And safety standard right now we have to raise that up even higher to be able to bring our schools back. But thats exactly will be intend to do. We are going to have to focus even more on testing. And i want to emphasize, testing is going to be crucial to the successful reopening of our schools. And everyone has got to get engaged even more on testing. I guarantee that that plan will have a heavier emphasis on testing and therefore i want to say to everyone in the School Communities started with parents and continue to get the testing consent forms in even as we are in the moment of pause. We need to get ready to come back. We need testing regime. He has laid out the additional measures, the state will likely be taking place very soon. Additional restrictions across the board that will affect a number of different industries, a number of different parts of life in the city because were arguing the different problem all over new york city and state. All over the country and region. We have to do more to fight back this second wave. The state has made very clear, additional restrictions are coming, and coming very soon. But what we are focused on now is making sure that we are working with all families to get them to Remote Learning the need in the interim, that were putting more stringent measures in place so that we can get schools back up and running soon. That we can protect new yorkers across the board, in working with the state to take the right steps. To make sure that we address the kind of activities that might create particular danger. And keep people safe. It will come back every single time to the basics. To the maskwearing. To getting the tests. Were going to keep going deeper on that. But i want to affirm before going to the chancellor, i want to affirm as much as we are unhappy today that this moment was reached, we are resolve to keep fighting this. Thats what new yorkers do. And we will overcome this moment. Remember, thank up were having this conversation with a backdrop of not one but two vaccines now on the horizon. And the fact that we expect to get a lot more support from washington Going Forward on a number of fronts. So were going to fight this back. This is a setback, but it is a setback that we will overcome. And i know our chancellor and everyone today is said that this moment has come. But now are resolute about making sure that we serve families and kids. In the meantime. And then getting back up and running with our schools as quickly as possible. Now let me now turn to our chancellor. Thank you mister mayor. Youre absolutely right. This isnt a happy day for us in the department of education. Its been eight eventful and challenging year in so many ways to say the least. But our schools have opened and have been remarkably safe with 8. 9 Positivity Rate. Theyve also been safe havens for our children. We know that our students need that interaction so we feel a deep sense of commitment to making sure that we can open for reinperson education again as soon as its physically safe to do so. Just this morning i was visiting the bronx and i want to give a shout out to principle when oh and the smiles and the interaction of her teachers and the students, and the love and support that the students were showing for the teachers are something that i cant, wait and i know you cant wait mister mayor to see again very. Soon we care this emergency with us today as we announced this temporary closure. I want to emphasize that we are looking at this as a temporary closure. We will get students back in buildings as soon as we can, safely. This is our number one priority and our number one focus to get our students back in person as soon as possible. We are committed to making sure that our students have with a need to be successful. I want to remind everyone that is listening here today that school is still in session. We are pivoting to remote instruction rather than inperson instruction that some of our students have been receiving. So school is still in session. Students will still continue to learn and be supported by our teachers. I also want to remind families that we will continue to communicate with families about device support and tips for Remote Learning. In addition, free meals for all students will still be available. This is critically important. Principles will work with their staff to make sure that there are windows of time to pick up materials at buildings over the next several days. And as needed throughout this time period. We are focused on these challenges before and we have learned a great deal together. We are willing to fight against this virus. We need to ask you that again. Its important we follow all of the safety protocols. With the holidays coming, police. We understand. But its important more than ever that we followed the advice of our medical professionals so we are able to get back to inperson learning as quickly as possible. That is how we are going to get our schools back open inperson learning. Again, im grateful for the tireless efforts of our educators and staff. Our students and families as well. So please, lets follow the advice and the guidance. Lets take on this challenge as weve done all along. Together we will get through this and we will all get back to inperson learning as quickly as possible. Thank you so much, chancellor. Just to put in perspective for everyone. We made a decision to have the most stringent walked standards that we put together to bring back schools. The health and Safety Measures we put in place. We may have kept our kids and educators safe, but we have said the 3 standard matters. Remember new york city is in the middle of a battle. We are at 3 . Our neighbor new jersey is unfortunately at 8 . Chicago is at 16 , the third biggest city. We cannot let this challenge deepen. We also need to take hard from the fact that we have helped off the second wave as well as we have so far. Theres still more work to be done. That is why we will need additional restrictions. That is what we are going to need most more people to participate even more. Everyone get tested. Everyone Pay Attention and ask on those four core precautions. It will make a difference. So we have a challenge. We are going to fight back this challenge. Let me go over todays indicators. Number of people, gender patience today, 114 admitted to hospital for suspected covid cases. We still see our Hospital System doing well. The confirmed Positivity Rate continues to go up. It is at 43. 