New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo COVID-19 Press Conference Transcript December 3

Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (00:00) I said next week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. This week spontaneity still works. Today, day 278. Update on the numbers because the numbers are changing. Positivity in micro clusters, 5.91. Statewide positivity with micro clusters, 4.49 with micro clusters, 4.8, over 200,000 tests, which is a lot of tests. 61 New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 139 up on hospitalization. 41 up on ICU. Four up on intubation. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (00:51) It's all about hospitalizations, hospitalization rate, hospitalization capacity. Over the last three days, okay, that's how many people entered the hospitals from those areas over the last three days. Southern tier has done really remarkably well since we had that problem. I think it really communicated to people. This is changing hospitals over the past week, okay, past seven days. New York City up 249, Long Island 181, Finger Lakes 142, Mid-Hudson 123. Obviously, highest number in New York City. So really you want to look at this compared to the population in that area, right? Yes. You're going to get more people out in New York City because New York City has 9 million people. This is the hospitalization by percentage of the region, which I think is probably the most telling tale. Western New York and Finger Lakes both have 0.03% of their populations hospitalized, 0.03. You then get to central New York, Mohawk Valley, Mid-Hudson, Long Island, Southern Tier, Capital Region, you're at 0.02. New York City, North country 0.01. Got it? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (02:41) That is how many people are hospitalized as a percentage of that population. And that is, I think, probably the most relevant chart right now. In the broad scope of things, we're dealing with hospitalizations and increases. We are doing dramatically better than virtually every other state in the country. Who's doing better? Maine, Vermont and Hawaii. Maine, Vermont and Hawaii are in a different situation than New York, less population, less cities, less density, etc. We have been going back and forth with Massachusetts, but Massachusetts now is higher than New York is today. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (03:34) Total scope of things. Total number of hospital beds in the state is what? 53,000. Hold it a second. Go back. It's not totally accurate. 53,000 until we what? We flex of the flex and surge. We can increase the 53,000 beds up to 75,000 beds which we did last time. Right? We added 50,000 beds. Do you remember that? How many beds are currently occupied? 35,000 beds. How many beds are currently occupied with COVID patients? 4,063. So that's the dimensions that we're dealing with. We're dealing with hospitalization rate, hospitalization capacity. You start with 53,000 beds. You can end elective surgery. Reduce the number of people who are in those beds. You can expand the system. It's difficult but you can do it. We did it last time by 50%. that brought you to about 75,000 beds. Today, 4,000 people hospitalized with COVID. At our height. How many people did we have hospitalized with COVID? At our peak, about 19,000, just to put all these numbers in perspective. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (05:03) The Legislature passed a rent assistance bill. The rent assistance bill appropriated $100 million, up to $100 million, but had eligibility requirements on what income levels could qualify. We ran the program. The number of eligible applicants only brought us to $40 million in rental aid by the parameters of the law. By executive order I'm going to change the law. Spoken to the legislative leaders about this. Reopen the application window, extend the eligibility to help more New Yorkers. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (06:03) Washington is considering passage of a bill which would help with state and local financing, unemployment insurance, transportation, a vaccination funding, etc. They have been going back and forth. Speaker Pelosi put forth the HEROES bill months ago. They were then talking about a possible compromise bill. Senator McConnell has been extraordinarily difficult. His statement was let the states go bankrupt. 50 states go bankrupt, that's bad for the country because the country is 50 States. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (06:46) Senator Manchin has pro proposed basically a bipartisan compromise bill of $908 billion. I spoke to Senator Manchin. He explained his reasoning, which I think is sound. I spoke with Speaker Pelosi. I agree that, as Governor of New York, that we need help desperately and something is better than nothing. And as a first down payment, I urge them to get something done before they leave for Christmas. Families will not have a holiday if they don't act and if there isn't some aid. President-elect Biden also urged them to get something done. Senator Manchin, who I have great respect for by the way, says that he believes this is the best they can get done. Again, it's a first down payment. It doesn't come near to the need. It would be a short-term bill until March. And I would urge them to get this first down payment bill passed before they leave just so families have funding for the holiday season and it takes some pressure off state and local governments. They would then have to come back and do a real bill next year. I'm sorry. Also, as Chairman of the National Governors Association, National Governors Association, we asked for $500 billion in state and local funding. National Governors Association, that's Democrats and Republicans, we sent a letter supporting a $500 billion state and local package. This bill has $160 billion in state and local funding. So it's not nearly what the governors asked for of this country. But again, something is better than nothing. And we will support a first down payment bill. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (09:14) The next chapter is going to be vaccine distribution and vaccine acceptance. This is the weapon that wins the COVID war and we have to get serious about this. The distribution is a massive undertaking by government. I've said a number of times, it has to be fair. It has to be equitable. The state has to have funding to do it. We have to be able to get the black and brown communities and poor communities. Blacks died at twice the rate that whites died. Browns died at one and a half times the rate that whites died. They've had less COVID testing. They have higher infection rates. There is- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (10:03) They have higher infection rates. There is no justification not to have a very aggressive outreach program for the black and brown community. But government is going to have to do its part. People are also going to have to do their part. They're going to have to accept this vaccine. And right now, all the current data suggests people are very skeptical about the vaccine and the estimates are you need about 75% of the population to be vaccinated for it to be effective. And you have 50% of the population roughly saying, they're not going to take the vaccine. Mathematically, that doesn't work. You can't get the 75% if 50% say they aren't going to take it. But this is here and now, this vaccine distribution is going to happen in the next couple of weeks. New York state is going to be very aggressive about the distribution. I believe there's a great advantage to the state that most effectively vaccinates all people, and we'll be reaching out and educating people in the state. I would never ask anyone in the state to take a vaccine that I was unwilling to take myself. That's always been my standard. I'm not asking you to send your child to school, if I wouldn't send my child to school. I'm not asking you to put yourself in a situation that I wouldn't put myself. And I won't ask New Yorkers to take a vaccine that I wouldn't take myself. But it is real and we need people to start to focus on it, because we want to get it done very quickly. And I want New Yorkers to start to think about it seriously. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (11:51) We're not going to get to the general population for a while, but you will start for nursing home distribution. So you'll have parents asking their family, “What do you think? Should I take it or not?” You'll have healthcare staff having to decide whether or not they take it. And people should start focusing on it because it's real and it's here. And again, New York wants to do it as quickly as we can. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (12:23) Just to show you how real it is. In this box... What is in this box? Maybe it's a Christmas present. Who would I give a Christmas present to at this point? Let's not ask. This is a box of vaccines. Pfizer, which is a great New York company, made the vaccine. Pfizer developed the vaccine without any assistance from the federal government. They did it all on their own. And we're very proud to call them a New York company. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (13:03) The vaccine process is a complicated process and the distribution is going to take a lot of work. And a lot of effort, the package itself comes with a Geo Tracker GPS tracking device that can track the program and a thermo monitor, so it monitors the temperature of the package. You want to know where the package is and the package has to stay at the right temperature. Because if it doesn't, then the vaccine is destroyed. It comes in wrapped in dry ice. The dry ice, because it has to be ultra cold. When you receive the package, you have to replace the dry ice, and then you have to replace the dry ice every five days. Okay? Under the dry ice is the actual package that has the trays in it. The trays have the actual vials in it. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (14:38) By the way, the vials are made glass from Corning Glass, another great New York company. A vial contains enough for five dosages. The vial comes with a diluting liquid and the actual vial gets diluted before the vaccination actually happens. One tray, they call this a tray, one tray can hold up to 195 vials. Each vial, this is a vial, can do five dosages. The package itself can hold five trays. So, roughly 5,000 dosages could be in this one box. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (15:40) The storage and handling of the box itself is complicated. You can only open the box two times a day for 60 to 90 seconds each time, because keeping it the right temperature is very important. So it's either in ultra-cold storage or it has dry ice, but then you can only open it twice a day for 60 seconds to 90 seconds each time. When you actually do the vaccine, you take out the vial, the vial is frozen, you have to allow the vial to thaw at room temperature for about 30 minutes. You then dilute the vial and let it stand for two hours. And then you have six hours to administer the dosage. Okay? So this is a complicated procedure. That's one dosage, and then the person has to come back and receive the second dosage about 21 days later. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (16:54) So, the package comes, it either has to be stored in ultra-cold storage or the dry ice is replaced and the dry ice can keep it. Up to 5,000 dosages, five dosages per vial. And then there's a procedure to dethaw the vial, dilute the dosage, and then administer the dosage within six hours thereafter. And that's one dosage. Second dosage is 21 days later. The vaccine really isn't effective until after the second dosage. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (17:41) So it's not easy, but it's real and they're being manufactured and they're going to be shipped. And we're very proud of Pfizer and we're proud of Corning. And we are working very hard to be ready for the distribution and training people on the distribution to make sure it's all done correctly. But this is the weapon that is going to win the war. And that is the light at the end of the tunnel, right? So it's not tomorrow, it's not a short tunnel, but we know the way through this. We just have to get there. And we have to get there with as little loss of life as possible. Questions? Speaker 1: (18:35) Governor, what's the plan for us staffing? You've talked about how it is a big concern, especially for maybe smaller or medium-sized hospitals who might not be able to tap into staff at other locations. In the spring obviously, we had the big plan to bring in volunteers from across the country. What sort of beyond retiree sort of thing, what sort of the plan to help with that issue? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (19:01) We have the surge and flex system, which deals with hospital capacity. Hospital capacity has several elements within it, number of beds, availability of equipment, availability of staff. They're all in the capacity constellation. When you run into a problem with capacity, then you have the ability to actually flex from different hospital systems. So, if one hospital system is in trouble because they're running out of capacity for any of the three elements, beds, equipment staffing, then you can shift to another hospital system. Speaker 2: (19:44) Governor [inaudible 00:19:44] things. Is this a mock-up presumably or is this- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (19:45) No. Speaker 2: (19:49) So this is the actual vaccine, which you have up there? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (19:49) I will give you the first one, if you come here. I will be the first one to administer under doctor supervision. Speaker 3: (19:58) That's an actual vaccine? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (19:58) I'm going to also put some of this, New York Clean in the vaccine, which will have the added- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (20:03) ... New York clean in the vaccine, which will have the added benefit of cleaning your arteries while you're being treated by the vaccine. We can do it all at the same time. Jesse: (20:14) Real quick. On the- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (20:15) There is no vaccine in this vial. It is a vial, but it is without vaccine. Jesse: (20:22) So coming back to the focus areas, the hotspots- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (20:25) But I didn't want to tell him that. I was going to put this in the vial and inject it into his own. Clean up his act. Jesse: (20:35) So going back to the focus zones, at this point, I've lost count, I believe there's 22 or so that are above 5%. Do you feel that the state has moved from kind of a containment strategy at this point to a mitigation strategy as part of this second wave? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (20:50) I don't know that really containment and mitigation are applicable anymore, Jesse. Those were sort of terms they used early on. We are trying to contain, we are trying to mitigate. We've been doing both, right? Reduce the spread, flatten the curve, but also contain it. So I think we've been pursuing both strategies now from the get-go. Jesse: (21:22) Okay. And on that- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (21:22) There's no doubt you're seeing a nationwide global increase in the overall numbers. And then it depends on how you want to argue it, New York is seeing much less of an increase than other states, but we're still seeing an increase. Jesse: (21:36) Do you feel that the hotspot strategy, the micro-clusters, has worked? Has that been a success considering the kind of spread of it? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (21:42) Oh yeah. Oh yes. Look, you're not going to ... Do I think we're going to defy human nature and global dynamics? No. You're into the holiday season, you're seeing the same thing all across the world. Now, defy is a funny word. Has New York defied the dynamic more than other states? Yes. Has it defied it in total? No. You know it has defied it because that's the Johns Hopkins. Can you put up Johns Hopkins again? The Johns Hopkins chart shows New York has defied the national surge, right? Otherwise, New York would have to be up there with Idaho and Kansas and South Dakota. Hasn't defied it absolutely. But it has largely. That's why we're all the way at the bottom. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (22:48) The micro-clusters is because we have so much data, much more data than any other state because we have so many tests. We know exactly where people live. So from a medical point of view, you can target much more closely and you can target the medical resources so you're not chasing all over the state. You know it's this community. And to the extent you have to do economic restrictions, it's just this community. You don't have to close a restaurant in Queens because you have a problem in Brooklyn. You don't have to close a restaurant in Utica because you have a problem in Albany. Jesse: (23:33) On the same token though, when you talk about the using hospitalization rates as a new metric, right, to establish these zones, are you at all concerned about waiting this kind of seven to ten days after Thanksgiving? Once again, this is a virus that has shown itself to be very effective in spreading. A couple of days can make a difference. Are you worried about changing those metrics that far, taking that much time to change the metrics? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (23:59) Well, we're adding the hospitalization rate to the factors, right? But where we are now, the hospitalization is most important. Are you going to see the infection rate increase? Yes. You're going to see it continue to increase, I believe, all through the hospital season. You talk to people like Dr. Fauci, the CDC experts, they all say the same thing. Jesse: (24:27) I guess the question is if the restrictions are pegged to orange, red, yellow zones on businesses and things like that, and we're waiting an extra seven to ten days to restrict those things while we kind of assemble data post-Thanksgiving, is that waiting too long? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (24:43) Well, we have restricted them. And here's the real problem. The valve analogy and restricting, slowing the spread. At one time, you controlled, to a large extent, activity that was causing the spread. At this point, you don't control the overwhelming majority of the activity causing the spread because over 70% of the spread is beyond your control. It's in small gatherings, it's in household parties. It was at the Thanksgiving table. Government cannot control that. The gyms, salons, the protocols are working. They're a very small percentage of increase. Restaurants, bars. Jesse: (25:47) [inaudible 00:25:47] for a second. You said 70% of the indoor gatherings. But then when we spoke to Rob yesterday, he said that's only the 70% of the 20% that you've been able to contact trace. So that's actually, really, only, verifiable, only 14% that we know are coming from indoor gatherings. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (26:01) No, no, no. Jesse: (26:01) Extrapolating that to the whole. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (26:04) You're extrapolating to the whole. 20% of the contact tracing is the database, which is tens of thousands of points of data. How many people is the 20%? Do you remember? What was it? 30,000. You have 30,000 data points. 30,000 data points is a large sample. You take a statewide sample, you do 500 people, you extrapolate to the state, right? You do 500 people, you're going to extrapolate to the nation. You have 30,000 data points. That's a lot of data to extrapolate from. Speaker 4: (27:00) But Governor- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (27:00) Let's do someone else first. Can we just? Speaker 4: (27:03) [inaudible 00:27:07]. I was just looking to clarify what he was asking. How can you say that's a representative sample or not? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (27:10) I said 30,000 is a very large sample. Speaker 4: (27:13) To Jesse's point, you can't really, necessarily say that's a representative sample to completely rule out any spread from any businesses that are still open or indoor dining. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (27:24) 30,000, I think anybody would say, is a very, very large sample to use as a reference point. I mean, 30,000. You know anything else that has a database of 30,000? Speaker 4: (27:40) I do know that when it comes to- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (27:41) Ann, do you have a question? Ann: (27:44) Yes, I have one on vaccines and one on nursing homes. First of all, on the vaccine, you said that you wouldn't ask anyone to take the vaccine that you wouldn't take yourself. Will you take the vaccine? Will you do it like you did with the test and do it in front of everyone? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (27:56) Yes. Next question. Yes, I said that. Ann: (27:57) Will you be one of the first? Will you take it? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (28:01) I said that. Ann: (28:02) You will? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (28:02) I said I would not ask anyone to take a vaccine that I wouldn't take myself. I said I wouldn't ask anyone to take the COVID test that I wouldn't take myself. Ann: (28:09) And on the skepticism about vaccines, a lot of folks that we've spoken with, they're concerned that they'll have to take a vaccine to get on a plane or that the state will be very strict and make people take the vaccine in order to get into a nursing home or eventually to go to school. Do you support measures like that? To get on a plane to travel, should you have to take a vaccine for COVID? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (28:35) We don't control air travel requirements. That's a federal obligation. Speaker 5: (28:42) Governor, I have a question that's actually not in regards to this. But today we found out about five big arrests of MTA workers who made hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime hours that they didn't actually work. Actually, the MTA inspector general was involved in this. But anyway, the arrests are tied to a federal investigation. What do you think of this? And do you think that this is a sign of corruption or mismanagement in the MTA? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (29:06) I think there are bad apples in every line of work. You have a multiple thousand workforce, you're going to have people who take advantage of the system. I was the attorney general in this state. There are bad bankers, there are bad brokers, there are bad lawyers, there are bad doctors, there are bad college presidents. And I have no doubt that there are people who will abuse the system. I also did MTA cases as the attorney general, by the way, on disability benefits. You have to have a system in place that can catch the person who commits fraud. There's an old saying before your time, locks keep honest people honest. Locks keep honest- Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (30:03) ... honest. Locks keep honest people honest. Have a system in place where if somebody defrauds the system, you catch them. I said to the MTA, I went to a facility late at night. I spoke about this gentleman named Jim Dwyer. He's a great columnist, was within New York Times, really a beautiful guy who I've known for many, many years. We go to an MTA facility about midnight one night and people were supposed to be working and nobody was there. Nobody was there. We went through the whole place, said to the supervisor, "Where are the employees?" And there was supposed to be a camera. The camera was not operating. Right? So you have to have the systems in place where people know, if I leave early, then I can get caught and I will get fired. And if you don't have those systems in place, yeah, locks keep honest people honest. Yeah, last one. Speaker 5: (31:22) A followup though. A lot of this overtime mess goes back to even further than 2018. How come this hasn't been rectified prior? Again, not to say you control the MTA, but that has been alleged, that you do control the MTA. [crosstalk 00:31:34] Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (31:35) You will never eradicate all bad actors in any system. Speaker 5: (31:40) But $460,000 is a lot of money in overtime. That's actually double what your salary would be. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (31:50) Yeah. But how many people work, was it? Speaker 5: (31:52) Five guys. And that's a large amount. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (31:54) Five guys. How many employees of the MTA about? Speaker 6: (31:57) 70,000. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (31:58) 70,000. So it's five guys. You have a 70,000 person workforce. Right? You're always going to have bad apples. Go ahead. Speaker 7: (32:06) Governor, just a couple of questions for you. You talked about hospital beds, but do you know how many ICU beds are currently available? Also any comments on the State Board of Elections certifying every race today, except for the 22nd Congressional District race? And one more question. Under normal circumstances, the Electoral College would be casting their votes, including yourself, here from the Capitol on December 14th. Is that still going to be happening here or will that be happening virtually? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (32:30) Those are all very hard questions that I do not know the answers to, but we will try to work them through one at a time. Where do the electors act? Speaker 8: (32:43) I actually don't know. We usually do it in the Assembly chamber or Senate chamber. I'll find out and get back to you how we're doing it this year. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (32:49) Nobody knows. You have stumped the panel. You win the first [inaudible 00:32:55] award. Come on up and get the first... What was your second question? Speaker 7: (33:03) Any comments on the State Board of Elections certifying every race except for the 22nd Congressional District race? And do you know how many ICU beds we have? Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (33:14) Any comments on the Board of Elections certifying except the 22nd. Speaker 8: (33:18) [inaudible 00:33:19]. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (33:20) I'm sorry. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (33:22) Yeah. I hope they certify the 22nd race. I know it's a close race. But great, as soon as they can certify all the races, they should. How many ICU beds available. Dr. Zucker's going to answer that question right off the top of his head. Dr. Zucker: (33:39) Yeah. Well, I could tell you by some of the regions, but we're running around 20%. What do you have? Speaker 9: (33:46) There's 6,000 available. Used to be 6,000 total in New York state. About 2,300 are available right now. And there's 377 COVID patients in ICU right now. Speaker 10: (33:56) Is that part of the 53,000 that the governor mentioned before? Speaker 9: (33:57) Yeah, that's right. Speaker 10: (33:57) And when you say 35, 000 are currently occupied, does that include the 4,000 that are elective? Speaker 9: (34:03) Yes. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (34:03) Yes. Speaker 5: (34:07) How many do you expect [inaudible 00:34:07] Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (34:07) If you end elective surgery, the 35,000 comes down. Right? That's part of the flex in surge. Of the 35,000 summer trauma emergency who went in, many of them are elective surgery. That's why when you end elective surgery, you make more beds available. So you open capacity that way. The 50% mandatory addition to the beds brought you from 50 to 75. Right? So that's the flex that you have on the system. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (34:41) I was going to say, did you answer the full question. What did you say? Speaker 5: (34:48) [inaudible 00:34:48] if you could go over. So how many will you need if you go into a second wave? Or do you guys have a larger estimate? Speaker 9: (34:58) How many ICU beds will the state need in a- Speaker 5: (35:00) Yes. We've got right now 6,000 in the state. How many are you estimating you need? Speaker 9: (35:03) So we have 6,000 right now total ICU beds in the state. Speaker 5: (35:09) And that's available [crosstalk 00:35:09]. Speaker 9: (35:09) Total ICU beds in the state. Exact number is 5,976. That's total ICU beds in the state. Of those, 2,144 are available. 2,144 are available. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (35:25) How many of the 2,000 people are COVID people? Speaker 9: (35:30) 377. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (35:31) Okay. Dr. Zucker, you had a point. Speaker 5: (35:35) 377. So how many are you going to need then if you guys... Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (35:36) You don't know. Speaker 5: (35:36) You don't know. [inaudible 00:35:38]. Dr. Zucker: (35:38) I think you should... We've looked at the numbers. Back in March, the percentage of people who were hospitalized for COVID that ended up in the ICU was 25%. And now it's down at 19%. The people who ended up in the ICU who were hospitalized back in March, April, at that time, 85 to 90% ended up intubated. Whereas now, it's only about 45 to 50% that were intubated. It's a reflection of a better management of patients who have coronavirus and also people coming to the hospital probably sooner because they recognize they may be ill. So those numbers have obviously improved from March to now. So that reflect what will happen. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (36:18) The hospital treatment has changed dramatically. Remember the first time it was they went into a hospital, we needed a ventilator, they were intubated. The number of intubations is way down. They've changed the medical protocol. The number that go to ICU is down. The number that is intubated is down. And the number that die has... What's the death rate? Speaker 9: (36:41) It's about 8%. Dr. Zucker: (36:43) Right around, yeah, 8% now. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (36:44) It's 8%, down from what? Speaker 9: (36:45) 23%. Dr. Zucker: (36:45) 23. Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (36:46) 23. Death rate was 23% if you went into the hospital. It's now down to 8%. Okay, I'm going to go to work. Thank you very much. Thank you. Speaker 5: (36:55) [crosstalk 00:36:55] Governor, New York has the highest [inaudible 00:36:59].