteen other states have laws that allow undocumented people to get driver licenses. Because my daughters are the people's daughters, children, family members, drive on the roads. We want to make sure people have licenses and they took a test and they know what they are doing. As a manifestation and furtherance of the immigration debate, well if you allow undocumenteds to get a license then we are going to penalize you any way we can, even if it is illegal and unrelated. Just to make the political point that we disagree with you giving drivers licenses to undocumenteds. And this, they are going to set their attack operatives at the Department of Homeland Security, Deputy Secretary Cuccinelli. Who is Deputy Secretary Cuccinelli? He is the Republican conservative, ran for Governor or Virginia and lost, who suggested we rewrite the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty, and it shouldn't say give me your tired, you poor, it should say give me your tired, your poor who are self-sustaining and will not be a public charge, which means all of our people would have been turned away including probably the Trumps and the Pences. So, Cuccinelli says we are going to revoke the TTP program, Trusted Traveler Program, if you have this law and we are going to start with New York.
Alan Chartock: Now of course this is killing, will kill a lot of the business trade that we have in this area. People who listen to this radio station here and in Plattsburgh, they depend on being able to do business and do it quickly and get across quickly. Do they have any hope?
Governor Cuomo: I think they have hope because it is so bizarre and illegal and retaliatory and gratuitous. Their position is we are going to revoke the Trusted Traveler Program which basically allow an expedited crossing across the border, Peace Bridge, some bridges to Canada, and coming in from trips overseas at airports where you are prescreened by the Federal government for clearance. That's what the Trusted Traveler Program is. You sit with a federal official in person, you give your information to a federal official, you give your documentation in person, they verify it, and you then get a certification that says you're prescreened to go across a border. How the heck they can defend, well because you have undocumented people on your driver's license program that then affects the Trusted Traveler program. There is no connection, and that's clear. The Daily News did an editorial today. The Times wrote a story originally where even the authorizing Congress people say there is no connection between the two. This is just their political stretch to push their point. Why do they do it in New York? Because they're going to lose New York anyway they believe come Election Day. And since they're so hyper political, since we're going to lose New York, well then just kick New York, right, because we're not going to win and if we're not going to win we don't care about them because they're hyper political, Alan.
And they've done that all along. The SALT taxes - I was in the governors' conference this weekend - the SALT eliminating the deductible state and local taxes literally took billions of dollars from Democratic states and transferred it to Republican states. That's what that did in their tax plan that they passed. Why? Because they are going to lose Democratic states, so let's take money from the Democratic states and give it to the Republican states who are going to vote for us. That's all this is.
Alan Chartock: Okay but I want to get back to the original question, Governor, if I may. Trump says Governor Cuomo wanted to see me this weekend. He just canceled, very hard to work with New York, so stupid, all they do is sue me all the time, and of course you and the State Attorney General are suing him over this. But is it true? I mean I just want to get the dynamic of whether you are willing to meet with him or not.
Governor Cuomo: No, it is, there is no truth to it. I called, asked for a meeting. By the way, I've had a meeting with him on SALT, LaGuardia Airport, on the AirTrain, on the Second Avenue Subway, so I called and asked for a meeting on TTP. The lawsuit he is talking about - all they do is sue me - he is talking about the Attorney General's lawsuit on his taxes which has offended him deeply.
Alan Chartock: But aren't you, isn't she also and you...
Governor Cuomo: But he didn't know that at the time. He is not referring to the current lawsuit which is going to be filled today. He's referring back to the Attorney General's lawsuit on the taxes which started under Attorney General Schneiderman. I called for a meeting, they said they would get back to me, they've never gotten back to me with a meeting, he then tweets I canceled the meeting which is totally untrue. I then called the President after that. I spoke to the President. I said we never had a meeting and therefore I never canceled a meeting because I'm requesting the meeting.
He was referring to the governors have a White House dinner last night that I was never attending because I was coming back to Albany yesterday afternoon and I wasn't going to that dinner. I was never going to that dinner.
Alan Chartock: Well was that a slap in his face, I mean by not going to the dinner?
Governor Cuomo: No, I've never been to that dinner. I've never been to that dinner.
Alan Chartock: Well just because you've never been there doesn't mean there isn't a time sort of for being nice.
Governor Cuomo: No, I've never been to the dinner. I never planned to be at the dinner. I never said I was going to be at the dinner. So I couldn't have canceled being at the dinner, and it's a social event with all the governors who are at the conference. I didn't even attend, I don't even believe I attended during the previous Administrations, and I don't want to go have a drink. I want to sit down and talk about, I want to have a meeting. I want to talk about the actual substance in the program. So I clarified that with the President and I said I want a meeting and he said he would call tomorrow, which is today, and they would set up a meeting so we'll see what happens.
Alan Chartock: Okay. Bill de Blasio, the New York City Mayor, is here for what is called Tin Cup day, when everyone comes up to beg you for money. Will you be meeting with the Mayor, while he's in town? How are you guys getting along these days? There seems to be a lot of talk for a long time about how you don't like each other.
Governor Cuomo: You know, there's a lot of talk in the media about a lot of things.
Alan Chartock: I agree with that.
Governor Cuomo: And the Mayor has his role, the Governor has his role. The Mayor of New York City and the Governor have a long history - I remember my father and Ed Koch, et cetera, so no, the Mayor will come advocate for the City and Tin Cup Day is the mayors in this state, and mayors around the country go to their states and the federal government and say, "We need more money." That's what they do, by the way. Every group during this time of year, the budget year, says the same word, "More, more, more." It's never enough because they're advocating for their cause right? So I need more education, I need more healthcare, I need more for this - all very good causes - more for my city, more for my county, more for my village, more for my town. But, don't raise taxes, don't raise taxes, because we're losing people, so that's the game that happens every year this time of year.
Alan Chartock: President Trump, back to him, he blames you and Mayor de Blasio for the attacks on New York City police officers over the weekend, saying weak leadership was to blame. A lot of people are saying, "Yeah we can't let people out of prison or out of jail under bail reform if they're really dangerous, if we don't give the judges the right to hold people." What do you say?
Governor Cuomo: Two separate issues: Bail reform and police relations. I won't comment on the President politicizing the shooting of a police officer. They politicize everything, but some things are just too cheap and disgusting to engage in, and the shooting of a police officer is one of the most serious things that can happen as far as I'm concerned, and I refuse to engage in politics around it. On the police, I have the greatest respect for the NYPD, police departments across the street, but the NYPD does a phenomenal job. I am a native New Yorker - as rare as that is now. In the old days everybody grew up in New York, but now we have a lot of people coming from all over, but I'm a native New Yorker. I grew up in Queens, a lot of the guys I grew up with, to be a police officer was one of the highest callings, and it's a terribly dangerous, pressing job. I am disturbed at the relations between the police department and the community. It's about trust and respect and it's a two-way street.
I was disturbed when I saw people throwing water on a New York Police Department official. I mean you throw water on a police officer? That scene, that video was very disturbing to me. That did not happen in my lifetime. You treated a police officer with total respect. The thought that you could throw water on a police officer - that's just frightening to me. You cannot operate the city that way. Police need to be respected, they represent the rule of law, and that's what keeps us all safe. They deserve respect, they deserve trust, and it has to be a two-way street with the community and the relation between the police and the community is dangerously frayed. There was a protest a couple of weeks ago with the protestors at a subway station, chanting foul-words at the NYPD. This is a serious situation, and it has to be addressed. I feel that very strongly. I spoke about the Attorney General James being available to local governments to help with the relationship between the communities. The Attorney General is the top legal officer in the state, if a locality wants to use her services to help facilitate the relationship, but I'm very concerned at the lack of respect for the NYPD.
Alan Chartock: Well do you have any real understanding of what's going on with the community people who are so angry? You know I agree with you - it's a terrible thing when a police officer is attacked, but you're saying there's dissonance between the community and the police or the community members and the police - what's that about? I mean, is there any justification for that dissonance?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, Alan, it's a stressed relationship. Its feelings, right?
Alan Chartock: Well, what's the stress? What're the feelings?
Governor Cuomo: We have seen videos where people believe police have been unnecessarily aggressive, right? You can go back to the Eric Garner video, there were videos of police actions, you know, everybody now has a camera, right? There's also a video where people believe police have been overly aggressive from the police officer's side. You know, you go near anyone nowadays and you don't know if they have a gun, you don't know if they have a knife, and you want to make sure you go home at night. So I get the tension in the relationship, but the way it has played out is as bad as I have seen. You know, you'd have to go back decades to find this kind of stress between the police and the community. So I believe it's something that has to be addressed and it is about the relationship and it is about feelings. But the disrespect to the NYPD is intolerable from a societal point of view. They're working for all of us, they're keeping us all safe, and remember the number one victim of crimes tend to be members of the minority community. Those are the communities with higher crime rates geographically.
Alan Chartock: True.
Governor Cuomo: So, the relationship has to be attended to.
Alan Chartock: Let's talk a little bit about the meeting - you're President Elect of the Governor's Association, I believe, and so you've been saying all along that marijuana was being held up because you wanted to convene New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York all on the same page. Did you talk to those guys down there about this?
Governor Cuomo: Yes, but I never said that. I said regional collaboration and coordination would be good, but I don't see that as a sin qua non for a state passing it. We have a political question on the passage. Yes it's popular statewide, but there are still people with political qualms about it. So, it's not only pass it when you have regional coordination, pass it when you can with regional coordination. The governor's meeting overall was very refreshing for me. You know, governors are a different breed, right?
Alan Chartock: Sure, I absolutely believe that.
Governor Cuomo: They are, they are. And they've made that clear. You know, they have to get the job done at the end of the day, so they have a different orientation. It's less political. It's more practical. They tend to cut to the chase, if you will, right? We'll all this discussion, yeah that's nice, but it's all irrelevant, right? A governor has to focus on making sure the lights go on and the place is safe and the economy is running. So, they tend to be less hyperbolic, less political, more practical and there's more intellectual honesty, I think, in their discussion. We didn't discuss this at the meeting, but all this talk about the presidential and this presidential candidate's going to do this and this presidential candidate's going to this. Yeah, except you can't do anything on the Democratic side unless we also have a Democratic Senate, right? President comes in, "well I wish this." Yeah, they don't hand you a magic wand, Alan, you now have to get the legislation. And you have to get it through the House and you have to get it through the Senate. And you have to make sure even if it's all Democrats that you have consensus among the Democrats.
Alan Chartock: Yeah, but you're such a strong leader, people say that about you, you can get anything you want. We've talked about this before. So, you know, is the bologna?
Governor Cuomo: Yes, that's a good word. Did you come up with that word?
Alan Chartock: I love bologna.
Governor Cuomo: It's a very New York word, by the way.
Alan Chartock: Well I am a New Yorker, 90/60. That's where I grew up, not in some foreign country, you know, across one of those bridges. I grew up in New York City.
Governor Cuomo: There it is, that Manhattan arrogance. That out-of-borough edge and that's why I have that out-of-borough chip on my shoulder like Mario Cuomo to this day.
Governor Cuomo: There it is, that Manhattan arrogance, that outerborough edge. And that's why I have that outerborough chip on my shoulder, like Mario Cuomo, to this day.
Alan Chartock: You said over the weekend that you don't think Bernie Sanders is the best democratic candidate to beat Trump because the label socialist will be a bitter pill to swallow. You favored Joe Biden, but if Biden is so popular why didn't he take what he labeled as a gut punch in Iowa, not to mention his poor polling in tomorrow's New Hampshire primary.
Governor Cuomo: My, that was a provocative question.
Alan Chartock: Yes, I thought so.
Governor Cuomo: And you're even forecasting the poor showing tomorrow in New Hampshire. Look, every candidate has plusses and minuses, right? And every candidate brings different issues to the situation. I think that one of the issues that Bernie Sanders brings is the "remember that he's a socialist." And you know, the Democratic Party primary is one thing, but I think that's going to be an issue in the general election. Joe Biden, yes he did not do well at all in Iowa and they're forecasting that he doesn't do well in New Hampshire, I think it's still early Alan, I don't know that those states are necessarily representative of the Democratic Party nationwide. Why are they early? Why do they do caucuses in Iowa? I don't know, you have to ask somebody above my pay grade.
Alan Chartock: Well you don't like caucuses any more than I do, do you? They're sort of funny.
Governor Cuomo: No. No. No. And I don't like these early litmus tests that have this, such a heavy focus of the media when they are not that representative of the party. You know?
Alan Chartock: Cuomo criticizes Vermont and New Hampshire as being not representative - that's the headline.
Governor Cuomo: No. It is: why don't we have a primary process that either has more elections up front so you can get a real test? You know? Not just Iowa and New Hampshire. Iowa, New Hampshire, New York, California. You know, have a smattering of states that are more representative.
Alan Chartock: Well you're right, but that's just the way it is. It hasn't changed before, these guys know economic opportunity when they see it and they're not going to change, right? I want to know something else.
Governor Cuomo: No, somebody can change it. You know everything is the way it is. The question is how do you change it to make it better?
Alan Chartock: Okay, what's the answer to that question?
Governor Cuomo: I think you'd have more states up front so when you take that initial snapshot it's a broader, more representative snapshot.
Alan Chartock: Yeah, yeah, you're right. But how do you get it done?
Governor Cuomo: Well look, there are people you pay to do that. You know that's federally done, but that's what the Democratic Party should be talking about.
Alan Chartock: How about coronavirus cases in New York? Anything that you want to tell us? A lot of people travel between New York City and China. Is New York's economy going to take a hit from this virus?
Governor Cuomo: Coronavirus, everyone is watching, right? And everyone is wary and everyone is making preparations and we are making preparations. We've gone through situations like this before - the Ebola virus, the Zika virus, et cetera. We take nothing for granted. We are hyper-cautious because of who we are and where we are. We have not had a positive coronavirus test yet. But Alan, we will, we will. I don't want to set a false precedent.
Alan Chartock: I thought somebody died in New York City?
Governor Cuomo: Unless I missed it over the weekend
Alan Chartock: Okay yeah, I think maybe so. But go ahead.
Governor Cuomo: Okay, but I don't want to set a false premise. We will have people who test positive for the coronavirus, is my informed opinion. So I don't want to make it sound like well we don't have any yet and if we do then we have a problem. We anticipate that we will and we have the facilities set up and there are quarantine facilities, et cetera.
Alan Chartock: Where are they?
Governor Cuomo: They're in different parts of the state depending on where you're a resident, primarily in New York City, it would be Jamaica Hospital, Bellevue Hospital, if you come in through JFK, which is our main point of entry, it's one of the designated airports. But we will, I think it's almost inevitable but that we will, places around the country have, and as long as you're prepared to handle it, it's fine. The fear on the coronavirus is if it increased dramatically, it could be problematic for the health care system to deal with by and large. But that's what they're looking at. It's not that if you have a case of coronavirus then you have a dire situation in that locality.
Alan Chartock: Okay. So, we have wonderful Chinatown in Manhattan, you know where I came from born in Brooklyn, which I've recently been in, what happens to them? Have we had any indication that people are avoiding anything Chinese?
Governor Cuomo: I've heard that anecdotally. I don't have any information that would suggest that, Alan. But you know, fear is the problem in these situations. I was talking about this over the weekend to a couple of people, any of these emergency situations, floods, snow storms, what I'm most worried about is the fear itself, it's the panic that can set in. One of the reasons I'm so diligent about showing up at situations where there's an issue, why I'm doing coronavirus briefings all the time, the panic is the problem and it's important to communicate that we're on top of this, we're prepared, we understand it. No reason to feel undue anxiety. Yes, it's inevitable that we're going to have a case of coronavirus, most experts say it's probable, but that's okay. When you hear that, don't overreact. It's about being prepared for it and having the precautions and having the health care system ready. So, I work very hard at that in a myriad of applications.
Alan Chartock: Okay. I'm sorry, Governor. I know that I'm rude, but I wanted to talk to you about the $3 billion environmental bond act and how we're going to pay for that. Is there another way to fund it? Making fossil fuel companies pay for it, could tax levy amended to eliminate loopholes for oil giants?
Governor Cuomo: I'm glad you mentioned that, and I don't find you particularly rude. Or let me say, I don't find you any ruder than you have been for the predominance of your adult life.
Alan Chartock: For a Manhattan guy.
Governor Cuomo: Yeah. For a Manhattan guy who looks down on outer borough guys like--
Alan Chartock: Well that used to say, all my friends said, "we're going to the city to visit Chartock." We're going to the City, as if there is only one.
Governor Cuomo: No, no. I am one of the unwashed masses from Queens.
Alan Chartock: Did I say that? Now you cut it out.
Governor Cuomo: Who have to go over a bridge-
Alan Chartock: I never said that. That is so Trump-esque.
Governor Cuomo: --to go into Manhattan, where all the smart people live. But it is important, and although you're rude, I respect that you don't just follow the sizzle, you go for the steak, which most journalists nowadays, or many, just follow sizzle. The steak here is we have a budget that has a lot of substantive programs in it that are going to make major changes. Everybody is focused on Medicaid and how we cover the Medicaid cost shortfall, and the bail reform issue. But, we have in that budget, April 1, which is just a couple of months--
Alan Chartock: We've got one minute, Governor.
Governor Cuomo: Environmental bond issue, $33 billion -- the largest investment by any state in the United States to fight climate change, $3 billion of which will be a bond issue, which will do natural restoration of resiliency and will be on the ballot in November. $3 billion because we don't have the money to fund it with cash, but it is an investment, because when we move to renewables we will save money long term.
Alan Chartock: Okay. Listen, I appreciate your time, I always do. I'm glad you're back, I don't know where you went but you're back, and I so appreciate that and we'll be looking forward to the next time, if there is a next time.
Governor Cuomo: I was in the South of France, but don't tell anyone.
Alan Chartock: So long.
MISSING PRESS CONFERENCES FEB 11 - FEB 25
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news
February 26, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Announces $40 Million Emergency Appropriation to Support DOH Staffing and Equipment to Respond to Potential Novel Coronavirus Pandemic. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-40-million-emergency-appropriation-support-doh-staffing-and-equipment.
Governor Will Propose Legislation to Grant Authority to DOH Commissioner to Ensure Appropriate Response Measures by Local Health Departments and Public and Private Hospitals Statewide
DOH Will Convene Conferences with Local Health Departments and Hospitals Statewide to Review Protocols, Best Practices and Procedures
Calls for Federal Government to Approve Emergency Authorization for Wadsworth and NYC Public Health Lab to Test for Virus, Allowing State to Expedite Process and Get Quicker Results
DOH Will Work with MTA, Port Authority and its Airport Operators, and the Authorities' Respective Workforces to Ensure Workers Have Training and Access to Supplies They Need to Continue to Operate Mass Transit Systems and Airports
Still No Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in New York State
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a $40 million appropriation for the New York State Department of Health to hire additional staff, procure equipment and any other resources necessary to respond to the potential novel coronavirus pandemic. The Governor will also propose legislation to grant authority to DOH Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker to ensure local health departments and public and private hospitals statewide take certain actions and measures in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak as needed. DOH will convene local health departments and hospitals statewide to review protocols, best practices and procedures to help ensure they are prepared to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The Governor is also calling on the federal government to authorize the Wadsworth Center and NYC Public Health Lab to test for the virus, allowing for expanded testing capacity and expedited test results. New York State has independently worked to develop and validate a test using the CDC protocol. Upon FDA approval, Wadsworth can immediately begin testing to support New York State and other states in the northeast region if necessary.
Additionally, DOH will work with the MTA, Port Authority and its airport operators, and the authorities' respective workforces to ensure workers have the necessary training and access to supplies, including cleaning and protective equipment, they need to continue to operate mass transit systems and airports. The State is also coordinating with all state agencies to help ensure they are prepared to respond to the potential novel coronavirus pandemic.
February 26, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Announces $40 Million Emergency Appropriation to Support DOH Staffing and Equipment to Respond to Potential Novel Coronavirus Pandemic. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-announces-40-million-emergency-appropriation
Governor Will Propose Legislation to Grant Authority to DOH Commissioner to Ensure Appropriate Response Measures by Local Health Departments and Public and Private Hospitals Statewide
DOH Will Convene Conferences with Local Health Departments and Hospitals Statewide to Review Protocols, Best Practices and Procedures
Calls for Federal Government to Approve Emergency Authorization for Wadsworth and NYC Public Health Lab to Test for Virus, Allowing State to Expedite Process and Get Quicker Results
DOH Will Work with MTA, Port Authority and its Airport Operators, and the Authorities' Respective Workforces to Ensure Workers Have Training and Access to Supplies They Need to Continue to Operate Mass Transit Systems and Airports
Still No Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in New York State
Governor Cuomo: "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...And we are working with the hospitals all across the State."
Governor Cuomo: "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."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced a $40 million appropriation for the New York State Department of Health to hire additional staff, procure equipment and any other resources necessary to respond to the potential novel coronavirus pandemic. The Governor will also propose legislation to grant authority to DOH Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker to ensure local health departments and public and private hospitals statewide take certain actions and measures in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak as needed. DOH will convene local health departments and hospitals statewide to review protocols, best practices and procedures to help ensure they are prepared to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The Governor is also calling on the federal government to authorize the Wadsworth Center and NYC Public Health Lab to test for the virus, allowing for expanded testing capacity and expedited test results. New York State has independently worked to develop and validate a test using the CDC protocol. Upon FDA approval, Wadsworth can immediately begin testing to support New York State and other states in the northeast region if necessary.
Additionally, DOH will work with the MTA, Port Authority and its airport operators, and the authorities' respective workforces to ensure workers have the necessary training and access to supplies, including cleaning and protective equipment, they need to continue to operate mass transit systems and airports. The State is also coordinating with all state agencies to help ensure they are prepared to respond to the potential novel coronavirus pandemic. More information is available here.
VIDEO of the Governor's announcement is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's announcement is available here.
PHOTOS of today's announcement will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is below:
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.
February 28, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on Long Island News Radio with Jay Oliver. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-long-island-news-radio-jay-oliver-6.
Governor Cuomo: "Anti-Semitism has come to New York in a big way - 42 incidents in the State in just two months...And it's not just anti-Semitism, it's increased KKK activity, anti-LGBTQ, it's another virus like the coronavirus, it's the virus of hate. And we have to stand up loud and clear, make the statement, we don't allow it, we don't tolerate it and not just in words, but in deeds, in action. And this is a form of terrorism and I've proposed a domestic terrorism law. If you try to kill a number of people based on race, color, creed - you are a terrorist and you should be treated that way."
Early today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on Long Island News Radio with Jay Oliver.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Jay Oliver: We got swirling news galore these days, why is today any different than any other, that's for sure. But certainly here in the State of New York there is a lot on the plate, especially for the man who runs the show, he is Governor Andrew Cuomo. Always good to have him. Sir, how are you? Thanks for coming on here on a Friday.
Governor Cuomo: Good to be with you Jay. You're right, swirling news all over the place.
Jay Oliver: I don't even know where to start, but I'll start. I know you're getting tough on hate crimes. A presser sent out yesterday, new legislation called 'No Hate in Our State' and it will pretty much make the prosecution of these crimes, Governor, very much a top priority, if you can elaborate a bit.
Governor Cuomo: You know Jay, you're right, we have a whole set of issues going on. But one of the problems we have is just this internal scourge of hate that's all across the country. And we've watched it, the gun violence, we've seen massacres in Synagogues. And I'll tell you the truth, as a native New Yorker I sat back and I said, "You know, that can't happen here, it just can't happen in New York. We're too diverse, we grew up with each other, et cetera." So to see these anti-Semitic situations all across the country, it was just unbelievable to me that it could happen here in New York. You know the Jewish community is such a big part of New York. All my friends, everyone I grew up with, two of my brothers in law are Jewish, my niece is Jewish. But, anti-Semitism has come to New York in a big way - 42 incidents in the State in just two months. We had a stabbing in Rockland County. But 42 incidents - swastikas all across the State. And it's not just anti-Semitism, it's increased KKK activity, anti-LGBTQ, it's another virus like the coronavirus, it's the virus of hate. And we have to stand up loud and clear, make the statement, we don't allow it, we don't tolerate it and not just in words, but in deeds, in action. And this is a form of terrorism and I've proposed a domestic terrorism law. If you try to kill a number of people based on race, color, creed - you are a terrorist and you should be treated that way. Whether it's anti-Semitism or anti-African American, but change the law to do that. And part of my legislative proposal is also more funding for security for religious institutions. I want our public schools, Jay, to teach kids about diversity and different cultures and the history, the Holocaust for our Jewish brothers and sisters and slavery for our African American brothers and sisters. Because we're not educating them as to the different cultures and if you understand the cultures then you're not afraid of them. You know, we tend to fear differences unless you understand them and appreciate them and respect them. So we have a comprehensive package to do it.
And I had a meeting yesterday with primarily Jewish organizations, but it was a very good discussion because this one pains me personally. I know the pain it has caused the Jewish community and the fear, I know from my own family, I know from my own nieces who've cried to me talking about this, how can it be? Especially for younger people, just how can they be this angered just because somebody's Jewish? And the point they made to me yesterday was we all have to be cognizant of our tone because it starts small, you know? A person doesn't just walk into a Synagogue with a machete, it starts small. It's the humor, it's the jokes, it's the insensitivity. And we all have to be conscious of it, even I can speak for myself, Italian American. The New York Post puts on the front page a picture of my father, God rest his soul, as the Corleone, the mafia family. A newspaper up here in Albany called the Times Union, Casey Seiler, talks about my family likening it to the mafia movie, the Godfather movie. You know, it's that insensitivity, that ethnocentrism, not appreciating or understanding the sensitivity of different cultures. What the Muslims are going through in this country now. So we all have to take a step back and look at our own actions and our own behaviors, I think, and have a little more understanding and empathy and let's make sure we're educating our kids about how important it is to understand different cultures and respect them.
But as a government official, you can't act on anti-Semitism. They also said at the meeting they don't like the term anti-Semitism, or they think there should be a better term. It's anti-Jewish racism. It is racism to Jewish people. And that, I think, is a starker, harsher term, but it's also a better definition. It's racism towards Jewish people. It's not just wrong, unethical, immoral, it's illegal. It's illegal Jay, and I'm the Governor and I'm going to enforce the law.
Jay Oliver: Here's the thing, whatever you want to call it, all I know is I think of the number 42, Governor, that's 42 acts of anti-Semitism in the past couple of months in New York. And I know that is strictly unacceptable. Now, we speak to a lot of educators here. The thing I think many like, you know, as I said years ago, I think everybody should tour the 9/11 Museum and get a feel for what it was like back in the day. Same thing here as far as a Holocaust Museum, I think it's in Battery Park, but kind of mandatory for students now to visit this museum and really absorb the context of it all and really kind of feel what we have going on in today's society.
Governor Cuomo: Jay, 100 percent. Look, you even take 9/11, your point on 9/11 is so right. You know that's a generation ago already. You know my kid's 25 years old. 9/11, they have to be educated. The Holocaust, they have to be educated. Slavery, they have to be educated. You know, they think these things are almost incomprehensible, right? If you're a teenager, you're young 20s, it's almost incomprehensible that you had a terrorist attack in New York City, 8 million people. I went to Auschwitz as a sign of solidarity a couple of weeks ago, the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz - it was only 75 years ago that the world knew what was happening to the Jewish people and the world turned its back. And by the way, this country turned its back to Jewish refugees. So yes, slavery and what we did to people and how it was accepted and just a part of the commerce system. You know, we have to make sure we're not losing the lessons of the past, otherwise we will repeat them. Right? The old saying. So yeah, that's part of it also, and that's part of the legislative program that I put forward. So, we have so many priorities now, so many fights we have to win. But that is one of them because I'm afraid of that. You know, you talk about the issues that can really make a difference. We start fighting with each other, we turn diversity into a weakness, that's the fabric of this nation, that's what made America, America. And the anger and the hate all across the country, and even in New York, anti-Semitism in New York. I mean it hurts me to say it. I apologized yesterday to the Jewish community on behalf of the good people of the State of New York for what they had to go through and I want them to know the same thing I said to my family members, my nieces. This is not what New York thinks or New Yorkers think. We love the Jewish community. New York wouldn't be New York without the Jewish community. And we stand in solidarity in support of the Jewish community. And no good New Yorker would tolerate this for a moment.
Jay Oliver: Two cases, unacceptable in the last couple of months. That's why it is completely in play here as far as everybody getting together. We're talking with the Governor of the State of New York, of course, Andrew Cuomo. Alright, let's get to Coronavirus, Governor. It is real and I think the key word would be preparedness. I know a lot of people are talking about it. Some are in panic mode here but the feeling is among many, especially early on with this, hospitals are gearing up for any possible patients who need to be treated for this virus. Plans in place I guess for a variety of scenarios and that's all you can ask.
Governor Cuomo: Well, that's all you can ask. Let's talk about this because you're right. It is balance and what we say is important because you don't want to panic people, but you don't want people to think you're not telling the truth either, right or government is misinformed or taking it lightly. And I've spent a lot of time on this and I'm going to spend more time on it. It's number one on my list.
It is exactly what you said. It is preparedness. No expert can tell you what the trajectory is. None of them. There are scenarios. Some are the simpler situation, it's seasonal, it works its way out. And remember, we've gone through this before. Ebola, Zika, West Nile, Legionnaires disease, H1N1. We've gone through this. Picture it this way, you know how they show you the storm tracks when a hurricane is coming? It could hit South Carolina or it could Jersey, or it could hit Maine or it could hit nobody. So there are different tracks. It could be seasonal, it could move quickly or it could mutate and effect more people. Even the worst case scenario, you need a grain of salt with it. Because, first we've had 117,000 people contract the flu.
Now this has a higher mortality rate than the flu. But it's not Ebola either right. It's not that contracting it is a very high probability of mortality. But if you take the worst case scenarios they are problematic and they are disruptive. And you have to be prepared for it and being prepared, Jay, is not as easy as it sounds, right. I talked to the Vice President yesterday, Pence, who the President put in charge of it. And I saw the President on a press conference and they said, "Why did you put the Vice President when you had the Health and Human Services Secretary." This is not going to be a Health and Human Services agency function. To be prepared, you have to mobilize multiple systems, right. Just start to run the video tape in your mind. People are coming in to the airport at JFK. They're coming from a place that may have the virus. You now have more countries that have the virus. So more people are coming in.
How do you test that volume - which is an issue right now - does the CDC have to do all the tests in Washington? How do they handle that volume? I talked to the Vice President, look we can do the test. We have the sophistication, but step one is making sure you have the testing capacity. Off the testing capacity, then what are the protocols? What does self-isolation mean? What does quarantine mean? Where will you quarantine a large number of people? Because you have to give time, 14 days, to see whether or not they become symptomatic if they may have been exposed. But you have 14 days where someone has to be in a place because they may not have the virus at all, but they're isolated in a place and you could have large numbers, where do you that? Capacity of the hospitals in the healthcare system. Making sure every local health department is doing the same thing. Nassau has to be doing the same thing as Suffolk, has to be doing the same thing as New York City. How do you transport people? How do you feed people in those situations? Do you have enough protective equipment? China, by the way, makes most of the protective equipment.
So, preparedness is a monumental logistical and management operation. Emergency management services. Emergency management it's a massive task and a mobilization task and how do you get all these local governments and all these counties to handle a situation that might affect thousands of people. So, if I'm a citizen I want to know my government understands the magnitude of the task and my government is competent to do it. Because, by the way, I'm not so sure of government competence on a good day and I have a big question mark whether a government can actually mobilize to do this. And I sent a supplemental appropriation to the legislature. One of the things we have to do, I don't give a darn about anybody's politics, we have to be ready. I asked for $40 million for additional equipment purchases now. I want to make sure we have what we need and I want it now before you have a world scrambling to buy proper masks and gloves, et cetera. I want to make sure we can hire the staff now. I want to make sure we have the protocols in place now. I want to make sure every local health department knows exactly what they have to do. I want that figured out now. So run all the traps and do it now.
We've been through situations like this before, but preparing for the larger scare is a serious undertaking. We can do it, but I don't want to minimize it and I want people to know we understand how extensive it could be and we're working on it day and night already.
Jay Oliver: I think you've got to take it seriously, you're certainly taking the steps so the thing that concerns me, the report of someone out in California, the Sacramento area, that was non-travel related that was diagnosed with this thing. That's very concerning. That's why you see the dip in Wall Street, everything down. I know one person in this city who traveled to Italy, the latest case, I think it's 27 or so, samples of 27 New Yorkers that have been sent to the CDC for testing. Twenty-six have come back negative. There's a result still pending, but that's the thing you gotta take it seriously, especially when the individual, Governor, is on the West Coast. They didn't travel anywhere. Overseas or anywhere, anything but contracted it.
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, you're right, Jay. Just one more second on this point because I want people to have the right expectations. We're now in what they call the containment phase. Containment is do your best to reduce the exposure. We're doing that. And you're right, as of this morning, 28 cases have been tested. We had 27 negative, one is still pending. But it is inevitable, in my opinion, or virtually inevitable. Just as a matter of mathematics and practicality. We will have people who test positive. You know I don't want to get into this game where every day "Oh thank God no one tested positive." And then when someone tests positive now everybody gets nervous. We will have people who test positive. You cannot hermetically seal the United States of America, or New York, you have everybody coming in here, the international gateway. We're going to have a case - I'm going to come on your show one morning soon, most probably, and say, "We have someone who tested positive," so it's virtually inevitable, and otherwise we're playing a game with ourselves, "Still nobody, still nobody, still nobody." You will have someone. You have tens of thousands of people who have already tested positive in different countries - it will be an airline employee - but one way or the other, we're going to have the virus, and you do everything you can on a containment strategy, but then you move to the second phase which is the mitigation phase, which is yes, we're going to have people with the virus. Now, how do you handle it? From testing and run every step: Testing, transit - we had the cruise ship come in, the CDC calls me a couple weeks ago and says, "Governor, we have a cruise ship, with people who may have the Coronavirus, and it's coming into your port." I said, "Okay." "Can you handle it?" I said, "Sure we'll handle it, we'll figure it out." So we just went through the mini-drill, Jay. Alright, so the cruise ship comes in, who picks them up? What transport? Where do we bring them? What protective equipment are the people wearing? How do we take the test? How do we get it back quickly? How are we sure the test is right? And now they're quarantined for 14 days, where do we do that? In a hotel? How about the hotel workers? All of that has to be figured out before the fact, but we will have people who test positive. I am willing to wager you today - I need to make some money, I just went through my daughter's calling, "I need, I need, I need," so I need to make some money - so I will wager you, Jay, anything you want, that in a relatively short period of time, we're going to have people who test positive. And don't be surprised, and don't be shocked and don't get nervous - that's what's going to happen.
Jay Oliver: It always happens in these types of deals, and as you said it's inevitable. It's absolutely inevitable. And again, preparedness, key, coordination, another keyword, it's coordinating with some of these other services to make sure things are in place.
We are talking with the Governor of the State of New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo - Governor, let me bring up probably the hottest discussed topic, not only on my show but probably the State of New York and that's bail. Bail reform and everything else - and I'll say this, I've never seen more Long Islanders outraged over it. They want to see something done about it - I know that you've been huddling up with the Senate Majority Leader up in Albany, you've got a budget to deliver April 1st. We've had many individuals from the Long Island delegation in Albany, recognize change needed, and they've said to me, "Listen, we're not going to vote on the budget until we see change."
So in essence, I'll ask you this morning - where are we at with that? How are you feeling about things? You've got outrage here on Long Island, and the big question is will we see change regarding bail reform - big question right now.
Governor Cuomo: Yes.
Jay Oliver: I like that answer. I should say, many Long Islanders kind of like that answer. I will ask you this, sir, can you elaborate a little bit?
Governor Cuomo: But sometimes it is a one-word answer, so the answer is yes, and this is another deep-breath issue, because a little perspective is important. The changes we made are right and good, I proposed a different bill than the bill that was actually passed at the end of the day, and my bill goes further and I think is better, the bill I proposed, but what we did was positive because look, it's inarguable that you shouldn't be making these decisions based on how wealthy a person is, which is how bail winds up being. If you can pay, you get out. If you can't pay, you stay. That's the bottom line, and wealth is often a proxy for race. That's statistically a fact. So the system was unfair. Okay, we're going to get away from the cash bail system. We only partially got away from it in the bill that we passed. I want to totally get away from cash. I want to say, it doesn't matter how much money you have, I don't care how rich you are. A son of a millionaire doesn't get to hurt somebody but then sleep in his own bed because daddy's a millionaire. It doesn't work that way.
So get money off the table - just no cash bail. But then, what is the mechanism to determine if a person is a public safety risk or a flight risk? Those are the legitimate questions. That has to be determined by a judge - that has to be judicial discretion. If we let this person out pending trial - by the way, you're not guilty until trial, all you have is an accusation - if we let this person out, is there a significant risk they're going to harm someone or risk the public safety? A judge has to make that decision. Might they take off and we never see them again and they never show up for trial? A judge has to make that decision, but there have to be parameters about the judge's discretion and decision and it has to be based on facts and evidence and history and there has to be due process because it can't just be the judge says, "I don't like the way you look," you know. "I don't like the way you sound - I'm going to put you in jail." So that's the intelligent response.
This is a political issue, this is a political year, this is the wildest, hostile, political environment I have ever seen. Politicians are politicians - they're running for reelection, they don't want to take a position. They're afraid, they don't want anyone to protest them - you have had Senator Monica Martinez from Suffolk, I think has shown courage on this one. She has stood up and said - she said to me she's not going to vote for the budget unless there is a further improvement on bail in the budget. So good for her - at least she's not playing politics and she's telling people what she thinks. And she even put in a bill, which I respect, because everybody, well not everybody - some of them are trying to play it both ways, surprise, surprise.
But it has to be done, it has to be done, Jay. Politics, I understand. I also understand government, and I also understand my responsibility, and I also understand the buck stops on my desk. Coronavirus, we're going to be prepared. Bail reform, a public safety system that protects the public, we're going to have it. And that's why I said the answer is yes. We will - we made a major change. We now are studying the consequences of that change. And we will further improve the system and we will do it as part of the budget which gets done April 1 - people who aren't familiar say, "Why is this a budget matter?" The State budget is more than a budget - it's the largest single place of legislation that the State passes. It's the major operating document for the State. So this will be included in that. And we're talking through - I'm going to have a meeting. I'm bringing them all up to Albany, the DAs, the police, the advocates from all across the state. We'll have a public discussion. Everybody can state their opinion, the pros, the cons, the fears, the anxieties. Let's hear everybody out but then we have to make the changes and we have to get it done in the budget.
Jay Oliver: And Senator Martinez, right on our show, stated that regarding the vote. You know two other things we gather from talking about this on a daily basis, Governor, many Long Islanders feel it's not only about the judge's discretion, and again, key words here, public safety, I think everybody is in agreement that public safety should be at the top of the charts but besides the judge's discretion. Long Islanders feel the presumption of rapid disclosure, that should be reversed, you know this is regarding victim and witness information, very important stuff, and the other one is discovery. Many Long Islanders feel, slash the rest of the new discovery requirements at least to a level that crime labs and prosecutors can manage in a very timely manner, talking about 15 days plus 30, maybe should be extended to 90, that type of thing, but I think public safety according to many is a prime concern when it comes to this and I'm sure you're going to consider that.
Governor Cuomo: That is the number one concern. That is the number one concern, Jay. There is no number two concern. Public safety is not a second concern. Public safety is the primary responsibility of government. Now, public safety inherent in that concept is also fairness and righteousness and integrity. But there is no doubt. Look, the people are upset. When you make a change to a system you are going to have consequences and repercussions whatever the system is. If it's the human body and they put you on one medication they then say come in next week because I want to see what the consequences of that medication were. Expect that. You can't fear it or fear the discussion because then you never make a change and too often that's what society does and that's what the political system does. Why don't they fix the education system? Why don't they fix the healthcare system? Because as soon as you touch something then you have all the interests that are involved getting upset and making noise and politicians like to make everybody happy, right? So I don't want to discourage change and reform and improvement.
Yes, we fixed an injustice in the bail system. We have more work to do but that's the expected. There are very few situations that are as complicated where you come in and you make one adjustment that doesn't cause other adjustments. Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was a great governor, a great president, he talked about this often and he did it. He talked about bold experimentation. He was very big on make it better, fix it, give it your best, and then come back and try it again and try it again and try it again. And by the way, none of these systems will be perfect. And we have to get better at constant improvement and constant evaluation and adjustment. You have an education system that operates the same way it did 25 years ago. Everybody gives a speech, all these protests, demonstrations, interest groups, all baloney. They still give out the money the way they gave out the money 25 years ago, all politics, all politics. Healthcare system, we're still talking around and around on the health care system. We've made great progress in the state but there's much more to do. And yeah, when you get involved in these complicated systems and you go to make them better it is disruptive. Change is disruptive but without change there is no improvement.
But public safety is job one. Senator Monica Martinez said the same thing to me personally. She said to me on the phone, I'm not voting for the budget unless we fix the situation. I said I respect that. What I didn't say to her is, don't worry because I won't do a budget without a reform to the situation. But people, the discussion is good, let's argue, let's debate, let's discuss, but rest assured public safety is job one and we will have a safe system when that budget is passed.
Jay Oliver: It's about dialogue and the proper dialogue can get things. So you're listening to the Governor of New York, his name is Andrew Cuomo. I'm going to throw a couple more at you. Appreciate the extra time this morning, Governor. I know it was back, if memory serves me correct, in early January where you unveiled a plan to reduce the risk of flooding across the state. I remember the heavy rains and the Lake Ontario levels and Oswego going back to [inaudible], big problem in the state and I know you proposed a Bond Act, Environmental Bond Act, it's probably going to be the nation's most aggressive program to reduce the risk of floods and restore wildlife habitats, $3 billion or so I think proposed, but certainly we have seen Mother Nature at its worst in the last couple of years. Something had to be done about it, right?
Governor Cuomo: You know, Jay, it is. There is no issues that we have to deal with and how we see them coming, we see them coming, the only question is do they catch you flat-footed. We went through Superstorm Sandy in Long Island, and then almost every week it's another flood, it's another hurricane, it's fires in California. The environmental degradation has happened, climate change has happened and it is now almost a weekly occurrence. Prepare for it and change and adjust to the new reality. We can't keep spending hundreds of millions of dollars handling these emergency situations, which are really no longer emergencies because they happen on a frequent basis so we have to repair the natural damage that we've done. It's watershed extremes, it's creeks, it's natural resiliency. We also have to pivot quickly and dramatically to renewable energy. We can't keep this rate of destruction of the planet because there will be no planet to leave to our children and that's not an overstatement. You know, you want to look at the worst case trajectory on coronavirus, look at the worst case trajectory on climate change. I don't think the planet lasts through my children's lifetime on the worst track trajectory. Everybody talks renewables, getting out of fossil fuels but you have to have the renewables built and online. We have the largest wind turbine program in the United States of America proposed off Long Island, solar panels, we get it. But you have to be able to build it and train the workforce and create the jobs. Right now it takes six years on average to site a new renewable project, six years to site a project. That's not going to work. The math doesn't add up. So we have the most aggressive plan in the United States of America to restore Mother Nature. We call it restore natural resiliency, and step two, aggressively transition to renewables as an economic development vehicle, generating the jobs, training the workers but actually making the transition where the renewables are online so we do have the alternative to turn off the fossil fuels.
