Gov. Cuomo good morning. Happy saturday. I know it is saturday. I dont wear a tie on saturday. That is how i can tell it is saturday. People ask me often, what do you think about our situation . And i say, i think about what i know. What does that mean . Good question. It means, in new york, what we have been doing is we follow the facts, we follow the data, we follow the science. We focus on what we know and the fact that we know, and we make our decisions based on the facts. Every morning, we look at the facts. The facts of the day are that the hospitalization rate dropped once again, which is very good news. The total hospitalization rate has dropped. The intubation rate has dropped. The number of new cases per day has dropped down to 572. Those are new cases, people who walk in the door of a hospital or people who are in the hospital and test positive. That is down to 572. It has not been that level since we started back march 21. That is welcome news. This is not welcome news, and this has been heartbreaking every day. 226 deaths, 226 families. And you see how that number has been infuriatingly constant. 226 is where we were five days ago. So, we would like to see that number dropping at a far faster rate than it has been dropping. And these are 226 people who lost their lives, despite everything our Health Care System could do. That is despite the best hospital care, the best nursing, the best doctors, the best equipment. So, they are people we know we made every effort possible to save. And to the extent there is some peace in that, then we are looking for peace wherever we can. Priority for us today is dealing with a new issue that has come up, which is truly disturbing. And that is the issue on how the covid virus may affect young people, very young people, infants, children in Elementary School. We had thought initially, and again, so many of the initial information we had turned out not to be correct or turned out to be modified, but we were laboring under the impression that young people were not affected by covid19. And that was actually good news. Vulnerable populations were older people, people with comorbidities. But one of the few rays of good news was young people were not affected. We are not so sure that is the fact anymore. Toddler, Elementary School children, are presenting symptoms similar to kawasaki disease or toxic shocklike syndrome. These are children who come in who dont present the symptoms we normally are familiar with with covid. It is not a respiratory illness. They are not in respiratory distress. I think that is one of the reasons why this may be getting discovered this far into the process. As it turns out, these children happen to have the covid antibodies or be positive for covid. But those were not the symptoms they showed when they came into the Hospital System. So, it is still very much a situation that is developing, but it is a serious situation. The department of health will be working with the new York Genome Center and Rockefeller University to conduct a genome and rna sequencing study to see if theres something about these children that may present a definable situation. But rest assured, the department of health is on top of it. This is the last thing that we need at this time with all that is going on, with all the anxiety we have. Now, for parents to have to worry about whether or not their youngster was infected. And again, symptoms that do not even seem like the symptoms we associate with covid19. So, we still have a lot to learn about this virus. And every day is another eyeopening situation. But rest assured, the department of health is doing everything they can do. I think it is fair to say the new York State Department of health is the first one that has been on this situation. And again, working with the cdc, and whatever we find out we will not really sure with the public but with other states another Hospital Systems. It is very possible this has been going on for several weeks and it has not been diagnosed as related to covid. Again, we will keep you updated. I know many people are concerned about that, as they should be. A priority we have been working on throughout has been protecting our frontline workers. We are very aware of the sacrifices our frontline workers are making so many of us can stay home and stay safe. We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to protect our frontline workers. We have been working with health care workers, police officers, firefighters, e. M. T. , and transit workers. In new york, we have to keep the Public Transit system operating. That is how many essential frontline workers get to work. If we got to a situation where we had to close down Public Transit, our Hospital System would have suffered. That is how nurses get there. That is how the hospital staff gets there. But our transit operators had to operate the Transit System right in the midst of the covid virus. It never stopped. Bus operators, train operators, station cleaners. While everyone was trying to get home and stay safe, they were showing up for work every day to make sure the people who did need to go to work could get to work. We have already conducted the largest Antibody Test in the country. 15,000 people in that sample. What the Antibody Test tells you is who has been infected by the virus and has the antibodies as they recover. That gives us a baseline to compare other groups against so we know what the average infection rate is in different parts of the state. We can then compare groups to that baseline. We recently tested the transit workers writ large who have been doing the operations of the Transit System. We tested 1300. That is a large size sample. 