Ending april 25th. Folks, that brings the total to more than 30 million over the last six weeks. That is roughly 18 of the entire u. S. Labor force. Its also more than the entire population of texas. About 30 minutes from now well hear from new York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Well get the daily briefing. Also right now, new Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is at the white house. Hes expected to meet with President Trump this hour. There are more than 1,49,000 known cases of coronavirus in the united states. So far more than 61,000 americans have lost their lives. But this morning there is some hope in this fight against covid19, a drug that could help some of the sickest patients. Its called remdesivir. Its an an ttiviral drug that could help accelerate Recovery Time for patients. Well learn more when we talk to our doctor on duty in just a few moments. I want to start with the unemployment numbers. Nbcs jo ling kent is in california for us, live outside an Unemployment Office in canoga park. Jo, walk us through this latest round of jobless claims and what these numbers say about our economy at large. The number of people who filed for unemployment claims just last week was way more than expectations. Basically giving us that 30 million number. Now, what you need to know about that is it is not only 18 of the u. S. Workforce, but it is sitting across all industries and all states. Among the hardest hit states, craig, florida, new york, california, texas and georgia. You really saw a big surge in claims in florida in particular because theyre processing more of those claims right now. But the issue is those really backed up systems and old antiquated systems. Thats why you continue to see the numbers rise, along with the major layoffs we continue to mary from boeing, lyft, tripadvisor. Many of those big names saying were cutting back on costs. Jo, i think it should also be pointed out these numbers dont reflect necessarily people who have had their salaries cut, who have had their hours reduced. Jo, something weve talked about on this broadcast a lot, you and i. It doesnt reflect the number of americans who havent been able to get through to their states unemployment site because of tech problems. Whats being done about some of these hurdles . Reporter well, the hurdles seem to be numerous. Weve heard so many Horror Stories from people trying to get their unemployment in florida. Theyre trying to choose between paying rent or buying their groceries. Were hearing from people in new york and here in california as well. Whats interesting, craig, here in california, its the tech capital of the world. Some of the biggest, most Innovative Companies that create the products we use on our iphones and smart phones every day, theyre right here in california. Yes, the state is still struggling with what they call a very inflexible and old system. I asked the labor secretary of california, julie sue, what theyre trying to do to fix this for the long term. Here is what she had to say. Our ui, as is true in many states, is built on Antiquated Technology which i know sounds crazy because were in california, the tech capital of the world. Our system continues to work. We just wish it could work faster. Having said that, were not going to Say Technology is destiny, whatever is there is all we have. Were also trying to do more to improve our communications, to be proactive about communication. Reporter the secretary is also telling me that theyve hired 1,300 people, brought them into the Unemployment Division to try to tackle all of this. Theyre also working with Big Tech Companies like microsoft and oracle to try to fix whats going on here, but the issue really is a fundamental overhaul. When i asked why didnt this happen sooner many analysts were predicting a recession well before coronavirus. Her response was they were already in a multiyear attempt to upgrade the system. However, she was unable to specify to me exactly where they were in that upgrading process, only to say that that has been put on pause because they have to deal with this massive influx of claims, craig. Jo kent, dont go far. I want to bring you back in a few minutes. I said a few moments ago that the number of jobless claims now was more than the entire population of texas. Lets actually head to the Lone Star State right now. Starting tomorrow, businesses like restaurants, retail stores, museums, all of them will be allowed to reopen with new restrictions in place. Garrett haake, texas native himself. Hes on the ground at a local cafe in dallas, texas. Garrett, what are you hearing from Business Owners about how theyre preparing to reopen and how theyre going to navigate this new world with the new restrictions in place . Reporter craig, Business Owners have had to be very creative in trying to get their doors open or keep their doors open. No better example than odd fellows. This was an indoor restaurant that pivoted to becoming an outdoor grocery store. Theyre selling the normal things they serve inside the restaurant, selling outside the restaurant to go. Tomorrow theyll open up the Counter Service and seat people again in their outdoor patio. Every other one of these tables will be occupied. The rest will be kept empty. Theyre trying to highlight social distancing, even by putting marks on the ground here. You can see every six feet or so space for people to wait in line as they come in to order. All the members will be single use actually just posted on the wall, condiments, single use, people have to throw away their own trash. Theyre trying to get creative. I