Gov. Cuomo good morning. Happy saturday. I know it saturday because i dont wear a tie on saturday. People ask me often, what do you think about our situation . I say, i think about what i know. What does that mean . Good question. It means, in new york, what we have been doing is we follow the facts, we follow the data, we follow the science. We focus on what we know and the facts that we know and we make our decisions based on the facts. Every morning we look at the facts. Facts today are that the hospitalization rate dropped once again, which is very good news. The total hospitalization rate has dropped. The incubation rate has dropped. The number of new cases per day has dropped down to 572. Those are new cases, people who walk in the door of a hospital. Dooreople who were in the of the hospital and test positive. Thats down to 572. It has not been that level since back march 20, march 21. That is welcome news. This is not welcome news. This has been a heartbreaking every day. 226 deaths. 226 families. Beenee how that number has infuriatingly constant. 226 is where we were five days ago. So, we would like to see that fasterdropping at a far rate than it has been dropping. These are 226 people who lost their lives. Despite everything our Health Care System could do. Best hospital the care, the best nursing, the best doctors, the best equipment. Wey are people who we know made every effort possible to save. And to the extent there is some peace in that, then we are looking for peace wherever we can. The priority for us today is a new issue that has come up. Which is truly disturbing. Is the issue on how the covid virus may affect young people. Very young people. Infants. Children in Elementary School. We thought, initially. Of what the initial information we had turned out not to be correct, or turned out to be modified. Laboring under the impression that young people were not affected by covid19. Was actually good news. The vulnerable populations are older people. People with comorbidity. But one of the few rays of good news was young people were not affected. We are not so sure that that is the fact anymore. Toddlers, Elementary School children are presenting symptoms orilar to kawasaki disease toxic shock like syndrome. These are children who come in, who dont present the symptoms that we normally are familiar with with covid. Its not a respiratory illness, they are not in respiratory distress. I think thats one of the gettingwhy this may be discovered this far into the process. Out, theset turns children happen to have the covid antibodies, or be positive for covid. But those were not the symptoms they showed when they came into the Hospital System. So, its still very much a situation that is developing, but it is a serious situation. The department of health will be working with the Human Genome Center and Rockefeller University to conduct a genome and are in a sequencing rna sequencing study to see if theres something about these children that may present a definable situation. The department of health is on top of it. This is the last thing that we need at this time, with all thats going on, with all the anxiety we have. Now, for parents to have to worry about whether or not their youngster was infected. Again, symptoms that dont even seem like the symptoms we associate with covid19. We still have a lot to learn about this virus. Every day is another eyeopening situation. Assured, the department of health is doing everything that they can do. I think its fair to say that the new York State Department of one that has first been on this situation. Cdcagain, working with the and whatever we find out, we will not only share with the public, but we will share with other states and Hospital System systems. It is very possible that this has been going on for several weeks. And it has not been diagnosed as related to covid. We will keep you updated. I know many people are concerned about that, as they should be. A priority that we have been working on throughout has been protecting the frontline workers. Of thevery aware sacrifices our frontline workers are making. So many of us can stay home and stay safe. We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to protect our frontline workers. Health care workers, police officers, firefighters, emt and our transit workers. In new york we have to keep the Public Transit system operating. Thats how many frontline workers get to work. If we hadation a situation where we close down Public Transit, our Hospital System would suffer. Thats how the nurses and hospital staff get there. Our transit workers had to operate that Transit System in the midst of this covid virus. And it never stopped. Operators,rs, train station cleaners. While everyone was trying to get home and stay safe, they were showing up for work every day to make sure that the people who did need to go to work could get to work. We have already conducted the largest Antibody Test in the country. 15,000 people in that sample. You the Antibody Test tells is who has been infected by the virus and has the antibodies that they recover. , thatives us a baseline 15,000 surveyed statewide, to compare other groups against so we know what the average infection rate is in different parts of the state. We can then compare groups to that baseline. We recently tested the transit doing theo have been operations of the Transit System. We tested 1300. That is a large size sample. 13 was the infection rate among transit workers. That is actually good news. We would bike to see zero, but 14 is below the average infection rate for new yorkers. So it means that the transit workers infection rate is below the norm for new york city. Workers, itsnsit a little higher with station workers than with Bus Operators or train conductors. But all categories are below the new york city norm. Norm is 19. 