December 14, 2020
Albany, NY

Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Announces Updated COVID-19 Micro-Cluster Focus Zones

Yellow Precautionary Zone Expanded in Niagara County; New Yellow Precautionary Zones in Genesee and Oneida Counties

5,712 Patient Hospitalizations Statewide

1,040 Patients in the ICU; 572 Intubated

Statewide Positivity Rate is 5.66%

83 COVID-19 Deaths in New York State Yesterday

Governor Cuomo: "Distribution began today. New York State did what we believe is the first vaccination in the United States. Congratulations to the Department of Health and OGS, Jim Malatras and Gareth Rhodes, and Robert and Melissa, who have been working on this vaccination plan, and Larry Schwartz, who's right now working on the vaccination plan. Making government work, getting it out, is key. We have 170,000 doses from Pfizer, 346,000 from Moderna, we have 90 distribution sites. Today we're in the process of administering 10,000 vaccines. So New York came out of the blocks very quickly and very aggressively, because the vaccine only works if we take it. Phase one of the vaccine distribution, as you know, are what we call the high-risk hospital workers, emergency room, ICU, nursing home residents, nursing home staff, then long term and congregate care, and staff. EMS and other health care workers. Phase two is other essential workers and members of the general population who are at the highest risk."

Cuomo: "The big if is, you need 75 to 85 percent critical mass and you have 49 percent of the people who are skeptical about taking it. How do you ever get to 75 without 49? You don't. So there's work to do. We have to educate the public. We have to outreach to all communities, Black, Latinos, poor communities, that have paid the highest price for this virus, and we have to get it out. We have to distribute it, it is a logistical operation like you've never seen before, which we're already working on."

Cuomo: "It's really about household gatherings. And it is difficult to stop, and it is difficult to stop during the holiday season. And that's the truth of this. And I think what we're seeing now is, Thanksgiving came, there was travel, we then saw a surge and you see the number slightly tailing off. You're running right into Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, you're going to see another bump. You're then going to run right into New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and you're going to see another bump. And these are all going to be situations with small social gatherings. That's the problem."

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 are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

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

Good afternoon, good afternoon. Starting at a different time today, but we did the Electoral College, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected President and Vice President. We got things done. We had them here because we wanted to make sure that we followed all the laws and this has been a litigious time, so that concluded.

Let's talk about where we are today. Today is day 289. Here are the numbers for today. Without the micro-clusters 5.21, with the micro-clusters 5.6. Positivity in micro-cluster areas 7 percent, statewide deaths 83. They are in our thoughts and prayers, especially during this holiday season. It's a tough time to lose, it's always tough to lose a loved one but especially during the holiday season.

State hospitalizations up to 5,700; ICU 1,000, intubations 572. This is the percentage of the population hospitalized across the state. What you see is the Fingerlakes is now the unfortunate leader in number of hospitalizations. Western New York, Central New York, Mohawk Valley, all in about the same position but Fingerlakes is higher. Southern Tier is lower, North Country is lower, Mid-Hudson is somewhat lower, Capitol Region is doing well comparatively. Long Island, New York City are doing well.

COVID positivity rates, you see the same thing. Fingerlakes is at the highest number: 8 percent. Then Central New York, then Western New York. So, we are seeing a flattening in Western New York, which is good news. We're seeing an increase in Fingerlakes, which is bad news. Long Island 5.7; New York City 4. All the numbers are going up. They're going to continue to go up. All the numbers across the world are going up. All the numbers across the nation are going up. Welcome to the holiday season.

This is New York City, which is interesting. Look at the variation. Manhattan is 2.6; Brooklyn 4; Queens 4.6; Bronx 4.4. So, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn all about the same position. Manhattan much lower and Staten Island much higher.

We've been talking about Staten Island. This is all a function of our actions and our social gatherings, and our following rules. And I've said that seven times but, the numbers are the numbers.

