More bikes than cars and buses combined took over Park Avenue and people seemed to take care to properly social distance and respect others as they sprawled on the great lawns of Central Park. New Yorkers expressed thank-you’s to health care workers, as hospitals still under stress of coronavirus pandemic. Here are scenes from the New Normal on a spring Sunday in New York:
With testing and tracing COVID-19 cases critical before the state can begin to reopen its economy, New York State is launching large-scale antibody testing to help determine what percentage of the population is now immune to the virus who would then be able to go back to work.
Following a tour of the Northwell Testing Laboratory, in remarks at the Feinstein Research Center on the Northwell hospital campus on Sunday, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the State Department of Health was beginning to conduct a statewide antibody testing survey. The testing survey will sample 3,000 people for a population of 19.5 million people (for context Germany performed a 3,000-person sample with a population of 83 million). Large-scale antibody testing will help determine the percentage of the population that is now immune to the virus, allowing more individuals to safely return to work.
“Any plan to start to reopen the economy has to be based on data and testing, and we have to make sure our antibody and diagnostic testing is up to the scale we need so we can safely get people back to work,” Governor Cuomo said.”We are going to start antibody testing across the state tomorrow – and we are going to do that in the most aggressive way in the nation. This will be the first true snapshot of exactly how many people were infected by COVID-19 and where we are as a population and will help us to reopen and rebuild without jeopardizing what we’ve already accomplished.”
Cuomo cited the positive drops in numbers of infections, hospitalizations as deaths as proof that the policies have worked, that the state can “control the beast”. But that this is no time to get complacent.
“I get the political pressure that everybody is under. I get the political pressure that local officials are under. But we have to be smart and we have to be coordinated. People have to have the best government from government officials in the State of New York. Government matters today in a way it has not mattered in decades. And it is important that government sends the right signal and one message and there is no confusion. Because if people don’t have confidence in government right now, if they think there is chaos or confusion or politics, that would be a terrible message to send.
“We have done a great job as government officials – all of us – Democrat, Republican, state, local. We have to keep doing it. And now is not the time to send mixed messages. And also on a very parochial level, I get that in the conversations I’ve had people feel political pressure. Here is the simple answer. The State’s emergency powers now govern in this emergency. Blame me. Blame me. Somebody’s complaining about a beach, somebody’s complaining about whatever, businesses open, schools open, blame me. It’s true. It’s right. It’s the state law and I don’t have any issue with that. So blame me.
“Also, as we are planning the reopening, let’s set the bar a little higher. Let’s all start to think about this now. What did we learn during this? Personally, what did we learn? Socially, what did we learn? Collectively, what did we learn? And how do we incorporate that into our reopening? How do we have a better health care system when we reopen? How do we have a better transportation system, better telecommuting, a smarter telemedicine program? Better technology and education? How do we have more social equity?
“You can see the disparate effect of this disease and how it reinforced the disparity in the inequity in society. How do we remedy that? And how are we more cohesive as a community for having gone through this, right? It is not just reopen. It is not just build it back. It is advance. Use this as a moment in time where they look back, when they write the history books and they say oh boy, they went through a terrible time but they actually learned from it and they improved from it. They moved forward. We had 9/11. Yes, we built back.
“We built back different, we built back smarter. We had Hurricane Sandy, devastated Long Island. I was governor. I didn’t say we want to replace, I said we’re going to learn how to do a new grid system. We’re going to learn how to do better infrastructure. And we did. Long Island, today, is better for having gone through Hurricane Sandy as terrible as that was.
“We have to do the same thing here. How do we come back even better? So, the long and the short of it is thank you to all New Yorkers for all the good work. To our healthcare workers, a special thank you. To the police, to fire, to the transit workers. You know, the economy has not been closed down, right? All the essential services have still been functioning. You still can go to the grocery store and get food. Lord knows you could go to a healthcare institution and get healthcare. The transportation works, the buses work. All these people who kept everything working, we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.
“But also remember we still have more to do. New Yorkers know that because New Yorkers are tough, but tough doesn’t mean just tough. Tough is easy. It’s tough but smart, but disciplined, but unified, and but loving. That’s who we are as New Yorkers.”
Cuomo – along with Vice President Joe Biden – is proposing hazard pay for frontline workers, who have disproportionately suffered illness and death, are disproportionately women, people of color, in low-paying jobs and living in congested communities that have also not had the same access to medical care.”
Cuomo reflected, “So the recent news is good. We are on the other side of the plateau and the numbers are coming down. But, that’s good news only compared to the terrible news that we were living with, which is that constant increase. And remember, you still have 1,300 people who walked into the hospitals yesterday testing positive. So, it’s no time to get cocky and it’s no time to get arrogant, right? We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do. And this virus has been ahead of us every step of the way. We’ve been playing catch-up from day one in this situation. So it is no time to relax. And this is only halftime in this entire situation. We showed that we can control the beast and when you close down, you can actually slow that infection rate, but it is only halftime. We have to make sure we keep that beast under control, we keep that infection rate down, we keep that hospitalization rate down as we now all get very eager to get on with life and move on. So, it’s not over.
“We have a whole second phase and in this second phase, first, do no harm. Don’t jeopardize what you’ve already accomplished by seeing that infection rate increase. We have to be smarter, especially when it comes to the new frontier of testing and how we test and how aggressively and how we get that organized. And then when we talk about rebuilding, we have to talk about not just rebuilding, but let’s learn from this horrific experience. Let’s take these lessons forward and how do we build back better than before? I don’t want to have on all through this and then just say we are reopening. No, we have to open for a better future than we have ever had. And we have to learn from this. As we go through this, I know people are eager to get on with life. We have slowed the infection rate down to .9 percent. 0.9 percent means one person infects .9 percent of a person, less than one. That means the virus is slowing. If one person is infecting 1.2 people, the virus is increasing and is an epidemic and an outbreak and is out of control.”
So, we have a very small margin of error here, as we navigate going forward. Any plan that is going to start to reopen the economy has to be based on data, and that means it has to be based on testing. This is a new world for all of us. How do you get testing up to scale? How do you get it up to scale quickly and how do you find out where we really are right now in terms of this virus? You have all these scientists and experts who are basically trying to extrapolate from the data, but we don’t really know how any people were infected. How many people had coronavirus but self-resolved? We don’t really know, because we haven’t been able to do testing on that large a scale. But we are going to start, we are going to start here in the State of New York with antibody testing.
“Antibody testing means you test the person to find out if they have the antibodies if they were infected with the coronavirus. We are going to do that in the most aggressive way in the nation. We are going to sample people in this state, thousands of people in this state, across the state to find out if they have the antibodies. That will tell us, for the first time, what percent of the population actually has had the coronavirus and is now at least short-term immune to the virus. This will be the first, true snapshot of what we are really dealing with. We are going to be doing that over the next week and the New York State Department of Health will be running that. There’s also another set of test that are called diagnostic testing.
“Diagnostic testing is whether a person is positive or negative. We are coming up to scale on this, even though it is very, very hard. Northwell is leading the parade on this and I just looked at some of the technology they are bringing in. All of these different manufacturers who make different machines to run different tests and it’s a number of big manufacturers. Northwell is bringing in as many as they can, but this has to be brought to scale. Nobody has done testing at this level ever. We have to do this in partnership with the federal government, because there are all sorts of logistical questions and supply chain questions and people can’t get certain chemicals they need to do tests and the chemicals are made in other countries. So, we have to do this with the federal government.”
Federal Funding for States Necessary
Cuomo was critical of the failure of the federal government to include funding for states and localities in the stimulus packages.
“They want to help small businesses, and that is great. They also have to help a governments and local governments, which have not been supported in previous legislation. Everyone is saying, ‘It is up to the states to come up with a reopening plan, it’s up to the governors, it’s up to the governors.’
“Fine. That is true, and right, and legal. But the governors in the state have to have resources. And yes, you have to help small businesses, you have to help the airlines, all of these private sector interests as well as citizens. But if you don’t help the state government and local government, then how are we supposed to have the finances to reopen? If you don’t give state and local government support, we are the ones who support the schools, we support the police, we support the fire, we support the hospital workers, we support the transit workers.
“So, if you starve state and local government, all that means is we have to turn around and reduce funding to the people who we are funding. If we don’t get federal assistance, you are looking at education cuts of close to 50 percent in the State of New York, where school districts would only get half of the aid they got from the state last year. You are talking about cuts to hospitals from the State. I mean, how ludicrous would it be to now cut hospital funding from state governments?
The National Governors Association has asked for $500 billion to be included in the stimulus package currently being discussed.
Cuomo said that the decline in infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths shows that the state’s actions have been effective.
“Now is no time, as I said, to get arrogant. We are working with our regional states, our partners, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc., the surrounding states. We are coordinating with them and we have to continue to do that. The weather is getting warmer, the numbers are coming down, cabin fever is getting worse. I believe that is going to be a documented disease when this is over, cabin fever. But we have to stay smart and we have to stay coordinated. We have been working with New Jersey and Connecticut because whatever one state does affects other states, right? You live in Nassau, Suffolk, New York City, you can get in your car and be in New Jersey, you can be in Connecticut in a matter of minutes.
So, it is very important to plan accordingly. It is not that we can be on the same page on everything, but at least let’s know what each other is doing.
Cuomo noted, “This is a reality check. With all the good news in the reductions, we still have 1,300 people that yesterday came in and tested positive and were hospitalized. Thirteen hundred is a lot of people coming into the hospital system with that diagnosis. Less than it had been, so that’s good news, but it is still 1,300 people who are testing positive and need hospitalization.
