Good morning, everyone. We haventroduce who with us. We have jim, the president of Empire College who i worked with for many years and who has been very helpful on this mission. Our commissioner of health dr. Howard zuker. Left, general Patrick Murphy. To his left is general agreement raymond shields. Thank you for being here today. This is an amazing accomplishment, transformative, in just one week the Javits Center looks entirely different. This is a place that is literally going to save lives. Let me go through some facts, if i can. On a daily update of where we are and i want to make some comments to all the women and men who are assembled and do such a great job on this facility. The increase in the number of cases continues. We see the trajectory going up. Plan of action. Step one, one flattened the curve, we increase capacity. Flattening the curve meaning if you do it as well as you can do it hopefully there is no high point of the curve, no apex. It is a flatter lower curve. Why . So the Hospital Capacity to keep up with, that is what this is about, not overwhelming Hospital Capacity and at the same time increasing the Hospital Capacity that we have. So if it does exceed those numbers which it will in most probability that we have the additional capacity. Flattening the curve, these are sorts of measures we put in place. Barring nonessential workers, social distancing, closing bars , closing restaurants, all the things that made people very happy. The way you make a decision is a burden,enefit and the the risk and the reward. We are battling a deadly virus. Is there an intrusion on daily life . Yes. Is there an intrusion on movement . Yes. Is there an intrusion on the economy . Yes. But what is on the other side of the scale is literally saving lives and it is not rhetorical, not drama. It is fact. Public education is very important, important to all of us. In the other side of the balance beam is public health. I decided to close the Public Schools because i believed it was safer to close schools and reduce the spread. We did that on march 18th. We said we would do it for two weeks and then reassess the situation at the end of two weeks. Two weeks ends on april 1st. We also said we would waive the 180 day requirement that every school has to teach for 180 days. We would waive that but close the schools until april 1st and then reassess. Also, we said every School District before it closes had to come up with plans to continue functions that they were doing because School Districts do more than just educate. They provide childcare for a essential workers, provide schools, meals in the schools. Everything they were doing they had to come up with a plan to mitigate the consequence of their closing. Including Distance Learning for their students. I have to reassess. I believe the schools remain closed. I dont do this joyfully but i think when you look at where we are, look at the number of cases still increasing it only makes sense to make the schools keep the schools closed. They have to continue the programs they are doing and continue the childcare and continue the meals, continue Distance Learning programs. I will continue the waiver on the 180 day mandate. We will close the schools for another two weeks and then reassess at that point. And that is statewide. At the same time, we will increase Hospital Capacity. Apex of thepossible curve . It changes a little bit day today. We are looking at 21 days for a possible apex. We want to do everything we can to be ready for that increased capacity that could hit us in 21 days and ramp up the Hospital Capacity. We are doing everything we can, we are doing things that have never been done before. We are doing things that when we put them on the table people thought they were impossible but we are now doing the impossible as you know well here. With what you did over the past week. All hospitals have to increase their capacity by 50 . We are asking hospitals to try to increase their capacity 100 because we need that many beds. We are looking at converting dorms, converting hotels. We have been gathering equipment from everywhere we can, ppe equipment, the most important piece of equipment for us is ventilators and we are shopping literally around the globe to put it all in place. We are creating a stockpile of this equipment so that when and if the apex hits, we can deploy equipment from the stockpile of to whatever region of the state or hospital needs it. We collect it, we hold it if a region needs it. Then we deploy it. The n95 masks, examination gloves, gowns and coveralls and most importantly the ventilators. Why ventilators . This is a respiratory illness. People need ventilators, people are on ventilators much longer than most patients are on ventilators. Most people are in a ventilator for 2, 3, 4 days. These covid19 patients can come in for 20 days. You can see why that need for ventilators is so important. Again, all of this is to make sure we are ready for that apex when the entire system is stressed and under pressure and that is what we are working on. We need 140,000 beds, we have beds. That is why we are scrambling. 