Every day, I basically get asked the same question by everyone I talk to. "What is going on, really and where are we, really?" And the question itself is a problem. People are getting a lot of numbers, they're getting a lot of rates, they're getting a lot of opinions. "I watch positivity rates, I watch case numbers. Dr. Fauci says this. The newspaper reports, or maybe Dr. Facuis is wrong, maybe Dr. Redfield's wrong, maybe the World Health Organization is wrong." People don't know who to believe. So people are confused, and that's a real problem, because this is dependent on social action, that's what we're doing here.

And if people are confused and they don't know what to do, or they hear too much clutter, and they choose not to follow anyone's advice, then we're in a problem situation. So communication is essential.

And it is somewhat confusing just on the facts. I have said, multiple times, what is true, the positivity rate in New York State is very low. I then have people say to be all the time, "well then what's the problem? The positivity rate is very low." It's true. It doesn't mean it's not a problem. Yes, we are one of the lowest positivity rates in the United States of America. Congratulations. That's New Yorkers doing the right thing. Congratulations, that's the good news. Want to know the bad news? The entire United States of America is in trouble. That's the bad news. "Well, we're better than everyone else." Yes, but everybody is in trouble.

Other states are already closing down, right? This is, you want to do as much economic activity as you can, until you can't because of public health. The other states are already closing down.

You have big states, California, Michigan, they are closing down. And we don't want to close down. So, yes, we're doing better than everyone else. But everyone else is in trouble. And doing better than a universe that is all in trouble isn't that comforting, and other states, which are worse than us, are already closing down.

Well, one person says positivity rate, one says hospital lag, I don't know. It's simple and it's the same equation. The percent of positivity leads to the percent of cases, leads to the percent of hospitalizations, leads to the percent of deaths. It is a linear equation. It just is a difference of whether you're measuring it earlier or later. Positivity turns into number of cases, turns into hospitalizations, turns into death. You tell me the positivity rate, I'll tell you what the death rate is going to be four weeks from today. It is that simple. It is just death lags positivity. Positivity is a precursor to hospitalization and deaths, but it is linear. They're all saying the same thing. I don't care if you want to talk about positivity or hospitalizations or deaths or cases - they're all a factor of one another. The only difference is timing. Our metrics built that in. We anticipate a time lag from positivity, to cases, to hospitalizations. That is in the calculus. We're also in an environment where everyone is skeptical and cynical and everyone is still in a hyper-political moment even after the election. Here's what's inarguable, my friends: There is no politics or rhetoric in the number of people going into the hospital or deaths. You want to be cynical about what politicians say, "Well, I don't believe positivity rates." Many people say that to me. Okay, do you think people are going into the hospital because they feel good? Because they want a vacation? Do you think the hospital would accept somebody who's not really sick?

Going into a hospital is inarguable. That's an inarguable number. Deaths are an inarguable number. Stressing those, I think, builds public support for the metric because even the most cynical person isn't saying, "I believe you're just sending people into the hospitals to fill the beds."

At this rate, if nothing happens, we could have 11,000 people in hospitals and 3,500 deceased. If you factor out these numbers, that's what we're looking at if nothing changes. The increase in hospitalizations could overwhelm some regions if nothing changes by January. That's the trajectory we're looking at.

It's a problem in Erie. It's more of a problem in Monroe. It's a problem in Central New York. It's a problem in New York City. It's a problem in New York City because New York City is different. There's more density, there's more crowding. The Rt rate, the transmission rate, the virus spreads faster in New York City. Anyone who doubts that wasn't here in the spring or has the shortest memory imaginable. We know how fast it takes off in New York City. Upstate New York, we don't have the same density and crowding we have in New York City. Let's focus on what the real issues are that we should be concerned about and where we are really.

I have all sorts of people who are concerned, "Well, you went down to 25 percent indoor dining. You cancelled indoor dining. You're requesting more testing for people in salons. Lower capacity in gyms." Yes, to all of that. That is not the real problem. That is not what you should worry about. What you should worry about it shutdown because if we do not change the trajectory, we could very well be headed to shutdown. Shutdown is something to worry about. That is really something to worry about because all these businesses, closed. We go back to where we were. All non-essential businesses closed. They go to zero.

