Former general Patrick Murphy. General Patrick Murphy was in charge of our National Guard for many years. Did an outstanding job. I have been with him in many emergency situations over the years. He is a man who leads from the front. He is my type of leader. He had so much fun that he retired, and then he came and joined us as commissioner of homeland security. Workingm and the team on this new yorkers should have total confidence, because they have done it before. They have been in this situation. Not this exact situation, that they have handled emergencies, and they have handled them very well. They are proven. Lets go through this for an update on where we are today. Overview of the system Everybody Knows what we are dealing with. It is preventing overload of the Health Care System. The number of acute cases that are coming into the Health Care System we have broken the number of acute cases. Must match the capacity of the Health Care System. That is what we have been working on. We watched the rate of hospitalizations. We watch the rate of icu hospitalizations even more closely, the difference between how many beds you need versus how many icu beds. Focal point, the rate of ventilated patients, because that goes to the number of ventilators, as we have been discussing. Those are the three most could go points. Critical points. We need more beds. We know that. We have been working on it. With all a discussion hospitals across the state of new york today. That hasa bed capacity to be increased. It has to be increased within the existing hospitals. We are planning to cancel all noncritical elective surgeries. By definition, elective surgeries that are noncritical can be done at a different time, and now is the time not to do them. Set a date probably next week for that. That will free up between 25 and 30 of the existing hospital beds. We have also instructed all the hospitals to maximize capacity. We want to know from each hospital, how many beds can you get in your hospital . We are waving the department of health and dfs regulations about space, etc. This would be for a shortterm emergency basis. What we want a plan from every hospital. If you use every available space, how many beds can you get in the hospital . We started that a few weeks ago. That is now coming to a critical point. With more beds, you need more staff. We have going to nursing schools, medical schools, asking retired doctors and nurses to come back into service. Supplies are a major issue. Ppe gloves, gowns, masks i am now asking all product providers, all companies who are in this business. We will pay a premium for these products. Business that does not manufacture these exact have equipmentou and personnel and you believe you could manufacture these items they are not complicated. A mask is not a complicated item to make. Ppe gown is not a complicated item. Gloves are not a complicated item. If you can make them, we will give you funding to do it. And we will give you funding to get the right equipment, to get the personnel, etc. I am asking businesses to be creative. On the stateside, we want we went into the Hand Sanitizer business, which we are now increasing, by the way. We have opened additional Hand Sanitizer manufacturing areas. I also spoke to the state facilities that make uniforms. Uniform, whyke a cant you make a mask . We are researching that. It is that kind of creativity we need from businesses. Cannot mandate that businesses make something, but i can offer financial incentives, and that is what we are doing. Any business that is interested should contact Empire State Development corporation. They will get on it right away. Eric is the head of that. Any company that wants to sell myduct should contact office, the executive chamber, at that number. There are also a number of companies that have masks. Goldman sachs donated 100,000 masks to the state of new york. I want to thank them. But if you have masks, offices that are nonessential right now there are dentists offices that are closed. There are clinics that are closed. We need those masks, those gowns, gloves. And we need them now. In terms of building more beds we have had the army corps of engineers here, and we are working with them. General,the lieutenant who is a really top professional. Ironically, i worked with him when i was at the department of housing and urban development, building housing on native American Reservations at the pine ridge reservation. He has been with the core along time. He is top shelf. We are looking at possible number of locations for large temporary facilities. Of sites. St. Johns university wants to be helpful. Fordham university. We are looking at all these sites, and they are all under analysis. Where do we have the space . Where could we get of a temporary facility . How quickly . It is ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. That is the greatest need. We are notifying any Health Department in the state. If you have a ventilator and you are not using it at this time, or it is nonessential to your use, we want it. If you are a regulated health you, by, we are asking order of the department of health, to make that ventilator available. We will purchase it for you. You could lend it to us, but we need ventilators. Anyone who has them now, please call the u. S. Department of health at that number. There are a lot of medical offices that have ventilators that are not operational now. They