Eastern on cspans q a. At his Daily Briefing in albany, new York Governor Andrew Cuomo talked about the possibility of a second wave of Coronavirus Infections in the fall. He also criticized the lack of federal funding for state and local governments. He challenged the Senate Majority leader suggestion that states should be declared bankruptcy. I dont give groomed facts and i dont give happy facts on what you know, facts are facts. When we started this i said the best thing i can do is to give people the truth and give people the facts, separate from an opinion and separate from my spin, separate from what i would like to believe and what i hope. Just facts. The reason i do that is because everything we are doing is basically voluntary, on behalf of people. Right . State government, local government, federal government does not have the power to enforce stayathome orders, if 90 Million People said i will go out today, they would go out. But the belief was if they have the facts and if they understand the facts they will act prudently in connection with the fact spread some of the facts have been disturbing in some of the facts have been ugly but those are the facts and that is my job is to present the facts aspects. If i have an editorial comment on the facts i give it to you but i want you to know that that is my editorial comment. Its versus what data or science will say. Also our muslim brothers and sisters begin the observation of ramadan this evening and we wish them all the best. The hospitalization rate is down again. That is good news. The overall of the projected curve and everyone is looking at curves nowadays and if you are looking for curve and the curve continues to go down and that is also in the total hospitalization number, bounces up and down a little bit but clearly down and number of innovations bounces a little bit but its also clearly down and the number of new covid19 cases walking in the door or being diagnosed is relatively flat and that is not great news but we like to see that going down but its not going up either. Number of lives lost is still breathtakingly tragic, 438 and that number is not coming down as fast as we would like to see that number come down. What we are looking at at this point is okay, we are on the downside of the curve and the numbers are trending down and do they continue to trend down . Or do they pop back up . If they continue to trend down, how fast is the decline and how low will the decline go . In other words, if 1300 people or about that number keep walking in the door then you are going to have a hospitalization rate proportionate with the number of people walking in the door. We wanted to see the number of people walking in the door reduced and the number of new infections reduced so we hit a low plateau, if you will but we dont know what that is and we dont know when it is. If you are looking at the number of incoming cases it has been remarkably flat for the past several days. So, that is the best indicator of how containment is working and how the closedown policies are working and over the past few days we basically flattened 1300 new cases a day which is not great. We like to see those cases reducing even more and wed like to see them reducing faster. You can have other longterm questions, is there a second wave of the virus . Like the 1918 pandemic it came in three waves and this is their second wave and will the vibrant virus mutate and come back in the federal officials are starting to talk about the fall and potential issues in the fall and theyre worried about the virus waning somewhat during the summer and remember those talks will go away when the weather gets warm and no one is saying it it will go away when the weather gets warm in the summer but there is still a theory that the virus could slow during the summer but then come back in the fall and if it comes back in the fall than he comes back with a normal flu season and that then is problematic because this is quote unquote, testing for the flu and your testing for covid19 and on top of all the other tests to do and i could be a possible overwhelming of the testing system. If people could have the flu or could have covid19 in the fall and they dont know which it is they could get nervous and start going to the Healthcare System which could then bring back a capacity issue in the Healthcare System so that is something we have to worry about and watch. Nursing homes are a top priority and they have been from day one and remember how the nursing home system works and they are private facilities and get paid to provide a service and they get regulated by the State Government and there are certain rules and regulations they must follow and we put in additional rules and regular Nursing Homes in the midst of this crisis and staff must have appropriate ppe and they must have the temperatures checked before they come in to the facility and there are no visitors coming in to the facility which is a tremendous hardship but it is necessary to protect public health. If they have a covid19 positive person in the facility that person has to be in quarantine and they have to have separate staff for the covid19 residence versus the non covid19 residence and if they cant care for the person in the facility they have to transfer the person to another facility. The nursing home is responsible for providing appropriate care. If they cannot provide that care then they have to transfer the person to