Governor Hochul: "Let me repeat. This is not March of 2020. We have defenses. We have people across the State of New York who are doing the right thing and I thank them for making sure that this holiday season is vastly different than last year."
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited the Crossgates Mall vaccination site in Albany County and thanked healthcare workers.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
B-ROLL of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the event is available here.
PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Thank you all for coming out this afternoon. It was important for me to come out and see first-hand the incredible work that's being done all over the State of New York, particularly in Albany County. I can never thank the staff and the healthcare workers and Department of Health individuals and the volunteers and the National Guard for making all of this happen. They've been here at Crossgates since last April. They probably didn't think there'd be such a huge spike in demand. They couldn't have possibly foreseen that there would be a new variant that would really change the trajectory of this crisis, but also that they are continuing to show up every single day, they bring heart and passion. I had a chance to thank them individually. There's literally 60 individuals who come here every single day, 10 incident commanders. And I want to thank them as well for the great work they do.
Rob Valenty just gave us a tour. He made sure that we had a chance to meet the individuals who have been vaccinated, those who were boosted. And I have to tell you, if you have a chance to see that waiting room, there is an energy and an excitement among the individuals who now know that they're going to be able to celebrate the holidays, celebrate Christmas dinner with their loved ones, without risk of getting sick because most of the people in that room were getting their boosters. And that's the extra fortitude that they need to make sure that they're safe as well as wearing masks as well.
So, it was a personally uplifting experience for me to see that so many people are answering our call to do the right thing. Even in these final weeks of December, there's still time to do what's right to protect yourselves and always think about the most vulnerable person who's at your dinner table. Are they going to be safe if you don't get vaccinated? And you need to make sure that you are vaccinated, boosted, and encourage people to still gather, still gather for the holidays, but also make sure that you're protected and you look out for those individuals.
I had a chance to stop by and thank the workers. I brought some Cider Belly donuts, which were a big hit. I did that because I also want to thank that company as well as many other businesses for doing the right thing, making sure that people are wearing masks, whether they have vaccination rules in place. So many businesses who are the unsung heroes of this pandemic, doing the right thing every single day. I'm so grateful to them, as well as the customers and the employees who are following all of our guidelines.
We have seen a sharp increase in cases over the last week. This was not surprising. Once we knew Omicron had hit the shores of this country, as well as New York State, we knew this was going to just be a matter of time before something that spread so exponentially would increase dramatically.
So, we had a big increase in numbers, 21,000 just yesterday, but we also know that this is a milder form of the variant than Delta had been. We're still waiting on more science and data, but that is a very positive sign to let people know that if you're vaccinated and boosted, you are more likely just to either be asymptomatic or just have very minor symptoms. That's important to know because the reason we want to make sure that that occurs as we've watched the hospitalization rates intensely. This is what I have been concerned about literally for months.
We saw Omicron coming and how fast it spread. We knew we had to do one thing more important than anything: make sure that our hospitals could handle any surge in new patients coming in the door. And what we've seen that the hospitalizations and our capacity to handle them are holding steady. I'm not going to make a prediction of what could happen a week from now because this is rapidly changing, but because of the precautions we put in place, limiting in some cases where there's less than 10 percent bed capacity, limiting elective surgeries in those facilities, that we are making progress.
And so, what we have now as of a couple of weeks ago, we had 32 facilities that were had to suspend those elective surgeries, that is now at 28. Individuals are coming off that list because the bed capacity is something they can handle.
We also know that compared to last year - let's just frame this in terms of where we were one year ago. Hospitalizations are 60 percent of what they were during last winter surge. We have 3,900 people hospitalized right now. One year ago, we had 6,200. So that, again, is an indicator that this variant is not as severe as last year. And also, the steps we took to make sure more people are vaccinated and boosted. There's fewer people going into the hospitals, as well. I want to thank the hospitals for standing on guard and being ready and following our directives to make sure that there's no situation where we ended up with a crisis situation. We're vigilant.
Again, we are on this every single day, making sure that we send the National Guard in to help relieve some of the pressure in our hospitals and our nursing homes, making sure that our healthcare workers are vaccinated, something that was considered very controversial a few months ago, as it turns out it was absolutely the right thing to do because I just met a couple of individuals now who are getting their vaccine for the first time. One of them said they're doing it because they work for me. I said, that's good. I want to thank them for all the workers and individuals who, even at this later date, are doing the right thing to keep people safe.
