Gov Andrew Cuomo New York COVID-19 Briefing Transcript April 6

Gov. Andrew Cuomo: (00:00)
He’s our budget director extraordinaire. On the numbers, the number continues to increase. We’re up to 8,658 new cases. Overall, we have 130,000 people tested positive, 16,000 people in our hospital system, 13,000 people have been discharged. Number of deaths are up, once again, number of people we lost, number of New Yorkers, 4,758, which is up from 159, but which is effectively flat for two days. While none of this is good news, the flattening, possible flattening, of the curve is better than the increases that we have seen. New York is still far and away the most impacted state. New Jersey is having real difficulty and I’ve been speaking with Governor Murphy from New Jersey and anything we can do together we will, Michigan also. California has leveled off and Louisiana is having a difficult time so they’re in our thoughts and prayers.

Total number of hospitalizations are down. The ICU admissions are down and the daily intubations are down. Those are all good signs and again, would suggest a possible flattening of the curve. The number of discharged is down, but that reflects the overall reduction in the numbers. Big question that we’re looking at now is what is the curve and we’ve been talking about cases increase, increase, increase until they don’t. When they stop increasing, then what happens? And the projection models have a number of alternatives. Some suggest basically the curve goes up and then drops precipitously. Some suggest there’s a slight pause at the top. Some suggest there’s a longer pause at the top, which is effectively a plateau effect or again, the straight up and straight down precipitous drop, which is the peak effect. No one can tell you which will occur. They say any one of the three options. You study other countries, you’ve had a combination of the above. We are studying it as we have used the projection models from day one to determine actually what we do. How do we set policy and program by following the data. Dr. Malatras has been working on the numbers, working with the statisticians and the projection models and helping us incorporate that into an operational model. And Jim, if you want to just take a moment and speak about the projection models here please.

Dr. Jim Malatras: (03:17)
Great. Thank you, governor. As the governor said, we have been looking at projection models from the beginning to determine the size and scope and severity and the governor has mentioned this over his briefings. We’ve been working with many organizations and using the data like Imperial College, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Cornell, McKinsey and others and some of the initial projections that we first saw at the beginning of this was at least up to 110,000 beds for COVID patients alone and the peak would come at the end of April. Those were some of the earliest modeling from many organizations that it would be at the end of April, around 110,000 beds just for COVID patients. There are other models, too, that we were tracking one being lower at about 55,000 COVID beds, but again, peaking at the end of April.

Dr. Jim Malatras: (04:18)
We follow now that we have a pretty robust data set to go by for the last several weeks. The bottom line there, the purple line is sort of where we are tracking today, which suggests it’s a little lower. And the question was what could you do to lower those initial projections from 110,000 and from 55,000? So a lot of the activity was we saw where the statisticians and the folks looking at these types of models said it was going, so what activities and actions could you take to aggressively lower that overall number? And the answer really was and what the governor’s been doing was aggressively enforce and enact social distancing to lower the overall number and this number and the current data suggests that that is exactly what’s happening and it’s not settled, yet because we are going day by day and the numbers, as the governor says, has changed a lot over time based on what numbers come in. But this could suggest that we are indeed potentially at the apex or beginning to be at the apex at this moment. Like the governor has said, there’s been a range of models, 7 days, 14 days, 21 days, 30 days. It looks like we’re towards the earlier side of that timeframe based on the current projections and modeling that we’ve been looking at.

Thank you, Jim. But you see on this slide where we are now and it can still go anyway. We could still see an increase. It is hopeful, but it’s also inconclusive and it still depends on what we do. These models all have a coefficient of what we do and how successful we are at social distancing, et cetera. And from our decision making point of view, it doesn’t really matter if we’ve hit the plateau or not because you have to do the same thing. If we are plateauing, we are plateauing at a very high level and there’s tremendous stress on the healthcare system. And to say to this healthcare system, which is at maximum capacity today, this is a hospital system where we have our foot to the floor and the engine is at red line and you can’t go any faster. And by the way, you can’t stay at red line for any period of time because the system will blow and that’s where we are.