“Nursing homes are still our number one concern. The nursing home is the optimum feeding ground for this virus. Vulnerable people in a congregant facility, in a congregant setting where it can just spread like fire through dry grass. We have had really disturbing situations in nursing homes and we’re still most concerned about the nursing homes.
“The worst news of all for us to live with every day and an everyday tragedy, we lost another 507 New Yorkers. Those are not just very large numbers we see deaths. Every number is a face and a family and a brother and a sister, mother and a father. People are in pain today and will be in pain for a long period of time.”
In his press briefing on Monday, Cuomo announced a new initiative to address the disproportionate number of cases in public housing – ripe for the disease because the people are lower income, living in highly concentrated circumstances: the state is delivering 500,000 cloth masks – at least one for every resident – and 100,000 gallons of hand sanitizer to NYCHA residents.
“What we do determines our future,” Cuomo said. “Smart government shapes future. This is cause-and-effect on steroids. What we do today will determine tomorrow – you won’t have to wait to read history books. If we make smart decisions, you will see smart outcomes in two weeks. We make bad decisions, you will see bad outcomes in 2 weeks.
“The future is in our hands, really in our hands.”
“We can control the beast, the beast will not destroy us. We have a lot of work to do to keep the beast under control. A lot of work to do to reopen. But will set bar high, reimagine so what reopen will be better. Build. Back. Better.”
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today called for federal coordination of the supply chain to bring testing to scale so states can performing begin reopening functions. Tests are currently produced by private laboratory equipment manufacturers – there are 30 large manufacturers in the U.S. – and these manufacturers sell the tests to smaller labs, who then sell the tests to hospitals and the public. For a test to be performed, local labs must have the necessary testing chemicals known as reagents and there are different reagents for different manufacturer’s tests. The state asked the top 50 labs in New York what they needed to double their testing output, and all said they needed more reagents.
The Governor is also issuing an Executive Order allowing New Yorkers to obtain a marriage license remotely and allowing clerks to perform ceremonies via video conference, a practice that is banned under current law. Many marriage bureaus have temporarily closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, preventing New Yorkers from getting a marriage license during the current health emergency; the Executive Order will temporarily suspend a provision of law that requires in-person visits.
Governor Cuomo also reiterated the bipartisan call from the National Governors Association for the federal government to provide $500 billion in unrestricted aid to the states to help stabilize the economy and allow the states to perform reopening functions. The federal government has passed three bills to address this crisis, including the federal CARES Act, all of which contained zero funding to offset drastic state revenue shortfalls.
“Why is testing so important? Testing is how you monitor the rate of infection and it’s how we find people with the virus and trace their contacts,” Governor Cuomo said. “The challenge is to bring testing up to scale. We asked the top 50 labs in the state what they would need to double their testing, and they all said the same thing: they need more chemical reagents. We need the federal government to oversee the supply chain and help get labs what they need.”
The Governor confirmed 7,090 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 236,732 confirmed cases in New York State.
Hospitalization numbers are down – at 16,000 down from hovering around 18,000, then 17,000 and emergency rooms have fewer people in them.
But sobering news on the other hand happy days are not here again. We still have about 2,000 people yesterday who were new admissions to a hospital or new COVID diagnoses. That is still an overwhelming number every day – 2,000 new. If it wasn’t for the relative context that we’ve been in this would be devastating news – 2,000 people coming into the hospital system or testing positive. And if you notice 2,000, we’re not at the peak but this is where we were just about in late March when it started to go up. So we’re not at the plaza tower anymore but was still not in a good position.
“The worst news is still tragic news – number of deaths 540. It’s not as high as it was but still 540 people died yesterday. 540 people, 540 families. 504 in hospitals, 36 in nursing homes. Nursing homes are the single biggest fear in all of this – vulnerable people in one place. It is the feeding frenzy for this virus despite everything we can do in the best efforts of people working in those nursing homes who are doing just a fantastic job.”
The worst projections have never been hit precisely because of the lockdown and social distancing, and Cuomo’s concern about reopening too fast, is that it could reignite the infection rate.
“The tension on reopening is how fast can you reopen and what can you reopen without raising that infection rate so you go right back to where we were overwhelming the hospitals? The infection rate now is one person infects .9 other people. You can’t infect .9 but it’s basically one person is infecting one person. A tad less – and I don’t even know if it’s a tad less because I don’t even know that the statistics are that accurate frankly.
“So let’s say one person now infects one person. That’s where we are now. When that is happening the virus is basically stable. Where we were was one person was infecting 1.4 people and that’s when you have outbreak widespread epidemic. We brought it down from 1.4 to .9. How did you do that? Those were the New York Pause policies. Close down business, close down schools, everybody has to social distance, everybody has to take precautions, masks, et cetera. But it worked and we went from 1.4 to .9. Wuhan says at one point they got down to .3 which is where you really start to see the numbers drop. But that’s where we are.
“The tension is when you start to open business you start to have gatherings, you put people on a bus, you put people on the subway, you put people in a retail store. Then you’re going to see more infections. You see that infection rate rise and then you’re going to be back to where we were. So how do you gauge this, right? How do you calibrate it?
“That is all about the testing. And you have a very tight window. You’re at .9 now. You can only go up to 1.2 before you see those hospitalization numbers start taking off again. You’re talking about a very, very tight window that you have to calibrate and this is all without precedent so how do you actually do that intelligently? Well, you have to test and testing informs the calibration.”
Testing let’s you determine who has the virus and can infect others, but then you need a veritable army of people as tracing investigators, to trace all their contacts for people who might have become infected and new carriers.
“Tracing requires an army. Literally an army. You would need thousands of people who just trace in the State of New York because any one person then leads to 10, 20 possible people who were infected. You have to trace all through those people. You find the positive person, you isolate them. The trick with testing is not that we don’t know how to do it. We’ve done it better in this state than almost any other state, almost any other country. It’s bringing this up to scale. These are private sector companies that are doing this. We have done a very good job in testing. The state has played a pivotal role in testing.”
Testing and tracing is not only critical to stop the spread of the disease, but to alleviate the anxieties and fears of workers and consumers alike. It does little good to reopen businesses if workers are too fearful to work, or people are too fearful to go out and shop. And just as a governor cannot shut down the economy or effectively issue stay-at-home orders if people refuse to comply, Cuomo has said, government cannot simply order the reopening of the economy, without people having confidence and trust in their government.
But testing and tracing on the scale that New York State, with a population of 19 million, requires federal assistance – especially to acquire the necessary chemical reagents. Cuomo said that in this phase of the pandemic, competing with every other state and the federal government for the scarce resources, much of which needs to come from China, will repeat the EBay-like fiasco of trying to acquire PPE and ventilators and bidding up the prices and disrupting expeditious acquisition. Also, it will be intensely expensive.
“We need funding from the federal government. I get that we have to fund airlines, small businesses. I agree a hundred percent, but you also have to fund state governments. And by the way, when you fund the state government, you’re not funding a private business. So you don’t have an issue of should government really be giving tax dollars to this private entity. When you fund the state government you just are funding a state government to perform the functions you want us to perform, which is the reopening function. I get it. I’ll do it. But I need funding. And when you fund a state government, you’re funding small businesses anyway, and you’re funding hospitals anyway, and you’re funding schools anyway. And you know, the Republican doctrine used to be limited government and states’ rights. I’m a good distribution mechanism to small businesses and hospitals and schools because I know what’s going on in the state. But if you want to us reopen, we need funding.”
Cuomo added that this is no time for politics.
“The emotion in this country is as high as I can recall, people are frustrated, we’re anxious, scared, we’re angry. We’ve never been through this before and on every level this is a terrible experience. It’s disorienting, it threatens you to your core. It makes you reflect on your whole life and it really has — it’s mentally very difficult, it’s emotionally difficult, economically, it’s disastrous. I mean the market goes down. Your retirement funds go down. You’re not getting a paycheck. It is as tumultuous at times as we have ever seen. But in the midst of this, there is no time for politics.
“How does the situation get worse, it gets worse quickly? If you politicize all that emotion. We cannot go there. That’s why I work so hard when anyone raises any political agenda to me. I work so hard to distance myself from it. I’m not running for anything. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be governor of the state of New York until the people kick me out and then I’m going to go spend time with my family and that’s that.
“So, I have no political agenda and I’ve stayed a hundred miles away from politics, just so people know that there is no possibility of a political distortion here. Because it’s no time for politics and look if you have partisan divisions splitting this nation now it’s going to make it worse.”
Cuomo made no specific reference to Trump calling him out to “spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining’” or his tweets, viewed as a call to arms to protesters in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia to “Liberate”.
Of the 236,732 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Reopening New York State after the coronavirus shutdown requires monitoring the rate at which the infection is spreading, says Governor Andrew Cuomo (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has extended the lockdown through at least May 15 while at the same time unveiling a strategy for phased reopening of the economy and society. What is clear is that what happens next will involve a “new normal” rather than a return to the way things have been, in everything from the health care system to workplaces and transportation systems to schools. “Nothing short of a transformation of society,” Cuomo said in his April 16 press briefing.
Cuomo also raised the alarm that New York and every other state is being bankrupted by the costs of bolstering health care while shutting down their economy, cutting off revenue streams, and chastised the federal government for passing legislation that is counterproductive because it did not provide adequate funding for states. He said that the state’s federal representatives should not pass “bad legislation” that doesn’t help states and localities, and do it based on need, not politics.