spoerk to the owner of this establishment a little while ago who explained some of the thinking of opening even at a limited Capacity Starting tomorrow. Take a listen. So the idea that we can bring them back with the ppp and put some dollars in their hands is something we were happy to be able to do. Now our challenge is just to make sure we do it as safely as possible. Reporter craig, safety is would be concern. Another concern im hearing from Business Owners in texas is child care. For folks trying to bring their wait staff back, front of house staff back, kids who cant be at school, who is going to take care of the kids of the workers now coming back . Its going to be a staggered start i think tomorrow. A lot of Business Owners are saying they want to wait at least a couple days to see how this works. I think the other unanswered question, and well know it this time tomorrow, whats the demand like . Do people feel comfortable coming out to eat if they can sit on a patio and have some distance . Well see in realtime tomorrow what that looks like here in texas. Okay. Garrett haake for us in dallas. Garrett, thank you. Thanks to whomever also provided that nice background music during your live walk and talk. An unintended consequence of this virus continues to be the jaw dropping low prices that were seeing at gas pumps all over this country. While that may be good news for folks who have to fill up and get around, it is having an absolutely devastating impact on some communities that rely on the oil business for their livelihoods. Morgan chesky joins us from one of those communities in central oklahoma. The town of drum right is a Small Community, a Small Community centered around oil. What are you seeing there . How badly has this particular community been affected . Reporter craig, people are fearful and calling this essentially a bloodbath because this pandemic has created essentially a perfect storm for the oil market. You can literally see behind me that this town has revolved around oil since its inception. Just down the road in kucshing, we have trouble signs for the oil industry because there was a global price war happening with russia and saudi arabia, everyone flooding the market with oil to drive the price down. Then once you added a pandemic to that, nobody was flying, nobody was driving, factories shut down, the demand simply plummeted, and thats what we witnessed with the oil price itself, when it went negative last week. I had a chance to speak with people in the oil industry their entire lifetimes. When they saw that happen, they had literally no idea what would come next. We know massive layoffs are already started happening, not just here in oklahoma, but in other oilproducing states. We know one Industry Report says nearly a million oil workers could be losing work by the end of this year, and were just now starting to see the Ripple Effect from these prices that are no longer profitable for so many companies. We had a chance to speak to one smallscale Oil Operators a few miles down the road from drumright who shared some of the frustration hes now feeling. Take a listen. Its hard to imagine being a little guy understanding just how fragile our whole World Economy can be, but we have no idea whats going to happen. I dont know what else to do. You cant keep putting money into it. You cant breathe life into a dead horse. Reporter everyone watching and waiting this oim price has since rebounded into the 10 to 20 range. For a lot of companies that arent massive, theyre not going to profitable or break even until it hits 30 a barrel. Theres no telling on when that could return. In the meantime, for those people that have already been laid off, consider the impact of this pandemic. Theyre now out of work, but they cant even go and interview yet because a lot of these companies dont have virtual interview capabilities. So now in the midst of the pandemic, theyre literally forced to sit and wait, unable to even find another place to work because of the virus. Craig. Morgan chesky in drumright oklahoma. Morgan, thank you. This crisis is about more than oil. Its really about the people who live next door, the folks who n those shops down the block, how they manage when they lose their income. I spent time with one new york city gym owner. We talked about how the shutdown forced her to take a new approach to save her business. New york city, largely closed for business. The emotional toll painful. The economic impact, catastrophic. Carrie has seen and felt it firsthand. She started and owned a boutique fitness business called the fitting room with three locations in manhattan. Classes are like taking a personal Training Session with 23 other people. So business was good, and all of a sudden, a pandemic. Yeah. How did you guys adjust . We started to put in place smaller class sizes and started to take measures to make people comfortable within the existing studios. Soon she and every other gym owner was forced to close shop. Carrie had 50 employees and needed to come up with a plan fast. We went zoom. They limited zoom classes to 24 so everyone can see and talk to everyone else. Ben weg dlooert mman is one of trainers. Its good because our workout does work well at home. Out dont need a spin bike, a giant piece of machinery. Its functional training. You can even do it with body weight or a simple piece of equipment. Lisa is righting out the quarantine with her sister rebecca in los angeles. They havent missed a class in weeks. Its like living in a suspended reality. Having this class which is some tie to my prior life, my normal life, gives me