Yes, we're trying to change the trajectory. "Well I'm upset that you're trying to change the trajectory." You should be happy because if we don't change the trajectory, we're going to go to shutdown and then your business is going to close. That, my friends, is a real problem. Worry about that because that is a real worry. Deaths are a worry and shutdown of the economy are the real worries and they are viable worries. This is not an overanxious personality. This is not far fetched. This is something to really worry about.

How do you change the trajectory? You do two things: Number one, we're simultaneously trying to increase hospital capacity and, frankly, hospital management. We saw what happened in the spring, it can't happen again. We've given the hospitals flexibility, adding 25 percent more beds and adding another 25 percent more beds or reducing elective surgery. We've given hospitals capacity enhancement with their flexibility. Hospital managers have to manage the hospitals well. What happened in the spring, in my opinion, and in defense of the hospital managers who I spent a lot of time talking to, it was a first case scenario in the spring. It had never happened before. I understand that. But, there was a failure to balance the patient load. What does that mean?

You have some hospital systems, a hospital system is, "I have 10 hospitals, I have 20 hospitals, I have 30 hospitals, I have 11 hospitals." Right now the hospitals basically operate as independent silos and there is very little coordination among them. What happened in the spring was, one hospital in a system got overwhelmed, they didn't have the capacity to distribute the patient load to the other hospitals, so their community had a high infection rate, that community came into that hospital, that hospital sat there and got overwhelmed. Meanwhile, you had a hospital in the system and to the left and right that had additional capacity. That was Elmhurst hospital. We know what zip codes are increasing. We know that. You know what hospitals serve those zip codes. You know what hospitals will face increasing numbers. Plan now to use those 11 hospitals as one system, not that you bring somebody in, admit them, and then have to move them. Before they get admitted say, hello, Dr. Zucker, you showed up at my front door, I'm going to send you three blocks away to my other hospital because we have to load balance and that hospital has less capacity and the staff is less burned. That didn't happen in the spring. It has to happen this time.

There are a second set of hospitals which are not systems. They're independent hospitals. Brooklyn One, Jamaica Hospital. Those hospitals have to set up alliances with other systems now. Jamaica Hospital, Brooklyn, independent hospitals all across the state, form a partnership now with another hospital where you can say, look, if I see I'm getting overwhelmed I'm going to decant patients to you. That has to be done now. That has to be done now and then systems have to work with each other. NYU Langone has to work with H+H. H+H has to work within H+H, but then H+H has to be able to say, when all 11 hospitals are up near capacity, NYU Langone I need you to help. Mount Sinai, I need you to help. Northwell, I need you to help. That has to be done before. This is not the way the hospitals operate. They operate unto themselves. That does not work here. It just doesn't work here. That was the spring and if you are close to being overwhelmed, contact the Department of Health and make sure you talk to someone.

Speak to this gentleman, Dr. Zucker. Don't wait to get overwhelmed and then call up and say I have a problem, I have people on gurneys in hallways. It's too late for us to help. We have capacity as a system and we can help the problematic systems. H+H, the independents that have no one else to go to, but we need notice. Ken Raske is head of the Greater New York Hospital Association which oversees the downstate hospitals. Ken Raske and Michael Dowling from Northwell Hospital which is the largest hospital system in the state, I've asked Ken Raske and Michael Dowling to work with H+H, and work with the independents to make sure they have this plan in place and make sure they have partnerships to unload. We have Bea Grause who runs basically the same thing in Upstate New York. Same situation in Upstate New York, these hospitals have to have a better management system and it has to happen now.

At the same time we have to slow the spread. Overwhelmingly, the number of new cases are coming from small gatherings, living room spread, and we're going into the holiday season. This is much, much tougher than you think. I can't tell you how many people I talk to who say, I'm not going out, I'm staying home and I invite my friends over, so I'm being safe. That is the problem and they say it to me as if they're being prudent and diligent. "I'm not going out. I'm staying home and I invite my friends over and we watch the ballgame." That is the problem. The world changed since the spring. The problem in the spring was going out. The problem in the winter is staying home and inviting people over. So you want me to stay home and not invite anyone over? That's impossible. That's what we're dealing with through the holiday season and I get how hard it is. I live it with my own family.