We are at red line. People can’t work any harder. The staff can’t work any harder and staying at this level is problematic. And if we are plateauing, it’s because social distancing is working, so we have to make sure the social distancing actually continues. On the relieving the pressure on the hospital system, which is unsustainable at this rate, we’re continuing what we call our surge and flex program where we get all the hospitals on the line on a daily basis. They’re all doing inventories, they’re all doing that or sheets, they’re all on the telephone and we’re shifting among the hospitals, ventilators, PPE equipment, who was gowns, who has masks, and that happens on a daily basis. That adjustment.

Also, to relieve pressure on the hospital system, the Javits coming online is a very big deal. That is the relief valve for the entire downstate system. The 1100 military personnel started to come in. 300 were sent to New York City public hospitals to help the New York City public hospital system, the H and H system, which has been under stress. The rest will be going to Javits, to bring that up and running to full capacity. That transition is happening now. That is a COVID center now. Started as non-COVID, it’s now a COVID center. The majority of the military personnel will be coming in tomorrow and the next day, but that Javits center is going to be a major relief valve.

The United States Navy ship Comfort, the original plan was that that would come in for non-COVID people. The original plan was it would also be a relief valve on the hospitals, but not for COVID people that it would take all the non-COVID patients if you will from the hospital system. That was the plan. As it turned out, there’s not a lot of non-COVID people in the hospital system, which is a separate story, happens to be a good news story. A byproduct of shutting everything down is you have fewer car accidents. Crime rate is way down. Fewer trauma cases, so there is not a large non-COVID population in the hospitals.

I’m going to call the president this afternoon and ask him to shift the Comfort from non-COVID to COVID. Then we would have Javits and the ship Comfort as a relief valve. That’s 2,500 beds and 1000 beds, that’s 3,500 beds, which could serve as a relief valve for the whole downstate hospital system.

Serve as a relief valve for the whole downstate hospital system. That is the only way we sustain this level of intensity in the hospital system, and I understand what the original plan was with the comfort, but I understand that there is no preordained strategy here, you have to feel it out day to day and you have to adjust with the facts. And we don’t need the comfort for non-COVD cases. We need it for COVID.

If we had those two facilities as a relief valve, that would make a significant difference. Now, bringing online 3,500 beds is no small task. Northwell Health is going to help us manage those, but they’re going to be staffed by military personnel. Only the military could bring in that many people that quickly with that logistical operation and I want to thank DOD very much for their cooperation because God bless the US military.

We are fully aware of what they do to defend this nation, but this is a different application that we don’t see every day and they’re doing an extraordinary job. I’ll call the President. He has been helpful to New York in the past and he’s moved very quickly in the past. I’m going to ask him if he can make this adjustment for us because it would be truly beneficial.

We would feel much better knowing that we can sustain this pace if we could start to offload patients to these two facilities. In any event, plateau, not plateau, we still have to extend New York Pause because if that curve is turning, it’s turning because the rate of infection is going down. One of the reasons the rate of infection is going down is because social distancing is working. We have to continue the social distancing. Schools and nonessential businesses will stay closed until April 29th.

I know that’s a negative for many, many reasons. I know what it does to the economy. But as I said from day one, I’m not going to choose between public health and economic activity because in either event, public health still demands that we stay on pause with businesses closed and schools closed. Whether we’ve hit the apex or whether we haven’t hit the apex, you’d have to do the same thing. There’s also a real danger in getting overconfident too quickly.

This is an enemy that we have underestimated from day one and we have paid the price dearly. Well, the numbers are look like they may be turning. Yay, it’s over. No, it’s not. And other places have made that mistake. Hong Kong has made that mistake. South Korea has made that mistake. And we’re not going to make that mistake. The weather is turning. People have been locked up. We’ve been talking about cabin fever. Now it’s a nice day. I’m going to get out. I’m going to go take a walk. Now is not the time to do that. And frankly there has been a laxness on social distancing, especially over this past weekend that is just wholly unacceptable.

Look, people are dying. People in the healthcare system are exposing themselves every day to tremendous risk walking into those emergency rooms and then they have to go home to their family and wonder if they caught the virus and they’re bringing it home to their family. If you don’t … If I can’t convince you to show discipline for yourself, then show discipline for other people. If you get infected, you infect someone else, you go to an emergency room, you put a burden on all sorts of other people who you don’t know and who frankly, you don’t have the right to burden with your irresponsibility.

