Andrew Cuomo New York May 22 COVID-19 Press Conference Transcript

Andrew Cuomo: (00:01) Everyone knows the people who were here I think. Just in case, my far left, Dr. Jim Malatras, not a real doctor. Not even a fake doctor, Dr. Robert Mojica, Director of the Budget. To my right, Melissa de Rosa, Secretary to the Governor. To my far right, real doctor, Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health. Andrew Cuomo: (00:23) Good morning to all of you. Happy Memorial Day weekend, starts today. Summer is now upon us. This will be the 155th Memorial Day. Press gets to ask me questions. Here's my question for you guys today. Where was the first officially recognized Memorial day celebration? Andrew Cuomo: (00:57) No answer. Let the record show there is not a single submission from the assembled press. You guys should know. Waterloo. New York, Seneca County, 1866. President Johnson declared Waterloo, New York the birthplace of the Memorial Day parade. And as you are a press corp from the State of New York, I would hope that you remember this going forward and there's the sign just in case you forget, Waterloo, New York, birth place of Memorial Day. Andrew Cuomo: (01:34) Today is day 83 of the COVID-19 crisis. Some of my young guns saying, oh, it's 83 days. We haven't had a day off. It's Memorial Day weekend. Life is about stamina, stamina. It's Memorial Day weekend. Imagine if you were in a real war, overseas war, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War. Day 83, it's nothing, tour of duty. News is good today. Hospitalizations are down. Net change in hospitalizations is down. Andrew Cuomo: (02:17) Number of new cases per day is down. This is a level now that is lower than when we first began. So that's good. Number of deaths painfully high at any number, right? And you see that this number has been stubborn on its way down, but it's 109 yesterday. They were all in our thoughts and prayers. Again, you see how quick that spike went up and you see how slow it is to come down. So we want to make sure we don't go back there ever, ever again. We're talking about reopening. Question is not whether or not to reopen, the question is how you reopen smart, how fast and safe can you reopen. Reopen as fast as you can, as long as it is safe and you are safe if you're acting smart. Andrew Cuomo: (03:21) What does smart mean? Phasing it in by metrics, just study what's happening. Continue to test so you have an idea of the growth of the virus. Trace those cases, isolate those positives, watch your hospital capacity, and monitor what's going on so all your actions are based on data. We post all the data. Anyone in the state can go online, see where they are by their region. Long Island and Mid-Hudson region, if the number of deaths continues to decline the way it has and they get their tracing online. Every region has a certain number of tracers that they need to reopen because we want to make sure when they reopen, they have the testing and tracing operation working. But if the number of deaths continues to decline, they get their tracing up and online, both regions could reopen this week. Andrew Cuomo: (04:29) In anticipation of that, we're going to allow construction staging. Before you can begin construction, you have to have staged the construction. The materials have to be onsite, etcetera, and safety precautions have to be onsite. So we're going to allow that construction staging now for the Long Island and the Mid-Hudson. We're hopeful that the number of deaths continues to decline and then they would be reopening this week. Andrew Cuomo: (04:59) Testing is a big component of all of this. New York State tests more than any of the state per capita, we test more than any other country per capita. So we are far ahead in terms of getting this operation online. And this is the first case, nobody's ever done this before, putting together this tracing and testing capacity, but we've signed up another 52 independent pharmacies. That brings the total number of sites in the State of New York to 750. And our message is very simple. Get a test. We have state run sites where we have more capacity than we're now performing tests. Andrew Cuomo: (05:40) We have some drive-ins where we can do 15,000 tests. We're only doing 5,000 per day. Get a test. If you have any symptoms of COVID, which are basically the same symptoms as the flu. If you have any symptoms, get a test. If you were exposed to a person who you find out was positive, get a test, get a test, and you can go to this website and they'll tell you exactly the site closest to you. Andrew Cuomo: (06:08) In terms of tracing, all the reasons that have come online had to have the right number of tracers. That's why we were talking about Mid-Hudson and Long Island has to get their tracing numbers up. But every region has the tracing functioning. Mike Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, volunteered to have his Bloomberg philanthropies put together a tracing program because there is no such