another facility. They have to notify residents and family members within 24 hours if any resident tests positive for covid19 or if any resident suffers a covid19 related death. That is regulation that they have to follow. And they have to readmit covid19 positive residents but only if they have the ability to provide the adequate level of care. According to cdc guidelines. If they do not have the ability to provide the appropriate level of care then they have to transfer that patient or they call the department of health and the department of health will transfer that patient. But that is how the relationship works. The state has very strict guidelines on privately run facilities and they get paid to take care of a resident and that resident and that patient must have a state directed level of care and if they cannot provide that they cannot have the resident in their facility. Those are the rules. We will undertake an investigation of Nursing Homes now to make sure they are following the rules and will be a joint affirmative health and attorney general investigation but those are the rules and they get paid to take care of a resident and they have to do it in accordance with state rules and if they dont we will take appropriate action. The state department of health and the attorney general will be commencing an investigation to make sure all those policies are in place and being followed and if they are not being followed they can be subjected to a fine or they can lose their license. It is that simple. Testing, testing is going to be a major operation that happens from now until the situation is over. It is new and it is technical and it is complex. Its a political football. Testing does a number of things for us. Number one, it reduces the spread of the virus. It binds people who are positive and traces their contacts and isolating them. Thats a function of testing. Testing also what they call Antibody Testing, you test people to find out if they have the antibodies and why . If they have the antibodies they can donate blood for convalescent plasma which is one of the therapeutic treatments. So, you want to find people who had it so you can identify them to donate for convalescent plasma. The testing also can tell you the infection rate in the population where it is lower and where it is higher and this will inform you on a reopening strategy and then when you start reopening you can watch that infection rate to see if it is going up and if it is going up slow down on that reopening strategy. Okay . There are different forms of testing for different purposes. All of them are important and it was vital for any state, i believe, to first get a Baseline Study of where you are on the infection rate. All we know to date is the hospitalization rate and how many people come into the hospitals and that is all we have been tracking and thats all we know. And then from that you had all sorts of anecdotal extrapolations on the hospitalization rate saying i think the infection rate is this and i think the infection rate is back. I said i want to have the infection rate. So, we have undertaken the largest most comprehensive study of new york state to find out what is the infection rate. That we started a view days ago and sample size so far is 3000 people and statewide and lets find out what the infection rate is. We have preliminary data on phase one and this will be ongoing and we did about 3000 tests and we will continue this testing on a rolling basis and we will have a larger and larger sample but i want to see snapshots of what is happening with that rate and is it going up or flat or going down . It can give us data to make decisions. We did 3000 surveys in about 19 counties, 40 localities across the state and the surveys were collected in grocery stores, box stores et cetera and that is important and it means you are testing people who, by definition, are out of the home and not at work. Okay . What does that mean . I dont know but that has to be a factor that is taking into consideration. These are people who were out and about shopping and they were not people who were in their home and they are not people who are isolated and not people who are quarantined, who you could argue probably had a lower rate of infection because they would not come out of the house and these are people who were outside and these are people who were not at work so they are probably not essential workers. That has to be calibrated. But we are trying so far to get the statewide number which is 13. 9 tested positive for having the antibodies and what does that mean . It means that these are people who were impacted and who developed the antibodies to fight the infection. So, they had the, they were infected three weeks ago, right, four weeks ago, five weeks ago, six weeks ago but they had the virus and they develop the antibodies and they are now quote, unquote, recovered. 13. 9 , just about 14 would break down male and female and female 12 positive, males close to 16 , 159 15. 9 positive. Regionally, long island at 16. 7, new york city at 21point to, westchester, rockland, 11. 7, rest of the state 3. 6. This basically quantifies what we havent seen anecdotally and what we have known what it puts numbers to it. Rest of the state is basically upstate new york, 3. 6. It has been about seven, 8 of the cases that we had in the state and Westchester Rockland we had an initial significant problem and remember westchester had the largest hottest cluster at one time in the country and 11 so literally somewhere in between new york city 21 and which again, supports what we knew anecdotally and long island, 11. 