Jay Oliver: Interesting. Talking with the Governor of the State of New York. His name is Andrew Cuomo. So, listen, I remember you announced it on this program first, your proposed meeting with the president of the United States a couple of weeks ago, governor, and I know you had high hopes. Give me the governor mindset. You walk into that White House, Oval Office, president of the United States, hopefully for a compromise of some sort, you have something in your mind as far as a possible solution. I want you to tell me, tell the audience, were you confident something could get done? I know you were doing your due diligence, trying to get this trusted traveler program in place. It was suspended we know. But give me an idea as far as the mindset and also the mindset in leaving the White House. How you felt. And where right now do we stand regarding this thing?
Governor Cuomo: You know the president, I know the president from before. He's a Queens boy. I'm a Queens boy. Actually, we grew up in roughly the same neighborhood. And so I know him, I know him for years. And I try, we have different political philosophies on a very fundamental level. But for me, on the mindset, Jay, I don't have the luxury. I represent the people of the State of New York. It's not about my politics, my preferences, what I feel personally. I represent the people of the State of New York. We have Democrats, we have Republicans. And I've governed with Democrats and Republicans and my job is to represent Democrats and Republicans. So I work very hard to be open and accommodating and professional. In all of these situations, right, I would consider it disrespect in my position if I let my personal feelings get in the way of doing my job. And I take that very seriously. We talk about working across the aisle. I see it the other way. You don't have the luxury of putting your opinion first. You're an elected official. I don't care how you feel about the other person. Get the job done. Represent me. That's what a professional is all about. So anyway, I meet with the president, I've met with him, many times. I speak to him on the phone on these issues. The meeting on this one was the president and his homeland security people. And we're still working through the matter and there's pending litigation, so I want to be a little careful what I say, but the homeland security people, even from their public comments, they don't like the fact that we're not giving them all our state information. They are, we have undocumented people who have driver's licenses in this state, and their position is they want all the information. Our position is, we'll give you all the information for fighting crime, but we're not giving you any information for immigration purposes. And they fundamentally reject this proposal. They're suing other states have undocumented driver's licenses also—they're suing the other states. Because they want all the data. And this is now political philosophy or just partisan politics depending on how you want to view it, but that's their position. We're trying to work out a position but I don't have much flexibility. My position is I won't give you any information for immigration purposes, period. And I'm not going to move from that. Because I don't want them using our driver's licenses database to do immigration work and try to find undocumented people who are here, haven't committed a crime, they're living their lives, and they're going to now target them and have ICE go pull them out of their homes. There's a situation in Maryland where they think they were using the DMV database to do facial recognition. So that's where we left it, we're still talking about it, there's no resolution. The president was constructive. It was really the position of the Department of Homeland Security and we're still talking it through.
Jay Oliver: Is there another date? Is there a date in the future? Some sort of situation involved where another party will kind of come back and say hey, here we are with this, that, or is it kind of open in that regard?
Governor Cuomo: No, we're going back and forth, and every couple of days, there's, there's been ongoing communication, let's put it that way. The two positions are clear and we're trying to find a resolution. We haven't been able to do it yet, but that doesn't mean we won't, and we're still talking. But there are two very different positions. And I do believe that what the federal government did actually has nothing to do with the situation. They turned off this trusted traveler program. 200,000 people who have pre-clearance by the federal government to have an expedited entry because they travel and they prove they get a special card because they documented their citizenship to the federal government. They turned that off just as a leverage point. I said it was extortion. A nicer word would be leverage. But leverage isn't a beautiful word either. To get us to comply, and I don't like to be extorted, and new Yorkers are not people who take to bullying, you know, don't try to bully new Yorkers. We're fair, we're reasonable, but don't try to leverage us and extort us and bully us, it doesn't work well with us.
Jay Oliver: Listen, I appreciate the extra time this morning, you got a lot on your plate, we're going to follow you along the way, okay, and hopefully we're going to have you back on soon, and decipher more of it. Can't thank you enough here for your time this month.
Governor Cuomo: Jay, thank you, and thank you for the time, because look, these are very big issues, and they are complicated issues, and people are concerned. The level of concern is very high out there. You know, coronavirus, the anti-Semitism, everything that's going on, bail reform. So the dialogue is very important. Because I think the more people know, the better they will feel about it. We are getting prepared for coronavirus. I've spent my life in government doing this. We will do everything we need to do. I understand the fear about bail reform. We will not pass a budget that doesn't address the issue, Jay. So people should take a deep breath on that. And on the anti-Semitism, let's all look in the mirror and let's all be a little more generous, and loving, and understanding, and let's make sure our young people understand the history of these different cultures and what they've gone through.
Jay Oliver: Great way of ending this segment, thank you so much governor. Governor Andrew Cuomo, ladies and gentlemen, at 8:29, thank you sir.
February 29, 2020.
Statement from Governor Andrew M. Cuomo on Coronavirus https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/statement-governor-andrew-m-cuomo-coronavirus.
"When I spoke to Vice President Pence, I urged him to approve New York State's Coronavirus test — we just received word that our test has been approved by the FDA. New York State will begin testing immediately at Wadsworth Lab.
"This approval will expedite wait time and improve New York's ability to more effectively manage the Coronavirus situation as it unfolds. "
February 29, 2020. Video, Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Delivers Update on Coronavirus https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-delivers-update-coronavirus
New York State's Coronavirus Test Has Been Approved by FDA; Testing Will Begin Immediately at Wadsworth Lab
Decision Came After Talks Between Governor Cuomo and Vice President Pence
Governor Cuomo: "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 We have mobilized for emergencies before, and we're going to do it again."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo delivered an update on the Coronavirus. New York State's Coronavirus test has been approved by the FDA, and New York State will begin testing immediately at Wadsworth Lab.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is below:
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.
March 1, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Issues Statement Regarding Novel Coronavirus in New York. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-issues-statement-regarding-novel-coronavirus-new-york
"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."
March 02, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CBS This Morning to Discuss the First Coronavirus Case in New York State. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cbs-morning-discuss-first-coronavirus-case-new-york
Governor Cuomo: "New Yorkers should not be surprised, we've been talking about this for days. I said it's not a question of if, but when. You see the number of cases around the globe. New York is the gateway to the world so that's not shocking and we've been preparing for it and we've been truly diligent on this issue."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CBS This Morning to discuss the first Coronavirus case in New York State.
AUDIO of the Governor's interview is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is below:
Gayle King: New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo joins us with more on this story. Governor, good morning to you. You know, a lot of New Yorkers, certainly here in the city, woke up and said oh, no, here we go. What can you tell us about this latest case? What do we know?
Governor Cuomo: Well, good morning to all of you, and you, Gayle. First, New Yorkers should not be surprised, we've been talking about this for days. I said it's not a question of if, but when. You see the number of cases around the globe. New York is the gateway to the world so that's not shocking and we've been preparing for it and we've been truly diligent on this issue.
This is somewhat of a unique case, because this woman was a health care worker coming back from Iran, as you mentioned. So, she knew to take precautions and stay in a controlled situation and then go for testing. And we got the testing results back. So Idon't think there's anything extraordinary in this case, if anything, because she was a health care worker. She knew to take precautions herself, which was fortunate.
Anthony Mason: Governor, how effective do you expect that test to be? Do you have enough? Will you have enough?
Governor Cuomo: Good question. We just got the federal authority to do the testing, and we are now going to scale up very, very quickly. So, we'll have the ability to test and, again, in this quote, unquote, containment phase. It's about the detection and then the isolation and it's the mobilization of the health care system more than anything. Beyond that, it's a communication issue to people, you know. We want to have a healthy diligence about this issue, but we don't want an unnecessary anxiety and we don't want people overreacting. So that's what this is really about to me.
Tony Dokoupil: Can you confirm that she lives in Manhattan? If that is the case, have you rule ruled out the possibility of something like we saw in China, where a city or region is sealed off as a containment method?
Governor Cuomo: She does live in Manhattan. She is isolated in her apartment and there's no cause to do anything but that. Again, this is not -- by the way, Ebola was much more frightening than this issue. We've gone through viruses that are frankly more frightening than this, so we need a little context for all of this, a little perspective. We have to treat it. We have to be serious, but the fear, in my opinion, is outpacing reason at this point.
Gayle King: Governor, we thank you very much for your time.
Anthony Mason: Thanks very much, Governor.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks, guys. Thank you.
March 02, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CBS This Morning to Discuss the First Coronavirus Case in New York State. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cbs-morning-discuss-first-coronavirus-case-new-york
Governor Cuomo: "New Yorkers should not be surprised, we've been talking about this for days. I said it's not a question of if, but when. You see the number of cases around the globe. New York is the gateway to the world so that's not shocking and we've been preparing for it and we've been truly diligent on this issue."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CBS This Morning to discuss the first Coronavirus case in New York State.
AUDIO of the Governor's interview is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is below:
Gayle King: New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo joins us with more on this story. Governor, good morning to you. You know, a lot of New Yorkers, certainly here in the city, woke up and said oh, no, here we go. What can you tell us about this latest case? What do we know?
Governor Cuomo: Well, good morning to all of you, and you, Gayle. First, New Yorkers should not be surprised, we've been talking about this for days. I said it's not a question of if, but when. You see the number of cases around the globe. New York is the gateway to the world so that's not shocking and we've been preparing for it and we've been truly diligent on this issue.
This is somewhat of a unique case, because this woman was a health care worker coming back from Iran, as you mentioned. So, she knew to take precautions and stay in a controlled situation and then go for testing. And we got the testing results back. So Idon't think there's anything extraordinary in this case, if anything, because she was a health care worker. She knew to take precautions herself, which was fortunate.
Anthony Mason: Governor, how effective do you expect that test to be? Do you have enough? Will you have enough?
Governor Cuomo: Good question. We just got the federal authority to do the testing, and we are now going to scale up very, very quickly. So, we'll have the ability to test and, again, in this quote, unquote, containment phase. It's about the detection and then the isolation and it's the mobilization of the health care system more than anything. Beyond that, it's a communication issue to people, you know. We want to have a healthy diligence about this issue, but we don't want an unnecessary anxiety and we don't want people overreacting. So that's what this is really about to me.
Tony Dokoupil: Can you confirm that she lives in Manhattan? If that is the case, have you rule ruled out the possibility of something like we saw in China, where a city or region is sealed off as a containment method?
Governor Cuomo: She does live in Manhattan. She is isolated in her apartment and there's no cause to do anything but that. Again, this is not -- by the way, Ebola was much more frightening than this issue. We've gone through viruses that are frankly more frightening than this, so we need a little context for all of this, a little perspective. We have to treat it. We have to be serious, but the fear, in my opinion, is outpacing reason at this point.
Gayle King: Governor, we thank you very much for your time.
Anthony Mason: Thanks very much, Governor.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks, guys. Thank you.
March 02, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN New Day. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cnn-new-day
Governor Cuomo: "The confirmed case was a health care worker, 39-years-old, who's returning from Iran and was very aware of the situation, obviously. And that turns out to be good news in this case because she took precautions -- she basically was isolated at home, went for a test. The test came back positive and she's isolated in her home again and being treated. I don't think there's any great shocking surprise here. I've been saying for many days it's not if but when. We're New York, this is a global situation, and what the state government is now doing is focusing on mobilizing the public health system to contain the spread."
Governor Cuomo: "I spoke to Vice President Pence about this last week. All the tests have to go through CDC, John, and that was a terrible bottleneck. New York now being able to do the tests are how we found this case and how we can actually now be testing for community spread."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CNN's New Day to discuss the first Coronavirus case in New York State.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
John Berman: Breaking overnight, the first case of coronavirus here in New York City. Joining us now to discuss this, the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. Thanks so much for being with us. This is a worker returning from Iran. What can you tell us about the case?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, that's exactly right. Good morning to you, John, and all your viewers. Health care worker, 39-years-old who's returning from Iran and was very aware of the situation, obviously. And that turns out to be good news in this case because she took precautions, she basically was isolated at home, went for a test. The test came back positive and she's isolated in her home again and being treated. I don't think there's any great shocking surprise here. I've been saying for many days it's not if but when. We're New York, this is a global situation, and what the state government is now doing is focusing on mobilizing the public health system to contain the spread. That's what we're doing. We now have the ability to do tests. We're increasing the number of tests in our testing capacity, and it's all about containing the spread.
John Berman: I understand that this was a health care worker, as you said. She did smart things once she got to the United States. But what about on the way here? Contact tracing is a huge part of trying to stop outbreaks. What do you know about the people who were on the plane with her? What do you know about the people who greeted her at the airport when she landed in the United States?
Governor Cuomo: She wasn't symptomatic when she was on the plane and she didn't take public transportation. So, again, she is a health care worker. She's very sophisticated in this area and either coincidently or purposefully she took precautions that actually turned out to be very advantageous.
John Berman: Now, I'm not trying to unduly alarm people, but you know that you can pass this on. The research has shown that you don't need to be symptomatic necessarily to pass on this virus. So has there been tracing of the people even though she wasn't symptomatic that she did come in contact with on the plane and upon arrival?
Governor Cuomo: We're going through that exercise now but at that point we have no reason for concern given where she was, when she came back, and when the test was actually completed. But we're going through that exercise now. But we know again, John, she was not on any public transportation. She has been in her home virtually isolated, and she's isolated once again. So in this case, because of those circumstances, because of her knowledge, she actually acted in a way, a textbook way, if you would.
John Berman: That is good news. I do know there are a couple other cases being monitored right now, wonder if you can tell us about that and also tell us about your concerns about the possibility of community spread here in New York. Have you seen any evidence of that yet?
Governor Cuomo: John, I think we are, if we take a half a step back, the two cases that are still pending, they're still pending, we have no further information. We will be testing for community spread. I fully expect to find community spread. You can't have it in this many places on the globe and in this many places in the country and it not be in New York. So that is going to happen. What I am concerned about, if anything, more than a health issue, is the perception issue and the fear issue. I understand diligence and I understand anxiety and let's do everything we can. But you can't allow the fear to outpace reality, right?
And people have to appreciate the facts here about what we're dealing with. This will, there will be community spread. I believe it's inevitable, we'll be testing for it, find it, and then we'll get to the containment phase. But you'll see this going on. But put this into perspective. This is not the first time we've dealt with this situation. We had H1N1, the swine flu, we had the avian flu, we went through Ebola, we went through SARS we've dealt with this before. The mortality rate with this virus is going to be more on the senior citizens and the immune compromised and that's where we have to focus our efforts but its deep breath time, John.
John Berman: I want to put it in perspective, so to put it in perspective for the people in your state, what do you want them to do this morning?
Governor Cuomo: Be diligent, wash your hands, we'll be taking some additional precautions, and if you feel that you have symptoms, and it's tricky because this is flu season, right, but if you feel that you have symptoms that could suggest this, go to a health care professional and let them to do a diagnosis and then we have the testing capacity, we'll be ramping up our testing capacity. Again, we expect to find people who test positive and then you isolate to reduce the spread the best you can, knowing that you can't really control the spread. But then making sure people understand that this is going to come, it is, we're going to have to go through it, but keep it all in focus.
John Berman: I have to let you go. You do have testing now in New York. This was something that didn't exist before, but this is a change over the last three or four days, correct?
Governor Cuomo: And this is a big deal. I spoke to Vice President Pence about this last week. All the tests have to go through CDC, John, and that was a terrible bottleneck. New York now being able to do the tests are how we found this case and how we can actually now be testing for community spread.
John Berman: That is good news, Governor Andrew Cuomo. Thank you so much for being with us and, as you say, helping put this in perspective so people have the right concerns for all this. Appreciate your time.
Governor Cuomo: Right. Thanks John.
March 02, 2020.
At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces State is Partnering with Hospitals to Expand Novel Coronavirus Testing Capacity in New York. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-state-partnering-hospitals-expand-novel
Governor Announces Goal for State to Be Able to Test Up to 1,000 Tests Per Day Statewide
State Will Institute New Cleaning Protocols at Schools and in Public Transportation Systems to Help Stop Any Potential Spread of the Virus
Follows FDA Approval of the New York State Wadsworth Center's Test for COVID-19 - the First Non-CDC Test Approved by the FDA
Governor Cuomo: "This isn't our first rodeo - we are fully coordinated, and we are fully mobilized, and we are fully prepared to deal with the situation as it develops."
During a briefing on the novel Coronavirus at his office in midtown Manhattan, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the world-renowned Wadsworth Center — the research-intensive public health laboratory housed within the State Department of Health — is partnering with hospitals to expand surge testing capacity to 1,000 tests per day statewide for the novel coronavirus. The Wadsworth Center will provide these hospitals with instructions on how to replicate the State's test, as well as help them purchase some of the equipment necessary to develop and validate the test.
The Governor also announced the state will institute a new cleaning protocol at schools and in the public transportation system to help stop any potential spread of the virus.
This announcement follows the Food and Drug Administration's approval for the Wadsworth Center to begin tests for the novel Coronavirus — the first non-CDC test that has been given approval by the FDA. The first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in New York, a woman in her thirties, was done through the State's Wadsworth testing lab.
"We have the best health-care system in the world, and we are leveraging that system to help contain any potential spread of the novel coronavirus in New York," Governor Cuomo said. "We will expand testing so we can do 1,000 tests per day thanks to the State's world-renowned Wadsworth Lab in partnership with hospitals. And we are instituting a new cleaning protocol at our schools, in our public transportation, and elsewhere to contain any potential spread. This isn't our first rodeo - we are fully coordinated, we are fully mobilized, and we are fully prepared to deal with the situation as it develops."
Last week the Governor announced he is requesting a $40 million appropriation for the New York State Department of Health to hire additional staff, procure equipment and any other resources necessary to respond to the potential novel coronavirus pandemic. The Governor will also propose legislation to clarify authority for governor to take certain statewide actions and measures in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak as needed. DOH is ALSO convening local health departments and hospitals statewide to review protocols, best practices and procedures to help ensure they are prepared to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
This isn't our first rodeo - we are fully coordinated, we are fully mobilized, and we are fully prepared to deal with the situation as it develops.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
On Saturday, New York State received notification that the FDA approved Wadsworth lab's Emergency Use Application — EUA — request to begin novel coronavirus testing using the test that the State developed and validated at the Wadsworth Center. This test will allow the State to perform testing more rapidly than sending to the CDC and to respond expeditiously when and if there is a positive case to better protect the public health of New Yorkers. Upon receipt of lab specimens, the Wadsworth Center can complete testing within three to five hours.
The Wadsworth Center began testing on Saturday evening. Wadsworth's current testing capacity is as many as 200 tests per day, and the State Department of Health will work to expand capacity through expanded lab hours and the hiring additional staff.
The approval comes at a critical time as the CDC and the DOH have expanded testing criteria to include travel from other countries - specifically Italy, South Korea and Iran - and others without travel history where individuals are hospitalized with respiratory symptoms with no other explanation.
So far, Wadsworth Center has received samples from 4 New Yorkers for testing: 2 came back negative; 1 came back positive; and 1 is still pending. Previously, samples from 28 New Yorkers were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing, all 28 came back negative.
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.
New Yorkers can call the State hotline at 1-888-364-3065, where experts 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 on the novel coronavirus, one featuring State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker and another with general information, that are running statewide in multiple languages.
March 02, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces State is Partnering with Hospitals to Expand Novel Coronavirus Testing Capacity in New York. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-state
Governor Announces Goal for State to Be Able to Test Up to 1,000 Tests Per Day Statewide
State Will Institute New Cleaning Protocols at Schools and in Public Transportation Systems to Help Stop Any Potential Spread of the Virus
Follows FDA Approval of the New York State Wadsworth Center's Test for COVID-19 - the First Non-CDC Test Approved by the FDA
Governor Cuomo: "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."
Governor Cuomo: "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...This is not our first rodeo with this type of situation in New York."
Earlier today, during a briefing on the novel Coronavirus at his office in midtown Manhattan, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the world-renowned Wadsworth Center — the research-intensive public health laboratory housed within the State Department of Health — is partnering with hospitals to expand surge testing capacity to 1,000 tests per day statewide for the novel coronavirus. The Wadsworth Center will provide these hospitals with instructions on how to replicate the State's test, as well as help them purchase some of the equipment necessary to develop and validate the test.
The Governor also announced the state will institute a new cleaning protocol at schools and in the public transportation system to help stop any potential spread of the virus.
VIDEO of the Governor's announcement is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's announcement is available here.
PHOTOS of today's announcement will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is below:
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.
March 02, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Announces New Directive Requiring New York Insurers to Waive Cost-Sharing for Coronavirus Testing https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-new-directive-requiring-new-york-insurers-waive-cost-sharing
Currently All COVID-19 Tests Conducted At The State's Wadsworth Lab Are Fully Covered
New Yorkers Receiving Medicaid Coverage Will Not Be Expected To Pay A Co-Pay For Any Testing Related To COVID-19
Outlines Series of Other Actions That Health Insurers Should Take, Including Keeping New Yorkers Informed About Available Benefits and Offering Telehealth Medical Advice and Treatment
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a new directive by the State Department of Financial Services requiring New York health insurers to waive cost sharing associated with testing for novel coronavirus including emergency room, urgent care and office visits. The Governor also announced New Yorkers receiving Medicaid coverage will not be expected to pay a co-pay for any testing related to COVID-19. These actions will help ensure that cost does not serve as a barrier to access to COVID-19 testing for any New Yorker. Currently all COVID-19 tests being conducted at the State's Wadsworth Lab are fully covered.
In addition, the State outlined a series of other actions that New York health insurers are required or advised to take, including keeping New Yorkers informed regarding available benefits; offering, where possible, telehealth medical advice and treatment; and preparing insurers to cover the costs if a COVID-19 immunization should become available.
"We have the best health-care system in the world, and we are leveraging that system including our state-of-the-art Wadsworth testing lab to help contain any potential spread of the novel coronavirus in New York," Governor Cuomo said. "Containing this virus depends on us having the facts about who has it - and these measures will break down any barriers that could prevent New Yorkers from getting tested."
In order to ensure that cost-sharing is not a barrier to testing for COVID-19, DFS will promulgate an emergency regulation that:
Prohibits health insurers from imposing cost-sharing on an in-network provider office visit or urgent care center when the purpose of the visit is to be tested for COVID-19.
Prohibits health insurers from imposing cost-sharing on an emergency room visit when the purpose of the visit is to be tested for COVID-19.
The State Department of Health will ensure New Yorkers receiving Medicaid coverage have their costs covered. New Yorkers enrolled in self-funded employer-based health insurance plans that are not regulated by New York State due to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) should contact their employer to fully understand the scope of coverage.
In addition to covering the cost of testing, the guidance issued by DFS to health insurers regarding actions they should take in relation to the potential impact of COVID-19 on New York includes:
Keeping Consumers Informed: DFS is directing insurers to devote resources to inform consumers of available benefits, quickly respond to consumer inquiries, and consider revisions needed to streamline responses and benefits for consumers.
Providing Telehealth Medical Advice & Treatment: DFS is directing insurers to develop robust telehealth programs with their participating providers where appropriate, particularly for individuals who may have difficulty making an office visit and where a phone call with a medical professional can alleviate the need for a hospital visit.
Preparing Health System for Increased Cases: DFS is directing insurers to verify that their provider networks are adequately prepared to handle a potential increase in the need for health care services, including offering access to out-of-network services where appropriate and required, in the event more COVID-19 cases are diagnosed in New York. In addition, DFS is reminding insurers that lifetime or annual limits cannot be placed on in-patient care.
Covering Costs if Immunization Becomes Available: In the event an immunization becomes available for COVID-19, DFS is reminding insurers that they must cover the cost of vaccination for children under 19. For adults, DFS's guidance states that all insurers should be prepared to cover the immunization immediately at no cost-sharing.
Expanding Access to Prescription Drugs: With reports of prescription drug shortages due to supply chain issues, DFS is directing insurers to provide insurance coverage for off-formulary prescription drugs if there is not a formulary drug available to treat the insured, through a formulary exceptions process as required by law.
Ensuring Emergency Care: DFS is reminding insurers that coverage for emergency services in hospital facilities is required at the in-network cost-sharing even if the hospital is out-of-network or overseas, and that no insurer may require a patient to seek preauthorization prior to seeking emergency care, including for ambulance service.
Surprise Medical Bills: DFS is directing insurers that they are required to hold harmless insureds who receive surprise medical bills for health care services, including those related to testing and treatment of COVID-19.
March 03, 2020.
During Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Signs $40 Million Emergency Management Authorization for Coronavirus Response. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/during-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-signs-40-million-emergency-management-authorization
Announces He Will Amend His Paid Sick Leave Budget Proposal to Specifically Protect People Who Stay Home from Work Because They Are Being Isolated or Quarantined as a Result of Novel Coronavirus
SUNY Institutions Will Have Students in Study Abroad Programs in Countries with High Prevalence of Coronavirus Return Home - Will Review All Study Abroad Programs Ahead of Potential Expanded Travel Restrictions by Federal Government
Second Case of Novel Coronavirus Confirmed in New York - a 50-Year-Old Westchester Resident
Cuomo: "While New York's overall risk level remains low, these actions will provide our doctors, hospitals and first responders with the tools they need to ensure the health and safety of all New Yorkers, and to prepare for any possible scenario."
During a novel coronavirus briefing, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed into law a $40 million emergency management authorization for New York State's novel coronavirus response. This appropriation will allow the State to hire additional staff and procure equipment and any other resources necessary to respond to the evolving situation.
The Governor also announced he will amend his Paid Sick Leave budget proposal to specifically protect from termination people who are required to stay home from work because they are being isolated or quarantined as a result of the novel coronavirus.
The Governor also announced SUNY institutions will have students who are in study abroad programs in countries with high prevalence of novel coronavirus come home and will review all study abroad programs ahead of potential expanded travel restrictions by the federal government. SUNY is expected to release guidance later today.
"As the situation with the novel coronavirus continues to evolve, I want the people of New York State to know that their government is doing everything possible to confront and contain it," Governor Cuomo said. "Last week I proposed a $40 million emergency management authorization to ensure New York State has the resources necessary to most effectively respond. Last night, the Legislature voted to pass this measure, and I applaud them for their swift action that demonstrates their appreciation of the complexity of this situation and their commitment to responsive measures. While New York's overall risk level remains low, these actions will provide our doctors, hospitals and first responders with the tools they need to ensure the health and safety of all New Yorkers, and to prepare for any possible scenario."
This morning, Governor Cuomo also said there is a second confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in New York - a 50-year old man in Westchester who is hospitalized and in serious condition.
Yesterday, Governor Cuomo announced the world-renowned Wadsworth Center — the research-intensive public health laboratory housed within the State Department of Health — is partnering with hospitals to expand surge testing capacity to 1,000 tests per day statewide for the novel coronavirus. The Wadsworth Center will provide these hospitals with instructions on how to replicate the State's test, as well as help them purchase some of the equipment necessary to develop and validate the test.
The Governor also announced the state will institute a new cleaning protocol at schools and in the public transportation system to help stop any potential spread of the virus.
These announcements follow the Food and Drug Administration's approval over the weekend for the Wadsworth Center to begin tests for the novel Coronavirus — the first non-CDC test that has been given approval by the FDA. The first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in New York, a woman in her thirties, was done through the State's Wadsworth testing lab.
As the situation with the novel coronavirus continues to evolve, I want the people of New York State to know that their government is doing everything possible to confront and contain it.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
On Saturday, New York State received notification that the FDA approved Wadsworth lab's Emergency Use Application — EUA — request to begin novel coronavirus testing using the test that the State developed and validated at the Wadsworth Center. This test will allow the State to perform testing more rapidly than sending to the CDC and to respond expeditiously when and if there is a positive case to better protect the public health of New Yorkers. Upon receipt of lab specimens, the Wadsworth Center can complete testing within three to five hours.
The Wadsworth Center began testing on Saturday evening. Wadsworth's current testing capacity is as many as 200 tests per day, and the State Department of Health will work to expand capacity through expanded lab hours and the hiring additional staff.
The approval comes at a critical time as the CDC and the DOH have expanded testing criteria to include travel from other countries - specifically Italy, South Korea and Iran - and others without travel history where individuals are hospitalized with respiratory symptoms with no other explanation.
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.
New Yorkers can call the State hotline at 1-888-364-3065, where experts 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 on the novel coronavirus, one featuring State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker and another with general information, that are running statewide in multiple languages.
March 03, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: During Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Signs $40 Million Emergency Management Authorization for Coronavirus Response. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-during-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-signs-40-million
Announces He Will Amend His Paid Sick Leave Budget Proposal to Specifically Protect People Who Stay Home from Work Because They Are Being Isolated or Quarantined as a Result of Novel Coronavirus
SUNY Institutions Will Have Students in Study Abroad Programs in Countries with High Prevalence of Coronavirus Return Home - Will Review All Study Abroad Programs Ahead of Potential Expanded Travel Restrictions by Federal Government
Second Case of Novel Coronavirus Confirmed in New York - A 50-Year-Old Westchester Resident
Governor Cuomo: "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...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."
Governor Cuomo: "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."
Governor Cuomo: "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."
During a novel coronavirus briefing earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law a $40 million emergency management authorization for New York State's novel coronavirus response. This appropriation will allow the State to hire additional staff and procure equipment and any other resources necessary to respond to the evolving situation.
The Governor also announced he will amend his Paid Sick Leave budget proposal to specifically protect from termination people who are required to stay home from work because they are being isolated or quarantined as a result of the novel coronavirus.
The Governor also announced SUNY institutions will have students who are in study abroad programs in countries with high prevalence of novel coronavirus come home and will review all study abroad programs ahead of potential expanded travel restrictions by the federal government. SUNY is expected to release guidance later today.
VIDEO of the Governor's announcement is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's announcement is available here.
PHOTOS of today's announcement will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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.
March 03, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on MSNBC with Chris Jansing https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-msnbc-chris-jansing
Governor Cuomo: "The bottom line realization that 80 percent of the people will self-cure, self-resolve the virus and the target problem, the 1.2 percent mortality, is senior citizens and people who have compromised immune systems. That's what we are focusing on. I think part of the hysteria and fear is people don't believe the information they're getting or they have an overhyped belief of the danger of this virus."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on MSNBC with Chris Jansing to discuss the Coronavirus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Chris Jansing: Joining me, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. So many questions I want to ask you, Governor. This is not the first time the President contradicted his experts, but how often and how closely are you in touch with members of the Coronavirus task force, the CDC, other federal officials and how confident are you in what they're doing right now?
Governor Cuomo: Well, Chris, thanks for having me. I speak to the federal officials, I speak to Vice President Pence, I speak to the HHS personnel, DHS personnel, the whole alphabet soup of personnel. I get my information from medical professionals. I would rather speak with the World Health Organization, CDC, my own health team to make sure we're getting medical information and not political information. And then the way this is actually working is the states are on the ground, and the states have to put together the system that actually addresses this. So I get the best medical information I can, put the politics aside and then we develop a system on the state level to actually address the problem.
Chris Jansing: Give us a sense of what you think New York might be dealing with. And I think when you look at any of these individual states, it gives us a sense of what to expect. I remember you when you had the first case in New York just a couple of days ago, you said it was a deep breath moment. Is there solid scientific projections of what the city and state should expect now that we have two cases? How does a city as big as New York even begin to calculate and notify the people the patients may have come into contact with?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, you're exactly right, Chris. I think part of the issue here is we have been unrealistic in the expectation, right? We have a daily revelation, there's a new case here, new case here, community spread case. I've said from day one, you look at the numbers, you look at the math, we're going to have dozens and dozens and dozens of cases in the State of New York. That's my expectation. Look how many people we had coming back from countries that we now have on the watch list. Literally hundreds, so there will be a lot of cases. I think the public, the calibration is off, the expectation is off. There are going to be many, many cases. Every case you track down to limit the exposure the best you can, testing capacity - we're trying to get our testing capacity up to 1,000 per day to limit it. Hospital capacity for those people that have to be hospitalized.
But also the bottom line realization that 80 percent of the people will self-cure, self-resolve the virus and the target problem, the 1.2 percent mortality, is senior citizens and people who have compromised immune systems. That's what we are focusing on. I think part of the hysteria and fear is people don't believe the information they're getting or they have an overhyped belief of the danger of this virus.
Chris Jansing: So, let me give you a chance to maybe calm some fears and give a reality check. I'm thinking I have been home the last couple days to New York City. Westchester, for people that don't know where this latest patient is from, is just north of Manhattan. Thousands of residents from Westchester come into the city for work every day. Add to that, New York being one of the world's top tourist destinations, and a population density that is enormous; it's larger than 40 of 50 states. What unique challenges does that pose for you as a government and what are you doing working on to deal with it, Governor?
Governor Cuomo: Look, first of all we expect to have a large number of people who test positive for the coronavirus. We expect that. You look at the way the virus is transmitted, look at the experience in China, we expect that. And you're exactly right. You have all these people coming to New York, it's the nature of who we are. So stop this manic obsession on one case, one case, one case. We're going to have dozens and dozens of cases. That's going to happen. Don't be surprised. And then have the testing capacity, track down each case, have the necessary hospitalization capacity, and communicate with people honestly on the facts and reduce the fear factor which is frankly the biggest single issue that we have now. I believe people are more afraid of this than they need to be. It has been politicized. They don't know who to believe. It sounds like coronavirus is a death sentence. I mean we went through Ebola, which is a much more deadly virus than this. And this coronavirus having twice the mortality rate of the regular flu is not good, but this is a manageable situation. That's where we are. We have 15,000 people in hospitals today in New York with the flu. 15,000. So this is going to be a large number of people who are infected by it. They'll go through a period, 80 percent will self-resolve, and we have to be very careful about senior citizen populations, nursing homes, people who are immune compromised or have an underlying illness, especially respiratory illness in the first place. That's where we have to pay attention.
Chris Jansing: So understanding that self-care is a big thing, certainly anybody that's gone into stores in New York judging by pictures on twitter know that New Yorkers and people around the country are heeding those warnings. They're buying anti-bacterial wipes and sprays and so on. I'm sure people are being reminded to wash their hands. But this is so fluid, there's so much we don't know. And you talked about the mortality rate, we have been using a figure around 2 percent as you said, you know, not that much more than for the flu. Now, just in the last hour or so, Governor, the World Health Organization bumped the global rate to 3.4 percent. Is it going to absolutely get worse in terms of that before it gets better, and how confident are you about the medical professionals, whether its testing to the equipment they need, will be ready if and when it escalates?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah. The variable, 2 percent as you said Chris, correctly so, .6 percent is mortality rate for the usual flu. This is about 2 percent. World Health Organization says it can go as high as 3 and change. That's depending on sophistication of the healthcare system of that country. In China they say it was about 2 percent. When China got better at dealing with it, they had better facilities, it went down from 2 percent to 1 and 1.4, 1.5. We have the best healthcare system on the globe in the United States and we have a highly sophisticated healthcare system in New York. If it is 2 percent in China and that went down, CDC said about 1.2, 1.4 percent. And I think that's where we're going to be. It's not great news, it's double the normal flu rate, but it's not as bad as the hysteria would suggest that it is. And that's, as Governor, I'm putting systems in place, the testing, the hospitalization, et cetera. But it's a communication challenge to get people's expectations in line with reality, and we have much more anxiety than this situation actually merits. I think part of it is people don't know who to believe. You have Democrats blaming Republicans for not doing enough. Republicans say Democrats are hyping it. And it's that political filter that says to people, "I don't know who to believe and I don't even know how bad this is." And that's what generates fear, it's the unknown. And it's a damning commentary, frankly, on where we are as a country that people can't even believe the information they're getting from government when it's a public health emergency. And that's a bigger problem, frankly.
Chris Jansing: New York governor Andrew Cuomo, we thank you for spending so much time with us and answering the important questions. We appreciate it.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks. Thank you.
March 03, 2020.
Governor Cuomo: Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN with Brooke Baldwin https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cnn-brooke-baldwin
Governor Cuomo: "We have a Coronavirus epidemic, we have a fear pandemic. The fear factor is way ahead of the facts of dealing with this disease."
"I think that's the real pandemic here, people just don't believe the facts that government is telling them, and that's unfortunate."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CNN with Brooke Baldwin to discuss the novel Coronavirus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Brooke Baldwin: With me now, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Governor, thank you so much for being with me and tell me about this man. Because it is my understanding he has not traveled to any hot spots. He does work in midtown Manhattan. Do you know how he got it?
Governor Cuomo: This is one of those cases Brooke that you can't trace back to a specific source. There is no specific travel to China, etc. So, they call it community spread. But this is also a gentleman who has underlying respiratory illness. And so he is in a target category where it may have a greater effect, right? Because we are really focused on senior citizens and people who have compromised immune systems or some other underlying illness. He is hospitalized. But the reality is - community spread - it is inevitable that you are going to see more and more cases. You have been seeing that all along. You will see dozens and dozens of cases as we go over these next few weeks. And you will see more and more community spread where it is one place removed, where you can't say this person went to China. And that is the natural, mathematical evolution of what we are looking at.
Brooke Baldwin: But how do you track the people that he has come in contact with?
Governor Cuomo: You do the best you can. But, for example, people lead their lives. You know, they go to a party, they meet dozens of people. A child goes to school, he is in contact with dozens of other children. So, you do the best you can, but it is not going to be a precise system obviously. And that is why you are going to see a spread. But I think, if anything Brooke, we have a Coronavirus epidemic, we have a fear pandemic. The fear factor is way ahead of the facts of dealing with this disease. And the fear factor has to be managed as much as the reality of the situation and the fear factor I think is based on the fact that people are so distrustful of government now and it's so hyper-politicized and the Democrats are blaming the Republicans for understating and the Republicans are saying the Democrats are overstating. People don't even know what to believe anymore because if they believe the facts that 80 percent are going to self-resolve, of the other 20 percent some will go to the hospital, and the mortality rate is about 1.2 percent which is double the normal flu rate and that's unfortunate but it's manageable and it can be reduced even from that because we have a better healthcare system. The facts are not frightening. If you believe the facts, and I think that's the real pandemic here, people just don't believe the facts that government is telling them, and that's unfortunate for a much broader set of reasons.
Brooke Baldwin: I know a lot of New Yorkers are hanging on your every word, we live on top of each other, we're on trains, the concern, you say there will be more community spread. Of course the concern is what do you do when you're living in New York City? Just quickly, your advice.
Governor Cuomo: You live your life. Yes, you take extra precautions, hand sanitizer, etcetera, but we have 15,000 people in New York in hospitals today, Brooke. Fifteen thousand, for the flu. That's the normal flu. Are you going to see this virus spread? Yes, and this obsession of one case, one case, new case, new case - you will see dozens and dozens and dozens of cases. That is going to happen. Understand it. Prepare for it. But the underlying reality is we can manage the system. We're doing more testing. We have the hospital beds, and the mortality rate, the lethality of this disease is double the normal flu rate but it is manageable although unfortunate and that's what this is, if people actually believed it. The fear factor is in some ways harder to deal with than the reality.
Brooke Baldwin: Governor Cuomo, thank you. Live your life. Governor, thank you.
Governor Cuomo: Live your life.
March 03, 2020.
Audio and Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is Guest on Let's Get After It with Chris Cuomo https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-and-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-lets-get-after-it-chris-cuomo-0
Governor Cuomo: "Government now, at times of an emergency you see the purest distillation of government. And you are right. People want credibility and trust in the government. They want to know that what the government is saying is true. And second, the government has to perform. It has to be competent. This is about capacity. This is not about concepts. It is not about rhetoric. Either government figures out how to handle this situation and do the test and do the quarantine and get all the health departments unified, or it doesn't. There is no politics to this."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo called into Let's Get After It with Chris Cuomo to discuss the novel Coronavirus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript is available below:
Chris Cuomo: Now, I am doing something that I rarely do today but it is for your benefit. My brother, as you know, is the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. Obviously, I do not cover him because that is ridiculous. He is my best friend so I am not going to cover him. But New York State is a very big testing ground for what is going on with Coronavirus, and he has been very much out in front of it and he has been giving information and it is important. I want to bring him in just to get a feel for how you deal with something like this as a leader in charge of a situation where there are such huge amounts of unknown and such fear. So, the Governor is joining us now. Are you there?
Governor Cuomo: I am here.
Chris Cuomo: Alight, thank you big brother. I appreciate you being with us. So, first thing, just help us understand what you believe the realities are right now at play in your State, and what you know about the situation in the country with Coronavirus.
Governor Cuomo: Okay, first. Did you say that Eastern Time you were going to be on at one o'clock in the morning today?
Chris Cuomo: One A.M., so technically Wednesday morning I will do Super Tuesday coverage.
Governor Cuomo: Okay, I love you but I am going to take a pass then on watching you this evening.
Chris Cuomo: That's okay.
Governor Cuomo: Okay, look. I think in your introduction you made a couple of good points. Government now, at times of an emergency you see the purest distillation of government. And you are right. People want credibility and trust in the government. They want to know that what the government is saying is true. And second, the government has to perform. It has to be competent. This is about capacity. This is not about concepts. It is not about rhetoric. Either government figures out how to handle this situation and do the test and do the quarantine and get all the health departments unified, or it doesn't. There is no politics to this. If anything, the politics confuses it because people want the information. They want to know that it is truthful information. You are at this time in this country where you have political hysteria and it seems like everything comes through a political filter - our news comes through political filters. We self-select our sources of news. But that is repugnant to this moment.
They do not want political spin on Coronavirus. They want to know the facts and they want to know that government can handle it. And that is what - those are my focuses in New York. Get the facts. Not political facts. Talk to the best medical professionals. You mentioned Dr. Tony Fauci. I have been speaking with him, World Health Organization, CDC, my own Health Department here where I have some really great talent. Just get the facts and then find out what people want to know. Not political people, not pundits, what I get from people. You know when I am walking the dog, when you are at a grocery store, when you are at a bake shop. What do people come up and ask when it is unfiltered? And what do they need to know? And I put those two things together, the best medical information with what people need to know.
New York is in many ways at the forefront here of dealing with this in many ways because of our size, our history. We are the international gateway. So, of course we are going to be seeing these things first and we are. Today, we had our first case of what they call community spread. Community spread is when you can't link the case to a proximate or determinative point.
Chris Cuomo: Right, but that is how most things get spread right? If we were just dealing with the Flu, it is all community spread. You do not know where people got it.
Governor Cuomo: That is exactly right.
Chris Cuomo: So, people should not be afraid when they hear community spread.
Governor Cuomo: That is right. Part of what is going on is there is such a hyper focus on each case. It is inevitable that you are going to have a community spread. It is inevitable that you are going to have a high number of cases. Now, we try to track down each one because you want to limit the exposure wherever you can. But you are dealing with all sorts of random variables, right? We had a gentleman today who lives in Westchester, who was working in New York City, no apparent connection to any country. So, yes someone came back from Korea or someone from Italy that he ran into and he ran into, and he got infected. So, you can't track back every case, you do the best you can, but at the same time you're honest with people: Of course there's going to be community spread, of course there's going to be more cases testing positive - that is to be expected. We have this manic focus on each case - Chris, it's going to be dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of cases. That's what is going to happen.
Chris Cuomo: Why do you say "dozens and dozens," and in answering that, how confident are you about the information you've been getting from the federal level about when they knew about this and what they can help with?
Governor Cuomo: Look I talk with everyone - I've spoken to Vice President Pence who's in charge of the task force. There was a conference call yesterday, but I rely on the medical professionals - I am anxious about filters. I don't want filtered information - this is a medical situation. I want pure medical information.