tremendous solace. Rebecca who is new to the program says she even ap states it when a trainer calls her out to improve her form. In this moment its pretty nice to be seen by someone other than my family. Reporter carrie says since theyve gone online, 15 of their clients are firsttimers. They may be due in part to the fact that she cut the price for class nearly in half. Whats important to her is she managed to keep half of the staff on payroll with a goal of hiring everyone back. A recent survey found if the current economic disrupts for another one or two months, more than a quarter expect to close for good. Every business is unique. Carrie says that might be what saves them. Do some soul searching ab what it is that your customers rely on you for and figure out how you can continue to bring the essence of what you offer to them in different ways. Personal training done in groups from the comfort of your own home. The visual picture i zee is a door and your choice is a gone fishing sign or busy innovating. Im busy innovation. Everyone we talked to stressed how important this community is to them. The clients want to pay for classes to support the staff. The staff wants to work to help people find release, some semblance of normal see through all this. Carrie says shes applied for one of the ppp loans from the federal government, waiting to hear if its approved. If it is, it would be in her words monumental for her and her staff. I want to bring back jo ling kent once again. Shes out in california. She coffers business for us. Jo, as you know, this virus has changed the nature of retail, especially old school retail. What does it mean for places like malls or brick and Mortar Stores . Whats it going to mean as they reopen . Reporter craig, thats really the Million Dollar question for so many retailers right now. According to one forecast, this year half of malls with a Department Store attached could close by the end of this year. Time is really of the essence to get these malls reopened and the stores back in action so they can survive. Theyre trying to balance the safety, Public Health and being able to bring in revenue. We went to Beverly Center yesterday. This is an iconic los angeles shopping center, 40 years old. Ive never been in it before where there is nobody else and there are lights off. It was incredible. As we talked in, we started learning what theyre doing. There are hand sanitizing stations, social distancing decals on the floor. That includes for the escalator and limiting the number of people in the elevator. Theyre trying to do more deep cleaning as well of the frequently trafficked areas, talking about bathrooms and the information desk. And malls were already struggling mightily before all of this, jo. Jo ling kent for us there in california. Jo, stand by. Ill come back to you a little later. In about an hour, a simple of new york citys fight against coronavirus is expect to leave the city. Were keep n a close eye on the usns comfort that first docked in new york back on march 30th. Now after seeing 182 total patients, the Navy Hospital shift will get one final salute from new yorks finest before it sets sail at the top of the hour. Nbcs kathy park is live at that dock. Kathy, i had the opportunity to report pretty much from where youre standing right now, earlier this month after the ship was approved to start seeing covid19 patients. It would seem to speak to where new york started in this crisis and where we are today, the comfort heading back to the home port in virginia. Reporter craig, thats absolutely right. Its a good sign that new york is past its apex, its surge in cases. Thats a big reason why this ship got the approval from Governor Cuomo and the white house to leave today. As you mentioned, the ship arrived here on march 30th. It arrived with 1,200 medical personnel as well as civilians. The mission was to treat initially nonCovid Patients. There was sogrowing criticism tt the ship was going underutilized because it came with a thousand beds to relieve some of the strained hospitals in the Greater New York city area. Shortly after it arrived, it changed course and the protocol changed and they were able to take on these Covid Patients. Essentially we were told that over the course of the last month, they saw 182 patients. 70 of that volume were covid positive. There are a couple of headlines that came out of this, craig. The Javits Center was a federal resource as well, and it worked in conjunction with the comfort. Most of the more severe Covid Patients were being treated on board the comfort, and then the Javits Center handled the less severe Covid Patients. In total, once again, 182 patients, the majority of those were covid positive, but all them were discharged on sunday, and we were told that a lot of them either were discharged to their homes or to nearby hospitals, craig. All right. Kathy park for us there outside the usns comfort. Kathy, thank you. We talk a lot about how tough this virus can be to deal with and how its disrupted so many aspects of our daily lives. But we dont often get a chance to talk about the ways it can be treated. Today there is a big sign of hope on that front in particular. Its a medicine in trial that even dr. Anthony fauci is excited about. Its the first step in what we project will be better and better drugs coming along, either alone or in combination. Im going to talk to a doctor investigating that drugs, showing promising signs. Well ask him how his patients are actually responding to it. Well do that next. Were also waiting on new York Governor Andrew Cuomo to start the daily briefing. Well