Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo Announces 40,000 Health Professionals Have Signed Up to Volunteer as Part of The State's Surge Healthcare Force

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that to date 40,000 healthcare workers, including retirees and students, have signed up to volunteer to work as part of the state's surge healthcare force during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with more expected to sign up in the coming weeks. Additionally, more than 6,000 mental health professionals have signed up to provide free online mental health services. New Yorkers can call the state's hotline at 1-844-863-9314 to schedule a free appointment.

Governor Cuomo also announced New York City will pilot closing streets to vehicles and opening them to pedestrians as part of the city's plan to address the lack of adherence to social distancing protocols. As part of the plan, the Governor is also enacting a voluntary playground social density protocol that prohibits close contact sports such as basketball.

The Governor also urged the federal government to implement a "rolling deployment" of equipment and personnel to address the critical needs of hotspot areas with high numbers of positive COVID-19 cases instead of providing limited quantities to the entire country at once. As part of the plan, the Governor has pledged to personally manage the deployment of supplies and equipment and technical assistance to the next hotspots around the country once New York State's number of hospitalizations begins to decrease.

The Governor also announced that the Four Seasons Hotel on 57th street in Manhattan is the first of several hotels that is providing their facility to serve as housing for nurses, doctors, and medical personnel during this crisis. The 350 room hotel will provide medical personnel currently working to respond to the coronavirus outbreak lodging free of charge.

At Governor Cuomo's direction, the Public Service Commission today approved orders postponing rate increases for nearly 2 million customers of New York American Water and National Grid upstate that were scheduled to go into effect on April 1st. This will provide relief to families and businesses affected by COVID-19. NYAW's increase will now go into effect in September and National Grid upstate's will go into effect in July. These are the only major utilities in New York State that were due to increase their rates on April 1. The Department of Public Service is asking other utilities to consider postponing rate increases, depending on continued movement reductions due to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Finally, the Governor confirmed 5,146 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 30,811 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 30,811 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

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

Good morning. Thank you for being here today.

I think you know everyone who is here. Let me start to my far right: Gareth Rhodes who is the Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services - he's working with me for a long time from the Attorney General's Office and he's part of our swat team; we have James Malatras, President of Empire College; Dr. Howard Zucker, Health Commissioner; Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor; Robert Mujica, Budget Director.

We have a lot of interesting news today. Things are moving. Current status, we still have the trajectory going up. We have not turned the trajectory nor have we hit the apex. Remember what that line is going to do. It's going to go up, it's going to reach a high point, it's going to tip, it's going to go back down. We're still on the way up the mountain.

Number of infections that have been coming in, 80 percent still self-resolve but 15 percent of the people who test positive require hospitalization. And then there are degrees of hospitalization. But the total universe that requires hospitalization is 15 percent.

We use projection models. We have Cornell Weill which is a great medical institution that does projection models. We use McKinsey that does projection models. The Department of Health does projection models. The projection models are important because they are projecting the possible projector and projecting the possible need, so we're planning for need and the projection models do that. The projection models are just that. They are models of projections. They're not necessarily definitive but it's the only device that we have to plan. Follow the data, follow the data, follow the data. The actual hospitalizations have moved at a higher rate than the projected models, than all the projected models, so that was obviously concerning because that higher infection rate means faster, higher capacity than the hospitals and that's the critical point for us, is the number of people going to hospitals.

Right now what we're looking at is about 140,000 cases coming into the hospitals. The hospital capacity is 53,000 beds. That's a problem. We're looking at about 40,000 ICU cases coming into the hospitals. We have about 3,000 ICU beds. That's a challenge. What is an ICU bed for these purposes? It's basically a bed with ventilator. The ventilator is the most critical piece of equipment for an intensive-care unit bed because this is a respiratory illness and people need more ventilation than usual.

What do we want to do? Reduce the number of cases coming into the hospitals, slow the number of cases coming into the hospitals - that's what Dr. Fauci is talking about on TV every day. Flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten the curve. Slow the number of people coming into hospitals so we can deal with them in the hospitals and we are working on that.

At the same time, increase your hospital capacity. Try to slow the number of cases coming into the hospital, meanwhile raise your hospital capacity. We are working on both simultaneously. We have been from day one. Reduce the number of cases coming in, flatten the curve, slow the spread of the infection - we are doing everything we can on that. That's banning non-essential workers, that's social distancing, that's closing restaurants, closing gyms, just flatten the curve, slow the infection rate.

