Today. At this moment, we are waiting for new york Governor Cuomo there he is. He has just sat down. He is getting ready to start his daily briefing. Here we go. We will take you there live. To take off nine years now. Lets look at the facts today. Total hospitalization is down. Good news. Intubation is down. New covid hospitalizations are down. Its a good day across the plate. It is interesting. We have always been talking about this and been looking at this. Its interesting to see how the decline has actually been relatively flat. Remember, we talked about we knew how steep the incline was. What was the decline going to look like . What was the contour of the mountain going to look like . Look how long on the way down compared to the way up. Thats why the spikes are dangerous. Once you have the spike, coming down from the spike is a prolonged period of time. Number of deaths are down. 139. At a different time and place, if i had that news to deliver, that would be incredibly shocking to people. Only in this environment is it not shocking. And relative will to where we were, its good news. Again, were right about where we were when we started. We just want to make sure we never go back to where we were. The question is reopening, not reopening or not. Everybody wants to reopen. Nobody wants to reopen more than i do. The question is how. We have said the five upstate regions are reopening. We have said theres a dashboard with all the facts and data that are driving these decisions. Theres been a shift in the Capital Region and in western new york where on the seven metrics on the metrics they are now qualified for reopening. There is still a need to increase tracing the number of people who are prepared to do tracing. And that is a pure administrative function. We will be working with both Capital Region and western new york to get that tracing up. But that is a purely administrative function. In the capital district, we need 383 tracers. We need an additional 166 identified. Western new york, we need 521. We need an additional 352. We will be talking to the regional heads today to find those additional personnel and get them trained and get them ready. But thats the only function that has to be performed for those regions to open. Again, thats something that we anticipated and thats just administrative and working together with the regions, we can get that done. So thats good news. Today is day 78. Day 78. 78 days, a long time or a short time. You can argue both. When you shut down everything and you have gone through the trauma that we have gone through, 78 days is a long time. People are feeling it and theyre feeling it in a number of ways. We have talked about it, but i dont know any of us have explored the depths of the Mental Health issues that have been created inadvertently through these 78 days. We have been so anxious about the day to day and operationally oriented, we have been talking about hospitalizations, talking about deaths, talking about infection rates. But theres also a more subtle but very present Mental Health crisis that has been going on. Dont underestimate the trauma this created for people. Out of the blue comes this virus, something we have never seen before. You are living a Science Fiction movie. Its been incredibly anxiety producing, traumatic, disturbing and we have felt and seen all along evidence that this is creating a significant Mental Health challenge for people. Look at some of these numbers now that people are reporting. The number of americans who are reporting serious mental distress, up to 38 . Doesnt even discriminate by age. Right . 18 to 44. Its a multiple of what it has ever been. And this is something that i think deserves more attention than it has gotten, because its very real. How are you is a simple question that we ask. How are you really . Mental Health Coalition is working on a project. My brotherinlaw kenneth and his daughter, my niece, are working with the Mental Health coalition. They have a website, how are u howareyoureally. Not just how are you, im doing fine. How are you, im okay. You know pretty much all right. Getting by. Forget that answer. How are you really means lets get to a different depth in the question. A different depth in the answer. How are you really . You cant be fine. Right . Its not a trite answer. Were going through hell. How are you when you are going through hell . Not good. Thats what happens when you are going through hell. Im not good. Im anxious. Im stressed. Im nervous. Im afraid. Im afraid. Im living a Science Fiction movie. Im afraid. Thats how i am. Were not comfortable talking about that. Right . Thats not the normal social back and forth. The how are you doing question is almost a throwaway. How are you doing . Expected response is fine. Its almost a rhetorical yes. How are you doing . Fine, good. How are you doing really . Lets talk about it. Lets be aware of it. Government can do a lot. Groups can do a lot. We can do a lot in our own lives with our own families. Im trying with my family. On the telephone, the ones i have in person. How are you doing, really . Lets talk about this. I want you to understand how i feel and the stress i feel and how are you doing really . It sounds simple, but i think it can be very constructive individually. I know its been helpful for me. This how are you really can actually provoke a good conversation. I would suggest people look at it. For people who have issues, we have a support hotline where we have asked Mental Health professionals to volunteer their time to connect by face time ti the telephone. We have had a tremendous response. Use it. Had is nothing this is nothing to be ashamed of in life, but else now. Of course theres going to be Mental Health issues. Of course, people are going to have stress that they need to work through and anxiety that they immediate to work through. Nothing to be ashamed of ever, but especially now. Also at headspace. Com, thats been very helpful. We thank them for their support. On the reopening strategy, we have said all along its data driven. A big piece of the data driven strategy is the testing component. We have all been talking about this testing, especially diagnostic testing which has been very important. In the beginning, the challenge was, what is diagnostic testing, how do we ramp up diagnostic testing . This is a scale that this nation has never done before. How do we do it . It involved the state government, fda had to approve tests. We then had to get our labs up and running. We set an initial goal march 13th, seems like a lifetime ago, but it was just about a month over a month. 