Coronavirus situation in his state. Governor cuomo good morning. Happy tuesday. Day 44. But who is counting . Every day is groundhogs day. Thank you for being here. Lets give you some facts about where we are today. Toe toll hospitalizations, basically flat. Technically ticked down which is probably the first tick down, so thats a good sign. But basically flat. So we think were at the apex on the plateau. The number of hospitalizations went up. Flattened, continuing to flatten. Good sign. Technically, the number is down a tad, statistically irrelevant, but better than being up. The net change in total hospitalizations, if you look at the curve, which is what we look at, the curve is down. When you do the three day average, which is more accurate than any one day, because this reporting mechanism is new, we ust put it in during the situation, so i would not bet all the chips on any one day. When you look at three days of the overall curve, we think it is indicative. The threeday average is down and the change in icu admissions is down. Icu admissions i take with a grain of salt since hospitals hospitals are no longer what they were. Theyre basically all i. C. U. Wards. Intubations is a real number. Thats the number of people being put on a ventilator. About 80 of those people will never come off the ventilator. When you see the intubations that is proportionate to the number of people we will lose. That is what we have been watching. People going to the hospital, most get treated and are discharged. Some are not discharged. If they are intubated, about 80 of the people intubated will not come off the ventilator. The number of new people going into the hospital per day is also down. We still have 1600 new covid cases yesterday. We have 1600 people knew, coming into the hospital, some being ischarged. The net is what we have been watching, but it is also interesting to note that you still have 1600 new people walking into the hospital or in a hospital and then diagnosed with covid. The volume is still high, and that is why hospitals are still working very hard. We have been watching for growth outside of new york city, long island, rockland. That has basically been flat. There have been hotspots here and there. The department of health has been good and aggressive on jumping on those hot spots and tamping them down. Test, isolate, trace. You see the numbers by region across the state. Proportionately, down in the downstate new york, which is what we have been talking about. Growth towards long island, westchester, rockland, rest of the state proportionately. Upstate is low to Everything Else in the state. This is something we are watching. This is the number of deaths in Nursing Homes. And the Nursing Homes have been an increasing issue. The nursing home issue was flagged by the first cases we had in the state of washington because that is the vulnerable population in the vulnerable place. And we have been worrying about Nursing Homes from day one. As we saw in the state of washington. You see the percentage of lossoflife is getting higher in Nursing Homes compared hospitals. Lives lost yesterday, 778. That number is up and that is, o me, the most painful number, and it has been the most painful number every day. Those new yorkers are in our houghts and prayers. You look at the past few days and the number of lives lost is basically flat, at a devastating level of pain and grief. Everything else we are seeing, which is basically a flattening at this level. The statisticians will say number of lives lost is a lagging indicator, which is a nice scientific term, but it does not mean it is not errible. And nothing we can do about it. Although many new yorkers are doing everything they can to save peoples lives on a daily basis. At great personal cost to themselves. Total number of deaths is 10,834. What we have learned through this process is that our actions determine our destiny. That is good news. We changed the curve. Every projection model, white house, cdc, Coronavirus White House Task force, columbia, cornell, gates funded group, every rejection had a higher rate of infection, higher rate of death. The cdc was talking about over one Million People. Cdc was talking my projections that would have swamped the nations hospital system. That did not happen. Why didnt it happen . Because of what we did and that is important to remember and realize. We changed the curve. A better way to change say it is we are changing the curve every day. We have shown that we control the virus. The virus does not control s. This is a big deal. We could have been in a place where we could not stop the spread of the virus. We could have done this whole ocked down, closed down, and you still could have seen those numbers going up. That would have been a frightening place. We should take some comfort in the fact that we have demonstrated that we can actually control the spread of the virus. Tremendous, dramatic pain to do it, shut down everything, but, thank god, we can control the spread. An you imagine how bad a situation would be if we did all of this and you still saw those umbers going up . You will lock up your amily. You protect them, but somehow he virus still infiltrated the house. That would have been frightening. So there is good news in this. But there is also a caution flag. We are, in some ways, artificially controlling that curve. Weve taken