“Now that we’ve shown we can flatten the curve and our efforts to control the spread of the virus are working, we must focus on a smart, effective plan to un-pause New York,” Governor Cuomo said. “The first part of the plan is to do no harm – don’t let that infection rate go up to the best of your ability and don’t lose the progress that we have made. Second, now that we have some stability in our health care system after a weeks-long overdrive, we continue to strengthen that system and ramp up testing and contact tracing to identify those who are sick and isolate them so they don’t transmit the virus to others. Then we can focus on phasing an economic return to the new normal – but we need all those activities going on at the same time for our plan to un-pause New York to work.”
While the curve in infections and hospitalizations has leveled off, numbers of dead – 606 yesterday, down from the mid-700s of previous days – continue at “horrific” levels. New York State has had more coronavirus cases than any country, and accounts for about one-third of the nation’s total.
Indeed, the Governor confirmed 8,505 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 222,284 confirmed cases in New York State.
But Cuomo also noted that the numbers of “positives” are not an accurate reflection of infection since they only count people who are sick enough to get tested or have access to testing. Many many more can be infected who remain home. Indeed the death rate, now exceeding 30,000 in the US (nearly half of the entire country), may not account for those who have died at home. The CDC has only recently issued guidelines for a new list of “probable” COVID-19 deaths- people who have died of symptoms that mimic COVID-19.
Still, the worst seems to be over – indeed, the only reason that the Trump Administration can even contemplate a reopening of the economy is because of the outsized impact of New York State that disguises even the uptick in other states. But Cuomo emphasized that the numbers have only leveled off as a result of the lockdown and social distancing measures that have been imposed, and because of the cooperation of New Yorkers.
The Governor said that the threat coronavirus poses will not truly be over until there is a vaccine – which is not likely for 12 to 18 months – or if there are medical treatments so that even if someone is sickened, their life can be saved.
“How do we accelerate that, expedite that? New York is ready, willing and able to work with the FDA,” Cuomo said, noting that the state is working with many companies to develop treatments and testing in hospitals, “but that is a medical R&D function, beyond us.”
Absent that, the strategy has to be “do no harm,” he said. “Control the rate of infection – don’t let the infection rate go up or we will lose the progress made.”
The strategy of “surge and flex” to strengthen the healthcare system, by which the state increased the capacity of hospitals by 50 percent and mandated sharing and redistribution of patients, equipment and staffing worked to get through “this horrific period.” Now that the crush is over – at levels at a fraction of what the models predicted the onslaught could have been had the state not imposed a lockdown – “we have a chance to be more intelligent about handling the health care system.”
Now a chance to be more intelligent about handling health care system.”
Reopening New York will necessitate wide use of testing and tracing which will require a federal partnership, says Governor Andrew Cuomo (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Reopening society will necessitate wide use of testing and tracing for which, he said, “we need federal partnership” because no state has the resources to handle the amount of testing and tracing necessary. Tracing contacts once a person has tested positive will require “an army” of people he said.
(Our suggestion: hire an army of people from among the 22 million newly unemployed; the job can be done by telephone with little risk.)
Testing and tracing is necessary to determine how much the “spigot” of economic activity can be opened.
Cuomo showed how this depends on determining how many people one infected person can infect.
Once infection rates and hospitalization rates have gone down phased reopening will come by analyzing businesses based on their degree of “essential” against their level of risk of infection.
Reopening New York’s economy will require an analysis of risk/reward to expand the definition of “essential businesses,” says Governor Andrew Cuomo (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com.
“How do do you restart the machine after stopping everything? In a coordinated way that doesn’t drive up infection. What businesses reopen is a nuanced question. There is no light switch.
“Are there more ‘essential businesses’, and what risks do they pose and what changes can they make in their businesses to make them safe?” (But this will raise the question whether the new requirements enable them to still operate economically, such as if restaurants are required to operate at half capacity if they are to reopen.)
“In a new normal, new reality, tell us how they can adjust to it.
“We now have an economy working with ‘essential workers’ – public transit, groceries, pharmacies. Now as we start to bring the economy up, we move up one tranche on what is defined as essential. Are there ‘safer’ businesses that can be reopened, or can be safer? How do they reopen and operate? Where should they open first (or last)? When?
“There is a matrix based on how important the enterprise is to society and how risky is that business to the rate of infection. The lower the risk and the more a priority, the sooner they can reopen. We will do it in phases of priority, then phase up, the way phased down, by percentages.
Reopening New York’s economy will require an analysis of risk/reward to expand the definition of “essential businesses,” says Governor Andrew Cuomo (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com.
“This will be an ongoing process, in coordination with other states. This is regional. Coordinating doesn’t mean we will always be in lockstep, but we will talk through first and hopefully not do something contradictory to other states.”
The analysis is underway, he said.
But just determining what enterprises can open based on how important and how risky is not enough.
“We must reimagine the workplace,” Cuomo said. “The private sector now has to think about what they do, how they do it, and what they need to do differently.”
That might mean determining which workers can continue to telecommute; how people can maintain social distance in the workplace.
“Businesses must strategize. There will be a new normal precaution and practice.”
“We must reimagine the workplace,” says Governor Andrew Cuomo (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Mass transportation is critical before workers can be sent back to their workplaces, so there need to be guarantees for workers and commuters to have safe transport – public-interacting employees will need necessary protective supplies and transit-goers will need to wear masks.
“Our goal is that the ‘new normal’ will be a better New York,” Cuomo said. “This will be a moment of transformation for society. And we paid a high price for it.”
But to build the “bridge” to the “new normal” requires first and foremost testing. “It is the best tool to inform decisions, to calibrate progress of risk/reward,” Cuomo said. “This is a new frontier for all of us.”
New York State tests more than any other state (which is one reason why the numbers are so much higher than any other stte). We were very aggressive and set an ambitious goal and reached it – 500,00 tests in 30 days, more than California, Florida and Michigan combined.
“This is all about figuring it out first and creating a system that didn’t exist before. But we have 19 million people, 9 million workers; 500,000 tests in one month doesn’t sound so big.”
So testing has to be much more widely available, but there are logistical and practical problems: how to set up sites and have the personnel, obtaining the supplies including swabs and vials, laboratory capacity and the acquisition of chemical reagents.
Here the problem becomes coordination of the demand for testing, with all 50 states and the federal government competing for the same materials, posing the same “e-bay” problem of bidding up the cost, interfering with orders, as happened with the ventilators.
Testing is one part of the equation; tracing contacts is also critical. “We need to create a tracing army” because every person who tests positive, all their prior contacts have to be investigated, then all of them need to be tested. “We need to assembling an army that does not now exist,” Cuomo said, who added that he spoke to the White House again this morning.
“We are looking forward to working with the federal government. We need federal help. Period.”
Reopening also requires strengthening the health care system, and continuing the “surge & flex.”
“Every hospital system has been an independent enterprise until now.” Now the strategy has to continue to be sharing resources “like was never understood before.” This means building out the strategic PPE and equipment stockpile; sharing among states. (New York is sending 100 ventilators to New Jersey and has sent 100 to Michigan and 50 to Maryland.)
“The key is not to increase the infection rate. We need people to understand, we can’t allow the infection rate to go up.”
So far, the infection rate has been determined by the hospitalization rate, but people are only hospitalized after they are infected and severely ill. Advanced testing will help determine the actual infection rate.
Advanced testing will determine how quickly the virus is spreading. “As we bring people out of their homes, we have to be able to measure how fast is the virus is spreading and how quickly the infection rate is rising because as Dr. Fauci noted, COVID-19 is a virus that is quite good at transmitting from one person to another. “We learned that the hard way.”
“The rate of infection is everything,” Cuomo said. “All those early projection models assumed a higher rate of infection.
Why were all projection models higher than actualized – so far? – controlled the beast, brought rate of spread down. But if rate of spread actually happened, we would have been in much much worse situation, in a really bad placed.
Early projects of the number of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, deaths were based on not mitigating through social-distancing and a lockdown. “Plan for the worst, hope for the best,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com.
Early projection models were based on modeling without lockdown measures: the CDC on March 13 projected 160 million to 214 million Americans would be infected, or half to 2/3 the population – and 2.4 million to 21 million hospitalizations which would mean 925,000 staffed hospital beds or twice as many beds as there are; while the White House coronavirus Task Force on March 12 projected 1.5 million to 2 million deaths, or, in the best case scenario “if everything went perfectly,” 100,000 to 240,000 deaths.
All the models projected higher infection rates.
But, Cuomo said, that these projections have not materialized is proof that the actions taken in New York and other places have worked (and because New York accounts for the majority of cases, slowing the rate of infection here accounts for the flattening of the curve for the country).
The projected spread of the virus depends on how many people one infected person infects. If one person infects fewer than one person, the disease is under control; if one person infects just one more person, the rate is stabilized. But the infection is out of control if one person infects two or more people. “The number increases exponentially, like a fire through dry grass.”
“This is what we have to control as we start to reopen the economy – if we turn the valve on the economy a bit and watch the meter – the meter is hospitalization rate, or even better, the virus spread rate determined by testing and tracing– so as we start to turn on the valve, and people come out of homes and businesses reopen, if the infection rate goes up, we can turn back the valve right away.”
We have already seen this in action: on the Diamond Princess ship, one person infected on average 2.2 persons;
In Wuhan, one person infected an average of 2 to 3 people
During the Spanish Flu of 1918, one person infected an average of 1.4-2.8 people.
Here is New York State, at the severe spread, one person infected 1.4-1.8 others, while as the rate moderated, the level was brought down to 1.2-1.45 people.
“After mitigation – social distancing, stay at home – we brought that rate of infection to one person to less than one other, .9. this compares to Wuhan, which locked up everything, and brought down the infection rate to .3.
So at the current infection rate of .9 there is only a margin of of .3 before you get to 1.2, which would trigger new increases in hospitalizations.
