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. Yesterday, 87,900 test results—a new record high—were reported to New York State. The number of new cases, percentage of tests that were positive and many other helpful data points are always available at forward.ny.gov.

AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.

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

Hi guys, good morning. I have Melissa DeRosa, Rob Mujica, Jim Malatras, Gareth Rhodes on the phone, Beth Garvey on the phone. It's a sunny beautiful day in Albany, and it is all very good news.

New York conducted 85,000 tests yesterday, which is more than any state in the United States. 727 positive. That's .85. That is fantastic. This is the seventh straight day that the positive rate under 1 percent. That is fantastic. We are doing a tremendous number of tests. New York State has averaged 87,000 tests a day over the past three days. So, .8 is a great number and it's based on a very large sample size. Largest sample sizes that we've been taking. So on the numbers, it's been extraordinary. Congratulations to all New Yorkers, because their actions result in these tests. [Three] New Yorkers passed away. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 554 were hospitalized, that's about what it was the day before, down one. 127 COVID patients in ICU, 59 intubated, that's about where it was.

While the other states are seeing real trouble, we are doing very well. We have to protect the progress, quarantine from other states, and compliance in New York, SLA found 12 violations yesterday. That number's somewhat lower. I hope institutions and establishments are actually getting the message.

On the power outage after the tropical storm, they have made, PSE&G, Con Ed, have made progress. Too little, too late, as far as I'm concerned, and we're going to have an investigation. Again, this is why we hired them. We hired them to prevent outages during storms and then to get them up quickly. That's what they get paid to do, and that's what they failed to do.

On testing, Ag and Markets is going to work with the New York State Department of Health to dispatch mobile testing units to farms in rural counties. We're seeing several clusters, several outbreaks at farms, basically from the workers and we're dispatching mobile testing sites.

In terms of education, let me just say what I've said: by the infection rate, all schools can open, can - they have the ability to open. That does not mean the parents and the teachers, or the local school district, must open. They can open doesn't mean they must open. They can open if they are safe. What is safe? Safe means they have the proper precautions in place, and the teachers, and the parents, they are safe to open. They have the protocols in pace, the cohorting in place, contact tracing in place, whatever testing requirements they need in place, and they consult the parents and the teachers. I then said they had to do a number of sessions where the parents get to ask questions. I'm now getting calls that the school districts are doing online calls, but they're not really allowing the parents to speak or ask questions, and they're not really discussions. I got calls from teachers saying that a district had a call for teachers, but that it was a manipulated call. School districts want to manipulate conversations, school districts want to stonewall conversation, it's going to show up on the first day that school is supposed to open, because the parents won't send the kids and the teachers won't show up. So, full discussion, candid discussion, these are important issue. People are nervous.

Then some updates: bowling alleys. Given the results that we have and given the progress that we've made, we're going to make some more changes and adjustments. Bowling alleys will be allowed to open on Monday. 50 percent occupancy. You must have a face covering. Every other lane closed. The parties stay with their party at the lane that they're bowling. The establishment has to have cleaning and disinfecting protocols in place, especially on the shared and the rented equipment.

Food service, alcohol service: Only by wait service at the party's location. You're at a lane, you're bowling, you can order food, you can order alcohol, they come to you. You don't go to a bar, you don't go to a food concession. They come to you. That's bowling alleys. They open on Monday.

Low-risk indoor cultural activities, museums, aquariums, other low-risk indoor cultural arts can reopen in New York City August 24 so they can get their protocols in place. Twenty-five percent maximum occupancy, timed ticketing required with pre-set staggered entry. Face coverings enforced and controlled traffic flow.

Gymnasiums, we will put out protocols on Monday for gymnasiums to open which follow the protocol.

We're also doing a joint pilot program with four cities to analyze waste water. Believe it or not, you can find the presence of COVID-19 in waste water. The Department of Health here in New York has been working on that and we're going to start a pilot project on that basis.

On the federal funds, I don't know what to tell you. They're playing politics. They've always been playing politics. COVID-19 didn't bring any responsibility to Washington. They started early on, we're not going to do any blue state bailouts. McConnell, McConnell let the states go bankrupt - I'm still waiting for that law to pass, by the way. This has been a total disgrace and the current Executive Orders by the President, the states are under dire financial circumstances so his suggestion is we now pay part of the unemployment insurance makes absolutely no sense.

COVID-19 and the mishandling of COVID-19, I'll make a projection for you, COVID-19 is going to be the main factor in the November elections and Washington is going to fail the leadership test on COVID-19 and you will see it in all elections - Congressional, Senate and presidential. This is an historic crisis. People are afraid. You name the last time you had a situation controlled by government that had this impact on every American's life. By the way, you can go back to drafts - affected a large number of Americans. The children were drafted, families. You find me a time when you had a government issue that affected every American to these consequences, life and death.

GAO made an interesting finding that Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Wolf and his Deputy Cuccinelli were wrongfully appointed. Surprise, surprise. They extorted New York. They're unethical and it turns out they didn't even have any business being in the job. Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways.