Governor Hochul: "So we know what to do. Cases are trending down, turning the corner, and we have to continue being vigilant. We're not going to spike the football. It's all about continuing to be vigilant, be smart about it. Vaccinations, boosting, wear the mask, and there will come a time when we say it's all over. We're not there yet, but boy, it's on the horizon and we've waited a long time for that."
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited University at Albany's RNA institute and updated New Yorkers on the State's progress combatting COVID-19.
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 will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
President Rodríguez: Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to the University at Albany. I am Havidán Rodríguez, and I have the distinct honor of serving as President of the University at Albany. We are very, very pleased to host this important event today here at the University at Albany, and to be joined by several local and state officials, including our Albany County Executive Dan McCoy, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, Senator Neil Breslin. All great friends of the University at Albany, as well as DOH Commissioner, Mary Bassett, and DHSES I should say Commissioner Jackie Bray. Yeah. All those acronyms. Right.
Our guest of honor, of course has been many times here at the University at Albany, but this is the first time that we have the pleasure of welcoming her as Governor Hochul. And we are delighted that she is here with us. I've had the pleasure and honor of interacting with the Governor, since I arrived at the University at Albany in my capacity as co-chair of the Capital Region Economic Development Council. So, I guess she was my boss then, and she's my boss now. Right.
And today provides me another opportunity to thank her for her extraordinary commitment and vision as she takes the reins of the state of New York and these very challenging times, but with great, great opportunities, congratulations on a major announcement this morning. This is great for the city of Albany, for the Capital Region and for the state of New York and for the country as well.
I joined the Governor on a tour of the RNA Institute, which has really become the epicenter of UAlbany's response to COVID. As our in-house surveillance lab testing system, thanks to the expertise and creativity of Dr. Andy Berglund and his team, and Andy is with us here today. Since the summer of 2020, the University at Albany RNA Institute has processed approximately 250,000 saliva samples for UAlbany and numerous community partners.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, UAlbany has been actively engaged in the state's response. From April, 2020 to April, 2021, we hosted a state testing site that it administered more than 160,000 tests. One year ago, tomorrow, one of the first state run mass vaccination sites opened here on our campus as well at the University at Albany. As a public research one institution UAlbany has also been very proud to play a leading role in understanding and addressing the pandemic through our research and public health, education, minority health disparities, social welfare, public policy, and emergency preparedness among others.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the strong and continuous support from our city, our county and our state leaders. So thank you all so very much. Again, we greatly appreciate this administration's leadership and partnership as we continue to navigate this pandemic.
So it is with great pleasure that I welcome to the podium, our Governor Kathy Hochul. Welcome.
Governor Hochul: Double masks serve many purposes, also an opportunity to stay warmer when the weather is going to be very bitterly cold, which we'll talk about literally in a couple minutes.
First of all, Dr. Rodríguez, you always make me feel so welcome here. Your leadership here has been exceptional. To know that this institution that I visited many times has played such a key role in how we're fighting back against this pandemic and your willingness to serve as a vax site. We're reopening the testing sites, certainly we came here, you have that available, even when your students are not here and you've done this for the community at large, and that is important to all of us. I thank you for that.
But also this RNA institute. This gives me a chance to put a spotlight on the fascinating work that's being done here by nation leading researchers and scientists and doctors who are innovating all kinds of therapies and research into rare diseases and I'm proud of the work they're doing here. To know that they're also on the front lines, helping us battle this pandemic by allowing testing to be done. And I'm going to show you what this looks like here because I just talked to some of the individuals in the lab, there's different ways to analyze test results. This is one where we can do pool testing. Some, an individual, usually students will spit into this vial. I'm not going to do that, just so you know, that is not happening in this picture. But they spit in the vial and then they can pool four at a time. So if they all come back negative, immediately you know that there is four people that are clear. If one tests positive, they can do it again.
And so this is what we've been doing in universities, and you've made this available, not just to the students here, but through all the campuses in the region, so they can get very quick results and know exactly what they have to do. So I want to thank our team here at the RNA Institute and thank everyone who's been involved with that today.