6,000 tests a day we were going to try to do. That sounded like a very ambitious goal. We got to 10,000 tests a day. Then got to 15,000 tests per day. 20,000 tests. I then met with the president and we talked about an institutional agreement between states and the federal government with the federal government would help with the supply chain and getting terms materials to the national labs. We said, we were going to try to double our capacity at that time. That was on april 21 or thereabouts. Everybody said, you are being too aggressive. You cant do it. Can i tell you, thats who i am . Were at 40,000 tests a day. Thats may 17. We started with 6,000 tests. We now have a really significant number of tests that we can do. So much so that per capita, we are doing more than other countries. Significantly more. Were double the national average. Thank you to the department of health team and everybody working so hard to do that. When you compare us to other states in the nation. Again, were double the percentage, not raw numbers, because were bigger than many state states. By percentage, were much higher. This is a very dig advantage for us because testing originally was used to control the virus. Now testing is really going to be very helpful in monitoring the virus. Right . Were all talking about what is the spread of the virus when you increase economic activity. How do you know what the spread of the virus is . Testing, testing, testing. Not only do we have a large capacity to process the tests, we also put together a network of testing sites all across the state. We have a new agreement with cvs which has a tremendous Network Across this state where they are going to be bringing on Testing Capacity. So we thank them severy much fo that. We have 700 testing sites. We can do more tests. We have 700 testing sites. Which means theres a testing site near you. So much sites that it doesnt fit on a map. Thats how many sites. Thats what a map likes like when you plot all the sites. Its meaningless unless you like those blue things all over the state. So its 700 testing sites. Whats the new problem . The new problem is we have more sites and more Testing Capacity than we are using. Okay . Thats a good problem. But that is the next from hurdle to hurdle, right, stone to stone. I see it from hurdle to hurdle, down the track. Now we have more Testing Capacity and more sites than we are actually using. We have drivein sites that can do 15,000 per day. We are doing about 5,000 per day. The more tests, the better for the state, the better for society, the better for your family, the better for you. Who can get a test today . Any individual who thinks they have a covid symptom. Covid symptoms, coughing, sneezing, fever. What else . Fever you mentioned. Snooeezing, cough, chest pai. Because covid symptoms are like flu symptoms. If you think you have symptoms, get a test. Get a test. Its up to you. Any individual who has had contact with a person who you find out had covid. Right . You get that phone call. I was with you last night at a party. Turns out, i tested positive for covid. Okay. You now qualify for a test. You lose your sense of smell. You lose your sense of taste. Thats a symptom of covid. Any individual who is on quarantine, precautionary or mandato mandatory, any health care worker, any nursing homeworker, any First Responder can go for a test today. Any essential worker who interacts with the public. Food delivery personnel. Person working in a retail store. Theyre all eligible. Were increasing it today. Any individual who would return to work in phase one, construction, manufacturing, curbside retail. Okay . Its anyone who thinks they have covid symptoms. Its a tremendously large universe of people who can get tested. All you have to do is go to the website, find the testing site near you and get a test. It is a fast and easy thing to do. Weve been working on this for a period of time. Get the Testing Capacity up and the sites up and make it easy and we increased eligibility. We just dont have enough new yorkers coming to be tested. Ive been asking people, have you been tested . No. Why not . Well, they cant say its inconvenient because we have 700 sites. They cant say theyre not eligible, because you have any symptoms you are eligible. There is a general proclivity where i dont mean any disrespect to the medical profession. My sister is a doctor. Some people just dont like to go to the doctor and dont like to get tested. On a personnel level, they love doctors. How can you not . But theres a reluctance to go to a doctors office, which i understand. I am not good when it comes to this. I dont do the scheduled all the scheduled checkins im supposed to be doing. Its like do i really want to know . Do i want to go and be poked and prodded and investigated and have a test and then worry about what the test says . Lets just be honest. So i am not good at this. But this test is not an invasive test. Theres no pain to this test. There is nothing about this test that should intimidate people from not taking this test. Its fast. It is easy. Its so fast and so easy that even a governor can take this test. Thats how fast and easy it is. For you doubting thomases, which is what you all are, gender neutral, because by profession you are doubting thomases, im going to show you how fast and easy it is to take a test. And demonstrate why there should be no reluctance. This is dr. Elizabeth dufort who is in the appropriate ppe wear. Nice to see you, doctor. You make that gown look good. Head up. Close my eyes. Why do i need to close my eyes . You can question the doctor. Thats okay. Why do i need to close my eyes . For comfort. It might make you tear. If i fall asleep . We will have you sit down. Theres it . Thats it . Nothing else. Thats it. Told you. Thank you very much, doctor. That is the whole test. Im not in pain. Im not in discomfort. Closing my eyes was a moment of relaxation. There is no reason why you should not get the test. You dont even have to be new york tough to take that test. You do have to be smart to get that test. And you have to be united and you have to be disciplined for the period of time that you close your eyes. You have to love yourself and love your family and love new york. Questions . Is there any update on unemployment . We are getting reports from people on a daily basis, even after the new website came out saying that they hadnt been called after 72 hours or theres some sort of glitch in the system. Is there any problem . Maybe thats a melissa question. What are you saying . That im not competent and knowledgeable to answer that question . You have deferred those questions. Are you say you think i dont have a command of the facts . Is that what you are implying . Im saying, thats her specialty. All right. Thats a good thing to know. You happen to be right. I dont know. I will defer to melissa. There has been tremendous progress with the unemployment system. We will have another update middle of this week. Were getting to a point where the only claims that are longer than three weeks old are either suspected fraud, not certified or partial information, meaning the person thats applying has left out their Social Security number, some form of identification thats mandated by the federal government. We feel very, very good about the progress that we have made. The new system we put into place has been incredible. The people ive seen people tweeting people who applied last week have gotten their money this past weekend. We have gotten through the backlog. The people remaining are either certification issues, partial information issues or suspected fraud. For those folks, were trying to update the website to tell you specifically what it is thats holding you back in that pending status and those updates should come in this week as well. Theres been tremendous progress in the unemployment system. The New York Times reported that there has been suspected fraud attempts on states on their Unemployment Insurance system. That speaks to the need to make sure that as were processing these claims, were making sure people that are getting the money are the people that they say that they are and not just jamming the money out the door so quickly that then at the end of this when this is over, you come to the press office and say, you gave out millions of dollars to people who didnt believe it, did you have a proper vetting system in place, did you do what you needed to do . We are maintaining a careful balance of making sure the people who are in need are getting the money they need and also being diligent and vetting people so that taxpayer dollars dont go fall into the wrong hands. How many are outstanding . We have them batched into pre middle of april and post. We will have a call tomorrow to go through the numbers. Just to reinforce those points, backlog is a claim thats more than three weeks old. Is that what we call backlog . The backlog has been finished. Doesnt mean everyone has gotten a check. If you dont get a check, just because you applied doesnt mean you necessarily automatically get a check. You have to meet certain criteria, which are in the federal bill, for good reason. You filled out the application. But there are questions, you didnt fill out the whole application, theyre investigating something about what you said. The backlog is done. I said this, i said, you know, the pendulum swings in life. Right . Process the claims, process the claims, process the claims. Yeah. But just remember whats going to happen when the pendulum swings 30 days from now when somebody says, i have john smith here who got an unemployment check and he didnt qualify, it was a fraud. Why didnt you check it before you authorized payment . That is going to happen. Thats why balance is yes, get the checks out the door as far as you can. But make sure the person who is getting the check is actually eligible for the check, because no one is in the business of shoveling money out of a window and nobody wants to be taken advantage of. These are tax dollars. They have to be exercised diligently. Every state has gone through this. If you look at what we have done compared to other states, its not even close how many claims we have processed and how fast we have processed them. The backlog is all gone. We still have to make sure eligible people receive it and you are starting to hear already where there was fraud in people who got it. Thats the ying and the yang. Whats our max capacity of testing . What is the better way to test inmates and nursing home whats the max capacity . The slide said some of the drivethru have a max of 15,000. Were at 40,000 today, which meets our goal of saying we were going to double our ability to test. Right . We were at 20. I met with the president. We said were going our goal is doubling. We have met the goal of doubling. Were now at 40,000. We want to test as many as we can possibly test. What is the maximum Testing Capacity . You dont know yet. How many test kits can we get in how many viles can we get . How many reagents can we get . How many machines can we get . How many more labs and cvs . How many more doctors offices can we get . How many more hospital employees can we get . You calculate that, you would be at a theoretical maximum. If i could add to that. On the nursing home question, in addition to okay. We are breaking away from the governor. We will keep monitoring the q a part of the briefing for you. With a welcome to everyone. Joining me right now, we have three folks. Monica alba from the white house plus our medical contributors, dr. Natalie azar and dr. Roy. The question when he asked people, how are you doing, and you know, a polite person will say, fine, thanks, how are you or Something Like that. He said theres a lot more to that answer right now because of the fact that were all living through hell is the