Department of Financial Services but he has been working with us in albany during this coronavirus pandemic. To my left, Melissa Derosa. The state budget is not in great shape. Only when the federal government does the right thing and gives us funding. Is a pleasure to be in rochester with so many of my friends who had done such great work for the state. Bob duffy worked with me when we done got started and has great work for the entire state of new york. Wegman, way to be with you. Wegmans is a great new york operation. They have been very helpful through this situation. Take you for allowing us to do the Antibody Testing at wegmans. We thank you for everything that you have done. Thank you for being on our advisory board. Thank you for allowing us to find our way through this. The total number of hospitalizations is down. You see that curve coming down. This is the decline from the mountain. It is not as steep as the incline. In new question for us york and every state across the nation has been how fast and how low does that decline go . How fast does the decline actually happen . What is the lowest level that the decline would reach . We were hoping for a quick up, plateu at the top but a fast decline. Is not that the decline as steep as the incline. Decline, that is good news. Change a number of hospitalizations this is always good news. Intimated,on is roughly 80 of the times, there is not a good outcome. The fact that the intimations is down is good news. Is how many cases are new cases are coming in the door. That number is also declining. Not only are the number of people in hospitals coming down but the number of new cases coming in the door is down. It had good news because plateaued at about 900 statewide for a few days. At 700. Ber is down that is good. I would take this with a grain of salt. This is reporting from yesterday, it was a sunday. Sometimes we get different results on the weekend. This is every hospital state reporting for the first time. It is a plus or minus across the board. This is the number that haunts me every day. This number is not declining anywhere near as fast as we would like to see a decline. 226 new yorkers who passed away. We talk about these numbers, it is 226 families. Brothers, children. They are now suffering the loss of a loved one. We will remember them in our thoughts and our prayers. ,eople talking about reopening this is not a sustainable situation, close down everything, close down the economy. Lock yourself in the room. You can do it for a short time but you cant do it forever. Is moreopening difficult than the close down. The close down is simple. You go into the business into the basement and you throw the big paris which. You close the businesses, stay at home. Operation and one that was done all across the country. To stop everything now. When you go to restart, the reopening, now, knowing what we know, you have to be more careful. Start by learning the lessons that we did learn through this experience. Lets be smart about what we do. Patients the impatient and the anxiety. On manysustainable levels. It is unsustainable economically, personally. All throughiety is our community. We see it through increased alcoholism, substance abuse, the mystic violence. This is a very difficult time and people want to move on. But lets be smart about what we do. Lets learn the lessons. We have never been here before. Really know what was going on. The cdc releases a report in the viruseek that says the was actually coming to the east coast from europe. Everybody was looking at china through all of those months. China, china, china. Chinarus migrated from while we were all staring at china and went to europe. The strain that came to the United States came from europe. We had people in the airport stopping people from china, testing people from china. The federal government did a lot of testing, a lot of screening. Fromhile, the people europe were walking right past. That is where the strain came from that was infecting this area. The cdc just learned last week. This is going back to february on one of the most studied topics ever. Just learned the lessons of what happened. You can add that piece of information and then you see the number of flights that came from europe during that time, where they landed and now you it explains why youre sandy outbreak in chicago that you have seen. Why youre seeing it in new york. The flights were coming here from italy, the u. K. , European Countries and nobody thought to screen them. Nobody was on guard. Of add that to the density new york, especially new york city and that virus just took off. We did not know. We did not know. Now we do. We can also look back in history. Look at that 1918 flu pandemic they talk about. The places that opened to soon so that flu come right back. Not one wave. It was three waves. The second wave was worse than the first wave. We are not the first one down the chute, there were other countries that went down before us. You see they were feeling the pressure on reopening. You study those cases and you see that you reopened too soon or you reopened on intelligently and you can then have an immediate backlash. That is not speculation, that is looking at other countries and looking at what is happening around the world. Then you talk to the experts who know. Isnt what they are saying. Dr. Fauci listen to what they are saying. Dr. Fauci, he is one of the best voices and minds on this. He has been through this in different iterations. He was one of the pioneers on the hiv virus. A bads we could be in for fall and a bad winter. We could be. Why . He does not know, he is not sure. It could be for a bad fall or a bad