40,000 icu beds. And they have ventilators and when we started, 3000 icu beds with 3000 ventilators so you see how monumental the task, the mountain we have to climb. Of the 100 and how do we get to 40,000, the 140,000 . All hospitals increased by 50 . Some will increase by 100 . They will get the gold star hospital award, we dont know what that means but we will figure it out later. Fema, the army corps of engineers and the National Guard have been working to put up emergency hospitals. So far we planned for four at the Javits Center, one in Westchester County center and one in stony brook and one in westbury, 4000 additional units. They are all underway as we speak. Not as far along as the good work at javits but they are on their way. Again with all of these beds we still have a shortfall so we are going to go to plan b. What is plan b . Were going to seek to build another four temporary emergency get usls which would another 4,000 beds and we have scouting sites for a few days. Weve settled on a few sites working with the army corps of engineers and im going to ask the president today if he will authorize another four temporary hospitals for us. I want to have one in every borough, one for the bronx, manhattan, Staten Island, brooklyn, one for suffolk, one for westchester so Everybody Knows downstate, the essence of where right now, that everyone equally is being helped and being protected. A site in the bronx a the new york expo center, 90,000 square foot site. Seeing what we did here, we well it would work very and the army corps of engineers has worked with us and looked at all these sites and thinks that sites work. One in queens at the aqueduct site. Rack 100,000 square feet there. One in brooklyn, whats called brooklyn cruise terminal. Owned by the Port Authority but wideopen space. We can convert it very easily, 182,000 square feet. And in Staten Island, the of Staten Island, 77,000 square feet. Inside can be converted. It has power. Control,imate et cetera. We would do the same thing that weve done here successfully so it works. We know its feasible. Interior space, we have exterior space that we a temporary tent for supplies, equipment, et cetera. Us coverage all across the downstate area with proximate facilities to every downstate. And frankly, is the best plan and we can put together execute in this time line. Also have beyond the next temporary hospitals, if the white house grants that navy shipe have the comfort coming up that is going to be on its way soon. Right here inbe new york harbor. It is a massive facility in and itself, 1,000 beds, 1200 medical personnel, 12 operating rooms. It has a pharmacy, it has a it should bend here on monday. Inthat will also help us this quest. And then were looking at converting and dormitories downstate. Were looking at city college dormitories, queens college. We have the dormitories because colleges are closed and the students have left so we dormitories that we can convert. Hotels andlooking at nursing homes. Were looking at the marriott bridge hotel and a called brooklyn center. As you can see, were looking very creative, aggressive, and finding all the possibly findcan and converting it to be ready in that overflow capacity. Out so have it planned that this will be coming online we think the apex hits time, wereame trying to flatten the curve to apex,and soften that right. Those are the two strategies. The the spread, flatten curve, in the meantime increase Hospital Capacity so whatever that surge is that you the you actually have capacity to deal with it. Planight now we have a where over the next three or is same timehich line as the apex possibly theng, were going to have capacity as high as we can possibly get the capacity. Where we are today, because were tracking the whats, we want to see happening and are we getting closer to the apex, are we succeeding in flattening the curve. We have been testing. This state than any state in the united states. Thanst more per capita china or south korea. Quickly ond up very the testing. 16,000, total tested 138,000. Positive cases, total cases 7,377. And new cases it continues to spread all across the state, as it to spread all across the country. Deaths, were up to 519 in new york. 385. S up from got is going to continue to up and that is the worst news that i could possibly tell the people of the state of new york. Is reason why the number going up is because some people the hospital 20 days, 25 days ago, and have been on a antilator for that long period of time. The longer you are on a ventilator, the less likely youre going to youre going to come off that ventilator. Thats not just true with this virus. Thats true with every ilness. When somebodys on that ventilator for a prolonged time, the outcome is usually not good. So were seeing a significant in deaths because the theth of time people are on ventilator is increasing and the more it increases, the higher the level of deaths will increase and again, we expect continue to increase. Its bad news. Tragic news. Its the worst news. But it is not unexpected news, either. If you talk to any healthcare you,ssional, theyll tell if youre talking about a loved one, if theyre not off that relatively short period of time, its not a good sign. 44,000 people have tested positive. 6,000 currently hospitalized. 1500 in intensive care units. Thats up 290. Who need the people the ventilators. 2,000 patients have been discharged. Thats up 558. 