bring that to you live just as soon as it happens. Open. Remember having that feeling for the first time . The first day you opened. The first day you had a customer, the first day you taught a class, had a client, a patient, a session. Open. Remember the night before you opened . Who could ever sleep . Open. But theres a different question we are being asked now. Are you going to remain open . Even when your doors are closed . Open. Thats how we show who we are. And theres another way to be open, to pull together or push, depending on the door. And we are making it work and we will continue to make it Work Together. Because open we stand. And. L music fades in . Hey hi they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the Amazing Services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com try and never go to the post office again exactly 100 days after the first confirmed case of covid19 in this country, there are this morning genuine scientifically tested reasons to be cautiously optimistic about a possible treatment. The antiviral drug is called remdesivir. It was first developed to treat ebola. Now its showing some promise in clinical trials. So much so, in fact, dr. Anthony fauci says it sets a new standard of care for coronavirus patients. Its a really important proof of concept because this is the first very highly powered, about 1100 individuals, and it was a placebo controlled random sized trial which ive been talking about for some time now, which is really the Gold Standard of how you prove something is safe and either works or doesnt work. Its the first step in what we project will before better and better drugs coming along, either alone or in combination. Joined now by one of the principle investigators in this remdesivir drug trial, dr. Andre khalil. He is an Infectious Disease and intensive Care Specialist at the university of Nebraska Medical Center in omaha. Doctor, thank you so much. I know how busy you are. Dr. Fauci cautions that this is an important step, but not a knockout drug in clinical trials, apparently shrunk Recovery Time from 15 days to 11 days. Cut the mortality rate from 11. 6 to 8 which im told is not statistically significant. But how encouraged are you by these results, dr. Khalil . How encouraged should we all be . Definitely very encouraged because, first of all, very important, as you mentioned, i just want to say its important to repeat this is a very strict trial. As dr. Fauci mentioned, randomized, very important words. That kind of strict methodology brings us to information thats more reliable. This is the information needed specially in the situation of an outbreak. You want the highest quality science in order to take care of our patients. I take care of my patients every day, make sure theyre safe, make sure i can find treatments for them, and the only way to do this is doing as we did. In conjunction with nih, university of nebraska, almost 70 Hospital Centers both in the u. S. And outside the u. S. We did the adaptive trials with remdesivir. The results that you showed and dr. Fauci mentioned yesterday are encouraging. Its more than encouraging, because this is the preliminary analysis, craig. We still have close to 1,000 patients, so were going to evaluate and look at all the data. But just from the announcement of the first 500 patients at this point, again, preliminary, but the results were so significant that this is why were talking about this today. Were going to just wait and see whats going to happen. These are important results that have to be shared because we believe these results impacts the treatment and improves significantly the lives of patients with covid19. These four days you just mentioned, craig, theyre very important. Four days less in a lopt, four days less requiring oxygen, four days less requiring mechanical ventilation, four days less intubated, these are remarkable findings because every day you stay in the hospital, you increase your chance of complications, increase your chance of getting clots, communicable infections. Every day in the hospital is a day where you can get worse. The second thing that you saw also in new york city, if youre able to get the patients out of the hospital four days early, you actually create room for more sick patients to be admitted to the hospital and you can increase the capacity of the Health Care System to be treating more patients than they would treat before having a medication like this. Its a winwin situation having a drug that can shorten so significant significantly, but at the same time saving lives and creating a better capacity for the Health Care System. Were definitely excited by these results. We have a lot of work to do, and we want to find more treatments because this is not a cure, its a treatment. Very important to distinguish both. We need more and more treatments, and thats our goal at this point. Dr. Kalil, quickly here, in terms of your patients, the patients that you see, what kind of responses are you seeing, or have you seen any particular response to this particular drug yet . As you can imagine, its because of this treatment, this is a double blind trial. Double blind means that every patient that i treated and every patient that i enrolled in the trial, i was blinded to the type of treatment the patient received, and the patient was also blind to the type of treatment, so the patient would be receiving either remdesivir or placebo and we could not know. The first thing is, because it was double blind, there was no way that anyone can influence the result. Thats very good news. It means what were finding today