Governor Cuomo: "We have to get that hospital capacity up and we have to get the equipment that we have up. Each of the 250 bed facilities is about 40,000 square feet. There will be about 320 federal staff that come to work in those 4 hospitals where they'll take care of about 1,000 people. All systems are go here as you can see behind me. The material has already started to arrive. We'll start erecting the equipment upstairs. Luckily, Javits has plenty of space. We've been expanding Javits. This was never an anticipated use, but you do what you have to do. That's the New York way, that's the American way. And we're going to get this done."
Cuomo: "I want to thank all of the people who are here working and coming out of their homes, and putting themselves in a situation where they may be exposed to the virus because they want to help and they believe in public service."
During a press briefing this morning, the Governor announced an initial delivery of hospital supplies to the Jacob K. Javits Center where FEMA has started to build a 1,000-bed temporary hospital that will help increase New York's hospital capacity to combat COVID-19 and open next week. This is in addition to the four sites selected by the Army Corps of Engineers that will create temporary hospitals in downstate New York with total capacity up to 4,000. The federal administration has deployed 339,760 N-95 masks, 861,700 surgical masks, 353,300 gloves, 145,122 gowns and 197,085 face shields to New York State, with many state supplies already located at the Javits Center.
VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
B-ROLL of the Governor's tour is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Thank you all for coming. It is my pleasure to be with Major General Patrick Murphy, who is the Commissioner of our Division of Homeland Security. Major General Raymond Shields, who heads our Division of Military and Naval Affairs. Colonel Thomas Asbury and all the people from the Army Corps of Engineers who are here and who are working. Thomas is the Commander and District Engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
I want to thank Alan Steele who runs this convention center. He has put on many shows before, and his team is very adaptable. But this is the first time they have ever built a hospital inside the Javits Center. So, I want to thank them very much.
I want to thank all of the people who are here working and coming out of their homes, and putting themselves in a situation where they may be exposed to the virus because they want to help and they believe in public service. So, I want to thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. What we are doing here at the Javits Center is constructing four emergency hospitals, federal emergency hospitals. Each one will have a capacity of about 250 people. You put the four together, that's 1,000 people. That is being done on the main show room floor above us. The construction will start this week. We hope to have the construction done in about a week to 10 days and have that capacity set up. Besides those 1,000 units which are designed to provide a backfill for the hospitals. So, the free beds in the hospitals, we'll be using these 1,000 emergency beds. We're also seeing if we can construct an additional 1,000 beds for medical care, but a lighter level of medical care than most hospitals. So we could get a 2,000 bed capacity in this facility.
And as you know, for us, a major thrust is increasing hospital capacity which is trying to reduce the rate of the spread of the virus, but at the same time we have to get that hospital capacity up and we have to get the equipment that we have up. Each of the 250 bed facilities is about 40,000 square feet. There will be about 320 federal staff that come to work in those 4 hospitals where they'll take care of about 1,000 people. All systems are go here as you can see behind me. The material has already started to arrive. We'll start erecting the equipment upstairs. Luckily, Javits has plenty of space. We've been expanding Javits. This was never an anticipated use, but you do what you have to do. That's the New York way, that's the American way. And we're going to get this done.
Again, I want to thank the Army Corps of Engineers for everything they've done and will do. I want to thank the National Guard and I want to thank all the employees of the Javits Center who are here doing above and beyond duty. So I want to thank them all very much.
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