Today again, the context perspective is probably what's most important.

Corona virus is a governmental, uh, critical governmental situation.

It's a public health crisis.

Government has to respond to it.

That's where the coverage is all about.

It is a war in many ways, government as the mobile eyes as if it is a war.

Federal government is now engaged in a way they haven't been.

I think that is very good news.

I've worked in the federal government That was a Cabinet secretary, one senior governors in the nation.

I know what a state conduce you.

I know what the federal government can do.

And states don't fight wars.

They did it one time in this nation's history.

It was a tragedy.

Uh, the federal government has the capacity to mobilize the way we need society to mobilize.

Today on dhe, I've had numerous conversations with the president.

I spoke with him again last night.

He is mobilizing.

He's mobilizing the federal government.

We had a number of meetings with different federal officials yesterday on.

I think that is the best positive sign that the federal government is actually stepping up to the plate, you will see that this has been a diagnosed pardon.

The pun is a health care crisis from Moment one.

This has always been about one thing.

Reducing the rate of spread so the health care system can manage it.

And it's been a question of math and projections, and it is still exactly that.

Can we get the spread down to write that the health care system can manage what is going to be the issue in the health care system?

It's gonna be the number of hospital beds.

It's going to be the amount of protective equipment.

And most of all, it's going to come down to ventilators, a piece of equipment that up until now was a relatively inconsequential.

But when you have respiratory illnesses and then this volume of respiratory illnesses, all of a sudden the number of ventilators becomes critical.

Just to give you a sense of scope, we have about 11,000 ventilators that we can identify.

Uh, we need about 30,000 ventilators.

This is a nationwide problem.

I was on the phone with wth e governors from the other states with the National Governors Association yesterday.

Every state is shopping for ventilators.

We're shopping for four ventilators.

We literally literally have people in China shopping for ventilators, which is one of the largest manufacturers s.

So this is a major problem.

It's an issue that the federal government can actually play.

A very constructive role is something called the Federal Defence Procurement Act, where the federal government can basically order companies to produce certain materials.

And we're going to need protective equipment in hospitals.

We're going to need ventilators, and that is something that a state can't do.

But the federal government can do also is this is gone on.

Uh, we said we're fighting a war on two fronts.

We're fighting the virus and we're fighting fear, and they're two totally different situations that you have to deal with.

In many ways, the fear is more dangerous than the virus.

I started working on disasters emergency situations when I was in my thirties.

My first experience was Hurricane Andrew in Homestead, Florida, and I felt it I saw on the ground what happens when people panic and the panic in the fear is as dangerous or more dangerous than the hurricane.

I've seen it in floods.

I've seen it in fires.

We now have misinformation and fear and panic, which is as contagious or more contagious than the virus.

And we have to deal with both of them.

I've had some conversations that are just irrational with people who are here to four were wholly rational.

I had a conversation last night with a business person from New York City who I know who, uh, was panicked, that New York City was going to be locked down, that they were going to be roadblocks, uh, that they were going to be mandatory quarantine.

He was going to be imprisoned in this house.

I accept.

Where did you hear that?

Well, that's what they say.

That's what I'm hearing.

They're saying, uh and I would say, You know, look, I would know, right, because I would have to authorize those actions legally, it's not going to happen.

Well, I hear it is gonna happen, but I know.

But I would have to do it, and I'm telling you, I'm not doing it.

It must have taken me 25 minutes just to slow him down toe here.

The information.

When you get that emotional that uh, fearful.

You literally don't process information the same way.

So, uh, we have to be very aware of that.

Clear communication from everyone from our friends in the media, from the health care professionals for moral elected officials.

Clear communication, Consistent communication Because misinformation, emotion, fear, panic is truly more dangerous than the virus.

Attn.

This position, in my opinion, because the facts on the virus we know we've watched it from China to South Korea.

We've studied it here.

We know the numbers.

It is exactly what we said it waas.

It's exactly what we said it was from day one.

We talked about the increased spread.

We talked about the vulnerable populations.

Seniors compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses.

So we know what this virus does.

We know how it communicates and we know how to deal with it.

It's not going to be easy.

It's not going to be pretty, but we know the trajectory of the virus.

Let's just take a deep breath on make sure we're role.

Uh, we're acting on facts as opposed to acting on fear.

When you act on fear, then you're in a dangerous place.

The facts we can handle.

Let me give you a couple of the new, uh, fax today just to recap.

We said we have a plan of action.

There are three steps flattened the curve.

Slow the spread, increase the current hospital capacity, and number three.

Identify new hospital beds.

Do the moral at the same time.

Which is the challenge.

Make government work.

Mobilize operationalize, get it all done.

Get it all done today on density reduction.

This is a data driven decision.

Look at the increase in the number of cases.

Look at the hospital capacity and do a just and do everything you can to slow the increase of the spread so that your hospital system can deal with the growth we've been taking.

Increasing steps on density reduction because the numbers have been increasing on again.

This is driven by science and by data.

We said voluntary work from home mandatory closing schools statewide Mandatory reduction of state and local workforce.

Mandatory tristate agreement on bars, restaurants, gyms mandatory in office, work force cut by 50%.