extraordinary actions and we are reducing the rate of infection. That means whatever we do today will determine the infection rate tomorrow. It is total cause and effect. You stop doing what you are doing or you behave differently and you will get a different result. That is important to remember as we talk about reopening. Everybody is anxious to reopen. I get it. I am interest to reopen. They love me, they love spending time with me, but they are done with the entire experience. That is universal. People need to get back to work. The economy, we cannot sustain this for a long period of time. Everybody agrees. But everybody will also say how you reopen is everything because of the first point, which is we are now keeping down that rate of infection. If you start acting differently, you will see a corresponding increase in that rate of infection. The worst scenario would be if we get all of this, we got that number down, everybody went to extraordinary lengths, and then we reopen too fast or we reopened and there is unanticipated consequences and we see that number go up again. You are being hyper cautious. Really . Look at other countries that went through exactly this, started to reopen, and then saw the infection rate go back up again. Lets learn from past mistakes. We have laid out a way to reopen, a comprehensive plan, first that is regional in nature. We have seven states we are working with. The virus does not understand state boundaries. It does not understand that it needs a passport. T defies all of our norms. How do you put the best minds together in a seven state area . Come up with a regional strategy because the virus can get on amtrak. The virus can get on a plane. The virus can get any a car and drive up 95. We are all connected. Ince nobody knows where they are going and nobly has done this before, lets plan together. If we cannot come up with a common plan, lets see if we can come up with a plan that is not contradictory. Lets see if we can get to a place where what connecticut does, new jersey does, is not countered what we are doing in new york. That is the point of the states working together. Also the point is it does not work unless you coordinate the reactivation of the systems. I did this graphic because no one got it when i went like this yesterday. The gears have to mesh. This is what i was saying. I could see, nick, that you did not get with this meant that is a clarifier for you personally rom yesterday. We also have to be clear on who is responsible for each element of the opening. The president said last night he has total authority for determining how and when states reopen. That is not an accurate statement, in my opinion. Now that we know that government actually matters and government is relevant and that government has to be smart, because what government does is determine how this goes. It is literally determining, in many ways, life and death. We have to be smart about it. The federalstate relationship is central to our democracy. This has been a topic discussed since our Founding Fathers first decided to embark on this entire venture. This is basic federalism, the role of the states and the role of the federal government. It is important that we get this right. The Founding Fathers understood. We have to remember, today, that the balance between the state nd federal, that magnificent balance articulated in the constitution, is the essence of our democracy. We do not have a king in this country. We did not want a king, so we have a constitution and we elect the president. The states, the colonies, formed a federal government. The federal government did not form the states. It is the colonies that ceded certain responsibility to a federal government. All other power remains with the tates. It is basic to our onstitution. Hamilton, who in many ways was representative of this discussion of the balance of power, state governments possess inherent advantages which will ever give them an influence in influential of asent dansy over the national and ascendancy over the National Government and will preclude the possibility of federal encroachments on the states. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation. Strong language but that was the premise. So there are laws and there are facts even in this wild political environment. What do we do . We do what we do. We are new york tough, but tough is more complex than many people think it is. Within that word tough is smart and united and disciplined and oving. They are not inconsistent, to be tough and to be loving. Let me make a personal point, not necessarily a factual point. The president did his briefing last night, the president was clearly unhappy. The president did a number of weets this morning where he is clearly unhappy, to tweet about mutiny on the bounty and governors are mutineers. I didnt follow the exact meaning of the tweet. The basic essence of the tweet was that he was not happy with governors and that this was a utiny. The president is clearly spoiling for a fight on this issue. The worst thing we can do in this is start with Political Division and start with artisanship. The best thing we could have done throughout this past 44 days is we have worked ogether. We have not raised political flax. Even in this hyperpartisan environments, even though it is an election year, even though the politics is so intense, we said, not