Chris Cuomo: What do you think happens with the politicians?
Governor Cuomo: Well I think part of it is everyone hears it through their own lens, and then you might get their bias. This might have political ramifications - you have an election going on and then you have this major health situation in the middle of it - and by the way, you have political accusations, right? The President's people say, the Democrats are making it worse than it is; the Democrats say the federal government is understating it - and that's toxic right now because you're living your life, your kids are going to school, you want to know what we're looking at and even this situation you have politicized through these two different polar extremes. So I guess - I want to hear from the medical professionals, I want to hear it directly. I speak to them all to see if somebody has something different. World Health Organization has people in China who are dealing with that, and then I convey, I communicate exactly what I hear factually from the medical community.
Chris Cuomo: But how do you figure out what to tell people without freaking them out because they're in the business of even Fauci who - you know just to be open with the audience the Cuomo family has known Fauci for a long time, not just because he's Italian - and the idea that they are in the business not of panic but of worst case scenarios and preparing you for what this could be. How do you figure out how to calibrate what you're told?
Governor Cuomo: I just - I tell it the way I hear it. I do calibrate to the worst case scenario. That's what I prepare for. I take their worst case scenario and I scale up to that scenario. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. But my job is to be able to say to the people of the State of New York - we anticipated the worst case scenario, we fully mobilized our government and we are doing everything we need to do to protect against the worst case scenario to the best you can, and then hopefully the trajectory is less than that. I also, the calibration of expectation - we're in this time period, frankly with the coverage of this situation, "Oh my gosh, there's a new case." Everything breathless. "First community spread." I've been saying this from day one - you are going to see this happen. It is inevitable. It is mathematics by the way. Just look at the number of people who are coming in and going out, look at the transmission rate of this virus, and it's going to happen. And don't be surprised and don't be upset when it does. "Well community spread," of course it's going to happen. I was on with a journalist the other day - I said, "I'll wager you today whatever you want, we have a community spread case in the next several days." It's inevitable, and I think people need to hear that, especially now -
Chris Cuomo: But they're worried about it shutting everything down, that you're going to see all the schools closed, and nobody's going to go to movie theaters and there's going to be a domino effect of nobody traveling, nobody going out, nobody spending money and the economy starts to get hit and then it becomes something that gets remembered for a long time, and people like you remind people of the swine flu, H1N1 rather, and they closed 100 schools for that, and people died and all that but it passed. I guess with this one the x-factor is they don't know if it's seasonal. What's the best information they're giving you on what they think happens when it warms up?
Governor Cuomo: They can't tell you if it's seasonal or not. But let's go back to your point, you're right. We have gone through this before. We went through H1N1. We went through Ebola, which by the way is a much more frightening virus than this. We went through SARS. We've gone through this a number of times. We just dealt with measles in the State of New York. So, we have done this before. There is much more tension and fear around this. I'm not exactly sure why, but what makes people afraid? People get afraid when, A: "I don't believe what I'm being told. I don't believe the information I'm getting. I think these guys are politicizing everything and they're not telling me the truth." Or B: it's the truth and it's incredibly terrible. That's why people are afraid. So, answer A: here are the facts. I stay away from criticizing the President. They try to say all day long, "well you blame this, blame that." I won't go there. I'm just giving you the facts. These are the facts on A. B: well maybe the worst-case scenario is devastating. No, the worst-case scenario 80 percent of the cases will self-resolve, the remaining 20 people will get ill but the mortality rate the CDC says is 1.2. It was 2 percent in China. The average flu is 0.6 percent.
Chris Cuomo: So, it's twice?
Governor Cuomo: It's twice the average flu, but see what the President's point was I think was look, the average flu kills a large number of people. Last year, 34,000 people died from the flu. 34,000.
Chris Cuomo: It does not inspire confidence when he says, "nobody knew that. Nobody knows that the flu -." I have to be honest. It doesn't inspire confidence when everybody in the information business knows that that's true. But to be fair, when I interviewed Fauci last night and he gave me that 80 percent breakdown number, just so you understand at home complete transparency, Fauci says 80 percent will have coronavirus not know it, be asymptomatic and get better, meaning you'll just know that you were sick, you didn't know that you had coronavirus. Then you got that 15 to 20 percent where people have to be hospitalized. Within that number, you get the old and the compromised, and then you start to get your lethality index. So, I listened to Fauci I said, "That's great. Thank you very much for putting that out there. That's really helpful context." My brother texts me and says, "now you believe it. When I told you that three days ago you dismissed it." And I did think at the time you were trying to make me feel better, because I am the panicker. I am the person who panics and believes that this is going to be bad, and there's a case in New York City, and I'm already sick. I'm immunocompromised, and I'm going to be next. So, Andrew gave me these numbers just to keep it in check, and I did not have it register until Fauci said it, but maybe that's proof that we trust the clinicians more than the politicians.
Governor Cuomo: Well, yes. So, it's A and B. And look, I wouldn't call yourself a panicky personality. Let's put a nice word, you are an anxious -
Chris Cuomo: I am anxious.
Governor Cuomo: You're an anxious personality. Look, the conversation we had as brothers, right? Forget journalists, governor, blah, blah, blah. As brothers, this is exactly what I said to you. The problem is people don't the information that their getting and whether or not they can trust it: A. B: the way they make it sound in the newspapers is coronavirus is a death sentence. Neither is true. Yes, it's going to spread. Yes, it's inevitable. That's the comparison to the normal flu virus. You know, 15,000 hospitalizations in New York State. 15,000 people with the flu.
Chris Cuomo: Do you have the capacity for flu and coronavirus? What are you going to do when people start getting sick and they need to be somewhere.
Governor Cuomo: Yes, we do, and we're building that capacity. That's why I track the numbers so carefully, you know, because you want to know what the denominator is. Let's say we stay with the 80 percent, 20 percent, and the 1.4 to 2 percent. The question becomes really a health system management issue. Do you have the capacity to handle the 20 percent of the people who might need hospitalization?
Chris Cuomo: On top of the flu.
Governor Cuomo: On top of the flu. That's a legitimate question that government has to gear up for. Here's the other task for government. Increase your testing capacity because as you're playing detective after each one of these cases, well the person was on the airplane, well, the person went to school the next day. Now you're increasing the universe of people who need to be tested who might be exposed.
Chris Cuomo: And they wouldn't let you test, early on. The federal government, the CDC was playing games with them wanting to process all the tests, which was making you lose time of doing your own detection.
Governor Cuomo: Now see, you just did what I said we should not do.
Chris Cuomo: Well you said you shouldn't do it.
Governor Cuomo: When you said the CDC was, no no. I said, we, collective we.
Chris Cuomo: You said we shouldn't do it. We as the leaders, I'm the journalist, I'm in the business of testing power.
Governor Cuomo: No, CDC. Testing. That was the CDC was playing games? What's your basis for that statement?
Chris Cuomo: I interviewed the commissioner of health for New York State, and he said yes we can test. I said but then why aren't you testing? And he said well the CDC has to give you clearance to test. And I said well have you asked for clearance? And he said yes. And I said have you received the clearance. He said no. I take that as an unnecessary delay.
Governor Cuomo: Well you said, playing games.
Chris Cuomo: That's a game.
Governor Cuomo: What's the game?
Chris Cuomo: Why wouldn't they have said yes, test?
Governor Cuomo: Because the CDC is saying we're doing the testing, the uniformity and conformity of the test is very important and until we're sure the state has a test that is bona fide, we're not going to authorize the state. That could be a very reasonable position.
Chris Cuomo: Bona fide just because it's Latin doesn't make it any more impressive. Who cares if you get some false positives, at least you wind up capturingI'd rather you have more cases and you watch people getting better and going home and maybe they had coronavirus, and maybe only 90 percent of them did, which would be a huge off rate, for most test protocols, but at least we'd know what we're dealing with and you get to see people getting better.
Governor Cuomo: Alright look, I don't want to give you a tough time on your own show. You'll tell Mom, and then Mom will be annoyed at me.
Chris Cuomo: I feel like I'm slapping you around on this right now, to be honest.
Governor Cuomo: Oh you think you are? I'm letting you off easy because I don't want Mom calling me.
Chris Cuomo: I'm just telling you that the board is lighting up right now saying your brother sounds very smart but he should stay away from crossing swords with the master. That's what they call me on the show.
Governor Cuomo: My little brother, baby brother. So much more to learn.
Chris Cuomo: The master. El Rey, sometimes they call me. The king. We both know what they call me. My favorite part is that they call you now that too, which is the only time you started caring about it, by the way.
Governor Cuomo: No, it's when it became just a societal insult, and they raised it to the entire heritage.
Chris Cuomo: Yeah I played that well.
Governor Cuomo: Yes, perfect. Let's get back to this point, though.
Chris Cuomo: Please.
Governor Cuomo: The CDC, I spoke to the Vice President about it, the CDC accelerated the approval where New York State can now test.
Chris Cuomo: Good.
Governor Cuomo: Now, government performance, capacity, we have to increase the testing capacity. When we started, it was about 27 tests per day. We want to get that to 1000 tests per day.
Chris Cuomo: How do you do that?
Governor Cuomo: So we're bringing in private labs, etcetera.
Chris Cuomo: Private labs? What about cost, because I know you're really sensitive to this. And again, it's not because he's my brother. You can go and you can look online about what he's been arguing about this. So people aren't going to have the money for the test, there's a number out there that's it's like three grand, to get tested. So, what can government do, with the companies, to not have somebody priced out of getting tested?
Governor Cuomo: I'm glad you asked. You inadvertently just threw me a softball. But you didn't know that it was a softball when you threw it.
Chris Cuomo: Well, why? I've never said, I mean you know, you haven't done anything yet, so how soft a ball is it?
Governor Cuomo: Oh yes I have, yes I have.
Chris Cuomo: What have you done?
Governor Cuomo: See, once in a while, you should actually read about what I do. I know I'm not a national official and I know I'm not in a presidential race, so that makes me basically irrelevant in life. But I just passed a regulation that said the test must be paid by the insurance company, and no copay, because we need people to take these tests and we don't want to create a financial burden.
Chris Cuomo: What if you don't have insurance?
Governor Cuomo: That's what your big brother did. Then, well, we have, 96 percent of the people in this state have health insurance coverage. 96 percent.
Chris Cuomo: What if you don't?
Governor Cuomo: Great job, Big Brother, thank you very much I appreciate it.
Chris Cuomo: Don't hurt yourself patting yourself on the back.
Governor Cuomo: If you don't, the state will pay.
Chris Cuomo: How does that work, though? So, I come in I don't have insurance. I say I need to be tested, they say do I have insurance, I say no. Now what happens?
Governor Cuomo: You will be tested and the state will pay for the cost in the event you have no insurance because it's a public health risk. I want you tested no just for you, I want you tested because I might see you and I might be exposed to you.
Chris Cuomo: I think that's very smart. How many states is that true in? Is everybody doing that?
Governor Cuomo: I know not everyone is doing it. I know - a little self-serving, arrogant New Yorker - I think we were the first state to do this. But again, we are the tip of the spear on many of these issues because of our position, because of the size, because we have New York City and the density of New York City and you're talking about the spread of a virus. You want to be more careful in dense areas and New York City's one of the densest places in the country, obviously, so we have to figure out these things earlier than most other states.
Chris Cuomo: You know, when it comes to terrorism, when it comes to things that are designed to scare - not that this is, but it will by just its natural circumstances, it will scare people - you say don't stop living your life. Go out, do what you're supposed to do, the message of terrorism is to try to get you to stop doing what we ordinarily do when enjoying our freedoms. This is a little different, right? Because how do you balance wanting people to live life, spend money, you know, work, do all these things with not creating more access to contamination?
Governor Cuomo: That's B. That is, okay let's say you gave me the honest information, A. B, how bad is this going to be? Hey, Chris, if I thought this was going to be terrible, I would tell people to stay home. I would shut down the schools. I would shut down movie theaters. I would say you shouldn't go in place of density. I would say that. I mean, I'm talking about your kids, my kids. That's why I'm here, right?
Chris Cuomo: Should you shut down schools if you have a case in the school like the Westchester guy?
Governor Cuomo: They closed a school this morning on their own because of the fear factor.
Chris Cuomo: Are you all right with that?
Governor Cuomo: I think it was the fear factor because, again, go back to Dr. Fauci's point. Let's say it's a 1.4% mortality. Okay, it's twice the flu. And by the way, they get the 1.4 extrapolating from China which was at 2% and then they reduced the 2%, which even China got it down below 2 when they improved their healthcare system. Our healthcare system is much, much better than the healthcare system in China. In New York, we have one of the best healthcare systems on the globe. So, they're saying 1.4 which is sort of like the extrapolating from the China number. It might even not be 1.4, but even if it's twice the flu - we don't want to lose anyone - but it's a situation that is manageable in the scope of things.
Chris Cuomo: So, let me ask you one more quick thing about coverage. One is employers. You don't have sick days, sorry. If you want to stay home, stay home, but you're not getting paid. That is an emerging concern for people. What can you do about that?
Governor Cuomo: The only thing I find offensive in this discussion is you really are so unformed about what I'm doing. I am proposing a paid sick leave bill, first of all, that would give everyone paid sick leave. If a person is sick, let them stay home.
Chris Cuomo: Is this in general or is it designed for this?
Governor Cuomo: I'm sorry, you interrupted me. That's in general.
Chris Cuomo: Well, you were kind of going on. What about coronavirus, specifically? Because it's happening right now. See, you guys like to do things because you arrive at some idea that this is a good thing to do, but it doesn't always meet up with the current reality. Right now, you have coronavirus. People are afraid to go to work if they feel sick, they don't want to get other people sick, but they may not get paid leave. What can you do now to help people who are in those employment situations? Keyword: now.
Governor Cuomo: See, I purposely let you go on so long to dig and dig and dig and put yourself deeper in the hole. What I have done for now is I have proposed a law where the employer must pay the employee if they are quarantined and must protect the job of the person while they are in quarantine. Boom. Drop the mic.
Chris Cuomo: Good. No, good, good. Look, I think that's really important because people are worried about that.
Governor Cuomo: Alright, jump out of the hole. Come back out.
Chris Cuomo: No, I'm just telling you, that is, I keep hearing from people saying, "Hey, you know, my employer doesn't give me paid sick leave. So what am I going to have to take vacation days?" So I think that that's a good thing for you to address.
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, I heard that because I hear concerns also because I talk to people and I'm almost as quick as you are.
Chris Cuomo: Well, but you're very insulated. And I think people should understand this, very often, when there is any, and this is very rare, but when there is a point of any type of consternation between me and the Governor of New York, usually it's about, well we can settle this right now. He happens to have eight State Troopers that follow him anywhere he goes and it is amazing how confident someone can become about their capabilities to threaten you when they have lots of people with weapons standing around them. So I just want people to understand that this sense of confidence that you have in this conversation is largely a sense of separation from the actual source of the threat.
Governor Cuomo: I understand, I understand, I watch Discovery Channel. I understand how the young lion wants to defeat the old lion. I have always been a better athlete, I have always been stronger than you are. I know it's tough for you to deal with, but it's also the reality. And we're at a point in life where we just have to accept the reality, and that's okay. Because one day I will be gone and then you will be the lion.
Chris Cuomo: God forbid. You're all I have left.
Governor Cuomo: But that's many, many, many years from now.
Chris Cuomo: Well listen, I am not like that. I am all about lifting up. I will share one story about that you have to enjoy your life and you have to have perspective on things. I give you this story, ladies and gentlemen of America and beyond. My brother is my guy. Right? Used to be the triangle of pain, was my father, my brother and I. And I would be the moderator between some epic contests of basketball and other types of creative jousting. Now it's just me and Andrew. So I decide to do him a huge solid. Huge by any metric. He has a boat, he's a great boater, he's taught me everything I know about boating. He got me into fishing, right. So there's this whole legacy thing going on. He has a vessel that he is struggling to control. It's very long, very thin. There's something that every boat this size has called a bow thruster. Very expensive. Very difficult to install. I, as I surprise for him, have it installed so that he can stop smacking his boat all over the place like it was a bumper car. He, upon learning of the bow thruster being installed in the boat, sells it. Now, that is a complete commentary on how this dynamic works. I am the giver, he is the rejecter. Just so you understand.
Governor Cuomo: I cannot believe -
Chris Cuomo: And on that note, I would like to thank the Governor of New York --
Governor Cuomo: No. Let me just say - I can't believe you told that story, first of all. But second of all, it's because I am a connoisseur of my equipment. The vessel -
Chris Cuomo: Does connoisseur mean cheap in this context?
Governor Cuomo: No, no. First of all, don't touch my stuff. That's what it comes down to.
Chris Cuomo: It was a gift.
Governor Cuomo: I purposely - I don't want you altering my stuff. That's what it is.
Chris Cuomo: It was a gift! I improved it. I improved what you had.
Governor Cuomo: We'll continue this conversation later, in private.
Chris Cuomo: Listen, Andrew, Governor Cuomo is on top of this. It's important. His state matters. It is going to be symbolic for what's happening around the country. It's important to know that our leaders are on it. Brother or not, I'm proud of what he's doing in the state with this. We need to get out in front of it and be early and be confident about it so that people don't fall prey to panic. And I love you and I appreciate you talking to me about this today. I know you're very busy.
Governor Cuomo: My pleasure. I'm proud of you my brother. Thank you.
Chris Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm just trying to be like you, except for the boat thing cause I believe in safe navigation.
Governor Cuomo: Yeah or the basketball thing or the superior athletic ability that I possess.
Chris Cuomo: I seethat you are laboring under some type of virus. Not Coronavirus, but it is attacking your frontal cortex.
Governor Cuomo: It's just delusion.Accept reality.
Chris Cuomo: Alright have a nice time. Here's the one thing -
Governor Cuomo: Facts matter.
Chris Cuomo: Good luck to you. Good luck to you going forward and leading the state. Here's the nice thing ladies and gentlemen, it's my show. It ends when I say it ends.
Governor Cuomo: BOLO. Be on the lookout, we'll be coming for you.
Chris Cuomo: Please hang up on the Governor. Please. Please hang up on the Governor.
March 04, 2020.
At Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces SUNY and CUNY Study Abroad Programs in China, Italy, Japan, Iran, South Korea Suspended Effective Immediately in Response to Novel Coronavirus Concerns. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-suny-and-cuny-study-abroad-programs-china-italy
SUNY and CUNY Arranging Immediate Return Travel for Approximately 300 Students
Individuals Returning from Impacted Countries Will Fly into New York Stewart International Airport and Urge Quarantine at Designated Dormitories
Campus-Sponsored Travel Outside the U.S. for both SUNY and CUNY Canceled for Spring Semester to Impacted Countries
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the State University of New York's and the City University of New York's study abroad programs in China, Italy, Japan, Iran and South Korea have been suspended effective immediately in response to concerns over novel coronavirus - or COVID-19. The decision was made based on recommendations from the New York State Department of Health. SUNY and CUNY are making arrangements to bring back all non-essential students, faculty and staff currently studying or working in those countries and begin 14-day quarantine. All five countries have either been issued a Level 2 or Level 3 travel notice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"As we continue to see a rise in cases of novel coronavirus around the world, we are taking every precaution necessary and mobilizing our public health system to protect New Yorkers," Governor Cuomo said. "Out of an abundance of caution, SUNY and CUNY study abroad programs in the highest impacted countries will be suspended effective immediately and all students and staff will return to New York and begin a 14-day quarantine. It's important that facts outweigh fear, and the reality is we are getting the testing done, getting the information out and deploying healthcare resources to treat people who need it, so I am reminding New Yorkers that there is no reason for undue anxiety and the general risk remains low in New York."
SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson said, "With close coordination with the New York Department of Health and the safety and health of our students, faculty and staff overseas in mind, we are suspending study abroad programs in impacted countries and have directed our SUNY family to return home. We will provide students with financial and academic resources and work to minimize any disruption today's action may cause, while we work aggressively with all our partners at the local, state and federal level to protect our entire campus communities."
CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez said, "We appreciate Governor Cuomo's leadership and coordination in helping us to ensure the health, safety and welfare of our students who are currently enrolled in study abroad programs in countries that have been most severely impacted by this emerging public health threat. Out of an abundance of caution, we urge our students to accept this invitation to return now, to avoid later complications should circumstances change. We are committed to safeguarding CUNY's campuses and students, and to ensuring that all students may fulfill their course requirements for the semester without additional financial or academic obstacles."
It's important that facts outweigh fear, and the reality is we are getting the testing done, getting the information out and deploying healthcare resources to treat people who need it.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
For SUNY and CUNY students in impacted countries who have yet to return to the U.S., SUNY is currently arranging chartered flights from South Korea, Italy and Japan to New York Stewart International Airport in the coming days. Upon arrival and in accordance with DOH guidelines, local and state health representatives will screen passengers and SUNY will arrange transportation to designated SUNY campus dormitories to begin 14-day quarantines. SUNY and CUNY will then work closely with campuses, the DOH, and local health departments to provide medical monitoring, remote course study, and various resources to help individuals during the quarantine period.
Out of an abundance of caution, SUNY and CUNY have cancelled campus-sponsored travel outside of the United States to impacted countries for the spring semester. SUNY and CUNY will continue to review CDC guidance and work closely with DOH to make additional determinations on continuing or cancelling upcoming travel at all other campus sponsored international locations.
About The State University of New York
The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, and more than 95 percent of all New Yorkers live within 30 miles of any one of SUNY's 64 colleges and universities. As of Fall 2019, more than 415,500 students were enrolled in a degree program at a SUNY campus. In total, SUNY serves throughout the year about 1.4 million students in credit-bearing courses and programs, continuing education, and community outreach programs. SUNY oversees nearly a quarter of academic research in New York. Research expenditures system-wide exceeded $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2019, including significant contributions from students and faculty. There are three million SUNY alumni worldwide, and one in three New Yorkers with a college degree is a SUNY alum. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu.
About The City University of New York
The City University of New York is the nation's largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation's first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges and seven graduate or professional institutions spread across New York City's five boroughs, serving 500,000 students and awarding 55,000 degrees each year. CUNY's mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined. More than 80 percent of the University's graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city's economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city's workforce in every sector. CUNY's graduates and faculty have received many prestigious honors, including 13 Nobel Prizes and 26 MacArthur "Genius" Grants. The University's historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background.
March 04, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces SUNY and CUNY Study Abroad Programs in China, Italy, Japan, Iran, South Korea Suspended Effective Immediately in Response to Novel Coronavirus Concerns. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-suny-and-cuny
SUNY and CUNY Arranging Immediate Return Travel for Approximately 300 Students
Individuals Returning from Impacted Countries Will Fly into New York Stewart International Airport and Urge Quarantine at Designated Dormitories
Campus-Sponsored Travel Outside the U.S. for both SUNY and CUNY Canceled for Spring Semester to Impacted Countries
Governor Cuomo: "We're going to recall SUNY and CUNY students from study abroad programs in five countries - China, Italy, Japan, Iran, South Korea - those are countries that have been on the quote-unquote watch list, recall list the federal government has set. The students will come back on a chartered plane which will land at Stewart Airport - they will then be quarantined for 14 days in dormitory settings."
Governor Cuomo: "There is no reason to be frightened by these facts. Remember the context. You have to take a step back. There are going to be many, many people who test positive. By definition, the more you test, the more people you will find who test positive... Luckily here in New York we have one of the best health care systems on the globe, period."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that the State University of New York's and the City University of New York's study abroad programs in China, Italy, Japan, Iran and South Korea have been suspended effective immediately in response to concerns over novel coronavirus - or COVID-19. The decision was made based on recommendations from the New York State Department of Health. SUNY and CUNY are making arrangements to bring back all non-essential students, faculty and staff currently studying or working in those countries and begin 14-day quarantine. All five countries have either been issued a Level 2 or Level 3 travel notice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
VIDEO of the Governor's announcement is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's announcement is available here.
PHOTOS of today's announcement will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
We have some good news, we have some bad news. Gubernatorial preference, I will start with the good news.
The good news is we have a number of tests that have come back, Coronavirus tests. The tests for the people in Buffalo came back negative. The tests for the people in Oneida came back negative. We tested someone in Suffolk, that came back negative. And the husband of the healthcare worker who traveled to Iran came back negative. I actually wagered the other way. So that is the good news.
The not-so-good news is the case in Westchester, which is a fifty year old attorney who tested positive, his wife his wife has also tested positive, his 20 year old son has also tested positive, his daughter has also tested positive, and his neighbor who drove him to the hospital also tested positive.
The son is 20 years old and attends Yeshiva University. The daughter is 14 years old and is in the SAR school. And the neighbor is not just a neighbor, but actually drove the attorney to the hospital and therefore was in the car with the attorney in that closed environment - and the neighbor tested positive.
That then triggers the detective work where we go back and we try to make as many connections as possible. And do as much research and investigation as possible. And then notify people, right? Whenever you find a case it is about containment and doing the best you can to keep the circle as tight as possible. The head of Yeshiva University - I spoke to this morning - the school that the son attends will be closed for today. The SAR school is also closed for today. We're going to meet in Westchester this afternoon at noon with the heads of the school and the county and the local health officials to get some more facts and start to track back to the best we can.
I also want to announce we're going to recall SUNY and CUNY students from study abroad programs in five countries - China, Italy, Japan, Iran, South Korea - those are countries that have been on the quote-unquote watch list, recall list the federal government has set. The students will come back on a chartered plane which will land at Stewart Airport - they will then be quarantined for 14 days in dormitory settings. We'll then stay in touch with them after the 14 days and do follow-up work. On all of this, the context is what is most important and we have an epidemic caused by Coronavirus but we have a pandemic that is caused by fear. Now what causes fear? Two things: People get afraid when they think they don't have the right information or they don't trust the information they're getting. Or the information they're getting is so frightening that they have the normal reaction. I think in this case, people are suspect about what they're hearing because government now is so polarized in so many ways. The environment is so political that you hear different messages about the situation and then it gets politicized. The Democrats say the Republicans are trying to minimize it. The Republicans say the Democrats are hyping it. So I think it's very important here in New York that I provide the factual information to people so they know these are just the facts.
Second point is, once you accept the facts, there is no reason to be frightened by these facts. Remember the context. You have to take a step back. There are going to be many, many people who test positive. By definition, the more you test, the more people you will find who test positive. If you went out and started conducting tests for the flu virus, you would find more people who have the flu virus. Who are walking around and didn't know that they had it. Then you start testing, you're going to see the number go up. We know what this coronavirus is. We've gone through it in China, they're going through it in other countries. We know what it is. It is easily transmitted, but 80% of the people who get the virus will self-resolve. The other 20% may be medically ill and even require hospitalization, in which case we have that capacity. And the lethality rate, according to the CDC, is 1.4 percent, compared to .6 percent for the normal flu. And again these are just estimates, sometimes the .6 is a little higher, a little lower, sometimes the 1.4 is a little higher, a little lower, 1.2. But it's roughly double the flu rate and the people who we are most concerned about who are most vulnerable are senior citizens, people with immune-compromised situations, those are the people who are most vulnerable. But we're worried about nursing home settings, senior care settings, that's what we've seen in other places and that's where the situation is most problematic. And if you look at what's even happening here in New York, it confirms that.
The 39-year-old healthcare worker who came back from Iran who tested positive, she is at home, has not been hospitalized and she's getting better. Her husband, who didn't turn out testing positive, he is getting better. The 50-year-old attorney in Westchester, he had an underlying respiratory illness, so he is in the category of people who we worry about in this situation. But, those are the facts, and if you understand the facts there is no reason for undue anxiety. We're now in this loop where, "Well we're testing one person, two people, three." There are going to be dozens and dozens and dozens of people, and the more people you test the most people you're going to find.
So that is the situation and let's just keep that in mind. And when you ask the CDC what's the variable on how many people this virus is truly dangerous for they say it depends on how the healthcare system operates. China was close to 2 percent but China did not have an existing, state of the art health care system compared to the United States. When China started to do better it dropped from 2 percent down closer to 1 percent. So the level of health care and the quality of health care is very important. Luckily here in New York we have one of the best health care systems on the globe, period. And we are doing everything humanely possible to improve even on that.
March 04, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Coronavirus Briefing in Westchester County, Governor Cuomo Provides Update and Outlines Protocols to Minimize Potential Spread of Positive Cases in the Area. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-coronavirus-briefing-westchester-county-governor-cuomo
Yeshiva University and SAR Schools Will Be Closed Through This Friday
Governor Cuomo: "What we have decided just now to come up with a protocol going forward. Lawrence Hospital which is a hospital that the attorney first went to before being recommended to go to the city, the Lawrence Hospital has eight employees that are currently being tested. The SAR high school will be closed and people who had contact with the individual should be on what we call self-quarantine."
"The SAR elementary school will be closed through Friday and those individuals do not have to self-quarantine because it was less of a risk exposure. Yeshiva University will be closed through this Friday and we'll be gathering some additional information and doing some additional investigation."
"We're dealing with a Coronavirus epidemic. We have a bigger problem, which is a fear pandemic. And the anxiety here is outpacing the reality of the situation."
During a Coronavirus briefing earlier today in Westchester County, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo provided an update on the spread of Coronavirus in Westchester and outlined protocols to minimize the spread of positive cases in the area.
VIDEO of the Governor's announcement is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's announcement is available here.
PHOTOS of today's announcement will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
Okay, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us. We just went and had a very good meeting with many of the interests and individuals who are involved in this current situation that we are dealing with. And I want to thank the County Executive for his great work and his partnership in this.
I will give you a brief overview of what we discussed then I will turn it over to the County Executive for comments and we will take your questions.
We have good news and bad news in the State today. We have done a number of Coronavirus tests and the good news was the tests that came from Buffalo came back negative. The tests that came from Oneida County came back negative. The tests that came from Suffolk County came back negative. The husband of the healthcare worker who came back from Iran actually came back negative. So, that was surprising to me
The less than good news is that we know we have a Westchester resident, a fifty year old attorney who lives in Westchester and practices law in Manhattan, who had tested positive. It also turns out that his wife has tested positive. His son has tested positive and the daughter and the neighbor have tested positive. The neighbor drove the attorney to the doctor's office. So they were in a car, it was an enclosed place and that is probably where the infection began.
Once you have a situation like this. Then the investigation starts because you are trying to find as many people as you can who might have come in contact to try to limit the exposure and contain the exposure. It is an imperfect science especially in a situation like this one where you have a person who may have contacted so many people. So, you do the best you can. Again, trying to contain, trying to contain. Let's start with the 50-year-old attorney working at a law firm in Manhattan. We're testing a number of people in that law firm. Some of the test are pending but nobody has come back positive yet. The son is 20 years old, is an undergraduate at Yeshiva University and we discussed that matter at great length and I'll discuss that in a moment. The daughter is 14 years old and attends the SAR school and we discussed that matter. The neighbor's children are being tested as we speak to see if the neighbor gave it to his children.
What we have decided just now to come up with a protocol going forward. Lawrence Hospital which is a hospital that the attorney first went to before being recommended to go to the city, the Lawrence Hospital has eight employees that are currently being tested. The SAR high school will be closed and people who had contact with the individual should be on what we call self-quarantine. Self-quarantine is basically stay in your home, limit the exposure to the number of people that you might come in contact with and do that through Friday, this Friday. If any symptoms develop then those individuals should contact a health care professional.
The synagogue will be closed through March 8 and those individuals should also be on self-quarantine depending on whether or not something develops that might be revisited but that is the position now. The SAR elementary school will be closed through Friday and those individuals do not have to self-quarantine because it was less of a risk exposure. Yeshiva University will be closed through this Friday and we'll be gathering some additional information and doing some additional investigation. And then we'll make a decision on Friday about Yeshiva University.
So, we feel comfortable that that is an intelligent plan going forward. It tries to minimize the imposition on people while protecting public health, and I think that is an intelligent resolution. And again we will revisit this as we get more information because we're doing testing all the time. If a test comes back positive we might modify the plan, if a test comes back negative you might modify a plan.
A little context that we really didn't get a chance to speak to upstairs but that I think is important - we're dealing with a Coronavirus epidemic. We have a bigger problem, which is a fear pandemic. And the anxiety here is outpacing the reality of the situation. Now, why do people get frightening in general? People get frightened when one of two things happen. Either I'm not receiving information or I don't trust the information I'm receiving, or the information is very frightening. In this case, the information is not very frightening, the facts are not very frightening. This is a virus that spreads much like the flu virus. Roughly 80 percent of the people who get the Coronavirus will self-resolve, meaning they'll have it, they'll be walking around with it, they may have some symptoms, but they will self-resolve. Twenty percent may have a medical issue where they have to stay at home, where they may have to be hospitalized. And the people at greatest risk are senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems or people with an underlying illness. That is our focus.
This situation in a nursing home is highly problematic. This situation in a senior citizens' center is highly problematic, and if you look at what we've dealt with in New York, it bears it out. The 39-year-old healthcare worker who came from Iran and tested positive - she never went to a hospital. She's been at home. She's had mild symptoms and she's getting better. Her husband never even tested positive, and he's getting better. The son and the daughter of the family we're speaking about today - they're at home. None of these people are hospitalized, save one, which is the 50-year-old attorney who had an underlying respiratory illness, and this is a respiratory disease. Which makes the point that the target group, the vulnerable group. Seniors, immune-compromised, underlying illness, especially an underlying respiratory illness. And even that individual who was hospitalized is in stable condition.
So those are the facts of the situation - we're now in this daily mania. One case, new case, positive, negative. The more you test, the more positive cases you will find. So we are creating - we are in a cycle - we are actually creating knowledge of more positives because we are testing for more positives. If you went out today and tested for the normal flu - you would find thousands of people positive with the flu. We have 15,000 people in the hospital today with the flu. So, perspective and context here is very, very important. Why are we working so hard to contain it? Because it is a dangerous situation, and if you are in that vulnerable situation that vulnerable category, it is problematic, and that's why we're doing everything we can. But again, context, perspective - I know we're all New Yorkers, and I know we tend to get anxious, and I also know that people have received mixed messages on this, and I think that's part of the problem. Federal government says one thing, then you have this political debate. This one says it's underestimated, this one says it's overestimated. I think that has caused an uncertainty where people don't know what to believe. Just the facts ma'am, as they used to say. Just give me the facts. Let me understand what I'm dealing with and make an intelligent decision, and that's what we're trying to do.
I thank very much our colleagues who are here today. Anyone who does believe they're in close contact, is symptomatic, they should go to a healthcare professional. The county is going to notify the healthcare professionals that if they forward that person for testing what facilities can do that testing, what hospital facilities can do that testing. And the healthcare professional has to contact those facilities prior to referring the person because the healthcare facility also has to take certain precautions so that when the person comes in for the testing, they're not inadvertently exposing other people if, in fact, they do wind up testing positive.
The county government has done a great job coordinating all of this. This is one of the more complicated situations that we've come across because of the number of interconnections that this family has presented. And the county has done just a great job, no surprise, because George Latimer is one of the really great ones. He's been a colleague of mine for a long time. He abandoned me in Albany, he used to be in Albany. He fled Albany. I'm a little jealous. But he's doing a fantastic job. I'm glad he's here. County Executive George Latimer.
March 04, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Coronavirus Briefing in Westchester County, Governor Cuomo Provides Update and Outlines Protocols to Minimize Potential Spread of Positive Cases in the Area. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-coronavirus-briefing-westchester-county-governor-cuomo
Yeshiva University and SAR Schools Will Be Closed Through This Friday
Governor Cuomo: "What we have decided just now to come up with a protocol going forward. Lawrence Hospital which is a hospital that the attorney first went to before being recommended to go to the city, the Lawrence Hospital has eight employees that are currently being tested. The SAR high school will be closed and people who had contact with the individual should be on what we call self-quarantine."
"The SAR elementary school will be closed through Friday and those individuals do not have to self-quarantine because it was less of a risk exposure. Yeshiva University will be closed through this Friday and we'll be gathering some additional information and doing some additional investigation."
"We're dealing with a Coronavirus epidemic. We have a bigger problem, which is a fear pandemic. And the anxiety here is outpacing the reality of the situation."
During a Coronavirus briefing earlier today in Westchester County, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo provided an update on the spread of Coronavirus in Westchester and outlined protocols to minimize the spread of positive cases in the area.
VIDEO of the Governor's announcement is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's announcement is available here.
PHOTOS of today's announcement will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
Okay, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us. We just went and had a very good meeting with many of the interests and individuals who are involved in this current situation that we are dealing with. And I want to thank the County Executive for his great work and his partnership in this.
I will give you a brief overview of what we discussed then I will turn it over to the County Executive for comments and we will take your questions.
We have good news and bad news in the State today. We have done a number of Coronavirus tests and the good news was the tests that came from Buffalo came back negative. The tests that came from Oneida County came back negative. The tests that came from Suffolk County came back negative. The husband of the healthcare worker who came back from Iran actually came back negative. So, that was surprising to me
The less than good news is that we know we have a Westchester resident, a fifty year old attorney who lives in Westchester and practices law in Manhattan, who had tested positive. It also turns out that his wife has tested positive. His son has tested positive and the daughter and the neighbor have tested positive. The neighbor drove the attorney to the doctor's office. So they were in a car, it was an enclosed place and that is probably where the infection began.
Once you have a situation like this. Then the investigation starts because you are trying to find as many people as you can who might have come in contact to try to limit the exposure and contain the exposure. It is an imperfect science especially in a situation like this one where you have a person who may have contacted so many people. So, you do the best you can. Again, trying to contain, trying to contain. Let's start with the 50-year-old attorney working at a law firm in Manhattan. We're testing a number of people in that law firm. Some of the test are pending but nobody has come back positive yet. The son is 20 years old, is an undergraduate at Yeshiva University and we discussed that matter at great length and I'll discuss that in a moment. The daughter is 14 years old and attends the SAR school and we discussed that matter. The neighbor's children are being tested as we speak to see if the neighbor gave it to his children.
What we have decided just now to come up with a protocol going forward. Lawrence Hospital which is a hospital that the attorney first went to before being recommended to go to the city, the Lawrence Hospital has eight employees that are currently being tested. The SAR high school will be closed and people who had contact with the individual should be on what we call self-quarantine. Self-quarantine is basically stay in your home, limit the exposure to the number of people that you might come in contact with and do that through Friday, this Friday. If any symptoms develop then those individuals should contact a health care professional.
The synagogue will be closed through March 8 and those individuals should also be on self-quarantine depending on whether or not something develops that might be revisited but that is the position now. The SAR elementary school will be closed through Friday and those individuals do not have to self-quarantine because it was less of a risk exposure. Yeshiva University will be closed through this Friday and we'll be gathering some additional information and doing some additional investigation. And then we'll make a decision on Friday about Yeshiva University.
So, we feel comfortable that that is an intelligent plan going forward. It tries to minimize the imposition on people while protecting public health, and I think that is an intelligent resolution. And again we will revisit this as we get more information because we're doing testing all the time. If a test comes back positive we might modify the plan, if a test comes back negative you might modify a plan.
A little context that we really didn't get a chance to speak to upstairs but that I think is important - we're dealing with a Coronavirus epidemic. We have a bigger problem, which is a fear pandemic. And the anxiety here is outpacing the reality of the situation. Now, why do people get frightening in general? People get frightened when one of two things happen. Either I'm not receiving information or I don't trust the information I'm receiving, or the information is very frightening. In this case, the information is not very frightening, the facts are not very frightening. This is a virus that spreads much like the flu virus. Roughly 80 percent of the people who get the Coronavirus will self-resolve, meaning they'll have it, they'll be walking around with it, they may have some symptoms, but they will self-resolve. Twenty percent may have a medical issue where they have to stay at home, where they may have to be hospitalized. And the people at greatest risk are senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems or people with an underlying illness. That is our focus.
This situation in a nursing home is highly problematic. This situation in a senior citizens' center is highly problematic, and if you look at what we've dealt with in New York, it bears it out. The 39-year-old healthcare worker who came from Iran and tested positive - she never went to a hospital. She's been at home. She's had mild symptoms and she's getting better. Her husband never even tested positive, and he's getting better. The son and the daughter of the family we're speaking about today - they're at home. None of these people are hospitalized, save one, which is the 50-year-old attorney who had an underlying respiratory illness, and this is a respiratory disease. Which makes the point that the target group, the vulnerable group. Seniors, immune-compromised, underlying illness, especially an underlying respiratory illness. And even that individual who was hospitalized is in stable condition.
So those are the facts of the situation - we're now in this daily mania. One case, new case, positive, negative. The more you test, the more positive cases you will find. So we are creating - we are in a cycle - we are actually creating knowledge of more positives because we are testing for more positives. If you went out today and tested for the normal flu - you would find thousands of people positive with the flu. We have 15,000 people in the hospital today with the flu. So, perspective and context here is very, very important. Why are we working so hard to contain it? Because it is a dangerous situation, and if you are in that vulnerable situation that vulnerable category, it is problematic, and that's why we're doing everything we can. But again, context, perspective - I know we're all New Yorkers, and I know we tend to get anxious, and I also know that people have received mixed messages on this, and I think that's part of the problem. Federal government says one thing, then you have this political debate. This one says it's underestimated, this one says it's overestimated. I think that has caused an uncertainty where people don't know what to believe. Just the facts ma'am, as they used to say. Just give me the facts. Let me understand what I'm dealing with and make an intelligent decision, and that's what we're trying to do.
I thank very much our colleagues who are here today. Anyone who does believe they're in close contact, is symptomatic, they should go to a healthcare professional. The county is going to notify the healthcare professionals that if they forward that person for testing what facilities can do that testing, what hospital facilities can do that testing. And the healthcare professional has to contact those facilities prior to referring the person because the healthcare facility also has to take certain precautions so that when the person comes in for the testing, they're not inadvertently exposing other people if, in fact, they do wind up testing positive.
The county government has done a great job coordinating all of this. This is one of the more complicated situations that we've come across because of the number of interconnections that this family has presented. And the county has done just a great job, no surprise, because George Latimer is one of the really great ones. He's been a colleague of mine for a long time. He abandoned me in Albany, he used to be in Albany. He fled Albany. I'm a little jealous. But he's doing a fantastic job. I'm glad he's here. County Executive George Latimer.
March 04, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Confirms 4 New Cases of Coronavirus in Westchester County; Tests in Buffalo, Onieda and Suffolk Counties Come Back Negative. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-confirms-4-new-cases-coronavirus-westchester
Governor Cuomo: "We have an epidemic caused by Coronavirus but we have a pandemic that is caused by fear. Now what causes fear? Two things: People get afraid when they think they don't have the right information or they don't trust the information they're getting. Or the information they're getting is so frightening that they have the normal reaction. I think in this case, people are suspect about what they're hearing because government now is so polarized in so many ways. The environment is so political that you hear different messages about the situation and then it gets politicized. The Democrats say the Republicans are trying to minimize it. The Republicans say the Democrats are hyping it. So I think it's very important here in New York that I provide the factual information to people so they know these are just the facts."
SUNY and CUNY Arranging Immediate Return Travel for Approximately 300 Students
Individuals Returning from Impacted Countries Will Fly into New York Stewart International Airport and Urge Quarantine at Designated Dormitories
Campus-Sponsored Travel Outside the U.S. for both SUNY and CUNY Canceled for Spring Semester to Impacted Countries
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that yesterday more individuals in Westchester County have tested positive for Coronavirus. Individuals in Buffalo, Oneida and Suffolk Counties tested negative for the virus.
