Coronavirus New York Update: Gov. Cuomo Talks On State Of COVID-19

[Music] now from CBS 2news this is a special report then we want to take the girls hiking up a touch of State Park and bring the dog get out of the house hike until they are fatigued and exhausted because exhaustion is our friend total hospitalizations down again if

you look at that overall curve that is the mountain little perspective we are back where we were 21 days ago 21 days of hell but we're back to where we were what we need to find out is when we will back be back to the point we're only

several hundred people showed up at the hospitals every day with the coal fed infection that's that's what we want to see we want to know how fast that decline continues and how low the decline gets and we would like to get back to the days of only four

hundred five hundred people showing new infections every day all the numbers are basically saying the same that we are in fact on the down side of the mountain I've always been worried that is a little tick up and that there'd be some evidence that we're not on decline

but all the evidence says we're on the climb even the number of new cases actually ticked down yesterday after being stable for a number of days it's down to about 1,100 new cases only in this crazy reality with 1,100 new cases be relatively good news right but 1,100

new cases again we'd like to see that down into the two three four hundred new cases per day just when you think you're going to have a good day this reality slaps you right in the face four hundred and thirty seven deaths yesterday which is actually a tick

up this number is as you can see call it flat call it flat with a slight decline if you're looking for a silver lining but this is just terrible terrible horrific news testing is what we are compulsively obsessively focused on now both diagnostic testing which is a positive

negative the antibody testing we do about 20,000 tests per day average goes up and down a little bit depending on the day we had great meeting with the federal government this week and came up with a division of responsibility I spoke to the other governor's about it yesterday

with the vice president on a governor's all governor's conference call spoke about the arrangement with the federal government I hope the federal government and the other governors follow that template because it's a template that makes sense we always said this was a federal state partnership and the president

said that he understood the federal government had a role we came up with the division of responsibility which is basically the state's take responsibility for the labs in their state in getting those labs functioning we regulate those labs and the federal government would take the responsibility of making

sure the national manufacturers had the tests the reagents the vials the swabs all the equipment that the national manufacturer needs to be able to send to our labs so our labs can actually function our labs have these highly sophisticated machines that they bought from national manufacturers but the

Machine requires the test kit and the reagents specifically for that machine it's like you buy a printer from a company for your computer like a color printer but the printer requires cartridges from that company you can have a fancy printer but if you can't get the replacement cartridges

that that printer is a paperweight right so we need the national manufacturers to have the reagents the test kits and that's what the federal government is doing but it's working here in New York so we're seeing the number of tests increase and we want to get it stabilized

enough New York State is already doing more tests than anyone because we did get into this first we were aggressive we were pushing the line so we're actually doing more tests per capita than any country around the world let alone any state in the United States the as

we're increasing the capacity of the labs ok so now our 300 labs are getting more equipment more supplies they can do more tests now we need more collection mechanisms more places to collect the test data so they can send it to the labs right it goes collection then

send those samples to the labs the labs run those samples get the results back to the people we have boosted the lab capacity to an extent where we need more collection sites now so where do you get collection sites we're going to authorize all the independent pharmacists in

the state to be collection sites for testing I assume and my guess and my educated guess is that independent pharmacists will take us up on this and there are 5000 pharmacies in New York State some of them have already been doing its own the larger national chains but

if your local drug store can now become a collection site people could go to their local drug store there are about 5000 in New York they would be collection sites that quickly ramp up our collection capacity so we're doing that and since we now have more collection sites

more testing capacity we can open up the eligibility for those tests right we had a protocol with eligibility not everybody could get a test and that's been a big complaint across the board everybody wants a test and they couldn't get tests because we had a tight screen on

the eligibility because we had limited capacity to test as you increase the capacity to test you can increase the eligibility and first responders health care workers and essential employees why because these people have been carrying the load and they have been subjected to the public all during this

crisis and because the public facing right these are the people who you interact with you get on the bus this is the bus driver you get in a subway car this is the subway conductor you are interacting with government these are the people who you're interacting with if

they're infected they could possibly spread it to a large number of people so where you're dramatically increasing the capacity with these groups where the first responders firefighters paramedics EMTs police officers police officers state local county sheriff's etcetera also correction parole officers probation officers people who are in the