528. So you have people coming into the hospital getting treatment and leaving the hospital. Who get the virus will never even go into the hospital in the first place, right. We have to keep this in focus. Theof the people who get virus will what they call self resolve. Youll feel ill, maybe you wont feel that ill. The flu. You have and you self resolve. People. He 20 will go into a hospital. Some of them will get shortterm treatment and then they go home. Very small percent, and they tend to be older people, more vulnerable people, people with an underlying illness, this illness compounds the problem they have. Compromised immune system, they were fighting emphysema, they were battling cancer, and on top of that they now get pneumonia which is what this coronavirus is. Ists the population that most vulnerable. They then go on to a ventilator. Some percentage get off quickly. Some percentage dont get off the longer theyre on, the rate. The mortality new york is still by far the both inected state terms of number of cases and in of deaths. Mber why . We welcome people here from all over the globe so travelers came here. People from china came here. People from korea came here. Who are traveling around the country and stopped in china and stopped in south korea and italy came here and because we are a very dense environment. Feetl distancing, stay six away, thats hard in new york city. Right . Walk down the sidewalk and tell me you can stay six feet away from someone. Dense, were so together, which is what makes us yorkal, gives us that new energy, gives us that new york it also, that density situatione enemy in a like this. This is the total number of people who have been hospitalized and we have been numbers every day. We are now compiling the numbers a smarter way. s before we were getting patient data. Every hospital had to tell us individual patient, what their address was, where they came from, what the underlying illness was and they had to put all that information together which was very labor intensive. So it was erratic the way the information would come in. Sometimes the hospital was just thatusy to put all information together so they didnt send it in until the next day or the day after. A more uniform set of data. People all the number of in that the entire number of people in that hospital who have the covid virus. Without getting into all the namesics of individual and individual circumstances. So its easier for them to get data. S and you see, again, the steady incline in the number. But and this is good news early on you see that the number was doubling every 2 1 2 days. Then it was doubling every three days. Doubling about every four days. Thatsill doubling and still bad news because it still towardsure moving up an apex, right. Because that number still goes up. Good news in that is rate of the increase slowing. So there are two separate facts. Rate of the increase is slowing but the number of cases going up. And those two points are consistent and thats what were seeing. The rate slowing and then we want to see the actual cases coming down or flattening. Thes the flattening of curve. But this is where we are today. To keep it all in perspective, people dont know what to make of the coronavirus, to happen, whats going to happen. Everyhopkins has studied coronavirus since china. Cases theyve studied. Of all those cases there have 24,000 deaths. Theres a lot of deaths, yes, 542,000 cases, it gives you a sense of the lethality of this disease and if you look at the 24,000, theyre going to be overwhelmingly older people,vulnerable people with underlying illnesses, et cetera. Of support that we gotten from new yorkers in is justt of this crisis extraordinary. Yorker,orn and bred new if you cant tell my queens tell your bronx accent and your brooklyn Accent Accent andnhattan your Staten Island accent. Never cease to amaze me, how big their heart is. They talk about how new yorkers are tough. Yeah, you know, were tough. To live in a place like this, be tough. O but as tough as we are is as bigng as we are and is as as our heart is and when someone needs something, theres no place id rather be than new york. Who arenumber of people volunteering, who are coming out a call forut additional medical personnel because we have to staff all these additional beds. We put out a call. 62,000 volunteers. 10,000 in onet up day. How beautiful is that. Aree are people who retired, who did their duty, who could just sit at home. But theyre coming forward. Mentaling, we asked for Health Professionals who could provide Mental Health services electronically over the telephone, through skype, et cetera. Withpeople are dealing Mental Health issues. Stressful, taxing situation on everyone, on everyone. And isolation at home you are home, youre home alone day after day. That is a stressful situation. You dont know whats going on. Youre afraid. Youre afraid to go out. Youre isolated with your family. Thats a stressful situation. Not that we dont love to be with our family. We all do. But that can create stress. And theres no place to go. Theres no one to talk to about that. This Mental Health service over the telephone is very, very important. I want to speak to the most people in the room for whoment, who are the people greatsponsible for this construction behind me. Introducelike to general Patrick Murphy, to my left. Murphy is tested, smart tested tough. I have been with the general for nine years. Seen him in hurricanes, in Superstorm Sandy and floods and everything Mother Nature could throw at us. Seen him in attempted terrorist attacks. There is no one better. He leads from front. He knows what hes doing. Better could not have