Governor cuomo the budget director. Back of the room my daughter who is doing a great job. Lets talk to you about whats oing on today. First what i try to communicate in these briefings is are the facts of the situation. And facts can be uplifting, they can be depressing at times, they can be confusing at times, but i think facts are empowering. In a situation like this, not knowing the facts is worse because thats when you feel out of control or when you feel that you are getting collective facts or you are being deceived by the information you are getting. That is actually the worst situation. I say to my people in every situation, just give me the facts first. And then let me understand what the situation and reality is. And then well go from there. Thats what i tried to do. The facts on this situation are increasingly important on two levels. Public health, but also the economic facts. We have been focusing on the Public Health facts. And the response of the Public Health system to the virus. More and more we now have to deal on two fronts. We have to deal with the Public Health situation, but we also have to deal with the economic situation. And ill get to that in a moment. Public health, we are still we have had a twoprong agenda which we have been pursuing aggressively. We still are. Flatten the curve. So you reduce the flow into the hospital system, at the same time increase the hospital apacity. What we are looking for is not a reduction in the number of cases, we are looking for a reduction in the rate of the increase in the number of cases. Thats what comes first when you are starting to make progress. The rate of increase should reduce as opposed to the number of absolute cases. So thats what we are looking for. The optimum is when they talk about the apex of the curve is not to have an apex. Thats what the flattening s. Not to have that spike because the spike is where you would overwhelm the hospital systems. Try to get down that rate of increase so you can actually handle it in the hospital ystem. And thats what they talk about y flattening of the curve. Just as an aside, dr. Anthony fauci has been so kind and helpful to me. I speak to Health Care Professionals across the globe literally. But dr. Fauci is Just Brilliant at this and hes been so personally kind. I call him late at night. I call him in the middle of the night. I call him in the morning. And hes been really a friend to me personally and the state of new york. So this is all about getting that curve down. And not overwhelming the hospital system. Almost any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the Current Health care system. So a little reality. Keep the curve down as low as you can. But you cannot get the curve down low enough so that you dont overwhelm the hospital apacity. So any of these scenarios we have town crease the Hospital Capacity. And thats why we are literally adding to the Hospital Capacity every way we can. Thats what the jared hospital is about, stony brook, westchester convention enter. We are also scouting new sites now. All across primarily the downstate area of this state for possible sites. Our goal is to have a 1,000plus overflow facility in each of the boroughs. Downstate. And the counties. Queens, brooklyn, bronx, manhattan, staten island, and long island, and westchester and rockland. So every county has a 1,000plus bed overflow facility. Thats what we are working on at the same time. As well as increasing the capacity of the existing hospital system. As we have said the hospitals have a 53,000bed capacity. We are trying to get to 140,000bed capacity between the hospitals and overflow facilities. We have mandated that the hospitals increase their capacity by 50 . We have asked them to try to ncrease it 100 . But they have to increase it 50 . We are also scouting dorms, couting hotels for emergency beds and thats going well. Equipment and p. P. E. Is an ongoing issue. Right now we do have enough p. P. E. For the immediate future. The new york City Hospital system confirmed that. We have enough in stock now for the immediate need. Ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. I didnt know what they were a few weeks ago. Beside the cursory knowledge. I know too much ventilators now. We are still shopping for ventilators all across the country. We need more. We have approved the technology that allows one ventilator to serve two patients, what they call splitting, which is where you add a second set of tubes to a ventilator to do two patients. Its not ideal, but we believe its workable. We are also converting anesthesia machines to ventilators. We have a couple of thousand anesthesia machines in our hospitals and we are converting them to work as ventilators. Why is this such a demand on ventilators . Where did this come from . Its a respiratory illness for a large number of people. So they all need ventilators. Also, nonCovid Patients are normally on ventilators for hree to four days. Covid patients are on ventilators for 11 to 21 days. Think about that. You dont have the same turn around in the number of ventilators. If somebodys on a ventilator for three or four days, thats one level of ventilators you need. If somebodys on for 11 to 21 days, thats a totally different quation. And thats what we are dealing with. The high number of Covid Patients and the long period of time that they actually need a ventilator. We are also working on equalizing and distributing the load of patients. Right now the number of cases is highest downstate new york. So we are working on a collaboration where we distribute the load between downstate hospitals and upstate hospitals. And we are also working on increasing the capacity for upstate hospitals. Shifting now to a totally different field, the economic consequences of whats going n. Which have just really gelled after what the federal government has done and we were waiting for the federal action to determine where we were from a point of revenues and economic ans. Revenues and economics. Whats happening to a state government, any state, whats happening to a City Government is a double whammy. You have increased expenses ecause of the covid virus, and you have a tremendous loss of revenue