One issue we had was in New York City where we had a higher level of density than we wanted - especially in the New York City parks, especially with young people. I've been as direct as I can and as blunt as I can on young people and the misinformation that they have. You can catch the coronavirus. You may think you are a superhero. You're really not. You can catch it and you can transfer it which makes you dangerous to the people who you love. But the New York City parks have been a problem. I saw the problem. I saw firsthand, I spoke to Mayor de Blasio, I spoke to Speaker Johnson. We said come up with a plan in 24 hours that everybody agreed with. They came up with a plan. We're now implementing that plan. I signed off on that plan. The plan is going to pilot closing streets in New York City because we have much less traffic in New York City. We have many fewer vehicles in New York City. Open streets. People want to walk. They want to go out and get some air. They want a less dense area, so pilot closing streets to cars, opening streets to pedestrians.

We'll also enact mandatory playgrounds social density - that's probably a new concept - no close contact sports in a playground. No basketball, for example. You cannot do it. We are asking people to do that on a voluntary basis. If there is non-compliance with that, we will then make it mandatory and we will actually close the playgrounds. We don't want to do that because playgrounds are a place to get open air, but you have to exercise social density even in a playground. Again, it's voluntary. The Mayor is going to make it clear that this is important to the people of the city. If it doesn't happen we will actually close down the playgrounds. I don't want to do that, but we do need to reduce the spread of the infection and that is what is most important.

This is very interesting, because the evidence suggests that the density control measures may be working and again, we're doing this from projections. But look at this because it's interesting: This past Sunday, the projection was that hospitalizations were doubling every two days. On Monday, the numbers suggested that the hospitalizations were doubling were doubling every 3.4 days. On Tuesday, the projections suggested that the hospitalizations were doubling every 4.7 days. Now, that is almost too good to be true, but the theory is given the density that we're dealing with, it spreads very quickly but if you reduce the density you can reduce the spread very quickly.

So these projections - I've watched them bounce all over the place and I don't place a great deal of stock in any one projection - all due respect to all the great academics and statisticians who are doing it. But this is a very good sign and a positive sign. Again, I'm not 100 percent sure it holds or is accurate, but the arrows are headed in the right direction and that is always better than the arrows headed in the wrong direction. So to the extent people say boy these are burdensome requirements, social distancing, no restaurants, no non-essential workers - yes, they are burdensome. By the way, they are effective and they're necessary and the evidence suggests, at this point, that they have slowed the hospitalizations. This is everything. Slowing the hospitalization rates coming in to hospitals are everything so the hospitals can deal with the rate of people coming in.

At the same time, increase hospital capacity. What is the high point? You see that line in the beginning. What we're studying is what is the high point of that line. What is the apex of that line? That is the point of the greatest number of people coming into the hospital system. So that's our greatest load is the apex and when is that going to happen. Again, that is a projection. Again, that moves around. But the current projection is that could be in 21 days. So, ramp up the hospital capacity to be able to handle that apex volume. How do you ramp up hospital capacity? You ramp up beds, you ramp up staffing and you ramp up the equipment and the ventilators are the problem in equipment as we discussed many times.

Where are we on that? Beds, we may need 140,000. We have 53,000 - that's the existing capacity of hospitals. We've told all hospitals they have to increase their capacity by 50 percent. I told them that myself on a conference call yesterday. This is a burden for the hospitals to now say you have to increase capacity 50 percent. But I have to tell you, they were very generous about it and they understood what we were dealing with and they were eager to step up to the plate. If you increase hospital capacity by 50 percent that gets you 27,000 beds on top of the existing, that takes you to 80,000. Some hospitals, I asked as a goal, try to increase by 100 percent your capacity. Fifty percent was the minimum. The goal was 100. I believe some hospitals will actually try to do that and I encourage them to try to do that as impossible as it sounds. But now is the time to be aggressive and do things you've never done before. If some of them do that, and I believe some of them will, that would be an additional 5,000 beds. We would get to 85,000 beds.

FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, what we're doing in Javits Center, what we're doing in the Westchester Convention Center; Westbury campus, Stony Brook campus - that's another 4,000, takes us to 89,000. The US Navy ship Comfort, the President dispatched, that would be 1,000 beds to backfill from hotels that takes you to 90,000. If we take all the state dormitories in downstate New York, that could take us to an additional 29,000 beds. We'd be at 119,000 beds. You're still not at the 140,000 that you need but then we're looking at hotels, we're looking at former nursing homes, converting other facilities to make up the differential. So, a lot, creative, aggressive, but in life you do what you have to do.

And that's what we're doing on the bed capacity. Protective equipment, we have been shopping around the world, we have a whole team that's doing it. Right now, we have enough protective equipment, gloves, masks, gowns, for all the hospitals statewide that are dealing with it. I put down a shipment into New York City yesterday. Today, no hospital, no nurse, no doctor can say, legitimately, I don't have protective equipment. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, we have a supply. We do not yet have secured a supply for three weeks from now, four weeks from now, five weeks from now. But we are still shopping and taking care of this immediate need was also good news, and a good job by the team.

And again, we are still shopping for more equipment. Ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. We need 30,000. We have, in the existing hospital system, 4,000 ventilators. This is just in the normal operation of hospitals, et cetera. We have purchased. 7,000 and we are still shopping. Federal government has sent 4,000. We're exploring splitting, where one ventilator could do two patients. Italy has had to do this because they were forced to do it. I want to see if we can study it and do it a little smarter, and have a little more time experimenting with it, but we're looking at splitting the ventilators. We're still working with the federal government to try to find more ventilators, but that is our single greatest challenge, are the ventilators. Again, the ICU beds, that really means a ventilated bed. Because again, this is the number one piece of equipment that we need.

You have beds, you have equipment, you need staff and you need staff understanding that some staff it going to get sick. And they're going to be out, so we have been working on putting together a surge healthcare force. Go back to the retirees, go back to nurses and doctors who may not be in the hospital direct medical care occupation, and ask them to sign up for possible reserve duty. God bless them, 40,000 people have signed up as a surge healthcare force. 2,000 physicians, anesthesiologists, emergency room technicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse anesthetists, respiratory, RNs, LPNs. 40,000 people have signed up. That's a big, big deal because you can create beds, you find the equipment, you have to have the staff. And you have to have the staff for those additional beds, which is not now in the hospital system. And you have to have staff when the existing staff gets ill. Or, by the way, just can't work the hours that we're going to need people to be working. So that's very good.

This is also very exciting. I don't know that anyone else has done this. We've talked about the emotional stress that this brings on people. And the mental health stress, and mental health challenges. No one's really talking about this. You know, we're all concerned about the immediate critical need. The life and death of the immediate situation, which is right. But don't underestimate the emotional trauma that people are feeling, and the emotional health issues.

We asked for mental health professionals to voluntarily sign up to provide online mental health services. Six thousand mental health professionals agreed to volunteer to provide mental health services for people who need it. How beautiful is that?

And the hotline, 1-844-863-9314, you can call that hotline, you can schedule an appointment with a mental health professional totally free, to talk to them about what you're feeling and what stress you're feeling. And again, God bless the 6,000 mental health professionals who are doing this 100 percent free, on top of whatever they have to do in their normal practice. And I'm sure in their normal practice, they're busy. So this is really an extraordinary, extraordinary step by them.

Federal government, I spoke with president Trump several times. I spoke with him last night. I spoke with him this morning. I've spoken to people in the white house who are handling these operations. I've spoken with the vice president. I've spoken with Jared Kushner, who is a New Yorker, he knows New York, and he's working in the White House, and he's been extraordinarily helpful on all of these situations. What we're working on is a common challenge. No one has these ventilators, and no one ever anticipated a situation where you would need this number of ventilators to deal with a public health emergency. So we have purchased everything that can be purchased. We're now in a situation that we're trying to accelerate production of these ventilators, and a ventilator is a complicated piece of equipment. The president and his team I think are using the DPA well because it's basically a leverage tool when you're dealing with private companies, right? We need your help, we can demand your help, or you could agree to help, and we need you to step up and increase production. Even with that, there's a ramp up time for a company to put together the supply chain, put together the workforce, and get these things up and running. So, for you here's going to help. General Motors is going to help. The problem is our timeline is so short, we're looking at an apex 21 days in that range. To get ventilators and these business consortiums put together, supply chain, design team, ramped up and delivered 30,000 ventilators is an extraordinarily difficult task. It's something that our team is working on with the White House team and I want to thank the president for his cooperation. And his team for their cooperation. We're getting very creative, we're talking to countries around the world as well as new companies that could do production.