are just in the office. We need those ventilators. Are to this war what missiles were world war ii, right . Rosie the riveter . We need ventilators. That is the key piece of equipment. We can get the beds. We will get the supplies by hook or by crook. But ventilators it is a specific piece of equipment. These are people with respiratory illness. We need the ventilators. Opportunity to make a difference here is to flatten the curve, flatten the increase in the number of cases, as we have talked about. Flatten the increase of the number of cases coming into the hospital system. Is byst way to do that reducing density. Density control. The density control valve, right . That is what we have been doing all along. We are going to close the valve, alright . The rate of increase in the a totalf cases portends overwhelming of our hospital system. We are going to put out an executive order today. New york state on pause. That assure uniform safety for everyone. Uniform safety for everyone, why . Because what i do will affect you, and what you do will affect me. About community and interconnection and interdependence. This is a very realistic embodiment of that. E need everyone to be safe otherwise, no one can be safe. We have studied all the other countries. We have talked to people all across the globe about what they did, what they have done, what worked. What does not work. That has all informed this policy. Basic rules only essential businesses will be functioning. At home, godrk bless you, but only essential businesses can have workers commuting to the job or on the job. Remainond rule indoors to the greatest extent, to protect physical and Mental Health. Valve,businesses, on the we reduced it to 50 of the workforce. We then reduced it to 75 of the workforce must stay home. Today, we are bringing it to 100 of the workforce must stay home. These are nonessential services. Essential services have to continue to function. Grocery stores need food. Pharmacies need drugs. Your internet has to continue to work. Water has to turn on when you turn the faucet. There are essential services that will continue to function. But 100 of the workforce. When i talk about the most drastic action we can take, this is the most directive drastic action we can take. Rooms forve specific peoples conduct. The first is for the vulnerable population. Remember, many people will get this disease. Estimate countries 70 , 80 of the population. People will get it. People will recover. That is what is going to happen for the vast majority. That is what is happening in this day, for the vast majority. Who are we worried about . Underlyingople with illnesses. Where are the places we are really worried about . Nursing rooms, senior facilities. Need real diligence with vulnerable populations. There has been a lot of confusion and a lot of different theories, and a lot of mixed information. I have gone through it myself with my own family. As i said, we have my mother, who lives alone. Everybody wants to help. We have gone back and forth. We should go visit mom. Should mom go to my sisters house . Should she go to this house . Nobody knows for sure. I asked commissioner zucker. Speak to every health official. Get the best rules you can to protect our Senior Citizens and people with vulnerable populations, and that is what these rules are. Remain indoors. Go outside for solitary exercise. Prescreen all visitors and aids. Dont visit households with multiple people. Dont go to your daughters house. Mom does not want to be alone. I understand. But at your house, you have 10 people coming in and out, your daughter and friends. That is a mistake. That is a mistake. We are going to visit mom. Im going to bring the whole family to see mom. No, not now. Alnerable persons should wear mask when in the company of others. To the greatest extent, everyone in the presence of a Vulnerable Person should wear a mask. They should not be on Public Transportation unless it is urgent and absolutely necessary. What does that mean . It means urgent and absolutely necessary. It means what the word said. Is matilda. Name everybodys mother, father, sister, friend in a vulnerable population, this is about protecting them. This is about protecting them. Is highly, highly affects their health and wellbeing. The instinct to love i want to be with them. Mom wants to see the kids. Be smart. Mother foryour nonvulnerable populations, these are the rules. No nonessential gatherings. Any concentration of individuals is because you are an essential business and essential workforce. When in public, social distancing at least six feet. Is a solitarytion recreational exercise. It is running. It is hiking. It is not playing basketball with five other people. That is not what it is. It is not laying in a park with 10 other people and sharing a beer. That is not what this is . There are people and places in new york city where it looks like life as usual. No, this is not life as usual. It, andt and realize deal with it. Sick individuals should not leave their home unless to receive medical care, etc. Young people need to practice social distancing, avoid contact with vulnerable populations. Wipes we talked a lot about Hand Sanitizer. Since i went into the Hand Sanitizer business, i am a semi expert on Hand Sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is alcohol. That is what it is. You can get Hand Sanitizer, get a bottle of alcohol, for it on wipes, paper towels. , according to now the cdc, has to be over 60 alcohol to be effective. These provisions will be enforced. These are not helpful hints. This is not if you really want to be a great citizen. These are legal provisions. They will be enforced. There will be a civil fine and mandatory closure for any business that is not in compliance. Affectyour actions can my health. That is where we are. There is a social contact compact we have. Government makes sure society is safe for everyone. What you do can affect my health. That information. You look at some of the videos going around, newscasts, what people are saying. I cant get it. That is wrong. Young people cant get it that is wrong. That is not a factual statement. 