here. Not in this. This is too important for anyone to play politics. It was a no politics zone. This is about doing the right thing, working together. That is important. We have to stay there. We are all in a little bit of a reflective mood. I am in a reflective mood. Verything we do here is so important. Every day is so important. I was thinking after the resident made his comments and looking at some of the remarks and tweets. It reminded me of a poster i saw when i was in grade school. Queens, new york, catholic school. Red blazer, gray pants, white shirt, little clipon tie with the hook. Remember the hook tie . It looks like you had a real time. Tie. I never understood because the hook was harder to do. It was harder than teaching a kid how to just tie the tie. I was in grade school. It was that poster that came from a sandberg poem. Suppose they had a war and nobody came . I was looking at the poster and i did not get it because even then i was very literal. I was looking at the poster and a priest came up behind me and said, whats wrong, andrew . I said, i do not understand that. How could that happen . Then you would not have a war. That is the point. The point is what would happen if people just refused to engage . They just refused to fight . I still did not get it. He said, sometimes, it is better to walk away from a fight than ngage in it. Sometimes it takes more strength, frankly, to walk away from a fight than engage in t. The president will have no fight with me. Will not engage it. I have sat here every day for 44 years asking new yorkers to remember that this is not about me. It is about we. I understand you are personally inconvenienced. I understand you are frustrated and stressed and anxious and feeling pain. Think about we. Get past yourself and think about society and think about your family and think about interconnection. Act responsibly for everyone else. This is no time for politics. T is no time to fight. I put my hand out in total partnership and cooperation with the president. If he wants a fight, hes not going to get it from me. Period. This is going to take us working together. We have a real challenge ahead. Just because those numbers are flattening is no time to relax. We are not out of the woods. This reopening, we could lose all the progress we made in one week if we do it wrong. We have a number of challenges ahead. We have to figure out how to do this. How do you have a Public Health strategy that works with an economic reactivation strategy . Nobody has done this before. How do you start to increase the number of essential workers . How do you learn the lessons of the past . How do you start to do the massive testing that we are going to have to do here . We do not have the capacity to do today. The capacity does not exist. The private Sector Companies that do testing, we can only get about 60,000 tests per month. That is not enough. Were going to do the Antibody Testing but thats not enough either. How do we do this, put together this whole testing system, and do it in a matter of weeks . It is a real question. How do we use technology . Apple and other companies are working on using technology to do tracking. How do we do that and how do we o it fast . How do we take all our strength our collect and our collective strength and take this nations collective strength and figure out how to do those hallenges . 50 years ago this week, apollo 13 gets damaged. 220,000 miles from earth. Omehow, they figure out how to get a spaceship back 220,000 miles 50 years ago. That is america. Ok. Figure out how to do testing. Figure out how to use technology to do tracing. That is what we have to work on. We have to do that together. We have to do, as a government, what our people have done. Right . Sometimes political leaders can learn best from following people who are normally ahead of the politicians. Look at how people have been selfless. And put their own agenda aside for the common good. Cant their leaders be as smart as they are . The answer has to be yes. I look forward to working with the president in partnership and cooperation. He has no fight here. Will not let it happen. Look, unless he suggested that we do something that would be reckless and endanger the health or welfare of the people of the state, then i would have no choice. But shy of that, i put my hand out to say, lets do this together. Questions . [talking simultaneously] [indiscernible] reporter specific homes in ohio and connecticut. Governor cuomo you screamed first. You dont have the same endurance. Reporter i dont. [laughter] Governor Cuomo screaming first matters. Reporter youre talking about making peace with donald trump, with the president. And yet you went on television four times this morning and were asked about it and opined about it repeatedly. You called him a king. You said his press briefings were like a comedy sketch. Why didnt you just say no comment if youre trying to make peace with him . Governor cuomo no. The first point is he doesnt ave total authority. I am the governor of a state. The statement that he has total authority over the states and the nation cannot go uncorrected. It is just a factual statement that is factually wrong. 