9. Ity that is good news. That also affirms the news we have heard on the other essential workers, frontline workers. Our health care workers, nurses, doctors. We were afraid that because they were in the emergency room they would have a higher infection rate. It turns out thats not true. 12 was the infection rate among those workers. It shows that the ppe works will be talked about masks, gloves, etc. Its not that nurses and doctors in those Emergency Rooms have fancier equipment, more sophisticated equipment. This is the same type of mask that they wear. So it works. The new York Police Department has an infection rate of 10 . The Fire Department and emt had an infection rate of 17 . Which is the highest of the groups. We think its higher because of emt workers. Again, all below the new york city rate of 19. 9 . Another issue we have been aware of and are working on is the fact that poor and minority communities are suffering the most. The numbers in this state are not nearly as bad as the disparity in many other states. But any disparity is bad. That is what we have been focusing on. We did surveys and data that show, if you look at the 21 zip codes with the highest number of hospitalizations for covid, 20 greater thanave average africanamerican or latino populations. 20 of 21 of those zip codes. There is no doubt that it is a problem. Mapped this and you can see exactly where people are coming from as they are walking into hospitals. Part of the new system that we hospitalsmented is, report nightly, how many cases they have, where they come from, and we can map the number of people and where they are coming from throughout the state. When you look into that information, especially in brooklyn and the bronx, its clear that the communities are heavy year minority populations and heavier low income populations. When you compare that with the overall city rate, it makes the same points. That hospitalization rate and infection rate among the minority community, among lower income communities, is higher than the average. Irony,nately, in a cruel this is often the case. When you look at disaster emergencies, i dont care if they are hurricanes, floods, whatever they are, the cruel irony is that the poorest people pay the highest price. I have seen us across the country when i was at hud. You are there to take care of a flood or storm, its the poor communities poorer communities that get wiped out. Its the low land that tends the flood. The land with a lower value. Thats where the lower Income Community tends to locate. Understand why, we understand the health disparities, we understand comorbidities, we also understand its just not right. And we have to address it. We saw the same thing in hurricane katrina. Those people who were on rooftops were not the wealthy, white part of the community. They were predominately minority and low income. People who were Drinking Water in flint, michigan, they were low income minority population. If you go back to 1927, the great mississippi flood. It floods the low lands. It floods lower income communities. New york, we are going right at finding the reasons for the disparities in resolving them. We are doing more testing and low income communities and communities of color. We are doing testing and housing, aggressively. Partnering with ready responders, which is a group doing great work. We delivered ppe equipment, masks, over one million. Hand sanitizer. Launching a new initiative to address exactly this. Which is to expand access to testing and low income communities and communities of color. We are partnering with northwell health, which is the Largest Health system in new york, and theyre going to set up 22 additional testing sites at churches in predominately minority communities. This is a different kind of partnership. Its creative, but it is necessary. We are working with both churches, individually and association of churches, and northwell. Northwell will provide the testing in churches in lower income communities and communities of color. The churches will help us outreach to the community to get people to come in and explain why its important that people come in and get tested. And northwell will do the testing. We have 24 sites in the new york city area. Some will be opening the week of may 12. Some will be opening the second week of may 19. But, you see the coverage when we add the network of churches is very broad. Again, focus on these communities that we want to reach out to. Sites will be working with the Current Network of sites, and we have already located many testing sites in minority communities and low income communities. But, when you put the churchbased sites together with the drivethrough sites together with a walk in testing sites, and the sites of public housing, the public will be extensive. So, the sites will be there. We now need new yorkers to go get the tests. I do this with people all day long. I feel fine, i feel fine. You can feel fine and test positive for covid. You can be asymptomatic and still have the covid virus. Well, if i feel fine, whats the difference . Because you will give it to someone else who will not feel fine. And you can give it to someone who is in a vulnerable group, older person, person with an underlying illness, and they could be in serious trouble. ,ou want to know if you have it not just for yourself, but, so you dont commute it to somebody else. I want to thank our partners who this. Rking on exactly what we want to do through the situation, we said we dont want to just deal with the virus or replace what was there, we actually want to make sure we build back better than before. I understand that this in equity and disparity exists. I understand it has existed for decades. I understand it exists all across the country. But not new york. It should not be here. Thank our congressional leaders who are. Artners in this effort who have been very instrumental in organizing the churches and putting it together with northwell health. Especially congresswoman velazquez and congresswoman clark from brooklyn. And congressman jefferies. I also want to thank the Church Groups. This is not in the normal line of business for churches to be setting up testing sites for a covid virus. But, i think it is the mission of the churches. They