winter. Put all of this in the equation. Acknowledge that the truth is that nobody knows what happens next and when it happens. How can that be that nobody knows . We are so sophisticated. We have so much intelligence. We have so many experts. This is the United States of america. How can it be no one knows . Because no one knows. I speak to the best experts globally. And nobody can tell you for sure. Experts, we look to experts and we expect them to know so we push them to know. Answer the question. Tell me when. What is going to happen in september . Sometimes, the answer is, i do not know. Sometimes that is the honest answer. I was talking to my daughters last night. They said, you say at your briefings, i do not know. How can you say that . First, i am not sure they watch my briefings. But they are right. Sometimes i say i do not know why i do not know. Why . Because i do not know. If you do not know, say you do not know. Again to the best minds in this country, the best minds around the globe. They did not know. If you do not know, say you do not know. It does not mean you are not smart. No reason to get defensive. I do not know. What when you dove when you admit i have not given up on the concept. What you do not know. Cancan be safe because you prepare for different possibilities. That is where we are. We do not know. Prepared for all possibilities. Reopening, chart a course with the best information you have. Learning from the lessons you have. But, the able to correct that course depending on what happens. Act means, do not emotionally. Do not act because i feel this, i feel that because someone said, other states are opening so you must be able to open. Forget the anecdotal, forget the atmospheric. Look at the measurements. Look at the signs. Follow the facts. That is what we have done from day one. There is no gut instinct. This is, look at the data, look at the science, look at the metrics. Move forward. Measuring what you can and what you know. And then be prepared to adjust. I want specificity. I want to know for sure. You do not. There is liberation in knowing that. Lets do this intelligently based on metrics and we will see what happens and we will adjust to whatever happens. What does that mean on metrics . You can measure this. We have to measure this. You look at that percentage and the rate of hospitalizations, which we have. That is the chart that goes up and down. You watch the hospitalization rate. Do your diagnostic testing so you know how many people are testing positive and you can watch that rate going up or down or flat. Do the Contact Tracing. After the testing, you followup and you do the Contact Tracing. You are then reducing the infection spread by isolating the positives. Things, you will control the rate of transmission of the virus, which is everything. Nobody says you are going to eliminate the virus in the shortterm. Nobody. But, you can control the rate of transmission. If you can control the rate of transmission, you can control the rate of transmission from becoming an outbreak or epidemic or overwhelming her Public Health system. Overwhelming your Public Health system. That is the best you can do. Transmissionate of to what they call 1. 1 or less. Infectshen every person more than one other person. If you are doing that, that is an outbreak. Oflong as your rate transmission is manageable and low, reopen your businesses. Reopen the businesses in phases so you are increasing the activity level while you are watching the rate of transmission. Rate of transmission goes up, stop the reopening. Close the valve right away. Businesses, do it in phases and watch the rate of transmission. It gets over 1. 1, stop everything immediately. That is where the other countries wound up. They started to reopen. They exceeded the 1. 1. It became an outbreak again. They had to slow down. Orher than starting stopping, you would rather have a controlled start so you do not have to stop. Right . That is what you learn from the other countries. You reopen too fast, then you have to stop. No one wants to have gone through all of this and then start just to stop again. How does that happen . First of all, it is not going to happen statewide. This state has different regions, which are in much different situations than other regions in the state. Rather than wait for the whole state to be ready, reopen on a regional basis. If upstate has to wait for downstate to be ready, they are going to be waiting a long time. So, analyze the situation on a regional basis. Region on four measures. The number of reinfections, your health care capacity, if the infections go to high, you overwhelm your Health System health care capacity. If the infections go too, you overwhelm your Health System. Do your diagnostic testing so you are seeing how the infection is increasing or didnt or decreasing. Have the Contact Tracing system in place so when you find the positive, you trace the contacts from that positive person and you are isolating them to bring down the rate. You do that on a regional basis. Placeystem has to be in for a regional basis. How do you start . When can i start reopening . We will get guidelines from the cdc, which say a region has to have a least 14 days of decline in total hospitalizations and death on a threeday rolling average. You take a threeday average. You have to have 14 days of decline. You cannot have more than 15 total cases or five new deaths on a threeday rolling average. This is telling you that youre levellly at a plateau that you can actually start to reopen. Then, you are watching the rate of infection and the spread of the infection. Is fewer than two new Covid Patients per 100,000 