And people, especially in New York City, the level of activity is up. Partially the weather made it a nice day. I understand people have been locked up for a long time. But now is not the time to be lax and it is a mistake. We all have a responsibility. We all have a role in this. We said that from day one. And we have to respect the role that we play, because the role that we play is a societal obligation. That’s how I see it.

I want local governments to enforce the social distancing rules. The local governments are charged with enforcement. I want them to enforce them and I want to be frankly, more aggressive on the enforcement because all the anecdotal evidence is people are violating it at a higher rate than before. We’re going to increase the potential maximum fine from $500 to $1,000 but it’s not really about the fine. Nobody wants the money. We want the compliance. We are serious.

And again, if it’s not about your life, you don’t have the right to risk someone else’s life and you don’t have the right frankly, to take health care staff and people who are literally putting their lives on the line and be cavalier or reckless with them. You just don’t have the right. And we want to thank all of the people who are getting us through this every day under very tough circumstances. And we see the illness rate among these essential workers and we know the sacrifice they’re making and we should respect it. It’s that simple.

You have the first responders who are out there, your police officers who are out there, the transit workers who are have to drive a bus and the train every day, the healthcare workers who are just doing extraordinary work. Let’s respect them and let’s help them. We’re also going to set up a fund run by the Department of Health to assist the healthcare workers with expenses, costs, childcare, etc. I want to thank Blackstone for making the first contribution to that fund of $10 million to assist the first responders. I hope other individuals and corporations follow their lead.

We’re also very aware of the mental health aspect of this situation and the stress and the isolation that this has caused and people are trying in their own way to grapple with what this means and what is the impact, how do you rationalize this situation? And the mental health aspect of it is very real. Headspace is going to partner with New York. They’re an app. They’re going to have content for New York and free membership for New York. We thank them. But we also have an emotional support hotline. We have thousands of mental health professionals who have signed up to volunteer to provide mental health services.

We want people to make sure they know about that and it’s available. I talk about perspective a lot, maybe frankly because partially I’m speaking to myself and I had a good conversation with my daughters last night, Kara and McKayla, who very are often wiser than I am and wiser than their years. It’s very hard to see the number of deaths we’re having. It’s frightening. It’s disturbing that amount of loss. I’m the Governor of New York, I see my job as preventing that kind of disturbance and negativity and loss for the people of the state.

Perspective, we like to think that we can control everything. We can’t. We like to think that we can fix everything and fix all the problems for people. We can’t. The undeniable truth here is that this virus is a deadly enemy and we will lose and we are losing people who are vulnerable to the virus. That can’t be controlled, that can’t be fixed. Why? That’s mother nature. That’s a question that God can only answer. But control what you can, do what you can. The challenge is to make sure that we don’t lose anyone who could have been saved if our healthcare system was operating fully. Don’t lose anyone who you could save. That is a legitimate, ambitious goal.

… is a legitimate, ambitious goal of government. And that we have done so far. That we have done so far. Have we saved everyone? No. But, have we lost anyone because we didn’t have a bed or we didn’t have a ventilator or we didn’t have health care staff? No. The people we lost are the people we couldn’t save. Not for lack of trying and not for lack of doing everything that we could do as a society, not only as a government and as a healthcare system. So to the extent we can find peace in that, it helps me.

And we are still New York Tough. And New York Tough means tough. But, tough in a New York sense also means compassionate. It means that we are unified. It means that we are loving because if you’re really tough … the really tough guys, they’re tough enough to show love. And because we’re smart and that’s how we’re going to get through this.

Questions?

Speaker 1: (21:11)
How is the drug trial of a hydroxychlorine and chlorine going?

We’ve allowed usage of the hydroxychloroquine with the Azithromycin packs … pack in hospitals. At their discretion. The federal government is going to increase the supply to New York pharmacies. We had a 14 day limit on how much you could buy because so many people were trying to buy it. If the federal government increases the supply to New York, which they say they’re going to do, then we could lift the 14 day limit. There are a lot of people who are relying on this, who were relying on it, people with lupus, et cetera. The tests in the hospital, they won’t say that they are … there too shorter period of time to get a scientific report. Hospital administrators, doctors want to give, have a significant data set before they give a formal opinion. Anecdotally, you’ll get suggestions that it has been effective, but we don’t have any official data yet from a hospital or a quote unquote, “Study.” Which will take weeks if not months before you get an official study.