prisons they can now go to the increased number of collection sites in the state they're eligible to get a test health care workers broad definition direct care providers health care practitioners medical specialists occupational therapists psychologists psychiatrists residential care program managers so if you're working in a residential facility

mental-health facility etc community group residents you're now able to get a test and quote unquote essential workers essential workers are the people who've been keeping everything running you know when we say we close down the economy we didn't really close down the economy right we closed down the

economy relative to what the economy was doing but you still go to the store and buy groceries your lights are still on right someone is picking up the garbage in front of your house so those essential workers have been functioning all along and these essential workers and God

bless them we want to make sure they are now eligible for tests again because they've been working all along they've been exposed and also because when you go in to the dry cleaner this is the person on the other side of the counter who's interacting with dozens of

people a day so we want to make sure those people get tested as we continue to develop our testing capacity and the labs are coming up to scale the collection sites are opening the more testing we have the more we will open eligibility hopefully one day we get

to the point where anybody who wants a test can walk in and get a test right that was the dream but we found out quickly that we couldn't do that you have 19 million people in the state so we had to prioritize we're still prioritizing but we're opening

up that prioritization the more capacity the more tests the more will open the eligibility criteria we're also focusing on our health care workers and first responders we're doing antibody testing for our frontline health care workers and we're starting today coming up to with four facilities in downstate New

York obviously downstate New York handled the bulk of the cases not just in this state but in this nation so we're going to those hospitals that had a large number of covered cases come in and we're doing antibody testing there as quickly as we can and to the

largest scale that we can Elmhurst Hospital was one of the city's new york city's public hospitals when we talk about hospitals downstate there are about 100 hospitals about 11 of the 100 or what's called public hospitals New York City runs them as part of their Health and Hospitals

corporation those public hospitals really saw a large number of people and they were in distress and they were under stress frankly even before the kovat situation but Elmhurst Hospital which made national news for the number of cases they were handling Bellevue motherfu or SUNY Downstate is now running

a covered only hospital so everybody in that hospital is a kovat patient and you want to talk about God's work that's where it's happening we want to get them the antibody testing and we're also going to do significant antibody testing in downstate New York with those frontline transit

workers also people been working for the MTA their transit workers union TWU members they've kept the city operational you need those buses and you need those subways if you want to have the hospital's running if you want to have the grocery stores running those employees have to be

able to get to work and the MTA the buses the subways they did that for us god bless them the MTA and transit workers and then the police the first responders who were out there because we have to be safe and we have to be safe even during

kovat so NYPD was out there they have large number of people who became sick because of the situation State Police same thing so we're going to be doing significant antibody testing there we've said thank you to the first responders and we met it sincerely and saying thank you

is a good start people want to know that they're appreciated but even better than saying thank you actions speak louder than words right so show me that you're thankful and act like you're thankful and get me the help I need I'm out here doing my job it's my

public duty I get it but I'm sacrificing myself I'm sacrificing my family at least show me support and support is you have the equipment you need you have the tools you need and we're going to get you the testing on a priority basis because you deserve it last

point personal opinion somebody said to me I can't do this anymore people are feeling the stress on a number of levels they're not getting a paycheck their life is on hold is my business going to come back do I have a job at the end of this my

whole life has been disoriented I just I can't take it anymore I get I get it I really do fundamentally get it this has been a god-awful situation on many many levels and many people I'm sure saying this in the wrong way so who said it to me

is not important but it was one of my daughters so I won't tell you which one though just to protect the privacy I get the feeling today is day 56 it's been 56 long days generations are called upon to deal with high levels of difficulty we are called

upon to deal with this crisis day 56 1918 pandemic went on for two years weren't they 56 World War one went on for four years the Great Depression went on for four years we won't talk about economics and society you want to talk about people losing homes not

being able to feed themselves people living in camps people living in cars World War two six years Vietnam war that intensity every night every night to have to hear about the tragedies went on for eight years I get 56 days is a long time and I get it's

the worst thing that we have experienced in modern history I get that but just a little perspective not that it makes our situation any better but it gives you a sense of perspective yes in life things happen on an individual level and on a societal level things happen

and you have to deal with it and it's hard but on the other hand it makes us who we are right you get shaped by your experiences this is a terrible experience to go through but we will manage it we won't handle it and we will be the

better for it 56 days or this inconvenience yeah think of it this way what you're doing is actually saving lives that's not rhetorical that's not overly dramatic you are saving lives what we have done here has saved lives every expert every expert CDC White House Task Force Cornell

