Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Departs for Savannah, Georgia to Help City With Fight Against COVID-19

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and members of NY's COVID-19 task force departed today for Savannah, Georgia to help the city in the fight against COVID-19 as it experiences a surge in positive cases and hospitalizations. In Savannah, the Governor will host a roundtable meeting with the New York State delegation, Savannah Mayor Van R. Johnson and the Savannah health care team to discuss best practices to fight the pandemic, including how to set up testing and contact tracing operations. Governor Cuomo will return to Albany this evening.

Members of the New York Delegation include:

• Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor
• Robert Mujica, State Budget Director
• Jim Malatras, SUNY Empire State College President
• Gareth Rhodes, Deputy Superintendent & Special Counsel at NYS Department of Financial Services, Member of COVID-19 Task Force
• Larry Schwartz, Former Secretary to the Governor, Member of COVID-19 Task Force
• Lisa Pino, Executive Deputy Commissioner at NYS Department of Health
• Edgar Santana, Director of Downstate Regional Affairs

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

AUDIO of the Governor'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:

Top of the morning to you. Beautiful day in New York City, but hot, hot, hot, hot. We are going to flee the heat, go to Savannah, Georgia. It may not be that effective.

I think everybody knows the people who are joining me. To my left, Jim Malatras, President of SUNY Empire College. To my right, Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. To her right, Robert Mujica, Budget Director. I'm going to thank the team for putting today together. We're going to be visiting Savannah, Georgia which I'll discuss in a moment.

I also want to thank JFK Airport and their staff for accommodating us this morning. And the Port Authority has done an excellent job. And I want to thank JetBlue for making it possible for us to get to Georgia. We have Billy Kaplanidis with us today and I want to thank him very much for JetBlue's hospitality. They have been a great friend to New York and a great corporate citizen, so we thank them very much and they stepped up in a big way here today.

Let me tell you where we are. Day 142 but it feels like just yesterday. It's a day for good news. Our hospitalizations are at the lowest level since March 18: 716, great. Number of lives lost to COVID, eight. Again, we don't want to lose any life and they are in our thoughts and prayers, but that is a great number relative to where we've been. The three day average is down low. You see the overall curve there and it's at about 11. Number of tests yesterday with just under 50,000 tests. It was a Sunday, so the sample is always a little different on Sunday. But 50,000 tests is an extraordinary number. We still test more than any state in the nation per capita, more than any nation on the globe. And what does that mean? It means we're making informed decisions. We know where we are because we're taking 50,000 tests. Just think about that. Every day, 60,000 testssome days. The positive rate is about 1 percent. That's where we've been so we're holding steady. We would like to see it at zero, obviously, but 1 percent is very good so that is good news.

You look across the regions of the state, we see good news all across the regions. No warning signs or no trouble spots. Same is true in New York City, we have a little tick up in the Bronx that we will watch. But Sundays we often tend to get slight deviations, but the progress is all very good. So we did the impossible as New Yorkers, they really stepped up and conquered the COVID virus. Now we just have to stay there. We have to protect the progress that we have made. You see the numbers, you see where we are, our goal now is to stay there and not let that infection rate tick up. We are not in a static environment. A lot is going on, so we have to remain vigilant.

We have two main threats. The first threat is the number of congregations that we're seeing across the state, but especially in downstate, primarily of young people. I have talked about this before. We saw it again over the weekend and it is a problem. It is a problem. We know enough about this virus. We know that there are inevitable consequences to our actions. If you have congregations of people, they are going to spread the virus. Now, many of these conversations tend to be young people and young people, as a general rule, believe their super heroes. I understand. I was a young person once, just last week. Okay, maybe not last week. "Well, we can't get sick." First of all, that's not a fact. There are facts and there are wrong pieces of information. You can get sick in your 20s. You can get sick. You can die in your 20s, people have. Even if you live by the theory of you're a super hero, you will take the virus and you will give it to someone else. Unless you live in a hermetically sealed bubble, that will happen. You will go home and you will transfer to someone else who will transfer it to someone else, and you could kill someone. So from an aspect of any social responsibility at all, it's not just about you. It's not just about you. It's about who you could infect and who you could hurt. And it has, it has continued unabated and it's getting worse. I am telling you it is a problem. It's not a new problem but it is growing.

To the partiers who come out, I understand the frustration. I understand you've been inside for a long time. I understand you're young. I understand people like to socialize. Iget that it's the summer. I get that the work environment is not as tough, so you have the flexibility to go out. I get all of that. I really do. But, I'm telling you it has to stop. And I'm telling you in plain, New York speak, as a born and bred New Yorker, it's stupid, what you're doing. It is stupid. Well that's not a governmentally appropriate word. It's a true word. Don't be stupid. That is good advice in life. Take it from a person who's lived a lot of life. Don't be stupid. What they're doing is stupid and reckless for themselves and for other people. And it has to stop.