14 once the infection rate among transit workers. And that is actually good news. We would like to see zero. But 14 is below the average infection rate for new yorkers, so it means the transit worker infection rate is below the norm for new york city. Within the transit workers, a little higher with station workers than with Bus Operators or train conductors. But all categories are below the new york city norm. The new york city norm was 19. 9 . That is good news. That also affirms the news we have heard on the other essential workers, frontline workers. Our health care workers, nurses, doctors, we were afraid because they were literally in the Emergency Rooms they would have a higher infection rate. Turns out that is not true. It shows the ppe works when we talk about masks, gloves, etc. Not that nurses and doctors in those Emergency Rooms have fancier or more sophisticated equipment. This is the same type of masks that they wear. It works. New York Police Department had an infection rate of 10 . Fire department and e. M. T. Had an infection rate of 17 . We think it is higher because of the e. M. T. Workers. But again, all below the new york city rate of 19. 9 . Another issue we have been aware of and are working on is the fact that poor and minority communities are suffering most. The numbers in the state are not nearly as bad as the disparity in many other states. But any disparity is bad. And that is what we have been focusing on here. We did surveys and data that show if you look at the 21 zip codes with the highest number of hospitalizations for covid, 20 of those 21 have greater than average African American or latino populations. 20 of 21 of those zip codes. So, there is no doubt it is a problem. And we have mapped this. You can see exactly where people are coming from as they are walking into hospitals. Part of the new system we have implemented through this is hospitals report nightly how many cases they have, where they come from, and we can now literally map the number of people and where they are coming from throughout the state. And then, when you look into that information, especially in brooklyn and the bronx, it is clear the communities are heavier minority population and heavier low income population. And when you compare that with the overall city rate, it makes the same point. That hospitalization rate, infection rate among the minority community, among lowerincome communities, is higher than the average. Unfortunately, in a cruel irony, this is often the case, when you look at disasters, emergencies, i dont care if they are hurricanes, floods, whatever they are, the cruel irony is the poorest people pay the highest price. I have seen this across the country when i was at h. U. D. You are there to take care of a flood or storm. It is the poorer communities that get wiped out first. It is the low land. It is the land that tends to flood that has the lower value, and that is where the lower Income Community tends to locate. So, we understand why. We understand the health disparities. We understand comorbidities. We also understand it is not right. It is just not right. And we have to address it. We saw the same thing in hurricane katrina. Those people who were on rooftops were not the wealthy, white part of the community. They were predominantly minorities. They were predominantly low income. Those rooftops very often were Public Housing. So, this has been the pattern. Flint, michigan, the people Drinking Water that was poisoned, they were low income, minority populations. If you even go back to 1927, the great mississippi flood, where does the mississippi flood . It floods the low lands. It floods lower income communities. We get it, but we have to break the cycle. New york, we are going right at finding the reasons for the disparity in resolving them. We are doing more testing and low income communities and communities of color. We are doing testing in Public Housing aggressively, partnering with ready responders, which is a group doing great work. We have delivered ppe equipment, masks, over one million hand sanitizer, etc. , to Public Housing. And today, we are launching a new initiative again to address exactly this, which is to expand access to testing in low income communities and communities of color. We are partnering with northwell health, which is the Largest Health system in new york. And they are going to set up 22 additional testing sites at churches in predominantly minority communities. This is a different kind of partnership. It is creative, but it is necessary. We are working with both churches individually and association of churches, and northwell will provide the testing in churches in lower income communities and communities of color. The churches will help us outreach to the community to get people to come in and explain why it is important that people come in and get tested. And northwell will do the testing. We have 24 sites in the new york city area. Some will be opening the week of may 12. Some will be opening the second week of may 19. But you see the coverage when we add the network of churches is very broad. Again, focused on these communities that we want to reach out to. These 24 new sites will be working with the Current Network of sites. And we have already located many testing sites in minority communities