We're also talking to the White House about another concept. New York has the greatest need in terms of numbers. New York also has the most critical need in terms of timing, right? We talk about our apex, we talk about that curve. Different localities, different regions around the country, are going to have different curves. We are, in some ways, first. Our case numbers went up first. Our trajectory is first. By a long shot. Different regions will have their curve at different times. What I said to the president and his team was, look, rather than saying we have to provide equipment for the entire country at one time, let's talk about addressing the critical need in that hotspot once that hotspot turns - because you have an apex and then you have a curve, and the curve is relatively short - once you address that hotspot with that intensity, intense equipment, intense personnel, then shift to the next hotspot. Have more of a rolling deployment across the country than a static deployment, right? I was in the federal government at HUD. I worked on dozens of disasters. You deal with the disaster in front of you at that time and then you move on to the next disaster. And I think that rolling deployment could work here and on behalf of New York, I said we will be 100% helpful. We need help from the entire country right now. We need resources from the entire country right now. And because our apex is first and our numbers are highest, but the apex high point will be sequential across the country. So, I said to the White House, send us the equipment that we need, send us the personnel, as soon as we get past our critical moment, we will redeploy that equipment and personnel to the next hotspot. And I will personally guarantee it and personally manage it. So if you send us 15,000 ventilators and then after our curve, Los Angeles needs 15,000 ventilators, we can take the equipment from here, we can take the personnel from here, we can take the lessons from here. You know, we go first, we're going to learn things that nobody else has learned because we're going to be the first one through the shoe. And I personally guarantee that we will bring that equipment, we will bring that personnel, we'll bring that technical assistance. I said to the president, I'll be part of going to the next hotspot with out team. We're asking the country to help us, we will return the favor. And we are all in this together and we're asking for their help and their consideration and we will repay it with dividends.

The Senate is also considering a $2 trillion bill, which is 'relief' for businesses, individuals, and governments. It would really be terrible for the State of New York. The $2 trillion bill, what does it mean for New York State government? It means $3.8 billion. $3.8 billion dollars sounds like a lot of money. Rob Mujica, the Budget Director, can talk you through the numbers, but we're looking at a shortfall, a revenue shortfall, of 9, 10, $15 billion dollars. This response to this virus has probably already cost us $1 billion. It will probably cost us several billion dollars when we're done. New York City only gets $1.3 billion from this package. That is a drop in the bucket as to need. I spoke to our House delegation, Congressional delegation. This morning I said to them, 'This doesn't do it'. You know, I understand the Senate theory and the Republican theory, but we need the House to make adjustments. In the House bill that went over New York State got $17 billion. In the Senate bill we get $3.8 billion.

Well you're just big spending. We're not a big spending state. I cut taxes every year. The lowest growth rate of the state budget in modern political history. Okay. So, we are frugal and we are efficient. I am telling you these numbers don't work and I told the House members that we really need their help.

In terms of numbers, total tested we're up 103,000 people. New tests we're up to 12,000. As of yesterday about 28 percent of all testing nationwide has been performed by State of New York. The State of New York is doing more testing than any state in the United States America and I'm very proud of the team on how we're mobilized and got this testing up and running. People ask, "How does the testing work?" Any hospital in the state can perform testing. You can walk into a hospital in Buffalo, New York. If you show the symptoms and meet the protocol you can be tested. Strategically, we deploy testing in the most dense areas. Where we set up the drive-throughs, etcetera, why? Because we're hunting positives. We're hunting positives so we can isolate them and reduce the spread. You're more likely to get positives in a high positive areas. Right? Setup a drive-through in the Bronx versus set up a drive-thru in Chautauqua county. You're going to get more positives in the Bronx. And that's what we want, but anyone anywhere in the state, you have symptoms, you're concerned, you can walk into any hospital and that hospital can get a test performed.

Number of positive cases, we're up to 30,000. Number of new cases 5,000. Again, you see the numbers, 17,000 New York City, 4,000 in Westchester, 3,000 in Nassau County.

