But cuba, we dont know, there will not be honest about what they are. They have close relationship with china so i think that makes sense as well. Bioethics. We believe this briefing from florida to go live now to new york where Governor Andrew Cuomo is about to give up briefing on his states response on the coronavirus. Our health commissioner, to my immediate right, special guest, to my left, secretary governor. Let me make a couple of points that i can today. Again, the context perspective is probably whats most important. Coronavirus is a governmental, critical governmental situation, its a Public Health crisis. Government has to respond to it and thats what the coverage is all about. And having technical issues h our feed from new york where andrew Governor Cuomo is getting his brief on the states response to coronavirus. We will try to fix this pub and come back to you live here on cspan2. Act now to the update from florida. We do have seven fatalities and we have 1225 negative test results with 954 pending test results and a bit over 2100 people monitored to date, 878 are currently being monitored. Those folks at the Health Department are working off guard. You are. Without them happy to take some questions. The sheriff is interpreting your order on bars and clubs to allow the clubs and parses to open but not sure ill call after 5 p. M. Was that your it looks like where the problem fixed. Well go live now back to andrew cuomo in new york to finish his state briefing on the update to the coronavirus. That the federal government is actually stepping up to the plate. You will see that this has been, diagnose, pardon pun, as a Health Care Crisis from moment one. This has always been about one thing, reducing the rate of spread so the Health Care System can manage it. Its been a question of math and projections. And it is still exactly that. Can we get the spread down to a rate of the Healthcare System can manage . What is going to be the issue in the Healthcare System . Its going to be the number of hospital beds. Its going to be the amount of protective equipment. And most of all its going to come down to ventilators, a piece of equipment that up until now was relatively inconsequential. But when you have respiratory illnesses and then this volume of respiratory illnesses, all of a sudden a number of innovators becomes ventilators becomes critical. Just to get a sense of scope, we have about 5000, 6000 ventilators that we can identify. We need about 30,000 ventilators. This is a nationwide problem. I was on the phone with the governors from the other states, with the National Governors association yesterday. Every state is shopping for ventilators. We are shopping for ventilators. We literally have people in China Shopping for ventilators, which is what of the largest manufacturers. So this is a major problem. Its an issue that the federal government can actually play a very constructive role with something called the federal defense procurement act where the federal government can basically Order Companies to produce certain materials, and were going to need protective equipment in hospitals. Were going to need ventilators, and that is something that estate can do but the federal government can do. Also as this has gone on, we said we are fighting a war on two fronts. Were fighting the virus and were fighting fear. And they are two totally different situations that you have to deal with. In many ways the fear is more dangerous than the virus. I started working on disasters, emergency situations when i was in my 30s. My First Experience was hurricane andrew in homestead, florida. And i felt it. I saw on the ground what happens when people panic. And the panic and the fear is as dangerous or more dangerous than the hurricane. I have seen that in flood. Ive seen it in fires. We now have misinformation and fear and panic, which is as contagious or more contagious than the virus. And we have to deal with both of them. Ive had some conversations that are just irrational with people who heretofore were totally rational. I had a conversation last night with a businessperson from new york city, who i know, who was panicked that new york city was going to be locked down, that there were going to be roadblocks, that there were going to be mandatory quarantine, be imprisoned in his house and i said where did you hear that . Well, thats what they say. Thats what im hearing. They are saying. And i would say look, i would know, right, because i would have to authorize those actions legally. Its not going to happen. Well, i hear it is going to happen. I know, but i would have to do it and im telling you im not doing it. It must have taken me 25 minutes just to slow him down to get information. When you get that emotional, that fearful, you literally dont process information the same way. So we have to be very aware of that. Clear communication from everyone. From our friends in the media, from healthcare professionals, from all elected officials. Clear communication, consistent communication. Because misinformation, emotion, fear, panic, is truly no dangerous than the virus at this position, in my opinion. Because the facts on the virus we know. We have watched it from china and south korea. We have studied it here. We know the numbers. It is exactly what we said it was their its exactly what we said it was from day one. We talked about the increase spread. We talk about them vulnerable populations, seniors, compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses. So we know what this virus does. We know how it communicates, and we know how to deal with it. Its not going to be easy. Its not going to be pretty, but we know the trajectory of the virus. Lets just take a deep breath and make sure we are all, wee acting on facts as opposed to acting on fear. When you act on fear, then youre in a dangerous place. The facts we can handle. Let me give you a couple of the new facts today. Just to recap with a better plan of action to are three steps. Latin the curve, slow the spread, increase