residents. It is based on your population to account for the variance in the different sizes of regions across the state. Anticipate, protect yourself from all possibilities, but what if we have a search again . A surge again . Never fill your hospitals to more than 70 capacity. Leave 30 in case you have a surge. Remember, the virus is tricky. Infection a person who gets infected today shows up in the hospital 10 days from today or two weeks from today. So, that infection rate goes up. You do not feel it for two weeks. There is a lag to it. You want to make sure you have 30 of the hospital beds available in case you have that surge. Also, learn the lessons from before. Every hospital has to have 90 days of ppe for that hospital at the rate they have been using it during covid. We cannot have another mad scramble where nurses and doctors do not have gowns and masks etc. Because the hospitals do not have the necessary stockpile. Make sure every hospital has the stockpile. Have doneting, we really remarkable work on testing. One million new yorkers have been tested. Coronavirus task force for the white house recommends that for a region to reopen, you have 30 tests for every 1000 residents ready to go. So what Testing Capacity do we need for a region to reopen . You have to be prepared to do 30 tests for every 1000 residents. New york is doing more tests than any country. New york is doing more tests than any country on the globe per capita. We are way ahead in testing. But, it does not matter what we are doing statewide. To open a region, that region has to have a Testing Capacity of 30 per 1000. The National Guard is doing a great job for us in putting together testing kits and distributing testing kits. We want to thank them very much. Tests and have those we have to have what we call tracers, contact tracers, in place. Mayor bloomberg has been helpful, former mayor of new york city, in putting together this tracing system. This has never existed before on this scale. A group of people who literally trace contacts from a person who is positive. Who did you have dinner with last night . Who did you have dinner with two nights ago . Who might you have been in contact with . And then, contacting those people to say, do you have any symptoms . If you do, you should know you were with john smith. John smith tested positive. He said he went to dinner with you. You should be on alert. That tracing system has never been done. That all has to be set up. It has to be done. Once that is all done, you can talk about reopening businesses. Which businesses to reopen first . You open businesses first that are most essential and pose the lowest risk. Most essential and the lowest risk. One, we are tokyo about construction, manufacturing and select retail we are talking about construction, manufacturing and select retail. They are the most essential with the lowest risk. Second phase, professional services, retail, administrative support, real estate. Phase, restaurants, accommodation. Fourth, arts, entertainment, recreation. Density is not your friend here. Large gatherings are not your friend. That is where the virus tends to spread. That is why those situations would be down at the end. Alsoed businesses to reimagine how they are going to do business and get ready to protect their workforce to change their physical environment to the extent they need to and to change their processes to make sure people can socially distant. People can remain at a remain in safe environment. That is going to be up to businesses to come up with ways to reconfigure their workplace and their processes to make this work. That is business by business. Government can say, these are the standards, but a business is going to have to figure out how to do that. When you look at this state, or some regions that right now by the numbers, pose a lower risk. Some that pose a higher risk. We can tell you by region right now, of those criteria we went through, which ones are in place for which region. Which ones have the right hospitalization, the right testing regimen, the rate Contact Tracing regimen and which one still have work to do in those areas. This is going to be region by region. Each region has to put together the leaders in those respective areas who put together this systemand monitor this literally on a daily basis so they are getting all of that input, all of the specifics, all of the data and then day by day, they are making a decision as to how to proceed with reopening based on the data. Based on the facts. That will be a little different for every region in this state. Statewidewhen the the pause order was, stop all businesses. Stay at home. That expires may 15. To 15, regions can start reopen and do their own analysis. They have to facts have in place to do it. Start now. Do not call me up on may 15 and say, the pause order expired. I want to open. Im going to ask you the questions i just presented. A Health Care System in place . Is your system ready . Can the hospitals handle it . Do you have tracing in place . Have you talked to the businesses about how they are going to reopen . We have a couple of weeks. Leaders t local this is what a community has to deal with to reopen safely and intelligently in my opinion. Speak, we want to get out of the house. We are going. No. Lets be smart. Lets be intelligent. Lets learn from the past. We are at a different time and place. Fundamentally in a different position than it was just a couple of months ago. This is for real now. Government politics, it is not about objects. It is not about celebrities. It is not about press releases. It is not about what i put on instagram yesterday. Leadersabout government performance. Their expertise. This is a situation where their confidence and their ability can be the difference between life and death literally. ,hat the governments have done federal, state, local, what we have done in this state has literally saved lives. We have reduced all of the projected hospitalization rates dramatically by about 100,000 new yorkers. 