To the local governments, I've said repeatedly that the local governments are in charge of compliance and enforcement. If young people are going to come out and do something stupid, the local governments have to enforce the law. That's how it works in life. And the police department has to enforce the law. And they are not doing it. And that is their job and they have to do it. I will tell you what's going to happen. I spoke to a number of restaurant owners yesterday. We've had numerous conversations. The bad restaurant and bar owners are going to make it worse for the good ones. Most restaurants and bars are complying, they're going through a very tough economic situation, but they're living by the rules. The bad ones who are exploiting the situation and breaking the law, by the way, this is not just morality, they're breaking the law, are going to make it bad for everyone. The local governments are not doing their job. We cannot allow those congregations to continue. If it happens, I'll tell you what's going to happen. We're going to have to roll back the opening plan. And we're going to have to close bars and restaurants.

That is what we are going to have to do. So to local governments I say look, you don't want to enforce the law because you think it's politically unpopular, and you don't want ot do something that's politically unpopular. I'll tell you what's more politically unpopular. When you're going to have to explain to the people why we had to close all bars and restaurants. That's going to be more politically difficult than telling the NYPD to do their job. This is not a point of sending out the police department to inform young people to wear a mask. They've heard that message. The police department is not there to inform them of mask compliance. Police departments have to enforce the law. They have to enforce the law. That is the only line between anarchy and civilization. They have to enforce the law. And they're not.

The bad bar, bad operators in terms of restaurants and bars, they're going to make it bad for everyone and for themselves. We will have to roll back the bar and restaurant opening. If congregations continue, if the local governments don't stop it, that is what is going ot happen. One plus one still equals two, right, and there's a logical consequence of actions, and that's where we are. That's the first threat.

Second is, we see the infection rate increasing all across the country. It's a fact, it's not getting better, it's getting worse. The theory that well, New York is going to be immune from what's happening everywhere in the country, that does not work. We were not immune from what was happening in China, and what was happening in Europe when the virus went from China to Europe, and then it came here from Italy and from France and from Spain, and the federal government never knew, and that's how New York got the virus. An outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. That's the saying that I'm going to put on plaques and give to people. If the virus is going up in the other states, we have a real challenge and a real threat, because those people come to New York. We put in place an unprecedented quarantine program, we're enforcing it, but, it's virtually impossible to enforce with total certainty. People take trains, people drive, you know, states don't have border control agencies. We don't do border control. When you drive in from another state, you don't show your passport to anyone, right? There is no "New York passport." We don't do border control. So, that is a very real threat and I don't see it turning around in the rest of the country any time soon. That is that is a predicament that we'll do everything we can to help the other states, and we are, but that is beyond our control. That's not like the congregations and the party. Those are the two threats.

Now, we're going to go help Savannah today. When we were in the thick of things, and we were in the thick of things, when we had those numbers going through the roof, I sat at a table like this one and I asked Americans, people all across the country, I said, "We needed help. Please come help us." 30,000 health professionals from around the country volunteer to come to New York. 30,000. Think about that. When New York was at its worst point, to come into our emergency rooms, come to our hospitals to fight this dreaded disease, 30,000 people came to help us. I was floored. I was touched - I'll tell you the truth, I was inspired. You want to talk about courage and heroism and love and generosity, "Come volunteer to help in a New York City emergency room when COVID is going crazy." 30,000 people say yes. I said that day, we will never forget it and we will honor it and we will reciprocate it. Those people did not come for me. I just asked on behalf of all New Yorkers. And I know New Yorkers - we don't forget. We don't forget and we live by the same code of generosity and love and community. So, we're doing everything we can now to pay it back. And states and people all across the nation but not just governments, California gave us ventilators, Oregon gave us ventilators, NewEngland Patriots owner was flying a plane to China from Massachusetts to get PPE. They did us a favor, put PPE on the plane from China for us. I mean people just did amazing things.

I said, when I was younger and healthier looking, when we get past our apex, we will be there for anyone who needs help and whatever they need, we will be there. I said I'll drive personally and provide them with assistance. And again, that was a promise to pay forward that. I made on behalf of New Yorkers and we're going to honor it. We are honoring it. We're sending drugs to Florida. We've been working with Atlanta, Georgia on their needs. We've been working with Houston, Texas. And we're going to go to Savannah today.

The federal government is still in denial about this virus. It still refuses to follow the science. It still thinks it's going to be this virus by playing politics. And I've said to the president from day one, this virus does not respond to politics. It doesn't respond to bullying. It doesn't respond to rhetoric. It doesn't respond to denial. It is the science. What did we do in New York? We did it as a science. We did it on the numbers. We did on the data. You're fighting a virus. The solution is medicine and science. It has nothing to do with the crazy politics of today. Five months later, this country is still totally unprepared to deal with this. Been talking to other states and mayors and governors about testing, they still don't have testing. They still don't have tracing programs. They still don't have PPE. It's a like we were on day one of COVID. They've done nothing in five months. This is so unnecessary that we are here and we're seeing these Americans lose their lives. It did not have to be this way and we're going to do everything that we can to make it better. We're going to meet with Mayor Van Johnson and his team today, I've been speaking with the mayor. And we'll be in Savannah, Georgia - we'll tell them about what we did will help them with testing programs, tracing programs. We're going to bring thousands of pieces of PPE and whatever they need from us they're going to get, because we are New York Tough, which is smart and united and disciplined. And today's about the last word, we are loving. Thank you, America for what you did for us and we won't forget and we'll be there for you when you need it and today is one of those days when you need it.