Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards will talk about the increase in cases in new orleans and throughout the state. Later today, the White House Coronavirus task force headed by Vice President pence will hold a news conference. We will have live coverage here on cspan. And you can also follow our coverage online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called on Health Care Workers around the country to the battle coronavirus in his state. Cuomo good afternoon. Thank you for being here today. We have some people with us on the dais today. The commissioner of the new york city Emergency Management department. Let me thank them all very much for being here. We have just had a great meeting, which i will refer to in a moment. Also wish everyone happy National Doctors day. This is a day that doctors are truly busy and truly stepping up to their oath and their passion, and literally saving lives. Inhonor all of the doctors the state of new york today. Let me also think the people from the Javits Center. The Javits Center has done many magnificent exhibitions and transformations and they never cease to amaze me. This is a transformation i dont think anyone could ever anticipate. 2500 beds as an Emergency Hospital as an Emergency Hospital. It is a partnership between state and federal government. I want to thank them very much for what they have done. The army corps of engineers did a fantastic job thing in and getting things set up as quickly as possible. It will become operational today. We will start to run the facility and we will take it from there. Let me go through a couple of facts. And where we are today you see the number of people testing continues to go up. Is testing more people per capita than china or south korea, thats a good thing. We want to test and find the positives. We want to find the positives so we can isolate and stop the transmission. We tested 14,000 people yesterday. It continues to go out and the the number of cases continues to go up, and they total number of cases is 66,000. Those numbers are daunting, to be sure. It is continuing to move across the state of new york. There is only one county now that does not have a covid case. Anyone who says the situation is in new york city only is a state of denial. You see this virus move across the state. You see it move across the nation. There is no american who is immune to this virus. I dont care if you live in kansas, texas. There is no american that is immune to it. What is happening in new york is not an anomaly. There is nothing about a new yorkers immune system that is any different than any other americans immune system. New york is just a canary in the coal mine. What you see is going through here, you will see happening all across this country. Part of what we do here is not only serving new yorkers but we believe we are dealing with this pandemic at a level intensity that no one has seen before and hopefully we will learn lessons here that we can share with people across this nation. In terms of the overall numbers, 66,000 tested positive. 2000 icu patients. 4000 are discharged that is an increase of 600 and 32. We have dont with some deadly viruses before. You dont often focus on this line, but people go to the hospital and they leave the hospital, thats important to remember. We have dealt with some deadly viruses before. We had the ebola virus and that is not what this is. Some will stay home with symptoms. 80 . 20 will get sick and need hospitalization. They will feel better and they will leave. It tends to be those who are acutely ill have an underlying illness who have the most problems. The most impacted states, new york is at 66,000, new jersey is next at 13, california is 6000. We have 10 times the problem that california is dealing with. 2739. Deaths in the state of new york. A total of 148,000 cases. 2739 deaths. That is a lot of loss. That is a lot of pain, tears, a lot of grief. People all across the state are feeling this. 1200 is up from 965 deaths. You are seeing people who have been on ventilators for a long period of time, the longer you are on, the less likely you will ever come off of that ventilator. And as we have now some period of time when people first entered the hospital and work were first intubated, we are seeing that number go up as the length of time on the ventilator increases. To keep it in perspective, the Johns Hopkins numbers are still instructive. We have been studying this since china. So 732 deaths, 34,000 worldwide. Total hospitalized, we are still looking for a pattern on these cases that are coming in and looking for a pattern in the data. The number goes up and down. There is no doubt that the number is still increasing. There is no doubt that the rate has slowed. We had a doubling of cases every two days than a doubling every three days and then a doubling every four days and five days. We now have a doubling of cases every six days. So while the overall number is going up, the rate of doubling is actually down. The daily intubation rate is way up. Again, sometimes it is just an anomaly. There is no clear pattern as you can see from the past several nights. Discharge rate, again that by and large is going up. People come into the hospital stay for a period of time, number of days, and then they move on. But the big picture is the situation is painfully clear now. There is no question what we are dealing with. There is no question as to the consequences and as to the