Outside of their home. The so spoke about deployment of a Navy Medical Ship that will anchor in new with the r to assist states hospital capacity. Gov. Cuomo good morning. I want to give you an overview of where we are today. We are going to do this in a little bit of hyperspeed, because the president is going to do a press conference soon, and i would like to give you a state overview before it. Context is important. Remember for everyone what we are trying to do on the overall management. The bottom line here is very simple. The number of coronavirus cases we have coming in to the Health Care System has to match the capacity of the Health Care System. That is what this whole conversation has been about from day one. They keep talking about the curve, the curve, the curve. They are trying to say is the in thethe increase number of cases, has to be reduced to a rate of admission that your hospitals can handle. And right now we have 53,000 hospital beds, 3000 icu beds. That is what the entire country is doing. That is what the federal government is trying to do. What is the particular problem here . That this is a respiratory illness. The people who come in often have an underlying illness. They need an icu bed. Icu bed is the equivalent of a ventilator. It is all about the ventilators. That is why you see so much about how we get additional ventilators. Right now, in new york specifically, the rate of the curve suggests that in 45 days an input ofe up to 110,000 beds, people needing 110,000 beds. That compares to our current capacity of 53,000 beds. 37 thousand icu units, ventilators, which compares to a capacity currently of 3000 ventilators. That is our main issue. And again, that is a projection, and projections can change, or you can change projections. What that is the problem we are dealing with. So what is the plan of action . Curve. The flatten the curve. Flatten the curve. Reduce the spread. How do you reduce the spread . Testing. Isolate the positives. More, move toward density reduction. Just reduce the number of people in contact. Second, increase the current hospital capacity. The hospital is currently at 53,000 beds. How do you get more beds in your hospital . Third, identify new hospital beds. How do we increase the supply of hospital beds . Well, that is very hard when you are only talking about 45 days. So what . This is new york. There is nothing we cant do. And do all three of those things simultaneously, each is what we are doing. New hospital beds, we met yesterday with all the hospital administrators. I spoke to them. I said we have to increase the number of beds you have in your hospital. We are going to waive all the department of for the time being. Department of health says how many beds you can have in a room, the space between the beds all good regulations, by the way, but waive them so we can get more beds into existing hospitals. We also have to ensure those beds are staffed. So more staff, reserve staff. We are reaching out to retired nurses, retired doctors, nursing schools, medical schools, to build up a reserve capacity, because also you have to anticipate that some hospital workers will get sick during this, so you need a reserve capacity for that basis. How do you create new hospital beds . This is probably the greatest challenge. Facilities and take people who are in current hospital beds, and move them into a converted facility. Who need a lower level of care. Second, the federal partnership which is key, and as we discussed yesterday, the state cannot do this on its own. We dont have the capacity. We dont have a workforce. We are very ambitious. Were very aggressive, but the most important thing in life to know is to know what you cannot do. Know your limitations. We cant build new hospitals in 45 days. The federal government can be extremely helpful here and we need the federal governments help. I had a conversation with the president yesterday. It was an open and honest conversation. Weve always had a very good dialogue. Even when we dont agree, weve always had a very good dialogue, but the president and i agreed yesterday, look, were fighting the same war, and this is a war, and were in the same trench, and i have your back, you have my back, and were going to do everything we can for the people of the state of new york, and the president agreed to that and i agreed to that, and his actions demonstrate that he is doing that. Ive had a number of conversations with white house staff who are working on this. I had a conversation with the secretary of the army. The president sent the army corps of engineers here this afternoon. Ill be meeting with them this afternoon. I spoke to the president this morning about specific actions the president is going to take. I can tell you he is fully engaged on trying to help new york. Hes being very creative and very energetic, and i thank him for his partnership. As i said, the secretary of defense, they can be very helpful. The army corp of engineers can be very helpful, and fema can be very helpful, and were speaking with all of them and were working with all of them as we speak, and we have been around the clock and all through the night. So if commissioner zucker looks a little tired today, thats why. Young people have no stamina, i like to say. Andrew cuomo the president , i spoke to this morning, hes going to be making arrangements to send up this hospital ship, which is called the u. S. Comfort. It has about 1000 rooms on it. It has operating rooms