is something very meaningful. The second good news is because we found a shorter recovery and better survival, this fits basically with what i saw in my own patients. We saw many of our patients recovering from the hospital, going back home. So it fits very much with what we observed in the trial. But as we mentioned before, the only way to prove more than only my experience, more than everyones experience that were experiencing together with the scientific analysis, combined we can provide something safe and effective to the patients. Im very happy to tell that ive seen many of my patients going back home after being enrolled in the trial, and this drug were going to keep seeing. We want to see more and more patients and being safe and going back home. Thats what im seeing, and i want to do better than that. I want the hospitapatients to le hospital earlier. This is number one at this point. Dr. Kalil, a Principal Investigator in this drug trial. Dr. Kalil, dr. Patel is with us as well, our doctor on duty for this hour. I want to invite dr. Patel into the conversation. I know youve been a bit curious about the timing of this news, dr. Patel. So go ahead and jump in with the question here. Absolutely. Dr. Kalil, thank you for pushing on the need for scientific rigor during a crisis time like a pandemic. Can you tell us a little bit more while were waiting for the full publication to come out on the timing of the results . Theres a lot of chatter about the kind of information that was released yesterday as well as the lancit study. Could you comment on the timing of the results . Sure. The results were from a European Group in conjunction with gilead. We at the university of nebraska, at nih, that trial was also randomized trial, run in china at the beginning of the outbreak. But the trial was for about 500 patients. They end up enrolling a little over 200 patients. The problem with that trial is that once you can enroll the patients that are supposed to be enrolled, you cannot make a fair interpretation of the results. Thats why itthe gilead trial i china doesnt add information to lead us to understand if remdesivir was beneficial or not in the patients that received the drug in china. That study unfortunately really cannot give us the information we need. Bru the nih trial, the adaptive trial that we participated in here in omaha enrolled more patients than we predicted. We were looking for something, maybe 500 to 600 patients, and we enrolled over 1,000 patients. Thats why i think were in a better position to tell the reliability of our results because we with a powered trial. Dr. Patel, thank you. Dr. Kalil, a big thanks to you as well. Dr. Kalil, i would be remiss if i did not call attention to the fact that your Office Looks Like min. Anyones office whose Office Looks Like that is trustworthy in my book. Let us turn to new York Governor Andrew Cuomo right now. By the way, Governor Cuomo joined by new york city maybe bill de blasio. And he would say today is another day to do better. This warm smile, today is another day to do better. He passed away, father hakala. I have his picture in my room. I was thinking about him last night. Today is another day to do better, another day to improve. Its another day to be better, to make life better, to be better at helping people. Today is another day, another opportunity god gave us. Hospitalizations are down. Good news. The change in total hospitalizations down, good news. Intubations down, good news. New covid cases, slightly down, 933, but still unacceptable, but down from where it was. Number of lives lost, still terrible. 306. Optimist would say the number is on the decline. A realist would say thats a tremendous amount of pain and grief for hundreds and hundreds of new yorkers who lost a loved one. Big question everyone is asking, reopening, when, how, where. I said from day one on this situation, we have to be smart. Were at a place weve never been before. Emotions run high. Be smart. Follow the numbers. Follow data. Talk to experts. Dont get political, even in this election year, even at this partisan time in this country where everything is political and everything is polarized. Not now. And respond to facts and data and experts, not to emotion, which also runs very high right now. If we do this right, it is a science reopening. Its not a political exercise. It is a science. It can be based on numbers and data. And that is true. Everybody wants to reopen. Caveat is reopen but dont reopen in a way that increases the spread of the virus. That doesnt increase the rate of the spread of the virus. How do you know that . You can test. You can get numbers. Test. Get a sample and see whats happening. You know that, if the rate of transmission goes over 1. 1, you are in an outbreak, youre in an epidemic. So you dont have to guess. Its not what it feels like. Get the numbers. Do the testing, get the numbers, rely on the numbers. The second fact you have to deal with as a science in this formula, do you have the Hospital Capacity of available if that rate of infection increases. Dont go above 70 capacity. You have a 30 buffer, so we dont wind up in the same mad scramble we were in last time. Make sure you have icu beds with the 30 capacity. Make sure you have enough equipment. Were not going to go through who has a mask, who has a gown, who knew someone in china . Lets have at least a 30day supply of stockpiled equipment, ventilators, masks, gowns, gloves, et cetera. Theyre facts, its science, its data. And then whats testing . Testing, then you trace and then you isolate. That remains the key to controlling the rate