10th amendment to the constitution, all body of case law. I mean, there are many things you can debate in the constitution, because theyre ambiguous. This is not one of those things that is ambiguous. So that statement cannot stand. It is not only volatile of the constitution. Its volatile of the volumetive of the very cons eptember of democracy. This was the first battle. Do we want a king or a president . We opted for a president. That statement cannot stand, period. Reporter [indiscernible] calling him a king, saying that its like a comedy sketch. Governor cuomo it is his proclamation is that he would be king. Thats what a king is. A king has total authority. That statement cannot stand. The whole mutiny on the bounty, the governors are mutineers, whatever that means, and whatever the rest of the theory was, i am not going to fight. Im not going to get into that fight. Look, ive bent over backwards, he said a nasty comment about what it was, but he is right. I have worked hard to be in partnership with the federal government this past month. I worked very hard to stay away from politics. He is right. I did call and say i need federal assistance. I did call and say i need possible overflow beds. He is right that he did move quickly to get us javs i and javits and the usns comfort. I said that repeatedly. I praised him for his actions, and he was right there too. The federal government has an important role. I was a cabinet secretary. I did it for eight years. I know how key the federal government is. Frankly, i know how powerful they actually could be in being of assistance and i do not even think they were as powerful as they could be. The federal government has tremendous capacity that we need now. Yes, he is right on all of that. E is right that we asked for cooperation and assistance. He is right that he delivered. I have said that all along. Reporter [indiscernible] Governor Cuomo this mutineers. It cant exist. [talking simultaneously] [indiscernible] Governor Cuomo i dont have anything specific to talk to him about. Today. There is no action item for us to talk about. Reporter [indiscernible] after whats been going on . Governor cuomo it would be my , but re to speak with him can he dont have anything do we have anything pending . No. I did speak to the white house this morning about a hospital matter, but other than that we do not have anything immediate. [indiscernible] [talking simultaneously] reporter guidance from the president about your role in the reopening. You said yesterday that he hadnt given governors any guidance. Governor cuomo we havent had that conversation. This is a shift in federal position, which is fine. We are entering a new phase, the reopening phase. On the first phase, the closedown phase, president took a different tact. The president did not close down the economy. He did do the travel ban with china, and he was right on the travel ban with china. The closedown of the economy was left to the governors. Nd i closed down new york. Governor pritsger closed down illinois pritzker closed down illinois. Governor lamont closed connecticut. We did it in different times, different ways. He left that responsibility, the closing down of the economy, to the governors. You get to the reopening of the economy well, the governors closed it down. Wouldnt the governors reopen it . The president says, no, i have a different model that im envisioning. Thats ok, too. But its a shift. But its ok. But then what is that model . And lets talk about who does what, which is the intelligent conversation we have to have. How do we do this testing . How does that come up to scale . I cant do it. How do we do this technology . I understand it raises constitutional questions. Do you really want that cell phone in your pocket to be a tracking device . Lets talk through how we do that. How do we disinfect a Public Transit system . That has to be understood. How do we have masks for every new yorker . How do we do that . How do we get 20 Million Masks so we have that added protection . Ow do we get gloves . How do we make sure, god forbid theres a second wave or another uptick, that we have the medical equipment we need after we just went through this horrendous, hurryup exercise . By the way, wheres the funding or states to help do this . Im broke. There is no fancy way to say that. We have a 10 million 10 billion deficit. Oh, the state should do this and do this and do this. I dont have two nickels to rub together. The past federal legislation did not give us anything. All it did was give the states some medicaid money. It didnt give us anything to do any of this. They talked about it in the next package of legislation, if there is one. But thats the intelligent conversation to have. Reporter [indiscernible] will he have this conversation with you . Governor cuomo i have always had an open line of communication with him. There have been times in the past when he hasnt been happypy with me and i havent been throwing bouquets to him. But weve always communicated and im sure well communicate now. I just want to make my position clear. I am not going to fight with him. I dont want this is no time for any division with, between the federal government and the state governments. And the governors i work with, dotching democrats, republican governor in massachusetts, its not a political conspiracy. Governor baker is a republican. This is not about democratic or republican. Its just not. This is about new york, 10,000 lives lost. These were not 10,000 democrats or 10,000 republicans. It was 10,000 people. Period. Forget