and the president is going to dispatch the comfort to us. It will be in new york city harbor. Its an extraordinary step, obviously, but its literally a floating hospital which will add capacity, and the president said that he would dispatch that immediately. The president also spoke about the mobile hospitals that the federal government has, and where we could set up mobile hospitals where they come in with a mobile hospital that has a capacity of 200 people, 250 people. I told the president that we would do everything we need to do to expedite siting of those facilities, and were talking about a couple of locations now, but that is also specific and concrete help and something that we can get done within the 45 days. At the same time, as i said, were proceeding on all these tracks simultaneously. Density reduction, we have taken a number of dramatic steps, but i think they are necessary steps. Youve seen the curve. We cant handle the number of cases in the Healthcare System at that current rate of spread. We have to get it down. Weve taken dramatic steps. Ive said, and im going to repeat today, im asking all businesses voluntarily, if it is at all possible, work from home and have your people work from home. We also have already announced a mandatory requirement that all schools are closed statewide, a mandatory requirement that no more than 50 of any governments employees can show up for work, essential personnel, yes, but no more than 50 of city local governments. We also have a mandatory requirement, as you know, of a tristate agreement. Pleased to announce that pennsylvania is going to be joining our state coalition, and thats very exciting because none of these measures work unless you have a large enough geographic basis. It makes no sense for a county to try to put its own rule into effect, or a city to put its own rule into effect because people will just move. If i cant go to a bar in queens, ill drive to nassau and go to a bar. If i cant go to a restaurant in albany, ill drive to schenectady. So the geographic footprint, by definition, is essential for these to work. And frankly, even if i come up with a rule for the entire state, people will drive to new jersey, or connecticut, or pennsylvania, and thats why the first ever we have this statewide coalition, and i want to thank Connecticut Governor ned lamont, and new Jersey Governor Phil Murphy very much, and pennsylvania governor tom wolf, whove been great colleagues and i thank them very much. Andrew cuomo again, im asking all businesses to work from home, but today we are announcing a mandatory state wide requirement that no business can have more than 50 of their workforce report to work outside of their home. No more than 50 of the workforce can report for work outside of the home. That is a mandatory requirement. Im going to do that by executive order and that is statewide. That will exempt essential services, meaning food, food delivery pharmacies, healthcare, shipping, supplies, etc. Society has to function. People stay at home, people still need to be able to order food, etc. , they need to be able to shop, so you have to keep those essential services running. I understand that this is a burden to businesses. I get it. I understand the impact on the economy, but in truth, were past that point as a nation. There is going to be an impact on the economy, not just here in new york, but all across the country, and were going to have to deal with that crisis, but lets deal with one crisis at a time and lets deal with a crisis at hand, and the crisis at hand is a Public Health crisis. Once we get past that, then well deal with the economic crisis. Theres an older italian expression that basically says, rough translation, a rich person is a person who has their health. Everything else you can figure out. And thats true for society also. Lets maintain the Public Health. Well figure out the economy afterwards. Weve consulted with a number of business organizations and i want to thank them for their cooperation and their receptivity, the business council, the retail council, abny, the partnership for new york city. Theyre the Main Business groups in this state. They understand the concern and the crisis that were dealing with, and theyre helping communicate the message, and i thank them for their understanding and for their civic consciousness in this matter. You can see from the number of cases why were taking these actions. We are responding to science and data. Theres no politics here. The Health Commissioner and Health Officials advise us of what we should be doing. The number of cases is way up. The number of cases is up because were taking more tests, but the numbers are going up, hence the increased actions to reduce the spread, the density reduction. You see total positive cases 2300, new positive cases 1000. You see the number of counties that now have cases spreading just as you see it spreading across the United States of america. This is just a metaphor for the entire country. Andrew cuomo you see our number of tests has gone way up. Weve now tested over 14,000 people. Thats a dramatic increase and again, thats why you see the number of positive cases going up. We have the highest number of cases in the United States, again by a significant margin, now were about double the next state. I dont know how much of that is due to our increased testing, but we are a more dense environment. We have more people than washington state, so science would dictate, mathematics would dictate that youll have a higher rate of spread. Current hospitalizations of 549, again, that is the number we watch because thats the number that are flowing into the Healthcare System. Thats the rate of cases flowing into the Healthcare System. 23 , we had 20 yesterday. We had 14 last week. So the number of hospitalizations is going up. And again, this is all about the capacity of the Healthcare System and it always has been. Again, perspective, perspective, perspective. I understand the anxiety, i understand the fear. You look at the pictures on television, empty grocery shelves. Its easy to get caught up in the emotion, but you also have to remember the facts of the situation, right . And the facts are still very clear. We know what this virus does. We know who it is. We know where it lives. We know what it does to people. Its been tracked since china. 200,000 cases have been tracked. 8,000 people have passed away. 80,000 have recovered. 113 are still pending. We even know what its done in the state of new york. Of the numbers weve seen in new york since it started. 108 people have already recovered and been discharged from the hospital. The first case we had in new york, which was the Healthcare Worker and her husband who returned from iran and tested positive, she never went into a hospital. She was at home quarantined. She has now been recovering at home. She actually took second coronavirus test and tested negative. Okay . Andrew cuomo so 39 year old female came home, was at home, was on quarantine, recovered two weeks later, tests negative, which means she has resolved the virus in her body, right, and now tests negative. And as weve said, 80 of the people, thats what will happen. She was never hospitalized and she resolved two weeks later. Thats what people have to keep in mind and look, this is a health issue. Its a Public Health crisis, but more than that, im telling you, worse than the virus is the fear that were dealing with, and the rumors and how they spread, and im going to be quarantined, im going to be locked out, theyre not going to allow me to leave my house i better stock up on groceries. Thats not going to happen. Its a deep breath. We know what is going to happen here. People will get ill, they will resolve, people who are vulnerable, we have to be careful. But the panic and the fear is wholly disconnected from the reality. The only way i know to communicate it is just what i experience in my own life and i get those calls every day and people are just disconnected from the reality of the situation. One of my sisters called me yesterday. I have to have my daughter tested for coronavirus. Why . She has a fever. Shes sick. She has flu like symptoms. I said, has she been exposed to someone positive . No, not that we know. Did she travel to a hotspot . No. I said, then theres no test and theres no reason for a test. Leave her home. Help her. Be careful that she doesnt infect you, but thats it. And flulike symptoms and a couple of weeks, shell feel better and shell get on with it. The one thing i said to my sister is, dont let her go near mom. Its my mother. My mothers in a different situation. Again, senior citizen, but senior citizens, compromised the immune system, underlying illnesses. I said, dont let her go near mom. Otherwise, treat her as if she has the flu. Well, what do i do . Whats self quarantine . Well, self quarantine is what we used to do when somebody had the flu, right . My father would say, go in the room. Stay there until you feel better. Right . Thats crude self quarantine. Dont get infected. Stay away, throw things away, use hand sanitizer, et cetera. Thats the reality of the situation. I get the drama, i get the anxiety, but all in moderation and all in connection with the facts. Questions, comments . Jimmy few details. Essential services, does that include Building Supply stores like home depot, curtis lumber . When does this order take effect . And then for the doctor, obviously Health Care Workers are exposed. Theyre going to get sick, theyre going to resolve. If youve been 14 days and youre resolved, do you get to return to the Healthcare Workforce . I guess, governor, start maybe andrew cuomo yeah, jimmy, let me, ill answer your question, but i forgot one thing. I want to show you the ventilator, our main scramble now is for ventilators and everybody says, well, what are the ventilators . What are the ventilators . This is a respiratory illness. We need ventilators, which will actually, the ventilators actually help people breathe. This is the machine that you often see in hospitals. Its commonplace in hospitals. Its just the number that we need is much higher and any manufacturers of ventilators, this is a national need. Every state across the country needs it. Im talking to governors all across the state. Ge makes them, phillips makes them, but this is the number one device that we need because we can create more beds, but its literally the supply of ventilators now and countries all across the globe are all trying to get these devices. Thats a main challenge. Andrew cuomo the question on, after 14 days if you test negative, can you go back to work . You can go back to work. Jimmy she can be doctor is she . Jimmy i dont know. Okay, and then for you, Building Supply stores and when does this take effect . Andrew cuomo were going to have a full list of essential services. I dont want to get into any specific business right now, but well list all of the essential services. Jesse