Is that a fair statement?

Speaker 2: (22:46)
So, promising, but not conclusive, it sounds like.

On which?

Speaker 2: (22:50)
On that that type of treatment in hospitals.

Yeah. There has been anecdotal evidence that it is promising. That’s why we’re going ahead. Doctors have to prescribe, but there are some people who have preexisting conditions where it doesn’t work or they’re taking medication that’s not consistent with this treatment. But, anecdotally it’s been positive. We’ll have a full test once they have a large enough sample and data set, Jesse. But, anecdotally it’s been positive. And if we get an additional supply we can, which the federal government says they’re going to send, I’m going to mention it to the president actually when I call him this afternoon, with the comfort, I’m going to make a note right now, if they increase the supply, we can lift the 14 day limit ban.

Speaker 3: (23:42)
Governor, earlier today, there was the notion that the city would maybe burying these COVID bodies in parks, in New York City. I’m wondering, one, have you heard of that? And two, is there any way that the state can lend assistance with managing these bodies? And what do you think about that?

I have heard nothing about that. I’ve heard a lot of wild rumors, but I have not heard anything about the city burying people in parks.

Speaker 3: (24:08)
Would you support that?

No, no.

Speaker 3: (24:11)
What’s the overall plan you have to manage these bodies?

I didn’t know that there was an issue. I haven’t heard that there was an issue. Has anybody heard that there’s an issue? Did the city raise any issue? They talked to New York City … I talked to New York City yesterday. I have not heard that this is an issue.

Speaker 4: (24:29)
Mayor Bill de Blasio this morning requested that the state released more ventilator from its stockpile to the city. To date, how many ventilators have come from the state stockpile to the City? And how they asked for any more at this point?

They have not asked for any that they have not gotten. We’re releasing 802. The City is basically responsible for the 11 Hilton Hospital Corporation, hospitals, public hospitals. There are 11 health and hospital corporations. 11 health and hospitals in that system. And I spoke to the head of the system last night. I’m going to speak to, he’s going to be on a phone call at one o’clock, Dr. Mitch Katz. He had all the equipment he needed and I’m going to speak to him again at one o’clock, so if they need anything we’ll get it to them.

Speaker 4: (25:27)
Is the 802 combined? That’s how many-

… 802 for the downstate area. Now, every hospital will say to you, “I am running low on everything.” Because they are low on everything. Right? When we do these daily surgeon flex discussions, there’s no margin for error because we don’t have any margin for error. We just don’t have the supplies. The whole system is over capacity. So everybody is low on everything. And if they had a wishlist, everybody would want a stockpile and a reserve in their own hospital. I get that. We don’t have that luxury. Taking ventilators from one hospital on a daily basis, bringing them to another, and then shifting them back and forth, so every hospital can get through this period. That’s why I say it’s unsustainable for us. So we’re doing that with PPE equipment, we’re doing that with the ventilators, we’re doing that with patients. If we can systematically get patients out of the hospital system into Javits and the comfort, then you can relieve pressure on the whole system.

But, the system is running at red line, has been for days. This is the most intense management function that we have ever undertaken. So it’s not here, in this situation it’s not what they want. It’s what they need. That’s what I said. Everybody would want, I want to have 100 ventilators on reserve. I know. It’s what you need and that we’re doing on a day-to-day basis, but everyone has what they need. There is no one who said, “I’m out of ventilators and I have a critical need,” who hasn’t gotten them.

[crosstalk 00:00:27:29]. Go ahead.

Jesse: (27:31)
You’re calling your increases in crackdowns on social distancing, but we’re getting reports of funerals and weddings in Orthodox Jewish Communities in Rockland County and in Brooklyn, still being attended by hundreds of people.

Then they should enforce the rule, Jesse. I don’t care if you’re Orthodox Jewish, Catholic, Christian, Muslim, I don’t care what, it’s not about religious observation.