8 6 among those patients. 70 average of reported cases, 550, todays is 1212. Again, much higher than we wanted to be. Number three, percentage of people testing citywide positive for covid 19, threshold 5 , todays daily report is 2. 7 5 . The number weve looked at the most is the sevenday rolling average. That is literally exactly 3. 00 . We will see a few words in spanish. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] with that, lets turn to our colleagues in the media. Please let me know the name an outlet of each journalist. We are joined by dr. Chokshi, and chancellor carranza. The first question goes to jim pelts from the ap. Jan. Jan, do we have you . Lets try one more time there. Can you hear us . Hi, thank you very much. I think im actually going to get my question to my colleagues. Thanks a lot though. We will turn to emma its immense from the new york times. Good afternoon, mayor. Weve been waiting a while for this announcement. Can you explain the delay . You want to apologize to parents who have been waiting anxiously for an answer . Were you trying to keep schools open . Emma, i think parents know. We always have been trying to find a way to keep schools open throughout. This morning, getting the data exactly and the nose on the nose of 3. 0 . We wanted to make sure it was 100 accurate. There was time spent confirming that. There was time spent working with the state and knowing what the next steps would be. Weve got to a larger discussion with the Governors Team about what we are going to have to do overall in terms of restrictions for new york city. Also, what it would take to bring back our schools. We will have an update in the next couple of days on the plans to bring back to schools. What stands will be needed. It will certainly involve more testing. We warned parents days ago that this moment might come, but we had to be 100 percent sure we were accurate this morning and we had to have that conversation with the state. They have the ultimate authority. We had to have that conversation with him for everyone to be on the same page. Go ahead. We were also wondering about devices. How many kids still dont have devices and what are you going to be doing in the next few weeks to make sure Remote Learning is better . I think the chancellor said that the system still needed 77,000 devices like ipads. Yeah, i will turn into the chancellor. The ipads continue to be delivered. We will get the update from the chancellor, but we also continue to work student by student if there is a problem with service. We have a lot of concerns for our kids and shelter. Weve had technicians going out to the shelters and working family by family to make sure their service is working. That does not and, came up. That continues throughout the school year whenever a kid needs a new device or there is a problem with device service, that support will be provided. Anyone having a problem should still call 311. Chancellor, want to talk about the efforts to make sure kids get their devices. Emma, the issue continues to be the supply side. New york city, along with every School System in america, probably the world, is ordering devices from every manufacturer. We have, in many cases, in top of the list. So we have approximately 40,000 devices that have either arrived or will arrive by the end of this week. We have lists that have been prioritized it schools that provided to us given the information that families have provided to schools. So we are getting those devices out as soon as we get them set up. We have the lte carts installed. That number is closer to about 60,000 devices that we know in the orbit of students who have said they need a device. And again, we have ordered a little over 100,000 devices to be able to be prepared to meet that need. In the interim, schools have had some time to prepare paper packets of assignments and different kinds of things that students have to complete to bridge that time gap between a student that needs a device and actually gets a device as well. Its going to be incredibly important that family stay very close to their schools. They also can go on to our department of education website schools dot and why see dot geo v. There is a link there where they can also connect with any support that they need for either logging on or their email account or any connectivity issues as well. We know schools have also assigned some of their own in School Devices for students to take home during this time as well. All of that is happening as we speak. It we continue, as we get those devices, to get them into the hands of students. The next is rich from wcbs. Good afternoon, mister mayor and everyone on the call. Mister mayor, it appears that you and the governor are using two different sets of numbers in regards. How is that possible at this point . How can you get on the same page or does that make sense . Rich, the state and city throughout have had a different system. That is not new. It has been reported before. I will have the commissioner speak to it. Its not surprising the Different Levels of government might have different approaches. They lead us in the same direction consistently. The state and city strategies have been very highly aligned throughout. But each entity, and its true with federal government or any other part of government, will have its own approach. What we know is that we put forward a standard related to the schools based on the citys way of counting. That is based on the day the test was taken, not when the test result arrives. But they the test was taken. We believe that is the best approach. That is the standard we use with our indicators. That is the standard we set related to our schools. The state understands that. We have all communicated that we understand that that is the approach that we are taking. Go ahead, commissioner. Thank you, mister mayor. Yes, our commitment is always to provide the most accurate and validated that we possibly can