Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on CBS This Morning to Discuss the First Coronavirus Case in New York State

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on CBS This Morning to discuss the first Coronavirus case in New York State.

AUDIO of the Governor's interview is available here.

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

Gayle King: New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo joins us with more on this story. Governor, good morning to you. You know, a lot of New Yorkers, certainly here in the city, woke up and said oh, no, here we go. What can you tell us about this latest case? What do we know?

Governor Cuomo: Well, good morning to all of you, and you, Gayle. First, New Yorkers should not be surprised, we've been talking about this for days. I said it's not a question of if, but when. You see the number of cases around the globe. New York is the gateway to the world so that's not shocking and we've been preparing for it and we've been truly diligent on this issue.

This is somewhat of a unique case, because this woman was a health care worker coming back from Iran, as you mentioned. So, she knew to take precautions and stay in a controlled situation and then go for testing. And we got the testing results back. So Idon't think there's anything extraordinary in this case, if anything, because she was a health care worker. She knew to take precautions herself, which was fortunate.

Anthony Mason: Governor, how effective do you expect that test to be? Do you have enough? Will you have enough?

Governor Cuomo: Good question. We just got the federal authority to do the testing, and we are now going to scale up very, very quickly. So, we'll have the ability to test and, again, in this quote, unquote, containment phase. It's about the detection and then the isolation and it's the mobilization of the health care system more than anything. Beyond that, it's a communication issue to people, you know. We want to have a healthy diligence about this issue, but we don't want an unnecessary anxiety and we don't want people overreacting. So that's what this is really about to me.

Tony Dokoupil: Can you confirm that she lives in Manhattan? If that is the case, have you rule ruled out the possibility of something like we saw in China, where a city or region is sealed off as a containment method?

Governor Cuomo: She does live in Manhattan. She is isolated in her apartment and there's no cause to do anything but that. Again, this is not -- by the way, Ebola was much more frightening than this issue. We've gone through viruses that are frankly more frightening than this, so we need a little context for all of this, a little perspective. We have to treat it. We have to be serious, but the fear, in my opinion, is outpacing reason at this point.

Gayle King: Governor, we thank you very much for your time.

Anthony Mason: Thanks very much, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Thanks, guys. Thank you.