“That doesn’t leave you a lot of wiggle room. So we start to phase reopening. We are at .9 now after an entire lockdown, if go back up to 1.2, we will have a problem.
The goal of “New York Pause” has been to cut down the infection rate to one person infecting fewer than one other, said Governor Andrew Cuomo. That will be the measure of how much the “valve” reopening the economy can be turned on or off (c) Karen Rubin/news-photo-features.com
“New York Pause has worked – the close down has worked. But we are not there yet: .9 is not enough. New York Pause will be continued with other states in the region to May 15. (That is New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, Massachusetts.)
The new shutdown will continue through May 15. “We don’t want to project beyond that – that’s one month, a long time. People need certainty, clarity to plan. We need a coordinated action plan with other states. “
After May 15, he said, “we don’t know. We will see, depending upon what the data shows. Tell me what the infection rate is, is it .9? then experts will tell us the best course of conduct based on that. There are not political decisions.”
Cuomo has issued an executive order requiring everyone to wear a mask when in public.
“As relatively simple but annoying as it seems, wearing a mask is one of the best things we can do.” He said he is well aware that people are not happy about it. I am sorry if it makes people unhappy, but I don’t consider it a major burden and is a simple measure that can save lives (and reopen economy). Understand, it is not just about you. I have rights, my kids and yours have rights also – we have a right for another to take reasonable safeguard not to infect.”
People will be required to wear masks on public transportation systems and private transportation carriers and for-hire vehicles, and the operators will also be required to wear masks at all times.
“It’s inconvenient, yes, but in a closed environment, where you are not socially distancing, this is a precaution for everyone. It balances individual liberties with social conscience. After all, what determines infection rate spread? You!”
Cuomo made a big plea to emphasize that he has limited ability to enforce the measure, that it has to come down to people understanding the facts, believing in the urgency, and acting responsibly.
“It’s not about government, it’s about what people decide to do wand what people have decided to do. They have brought infection rate down. It’s about your behavior, your discipline, your education of your children, your consideration of others.
“Wear a mask, wash your hands, maintain social distance, educate your children on what to do/not, use hand sanitizer – make smart choices. That makes all the difference in the world.”
Cuomo reflected, “Of all the unique aspects of this crisis, the most positive and surprising to me is how New Yorkers, how Americans rose to the challenge. The policies I communicated aren’t worth the paper they are presented on unless people decide to follow them.
“I can say as governor we must do this or that, these are the most life-changing policies government has ever issued – this isn’t government saying this is your tax rate, or how to vote – this is government saying ‘Stay in house, don’t touch, wear mask’. I don’t have the ability to enforce these measures on any scale if people are not willing to do it.
“The policies are difficult, life changing are being implemented by people because people are choosing to do the right thing. It’s that simple.
“I trust that if the facts are presented, New Yorkers will do the right thing.
“What is the right thing? The appropriate path that is socially and morally correct. New Yorkers have very strong ‘right thing’ quotient. They know what the right thing is. What I must do is give the facts, the information to explain why I am suggesting these actions. They decide. I can’t put a mask on 17 million people. 17 million people will decide, but they have done it. They understand the facts, risks, rewards, consequences.
“We brought this state forward, and will bring the nation forward.”
Meanwhile, Cuomo chided Congress for passing stimulus measures that did nothing to aid states and localities drowning under astronomical health care expenses as revenue streams have dried up.
The Congress is presently preparing a fourth stimulus bill that so far again focuses on bailing out businesses, but not states.
As counties and cities throughout the state plead for more funding, he said, “I’m not in a position to help counties, cities. I’m in the hole,” he said, pointing to the ballooning $10-15 billion deficit as a result of the coronavirus. Congress “passed major legislation to protect the economy and move the economy forward but not fund state and local governments? Then state and local government has to turn around and cut everyone that relies on them (like police, teachers, transportation). That’s not smart, not right, and is counterproductive.
“They don’t get the same political credit if they fund New York State, New York City , Nassau County or Suffolk, because that doesn’t benefit their voters. I get that politically they want to pass legislation where they can call up their people at home and say, ‘Hey, I got money for you.’ How can you even pretend you are addressing the crisis when you are starving state and local governments? This is not Democratic or Republican. The National Governors Association, headed by Chairman Hogan of Maryland, a Republican and myself as vice chairman, sent a letter to the administration. I say to our Democratic Congressional members- Senators Schumer and Gillibrand — you passed legislation that starved state and local governments; you’re not helping the country. Well, they say, we have to get to ‘yes.’ But I say, it doesn’t matter to get to yes if the bill doesn’t do what the purpose is.”
He said rejecting a new stimulus bill would be better than passing a piece of irresponsible legislation. “We are at a point financially where we have a $10-15 billion deficit. I hope and believe the federal government should have more inclusive policy.”
As Cuomo laid out in fairly meticulous fashion the strategy to phase in reopening of the metropolitan region’s economy, the Trump administration was getting set to issue its own guidelines. Trump had initially declared he had “total authority” to order states to reopen, but then retreated after an outpouring of objections.
The economic pain for the country became clear as unemployment numbers swelled a further 5 million, to bring the number of people filing for unemployment to 22 million in just four weeks. Economic data documented the sharpest drop in retail activity in history.
Significantly, though, though New York has been the hardest hit by the coronavirus and has seen a 783% increase in unemployment claims from the beginning of the year, the increase being the 21st smallest among the states, according to Wallethub.
“This is better than the average increase of 1,709%,” said Jill Gonzalez, WalletHub analyst.
A dramatic change from what Easter Sunday usually looks like. Fifth Avenue is traditionally the scene of the Easter Parade, with elaborate hats and fancy dress and, since it is New York, wild sometimes whacky costumes. This year, the streets were desolate, the churches shuttered and famous boutiques closed. At Times Square, the Tower flashed electronic thank you’s to health care workers and first responders. Broadway theaters were shut down. Here are some images:
In contrast, this is what the famous Easter Parade along Fifth Avenue looked like in happier times:
Easter Parade, Fifth Avenue, New York City, 2013 (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.comEaster Parade, Fifth Avenue, New York City, 2013 (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with 10,841 additional cases, bringing the statewide total to 113,704 and the apex still a week or more away, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that 1,000 ventilators have been donated to New York by the Joseph and Clara Tsai Foundation. The Joseph and Clara Tsai Foundation and the Jack Ma Foundation have also donated one million surgical masks, one million KN95 masks and more than 100,000 pairs of goggles to the state. The Chinese government and Ambassador Huang Ping, Chinese Consul General, have facilitated these donations. The ventilators arrived at JFK Airport today.
The National Basketball Association is also contributing one million surgical masks for New York’s essential workers in collaboration with the New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and China’s New York Consul General Huang Ping.
Additionally, Oregon Governor Kate Brown has offered to provide New York with 140 ventilators from Oregon’s stockpile.
Governor Cuomo will also issue an Executive Order allowing medical students that are slated to graduate to begin practicing immediately to help with the state’s surge health care force. To date, 85,000 health professionals, including 22,000 out-of-state individuals, have signed up to volunteer as part of the state’s surge healthcare force during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“This pandemic has been stressing our nation on every level and we are doing everything in our power to prepare for the fight that will come at the apex,” Governor Cuomo said.”Ventilators remain our greatest challenge, and we have received a generous donation of 1,000 ventilators from the Joseph and Clara Tsai Foundation and the Chinese government, as well as 140 ventilators from Oregon – and these ventilators will save lives. This is a painful, disorienting experience, but we will get through it together and we will all be the better for it.”
Governor Cuomo commented, “Anyway, it all comes back to China. New York has been shopping in China. We’re not really China experts, here. International relations is not what we do on a daily basis. I’ve been to China before when I was HUD secretary, I did a trade mission with China. So, I have a basic understanding, but we went to the Asia Society to help us navigate China. I asked the White House to help us navigate China. I spoke to the ambassador and we got really good news today. That the Chinese government is going to facilitate a donation of 1,000 ventilators that will come in to JFK today. I want to thank Joe Tsai and Clara Tsai and Jack Ma from Alibaba, and the Nets, but I’m not stating a preference, for their donation. That’s going to be very helpful and I want to thank Ambassador Huang very much for his help in making all of this happen because this is a big deal. It’s going to make a significant difference for us.”
About the state of Oregon’s contribution, he said, “The state of Oregon contacted us and is going to send 140 ventilators, which is, I tell you, just astonishing and unexpected. I want to thank Governor Brown, I want to thank all of the people in the state of Oregon for their thoughtfulness. Again, this was unsolicited. But the 140 ventilators will make a difference. I was thinking about it, on behalf of New York and what it means for our – first it was a kind gesture. I know Governor Brown and she is a kind person, but it’s also smart from the point of view of Oregon. Why? Because we’re all in the same battle and the battle is stopping the spread of the virus, right?
“Look at what they did in China. It was in the Wuhan province. First order of business was contain the virus in Wuhan. Why? Because you want to contain the enemy. That’s always the first step. Oregon, we’re dealing with it now, we don’t stop the spread in New York, it continues. And if you look at the projections, Oregon could have a significant problem towards May. Our problem is now. So it’s also smart from Oregon’s self-interest. They see the fire spreading. Stop the fire where it is before it gets to my home. That was the Wuhan province…
“The State of Oregon has lent us 140 ventilators. It was kind, it was smart, stop the virus here. It’s better for the state of Oregon, it’s better for the nation. Their curve comes after ours. We’ll return their 140 ventilators, and there’s never been a discussion, but frankly I know New Yorkers and I know New Yorkers’ generosity. We will turn it double fold, because that’s who we are and that’s what we believe. So, stop the fire in New York, kind, generous, also smart.”