thing as a tracing program. How do you train tracers? How do you recruit tracers? What software do the tracers use? They've been doing that with Johns Hopkins. They have been fantastic. We have that in place now. And we're going to share that with other states online. And we're going to do that with the National Governors Association because New York is ahead and we do have more advanced curriculum and training and protocols. Andrew Cuomo: (07:09) So we're going to work with the NGA and make that available to any state that wants to use it. Small business is a priority. Federal government passed the small business assistance program, that is run out of money and small businesses are taking a real beating in this situation. They are 90% of New York's businesses and they're facing the toughest challenges. The economic projections vis-a-vis small business are actually frightening. More than 100,000 have shut permanently since the pandemic hit. Many small businesses just don't have the staying power to continue to pay all the fixed costs, the lease, et cetera, when they have no income whatsoever. Andrew Cuomo: (07:59) Minority owned businesses face a far greater risk and have received less in federal relief. So New York State is starting its own small business relief program. Working with private banks, we have over $100 million available to make loans to small businesses. We're going to focus on MWBs that did not receive federal assistance and focus on really small business. You know, the federal definition of small business has what many could consider large businesses, but we're going to focus on true small businesses. 20 or fewer employees, less than $3 million in gross revenues. People who are interested in participating in this program can go to the website that is on the screen. Andrew Cuomo: (08:50) It's Memorial Day weekend. We expect people to be getting out, going to parks, beaches, etcetera. We understand that, but we have to remain vigilant at the same time. I know the weather is warmer. I know people have been cooped up. I know there's tremendous energy to get out. You have to remain vigilant. You read in the papers that they're talking now about a possible second wave or hotspots for places that have opened too fast or opened without testing and tracing or opened without doing monitoring. That would be the worst situation is if we went through everything we went through, you start to reopen, you're not doing the monitoring and the vigilance, and it actually winds up with another hotspot or cluster. Or worse, frankly. Andrew Cuomo: (09:41) And remember, we are still learning about this COVID-19 virus. And one of the things I find most infuriating is the facts continue to change with this virus. Nobody's fault. But since we didn't know about the virus, we had certain assumptions that quote unquote experts made. Andrew Cuomo: (10:02) ... certain assumptions that quote unquote "experts" made, and those facts change. From day one, it started that this virus was coming from China, so everybody's looking to the West Coast from the West, and it turns out the virus came from the East. It came from Europe and it walked right through our airports and nobody was screening and no one was doing anything. And that it was not in March, it was coming here January, February, and March. Virus was here much sooner than anybody knew. Andrew Cuomo: (10:38) A fact was if you have the virus and you have the antibodies, then you're immune, so we can put together a workforce that can go back to work. People who had the virus and now have the antibodies. Now they're not so sure if you're immune, if you have the antibodies. Andrew Cuomo: (10:54) It started, children were not going to be affected by the coronavirus. Now we're not so sure that children aren't affected and we're watching carefully this inflammatory syndrome that is starting to hit children who are COVID positive, or have the antibodies for positive. Andrew Cuomo: (11:15) Most recently, CDC says infected surfaces are not a major source of transmission. When we started, it was about infected surfaces and you could get it from infected surfaces and that was a major problem. We have a very aggressive disinfecting campaign going on across the state, public transit, et cetera. Now the CDC says, yeah, that's not a major source. It's airborne. It's droplets. That's a major source. If the major source, if they're right, and the major transmission source is airborne, it takes you back to wear a mask. Wear a mask. Andrew Cuomo: (12:04) This reminds me in some ways of the education campaign we went through after we learned about the HIV virus and transmission of the HIV. I remember how many times and how long we had to talk to people about wearing a prophylactic and how it could make the difference between life and death. The mask can make the difference between life and death. I know it's a small thing. It's de minimis, it doesn't look like much. But if it's now primarily airborne, you know the mask works. Andrew Cuomo: (12:41) How do you know the mask works? First responders have a lower infection rate than the general population. Nurses, doctors in emergency rooms have a lower infection rate than the general population. How can that possibly be? Because they wear the mask and they do the hand sanitizing. You feel out of control. You can't protect yourself. You can't protect your family. Yes, you can. That's what the mask does. You want to be in control of yourself. You want to greatly increase your odds, wear the mask. Andrew Cuomo: (13:19) By the way, we're not just asking you, the mask is mandatory in public settings, public transportation. If you're in a taxi or an Uber, private carriers or any time you are in public within six feet of another person, the mask is mandatory. It is not just a nice thing to do, a responsible thing to do for citizen duty, it is mandatory that you wear the mask within six feet of another person in public. You don't have a right to infect another person. You don't. Look at the Constitution, tell me where it says you have the right to infect another person. You don't. Andrew Cuomo: (14:09) Smart, how do we reopen smart? It's up to you. It's up to us. That's both the beauty and the conundrum of this situation. It is wholly dependent on social action. Wholly dependent on social action. You tell me what people do, I will tell you the results. Period. Government can say whatever it wants, I can sit up here and say whatever I want. I can't control it. People can control it. Andrew Cuomo: (14:46) May 5th, we announced a wear a mask in public campaign. We asked people to submit videos and we would pick the winner by vote of the people and the winner would become a public service announcement. We had over 600 submissions for videos. We showed you the five finalists that are now open for voting. Andrew Cuomo: (15:16) Here's another question for the astute press corp. The voting has been open for two-and-a-half days. You can go to a website now and you can vote. How many votes have been cast thus far on the website? How many people have gone to the website in two-and-a-half days, watched the videos and voted for the best video? What's the number of people who went to the website in two-and-a-half days? Speaker 1: (15:50) Didn't you just say 600? Andrew Cuomo: (15:53) No, I said there was 600. This is emblematic of my interaction with the press. I did not say that. I said 600 people submitted videos. Of the 600 submissions, five were picked as finalists. People could then vote on the five finalists. The question is over two-and-a-half days, you're all political geniuses, over two-and-a-half days, how many people do you think went to the website to vote for one of those five finalists? Speaker 1: (16:36) 50,000. Andrew Cuomo: (16:36) 50? Speaker 2: (16:38) 5,000. Andrew Cuomo: (16:40) Five? [Sif 00:06:43]? Sif: (16:43) I'll go with 25. Andrew Cuomo: (16:44) 25? 65,000 people. Isn't that amazing? Zach wins. Andrew Cuomo: (16:58) The competition is still open. We're going to show you now five of the runner-ups. I tell you of the 600, all 600 are going to be put up. They are amazing what people did. Really amazing. But we're going to show you five more of the, five of the runners-up. Speaker 3: (17:16) United we stand and divided we fall. We mask up not just to obey the law, but to obey the laws of nature. We hope for immunity in our community. We pray for normality in this calamity. We want hope. Speaker 3: (17:31) I mask up not because I fear getting sick, but because I fear getting you sick. I mask up because days, weeks or months of hot breath and acne bumps is better than knowing my wife will soon have to raise a fatherless son. Mask up. Andrew Cuomo: (18:17) I loved that one. If I could have vote, I would have voted for that. Speaker 4: (18:43) You see this mask right here? It goes over my ears. I can breathe through it well, so you shouldn't fear. Speaker 4: (18:51) It stayed inside my mask. It's harder to get sick when we're covered, that's the trick. Speaker 4: (18:56) Masks, if you've never worn one before this pandemic. Masks, put one on. Not too tight. Speaker 4: (19:02) Ear, ear, nose, mouth. Keep on wearing your mask. Andrew Cuomo: (19:32) Very close. On the submissions, they had to be the right length of time, they couldn't use copyrighted music. A lot of them used music that you can't just appropriate and run as a commercial. But I tell you, real talent. Oh, gees, I give you the wrong number on the number of votes. I give you last night's number. Number of votes, 92, 000. 