University Columbia University McKenzie the group that Bill Gates funded every one of them projected there would be at least 100,000 more serious infections in the state of New York 100,000 more serious infections more hospitalizations what happened we did what we had to do which was hard and is

hard well what did we accomplish 100 thousand fewer serious infections that's what 56 days of our relatively relative living through health has accomplished and that is a heck of an accomplishment so yes it's not for naught 100 thousand fewer inspection in infections and look life is better than

death even if it is not your own age a Parkinson even if you're 22 and you're 25 and you're strong and you're healthy and you say well you know what even if I get coronavirus it's not going to affect me because it doesn't affect the young with a

little caveat there except when it does and your life might have been the one that it did affect but even if you're right I'm 22 I'm 25 I would have been just fine yeah but who could you have infected and maybe they weren't going to be fine because

they weren't 22 and they weren't 25 because they were 65 and because they had diabetes or they had hypertension or they had an underlying heart condition or because they were recovering from cancer and a cancer operation and you in fact that person and that person dies because you

got infected that's the reality of what we're dealing with 56 days of pain yes yes relative to the past and what other societies have donned bad but not the worst that people have gone through what did we accomplish 100,000 fewer infections in the state of New York and

we actually saved lives that's what we did and that's what we're doing and that is in arguable personal opinion is I believe everything we did was worth it people can argue that point but that is what we did and for me that is a heck of an accomplishment

and want to feel good about and one which New Yorkers will be proud of because it is what New York is about which is being tough and being smart and disciplined and unified and loving so maybe the life you saved is not your own okay you still save

the life and that's not a bad way to spend one day or 56 days questions opening things but does that not undermine the tri-state plus approach of coordinating the other states to reopen things with once the in itself may take various good question and you're right that's why

it has to be balanced with the tri-state approach tri-state approach with then expanded to the other states right we have seven states understanding the individuality of a region within that context so you can look at one region you can look at the North Country center of New York

and say well look on our numbers we are okay okay on your numbers as a region but people of cars and people are mobile and people have been cooped up and whatever you do you could trigger a reaction in that tri-state area and you could see people from

across the tri-state area come to your region because you were now the place that I can get a haircut you were not the place that I can walk down Main Street and I can go in and get an ice cream cone and I have to have the kids

go in and shop yeah so that's the balance to all of this and that's what [Applause] the whole discussion is premature but it's something we are working through right now we're working with the state coalition we're working with regional coalition's and we will marry the two or not

marry them they'll be engaged for a period of time [Music] in there [Music] with New Jersey and Connecticut and again it won't necessarily work out that all aligns perfectly but that was one of the major principles that we set out earlier in the week with our partners is

that sensitivity to the regions on the borders we're working towards trying to come to a consensus on principles but there is an acknowledgement within the states that everyone is going to be on their own timeline the major goal is to not undermine one another's success in dealing with

the infection rates within the states [Music] [Music] speaking to that in the next couple of days just a quick clarification the tests at the pharmacies will be diagnostic tests tests positive negative not antibody tests you will be able to go into a pharmacy and get a test the

parlance is the sample will be collected at the pharmacy the pharmacy then sends it to a lab the lab conducts the tests so the labs conduct the pharmacy collects in this new terminology just in terms of what we're saying in terms of new infections it's been five weeks

since the New York onpause order yesterday we saw 8,000 in cases presumably that's because of Crichton but there were also some when 13 other people come into the hospital do we have any demographics any research on who is getting infected or these essential workers are these people that

are being infected by family members are they people that are being infected in communities do we know we're all getting sick if people are staying home we know on the hospitalization data you know how many people come into a hospital you know what hospital they go into and

where that hospital is I don't know if you have died if you have demographic data the weekend on the hard data did we get demographics we don't have brought demographic data we basically have locations based upon where they are hospitalized you know what hospital they go into assuming

