Governor Cuomo: "New York had the largest and fastest spike in the country, and possibly on the globe, and today we're proud to say we've gone from the highest infection rate in the country to one of the lowest infection rates. I want to thank all the people who worked so hard to make this success possible. It was a beautiful cooperative effort and New Yorkers themselves forged the true spirit of community and they followed their better angels - but it would not have been possible without the essential workers and they really deserve special thanks, the people who bravely went to work so that everybody else could stay home, the blue collar workers who are the backbone of our society, the bus drivers, the policemen, the utility workers, the grocery store workers, the delivery people, people who risked their health so we could safeguard ours, and our health care workers and hospital administrators who showed why we say New York has the best health care system on the globe."
Cuomo: "The crisis is not yet over because too many states are still not following the science and data. This is not about politics. This is a virus - it's about science. And the virus will continue to ricochet across this country until we realize that unless we control the virus everywhere we won't control it anywhere."
Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo delivered remarks at the 2020 Constellation Forum, which was held virtually this year by Northwell Health, where he was presented with an honorary degree from the Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine in recognition of his leadership in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO is available here.
A transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Hello, it's a pleasure to join you at this year's Constellation Forum.
Let me begin by thanking Kevin Tracey for his generous introduction, also for this honorary degree. It's my pleasure to accept this degree on behalf of all New Yorkers who work so hard to get us through this COVID pandemic.
I'm also eager to do my next COVID briefing so that I can introduce myself not as Governor Cuomo but as Dr. Cuomo. It has a nice ring to it and an even more relevant title, I'm sure you will agree.
Thank you to Ann Lamont for her intelligent thought-provoking remarks. Ann and her husband Governor Ned Lamont are our neighbors in the truest sense of the word and been great colleagues to me. I want to thank them both for their partnership in the battle with COVID. They've been extraordinary to work with and it's truly been my pleasure even though the situation was difficult.
A gracious thank you to my great friend, the great Michael Dowling, a friend of mine for 35 years. Michael was my father's top health advisor for all 12 years of his administration. Governor Mario Cuomo was the best and he only worked with the best and he loved Michael and I mean that word literally and I mean that for my father and for myself.
In fact, Northwell's success is embodied by Michael Dowling himself. Thirty-five years ago when I first met Michael he was older than I was but Northwell was obviously able to reverse the aging process because Michael is clearly now much younger than I am. Even more, Northwell did it not just with physiology, not just anatomically, but also chronologically. I heard Michael give his age to someone the other day and by the numbers he is actually younger than I am. Now of course he may have made a mistake and inverted the numbers, but it's amazing. But whatever his age, Michael was a true hero through these past six months and he was there every day and I sincerely thank him.
New Yorkers faced an historic crisis and they rose to the occasion. New York was ambushed by the coronavirus. It came from Europe when the authorities thought it was still in China. The virus had been arriving for months on European flights before anyone realized.
On March 1, we had our first case. Just over two weeks later we had 2,000 cases. New York had the largest and fastest spike in the country, and possibly on the globe, and today we're proud to say we've gone from the highest infection rate in the country to one of the lowest infection rates.
I want to thank all the people who worked so hard to make this success possible. It was a beautiful cooperative effort and New Yorkers themselves forged the true spirit of community and they followed their better angels - but it would not have been possible without the essential workers and they really deserve special thanks, the people who bravely went to work so that everybody else could stay home, the blue collar workers who are the backbone of our society, the bus drivers, the policemen, the utility workers, the grocery store workers, the delivery people, people who risked their health so we could safeguard ours, and our health care workers and hospital administrators who showed why we say New York has the best health care system on the globe.
When the crisis exploded the best projection models all said that we would need between 110,000 and 140,000 hospital beds at the peak. It was frightening to say the least. We only have 53,000 hospital beds in the entire state, 53, 000 assumes all the beds were empty. But our health care system took on mission impossible. Together, the hospitals increased their individual capacity by 50 percent in just weeks. Think about that - a hospital goes from 300 beds to 450 beds in weeks. We also built emergency facilities with thousands of additional beds - we added 40,000 beds to our system, nearly doubling the size.
We took on the challenge of testing and we succeeded - we're now doing more tests than any state in the United States. When we started doing testing we could only do 1,000 tests per day believe it or not. Today we're doing 65,000 tests per day at 850 sites. And thanks to Northwell, we have made a special effort in our low-income communities and minority communities. And now, Northwell and New York are helping cities all across the country do the same.
We developed the best contact tracing program in the country and we're now using that program to train other states. We operationalized all 200 hospitals in our state to work as one, sharing resources and patient load. It had never been done before. Northwell designed new technology to supplement our need for ventilators and did important research on new medicines to assist in the epidemic.
My friends, the crisis is not yet over because too many states are still not following the science and data. This is not about politics. This is a virus - it's about science. And the virus will continue to ricochet across this country until we realize that unless we control the virus everywhere we won't control it anywhere. There are many lessons to be learned from this painful experience, beginning with how did this happen in the first place. We had seen MERS and SARS and Ebola and swine flu - how could we be so unprepared? Why wasn't our public health system more prepared in this nation? So, there's more to learn and there's more to do certainly and we'll do it and we'll do it together and we'll lead the way in New York because that's what we do.
But there's also a lot to be thankful for. I want to thank Northwell for their extraordinary efforts. New York could not have gotten through this pandemic without Northwell, period. And I know - I was there. I also want to thank our entire healthcare community for literally doing the impossible at great personal sacrifice and saving thousands and thousands of lives in this state - that's what you did and there can be no greater pursuit.
On behalf of all New Yorkers, I say thank you, thank you, thank you and God bless you.
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