because all those businesses are closed. And all those people are out of ork. People are out of work, they are not earning income, they are not paying taxes. Businesses are closed, they are not making money, they are not paying business revenue. So we are spending more to take care of the covid virus, and we re receiving less. In the middle of all this, we have to balance a budget. So how do you do a budget when you have expenses going out and a loss of revenue . We estimate the loss of revenue as somewhere between 10 billion to 15 billion. Which all these numbers are hard to give a context. That is a ton of money for the tate of new yorks budget. We were waiting to see what the federal government did before we determined what we had to do because water flows downstream, right . If the federal government had taken an action that helped state governments. City government, etc. , that would have put us in one situation. We now know what they have done. They have passed their 2 trillion stimulus bill. They say maybe theyll come back and there will be another bill. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But we know what they did do with the stimulus bill. The stimulus bill helped Unemployment Insurance. And that is a good thing. It helps Small Businesses. That is a good thing. It did not help local governments or state governments, and it did not address the governmental oss. And the federal officials, the ones who are being honest, will admit that. New york state receives 5 billion from the stimulus. New york state government. And its earmarked only for covid virus expenses. Which means it does absolutely nothing for us in terms of lost evenue to the state. The only thing its doing is helping us on the covid virus expenses, which is nice, but its the biggest loss on the the bigger problem is on the lost revenues. The congressional action in my opinion simply failed to address the governmental need. I spoke to all the officials nvolved. I spoke to our house delegation, i spoke to our senators. And i believe what they did fail to meet the governmental need. Im disappointed. I said i was disappointed. I find it irresponsible. I find it reckless. Emotion is a luxury. And we dont have the luxury at this time of being emotional about what they did. When this is over, i promise you im going to give them a piece of my mind, but i would say to them today, this is an extraordinary time in this nation, and its an extraordinary time for overnment. This was the time to put politics aside. And partisanship aside. This is the time for governmental leaders to stop making excuses and just do your job. Do your job. We are one nation. You know the places in this nation that have the most intense problems. Address the places that need the help. This is not a time to point fingers. This is not a time to make excuses. This is not time to blame everyone else. We have lived with that in washington for years. Now is the time to actually step up, do the right thing, and do your job. And they havent they havent as far as im concerned, especially when it comes to the governmental need. In any event, we have to do a budget. And the budget is due april 1. So the only responsible course for us is, number one, we have to address this revenue loss. We know the revenues are down. We dont know how much. We dont know when the economy comes back. We dont know the rate at which the economy comes back. And we dont know what washington may do to address this situation in the future, if anything. So you dont know, you dont know, you dont know, and you dont know. But you have to do a budget with all those unknowns. Address them realistically. And how do you address them realistically . First, we are going to adjust down our revenue projections. For the initial budget. And then what we are going to do which we have never done before is we are going to adjust the budget through the years to eflect the actual revenue. Meaning well say on day one, ok, we intended to give you 100, we dont have 100, so we are going to give you 95. But i can only give you 95 if i get 95. And ill let you know quarterly, or whatever the period of time is, how much money im getting and how much i can give you of the 95 and therefore you can plan accordingly. And thats, frankly, the only way that you can do this budget when you have so many unknowns. So adjust the initial number down. And then have periods through the course of the year where you say to School Districts, local governments, etc. This is how much we actually received. This is what the federal government did. Its what the federal government didnt do. The economys coming back faster, slower. But these are the actual numbers so you can adjust your budget accordingly. On the Public Health numbers, our testing numbers up again. We did 18,650 testing. This was just a massive, mobilization, operational undertaking. We had never done it before. You now have to set up all these drivethroughs, testing facilities, and we are testing more than any state in the company. More than any state in the country. We are testing more per capita than south korea and china. It really is amazing what we are doing. And the testing is important. The testing is still helping you identify the positives and isolate the positives. The testing is not telling you how many people have the virus. And i think a lot of people conflate the two. Thats a mistake. Its not even telling you the increase in the rate of infection. All its telling you is, you are increasing the number of tests. The more tests you do, the more positives you will find. And we are working very hard to increase the number of tests because we want to find the positives. This is the really bad news. The number of deaths is ncreasing. Its bad news because people are dying. And thats the worst news you an have. It is not bad news in terms of it being unexpected. Whats happening is people who were infected, who came into the health care system, have been on ventilators. The longer you are on a ventilator, the more probability f a bad outcome. We now have people who have been on a ventilator for 20 days, 30 days. The longer you are on a ventilator, the more likely you are not going to come off the ventilator. And that is what is happening. Because we do have people who have been on for quite a period of time. And those are the people who we are losing. That has always been the way. The longer stays without recovery lead to a higher death rate, right . And thats not just covid. Thats any medical situation hat you have dealt with. That is the natural consequence. When you have older, sicker patients who are staying on ventilators longer, they usually have a worse outcome. And i think people get that from their usual experience. What we are seeing now is that is happening. We have had people on for a very long time and they havent gotten better. And they are passing away. So the number of deaths is at 385. Up from 285. Since we still have a large number of people on ventilators for a long period of time the experts expect that number to continue to increase, right . And we have said this from day one. You get the infection. 