grief and lossoflife. There is no question about what we must do. There are only two missions. There are only two operations we need to perform. First, the public has to be responsible. Stayathome. When i issued the order, it wasnt it would be nice if you did. It is a mandate. It stayathome. If you are a nonessential worker, stayathome. If you leave the house, you are exposing yourself to danger. If you leave the house, you are exposing others to danger. You could get infected, go home and in fact whoever is at home. In fact whoever is at home. So stay. I know the isolation can be boring and oppressive. It is better than the alternative. Life is options, right . Stayathome. That is the best option. If you are out, no proximity, six feet distancing. You dont want proximity to other people and you want to stay away from places that are dense. In new york city, you have too many places with too much density. I dont know how many different ways to make the same point. New york city parks, we made the point there is too much density. If you want to go to the park, go to the park, but not in a dense area and a and playgrounds where you are playing basketball with other people. I have said that new york city is trying to reduce the density and those playgrounds. Thus far, they have not been successful. That continues will make a mandatory action to close down playgrounds, as harsh as that sounds, but it can save lives. That is mission one. Mission to, and this will be more and more clear as we go on. The frontline battle is in the Health Care System. The frontline battle is gone to be hospitals across the city, state, and across this nation. That is where this battle is fought. It is that simple. You know exactly where it is coming and exactly where the enemy is going to attack. They are going to infect a large number of people. That number of people descend on the Health Care System and the Health Care System cant deal with that number of people. You overwhelm the Health Care System. That is what is happening. So the first step was flatten the curve, reduce the density, keep people at home. The second step is, dont let the Hospital System get overwhelmed. The soldiers in this fight are our Health Care Professionals. It is the doctors, nurses, the people who are working in the hospitals. It is the aides. They are the soldiers battling this fight for us. You say troops. They are the Health Care Professionals. Those are the troops who are fighting this battle for us. We need to recruit more Health Care Workers, we need to Share Health Care professionals. As governor of new york, i am asking Health Care Professionals across the country, if you dont have a Health Care Crisis in your community, please come and help us in new york now. We need relief. We need relief for nurses who are working 12 hour shifts, one after the other after the other. We need relief for doctors, we need relief or attendants. If you are not busy, come and help us, please. We will return the favor. New york, yes, we have it now intensely. There will be a curve. New york at one point will be on the other side of the curve, and then there would be an intense issue somewhere else in the nation. The new york way is to be helpful. So help new york. We are the ones who are hit now. That is today. But tomorrow it is going to be somewhere else, whether it is detroit, new orleans. It will work its way across the country. This is the time for us to help one another. And then therell be an intense issue somewhere else in the nation. And the new york way is to be helpful. So help new york. We are the ones who are hit now. That is today. But tomorrow it is going to be somewhere else, whether it is detroit, new orleans, it will work its way across the country. And this is the time for us to help one another. We need supplies desperately, and we are working on that. We just had a very good meeting where we discussed supplies. I want to thank Michael Evans from alibaba who is here today. I want to thank Elizabeth Jennings from the asian society, who is here with us today. They are helping us source supplies, because we are in a situation where you have 50 states all competing for supplies. The federal government is now also competing for supplies. Private hospitals are also competing for supplies. So we have created a situation where you literally have hundreds of entities looking to buy the same exact materials, basically from the same place, which is china, ironically enough. And we are fighting amongst ourselves. We are competing amongst ourselves. We are driving the prices up. When we started buying ventilators, they were under 20,000. The ventilators are now over 2000 if you can find them. The ventilators did not change that much in two weeks. The prices went up because, literally, were driving the prices up. But we need to give our front line, our Health Care Professionals, the supplies they need, and we need to do it now. Our rule here in new york has been planned forward, get ahead of the problem. The old expression is do not fight the last battle. This virus has been ahead of us from day one. We have been playing catchup from day one. You never win playing catch up. Get ahead of the problem. Do not fight todays fight. Plan for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks from now when you are going to have the apex, and make sure that we are in a position to win the battle when the battle is truly drawn, which is going to be at the apex. That is why we are