governor, do you have any timetable of how long these restrictions are going to last . Just for parents, small businesses, et cetera that are trying to plan. Andrew cuomo no, but all of the restrictions are statewide. They will track the trajectory of the disease. If we get that spread down, jesse, if we slow the spread and we can handle it in the Healthcare System, well relax them as soon as possible. Past data, china, south korea, shows that if you take more dramatic actions sooner, you actually reduce the spread and you recover faster, so more dramatic on the front side, the faster you get out of it. Andrew cuomo ive also spoken with elected officials all across the state. Ive told them that this 50 mandatory requirement was going to be in place and weve heard nothing but support and i want to thank all of the local officials and i want to thank them for their cooperation. Jesse speaking of dramatic action though, what about shelter in place . Can you explain why youre resistant to that and why thats no longer on the table for you . Gov. Cuomo shelter in place, first, would have to be done, i dont believe any policy works unless the geographic footprint is large enough. Im from queens, new york. If you tell me shelter in place and im living in queens, ill go stay with my sister in westchester and ill go out and have a good time. Right . It cant just be new york city. It would have to be long island, rockland, westchester, and the rest of the state. Also, shelter in place, you closed down your Healthcare System, you closed down your food system, you closed down your transportation system. Jesse i dont think thats necessarily true. I think in the bay area, its certainly essential Services Like food and gov. Cuomo it depends on how you do it and you close down businesses, you close down all businesses when you do shelter in place. That doesnt make sense to me because people have to eat, travel, et cetera. What this, doing it this way, all workforce 50 except essential services, well see if that slows the spread. If it doesnt slow the spread, then we will reduce the number of workers even further. That 50 can be calibrated. Now, you could get to 100 of workers stay home besides essential services. Thats what italy wound up doing and were at 50 now, but i would never shut down food, transportation, essential services. Doctor well, theres two is they said there potentially a cut in spending for schools. Gov. Cuomo that is something we are going to have to work out in the budget. As i said, the original estimates we did were before any of this. Are, any reasonable person would say, too high. We are going to do a budget on the best we can do, and we go from there. Revenue,g at raising you were reluctant to do that in your proposed budget. Gov. Cuomo businesses closing. You have people out of work. I dont think now is the time to tell people we are going to raise your taxes. For the coming months gov. Cuomo hoping gov. Cuomo army corps of engineers, lets say federal writ large because you have dod, fema, the army corps of engineers, additional hospital beds. The multiple hospitals, hoping helping to retrofit existing buildings some of those are all within the purview of the federal government. Was a meeting [indiscernible] under the 50 umbrella . Goodcuomo that is a very question. We have to ponder that. I think, are they an essential service . Depends who you have to ask. I dont know if it is a global definition. Are you investigating a cluster in brooklyn . We have heard of that and we are looking into it. Two possibilities, a lot of testing or potentially one or more individuals that can be affected. That is something that is new on the radar. Westchester was the epicenter. It has sort of moved to new york city. When you talk about expanding the capability of hospitals, is westchester an area where youre looking at perhaps opening some new temporary facility and can you describe where those might be at this point . Gov. Cuomo definitely. Our planning will track, again, its science, its data, will track where the cases are. Wherever you have a cluster of cases, thats where you want to add to the capacity. You look at how many beds you now have, how many beds you may need, and thats where you enter the capacity. New york city is the natural area for it to increase because of the density. Westchester wasnt an anomaly, that whole new rochelle situation, and look, we responded to it dramatically, and i want to thank the Westchester County executive, george latimer, whos done a great job, but well increase the capacity in westchester, that cluster, and new york city. We also have a cluster in nassau now. So wherever we see these clusters pop up. 50 [indiscernible] gov. Cuomo i have not spoken to them about it at this time, to a point where we have agreement. Our numbers are somewhat worse. We dont have agreement with connecticut, new jersey, or pennsylvania. But again on this mandate, this one is not really geographic specific, geographically specific because a business cant pick up today and move to new jersey to get around m a. [indiscernible] looking to move on state budget . Gov. Cuomo april 1. If they want to do it sooner, great, but the date is april 1. Im going to be here. Government is functioning, government is here. Police officers are doing their job. Nurses are doing their job. Correction officers are doing their job. A lot of people are putting themselves in harms way. You have great Public Service heroes. Those nurses who