7 so not that far behind new york city and it is significantly worse than us just rockland. We been talking about Westchester Rockland and nassau suffolk is basically one but there is a variation with the long island numbers. By race, asians about 11. 7 , africanamericans 22 , latino hispanic, 22 . Multiplan on their 22 , white 9. 1 and this reflects more the regional breakdown. Africanamericans and latinos are in this survey disproportionately from new york city and new york city is that 21 so the africanamerican number, latino numbers is 22 but and the upstate whites, you talking more upstate witches nine but it is 3. 6 in the survey. By age, nothing extraordinary here. We did not survey anyone under 18 so it starts with 18 years old, 1824 , 4554, 16, 75 plus, 13. But its a small of the total and again how many 75 yearolds were out shopping and about and that is the group that is supposed to be isolating as they are the most vulnerable. Sixtyfive74 also. That is the distribution. Again, the sample was by definition people who were outside of the home so we have to analyze that and what does that do to the numbers and but that is factor that has to be taken into consideration and if the infection rate is 13. 9 then it changes the theories of what the death rate is and if you get infected. 13 of the population, about 2. 7 Million People who have been infected and if you looked at what we have now is a death total witches 15500 that would be about 25 death rate but two big caveats. First, its preliminary data and only 3000 or 3000 is a significant data set but its still preliminary and when we say there are 15500 deaths that number will go up. Those deaths are only hospitalization or nursing home deaths. That does not have what are called at home deaths right . It does not include people who died in their homes and were not in a hospital or a nursing home. We still have to compile all that data and then the at home deaths, you have to go back and try to find out what was the cause of death for those at home deaths and then add them to the number of deaths connected to covid19. It gets even more complicated because in california they are now finding deaths that go back to last december or january that they believe were covid19 related. People do not even know about covid19 at that time. So, if you then go back to december and january and start to look at the number of deaths and check them for a covid19 related death i dont even know how you would do that practically but you will see that total number of deaths go up but that 15500 is not an accurate total number of deaths, in my opinion. Well, fact. Its not an accurate total number of deaths because it does not count in home deaths. It is not accurate because there will have been many other deaths that were never tested fortune six that should be attributed to that number but with those caveats that is what we see in this survey. It also supports the decision that we talked about to have a regional analysis and decisionmaking. Upstate new york 3. 6 . New york city 21 , what you do in a place between 1 . It is not the same thing necessarily that you would do in a place with 3. 6 . Its just not. Its the same theory that some states open now and new york doesnt because the fact should dictate the action and if the facts dictate the action then you have different facts or excuse me, you have different action. When we talk about a regional analysis on reopening thats exactly right. Look at the facts in that area. Sorry. But, theres a second, the gating factor because there always is. What you do in a region still has to be coordinated because you have a pent up demand in the multistate area where one region opens up for business and you could see people come in from literally from the tristate area and overwhelm that region. Weve tried to rationalize with connecticut and new jersey because there have been facilities in connecticut that were open and you have all sorts of new york license plates the there. So, yes, regional analysis but understand on that regional analysis that you still exist in the tristate area with millions of people who are looking at something to do to get out of the house and put the kids in the car and go so that has to be factored in. That is a significant factor. We also have to do more to get testing in the africanamerican latino communities and we talked about Health Disparities and the state did not have the kinds of disparities we have seen in other states but i want to understand them and i want to address them. There will be a number of factors while you could have a higher percentage of positives in the African AmericanLatino Community and they were existing Health Disparities and they were existing comorbidities and underlining illnesses, diabetes et cetera and i also believe you have a greater percentage of the quote unquote essential workers who are African Americans latino and while everyone else or many of those who have the opportunity to lock down at home as terrible as that was the essential workers had to get up every morning and go out and drive the bus and drive the train and deliver the food and do all those essential services that allowed people to stay at home. Also you have more people in the new york city area and more people getting on some