Governor Hochul: “It does not have to have anywhere near the same severity as what we went through a year and a half ago, twenty months ago. We have the protection to avoid that situation. So, I will once again ask everyone – please, if you're not vaccinated, now is the time. Think of the most vulnerable person at your dinner table for Christmas and are you at risk of making them sick because of something that you simply would not do, and that is to get vaccinated. So please do that for your loved ones so they can join you again next Christmas, next holiday season, as well as get that booster shot, please get the booster shot.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited the Wyoming County Health System vaccination site in Warsaw 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 will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming out. I wanted to come to Wyoming County Community Hospital for a number of reasons. I know this community is so well, very proud to represent this community as a member of Congress and then even as lieutenant governor we worked very hard with the leadership, the current leadership and the past leadership to make sure that this hospital could be financially viable. I'll just say it that way. We took it from life support to give it what it needed to make sure that it had a good, strong grounding here. And I want to make sure we continue focusing on our rural hospitals and rural health care because it's so critically important to me.
Our partners here at Wyoming County, I want to thank all of you. And I want to thank the CEO, Joe McTernan, CEO, Wyoming County Community Health System for all you do, Joe. I know this is not easy. It's a tough time to be in the hospital facility space. It's been a real challenge since the beginning of this pandemic and I know people like you have had to deal with a lot of unforeseen circumstances. I'll be as diplomatic as I can say. It's been hard. It's been really hard. And I thank you for continuing to hang in there, Joe, and working with Dr. Greg Collins, the Commissioner of Public Health, our medical director here as well, critically important partners to all of us. Laura Paolucci, Public Health Commissioner here in Wyoming County and Rick Kosmerl, the President of the Wyoming County Community Health System. And these are our healthcare partners.
I also want to give a shout out to real leaders here in this community, the elected leaders and I'm going to start with Chairwoman Rebecca Ryan, Chair of the Board of Supervisors and the Town of Warsaw Supervisor. We've been friends a long time. Chairwoman Ryan, you've demonstrated incredible leadership in making sure that you keep the people of this community safe, you have asked people to get the vaccine, you've asked them to wear their masks because in your heart you know this is an important community that needs to know that we care about them. And what you have done as partnering with the state is something we so appreciate. And you have said you need more resources to continue the work you want to do, and I will stand here and tell you those resources are coming. And I will guarantee that you'll get additional assistance. Those who are willing to be so supportive of what we've asked the people to do, our businesses, to make sure that people are either masked or vaccinated when they come into their establishments and that's how we're going to protect wonderful communities like Warsaw throughout this great County of Wyoming. So thank you.
Mayor Joe Robinson. Where is Joe? I’ve been to many diners with you and Trustee Cindy Appleton. I used to walk into the diners they’d automatically hand me the iced tea and the drinks, usually rice pudding, too. Thank you for being on the front lines for such a long time and doing everything you can to make sure the people of this community are safe as well.
This is what this is all about. I literally just came here for one reason, and that is the thank angels on earth, these healthcare workers who continue to show up, whether it's in a skilled nursing facility or on the front lines, walk into these halls, taking care of people at their most vulnerable. They have been through a long excruciating time and like any other human would be, they're exhausted. They walk in with a positive attitude every day, but they walk out feeling drained in the sense of it did not have to be this way. If we can get more people vaccinated, and as this Omicron variant continues to expand exponentially, we have to make sure that people get the booster shot as well, because all the evidence is showing that there will be breakthroughs and, thank God, the symptoms will not be as severe, we've already seen evidence of that, but there will be people hospitalized. Increasing hospital capacity has been my laser focus for many months now, not just dealing with Delta, but when we first got the inkling that this could come from South Africa and England, and eventually come to New York, we knew once it came to New York, that this would spread like wildfire because of densely populated areas like New York City, but also areas of our state where people are not as vaccinated at the high rate we want them to be.
So, we saw the vulnerabilities right away. We've been working on hospital capacity since day one. And I want to thank the leadership here for making all the right decisions to ensure that there is sufficient capacity in this very hospital. I applaud you for that. It is not easy to do. And you have approximately 24 COVID patients right now, or 24 people hospitalized and half of them are COVID patients. Sure as I'm standing here, that number is going to continue going upward as the Omicron variant continues to spread. So, making sure you have sufficient capacity, as well as nursing home capacity, because many people who could be released from hospitals, sometimes they're having to be kept in a hospital even longer because there's not enough staffing at a nursing facility in the community. So those are areas we're focused on very much.
I do want to make a couple of other points. This is not March of 2020, it's not even December of 2020. We've come a long way. We have defenses. We are not defenseless against this virus, or even the variant. We have all the options we need, and that is vaccinations for children from age five, all the way to adults, making sure they're safe, they can return to school when they come back from their Christmas. Also making sure that people get the booster shot as well as the availability of testing. Testing and vaccination sites throughout the state. We're continuing to add more and more. We're in regular contact with county executives, county leaders, county boards of supervisors, as well as the local public health departments to find out what they need.
We also are going to have a very, very expansive testing program where we're going to be having a portal available for people to be able to order test kits. We're setting that up as we speak. Focusing on areas where there is a lower compliance rate, because what we want to do is make sure that people show symptoms that they get tested, or if they've been exposed, they get tested because this is how we can stop the spread from getting even more out of control. If people are feeling sniffles a little bit sick, get tested right away. We want to make sure that you stay home, stay protected, don't spread the virus.
On the other hand, we're going to end up with another situation. We're not going to have enough people working in our various facilities or working in our restaurants, working in our various businesses that populate downtowns like Warsaw here.
And we want to make sure that they're tested, to know whether it's just a common cold or they have the flu, allergies, or whether it really is COVID. So having that data point is really important to know exactly what you have. So we’re actually focusing on more availability of testing kits, hospital capacity, more vaccinations as well.
And as I mentioned more tests are on the way. This is a county that has over 6,000 people that have tested positive for COVID right now. That's out of a population of 40,000. You do the math. That's about 14 percent of the population testing positive. And these are people who test positive in places where we can track them.
People who may be now diagnosing themselves at home because they have the test at home, we're not always getting that data. We want to make sure that people know, call into your local health department so we can have more accurate numbers. So those numbers are troubling. And I predict that after Christmas, they're going to continue to go up.
We foresee this, but it does not have to have anywhere near the same severity as what we went through a year and a half ago, twenty months ago. We have the protection to avoid that situation. So, I will once again ask everyone – please, if you're not vaccinated, now is the time. Think of the most vulnerable person at your dinner table for Christmas and are you at risk of making them sick because of something that you simply would not do, and that is to get vaccinated. So please do that for your loved ones so they can join you again next Christmas, next holiday season, as well as get that booster shot, please get the booster shot. And we also have a lot of cases where someone may have gotten only one of the vaccinations from Moderna or Pfizer. They require two shots.
You need to get at least those two and then the third shot. So please don't think because of one dose that you're safe because you are truly not, particularly with this new variant. So that's what I want to leave you with is again, thank you to healthcare workers, not just here in Wyoming County, but across the State of New York.
We are so grateful for what you've been through and what you continue to do every single day. You inspire us. Your stories, which you continue to do at your own risk to yourselves and your family is truly extraordinary. We're grateful. We're going to give a hand to our local counties who are doing the right thing.
I want to thank Wyoming County for helping us keep people safe and all the elected leaders and the hospital staff who are here today, want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and happy holidays and look forward to a healthy New Year heading into 2022. So, thank you.