On Wednesday, Governor Cuomo announced that New York-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is creating 500,000 test kits for the State at no charge amid a nationwide shortage of test kits and swabs. The first batch of test kits was delivered to the State on Monday and the State will receive an ongoing delivery of 25,000 kits per day. Additionally, Corning has donated 100,000 tubes and provided an additional 500,000 tubes to the State at reduced cost and expedited delivery, and Puritan has sold medical swabs to the State. As of Wednesday, the State has tested 220,880 individuals.
“In this war, we must plan forward for the next battle. Meaning, we have been behind from day one. This virus has been ahead of us from day one. You don’t win a war that way. The next battle is the apex. The next battle is on the top of the mountain. See that curve? You see a curve? I see a mountain. The next battle will happen at the top of that mountain. That’s where it is going to be joined. And that’s where the enemy either overwhelms our healthcare system, or we are able to handle the onslaught of the enemy at the top of that mountain. And that’s what we’re planning for every day.
“But I want to offer you a different perspective that I’m starting to think about and I think we all should start to think about.
“As a society, beyond just this immediate situation, we should start looking forward to understand how this experience is going to change us, or how it should change us, because this is going to be transformative. It is going to be transformative on a personal basis, on a social basis, on a systems basis. We’re never going to be the same again. We’re not going to forget what happened here.
“The fear that we have, the anxiety that we have, that’s not just going to go away. When do we get back to normal? I don’t think we get back to normal. I think we get back, or we get to a new normal. Right? Like we’re seeing in so many facets of society right now. So we will be at a different place.
“Our challenge is to make sure that transformation and that change is positive and not negative. Let’s make sure we’re taking the positive lesson and not the negative lesson…
“We also have to be smarter from what we went through. How do you make the economy more resilient? What happens when something like this happens again? And something like this will happen again. ‘Oh, no, this is a once in a lifetime, never again.’ Something like this will happen again. We’re seeing it in the environment. We’re seeing it with floods, we’re seeing it with hurricanes. Something like this will happen again. You can’t just turn off the economy like a light switch.
“How do governments work together? You can’t figure it out on the fly – what the federal government does, what the state government does, what the local governments do. Figure it out before. Learn the lessons from this. Telemedicine, and tele-education. We have closed the schools. Well why weren’t we ready with a tele-education system? Why weren’t we better with telemedicine? Why didn’t we have the capacity to have that’s lines on people coming in to give the same basic diagnosis and the same basic advice? Why don’t we have medical supplies made in this country? Why are we shopping in china for basic medical supplies? Why don’t we gear our medical research to these types of threats and challenges, which we know are on the horizon? We know these viruses are changing. We know they mutate. Why don’t we get ahead of it?
“You still have to run society. Let’s talk about first responder capacity. We now have first responders who are getting sick, and the workforce is dropping. That was inevitable, right? That was going to happen. What’s the backup to that situation? And let’s talk about societal stability, and engagement at times of crisis. You can’t just tell everyone, ‘go home and lock your doors and sit on your couch and order takeout,’ for the foreseeable future. That’s not who we are. It’s not even a mental health issue. It’s just, it’s a personal health issue. It’s how we relate to one another. We’re not built to be isolated for long periods of time and not have human contact. So how do we deal with that?
“And these are the types of questions that we have to start to think through. But not today. That is the next challenge, I believe. And that is what we’re going to have to think about soon. But for now, one crisis at a time, as they say. And we are planning to handle with the current crisis, preparing for the battle on the mount, which is what we are doing every day. And that’s what we are doing. And not only are we doing it, but we have to succeed at it. You know?
“Government process is very good at saying, ‘well, we’re trying. We’re working on this. We’re doing our best. We’re doing our best.’ Winston Churchill, “it is no use saying we’re doing our best. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.” Tad harsh goes with that expression, which I think you could say, tad harsh. Handsome, but a tad harsh, but it’s true. And that’s what I say to my team every day. This is beyond best efforts. This is beyond, “I’m working very hard.” We have to get this done. We have succeed. We have to find a way. We have to make it happen, because too much is at stake.”
Finally, the Governor confirmed 10,841 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 113,704 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 113,704 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Demonstrating once again a clear contrast between the failed leadership of a clueless Donald Trump, who only knows how to politicize, attack and destroy, Vice President Joe Biden is calling for the US to lift sanctions on Iran, which is undergoing one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in the world.(c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Demonstrating once again a clear contrast between the failed leadership of a clueless Donald Trump, who only knows how to politicize, attack and destroy, Vice President Joe Biden is calling for the US to lift sanctions on Iran, which is undergoing one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in the world. “America should lead. We should be the first to offer help to people who are hurting or in danger… To stop this pandemic effectively, every country on earth will need to work together.” Here is Biden’s statement: –Karen Rubin, news-photos-features.com.
In times of global crisis, America should lead. We should be the first to offer help to people who are hurting or in danger. That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve always been. And, in the midst of this deadly pandemic that respects no borders, the United States should take steps to offer what relief we can to those nations hardest hit by this virus — including Iran — even as we prioritize the health of the American people.
Iran is struggling to contain one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in the world. While the Iranian government has failed to respond effectively to this crisis, including lying and concealing the truth from its own people, and it continues to act provocatively in the region, the Iranian people are hurting desperately. It is bad enough that the Trump administration abandoned the Iran nuclear deal in favor of a “maximum pressure” strategy that has badly backfired, encouraging Iran to become even more aggressive and restart its nuclear program. It makes no sense, in a global health crisis, to compound that failure with cruelty by inhibiting access to needed humanitarian assistance. Whatever our profound differences with the Iranian government, we should support the Iranian people.
There are already humanitarian exceptions in place for sanctions, but in practice, most governments and organizations are too concerned about running afoul of U.S. sanctions to offer assistance. As a result, our sanctions are limiting Iran’s access to medical supplies and needed equipment. The Trump Administration should take immediate steps to address this problem and streamline channels for banking and public health assistance from other countries in response to the health emergency in Iran.
Specific steps should include: issuing broad licenses to pharmaceutical and medical device companies; creating a dedicated channel for international banks, transportation companies, insurers, and other service firms to help Iranians access life-saving medical treatment; issuing new sanctions guidance to these groups and international aid organizations to make it clear how they can immediately, directly, and legally respond to the tragedy in Iran, without fear of penalty; and, for entities already conducting enhanced due diligence, it should issue comfort letters to reassure them that they will not be subject to U.S. sanctions if they engage in humanitarian trade with Iran to support its COVID-19 response. The administration should also consider similar steps to ensure that U.S. sanctions do not inhibit live-saving medical assistance to other countries hard hit by the virus.
The administration’s offer of aid to Iran is insufficient if not backed by concrete steps to ensure the United States is not exacerbating this growing humanitarian crisis. Whatever our many, many disagreements with the Iranian government, it’s the right and the humane thing to do. And Iran also should make a humanitarian gesture and allow detained American citizens to return home.
To stop this pandemic effectively, every country on earth will need to work together. We must address COVID-19 outbreaks wherever they occur, because as long as this virus is spreading anywhere in the world, it is a danger to public health everywhere. Artificially limiting the flow of international humanitarian assistance to pursue a political point will not only allow the Iranian government to deflect responsibility for its own botched response, it will increase the threat this virus poses to the American people, now and in the future.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the formation of a new
hospital network Central Coordinating Team to facilitate a more coordinated and
strategic approach among the state’s healthcare system in combating the
COVID-19 pandemic.
The program could become a model for other states, indeed, a model for a national approach to providing necessary personnel and equipment to address coronavirus hotspots as they emerge around the country as Cuomo called for unity.
The coordinating team will help implement the statewide
public-private hospital plan, which the Governor announced yesterday,
to share information, supplies, staff and patients among hospitals across the
State. The team will be responsible for organizing upstate to downstate
staffing; assisting Elmhurst Hospital and other stressed hospitals; setting
patient thresholds for hospitals; organizing patient transfers to other
hospitals and the USNS Comfort; coordinating State-City stockpiles
and individual hospital stockpiles; and facilitating staffing recruitment.
The team will be led by the State Department of Health and
includes the Westchester, New York City and Long Island healthcare systems, the
Greater New York Hospital Association and the Healthcare Association of New
York State. The team will also work with FEMA and the federal government.
Governor Cuomo also announced the State is launching
an online portal that will help connect hospitals and healthcare fasciitis
across the state with the nearly 80,000 healthcare workers who have volunteered
to work on a temporary basis during the COVID-19 pandemic. The portal will
prioritize the deployment of workers to hospitals with the greatest need;
volunteers are expected to be deployed as early as this Thursday.
“As we continue to battle the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we
have two missions – preparing our hospital system so it is not overwhelmed when
the apex of the curve hits and ensuring people stay home so they don’t get the
virus in the first place,” Governor Cuomo said. “We are
following the mathematical projections of the experts and preparing for the
main battle at the apex by procuring as much equipment as we can, increasing
our hospital capacity and supporting hospital staff. We met with the entire
state hospital system for the first time ever and established an unprecedented
new approach to work cooperatively as one unified, statewide healthcare
system to defeat this virus. This virus does not discriminate — no one is
immune to it — and people must continue to be cautious, think of others and not
leave their homes unless absolutely necessary.”
The governor soberly gave “the blunt truth of this situation”
saying: “Total number of people tested, 200,000. Population of 19 million,
is not going to give you a random sample, but it’s been helping us track down
on the positive cases. Number of positive cases, 9,298. Total cases 75,000
cases. You see the predominance in New York City, then Westchester, then
Nassau, then Suffolk, then Rockland. So you can see it’s that area of density.