ways and getting on buses and more people dealing with that density and we know that is where it communicates. But, new york city has the authority and we are starting more testing today at new York City Housing Authority facilities and you talk about Public Housing and i was the hud secretary and worked in Public Housing across this nation and that is some of the densest housing in the United States of america and people crammed into elevators and crammed through small lobbies and overcrowding in their apartments so Public Housing does pose a special issue and should be addressed. I also want to get more testing in African Americans and latino communities all through the new york city area including long island after this and i want to work with congressman [inaudible] and Congress Member clark and Congress Member velasquez to help us work with the churches in those communities and the churches have volunteered and many of them to be testing sites, one of the problems is finding a testing site but many churches have said that they would be willing to use their facilities for testing sites, as we ramp up the testing. I want to get it into the africanamerican, Latino Community in using the churches as a network will be extraordinarily effective. This is something that new york should lead the way. We need to answer this question and address this issue. Also, i want to speak to a point from our friends in washington. Senator mcconnell who is the head of the senate, you know, weve talked about funding for state and local governments and it was not in the bill that the house will pass it today but they said dont worry, dont worry, the next bill and as soon as the Senate Passed it this current bill, senator Mitch Mcconnell goes out and says maybe the states should declare bankruptcy. Okay this is one of the really dumb ideas of all time. You know, i said to my colleagues in washington i would have been insisting that state and local funding was in this current bill. I dont believe they want the funds, state and local governments. Not too fond the state and local governments is incredibly shortsighted. They want to fund a Small Business, fund the airlines and i understand that but state and local governments funds police and fire and teachers and schools. How do you not fund police and fire and teachers and schools in the midst of this crisis . Yes, airlines are important. Yes, Small Business is important so our police and fire and healthcare workers. They are the frontline workers. When you dont fund the state then the state cant fund those services and there is no sense to me. Also in makes no sense that the entire nation is dependent on what the governors do to reopen. We have established that but it is up to this governor and up to this governor but then you will not fund the State Government . Do think i will do it alone . How will this work . Then to suggest that we are concerned about the economy, states should declare bankruptcy. Thats how you will bring this National Economy back . By states to client and cropsey . You want to see that markets fall through the seller, let new york state declare bankruptcy. Let michigan declare bankruptcy. Let elinor the court bankruptcy. Let the california declare bankruptcy. You will see a collapse of this National Economy. Just dumb. Vicious is saying when senator mcconnell said this is a blue state bailout. What he is saying is if you look at the states that have coronavirus problems they tend to be democratic states. New york, california, michigan, illinois, they are democratic states. So if you fund states that are suffering from the coronavirus, they are democratic states. Dont help new york state because it is a democratic state. How ugly a thought. I mean, just think of, just think of what he is saying. People died. 15000 people died in new york but they were predominantly democrats so why should we help them . I mean, for crying out loud, if there was ever a time you would put aside for you to put aside your pettiness and your partisanship and this political lens you see the world through democrats and republican and we help republicans but we dont help democrats, thats not who we are. Thats not who we are as a people. If there is ever a time for humanity and decency, now is the time and if there was ever a time to stop your political obsessive, political bias and anger which is what it has morphed into just a political anger, now is the time and you want to politically divide this nation now with all that is going on . How irresponsible and how reckless . Im the governor of all new yorkers, democrat, republican, independent, i dont care what your Political Party is but i represent you. And we are all there to support each other. This is not the time or the place or the situation to start your divisive politics. It is just not. That is why, look, our rules have been simple from day one. There is no red and blue. It should never have been a red or blue and it comes to the important issues. But certainly not now. That is not what this country is all about. Not to red and blue, its red white and blue and when we talk about new york top we are all new york top, democrats and republicans and all smart and all disciplined and all unified and all in this together and we understand that. That is how we operate. We operate with a love and we are Strong Enough to say love. Say love is not a weakness, it is a strength and new york is that strong. Its been over 1100 [inaudible] [inaudible question] there are 263 prisoners who have tested positive for covid19. From that we are quarantining people and there are 1397 people in the prison system which have been quarantined and we have not seen the kind of outbreaks that we feared that we would see and we are monitoring it very closely and we done a number of things including stopping visitation and doing isolation above and beyond but within humanity and making sure they are not putting peoples in solitary confinement so we are monitoring this closely and be briefed on every morning and have taken a number of steps, technical parole violations, people over 55 and as a situation as it warrants change we will change. Let me go back to my selfproclaimed grim reaper, senator mcconnell for another second that he represents the state of kentucky. When it comes to fairness new york state puts much more money into the federal pot then it takes out. Okay. At the end of the year we put in that federal pot 116 billion more than we take out. Okay. His state, the state of kentucky takes out 148 billion more than they put in. Okay. He is a federal legislator and he is distributing the federal pot of money and new york puts in more money to the federal pot then it takes out. His state takes out more than it puts in. Senator mcconnell, who is getting bailed out here . It is your state that is living on the money that we generate. Your state is getting bailed o out, not my state. I was wondering if there was [inaudible] not at this time. [inaudible question] enough tests are not available anywhere but we need more tests for prisons, for Nursing Homes, more tests across the board and that is not just new york, that is nationwide and that is why everyone is scrambling on this testing, testing and how you bring it up to scale. [inaudible question] we are testing in prisons at the same way we test outside of prisons. People who are demonstrating the symptoms that are associated, into direct contact so they are getting the same standard being applied within prison walls as is everyone else. [inaudible question] if they fall under those commissions, yes. Have you made contact with senator mcconnell . No. Do you intend to . No. New york residents who test positive and have Antibody Testing does this change the calculation visavis [inaudible] and thats 2 Million People basically that have been exposed . No, it does not change the calculus bid Contact Tracing is not the answer and not the beall, endall but it is one of the tools and in a very small toolbox, right, you dont have that many effective tools to use so it is a tool and a small toolbox. Under a lot of pressure. We understand that. Through no fault of their own by the way, this happens to be a virus that happens to attack elderly people and Nursing Homes are the place of elderly people, so this is a very intense situation but they still have to perform their job and do their job by the rules and regulatio regulations. The state had regulations and guidelines. Nothing went wrong. What went wrong in societies, nothing. Mother nature brought a virus and virus attacks young people, im sorry, nothing went wrong, nobody is to blame but they have to deal with the situation. The superintendent suggested he was going to leave at the end of june. Is there a concern that you have . Weve been talking about the school for a couple of months. I dont think anything has happened recently. They did give flexibility and advanced payment. They had the desire to make some reductions on what they needed to do. We gave them some flexibility and payment to the tune of close to 30 million but like the district they will have problems but they were treated and given more flexibility than any other district in the state. What should they have done differently when the guidance came out and when they voice the concerns saying we dont have enough space, how have they been handling that . If you cant provide adequate care towards a patient you must transfer the patient, period. And if they cant transfer to another facility do you have a bed available come if they cant transfer the patient they call the department of health and say i cant find a facility for this patient and the department of health finds a facility for the patient. They dont have the right to object. That is the rule and regulation and they have to comply with it and the regulation is basic common sense. That is your basic fiduciary obligation and i would say ethical obligation and its also your legal obligation if you cant provide adequate care, the person must be transferred. If you have people, they have to be corrine teamed quarantined and if you cant do what we will put them in a facility that can. Thats the rule. Then they lose a patient and that revenue. But the relationship is you have this president and you ge residd and must provide adequate care. If you cant come at the patient has to be transferred to a facility where they do get adequate care. What about if they cant provide enough because they said yesterday its up to the facilities so is the state assisting . We have gotten thousands and thousands. Their primary responsibility hospitals and Nursing Homes ran into problems. This is a National Story you turn on the National News and you will capture people saying we cant get enough. Its been an international problem, so we were getting in from china and we were distributing it also and how many pieces . For Nursing Homes alone, 417,000 surgical