92,000. Andrew Cuomo: (20:02) 92,000, and you have a lot of late night voters, obviously. What you see there in those ads, New York tough, smart, united, disciplined, loving. Mr. Sif. Mr. Sif: (20:18) I have an annoying question. Andrew Cuomo: (20:21) You always have an annoying question Mr. Siff. One day, there will be a fun, upbeat, positive question. Mr. Sif: (20:29) My question is the city changed its standard for what it needs to reopen, the mayor's office, today to thresholds, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, indicating that what they have been using, their downward trajectory, wasn't an effective measure. My question is, is your office coordinating with them on those measurements or do they still need to meet the same dataset that all the other regions do? Andrew Cuomo: (20:58) That is not an annoying question. It is a repetitive question. The state set criteria that every region must meet. Their criteria doesn't change. What is safe in Buffalo, is safe in New York, is safe in Suffolk. Those criteria don't change. I don't know what you're talking about, threshold. Do you know? Does anybody- Speaker 5: (21:32) We are basically align with the city. They say it a little differently, but ICU capacity is one of our metrics. Hospitalization capacity is one of ours, not only the decline, but the average daily increase and they use a diagnostic test for positive rates. We use a gross hospitalization of people walking in the door because that's a more stable version, but everybody has it. And we're basically aligned from the city and the state perspective. I think what they've come around to is we use a three day rolling average, where they're also starting to look at it that way, because you don't want one day to throw everything off because it may not be reflective of the overall trend. Mr. Sif: (22:07) What the mayor said today was if the hospitalization stayed below 200 for 10 straight days, they're in the clear. Their hospitalizations are now at 76. Whereas looking at the decline, wasn't working as an effective measure. Are you aligned on that point, the threshold? Speaker 5: (22:24) The city of New York has been down 39 straight days on hospitalizations. That's what's driving the charts that the governor shows. And we're also looking at day to day trends as well. I don't know about the 200, but both of those things are sort of working in tandem. Andrew Cuomo: (22:36) Yeah. It's simpler than that, right? You can go to the state dashboard. You can see the numbers. No local official can open or close, right? Suffolk County executive can't open Suffolk. He can't close Suffolk. He can't open Suffolk schools. He can't close Suffolk schools. We said deliberately, at the beginning of this, it's going to be one standard that is data driven. There's no politics here and safe is safe. What's safe for your health in New York City... I'm not going to put your life at more risk or less risk than a life in Buffalo. I mean, it doesn't work that way. There's statewide criteria. They're on the dashboard. There's no changing the criteria. And it's not up to the local officials. It's a statewide decision across the board. Now, if you're saying, well, look at particular circumstances in any locality. I mean, we could always do that, but that doesn't change where we are now. Zach: (23:54) Governor, Memorial Day is as you know, is the unofficial kickoff of summer, and a lot of people are probably going to be heading out to the beach. Are you concerned that the beach policy's a little disjointed when it comes to the city of New York. In other words, beaches on Long Island may be open, but city beaches in Queens right next door will not be. Is that going to lead to confusion, possibly chaos? Do you feel as though the city should be coordinated with the state and other states? Andrew Cuomo: (24:17) Look, if there's a lack of coordination... well, I'm going to say the other way. If I have the ability to coordinate local policies, right, I have the ability to override local policies. The policy in the city of New York is that the beaches are closed. I understand that... I think the beaches in Nassau are open. The state beaches on Long Island are open. I think we have more of an operational issue, Zach. I think because the city beaches are closed, you'll have more demand, not on the Nassau beaches, because they're for Nassau residents only and Suffolk beaches are for Suffolk residents only, so you'll have more demand on the state beaches, Jones Beach, Hither Hills, Robert Moses, Sunken Meadow, you could see an increased demand on those state beaches on Long Island, because they are open to New York City residents. Now, we have a 50% capacity for those beaches also, so they can do social distancing. But I understand the policy in New York City. I understand the Nassau policy and I understand the Suffolk policy. They can make sense for the locality, but still create a regional issue. And I think the regional issue people in New York City say, "I want to go to the beach." We do have state beaches open precisely for that reason. Speaker 6: (26:02) If I could follow up on Andrew's question, what happens for the city says, "We bridged it," and this... the threshold and the state says, "No, no, no, you're not there yet?" Andrew Cuomo: (26:15) The local governments do not have any legal authority to open or reopen. They never have. Speaker 6: (26:25) What happens then? Andrew Cuomo: (26:26) Nothing. What happens if you stand up