the hospital they're going into is there is located near where they live but you don't know where they're getting sick no but they don't know where they're getting sick either by the way you know somebody walks into a hospital you say where did you contact the virus they're

not going to be able to win its aggregated now so we could do it in real time so we could present to the public every day the hospitalizations and things like that patient data gets submitted on a much greater lag but for us it was who's going to

the hospital now what is those percentages so we can monitor the infection in real time the patient specific data which has more of the demographic data comes in but much more slowly so that's gonna be much more retrospective what we were trying to monitor in real time hospital

capacity issues the debated issues ICU issues so we looked for just the raw numbers there is kind of widespread community spread still going this is why they contact tracing that we're gonna do is gonna be so helpful because when we start to talk to individuals we're gonna learn

a lot about who they were exposed to perhaps someone they were supposed to is in the hospital gonna get a lot more information that's why that's so important seems like many of these nursing homes before the pandemic had problems with staffing and poor quality care do you think

the department felt that any NAS leading up to this pandemic to ensure that they were providing quality care and had enough staff but we have we have addressed this looking at the nursing homes we continue to reach out to the nursing homes we were doing that all along

if there was any concern we were contacted we reached out to them we did investigations as I mentioned once before we actually even did video video checks to be sure that they were doing everything correctly and we provided the information that they needed but as the governor said

previously a lot of this is the nursing homes if there was a concern they needed to look into getting what supplies they needed that more in general when they're leading up to this fandom they you know staff is clearly going into this there just weren't enough people that's

not that's not that's not clear look I did a nursing home investigations as Attorney General the there has been a there's a constant tension with the nursing homes any vendor to the state vendor to the public where they are providing a service and they're getting paid for a

service and the constant tension is are they actually providing that service should they be doing more should they be doing better as Attorney General we also did video cameras in patient's rooms to see hidden video cameras how many times was the staff coming in was the staff doing

what they were supposed to do what they turning the patient etc so this has been a field of regulation and scrutiny and an investigation that goes back decades it's a field that over when you look at the past they've been quote-unquote nursing home scandals in the past so

it's a highly regulated highly investigated field Department of Health and the Attorney General it's a big staple of what they do this crisis overwhelmed the nursing homes and when I say no one is to blame okay a virus that preys on vulnerable people concentration of vulnerable people in

a nursing home but the regulations still apply right even though you're in the middle of a global pandemic the regulations still apply and for the nursing homes one of the central regulations is if you cannot provide appropriate care for that patient you must transfer that patient period that's

the that's the rule and if you can't find the place to transfer the patient then Department of Health will find the place to transfer the patient another nursing home another facility but that's that that rule does not change now you can say well I can't provide care because

of this pandemic because my staff is out ill because I can't get supplies because I don't have masks because I can't quarantine properly whatever reason but if you can't provide care you're not supposed to be keeping that person in your facility period and that's what most of this

is going to come down to now they're going to do an additional investigation to see what happened if there were other instances because our other regulations also you have to inform patients and their family that's a regulation I understand your staff was stressed and this was a horrendous

period but that it didn't waive any of the regulations of good conduct of business we've done as their homes could do testing its local options where we set up testing in other places but we've done 28 sites for nursing homes and we're expanding that by another 15 so

we're adding as much testing capacity as humanly possible let's take one more I'm going to put on my mask and go hiking hiking with with a mess whole collection of really beautiful masks that have been sent to me from people all across the country I'm going to show

you mask art is a new a new boutique specialization that is developed the mask art I can't legally I can't affect a congressional race of federal race may call special election for the legislative races and so but what the congressional it's a shell so we were mandated jus

so that's why that one race is the only one that will remain a special on that day difference between May and child in the world in the coming could we anticipate that that decision the other laws whether to extend would also be come up with the decision for

reopening you can anticipate anything you'd like to anticipate I do not control your anticipation level so you can anticipate whatever you'd like they're not necessarily linked so we'll make a decision at the right time because people need notice but I don't think there's any specific linkage between would

might be open prior to say retail or yes by definition by definition nobody's going to say okay region X is open and everything opens automatically so the phased approach that's what we're talking about phased and timing phased in industry phased in activity level remember we did that matrix

essential business hour your business right how safe is your business and that's the matrix where a master [Music] this has been a special report