because we know whats momentous decisions are made based on the accuracy of that data. One of the major differences, as the mayor has already pointed out in the way that we count test positivity, the percentage positivity, is by ensuring that we count based on the date that a test is taken rather than the date that we learn about the results from the test. This becomes particularly important when we are seeing an increase in cases as we are right now. Thats because it allows us to see the trends over time. Thats one of the key things we have to discern to make good decisions based on the accuracy of the data. Just to say that i think its important that the state of new york and the city of new york both squarely fall in the health care conservative philosophy. No doubt about it. When you look at the history of the coronavirus in the whole country, new york city and new york state have been amongst the most cautious, data driven, science driven entities, jurisdictions, in the whole country. And both are standards our standards are interpreted with a break focused approach to protecting Peoples Health and safety. Hours are particularly conservative, as the commissioner just pointed out. But again, state and city have really followed the same path. A lot of other places have not, and unfortunately, to their peril. Go ahead, rich. Mister mayor, could you also give us a sense, you are talking about more stringent standards and you did say more testing in the schools. Does that mean you would roll back, that the rolling number would have to be lower than 3 to bring the schools back . Is that essentially what you are saying there . No, that is not what im saying. I appreciate the question, rich. To be clear, we understand there is a bigger problem in this country that is affecting us. We also understand our schools have been extraordinarily safe. To protect School Communities, we are going to have to put additional measures in place. We are talking right now with the state on with those should be. One thing i can tell you upfront is there will be a heavier emphasis on testing. One thing that i will be adamant about is, when we reopen, everyone who comes into that school building, all the kids, they have to have a testing consent on file so we can test them whenever we need to because testing is going to become more of the norm. It has been crucial to protecting everyone. But exactly the point, rich, that we were having in conversations with the state in detail today about what that reopening standard will be. I expect that announcement to be at some point this week, when the reopening standard will be, and then we are going to apply it as quickly as we can put the pieces together so that we can get to that reopening. But those details are being worked on. The one thing i can say for sure is a lot of testing will be necessary. Next is christine vague. Hi, mayor, thanks for taking my question. I would look to hear a little bit more about how long this might last. We keep hearing that this is temporary, but we are also hearing that the requirements to reopen are still being developed. Can you give us a sense of how long this might last . Absolutely. Speaking to my fellow parents about how to prepare. You know, i said last friday get ready for this, get ready to have alternative arrangements. I know its not easy. Its very tough for parents, for some parents, Single Parents in particular, its very tough. I say it with nothing but sorrow. But we gave people a warning to think about it for the remainder of this month. So, certainly through thanksgiving, schools will be closed. We are going to see with the state how quickly we can finalize those standards and then what we will have to do to meet those standards. That week after thanksgiving is the earliest, but i am not get able to say that it will be then or appointed thereafter. But we have real work to do, which i think we can do quickly, to finish those standards and then put together the action plan to make them come to pass. Again, heavy emphasis on testing. We are going to be deploying a lot of our Testing Capacity towards the schools under this new model, even much more than we have done previously. But certainly, parents should assume, obviously we are close for the rest of this week in the days leading up to thanksgiving, in the meantime we will fill in that blank and make it very clear what the plan is to come back. Go ahead. Thanks, my next question is about the last time we had a citywide school shut down, there were the emergency wreck centers in place. I know youve said that learning bridges will remain open, but can you talk about how enrollment is going to work in those and how much space you have and whether people will be able to attend fulltime because those were set up only to serve children on a parttime basis when they were in schools . Correct, this is a different model. You are absolutely right, christina, but i think it will help us achieve some of the same things. I will get the specifics in front of me. I know there was some city testimony earlier to get some of the details somewhat attendance has been so far. But i can tell you the bottom line is that essential workers will have a preference for the learning bridges seats for the kids. Well there are other folks who are prioritized, families in shelters for example, and families who have particular challenges. So we are going to make those seats available. We have seen surprisingly little uptake on the learning bridges seats so far. Obviously, this moment will mean more people will want them, but we do not know how many. We certainly feel confidence based on the experience we had with the Regional Enrichment Centers that will have the seats for essential workers who need them. If we need to keep adding, we can quickly ramp up toward the number we originally projected. So far, christina, it has actually been very low enrollment in the scheme of things. There is certainly Space Available right now for the families will need it right away. With the next is katie from the wall street journal. Good morning mayor de blasio. My question is following up from christinas question. Why wasnt there a reopening plan. That was agreed upon by the city and other