and say, " I think New York City should be open," what happens? Nothing. Speaker 6: (26:33) What do New Yorkers supposed to make of this? He says, "Go out," and he says, "Stay at home?" What do I do? Andrew Cuomo: (26:40) It would never happen. That would never happen. The mayor knows, first of all, the legality of the situation. And if you had a situation like that, we would talk. Speaker 7: (26:51) But I think the governor's point as in what Jim was trying to say is that the indicators are in line with one another, so while the mayor has always had indicators that he has been looking at day to day, specifically in the H&H hospitals, and then more broadly in terms of larger hospital capacity, they fit directly with our indicators. The two are not going like this. They're going together in a straight line. We communicate all day long with New York City. They understand the legal issues here. They understand that the state is going to be the one to give the green light, and they at the same time, because it's the mayor's job to manage the city, is looking at his own numbers, but they don't contradict one another. They fall in line with one another and we're working well very well together on this. There's no daylight. Speaker 5: (27:29) And these are all... these are not made of state... mostly this is CDC guidance, which we're following. This is prescribed by the federal CDC. We're aligned on those issues. They're the same criteria that we're all following. Andrew Cuomo: (27:41) What you guys tend to do is you juxtapose two different things. We have about 180 hospitals in downstate New York. Okay. Let's say downstate, 200, just have a round number. Of the 200, H&H, Health and Hospital Corporation has about, is it 11? Speaker 8: (28:08) 11, 12. Andrew Cuomo: (28:10) 11, 12. 11? 11. Of those 11 are H&H hospitals. H&H, those 11 hospitals are run by the city of New York and the mayor. And he determines policy for those 11 hospitals. Elmhurst is one of those hospitals, et cetera. H&H is 11 of 200 hospitals. H&H and the policy of those hospitals is not a policy that covers all hospitals or all of New York City or all of downstate. It's only those 11 hospitals. Whatever the policy in those 11 hospitals, those H&H hospitals, that's up to the city. They are city run hospitals. They are regulated by the state also, but they're city run hospitals. But that is not a health policy that affects the 200 other hospitals or public health policy outside of those 11 hospitals. Do you know what I'm saying? The city often will make policy for those 11 hospitals that it's reported... it sounds like it's policy for all hospitals. That's not true. Speaker 9: (29:36) The CDC is counting that there are 29,000 deaths in New York state. The state's numbers on the dashboard are about 23,000. New York City says that there are 21,000 deaths. When is the state going to include probable deaths with that total? Speaker 8: (29:55) We have been looking at the confirmed and the probable deaths. These are the numbers that we have. We continue to update that data that's there. [inaudible 00:30:02] Speaker 9: (30:01) Do you have a timeline? Speaker 10: (30:02) Date that data that's there. Speaker 11: (30:02) Do you have a timeline for when- Speaker 12: (30:04) Right now what's on the website is confirmed deaths because most often probable deaths, they're not always cases of COVID. So we want to be absolutely certain that we're posting confirmed as they largely come from the hospital reporting system. So we are reporting what the state hospitals and the hospitals in the state and other areas are reporting to us. And that's what's being posted confirmed deaths. That's the most reliable information. We'll have a retrospective as the governor has said in the past because there's probably under-reporting, there's people in homes and other places, but right now we're monitoring the hospital deaths being reported from the hospitals in this state. Andrew Cuomo: (30:39) Yeah. The premise in your question is controversial. You stated a fact in your question. How many deaths are from COVID? That would suggest confirmed deaths from COVID are X. There's a second category of probable deaths from COVID. They're two different answers and they're two different questions. Well just combine probable with confirmed. Some people say, "No. They're not confirmed deaths. I asked how many deaths do you have from coronavirus?" Probable is different than confirmed. Probable is probable, but I have to check. I don't know. I have to do further testing. We've had many cases that were probable coronavirus, turned out not to be coronavirus. That's why they call them probable. Andrew Cuomo: (31:41) Your question says, "Well, just put them together." Yeah, but there are a lot of scientists and experts who say don't put them together because they're two different categories, they're two different answers. Confirmed deaths and probable deaths. Now some places just put them together. They then get criticized. You can't put them