[Unidentified Male:] Governor, talking about additional Federal Funding presumably to kind of help reopening and restart the economy. Do you have any idea what that number is? Are we talking tens of billions of dollars hundreds of billions of dollars what would you like to see come from Washington?
[Gov. Andrew Cuomo:] Well, we know what we proposed right? National Governors Association which represents Governors all across the state country. All the Governors are part of the National Governors Association Democratic and Republican. National Governors Association Chairman is Chairman Larry Hogan Republican Chairman. I'm the Vice Chairman I'm a Democrat. We have publicly requested 500 billion for states we publicly done that. So that's the number that's public put out in a press release and that's what it is.
[Unidentified Male:] -New York specifically.
[Cuomo:] We didn't get into the allocation. But the allocation should be proportionate to the need right? This allocation 500 billion for the states well, how do you allocated among the states? Allocated proportionate to need you know where the COVID cases are. You can look at a map you see the cases you know that because you see when the President talks about reopening different states are in different places. Yes, different states have radically different situations when it comes to number of cases. So allocate the funding where the problem exists. You're trying to solve the COVID problem. Allocate the funding to where the COVID problem exists? Pass the bills where they've done health care funding for quoting for COVID. You've seen the numbers. Some states that about $200,000 for every COVID case New York got about $12,000 for every COVID case. How do you justify that? Well, because it's the Senate they wanted to give every state money so every Senator had something to go home and do a press release about. Yes I know but if the state didn't have any COVID cases how much did you give that state of tax payers money just so that Senator could go home and do a press release? Give me a break. You can go press release with you know you don't need billions of dollars to the press release.
[Unidentified Male:] Very quickly to follow up. The President said yesterday that some states with those start to go into Phase 1 almost immediately. How far away do you think New York is from something like Phase 1 or even Phase 2?
[Cuomo:] Well, Phase 1, Phase 2 it's what he's saying is depending on where that state is? But the President saying is it's up to the states. It's up to the Governor's. The Governors who have states that have fewer cases can reopen faster. Yes, that's that has nothing to do with the President or federal policy or anything. All he is saying is it's up to the states and your C states that have less of a problem opening sooner. That is undeniable and totally logical. So it depends on that state where it is and it depends on the numbers. And the Governor's relying on numbers and has nothing to do with the Federal Government.
[Unidentified Male:] -system we said that we've-
[Cuomo:] I've taught when do we reopen? We are now 0.9 on the infection rate. 1.12 is the tipping scale with the numbers start to go up again right? So your margin of error right now is between 0.9 and 1.2. You have many states with the infection rate is the minimum. We're at 0.9 we're right up to that line of possible outbreak. So the states that will open first by the data will have much lower infection rates than we do. We were over the line. We were in outbreak territory right? We've gotten that down to a 0.9 but your margin of error is between 0.9 and 1.2 and what the experts will tell you is 0.9, 1.2 you're right on the line it's not that precise to science.
[Unidentified Male:] No doubt hospital rate that seems to be stabilizing and ticking down. A few questions are you there for stopping some of the things you've done to increase capacity like the field hospitals on the island? And then is there any thought particularly in upstate areas of reopening hospitals and facilities to elective procedures there are reports that workers are being laid off? And then finally you know we have to reduce PPE standards we have a bunch of requirements to increase this capacity will any of that be now rolled back? And is there any concern that reducing the standard PPE may infraction or cost problems amongst healthcare workers? You know there are lots of infections there.
[Cuomo:] The CDC reduced the PPE guidelines not that their office alphabet soup but it was the CDC that had federal guidelines on the personal protective equipment. And they have different guidelines apparently when you're in a crisis than normally they went to crisis guidelines. And that's what many of the nurses especially are complaining about.
[Unidentified Male:] -guidelines you sets the policy here.
[Cuomo:] I don't know.
[Unidentified Male:] Since the policy we use the CDC guidelines on these issues where about use of masks PPE equipment accounts we continue to use. But the issue is how and when can a health care worker go back to working with the mask? So are we thinking about changing any of this? And do you have any concern that this may have caused higher infection rates? I don't feel it costs higher infection rates at all we've very health care workers worked extremely hard to protect give themselves and make sure there isn't any further infections. -in the hospitals?
[Cuomo:] We are not. First you take all these numbers with a grain of salt right? Caution is you could have a surgeon could have a second wave look at Wuhan look at China look at Italy went up went down went back up be careful. But are we at a point where we are now immediately in danger of exceeding the hospital capacity we developed? No that's why we're in a position to give back giveaway ventilators or lend ventilators to New Jersey and other states et cetera. So I don't believe we are in a place today where we are I'd risk of going over capacity.
[Unidentidfied Female:] I want to talk to you about the rate of infection. Have you calculated the rate of infection forecasting in New York specifically with -?
[Cuomo:] We have not done those calibrations yet. This is all the rate of infection analysis is very difficult and there are a number of premises that they're making in the calculation. So we don't have discrete rates of infection yet now.
[Unidentified Female:] It would appear that we have lower rates in our State of New York and you know our area has made strides and in the economy in the past few years it's been devastating. We've already seen some small businesses go under. Is it important to find out what that rate of infection is to try and get parts of upstate open that are not seeing those numbers?
[Cuomo:] Look, it's important to get the economy open wherever you can as soon as you can whenever you can. People had a nice break and they were in their homes. I think everybody is well past. I had a nice break. I want to get back to work. I have to get out of the house. I love my family but I have to now get out of the house and I need a paycheck and I needed yesterday. So everyone is in that same position. At the same time people will say I don't want to go out and get sick and die right? So that's death is bad and even though staying at the home and not getting a paycheck is bad. It's not as bad as death right? The young and the young here so as soon as we can and lower infection rates places and lower death rate places are in a better position than places with a higher death rate and higher infection rate. So yes, calibrating those differences is important and balancing the economic need and the personal need with the public health need and death that calibration is everything.
