Watch live: Gov. Cuomo holds coronavirus press briefing

It's good to see you all, as we've said, providing information to people during this time. I think positive information, objective information, is vitally important, so people should have a realistic basis for acting instead of listening to all the hype they do. Cable TV, as you'll hear, we've been testing 24 hours a day, as you know, we're aggressively testing following leads because we want to find as many people who test positive so we can get them out of circulation. We have 21 new cases we found a total of 76 in New York State right now we have 11 in New York City 57 in Westchester County two in Rockland County in Nassau County and two in Saratoga the two in Saratoga County are obviously new the additional numbers are seven more in New York City than yesterday and 23 more in Westchester the 23 cases in Westchester are all related to the New Rochelle situation 7 in New City York two people got off a cruise ship five appear to have community spread one of those people is in a hospital in the Rockaways in Saratoga the two one is a 57 year old pharmacist one is a 52 year old woman who was in contact with a positive person of Pennsylvania at a conference in Miami so like I said that 76 and that brings the total for Westchester to 57 cases Westchester is an obvious problem for us, they talk about the contingent in groups and then the groups tend to infect more and more people, so Obviously you have to pay special attention to those situations.

I spoke with the Westchester County Executive. George Latimer, the mayor of New Rochelle, meets Branson Congresswoman Nita Lowey. I spoke to Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins ​​about this and all of the respective health commissioners. We already said we would close SAR School, Westchester Day School, and Westchester SAR Torah School. They were supposed to close until March 14th with this new information we may have to reset the quarantine period. We are checking to see if one of the new cases was in close proximity to people after the initial quarantine setup, the quarantine is 14 days from the last possible exposure, so with these new cases there is a possibility of additional exposure later and that is what we are checking now, so there is a possibility that those quarantine periods could be extended.

We are also going to instruct that old man from the nursing home. Living situations in that immediate area of ​​New Rochelle will again suspend outside visitors. Nursing homes are the most problematic environment for us with this disease, so we are very cautious with nursing homes, assisted living facilities, senior housing, etc., and we are now doing a census of that type of facilities in this immediate area of ​​New Rochelle to implement that position without outside visitors voluntary quarantine there have been some reports that people who are in voluntary quarantine are not following the voluntary quarantine when we say they are in preventive quarantine, which is a serious In this situation, we assume that you will act in good faith and that you will follow the rules of voluntary quarantine.

People who are in voluntary quarantine are issued specific rules, violating those rules is, first of all, disrespectful to members of the community you do not respect. your responsibility as a citizen and you may be putting people in danger so although it is called preventive quarantine which is a serious situation we hope that you comply with it if you do not comply and we know that people are not complying with the voluntary quarantine There are other measures that we could take, so respect the voluntary quarantine order. Furthermore, price gouging remains a problem. I was the former attorney general.

I presented these cases. I want companies to know that they could lose their license for price gouging. Seriously, it's not just price gouging, it's price gouging in an emergency situation where the public was being exploited and there are specific legal provisions for price gouging in an emergency situation. I went through this during Superstorm Sandy. We have a customer hotline number at 800.695 is and we take it very seriously for the few dollars you will make during this situation it is not worth it as long as the state police are investigating they will be thorough. I have asked local police departments to investigate as well. so please, not only is it disrespectful, it's also illegal and you will get caught when it comes to this scaremongering with mask sales on eBay, Facebook, etc.

We are also investigating those cases that I did as attorney general where they were traced back to stolen property. I think eBay and Facebook should play a more constructive role here, letting them police their own sites. I understand the freedom of the internet to move the internet, yes, but it's not supposed to sell stolen goods and I think eBay and Facebook are. Basically, I realize that when you see these masks, they are medical masks, where do they come from? You know the person didn't make them in her basement, they had to come from somewhere, so I would ask Eve Bay on Facebook without getting into an argument. the whole philosophical argument about internet freedom just act like good corporate citizens and

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your own websites and what you offer people a couple more points about federal aid Today I spoke with Congresswoman Nita Lowey, as I said yesterday, no I believe that the supplemental appropriation bill provided sufficient funds for New York New York I have obtained a total of thirty-five million dollars.