and low income communities. But when you put the church based sites together with the drivethrough sites together with the walkin testing sites and our sites and Public Housing, the coverage will be extensive. So, the sites will be there. We now need new yorkers to go get the tests. And i know, i do this with people all day long, i feel fine, i feel fine. You can feel fine and test positive for covid. You can. You can be asymptomatic and still have the covid virus. Well, if i feel fine, what is the difference . Because you can give it to someone else who will not feel fine. And you can give it to a person in a vulnerable group, older person, person with an underlying illness, and they can be in serious trouble. So, you want to know if you have it. Not just for yourself but so you do not communicate it to anyone else. I want to thank our partners who have been working on this. Exactly what we want to do. We said we do not want to just deal with this virus. We do not just want to replace what was there. We actually want to make sure we builds back better than before. I understand this inequity, this disparity, exists. I understand it has existed for decades. I understand it exists all across the country. But not new york. Not new york. It should not be here. I want to thank our congressional leaders who are partners in this effort who have been very instrumental in organizing the churches and putting together with northwell health. I also want to thank the Church Groups. This is not in the normal line of business for churches to be setting up testing sites for a covid vivus. But i think it is the mission of the churches. They are there to serve the community. They are there to work with the community and meet the needs at that time. This is the need at that time. They have been extraordinarily helpful and cooperative. I especially want to thank reverend rivera and reverend raleigh for coming up with the idea and working with the other groups to get them to all participate. We have never done anything like this before. But there are a lot of firsts for all of us in this situation. So, i want to thank them very much for what they are doing here. And it is my pleasure to announce that we are being joined with congressman hakeem jeffries, who is a personal friend of mine. He is a great star for the state of new york in washington. His voice, his leadership has been pivotal not just for new york but for the entire nation. And this is a time when we need the federal government to actually work and work well and work efficiently and effectively and work for the people, which sometimes does not happen in washington. And the people, the police, the firefighters, the people of this state, could not have a better, more powerful advocate than congressman jefferies. The congressman worked tirelessly to put together this arrangement we are announcing today with the churches. Again, it is a different type of partnership. We do what we have to do in new york. The congressman saw the need and he reached out to the Church Groups and brought them together to be where we are today. Congressman, thank you so much for everything you do, but especially thank you for what you did to bring these Church Groups together with northwell so we could announce this initiative. Congressman, good to be with you. Congressman jefferies good morning, governor. Great to be with you. Thank you for the tremendous leadership you have provided to the people of the empire state and the nation in so many ways during this moment of trial and tribulation. I appreciate the fact that your leadership has been evidencebased, datadriven, compassionate, and comprehensive. Todays announcement is just another example of that. We know this is an extraordinary pandemic and it requires an extraordinary governmental response at all levels of government. It is all hands on deck at the city, state, and federal level. The new york delegation is committed to continuing to work with you to make sure we can drive the federal resources into new york state to match the level of infection, pain, suffering, and death that we have all had to endure. It is an all of government moment and and all of america moment as you have encouraged all of us to do deeper in new york and throughout. And in that spirit, we know the houses of worship, the spiritual community, has always been there to help the Community Get through a storm. These churches have been there through the crack cocaine epidemic to welcome people in while others were rejecting them. Our churches have been there to address the high rates of gun violence in our communities through gun buyback programs, taking thousands of guns off the streets. And we also know that these houses of worship and spiritual leaders have been there to partner with the state and law enforcement, organizations like the brooklyn district attorneys office, through initiatives to address old warrants, summons, and citations that can impact the ability of people from communities of color to get all the opportunities and benefit from our economy. Now, at this moment, thanks to their continued engagement and your leadership and willingness to partner, we can address this covid19 pandemic with these houses of worship and religious leaders who have the credibility, the authenticity, and the capacity to reach those in the community who need to be tested. Because at the end of the day, this is not over for any of us until it is over for all of us. And as you have indicated, we know communities