The Governor also announced that the State University of New York's and the City University of New York's study abroad programs in China, Italy, Japan, Iran and South Korea have been suspended effective immediately in response to concerns over novel coronavirus - or COVID-19. The decision was made based on recommendations from the New York State Department of Health. SUNY and CUNY are making arrangements to bring back all non-essential students, faculty and staff currently studying or working in those countries and begin 14-day quarantine. All five countries have either been issued a Level 2 or Level 3 travel notice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
VIDEO of the Governor's announcement is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's announcement is available here.
PHOTOS of today's announcement will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
We have some good news, we have some bad news. Gubernatorial preference, I will start with the good news.
The good news is we have a number of tests that have come back, Coronavirus tests. The tests for the people in Buffalo came back negative. The tests for the people in Oneida came back negative. We tested someone in Suffolk, that came back negative. And the husband of the healthcare worker who traveled to Iran came back negative. I actually wagered the other way. So that is the good news.
The not-so-good news is the case in Westchester, which is a fifty year old attorney who tested positive, his wife his wife has also tested positive, his 20 year old son has also tested positive, his daughter has also tested positive, and his neighbor who drove him to the hospital also tested positive.
The son is 20 years old and attends Yeshiva University. The daughter is 14 years old and is in the SAR school. And the neighbor is not just a neighbor, but actually drove the attorney to the hospital and therefore was in the car with the attorney in that closed environment - and the neighbor tested positive.
That then triggers the detective work where we go back and we try to make as many connections as possible. And do as much research and investigation as possible. And then notify people, right? Whenever you find a case it is about containment and doing the best you can to keep the circle as tight as possible. The head of Yeshiva University - I spoke to this morning - the school that the son attends will be closed for today. The SAR school is also closed for today. We're going to meet in Westchester this afternoon at noon with the heads of the school and the county and the local health officials to get some more facts and start to track back to the best we can.
I also want to announce we're going to recall SUNY and CUNY students from study abroad programs in five countries - China, Italy, Japan, Iran, South Korea - those are countries that have been on the quote-unquote watch list, recall list the federal government has set. The students will come back on a chartered plane which will land at Stewart Airport - they will then be quarantined for 14 days in dormitory settings. We'll then stay in touch with them after the 14 days and do follow-up work. On all of this, the context is what is most important and we have an epidemic caused by Coronavirus but we have a pandemic that is caused by fear. Now what causes fear? Two things: People get afraid when they think they don't have the right information or they don't trust the information they're getting. Or the information they're getting is so frightening that they have the normal reaction. I think in this case, people are suspect about what they're hearing because government now is so polarized in so many ways. The environment is so political that you hear different messages about the situation and then it gets politicized. The Democrats say the Republicans are trying to minimize it. The Republicans say the Democrats are hyping it. So I think it's very important here in New York that I provide the factual information to people so they know these are just the facts.
Second point is, once you accept the facts, there is no reason to be frightened by these facts. Remember the context. You have to take a step back. There are going to be many, many people who test positive. By definition, the more you test, the more people you will find who test positive. If you went out and started conducting tests for the flu virus, you would find more people who have the flu virus. Who are walking around and didn't know that they had it. Then you start testing, you're going to see the number go up. We know what this coronavirus is. We've gone through it in China, they're going through it in other countries. We know what it is. It is easily transmitted, but 80% of the people who get the virus will self-resolve. The other 20% may be medically ill and even require hospitalization, in which case we have that capacity. And the lethality rate, according to the CDC, is 1.4 percent, compared to .6 percent for the normal flu. And again these are just estimates, sometimes the .6 is a little higher, a little lower, sometimes the 1.4 is a little higher, a little lower, 1.2. But it's roughly double the flu rate and the people who we are most concerned about who are most vulnerable are senior citizens, people with immune-compromised situations, those are the people who are most vulnerable. But we're worried about nursing home settings, senior care settings, that's what we've seen in other places and that's where the situation is most problematic. And if you look at what's even happening here in New York, it confirms that.
The 39-year-old healthcare worker who came back from Iran who tested positive, she is at home, has not been hospitalized and she's getting better. Her husband, who didn't turn out testing positive, he is getting better. The 50-year-old attorney in Westchester, he had an underlying respiratory illness, so he is in the category of people who we worry about in this situation. But, those are the facts, and if you understand the facts there is no reason for undue anxiety. We're now in this loop where, "Well we're testing one person, two people, three." There are going to be dozens and dozens and dozens of people, and the more people you test the most people you're going to find.
So that is the situation and let's just keep that in mind. And when you ask the CDC what's the variable on how many people this virus is truly dangerous for they say it depends on how the healthcare system operates. China was close to 2 percent but China did not have an existing, state of the art health care system compared to the United States. When China started to do better it dropped from 2 percent down closer to 1 percent. So the level of health care and the quality of health care is very important. Luckily here in New York we have one of the best health care systems on the globe, period. And we are doing everything humanely possible to improve even on that.
March 04, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Confirms 5 Additional Cases of Coronavirus in Westchester County, Bringing Statewide Total to 11. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-confirms-5-additional-cases-coronavirus.
Governor Cuomo: "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."
"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."
"The synagogue is going to be closed until March 8th, 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."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo delivered an update on the Coronavirus-related quarantine in Westchester County.
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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.
March 05, 2020.
At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Confirms 11 Additional Cases - Bringing New York State Total to 22. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-confirms-11-additional-cases-bringing-new-york-state.
Currently 1 Case in Nassau County, 18 in Westchester County, and 3 in NYC
Opens Statewide Emergency Operation Center in Albany as well as 2 Emergency Operations Center Outposts in Westchester County - 1 in Hawthorne and 1 in New Rochelle
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today confirmed 11 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the total to 22 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 22 individuals who tested positive for the virus, one resides in Nassau County, three reside in New York City and 18 reside in Westchester County. In response to the growing number of cases, the Governor activated the statewide Emergency Operation Center in Albany, as well as two Emergency Operations Center outposts in Westchester County: one in Hawthorne and one in New Rochelle.
"New Yorkers should focus on facts not fear as we confront this evolving situation, and the facts do not merit the level of anxiety we are seeing," Governor Cuomo said. "The number of cases will increase because it's math - the more you test, the more cases you find. We are testing more people, we are isolating anyone who may have come into contact with the virus, and we are getting people care if they need it."
Emergency Operations Centers
The Governor has activated the statewide Emergency Operation Center - or EOC - in Albany, as well as two Emergency Operations Centers in Westchester County: one in Hawthorne and one in New Rochelle. The EOC and EOC outposts serve as a central command center, where Office of Emergency Management and Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services personnel can coordinate with Department of Health experts to more closely monitor and respond to the outbreak, provide real-time communications updates and coordinate response efforts with other agencies. The EOC and EOC outposts will remain operational until this outbreak subsides.
Additionally, the State is continuing to monitor the situation in Nassau County and elsewhere and will bring an EOC operation outpost anywhere it's needed when the situation calls for it.
More information on New York State's response to COVID-19 is available here: https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/communicable/coronavirus/.
March 05, 2022.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Confirms 11 Additional Cases - Bringing New York State Total to 22. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-confirms-11
Currently 1 Case in Nassau County, 18 in Westchester County, and 3 in NYC
Opens Statewide Emergency Operation Center in Albany as well as 2 Emergency Operations Center Outposts in Westchester County - 1 in Hawthorne and 1 in New Rochelle
Governor Cuomo: "The facts do not merit the level of anxiety that we are seeing... The number will increase because it is math. The more people you test, the more positives you are going to find. I'm a little perturbed about the daily angst when the number comes out and the number is higher. Perturbed meaning, I'm perturbed that people get anxious every time the number goes up. The number has to go up if you continue to test."
"During this period, especially if you are in the vulnerable population to coronavirus - and the flu by the way - then you may want to take extra precautions."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo confirmed 11 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the total to 22 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 22 individuals who tested positive for the virus, one resides in Nassau County, three reside in New York City and 18 reside in Westchester County. In response to the growing number of cases, the Governor activated the statewide Emergency Operation Center in Albany, as well as two Emergency Operations Center outposts in Westchester County: one in Hawthorne and one in New Rochelle.
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
Good afternoon. It is after noon. Everyone knows the people at the table today. To my right is the Health Commissioner, the good Dr. Zucker. To my left, immediate left, Robert Mujica, Budget Director extraordinaire. To his left, Beth Garvey, Special Counsel extraordinaire.
We wanted to give you an update on the Coronavirus. I think the more information, the more facts people are getting, the better in a situation like this. The numerical update today is we had 11 cases. We did a significant number of tests overnight. We have a new count of an additional 11. So, that is 22 statewide. Eight of the new cases are connected to the attorney from Westchester - the New Rochelle area. Two are in New York City and one in on Long Island. The two in New York City are hospitalized. The one in Long Island is also hospitalized. The eight in Westchester are not hospitalized.
What is going to happen is the number will continue to go up. It must because we are continuing to test more and more. The more you test, the higher number you will have. And as we are testing more, because that is a good thing, you will see the number going up.
Why do we test and find these cases? Because to the best we can limit the spread, contain the spread, the better. Understanding it is imperfect, but from the China experience all of the experts say the more you can do to contain and limit the spread the better. And we are doing with these cases the same we did with the others. You find a case. You then investigate and track back, find as many contacts as possible. Contact those people and go through the same process over and over again. Universe obviously continues to expand, but the more you can do the better. And that's what we're doing all across the state. A couple of points I'd like to make.
Many people are saying to me, "You know, I'm getting confused because I get different pieces of information, and I don't know who's right. I don't know who's wrong. I don't know who to believe." And that is a serious issue, especially with this. You watch TV all day or you listen to the radio and you have all these different sources, you have different politicians, and it sounds like they're saying different things. I think that's compounding the situation. I talked in the past about why do people get afraid. You only get afraid for two reasons in life. One, I'm uncertain of the information. I don't trust it or I'm confused by it. Or two, the information I'm hearing is so disturbing that I'm afraid. Here, the facts do not merit the level of anxiety that we are seeing. I believe it's being generated because of the first point, which is people don't know the truth. They don't know the facts.
So let's just clear up some facts. Whenever I go to the doctor, and I like doctors. I like doctors generically, and I like you especially. But my sister's a doctor. I like doctors. But I like to say to the doctor before they say let me tell you what I think, let me tell you my opinion. Before you give me your opinion, give me the facts, okay? Let me understand the facts, and then I'll hear your opinion. But there's a difference between opinions and facts. And people I think now need facts versus opinions. Opinions are relevant, but give me the facts. Different stories on whether or not this will leave, the virus will end when it gets to the summer, whether or not it's seasonal. We don't know. Short answer is we don't know. Normal flu, you get into the summer months, the flu dissipates. It doesn't go away entirely, by the way, but it dissipates. Factually, we don't know if this virus will dissipate in the summer. Different opinions, but nobody knows.
When do we have a vaccine? The President said that he is working very hard pushing the companies to develop a vaccine and there should be one soon. But the CDC and the health professionals say not until 12 months minimum, maybe 18.
Who is right and who is wrong? The truth is yes you can get a company that may be able to develop a vaccine in several months but that vaccine then has to be tested and that's how you get to 12 months, 18 months. Should I be using hand sanitizer before I go out, while I'm out? During the normal flu season doctors would recommend hand sanitizer and this communicates the way the normal flu tends to communicate, so during the flu season they would say use hand sanitizer. During this period, especially if you are in the vulnerable population to coronavirus and the flu by the way, then you may want to take extra precautions. That only makes sense.
How does it spread? It's a respiratory illness. It spreads either someone who is infected sneezes on their hand, puts their hand on a surface, the virus can live on a surface for a number of hours, unclear how many hours, safe number would be 24 hours, or they sneeze, cough, droplets are in the air, they say the range is six feet. What does that mean? It means theoretically the droplets, if you're in the six-foot range you are especially vulnerable, but where they get communication is in a closed environment - in a vehicle where you're traveling and the air is limited, in a home setting where you're in the same room with a person for a prolonged period of time. But otherwise it spreads basically as the flu would spread.
Should we shake hands? I have doctors who say to me every flu season, you should say, people should not shake hands. They say that to me every flu season. I've never said that. Why? Because I'm a politician, I shake hands. You shouldn't hug. They've said that during a normal flu season. I've never said that either. I'm of Italian-American descent, I'm a hugger. But precautions during the flu season, don't shake hands and don't hug. During this season with Coronavirus, yeah if you want to take precautions, don't shake hands, don't hug. Tell the other person so you don't offend them.
Well the number is increasing. The number will increase because this will spread. And the number will increase because it is math. The more people you test, the more positives you are going to find. I'm a little perturbed about the daily angst when the number comes out and the number is higher. Perturbed meaning, I'm perturbed that people get anxious every time the number goes up. The number has to go up if you continue to test. The number can't go down right. We're not going to detect fewer cases than yesterday. The number has to go up - that's why we're testing. And that's why you run it through. It's a matter of opinion, there's no fact, it's a matter of opinion, but most informed sources say you will see a significant spread of this virus through the population.
The most important point is, all of this: so what. So what. What does it mean? And that is the most relevant question. The so what: 80 percent of the people who get it will self-resolve, may never even know they had it, like the flu. Some mild symptoms, you go through your life and it resolves. Twenty percent will get ill, require hospitalization. The people who are in the vulnerable population - senior citizens, immune compromised, people with underlying illnesses. What am I worried about as Governor? People say to me, "What are you worried about?" I'm worried about undue fear and anxiety, hence why I'm constantly trying to communicate facts. I'm worried about nursing homes, senior care facilities, any senior congregate setting - that's what happened in the State of Washington - that is something we worry about. Personally, my own family, my mother is elderly - she doesn't want to admit it, she doesn't believe it, she doesn't act that way, I'll deny saying that I said that. But, she should take extra precautions. I have friends who are HIV-positive, who are battling cancer, who have compromised immune systems, they have to be careful and they have to be more careful than usual. But, that is what this is, which is the same as it would be for the normal flu. Right? Who does the flu normally affect? Seniors, immune compromised, people with underlying illnesses.
So those are the facts, those are the inarguable facts. Not opinions, those are facts. And when you know the facts, this daily mania of: the number's going up, the number's going up, I'm afraid, I'm afraid. You know the facts, it's reassuring because on these facts there is no reason for undue anxiety.
March 05, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Coronavirus Briefing in Nassau County, Governor Cuomo Announces New York State Received Federal Approval to Work with Hospital Labs to Increase Testing Capacity. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-coronavirus-briefing-nassau-county-governor-cuomo-announces
Governor Cuomo: "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.
"Let's keep the perspective. Let's understand what this is. We have data, we have experience 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."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that New York State has received federal approval to work with hospital labs to increase testing capacity.
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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.
March 05, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Coronavirus Briefing in Nassau County, Governor Cuomo Announces New York State Received Federal Approval to Work with Hospital Labs to Increase Testing Capacity. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-coronavirus-briefing-nassau-county-governor-cuomo-announces
Governor Cuomo: "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.
"Let's keep the perspective. Let's understand what this is. We have data, we have experience 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."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that New York State has received federal approval to work with hospital labs to increase testing capacity.
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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.
March 06, 2020. At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Confirms 11 Additional Cases - Bringing Statewide Total to 33 https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-confirms-11-additional-cases-bringing-statewide-total
New Cases Include 8 in Westchester, 2 in Rockland and 1 in New York City
NYS Interagency Task Force Continues to Coordinate with Local Governments and Healthcare Partners to Monitor and Respond to the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
Governor Cuomo: "I'm not urging calm. I'm urging reality. I'm urging a factual response as opposed to an emotional response."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today confirmed 11 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 33 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the new cases identified since yesterday, eight are located in Westchester County, two are located in Rockland County and one is located in New York City.
Of the 33 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Nassau County: 1
Rockland County: 2
New York City: 4
Westchester County: 26
"While the overall risk level of the novel coronavirus in New York remains low, I want New Yorkers to know that I'm not urging calm. I'm urging reality. I'm urging a factual response as opposed to an emotional response," Governor Cuomo said. "In New York we have the most sophisticated healthcare system on the globe, and we are continuing to prioritize testing, quarantine protocols and containment tracking to keep New Yorkers safe."
Additionally, the Governor announced that a New York State interagency task force is continuing to coordinate with local governments and healthcare partners to monitor and respond to the novel coronavirus outbreak. Members of the task force include:
Linda Lacewell, Department of Financial Services, Superintendent
Dr. Howard Zucker, Department of Health, Commissioner
Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor
Beth Garvey, Special Counsel
Gareth Rhodes, Department of Financial Services, Deputy Superintendent
Simonida Subotic, Deputy Secretary for Economic Development
Kelly Cummings, Director of State Operations and Infrastructure
Michael Kopy, Director of Emergency Management
Patrick Murphy, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, Commissioner
RoAnn Destito, Office of General Services, Commissioner
Pat Foye, MTA, Chairman & CEO
Rick Cotton, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Executive Director
Dan Fuller, Deputy Secretary for Education
Sandra Beattie, Division of Budget, Deputy Director
March 06, 2020. Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Confirms 11 Additional Cases - Bringing Statewide Total to 44. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-confirms-11-1
New Cases Include 8 in Westchester, 2 in Rockland and 1 in New York City
NYS Interagency Task Force Continues to Coordinate with Local Governments and Healthcare Partners to Monitor and Respond to the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
Governor Cuomo: "I'm not urging calm. I'm urging reality. I'm urging a factual response as opposed to an emotional response."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today confirmed 11 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 33 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the new cases identified since yesterday, eight are located in Westchester County, two are located in Rockland County and one is located in New York City.
Of the 33 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Nassau County: 1
Rockland County: 2
New York City: 4
Westchester County: 26
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
Good morning. Brought a whole group this morning to handle the devilish LCA. I want to start this morning by just going over some general process issues. We have been asked a lot of questions this week about numbers and exactly how this situation is operating. So I want to start by going through the protocols that we are following and hopefully there will be clarity across the board.
We have organized an emergency management system - response capacity. When you have a statewide situation that requires immediate government action and coordination among different agencies, with local governments, that is our emergency management system protocol.
We have a New York State task force that has been working on this, which has obviously been interagency. These are the members of it. Some of them are here with us today. You see who is on it and who is not. Rob Mujica is not on it, he has been focusing on the budget.
Three basic areas that we have been operating on. The testing priorities, quarantine and containment tracking. And I will go through them quickly. On testing priorities, first priority for testing is people who have been in close contact. We define close contact as within six feet of a person that is known to be positive. Second, people who have travelled to a country with level two or three travel health notice from the CDC and are experiencing symptoms. Third is a person who is in quarantine and has developed symptoms while in quarantine. Fourth, a seriously ill individual who has not tested positive for other viruses - so, when the person has gone into the hospital they run the viral screen, doesn't test positive for any other viruses, then test for the coronavirus. Fifth, any other case in which in the opinion of the healthcare professional and the local health department, they believe requires testing. So they would call up and consult with the department of health on that one.
Quarantine, there's two types of quarantine. We keep going back and forth between the words "quarantine" and "isolation." Let's say they're basically synonyms, but isolation is the technical word. It's really mandatory or directed versus what we call precautionary. Mandatory quarantine - anyone who tests positive, anyone who has been in direct contact with a person who's tested positive, anyone who's returned from a country CDC level 2 or 3 and is experiencing symptoms, any other person who their health professional and health department believe needs to be quarantined and they'll speak to DOH to make that determination. That's mandatory quarantine. Precautionary quarantine - you return from a country with CDC level 2 or 3, but you are not symptomatic. That's precautionary quarantine. Proximate to a person who is positive, proximate not direct - direct is within six feet. Proximate exposure is I was in a car with a person, I was in the office with a person, etcetera. Third, any person who the local health provider and the local health department thinks should be quarantined, and again, they'll consult with New York State Department of Health on that.
The last system that is operating is containment tracking. We're mapping all these cases, we're analyzing them, we're investigating them. Every time you get a positive you run that case back to see who else could've been infected and we're communicating that.
The number of precautionary quarantines is at 4,000 statewide. You can see the list there. It's basically all across the state, obviously heavier in New York City and in Westchester: 2,700 New York City, 1,000 Westchester, and then 115 Erie, 70 Nassau, Tompkins 15, Suffolk 15, Albany 11, Broome 4, and you can go right down the list, Schenectady 12, Warren 6.
Mandatory quarantines: 44 statewide, New York City 9, Westchester 33, Erie 1, Nassau 1.
In terms of new cases, yesterday we had 22 cases. Today we have 33 cases, so it's gone up by 11. There is one new case in New York City that is a case where a person has tested positive. It is connected to the Westchester case. Three members of the young Israel congregation connected to the Westchester case. All of the new cases are connected to the Westchester case. Two friends, people in Rockland County who worked at the Bat Mitzvah. And three patients, I'm sorry, three people connected to the visit at the Lawrence hospital. That brings, those are 11 new cases, 22 go to 33. Just the general context question, the number will continue to go up, I've said every day the number will continue to go up. The number must continue to go up because it is mathematics. The more you test, the more positives you will find, and remember we're predominately testing people who have a higher probability because they're in the chain of contact with a person who has already tested positive.
So people see the number go up and they say oh the number's going up. The number has to go up. The number can't go down and the number has to go up. Because we are testing people. Because we want to find people who are testing positive. That's how you contain it. Find the person who got infected, quarantine them and reduce the infection rate, that's what it's all about. Also, some of the news stories sum up what I have been saying to say Cuomo urges calm. I'm not urging calm. I'm urging reality. I'm urging a factual response as opposed to an emotional response
I'm urging that people understand the information and not the hype. We have more people in this country dying from the flu thank we have dying from coronavirus. All the experts say 80 percent will self-resolve, 20 percent may get ill, may require hospitalization. And it's most problematic for senior citizens, people with immune-compromised situations and people with an underlying illness.
The fact of our own experience, "kay I don't believe anyone." Okay. The fact of our own experience - we have 33 cases, five of the 33 are hospitalized, that's about 15 percent. Verifies the about 20 percent may be hospitalized. Of the people who have been hospitalized, they are improving. Right? So those are the facts. What are we concerned about? Senior citizens, senior citizens in congregate facilities, people with compromised immune systems. Those are the populations we have to most protect, which are also the populations that are most affected by the normal flu. That's why I go back to what I said to my brother: this is like a flu on steroids. You catch it the same way, the target population who's most vulnerable is the same, you take the same precautions. Dr. Zucker every flu season says to me, "You should tell people don't shake hands and don't hug." Why? Because that's how you communicate it. Use hand sanitizer. So it's the same precautions, it's the same issue, look at the facts. I know this is a great issue on all the TV stations and everybody has an opinion - look at the facts. If you look at the facts, facts dictate calm.
March 06, 2020. At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Confirms 11 Additional Cases - Bringing Statewide Total to 44. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-confirms-11-additional-cases-bringing-statewide-tot-0
New Cases Include 8 in Westchester County and 3 in Nassau County
Announces Travel Agents and Travel Insurers Will Offer 'Cancel for Any Reason' Travel Policies in New York State - Six Global and National Insurance Companies Agree to Offer Coverage to Travelers
NYS Interagency Task Force Continues to Coordinate with Local Governments and Healthcare Partners to Monitor and Respond to the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today confirmed 11 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 44confirmed cases in New York State. Of the new cases identified since this morning, eight are located in Westchester County and three are located in Nassau County.
Of the 44 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Nassau County: 4
Rockland County: 2
New York City: 4
Westchester County: 34
Additionally, the Governor announced travel insurance companies and travel agents will offer New York residents and businesses the ability to purchase coverage when making travel plans that would allow them to cancel a trip for any reason, including for reasons related to COVID-19.
"I've said every day the number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus will keep going up, and as we expand our testing capacity we will only see that number continue to rise," Governor Cuomo said. "We want to keep testing and finding more people who are testing positive because that's how you contain the outbreak - find the person who got infected, quarantine them and reduce the infection rate. At the same time we want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives including planning vacations and other travel, and this action will allow them to do that at a time when there is still uncertainty about the future geographic impact of coronavirus."
Superintendent of Financial Services Linda A. Lacewell said, "With this action, New York State is demonstrating that government can and must do its part to help people navigate through this everchanging situation so they can proceed with their daily lives and routines. We want to make sure that travelers and business owners are provided accurate information and a measure of relief as they make travel arrangements during this time."
'Cancel for Any Reason' Travel Policies in New York State
The Department of Financial Services issued guidance allowing travel agents and travel insurers to offer this type of coverage after DFS received consumer complaints that such polices were not available in New York State. This new action is designed to provide reassurance to New York businesses and residents who are seeking to make plans that may involve travel to locations that are not currently under travel advisories due to COVID-19.
Six global and national insurance companies have agreed to offer "cancel for any reason" coverage to travelers, including: Allianz, Nationwide, Starr Indemnity, Berkshire, Crum & Forster, and Zurich.
Many standard travel insurance policies do not cover trip interruption or cancellation due to COVID-19 because such standard policies usually exclude coverage for an epidemic, pandemic, or similar public health event. As a result, in connection with the outbreak of COVID-19, there is an increased interest in the availability of "cancel for any reason" policies. Understandably, many travelers when booking trips want to retain the right to cancel the plans in the future depending on the potential spread and impact of COVID-19. To date, "cancel for any reason" coverage has been unavailable in New York State.
DFS today issued a guidance letter to travel agents and travel insurers that clarifies and replaces guidance issued more than 10 years ago that had resulted in consumer complaints that "cancel for any reason" policies were not being offered in New York State. As a result, effective today, travel insurance and travel agents are advised they are able to sell such policies to New York residents and businesses. DFS' guidance notes that "cancel for any reason" policies are separate and distinct from standard travel insurance, and should not be sold together per New York State Insurance Law.
"Cancel for any reason" coverage rates are substantially higher than standard travel insurance and normally only allow up to 75 percent of a refund of traveler expenses due to trip cancellation.
DFS also directed New York State travel insurance issuers to proactively reach out to individuals and businesses who bought their policies to let them know what is covered.
The Governor urges New York residents and businesses to pay close attention to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Travel Health Notices, which caution Americans to avoid traveling to certain locations due to public health events and disease outbreaks. This is available here: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices.
More information on New York State's response to COVID-19 is available here: https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/communicable/coronavirus/.
New Yorkers with complaints or questions about "cancel for any reason" coverage should contact: www.dfs.ny.gov/complaint.
Read a copy of the DFS Insurance Guidance Letter.
Earlier today, the Governor announced that a New York State interagency task force is continuing to coordinate with local governments and healthcare partners to monitor and respond to the novel coronavirus outbreak. Members of the task force include:
Linda Lacewell, Department of Financial Services, Superintendent
Dr. Howard Zucker, Department of Health, Commissioner
Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor
Beth Garvey, Special Counsel
Gareth Rhodes, Department of Financial Services, Deputy Superintendent
Simonida Subotic, Deputy Secretary for Economic Development
Kelly Cummings, Director of State Operations and Infrastructure
Michael Kopy, Director of Emergency Management
Patrick Murphy, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, Commissioner
RoAnn Destito, Office of General Services, Commissioner
Pat Foye, MTA, Chairman & CEO
Rick Cotton, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Executive Director
Dan Fuller, Deputy Secretary for Education
Sandra Beattie, Division of Budget, Deputy Director
March 06, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Confirms 11 Additional Cases - Bringing Statewide Total to 44
New Cases Include 8 in Westchester County and 3 in Nassau County
Announces Travel Agents and Travel Insurers Will Offer 'Cancel for Any Reason' Travel Policies in New York State - Six Global and National Insurance Companies Agree to Offer Coverage
NYS Interagency Task Force Continues to Coordinate with Local Governments and Healthcare Partners to Monitor and Respond to the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
Governor Cuomo: "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."
Governor Cuomo: "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... 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."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today confirmed 11 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 44 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the new cases identified since this morning, eight are located in Westchester County and three are located in Nassau County.
Of the 44 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Nassau County: 4
Rockland County: 2
New York City: 4
Westchester County: 34
Additionally, the Governor announced travel insurance companies and travel agents will offer New York residents and businesses the ability to purchase coverage when making travel plans that would allow them to cancel a trip for any reason, including for reasons related to COVID-19.
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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, etcetera.
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, etcetera. 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.
March 06, 2020.
Statement from New York State Department of Health Commissioner Doctor Howard Zucker. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/statement-new-york-state-department-health-commissioner-doctor-howard-zucker
"Yesterday, we convened a meeting with county health officials from across the state to hear from them firsthand and get their input before we promulgated state regulations concerning Coronavirus. The Governor has also been discussing the situation with County Executives in affected areas this week. Having received the input of our stakeholders, we are issuing regulations, and thank them all for their input."
Testing guidance can be viewed here.
Quarantine and isolation guidance can be viewed here.
March 07, 2020.
At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Declares State of Emergency to Contain Spread of Virus. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-declares-state-emergency-contain-spread-virus
Governor Confirms 32 Additional Cases - Bringing Statewide Total to 76
Directs Investigation into Illegal Price Gouging Connected to Outbreak - Consumers Can Report Suspected Gouging by Calling 1-800-697-1220
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today declared a state of emergency to help New York more quickly and effectively contain the spread of the virus. The Governor also confirmed 32 additional cases, bringing the statewide total to 76.
Additionally, the Governor directed the New York State Department of State's Consumer Protection Division to launch an investigation into reports of unfair price increases of consumer products such as household cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, and launched a toll-free hotline - 1-800-697-1220 - for New Yorkers to report suspected price gouging.
"As we continue to provide essential updates and encourage people to act upon the facts on coronavirus instead of the hype, I have officially done a declaration of emergency which gives us certain powers to help local health departments that are very stressed," Governor Cuomo said. "As the local health departments continue to monitor and quarantine people, we have a more expedited purchasing protocol to get them all the tools they need to contain the virus spread. In the meantime we are cracking down on price gouging which continues to be a problem, and I want businesses to be aware that you could lose your license because we are very serious about this."
This state of emergency declaration allows, among other things:
Expedited procurement of cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer and other essential resources
Allowing qualified professionals other than doctors and nurses to conduct testing
Expedited procurement of testing supplies and equipment
Expedited personnel onboarding
Expedited leasing of lab space
Allowing EMS personnel to transport patients to quarantine locations other than just hospitals
Providing clear basis for price gouging and enforcement investigation
The 32 new cases identified today are located in New York City and Westchester and Saratoga counties. Of the 76 total individuals in New York State who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 57
New York City: 11
Nassau: 4
Rockland: 2
Saratoga: 2
In addition, the Division of Consumer Protection has also created an online consumer complaint form, where New Yorkers can report suspected price gouging or concerns about improper delivery of quantity. Consumers who wish to file a complaint can visit https://www.dos.ny.gov/consumerprotection/.
All credible complaints will be referred to the New York State Attorney General's office.
At a briefing yesterday, Governor Cuomo announced travel insurance companies and travel agents will offer New York residents and businesses the ability to purchase coverage when making travel plans that would allow them to cancel a trip for any reason, including for reasons related to COVID-19.
The Department of Financial Services issued guidance allowing travel agents and travel insurers to offer this type of coverage after DFS received consumer complaints that such polices were not available in New York State. This new action is designed to provide reassurance to New York businesses and residents who are seeking to make plans that may involve travel to locations that are not currently under travel advisories due to COVID-19.
Six global and national insurance companies have agreed to offer "cancel for any reason" coverage to travelers, including: Allianz, Nationwide, Starr Indemnity, Berkshire, Crum & Forster, and Zurich.
DFS also directed New York State travel insurance issuers to proactively reach out to individuals and businesses who bought their policies to let them know what is covered.
Read a copy of the DFS Insurance Guidance Letter.
March 07, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Declares State of Emergency to Contain Spread of Virus https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-declares-state.
Governor Confirms 32 Additional Cases - Bringing Statewide Total to 76
Directs Investigation into Illegal Price Gouging Connected to Outbreak - Consumers Can Report Suspected Gouging by Calling 1-800-697-1220
Governor Cuomo: "I have officially [declared a state 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 quarantineSo this is labor intensive. We need the staffing, we need the purchasing. Under the declaration of emergency, we have a more expedited purchasing protocol."
Governor Cuomo: "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 situationIf 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."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today declared a state of emergency to help New York more quickly and effectively contain the spread of the virus. The Governor also confirmed 32 additional cases, bringing the statewide total to 76.
Additionally, the Governor directed the New York State Department of State's Consumer Protection Division to launch an investigation into reports of unfair price increases of consumer products such as household cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, and launched a toll-free hotline - 1-800-697-1220 - for New Yorkers to report suspected price gouging.
This state of emergency declaration allows, among other things:
Expedited procurement of cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer and other essential resources
Allowing qualified professionals other than doctors and nurses to conduct testing
Expedited procurement of testing supplies and equipment
Expedited personnel onboarding
Expedited leasing of lab space
Allowing EMS personnel to transport patients to quarantine locations other than just hospitals
Providing clear basis for price gouging and enforcement investigation
The 32 new cases identified today are located in New York City and Westchester and Saratoga counties. Of the 76 total individuals in New York State who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 57
New York City: 11
Nassau: 4
Rockland: 2
Saratoga: 2
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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, etcetera. 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.
March 07, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN with Fredricka Whitfield. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cnn-fredricka-whitfield-0
Governor Cuomo: "If you understand the facts, you would be calm That is the bottom line. Well, then why all this running and testing, et cetera? Because we want as few people infected as possible. But I think in some ways the anxiety is outpacing the reality of this situation."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CNN with Fredricka Whitfield to discuss the novel coronavirus and New York State's declared state of emergency to contain the spread of the virus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Fredricka Whitfield: Governor, good to see you. You had already said before today that this is like a flu on steroids, but what does this now - declaration of state of emergency - mean for your state?
Governor Cuomo: Good afternoon, Fred. The state of emergency gives us additional flexibility to do things faster, purchasing, hiring of staff, et cetera. And for us, the challenge is, what the challenge is for every state, test as many people as you can. Once you find a person who has tested positive, run down that chain, test as many as you can as quickly as you can, just to get them into a place where they no longer infect other people, and that's what we're doing. At the same time Fred, it's important that we don't feed this undue hysteria and fear that is out there, right? If you're infected with the Coronavirus, 80% self-resolve, 20% could get ill and the vulnerable populations are senior citizens, people who have immune systems that are compromised or underlying illnesses. So we have to keep that basic reality in check.
Fredricka Whitfield: Well, this fear and hysteria among some people is really because they don't feel like they know enough and maybe they're a little confused about, you know, if they need to be tested, if there are enough tests, et cetera. You know, there were 21 new Coronavirus cases in your state alone today, bringing the total to 76 statewide. That in and of itself is enough to alarm many. So how do you allay the fears?
Governor Cuomo: Yes, I think facts allay the fear here, right? If you understand the facts, you would be calm. If you understand the bottom line, what happens if I get the Coronavirus? If I get the Coronavirus, 80% of the people who get the Coronavirus will self-resolve, 20% will be ill and maybe hospitalized. The mortality is primarily among senior citizens, immune compromised and people with underlying illnesses. That is the bottom line. Well, then why all this running and testing, et cetera? Because we want as few people infected as possible. But I think in some ways the anxiety is outpacing the reality of this situation. I think part of it is people don't know who to believe, you know? And they are listening to all of these experts. I also think part of it is they don't trust what they're hearing from the federal government. I also think the federal government further complicated it.
Fredricka Whitfield: What are your constituents telling or asking of you? What clarity are they looking for from you, the Governor of New York?
Governor Cuomo: Well, they're saying I don't know what to believe. The CDC says this, but this one says this. Their bottom line question is what happens if I get the Coronavirus or my spouse or my child gets the Coronavirus. And that's why the fundamental fact is most important, right? If you look at the number of cases we have in New York, we have 76 cases, we only have a handful who are hospitalized. If you look at Johns Hopkins, that has been tracing all of the coronavirus cases, 100,000 cases, you see that the overwhelming majority stayed at home, they had symptoms, they're feeling better, and now actually more are recovering than are getting the new infection. So the ultimate reality we can deal with. It's this current hysteria and confusion, frankly the CDC, I don't think has been helpful here because they have sent mixed messages. They say on one hand, anybody who needs a test, call your doctor and get a test. The vice president then goes on TV and says oh, by the way, we can't test enough people. That kind of confusion or the sense that your government is not competent, that is what is not helpful here.
Fredricka Whitfield: So a lot of folks are concerned. I can't help but be concerned about my 87-year-old mother who likes to go to the senior center, who likes to socialize with other seniors, who likes the exercise class, but is pulling back from doing that right now. And then we are also hearing that a number of people in Washington state were at an elderly facility where they had seen a spike and a large number of deaths. In Westchester County, there in New York, you've got, what 57 cases in that county. Are you finding any common thread, what the source is, why such a concentration in Westchester County?
Governor Cuomo: Westchester County is a cluster scenario where you had people who attended large gatherings together, and it spread from those gatherings, a bar mitzvah that had 400 people in it. So that is a unique case and we're dealing with it, but your point is right, Fred. Personally, what have I done? I've spoken to my mother, who is elderly. Don't tell her I said that, she doesn't consider herself elderly—
Fredricka Whitfield: Seasoned. I like the word seasoned.
Governor Cuomo: Seasoned. But as senior citizens have to be careful, yes, where they go, how they expose themselves, etcetera. People who are immune-compromised, if you're fighting cancer, if you're HIV-positive, etcetera, you have to be careful. Governmentally, nursing homes, I'm very worried about. Senior living facilities, I'm worried about. That's where we have our greatest vulnerability.
Fredricka Whitfield: And what are you turning that worry into? What can you do proactively, or what can be recommended, you know, proactively, for those areas that you are most concerned about and worried about?
Governor Cuomo: well, for example, in the nursing homes, we have a whole new protocol on how staff should be operating within that nursing home. This morning, in areas where we have high clusters, we said no outside visitors in the nursing home. I know that's difficult on one level, you know, family members can't visit, but no outside visitors, because if one person brings in the virus, in a nursing home, then we're going to be off to the races. That I can tell you.
Fredricka Whitfield: All right. We're all paying attention, trying to discern the facts, right? And make sure that people are not too fearful. but cautious. Governor Andrew Cuomo, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you.
March 07, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on MSNBC with David Gura. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-msnbc-david-gura.
Governor Cuomo: "I want to do more testing as quickly as possible, find the people who test positive, put them in quarantine, etcetera, and let the public know that we're on top of this."
Governor Cuomo: "Look at the basic underlying facts because there's really one question: what happens if I get coronavirus? ... 80 percent of the people who get coronavirus will self-resolve. ... So the ultimate reality is manageable. ... There are going to be new cases. ... government's responsibility is to be able to address the underlying issue in a way that provides confidence for people."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on MSNBC with David Gura to discuss the novel coronavirus and New York State's declared state of emergency to contain the spread of the virus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
David Gura: Joining me now is the man who declared that state of emergency, Governor Andrew Cuomo. Governor, thank you very much for being here and just walk us through your decision if you would. Why did you decide to do this, and what is this declaring this state of emergency allow you to do?
Governor Cuomo: Declaration of emergency, David, basically allows the State to operate more quickly. It allows us to purchase materials. It allows us to hire staff more quickly without going through some of the normal government bureaucracy because my challenge now is getting government up, moving, ready, and actually handling the reality and the perception of this problem. So I want to do more testing as quickly as possible, find the people who test positive, put them in quarantine, etcetera, and let the public know that we're on top of this. We're handling it and things are under control, right? Number one problem is hysteria and fear as opposed to the virus and I think government can either address that or compound it.
I'm also battling against, frankly, the mixed messages from the federal government. You have the President saying anybody who wants a test, you can have a test; it's beautiful. You have the Vice President saying we can't do the tests, we don't have the capacity, and in weeks, if you're symptomatic, we can get you a test. Those kinds of mixed messages, that confusion, I think adds to the fear and the frustration of people because if government doesn't know what it's doing, well, then people feel they're really alone and this is really a problem.
David Gura: Governor, a lot of them are probably watching us right now, watching you on television wondering how much anxiety they should have, how nervous they should be. What is your message to them as they look across the country to what's happening in Washington State, look at the difficulty your counterpart, Governor Jay Inslee, has faced over these last days and is frankly worried about what might be hang here.
Governor Cuomo: It is deep breath time, David, and forget the chatter. Forget what you're hearing from the federal government. Look at the basic underlying facts because there's really one question: what happens if I get coronavirus? If I get coronavirus, 80 percent of the people who get coronavirus will self-resolve. They'll walk around. they have mild symptoms. Twenty percent will get ill and maybe hospitalized, and the vulnerable population are senior citizens, immune-compromised and people with underlying illnesses, and it is a problem for them. What happened in Washington, a nursing home, that's my nightmare, senior assisted living facility - that we're worried about, a person who's battling cancer, HIV-positive, those people are vulnerable to this. But that is it, you know, and if you look at all the numbers, you look at my numbers here in New York, 76 cases, only a handful are hospitalized. Most of them are at home, and they're recovering, and they're getting better like a flu. So the ultimate reality is manageable. Again, problem with the vulnerable populations, which tend to be in congregate facilities, so the hysteria is way ahead of the reality and if you know the facts you will be calm. Part of it is we're in this every day, new cases, new cases. There are going to be new cases. I'm going to have more new cases every day. I want more new cases every day because I'm trying to find the positive people so I can put them in quarantine so they don't affect anybody. The number of cases has to go up. It can't go down. But we're purposely looking for the positives because we want fewer people infected. But the ultimate facts here are reassuring. We don't want to lose anyone, but the flu, the normal flu, yes, it attacks senior citizens and people with immune compromised systems, and people die from the flu. That happens, and people who catch this, if they're in that category can also pass away.
David Gura: Governor, you said something extraordinary a moment ago, and that was ignore the federal government. I just wonder if you could draw that out a little bit more here. Give us your reaction to what you've been hearing from the administration. We've just been through an election cycle during which Mike Bloomberg made a huge component of his campaign the fact that he's equipped to deal with a crisis like this because he's been through it before. You have been through this before with Ebola just a couple of years ago here in New York City. I don't mean to be too crass in asking, do you have any regret here that you're not bringing that portfolio to bear, that this wasn't something you sought to do to seek the Democratic nomination now having experience dealing with crises like these?
Governor Cuomo: Look David, I was in the federal government in the Clinton administration. I was HUD secretary. I did emergency management all across the country, all across the world. I've dealt with everything in New York State from Ebola to measles to fires to floods, etcetera, and it is knowing how to manage a government in an emergency situation, right? And in every emergency management situation the fear and panic can be a greater problem than the underlying issue. Right now the fear and the panic are worse than the Coronavirus, and government's responsibility is to be able to address the underlying issue in a way that provides confidence for people. Communicate, I do daily briefings. Here are the facts. Here are the numbers. Now you have the information. Trust the information. It's not political. I'm not giving you my opinion. These are just the facts. That relaxes people. Let them see that government is functioning. That relaxes people. I think what they're getting from the federal government, they're getting mixed messages. You're listening to the President and he says one thing. You're listening to the Vice President, and he says something else. You listen to the CDC, they say one thing, and then people feel that nobody's in charge or you don't have a competent response, and that triggers panic among people.