I mentioned the booster shots. We have 93.9 of New Yorkers are vaccinated with at least one dose, but the increase in boosters is going up. We had over a hundred thousand people being boosted every single day. That's a lot of people getting those booster shots, many of whom are sitting right behind these walls.
Making sure we have capacity. We announced that 40 new vax sites are opening. Now, a year ago, again, let me reframe this. All we had when this started a year ago and the vaccines were starting to become available, we only had the mass vax sites because there was a limited supply of vaccines and there was no even talk about boosters. We now have our sites ramped up. We have 40 new sites, but this is in addition to what is happening all over this state, where we have 4,500 pharmacies and doctor's offices that also have supply.
So, what you see at a vax site is not the only place that people are receiving their vaccines and their boosters. We're continuing to do robocalls, making sure that people only had that one dose, that they will get that second dose and get the booster. So, we're doing outreach constantly. We have Dr. Bassett out there talking about this on the news. Should we be doing a robocall to people as well? I believe that people will trust her voice, as well, as someone who is an expert in medical matters and as someone I've come to trust as well.
So, we have more people getting boosted, great news. We're stabilized in hospital capacity, at least for today, that's important to note this, and we're going to continue making sure that we have all the resources we needed are at our disposal.
Let me repeat. This is not March of 2020. We have defenses. We have people across the State of New York who are doing the right thing and I thank them for making sure that this holiday season is vastly different than last year.
We want people to reconnect with their families, so critically important emotionally, particularly for our older residents, people who've been suffering from isolation during most of this, we need those connections and there is a very, very, very safe way to do it. And that's what we've been talking about, which is simply getting people boosted and continuing to wear the mask.
So, we're going to get this done. Testing, you see pictures in some communities, long lines, New York City, that is actually a sign that people are doing the right thing. We are working hard to increase our capacity. We've been talking about this from the beginning. We'll be embedding more testing opportunities and even having test kits available when our supply is replenished at our testing and our vaccination sites. That's important. So, we now have 1 million tests kits that I ordered a couple of weeks ago. They have arrived. They've been distributed to local health departments. We have another million coming in a few days, another million coming after that. So, we're going to continue increasing our supply.
So, a lot of tests, we did 1.2 million tests a week. And just comparing again last year to this year, one year ago today we did 190,000 tests. Yesterday, we did 290,000, only 300,000 people across the State of New York. And so we're also going to be launching a portal so people can order them and we can make it even easier. And also dealing with the manufacturers and our pharmacies to make sure there's plenty of supply on those shelves. So, we're literally pulling every lever possible to make sure that we protect not just the health of our people, which is my number one priority, but also protect the health of the economy.
Why that's so important - we saw what happened last year when there were shutdowns and businesses, hotels, and restaurants, and cultural institutions that some of them which never ever came back. And that is so sad for those communities because those small businesses in particular, places like upstate, Albany, Schenectady, Troy, all the great communities we have in upstate New York, they're defined by these businesses.
That's their character. That's their personality. And when they leave - your favorite brewery, your favorite winery or your favorite restaurant, there's a hole in the heart of the community. I'm working so hard to prevent that. I want those businesses to not just survive, I want them to thrive. So I encourage everyone, you can also not just help your loved ones and make sure that grandma's at the dinner table with you again next year and elderly parents and people you just care so much about, you can take steps to protect them. But at the same time you're also protecting your local businesses and your local community. And I thank all of those who follow this.
So, more tests are on the way. Albany County, I want to thank our leader here, Dan McCoy. He is someone you want to be in a foxhole with during a crisis. He's been our partner from the very beginning, doing everything he can to make sure that our, our sites, our staff, to make sure that we have a local partnership, which is so important to me. So County Executive McCoy, I thank you.
Also, our local government officials, Guilderland town supervisor, Peter Barber has joined me. I spent 14 years in local government. I know that's where the rubber meets the road, and I want to thank our supervisor for also all he has done to make sure the word gets out, and also make sure our businesses know that we have their back. Everything we've put in place is to make sure that they do not have to face a shutdown. And that's why we have, we are encouraging everyone to follow our requirements of vaccinations or masks at various locations. Again, I want to commend the incredible team that's here today, and I want to just give them a round of applause, everybody should turn around and thank them for what they do.
Rob Valenty and the Department of Health lead, Jennifer Unser. Jennifer, where are you? Jennifer? Thank you, Jennifer. This is extraordinary. Please give our gratitude to everyone who's part of your team as well as the National Guard who are always there to help the people of this state, called from the security of their own homes and their own jobs and willing, willing to sacrifice their weekends and their evenings and even their holidays.
So to our National Guard, I am so grateful for all you do.