40 of coronavirus cases, according to cdc, ages 20 to 44. France, more than 50 of the icu, under cases in 50 years old. You can get it. Well, i cant transmit it if i am not systematic. No, you can transmit it if you are not symptomatic. Even if you are young and strong, and everybody is superman, superwoman, i can deal with it oh yeah . You can give it to your grandparent. You can give it to your parent. You can put somebody elses life in danger. Factually, a lot of these premises are wrong. These are nothing that people dont know. It is nothing that i havent been talking about. We have to do it, and we have to serious. Have to be it is a government responsibility. Everyone has personal freedom. Everyone has personal liberty. We respect that and i will always protect that. But everybody also has a response ability to everyone else, and this is a specific case of that. Actions. In regional none of these policies work unless the Geographic Area is an area that works. I have spoken to the governor of new jersey, the governor of connecticut, about the actions we are taking today. Im going to speak with them later this afternoon. We have been coordinating, to the greatest extent possible. And they are going to be considering these policies, which again are very dramatic. I said i would like to do it in coordination. I understand we have somewhat of a different circumstance in new york, but they are considering it. In New Hampshire and delaware the states we are working with. Again, you have businesses in new jersey. If they dont close, and their workers are driving into new york, businesses in connecticut stay open you need new yorkers to drive up to those businesses. Best. Al action is the we are talking. I will speak with them later today. The number of cases you can see why we have taken these tomatic actions, positive up 7000, including 900 positive cases. Thate told you in the past the number of cases is relative to the number of tests. I have also said that new york has been very aggressive about increasing our number of tests. We went to the federal government. We asked for authorities to allow the state to run the tests as opposed to waiting for the federal government. President granted us that ability. I ramped up all the labs in our state. We opened drivethroughs all across the state. We had the testing so high in new york right now that we are testing per capita more than. Hina or south korea south korea had more time to ramp up. We have done a great job at wrapping up the number of tests. When you ramp up the number of tests, you are going to get more positive cases. Now, we are more worried. It is the reality that tests are demonstrating what was. If we could do more tests, you would find more positives. And finding positives is a good thing, because then we can isolate and we can trackback the number of counties continues to increase, and it will until that entire state is blue. The state of washington has 1000. California has 1000 and change. York is in that new a dramatically different position. You can see why we are taking these actions. York may very well the testing at a multiple of the other states. Havenew york necessarily seven times more people who are tested in california . You dont know. You know we are doing more tests per capita. You dont know what the infection rate is. We did 10,000 tests last night. To get to we hoped 6000 tests. We have gotten to 10,000 tests. Again, i am very proud of the operation. Whats this number. The positive rate again, overall perspective. Look at the Johns Hopkins numbers. People will get set. The first case we had, the first ,ealth care worker that case she was never hospitalized. She stayed home. She now tests negative. That is what is going to happen with 80 of the people. Why is new york taking these dramatic actions . Thatow from past history what a locality does matters. Flu, which also reminds us that this has happened before in society, right . This tendency to think that this is something new, it is a Science Fiction movie. In 1918, they had a flu epidemic. St. Louis took one course of action. Philadelphia took another course of action it made a dramatic difference. A dramatic difference in the number of people that died. What government did at that moment made a dramatic difference. And not nationally locally. Yes, new york has the tightest controls in the country. , andook at those numbers you understand why. Look at the increase in the number of cases. 