preparing stockpiles now. We are building a stockpile. The word stockpile, high definition, means not for immediate use. It means you are preparing for a battle to come. And you have to have the equipment, and you have to have it now. I have done Disaster Work all across the nation. I can tell you this, if you wait to prepare for the storm to hit, it is too late, my friends. You have to prepare before the storm hits. And in this case, the storm is when you hit that high point, when you hit that apex. How do you know when youre going to get there . You do not. There is no crystal ball, but there is science, and there is data, and there are Health Professionals who have studied this virus and its progress since china. We now have months of data. Listen to the scientists. Listen to the mental Health Care Professionals. Follow the data, and that is what were doing here in new york. We just had a great meeting where we brought the Health Care System from across the state of new york together to come up with one coordinated plan. Not private hospitals and Public Hospitals, not new york City Hospitals and long island hospitals or westchester hospitals, upstate hospitals, not big hospitals and small hospitals, the higher Health Care System convened, coordinated, working as one for the first time in decades. No one can ever remember the way we have deployed and coordinated like this. Why . Because this is a statewide battle. And we want to make sure that we are all coordinated and all working together. That is exactly what we have accomplished at this meeting. No politics. No partisanship. No division. There is no time for that, not in this state, not in this nation. This is a deadly, serious situation. And, frankly, it is more important than politics, and it is more important than partisanship. And if there is division at this time, the virus will defeat us. If there was ever a moment for unity, this, my friends, is the moment. Let this situation, there are no red states, no blue states, no red casualties, no blue casualties. It is red, white, and blue. This virus does not discriminate. It attacks everyone, and it attacks everywhere. The president said this is a war. I agree with that. This is a war. Then lets act that way, and lets act that way now. And lets show a commonality in a mutuality and a unity that this country has not seen in decades, because the lord knows we need it today more than ever before. Questions, comments . [inaudible] suggested it is possible new york is not keeping track of the equipment, like it going out the back door can you respond to that directly in terms of what is implied . Gov. Cuomo the question is that the president suggested that ppe equipment may be going out the back door. First, there is a warehouse, and that is in new jersey. It is the new york city warehouse. We are creating a stockpile. For someone to say, well, the warehouse has equipment in it and you should be using that equipment today that defies the basic concept of planning and the basic operation that we have to have working, not just in this state, but across the country. If you are not prepared for the apex and for the high point, you are missing the entire point of the operation. It is a fundamental blunder to only prepare for today. That is why, in some ways, we are where we are. We have been behind this virus from day one. You have the scientists and data projections showing you a curve. The curve goes like this you are over here. Prepare for the high point of the curve, and do it now. When are you going to do it . The night before . What am i going to tell hospitals when they call up and say we just had an influx of 50 more people and we need more equipment and we need more ventilators . Sorry . So the stockpile concept is to prepare for the future. In terms of the suggestion that the ppe equipment is not going to a correct place, i dont know what that means, dont know what he is trying to say. If he wants to make an accusation, then let him make an accusation. But i do not know what he is trying to say by inference. [inaudible] gov. Cuomo we just had a conversation about exactly that. In new york city, there are basically two systems. There is what is called the Greater New York hospital association. Ken raske represents it. It is basically the private voluntary hospitals, mount sinai, columbia, etc. Then there is the health and hospitals corporation, which are the Public Hospitals. You have those two systems. We just discussed that those two systems have to, in this situation, undertake a balancing that they probably have never had to do before. In other words, you have 11 Public Hospitals. One hospital starts to get overrun, there is a high load in one hospital. Before that happens, transfer people to one of the hospitals that has more vacancies and less load. Distribute the load among those Public Hospitals. And do it immediately. Do it on a daily basis. One hospital is starting to overload, distribute, transfer. Same thing with the Greater New York hospital association. And then we should take it a step further. Once one system is near capacity, then the two systems will Work Together to share the load. And we just discussed that, and we all agreed to do it. There are no legal barriers. If a hospital lets stay with the public system the public system i think is going to face the greatest stress. If a Public Hospital starts to get overloaded, transfer to another hospital with less of a load. I do not believe there are any