Who said that yesterday the numbers have gone up overnight.

I am going to increase the density control today.

No more than 25% of people can be in the workforce.

Yesterday, it waas 50%.

We're reducing it again.

Except the essential service is that we spoke about yesterday.

That means 75% of the workforce must stay at home on work from home again voluntarily.

I'm asking all businesses to have people work from home.

A za mandate 75% of your employee base must work from home in terms of increasing current hospital capacity.

Our current hospital capacity is about 50,000 beds statewide.

Majority of those beds Aaron Downstate, New York Commissioner Zucker is working with the hospital industry is gonna put out new regulations assessing how many more beds we can get in our existing hospitals waving Department of Health rules waving Department of Financial Service rules.

How many more beds can we get in those hospitals?

And we're working on that aggressively at the same time identifying new hospital beds.

The Army Corps of Engineers was with us yesterday.

We had a very good meeting.

We're looking at sites across the state to find existing facilities that could expeditiously be turned into health care facilities on again.

When I said the federal response is very welcome.

I want to thank the President.

He said that he would bring the Army Corps of Engineers here.

They came here the next day.

I spoke to him last night to follow up on the meeting.

So this is going forward aggressively.

We're also going to take a bold action but unnecessary action that, uh, offering 90 day relief on mortgage payments waving mortgage payments based on financial hardship.

Meaning, if you are not working if you're working on a part time, huh?

We're going to have the banks and financial institutions wave mortgage payments for 90 days.

That will be a riel life.

Economic benefit will also be a stress reliever For many families.

Waving these payments will not have a negative effect on your credit report.

There'll be a grace period for loan modification.

We're not exempting people from the mortgage payments, which is adjusting the mortgage to include those payments on the back end, no late fees or online payment fees, postponing or suspending any foreclosures during this period of time and waving fees for overdrafts.

A t m credit cards.

This is a really life, um, benefit.

People are in the tremendous economic pressure making a mortgage payment can be one of the number one stressors, eliminating that stressor for 90 days.

I think we'll go a long way again.

Will reassess as this situation goes on, if that should be extended or not.

Number of positive cases Total positive for 1000 Number of new positive 1769 You see additional counties that are being added.

Two counties that I have cases spread mirrors.

What's happening in the country?

Just spread has gone through all states.

The spread is going through.

Our county's was downstate first snow moving upstate.

New York now has 2000 cases.

Washington State.

1100 cases.

Washington State had cases earlier because it went through a nursing home, if you remember.

But New York State has more cases than Washington State more more cases than any state in the nation.

And I made that point to the federal government and the president, and he understands that if there's a state that needs help, uh, the state, by the number of cases, is New York.

In terms of testing, we have tested now 22,000.

We tested 7500 people last night.

Why are you seeing the numbers go up because you are taking more tests.

People see those numbers go up, they get nervous, they panic.

Or look at how many more people have the virus.

That's not how many more people have the virus.

You're just taking more tests, so you're finding more positives.

There are thousands and thousands of people who have the virus who were not tested.

There are thousands and thousands of people who had the virus before we started testing.

There are thousands and thousands of people who had the virus and who resolved and never knew they had the virus.

We're still testing because you want to find those positive cases so you can track them down, isolate people and stop the spread.

But you can't watch these numbers like the stock market and say, Well, that's Thean Decatur of of anything other than the indicator of how many tests were taking, it is good news that we're now up to 7500 tests.

We were at one time doing 200 tests per day just to put that 7500 in focus s.

So that's a tremendous increase in the number of tests and you're going to see the numbers.

The hospitalization rate is very relevant because, remember, this is all about the flow into the health care system.

S 0 777 out of 4152.

Perspective, perspective, perspective.

We know the virus.

We know what it does.

We know who it hurts.

You know who defects Johns Hopkins Since day one has tracked this virus through China.

222,000 cases.

9000 deaths, 84,000 recoveries.

129,000 pending.

One last point we talk about this is a government response.

Federal government's doing This state government is doing this government, government, government This this manifests on a number of levels and the government response is obviously very important.

But the impact, I think, is graters greater and probably greatest as a social phenomenon and on people and on families.

This is tremendously disruptive on all sorts of levels.

It came out of the blue for me in New York.

Reminds me of 9 11 where one moment which was inconceivable, just changed everything.

Change your perspective on the world.

Change your perspective on safety Children who we're young at that time, but of school age watched on TV, they didn't know if their parents were coming home.

I think it changed their whole outlook on life after 9 11 This is a situation like that.

It's obviously totally different magnitude.

But it's like that.

It's a moment that just changes your whole life.

Yesterday you were goingto work and you wouldn't go to the office party.

Today you're at home and the kids are at home, and, uh, you're worried about health and you're worried about your job and you're worried about economics.

And, uh, you're dealing with personal issues and you're dealing with family issues and it's all happening at once.

And then you turn on the TV and there's all this different information and nobody contend you.

If this is gonna be 30 days of 60 days or four months or five months, nine months, the stress, the emotion is just incredible and rightfully so.

It is a situation that is one of the most disruptive that I have seen on, and it will change almost everything going forward.