It spreads out from that area of density. The march of coronavirus across the
State of New York continues. We’re down to just two counties that don’t have a
case. The overall numbers, 75,000 have tested positive. Ten thousand people in
our hospitals, 2,700 ICU patients. Good news, 4,900 – almost 5,000 –
discharged. That’s up 771. So people come in, they get treated, they go home.
“New York is at 75,000 cases. Next state is 16,000. California is
at 7,000. So you can see New York, there’s a magnitude of difference more than
any other state. Fifteen-hundred fifty deaths. That’s up from 1,218 yesterday.
Again, we’re studying the charts. We’re trying to study the data, follow the
data. The data is uneven. It bounces. Numbers often bounce in any model. There
are variables in this model. The hospitals are reporting it, so what every
hospital reported, were they busy, are they combining a couple of days in one?
It’s an imperfect reporting mechanism.
“You see the basic line is still up. What the statisticians will
tell you is you basically draw the straight line that columns indicate and you
see that we’re still going up which is what we see on the overall trajectory,
that we’re still going up. Number of intubations was down, not much, but it was
down and that’s a good sign. You also see the number of discharges going up and
that’s consistent. The longer people are in, they either get treated and leave
or they get put on a ventilator and the longer you’re on a ventilator, the less
likelihood you will come off the ventilator. That is the blunt truth of this
situation.”
With the realization that New York is still 14 to 30 days from
reaching the apex – that is, the peak of number of cases on a given day – after
which there would still be the descent before the crisis is ended, Cuomo said, “In
general, I am tired of being behind this virus. We’ve been behind this virus
from day one. The virus was in China. We knew it was in China. Unless we assume
there’s some immune system variation with Asian people, it was coming here and
we have been behind it from day one since it got here and we’ve been playing
catch-up. You don’t win playing catch-up. We have to get ahead of it. The
second rule is never underestimate your opponent, and we underestimated this
virus. It’s more powerful, it’s more dangerous than we expected, and the third
point is plan forward. Get ahead of it. Get ahead of it, fight the fight today,
yes, but anticipate the next battle and plan for the next battle.
“And the main battle is at the apex. We’re still going up the
mountain. The main battle is on the top of the mountain. That’s where the main
battle is going to be. The apex of the curve and then we come down the other
side of the mountain. We are planning now for the battle at the top of the
mountain. That’s what we are doing. Get a staffing plan ready now for the
battle at the top of the mountain. Equipment stockpile now – we’re gathering
equipment that we don’t need today because today is not the day of the battle.
The battle is when we hit the apex, depending on who you believe, 14 days to 30
days from today.
“And also we need a social acceptance of the time expectation.
We’re all anxious. We’re all tired, we’re all fatigued. It’s been all bad news
for a long time. Our whole lifestyle has been disrupted. Everybody knows wants
to know one thing, when is it over, nobody knows. Well, President said by
Easter; this one said by this – nobody knows. You can have a hypothesis, you
can have a projection, you can have an opinion but nobody knows, but I can say
this, it is not going to be soon. If our apex is 14 to 21 days, that’s our
apex. You then have to come down the other side of the mountain once you hit
the apex, so calibrate yourself and your expectations so you’re not
disappointed every morning you get up.”
Cuomo described the “balkanization” and “fragmentation” of the
state’s health care system – private hospital chains, public hospitals,
downstate and upstate, city and suburbs and rural communities, rich and needy
and now federal hospitals – and said that he was creating a network where
staff, supplies and patients would be allocated as needed.
“That has to be our mentality. We laid out a full plan on how to
do facility development, how to move people among hospitals so nobody gets
overloaded, shifting patients, shifting staff, shifting supplies. None of us
have enough supplies. Okay, then let’s pool our supplies and let’s put them out
for the people who need them. Just because one hospital happened to have found
a vendor from China who delivered 5 million masks, let’s share those masks.”
Getting ahead of the virus means gearing up for the projected apex
and stockpiling vital equipment like ventilators for the day when they will be
needed – a remark intended to blunt Trump’s veiled accusation that Cuomo was warehousing
4,000 ventilators while complaining that he needed 30,000.
And he continued to appeal for mass testing as critical to not
only determining who is sick, but who has the antibodies and therefore no
longer at risk.
The crisis ends, he said, “when we get a fast track test, an at
home test, 15-minute test, and people can find out when they can go back to
work because they’re negative. We’re working on additional testing. As I said,
the department of health has a new test, but that’s when this ends
“We’re also working on the new medications. We’re leading the
country in many of these developments. We have saliva testing. We’re working on
the antibody testing and plasma testing at the same time.”
Cuomo added, “We know what to do. We just have to do it. It is
individual discipline to stay at home. That’s what it
is, it’s discipline. No social distancing. It’s discipline. Well, I’m
bored. I know. I’m bored. It’s discipline. Making this healthcare system work,
that’s government skill, that’s government performance. That’s saying to that
healthcare system, I don’t care how it worked yesterday, I don’t care whose
turf this is, I don’t care whose ego is involved, I’m sorry, we have to find a
way to work, a better way. Time to say to that federal government and to FEMA
and HHS, you have to learn how to do your job, and you have to learn how to do
it quickly. Because time is not our friend. It’s about a social stamina. This
is not one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, six
weeks, okay? This is not going to be an Easter surprise. Understand that
and have the stamina to deal with it.
The coordination of the state’s health care system is but one step
in what Cuomo called for as “unity” – coordination and cooperation among
states.
“Let’s help one another. New York needs help now. Yesterday I
asked for healthcare workers from across the country to come here because we
need help. We will pay you, and more importantly, we will return the favor.
This is going to be a rolling wave across the country. New York, then it’ll be
Detroit, then it’ll be New Orleans, then it will be California. If we were
smart as a nation, come help us in New York. Get the equipment. Get the
training. Get the experience. And then let’s all go help the next place, and
then the next place, and then the next place. That would be a smart national
way of doing this. And showing that unity. And, unity meaning, we’re not, I
know this is a political year, and everything is a political backdrop, and
Democrats want to criticize Republicans, Republicans want to criticize Democrats.
Not now. Not now. There are no red states, there are no blue states. The virus
doesn’t attack and kill red Americans or blue Americans. It attacks all
Americans. And keep that in mind, because there is, there is a unifying wisdom
in that.”
The Governor confirmed 9,298 additional cases of novel
coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 75,795 confirmed cases in New York
State – among them, the governor’s own brother, Chris Cuomo, who anchors a news
program on CNN. Of the 75,795 total individuals who tested positive for the
virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Directs State Nonessential Workforce to Work
from Home for Additional Two Weeks Through April 15th
New York’s Wadsworth Lab has Developed New,
Less Intrusive Test for COVID-19
Executive Order Also Allows Schools to Host
Day Care Free of Charge
Following Governor’s Call, Pharmacies Have
Agreed to Offer Free Home Delivery
Announces State, in Partnership with Assembly
Speaker Heastie, Senator Bailey, Assemblyman Benedetto and Borough President
Diaz Jr., is Launching a New Mobile Testing Site in the Bronx
Confirms 7,195 Additional Coronavirus Cases in
New York State – Bringing Statewide Total to 59,513; New Cases in 44 Counties
Governor Cuomo also announced that New York State’s Wadsworth Lab has developed a new, less intrusive test for COVID-19. The new test is done through a saliva sample and a self-administered short nasal swab in the presence of a health care professional. Additionally, health care professionals can self-administer the test without another health care professional present. This new test will help conserve personal protective equipment, or PPE, for healthcare workers, reduce potential exposure of the virus to health care workers and will allow the state to continue to test as many individuals as possible in New York amid the national shortage of the more intrusive nasopharyngeal, or NP, swabs. (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
today announced all NYS on Pause functions will be extended for
the next two weeks. The Governor also directed the state nonessential workforce
to continue to work from home for an additional two weeks through April 15th.
The state will re-evaluate after this additional two-week period.
In-person workforce restrictions,
which have been implemented through various Executive Orders —202.3
(restaurants and bars, gyms, fitness centers, movie theaters and casinos);
202.4 (local government workforces, school districts; village elections); 202.5
(malls, public amusement facilities); 202.6 (all non-essential reduce 50%);
202.7 (barber shops, salons, other personal care); 202.8 (DMV); 202.10
(non-essential gatherings of any size); 202.11 (extension of school district
closure until April 15, 2020) — are also extended until April 15,
2020 to enable uniform extension and review of such restrictions, and any
such restrictions may be extended by future executive orders.
Governor Cuomo also announced that
New York State’s Wadsworth Lab has developed a new, less intrusive test for
COVID-19. The new test is done through a saliva sample and a self-administered
short nasal swab in the presence of a health care professional. Additionally,
health care professionals can self-administer the test without another health
care professional present. This new test will help conserve personal protective
equipment, or PPE, for healthcare workers, reduce potential exposure of the
virus to health care workers and will allow the state to continue to test as
many individuals as possible in New York amid the national shortage of the more
intrusive nasopharyngeal, or NP, swabs. Self-collection of nasal swabs has been
done before for other respiratory viruses such as flu and it has been shown to
be effective and safe, and collection of a saliva sample is simple and
non-invasive. This new testing will begin within a week.
The Governor also issued an executive order to allow schools
to host day care free of charge.
After speaking with the state’s major pharmacy chains, the
Governor announced that pharmacies have agreed to offer free home delivery to
help reduce long lines for prescriptions at their facilities.