[Unidentified Female:] When do you think you'll start to make that separation is what I'm asking?
[Cuomo:] I think you'll see it clear. You know we're right on the line now across the border. You'll see clusters in upstate also. You'll see nursing home issues in upstate one of the reasons they keep asking about nursing homes. Nursing homes are the vulnerable point. The vulnerable population in the vulnerable sets a nursing home. And we've seen that across upstate. So it's not just about yes, everybody wants the economy running. But everybody wants to be safe at the same time and that's what we're working through.
[Unidentified Female:] -outbreaks we're seeing some numbers that is about to you know 55 deaths at just one nursing home and there are 21 facilities on this over 20 dozens. My first question is why you know the to inform the public about deaths happening in their communities? Why are the public not known about all of these new risks outbreaks?
[Cuomo:] Yes. I think they have. We've been talking about nursing homes every day for the past 30 days. The first outbreak was in Seattle, Washington which was a nursing home that's how this country was introduced to it. We said 157 times the most vulnerable population are seniors the most vulnerable place are nursing homes. So I think we that had and we've special precautions for nursing homes. I think we've been talking about it all along.
[Unidentified Female:] -to say the network-
[John King, Cnn:] Andrew Cuomo the Governor of New York giving his daily Coronavirus briefing. The Governor on the one hand saying he is encouraged the state appears to have hit a plateau in terms of Coronavirus deaths. Coronavirus patients Coronavirus intensive care units and intubations but noting the death total still in the 600 on a day to day basis been averaging 665 or more. The Governor saying it is a sad plateau for the state of New York. And then talking at the end about a couple of key asks of the Federal Government. He says as the state begins to think about re opening New York State not there yet he says. But as it begins to think that it needs Federal help with testing and he says he needs Federal money to help with his state budget crisis as well. Let's discuss the situation in New York what it means for us as we look nationally? Dr. Glenn Wakam is a Resident Physician at the University of Michigan. He was working at community hospitals in the Dearborn area when the Coronavirus pandemic hit us. Dr. Wakam appreciate your perspective today. And so you look at a New York where again there's no good news here there's less sad news. But you see the plateau at the top and the Governor making the case that he can see the beginning of a decline perhaps. He's at a plateau now he's hoping it does this. He's wrestling with the balance between safety economic reopening making sure you don't overwhelm the hospitals. From your perspective in Michigan where you have had to deal with a spike as well mainly in the Detroit area but an issue statewide where are you today?
[Dr. Glenn Wakam, Resident Physician, University Of Michigan:] Yes. Thank you for having me John. I really appreciate the opportunity. That's a great question and you know I don't really want to go above my pay grade speak for the State of Michigan or the area of Detroit. But I think from my personal experience and I see that spent time with. We've had some encouragement in terms of the trends of the pace of admissions. We've had some more wins than losses in terms again some excavations. But again that's my one experience where I personally worked and I know there's very much places in Detroit specifically but in the whole state that are in the full throws of this. And so I think the encouraging signs are great. And you know that's a real testament to Governor Whitmer's leadership here. But I still think we need to be cautious.
[King:] Cautious is a good word and we're just showing the trend in the cases there in Michigan and you do see a you're beginning to see what looks like a downward trend. Again the question is do you get a spike? We'll continue to watch as Michigan one of the many states now trying to figure. Your Governor says she's going to wait at least a couple more weeks before she starts thinking about reopening. She hopes that line continues. You wrote a very moving piece about what you're learning as a doctor. You're giving medical care but you also learning a lot of other things as you go through this crisis. I want you to listen, this is the Governor of Massachusetts Charlie Baker a couple of days ago raising a point that you have been quite poignant about. Let's first list of the Governor.
[Gov. Charlie Baker:] It was an extraordinarily painful process for their family to go through this loss of our critical ritual that people believe in and hold on to this chance to say goodbye.
[King:] The Governor talking there and choking up about a friend's mother going dying and you're not there. One of the cruelties on top of the cruelty of COVID-19 is the isolation and the separation for everybody but especially for those who have a loved one who is in peril in a hospital. Walk us through some of that?
[Dr. Wakam:] Yes. You know it's very heartbreaking and that sort of was the crux of the piece that I and my co-authors wrote. And it stemmed from the one experience I had of taking care of patient with a terrible prognosis after suffering from COVID-19. And during this decline I was speaking with this family member and it really struck home that she was not able to see him before he died. And you know he ended up dying when she was just outside the hospital. And it was just a really jarring experience for me and that's you know not even to touch on how dramatic it was for her? And so we sort of put that into words sort of a cathartic exercise and fortunately the New England Journal thought it was worth publishing and it's really resonated with people. Because I think no one can imagine the fathom the pain of not being able to see a loved one that's dying.
[King:] And you talk about maybe trying to make advances in technology. So at least they can there could be some more presence you can obviously be as close. That's a very important piece and I hope people read it. Doctor Wakam thank you for your perspective and thank you more importantly for the work you're doing every day.
[Dr. Wakam:] Yes, thank you John for having me. And if I could just also really thank the nursing staff in the ICU and the respiratory wards and everyone who's doing like the hard work every day I would really appreciate the opportunity. And thank you for having me.
[King:] I meant. I meant, thanks for adding that in and not only to your colleagues there but across the state and across the country as well. It's an important point we cannot say thank you enough at this moment. Doctor Wakam again thanks so much. When we come back the President puts out its new guidelines telling states here's a road map to reopening holiday following that's next.