the current Hospital Capacity, number three, identified new hospital beds. Do them all at the same time, which is the challenge. Make government work, mobilize, operationalize, get it all done, get it all done today. On density reduction, this is a datadriven decision. Look at the increased in number of cases. Look at the Hospital Capacity, and do adjust and everything you can to slow the increase of the spread so that your Hospital System can deal with the growth. We have been taking increasing steps on density reduction. Because the numbers have been increasing. And again this is driven by science and by data. We said voluntary work from home, mandatory closing schools statewide, mandatory reduction of state and local workforce, mandatory tristate agreement on bars, restaurants, jims. Mandatory in Office Workforce cut by 50 . We said that yesterday. The numbers have got up overnight. I am going to increase the density control today. No more than 25 of people can be in the workforce. Yesterday it was 50 . We are reducing it again, except the essential services that we spoke about yesterday. That means 75 of the workforce must stay at home and work from home. Again, voluntarily. Im asking all businesses to people work from home. As a mandate, 75 of your Employee Base must work from home. In terms of increasing Hospital Capacity, our current Hospital Capacity is about 50,000 beds statewide. Majority of those beds are in downstate new york. Commissioner zucker is working with the hospital industry, is going to put out new regulations assessing how many more beds we can get in our existing hospitals. Waving department of health rules, waving department of Financial Services health rules. How many more beds can we get in those hospitals . And were working on that aggressively. At the same time identifying new hospital beds. The army corps of engineers was with us yesterday. We had a very good meeting. We are looking at sites across the states to find existing facilities that could expeditiously be turned into healthcare facilities. And again what i said the federal response is very welcomed. What you think the president and he said he would bring the army corps of engineers yupik faking her the next day. I spoke to them last act to to follow up on the meeting. So this is Going Forward aggressively. We are also going to take a bold action by the necessary action that, offering 90 day relief on mortgage payments, waving mortgage payments base of financial hardship. Meaning if you are not working, if youre working on a parttime, were going to have the banks and Financial Institutions wave mortgage payments for 90 days. That will be a reallife economic benefit. Will also be a stress reliever for many families. Waving these payments will not have negative effect on your credit report. There will be a grace period for loan modification. We are not exempting people from the mortgage payments, which is adjusting the mortgage to include those payments on the back end. No late fees or online payment fees. Postponing or suspending any foreclosures during this period of time. And waiving fees for overdressed, atm credit cards. This is a real life benefit. People are under tremendous economic pressure. Making a mortgage payment can be one of the number one stressors. Eliminating that stressor for 90 days i think will go a long way. Again, we will reassess as the situation goes on if they should be extended or not. Number of positive cases, total positive 4000. 4000. Number of new positives, 1700. You see additional counties that are being added to counties that have cases. The spread mirrors whats happening in the country just as the spread has gone through all states. The spread is going through our counties. With downstate first, now moving upstate. New york now has 2000 cases. Washington state 1100 cases. Washington state had cases earlier because i went to a nursing home, if you remember. But new york state has more cases than washington state. More cases than any state in the nation, and i have made that point to the federal government and the president , he understands that. If theres a state that needs help, the state by the number of cases is new york. In terms of testing. We have tested now 22,000. We tested 7500 people last night. Why are you seeing the numbers go up . Because you are taking more tests. People see the numbers go up. They get nervous. They panic. Look at how many more people have the virus. Thats not how many more people have the virus. You are just taking more tests so youre finding more positives. There are thousands and thousands of people who have the virus who are not testing. There are thousands and thousands of people who had the virus before we started testing. There are thousands and thousands of people who had the virus and who resolved and never knew they had the virus. We are still testing because you want to find those positive cases so you can track him down, isolate people and stop the spread. But you cant watch these numbers like the stock market and say, well, thats the indicator of anything other than the indicator of how many tests we are taking. It is good news that we are not up to 7500 tests. We were at one time doing 200 tests per day, just to put that 7500 in focus. So thats a a tremendous incree in the number of tests, and youre going to see the numbers go up. The hospitalization rate is a very relevant because remember this is all about the flow into Healthcare System. So 777 out of 4152. Perspective perspective perspective. We know the virus. We know what it does. We know who it hurts. We know who it affects. Johns hopkins since day one has tracked this virus from china. 222,000 cases. 