the darn politics. Everyone is tired with it. Reporter [indiscernible] Nursing Homes and how many covid19 cases [indiscernible] connecticut is doing [indiscernible] legal experts say [indiscernible] put out the nursing home death data by county yesterday. As you could see, some of them had one case. What were worried about is personal Privacy Protection with the department of health. Theres more than theres about 600 Nursing Homes in the state. This goes for hospitals as well. Theres some very small hospitals where they report outside one or two deaths a day. We just want to go through the data and make sure were not releasing any potential personal information and as soon as thats done, that will be made available for people. Thats why we put the aggregate numbers out by counties. Reporter were getting reports of different outbreaks at different Nursing Homes. Its hard to tell. What are where are are there any Nursing Homes in particular that the states seeing a huge problem at . Were seeing issues in hospitalizations in different parts of the state we look at. We look at total beds being used. We look at deaths and all of that. In certain down state parts of the region, new york city and the outer burroughs and nasa nawca county, weve seen naussaau county, weve seen cases. Thats now part of the county data that you do see. Reporter earlier you said theres been 60,000 cases that you guys have [indiscernible] but one, is that true . 60,000 a month. But then, mayor said theyre going to start doing 100,000 tests a week. 50,000 homegrown efforts, 50,000 purchased from an indiana company. How does that coordinate with state efforts and is that 60,000 capacity correct . Governor cuomo signed on the dotted line. Whats happening with the Testing Companies is the same thing that happened with medical equipment. P. P. E. And ventilators. There are just a handful of companies that produce the private tests. And there are private tests. Companies i handle do it. Now every state is going to those companies to buy the tests. I have spoken to the head of several companies myself. They have a limited production. Now they have to allocate it to 50 states. A bidding war competition with other states. To the federal government, you take a piece, dont replicate the 50 state pandemonium. If you want to talk about increased federal roles, let fema do the testing. All of the have done purchasing of the medical equipment and they shouldve allocated it. Why am i now competing for private Testing Capacity and private testing machines with illinois and california . The ebay get out of competition business for vital medical equipment and now vital testing. I would say to the president , you take it. God bless you. Different promises from companies to different governments all across the country. I bought 17,000 ventilators and then i did not get we only got about 3000, 2500. The same thing will happen with the testing. That from ad company. See believe we are going to those numbers actually produced . No. I think the same thing that will happen that we just went through for the past month. Where those companies will get oversubscribed. They will then bid up the price. It will then go to the highest bidder. I saw this movie. I just lived it for the past month. Taxpayers tremendous amounts of money. Private Companies Got very rich. You want to talk about going through a new phase with a different model, lets informant from the past model. Tell fema you by all of the , allocatethe country them by need. This is where the cases are, new york, you are x percent of the cases, illinois, youre why percent of the cases, percentsetts, you are z of the cases. Give each government or level of government function that they perform best. One of the really painful lessons was all of this crazy competing by states and cities for medical equipment. We are going to do that again . That makes no sense. Plan . T is the what is the accuracy . It depends. They have 95 accuracy. We are looking to scale this up. We are looking at privatesector labs as well as the hospitals that have labs as well. Our state lab, the test we developed is six standard deviations out. That means you are way up there over the 99 accuracy if not higher. You are right. There are different withtesector tests different accuracy rates. That is one of the other complications. Go and buy tests. Whose test . Which test . What level of accuracy . Something we have to figure out one way or another. I would say that is something the federal government should take. How many antibody tests can you do . Next week we will be at 2000 tests we will be able to do per week. 2000 tests per day next week. That seems like a long way to go to save people. We are working with privateSector Companies to get into the tens of thousands of tests as well as several hospitals. There are different ways to do these tests. Blood tests, aat blood spot test. There is technology for that as well. Have a whole symposium on testing. They are two types of tests, the antibody tests and the diagnostic test. The antibody tests, the state Health Department test and in their limited capacity, lets say they could do 2000 aday, 14,000 a week. What is 14,000 a week going to do . What can the antibody population really be in the scope of things . , people whoulation had the illness and recovered. That is important to know and we are very aggressive on Antibody Testing but how many people are going to test positive . What percent of the population at this point do you think had the coronavirus . What could the number be . 