restrictions. I would ask ken, the expert, to chime in. Ken thank you. We are going to work as one cohesive family system throughout new york, and new york is beyond the city itself, including the downstate area, both the island and westchester. And i think what we are going to see is that balancing that the governor is talking about, balance within the system, balance without the system, beyond it as we go forward as we encounter more and more stress. With each day that goes on, the stress points will increase. As a result, that balancing is absolutely essential. And because of the leadership of the governor, it is clear to everybody that we are going to be one cohesive family in tackling this. [inaudible] gov. Cuomo yeah, we just spent a couple hours doing it and it is complicated. Let me give you the top line. Right now, basically the hostile Hospital Systems operate as basically separate systems, the Public Hospitals, the Greater New York hospitals, westchester hospitals, long island hospitals, and then state hospitals. They have their own trade associations and publics are public and privates are private. We said we have to work as one system. So share staff, share resources. If one hospital does not have enough masks, rather than that hospital have to scramble, the other hospitals help. More mutual kens word is a good one, a healthcare family, as opposed to these distinct operations era and we worked that through. To add on top of the state system, you then have now javits, this facility which one a 500 beds, and the comfort, the ship that the president sent, 1000 beds. The 2500 ends at javits and the 1000 beds on the ship are noncomfort beds. Noncovid beds. I asked them to make the facilities covid facilities. They want to handle noncovid people at javits and comforts, which means their function will be basically an overflow valve for existing hospitals. They cannot take covid patients, but they can take noncovid patients. When we talk about a hospital getting near capacity, they could then download, if you will, to javits and the comfort. [inaudible] gov. Cuomo yeah. How many years have you known me . The question is, am i willing to tangle with the president . How many years have you known me . Alright, 20 years have you ever known a time in the 20 years that i am unwilling to tangle . I am a angler. I am a tangler. Look, i understand what the president said first, i think the president because i take his comment as a compliment. The president commented on a poll that said people were pleased with my leadership. And i thank him for that. That was a compliment. As far as the president s comment about having a political contest with me, i am not engaging the president in politics. My only goal is to engage the president in partnership. This is no time for politics. And, you know, lead by example. I am not going to get into a political dispute with the president. I am not going to rise to the bait of a political challenge. I am not running for president. I was never running for president. I said from day one i was not running for president. And i am not running for president now. I am not playing politics. I just want partnership to deal with this. And i said to the president quite clearly, look, when you do good things for mike state and you are a good partner, i will be the first one to stay when you do good things for my state and you are a good partner, i will be the first went to say you are a good partner. And i have. I went to the ship, comfort, today, and i said, thank you mama mr. President we opened up the Javits Center and i said thank you to the army. When you help my state, i will say thank you. If i believe that new york is not being served, the federal legislation that they passed, i will say that, too, you know . Sometimes it is simple. Just tell the truth. Right . And that is where we are. Tell the truth. If youre doing the right thing by new york, i will say it. If he is doing the wrong thing by new york or the rest of the country, i will say it. But i am not going to engage in politics. Not because i am unwilling to tangle but because i think it is inappropriate. I think it is counterproductive, and i think it is antiamerican. Forget the politics. Forget the politics. We have a national crisis. We are at war. There is no politics. There is no red and blue. It is red, white, and blue. So get over it. Again, lead by example. [inaudible] gov. Cuomo we have said that no one can get evicted for nonpayment of rent. That, to me, is the fundamental answer, right . That solves all of the above. Cannot pay the rent a lot of people are not working and there is no income, cannot pay the rent. Landlord technically come technically, legally, had a right to say, ok, you are evicted. I said, by executive order, there can be no evictions, period. If you pay secure deposit, dont pay security deposit, pay rent, none of the rent, you cannot be evicted for a threemonth period. [inaudible] gov. Cuomo yeah, if they want to pay, they can pay, yeah. [inaudible] gov. Cuomo again, i think our policy answers it. You cannot be evicted for nonpayment of rent. Not that you wont owe rent at one time, because you signed a contract. Even the people to whom you pay the rent have to pay the rent, write, and they have expenses. So no inventions for nonpayment of rent, and then we will see where we are and how long this goes on. [inaudible] gov. Cuomo but we spoke about that today. Elmhurst hospital is a new york city Public Hospital