March 6, 2020
Albany, NY

Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Novel Coronavirus Briefing, Governor Cuomo Confirms 11 Additional Cases - Bringing Statewide Total to 44

New Cases Include 8 in Westchester County and 3 in Nassau County

Announces Travel Agents and Travel Insurers Will Offer 'Cancel for Any Reason' Travel Policies in New York State - Six Global and National Insurance Companies Agree to Offer Coverage

NYS Interagency Task Force Continues to Coordinate with Local Governments and Healthcare Partners to Monitor and Respond to the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak

Governor Cuomo: "The process is working. You get a case and you follow that case and you test that case because you want to find the people who were infected. You want to isolate those people so there is not continued spread."

Governor Cuomo: "The Department of Financial Services, Superintendent Linda Lacewell is going to announce a program where she is going to authorize travel insurance which you can purchase which is unconditional... if you buy this insurance, you cancel for any reason, including anything related to the coronavirus, you can get the full amount of your airline ticket back and we think that will provide comfort and encourage people."

During a briefing on the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today confirmed 11 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 44 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the new cases identified since this morning, eight are located in Westchester County and three are located in Nassau County.

Of the 44 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

  • Nassau County: 4
  • Rockland County: 2
  • New York City: 4
  • Westchester County: 34

Additionally, the Governor announced travel insurance companies and travel agents will offer New York residents and businesses the ability to purchase coverage when making travel plans that would allow them to cancel a trip for any reason, including for reasons related to COVID-19.

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

AUDIO of today's update is available here.

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

A rush transcript is available below:

We heard that you missed us and since I never want to cause any distress to the press on any level we came back.

A continued update because the more information the better, and I think the more we communicate with the people of the State and they get actual facts as opposed to theories and hype and politics - I think that is all better.

We are continuing to test and the testing is now ramping up as we discussed earlier. So we have a greater capacity to test and we are turning around more tests. And during the day today we had 11 new cases, eight in Westchester and 3 in Nassau County. That bring the total to 44 cases. The cases in Westchester and Nassau we have to do more investigation, but we suspect they are related to the existing cases.

The cases in Westchester have a number of young people and they have older people. Westchester there is a 12 year old female, 17 year old male, 45 year old male - I'm sorry - 55 year old male, 14 year old male, 7 year old male, 51 year old male, 82 year old male. Nassau, 63 year old female, 41 year old female, 36 year old female.

This is actually good news in some ways because it says the process is working. You get a case and you follow that case and you test that case because you want to find the people who were infected. You want to isolate those people so there is not continued spread. That is what this is all about. It is not a perfect process but the more people who you can tell are positive and stop them from infecting other people the better.

So we're continuing to do this, continue to inform people who are positive to quarantine themselves so they don't infect other people, and that's how we will work to contain the virus. That nice noise suggests, we don't know what it suggests, so that's the update.

One other announcement, one of the issues, one of the consequences to this, an economic consequence is people are worried about traveling, not just to the countries on the CDC watch list, but just traveling in general because they're afraid if they make plans they may be canceled. If they buy an airline ticket it may be canceled. Something may come up. That is constricting travel, constricting business travel, it's not good for New York, it's not good for any state because it can actually slow the economy. It's one thing to make a purposeful decision to stop a gathering. It's another thing to have people just cancelling trips because they're afraid something may come up and they'll be unable to redeem the airline ticket, etcetera.

The Department of Financial Services, Superintendent Linda Lacewell is going to announce a program where she is going to authorize travel insurance which you can purchase which is unconditional. They have travel insurance programs but they normally exempt epidemics, diseases, etcetera. She is going to authorize an unconditional travel insurance program so if you buy this insurance, you cancel for any reason, including anything related to the coronavirus, you can get the full amount of your airline ticket back and we think that will provide comfort and encourage people.

Contact the Governor's Press Office

Contact us by phone:

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