9000 deaths here 84,000 recoveries 129,000 pending. One last point. We talk about this is a government response, federal government is doing this, State Government is doing this, government government government. This manifests on a number of levels and the government response is very important. But the impact that the is greatest, greater and probably greatest as a social phenomenon and on people and on families. This is tremendously disruptive on all sorts of levels. It came out of the blue. For me in new york, it reminds me of 9 11 where one moment which was inconceivable just changed everything, change the perspective on the world, change your perspective on safety. Children who were young at the time but of school age watched on tv. They did know if their parents were coming home. I think it changed their whole outlook on life after 9 11. This is a situation like that. Its obviously totally different magnitude, but its like that. Its a moment that just changes your whole life. Yesterday you were going to work, and youre going to go to the office party. Today you are at home and the kids are at home, and you are worried about health and you are worried about your job and you are worried about economics. And you were dealing with personal issues and youre dealing with family issues. Its all happening at once and then you turn the tv and theres all this different information, and nobody can tell you if this is going to be 30 days or 60 days or four months or five months or nine months. The stress, the emotion is just incredible. And rightfully so. It is a situation that is one of the most disruptive that i have seen, and it will change almost every thing Going Forward. It will. That is a fact. Its not your perception. Its not just you. Its all of us. And its true and its a real. Nobody can tell you when this is going to end your nobody can tell you, i talked to all the experts, nobody can say too much, formless, nine months, nobody. Its hard living your life with that big question mark out there. Nobody can say two months, four months, nine months. People can tell you is not just you economically. Its everyone. Take cover in that. Federal government is reacting on an economic package but its true. Having your family altogether is a beautiful thing its also different for a lot of people, especially for a prolonged period of time. So these are major shifts in life and in the most emotional, stressful conditions that you can imagine. And i think, my own personal advice is, understand it for what it is. And that its not just you. It has changed everything. And it will for the foreseeable future. And think through how you are going to deal with it and what it means. And even try to find a positive in it, right . Its a very negative circumstance, but you are going to have time on your hands. You are going to have time with your family. You are going to have time at home in this busy hurry up world. All of a sudden someone said okay, you have a couple of months where you are going to be home with the family, no work. You work from home. But its a totally different situation. How do you use that . How do you adjust . Its not going to be done overnight but it is something everybody has to think through. My. Point is to the younger people in our great state and in our great society, and thats why i invited our special guest here today, michaela. My grandfather, my grandfather on my fathers side, his name was andrea i named from my grandfather andrew, italianamerican immigrant. When i was young age, 16, 17, 18 and i would do something that he didnt like him he would just look at me and he would say we grow too soon old and too late smart. What does that mean, grandpa . Is that a criticism . We grow too soon old, too late smart. These pictures of young people on beaches, these videos of young people saying this is my spring break, you know, im out to party. This is my time to party. This is so unintelligent and reckless, i cant even begin to express it. Now, i had a conversation with my daughter about this. Im governor of the state, i can order a quarantine of 10,000 people, but i cant tell my daughter to do anything, all right . And i have to be careful because theres almost an inverse response to a direct action. But i did say to all three of them, from as soon as they could crawl, i used one line. What is the one line i used to say . Risk reward. Risk and reward. Risk reward. Just post the question i couldnt offer an answer because whatever and i would offer they would do the other. Risk reward. It makes no sense to go expos yourself to these conditions and expose of the people. Expose other people. Michaela wanted to take first of all, michaela was graduating this year, and her School Closed to online courses so shes not going to have to graduation. We will have a big party at the appropriate time. We dont know what the type is going to be, but at the first opportunity we are going to the big party. So thats going to happen. But she was deprived of the last year and the last two months of college, which im sure were very intense study to respect md thats what she is divided, the intense study. Back to the last few weeks. I remember the last few weeks, a lot of study. But thats a shift in life but she is going to take a vacation on spring break. And go with friends and take a trip and risk reward. And luckily she made the right decision, and im proud of her for that. No prompting from me because of the question risk reward. What these people are doing is the risk does not justify the reward. Theyre putting themselves at risk. Young people can get coronavirus. Thats one of the other myths, young people dont get it. Young people do get it. And young people can transfer it. And you can wind up infecting someone, and possibly killing someone, if you are exposed to it. Risk reward. Questions, comments . [inaudible question] the economic consequences here are for the nta, for the state budget, for county budgets, town budgets, village budgets, all the public authorities. Its just a big question are they all lost tremendous revenues, and were going to have to figure out as a nation how to deal with this. The ridership is done on nta, and the revenue is down on the nta, and say hello to every other Public Transit system in the United States of america. So its going to be a National Response how is that possible if they cant make