80 selfresolve. They dont go into the hospital. Some percentage going to the hospital get treated and go home. Some percentage going to the hospital need a ventilator, they are on the ventilator, and they never come off the ventilator. And that is a situation where people just deteriorate over time. And thats what we are seeing. That is that vulnerable population, that very small percentage, 2 or 3 of the population who we have always worried about. But thats what we are eeing. Again we expect it to increase ecause as time goes on, by definition, we have more and more people on ventilators for longer period of time. Total number people tested, 18,000. Thats the breakdown. Number of positive cases. Total 37,000, new cases, 6400. The curve continues to go up. These spread across the state continues, which is also what we expected. Just the way its spread across the country. We now just have several counties that dont have a single case. The overall number, 37,000 tested positive, 5,000 people current this is the point. 37,000 tested positive. 5,000 currently ospitalized. 1,200 i. C. U. Patients, which is what we watch most carefully because those people who need ventilators. 1,500 patients who are discharged after being ospitalized. Not to be rebun daunt to be redundant. People get sick. 80 of the people dont go into the hospital. They stay home, or they dont even stay home, they just selfresolve. Some people get sick and stay home. Some people check into the hospital, now you are talking about 15 to 20 . Of that a percentage get treated and leave. Of that, the smallest percentage get put on a ventilator, thats the 1,290 i. C. U. Patients. Some of those people on a ventilator get better and come off the ventilator. Some people dont get better, stay on the ventilator, and when you are on the ventilator for a prolonged period of time the outcome is not positive. But the percentage of people who wind up in that situation, it starts with the 1,290 i. C. U. Patients. Those are the people who are basically put on a ventilator. And thats of the 37,000 that tested positive. So we are talking about a very small population. They are put on a ventilator. Some recover. And some dont. Most impacted states, new york is still number one. Louisiana has is a quoteunquote hot spot. It has a cluster that is growing. And the people in louisiana and in new orleans are in our thoughts and prayers. We know what they are going through. And we feel for them. And we pray for them. And we know the difficulty they are under because we are dealing with the same type of situation. So our best to them. Any way we can help them, we stand ready. Again, total perspective is the Johns Hopkins count that has gone from day one, 487,000, 21,000 deaths worldwide. My personal opinion, not facts, i gave you the facts, my gratuitous two cents, which is probably worth a penny and a half, this is a life moment. Its a moment in the life of this country. Its a moment in the life of the world. Its the moment in our family lives. Its a moment for each of s. Each of us is dealing with it in our own way. And my observation has been that when the pressure is on is when you really see what people are made of. In a personal relationship, in a business relationship, people can be great when everything is great. What does a perfect do when what does a person do when things arent great . What does a person do when the pressure is on them . And thats when you can see a little crack in the foundation of a person but when the pressure is on that little crack, that little crack can explode. And that foundation can crumble. Or you can see the exact opposite. You can see them get stronger. But you get to see what they are really made of. You get to see the best and the worst. You get to see the beauty in people. And you get to see the pposite. The outpouring of support for the people of new york has been so inspiring, not just from new yorkers, im telling you, from across the country, from across the world, you would be amazed at how many phone calls we get, how many offers of support, how many Creative Ideas from everyone. We have asked medical staffs to volunteer. Retired medical staffs who are o longer practicing. 40,000 had volunteered. We now have 12,000 more people in one day volunteering to help on the medical staff. We Ask Mental Health professionals to come forward to volunteer to offer free Mental Health services for people dealing with the stress and trauma of this situation. We had 6,000 people. We now have 8,600 people. Mental Health Professionals from other states calling up and saying theyll provide Mental Health services electronically through skype and over the telephone. It gives me such strength and inspiration. But i dont want to sugarcoat the situation. The situation is not easy. But easy times dont forge characters. The tough times that forge character. But easy times dont forge thats what were looking at right now. People say to me, you know, people are getting tired of this situation. Theyve been home, its going on a couple of weeks, theyre getting tired. Ell. The truth is that this is not a sprint, this is a marathon. We always said this is not going to be over quickly. I understand people are tired. But i also understand that people in this situation are really