David Gura: Try to relax today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who as I mentioned few moments ago declared a state of emergency here in New York State giving him more powers to manage and deal with the coronavirus outbreak. Governor, thank you very much for the time. I appreciate it.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you, David.
March 07, 2020. Governor Cuomo Confirms 13 Additional Coronaviruses Cases In New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 89. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-confirms-13-additional-coronaviruses-cases-new-york-state-bringing-statewide
Governor Declared State of Emergency Earlier Today in Order to Expedite Procurement of Cleaning Supplies and Testing Equipment
Directed Investigation into Illegal Price Gouging Connected to Outbreak - Consumers Can Report Suspected Gouging by Calling 1-800-697-1220
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today confirmed 13 additional cases of novel coronavirus in New York State since his last update from earlier in the day, bringing the statewide total to 89 confirmed cases. The 13 new cases identified since the Governor's last update are located in Westchester County.
Of the 89 total individuals in New York State who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 70
New York City: 11
Nassau: 4
Rockland: 2
Saratoga: 2
"We are working to do more testing as quickly as possible to find the people who are infected and help contain the spread of the virus," Governor Cuomo said. "There are going to be more cases because we are testing more people - that's a good thing because then we can deal with the situation based on more facts. We know about 80 percent of those infected will self-resolve. The best way to calm anxieties is to demonstrate absolute government competence, and that's exactly what we're doing."
During a briefing on the novel coronavirus earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced he declared a state of emergency to help New York more quickly and effectively contain the spread of the virus. The state of emergency declaration allows, among other things:
Expedited procurement of cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer and other essential resources
Allowing qualified professionals other than doctors and nurses to conduct testing
Expedited procurement of testing supplies and equipment
Expedited personnel onboarding
Expedited leasing of lab space
Allowing EMS personnel to transport patients to quarantine locations other than just hospitals
Providing clear basis for price gouging and enforcement investigation
Additionally, the Governor today directed the New York State Department of State's Consumer Protection Division to launch an investigation into reports of unfair price increases of consumer products such as household cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, and launched a toll-free hotline - 1-800-697-1220 - for New Yorkers to report suspected price gouging.
The Division of Consumer Protection has also created an online consumer complaint form, where New Yorkers can report suspected price gouging or concerns about improper delivery of quantity. Consumers who wish to file a complaint can visit https://www.dos.ny.gov/consumerprotection/.
All credible complaints will be referred to the New York State Attorney General's office.
At a briefing yesterday, Governor Cuomo announced travel insurance companies and travel agents will offer New York residents and businesses the ability to purchase coverage when making travel plans that would allow them to cancel a trip for any reason, including for reasons related to COVID-19.
The Department of Financial Services issued guidance allowing travel agents and travel insurers to offer this type of coverage after DFS received consumer complaints that such polices were not available in New York State. This new action is designed to provide reassurance to New York businesses and residents who are seeking to make plans that may involve travel to locations that are not currently under travel advisories due to COVID-19.
Six global and national insurance companies have agreed to offer "cancel for any reason" coverage to travelers, including: Allianz, Nationwide, Starr Indemnity, Berkshire, Crum & Forster, and Zurich.
DFS also directed New York State travel insurance issuers to proactively reach out to individuals and businesses who bought their policies to let them know what is covered.
Read a copy of the DFS Insurance Guidance Letter.
March 08, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Confirms 16 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 105. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-confirms-16-additional-coronavirus-cases-new-york-state-bringing-statewide-total
Governor Calls on Federal Government to Expedite Approval of Automated and Manual Testing to Expand Testing Capacity
Declared State of Emergency Yesterday in Order to Expedite Procurement of Cleaning Supplies and Testing Equipment
Governor Encourages Working from Home, Telecommuting and Avoiding Densely Populated Spaces Whenever Possible to Help Contain Spread of Virus
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today confirmed 16 additional cases of novel coronavirus in New York State since his last update, bringing the statewide total to 105 confirmed cases. Of the 16 new cases identified since the Governor's last update, 12 are in Westchester County, one in New York City in the Bronx, one in Nassau, one in Suffolk, and one in Ulster. Additionally, the Governor today called on the federal government to expedite their approval of private labs and automated and manual testing to expand New York State's testing capacity. He also encouraged New Yorkers to work from home, telecommute and avoid densely populated spaces whenever possible to help contain the spread of the virus.
March 08, 2020.
Video, B-Roll, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Confirms 16 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 105. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-b-roll-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-confirms-16-additional-coronavirus
Governor Calls on Federal Government to Expedite Approval of Automated and Manual Testing to Expand Testing Capacity
Declared State of Emergency Yesterday in Order to Expedite Procurement of Cleaning Supplies and Testing Equipment
Governor Encourages Working from Home, Telecommuting and Avoiding Densely Populated Spaces Whenever Possible to Help Contain Spread of Virus
Governor Cuomo: "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. Wake up, let the state's test. Let private labs test. Let's increase as quickly as possible our testing capacity."
Cuomo: "Keep this in perspective. 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."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo confirmed 16 additional cases of novel coronavirus in New York State since his last update, bringing the statewide total to 105 confirmed cases. Of the 16 new cases identified since the Governor's last update, 12 are in Westchester County, one in New York City in the Bronx, one in Nassau, one in Suffolk, and one in Ulster. Additionally, the Governor today called on the federal government to expedite their approval of private labs and automated and manual testing to expand New York State's testing capacity. He also encouraged New Yorkers to work from home, telecommute and avoid densely populated spaces whenever possible to help contain the spread of the virus.
Of the 105 total individuals in New York State who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 82
New York City: 12
Nassau: 5
Suffolk: 1
Rockland: 2
Ulster: 1
Saratoga: 2
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
B-ROLL of the Governor's tour of Northwell Labs is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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.
March 08, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on MSNBC with Alex Witt. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-msnbc-alex-witt.
Governor Cuomo: "How do you contain? You test, you test, you test. You find the positive person, you isolate them. And we are testing aggressively. What we need is the federal government to help us first by stopping the mixed messages, which I believe is causing, in large part, the fear..."
Governor Cuomo: "Now we are waiting for the approvals to use private labs and something called automated testing. The lab I was at they can test 120 samples without anyone touching them. We can get the capacity up to 2,000 within in a few days. Two thousand per day if we could use the private labs. And we're still waiting for their approval. It's either bureaucratic incompetence or one of the conspiracy theories that you hear. But at this point, we need the tests."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on MSNBC with Alex Witt to discuss the novel coronavirus and New York State's declared state of emergency to contain the spread of the virus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Alex Witt: Joining me now, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo. Governor, I'm awfully glad to see you. Yesterday it was a little frightening listening to your news conference that you had. But let's talk about the latest cases, the increase and where you are most concerned.
Governor Cuomo: It shouldn't be frightening, Alex. Thank you for having me, by the way. The term state of emergency frightens people. It's an administrative procedure. It gives the state more flexibility to purchase, to hire people faster. That's all it means. And if people understand the facts here they shouldn't be alarmed. The fear and the anxiety is greatly outpacing the reality. And we're fighting virus, we're fighting the fear even more than the virus, frankly.
Remember all of this is to avoid two things. Number one it's to avoid massive disruption with very large quarantines. Which is what we saw in China, what we're now seeing in Italy. We want to avoid that. And it's a dangerous situation for people who are in that vulnerable population. Senior citizens, people with a compromised immune systems and people with pre-existing illnesses. The data, Alex, should calm people. Yeah we have 105 cases. Only 8 people are in the hospital. Johns Hopkins has been tracking all the Coronavirus cases. Over 100,000. Sixty thousand people have already recovered. Just about 40,000 are still ill. Number of fatalities: 3,000 out of 107,000 cases.
So it's avoiding the massive disruption. It's protecting those vulnerable populations. And that's why we're trying to contain. How do you contain? You test, you test, you test. You find the positive person, you isolate them. And we are testing aggressively. What we need is the federal government to help us first by stopping the mixed messages, which I believe is causing, in large part, the fear where the President of the United States is saying anyone who wants a test can have a test. And then the Vice President gets on and says, oh by the way, we don't have enough tests.
You see that, you get nervous. You think your government doesn't know what it's doing. And we don't have enough testing capacity and the federal government still has not approved for our state to use private labs and something called automated testing. I was at one of the most sophisticated labs in the country this morning, Alex. We can't even use them because we're waiting for federal approval.
Alex Witt: Why would the federal approval be delayed, particularly under these circumstances? Why not allow you to use that kind of a lab?
Governor Cuomo: Who knows. Why was the federal government not ready for this in the first place when they saw what was happening in China and everybody had to know somebody in China was going to get on a plane. Why didn't the federal government approve my own state lab to be used? Now we are waiting for the approvals to use private labs and something called automated testing. The lab I was at they can test 120 samples without anyone touching them. We can get the capacity up to 2,000 within in a few days. Two thousand per day if we could use the private labs. And we're still waiting for their approval. It's either bureaucratic incompetence or one of the conspiracy theories that you hear. But at this point, we need the tests, we need the capacity and we need the federal government to tell the American people the truth and one version of the truth because I think that will go a long way in slowing down the fear.
Alex Witt: Are you at all sensing some relief at word from the government there will be 4 million new test kits available by the end of the week?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, if that is true, that would be great. I myself am skeptical when I hear what the federal government says they're going to do. You think a situation like New York, I don't even need anything from the federal government. I just need them not to - not to handcuff the state. I have private labs who already - they have automated testing. We can get it done just give us the approval to do it. They do hamstring us because they have to approve it. But I don't need CDC to run the tests. I don't need CDC's testing kits. I just need them to approve our usage of the labs and of the automated testing. and then where all day long trying to calm people down because the fear is more dangerous than the virus. In any of these emergencies, Alex, I don't care if it is a fire, a flood, Superstorm Sandy, the fear, the panic is more of a danger than the underlying condition. Because you panic people, especially in a place like New York with that density, then you have a problem. And I think part of it is you're getting mixed messages. If you're watching the TV and you hear the president say one thing and the vice president say something else and the CDC say something else. They're also causing a panic, people were told they could get a test, but they can't get a test. We don't have the capacity to test everyone who wants a test.
So in New York we had to come up with a standard protocol to prioritize those who can be tested, because you can only test as many people as you have the capacity to actually test. So we have a standard protocol in New York, where we prioritize who can get tested. As our testing capacity goes up, we'll open up that protocol so more people can get tested. But it's the disconnect from what they're hearing from different sources on TV and the reality that suggests to people the government doesn't know what it's doing. In a situation like this that seems out of control and it's frightening, you want to believe that somebody is in charge and somebody knows what they're doing, and that somebody is the government here.
The truth is in New York, we are doing what we need to do. I have been asking private sector businesses and I'm going to be meeting with them this week to stagger their workload, let their employees voluntarily, some come in early, some come in late, stay at home, telecommuting, we're a digital economy, work from home if you can. Citizens are doing their part. Stay out of dense gatherings. We have a situation in Westchester County - 82 cases positive because we've seen the danger of large gatherings, where people got together, several hundred, and how fast it can spread. But again, it's not the underlying reality of what happens with this virus. We have plenty of data from China, other countries. If you're not in a vulnerable population, it's not ultimately dangerous. But we do need the federal government to be a bigger help or less of a hindrance, I'll take Alex.Alex Witt: You know I'm listening to you speak about Westchester county with 82 confirmed cases and yet we talk about the density right here in New York City where we both are right now. And there's something of a silver lining that the number has not skyrocketed as one might assume it would. What are your health advisers telling you about how New York City itself, Manhattan and the boroughs, is handling this, and about how long this may last?
Governor Cuomo: Good question. For the duration, they look at the other countries that have gone through this. You look at China, you look at South Korea, but those are premised on active containment efforts, right? China may not have responded quickly, according to some experts, but they then had dramatic containment. They basically closed everything down. We're trying to avoid that in this country. Right? You could close everything down that would do the containment, but it would also be highly disruptive to the economy, to society, et cetera. So we're trying to avoid that. But that's where they get the duration from. And you're right, New York City and density is a problem. But New York City hasn't experienced it because we have not had the number of cases yet and we want to keep it that way. If you have a number of cases in a dense environment, you're going to see it spread, because it communicates easily and it transfers easily. So that testing, and as soon as you find a positive person, to isolating them and find out who they came in contact with and do that investigation and isolate them, that is tremendously important. That's all the difference. That's the early containment stage. You fail at that containment stage, it spreads into a dense environment, you will see those numbers go up. That is Westchester. Westchester is 82, New York City is only 12. Westchester, which is a suburban community outside of New York City, it started with one person who went to a gathering with several hundred people, infected some people, they went to a gathering with several hundred people and now the numbers multiplied. That could happen in New York City.
Alex Witt: But New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, thank you so much. I have to say I personally am less fearful after having spoken with you. So thank you for putting a lot of us, I think, at ease and putting everything in proper perspective. Best of luck handling everything, sir. Much appreciated your time.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you.
March 08, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN with Fredricka Whitfield. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cnn-fredricka-whitfield-1
Governor Cuomo: "I need the federal government to approve the use of private labs and automated testing which will increase exponentially the number of tests we can do. ... I don't need anything from the feds but don't get in our way. The federal government has been slow off the mark to begin with. You know you need testing. You know you don't have the capacity. Why won't you approve these private labs with the automated testing which are going to use the federally approved protocol anyway?"
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CNN with Fredricka Whitfield to discuss the novel coronavirus and New York State's declared state of emergency to contain the spread of the virus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Fredricka Whitfield: Governor Andrew Cuomo joining me right now. Governor, this is very serious and getting more serious really with each moment so tell us what you can about the origins of these 16 new cases.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks. Good afternoon, Fred. It is serious but let's pause for a moment on how serious it is because I'm afraid that the fear is actually outpacing the facts and we're fighting the virus but we're also fighting this anxiety. People have to take a step back, a deep breath, and actually understand what we're looking at. We have tremendous data on what happens with the coronavirus. We've studied other countries, etcetera. Johns Hopkins has been tracking every case, 107,000 cases, 3,000 fatalities, okay? We don't want anyone to die but that's the parameters of what we're looking at. We have 108 cases in New York. We only have 105 cases, I'm sorry. We have eight people in the hospital out of 105 cases, so the real danger is twofold. One, if it continues to spread we're going to have to take drastic containment measures which means you basically shut down everything, which is what China did. That's bad for the economy, bad for business, bad for society. Second, it's the vulnerable population, senior citizens, elderly, people with compromised immune systems and underlying illness. That's what we're trying to stop it and the way to do that is to fight the spread. You fight the spread through containment which is testing. We're testing aggressively. You find the person who is positive. You isolate that person. The better you are at testing and isolation, the more you'll reduce the spreading—
Fredricka Whitfield: But those are the cases that you know of, right?
Governor Cuomo: Yes.
Fredricka Whitfield: But then there is the concern of those who are asymptomatic and what do you do? How do you address that because that's how the numbers continue to rise. Some are asymptomatic for a moment and then symptoms arise.
Governor Cuomo: Yes, you do the best you can. This is imperfect and we understand that but the best you can is when you find the person who's been infected, you trace it back. Where were they, who did they touch, etcetera. You check the flights coming from countries that have an infection rate that's high. You do the best you can. It's not a perfect system, that's for sure. In the meantime, you reduce density. I'm talking to the business leaders all across New York. I'm going to meet with them this week. Let part of the workforce stay home, telecommuting, it's a digital economy, let people stay home, liberal sick leave. If you're sick, stay home. That's what we're looking at. What we do need is we need to reduce the fear and we need cooperation from the people and we need the federal government to actually help rather than hinder and to tell the American people the truth and stick with the truth. You now have, I think, tremendous anxiety because they're hearing mixed messages from the federal government. The president stands up and says anybody who wants a test can have a test. The Vice President stands up and says we don't have enough tests. You hear that, you get nervous. We can't test everybody who wants to test. That is not true. I had to put special protocols in place in New York just to make it clear we have to prioritize the tests because we don't have the capacity. I need the federal government to approve the use of private labs and automated testing which will increase exponentially the number of tests we can do.
Fredricka Whitfield: You toured a lab recently in Long Island. What did you discover there?
Governor Cuomo: I toured a lab this morning, Fred. It's one of the most sophisticated labs in the state. It's one of the most sophisticated labs in the United States of America. They have automated testing. They can do 120 tests in the matter of just about an hour. No human beings. It's all done by machine. The federal government hasn't approved the usage. I don't need anything from the feds but don't get in our way. The federal government has been slow off the mark to begin with. You know you need testing. You know you don't have the capacity. Why won't you approve these private labs with the automated testing which are going to use the federally approved protocol anyway? It's really difficult to deal with when you're in my position because you know the more you test, the more you contain. You have more testing capacity, but the federal government is not authorizing its use.
Fredricka Whitfield: We'll leave it there for now. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, thanks so much and good luck to you and your state.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you, Fred.
March 08, 2020.
After Tour of Northwell Labs, Governor Cuomo Announces FDA Approval for Northwell to Test Novel Coronavirus. "https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/after-tour-northwell-labs-governor-cuomo-announces-fda-approval-northwell-test-novel
"After days of advocating the FDA and the federal government to expand testing capacity for the novel coronavirus in New York State and working with Northwell and Wadsworth to expedite the process, we just received word that Northwell Laboratories has been authorized to test under Wadsworth's emergency use authorization. Manual testing of 75 to 80 samples per day will begin at Northwell immediately, but we still need automated testing approved so we can perform thousands per day.
"While this approval is a good first step, the FDA must increase the testing capacity for the State and private labs, because the more tests we run, the more positive people we will find and the better we can control and contain the virus. It's one thing for the federal government not to have the testing capacity in place themselves - that was bad enough - but there's no excuse for them not to be authorizing existing labs to do the work."
March 09, 2020.
At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces State Will Provide Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizer to New Yorkers Free of Charge. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-state-will-provide-alcohol-based-hand
State Will Produce Up to 100,000 Gallons of Hand Sanitizer Per Week and Distribute to Most Impacted and High Risk Communities and State Agencies
Governor Confirms 37 Additional Novel Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Total to 142
NYS Health Department and Education Department Will Issue Guidance for Schools Who Have Students Who Test Positive for Novel Coronavirus
Governor Today Will Send to Legislature Paid Sick Leave Bill That Specifically Protects People Who Stay Home from Work Because They Are Being Isolated or Quarantined as a Result of Novel Coronavirus
Urges Federal Government to Approve NY Presbyterian's Use of State Coronavirus Test; at Governor's Urging FDA Approved Northwell's Testing Yesterday Evening
During a novel coronavirus briefing, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the state will provide alcohol-based hand sanitizer to New Yorkers free of charge. To help combat price-gouging and ensure New Yorkers have access to this vital prevention method, the state will produce up to 100,000 gallons of hand sanitizer each week in 1.7 oz., 7 oz. and gallon bottles. The hand sanitizer will be made available to residents free of charge, and distribution will be prioritized by the most impacted and high risk communities, including the New Rochelle community, and state agencies, including the MTA.
Governor Cuomo also confirmed 37 additional cases of novel coronavirus in New York State since his last update from Sunday, bringing the statewide total to 142 confirmed cases.
The Governor also announced the New York State Department of Health will work with the New York State Education Department to issue guidance for schools with students, teachers or other staff who test positive for novel coronavirus. Under the policy, schools will close for an initial 24-hour period if a student or a teacher or any other staff at the school test positive for the novel coronavirus. This will allow the school to undergo disinfection, and for the State to perform an assessment of the situation and make a determination going forward in that particular school district.
Additionally, the Governor will send a program bill to the legislature today to provide paid sick leave to working New Yorkers and specifically protect those who are required to stay home from work because they are being isolated or quarantined as a result of the novel coronavirus.
"As the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus continues to rise, unscrupulous retailers are exploiting New Yorkers' anxieties about the virus and charging exorbitant prices for hand sanitizer and other similar products," Governor Cuomo said. "To solve this problem, the state is producing and deploying hand sanitizer to high impact areas as well as schools, the MTA and other government agencies because you can't get it on the market and the product that is available is very expensive. The biggest problem we have in this situation is fear, not the virus itself, and I'm once again reminding everyone to focus on the facts because the facts do not warrant the level of anxiety we are seeing."
Of the 142 total individuals in New York State who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 98 (16 new cases)
New York City: 19 (7 new cases)
Nassau: 17 (12 new cases)
Rockland: 4 (2 new cases)
Saratoga: 2
Suffolk: 1
Ulster: 1DOCCS, through its correctional industries entity known as Corcraft, will produce an alcohol-based formula recognized by the World Health Organization and has begun production at Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock, Washington County, this week. Through this ongoing effort, the Department will be able to produce up to 100,000 gallons of hand sanitizer per week. Corcraft, which produces dozens of products, uses the manufacturing process to assist in the department's overall mission to prepare offenders for release through skill development, work ethic, respect and responsibility.
As the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus continues to rise, unscrupulous retailers are exploiting New Yorkers' anxieties about the virus and charging exorbitant prices for hand sanitizer and other similar products.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
Local governments seeking to obtain additional stocks of hand sanitizer should work with their County's Emergency Manager and local Health Department to submit requests directly into NY Responds, the state's web-based system which enables both local governments and state agencies to submit and share vital emergency-related information and resource requests.
Reportedly, some retailers are charging approximately 10 times what major retailers charge for hand sanitizer. On eBay a pack of five 2.5-ounce Germ-X hand sanitizer bottles were selling for $500 - by comparison, two 30-ounce bottles of Germ-X were offered online by Walmart for less than $8.
The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision also began a new screening protocol for COVID-19 for visitors to each of the State's 52 correctional facilities to help avoid the introduction of COVID-19 into the Department's facilities. Upon arrival to the facility, visitors will be asked a series of questions regarding any illness or symptoms they may be currently experiencing; travel outside of the United States within the past four weeks, including that of family members; and any direct exposure to an individual diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in the past four weeks.
DOCCS Acting Commissioner Anthony J. Annucci said, "Between increased demand and the price gouging currently taking place in the market, there is a very real need for hand sanitizer for New York residents. DOCCS is proud to meet the Governor's call to action and do our part in stemming the spread of COVID-19 across the state."
Last night, the Governor announced that Northwell Laboratories has been authorized to test under Wadsworth's emergency use authorization. Manual testing of 75 to 80 samples per day has begun at Northwell, but automated testing still needs to be approved by the federal administration so the lab can perform thousands of tests per day. Additionally, NY Presbyterian Hospital is ready to start running 50 to 60 tests daily once it receives federal approval for testing. The Governor again today urged the federal administration to approve the use of the state's coronavirus test by private labs, such as NY Presbyterian.
Prevention tips from the New York State Department of Health:
While there is currently no vaccine to prevent this virus, these simple steps 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.
The Department of Health has additional information on COVID-19: https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/communicable/coronavirus/
March 09, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces State Will Provide Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizer to New Yorkers Free of Charge. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-state-0
tate Will Produce Up to 100,000 Gallons of Hand Sanitizer Per Week and Distribute to Most Impacted and High Risk Communities and State Agencies
Governor Confirms 37 Additional Novel Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Total to 142
NYS Health Department and Education Department Will Issue Guidance for Schools Who Have Students Who Test Positive for Novel Coronavirus
Governor Today Will Send to Legislature Paid Sick Leave Bill That Specifically Protects People Who Stay Home from Work Because They Are Being Isolated or Quarantined as a Result of Novel Coronavirus
Urges Federal Government to Approve NY Presbyterian's Use of State Coronavirus Test; at Governor's Urging FDA Approved Northwell's Testing Yesterday Evening
Governor Cuomo: "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."
Cuomo: "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."
During a novel coronavirus briefing earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the state will provide alcohol-based hand sanitizer to New Yorkers free of charge. To help combat price-gouging and ensure New Yorkers have access to this vital prevention method, the state will produce up to 100,000 gallons of hand sanitizer each week in 1.7 oz., 7 oz. and gallon bottles. The hand sanitizer will be made available to residents free of charge, and distribution will be prioritized by the most impacted and high risk communities, including the New Rochelle community, and state agencies, including the MTA.
Governor Cuomo also confirmed 37 additional cases of novel coronavirus in New York State since his last update from Sunday, bringing the statewide total to 142 confirmed cases.
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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, etcetera, 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.
March 09, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on MSNBC with Katy Tur. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-msnbc-katy-tur
Governor Cuomo: "Do everything you can to reduce the spread. That's what we're doing... A situation like this, Katy, you have the underlying issue, which is here is the Coronavirus. You then have the public response to it, and the fear and the anxiety and the hysteria that compounds the problem. I don't believe the facts in this situation merit the level of anxiety that we're seeing."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew Cuomo was a guest on MSNBC with Katy Tur to discuss the spread of the novel Coronavirus in New York and the State's comprehensive response.
AUDIO of the Governor's interview is available here.
Katy Tury: Joining me now from Albany, Governor Andrew Cuomo. Give us an update on the current status of New York.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks, Katy. Well, we're basically where every other state is right now. We're doing everything we can to reduce the spread. It is inevitable as you suggested that the spread is going to continue. We understand that. Do everything you can to reduce the spread. That's what we're doing. It's a little more complicated in a place like New York where you have that density. And then at the same time, make sure people are getting the right information and they're not overreacting. A situation like this, Katy, you have the underlying issue, which is here is the Coronavirus. You then have the public response to it, and the fear and the anxiety and the hysteria that compounds the problem. I don't believe the facts in this situation merit the level of anxiety that we're seeing. So we try to balance both.
Katy Tury: Define hysteria in your terms.
Governor Cuomo: Well, you know, people are very, very anxious. There's a lot of fear. This virus is not as dangerous as many of the viruses we've seen before, right? H1N1 was complicated. Ebola was a frightening virus.
Katy Tury: I know but is it like buying too much toilet paper, wearing masks around? I mean people are going to CVS and getting all of the hand sanitizer they can possibly get. Do you think they're worried about getting on the subway right now? Is that hysterical at this moment or are those fears warranted?
Governor Cuomo: Well, I think the anxiety is unduly high. If you look at the numbers, and we experience and we have the numbers, Johns Hopkins has been tracing the 111,000 Coronavirus cases from China. So we know the mortality rate and we know who is affected. It doesn't merit this kind of anxiety. It's not great. Certainly, we don't want to lose anyone. But it doesn't merit the hysteria. I think part of it is they're getting conflicting messages, mixed messages, and when people get anxious, it's not a rational, intelligent response. And we need everybody to work with us. But at the same time, we're doing what we need to do to reduce the spread: testing, testing, testing, testing. I'm pushing for more testing capacity because you want to find those people who are positive, you want to investigate down that line, isolate as many positive people as you can, so you reduce the spread. Why do you want to reduce the spread? Because you want to protect the vulnerable population from this disease which are senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems and people with an underlying illness. Those are the people really at risk.
Katy Tur: Are you prioritizing health care workers at senior citizens facilities, health care workers or any workers at places that hold the more vulnerable population?
Governor Cuomo: Yes. My fear, as Governor, are the senior citizen congregate facilities, nursing homes, senior citizen living environments, etcetera. That's my personal fear as Governor. As an individual, my family, I'm worried about my mother, who is an elderly person. Don't tell her I said that. She doesn't act that way. She doesn't believe she is. But that's my concern personally because that is the vulnerable population and with the nursing homes we put out new protocols, we have a cluster in Westchester which is a very high density cluster, and we said in those nursing homes no visitors, no people from the outside, because that's really the site of the vulnerable population.
Katy Tur: What about schools? Are you considering closing them? What will it take to close them?
Governor Cuomo: We close them on a case-by-case basis. You have the entire state, which is a microcosm of the country. You have higher numbers in certain areas, lower in others. If the numbers are low, God bless. If the numbers are high, take action. As I mention the before where we have a cluster in Westchester that has more cases than New York City. So how do you handle that hotbed, that hot spot, as they call it? Closing schools, closing gatherings, etcetera, extraordinary efforts where you have higher density of cases.
Katy Tur: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Governor, thanks so much for coming on and lending us your time. We appreciate it.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks.
March 09, 2020
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN's the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cnns-situation-room-wolf-blitzer.
Governor Cuomo: "We calibrate our response to the facts at the time. So where we have a cluster and we see rapid growth, we're much more aggressive in closing schools, gatherings, et cetera. We have a general rule that any school that has a child that tests positive must close for 24 hours so we can come in and assess the situation and make a determination as to long term closure, et cetera. Again, the trajectory of this disease will depend upon what we do."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to discuss the novel coronavirus and New York State's declared state of emergency to contain the spread of the virus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Wolf Blitzer: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is joining us. Governor, I know you have a lot going on, thank you so much for spending a few moments with us. Can you give us an update, Governor, right now on the latest numbers in New York State? How many coronavirus cases are you currently tracking?
Governor Cuomo: Thanks, Wolf, good to be with you. We have about 142 cases. We had a significant jump. So it would put us right up at the top in the country. We have one big cluster in Westchester County which is outside of New York City, then we have some in New York City and throughout of the state.
Wolf Blitzer: Are health officials in New York able to test anyone who comes in and says he or she needs a test?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, that's a great question, Wolf. And the testing capacity is still an issue. You look at the countries that have dealt with this well, you look at what China wound up doing. They did multiples of the tests that we're doing. They were very aggressive on the testing and then they tracked down every test. We're not yet where we should be in terms of testing - that's one of my issues with the federal government and working with them to get the private labs in, get the private labs using what's called automated testing so you get the volume up. Because China was doing thousands and thousands of tests per day. We're nowhere near that level yet.
Wolf Blitzer: As you know, the CDC, Centers for Disease Control, they've been working to try to ramp up testing capacity. Has capacity improved in the State of New York in recent days? And when are you being told you'll have full capacity?
Governor Cuomo: It has been getting better, but in my opinion, not at a fast enough rate. And we shouldn't have started in this position anyway. I mean, we saw China happening, it was no secret, we knew someone was going to get on an airplane in China and come to the United States. That we're saying that China actually had faster testing capacity than we have is not acceptable to me. You have state laboratories, we have a big state lab in New York, but then we need the private sector labs that have approved testing from the CDC.
Quest has come in, some other private sector companies that do business on a nationwide basis. But we're going to need multiples of what we have now. Every report says, Wolf, and yours just said it earlier, what's going to happen, it depends on what we do. Government matters here. What government says, the message we send, and how well we actually administer. And if we don't get this testing capacity up quickly, we're going to be behind the eight ball. And then when people see the testing numbers they're going to be shocked, because the numbers are going to be very high. Just because we're not testing doesn't mean the virus isn't spreading. And then we'll see those big numbers that will add to the fear that people feel. And then we'll have to actually communicate the facts of this situation because we already have, I believe, anxiety well in excess of what the facts would merit.
Wolf Blitzer: You know, in Japan, all elementary, middle schools, high schools, for millions of kids, they've been shut down for the entire month. In Italy, by the way, just moments ago, the prime minister announced that 60 million - all the people of Italy - are now on lock down for the time being. You've ordered schools in New York to close for 24 hours if someone at the school tests positive for coronavirus. Is that enough time? How worried are you that what's happening, for example, in Japan or Italy or South Korea could happen here in the United States?
Governor Cuomo: Well, what we do, Wolf, is we calibrate our response to the facts at the time. So where we have a cluster and we see rapid growth, we're much more aggressive in closing schools, gatherings, et cetera. We have a general rule that any school that has a child that tests positive must close for 24 hours so we can come in and assess the situation and make a determination as to long term closure, et cetera. Again, the trajectory of this disease will depend upon what we do. If we get that testing capacity up quickly and we actually track down those cases, we can reduce the spread. Just reduce the spread. If we don't, you'll see it spread more and then you have to take more dramatic actions, closing down schools, et cetera. We don't want to get there. Nobody wants to get there, because that will really have a negative impact on the economy, on top of everything else. But you could get there if you don't stop the spread and that requires additional testing capacity and investigation. Every time you find a positive, you then have to run down that case. It's a whole detective investigation and then contact all those people. So it's a massive logistical operation.
Wolf Blitzer: It certainly is and we appreciate, Governor Cuomo, the time you spent with us. I know you have a lot going on and presumably, by all accounts, it's only going to get more intense. Thanks so much for joining us.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks, Wolf.
March 10, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Asks New York State Comptroller Tom Dinapoli to Revisit Revenue Projections in Light of Market Impact of Novel Coronavirus. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-asks-new-york-state-comptroller-tom-dinapoli-revisit-revenue-projections-light
Governor Cuomo Asks New York State Comptroller Tom Dinapoli to Revisit Revenue Projections in Light of Market Impact of Novel Coronavirus
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today issued a letter to New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli asking him to revisit the state's revenue projections in light of the market impact of the novel coronavirus.
The full text of the letter is available below:
Dear Comptroller DiNapoli,
Thank you for all the work you've done in reviewing our state's revenue estimates as part of the state's budget preparation.
As you know we recently completed the consensus revenue forecast in which your office participated as did independent experts who opined on the uncertainty of the economy going forward and since then the outlook has deteriorated. We are now basing our budget on revenue projections based on the consensus economic forecast for the current and upcoming fiscal year. The revenue projections are the underlying premise of the state's entire budget. If the revenue forecast is wrong, then everything that follows is incorrect.
As you know the world has changed in just the past few days and weeks. The world financial market volatility will no doubt impact our economic growth forecast for the next State Fiscal year and revenue from the financial sector. The COVID 19 epidemic could impact virtually every sector of society with school closures, travel disruptions, empty restaurants and hotels, and canceled business meetings.
We are in the final stages of budget negotiations and I would ask you to perform a risk analysis of our revenue projections in light of the recent developments. Our budget relies on two projections: current year and next year revenue projections and underlying economic growth forecasts. I can see how the current State Fiscal year's projections may be largely secure but I would like the benefit of your thoughts. I see possible major impacts on next year's forecast and would like your opinion on next year's revenue projections and what we should do, if anything, in this year's budget to prepare for next year.
I understand no one has a crystal ball but I also understand revenue projections are a necessary and essential function and many national economic advisors are putting forth theories on the global market impact and making frantic revisions to near term economic forecasts. I would ask you to review them and opine for New York State. As time is short, I would appreciate your advice in 7 days. Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
March 10, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Accepts Recommendation of State Health Commissioner for New Emergency Measures to Contain Novel Coronavirus Cluster in New Rochelle. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-accepts-recommendation-state-health-commissioner-new-emergency-measures-contain
During Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Confirms 31 Additional Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 173; New Cases Include 10 in Westchester County, 17 in NYC, 2 in Nassau County and 2 in Rockland County
Schools, Houses of Worship and Other Large Gathering Facilities to Be Temporarily Closed for Two-Week Period in Highest Impacted Area of New Rochelle from March 12-25
Deploys National Guard to State Health Department Command Post in New Rochelle to Assist with Cleaning and Other Community Support Efforts
Announces Partnership with Northwell Health to Set Up Satellite Testing Facility in New Rochelle
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today accepted the recommendation of State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker for new emergency measures to contain the novel coronavirus cluster in New Rochelle. The area currently has 108 confirmed cases and is considered a "cluster." The protocols include closing schools, houses of worship and other large gathering facilities within a one-mile radius in New Rochelle for a two-week period, from Thursday, March 12th to Wednesday, March 25th.
The Governor has deployed National Guard troops to a Health Department command post in New Rochelle to assist with the outbreak. The troops are mobilizing to deliver food to homes and help with cleaning public spaces in the containment area.
The Governor confirmed 31 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 173 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 173 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 108 (10 new)
New York City: 36 (17 new)
Nassau: 19 (2 new)
Rockland: 6 (2 new)
Saratoga: 2
Suffolk: 1
Ulster: 1
March 10, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Accepts Recommendation of State Health Commissioner for New Emergency Measures to Contain Novel Coronavirus Cluster in New Rochelle. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-accepts-recommendation-state-health
During Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Confirms 31 Additional Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 173; New Cases Include 10 in Westchester County, 17 in NYC, 2 in Nassau County and 2 in Rockland County
Schools, Houses of Worship and Other Large Gathering Facilities to Be Temporarily Closed for Two-Week Period in Highest Impacted Area of New Rochelle from March 12-25
Deploys National Guard to State Health Department Command Post in New Rochelle to Assist with Cleaning and Other Community Support Efforts
Announces Partnership with Northwell Health to Set Up Satellite Testing Facility in New Rochelle
Governor Cuomo: "New Rochelle at this point is probably the largest cluster in the United States of these cases and it is a significant issue... 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."
Cuomo: "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."
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today accepted the recommendation of State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker for new emergency measures to contain the novel coronavirus cluster in New Rochelle. The area currently has 108 confirmed cases and is considered a "cluster." The protocols include closing schools, houses of worship and other large gathering facilities within a one-mile radius in New Rochelle for a two-week period, from Thursday, March 12th to Wednesday, March 25th.
The Governor has deployed National Guard troops to a Health Department command post in New Rochelle to assist with the outbreak. The troops are mobilizing to deliver food to homes and help with cleaning public spaces in the containment area.
The Governor confirmed 31 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 173 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 173 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 108 (10 new)
New York City: 36 (17 new)
Nassau: 19 (2 new)
Rockland: 6 (2 new)
Saratoga: 2
Suffolk: 1
Ulster: 1
The Governor also announced the State will partner with Northwell Health to set up a satellite testing facility in New Rochelle. Visits would operate by appointment only. More information will be posted soon on the State Department of Health website.
VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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.
March 10, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN's the Lead With Jake Tapper. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cnns-lead-jake-tapper-0.
Governor Cuomo: "New Rochelle has about three times the number of cases New York City does. New York City is 100 times the size of New Rochelle. So it's unique in the nation in that it is a very dense cluster of positive cases and it's been going up exponentially. What we're doing is we're bringing all resources to bear on that cluster. The quote unquote containment zone really just says in that immediate vicinity, no large gatherings, which people are doing all across the country and it makes sense. If you have that high degree of the number of positive people, you don't want them going into large gatherings. So we're going to close the schools for a period of time. No large gatherings."
Cuomo: "Also the deep breath point is, this is not going to end the world, you know? This is not the Ebola virus which I went through. That was frightening. If you are a member of the vulnerable population, you're a senior citizen, you're immune compromised, then it's dangerous. But that's really what this is about, right? And let's keep it all in focus, because the anxiety and the fear are not connected to the facts and the reality of this situation. And we have a virus to fight. More, we have the fear and the panic to fight."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper to discuss the latest updates on coronavirus in New York State.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Jake Tapper: Joining me now to discuss, the Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo. Thank you so much for joining us. You've asked for a one-mile radius containment area around New Rochelle, which means school, synagogues, churches, are canceled for two weeks. You've activated the National Guard to help clean schools and other facilities and to deliver food. What else can you tell us about this containment plan?
Governor Cuomo: Thanks for having me, Jake. Think of it this way, we have 173 cases in the entire state, right? We have 108 in New Rochelle. New Rochelle has about three times the number of cases New York City does. New York City is 100 times the size of New Rochelle. So it's unique in the nation in that it is a very dense cluster of positive cases and it's been going up exponentially. What we're doing is we're bringing all resources to bear on that cluster. The quote unquote containment zone really just says in that immediate vicinity, no large gatherings, which people are doing all across the country and it makes sense. If you have that high degree of the number of positive people, you don't want them going into large gatherings. So we're going to close the schools for a period of time. No large gatherings. Meanwhile, clean the schools, clean the public transit system, and bring in a satellite testing system where people in that community can get tested.
Jake Tapper: Governor, you noted that the cluster is in New Rochelle and not in New York City. Why? What's going on in New Rochelle that this is where it happened?
Governor Cuomo: It just so happened that it started with one or two cases. There were then a number of convenings in that community that brought several hundred people together for celebrations and it took off like fire through dry grass in those convenings. That's why we have this very dense cluster of positives right in that area and that's why no large gatherings. Let's go in and do what we have to do, but you know, Jake, this is a microcosm of what we're going to be looking at. The numbers are going to go up consistently because our testing is way behind the reality of what the situation is. I have no doubt that the reality is a multiple of everything we're seeing in the numbers and as we test more, that's what you're going to see. You're going to see those numbers skyrocket. The only way this has ever been contained, what China did, what Korea did. You only have two options, quarantine or really increase the number of tests and get the positive tests and then isolate. China was doing 5,000 tests, 10,000 tests per day. This country in total, we've done about 5,000 tests. So we really have to get that testing capacity up if we're going to make a difference.
Jake Tapper: I want to ask you about a different cluster, the first cluster we know of outside Seattle. A source tells me, a first responder tells me that seven firefighters in Kirkland who reported obviously to the life care center there, seven were swabbed for testing but there was such a bottleneck at the testing center that the tests expired, those seven firefighters now have to be retested, they have to remain in quarantine. Are your first responders getting not only the testing they need but the testing, is it being followed through?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, it's a good question and you'll hear different people saying different things, because it's apples and oranges. When they talk about the number of test kits they sent out, that's just the swab that you take and then you send that swab to the lab and sending it to the lab can be a logistical problem. Then the lab turnaround time, if they have a backlog, it can be two days, three days. Some of the commercial labs coming online say to a get it you to before two or three days. We've been dealing with that from day one. CDC first was doing all the tests themselves, they were sending them to Atlanta, then we made a fuss, then they allowed state labs to do the test and then we've been advocating to allow private labs to come in and do tests to increase our capacity. In New York yesterday they finally authorized the private labs to do automated testing that will increase our capacity. But this is a very cumbersome process, and again, according to the HHS secretary, about 5,000 tests? After all this time? Korea, China are doing 5,000, 10,000 per day and then tracking all those tests? That's how they stopped it there. We're not going to stop it here at this rate of testing
Jake Tapper: Governor, can I impose on you, I want to continue this interview but we need to squeeze in a break
Governor Cuomo: Sure.
Jake Tapper: Great. We'll be back talking to Governor Cuomo. We'll be right back.
Jake Tapper: I want to bring back Governor Andrew Cuomo of the Empire State who is answering our questions about how New York is dealing with this. Governor, thanks so much for sticking around. You talked about how you have this zone around New Rochelle now and the National Guard is being activated to go there and help clean schools and deliver food, clean public transportation. People are being discouraged from holding any sort of group event in New Rochelle. New Rochelle is just 20 miles North of New York City. You've noted that because of the inadequate supply of testing kits that are out there, we really don't know how widespread this epidemic is. Should people in areas surrounding New Rochelle start to consider not holding group events, self-quarantining if they need to?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah. Well, it's a good question, Jake. We're mapping where we get the positive cases. As we see them start to spread or pop up in a community, we identify that community and we talk to them and we make those kinds of decisions. But remember, it's not testing kits and this is why the federal government will say, we have plenty of testing kits. They have plenty of testing kits. That's the swab. They don't have the capacity to scale, to do the actual tests and that's the issue, right? And the way this stops, and again, only two ways: you quarantine the area, that's China, that's Italy, or you do enough tests, a high enough volume of tests where you can run down most positives. That in China and Korea were about 5,000 to 10,000 tests per day, Jake. The HHS secretary said we've only done 5,000 since this started. That's our issue.
Jake Tapper: Right, so that's my point.
Governor Cuomo: They're not testing more people.
Jake Tapper: That's my point, if we don't have the testing going on right now, should the government and should local communities be taking more aggressive measures because we don't know how widespread it is?
Governor Cuomo: Yes, but the question is -- first of all, it is much more widespread than we know about these tests because it's been out there a long time and our tests are nowhere near random sample or scale, so yes, it's out there. But what do you do? Unless you want to go to quarantine, where you have a density of cases, what do you do besides find ways to increase the testing capacity? What would this country tolerate? You know, you're not going to do what you did in China. I think it's about increasing testing capacity and that's why I keep pushing the federal government, and I annoy the President, who will now probably send me another nasty tweet after this broadcast. But I think they have to increase the number of tests.