a commander at this time than general Patrick Murphy and i want you to know that. To congratulate the army corps of engineers for what they did here. I used to be in the federal government. I worked with the army corps of engineers all across the country. I worked with them on the pine ridge indian reservation building housing. Theone of the officers of army corps of engineers is still in service and reminded me of that. They are top shelf and what they did here is top shelf. Want to the thank the javits steppedich has really up and i want to thank our National Guard because you are of us. T you are the best of us. Youwhenever we call on you, are there and what you did in in one week, creating a hospital, is just incredible. I dont know how you did it. Good jobdid such a that im asking for four more from the president. Downside of being as did as you are in what you but what you did is really incredible and i want to make two points to you. Want to make two promises to you. Different beast that were dealing with. An invisible beast. It is an insidious beast. Not going to be a short deployment. You is not going to be that go out let it for a few days, we work hard and we go home. This is going to be weeks and weeks and weeks. Be a long dayto and its going to be a hard day going to be an ugly day day. Ts going to be a sad this is a rescue mission that youre on. Mission is to save lives. Thats what youre doing. The rescue mission is to save lives. We work, were not going to be able to save and whats even more cruel is this enemy doesnt strongest of us. Us. Ttacks the weakest of it attacks our most vulnerable even worse in are thes because these people that every instinct tells us were supposed to protect. These are our parents and our grandparents. Our uncles,r aunts, these are a relative who is sick. Every instinct says protect them, help them, because they need us. Exact people the enemy attacks. Every time ive called out the said theguard, ive same thing to you. Ask youe you i will not noto anything that i will do myself and ill never ask you wont gowhere that i myself. And the same is true here. Going to do this and were going to do this together. My second point is, you are in history. Ent this is going to be one of those going to write about and theyre going to talk about for generations. This is a moment that is going to change this nation. Forges a moment that character, forges people, changes people. Them them stronger, makes weaker. But this is a moment that will and 10 yearster from now, youll be talking about today to your children or and you willldren willa tear because you remember the lives lost and youll remember the faces and youll remember the names and how hard weber lostd and that we still loved ones. Youyoull shed a tear and should because it will be sad. Also be proud. You did. Proud of what showedbe proud that you when otherwed up people played it safe, you had to show up and you had the skill and the professionalism to make a difference and save lives. Thats what you will have done. The end of the day, nobody can ask anything more from you. Do whatyour duty, to you can when you can. Shown skill have and courage and talent. There with your mind. Youll be there with your heart. And youll serve with honor and pride and you you should be proud. Of youthat i am proud and every time the National Guard has been called out, they have made every new yorker proud. Am proud to be with you yet again and im proud to fight with you and i bring yorkersks from all new of are just so appreciative the sacrifice that you are youre the skill that bringing, the talent that youre bringing, and you give many new yorkers confidence. Friends, that we go and we kickday ass, thats what i say. And were going to save lives and new york is going to thank you. God bless each and every one of you. [applause] [indiscernible] the ventilators new york needed arent even being. Eployed gov. Cuomo theyre in a stockpile. We need them for the apex. Were gathering them in a stockpile so when we need them they will be there. We dont need them today. Theyre not deployed. Because theyre not needed. Dont point, maybe you need 30,000. Look, i dont have a crystal ball. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but i dont operate here on opinion. On facts and on data and on numbers and on projections. Cornell making projections, the c. D. C. Is making projections, mckinsey and are making projections for us. All the projections say you apex needing 140,000 beds and about 40,000 ventilators. Are numbers, zack. Feel, i think, i believe, i want to believe. Make the decisions based on data and the science and were theowing the data and science and thats what the data and the science says. Dont need 30,000 ventilators. Natural weather change happens overnight and globally. Virus thats what i hope. Hope. Ats my thats my emotion. Thats my thought. Say you may need 30,000. You will see as these numbers see hospitalsll reaching capacity. Youll see, if the numbers increase, hospitals over capacity. Thats this whole planning exercise. Thats why we just are building 1,000bed facility here. Thats why were Building Three other 1,000bed facilities. Why im asking the president for another 4,000bed facility. Hospitals will reach capacity. Be alarmed, well, hospital is reaching capacity. Yeah. Thats what we have been saying. Thats what we have been planning for. Thats why were here. Question]ible