I'm also joined. Dr. Mary Bassett, who you'll be hearing from in a couple minutes, someone who gives me tremendous comfort and confidence to know that we have her at the helm of our health department. So thank her. And also, Commissioner Jackie Bray, who wears many hats, that title of Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Services encompasses a lot. And you'll be talking about that as well.
I'm delighted to be here as well. And again, I just want to acknowledge that part of our winter surge plan is to make more testing available. So I wanted to come and see hands-on exactly what we're doing here as well. So great to be here, but also always happy to be in Albany where I get a chance to spend time with my local leaders, starting with our mayor, Kathy Sheehan, who was with me three times today now this is great. We had breakfast with mayors from upstate, to talk about our issues. Where we can work together as I'm formulating the budget, as well as the big announcement at the Port of Albany. Dr. Rodríguez was there as well to talk about thousands of jobs coming to New York State. But literally right here in this city where we training them, giving them an opportunity, part of the energy future, and I announced that with Secretary Jennifer Granholm, former Governor of Michigan. So we had a lot to talk about, also in our state legislature, Neil Breslin. I want to thank Senator Breslin for all he does. We have a very exciting session coming up. I'm energized, fired up for this my first time in this position, so we're looking for that as well.
So today is simply a matter of I wanted to come to this tour. I wanted to have the media have a chance to see what is going on here. So you can put a spotlight on this as well, but also, I just want to give an overall update on where we are.
But before we do that, the weather, the weather comes through, it's all about the weather. And I don't know if you know this, but when I was interviewing individuals to fill this very important position, which requires many talents. I had an opportunity to interview someone who had been the Chief of Staff to the National Weather Service in addition to managing the COVID response for the City of New York.
And that is our Commissioner, Jackie Bray. So anything related to weather, I've turned it to you.
Commissioner Bray: Thank you, Governor. So we did want to just really quickly do a weather update, before we talk about COVID. We've got two real weather events going on in the state this weekend. The first is that tonight into the morning tomorrow, there are going to be dangerously low temperatures across much of the state. Really from the Mid-Hudson region, north and west. We've got wind chill in the negative teens. Up in the North Country, we've got wind chill in the negative 35°, negative 30°. These are the types of temps where frostbite becomes a real concern. Frostbite can develop in these temperatures within 10 minutes. It's important that New Yorkers take precautions tonight and tomorrow. That means covering any unexposed skin. It means being really conscious of how long you're spending outside. If you are going to use an electric heater, doing that safely. And of course, checking on your neighbors, as you are safely able to. In addition to the dangerously cold temps tonight, on Sunday, we have a winter storm, moving into the state. Sunday about 7:00 PM, we expect that storm to start lasting, through about Monday at 7:00 PM. We expect snow across the entire state and north of the city, anywhere from six inches to just over a foot, New York City and Long Island are more likely to see more sleet and rain than they will snow, but the winds are going to be a real factor here. We expect wind gusts over 45 miles an hour across much of the state. The most intense snow will fall between midnight and noon on Monday. So before you leave your house Monday morning, make sure you've checked your forecast, and that just goes for the whole weekend. Make sure you're checking local forecasts. State agencies are out in force. We've got over 2000 plows and loaders ready to respond, and over 6,000 personnel, ready to help maintain and restore power if we see power loss. Thank you.
Governor Hochul: We were speaking among ourselves that it might not be a bad idea if someone wants to innovate flannel lined masks. Certainly, it can sell a lot at the game in Buffalo on Saturday night. Also I was staring right at him, our county executive Dan McCoy, who's been at so many events as when we went out and visited a site at the mall across Gates Mall, not that long ago, talked to the National Guard members there. And so I want to thank you for being the extraordinary partner, you and your Health Department, have been on the front lines of this from the very beginning. And so I just wanted to give you a special shout-out and tell everybody who's part of your team, we're getting through this, and we're getting it through because of great work with counties like Albany.
So thank you. Thank you, County Executive. All right. So, and I wanted to thank SUNY Albany, as I mentioned, the RNA Institute. You always heard about RNA. Nobody knew who knew what it meant before this pandemic. And now I'm not going to try to begin to explain, but I did have a chance to meet some of these individuals that I mentioned about our sampling opportunity, and a huge point of pride. And we're able to lure the director all the way from Florida to the better weather here in Western New York. And he tells me he loves upstate New York. And, he tells me.
So, here's the news flash: Turning the corner. You heard it here first, I've been waiting to say that. Turning the corner. Look at the seven day average of cases starting to decline. 49,027 cases yesterday. Our highest point was how long ago? One week ago. Highest to lowest in a week thus far, and that lowest is going to continue to go down. We had over 90,000 cases one week ago today. 90,000 people tested positive in the state of New York, 49,000 right now. So that is a very positive trend. And I believe we'll be able to keep that going. And I want to thank New Yorkers. Thank you for hanging in there with us, through 2020, 2021. Hopefully not too much of 2022. And because you got vaccinated, you wear your masks - kind of griping a little bit about, I hear it, even in my own household sometimes - but you've all done the right thing. And that is why, we'll be at the forefront of the states, seeing this long awaited, much anticipated decline. So very good news. I am waiting a long time to be able to say this.
So turning the corner on the winter surge. Positivity is declining. We are now at 16.3%, again. Our peak was a few days ago on January 3rd, 23% positivity. Those were very high numbers. And at that point, we did not know whether we're going to continue up or they start going down. And it started going down. So very good news to hear today. Hospitalizations, as well as deaths: We saw, we've known all along. We see this, that these are lagging indicators of positive cases, so there's no surprise. But we are starting to see a decline of our hospitalizations, down about 2,245 down since the day before. So that's good. More people out of the hospitals better, still about 12,000. And they're still too high. I mean, 12,000 is not something that we are saying is a positive news story. It is still very high, but this will eventually catch up with the trend that's just beginning. So that's what we're talking about. And 177 lives were lost because of this pandemic. And that is still too high, and we pray and hope that they have trends down quickly very soon. So we're expecting, let's take a look at regional hospitalizations as well, because upstate and downstate a little bit different story here.
Upstate is still not out of the woods yet. Downstate numbers are trending down, and see New York City, Long Island at the top. There that's the trend you want to see. We're still having issues in Central New York, Mohawk Valley, Western New York's flattening out a little bit there. So we're watching those very closely. And that is why we took quick action when we realized that the high positivity rates, typically in areas that don't have as high of vaccination rate, that is a bad combination. High infections, lower-than-should-be vaccinations. That's the combination we look at, then we look at hospital capacity, which you've heard me talk about nonstop through this whole process.
And we had to suspend elective surgeries on a two-week basis and not forever, but on a two week basis. We evaluated every Thursday and decide what we're going to do. And we had to look at a region now, so there could be more transports between hospitals. So one hospital may not be able to do it, because they're below our 10% threshold, but other ones need to also have space freed up so we could transfer people to them because otherwise we'd have no options. So we're just always trying to stay ahead of this. So we have no elective surgeries in the Finger Lakes, Central New York, and Mohawk Valleys now temporarily. And we also started talking about a different metric of looking at our hospitalizations. I believe we're the first state that recognized what people are being admitted for, as it varies between regions.
But we started talking about hospitalizations, were they all in there because people are that sick from COVID? Did COVID drive them to the hospital? Was it all COVID symptoms that resulted in them having to be admitted? And what we found out at least a week ago, we started asking this question and now other states are asking as well, are there people admitted for non-COVID reasons, who always get tested. You arrive you're tested, and happen to test positive, but are asymptomatic. And that was a very important dynamic for us, just another metric for us to look at, to assess the severity of the situation. So basically statewide, it's about 42%. Right now, it's 43, it's about 42% statewide. We started collecting the data so we're going to start getting more information on that as well. So we'll see that.