of infection. The testing is how you monitor the rate of infection. Whats happening to the increase as you monitor the economy, the Economic Activity . Ill take a test and test enough people so we have enough data to make a decision. Were increasing the number of tests. Its hard. Nobody has done it on the scale before. Theres been a lot of back and forth. Met with the federal government, met with the president. We have now a partnership in how to do testing. Were ramping up testing. Were moving very quickly in this state. We do more tests in this state than any other state in the united states. We do more testing in this state than any country on the globe per capita. So were doing it well. Were doing it aggressively. Weve increased from about 20,000 tests to about 30,000 tests per day, and were still ramping up and thats good. More to do on testing and more to talk about on testing, but not today. Today were going to talk about tracing which is the second step after testing. You test. You now know whats happening on the infection rate. You can gauge your decisions based on that infection rate. Second step is trace those people who came up positive. You tested. You have the data. You can adjust the opening valve, reopening valve. Now you trace. When you get a positive, you talk to that person and trace back who they have been in contact with. You then test those people. You then isolate those people so you dont increase the rate of infection. Thats what tracing is. Faster you dras, the better. You want to test right away. You think you have symptoms, you think you were exposed, come and get a test, do it today. Once you get that test result, you have data on whats happening with the infection spread. You then right away, as quickly as you can, trace that person, who have they met with, who have they been in close contact with over the past 14 days. You then contact those people and say you may have been in contact with dan. Dan tested positive. You should check your symptoms. If you develop any symptoms, let me know right away. And well bring you in to take a test. That is tracing. The problem is its not Rocket Science to do it on an individual basis. The problem is the scale that we have to do this at. Yesterday we tested 4,681 people who were positive. Yesterday 4,681 people were positive. How do you now communicate with 4,681 people, trace back all the people theyve been in contact with over the past 14 days, close contact and contact those people. That is an overwhelming scale to an operation that has never existed before. We do tracing now, but on a very limited basis. Thats why this is so hard, tracing. In and of itself, one person, its easy. 4,681 on one day. Today well have another 4,681 people. So just think of the scale of the operation. Last week we announced that Michael Bloomberg would lead the first ever testing, tracing, isolation program. Figure out how many people, how to train them, what technology, how do we do this. Its of a scale never been done before, and, by the way, we need it tomorrow. There is no time to get a university to do a study, a blueprint and then put a plan together. We need it tomorrow because were literally doing it right now. Were doing the testing, but coming up to scale on the testing. You need the tracing to come up to scale to meet what were doing on testing. The estimate so far is you need 30 contact tracers for every 100,000 people who are in the affected area. Statewide that would be 6,400 to 17,000 tracers depending on what happens on the testing rate. If more people test positive, more tracers. The less people test positive, the less tracers you need. These things are all linked. The better you do at reducing the spread of the virus, the fewer people test positive, and the fewer people you need to trace back. But it will require under any estimate a tracing army to come up to scale very, very quickly. Mayor bloomberg has put together a great team who will work on this. He has great talent in his bloomberg philanthropy, Johns Hopkins university working together with the new York State Department of health. This is that undertaking, its massive. Thats why bringing in a person with the talent of mayor bloomberg and the experience of mayor bloomberg to do it is essential. Where do you get the army . We have department of Health Employees all across the state, counties have them, cities have them, the state has them. Well marshal those employees. You also have Government Employees at home now getting paid but not working. What Government Employees who are now existing, city, state, county, can we deploy to become tracers and then train them, et cetera. After you go through all that, if you dont have enough, youre going to have to hire people. And then you have to train them right away, because nobody has done this before. Theyre going to need help. Theyre going to need technology. Theyre going to need monitoring. Theyre going to need to be tested before they can do this. Its a massive undertaking. And thats why mayor bloombergs involvement and his generosity here is so important. We want to offer a big thank you to mayor Michael Bloomberg who i believe may be joining us by telephone for some technological means. There he is. How are you, mayor mike . Im here. Governor, im fine. Good to see you. I want to thank you for all your good work to lead this great state through the crisis and deliver to facts and data to the public and also a sense of hope which really is important. I know your Daily Press Conferences have become mustsee tv for a lot of people. And for the record, i thought your advice to fathers on what to