100,000 fewer new yorkers were hospitalized then they protect hospitalized than they protected. First of all, our Hospital System would have collapsed if the projections were true. If we did not change those projections. We literally saved lives. How many of those 100,000 would have been hospitalized and would have been died and would have died . We have done great work at a tremendous cost and tremendous hardship, but we have done great work. We just have to remain vigilant and smart and competent going forward. That is what new york tough means. New york tough means we are tough, we are smart, we are disciplined, we are unified, and we are loving. Of each other and respect for each other which has gotten us through this and will continue to. Thank you very much for taking the time to be here. Thank you for the social distancing. Questions for myself and any of my colleagues. To think it is about time you tell local police they should start ticketing people if they are not Wearing Masks outside . Gov. Cuomo mask wearing i believe this is a time for honest straightforward talk. I said i think it is disrespectful of people not aware masks. Think about it. Not to wear mask. Think about it. You see all these commercials on tv. We thank you we say thank you to the doctors, transit workers, police officers. We should be thankful. They went to work so all of us could stay safe and go home. The least gratitude you could maskis at least where the at least weaer the mask wear the mask so you do not place more of a burden on the doctors. You really want to say thank you, respect them so you do not infect people. I do not want to wear a mask. It is not that big of a deal. You do not wear a mask for yourself or you wear a mask to protect me. I wear a mask to protect you. Owe each other a certain amount of reasonableness and respect in society. Owe you level of i that level of respect. Local governments have the ability to enforce and to penalize. That is for local governments. Do i think local governments should be enforcing it and there should be sanctioned . Yes. It is a Public Health emergency. This is not just, do me a favor. This is a Public Health emergency. It is a statewide order i put in place that i am proud of and that local governments have the responsibility to enforce it and part of their right, their legal right as they can have a penalty or a sanction that they impose. Rochester can have one penalty. The can be appropriate to community. New york city is in a different situation. I think local government should enforce it. I think there could be a penalty. You could literally kill someone because you did not want to wear a mask. How cruel and irresponsible with that the would that be . Do you wear a mask when you are not gov. Cuomo yes. No one said wear a mask all the time. If you may be in a situation where you cannot socially distance. You go for a walk in the woods, you do not have to be wearing a mask. You come to a point even from your walk in the woods where you are going to be in parking lot or there is an entrance and exit and you may run into other people, where the mask. The mask. Wear if youre going to have the mask down any the woods and you see someone walking the other way, you put the mask on. Least that we can do. Themselves killing people are working 24 hours a day. Show some respect. Show some basic modicum of respect. [indiscernible] gov. Cuomo putting all of these new systems in place is an incredible task. A temptation to blame. Who is to blame . Nobody is to blame that we do not have Testing Capacity for millions of americans. We have never done this before. Our testing system was for the or or strepap or some blood test. We never had a testing system in this nation that could to this volume. This whole thing is a scramble. It was a scramble between the federal government and the states. I had a good meeting with the president a wild back where we sat down and said, the states control the labs. We have about 300 labs in new york state. We regulate them. The state should be responsible for what they can do. We need the federal government to help where they can. The supply chain issue of reagents, manufacturing, etc. , that is an International Supply chain. Ironically, so much of the stuff comes from china. It is like incredible. On the testing, the reagents, the chemicals as well as the ppe. We were looking for masks and is in china. Hing the federal government has resumed has assumed responsibility for the supply chain. The states take over at the state line. That supply has increased. We are distributing it. As you saw, we are doing more testing than any other country per capita. We are coming online very quickly. We still have more to do. On friday, you announced schools will be reopening further rest of the school year. I have talked to superintendents who have said they are waiting on state guidance. Have you started reaching out to schools yet . Gov. Cuomo they are going to get guidance on what plan they need to reopen schools, which is basically the analog to what a business needs. I want to reopen my manufacturing company. Ok. How do you do it and keep people six people keep people six feet apart . How do you do it in the cafeteria . How do you do it on transport . How do you run your business in a way that is going to make the