Relatively in Westchester we have dramatically slowed what was an exponential increase. So again, the good news side, can you slow the rate of infection? Yes. How do you know? Look at what we did in Westchester. That was the hottest cluster in the United States of America. We closed the schools. We closed gatherings. We brought in testing and we have dramatically slowed the increase.

Nassau County is 3,000. They're relatively right behind Westchester. They were at like zero when Westchester had started. We can slow it and have slowed it.

Again you see it spreading across the state. Current numbers, 30,000 tested positive. 12 percent of those who test positive are hospitalized. Three percent of the positives are in ICU. Okay. This is deep breath time again. I am anxious, I'm nervous, what does it mean. 30,000 tested positive. 12 percent are in the hospital. Three percent are in ICU. If you look at those three percent. They're going to be predominantly senior citizens, people with underlying illnesses, people with emphysema, people with a compromised immune system. That's what this effort is all about. All the noise, all the energy, its about that three percent.

Take a deep breath. Now, that three percent. That's my mother, that's your mother, that's your sister. These are people we love. These are our grandparents. And we're going to do everything we can to protect every one of them. And I give the people of the state of New York my word that we're doing it. But we talking about three percent of the people who tested positive and tested positive who we're worrying about.

Most impacted states, we're 30,000. Next closest state is New Jersey at three, California two. This a really dramatic differential. This is what I argue to anyone who will listen. We have ten times the problem that the next state has, which is New Jersey. You compare us to California, which is larger in terms of population. We have 15 times the problem. Now you have to ask yourself, why. Why does New York have such a high number? And again in the totality, we understand what it means. But why does New York have such a high number? This is my personal opinion. I like to make sure that I separate facts from personal opinion. The facts I give you are the best facts I have. And again, the data changes day to day, but I give you exactly what I have on a day-to-day basis. Personal opinion, why does New York have so many more cases than any other state? How can it be? You're 15 times the number of California. I mean, really is breathtaking when you think about it. State of Massachusetts, with 30 times the number of cases. So why is the question that people ask me.

Two answers. Answer one is because we welcome people from across the globe. We have people coming here, we have people who came here from china, who came here from Italy, who came here from countries all around the globe. We have international travelers who were in China and who were in Italy and who were in Korea and who came here. And I have no doubt that the virus was here much earlier than we even know. And I have no doubt that the virus was here much earlier than it was in any other state. Because those people come here first. That's the first answer.

The second answer is, because we are close. Because we are close. We talk about the virus and how it transfers in a dense area. It's literally because we are close, because we live close to one another, because we're close to one another on the street, because we live in close communities, because we're close to one another on the bus. We're close to one another in the restaurant. We're close to one another in the movie theater. And we have one of the most dense, close environments in the country. And that's why the virus communicated the way it did. Our closeness makes us vulnerable. Our closeness makes us vulnerable. That spatial closeness makes us vulnerable. But it's true that your greatest weakness is also your greatest strength. And our closeness is what makes us who we are. That is what New York is. Our closeness is what makes us special. Our acceptance, our openness is what makes us special. It's what makes us feel so connected one to another. It's what makes us so accepting of one another. It is the closeness that makes us the human beings that we are. The closeness is that New York humanity that I think exists nowhere else. The closeness is what makes our sense of community.

And there's a gentleman who I still look to for guidance and for leadership and for inspiration. He's not here anymore for you. He's still here for me. But he said things more from profound and more beautifully than most other people ever have. And one of the things he said that is so appropriate for today: "We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: The idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another's pain, sharing one another's blessings -- reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race or sex or geography or political affiliation." That is New York. It is that closeness, that concept of family, of community. That's what makes New York, "New York." And that's what made us vulnerable here. But it is also that closeness and that connection and that humanity and that sharing that is our greatest strength, and that is what is going to overcome at the end of the day. I promise you that. I can see how New Yorkers are responding. I can see how New Yorkers are treating one another. I see the 6,000 mental health volunteers. I see the 40,000 health care workers stepping up. I see the vendors calling me, saying, "I can help." That's New York. That's New York. And that, my friends, is undefeatable. And I am glad in some ways that we're first with this situation, because we will overcome and we will show the other communities across this country how to do it. We'll be there for them. We want them to be there for us. And we will be there for each other, as we always have been.