16 days ago, we were at zero. 2900. We are at why we arers are taking these actions. Just increase that curve and you doubles it more than our Health Care System capacity. The numbern triples of icu beds with ventilators that we could possibly arrange. Why we are taking these actions. Actions will cause disruption. They will cause businesses to close. They will cause employees to stay home. They will cause much unhappiness. I understand that also. I spoke with my colleagues around the state, the elected officials. I have spoken to business leaders. There is a diversions of opinion. There is a spectrum of opinion. Some people say we dont need to do this. It is going to hurt the economy. I understand that. Some people want to make it clear that they are disassociated from these actions. I understand that. Just so we are all clear, this is a statewide order. Your countyat executive is doing. It is not what your mayor is doing. It is not what anyone else but me is doing. And i accept full responsibility. Unhappy, somebody wants to blame someone or complain about someone, blame me. Else who isone responsible for this decision. I have been in Public Service for many years, on every level of Public Service. I have managed dozens of emergencies. The philosophy that always worked for me is prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That is what we are doing here. When we look back at this situation 10 years from now, i want to be able to say i can say to the people of the state of new york, i did everything we could do. I did everything we could do. This is about saving lives. And if everything we do saves just one life, i will be happy. Point. I would also like people to think about and i dont have an answer for this, and it is not what i do. But the isolation that people , and the Mental Health consequences of what we are doing when we quarantined people we quarantined about 10,000 people. 14 days, you had to stay at home. Them, ande to many of what they would say is physically, operationally, it was difficult. But most of all, they would all talk about the sense of isolation, and the feeling of isolation, and not having human contact, and how difficult that was. Daughter know, had my who was in isolation. Aware of what she was dealing with and what she was feeling. And i will tell you the truth. I had some of the best conversations with her that i have ever had. Weeks withne for two her own thoughts, not talking to anyone else, no noise, no activity. And we talked about things in have time we did not to talk about in the past, or we did not have the courage or the strength to talk about in the i had aboutgs that mistakes that i had made along the way, that i wanted to express my regret and talk through with her. Are in a small apartment. They are in a house. They are worried. They are anxious. Mindful of that, you know . Sentences canrd make all the difference. I miss you, you know i love you. I am thinking about you. I wish i was there with you. Im sorry your going through this. Im sorry we are going through this. That is going to be a situation that is going to develop, because we are all in quarantine now. I mean, think about it. We are all in various levels of quarantine. And it is hard. It is hard economically. It is hard everywhere. It is going to be hard here. It is going to be hard here. It takes each of us to try to help with that. The last announcement with all that is going on, i want to protect the people of the state of new york as much as i can. Stop any evictions commercialdential or tenants for 90 days. There will be a moratorium on residential or commercial, for 90 days. I understand that may affect businesses negatively, and i have spoken to a number of them. I dont know who you think you are going to rent an apartment to now if you kick somebody out. By my mandate, you couldnt even have your Real Estate Agent out showing the apartment. The same with the commercial tenants. But i know that we are going to put people out of work with what i did. I want to make sure i dont put them out of their house. Questions . Comments . Likely just a few minutes left in this briefing with new york governor cuomo. You can see the rest on cspan. Org. We will also air it later on cspan. In a couple of minutes, Vice President pence will lead another White House CoronavirusTask Force Briefing today. President trump might also join him at the podium. It is set to start at 11 45 eastern. The senate gavels in at noon today to work on a third Coronavirus Relief ill. Phase three will have four main components direct Cash Payments to individuals, relief for small businesses, targeted lending to industries, and funding for hospitals and health centers. Senate republicans, democrats, and the white house still working on details. So far, no votes are scheduled. Watch the senate today and likely over the weekend on cspan two. On capitol hill, at least two members of the u. S. House have tested positive for the coronavirus, including a Florida Republican and a democrat from utah. In addition, several members of the house and senate have selfquarantined. Senate leaders commented this morning on the ongoing work there. Here is what Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell and his democratic counterpart Chuck Schumer had to say. Sen. Mcconnell ok, everyone. We broke up into four groups on a bipartisan basis to work on different aspects of the bill we are putting together. I tasked these bipartisan teams to reach an agreement by the end of the day today, midnight. We will need saturday to be drafting what we can agree to. Because of the procedural hurdles you have to jump through in the senate, tomorrow i will need to file