social distancing guidelines . Same thing for a school. Part of the issue for school was, just the gatherings in the school. You have 25 students in class. Had you put 25 students in class and they are six feet apart. Even these press conferences, you need for 20 people, you need a tremendous sized room. How would you do that in school . How do you socially distance students . ,o you need more classrooms which means you need more teachers . How do you serve lunch . How do you keep fewer students on the bus . Those kinds of details have to be in the reopening plan. It is going to be easier said than done, especially for a school. The problem is the gathering. A school is a gathering. That is what it is. [indiscernible] gov. Cuomo look, i get the whole liberate movement. For a closingason of anything. Just open every just open everything up and let everyone go do what they want to do. I get that argument. I hear it. I understand it. Im sympathetic to it. Everybody wants out. I also know the facts of what has happened to the places who have done that and what you suggest. That was all those countries the numberspike in of cases right afterwards. Saw a spike in the infection rate. Saw a spike in the hospitalizations. Saw a spike in the number of deaths. I would like to see as few new yorkers pass away as possible. So yes, people want to get out. On the other hand, we want to do it in a responsible way. That is the whole question. Us canthing the 89 of [indiscernible] us. Cuomo no, 80 and 90 of do not get the coronavirus. Nobody has gotten the coronavirus before. Some people say this is like a flu. This is not like a flu. Even 80, 90 of us do not get the flu. This is a different beast we are dealing with. We learned that the hard way. You do not hear anyone saying anymore, this is like the flu. That was back in january, february. That was before we had 18,000 people in our hospitals in new york. This is not a flu. Lets take one more. [indiscernible] why is that happening . Is that an error on your part . [indiscernible] yeah, this is a national problem. We have unemployment symptom unemployment systems. Unemploymente system. We have a lot of federal benefits running through the unemployment system. Setunemployment system was up with phone operators and a website to handle like thousands of calls, thousands of input. We now have millions of inputs. It haswhelmed overwhelmed every state. I talked to all the governors on these conference calls. They are all struggling to deal with the number of unemployment claims. The federal government passed a piece of legislation that had additional benefits for people which then required new signups and then it brought more people to the website etc. We have hired over 3000 people to actually run our unemployment service, our website and to handle the telephones. 3000 people, which is just incredible. Just for the unemployment line. We have made great progress. There is still for some people, a delay. Documentou do have to and certify the person is eligible. It cannot be somebody calls up and you say, ok. You send them a check. Federal law and common sense requires that you affirm certain information. The good news is, even if theres a delay on the website, it does not cost you any money. When you get the check, the check is from your date of eligibility. Even though the website can be a pain in the neck to deal with. I will ask Melissa Derosa who has been overseeing this she has an update. Those people who have pending status and this is very important and commissioner riordan is going to do a brief. What we found is a lot of people who are in pending status have not certified their unemployment status, which is a separate process from going through the application. You file the application, you do the phone call, but then you have to go into the website and certify you are unemployed. That is something you have to do every week by saturday. You can either do it on your website account or you can call. There are two separate numbers for unemployment insurance. You have to do that every week and certify you are still unemployed and eligible to work. A process that information. We sent out 90,000 emails over the weekend. To a batch of people who are stuck in that status. Commissioner riordan is going to be a more detailed call this afternoon to get that information to the public. That is the number one thing i would recommend to those people sitting in pending status. [indiscernible] priority status. Just to punctuate one other thing the governor said about the flu. One big difference between the coronavirus and the flu is the flu has a vaccine. For those people making that comparison, i would like you to consider that. [indiscernible] gov. Cuomo on the flu vaccine . On coronavirus, do not know what percent is going to end up getting it. The experts do not know either. [indiscernible] gov. Cuomo well, that is not true. Lets say it is true that the overwhelming number of people who get it do not die. [indiscernible] gov. Cuomo that is fine unless you are the person who dies here than is not so fine. Who dies. Then it is not so fine. There are some state investigations [indiscernible] gov. Cuomo yeah. Seen ining homes have many ways the most intense issue here. When you think about where this even started, it started in a nursing home in the state of washington. The vulnerable population are senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems. A nursing home is an aggregation of those people. That is how it started. That is where it is most dangerous in the Nursing Homes. I understand that. I understand the nursing home staff has been doing people who staff meters and homes have