Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on 1010WINS

Earlier Today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on 1010 WINS to discuss New York State's plan to combat the novel coronavirus.

AUDIO is available here.

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

1010 WINS: We are joined live here on 1010 WINS by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Thank you for joining us here, 1010 WINS.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, good to be with you.

1010 WINS: Governor, what can you tell us, the latest update on the people affected, the infections and unfortunately the death rate as well?

Governor Cuomo: We lost another person to coronavirus. That's the third death. People should remember these were people who were older or who had significant underlying illnesses, which by the way would be people who would be in grave position if they had the normal flu so it's very much following the same patterns, but we need to do everything we can to slow the spread of the virus so our health care system can deal with it. Part of that is reducing density because obviously it communicates among people and the less density the better, so we're going to be closing schools in downstate New York and Nassau and Suffolk are going to close school starting tomorrow. Westchester is coming up with a specific timetable but will be in the next several days. New York City, I've told them I want a plan in place to provide child care for essential workers, I want to make sure when we close the school in New York City that police, firefighters, health care workers can still get to their jobs rather than have to stay home and take care of the kids, so they're going to put a plan in place for child care, to make sure the food delivery continues. I gave them 24 hours to come up with that plan but New York City schools will close early this week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, as soon as we have a specific date I'll tell you.

1010 WINS: Governor Cuomo, we are expecting a press availability with the Mayor of New York later, approximate 5:00 p.m. With that will we be expecting to hear from him this afternoon any further details on that?

Governor Cuomo: No, I think it's a no brainer that we have to close the schools. The caveat is you have to continue the child care - especially for the essential workers, food programs, and we want to make sure that we have educational opportunities for the kids to catch up this summer. So we'll have all of that in place but the priority now is close the school, reduce the density, make sure our essential workers have child care in place. Again, remember the most important thing here is we don't overwhelm our hospitals so I want to make sure our health care workers and nurses can get to work. So we'll have a plan to have child care for the essential workers, food programs, then we'll make up the educational services this summer, but all schools in downstate New York will be closing.

1010 WINS: And Governor Cuomo, you did mention transportation for the workers. Let's talk about that aspect for a moment about the city's transportations system, the coronavirus pandemic, we know that they had increased the cleaning and disinfection but where do we stand on that and any specter possibility of that in any way closing down?

Governor Cuomo: The transit system has been cleaned twice per day. Remember this is not really a hard virus to remove from surfaces. They have a lot of fancy cleaners. Then they just have old fashioned bleach and water so if you smell a lot of bleach don't be surprised. So they're cleaning the transportation system. The density on the transportation system is down because of some of the other measures we've taken. I've asked private businesses to voluntarily close. We're closing schools, so the ridership on a public transit system is down just by a function of everything else we've done and the transit system is clean

1010 WINS: Speaking of the word 'voluntarily', that is a key word, Governor Cuomo. What if certain places do not close as he said voluntarily? What would possibly be the next step if at all?

Governor Cuomo: We have already by regulation made places close, right? Any place over 500 has to stop operating. We put a guideline employees that said no more than fifty percent occupancy of the facility. So, if your facility is certified for two hundred people you can only have one hundred people to reduce density. If these numbers keep going up on the spread of the virus I will increase those regulations. You know for me this is a data driven decision. It's a science driven decision. You're watching the curse of the increase in the number of cases. You know it's going to overwhelm our healthcare system. So, we're doing everything we can to reduce the curve and how do you reduce it? You reduce density, you do more and more testing. We're doing more testing than any state right now. I spoke to President Trump, to break the federal log jam he allowed New York State to do our own testing. So, we're doing everything we can to bring that number down and part of that is closing the schools.

1010 WINS: In addition to that, and we are joined right now here live on 1010 WINS by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Thank you for being here. You're talking about, you know, the schools and businesses, but what about places that people are still seeking out? For example, areas of recreation such as parks and leisure, tell us about that any possible plans it may be in the offing where that is concerned about possible closing more regulation or limitations.

Governor Cuomo: But remember its - we're not dealing with a science fiction movie. It's, it transfers basically like a flu, being outside, walking around the park, god bless. It's being in close proximity to a symptomatic person, somebody sneezes they're close to you, somebody coughs, they are close to you, you inhale what they call the droplets. Or you're in a place of high density, you are, someone simply puts the hand on a counter there, they're sick and they had just sneezed into their hand and then you put your hand on the counter. That's why we say don't touch your face, hand sanitizer, but go for a walk not, in Midtown Manhattan. Great, just avoid the density.