of color have been hit particularly hard. We have disproportionately overrepresented amongst our essential frontline workers. Live in dense environments and have historically been under resourced throughout the nation. This Testing Initiative will be incredibly essential ensuring we can turn the corner in communities of color such as those i represent as well as those represented by great members of the delegation. So, thank you, governor, for your partnership. I thank ebc and the other church coalitions for their willingness to do what is necessary for us to confront this storm. Scripture says joy will come in the morning. I am thankful for your leadership, governor cuomo, thankful for the partnership with our houses of worship. And we are all going to be there with the community until we are all in the United States of america again. Gov. Cuomo churches never close. They are doing their work in performing their mission. Congressman, a big week for you. What you are doing in washington is so important to all of us. This legislation that may be passed by washington getting this country the aid they need, getting the state the aid we need, passed legislation for small business, etc. I know your priority is getting funding for the police, firefighters, health care, and making sure states can function so we can do the reopening. We could not have a better, stronger voice, more capable voice than yours and our delegation fighting for us and the nation. You make the case for new york, you are making the case for america because we are a microcosm, new york. We did get hardest hit in the number of cases. But you addressed the need here, you addressed the need in america. God bless you. Thank you very much for being with us, congressman jefferies. That is our congressional delegation representing all new yorkers who are tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving. Questions . You and your fellow northern governors have a cooperative, regional approach. Does that change at all if connecticut on the 20th has restaurants open and if the new jersey you have some beaches open . I know that is them and this is us. But how does that make you feel . Gov. Cuomo it makes me feel fine. There is a lot that doesnt make me feel fine, that i am fine with. We said from the getgo, we all have slightly different situations. We talk about numbers the numbers are slightly different in all of these areas. The numbers are different within new york. You have a strategy that works based on the fact in that area. We said we have to coordinate states because what one state does, by definition impact other states. That does not mean we have to do the same thing. It does mean we should know what each other is doing before we do it so we can coordinate it and discuss it. We are working with the entire northeast. But we are in total lockstep. I know what they are doing. Its not my decision, their actions make sense to me. We will coordinate with that and we are aware of it. Does not necessarily mean we do the same thing, we are coordinating what they are doing and what we are doing. We are not counterproductive to anyone else. I have had situations in the state in the past where we were not coordinated like, new york city versus long island versus westchester. One area would do something that would affect the other area and nobody even knew. So, the states coordinated like never before. That has work to our benefit. And we are coordinating with the other states. They will have slightly different chatterjees. We talked through everything. We have a great personal relationship and professional relationship. Do you tell them you might get a flood of new yorkers . Gov. Cuomo we discussed that all the time. The mobility in the region. And a demand that you have never seen before. Never seen before. I set up in albany, i am a queens boy, but i was in albany and there is a car with two people eating from styrofoam containers in a parked car passing by. They say hello, we chat. I said, they were from queens, new york, drove to albany to buy thai takeout food. I said, why would you drive from queens . I said it nicely, but i said, i would you drive from queens to buy thai food . They said, we wanted to take a ride, we had to get out of the house. That is two hours up, two hours back. Five hours in the car as a welcome relief to staying home, right . So, we just saw it in the state of georgia. People driving from out of state to get a haircut. They just wanted to get out. They wanted to see people. You have that demand, and we are very well aware. There will be mobility. We cant align every action, but we are aware of it and we are monitoring it. If it becomes a problem, then we will adjust it. Anyone who tells you they know the script here doesnt know what they are talking about. Nobody has done this before. But, you havent done it before, youve taken action on the best information you have, and then you see what happens. If connecticut or jersey does something and you get a flood of new yorkers going there, we will adjust. They will adjust, we will adjust. If i do something that brings new jersey and connecticut people here, apologize. Its not that every move you make is going to be perfect. But stay on the balls of your feet, ready to adjust, ready to move. If something happens, then shift. Fdr, right . Bold experimentation. Dont be afraid of something that might have a negative consequence, otherwise you stay frozen in place. If there is a negative, be ready to move right