say about a daughters boyfriend was exactly right the other day. Anyways, the question on everybodys mind continues to be how can we begin to loosen these restrictions and begin reopening the economy. One of the most important steps we have to take to reopen the economy as safely as possible is to create a system of Contact Tracing, as you just outlined. When social distancing is relaxed, contract Contact Tracing is our best hope for isolating the virus when it appears and keeping it isolated. The governor has recognized that. Since bloomberg philanthropies has deep experience and expertise in Public Health, were glad to support the state in developing and intomenting a Contact Tracing program. As andrew said, the Contact Tracing is a way to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus but dont know it. And doing that requires a lot of welltrained people who are coordinated and managed effectively. It is a very big undertaking just because of the scale. So weve enlisted the best Public Health school in the world at Johns Hopkins university. No offense, but its name the Bloomberg School of Public Health which our organization worked closely with on Public Health and other issues. Weve also teamed up with the nonprofit organizations vital strategies and resolve to save lives. To get the Contact Tracing program up and running has to hire first. Hiring, training, deploying and managing a small army of new yorkers, as the governor said, is really the great challenge. To help the state recruit contact tracers, we brought in a staffing organization, and were also teamed up with cuny and suny both of which will help identify potential job applicants. I want to thank both of them for their work in joining us. To help the state with training, Johns Hopkins has developed a training class which can be taken remotely. It will cover all the basic information of epidemics, Contact Tracing and privacy. Theres also a test at the end of the training which you have to pass in order to be hired. So were not going to put out people there that dont know what theyre doing. Well also put technology to use in other ways. Vital strategies is developing three new smart phone apps. The first will help contact tracers find information and data quickly. The second will help the public provide information to health departments, and the third will allow those in quarantine to access the guidance and services they need including the ability to report any symptoms they may be experiencing. Vital strategies is also working directly with the state to develop protocols and work flow materials for contact tracers and managers. That includes a comprehensive playbook that will detail the steps needed to do Contact Tracing effectively. I want to make it clear, we will release that playbook publicly so cities and states around the country can use it and so can nations around the world. That way the work we do here in new york really can help fight the virus globally. Well also bring in a group of outside experts to conduct an evaluation of the program so other states and countries can see what worked well and identify areas they can improve on. And well learn as we go, and make adjustments and share what weve learned. Sharing and spreading best practices is something that bloomberg philanthropies works on with cities around the world. In about an hour ill be getting on a call with mayors around the country which is call with mayo around the country, calls we hold every week. Its a good information to share information and strategies and i know a lot of the information is following the contracting and news were starting here and other states have also began the process of starting. Before i turn it back over to the governor, let me echo something he said repeatedly and really is important to remember. As tough as these times are, were new yorkers and weve been through a lot together and were going to get through this together again. Governor, back to you and thank you for everything that youre doing. Together were going to lick this and get back to a normal life that we can and were so proud of the way the citizens in this state are behaving. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much to mayor bloomberg. This is such a great asset for the state of new york and all of the people in it. This is a monumental undertaking. So many of these things that we talk about just never existed before, testing of this magnitude, Contact Tracing of this magnitude. Its never existed. So we have to design new systems, new approaches to do this. And this problem is bigger than any one of us, but it is not bigger than all of us. And using the expertise and the talent that we have, we get everyone to Work Together here. We will do this. And the mayor is exactly right, new york new york, he says as a new yorker, in many cases, weve dealt with challenges first. We figure it out. And then we work with other places to actually learn from what weve done. I think this is going to be one of those examples. We want the best system that we can have to get new york open and to protect new yorkers, but it will also be a laboratory to put together the best system ever put together, so we can share that with other governments, and thats what mayor bloomberg does so well. He did as mayor and he does it now through his philanthropy. So we will develop the best system here and then what we learn, we hope can benefit other people. We will also be coordinating this Contact Tracing on the tristate basis because many of the people who come into new york live in connecticut, live in new jersey, go back and forth. We dont