been doing a fantastic job because it is really very difficult. You have to put some precautions in place that are just so harsh. To a nursingsitors home during this time. Just think how harsh that is. All it takes is one person to walk into the nursing home with a virus and then you are off to the races. We are doing everything we can. Nursing homes are working very hard. We announced an investigation with the attorney general and the department of health to make sure the Nursing Homes are doing what they need to do. Are privately run, but the state can regulate them. They have to notify families, etc. We are doing an investigation on that. Member the basic premise of a nursing home. The nursing home can only accept or keep a patient if they can provide adequate care for that patient. If they have a covid patient or a noncovid patient but they cannot provide adequate care for that person, it is their obligation to transfer the person. If they cannot find a place to transfer the person, it is their obligation to call the state department of health and the state department of health will transpire will transport the person. We have facilities for covid nursing home residents. We have some facilities that are just for covid positive nursing home residents. So we have those facilities available. If a nursing home cannot care for a covid resident, called the department of health. The department of health will transfer the patient. That responsibility is on the nursing home. They have to know who they can care for and who they cannot care for. If they cannot care for them for any reason, my staff is out sick, i do not have the ppe, i cannot quarantine, i cannot isolate. For whatever reason, they have an obligation to call the state department of health and say, i have to transfer this person. And we have existing facilities and beds for them. But, the nursing home has to make that determination. If they are caring for people or they have people who are not suited to care for, then they are violating the state policy. That is part of what this investigation is going to look at. I have said to Nursing Homes before, if you cannot provide adequate care, then that person has no business being in your nursing home. We do have facilities. We do have beds that can care for nursing home residents and do it well and safely. Last point i would like to make. Today, we are talking about what local government officials have to do, what each region has to do to be ready. May 15 as a possible reopening. If you are ready, this is how you are ready. Learn from the lessons on the science, on the facts. Yes,is a situation where government is first and foremost in a position where they have to make decisions and perform and do it well and competence matters and professionalism matters. And will hold government officials accountable. I want to be held accountable. Hold government officials accountable. We also need local officials, we need our hospital administrators to be a big part of this. We need every citizen to be a part of this. Do know who is going to keep you safe . You are. Not me. You are by your actions. You know who is going to keep years keep your family safe . You are. Do you know how we keep each other safe . By our individual responsibility and respect. By wearing the mask, maintaining the social distancing. That is how we get through this. Everybody has a role to play here. There is no pointing fingers. Nobody has been here before. It is no one elses job. It is all of us together. That ist is what has worked so well so far. It has been an honor to be with you. Thank you very much. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic with white house briefings, updates from governors and congress and our daily callin program, washington journal, hearing your thoughts about the coronavirus crisis. If you missed any of our live coverage, watch any time on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Cspans washington journal. Live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up tuesday morning, we will discuss the Airlines Response to the coronavirus pandemic with the International President of the association of flight attendants. Then, a discussion of the with thes impact American Health care associations david gifford. And, the antilockdown protests and the overall federal response to the virus. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern on tuesday morning. Join the discussion and be sure to watch washington journal saturday at 8 00 a. M. Eastern. We are taking calls and questions from High Schoolers across the country preparing to take the advanced placement u. S. History exam. Oh yea, oh yeah, oh yea. All persons having business before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court is no sitting. For the first time in history, here the u. S. Supreme court live in this month. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the justices are hearing oral arguments in cases before the court by teleconference. Cspan will provide live coverage of each of these sessions. On tuesday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, the justices here the ofe of usaid versus Alliance OpenSociety International inc. About a law that prohibits some federal assistance to fight aids and hiv internationally. On wednesday, the justices here two cases. Little sisters of the poor versus pennsylvania and trump versus pennsylvania, a consolidated oral argument on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care acts birthcontrol exemption, which was expanded by the trump administration. Versus Political Consultants inc. , a First Amendment case on banning calls to cell phones tickling debt