20 . 10 . Alright, you want to find that 10 or 20 but that is not enough to restart and get back to normalcy. That diagnostic test is going to be key. Volume on thethe diagnostic test. 19 Million People, how many diagnostic tests do you want to buy for 19 Million People . Most buy that by the nation. Have a handful of privateSector Companies that do this now. How do you scale that up . I dont know. How did you get a rocketship 220,000 miles back from the moon 50 years ago but if you could figure that out, you can figure this out. If the federal government wants this isa valuable role, going to be a key element. Testing everybody for coronavirus as a prerequisite . If you said that was the prerequisite, you would be closed but you want Testing Capacity as a tool where businesses can use it as a tool. You want temperature taking. You open up a business. They are going to say i want to take everybodys temperature as they walk in the door. How do you take the temperature of 500 people walking into a business . Just think of all the things you have to do and then divided between the federal government and the state government. We have to clean all the buses and all the trains. We have to clean all the park benches. We want a disinfectant solution where we have a cleaning protocol that we have never had before. We want the technology to do the tracing once we find the person who is positive and we can retrace them through the technology. How do we balance that with individual liberties . There is a lot to do here. The states cannot do this on their own. I am not shy about capacity. I am very proud of what we do in the state government. When i tell you i cant do something, that is the first time you have heard me say that since i have been governor. But i am telling you, we cant do this. Earlier, you said covid is like fire through dry grass. Why is it that we are seeing hundreds of people dying from covid . You cannot stop it. You cannot stop it. We have no visitors going to a nursing home. About a harsh policy, no it must be close to a month. Youre in a nursing home and you cant get visitors. The staff has to be checked when they come in. Way, taking somebodys temperature, that is not a full proof mechanism. Membersf those staff could be walking in with a spark to torture the metaphor. That population is so vulnerable. It just takes one staff member who did not have a temperature but did have the virus to walk in and now youre going to have a serious problem. The governorthat just rates, the proximal of this, there are individuals with many other problems, heart problems, diabetes, respiratory problems, their immune system is not just just not as good or robust. They get sick with the flu and they end up in the hospital. A lot of those patients they would transfer to the hospital at 95 years of age for multiple medical problems. It is a tough problem for them. What you have learned is your strength and your weakness. You have learned that you can control the virus. That is a powerful lesson. We werent always sure that we could. You also learned your weakness. You cannot seal society. You cant seal a nursing home. You cant put it in a bubble and thesecan protect vulnerable people. You cant. , every step number has to be checked. One ember finds its way in and then it is fire through dry grass. I want to try to get everybody. The city of rochester, there was a 100 person vigil after a shooting there. It was okayed by the mayor. Tois it is it appropriate hold a gathering like that . I dont know the specifics. I dont want to comment on the specifics but we spent a lot of time not only saying there should be no large gatherings but we even said no large gatherings during religious holidays. Which a lot of people were unhappy about but at least learn the lesson. Learn the lesson of new rochelle. That is new york city . It is not. Not a dense urban environment. It is a suburban community. In religiousperson gatherings. That could happen anywhere in the country at any given time. We learned that lesson and we have been advocating that. I could not be more clear. Are your advisors already discussing Legal Options should the conversations at the white house breakdown . What could it mean for the reopening process and the coalition with the other states if that challenge survived several letters of people . It takes two to tango. Takes two to get into a fight. It takes tutelage date it. Akes two to litigate im not interested in getting into a fight with the president. I will not allow anything bad to happen to the people that i represent. I see my job very clearly. I am trained as a lawyer and advocate. I grew up at the kitchen table. I will fight with all my might to protect new yorkers but i dont think it comes to that. I do not want to fight with the president. He is wrong on the law. I dont think this is a legal issue. You dont time even have the luxury for the argument. There is too much to do for everyone. There is just too much to do. I cant do it. He cant do it. Quickly even sure how we can do it together. What is the fight about . Up with a new question. Give me a better question. That would be the argument, the constitution. I call alexander hamilton