want to get limited by jurisdictions when youre doing this Contact Tracing. Some turns out have a trace that takes you to a person in new jersey. Well, we work in new york. We cant vote in new jersey. Having that Tristate Alliance makes tremendous sense so im working with governor murphy and governor lamont on that. And i want to thank them very much. Next problem, stone to stone across the morass. In this situation, every day theres a new problem that pops up. Okay, lets handle it. Next problem, in an emergency crisis situation, what happens is problems compound, right . Youre in the middle of a hurricane. The power lines go down. Now the power lines go down. Now the heat is off. Heat is off and now people are freezing in their homes. We didnt anticipate that. I know but thats what happens. One problem creates another problem. Its like a bad guam of dominos. And these problems compound each other, and the combination is often unforeseen. We have that now within the new york city subway system. Daily news did a frontpage story which crystalized it but it had been happening for weeks, and no one anticipated it but you have a virus outbreak, and the conditions under the new york city subway system for a variety of reasons have rapidly deteriorated. When you think about what happened, you can put it together in the retrospective. The covid outbreak happens. New york city is a place of density. Subways, buses are a place of density. Mta employees who run that system, care for that system, get sick, call in sick as they should. They dont want to infect other people. Remember, mta employees comes down. Number of nypd, number of new york police department, they get sick, their numbers come down. We now have fewer mta workers. You have fewer nypd workers on the trains and in the stations. We have now a greater need than ever to disinfect the subways, the buses and the stations. Why . Because youre in the middle of a pandemic. This is a place of density, and you have thousands and thousands of people going through these subway stations, these turnstiles and these buses, trains and a. D. A. Vehicles. Because nypd and officers are sick, you have fewer people to monitor and maintain the system. And this all happens in the midst of a Public Health emergency. At the same time you have more Homeless People who now are on fewer trains, and you have fewer people to outreach to the Homeless People. So now you put all of this together. And then at the same time we need our essential workers to go to work. I said the other day, i had two great nightmares from day one. Nightmare one, you did everything you did, closed down, et cetera, and you didnt stop the rate of increase of the virus. That would have been a nightmare. Can you imagine if we did all of this and we still saw that virus going up . That would have been a real problem. Second nightmare, the essential workers say im not going to work. Im not going. The transit operators, the police, the food delivery people say its too dangerous. Im not going. Im staying home too. You dont have food, you dont have power. You dont have transportation, you dont have electric, now you see society in a really difficult situation. So we need those essential workers to go to work. I am pshing every day to get our essential workers to go to work, even though they see a lot of their colleagues getting ill. You need those nurses. You need those doctors, in very difficult circumstances. Thats why i say theyre the heroes of today, all of the essential workers. How do our essential workers get to work . They need the Public Transit it. Its true in new york city. Its true all across the state. They need the buses. They need the trains. They need the subways to get to work. We need them. They need the buses, and they need the subways. And we are as a society, me as the spokesperson for the state, im saying to them every day, i need you to do this. I know its hard. But i need you to do it. Okay. We need them to do it but what is our obligation . Our obligation is making sure we do everything we can do to keep them safe. That is my personal obligation and collective obligation. You want them to be there to deliver the food. Whats your obligation is to do everything youre doing, you can do to make sure that they are safe while theyre doing it. The mta understood where we were with this global pandemic. They stepped up operations and were cleaning trains and buses every 72 hours, which is an amazing undertaking when you think about it. To clean all of those buses and trains every 72 hours. But we know the virus can live for hours or even days on a surface. Which means if somebody positives walks on to a train this morning, that virus can be there tomorrow and the next day. That them changes the whole focus of the problem. You want to honor the essential workers. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Well fly airplanes. Well have public demonstrations of gratitude. Yeah, even better than that is what you do and how you act. And lets make sure were doing everything we can. Lets clean, disinfect those trucks, those buses and trains every 24 hours. Why . Because thats the way we best protect the health of our essential workers, which makes sense if you want the essential workers to continue to come to work. It makes sense if you dont want the infection rate to go up in your society. It makes sense if you dont want the essential workers to get sick. And, again, it is our obligation as human beings to reciprocate and make sure were doing everything we can. To say disinfect every train every 24 hours is just a task that nobody has ever imagined