Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Announces Wadsworth Laboratory Has Begun Research of the New COVID-19 Strain

AUDIO is available here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Hello, this is Governor Cuomo. Today is day 297. We did 154,000 tests, we have a statewide positivity without microclusters 5.5, with microclusters 5.8. Positivity in microclusters 6.8, 139 New Yorkers passed away, 6,661 New Yorkers hospitalized. That number is a two-grains of salt number, because the admissions into hospitals has been about flat, but the discharges are lower than they have been for some unexplained reason, so the net number is higher. But the admissions is not necessarily higher. ICUs up 31, and intubations are up 1.

If you look across the state, the highest positivity over the seven day average? Mohawk Valley, 8.5. Second, Finger Lakes, 8.3. Capital Region 6.9, Central New York 6.5, Long Island 6.5, Western New York 6.4. That's a big turnaround for Western New York. Mid-Hudson 6.2, North Country 5.2, New York City 4.3, Southern Tier 2.4, statewide 5.4.

Positivity by borough in New York City: Bronx 5.03, Brooklyn 4.4, Manhattan 2.75, Queens 4.9, Staten Island the winner, or in this case the loser, 5.5, with the highest positivity in New York City. A couple of points: the hospital capacity is a concern for New York, you see California actually now has a hospital emergency and is rationing healthcare, so that gives you a sense. The ultimate collapse here is a collapse of the hospital system, and that was Italy.

We're keeping a fine eye on our hospital capacity, our metric is if a hospital is 21 days from 85% of capacity, ok? A little confusing. 21 days from 85%, meaning they only have 15% capacity left, then they have to tell us - high alert, high alert, high alert - if they're 21 days from only having 15 percent capacity left. That would effectively give us a month before notice, before you run into a real hospital situation. No hospital in the State has told us that they are at that point in 21 days, including all the hospitals in New York City. Including the hospitals that New York City runs, which is called the H+H system, Health and Hospital System.

We do have Christmas coming, we do have Kwanzaa coming, we have Christmas week coming, we have New Years Eve coming, we have New Year's Day coming so we expect the numbers to go up. The model on my unofficial season's greeting card and the model that the State is going to be promulgating through various means over the holidays: Celebrate smart. Stop shutdowns. Celebrate smart, stop shutdowns. It's been a long year. Celebrate. I'm going to celebrate, but celebrate smart and stop shutdowns.

This U.K. variant news is a real issue. I want to make sure we understand it. There's been confusion in some of the stories I've read because it's complicated. Boris Johnson shut down the U.K. one week after he said he would never shut it down for Christmas. The reason he shut it down, he said and did a total 180 degree shift, was because they found a variant of the virus.

Now, there are hundreds of mutations of the virus. The reason we know the virus came to New York from Europe rather than from China is it mutated in Europe and came here and they traced the New York virus to Europe in the spring from the mutation, so there have been hundreds of mutations. Yes, but one mutation can be deadly and that's what everyone is worried about. That's the 1918 flu pandemic second wave. Yes, the virus mutates but there is a chance it mutates into something that is much more deadly.

Boris Johnson says it's 70 percent more transmittable than the original COVID virus. That would be a real problem. 120 countries do a ban or require testing. The United States does nothing. I never said we should ban the flights. I said countries have banned or are requiring testing but that the United States should do something, that the United States should either ban or test.

I contacted the airlines that fly into New York from the UK - Virgin, Delta and British Airways. They have all agreed to test people before they get on the flight. I then said, okay, you have 120 countries on the list and the State of New York. The United States should say the same thing that New York said, say that people need to test before they come from the UK.

I think actually the United States should say we should test before anyone comes from any country because the UK variant now has already migrated. Learn the lesson from the spring. The virus is in China, the virus is in China. The virus got on an airplane and within days the virus goes global. The UK variant is in the UK. Yeah, but within days it gets on a plane and it's now global and that's where the UK variant is.

So I would say to the United States, mandatory testing of anyone coming from any country and flying into the United States. Well, why doesn't New York do that? I can't because we don't control the borders. The federal government does that with Customs and Border Patrol. If I could do that I would do it.

What I did yesterday was an extraordinary measure where I called airlines and asked to be added to a country protocol. The other 120 countries are countries, and they agreed, so it's 120 countries and the State of New York. But, that's what I think the United States should do.

Dr. Fauci said he doesn't think a ban is necessary. He does think that testing would be appropriate, but not a ban. Dr. Fauci also said something that is frightening. He said he thinks the variant is already here. Not that he has evidence of that, but I assume he's referring to the phenomenon of global spread and how quickly it spreads. If the variant is here, I want to know, because that would be problematic. We have the state is now contacting hospitals all across our state to test for the variant specifically. And there are tests that can test for the variant.

We're working with Montefiore, MSK, Northwell, University of Rochester, Albany Med, Greater New York Healthcare Association, and the state lab at Wadsworth is coordinating it. They're also going to reach out to Upstate today, Medical, and ECMC. We want to test for the variant. If it's here, we want to know it, we want to isolate it immediately. But let's learn from the spring. Dr. Fauci says he thinks it's here. If it's here, where? Where is it?

On the vaccine, as of yesterday we had done 38,000 vaccines. Today we have done 50,000. Up to today total we've done 50,000 vaccines. We are very aggressive about our vaccination program. We have 630,000 dosages that we have received thus far. We expect about 300,000 additional doses by the end of next week. We have 618 nursing homes that we believe will be vaccinated within two weeks, which would be very good news.

Again, there is no politics in the distribution of the vaccine. No mayor is in control, no county executive is in control, no supervisor is in control, nobody can put you at the front of the list. Local governments have absolutely nothing to do with this. This is all done by the hospital system, the medical providers. I am asking the hospitals and the nursing home operators and the medical personnel who are providing services for vaccinations in the nursing homes to work over the holidays in providing the vaccinations.

I understand it's been a long year and everybody needs time off, but we are in a foot race; it's the increase in the COVID spread versus the vaccination rate. So, I'm asking them to continue to vaccinate over the holidays. In many ways, in a nursing home a vaccine is the best gift that you could give a nursing home resident. The best gift that you can give a frontline healthcare worker is a vaccine. So, let's give them that gift over this holiday season.

Just to clarify with the Buffalo Bills, we are talking to the Bills, we're researching teams and protocols across the nation. The Department of Health is looking at an experimental model working with data and testing to see if there's any way we could safely allow some fans into the game. We're working with the Bills, it's all a work in progress. You should know I have been to the stadium many times. The State has invested in renovations to the stadium. I worked on the renovations of the stadium. So, I haven't been to the stadium in the past couple of weeks for obvious reasons, but I spent many days going through design drawings of the stadium and I'm quite familiar with it.