“There is no state in the nation that is better
prepared or better mobilized to combat this virus than New York,” Governor
Cuomo said. “The number of cases is still going up towards the
apex, and the development of new, faster tests will be critical in flattening
this curve, getting people back to work and returning to normalcy. The state’s
Wadsworth lab has developed a new, less intrusive test that will allow us to
increase our testing capacity, as well as save valuable PPE for our healthcare
workers. We will get through this because we are New Yorkers – we are strong,
we have endurance and we have stability. We have a plan, we’re executing that
plan and we will manage any obstacle that we come across.”
Governor Cuomo also announced, in partnership with Assembly
Speaker Carl Heastie, Senator Jamaal Bailey, Assemblyman Michael Benedetto and
Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., that the State is launching a new mobile
testing site in Co-Op City, the largest public housing development (Mitchell
Lama) in the country. This new mobile testing site located at the Bay Plaza
Mall Parking Lot, AMC Cinema entrance in the Bronx will provide tests by
appointment only and will prioritize symptomatic individuals who had close
exposure to a positive COVID-19 case, health care workers and first responders
displaying symptoms, and those working in or having recently visited a nursing
home who exhibit COVID-19 symptoms. To get an appointment, New Yorkers can call
the Coronavirus hotline at 1-888-364-3065.
Finally, the Governor confirmed 7,195 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 59,513 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 59,513 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:
Cuomo: “My last point is practice
humanity. We don’t talk about practicing humanity, but now if ever there is a
time to practice humanity the time is now. The time is now to show some
kindness, to show some compassion to people, show some gentility – even as a
New Yorker.”
Trump has played a pathetic game of catch-up to the actual task of getting Americans through the coronavirus pandemic as best as possible, with as few deaths and as little destruction to the economy and society as possible. While he has proved a mendacious inept clog, true leadership has been demonstrated by Governors, especially New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. His press availability today, in which he gave updates on his nonstop effort to increase hospital capacity and obtain necessary protective equipment and medical supplies in anticipation of a surge of patients, was heartening to New Yorkers. It was a speech that hearkened to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was Governor of New York before he was President, leading the nation through the Great Depression and later through World War II. This is a rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks:
Good morning. Happy Saturday.
Welcome to the weekend. I want to give you an update and briefing on where we
are today and then we’re going to go out and do some real work, get out of this
building before we get cabin fever. You know the people who are here today.
From my far right, Simonida Subotic who is in charge of managing
supplies which is a major function for us, Robert Mujica, Director of
Division of the Budget, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, the
great James Malatras who has been a tremendous help here.
Go through the facts, the numbers
are still increasing. We have been seeing that. That’s the line that we’re
tracking. This is all about the increase in the number of cases and managing
the increase in the number of cases to the capacity of our health care system.
What are we doing? We’re reducing the spread and the rate of the spread to
match the increase in the number of cases and increasing hospital capacity at
the same time – just how do our hospitals manage the rate of the
spread.
We’re trying to reduce the spread
to over a period of months. Over a period of months our healthcare system can
deal with the numbers. We have moved to zero non-essential workers. You can’t
go below zero so we’re doing everything we can there and we put out new rules
on personal conduct and what people should be doing and how they should be
behaving and where they should be.
Matilda’s Law which is for the
vulnerable population, senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems,
underlying illnesses – that was very specific. As I mentioned we named it for
my mother Matilda because I went through this with my own siblings. How do we
help mom? Where do we bring mom? There was a difference of opinion. The best
health professionals put together guidelines that not only help senior citizens
but also their families who are trying to deal with this. I know it was helpful
to my family and the question among siblings these laws and guidelines
answered. I don’t want to mention which sibling but it turns out that he was
wrong.
The personal conduct rules and regulations are also very helpful. I want to thank Dr. Fauci who is really an extraordinary American and has given me great guidance and help and assistance in putting together these policies so I’d like to thank him and we’re doing those.
We’re working on every level. Every pistol is firing. Everything that can be done is being done. New Yorkers are lucky. We have a very experienced team that’s doing this. This is not their first rodeo. They’ve been through a number of emergencies on a number of levels.
Increasing hospital capacity – we want to get the capacity of 50,000 thousand up to a
minimum of 75,000. We told the hospitals we’re going to be ending elective
surgeries. We are now working with hospitals to reconfigure the space in the
hospital to get more beds and to find more staff to manage those beds. We’re
working on building new beds. We’re going to go out and review a number of
sites today. I’d like to give the final list to the federal government and the
Army Corps of Engineers today but we’re looking at Javits, SUNY Stony
Brook, SUNY Westbury, the Westchester Convention Center, and I’m going to go
out and take a look at those sites today or the ones I can get to. That would
give us a regional distribution and a real capacity if we can get them up
quickly enough and then increasing supplies which is one of the most critical
activities.
We are literally scouting the globe looking for medical
supplies. We’ve identified 2 million N-95
masks which are the high protection masks. We have apparel companies that are
converting to mask manufacturing companies in the State of New York in all
sorts of creative configurations and I want to thank them. I put out a plea
yesterday to ask them for help and we’ve been on the phone with all sorts of
companies who are really doing great work. We’re also exploring the State
of New York manufacturing masks ourselves.
We’re going to send 1 million N95 masks to New York City
today. That’s been a priority for New York
City and 1 million masks won’t get us through the crisis but it’ll make a
significant contribution to New York City’s mask issue and I want to thank
Mayor de Blasio for working in partnership. We’re sending 500,000 N95 masks to
Long Island. We’ve been working with County Executive Laura Curran and County
Executive Steve Bellone and I want to thank them.
We’re gathering ventilators. Ventilators are the most important piece of equipment and
the piece of equipment that is most scarce. We’re gathering them from all
different health facilities across the state and then we’re going to use those
in the most critical areas. We also identified 6,000 new ventilators that we
can actually purchase so that’s a big deal.
From the federal government’s
point of view I’ve spoken to the President a number of times. I spoke to the
Vice President a number of times. They’ve issued a federal disaster declaration
which is a technical act by the federal government but what it basically does
is it allows the federal emergency management agency called FEMA to step in and
assist financially. By that declaration FEMA
would pay 75 percent of the cost of a disaster. New York State would pay 25
percent of the cost. The federal government can waive the 25 percent of the
cost. I’m asking them to waive that 25 percent in this situation. I’ve
worked on many disasters, FEMA has waived the 25 percent. If there’s any
situation where FEMA should waive the 25 percent, this is the situation.
We’re also working with the federal government. We’re
requesting 4 field hospitals at 250 capacity each. That would give us 1000
field hospital beds. We’re going to
be looking at Javits as a location for those field hospitals.
We’re also requesting 4 Army Corps of Engineers temporary hospitals. Those are
the sites I mentioned earlier that I’m going to take a look at. The
SUNY Stonybrook, Westbury, Westchester Convention Center and
also Javits. Javits is so big that it can take the 4 field
hospitals and an Army Corps of Engineers temporary hospital. We’re also
requesting assistance with medical supplies which has been a very big
topic of conversation all across the country.
We’re also asking our
federal congressional delegation to fix a law that was passed on the
coronavirus federal aid because of a technical issue the way the bill was
written, New York State does not qualify for aid. That’s over $6
billion, that is a lot of money and we need the federal delegation to fix that
bill otherwise New York State gets nothing. New York State has more coronavirus
cases than any state in the United States of America. That we should not be
included in the bill, obviously makes no sense.
We’re also going to conduct immediately trials for the new
drug therapy which we have been discussing.
I spoke to Dr. Zucker about it. There is a theory that the drug treatment
could be helpful. We have people who are in serious condition and Dr.
Zucker feels comfortable, as well as a number of other health professionals,
that in a situation where a person is in dire circumstance, try what
you can. The FDA is going to accelerate to New York 10,000 doses. As
soon as we get those doses we will work with doctors, nurses and families on
using those drugs and seeing where we get.
I spoke to the President, he spoke
to this drug therapy in his press conference yesterday and I spoke to him
afterward. I said that New York would be interested and we have the most number
of cases and health professionals have all recommended to me that we try it, so
we’ll try it. We’re also
working on a number of other drug therapies, an anti-body
therapy, a possible vaccine. We have a company here
in New York called Regeneron that’s really showing some
promising results. I exempted them from the no work order, because they couldn’t possibly have a
really significant achievement for us. The new numbers, the more tests you
take, the more positives you find, and I give this caution because I think
people misinterpret the number of new cases. They take that number of new cases
as if it is reflective of the number of new cases, the spread. It is not. The
number of new cases is only reflective of the number of cases you are taking,
right. Where our goal is to find the positive cases, because if we find a
positive case we can isolate that person, and that stops the spread. So we’re
actually looking for positives. The more tests you take, the more positives you
will find.
We are taking more tests in New York than anyplace else.
We’re taking more tests per capita than China or South Korea. We’re also taking
more tests than any state in the United States of America. That is actually a great accomplishment. Because if you
remember back, two weeks, which seems like a lifetime now, the whole question
was coming up to scale on tests. How do we get the number of tests up and how
do we get it up quickly? I spoke to the president and the vice president and
said decentralize the testing, let the states do it. I have 200 labs. I can
mobilize quickly. Let us do the tests. They agreed. We’re doing more tests than
any state, so for example, we’ve done
45,000 tests. California has done 23,000, Washington has done 23,000, so
you see how many more tests we are doing. And again, I credit the team that’s
working here, because this is exactly what the mandate was. Perform as many
tests as quickly as you can, and that’s the drive-thrus we’ve put in
place, the hospital management, et cetera. So our numbers should be higher. And
they are.