away. Fatal overdoses from january through may 6 up 43 . Thats just a snapshot. Do you have a plan for how we are going to adjust this . As part of that, do you have plans so that communitybased groups can handle that . Gov. Cuomo first on the funding. My point to the congressman. Everything is dependent on whether we get federal funding. We have a 13 billion hole in the state, a financial hole. There is no way the state can manage a team billion dollars hole. And we had nothing to do with the. It was all covidrelated. It is going to be wholly dependent on what washington does. And this week, i hope finally the federal government actually passes a piece of legislation that helps the states. They have been taking care of Small Businesses, airlines, thats great. How about the working people of this country . Not just corporations, but the working people. Funding a State Government is a way of funding the working people. When you fund the state, i fund Substance Abuse programs, police, firefighters, hospitals, schools, school teachers, remote learning. It is a function of what the federal government does. In terms of the Substance Abuse problem. We have seen an increase in Mental Health issues all through this period. Anxiety, stress, economic stress, stress of personal relations, Mental Health issues have gone up. Mystic violence has gone up. Substance abuse has gone up. Alcoholrelated illnesses have gone up. This is been a highly stressful period, all across the board. Weve done Mental Health out each in a way we have never done for. We have 40 thousand mentalhealth volunteers doing online Mental Health services. Alcoholrelated services, Substance Abuse related services. There is no doubt one of the manifestations of stress has been Substance Abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism. There is no doubt about that. A lot of them were hurting, communitybased programs before covid. Gov. Cuomo if it works the way they should, washington and the federal government does the right thing or even if they do close to the responsible thing, how could they possibly ignore State Governments, working families, working americans . As bizarre as the federal government is at times, i cannot believe they would turn their back on working americans at this time. Let me put it this way i can believe it, because i can believe anything that they do. But i dont believe they will do that. I dont believe that congress will let them do that. I dont believe the house will let them do that. I have a question about, there has been reports of Homeless People coming off the subways after 1 00 a. M. Coming off of the subways and standing outside the station. For example, coney island there was one with 60 Homeless People. What is the city planning to do . Gov. Cuomo this is an important topic. We shut down the subways for four hours per night. First time the new york subway system has ever been shut down. Why . Because we have to disinfect. Weve never disinfected a train. Weve never disinfected a bus. We have never even contemplated disinfecting a Public Transportation system before. When i said this was all new, these are all first rate but we want frontline workers to go to work. I feel a personal obligation to protect line workers. Remember, what i wound up saying, the words that came out of my mouth. I said to new yorkers, take this very seriously. The covid virus can be deadly, stay home. It is not a joke. Thats why we closed businesses, schools, etc. Second message was, frontline workers we need you to go to work the next day. What do you mean go to work . He just said it is dangerous, you are closing everything, i have to go to work . Yes, you have to go to work because we need you in the hospitals, and because we need people in hospitals, we need people to operate the Transit System, and we need food, so we need food delivery workers, and we need Grocery Store workers, so we need all of these essential workers work so other people can stay home. How is that fair . Some people get to stay home, at the frontline workers have to go to work . I get it. I said, we will do everything we need to do. The covid virus can live on a stainless steel surface for two or three days. Ok . You look in a subway car you see all of those stainless steel poles. I said, do it to them to disinfect these trains. We closed the train four hours and we disinfect. The transit workers are doing a phenomenal job. They have this new disinfecting equipment, electrostatic sheehan. If you look at the trains now, they are cleaner than they have probably been in decades. A related issue was, to disinfect the trains you have to get all of the passengers off the trains. Which then brought you into, there are Homeless People who ride the trains all night, have been for decades. Its much worse now. And the Homeless People need to come off the train so you can disinfect the train. That is actually an opportunity. I have worked on the issue of homelessness since i was in the 20s. I ran a nonprofit, i was hud secretary, i did programs all across the nation. It gives you an opportunity to actually engage Homeless People, to get them off of the trains and get them the help they need. Society does nobody in favor saying, we are going to let you sleep on the train all night. Thats not right, is not humane, its not decent. Its hard to get the homeless off the trains. Ok, now we had to. It gives you an opportunity to engage them, to get them into a shelter, the mentor services. Because nobody wants them spending their lives in a dangerous situation. Transit had 2000 homeless were taken off the trains. 