Also the deep breath point is, this is not going to end the world, you know? This is not the Ebola virus which I went through. That was frightening. If you are a member of the vulnerable population, you're a senior citizen, you're immune compromised, then it's dangerous. But that's really what this is about, right? And let's keep it all in focus, because the anxiety and the fear are not connected to the facts and the reality of this situation. And we have a virus to fight. More, we have the fear and the panic to fight.
Jake Tapper: Right, no, I agree with that. Let me ask you, the containment area approach that you're applying to New Rochelle outside New York City that was recommended by New York's Health Commissioner Howard Zucker. Is the CDC, Centers for Disease Control, on board with this plan?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, we're working with CDC, the FDA, the whole alphabet soup of health care agencies. And yes, this is in line with everyone's guidance. And it's also common sense, by the way. You have one of the densest clusters in the United States. This is almost unique in the nation, Jake. So what do you do? No gatherings, get testing for as many people as you can, get logistical support. It's making it happen. It's not the concept. The concept is inarguable. What our government nationwide is dealing with is the actual capacity and the ability to do what it needs to do. To respond, to mobilize. That's our challenge.
Jake Tapper: so one of the things that is so shocking to me is that the Life Care Center, that nursing home outside Seattle, in Kirkland, Washington, where 19 people have died already there. The idea that there are 180 employees, 65 of them have symptoms, none of them, not one of them has been tested. Forget whether or not the test goes to the proper lab, not one of them is tested. It just staggers the mind. This is not your purview, this is in Kirkland, Washington, not New Rochelle, New York, but I guess the question is, are you prepared, and what are you telling people at nursing homes in New York where the people are the most vulnerable, perhaps, because many of them have health issues, all of them are senior citizens and obviously they're in tight quarters, many of them.
Governor Cuomo: Jake, that's my nightmare and that's where you're going to see the pain and the damage from this virus. Senior citizen homes, nursing homes, congregant senior facilities. That is my nightmare. We've taken steps, some drastic steps in this area, in New Rochelle, we're talking about. We said no visitors in a nursing home. All you need is 9-year-old Johnny to visit his grandmother in a nursing home, give her a kiss, and you can be off to the races. That's my fear. That population in those congregate facilities. That is really what we have to watch.
But look, on the testing, you're right. We're still not where we need to be on the testing. And I do not understand why. I don't want to cast stones, I don't want to get in a fight with the federal government we have to work together. But look, we saw China happening in November, December. We knew someone was going to get on an airplane and come to this country. How does China and Korea have a better, faster testing mechanism than we do? And the only explanation you get is, well, their tests aren't as good as our tests, our tests have a higher degree of accuracy. Yeah, but their tests are 5,000, 10,000 per day, and that's what you need to keep the scale to stay ahead of this beast. If you don't have that scale, then you'll be playing catch-up from day one. And that's what we're doing now, we're playing catch-up. First the CDC said they had to do all the tests. Then they became the bottleneck. Then they said okay finally, the state laboratories can test, that opened up more capacity. Now they're moving to, and private laboratories can test. And then you'll have additional capacity. But this has been a long time coming on this evolving process. And we're still not where we need to be and everyone will say that.
Jake Tapper: Governor Andrew Cuomo, best of luck dealing with this crisis, we appreciate your time.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you.
March 10, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on MSNBC With Yasmin Vossoughian https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-msnbc-yasmin-vossoughian-0
Governor Cuomo: "New Rochelle has just about three times more cases than New York City... So this really is the most dense, concentrated location of our positive cases. And they're increasing exponentially in that area because when you get a lot of positive cases in a dense area they multiply very quickly. So, what we're doing is focusing on that location, focusing on those positive cases. The containment area means closing the schools, closing the places of large gatherings, because it's the density that's the problem. That's when it's transmitting.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Yasmin Vossoughian: Governor, thanks so much for joining us on this. There's a lot of people that are anxious right now in hearing this news - this containment area in New Rochelle. So walk us through the decision making that you took in order to take this step forward and what exactly this means to the residents of that area?
Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, Yasmin. I think the word scares people more than anything. Here's the situation, we have 173 cases in the entire state. We have 108 cases in New Rochelle. New Rochelle has just about three times more cases than New York City. New York City is 100-times the size of New Rochelle, okay. So this really is the most dense, concentrated location of our positive cases. And they're increasing exponentially in that area because when you get a lot of positive cases in a dense area they multiply very quickly. So, what we're doing is focusing on that location, focusing on those positive cases. The containment area means closing the schools, closing the places of large gatherings, because it's the density that's the problem. That's when it's transmitting. So, close the schools, close large gatherings, we're bringing in a testing facility right there on site, a satellite testing facility so people don't have to leave, and just focus our resources there. It's not like China or Italy where people are quarantined. Anyone can go wherever they want to go. It's just the schools and the large gathering places and bringing in satellite testing.
Yasmin Vossoughian: But from what we have heard governor, there are people that could feasibly be asymptomatic, literally walking around with coronavirus and not even know it. So, how confident are you that there aren't folks in New Rochelle that live in this area that may have contracted the coronavirus, are asymptomatic and are going in and out of this containment area and infecting others?
Governor Cuomo: It's very possible, but that's very possible in any community across the country right now. That is what we have. That's the situation that we're in. There are - you can asymptomatic and you can transfer the disease, we know that. We know that we don't even have any statistical data on how many people have the disease, right? Our testing is so far behind the reality that there is probably is no connection between the two. We started testing at a period of time many experts say the virus was already here already and already spread. We're doing a very small sampling and we tend to be testing people who already tested positive and may have been in contact with those people. So when people hear these test results, you know we have 173 cases, that's not statistical representative. And yes, I have no doubt that people have coronavirus and are walking around. I have no doubt that people had the coronavirus, never knew they had it, and resolved it.
Yasmin Vossoughian: So why not, Governor, then, especially in this hot zone that you guys are cordoning off, why not quarantine that area if there are people walking in and out who may be asymptomatic? Would that further decrease the spread or at least slow the spread of this thing?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, well, that's the China strategy. That's the Italy strategy. We're not there yet in New York. We're not there yet in this country. I don't want to limit people's mobility. We're not there. I do want to say don't gather in dense places when you know a lot of people in your community are positive. Don't all put 300 people in a gymnasium to watch a basketball game. That's what we call containment. You know you have a high concentration of positive people. Don't put them in a very dense setting and get the testing done so you can isolate those people who are actually positive. Whether or not you ever have to go to quarantine, I hope we never have to get there, and if we do get enough testing we will not have to. You look at China and Korea, you can either quarantine or you can do a lot of testing, find the positives, and isolate the positives. That's the better track. Then we have to get our testing capacity way, way up quickly because we don't have the testing capacity to do the numbers. China was testing about 10,000 per day. The federal government says in all of this we tested about 5,000 people. Just think of that.
Yasmin Vossoughian: All right, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks.
March 11, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on Morning Joe. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-morning-joe.
Governor Cuomo: "I think what the coronavirus reminds people is that there's nothing theoretical about government, right? This is about making a difference in people's lives, mobilizing, and being effective - and that's what we're seeing now."
Cuomo: "What the other countries did is they did the massive testing. You know, China was doing 200,000 tests a day. South Korea was doing 15,000 tests a day. We've done 5,000 to date. So what I would say, what I have been saying to other governors, is you're on your own, you know. Let the states take action because when they do the retrospective here, Joe, I think this is going to be the public health version of Hurricane Katrina. The federal government has just fallen down on the job, so let the states do it."
Cuomo: "I'm going to speak to business leaders in New York today. I'm going to ask them voluntarily to do telecommuting, two shifts, a morning shift and a late shift, and let people work from home voluntarily. We have closed some schools. We've closed schools in this hot spot in New Rochelle. At the same time, we're trying to slow it down but ramping up the testing and hopefully the federal government is going to release the handcuffs - they've been controlling the process."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on Morning Joe to discuss New York's new emergency measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus in New Rochelle.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Mika Brzezinski: Joining us now, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. In New York, state officials have set up a one mile containment area. In New Rochelle, public schools in the area will be closed until March 25 and the National Guard has been deployed to the area. As of yesterday, Westchester County has seen 108 confirmed cases of the virus. Governor Cuomo, how does the containment area work, and for people who are infected or are worried that they're infected, are they still going to the hospital?
Governor Cuomo: Well, thanks. Good to be with you, Mika. You know, all of this talk about politics, I think what the coronavirus reminds people is that there's nothing theoretical about government, right? This is about making a difference in people's lives, mobilizing, and being effective - and that's what we're seeing now. On the New Rochelle area specifically, it's the most dense cluster of cases in the United States. We have 108 cases in New Rochelle. I think you get an idea, New York City only has 36. New York City is 100 times the size of New Rochelle, okay? So what the containment means is just large gatherings in that area are postponed. People can go and come, etc. It's not a quarantine area, but no large gatherings because that's where it's spreading obviously. And the numbers are going to go up exponentially. We don't see it in the testing yet because we're not testing enough and it's much bigger out there than we even know. So we have to take real actions and we have to take them quickly.
Joe Scarborough: So, governor, just so other communities can learn from what happened in New Rochelle, could you just briefly walk us through how one man being infected has now led to the densest cluster, the most dense cluster in the United States, and what other communities should do to avoid what happened in New Rochelle? What's required you to take such a dramatic step.
Governor Cuomo: Joe, it's math. You know, this community happened to have a couple of large gatherings back to back. They had a large religious gathering where you had about 400 people. They then had a couple of days later another large gathering, and it's just math. It's just the trajectory of exposure. There's nothing extraordinary. And what the other countries did is they did the massive testing. You know, China was doing 200,000 tests a day. South Korea was doing 15,000 tests a day. We've done 5,000 to date. So what I would say, what I have been saying to other governors, is you're on your own, you know. Let the states take action because when they do the retrospective here, Joe, I think this is going to be the public health version of Hurricane Katrina. The federal government has just fallen down on the job, so let the states do it.
Mika Brzezinski: So I'm still trying to understand, though, how the containment area is going to work because if somebody has symptoms, like, for example, the man who, you know, this story began with, he went to the hospital in neighboring Bronxville and then ended up in the city. So what is happening to people who have the virus who are feeling symptoms, perhaps need care?
Governor Cuomo: Well, in this area in New Rochelle, the hot spot, first, no large gatherings. Second, we're bringing testing into the community. You know, this testing has been such a fiasco. Even people going to a hospital is a problem. They get into care, they expose the cab, they get into a hospital, they expose workers. So we're bringing testing, mobile testing units to New Rochelle and you literally can drive in to a mobile testing unit. It's all contained. It's all isolated, and you get the test right there. We are getting very aggressive on the testing because if you look at the way it has been stopped in other countries, it's either massive quarantine or massive testing and we don't want to quarantine so we're going to have to do the testing and we can't wait for the federal government because it's not going to happen.
Willie Geist: Governor, it's Willie Geist. Tom Bossert who is President Trump's Homeland Security Secretary said yesterday we are ten days away from the hospitals in the United States here getting creamed. He wrote an op-ed in the Washington post on Monday that said we're headed toward the crisis in what it looks like in Italy, frankly. I'm getting even this morning from doctors and people in Italy flashing red lights that what we have here is headed your way if you don't get smart about this. So what is your threshold, Governor, for closing schools? I know that's a municipal question, but for closing schools, for canceling any gatherings, for telling people just stop going to work, work electronically, we can now do Google Chat. We can do this. Where do you see the next turn in this? Is there a moment where you all get together and say we've got to shut things down for a while?
Governor Cuomo: Willie, I think you see the trajectory going straight up. I'm going to speak to business leaders in New York today. I'm going to ask them voluntarily to do telecommuting, two shifts, a morning shift and a late shift, and let people work from home voluntarily. We have closed some schools. We've closed schools in this hot spot in New Rochelle. At the same time, we're trying to slow it down but ramping up the testing and hopefully the federal government is going to release the handcuffs - they've been controlling the process. And that's the way the other countries have gotten ahead of it, with testing. But I think you're right. All the numbers say it's going to be a wave. We're worried about the health care system. We're studying very closely our vacancy in the health care system and we're planning backup hospitals, quarantine centers if you will, just in case we overwhelm the health care system.
Because that's the real challenge. Can you deal with the number of sick in the hospitals? And then my number one concern, my nightmare, nursing homes, senior citizen centers, congregate care facilities for seniors. That's the vulnerable population and that's what we have to keep an eye on because that's where we could have a real issue. That was Washington State and these congregate senior facilities where vulnerable people are all close together, that's my number one concern.
Mike Barnacle: So, Governor, I went back yesterday and watched an address to the nation by President Obama of the Ebola crisis in which he was pretty straightforward in terms of what we were doing, what the government was doing, what the government could do. In the case of New York, in the case of New Rochelle, you were talking about the government's failure. What would you expect the federal government to be doing and what are they not doing that is critical to both New York, both your needs, and every governor, every state?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, look, Mike, let me be candid but let me be careful because I don't want the president tweeting at me of that broadcast. I have to work with the federal government to make it work here. But, we knew this was coming in November and December. We knew what was happening in China. We had to know that somebody was going to get on an airplane and come to the United States, right? How we get to this point where we do not have testing capacity anywhere near what we need, literally the HHS Secretary says yesterday, 5,000 tests to date. South Korea, 15,000 tests a day. China, 200,000 tests a day. That's how you stay ahead of this thing. That's how they turned the curve. We're nowhere near that. It reminds me of Hurricane Katrina, just a failed federal response and failed federal mobilization. They underestimated the challenge. Now, who and how and why, I don't know.
I'll tell you in this whole political conversation we're having I think it's said to people, "Hey, remember government matters, guys. This is not all theory and abstract - this is who can manage and who can get things done in a time of crisis." And I think that's what this coronavirus has done partially on the political scale. But, the federal government has just had a really poor response. And what I'm saying to them is, at least get out of the way. You know, CDC, FDA control all the approvals. They've been controlling the test process. I'm saying to them now, we know the horse is out of the barn, we know this is much more widespread, at least let the states scramble and do what they can.
Mika Brzezinski: Governor Andrew Cuomo, thank you very much for being on the show. We'll see you soon.
Joe Scarborough: Great to have you with us and good luck with those Tweets.
March 11, 2020.
During Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces New York State Will Contract with 28 Private Labs to Increase Coronavirus Testing Capacity. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/during-novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-new-york-state-will-contract-28.
SUNY and CUNY Will Prepare Plans for Distance Learning for Remainder of Spring Semester Starting Next Week
State Will Provide Two Weeks Paid Leave for State Workers Who Are Quarantined as a Result of Novel Coronavirus
Confirms 43 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 216; New Cases Include 13 in Westchester County, 16 in New York City, 9 in Nassau County and 5 in Suffolk County
Announces Cooperative Effort with New York State Business Leaders to Voluntarily Implement Different Work Shifts and Telecommuting to Help Reduce Density
NYS Department of Health Will Provide $200,000 to Local Food Bank in New Rochelle to Ensure Any Family Who Relies On Free School Lunches Can Continue To Access It During Containment Period
During a novel coronavirus briefing, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York State will contract with 28 private labs to increase testing capacity for the novel coronavirus. Following a call with the 28 labs, the Governor announced that he has instructed the labs to begin testing immediately as soon as they are ready. The 28 labs are specialized in virology and are routine partners with the New York State Department of Health.
The Governor also announced the State University of New York and the City University of New York will implement plans to maximize distance learning and reduce in-person classes, beginning March 19th, for the remainder of the Spring semester in light of the evolving novel coronavirus situation in New York. All campuses will develop plans catered to the campus and curriculum-specific needs while reducing density in the campus environment to help slow possibility for exposures to novel coronavirus. Distance learning and other options will be developed by campuses.
Governor Cuomo announced the state will guarantee two full weeks of paid leave for all state workers who are subject to a mandatory or precautionary order of quarantine as a result of the novel coronavirus. Employees will not have to charge accruals during the time taken off work for quarantine. This will apply to all state employees, regardless of civil service classification, bargaining unit, and regardless of part time or accrual status.
Finally, the Governor also confirmed 43 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 216 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 216 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 121 (13 new)
New York City: 52 (16 new)
Nassau: 28 (9 new)
Suffolk: 6 (5 new)
Rockland: 6
Saratoga: 2
Ulster: 1"While the risk to New Yorkers remains low, we are taking a number of steps out of an abundance of caution to protect public health including asking SUNY and CUNY to implement strategies to reduce density on campuses for the remainder of the semester," Governor Cuomo said. "At the same time, we're continuing to prioritize ramping up testing capacity because the more people you identify as having the virus, the better you can contain it. We're also leading by example and providing paid leave to all state workers who are quarantined as a result of the virus - and we encourage businesses to voluntarily do telecommuting to the extent possible. Again I want to remind people to keep this in perspective: the facts do not justify the fear in this situation and the facts here should actually reduce anxiety."
After speaking with business leaders today, Governor Cuomo also announced a new cooperative effort with New York business leaders to voluntarily implement different work shifts and telecommuting in an effort to reduce density.
Additionally, the Governor announced that the New York State Department of Health will grant $200,000 to a local food bank in New Rochelle to help the community as it faces a cluster of positive cases of the novel coronavirus. Nine schools in New Rochelle are currently closed as a result of the containment zone set yesterday, and this funding will help ensure any student or family who relies on free school lunches can continue to access it during this containment effort.
We're continuing to prioritize ramping up testing capacity because the more people you identify as having the virus, the better you can contain it.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
SUNY Chancellor Kristina M. Johnson said, "We have been working closely with the Governor and the Department of Health to allow SUNY students to continue their education online or remotely, thus limiting their exposure to the COVID-19 while ensuring academic continuity. SUNY Online is a major initiative for our System, and we have been preparing to migrate many of our academic programs to this new distance-learning platform. With more than 100,000 SUNY students currently taking one or more of their courses online with us, we believe we are prepared and well-positioned to take advantage of remote instruction to further our student's education during this crisis."
CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez said: "The transition to distance learning protects our students and all of our campus communities, while enabling the University to ensure academic continuity, safeguarding students' ability to finish the semester and protecting their financial aid. Our 25 campuses, including dorms, libraries, and research facilities, will remain open. The health and safety of the University community remains our top priority and I am glad that this measure allows CUNY to continue serving its students while alleviating pressure on our area during this public health threat."
Yesterday, Governor Cuomo accepted the recommendation of State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker for new emergency measures to contain the novel coronavirus cluster in New Rochelle. The area currently has 108 confirmed cases and is considered a "cluster." The protocols include closing schools, houses of worship and other large gathering facilities within a one-mile radius in New Rochelle for a two-week period, from Thursday, March 12th to Wednesday, March 25th.
The Governor deployed National Guard troops to a Health Department command post in New Rochelle to assist with the outbreak. The troops are mobilizing to deliver food to homes and help with cleaning public spaces in the containment area.
The Governor also announced the State will partner with Northwell Health to set up a satellite testing facility in New Rochelle. Visits would operate by appointment only. More information will be posted soon on the State Department of Health website.
March 11, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: During Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces New York State Will Contract with 28 Private Labs to Increase Coronavirus Testing Capacity https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-during-novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces
UNY and CUNY Will Prepare Plans for Distance Learning for Remainder of Spring Semester Starting Next Week
State Will Provide Two Weeks Paid Leave for State Workers Who Are Quarantined as a Result of Novel Coronavirus
Confirms 43 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 216; New Cases Include 13 in Westchester County, 16 in New York City, 9 in Nassau County and 5 in Suffolk County
Announces Cooperative Effort with New York State Business Leaders to Voluntarily Implement Different Work Shifts and Telecommuting to Help Reduce Density
NYS Department of Health Will Provide $200,000 to Local Food Bank in New Rochelle to Ensure Any Family Who Relies On Free School Lunches Can Continue To Access It During Containment Period
Governor Cuomo: "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."
Cuomo: "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."
Cuomo: "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."
During a novel coronavirus briefing earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that New York State will contract with 28 private labs to increase testing capacity for the novel coronavirus. Following a call with the 28 labs, the Governor announced that he has instructed the labs to begin testing immediately as soon as they are ready. The 28 labs are specialized in virology and are routine partners with the New York State Department of Health.
The Governor also announced the State University of New York and the City University of New York will implement plans to maximize distance learning and reduce in-person classes, beginning March 19th, for the remainder of the Spring semester in light of the evolving novel coronavirus situation in New York. All campuses will develop plans catered to the campus and curriculum-specific needs while reducing density in the campus environment to help slow possibility for exposures to novel coronavirus. Distance learning and other options will be developed by campuses.
Governor Cuomo announced the state will guarantee two full weeks of paid leave for all state workers who are subject to a mandatory or precautionary order of quarantine as a result of the novel coronavirus. Employees will not have to charge accruals during the time taken off work for quarantine. This will apply to all state employees, regardless of civil service classification, bargaining unit, and regardless of part time or accrual status.
Finally, the Governor also confirmed 43 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 216 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 216 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Westchester: 121 (13 new)
New York City: 52 (16 new)
Nassau: 28 (9 new)
Suffolk: 6 (5 new)
Rockland: 6
Saratoga: 2
Ulster: 1VIDEO of the Governor's update is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's update is available here.
PHOTOS of today's update will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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, etcetera, 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.
March 11, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Announces St. Patrick's Day Parade and Celebration Committee Has Agreed to Postpone 2020 St. Patrick's Day Parade. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-st-patricks-day-parade-and-celebration-committee-has-agreed-postpone
This evening, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the St. Patrick's Day Parade and Celebration Committee has agreed to postpone the 2020 St. Patrick's Day Parade, which draws approximately 250,000 marchers and 1 to 2 million spectators to Manhattan.
"Today I had several conversations with the organizers of the St. Patrick's Day Parade to determine whether the parade should move forward in light of the evolving coronavirus situation and increased case count in the New York City area," Governor Cuomo said. "Following those conversations, I recommended and the parade's leadership agreed to postpone this year's parade due to the high density and the large volume of marchers and spectators who attend. While I know the parade organizers did not make this decision lightly, public health experts agree that one of the most effective ways to contain the spread of the virus is to limit large gatherings and close contacts, and I applaud the parade's leadership for working cooperatively with us. While the risk to New Yorkers remains low and we want to avoid social and economic disruptions, we have an obligation to take action to contain the spread of this virus."
Sean Lane, Parade Committee Chair of the St. Patrick's Day Parade and Celebration Committee said, "We thank Governor Cuomo for his decisive leadership in this challenging time. We look forward to celebrating the 259th St. Patrick's Day Parade with the entire city of New York at a later date."
March 11, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN's Cuomo Prime Time. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cnns-cuomo-prime-time.
Governor Cuomo: "I think this is a governmental situation that we're dealing with, and it is a governmental crisis. And I think the President should in a speech like this say to the American people this is what we're looking at, this is what to expect and this is what government is going to do. Because the truth is those numbers on cases are going to skyrocket."
Cuomo: "Let the American people know that is coming They have to understand that the government is in charge. The government is mobilized. The government is competent. It's capable. And when you see these big changes coming, don't be nervous, because it is part of a plan. And that is what I would have liked to hear from the President tonight. Here is what your government is going to do at this time of crisis. Yes, it is going to be a disruption. Yes, you will feel anxious, but it is going to be okay at the end of the day."
Cuomo: "It was shocking to people and that is my point. This is not about a foreign virus, whatever that means. It's here, it's community spread. It is much more prevalent than we know. The testing does not reflect what it is. These are not random sample tests. It is because we have no testing capacity. That is why the numbers are low. If you actually had testing capacity, you would see how high the numbers are already."
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Chris Cuomo: Thank you for joining me tonight. I appreciate you taking it. The President's headline move was 30 days, Andrew, no travel from Europe, including cargo. A little different with U.K., maybe some exceptions. How do you feel about the move?
Governor Cuomo: You know, Chris, I think the President - It is a dramatic move, obviously. It's I think designed to show action. But I don't think this was about a political speech for the President. What was his tone, how did he sound, how did he look? I think this is a governmental situation that we're dealing with, and it is a governmental crisis. And I think the President should in a speech like this say to the American people this is what we're looking at, this is what to expect and this is what government is going to do. Because the truth is those numbers on cases are going to skyrocket. We know that. That is going to be jarring to the American people. We do have a problem with testing. And people are getting more nervous and going to see the numbers go up and they can't get a test. And that's an issue we have to talk to. You're going to see major disruptions. Social distancing, what does that mean? It means we are going we're going to start to have to close schools. We're going to be closing venues. Let the American people know that is coming. Reducing density, what does that mean? They're are going to be major governmental actions that have to be taking place. The American people have to be ready for it. They have to understand that the government is in charge. The government is mobilized. The government is competent. It's capable. And when you see these big changes coming, don't be nervous, because it is part of a plan. And that is what I would have liked to hear from the President tonight. Here is what your government is going to do at this time of crisis. Yes, it is going to be a disruption. Yes, you will feel anxious, but it is going to be okay at the end of the day.
Chris Cuomo: So two things for you. One, how true is it what he said about the rapidly ramping up of testing and that it is getting out there and that just about anybody who wants one could get one. And second, you did something that was a surprise move for people in New York. It turns out the big bucket of cases that you're dealing with right now, I think it is 121 of them, are in Westchester which is not a place where people expected them. So you created this containment thing and that came as a surprise to people and how did that play, that move, in terms of this is what we have to do and in this random place where people wouldn't have expected it? And are you getting more testing and more stuff from the fed, are you catching up?
Governor Cuomo: You're right. First of all, it was shocking to people and that is my point. This is not about a foreign virus, whatever that means. It's here, it's community spread. It is much more prevalent than we know. The testing does not reflect what it is. These are not random sample tests. It is because we have no testing capacity. That is why the numbers are low. If you actually had testing capacity, you would see how high the numbers are already. And as we do ramp up testing, you're going to see those numbers go sky high. And if you don't have the American people ready for it, it's going to be a problem. We are way behind on testing and if you look at the other countries, you look at China, you look at South Korea, you see how they turned that curve, it was with very aggressive testing where they got ahead of it.
You had maybe 200,000 tests per day in China. Fifteen thousand tests per day in South Korea. We haven't done 10,000 tests since they started testing. We just went through a situation with the federal government where I said, look we're going to start contracting with private labs in New York State. Because we can't wait for this federal bottleneck. As soon as those private labs go out and start to test, Chris, the numbers are going to be shocking to people.
Chris Cuomo: But at least people will understand the scale and you'll start to see good outcomes also right, that 80 percent number that Tony Fauci and you talk about. Which is 80 percent are asymptomatic or they get it and they get better. Now Italy is looming large as a model of what not to do. Now they're on lockdown. Do you foresee quarantines like that? Societal temporary shutdowns like that here as unavoidable?
Governor Cuomo: Well look, there's only two ways that countries reduce the numbers. Massive quarantines or massive testing. We are not doing the level of testing we need to do, so you're not identifying the positives so you're not stopping the communication. Quarantine, I don't even think you could get away with in this country what some of these other countries have done. You will see shutdowns and I think that's one of the things the president should have talked about tonight. You're going to see closing down of venues, schools, large gatherings because you don't have an option. You're never going to bring the testing up to capacity in time. We're going to try, we're going to scramble, but it's not going to happen.
Chris Cuomo: Andrew, here's what I want to talk about right now, just so you know. To your own point, you're making a point that's actually playing out in real time. The NBA just announced it's going to suspend the season following tonight's games. Now, that is going to be a life changing situation for people, on an entertainment level, I know. But they're not ready for this. NCAA games not having no audience that was enough. How should they understand a move like this? What does this mean about where they're going? And now look, not to add on the pile of problems, but you have a huge holiday coming up in New York. The St. Patrick's Day parade. It is great for enthusiasm and emotion and community. What are you going to do about it?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, well, for example, you're right. Now I have the issue of the St. Patrick's Day parade, right? And I recommended to the organizers that we have to postpone it. It's 2 million spectators, 150,000 marchers, you can't do that in this environment. But that is going to play out—
Chris Cuomo: How did they take it?
Governor Cuomo: Well, not well. I can tell you that much. But that's why I get paid the big bucks, right? Well, let's not go near big bucks. But anyway, that situation is going to play out a hundred times, Chris. I did the New Rochelle containment area. Nobody was ready for it. Closing down schools, we thought this was only 10, 15 people, this is all an overreaction. No. The numbers go sky high. There will be disruption. The density has to come down. We have to scramble now to make sure we don't have a health care crisis where we don't have hospitals to handle the capacity. We have no surge hospital capacity here. We may very well, we're looking in New York at secondary structures that we can start to prepare for temporary hospital situations. I mean this is a massive governmental mobilization that you need a real government to handle. This is not political. You're not going to do this on Twitter. This is government, baby. This is what it's about. This is the mobilization, the skill, the expertise to manage a government and then you need the people of this country ready to accept it without getting overly anxious and be part of it. It's not just wash your hands. We're beyond wash your hands, my brother. There is going to have to be major shifts in society short-term. Long-term we'll be okay. But short-term there is going to be major shifts that government is going to have to enact. We all want to be part of it.
Chris Cuomo: Governor Andrew Cuomo, to everybody else, my big brother, I'm proud of you, I love you. Thank you for explaining the hard parts and what has to happen to get to a better place in the future. God bless. I'll talk to you in a second.
Governor Cuomo: Proud of you.
March 12, 2020.
During Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces New Mass Gatherings Regulations. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/during-novel-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-new-mass-gatherings-regulations
Events with 500 or More Individuals in Attendance to Be Cancelled or Postponed
Any Gathering Under 500 Individuals in Attendance Will Be Required to Cut Capacity by 50 Percent
New Limits on Visitations to Nursing Homes - Only Medically Necessary Visits Will Be Allowed To Protect Most Vulnerable
First Public Drive-Through Testing Facility on the East Coast, Located in New Rochelle, Will Start Testing Tomorrow
Confirms 109 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 325; New Cases in 14 Counties
During a novel coronavirus briefing, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the state will institute limits on mass gatherings, directing events with 500 or more individuals in attendance to be cancelled or postponed. Public health experts agree mass gatherings with people making sustained close contact are a place where the novel coronavirus can easily infect many people quickly and continue its spread. As such, events, gatherings, or places of business with less than 500 individuals in attendance will be required to cut capacity by 50 percent, with exceptions being made for spaces where individuals do not make sustained close contact, such as schools, hospitals, public buildings, mass transit, grocery stores and retail stores. These new regulations will go into effect Friday, March 13th at 5pm, with the exception of Broadway Theaters where the limits will go into effect this evening at 5pm.
In an effort to protect some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers, Governor Cuomo also announced only medically necessary visits will be allowed at nursing homes. This policy will be effective Friday at 5pm. The state is also asking nursing homes to set up skyping and other online communication capacity so families can tele-visit their loved ones. Additionally, the state will require health screenings for all nursing home workers each day when they enter a facility and require them to wear surgical masks to guard against any potential asymptomatic spread.
In order to increase testing capacity, the State is contracting with BioReference Laboratories to run an additional 5,000 tests per day on top of what the state is already doing. These additional 5,000 tests per day will come online next week. This additional testing capacity is on top of that of the 28 private labs the Governor announced are partnering with the state in the coming days and weeks. Additionally, the Governor announced the first public drive-through testing facility on the east coast will start testing people tomorrow in New Rochelle. Testing will be done by appointment only. New Rochelle residents who have been quarantined will be tested first.
Finally, the Governor confirmed 109 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 325 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 325 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Albany County: 1 (1 new)
Broome County: 1 (1 new)
Delaware County: 1 (1 new)
Dutchess County: 1 (1 new)
Herkimer County: 1 (1 new)
Monroe County: 1 (1 new)
Nassau County: 41 (13 new)
New York City: 95 (43 new)
Orange County: 1 (1 new)
Rockland County: 7 (1 new)
Saratoga County: 3 (1 new)
Suffolk County: 20 (14 new)
Ulster County: 4 (3 new)
Westchester County: 148 (27 new)
"The spread of this coronavirus is not going to stop on its own, and we know that mass gatherings have been hotspots for the virus to infect large numbers of people quickly," Governor Cuomo said. "To help contain it, we are instituting limits on large events as well as new measures to protect our most vulnerable populations — including people in nursing homes — and preparing our healthcare system to be able to deal with any future capacity issues. While the context is key and the anxiety is outpacing the facts of this situation, we will continue taking aggressive action to protect public health and prepare for any future spread of this virus."
"Our number one priority is protecting the public health and every action the Governor and the State of New York have taken thus far have been in furtherance of that goal," State Health Department Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said. "Public health experts have been clear that limiting large public gatherings where there is potential for close contact is a critical way to slow the spread of this virus. This regulation will help keep people healthy and safe."
The Governor also announced that the State is taking measures to create a reserve workforce of health care professionals in the event of a staffing shortage and identify state facilities that can be used as temporary hospitals. The State is asking former doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to reconnect with their former employers and offer to work on an on-call basis in the cases of a staffing shortage. The State is also identifying National Guard medics for reserved staffing and contacting medical schools to identify possible reserve health care professionals. Additionally, the Department of Health is accelerating regulations to get more health care personnel trained so they can work in other areas.
For all schools in communities with the highest rates of positive cases, the state will be taking proactive steps to implement protocols that limit mass contact. Today the Governor announced SUNY Albany will cancel in person classes for the rest of the semester effective tomorrow after a positive case was confirmed today.
Additionally, any business that cannot accommodate rigorous cleaning standards should contact Empire State Development at (212) 803-3100 for a close order.
March 12, 2020
Statement From Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa Regarding Rumors of New York City and Mass Transit Shutdown. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/statement-secretary-governor-melissa-derosa-regarding-rumors-new-york-city-and-mass-transit
"To be clear, the state has the legal authority to overrule any locality's decision to issue an order of mass quarantine or shut down. No locality will be closing down. The mass transit system is not shutting down. These rumors, caused by undue anxiety, are just that - rumors."
March 12, 2020
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Calls Into NY1 With Lewis Dodley. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-calls-ny1-lewis-dodley.
Governor Cuomo: "Look we have two issues we're dealing with. One is the virus, which we can handle. The second is the anxiety and fear that is being generated because of the virus... New York City is not going to close down. First of all, legally, no city in the state can close down if the state government doesn't want it to close down. So it's not even a legal possibility. Second I spoke to the mayor myself, we're on the same page, the same regulations are in effect in New York City that are in effect all across the state."
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Lewis Dodley: As the City declares a state of emergency because of the spread of coronavirus, more and more events and spaces are shutting down. We are joined on the phone by Governor Andrew Cuomo who announce restrictions on public events today. Thanks for being with us Governor.
Governor Cuomo: Thanks for having me Lewis.
Lewis Dodley: Let's start by saying we are getting a lot of compliments about the way you are handling the situation. What is the latest?
Governor Cuomo: Well, thank you very much for that. And New Yorkers are a tough audience. The latest is I feel very good about the way New York is handling this. We have been watching this virus from China to South Korea to Italy. So we know what to expect. We know that the numbers say and we have to have our public health service system fully up and running. We need to make sure that we are slowing the spread of the virus so that our hospital system can manage those that need hospitalization. Remembering Lewis that first of all 80% of the people that get this virus will self-resolve. We are then talking about 20% which may require hospitalization. Then a very small number who are in the vulnerable population: senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses, especially respiratory illnesses who may need intensive hospitalization. And we need to make sure we are slowing down the virus spread so that we can manage it in our hospitals, and that's why more and more testing, which we're doing, reducing density, which are the regulations we put out today, increasing our hospital capacity. We're doing all of those things.
Lewis Dodley: Tell us a little bit about the restrictions - the large crowd restrictions that are going to be put in place.
Governor Cuomo: New York City - all throughout the state - the density is the issue. Right? The virus transfers when people are proximate to one another or on surfaces, stainless steel, plastic, et cetera the virus can live for a period of time. So we want to reduce density, so we're saying gatherings over 500 will be postponed and then under 500, it's 50 percent of the occupancy of the space, which will by definition mean people won't be in close contact and there'll be a spatial barrier, and we believe that will help reduce the spread of the virus. Again, to make sure we can calibrate it and manage it in our hospital system.
Lewis Dodley: So we're getting word about some erroneous indeed possibly inaccurate text messages - are you hearing about that? What should people be cautious about these things?
Governor Cuomo: Look we have two issues we're dealing with. One is the virus, which we can handle. The second is the anxiety and fear that is being generated because of the virus. And that has many sources - how the federal government is handling it, you have all these people spreading rumors, but that's just what they are - they are rumors. New York City is not going to close down. First of all, legally, no city in the state can close down if the state government doesn't want it to close down. So it's not even a legal possibility. Second I spoke to the mayor myself, we're on the same page, the same regulations are in effect in New York City that are in effect all across the state. The mayor has said there's no plan to close down to New York City, there's no plan to close down the subways, those are all just rumors. And look, I'm a born and bred New Yorker, I'm Queens, New York. We have to take a deep breath here. We are New Yorkers. We are gutsy. We are gritty. We've been through a lot and we will get through this. We went through Ebola, we went through H1N1 - I mean we've gone through our share and we'll get through this. We just have to stay smart, we'll be prepared and that's exactly what we're doing. And when you hear a rumor, use that New York instinct and when that New York instinct says this is too crazy to be true, it's normally too crazy to be true.
Lewis Dodley: The mayor said that he expects possibly 1,000 confirmed cases here in the city as early as next week. Do you have a number like that statewide you have in mind?
Governor Cuomo: Look, there's no doubt that you're going to see an exponential increases in the number of cases. We've seen it in every country. We've watched the trajectory in every country. We know the virus spreads exponentially. The question is when do you stop the increase? And that depends on what we do. You see different trajectories in different countries and how they reduced the increase and that's purely dependent on how receptive their response is. We've been pushing the federal government very hard, because obviously this is a national issue and a big part of it is the CDC and the FDA et cetera. But we're New Yorkers, we're also accustomed to doing what we need to do on our own and that's what we're doing. We're taking these actions, because if the virus was left to spread on it's own.
Lewis Dodley: Well, Governor Cuomo you are clearly on top of it. Thank you for your time.
Governor Cuomo: Lewis thank you and remember the spirit that made New York, New York. We are going to get through this and we are going to get through it together.
March 12, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on 1010 WINS. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-1010-wins.
Governor Cuomo: "New Yorkers, we have an instinct if it sounds too crazy to be true, it probably is not true. Well, this is all crazy rumors now. Anxiety is high, I understand it. People are nervous about the coronavirus. But no, subways are not closing down, roads are not closing, New York City is not closing down.
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on 1010 WINS to discuss New York's latest emergency measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Larry Mullins: With me on the line we want to go immediately to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is joining me. Thank you for joining us tonight, sir.
Governor Cuomo: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Larry Mullins: And I understand that there are a lot of rumors out there right now that are of concern to you. First and foremost is that there is the possibility of a shutdown of the subway system, and perhaps some of the bridges and roads. Can you clarify it for us?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah it's just not true. Look, we're New Yorkers, right, and we have that -- I'm born and bred a Queens boy if you can't tell from my accent. And New Yorkers, we have an instinct if it sounds too crazy to be true, it probably is not true. Well, this is all crazy rumors now. Anxiety is high, I understand it. People are nervous about the coronavirus. But no, subways are not closing down, roads are not closing, New York City is not closing down. First of all, no city in the State can legally close down unless the State let it close down, the State government. Second, I spoke with Mayor de Blasio. We came up with a set of intelligent regulations that we agree on to reduce density that will slow down the spread of the virus, and I feel good about that. No gatherings of over 500 people and a place under 500 capacity only half of the physical capacity, the occupancy rate, because we want to reduce the density so we slow down the spread of the virus and we can make sure our hospital system can manage. But that's all this is, and you know the deep breath here, and it is deep breath time, the virus my guess is you have many New Yorkers who already had the virus and didn't even know they had the virus. 80 percent of the people who get it will resolve naturally. The only people we have to watch out for are senior citizens, people who have a compromised immune system, or people who have an underlying illness, especially a respiratory illness, because this is basically pneumonia. So, we're worried about that population and we want to make sure we can handle them. But, 80 percent of the people they'll think they had the flu and I believe many New Yorkers have already had it and didn't even know it.
Larry Mullins: Governor, out of curiosity, has his honor had a test for the coronavirus?
Governor Cuomo: Have I had a test?
Larry Mullins: Yeah.
Governor Cuomo: No. We don't have tests just because we're sort of nervous and we want to know. The federal government doesn't have enough of a testing capacity so that anyone who wants a test can have a test. We have a protocol to have a test. You had to be exposed to a person who was positive et cetera, and I don't meet any of those criteria.
Larry Mullins: Now let me switch gears and talk about schools. We understand that some schools in the country, Ohio in particular, has shut down their school system in the wake of all this. Any word about that, any thoughts about that, has anybody even mentioned that as a possibility?
Governor Cuomo: No, again that's regulated by the State and the way that works is we close the CUNY schools and the SUNY schools and we're going to move to distance learning, again, just to reduce the density. The good thing about this virus is it seems like it doesn't affect our children. Children may be carriers, but we don't see in any of the data from China, South Korea, Italy where children are affected. If a child is positive in a school, we close the school down for 24 hours, so we can clean the school and assess the situation, so you'll see schools here and there close down K-12. If someone was positive, just so we can clean up the school and we take a beat and assess the situation, but beyond that, no.
Larry Mullins: Okay, and your thoughts also - it's been a day or so since the coronavirus containment area was announced up in New Rochelle. How's that going?
Governor Cuomo: That went very well. Again, that's common sense. We had the highest density cluster of cases in the country in New Rochelle. We had more cases in New Rochelle than New York City, believe it or not, and New York City is 100 times the size of New Rochelle. So we had this particularly dense cluster. We did close several schools right next to the cluster and we limited large gatherings in any facility. And again, that's designed to stop the spread. How does it spread? It spreads when someone coughs or sneezes or infects a surface. So when you have a lot density - that will increase the spread. So it worked very well in New Rochelle. The name was a very bad name - "Containment Area" - because it wasn't really a containment area. It's not that people were quarantined - you could go in and go out. You could go wherever you want to go - we just closed some of the schools and some of the gathering areas.
Larry Mullins: Yeah a lot of people were calling in and texting in and saying, "God it's like martial law up here, we got the National Guard in and such." Final thoughts - what economic impact do you think will eventually have on the state if this things continues for a long time?
Governor Cuomo: Real quick on New Rochelle. The National Guard came in to help clean the area. The economic impact is going to be severe. It is going to be severe on the State. Just forget everything else, you just have a lot of people who decided not to travel, not to go to a hotel, conferences cancelling, a lot of workers told the business is going to close short term. So there will be tremendous economic consequences. But that is not just out state. That is going to be every state and that is going to be a federal concern. You will have people who miss mortgage payments. You will have unemployment insurance that goes way up. And that will be beyond any state's capacity to deal with and that is going to have to be a federal responsibility.
Larry Mullins: And final thoughts to those who are wondering where do we go now? A lot of people are feeling helpless. Where do we go? Do we go to work? What happens if we cannot go to work? Your thoughts sir?