1010 WINS: Speaking of density, for example, in Teaneck they are already telling residents there too self-quarantine. Have you revisited the idea of a city-wide quarantine?

Governor Cuomo: There is no city-wide quarantine being discussed and I want to make sure clear on this because there's a lot of rumors and there is a lot more fear and panic than is justified. Somebody asked me about a city on Long Island if that might be quarantined. No city can be quarantined unless the state approves it. I would never approved the quarantine of a city, so no city is going to be quarantined. We might be reducing what businesses can do in terms of dense populations, but it's just about reducing the density. And also on the deep breath of reality here and facts over fear, again at the end of the day what all the numbers show, every experience, China, South Korea, Italy, people who would normally be vulnerable to a flu will be vulnerable to this and senior citizens, people with compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses, if you're battling cancer, if you emphysema, people with advanced COPD, people with advanced heart disease. When you get pneumonia on top of one of those illnesses it is always a problem. And you know, all too often you hear a person, "Well he died of pneumonia." Yeah he died of pneumonia, but he also had heart disease, but he also had cancer. And that's what this is, this is pneumonia, which is dangerous for people who are in that vulnerable position. I would wager you today there have been tens of thousands of cases of coronavirus already all through New York and people didn't even know it and it resolved and they thought they had the flu and they went on with their lives. And that's what's going to happen here.

1010 WINS: And Governor Cuomo joining us live here on 1010 WINS talking about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. You have talked about restrictions, and you know we touched on many issues including the possibility, and of course self-quarantining, self-isolation. But how do you go about policing, for example the regulations and the self-spacing. Any possibility of bringing in, say for example, the National Guard or the military to address those pressing issues, Governor?

Governor Cuomo: No. The National Guard we use for logistical help on occasion. The National Guard we've used to, every time there's a storm I'm out there with the National Guard shoveling snow. They're actually shoveling the snow, I'm actually looking like I shovel the snow. They're helping deliver meals in some places in the state now. But no we don't use them for policing. People have been very cooperative with the policing. We had seven thousand people on quarantine. I don't think anyone challenged legally any order that I put out. So people have been very cooperative. Businesses know the rules, if a business breaks the rules they could be fined. But I haven't heard reports of that either. This is in everybody's interest, right? This is, I want to keep myself well and I want to keep you healthy at the same time. And where it linked in that effort, you have to be smart about yourself and I have to be smart about myself. So I think people get it.

1010 WINS: Governor, on the issue of keeping people well, what about the construction of possible more healthcare facilities, more hospitals. Would you need additional help for that which might possibly involve the military or other support staff?

Governor Cuomo: Well that's exactly right. I did an open letter to President Trump today and I said we know what is going to happen, we're trying to flatten the curve, right, we're trying to reduce the spread of the disease. I don't believe we will ever reduce the spread of the disease to a point where we can deal with it in our hospital system. I don't see it as a curve, I see it as a wave and the wave is going to crash on the hospital system. And that's what happened in Italy, more people got sick than the hospital system could take care of because the people who are going to get sick are people who need intensive acute care beds. They're going to be people with emphysema, with heart conditions and now pneumonia. So it's not just putting them in a bed, they're going to need an intensive care bed. We only have about 600 intensive care beds in the state. We already have 60 people just from this disease against that 600. I sent a letter to President Trump saying get us the army corps of engineers, get them in here now, start converting some of these state buildings to medical facilities so we can take people out of hospital beds who don't need it and put them in these medical facilities. Only the federal government can do that. I used to be in the federal government, I've worked with the army corps of engineers, they are great, they can build bridges, they can build airports, they have personnel, they have logistics. Only they could do it and I said to the president and if I with the president today I would deploy the army corps of engineers to start building as many hospital medical beds as you could, give them the dormitories, I'll give them colleges, put in the equipment, do the retro fit and let's have the beds available because we know today, we know today we are not going to be able to deal with this surge that this disease brings. Our hospitals will be overwhelmed. We need it today. We've been behind this disease all along. We saw the disease in China, we knew it was coming, we didn't prepare. Let's get ahead of it. We know we're going to be short on hospital beds, start building them now, now, or we're going to regret it, you mark my words, I'm a lifelong New Yorker, I'm a Queens boy, wager anything you want to wager. I'll replay this tape in six weeks when the hospitals are overwhelmed, I'll send it to the president and say, "I told you we needed the army corps of engineers in here building new beds because we couldn't handle the numbers." That's what's going to happen.

1010 WINS: Governor Cuomo, we really appreciate you joining us here on 1010 WINS and providing your perspective, insight and information during this ongoing pandemic. Thank you again Governor Cuomo.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you for having me.