Jesse: (27:54)
But, is there anything that you can do with State Police or other resources to try to break these-

… the State Police won’t enforce it also, but let a local government, it’s a job of local government to enforce. I’m doubling the fine. It’s my way of saying, this is serious. This is serious. What right do you have to act irresponsibly in a way that could get you sick or someone else sick? And then I have to send an ambulance to pick you up and bring you to an emergency room that’s already overburdened, that doesn’t have staff, doesn’t have supplies, doesn’t have ventilators, because you were reckless and irresponsible. You don’t have that right. And I have to talk to these healthcare workers all day long. I talk to transit workers. I talk to first responders, who truthfully, nobody wants to put themselves in these situations and I don’t blame them. And they’re doing it out of passion and commitment and public service.

None of us has the right to be reckless in our own behavior, which compounds the problem we’re dealing with. Now is not the time to be playing Frisbee with your friends in the park. It’s just not. Now is not the time to go to a funeral with 200 people. I’m living this with my own family. Yes, I understand grieving and I understand how the religious services can help with the grieving process, and I understand how it’s hard not to do that, but as a society, the risk is too great. Enforce the law. The localities have the legal right and responsibility to enforce the law. My, doing the penalty, raising the penalty, is my way of saying, “Do it.” Just do your job.

Speaker 5: (29:53)
What percentage of available ventilators in New York are being used today?

All of them. We’re beyond capacity.

We’re beyond capacity.

Speaker 6: (30:04)
What about the remaining stockpile, how much remains in the state’s stockpile?

We’re beyond capacity. We are into the plan B, C, D that we outlined, right. We are into using BiPAP machines instead of ventilators. We’re into splitting ventilators, turning two into one with two sets of tubes. We are into all backup plans that we had.

Speaker 7: (30:35)
So how many ventilators are still in the state stockpile though at this point?

The stockpile, I don’t know, I can get you the number, but we are over capacity for the number of ventilators in the whole system. We’re using BiPAP machines, we’re using, splitting, et cetera.

Speaker 7: (30:53)
I guess that begs the question, why not … if there are still ventilators in the state stockpile, why don’t you send them to New York, to the city?

No, we don’t have anyone who says they need them now, who doesn’t have them.

Speaker 7: (31:03)
But you just said they’re over capacity.

Well, they’re using plan B, C, D. We can’t give everybody a ventilator for every situation. We have 9,000 BiPAP machines, for example. We’re using the BiPAP machines, we’re using the other machines. But we don’t have anyone who says … The 802 that we’re sending today represents the number that people say they need now.

Speaker 8: (31:30)
[crosstalk 00:31:30] people have gotten sick and three people have passed away. Do you think they should continue working processing petitions or challenging petitions?

We extended the deadline, the voting and filing deadline, so I don’t know what else legally that we could do than extend the deadline. You’d have to cancel elections period for the year and I don’t think we’re in that position. We’ve extended the use of absentee ballots.

Speaker 9: (31:59)
Governor, are portions of nursing homes being set aside to treat COVID patients?

Are portions of nursing homes being set aside to treat COVID patients?

Dr. Zucker: (32:08)
We’re working with the nursing homes and trying to cohort patients within the nursing homes. Remember, this is something which we’ve identified in multiple nursing homes across the state.

Speaker 9: (32:21)
So does mean you’ll be moving COVID patients into facilities that are otherwise COVID free?

Dr. Zucker: (32:22)
No, with within those nursing homes we’re working to make sure that we minimize the spread of the COVID disease within that place, that facility.

Speaker 10: (32:30)
Governor, regarding unemployment … I’m sorry.

In other words, what Dr. Zucker is saying is, when you have a COVID patient who had been in that facility, they’re trying to isolate the COVID patients on one side of the facility. We’re not using a nursing home to treat COVID people. We’re not bringing a COVID person into a nursing home.

Speaker 10: (32:52)
Regarding unemployment, is there any break in that log jam? And we’re hearing that people who are on the hook to pay child support or spousal support, who are out of work, are having difficulty coming up with the money. Can the state help them out in any way?

The Labor Department website, the unemployment website does, do you know anything about that?

Speaker 11: (33:15)
Yeah, so we’ve now partnered with Google. We’re going to be releasing a new interface by the middle of this week. They’ve moved from five day week hotline to six day week headline. I’m there now seven day a week headline. They’ve expanded the hours. We’ve gone from four servers to 50 servers. They’re trying to do the queue by last name so that if you’re between A and D, you call on Monday and separating them out to try to manage some of the volume. But just so everyone understands, at the peak of the 2008 crisis, the single largest day of claims was 13,000 in one day, we had six times that two days ago. So this volume is something that we’ve never experienced before and it’s frustrating and it’s horrible and it’s unacceptable, but we just ask that people remain patient and we are working at it.