Governor Cuomo: You are going to see this get worse before it gets better. Again, you saw the numbers rise in all these countries. You are going to see the same thing here. China, it went up. And then because they got on top of it, it plateaued and it is dropping. South Korea the same thing. Italy did not handle it as well and it overwhelmed their hospital system. So, everything we are doing is with that in mind. We have studied these situations. We do need to do what we need to do. We do need to slow the spread. We did need to reduce density, etc. Everybody needs to play their part. But again, we know the numbers. Johns Hopkins has a study. They study every coronavirus case since it started in China. 120,000 cases - every case. The fatality rate on 120,000 cases is 4,000 cases.
Governor Cuomo: ...The fatality rate on 120,000 cases was 4,000 cases, again on that vulnerable population. And we don't want to lose anyone, but we lose in this country 8,000 people every year to the flu, right? So we have to keep this all in perspective: We're going to be fine. We're going to do what we have to do. But we will get through this just like we've gone through many, many difficult situations.
Larry Mullins: Okay, Governor Andrew Cuomo. We know you're very busy sir, we thank you for taking the time to give us a call here on the 1010 WINS hotline.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you for having me. Thank you.
March 13, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Opens the State's First Drive-through COVID-19 Mobile Testing Center in New Rochelle. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-opens-states-first-drive-through-covid-19-mobile-testing-center-new-rochelle-0
In Partnership with Northwell and BioReference, Mobile Testing Center Will Test up to 200 People Today and up to 500 People per Day in the Coming Days
New Rochelle Residents Should Call 888-364-3065 to Make an Appointment at Mobile Testing Center
In Addition to Tests at this Site, BioReference Laboratories Will Conduct 5,000 Tests per Day for New Yorkers - Five Times the State's Target Goal When Outbreak First Came to New York
This Commitment is on Top of the Testing that Will be Conducted at the 28 Public and Private Labs Across the State
Builds on Governor's Aggressive Efforts to Ramp Up Testing Capacity in State
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today opened the state's first drive-through COVID-19 mobile testing center in New Rochelle. In partnership with Northwell and BioReference, the mobile testing center, which serves all parts of Westchester County, will test up to 200 people today, growing to up to 500 people per day in the coming days.
The mobile testing center is prioritizing tests for individuals that are part of the highest risk population. New Rochelle residents who would like to be tested can make an appointment by calling 888-364-3065.
"The single most important thing we can do to combat and contain the novel coronavirus is test for it, and while the federal government was caught flatfooted in the midst of this crisis, New York has stepped up to fill in the gaps and ramp up testing capacity," Governor Cuomo said. "We're partnering with Northwell and BioReference to run the state's first drive-through testing facility and ensure the highest-risk population gets the tests they need to help us contain and combat this pandemic - in an efficient, safe, smart way. As we run our own test and test more people, the number of people that we find with the virus is going to keep going up, but New Yorkers should continue to remain calm and remember that the more positive tests we find, the more we can limit the virus and reduce its spread."
This new testing facility builds on the Governor's aggressive efforts to ramp up testing capacity in New York State. While the federal government has been a bottleneck for the nation and slowed down the country's ability to initially respond to the outbreak, New York State has stepped up to fill in the gaps in testing.
In addition to the tests being conducted at the New Rochelle Mobile Testing Center, the State is partnering with BioReference Laboratories to run an additional 5,000 tests per day - five times the state's target goal when this outbreak first came to New York. This is on top of the testing that will be conducted at the 28 public and private labs across the state and the out of state labs that New York is already contracting with.
All of this is a result of the proactive steps taken by Governor Cuomo and the Department of Health to get as many New Yorkers tested as possible.
March 13, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Opens the State's First Drive-Through Covid-19 Mobile Testing Center in New Rochelle. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-opens-states-first-drive-through-covid-19.
In Partnership with Northwell and BioReference, Mobile Testing Center Will Test up to 200 People Today and up to 500 People per Day in the Coming Days
New Rochelle Residents Should Call 888-364-3065 to Make an Appointment at Mobile Testing Center
In Addition to Tests at this Site, BioReference Laboratories Will Conduct 5,000 Tests per Day for New Yorkers - Five Times the State's Target Goal When Outbreak First Came to New York
This Commitment is on Top of the Testing that Will be Conducted at the 28 Public and Private Labs Across the State
Builds on Governor's Aggressive Efforts to Ramp Up Testing Capacity in State
Governor Cuomo: "This is a very creative way of testing. Drive through testing means people in this community can call a telephone number, make an appointment and then can come to be tested and literally drive through the testing facilities it's not only faster and easier, it's also smarter and safer because you're not exposing people who may be positive."
Cuomo: "Up until now, if somebody thinks they're positive, they might walk into a hospital. They walk into a hospital, they're now exposing people in the emergency room, they're exposing staff, etc."
Cuomo: "We are prioritizing people in New Rochelle first because, again, that's where we want to reduce that density and reduce those cases. But people from all throughout Westchester can be served at this facility."
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today opened the state's first drive-through COVID-19 mobile testing center in New Rochelle. In partnership with Northwell and BioReference, the mobile testing center, which serves all parts of Westchester County, will test up to 200 people today, growing to up to 500 people per day in the coming days.
The mobile testing center is prioritizing tests for individuals that are part of the highest risk population. New Rochelle residents who would like to be tested can make an appointment by calling 888-364-3065.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of today's remarks will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
March 13, 2020.
Updated Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Opens the State's First Drive-Through Covid-19 Mobile Testing Center in New Rochelle. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/updated-video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-opens-states-first-drive-through
In Partnership with Northwell and BioReference, Mobile Testing Center Will Test up to 200 People Today and up to 500 People per Day in the Coming Days
New Rochelle Residents Should Call 888-364-3065 to Make an Appointment at Mobile Testing Center
In Addition to Tests at this Site, BioReference Laboratories Will Conduct 5,000 Tests per Day for New Yorkers - Five Times the State's Target Goal When Outbreak First Came to New York
This Commitment is on Top of the Testing that Will be Conducted at the 28 Public and Private Labs Across the State
Builds on Governor's Aggressive Efforts to Ramp Up Testing Capacity in State
Governor Cuomo: "This is a very creative way of testing. Drive through testing means people in this community can call a telephone number, make an appointment and then can come to be tested and literally drive through the testing facilities it's not only faster and easier, it's also smarter and safer because you're not exposing people who may be positive."
Cuomo: "Up until now, if somebody thinks they're positive, they might walk into a hospital. They walk into a hospital, they're now exposing people in the emergency room, they're exposing staff, etc."
Cuomo: "We are prioritizing people in New Rochelle first because, again, that's where we want to reduce that density and reduce those cases. But people from all throughout Westchester can be served at this facility."
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today opened the state's first drive-through COVID-19 mobile testing center in New Rochelle. In partnership with Northwell and BioReference, the mobile testing center, which serves all parts of Westchester County, will test up to 200 people today, growing to up to 500 people per day in the coming days.
The mobile testing center is prioritizing tests for individuals that are part of the highest risk population. New Rochelle residents who would like to be tested can make an appointment by calling 888-364-3065.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of today's remarks will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
Okay, good morning to everyone. I would like to acknowledge my colleagues that are here with me today. To my left, you will hear from him in a moment, Michael Dowling from Northwell Health, which has done a fantastic job not just at this facility but all across the State and I want to thank him very much.
We have Jon Cohen, who is the Executive Chairman of BioReference, which is a private laboratory that is going to be working with the State of New York and tremendously increase our capacity. I want to thank Jon for his professionalism and for the way his company has stepped up.
Mike Kopy, who is our Director of Emergency Management and his entire team which has been doing a great job. And Simonida Subotic who works with me in my office and has been coordinating much of this response.
We are in New Rochelle this morning. New Rochelle has the highest cluster of coronavirus cases in the country. The highest density of cases. We made New Rochelle what we call a containment zone, which means we closed the schools, the closed the large gatherings. And we brought in the National Guard to help the community. The National Guard has been helping clean. They've been distributing meals and they've really done an outstanding job and I want to thank them very much. They're here today, thank you for the beautiful job. Let's give them a round of applause.
As you know, our strategy in this state with communities all across the countries are trying to do is slow the spread of this virus. There are two ways to do that. First, reduce density. Reduce the concentration of people so you reduce literally the likelihood of communicating the disease. We announced yesterday we're reducing large gatherings that's all density reduction. The second leg of the strategy is testing. Testing, testing, testing. You want to find positive cases because you want to be able to isolate those positive cases and then find out who that person may have been in touch with so you can get them the assistance they need.
This is a very creative way of testing. This is drive through testing. Something I didn't hear of last week, but something that we're doing this week thanks to the good effort of the team we have here. Drive through testing means people in this community can call a telephone number, make an appointment and then can come to be tested and literally drive through the testing facilities. There are 6 lanes that are operating. You drive in your car and the medical staff comes to you, does the test, takes the swabs and then you pull out. Then the swabs get sent to a laboratory, in this case BioReference. They do the testing, we get the results back to the person. This facility can do about 200 cars per day. So depending on how many people are in the cars, how many people you actually can serve, it's not only faster and easier it's also smarter and safer because you're not exposing people who may be positive.
Up until now, if somebody thinks they're positive, they might walk into a hospital. They walk into a hospital, they're now exposing people in the emergency room, they're exposing staff, etcetera. So it's actually safer to keep them in their car so they can come in for the testing. It's less exposure overall. We have a phone number. You can't just come, you have to call first to make an appointment and then come. Each car is here for about 15 minutes. The phone number's 888-364-3065. We are prioritizing people in New Rochelle first because again, that's where we want to reduce that density and reduce those cases. But, people from all throughout Westchester can be served at this facility.
We are also prioritizing vulnerable populations, and this is what we have to keep in mind. Many people will be exposed to this virus. Many people have already been exposed to this virus. Didn't know it, and have what they call self-resolved, where they had the virus, they thought they had the flu, they're now better, they may have had mild symptoms, so many people have already been exposed to the virus, and 80 percent of the people will self-resolve. Our priority, because our concern is the quote-unquote vulnerable populations, and we have to keep that in mind. This facility is new and different. I understand that. Senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems, and people with underlying illnesses, especially respiratory illnesses.
This is basically pneumonia, and if you have an underlying respiratory illness, then this situation is more problematic. For 80 percent of the people, you'll self-resolve, God bless. We're focusing on the vulnerable populations, and we need to keep that in mind. This facility is new and different. I understand that. But, our job is to find ways to respond to the situation, and this is a new situation, so by definition you're going to see new and different responses to it and that's what you're seeing here. I spoke to Vice President Pence again yesterday and I want to thank the Vice President who's been very cooperative and very accessible and very cooperative. On the issue of testing I said to the Vice President and I've said publicly I think the federal government should decentralize testing. What does that mean? Rather than trying to control it all through Washington, through CDC and through the FDA, the volume is just too high. States regularly regulate labs.
We have 200 private labs in the State of New York. Those laboratories are doing HIV testing, Zika testing, they're doing all sorts of testing for us. Our State Department of Health routinely regulates those 200 labs.
Let the federal government decentralize the authority to the state governments and say to the state governments, God bless you, you can do authorized testing, you can authorize what's called automated testing which takes a lab capacity from like 30 tests a day to like 1,000 tests per day.
But we do have a crisis in testing. We're not up to scale. You need to change that quickly and let the federal government turn that function over to the states. The states do it anyway. That's our bread and butter. You could open up 501,000 laboratories overnight if you just turn that responsibility back to the State.
I hope the federal government takes this recommendation seriously. I know that in New York we have dozens of laboratories that could start testing tomorrow and to increase their capacity dramatically if we left it up to the State regulatory bodies.
I also, in closing, want to say a special thank-you to the health care professionals who are here. These nurses, these doctors, they get into this line of work because they have a calling and they have a passion to help other people. As simple but as profound as that is, and there's no finer demonstration of that than what you're seeing today. People who come here to help other people, put themselves in a precarious position just to help other people. It says something about who they are, it says something about their character, and it says something about their heart and their soul that is just truly beautiful, which I respect and I admire and I am very grateful for.
So I thank each and every one of them, not just here at this facility, but all across the state, where in emergency rooms today and laboratories today who are really stepping up to really help their brothers and sisters. It's humanity at its best. At times of crisis, we tend to see what people are really made of. You see the good and you see the bad. Today, the people who are working here are showing us the best. I truly respect them and I thank them all.
To BioReference and Dr. Cohen, we'll have the capacity starting next week to do 5,000 tests per day with BioReference. That is a huge step forward and I want to thank them very much. Northwell and Michael Dowling, who I've had the pleasure of working with for many years. Michael Dowling used to work for a person who I consider the greatest governor in the history of the state of New York. A gentleman by the name of Mario Cuomo, who had Michael as his health commissioner and head of health for the entire state. My father was a great judge of character and a great judge of talent as evidenced by Michael Dowling. I give you Michael Dowling. Thank you.
March 13, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN with Kate Bolduan. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news
Governor Cuomo: "No one's been here before. These are all uncharted waters for all of us. But new challenges, new solutions. The number one thing we have to do in this country and in this state is slow the spread is testing."
Governor Cuomo: "I'm on the ground...and I have to figure out how to make it better. The bottleneck is the CDC and the FDA - the federal government - has been controlling the tests who can do it, what the protocol is, whether it is manual or automated. And the volume is too high for this federal bottleneck...I have 200 laboratories in New York. We regulate them. We license them. Let me release the 200 laboratories and let me do the approval. It is not a complicated test. If you make that shift, which is basically going to a decentralized testing system, you can bring in not hundreds but thousands of laboratories overnight and get this testing where it needs to be..."
Earlier today, Governor Cuomo was a guest on CNN with Kate Bolduan to discuss the state's first drive through COVID-19 mobile testing center in New Rochelle.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Kate Bolduan: Now facing the largest cluster of coronavirus in the United States, New York is taking new steps today to try and slow the spread. This morning, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo, he opened the first drive through testing facility on the East coast in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle. Governor Cuomo joins me now. Governor, thank you for jumping on. I know as I was coming up to set you were still having a press conference, so thank you so much.
Governor Cuomo: My pleasure, good to be with you, Kate.
Kate Bolduan: Thank you. So this is the first public drive through on the East coast and it's just getting underway. What are your expectations, how it's going to go? What are the hopes that this does for folks?
Governor Cuomo: Well, Kate, no one's been here before. These are all uncharted waters for all of us. But new challenges, new solutions. The number one thing we have to do in this country and in this state is slow the spread is testing. We're behind on testing. We have to come up to speed quickly. We have to get more laboratories in and we have to get better testing regimens which are called automated testing. And also, on the testing, we have to do it in a way that's safe. If a person walks into an emergency room, they expose people in the emergency room, they expose staff we've had that problem. What this drive through does, is you call, you make an appointment, you stay in your car you drive in - just like a drive through - the medical staff comes to you. We have 6 lanes, we can do about 200 cars per day. And that can ramp up. You drive off and then we call you with the results. So as a way to bring this testing up to scale, safely, I think this is a very innovative but effective way.
Kate Bolduan: Now, you heard Colorado is trying to do this as well. We actually heard that they had to turn people away because the lines got so long and there was something like a 3 hour wait at one point. Is that a concern here? How are folks to know if they can come in for testing?
Governor Cuomo: Yeah, what we did here is there's a phone number. You have to call the phone number first. You have to make an appointment, you can't just show up. There's a compounding situation here is the anxiety and the fear. If you just put up a sign come up and get tested with all this fear out there, you'd have lines that go on for forever right. We have 18 million people in this state. If you said anyone who wants a test a test can have a test, you'd have 9 million people. So we have to prioritize because we don't have that kind of capacity and that's what we're doing with this call first and we set up an appointment.
Kate Bolduan: Governor, the someone that said if you want to get tested you can get tested was the President of the United States. And what you're trying to tackle with this drive through testing facility gets directly at the bottleneck, inexplicable bottleneck that we're looking at when it comes to testing. I heard you say this morning that you have been in direct contact with the Vice President about this. What is the hold up quite frankly on testing? Getting the test kits out and getting the results back?
Governor Cuomo: Look, the retrospective on this is going to go on for a long time, right. I'm on the ground, Kate, and I have to figure out how to make it better. The bottleneck is the CDC and the FDA - the federal government - has been controlling the tests who can do it, what the protocol is, whether it is manual or automated. And the volume is too high for this federal bottleneck. I said to the Vice President, who by the way has been very accessible and very cooperative, is a former governor himself. I said, look the states do this. I have 200 laboratories in New York. We regulate them. We license them. Let me release the 200 laboratories and let me do the approval. It is not a complicated test. If you make that shift, which is basically going to a decentralized testing system, you can bring in not hundreds but thousands of laboratories overnight and get this testing where it needs to be, because you are exactly right. You had China who was doing about 150,000 tests per day. South Korea, 15,000 tests per day. We have not done that do date. That has to change. That's the best way.
Kate Bolduan: There is a reason - As you are saying, this isn't politics. You have got to fix what you are faced with. It sounds crazy that the United States, the best country in the world, is slower on testing than other countries. Did the Vice President seem open to your suggestion?
Governor Cuomo: He did. As I have said, we have had good conversations. He did. He said he would get back to me. He understood, as a former governor, he understood what I was saying. So we will see what they do. If you do not do that, I do not know how you possibly solve this testing situation in a way that is going to make the difference we need to make.
Kate Bolduan: So Governor, another big issue is schools. I was talking about it at the top of the show. There are now six states, is where it stands, where the governors have decided to close all the public schools in the state to protect against the spread. And the governors from all different parts of the country acknowledge it is an aggressive move and it is a tough decision, and it is a complicated one. Are you any closer to that?
Governor Cuomo: We have not decided to close the schools, Kate. We have left it down to the localities to make a decision whether or not they want to. Our state rule is if you have a child that tests positive you must close for 24 hours so we can look into the facts and the circumstance. But you are right, Kate. Closing the schools is a complicated decision. There are significant pluses, significant minuses. You close the school, that child may not get breakfast, may not get lunch. They are not learning. The parents now have to stay home. Those parents may be nurses, may be doctors, may be healthcare workers. You could slow down your healthcare response, which by the way is the challenge here - is overwhelming our hospitals. So there are many, many possible negatives. And also children, thank God, are not being affected by this virus. Yes, they may be carriers by some opinions. But they are not are not being affected so it is complicated.
Kate Bolduan: It sure is. Governor, thank you for the time. I really appreciate it.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you.
March 13, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on MSNBC Live With Craig Melvin
Governor Cuomo: "[W]e opened a drive-through testing location ... It's a new approach because these are all new problems ... We have to get our testing numbers way up quickly if we have a shot at slowing the spread and this is one of the ways we're trying to do it in the state."
Governor Cuomo: "[I]f we're going to wait for this federal government to figure it out it's not going to happen. I'm saying to them, let the state's do the testing. The states regulate laboratories. We regulate testing protocols. Let the federal government decentralize the responsibility and tell the state to take it over."
Earlier today, Governor Cuomo was a guest on MSNBC Live With Craig Melvin to discuss the state's first drive through COVID-19 mobile testing center in New Rochelle.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Craig Melvin: New York just got its first mobile testing center. It has been set up in New Rochelle. That is where a one-mile coronavirus containment zone has gone into effect after an order from the Governor, Governor Andrew Cuomo. Governor Cuomo joins me now on the phone. I understand, Governor, you are in or around New Rochelle right now. What's the scene like there?
Governor Cuomo: Well, Craig, New Rochelle has the highest cluster in the country, highest density of cases in the country. We took special efforts, It's called a containment zone, but basically we closed schools, closed mass gatherings. People can still come and go. It doesn't really contain anyone and we have the National Guard coming to clean and deliver food and now we opened a drive-through testing location which will prioritize people from New Rochelle, but also the county of Westchester. It's a new approach because these are all new problems. It keeps people in their car so they don't walk into an emergency room and infect other people and testing is where it's at. We have to get our testing numbers way up quickly if we have a shot at slowing the spread and this is one of the ways we're trying to do it in the state.
Craig Melvin: Is the thinking that you're going to open more of these drive-through mobile testing centers? Also, how are they going to work? Can anyone just drive up?
Governor Cuomo: The way it works, Craig, if you put up a sign that said anyone who wants a test could get a test, I have 18 million people in this state. With this anxiety you'd have 17 million people on line. So what we did is we said there's a phone number, it prioritizes New Rochelle residents, Westchester residents, you have a phone number, you call, you make an appointment, they give you an appointment time and you show up at that time. We do about 200 cars per day but it's not open unless you have the appointment approval.
Craig Melvin: Governor, while I have you, as you know, multiple states have closed all of their schools, and many of these states, in fact, all these states if I'm not mistaken, they have far fewer cases than New York. A lot of New Yorkers are wondering why are schools still open.
Governor Cuomo: Well first many of the schools in New York are closed. It's right now a local decision unless you have a child who tests positive. Then we close the school for 24 hours to clean the school and assess the situation but, Craig, it's not a no-brainer to close the schools. You close the schools, many of those children don't get lunch, they don't get breakfast. Now what do the parents do? A lot of parents who have to stay home. That could jeopardize your health care workforce. One thing we can't do is diminish our capacity in our hospitals because that's going to be the next shoe to drop, by the way. You see this testing debacle. We're going to be overwhelmed in our hospitals. So you close the school, it triggers another set of issues. It's something we're looking at on a daily basis, but it's not without negative consequences.
Craig Melvin: Governor, really quickly here, how would you characterize where things stand right now in New York State with regards to response to the coronavirus in general?
Governor Cuomo: I don't think it's any different here than anywhere else. The anxiety and the fear is as much of a problem as the virus. I keep telling people in New York, look at the facts, look at the numbers. Eighty percent will self-resolve. We're really worried about senior citizens, underlying illness, because the anxiety and the panic in and of itself becomes a challenge. So we're dealing with the virus; we're dealing with fear also and we have to address both, and that's what we're trying to do here in New York and we're also trying to address the federal government to allow us more flexibility in testing because that's the real operational problem and if we're going to wait for this federal government to figure it out it's not going to happen. I'm saying to them, let the state's do the testing. The states regulate laboratories. We regulate testing protocols. Let the federal government decentralize the responsibility and tell the state to take it over. It can't be any worse, Craig.
Craig Melvin: The drive through testing center, the first in New York, opened in New Rochelle. Governor Andrew Cuomo joining us now on the phone. Governor, thank so much for your time. I know you're very busy. Thank you also for keeping the folks in New York really up to speed. You've been very accessible. We appreciate all of the information you've been providing, Governor, thank you.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you, buddy. Thank you for what you do.
March 13, 2020.
After Weeks of Demanding Approval, Governor Cuomo Announces FDA Gives New York State Authority to Conduct All COVID-19 Testing at Public and Private Labs. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/after-weeks-demanding-approval-governor-cuomo-announces-fda-gives-new-york-state-authority
New York State Can Now Authorize 28 Labs to Run Manual, Semi-Automated and Automated Testing - Dramatically Increasing Capacity to About 6,000 Tests per Day in the Next Week
Governor Issues Executive Order Waiving 7-Day Waiting Period for Workers to Claim Unemployment Insurance due to COVID-19 and Eliminating Aid Penalty for Schools Directed to Close
Governor Directs Department of Public Service to Suspend Utilities from Cutting Off Service as a Result of COVID-19
Confirms 96 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 421; New Cases in 10 Counties
After weeks of demanding federal approval, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the FDA has approved New York State to authorize the state's 28 public and private labs to begin manual, semi-automated and automated testing for novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. The approval also extends to the Roche high-volume platform for testing. The Governor has made increasing capacity a priority, and these approvals will increase the state's testing capacity dramatically - from 3,000 to date to about 6,000 per day in the next week.
Governor Cuomo also issued an Executive Order to help relieve the economic impact of COVID-19 on workers and assure school aid for schools that have been directed to close. As part of the Governor's Executive Order, the state will waive the 7-day waiting period for workers to claim unemployment insurance for those that have been put out of work by COVID-19. The Executive Order will also eliminate the aid penalty for schools directed to close by state or local officials or those closed under a state or local declaration of emergency that do not meet 180-day requirements if they are unable to make up school days.
The Governor also directed the New York State Department of Public Service to suspend public utilities from cutting off service - including power and heat - to customers affected by COVID-19. The State's major utilities will take immediate action to suspend service shutoffs to households during the COVID-19 outbreak and will continue to offer deferred payment plans for customers struggling financially due to the outbreak.
"The number one thing we have to do in this state to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus is to increase testing, and the federal government has created a testing bottleneck nationwide with their slow response in lifting restrictions for states to authorize testing," Governor Cuomo said. "New York State has 28 laboratories that can start testing immediately, and these new approvals will allow the state to dramatically increase testing capacity and get it to where it needs to be to find the positive cases, isolate those individuals and more quickly stop the spread. We're dealing with the virus, but we're also dealing with the fear and anxiety New Yorkers are facing, and we're taking new actions every day as this situation evolves to address both."
The number one thing we have to do in this state to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus is to increase testing
Governor Cuomo
Finally, the Governor also confirmed 96 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 421 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 421 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Albany County: 2 (1 new)
Broome County: 1
Delaware County: 1
Dutchess County: 3 (2 new)
Herkimer County: 1
Monroe County: 1
Nassau County: 51 (10 new)
New York City: 154 (59 new)
Orange County: 3 (2 new)
Rockland County: 9 (2 new)
Saratoga: 3
Schenectady: 1 (1 new)
Suffolk County: 28 (8 new)
Ulster County: 5 (1 new)
Westchester County: 158 (10 new)
March 13, 2020
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: After Weeks of Demanding Approval, Governor Cuomo Announces FDA Gives New York State Authority to Conduct All COVID-19 Testing at Public and Private Labs. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-after-weeks-demanding-approval-governor-cuomo-announces-fda
New York State Can Now Authorize 28 Labs to Run Manual, Semi-Automated and Automated Testing - Dramatically Increasing Capacity to About 6,000 Tests per Day in the Next Week
Governor Issues Executive Order Waiving 7-Day Waiting Period for Workers to Claim Unemployment Insurance due to COVID-19 and Eliminating Aid Penalty for Schools Directed to Close
Governor Directs Department of Public Service to Suspend Utilities from Cutting Off Service as a Result of COVID-19
Confirms 96 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 421; New Cases in 10 Counties
Governor Cuomo: "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."
Cuomo: "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 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."
Cuomo: "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... 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."
After weeks of demanding federal approval, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the FDA has approved New York State to authorize the state's 28 public and private labs to begin manual, semi-automated and automated testing for novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. The approval also extends to the Roche high-volume platform for testing. The Governor has made increasing capacity a priority, and these approvals will increase the state's testing capacity dramatically - from 3,000 to date to about 6,000 per day in the next week.
Governor Cuomo also issued an Executive Order to help relieve the economic impact of COVID-19 on workers and assure school aid for schools that have been directed to close. As part of the Governor's Executive Order, the state will waive the 7-day waiting period for workers to claim unemployment insurance for those that have been put out of work by COVID-19. The Executive Order will also eliminate the aid penalty for schools directed to close by state or local officials or those closed under a state or local declaration of emergency that do not meet 180-day requirements if they are unable to make up school days.
The Governor also directed the New York State Department of Public Service to suspend public utilities from cutting off service - including power and heat - to customers affected by COVID-19. The State's major utilities will take immediate action to suspend service shutoffs to households during the COVID-19 outbreak and will continue to offer deferred payment plans for customers struggling financially due to the outbreak.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of today's remarks will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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.
March 14, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CNN with Erica Hill. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-cnn-erica-hill
Governor Cuomo: "The drive-through does a number of things. It keeps people out of the emergency room, everyone is so anxious now, they walk into an emergency room, that's the last thing you want to do. You walk into an emergency room, if you are positive you wind up infecting other people and staff. If you're not positive, you wind up exposing yourself to people in the emergency room who may be positive. So first, stay home, use tele-medicine. Second, the drive-through allows you to stay in your vehicle, you come into a drive-through and people come to you, they take the test."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CNN with Erica Hill to discuss New York's first novel coronavirus-related death and the state's drive-through mobile testing facilities in New Rochelle and on Long Island.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
Erica Hill: We want to get more on the breaking news out of New York. The state confirming its first death related to coronavirus. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo joining me now by phone. Governor, good to have you with us. What more can you tell us, sir, about this death which we just learned about this morning?
Governor Cuomo: Good to be with you, Erica. We unfortunately had a death, a person who had coronavirus. She was 82 years old. She had emphysema, and on top of the emphysema she contracted the coronavirus. I think, Erica, though,perspective, perspective, perspective. You're going to see people who are ill, older people who have underlying respiratory illnesses who get the coronavirus. They will be in a grave situation and we will see this over and over and over again. But by the way, an 82-year-old person who has emphysema, was hospitalized for emphysema, if they get the normal flu, they're in a grave situation, right? So yes, we have a death from coronavirus. We have many deaths of people who are senior citizens with an illness who have the normal flu. So again, the context here is everything.
Erica Hill: Context is everything. I want to talk a little bit about the mobile testing. I spent a fair amount of the week in New Rochelle, I know you've been back and forth as well, was out at the mobile testing site yesterday. Shimon Prokupecz who's out there on the ground for us says about 150 cars were processed. Does that mean 150 people were tested yesterday?
Governor Cuomo: It depends on the occupancy of the car. So if a car had one person, two people, three people, four people. It actually worked very well because the drive-through does a number of things. It keeps people out of the emergency room, everyone is so anxious now, they walk into an emergency room, that's the last thing you want to do. You walk into an emergency room, if you are positive you wind up infecting other people and staff. If you're not positive, you wind up exposing yourself to people in the emergency room who may be positive. So first, stay home, use tele-medicine. Second, the drive-throughallows you to stay in your vehicle, you come into a drive-through and people come to you, they take the test. We thought it would be about 15 minutes per car, it's actually less. So we're going to increase the volume. But you don't expose yourself, you don't expose others. And it's the fastest, safest way to get these tests done. Thetesting has been such a major problem, as everybody knows. This is a totally different way of doing it and a faster way and a better way of doing it.
Erica Hill: Give us a sense, too, what is the turnaround time? The mayor in New Rochelle told me that prior to this site opening, even when testing was done it had to be sent to Albany toactually be processed. What's the turnaround at this site?
Governor Cuomo: Well, the watershed change --I spoke with Vice President Pence and I spoke with the President yesterday. And they have now allowed New York State to do its own testing. The reason the testing was so slow was it was all regulated by the FDA and CDC from Washington. And they had very specific rules on who could test, what lab could test, et cetera. And that was a bottleneck. Now they've allowed New York State, that has 200 laboratories in New York State, to do our own testing. So the turnaround time is about 24 hours.
Erica Hill: 24 hours, that's pretty good for folks to get those answers. I know the priority has been given in New Rochelle to those who were in quarantine or in that containment zone. Do you anticipate opening it up to other local residents soon?
Governor Cuomo: The priority is for New Rochelle residents, right? Because when you have limited capacity, you want to first prioritize people who are most likely positive and most likely spreading. So the first priority is for people in New Rochelle because that is the highest cluster in the United States. People within Westchester are also eligible to go to that test center. And we're going to open one on Long Island where we also see a rise in cases. But look, Erica, this is going to be all across the country. This virus has spread much more than we know. These testing results represent really nothing. They just represent the number of tests we're taking. We have 500 quote unquote positive cases in New York. That's only because that's the number of people we've tested. If you actually could find out how many people had the virus in New York, it's going to be in the thousands, if not the tens of thousands. All probability is thousands have had the virus and self-resolved and never knew they had the virus. So again, it is context and perspective. I get the anxiety, but, you know, facts matter also here.
Erica Hill: Indeed they do, and as you know quite well, we are committed to those. We appreciate you taking the time to join us Governor, thank you.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Best to all.
March 14, 2020.
During Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces Department of Financial Services Will Require Insurance Companies to Waive Co-payments for Tele-health Visits. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/during-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-department-financial-services-will-require
Authorizes State to Open Drive-Through Mobile Testing Facility on Long Island — Governor Opened First Drive-Through Testing Facility Yesterday in New Rochelle
Confirms 100 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 524; New Cases in 9 Counties
Confirms First Novel Coronavirus-Related Death in New York State, an 82-Year-Old Woman in Brooklyn with Underlying Respiratory Disease of Emphysema
Governor Will Sign Executive Order Today Waiving 7-Day Waiting Period for Workers to Claim Unemployment Insurance due to COVID-19 and Eliminating Aid Penalty for Schools Directed to Close
During a novel coronavirus conference call briefing, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the State Department of Financial Services will require insurance companies to waive co-pays for telehealth visits. This action will encourage New Yorkers to seek medical attention from their homes rather than visit a hospital or doctor's office — ultimately reducing strain on the healthcare system and preventing further spread of the virus.
The Governor also authorized the State to open a drive-through mobile testing facility on Long Island in the coming week. This follows the success of the New Rochelle mobile testing center, which opened yesterday and serviced 150 cars and tested 263 people, exceeding the initial goal of testing 200 people in the first day. Once fully operational, the New Rochelle facility will be able to test up to 500 people per day. Drive-through mobile testing facilities help keep people who are sick or at risk of having contracted coronavirus out of healthcare facilities where they could infect other people.
The addition of a mobile testing facility on Long Island is part of the State's initiative to replicate the New Rochelle Mobile Testing Center model at other locations, helping allow the state to run at least 6,000 tests per day starting next week — six times the state's target goal when this outbreak first came to New York. This is on top of the testing that will be conducted at the 28 public and private labs across the state and the out of state labs that New York is already contracting with. All of this is a result of the proactive steps taken by Governor Cuomo and the Department of Health to get as many New Yorkers tested as possible.
"As the novel coronavirus continues to spread and the number of positive cases increases, we are encouraging New Yorkers to use tele-medicine if they are sick and we will set up a new drive-through mobile testing facility on Long Island to help keep people out of emergency rooms and reduce the strain on our healthcaresystem," Governor Cuomo said. "The more tests we do, the higher the number of positive cases we will see — so we need to keep that context in mind when we see these numbers continuing to go up. And we will continue to communicate the facts, because the facts and the information defeat the fear and anxiety in this situation."
Finally, Governor Cuomo confirmed 100 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 524 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 524 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Albany County: 3 (1 new)
Broome County: 1
Delaware County: 1
Dutchess County: 3
Herkimer County: 1
Monroe County: 2
Nassau County: 68 (17 new)
New York City: 213 (59 new)
Orange County: 6 (3 new)
Rockland County: 10 (1 new)
Saratoga: 3
Schenectady: 1
Suffolk County: 33 (3 new)
Tioga County: 1 (1 new)
Tompkins County: 1 (1 new)
Ulster County: 5
Westchester County: 172 (14 new)
The Governor also confirmed the first novel coronavirus-related death in New York State - an 82-year-old woman in Brooklyn who had a pre-existing respiratory disease of emphysema.
Additionally, Governor Cuomo said he will sign an Executive Order today to help relieve the economic impact of COVID-19 on workers and assure school aid for schools that have been directed to close. As part of the Governor's Executive Order, the state will waive the 7-day waiting period for workers in shared work programs to claim unemployment insurance for those that have been put out of work by COVID-19. The Executive Order will also eliminate the aid penalty for schools directed to close by state or local officials or those closed under a state or local declaration of emergency that do not meet 180-day requirements if they are unable to make up school days.
March 14, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: During Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Announces Department of Financial Services Will Require Insurance Companies to Waive Co-payments for Tele-health Visits. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-during-coronavirus-briefing-governor-cuomo-announces-department-financial
Authorizes State to Open Drive-Through Mobile Testing Facility on Long Island — Governor Opened First Drive-Through Testing Facility Yesterday in New Rochelle
Confirms 100 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 524; New Cases in 9 Counties
Confirms First Novel Coronavirus-Related Death in New York State, an 82-Year-Old Woman in Brooklyn with Underlying Respiratory Disease of Emphysema
Governor Will Sign Executive Order Today Waiving 7-Day Waiting Period for Workers to Claim Unemployment Insurance due to COVID-19 and Eliminating Aid Penalty for Schools Directed to Close
Governor Cuomo: "[F]irst, we are going to waive copayments for insurers for any telemedicine visits. We are encouraging people to use telemedicine. When the anxiety is high people have some symptoms. They're anxious — is this coronavirus or is it the flu? Is it just a cold? — we don't want them to go to emergency rooms. The emergency rooms back up. If you do have a coronavirus we don't want you walking into an emergency room and possibly infecting other people and staff and if you don't have the coronavirus we don't want you going to an emergency room where other people may have the coronavirus."
Cuomo: "[T]elemedicine — where they can diagnose your symptoms, you can speak with a health care professional — that is the best way for an individual's own health as well as the most beneficial for our overall community."
Earlier today during a novel coronavirus conference call briefing, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the State Department of Financial Services will require insurance companies to waive co-pays for telehealth visits. This action will encourage New Yorkers to seek medical attention from their homes rather than visit a hospital or doctor's office — ultimately reducing strain on the healthcare system and preventing further spread of the virus.
The Governor also authorized the State to open a drive-through mobile testing facility on Long Island in the coming week. This follows the success of the New Rochelle mobile testing center, which opened yesterday and serviced 150 cars and tested 263 people, exceeding the initial goal of testing 200 people in the first day. Once fully operational, the New Rochelle facility will be able to test up to 500 people per day. Drive-through mobile testing facilities help keep people who are sick or at risk of having contracted coronavirus out of healthcare facilities where they could infect other people.
The addition of a mobile testing facility on Long Island is part of the State's initiative to replicate the New Rochelle Mobile Testing Center model at other locations, helping allow the state to run at least 6,000 tests per day starting next week — six times the state's target goal when this outbreak first came to New York. This is on top of the testing that will be conducted at the 28 public and private labs across the state and the out of state labs that New York is already contracting with. All of this is a result of the proactive steps taken by Governor Cuomo and the Department of Health to get as many New Yorkers tested as possible.
Finally, Governor Cuomo confirmed 100 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 524 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 524 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Albany County: 3 (1 new)
Broome County: 1
Delaware County: 1
Dutchess County: 3
Herkimer County: 1
Monroe County: 2
Nassau County: 68 (17 new)
New York City: 213 (59 new)
Orange County: 6 (3 new)
Rockland County: 10 (1 new)
Saratoga: 3
Schenectady: 1
Suffolk County: 33 (3 new)
Tioga County: 1 (1 new)
Tompkins County: 1 (1 new)
Ulster County: 5
Westchester County: 172 (14 new)
The Governor also confirmed the first novel coronavirus-related death in New York State - an 82-year-old woman in Brooklyn who had a pre-existing respiratory disease of emphysema.
Additionally, Governor Cuomo said he will sign an Executive Order today to help relieve the economic impact of COVID-19 on workers and assure school aid for schools that have been directed to close. As part of the Governor's Executive Order, the state will waive the 7-day waiting period for workers in shared work programs to claim unemployment insurance for those that have been put out of work by COVID-19. The Executive Order will also eliminate the aid penalty for schools directed to close by state or local officials or those closed under a state or local declaration of emergency that do not meet 180-day requirements if they are unable to make up school days.
AUDIO of the conference call where the announcements were made is available here.
A rush transcript of the conference call is available below:
Good morning, guys. Thank you all very much for being with us. As the operator said we have the Health Commissioner on the phone, Secretary to the Governor on the phone, Budget Director on the phone. Let me give you a couple of updates.
I think it's very important that at this time we communicate with the people of New York facts and reality in the midst of this situation where you have a lot of opinions and rumors. If people have information, information and facts defeat fear and the anxiety in society is obviously an issue that we have to address as much as we have to address dealing with the virus at this point.
So a couple of announcements - first, we are going to waive copayments for insurers for any telemedicine visits. We are encouraging people to use telemedicine. When the anxiety is high people have some symptoms. They're anxious - is this coronavirus or is it the flu? Is it just a cold? We don't want them to go to emergency rooms. The emergency rooms back up. If you do have a coronavirus we don't want you walking into an emergency room and possibly infecting other people and staff and if you don't have the coronavirus we don't want you going to an emergency room where other people may have the coronavirus.
So telemedicine where they can diagnose your symptoms, you can speak with a health care professional - that is the best way for an individual's own health as well as the most beneficial for our overall community. So the insurers will waive copays for telemedicine services. This is just another encouragement and benefit to do what's in people's best interest any way which is to use telemedicine at this time.
I'm going to sign the executive order today waiving the 180-day provision for local school district reimbursement. Just to clarify the situation on schools: local districts can decide to close the school district. That has always been the case. That is not a function of any recent actions. A local school district was always enabled with the ability to close a school. That remains true. There is an additional state provision that says if you have a child that is positive the school must be closed for 24 hours so the school can be disinfected and we can assess the situation, and they then consult with the Department of Health on the specific facts and circumstances to make a decision on whether or not that school should remain closed. That is a new provision and the state may have, in the future, a different position as to what local school districts should do depending on facts and circumstances. So, right now it is purely a local decision, unless you have a child who tests positive and then you consult with the Department of Health and it has to be closed. And if something has to be changed then we will do that. Right now, you have a very different situation across parts of the state. Some school districts have virtually minimal cases in their area, other school districts have many more - New Rochelle obviously is the extreme example. That's why we have the local discretion because right now you have a massive differentiation depending on parts of the state.
Unemployment insurance, we said that we were going to waive the 7-day waiting period, that will become effective today.
On political petitions, we need to address that issue. I don't have the answer now, but I know the question. We don't want people circulating political petitions now, going door-to-door. So we need to end the petition process and determine how people qualify for the election, I'm talking to the legislative leaders about that, but we don't have an answer today.
The New Rochelle drive-through testing facility worked very, very well. That does a number of things for us. It increases our testing capacity, but it also keeps people out of emergency rooms and it's a very controlled setting. The first one in New Rochelle opened yesterday, it worked very well. We're going to be opening a drive-through for Long Island and we'll be doing that this coming week. We're planning that as we speak. But we actually hope to get that up and functioning by the end of the week. This is a large logistical issue, because the facility itself, the tent itself, is a chore to construct, but we did it in New Rochelle; it is working very well and today I authorized and directed them to do one on Long Island, and we're in the midst of that right now.
The update on the number of cases in New York, we now have 524 - that's an increase of 100 from yesterday. We did 700 tests. Again, the number of positive cases is more a function of the number of tests were taking. The more tests we take, the more that number will go up. Nobody believes there are only 500 cases of coronavirus in New York today. We believe there are thousands of people who have coronavirus, maybe tens of thousands. We believe there are thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands who have had coronavirus and have resolved and never knew they had it. So, the 524 cases doesn't mean there are 524 positive people; it means the testing capacity is going up. The more you test the more you will find it.
And again, the majority of these cases are being done by "disease detectives" tracking down cases from positive cases. 117 of the 524 are hospitalized. We have the first case in Tioga County and the first case in Tompkins County. Also, we had last night a death in a New York City hospital of an 82-year-old woman who had coronavirus. She came in to the hospital on March 3rd, and again here the context is very important. This was an 82-year-old woman who had an underlying respiratory illness, emphysema, for which she had been hospitalized previously. She then contracted the coronavirus on top of the emphysema and she passed. Again, the context is important here. I was speaking to a healthcare professional about this case, and the healthcare professional said, look, if you are an 82-year-old, with emphysema, and you contract the normal slew, you're gravely ill. And when they talk about the number of deaths you have from the flu, again the normal flu is when you have a person who has a compromised immune system, there's new citizens, an underlying illness, and then you get the flu and you're 82 years old, yes, you're in a grave situation. And that's what we're going to see playing out here as the general rule.