grade masks, 101,000 gallons, 85,000 face shields, 422,000 gloves, 5,000 gallons of sanitizer so on the scale we were making it available to those facilities that called and said we cant fight a managing hospitals and facilities that had a desperate need for this in addition to the Nursing Homes. This isnt about two weeks ago. From these specifics facilities. Concerning transfer patients. Have you heard about those . Not that i know of, but we can find out. We have had assistance and as mentioned bacon delivered to their Nursing Homes. Do you have a number on how many . Bought off the top of my head. Another question about the state work force, in the area the infection rate is relatively low. Could you have workers from home do something and have them come in . I think it is a good question and when we talk about the regional analysis and decisionmaking, i think thats one of them. It is more essential businesses that are lower risk would be the top priority. How essential is your business, how much risk does your business during. Government workers or essential i would argue. And you can socially distance in a government workplace, so i think that would be one of the prime candidates in the strategy once we get there. You want to look at the overall infection rate and we see that flat or coming down so it has to be coming down and the infection rate has to be low then you can start the conversation on opening regionally. Those workers are still being paid at home. You have to look at the numbers, tell me when the numbers change and i will tell you when we start the conversation. You want to loo look at the dropping hospitalization rate in the region that can re open as a region. We dont have the kind of hospitalization rate numbers that i can sit here and say the North Country has been going down at this rate, but you need that kind of analysis region by region. They have a twoweek period. Earlier this week you identified. Im located in the Capital Region but the Lieutenant Governor is from western new york and she was there. He is in the rochester area, so we had that advantage and we had just a tremendous asset to their and i consider myself an adequate capital district. [inaudible] having difficulties for people who were frustrated. To punctuate and put it into context theyve paid 2. 2 billion over 1. 1 million whove applied for Unemployment Insurance to give you the reference when they spent 975 million contex975 million, florida 143 million, pennsylvania 600 million, we had gone above and beyond in terms of ramping up. Today our number will be released later another 207,000 people applied for and were accepted for Unemployment Insurance, that is going to be released later today so that brings us up to 1. 4 million that are going to be collecting Unemployment Insurance. What remains is the majority that is a pandemic Unemployment Insurance and subcontractors, selfemployed, people that cant work because their schools were closed and people who cant work because they come into contact with somebody that is covid19 positive. To collect Unemployment Insurance didnt even go into effect until march 27. To get rejected and then apply for the pandemic Unemployment Insurance which is a complete disaster. Weve streamlined the process and we rolled out the new form which you applied one time. So now the majority is from that category of people and to give further context, california isnt even rolling out the ability unto april 28 in illinois but until may 11, so i know that this is hard. Its terrible. Youve lost your job and you are struggling to pay the bills. This is on a scale nation has never experienced. The nation is doing a tremendous job and we have now put 3,000 people on this issue and we are going to continue we have done far more than any other state in the country. And the number of people that have gotten assistance is mindboggling. But none of that matters. If they dont get their check it doesnt matter that it was only march 27 etc. And some states are not even starting this yet. But people are anxious and it is their check that matters to them. Again, the good news is it isnt going to cost you any money because you will get the check. I know you want it today, but you will get it and when you get it, its the same dollar amount as if you got it today. This is an impossible problem. They just passed the law, just put into effect march 27. We have to figure out who is eligible and then send the check out the door. Its an impossibility. Higher 3,000 people to put together a system. But it is an impossibility. Again the only good news is you are going to get the check and its going to be the same dollar amount. I know you want it today but we are getting it to you faster than probably any other state in the United States of america, which as a governor, i feel good about, but from an individual who didnt get the check, none of it matters. You get the last bastion because of your undying patience. Some Nursing Homes and others, over 20,000. When will they provide a plan across the state. Dot ob undertaken. At his briefing in baton rouge, louisiana governor responded to comments by the Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell suggesting states declare bankruptcy. The governor also answered questions on preparations for Hurricane Season during the pandemic and the phase one reopening planne plan for the s. Good afternoon, everybody come and thank you for being here and for those of you in