I had a conversation with one of my daughters this weekend, "where are you going? I'm going to a friend's birthday party. Is it outside? No, it's going to be inside but there's only four of us and we're going to social distance, we're going to eat pizza. But how does that even work? How does that even work? Well, she wants to celebrate her birthday. I get it. I get it." But this is where it spreads and remember, the spreader is not malicious. Your wife can be a spreader. They're asymptomatic. They have no idea. They could have gotten it from the delivery boy who dropped off the groceries. So, that's why this is so difficult. But again, it is overwhelmingly the number one problem area. And if you look after that, we've done everything else we can before you get into really di minimis numbers. Health care delivery, higher education, schools, restaurants, bars, travel vacation. We have a quarantine system set up. No state has ever done that. School sports that are high-risk, we don't allow it. Public sector, EMS workers, they're doing their job, they're getting infected. Police, I've said to them until I'm blue in the face, I've said to mayors all across this state, you tell your police to wear the masks. The number of police who are getting cases is relatively high. They should wear the mask. Transit, public/private, we're disinfecting the trains. Everybody's wearing masks. But now you're in di minimis numbers. It's really about household gatherings. And it is difficult to stop, and it is difficult to stop during the holiday season. And that's the truth of this. And I think what we're seeing now is, Thanksgiving came, there was travel, we then saw a surge and you see the number slightly tailing off. You're running right into Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, you're going to see another bump. You're then going to run right into New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and you're going to see another bump. And these are all going to be situations with small social gatherings. That's the problem.

So the Winter Plan that we talked about last week, you're looking at the positivity index, the hospitalization rate, the hospital capacity, the density crowding, what they call the Rt, and the risk level of that type of economic activity. We've been calibrating them constantly. The benefit of the economic activity, the rate of transmission number, which is really the most important number in any of this, which is now 1.3. hospitalization capacity rate.

New Yellow Zones, which are 3 percent, top 10 percent daily hospital admissions. One is going to expand into Niagara County, and we'll release the maps afterwards. One in Batavia, Genesee County zone. Rome, Utica, Oneida County, there is a problem there and we have to start to be honest about it and address it. And the bottom line is, we're going to have to manage the spread and the hospital capacity until the vaccination. I think of it as a footrace between holiday spread and hospital capacity, and vaccination critical mass. The problem is, the experts say vaccination critical mass isn't for six to nine months. That's not a footrace. That's not a sprint. That's more of a marathon, six to nine months. And we have to get our heads in the game that we still have a marathon to run with this virus.

Especially since we just got the vaccine, great, great, great, great, great news, it does win the war if, if - big if - we take it. And the big if is, you need 75 to 85 percent critical mass and you have 49 percent of the people who are skeptical about taking it. How do you ever get to 75 without 49? You don't. So there's work to do. We have to educate the public. We have to outreach to all communities, Black, Latinos, poor communities, that have paid the highest price for this virus, and we have to get it out. We have to distribute it, it is a logistical operation like you've never seen before, which we're already working on.

Distribution began today. New York State did what we believe is the first vaccination in the United States. Congratulations to the Department of Health and OGS, Jim Malatras and Gareth Rhodes, and Robert and Melissa, who have been working on this vaccination plan, and Larry Schwartz, who's right now working on the vaccination plan. Making government work, getting it out, is key. We have 170,000 doses from Pfizer, 346,000 from Moderna, we have 90 distribution sites. Today we're in the process of administering 10,000 vaccines. So New York came out of the blocks very quickly and very aggressively, because the vaccine only works if we take it. Phase one of the vaccine distribution, as you know, are what we call the high-risk hospital workers, emergency room, ICU, nursing home residents, nursing home staff, then long term and congregate care, and staff. EMS and other health care workers. Phase two is other essential workers and members of the general population who are at the highest risk.