Also, yesterday was a big step forward for the state as we've been discussing. On testing, the testing capacity is important because it is helping us identify positives and quarantining. The testing capacity across the country has been an issue that has been widely discussed and widely reported. What is the improvement? I had asked Vice President Pence to go back to the federal powers and say, let's get FDA and CDC out of the mandatory approval business, break that federal bottleneck, and let the states use their own laboratories. I then had a conversation with the vice president and the president yesterday morning, late morning, where they said they would do just that. That is a very big modification in the protocol. And that will enable New York to now go to our laboratories and dramatically increase that testing capacity, and we're ramping that up now. And you'll see the testing capacity go way up this coming week.
Now, as the testing capacity goes up, you're going to see the number of positive cases go up. Again, that doesn't mean there's a that percentage increase in the number of cases. It means we're just identifying what already exists.
I will stop there and we'll take whatever questions you have.
March 14, 2020
Amid COVID-19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo Signs Executive Order Temporarily Modifying Election Procedures to Reduce Spread of Coronavirus. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/amid-covid-19-pandemic-governor-cuomo-signs-executive-order-temporarily-modifying-election
Reduces Number of Petition Signatures to 30% of the Statutory Threshold; Petition Period Will End at 5PM on Tuesday 3/17
Extends Deadline to Apply to Vote Absentee for Queens Borough President special election on March 24
In an effort to keep New Yorkers safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed an executive order temporarily modifying election procedures to help reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The executive order suspends the candidate petitioning process — effective 5PM on Tuesday — for the June primaries for Congressional, State Senate, State Assembly and Judicial races.
The executive order also modifies the signature requirements for ballot access; candidates will only need to collect 30 percent of the statutory threshold. For Congress, candidates would need 375 signatures rather than 1,250. For State Senate, candidates would need 300 signatures rather than 1,000. For Assembly, candidates would only need 150 signatures rather than 500.
The executive order also modifies deadlines and procedures to better allow New Yorkers to vote absentee for the Queens Borough President special election on March 24. It extends the current deadline to register to vote absentee to March 23, the day before the special election. Absentee votes must be postmarked or delivered in person up until the day of the election on March 24.
"Public health experts have been clear that one of the most common ways to communicate COVID-19 is through direct person to person contact, and we are doing everything in our immediate power to reduce unnecessary interactions," Governor Cuomo said. "This executive order modifies the election process in a way that both protects public health and ensures the democratic process remains healthy and strong regardless of the ongoing pandemic."
March 14, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Gives Novel Coronavirus Briefing. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-gives-novel-coronavirus-briefing
Governor Confirmed 88 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 613
Confirms Novel Coronavirus-Related Death in New York State, a 65-Year-Old Man in Rockland with Underlying Health Problems
Earlier today during a novel coronavirus conference call briefing, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo confirmed the second coronavirus-related death in New York State - a 65-year-old man with multiple health problems. Earlier in the day the Governor confirmed the first coronavirus-related death in New York State - an 82-year-old woman in Brooklyn who had a pre-existing respiratory disease of emphysema.
Governor Cuomo confirmed 88 additional cases of novel coronavirus since the last briefing, bringing the statewide total to 613 confirmed cases in New York State.
AUDIO of the conference call where the announcements were made is available here.
A rush transcript of the conference call is available below:
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.
March 14, 2020.
Statement From Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie
"It has come to our attention that two of our Assembly colleagues - Helene Weinstein and Charles Barron - have been diagnosed with COVID-19. It is important to note that both members have not been in Albany since early March for separate reasons. Speaker Heastie has been in contact with both members and we are taking swift action to address this situation.
"We have spoken with the Senate and are undertaking an intensive cleaning of the Capital and the Legislative Office Building. All legislators and staff that have come in contact with these members will be tested to ensure the safety of everyone.
"Additionally, out of an abundance of caution we are closing the Capitol to visitors effective tomorrow.
"We are working hand in glove to contain and mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 in New York but we will continue to act aggressively to protect the public health."
March 15, 2020.
ICYMI: Governor Cuomo's Op-Ed in the New York Times - Andrew Cuomo to President Trump: The Nation Needs Comprehensive Federal Action to Combat Coronavirus Now. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/icymi-governor-cuomos-op-ed-new-york-times-andrew-cuomo-president-trump-nation-needs
Today, The New York Times published an op-ed by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo calling on President Trump to mobilize the military to address the coronavirus crisis. The text of the op-ed that was published by The New York Times is available here.
Full text of the op-ed is available below:
Dear Mr. President,
The coronavirus pandemic is now upon us, and data from other countries shows us clearly where we are headed.
Every country affected by this crisis has handled it on a national basis. The United States has not. State and local governments alone simply do not have the capacity or resources to do what is necessary, and we don't want a patchwork quilt of policies.
There is now only one question your team must answer for you: Can we slow the spread of the disease to a rate that our state health care systems can handle? The answer increasingly looks like no.
But that does not mean we should not try. There are fewer options available at this late date, but the federal government should move to implement them swiftly. There are three clear imperatives we need to address:
Testing
Slowing the spread of coronavirus is a function of testing and reducing the density of public gatherings. So first, Mr. President, you must stop the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from overregulating the testing process, and authorize states to certify a wider array of testing labs and methods.
On Friday, you said that your administration had agreed to allow New York State's public health department to authorize local labs to perform the state's approved coronavirus test — a good first step. Your administration also approved high-volume automated testing by the Swiss diagnostics maker Roche.
But these moves are insufficient. Because of the high demand for testing kits nationwide, many labs with Roche machines will be unable to obtain enough of the company's testing kits for weeks or even months. There are other labs that can do high-volume coronavirus tests that do not use Roche kits. But these machines cannot be used without further F.D.A. approvals, of the sort Roche received on Friday.
That means that while New York is conducting thousands of tests a day, we are still below our full testing capacity because many labs still rely on low-volume manual testing.
Mr. Trump, don't let bureaucracy get in the way of fighting this virus. Break the logjam, let states fully take over testing so they can unleash hundreds of labs tomorrow and bring testing to scale. It is the only way we will have a chance of keeping up with the rapid spread of this contagion.
Closings
Second, the closing of schools and businesses has federal implications, even if these are state or local decisions. When one state unilaterally closes businesses, people typically cross state lines to look for open businesses elsewhere. If the purpose is to keep our citizens home and out of crowded spaces, such inconsistency in state policies is counterproductive. There should be a uniform federal standard for when cities and states should shut down commerce and schools, or cancel events.
All of this disruption will have immense financial and economic impact, and federal assistance will be needed to soften the blow. When schools close, localities will need help to provide meal programs to students and child-care programs to parents. Unemployment will skyrocket, as will insurance, health care and education costs.
The federal government must not only make aid available, it must also ensure that its assistance is distributed in clear, uniform ways. No state should be penalized for doing the right thing in trying to protect its residents during this crisis.
Risks to hospitals
Third, you must anticipate that, without immediate action, the imminent failure of hospital systems is all but certain. According to one projection, as many as 214 million people in our country could be infected over the course of the epidemic. Of those, as many as 21 million people could require hospitalization.
This would crush the nation's medical system. New York State has just 53,470 hospital beds, only 3,186 of which are intensive-care beds. Our country as a whole has fewer than one million staffed hospital beds, fewer proportionately than China, South Korea or Italy.
Ask your experts, how many intensive-care beds do we need for our vulnerable populations, and how many do we have now? The scarcity portends a greater failing and a worse situation than what we are seeing in Italy, where lives are being lost because the country doesn't have the health care capacity.
States cannot build more hospitals, acquire ventilators or modify facilities quickly enough. At this point, our best hope is to utilize the Army Corps of Engineers to leverage its expertise, equipment and people power to retrofit and equip existing facilities — like military bases or college dormitories — to serve as temporary medical centers. Then we can designate existing hospital beds for the acutely ill.
We believe the use of active duty Army Corps personnel would not violate federal law because this is a national disaster. Doing so still won't provide enough intensive care beds, but it is our best hope.
In short: Localize testing, federalize shutdowns and task the Army Corps of Engineers to expand hospital capacity.
I make these suggestions not as a Democrat but as one of the nation's most senior governors and a former cabinet secretary who knows the capacity of the federal government.
We have had disagreements about your actions against New York, which we can pursue at another time. Today, let's work together as Americans. Time is short.
March 15, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Calls on President Trump to Take Comprehensive Federal Action to Combat Novel Coronavirus Now. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-calls-president-trump-take-comprehensive-federal-action-combat-novel-coronavirus
In Open Letter to President Trump, Governor Calls for Aggressive National Strategy for Testing, School Closures and Hospital Surge Capacity to Slow and Mitigate Impacts of COVID-19
Directs Nonessential State Workforce in Hotspot Areas - Rockland, Westchester, NYC, Suffolk, Nassau - to Work From Home for Two Weeks
Governor Asks Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to Develop Plan to Reduce Density in Court System, Including Limiting Nonessential Proceedings
Tasks SUNY Empire State College President JimMalatras with Developing Contingency Plans in Preparation for School Closures
Directs DMV to Move to Appointment Only to Limit Person to Person Contact
Confirms 69 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 729; New Cases in 9 Counties
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today called on President Trump to take comprehensive federal action to combat the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, including developing an aggressive national strategy for testing, school closures and hospital surge capacity.
In an open letter to President Trump, the Governor urged Trump to deploy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to leverage its expertise, equipment and people power to retrofit and equip existing facilities - such as military bases or college dormitories - to serve as temporary medical centers. The Governor called on the President, through the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to authorize states to certify a wider array of testing labs and methods in an effort to maximize testing capacity to identify and isolate positive cases faster. The Governor also called for a uniform federal standard for when cities and states should shut down commerce and schools, or cancel events.
The Governor directed nonessential State employees in Rockland, Westchester, NYC, Suffolk, Nassau - current hotspot areas - to work from home for two weeks. The Governor also directed DMV to move to appointment only to limit person to person contact and revert to regular hours rather than the extended hours the state implemented in recent weeks to help reduce lines.
Governor Cuomo asked Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to develop a plan to reduce density in the court system, including limiting nonessential proceedings, without disrupting criminal justice system. The Governor also tasked SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras with working with counties to develop contingency plans in preparation for school closings, including how to provide meals to food insecure children and ensuring families have adequate access to childcare.
"Our goal is to slow the spread of the virus to a rate that the healthcare system can manage, and we're doing that through aggressive testing and strong social distancing protocols. But the anticipated wave of new cases threatens to crash our healthcare system, and we need national action from the federal government to address the quickly-evolving situation now," Governor Cuomo said. "In short, the Trump administration needs to localize testing, federalize shutdowns and task the Army Corps of Engineers to expand hospital capacity. While again I want to remind people that the facts do not warrant the level of anxiety that is out there, we will continue working closely with every level of government to mitigate the impact of this virus and protect the public health."
Finally, the Governor also confirmed 69 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 729 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 729 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Albany County: 8 (3 new)
Broome County: 1
Delaware County: 1
Dutchess County: 7 (3 new)
Erie County: 3
Greene County: 2 (2 new)
Herkimer County: 1
Monroe County: 2
Montgomery County: 1 (1 new)
Nassau County: 98 (5 new)
New York City: 329 (29 new)
Orange County: 6
Putnam County: 2 (2 new)
Rockland County: 13
Saratoga County: 3
Schenectady County: 2
Suffolk County: 47 (6 new)
Tioga County: 1
Tompkins County: 1
Ulster County: 5
Westchester County: 196 (18 new)
March 15, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Calls on President Trump to Take Comprehensive Federal Action to Combat Novel Coronavirus Now
In Open Letter to President Trump, Governor Calls for Aggressive National Strategy for Testing, School Closures and Hospital Surge Capacity to Slow and Mitigate Impacts of COVID-19
Directs Nonessential State Workforce in Hotspot Areas - Rockland, Westchester, NYC, Suffolk, Nassau - to Work From Home for Two Weeks
Governor Asks Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to Develop Plan to Reduce Density in Court System, Including Limiting Nonessential Proceedings
Tasks SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras with Developing Contingency Plans in Preparation for School Closures
Directs DMV to Move to Appointment Only to Limit Person to Person Contact
Confirms 69 Additional Coronavirus Cases in New York State - Bringing Statewide Total to 729; New Cases in 9 Counties
Governor Cuomo: "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."
Cuomo: "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."
Cuomo: "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."
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today called on President Trump to take comprehensive federal action to combat the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, including developing an aggressive national strategy for testing, school closures and hospital surge capacity.
In an open letter to President Trump, the Governor urged Trump to deploy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to leverage its expertise, equipment and people power to retrofit and equip existing facilities - such as military bases or college dormitories - to serve as temporary medical centers. The Governor called on the President, through the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to authorize states to certify a wider array of testing labs and methods in an effort to maximize testing capacity to identify and isolate positive cases faster. The Governor also called for a uniform federal standard for when cities and states should shut down commerce and schools, or cancel events.
The Governor directed nonessential State employees in Rockland, Westchester, NYC, Suffolk, Nassau - current hotspot areas - to work from home for two weeks. The Governor also directed DMV to move to appointment only to limit person to person contact and revert to regular hours rather than the extended hours the state implemented in recent weeks to help reduce lines.
Governor Cuomo asked Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to develop a plan to reduce density in the court system, including limiting nonessential proceedings, without disrupting criminal justice system. The Governor also tasked SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras with working with counties to develop contingency plans in preparation for school closings, including how to provide meals to food insecure children and ensuring families have adequate access to childcare.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of today's remarks will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
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, etcetera. 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.
March 15, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Urges Unprecedented Federal Action to Stop the Spread of COVID-19. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-urges-unprecedented-federal-action-stop
Governor Cuomo: "I said to the president in all sincerity, there's no place for politics, I'm not playing politics, I don't give a darn, Democrat, Republican, whatever you are. This is about Americans protecting Americans' lives, and I will work in full partnership with the president on this issue 100 percent. But I ask him personally to take this seriously."
Earlier today while delivering an update on the spread of COVID-19, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo demanded that President Trump put aside politics and take unprecedented action to stop the spread of the virus.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of today's remarks will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
I sent the President a letter. That is a very rare occasion for me. I said to the president in the letter, I offer these suggestions as a governor, as a former cabinet secretary member, as a person who knows how the state government works and how the federal government works, this is the state that has the highest number of cases. I said to the president in all sincerity, there's no place for politics, I'm not playing politics, I don't give a darn, Democrat, Republican, whatever you are. This is about Americans protecting Americans' lives, and I will work in full partnership with the president on this issue 100 percent. But I ask him personally to take this seriously. I know it's a dramatic action. It may be an unprecedented action. This is a dramatic time, and an unprecedented time, and great challenges require great leaders, and great solutions. And that's what this is. Thank you very much.
March 15, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Announces All New York City, Westchester, Suffolk and Nassau Public Schools Will Close This Week to Limit Spread of COVID-19. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-all-new-york-city-westchester-suffolk-and-nassau-public-schools-will
Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk to Close Beginning Monday, March 16
NYC Must Have a Plan in Place within 24 Hours to Ensure Children Who Rely on School Meals Continue Getting Support and Parents - Especially Critical Healthcare Workers and First Responders - Have Access to Child Care
Cuomo: "Any school closings need to be done with these contingencies in mind so that children are not harmed and our hospitals aren't understaffed - otherwise we cut off our nose to spite our face."
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced New York City, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk schools will close this week in an effort to limit the spread of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.
Schools in Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk will close for two weeks beginning Monday, March 16.
New York City must develop a plan within the next 24 hours to ensure children who rely on school breakfast and lunch programs will continue to receive that support, and parents - especially critical healthcare workers and first responders - will be provided access to child care as needed. New York City schools will close early this week.
"Our goal is to slow the spread of the virus to a rate that the healthcare system can manage, and one of the ways to do that is to reduce density," Governor Cuomo said. "Closing the schools is a good idea but you have to anticipate and correct any unintended consequences - we have to ensure children who rely on free school meals continue to get them and that there's adequate child care, especially for healthcare workers and first responders who are parents of young children. We will close these schools but it needs to be done with these contingencies in mind so that children are not harmed and our hospitals aren't understaffed - otherwise we cut off our nose to spite our face."
The Governor also called on 1199 SEIU President George Gresham, New York State Nurses Association President Judy Sheridan Gonzalez, Greater New York Hospitals Association President Ken Raske and United Federation of Teachers President Mike Mulgrew to work together to ensure children who rely on school breakfast and lunch programs will continue to receive that support, and parents will be provided access to child care as needed, including temporary daycare centers. These centers would prioritize care for children of healthcare workers and first responders to ensure these school closures do not strain the hospital and emergency response systems.
Earlier today, the Governor tasked SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras with working with counties to develop contingency plans in preparation for school closings, including how to provide meals to food insecure children and ensuring families have adequate access to childcare.
The county executives from Westchester, Suffolk and Nassau joined a conference call with Governor Cuomo earlier today to discuss the closures and said the following:
Westchester County Executive George Latimer said, "Our county has been coordinating with the State to ensure an effective means of slowing the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Cancelling group events and meetings, limiting access for non-essential social contacts and anticipating additional testing and healthcare needs are all part of our response in concert with the Governor and his administration. Closing schools-with adequate childcare and nutrition provisions-is the next step we will undertake this week. We deeply appreciate the leadership shown by Governor Cuomo."
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said, "Over the last several days we have worked with our state and local partners on the potential closure of schools as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to increase around the state. As part of our larger social distancing efforts, we came to the conclusion that closing schools is the right thing to do at this time. I would like to thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership as we deal with this crisis as well as our school districts for their partnership and swift action to protect Suffolk families."
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said, "I thank Governor Cuomo for fully supporting our decision to close all public and private schools and for his unwavering commitment to ensure every child in Nassau County is fully taken care of while this crisis continues to unfold. We all agree that nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our children."
March 15, 2020.
Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Urges Unprecedented Federal Action to Stop the Spread of COVID-19. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-urges-unprecedented-federal-action-stop
Governor Cuomo: "I said to the president in all sincerity, there's no place for politics, I'm not playing politics, I don't give a darn, Democrat, Republican, whatever you are. This is about Americans protecting Americans' lives, and I will work in full partnership with the president on this issue 100 percent. But I ask him personally to take this seriously."
Earlier today while delivering an update on the spread of COVID-19, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo demanded that President Trump put aside politics and take unprecedented action to stop the spread of the virus.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of today's remarks will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript is available below:
I sent the President a letter. That is a very rare occasion for me. I said to the president in the letter, I offer these suggestions as a governor, as a former cabinet secretary member, as a person who knows how the state government works and how the federal government works, this is the state that has the highest number of cases. I said to the president in all sincerity, there's no place for politics, I'm not playing politics, I don't give a darn, Democrat, Republican, whatever you are. This is about Americans protecting Americans' lives, and I will work in full partnership with the president on this issue 100 percent. But I ask him personally to take this seriously. I know it's a dramatic action. It may be an unprecedented action. This is a dramatic time, and an unprecedented time, and great challenges require great leaders, and great solutions. And that's what this is. Thank you very much.
March 15, 2020.
Governor Cuomo Announces All New York City, Westchester, Suffolk and Nassau Public Schools Will Close This Week to Limit Spread of COVID-19. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-all-new-york-city-westchester-suffolk-and-nassau-public-schools-will
Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk to Close Beginning Monday, March 16
NYC Must Have a Plan in Place within 24 Hours to Ensure Children Who Rely on School Meals Continue Getting Support and Parents - Especially Critical Healthcare Workers and First Responders - Have Access to Child Care
Cuomo: "Any school closings need to be done with these contingencies in mind so that children are not harmed and our hospitals aren't understaffed - otherwise we cut off our nose to spite our face."
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced New York City, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk schools will close this week in an effort to limit the spread of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.
Schools in Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk will close for two weeks beginning Monday, March 16.
New York City must develop a plan within the next 24 hours to ensure children who rely on school breakfast and lunch programs will continue to receive that support, and parents - especially critical healthcare workers and first responders - will be provided access to child care as needed. New York City schools will close early this week.
"Our goal is to slow the spread of the virus to a rate that the healthcare system can manage, and one of the ways to do that is to reduce density," Governor Cuomo said. "Closing the schools is a good idea but you have to anticipate and correct any unintended consequences - we have to ensure children who rely on free school meals continue to get them and that there's adequate child care, especially for healthcare workers and first responders who are parents of young children. We will close these schools but it needs to be done with these contingencies in mind so that children are not harmed and our hospitals aren't understaffed - otherwise we cut off our nose to spite our face."
The Governor also called on 1199 SEIU President George Gresham, New York State Nurses Association President Judy Sheridan Gonzalez, Greater New York Hospitals Association President Ken Raske and United Federation of Teachers President Mike Mulgrew to work together to ensure children who rely on school breakfast and lunch programs will continue to receive that support, and parents will be provided access to child care as needed, including temporary daycare centers. These centers would prioritize care for children of healthcare workers and first responders to ensure these school closures do not strain the hospital and emergency response systems.
Earlier today, the Governor tasked SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras with working with counties to develop contingency plans in preparation for school closings, including how to provide meals to food insecure children and ensuring families have adequate access to childcare.
The county executives from Westchester, Suffolk and Nassau joined a conference call with Governor Cuomo earlier today to discuss the closures and said the following:
Westchester County Executive George Latimer said, "Our county has been coordinating with the State to ensure an effective means of slowing the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Cancelling group events and meetings, limiting access for non-essential social contacts and anticipating additional testing and healthcare needs are all part of our response in concert with the Governor and his administration. Closing schools-with adequate childcare and nutrition provisions-is the next step we will undertake this week. We deeply appreciate the leadership shown by Governor Cuomo."
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said, "Over the last several days we have worked with our state and local partners on the potential closure of schools as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to increase around the state. As part of our larger social distancing efforts, we came to the conclusion that closing schools is the right thing to do at this time. I would like to thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership as we deal with this crisis as well as our school districts for their partnership and swift action to protect Suffolk families."
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said, "I thank Governor Cuomo for fully supporting our decision to close all public and private schools and for his unwavering commitment to ensure every child in Nassau County is fully taken care of while this crisis continues to unfold. We all agree that nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our children."
March 15, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on MSNBC With Alex Witt. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-msnbc-alex-witt-0
Governor Cuomo: "I'm calling on the president to look at those facts, react before, plan forward, and let's use the Army Corps of Engineers to come in and retrofit existing buildings to provide medical care facilities when the hospitals get overwhelmed. It is going to happen. We have a brief window. We need more medical facilities. A state can't do it. State government doesn't really build... Only the Army Corps of Engineers builds. I'll give you student dorms. I will give you colleges. But send in the Army Corps of Engineers to make those medical facilities ready so when the hospitals get overwhelmed, at least there's a backup."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo appeard as a guest on MSNBC with Alex Witt to dicsuss New York's latest measures to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
AUDIO of the interview is available here.
A rush transcript of the interview is available below:
Alex Witt: We have New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who hasjust wrapped up a conference where he is calling for more non-mandatory restrictions on the people of New York State. Governor Cuomo is joining us now from Albany. Governor, welcome to the broadcast sir. Let's talk first about what you wrote, the op-ed in the New York Times today. What was your message?
Governor Cuomo: Good to be with you again, Alex. You know, as a governor, it's nice to hear all the conversation in Washington. It's good that they passed the bill. I'm more concerned frankly with what is actually happening on the ground and what is actually going to happen on the ground operationally. And everyone says, we have to flatten the curve, flatten the curve, reduce the spread of the virus. What they're really saying is we have to reduce the spread of a virus to a rate that won't overwhelm our hospital care system. That's what happened in Italy. We had too many people coming into the hospital care system, they tend to need the ICU beds, we don't have many intensive care unit beds, ventilators, and if you don't slow that curve, it will overwhelm the hospitals. By any projection, especially here in the State of New York where we have a high number of cases, you're not going to slow that curve to a level that won't overwhelm the hospital system. That curve is not a curve. I see that curve as a wave and the wave is going to break. And the wave is going to break and crush our hospital system. That is what all the numbers say now, Alex. And I'm calling on the president to look at those facts, react before, plan forward, and let's use the Army Corps of Engineers to come in and retrofit existing buildings to provide medical care facilities when the hospitals get overwhelmed. It is going to happen. We have a brief window. We need more medical facilities. A state can't do it. State government doesn't really build. Idon't have the personnel. I don't have the resources. Only the federal government builds. Only the Army Corps of Engineers builds. I'll give you student dorms. I will give you colleges. But send in the Army Corps of Engineers to make those medical facilities ready so when the hospitals get overwhelmed, at least there's a backup.
Alex Witt: Governor, a short time ago in the news conference, we took some of that live, sir, and you referred to this virus as a new war. Talk about your very main concern right now. You've talked about the hospitals and over capacity, not being able to address everyone who might need their help. Is that your main concern at this point or are there others?
Governor Cuomo: The main - what is going to happen here, by any of the projections, and we don't have to guess, there's no crystal ball. We saw china, we saw South Korea, we saw Italy. If you don't reduce that curve, it is going overwhelm the hospital care system. Itis going to overwhelm the hospital care system. I am telling you that right now today with any of the projections. We only have 3,000 intensive care unit beds in this state - 3,000. 80% are now occupied. The people who wind up needing hospital assistance, there are senior citizens, underlying illness, they need the ventilators. Theventilators are in the intensive care units. We don't have enough. And if we don't create more space quickly, and only the Army Corp of Engineers can do that, we're going to see people dying who didn't need to die. I don't mean to be alarmist but I am a realist. That is what is going to happen and we have been a step behind this disease from day one. We were a step behind on testing, on acknowledgement, we saw what was happening in China and we all stood still. Let's get ahead of it and you get ahead of it by knowing what's going to happen by the numbers and do your best to at least create as many beds as you can and you will save as many lives as you can.
Alex Witt: Governor, what are your thoughts on the prospect of shutting down New York City? There's a proposal that was discussed on the broadcast earlier. Do you support the possibility of that and what might that look like?
Governor Cuomo: There is no such thing as shutting down New York City if you talk about meaning, like, it's a quarantine area, youcan't get out of New York City. That is not going to happen. There are rumors that circulate around that. No city in the State of New York can close down if the State government doesn't want it to close down and I'm not closing down any city in this state. Now, if you mean closing down businesses, ramping down activity, that we're doing. I passed mandatory regulations that say a business that has over 500 people is out of business for the time being. You can't have more than 50 percent of the occupancy in the building at any time so that reduces the density. We can do more of that. I called on businesses today on a voluntary basis. We'll see how they respond. I said, if you don't need to be open, don't be open. If you can work from home, work from home, and I am aggressively recommending that voluntary action. Actions like that, if they don't do it on a voluntary basis, we could do it on a mandatory basis. Closing down schools, which is a good idea with a big "if" - if you make sure the essential personnel you need have backup child care. Why? Because the wave is going to break on the hospitals. We need to make sure those health care workers show up for work. If you create a situation where the health care worker can't show up because their child is home and they have no other child care, well then you just cut your nose to spite your face. It wasn't a positive. It was a negative so what we're trying to work out is child care for essential workers if you close down the school, and if you can do that then I'm in favor of closing down schools. But I'm not quarantining any area.
Alex Witt: Governor Andrew Cuomo, sending a big message to all of us here in the State of New York as well as to the federal government. Thank you so much for your time. You're such a busy man. We appreciate it here on MSNBC.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you.
March 15, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on 1010WINS. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/audio-rush-transcript-governor-cuomo-guest-1010wins
Governor Cuomo: "[I]t's a no brainer that we have to close the schools. The caveat is you have to continue the child care - especially for the essential workers, food programs, and we want to make sure that we have educational opportunities for the kids to catch up this summer. So we'll have all of that in place but the priority now is close the school, reduce the density, make sure our essential workers have child care in place."
Cuomo: "I want to make sure when we close the school in New York City that police, firefighters, health care workers can still get to their jobs rather than have to stay home and take care of the kids, so they're going to put a plan in place for child care, to make sure the food delivery continues. I gave them 24 hours to come up with that plan but New York City schools will close early this week."
Earlier Today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on 1010 WINS to discuss New York State's plan to combat the novel coronavirus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
1010 WINS: We are joined live here on 1010 WINS by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Thank you for joining us here, 1010 WINS.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you, good to be with you.
1010 WINS: Governor, what can you tell us, the latest update on the people affected, the infections and unfortunately the death rate as well?
Governor Cuomo: We lost another person to coronavirus. That's the third death. People should remember these were people who were older or who had significant underlying illnesses, which by the way would be people who would be in grave position if they had the normal flu so it's very much following the same patterns, but we need to do everything we can to slow the spread of the virus so our health care system can deal with it. Part of that is reducing density because obviously it communicates among people and the less density the better, so we're going to be closing schools in downstate New York and Nassau and Suffolk are going to close school starting tomorrow. Westchester is coming up with a specific timetable but will be in the next several days. New York City, I've told them I want a plan in place to provide child care for essential workers, I want to make sure when we close the school in New York City that police, firefighters, health care workers can still get to their jobs rather than have to stay home and take care of the kids, so they're going to put a plan in place for child care, to make sure the food delivery continues. I gave them 24 hours to come up with that plan but New York City schools will close early this week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, as soon as we have a specific date I'll tell you.
1010 WINS: Governor Cuomo, we are expecting a press availability with the Mayor of New York later, approximate 5:00 p.m. With that will we be expecting to hear from him this afternoon any further details on that?
Governor Cuomo: No, I think it's a no brainer that we have to close the schools. The caveat is you have to continue the child care - especially for the essential workers, food programs, and we want to make sure that we have educational opportunities for the kids to catch up this summer. So we'll have all of that in place but the priority now is close the school, reduce the density, make sure our essential workers have child care in place. Again, remember the most important thing here is we don't overwhelm our hospitals so I want to make sure our health care workers and nurses can get to work. So we'll have a plan to have child care for the essential workers, food programs, then we'll make up the educational services this summer, but all schools in downstate New York will be closing.
1010 WINS: And Governor Cuomo, you did mention transportation for the workers. Let's talk about that aspect for a moment about the city's transportations system, the coronavirus pandemic, we know that they had increased the cleaning and disinfection but where do we stand on that and any specter possibility of that in any way closing down?
Governor Cuomo: The transit system has been cleaned twice per day. Remember this is not really a hard virus to remove from surfaces. They have a lot of fancy cleaners. Then they just have old fashioned bleach and water so if you smell a lot of bleach don't be surprised. So they're cleaning the transportation system. The density on the transportation system is down because of some of the other measures we've taken. I've asked private businesses to voluntarily close. We're closing schools, so the ridership on a public transit system is down just by a function of everything else we've done and the transit system is clean
1010 WINS: Speaking of the word 'voluntarily', that is a key word, Governor Cuomo. What if certain places do not close as he said voluntarily? What would possibly be the next step if at all?
Governor Cuomo: We have already by regulation made places close, right? Any place over 500 has to stop operating. We put a guideline employees that said no more than fifty percent occupancy of the facility. So, if your facility is certified for two hundred people you can only have one hundred people to reduce density. If these numbers keep going up on the spread of the virus I will increase those regulations. You know for me this is a data driven decision. It's a science driven decision. You're watching the curse of the increase in the number of cases. You know it's going to overwhelm our healthcare system. So, we're doing everything we can to reduce the curve and how do you reduce it? You reduce density, you do more and more testing. We're doing more testing than any state right now. I spoke to President Trump, to break the federal log jam he allowed New York State to do our own testing. So, we're doing everything we can to bring that number down and part of that is closing the schools.
1010 WINS: In addition to that, and we are joined right now here live on 1010 WINS by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Thank you for being here. You're talking about, you know, the schools and businesses, but what about places that people are still seeking out? For example, areas of recreation such as parks and leisure, tell us about that any possible plans it may be in the offing where that is concerned about possible closing more regulation or limitations.
Governor Cuomo: But remember its - we're not dealing with a science fiction movie. It's, it transfers basically like a flu, being outside, walking around the park, god bless. It's being in close proximity to a symptomatic person, somebody sneezes they're close to you, somebody coughs, they are close to you, you inhale what they call the droplets. Or you're in a place of high density, you are, someone simply puts the hand on a counter there, they're sick and they had just sneezed into their hand and then you put your hand on the counter. That's why we say don't touch your face, hand sanitizer, but go for a walk not, in Midtown Manhattan. Great, just avoid the density.
1010 WINS: Speaking of density, for example, in Teaneck they are already telling residents there too self-quarantine. Have you revisited the idea of a city-wide quarantine?
Governor Cuomo: There is no city-wide quarantine being discussed and I want to make sure clear on this because there's a lot of rumors and there is a lot more fear and panic than is justified. Somebody asked me about a city on Long Island if that might be quarantined. No city can be quarantined unless the state approves it. I would never approved the quarantine of a city, so no city is going to be quarantined. We might be reducing what businesses can do in terms of dense populations, but it's just about reducing the density. And also on the deep breath of reality here and facts over fear, again at the end of the day what all the numbers show, every experience, China, South Korea, Italy, people who would normally be vulnerable to a flu will be vulnerable to this and senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses, if you're battling cancer, if you emphysema, people with advanced COPD, people with advanced heart disease. When you get pneumonia on top of one of those illnesses it is always a problem. And you know, all too often you hear a person, "Well he died of pneumonia." Yeah he died of pneumonia, but he also had heart disease, but he also had cancer. And that's what this is, this is pneumonia, which is dangerous for people who are in that vulnerable position. I would wager you today there have been tens of thousands of cases of coronavirus already all through New York and people didn't even know it and it resolved and they thought they had the flu and they went on with their lives. And that's what's going to happen here.
1010 WINS: And Governor Cuomo joining us live here on 1010 WINS talking about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. You have talked about restrictions, and you know we touched on many issues including the possibility, and of course self-quarantining, self-isolation. But how do you go about policing, for example the regulations and the self-spacing. Any possibility of bringing in, say for example, the National Guard or the military to address those pressing issues, Governor?
Governor Cuomo: No. The National Guard we use for logistical help on occasion. The National Guard we've used to, every time there's a storm I'm out there with the National Guard shoveling snow. They're actually shoveling the snow, I'm actually looking like I shovel the snow. They're helping deliver meals in some places in the state now. But no we don't use them for policing. People have been very cooperative with the policing. We had seven thousand people on quarantine. I don't think anyone challenged legally any order that I put out. So people have been very cooperative. Businesses know the rules, if a business breaks the rules they could be fined. But I haven't heard reports of that either. This is in everybody's interest, right? This is, I want to keep myself well and I want to keep you healthy at the same time. And where it linked in that effort, you have to be smart about yourself and I have to be smart about myself. So I think people get it.
1010 WINS: Governor, on the issue of keeping people well, what about the construction of possible more healthcare facilities, more hospitals. Would you need additional help for that which might possibly involve the military or other support staff?
Governor Cuomo: Well that's exactly right. I did an open letter to President Trump today and I said we know what is going to happen, we're trying to flatten the curve, right, we're trying to reduce the spread of the disease. I don't believe we will ever reduce the spread of the disease to a point where we can deal with it in our hospital system. I don't see it as a curve, I see it as a wave and the wave is going to crash on the hospital system. And that's what happened in Italy, more people got sick than the hospital system could take care of because the people who are going to get sick are people who need intensive acute care beds. They're going to be people with emphysema, with heart conditions and now pneumonia. So it's not just putting them in a bed, they're going to need an intensive care bed. We only have about 600 intensive care beds in the state. We already have 60 people just from this disease against that 600. I sent a letter to President Trump saying get us the army corps of engineers, get them in here now, start converting some of these state buildings to medical facilities so we can take people out of hospital beds who don't need it and put them in these medical facilities. Only the federal government can do that. I used to be in the federal government, I've worked with the army corps of engineers, they are great, they can build bridges, they can build airports, they have personnel, they have logistics. Only they could do it and I said to the president and if I with the president today I would deploy the army corps of engineers to start building as many hospital medical beds as you could, give them the dormitories, I'll give them colleges, put in the equipment, do the retro fit and let's have the beds available because we know today, we know today we are not going to be able to deal with this surge that this disease brings. Our hospitals will be overwhelmed. We need it today. We've been behind this disease all along. We saw the disease in China, we knew it was coming, we didn't prepare. Let's get ahead of it. We know we're going to be short on hospital beds, start building them now, now, or we're going to regret it, you mark my words, I'm a lifelong New Yorker, I'm a Queens boy, wager anything you want to wager. I'll replay this tape in six weeks when the hospitals are overwhelmed, I'll send it to the president and say, "I told you we needed the army corps of engineers in here building new beds because we couldn't handle the numbers." That's what's going to happen.
1010 WINS: Governor Cuomo, we really appreciate you joining us here on 1010 WINS and providing your perspective, insight and information during this ongoing pandemic. Thank you again Governor Cuomo.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you for having me.
March 15, 2020.
Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on WCBS 880 With John Metaxas
Governor Cuomo: "The Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, New York City schools will close. They will all close with a child care plan for essential workers in place. And food programs and a plan to make up the educational services at summer school, assuming we're out of this during the summer months."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on WCBS880 with John Metaxas to discuss New York's latest measures to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
AUDIO is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:
John Metaxas: We're talking about New York City public schools, of course. Governor Cuomo, you've had a real hard time with this. You've got a public health emergency, parents who need schools so they can work, kids who need schools because they need to eat - many of them in these food programs. And of course, the big issue for you has been health care workers who may need schools for child care so that they can go help us fight coronavirus. How is this whole thing going to be resolved?
Governor Cuomo: Tough issues, but that's why I get the big bucks.
John Metaxas: That's right. That's right.
Governor Cuomo: I don't get the big bucks. This is what we're going to do. You're right. We have all these calls are difficult because these are all uncharted waters. We haven't been here before. You know I've handled a lot of emergencies in my time. I was in the federal government, I handled hurricanes, floods in Honduras, in Haiti. I've done storms, Super Storm Sandy here. And by the way, we did H1N1, we did Ebola. So they're all hard.
This is what we're going to do and how we hit the balance. Closing the schools sounds great, but there are two caveats. The caveats are A - you still have to provide child care for essential workers. We need essential workers to go to work. I need the police, the firefighters and especially the health care workers. Because remember, this is a health care crisis. What's going to happen here at the end of the day is the hospitals will be overwhelmed, so we can't lose health care workers. When you close the schools, that's day care, child care for many families. And I don't want police officers or nurses calling up saying I can't go to work because I have to stay home with my children.
The second issue was a lot of children get food programs in the schools. So we worked it out, the Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, New York City schools will close. They will all close with a child care plan for essential workers in place. And food programs and a plan to make up the educational services at summer school, assuming we're out of this during the summer months.
The child care will basically be provided by using some of the schools or portions of the schools and some teachers will remain to provide the child care. So, parents can go to work, they'll know their child is being well cared for. We will still have hospitals fully functional, first responders, et cetera. But the schools will be closed and will help us reduce the density, which is what fighting this virus is all about.
John Metaxas: Now, Governor, I heard you mention Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties as you went through the list. Did you mention New York City schools as well?
Governor Cuomo: Yes.
John Metaxas: Okay, so when will that happen? This week?
Governor Cuomo: Nassau, Suffolk close Monday, tomorrow. Westchester in a couple of days. It hasn't been determined exactly when yet because they have to get their child care plan in place. New York City, I directed to have their child care plan and food plan and educational plan in place in 24 hours. And then in New York City schools will close early this week.
John Metaxas: So early this week, we expect New York City schools to close. And of course, that's a big heads up to parents. We're not talking about just health care workers, but many parents as you know and just mentioned will depend on the city schools for child care in the next few days for that.
Governor Cuomo: That's right and I wanted to give parents some notice and I want the child care program in place. Again, child care is going to be primarily for essential workers, first responders, healthcare workers.
John Metaxas: Governor, you mentioned something a moment ago. It's a little off subject, but you brought it up about preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed by coronavirus cases. How can we do that?
Governor Cuomo: That is the $64,000 question. And remember what this is all about. There's so much noise, so much fear. We're sometimes missing the facts. We're trying to slow the spread. You cannot stop the spread. The estimates of the population that are going to get it are 40, 50, 60, 70 percent of the population will get it, right. Either you or I will by percentage, get the coronavirus. And that's okay. Eighty percent self-resolve, there are tens of thousands of New Yorkers who have had the coronavirus, didn't even know they had it - thought they had the flu. That is what is going to happen. But there will be a number of vulnerable people, vulnerable meaning senior citizens, compromised immune system, underlyingillness.
You look at the people who have passed away so far in New York. One person had emphysema and then got the coronavirus, which by the way is pneumonia. You have emphysema and you get pneumonia, you're in grave danger. If you have emphysema and you get the flu you're in danger. One person was battling cancer. You will get a population of those people and your hospitals will not be able to handle that number of acute care beds.
We only have 3,000 intensive care beds in this state and most of them are already occupied. What's going to happen is when we don't slow the spread of the disease, that curve, I see it as a wave and the wave is going to break and when the wave breaks, it breaks on top of the hospital system. I sent the President a letter today saying by any projection, any projection on the trajectory of this disease, it's going to overwhelm our hospitals, we know that. We've always been behind on this disease, let's get ahead of it. Bring in the Army Corps of Engineers and let's start building medical facilities. Let's convert college dorms, let's convert state office buildings to medical facilities. Only the Army Corps of Engineers can do that that fast, because we're talking about a matter of weeks here.
John Metaxas: Right, to build.
Governor Cuomo: Yes. Let's retrofit those facilities so we can take some pressure off of the hospitals. Otherwise, we're going to be where Italy was. Where their hospitals could not handle the surge.
John Metaxas: And the number of cases are exploding in Italy and in Spain.
Governor Cuomo: Yes, but the number of cases is going to explode here.
John Metaxas: No, no, no. In addition to what you're saying with the hospitals being overwhelmed and the cases are exploding, that's exactly what you're trying to avoid.
Governor Cuomo: Yes, and I am saying the numbers are going to explode here. We're going to do everything we can to reduce the spread, and slow the spread. But this is fire through dry grass. You're not really going to be able to stop it. You'll tamp it down a little bit, but you're not going to stop it. All the numerical projections say it's going to overwhelm the hospitals, like Italy. So, if you know that do what you can to get ahead of it.
John Metaxas: Have you received any response from the Administration to your letter?
Governor Cuomo: No. Well, it was only today, but no.
John Metaxas: I'm sure they read it. What about an increase in testing? How is that going?
Governor Cuomo: That is actually going well. Talk about being behind on this disease. China was doing 150,000 tests per day. South Korea was dong 15,000 tests per day. The United States has not done 15,000 tests since this started. It's inexcusable. In any event. I went to the President and I said look, I'm tired of waiting on the federal government, I'm tired of waiting on the FDA and the CDC to tell me what I can do. Let this State do its own testing. I have 200 laboratories; we can do it. The President agreed, we're now doing our own testing. This coming week, we'll be up to 6,000 tests per day, which is more than we've done to date. So, the testing will be way up there. And the testing is important, because when you identify a positive person you isolate them, you stop the spread. So, that's a way of stopping the spread. Reducing the density is a way of stopping the spread, but I don't believe you're going to be able to slow the spread to a rate that your hospitals will be able to deal with. So, for me to get ahead of this, we need more hospital capacity and that to me is the Army Corps of Engineers.
John Metaxas: And we need to start building it now.
Governor Cuomo: Yes.
John Metaxas: Governor Cuomo, thank you very much for your time.
Governor Cuomo: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
END