Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Announces Record Number of COVID-19 Tests Reported

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced 119,493 test results were reported to New York State yesterday—a new record high. In the top 20 'hot spot' zip codes, 6,703 tests were conducted, yielding 429 positives or a 6.4% positivity rate. In the remainder of the state, 112,790 were conducted yielding 1,169 positives or a 1.03% positivity rate.

AUDIO of today's conference call is available here.

A rush transcript of the conference call is available below:

Good morning to everyone. I'm joined by Melissa DeRosa, Robert Mujica, Dr. Zucker, Jim Malatras, Beth Garvey. A lot going on today, obviously. First, I've expressed my best wishes to the President and the First Lady. I hope the symptoms they get are mild. We've all had enough experience on this now. Some COVID cases are relatively mild, some are more significant symptoms, and I hope they have a mild case and I hope they have a speedy recovery. Politics is politics and we can disagree on policy issues, but on a human level the President grew up in New York, he's from Queens. I know the First Lady, I've spoken with her, so I sincerely wish them the best for a speedy recovery. Also I'm sure there's a certain level of anxiety that goes with this diagnosis. Nobody really knows that much about COVID, obviously. So, They're in our thoughts and prayers.

The President has reported that he's feeling mild symptoms. The White House scheduled this morning a briefing call for the White House with the Governors, I don't know who else is going to be on the briefing call, on healthcare related issues for 12:15 PM. So, the President is supposed to be on that 12:15 PM call, which would be good news because it would mean he's working, the symptoms are mild So, I'm going to do this relatively quickly and then get ready for the 12:15 PM call. I then also have a briefing call with the Governors as Chairman of the National Governors Association, which will be right after the White House call. So, a lot going on today, but let's do this quickly here on the home front.

Today is day 216. We are tracking the hotspots is the bottom line here, and the hotspots are a significant problem. Overall, the hotspots have an infection rate of about 6.4 percent. The State outside of the hotspots has an infection rate of about 1.03 percent. So, it's all about the hotspots for us. The hotspots are Orange, Rockland, New York City and a small area in Nassau. You've seen the Orange hotspot go up in some ZIP codes. Brooklyn, we've seen it go up in some ZIP codes. We see some spreading into Queens, the Kew Gardens, Rego Park, Forest Hills area. So, that is our priority and our focus.

The Department of Health is going to have people on the ground in those ZIP codes today. The Department of Health is sending a what's called Section 16 letter to the local governments advising them that they have to step up the compliance, that it is the law and if the local governments don't step up the compliance they will actually be in violation of the law and they can be fined. I've asked the local governments many times to actually do the compliance. Compliance is enforcement. Compliance is not public education. People know what the rules are. They've heard it every day. Local governments have to do enforcement, whether or not it fits with their political agenda really is pointless. It's the law and their job is to enforce the law.

We have a religious holiday starting tonight - Sukkot. It starts Friday night. It goes through the week. We extend our best wishes to our brothers and sisters who are celebrating that great Jewish holiday. The celebration for Sukkot is outdoors. It's normally held under a tent-like setting with open sides so that should not be a complicating factor when it comes to the spread of the virus.

The school dashboard is up. We have 1,258 cases. We've had a number of call and questions, why are there no, very sparse reporting from New York City schools? New York City schools are open but by the New York City plan, there was no specific testing being done. The plan in New York City was testing regimen would start October 1 but not necessarily their testing would start on October 1. The testing they said would be done over a month but no specific start date and that's all we know about that but for any New York City residents who have been asking, parents who have been saying where is the New York City data, they're not reporting it because their plan never said they would be doing it. So we'd refer them to the New York City Board of Ed. Other than that we have 1,258 total positives. That's onsite, offsite, that's teachers and students and the data is on the website.

By region, we have Western New York at 1.2 percent which is better than it was. Southern Tier, 1.1. We had the issue in Broome County with a cluster around a pub. North Country, 0.2; Mohawk Valley, 0.4; Mid-Hudson, 2.6, but that's Orange and Rockland; Long Island, 1.3. That has a little bit of the Nassau cluster in it but it's a small cluster in Nassau. Finger Lakes, 1.0; Central New York, 0.7; Capital, 0.9; New York City, 1.4, and that's what's driving the number.