The federal government approved the vaccine and the New York State Clinical Advisory Task Force approved the vaccine. We're attacking that skepticism. 49, 50 percent, higher in some areas. Some people don't trust the federal government. Why? Politics, these are the agencies that approved hydroxychloroquine, which turned out to be bogus. So, you don't trust the federal approval, we'll have a New York State panel also check it. Belt and suspenders. You don't trust the feds, then you have New York review it. We did it, some people said oh, there's going to be a delay, blah, blah, blah. Never happened. Actually, the New York task force acted before the federal government acted. As I said, politics is everywhere; there's no politics on this issue. Trump and Biden agree on the rules for home spread. Those rules are from the CDC. That is an agency controlled by Trump. They both agree on vaccine usage. So, hopefully we're getting to a point in this country where the politics will stop being the enemy of public health.

Couple of other issues I want to mention, people talk about the new state tax increase. The state tax increase is not just a political decision, it's a revenue decision. How much money do you need to balance the budget? That is the question for a state tax increase and is it enough to close the deficit. There are two options on what we can do now financially, fiscally as a state. 1) We can do a budget now. We need 15 billion dollars; that's the number we asked for from the federal government. We said to them, we need 15 billion dollars or we have a hole. We are waiting for them to act, maybe they passed this 908 bill, maybe they don't, maybe we have to wait for Joe Biden next year, but we need 15 billion dollars. You could try to close it with tax increases and cuts. To close 15 billion dollars with tax increases and cuts is going to do tremendous damage to everyone. Tax increase, maybe it gets you a billion and a half, 2 billion dollars, the tax increase they're talking about. You need another 10 billion dollars to come even close. What are we going to cut today? We're going to cut schools? Local governments? Hospitals? Who could you possibly cut, but that's what you would have to do if you did a tax increase now, it has to be part of a budget so you know how much you are raising, and you know what we're doing with it, but to do a budget without knowing how much money we're getting from the federal governments is going to be painful to everyone.

The second option is to wait for the Washington action before you do the budget. Find out how much Washington is giving us, let's say we have a shortfall, then how much do you want to raise in taxes and how much do you want to cut? Doing it without the Washington funding is going to be really, really difficult. I don't believe Washington gives us nothing at the end of the day. The end of the day may be Joe Biden in February, but I don't believe they give us nothing. They'll bankrupt the nation if they bankrupt the states.

So, I think it's smarter to get the number from Washington. Let's say our hole is 15 billion; let's say they give us 10 billion - I will fight for the 15 but let's say they only give us 10 billion - now you have a 5 billion hole. You want to raise taxes for 5 billion? That's an option. You want to raise half of it in taxes you want to do half of it in cuts? Who are you going to cut? That's the budget conversation. You can't divorce a tax increase from a budget action. I can do it either way, but you have to do a tax increase in the context of a budget, otherwise you don't know how much to raise in taxes. Otherwise, it's just a political gesture. The problem with doing the budget now is it will have a disruptive tax increase and destructive cuts. So, we tell schools now that we're going to cut your budget 20 percent, we tell hospitals we're going to cut your budget 20 percent, we tell cities we're going to cut your budget 20 percent. They will then turn around and fire people. They have to. Who do we want them to fire now? Schoolteachers? Essential workers who were doing the vaccines? I mean who can we lose right now? And then when Washington actually provides funding in February, what do we then do? Call them up and say, "Oh remember, I had you fire those people in December. Well now you can rehire them." It would be chaos and disruption.

Another issue that's been discussed is the New York City close down. We know what closes down a region. It's called a red zone. Red zone is a shutdown. Red zone happens if there is an increase in cases in hospitals and hospitalizations in any region and that hospital capacity would reach 90 percent in three weeks. In three weeks, you're on a glide path that says in three weeks you would hit 90 percent. Any region that winds up in that situation, they go to red zone, they go to shut down, that's what we're trying to avoid. No region is in that situation now and that's the situation we're trying to avoid. And that's why I said earlier, that's what people should be worried about, not 25 percent dining, zero percent dining, 50 percent dining, testing once a week, testing twice a week. The fear is shut down. That's what we're trying to avoid.

Winter storm warning, why not? Today we're looking at South of Albany snow, rain, and ice. Wednesday we're talking about significant snow: 6 to 12 inches. I have my boots out. I have my shovel out. I would suggest you do the same. We will shovel it because we are New York tough.

Contact the Governor's Press Office

Contact us by phone:

Albany: (518) 474 - 8418
New York City: (212) 681 - 4640