are there to serve the communities. They are there to work with the communities and meet the needs at that time. This is the needs at that time. They have been extraordinarily helpful and cooperative. I especially want to thank reverend rivera for coming up with the idea. And working with the other toups to get them all participate. We had never done anything like this before. But there are a lot of firsts for all of us in this situation. I want to think them very much for what they are doing here. Its my pleasure to announce we are being joined with whoressman hakeem jeffries, is a personal friend of mine. He is a great star for the state of new york. In washington, his voice, his leadership has been pivotal, not just for new york, but for the entire nation. This is a time that we need the federal government to work and to work well, and to work officially and effectively and work for the the congressman worked tirelessly to put together this arrangement we are announcing today with the churches. Again, it is a different type of partnership. We do what we have to do in new york. The congressman saw the need and he reached out to the Church Groups and brought them together to be where we are today. Congressman, thank you so much for everything you do, but especially thank you for what you did to bring these Church Groups together with northwell so we could announce this initiative. Congressman, good to be with you. Congressman jefferies good morning, governor. Great to be with you. Thank you for the tremendous leadership you have provided to the people of the empire state and the nation in so many ways during this moment of trial and tribulation. I appreciate the fact that your leadership has been evidencebased, datadriven, compassionate, and comprehensive. Todays announcement is just another example of that. We know this is an extraordinary pandemic and it requires an extraordinary governmental response at all levels of government. It is all hands on deck at the city, state, and federal level. The new york delegation is committed to continuing to work with you to make sure we can drive the federal resources into new york state to match the level of infection, pain, suffering, and death that we have all had to endure. It is an all of government moment and and all of america moment as you have encouraged all of us to do deeper in new york and throughout. And in that spirit, we know the houses of worship, the spiritual community, has always been there to help the Community Get through a storm. These churches have been there through the crack cocaine epidemic to welcome people in while others were rejecting them. Our churches have been there to address the high rates of gun violence in our communities through gun buyback programs, taking thousands of guns off the streets. And we also know that these houses of worship and spiritual leaders have been there to partner with the state and law enforcement, organizations like the brooklyn district attorneys office, through initiatives to address old warrants, summons, and citations that can impact the ability of people from communities of color to get all the opportunities and benefit from our economy. Now, at this moment, thanks to their continued engagement and your leadership and willingness to partner, we can address this covid19 pandemic with these houses of worship and religious leaders who have the credibility, the authenticity, and the capacity to reach those in the community who need to be tested. Because at the end of the day, this is not over for any of us until it is over for all of us. And as you have indicated, we know communities of color have been hit particularly hard. We have disproportionately overrepresented amongst our essential frontline workers. Live in dense environments and have historically been under resourced throughout the nation. This Testing Initiative will be incredibly essential ensuring we can turn the corner in communities of color such as those i represent as well as those represented by great members of the delegation. So, thank you, governor, for your partnership. I thank ebc and the other church coalitions for their willingness to do what is necessary for us to confront this storm. Scripture says joy will come in the morning. I am thankful for your leadership, governor cuomo, thankful for the partnership with our houses of worship. And we are all going to be there with the community until we are all in the United States of america again. Gov. Cuomo churches never close. They are doing their work in performing their mission. Congressman, a big week for you. What you are doing in washington is so important to all of us. This legislation that may be passed by washington getting this country the aid they need, getting the state the aid we need, passed legislation for small business, etc. I know your priority is getting funding for the police, firefighters, health care, and making sure states can function so we can do the reopening. We could not have a better, stronger voice, more capable voice than yours and our delegation fighting for us and the nation. You make the case for new york, you are making the case for america because we are a microcosm, new york. We did get hardest hit in the number of cases. But you addressed the need here, you addressed the need in america. God bless you. Thank you very much for being with us, congressman jefferies. That is our congressional delegation representing all new yorkers who are tough, smart, united, disciplined, and loving. Questions . You and your fellow northern governors have a cooperative, regional approach. Does that change at all if connecticut on the 20th has restaurants open and if the new jersey you have some beaches open . I know that is them and this is us. But how does that make you feel . Gov. Cuomo it makes me feel fine. There is a lot that doesnt make me feel fine, that i am fine with. We said from the getgo, we all have slightly different situations. We talk about numbers the numbers are slightly different in all of these areas. The numbers are different within ne