Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Updates New Yorkers on State's Progress During COVID-19 Pandemic

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo updated New Yorkers on the state's progress during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.

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

Good morning, guys. Guys, gender neutral. I wonder if I have to say that every time? We have Melissa DeRosa, we have Robert Mujica, we have Dr. Zucker, we have Beth Garvey, we have Gareth Rhodes on the phone. Today is day 239, but who's counting? We did 120,000 tests. The micro-clusters, Brooklyn, Queens, Orange, Rockland, Stueben, Chemung, positivity rate of 3.1. To give you an idea of the progress we've made in that, Brooklyn was 4.4 this week, down from 5.3. Rockland 3.6 this week, down from 4.5. Orange 2.6, down from 4.6. That is great news.

The focus works and it says we can get the positivity rate under control and as we saw with Queens this past week, we get the numbers down, we then open up the areas. It's just math. Statewide, without these hot spots, 1.06. The positivity with the micro-clusters, 1.3.

Twelve New Yorkers passed away, they're in our thoughts and prayers. Hospitalization is down 30, 1,015; 227 ICU; 118 intubated. Context is everything here. We have had the highest number of cases for three days this past week in the country. We're seeing a real national surge oh and we are battling that national surge, that national high-tide, right? Because although we like to think we control our own destiny, we still have people coming from around the country into New York, and the numbers nationwide are really high and getting higher. Thursday, Friday, Saturday saw the three highest one-day counts nationwide - 85,000 cases on Friday was a one-day record. So, we are fighting the national tide, and so far, we are defying the national tide.

Mr. Meadows said something interesting today - Chief of Staff to the President. He said, "We can't control the virus." That was a very telling statement that he said that. Because it basically admitted and encapsulated the way they've handled COVID from the start. Remember back in January they had that Navarro memo that said millions would get infected. The President then denied it and then lied about it. They have believed from the beginning that they can't control the virus. That's the only rationale that explains the denial and the lying. If you believed you could control it, then you'd try to control it; if you don't believe you can control it, then you lie about it and deny it and you minimize it.

Meadows spoke the truth today, as to their opinion, "You can't control the virus." Now, he is fundamentally wrong on the facts, because we are in the state of New York and New York proved definitively you can control the virus. When you go from the highest infection rate in the country to one of the lowest it means you controlled the virus; it's not rhetoric, it's not subject to interpretation. You had a very high infection rate. You took certain measures and reduced the infection rate. What term do you use to define that situation? You controlled the virus - controlled. You didn't eliminate the virus, but you controlled the virus. If New York didn't control the virus, then the curve would have continued to go up and we would have had hundreds of thousands of people in our hospital system and we would have been overwhelmed. Flattening the curve is controlling the virus, right, by definition, friends. This is not political discussion; this is just the English language. Flattening the curve is controlling the virus. Controlling is a different word than eliminating. We controlled the virus, so he is wrong, but that's what they believe and that's why they never tried to control the virus, and that is why this country is in in the situation it is in, because they didn't believe they can control the virus. They could have controlled the virus - we are still controlling the virus. Look at the numbers going up all across the nation. We are still controlling the virus. They believed you can't control the virus.

They capitulated. They surrendered. They surrendered without firing a shot. It was the great American surrender. Americans don't surrender. And they didn't even put up a fight and what we learned in New York was if you put up a fight you would have won because New York won. Other states won also.

"We can't control the virus." Trump's theory: preemptive capitulation. Don't even try. Just surrender preemptively. President Trump, Commander-in-Chief, getsattacked by an enemy and his policy: preemptive capitulation. That's what they did and now we had 217,000 people dead because of preemptive capitulation.

They were wrong then. They're wrong now. Simplest thing they can do now is what Fauci said, what CDC says, what Birx says - wear masks, do a national mask mandate. Preemptive capitulation, you did Americans a disservice. Americans don't surrender. Americans fight and there was no reason to capitulate to this enemy because we can control it.