And how do we know all this? Because we're testing, we're testing, testing, testing. And I don't know if there's another state that has as many tests secured. This is incredible. I said, I want every test that's out there. We've secured, I would ever be making the announcement. We're going to have 10,000 test kits. Oh my gosh, we're now going to have 13,000 up to 35,000, and we went up to 49, 64 million tests. These are just the ones that are being tested at sites, we get them into schools. We get into the nursing homes, we get them in our facilities, places like here, congregate facilities. This does not include all the home testing that's going on as well. So it's hard to make an assessment of what that really means, because people are keeping that information generally to themselves. But my theory is in the end, it's just a theory, that people are doing home tests and if they test negative, they're keeping that information themselves like, "Okay, fine. I'm good. I'm going back to work, I'm going back to school." And the ones who test positive at home are more likely than to present themselves just for retest at an official site to make sure they can, validate that.
So there may actually may be a higher number of people who would be negative tests, but we just don't have that data points. All we have is the data to work with, what is officially collected, what is assessed at places like here at the RNA Institute? And that's what we're looking at. So we're going to continue getting more tests out the door, 15 million already out, 2 million more going to schools. Again, why are they going to schools? It's all part of our strategy, which was implemented before children came back to school after the winter break. So if someone in the class tests positive, they don't all have to quarantine for 10 days, disrupting all of them, which was what was going on for such a long time to the detriment of these poor kids and the parents who thought they were going to get back to their jobs who have in their lives disrupted again, and the teacher's just so uncertain with what's going on. So we give them tests, kids at school, they test at home test, negative, they're back in school. That's what the test to stay is all about. So we're giving more to schools very soon.
And also I also want to thank Siemens Healthineers for their help in making this happen. This has been, as I've said, a military style operation, and this company, based right in Tarrytown. So we're taking advantage of our local companies and places like Pfizer, as I've mentioned before, calling them up saying when you start selling your, your medication to more than just the federal government, remember your New York residents, we want to get our hands on it first. And first we've already made those calls. So that's what's going on right now.
I mentioned the SUNY campuses. A very good innovation on our part, in terms of really scaling up this winter surge strategy. Finding more places that were available, especially campuses that have been testing students in the past. Students are on break for literally a month. Why not use that facility? We'll ramp it up with enough tests. And so this is, these are the sites we have now. And added nine more community colleges, Niagara, Ulster, Monroe, Sullivan, Rockland, Empire State College, a Saratoga location, Alfred Downstate in the Finger Lakes. Again, looking at where we have the highest need as well. And so that's what we're constantly doing at our many-times-a-day conversations about this. So I want to thank SUNY and Quadrant, who is our testing partner on this as well.
And we also have a partner in very high places. And would be President Biden. We had a great phone call in December. His team engages with us every single week. I'm on calls with all the governors. We share with them what's going on. They say, "How can we help you?" And I said, "We need more ambulances. We need more medical help." And why is that? Because when you're in a densely populated urban area, with lots of hospitals, transfers are not that complicated. I'm up in Potsdam couple of weeks ago, and they said we can't get people transferred to other hospitals, because all of our EMT are volunteers. They have other jobs during the day. They want to be helpful, but that we can't take three hours to take someone and wait with them while they get admitted to a larger hospital in an urban area. That was the dynamic that we're fighting against. So President Biden answered the call, and I'll let Commissioner Bray come up again to talk about exactly what that effort looks like. Putting on my mask here. There's got to come a time, where we're not going to do this anymore.
Commissioner Bray: I know, ma'am, I can't wait. Looking forward to that time. Thank you. Yeah, we want it to just touch on, thanking our federal partners and talking about the resources that they're bringing to the State. We have two disaster medical teams already here, in Buffalo and Syracuse, and we want to thank our federal partners for extending, the time that we'll have a federal disaster medical team in Syracuse. In addition, the President announced yesterday two more disaster medical teams on their way, arriving at the end of this month. First to Brooklyn and a second to the Bronx. We have as the governor discussed, 80 ambulance teams. Each team has two people. Plus the ambulance already here. 30 of those teams are serving Western New York, Central New York and Upstate. We've got 50 of those teams serving, downs or downstate. We have 30, more of those teams arriving in-state on Sunday. that'll give us 110 teams in total. And as the Governor said, for our Central or Western or Upstate regions, these are teams that are able to transfer patients long distances, and stay with patients until they can be admitted, that really frees up our local EMS so that our local 911 response is not tied up in these patient transfers. Downstate, those 50 ambulance teams are actually, integrated into our 911 response to keep the city's EMS and nine 11 response, uh, on time and available to serve everyone. We do want to say we, we continue to need additional federal resources and we'll continue pushing, to get as much as we can for New York State, particularly in our Finger Lakes region. We're hoping to work with our federal partners to bring additional clinical staffing in, and those requests are in and we work daily with the team to get as much as we can for New York. Thank you.