Speaker 11: (33:57)
We just put 300 more people in addition to the 700 people that were manning the call system. So we are trying to do everything we can to attack this issue. And most importantly you will get your benefits going back to the date of your actual unemployment, even if there’s a lag in being able to get signed up for the benefits.

Speaker 12: (34:14)
Governor, the Board of Regents this morning announced that they were canceling the Regents that were going to be held in June, do you agree with that decision?

I haven’t even looked at their decision on the Regents. It sounds right, but I haven’t even looked at it.

Speaker 13: (34:25)
Governor, [inaudible 00:34:26] the DeBlasio administration cancel the pilot program to open streets for New Yorkers, in order to encourage social distancing et cetera but they announced they’re shutting that down because there weren’t enough New Yorkers to justify that. What do you think about that, is that a failure of that attempt? And also you just increased penalties so what’s going on here?

I don’t know. New York City localities make decisions on their own on local issues. So I have no reason. I don’t have any opinion on what the mayor did. I just don’t know the facts well enough on that program. The social distancing we have, again, hopeful news in the data that could be slowing, plateauing, turning. But it’s also dependent upon what we do and how we handle ourselves. And we know that social distancing is important. That’s why I’m extending the ban on keeping businesses closed, extending the ban on schools. But it’s individual behavior that is been problematic over the weekend. I get that it was a nice day and the weather was good and people have been cooped up. I get it, I get it all.

I’m living it just like everybody is living it. But we get reckless, we change or we’re not compliant on social distancing, you will see those numbers go up again. That’s why I showed you the Hong Kong, the China experience. They let their foot off the gas too quickly. And we have been behind on this virus from day one. And this virus has kicked our rear-end and we underestimate this virus at our own peril. We learned that lesson now is not the time to slack off on what we’re doing. One more question.

Speaker 14: (36:35)
[inaudible 00:36:35] have been moved to downstate?

We are moving ventilators now among the system. When someone has a change in patient load and they have additional ventilators, we move ventilators. But we have moved thousands and thousands of ventilators throughout the system. We’ve acquired thousands and thousands of ventilators. I also want to thank Oregon for sending ventilators. I want to thank the State of Washington for releasing ventilators and suggest that they be sent here. I want to thank California that also this morning released ventilators because they thought that they could be helpful to New York. That is the right attitude. That’s the only way we do this as a nation. We’re going to have to be flexible and handle the surge as it moves across the country. That’s just what we’re doing here in this state. Surges in Nassau, one night we move assets to Nassau. It surges in Rockland, we move assets to Rockland. So that’s the only way we’re going to do it because, well, the federal stockpile, federal stockpile, if the federal stockpile has 9,000 ventilators or 10,000 ventilators, that’s not going to do, it’s not going to be enough for a nation, right?

So you’re going to have to get states cooperating and shifting and moving within the country. New York will be first on that list. As soon as we get through this and we have any flexibility in our system, we will be there for every other state like they have been there for us. And we will lead the charge the way we always have. Hurricane Katrina, we were the first ones down there, right? So when anyone needs anything, we’re there. And right now, healthcare wide, I’m going to get on the phone with the hospitals now, there is no hospital that needs ventilators, that doesn’t have ventilators. There’s no hospital that needs PPE that doesn’t have it within the state system. Again, they’ll all going to say they’re running low because they are, but nobody doesn’t have what they need to do their job. And that’s my point on perspective. Are we managing this situation the best that can be managed? Yes. Have we lost anyone who we could have saved? I don’t believe so and with that we can sleep at night. I have to go to work. Thank you guys.

Speaker 15: (39:32)
[crosstalk 00:39:32] hospitals having to give 20% of their [inaudible 00:39:34].

We don’t need any additional ventilators right now. California has released ventilators. State of Washington has released ventilators. We got 1,000 ventilators from China. So right now we’re on track. [crosstalk 00:39:53] I’ll see you tomorrow.

Gov Andrew Cuomo New York COVID-19 Briefing Transcript April 6

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