We had already appropriated forty million dollars. We're probably spending at a rate of about thirty million dollars a week right now. without taking into account the capital costs for purchasing equipment, the potential costs of testing, reimbursement to local health organizations, so I told the congresswoman simply that $35 million is not enough, the congresswoman also You know my general feeling that New York has gotten the short end of the stick from this federal government from day one across the board they started with the salt income tax they won't approve the next phase of the subway Second Avenue will not approve congestion pricing they will not approve skytrain from LaGuardia Airport they will not approve the Gateway tunnels coming from New Jersey, so they took this gratuitous action of ending a global commuter program to extort and exploit us into providing access to the DMV database because they want undocumented drivers, so these were all gratuitous acts. and once enough is enough, Congresswoman Lowey has been phenomenal.

I have known her for many years. She worked with my father. In fact, before she was a big supporter of New York, she got us the funding for the Tappan Zee Bridge, so she's very effective. as a legislator and I went over the situation with her and she said this is just a starting point and she will work deliberately to present our case to the federal government and if she has the opportunity in subsequent legislation or a later opportunity to amend this legislation. that she would take that into consideration our relationship with the cdc is also problematic on an ongoing basis we have the ability to test we have a sophisticated state lab we have sophisticated labs in our state we do not rely on cgc for testing cdc is a bottleneck for this nation when doing the testing you go to the CDC the tests have to come back to Atlanta they have to do the tests then they have to send them back I think the CD killed the CDC they were caught off guard I think they are slow in their response and I think they are slowing down the state.

We needed CDC approval for a lot of these things, so first we could only use the CDC, we could only send tests to the CDC, and then we implored them to let the state do it. their own testing finally allowed the state to do its own testing it became clear that we needed more capacity than just state testing done in a state lab, so we asked to be allowed to contract out our commercial labs, which took a long time to achieve. that approval we now have approval for the outside lab to contract the next hurdle is something called automated testing which is done robotically and is much faster so the labs that we are now going to contract with and we have several approved by Northwell Health, which has tremendous laboratory facilities and testing capacity New York Presbyterian Memorial Sloan Kettering University of Rochester Medical Center Rossville Park and SUNY Upstate Medical University we will contract with them to perform testing.

Many of them have automated testing available, but at this time the CDC does not allow automated testing. So my position with the CDC is good, one thing is that they don't do anything to help us, but at least they don't handcuff us and that's where we are now, so the next hurdle we have to overcome with the CDC is getting them to let us. to do automated testing, if we turn on these labs, we get automated testing, we exponentially increase our testing capacity and that's critical to what we're talking about at this particular time in this evolving situation.

I have officially declared an emergency declaration that gives We have certain powers, we are going to buy and hire more staff, especially to help the local housing authorities, the local health departments are very stressed, you know, we have told the local health departments that have to follow up on the quarantine. mandatory quarantine someone has to knock on the door once a day at random intervals they have to make sure the person is there even in voluntary quarantine we want electronic checks for registration so this is labor intensive so we need the Personnel who need purchases under the emergency declaration have a more expeditious purchasing and testing protocol and we are going to make the last point always the most important.

What are we doing? We are aggressively testing, especially in suspected populations, following the infection tree. because we want to identify people because we want to put them in a position where they don't infect anyone else we want to find positives we are sending mixed messages every time we do these numbers because people say oh there are no more people If we say it's a good news that we know who the people are so now we can put them in an isolated situation and they won't continue to infect people that's the goal of the extra sighs my friends is to find these people so we're.

Doing more testing, the more testing the better, the more positives you find the better because then you can isolate them and slow the spread, that's been the approach. The real question is if you're just living your life well, then what happens if I get the

coronavirus

? The question then, what happens if I contract the

coronavirus

if you contract the coronavirus? 80% of people will walk and figure it out on their own. 20% will be hospitalized. The vulnerable population. Old people. Underlying immunocompromising diseases. We've said that since day one. The data supports that, even taking our situation seventy-six cases in New York, ten people are hospitalized out of the 76, ten people hospitalized out of the 76, that's about 15%, which is in line with what we said, about 20% will be sick and may require hospitalization, so that's actually what we're seeing and there's another piece of data from John Hopkins that is very informative.