Governor Hochul: It's not an exaggeration to say we have them on speed dial. Is that right?
Commissioner Bray: That's right.
Governor Hochul: Thank you Commissioner Bray, for all the great work that you're continuing to do. One more thing I would like to bring Dr. Bassett to talk about is making sure that people have access to healthcare during this pandemic. And we're going to do something to make that a little bit easier. So doctor Dr.Bassett.
Dr. Bassett: Thank you Governor. Before I turned to healthcare, which I'm really pleased to be talking about a broader subject. I do want to make sure that everybody remembers that COVID vaccination is entirely free. It doesn't matter what your healthcare insurance coverage is, it doesn't where matter where you get vaccinated. The vaccinations are free and we still need people to get vaccinated, especially children. But it's also very important that every New Yorker who's eligible has healthcare coverage. We want every New Yorker covered to the extent that we can achieve it. And we still have thousands of New Yorkers who are eligible for health insurance, and haven't attained it. So today, the federal Health and Human Services extended the public health emergency that was first announced on March 20th, March, 2020. And, they have extended it from June 16th for a further 90 days. The New York State of Health, which is New York's official health plan marketplace, will remain open for enrollment as it has been since March, 2020, and will continue to be open for enrollment throughout the public health emergency.
And I like to remind New Yorkers of the fact that this marketplace offers a one-stop shop for you to get covered. If you lack health insurance, or your health insurance is coming to an end, it provides access to the public health insurance options. Medicare, Medicaid, Child Health Plus, the essential plan as well as a number of affordable commercial plans. Every single county in this state has both public and commercial plans available through the marketplace. It's been so important to have this access during the pandemic. When many people lost their jobs and with it, their health insurance, or lost income, and weren't able to afford in health, health insurance, we've had a huge surge of enrollment during the pandemic with 1.5 million New Yorkers added to the New York State of Health roles. So with this effort over the years, since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, we've cut the number of uninsured New Yorkers in half, across every racial ethnic group. This is a huge accomplishment, but we still have about 900,000 New Yorkers, who don't have coverage and at least half of them are eligible for it.
If you want to get coverage for March 1st, you have to enroll by February 15th. There are subsidies available so that the cost of health insurance can be greatly reduced. It's a bit complicated, so I won't give examples of how much, but it's substantial. So nobody should decide that they can't afford health insurance. Go to the marketplace. The tax credits made under the American Rescue Act remain in place, and there are substantial subsidies that can lower premiums. So that's the message today, Governor. Don't assume that you can't afford health insurance. We want you covered so that you can get complete house care needs. We want people vaccinated. We want them boosted, and we want people to be insured. Thank you.
Governor Hochul: Yes. I don't know how to put an exclamation point on that, other than say she's right. There should not be 900,000 people in the state of New York without health insurance, half of whom are easily eligible. So help us get the word out. I look to our local partners and anyone who can help to amplify that message because there's nothing more frightening than to be an individual who needs healthcare and you present yourself and you do not have that insurance card, you don't have coverage and it's so unnecessary.
The expansion of the Affordable Care Act, which occurred when I was a member of Congress a decade ago, created the opportunity for everyone to have the dignity of quality healthcare. And that is something we want to make sure continues on. So thank you, Dr. Bassett for reminding us of that as well.
So we know what to do. Recap: cases are trending down, turning the corner, and we have to continue being vigilant. We're not going to spike the football. Understand that? No spiking the football, it's all about continuing to be vigilant, be smart about it. Vaccinations, boosting, wear the mask, and there will come a time when we say it's all over. We're not there yet, but boy, it's on the horizon and we've waited a long time for that. So thank you everyone for all you do.