Total number of positive cases now is up to 10,000,
number of new cases has increased by 3,000, let’s go back in case you can’t
read as fast as I can read. 6,000 New York City, 1,300 Westchester, 1,200 in
Nassau. You see the Westchester number
is slowing. We did a New Rochelle containment area. The numbers would suggest
that that has been helpful. So I feel good about that. You see Nassau
increasing, you see Suffolk increasing. So that’s just the wide spread increase
that we have been anticipating. But our hotspot of Westchester is now slowing,
and that’s very good news. New York City, it is the
most dense environment. This virus spreads in density, right. And
that’s what you’re seeing in New York City, obviously, has many more people
than any other specific location in the state. Number of counties are
increasing. You see the blue. I said to you early on that blue is going to take
over the whole state, just the way every state in the United States has now
been covered. Most impacted states, you look at the cases in New York is
10,000, Washington, California, 1,000 each. Does that mean that we have ten
times the number of cases as California or Washington? Or does that mean
we’re doing more tests than California or Washington? The truth is somewhere in
the middle, and nobody can tell you. Total number of people tested, we’re up to
45,000. Number of new tests. This is a rate that we watch. What is the rate of
hospitalization? Again, because this is all about hospital capacity, right, 1,500
out of 10,000, it’s roughly 15 percent of the cases. It’s been running about
14, 15. It’s gone as high as 20 percent, 21 percent. So actually 15 percent
rate of hospitalization is not a bad number. It’s actually down from where it
was. The more refined number is, of those who are hospitalized, how many
require the ventilators, because the ventilators are the piece of equipment
that is most scarce. That’s the next refinement of these numbers that we have
to do.
And again, the context on the
numbers is important. We’re talking 10,000 et cetera. You look at any world
health organization or the NIH, or what any of the other countries are saying.
You have to expect that at the end of
the day, 40 percent to 80 percent of the population is going to be infected. So
the only question is, how fast is the rate to that 40 percent, 80 percent,
and can you slow that rate so your hospital system can deal with it. That is
all we’re talking about here. If you look at the 40 to 80 percent, that means
between 7.8 million and 15 million New Yorkers will be affected at the end of
the day. We’re just trying to postpone the end of the day. Again,
perspective, Johns Hopkins, this is not a science fiction movie. You don’t have
to wait to the end of the movie to find out what happens. Johns Hopkins has
studied every case since it started, 284,000, 11,000 deaths, almost 90,000
recoveries, 183,000 still pending. Which tracks everything we know in the State
of New York. Our first case, first case, healthcare worker, 39-year-old female
who was in Iran. She went home, she never went to a hospital, she
recovered, she’s now negative. You get sick, you get
symptoms, you recover. That is true for the overwhelming number of
people. Again, context, people who died in the flu, from the flu, in 2018-2019:
34,000 Americans. 34,000, so when you hear these numbers of deaths, keep it in
perspective. 34,000 people died of the flu. Over 65, 74 percent of the people
were over 65. 25 percent were under 65. So, if you have an underlying illness,
you catch the flu, you can die. More likely if you have an underlying illness,
senior citizens, et cetera, but not necessarily. You have 25 percent under 65
years old die from the flu.
Also, in terms of context,
perspective. Don’t listen to rumors. I
mean, you have such wild rumors out there, and people call me with the craziest
theories. Just, I understand there’s anxiety and stress, but let’s remember
some basic context and facts. Society
functions. Everything works. There’s going to be food in the grocery stores.
There’s no reason to buy a hundred rolls of toilet paper. There really isn’t.
And by the way, where do you even put a hundred rolls of toilet paper? The transportation system functions. The
pharmacy system functions. These things are all going to work. Nonessential
workers, stay home, but the essential workers are staying home, especially the
healthcare workers. There is not going to be any roadblock when you wake up in
the morning that says you can’t leave this place, you can’t leave that place,
right? So if you have a real question, because you think there’s a real concern
from a credible source, contact my team. We have a special website: coronavirus.health.ny.gov, and ask the question
and you will get a real, truthful, factual response.
I have not hidden anything from the people of this state.
I have not tilted facts. Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, the American people deserve the truth, they can handle the truth,
give them the truth. When they don’t get the truth and if you don’t get the
facts, that’s when people should get anxious. If I think I’m being deceived or
there’s something you’re not telling me, or you’re shading the truth, now I’m
anxious. Everything I know, I’ve told you, and I will continue to tell you, and
these are facts, and you hear a rumor, and you want to check it out, go to that
website, these are people who work for me directly, and you will have the
truth. We do have an issue with
younger people who are not complying, and I’ve mentioned it before but it’s not
getting better. You know, you can have your own opinion. You cannot have your
own facts – you want to have an opinion, have an opinion, but you can’t have
your own facts. “Well young people don’t get this disease.” You are
wrong – that is not a fact. 18-49 years
old are 54 percent of the cases in New York State. 54 percent. 18-49 years old.
So you’re not Superman, and you’re not Superwoman, you can get this virus and
you can transfer the virus and you can wind up hurting someone who you love or
hurting someone wholly inadvertently. Social distancing works and you need
social distancing everywhere. There’s a significant amount of
non-compliance, especially in New York City, especially in the parks – I’m
going to go down there today, I want to see what situation is myself, but it
has to be stopped because you are endangering people and if it’s because of
misinformation, if it’s because of noncompliance, I don’t care frankly – this
is a public health issue and you cannot endanger other people’s health. You shouldn’t be endangering your own. But
you certainly have no right to endanger someone else’s.
This is my personal opinion, this is not a fact, you know to me it’s very important in
a situation like this, tell me the facts and then tell me your opinion – this
is my opinion. We talk about social
responsibility, especially young people talk about social responsibility and
they should – we pass a lot of legislation in this building, groundbreaking
legislation, national firsts, on economic rights, highest minimum wage in the
United States of America, human rights, first state to pass marriage equality,
which I believe was a human rights issue, we talk about environmental
responsibility and this state has the most aggressive environmental laws in the
United States of America and I am proud of it, but I also want people to think
about the social responsibility when it comes to public health. We haven’t
talked about it before, not really a field, it’s not really an issue, it’s not
really a hashtag, but social responsibility applies to public health just as it
applies to human rights, and economic rights and environmental rights – public
health, especially in a moment like this, is probably most critical.
So let’s think about that and
let’s act on that. In this crisis, think of yourselves, we are all first responders – your actions can either save or endanger
a life, so we are all first responders. What’s going to happen? We’re going
to get through this. We don’t know how long it’s going to take us to get
through this. Fact is we’re trying to
slow the spread of the virus to a number of months so the healthcare system can
deal with it, so therefore by definition it’s going to be a number of months.
I know people want to hear, “It’s only going to be a matter of weeks and
then it’s going to be fine.” I
don’t believe it’s going to be a matter of weeks. I believe it is going to be a
matter of months, but we are going to get through it, and how long and how well
it takes us to get through it is up to us. It depends on what we do – you
know when you’re sick and you say to the doctor, “Well how long until I
get better?” And the doctor says, “It depends on what you do. If
you follow the advice, you’ll get healthy faster, but it depends on what you
do.” This depends on what we do. China is now reporting no news cases.
Let’s assume that’s true – look at that trajectory, look at that turnaround,
look at what they did, we do have data we can follow. So how long is it going
to take? It depends on how smart and how we responsible are and how diligent we
are. You tell me the percentage of compliance and intelligence and discipline
on social disciplining et cetera? I’ll tell you how long it takes for us to get
through it.
Also something that people aren’t really talking about but I think we should start talking about – we talk about the economic consequences of this situation and they are going to be significant, and we are going to have to deal with it and New York will be right on top of it and as aggressive as we are witheverything else. But economic consequences come second – first, is dealing with this crisis. We talk about the economic consequences but we also need to talk about the social consequences. There is no Dow Jones index that we can watch on the screen that is measuring the social consequences and the social decline. But the stress, the anxiety, the emotions that are provoked by this crisis are truly significant, and people are struggling with the emotions as much as they are struggling with the economics. And this state wants to start to address that. I’m asking psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists who are willing to volunteer their time to contact the state and if this works out I would like to set up a voluntary network where people can go for mental health assistance where they can contact a professional to talk through how they are feeling about this. They are nervous, they are anxious, they are isolated. It can bring all sorts of emotions and feelings to the surface. When you are isolated you do not have people to talk to.
So I am asking the professional mental health establishment to contact us. Let us know that you are willing to volunteer time. It would obviously be all electronic. It would not be in person. It would be telephone, it would be Skype, etc. But I would ask you to seriously consider this. Many people are doing extraordinary things during this public health crisis. I ask the mental health community, many of them are looking for a way to participate, this is a way to participate. And if we get enough mental health professionals willing to volunteer their time, we will set up a mental health electronic help center. And we will talk more about that the next few days.
What happens besides how long?
What happens? The bigger question to me
is what do we learn about ourselves through this? As a society, we have
never gone through this. We have never gone through a world war. We have not
gone through any great social crisis. Here in New York, we went through 9/11
which I think is relevant in terms of some feelings that people are now
experiencing. 9/11 transformed society. I was there. I was part of it. You were
never the same after 9/11. You had a sense of vulnerability that you never had
before which I feel to this day. There was a trauma to 9/11. But as a society,
as a country, we have been blessed in that we have not gone through something
as disruptive as this.
So what do we learn about ourselves? I think what we are saying already is a crisis really
brings out the truth about ourselves first of all and about others. And your
see people’s strengths and you see people’s weaknesses. You see society’s
strengths and you see society’s weaknesses. You see both the beauty and
the vulnerability. You see the best in people and you see the worst in people.
You see people rise to the occasion and you see people fall from the burden of
the emotion. So, I think – You take a step back.