gov. Cuomo initially i said weeks, see for two where we are. Two weeks is up, i said extend weeks and see where we are. At the end of two weeks, if the going up andry is from hasnt been a change, then it. Re right, well extend why not say today were going to weeks or six four weeks or eight weeks, because i whats going to happen. Nobody knows whats going to happen next week. Weeks and well reassess. But youre right, andrew, if the this way, then, yes, in all likelihood well weeks. It another two question]ible gov. Cuomo ill ask dr. Zucker theresten the curve, only two things you can do. Life is options. One, social distancing, which we taken as dramatic an action as anyone anywhere. The testing to find positive, isolate the positive, stop the spread. Were doing more testing than place in the country and per capita more than any place on so were doing everything we can. Curve is slowing or the doubling is slowing . I would think theres a correlation. I dont think its a coincidence. Rate of doubling is goodng and thats the news. But the curve is still going up. You want to add anything . I concur with what the governor is saying. Of different factors that can be involved in this. Obviously, the social distancing working. Ieve, is spreading but not where the numbers and hospitalizations keep rising at a doubling rate as it was earlier. Have a betterll answer to this probably in a couple of more days when we see trend. Question]ible gov. Cuomo the criteria, you indoor spaceopen withpower, with hvac, accompanying space where you can set up medical staff, supplies, a staging area. You need a place thats now have to clearont it. Strategic decision was one per county. County, every borough has one facility in their borough. And we started, we looked at and we eliminated them, we got them down to a short list. With the army corps of engineers because they would actually do the construction of it. And we came up with a final list these four. Im today going to send that list to the president , ask him to approve those four. That would be an additional 4,000 units. We have 4,000 units on the table. This is 1,000 of those 4,000. So it would be a total of 8,000 units from the feds, federal government, for temporary hospital beds. We need the approval first and to get theme line constructed is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 days. Thethe first question is approval. Thats up to the president. [indiscernible question] dr. Zucker the hospitals, we out whatg to figure would be the approach we would have with this but the hospitals rights the right to do something further than we would recommend. [indiscernible question] dr. Zucker our healthcare on the front line as the governor has mentioned before and we are addressing what the necessary both precautions, which were working with them, but also to provide information to their patients been veryave responsive and obviously theyre patients. About their [indiscernible question] gov. Cuomo do the budget and discussions with the legislative leaders. The federal government said, thatsed, implied, stated, they would provide aid to state governments. Passed the bill that didnt do that. At one point. Tohave no state revenues speak of. Were going to have to cut our state expenses. Which youspend that dont have. You cant do that in a family. Business. Do that in a you cant do that in government. The federal government only gave us 5 billion. Coronavirusfor expenses. Thats all it can be used for. 10 to 15about billion in revenue. Work, they dont pay income tax. Businesses close, they dont pay tax. So we have about a 10 to 15 billion hole. Federal government gave us zero, nada, zilch. Were going to have to cut. Thats all new york terms, right. Going to have to cut Education Aid because thats the expense and healthcare, we can use the 5 billion from the feds for the coronavirus care but the main the state budget is education. They know that. So when they didnt give the all they did was cut the education budget to the which is aw york. Ragedy theres not a lot to negotiate. When the number is zero, it makes it an easy budget to zero ise because actually an easy number. [indiscernible question] gov. Cuomo there can be no evictions based on rent for 90 rentso if you dont pay for 90 days, you cannot be evicted. [indiscernible question] gov. Cuomo thats exactly what yesterday. The question was, closing down construction sites. Nonessentialdown construction sites. Some construction is essential keep the place running. But nonessential construction be stopped. Consider what do you nonessential . Gov. Cuomo we have a list. You later ifto youd like. [indiscernible question] gov. Cuomo people are out of work. Youre out of work, you can qualify for unemployment insurance. Thats not what you were making. Still have to buy pay, you still have to which is 40 to 50 of a persons income, becomes a or not, very big expensive for a person to carry. Signed an executive order for three months a landlord a tenant for evict nonpayment of rent. If you cant pay the rent, thats an understandable circumstance. We said 90 days because we dont this is going to go on. We could always revisit it but days, by law, the you. Ord cannot evict just give them a big round of for what theyve done and what theyre doing. [applause] gov. Cuomo thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Im joined by the commissioner of health. To her right, department