Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Announces Western New York Expected to Enter Phase 2 of Reopening Tomorrow and Capital Region Expected to Enter Phase 2 of Reopening on June 3

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced Western New York is expected to enter Phase 2 of reopening tomorrow and the Capital Region is expected to enter Phase 2 of reopening on June 3 following a review of regional data by global public health experts.

The Governor also announced the lowest rate of positive test results since the pandemic began. The State performed 50,000 tests yesterday with less than 2 percent returning positive.

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 morning. We had a long night in this country. To my left, glad to be joined by Dr. Howard Zucker. To my right, I'm glad to be joined by Secretary Melissa DeRosa. Let's talk about where we are, start with the facts that we know.

In terms of handling the COVID virus, we're doing better than we've ever done before. The number of hospitalizations is down. It's continued to drop. The reduction in the number of intubations is down. The three-day average of new hospitalizations is down to the lowest level ever, which is really good news. We're doing a significant amount of testing. As you know, we're testing more than any state in the United States. We're testing more per capita than any country on the globe. And the tests are very relevant because they're a snapshot in time. They tell you where you are on that day. Yesterday we did about 50,000 tests, which is a tremendous number of tests. Less than 1,000 people tested positive. That is the lowest number we have had since this began, and when it began, we were only doing 3 or 4,000 tests. We now did 50,000 tests. So the progress is just phenomenal. And that's the rate of positives from our testing, remembering that the testing has increased exponentially. And we have the lowest number of deaths that we've ever had at 54.

And there will be a level at which that number can't drop any lower, right, because people who are gravely ill and contract the COVID virus, it's going to be a bad outcome. But that number is dramatically different than what we were looking at for many, many weeks. Question is, where do we go from here? No doubt the initial objective was getting control of this COVID virus. The situation has gotten more complex since then.

But on the reopening, five regions upstate have entered Phase 2. That's good news. Western New York is expected to move to Phase 2 tomorrow and we expect that to happen. We have the data that we've been tabulating during Phase 1 in Western New York, all the data looks very good. We're going to have the global experts go through today. I want to make sure we're not missing anything. This is new for all of us. It's not what county executives do. It's not what governors do. This is very detailed research of statistics, what clusters might pop up, etc. So, we also have global experts review all the data for us because this question of closing, opening, countries have gone through this before. There is a body of knowledge to know. And where we also go to global experts who we've enlisted who have gone through this with other countries where they close, they opened, they got into trouble, they had to close again. But, they're looking at it now. We want to make sure they get the latest data. We'll have a final announcement later this afternoon for Western New York, but the conversations I've had with them are all good and we expect Western New York to go to Phase 2 tomorrow. the Capital District region is moving to go into Phase 2 on Wednesday. Again, all the numbers look good there. We're going to run them by our global team to make sure they are as good as we think they are. But at this point the Capital Region is also on track to go into Phase 2 on Wednesday.

What we have done with this COVID virus is a really amazing accomplishment, if you take a step back. And it was all done by the people of this state. They did it. 19 million people did what they never did before. They responded with a level of determination and discipline that I was amazed with frankly. And I am a lifelong New Yorker, but they did was unlike anything I've seen. Remember where we were. We had 800 people die in one day. We had the worst situation in the United States of America. At one point we had the worst situation on the globe. And we're now reopening in less than 50 days. Now, it was a long 50 days. I can recount every one of them. But, we went from a really internationally terrible situation to where we're talking about reopening today.

Even New York City, where we're planning to reopen June 8th. And that was just 50 days. The whole closure period has been about 93 days. Yes it was a disruptive 93 days, I know. But look at what we did in 93 days. We went from the worst situation on the globe to actually reopening. That's where we are. We should be very proud of what we've done. Just don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We're talking about reopening in one week in New York City.