John Hopkins has been doing only proper tracking because the real question is what has happened to the people who contracted the coronavirus. For weeks we have known what has happened to people who have contracted the coronavirus. John Hopkins is tracking only this is what they found. 102 thousand cases so far worldwide John Hopkins is working with the World Health Organization, etc. 102 thousand cases mortality rate 34 hundred cases 57,000 recoveries 41,000 sick in the last two and a half weeks listen to this, more people are recovering than are getting infected, so it's exactly what we said, no, the facts become if you contract corona virus, 80% walk around, it resolves itself, 20% get sick, maybe hospitalized.

We have to be very careful with elderly people, that's why I'm very cautious in a nursing home, congregate facilities for elderly people with compromised immune systems and of the 100,000 people who have gone through this, that's what the numbers show, so that that's what happens if you get it, but we still want to do everything we can to make sure that you don't get it and how we do that. contain contain contain get a clue chase it get a clue chase it find the positive quarantine that's exactly what we're doing and it goes very well with those questions, comments that we have,We have performed hundreds of tests.

I don't have more than that because look, we're also outsourcing them now, so when you say state, just to be clear, the state testing in Wodsworth State is We're also contracting out to these six commercial labs that we're just getting started, but in total They are hundreds of thousands. I would test as many people as you can because you want to know now, remember these are not random sample tests, it's not like we're going to come out and say. We just want to get an idea of ​​what the random sample is among the population. These are 400 people who were at a Bar Mitzvah with several people who tested positive.

The 400. This is a child who tested positive. He went to a school and was in a classroom. and then he went to another classroom and then he went to a hockey game he tested both classrooms and he tested the hockey team the more he tests the better what is limited by testing capacity? Now the CDC was not helpful here because the CDC said, which I think caused more anxiety and that's anxiety that we're dealing with now. The CDC says if you want to get a test, get a test and tell your doctor you want a test and it's up to you, your doctor, that was the message reported by the CDC at the same time. time the vice president says oh by the way we don't have the capacity to do the tests well now you created a real problem, you invited people to the house and you can't serve them, you told people to come get tested, all of that has to happen when their doctor approve it, by the way, we cannot do the tests that are now. reverberating and making people very nervous because we have a lot of people calling saying, I want the testing, we really can't handle that amount of testing right now and if you're not on a certain protocol for testing, we can't do it. you well I heard the CDC said all I had to do is go and ask my doctor, I know, but really if you listen to the vice president, he also said we don't have the capacity which has caused consternation, anxiety and worse than the virus, you know it's worse than the virus, anxiety, fear and confusion, so that wasn't helpful, you can't invite more people to the test, so you have the ability to test, it sounds like common sense , right, one plus one plus one still has to equal. three and that's what we're doing in New York.

We have a protocol on prioritization of tests that adjusts to our capacity. As our testing capacity grows, we will expand our protocols for who can get tested, but the protocol for who can get tested has to match. The capacity of the number entering the pipeline must be equal to the number leaving the pipeline. My message would be: If you are elderly or have a compromised immune system, I would seriously consider attending a large gathering now that I have told you that. my mother my mother is an older person she doesn't know it nor believe it nor act like one but she is.

I told him I wouldn't go to big meetings. I would use hand sanitizer when you move around. the city where you

live

in New York City, but in terms of shutting down any gathering, if that's going to happen anywhere, it's going to happen in New Rochelle, we have a situation in New Rochelle, you're seeing those numbers in New Rochelle they expand as you have seen in others they gather around the country and one becomes two becomes four becomes 10 becomes 12 and 12 people then they go out and twelve people play 200 and 200 play 400 and 400 play 800 and that's what we're dealing with now, that's where you start to think no large gatherings, etc., we are closing the schools in that community, we have closed the schools, we can extend the closure of those schools today, we are expanding it to precautions with nursing homes, senior care facilities, etc., if there were large gatherings imminent, which again.

I just spoke with local officials, we don't have any large gatherings imminent, but if there were, I think we would have to take a hard look at whether or not we would cancel them. We allow accelerated purchasing and contracting, which is the things we need now, well, I needed to spend the forty million dollars, forty million dollars, a budget allocation, this is how you pay for what was purchased, the purchasing requirements, some of purchasing protocols do not apply during an emergency declaration, deadlines for an RFP, etc., are returning they are not going to land the airline does not want to land at Stewart Airport the airline wants to land at Kennedy Airport because they have more staff more services at Kennedy Airport we said well the general parameter is if you can quarantine at home well if you cannot quarantine at home we will have Sunni dormitories congregate for quarantine at home.