are at the testing stations drawing blood, god bless them. This is Public Service. Well be here. Well be doing our job. If they want to come up and do the budget early, fine. Otherwise, the date is april 1. What are you going to be discussing what the das then later today . Are you meeting with them . Gov. Cuomo i met with the District Attorney and criminal justice experts talking about bail reform. Governor, can you give us this morning. I had that meeting and this morning, sir. Can you give us an update on new rochelle and is there any evidence that the containment zone, in effect, in that city, has been effective . Gov. Cuomo you want to speak to that, doctor . Well, we are still tracking the cases in that area, in the whole Westchester County, but we do believe that the effectiveness of decreasing numbers is happening with that. Andrew cuomo yeah, but certain things are inarguable. It is inarguable, but to the extent you reduce density, you reduce the transfer of the virus. That is inarguable. So closing schools, closing gatherings, that is inarguable. Governor, sick leave bill is expected to be voted on today and passed. Do you expect to sign that today and its supposed to be immediately gov. Cuomo as soon as they pass the bill, ill sign it. When would people said gov. Cuomo as soon as they passed the bill, ill sign it. When would people start benefiting from that . Gov. Cuomo the quarantine bill goes into effect immediately. Right . Melissa the quarantine bill goes into effect immediately. The larger paid sick bill, were actually going to hold on and do in the budget and thatll come into effect in 180 days. Would people be getting these checks from their employer as potentially next week or . Melissa if theyre in mandatory quarantine or if theyre in precautionary quarantine, it goes into effect immediately. Governor, why amended that bill . Because obviously what was introduced yesterday had the statewide system taking effect later. What led you to split it . Melissa were giving a message and we believe thats necessary immediately for the quarantine provision, but as this other part of the bill doesnt go into effect for 180 days, its not necessary to give a message of necessity. Gov. Cuomo bernadette. Bernadette do you have a plan in place for law enforcement, specifically the nypd and the state police, but is the nypd being provided with extra protective gear and also do you have a plan in place for what happens should any of these officers, et cetera, get ill . Gov. Cuomo every Police Department has been advised to expect people to get ill. I mean, youre talking about a public facing position in this environment, so reality would dictate youll expect the number of people to get ill. I have mandated that new york city and all local governments have masks provided to their Police Departments. Bernadette do you have any plans that should the nypd need to cut hours or as we saw in philadelphia they relaxed certain they told the officers to stop detaining people for certain crimes. Gov. Cuomo ill leave that to the local Police Departments unless theres a situation that requires state action, but right now were leaving it to the local Police Departments. Governor, could you please expand more on your discussions on bail reform with the das and the criminal justice experts . Can gov. Cuomo we spoke to the issue. Theres is a divergence of opinion. I said to them that im very proud of what we did on bail reform. I think we made a significant difference. Obviously, theres people who have different opinions on what needs to be done now and it was just a general conversation without a conclusion. It will be concluded in the budget. Lets take one more question and then well get you work. You mentioned that 108 people have been released from the hospital. Maybe this a question for dr. Zucker. Are those people out of the woods . Can we get coronavirus twice or have they built up an immunity . Dr. Zucker you do build up an immunity to all viruses. Sometimes immunity lasts for years, sometimes for your lifetime, and they are out of the woods. I mean if they have recovered thats a positive finding. , doctor, you gave gov. Cuomo the conversation i had with my sister, if you take your daughter to get a coronavirus test, and she tests positive, what do you think happens . They send you home and they say chicken soup and take care of yourself and if it gets worse and you need hospitalization, call me. So getting the test and getting the result, all it really does is inform us to isolate that person so that person doesnt transfer it, but theres no medicine that you get for the coronavirus, right . Its just like a flu. The body has to develop its own immunity to that virus. Weve been doing this testing just to slow the spread, and again, its what i said to my sister, keep her away from mom. Dont go into a nursing home. Dont go into a senior care facility. Dont expose a person whose immune compromised, whos recovering from cancer, who has emphysema, who has a respiratory illness. Thats all this is. Were going to go to work. Thank you very much. [captions copy announcer its easy to follow the federal response to the oronavirus outbreak at cspan. Org coronavirus. Track the spread throughout the. S. And the world with interactive maps and charlths. Watch briefings and hearings Health Specialists unfiltered. Ron Florida Governor talking how his state is responding to the coronavirus threat. Peaking from the statehouse in tallahassee, this is 30 minutes