2000. Just think of that number. Great. Now you have an opportunity to reach out to 2000 people, to get them into shelter, and get the mentor services. That is the point, an ancillary point, but as long as the homeless have to get off the trains, reach out to them, bring them into shelters, connect them with services. I think that is an added bonus. Should workers who leave their jobs because of Covid Concerns be eligible for Unemployment Benefits . Gov. Cuomo it is up to federal law. I can check. I believe the federal law covers up now. The whole Unemployment Program is basically covered by federal law. When we go through this, why do you ask people to fill out forms . Are you asking these questions . Why does your website ask these questions . Those are all federal requirements. The past a federal bill that said, here are the benefits. They also said, here are the caveats. It is all federal regulations. I can check that, but i think that is covered. Between memorial day and labor day, what do you think of those Small Businesses that rely on this Summer Season coming up for people to come . If we reopen nassau . Gov. Cuomo that is the point they was making. The coordination among the states. You are right. We have Small Businesses here, we have tourist destinations here. If long island doesnt open, right . If the beach communities along long island dont open, you will see those people go to the jersey shore. Those of the kinds of things we coordinate. Look, we take this week by week. I hope we are in a better position. That is why we watch the numbers. I hope we are in a better position. Because you are right, the tourist season is a moneymaking period for a whole sector of business, all across the state. Tourism is one of the big jobdrivers. All of those camps, all of those lakes. It is a big deal across the board. Youre right, we do have to coordinate with the surrounding states, because you can go to long island or you can go to the jersey shore, or you can go upstate. You will go wherever is open. Hospital is going to be taking over testing and tracing. Im curious if you have any thoughts on that . Gov. Cuomo i do not know. That is the mayors program. So, i dont know how he runs that. I do know, we are all coordinating, Mike Bloomberg, former mayor of new york is helping us design and implement a tracing program. Nobody has done this before. We talk about it like it exists. Oh, youre putting together a tracing program. By the way, there is no tracing program. We have done it on a very small scale. This is a much different situation. How do you trace in new york city without coordinating with westchester and long island and new jersey . So, Mike Bloomberg and his philanthropy are really doing a great service. They are going to put together that tracing program on a regional basis. Because none of these lines work anymore. New york city, nassau, westchester. The virus doesnt stop at a line. That is not how our metropolitan region works, anyway. Right . I live in westchester, still a resident in westchester, work in new york city. Who is going to trace me . Nassau commutes, jersey commutes. Mike bloomberg is doing a regional coordination. Localities will still run their own program. Could you confirm that this billions in new federal funding is making its way to the mta . Could any of that money be used to increase Homeless Outreach in the subway system . You were mentioning it is an opportunity for contact, but reporting has shown that a lot of homeless are being engaged, but there is not any outreach workers actually onsite. Gov. Cuomo the Homeless Outreach is a function done by the city. The mta . Gov. Cuomo they have funded. The mta runs the trains and buses. They are not a homeless provider, right . As far as funding for the mta, you know, i want to see the full funding package before i comment on it. Im going to have something to say about it tomorrow. Everything relies on federal funding. There is Substance Abuse, education, i mean right now everything is dependent on federal funding. I want to make that clear for our congressional delegation. I cannot answer a question now as to any of these funding levels. If you said to me, how much are we going to fund schools . How much are we going to fund hospitals . I can tell you. It is purely a function of what that federal government does. My message to the federal government is, i understand that you wanted to take care of businesses, and i understand that you wanted to take care of airlines. Great. How about working people . Where are the police, or the firefighters, where are the healthcare workers . Well, we need you as essential workers. You have to put your life in danger so we can stay home. Yay, applaud those people in the hospitals. Ok, where is the funding . Oh, there is no money. Just applause. You want to say thank you . Provide the funding, not just the applause. In relation to the House Democratic stimulus proposal . Gov. Cuomo in relation to the overall federal need. Lets go to work. Thank you very much, guys. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. With white house briefings, updates from governors and congress, and our daily call in 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. Next, new Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and other state officials provide an update on that states response to the coronavirus pandemic. They talked abt