Do we have something new? There are 73 students who were on the flight that is now returning, going to everything it is going to go. towards hiring staff equipment rental purchasing we are buying swabs we are trying to buy masks we are trying to buy protective equipment we pay for the tests, you know, those six private laboratories that are doing the tests, we will pay for those tests locally the authorities housing needs funding because they're incurring overtime, etc., so things like that we're still figuring that out on a 4:13 scale from one to ten, how would you rate the public health risk to New Yorkers as low?

We have a lot of frenzy. a lot of numbers, a lot of activities and then we have an underlying reality, what is the underlying reality? What John Hopkins says yes this is a very contagious virus and it is contagious it spreads easily but the bottom line is it's fine so what happens if I get it? What happens if I receive it today? I don't consider myself old, that's the warning. Okay, 80% resolved itself. 20% hospitalization. Underlying disease. If you have an underlying respiratory illness, this could be very serious. If you have a compromised immune system, this could be very serious. serious if you are fighting cancer or are HIV positive this could be very serious if you already have pneumonia this could be very serious otherwise you will basically have symptoms for two weeks and recover don't let it get overwhelming and look at the numbers we have the numbers , look at the numbers of people, the rate of people who are being hospitalized, right, you take it well.

Johns Hopkins does not say how many are hospitalized, but we have 76 people, 10 in hospitals, 15% thought hospitalization rate. ban a 24 hour hotline with medical professionals for New Yorkers who might be interested in speaking with a person we are now considering telemedicine, we are studying which China, did you know China, China went both ways, they were caught off guard ? when it started, depending on who you believe, by the way, but then they turned the corner and became very aggressive in handling the matter, very aggressive with the quarantine, by the way, the autopsy is China's aggressiveness with the quarantine was a great reason. they changed the numbers, but telemedicine was part of that mandatory quarantine stay at home work from home close schools close restaurants food de

live

ries they were very fast and aggressive in implementing the aspects of the quarantine they would say even if you look at South Korea I would say the only way to stop the spread is an aggressive containment strategy and when you look at New Rochelle, look at the increase in those numbers in New Rochelle, they are very high, right, since it started, it has continued to increase dramatically. well, if you had said everyone in New Rochelle won, you have to stay home, it could have reduced the mandatory quarantine rate forever.

Look, that's easier to do in China, you know, but it would be very damaging to the economy, but there's no doubt that mass quarantine is the best way to slow the spread. One quick thing, sir, on the hotline, there's actually a hotline that if New Yorkers have questions about their previous travel or any symptoms that they have, it's eight eight eight three six four 306 five. How many testify? How many open tests? How many open tests? What do we think we have ongoing testing in Westchester? No, no, there was one test kit per person. The laboratory performs the test.

We need the CDC. This is a third commitment to our federal colleagues. We needed the CDC to authorize the state lab. Finally they did it. We need the CDC to authorize the state lab to contract with outside labs. Finally they did it. Now we need the CDC. authorize automated tests, which are robotic tests that exponentially increase the number of tests that can be performed because they are not manual, there is no person manually adding the agents to the test tube, etc. Well, a cruise ship is a little bit of a different situation because by definition they're isolated, they could only extend to that universe on the cruise ship, but we're dealing with your people walking through the community and someone goes to a hardware store and then they go to a restaurant. and then goes to a place of business and an office in that situation where there is a possibility of a person communicating with people who were not informed and did not trust this situation.

That is a very different situation from the first day. If you ask me, what is this? all about the end result, what do we have to worry about? I have told you from day one that we have to worry about nursing homes. They have been given specific guidance. Specific protocols. Position. Specific instructions for staff. New Rochelle where we are going. I'll be taking extra precaution not to have outside visitors, but that's what worries me, that's what keeps me up at night. We can get it for you and believe me, nursing homes are very aware of this.

You know, and we've discussed a There are several things that we will say: outside visitors are not allowed in any nursing home, but that's also difficult, that means that a person in a nursing home, their family can't come, their children can't come. they can come, so all of these things are balanced in one exchange. -off thanks