together. They're two different categories. So just state this number of confirmed, this number of probable. And then if you want to put them together, shorthand, that's up to you. But scientifically they're two different categories. Speaker 10: (32:18) One other thing, we called the CDC the other day, specifically asking them about what is going on in other states where some merge and some don't. So just what the governor mentioned here is that we asked some confirmed, some presumed or probable deaths, and they said they need to figure out how to get that information out to the public as well. Andrew Cuomo: (32:37) It's how precise you want to be. People who want precision want them separate. I want confirmed deaths and then probable deaths, but they're two different things. Andrew Cuomo: (32:48) Let's take one more. Speaker 13: (32:49) [crosstalk 00:32:49] I have two questions. The state has a 13 billion deficit. What's the hold up on legalizing marijuana and mobile sports betting? If the state needs money, why not focus on those areas instead of relying on the federal government for a complete bailout? Andrew Cuomo: (33:06) Yeah. It is the federal government's obligation, as part of managing this national pandemic, that they provide financial relief to state and local governments just the way they took care of the big corporations, right? Are you saying the federal government should bail out airlines and hotels and big corporations, but nurses, doctors, police, officers, firefighters should lose their jobs? No, that's unconscionable to me. Why don't you pass legalization of marijuana? I support legalization of marijuana passage. I've worked very hard to pass it. I believe we will, but we didn't get it done this last session because it's a complicated issue and it has to be done in a comprehensive way. Speaker 13: (34:05) And what about mobile sports betting? Andrew Cuomo: (34:07) Same thing. Speaker 13: (34:10) Okay. And I have another question. Two million New Yorkers are unemployed. Why can't the state Labor Department hire New Yorkers to handle unemployment claims instead of outsourcing that job to out of state workers? Andrew Cuomo: (34:24) Who says we've outsourced- Speaker 13: (34:26) [crosstalk 00:34:26] Sorry, hired out of state workers to handle unemployment claims. Speaker 14: (34:31) So let's look at what we did. We went from about 50,000 calls on a maximum per day at the Department of Labor, dealing with unemployment calls, to a high of eight million calls a day, now averaging about three million calls. So we ramped up from 500 staff to 3,100 staff. And actually we have about 7,000 during a week actually working on these. To staff up quickly, we hired five outside contractors. Those contractors hired almost all New Yorkers. There's a case where one contractor hired some out of state workers, but our priority at the time and still is getting as many people to work on those claims and get the claims out and deliver for all of those who filed unemployment claims, right? We've gotten $10 billion out the door to, we now have over two million New Yorkers. So a hundred percent of the full time employees are New York State workers. The vast majority of the private contractors are using New York State employees. One contract did some subcontractors, but again, our priority is and was making sure that we're getting those monies out to the New Yorkers as quickly as possible. Andrew Cuomo: (35:48) Is there anything left out, that I left out, doctor? Speaker 11: (35:53) Just really quickly, there are accusations of squatters out in the Hamptons taking advantage of your well-intentioned non eviction directive. So they're refusing to vacate, even though leases are up. And some of these people have high paying jobs. So what do you advise these homeowners to do? Andrew Cuomo: (36:05) If there is blatant... Well, it's not a fraud situation. Let me go back to my Attorney General days. They're committing fraud. They're not committing a fraud because the non eviction was not income specific, but the order said it had to be COVID related, right? And there might be a cause of action there. Let me look at the law and put on my Attorney General hat and I'll get back to you on that. Thank you guys. Happy Memorial Day. I will see- Speaker 15: (36:43) [crosstalk 00:36:43] people are taking hydroxychloroquine. Andrew Cuomo: (36:45) What about hydroxy? Speaker 15: (36:46) A new study has shown that 96,000 people across the world have shown a double digit increased risk of death among people that have taken hydroxychloroquine. Is a state tracking what has happened to people in the state that have used it? Andrew Cuomo: (37:02) The state is adopting the CDC guidance on hydroxychloroquine as state policy. So whatever the CDC said, the president's CDC, is what we're doing in New York. Thank you guys. Speaker 15: (37:14) But is the state tracking- Speaker 13: (37:16) [crosstalk 00:37:16] Governor, will you look at the state of this outsourcing? Andrew Cuomo: (37:16) Thank you.