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good afternoon everyone let me introduce people who join me my colleagues today to my right mr gareth rhodes who has been working on the covet task force since we began to my left person who needs no introduction our great lieutenant governor kathy hokel who's been doing a fantastic job not just with covid but with everything and i thank her very much for all her great work and gareth and kathy will help me answer all the tough questions that i don't know the answers to uh it's a pleasure to be at roswell park today and i want to thank dr candice johnson for their hospitality here at roswell it's always a pleasure to be here and talk about great work and life-saving work congratulations to all the people at roswell let's give you an update as to where we are day 331 groundhog day but a little different overall positivity 5.47 statewide deaths 167. that's always the most difficult number in this presentation and that's 167 lives that's 167 families it's 167 wives and daughters and sons and husbands and they were in our thoughts and prayers hospitalization up 117 icu's down five intubations plus eight if you look across the state at the hospitalization rate percentage of population hospitalized by region you see it's long island and finger lakes once again highest positivity is long island within new york city it's the bronx and the finger lakes which has made some progress over the past couple of weeks but the finger lakes is still an issue for us long island is an issue and the bronx in new york city is an issue so we're going to be focusing on those three areas we're working on three tracks simultaneously if you will first keep the spread down control covert that's obviously the national priority second vaccinate new yorkers and third get on with life rebuild the economy get back to work this is unsustainable this situation that we're in it was never a choice between public health and reopening the economy you have to do both but you have to do it intelligently on controlling the covet spread the good news is the number is down and it has been continuing to decline you look at our high point we're at 7.9 that's in the beginning of january we're now down to about 5.85 that then tracks to the hospitalization rate right these are all connected infection rate a few days later person goes into the hospital so they call hospitalization lagging indicator but the number of people being hospitalized has gone down you see this is true all across the state these are the curves in different regions i know they look like scribble from a fourth grader but they're actually the curve in each region a little different in each region but overall every region you see on the decline some areas faster than others one of the most important numbers we don't talk about it every day is the rate of transmission what they call the rt rate this is uh for every person who is infected how many people do they infect and you can see at our height point one person was infecting two and a half other people they say anything over one the virus is out of control when one person is infecting more than one other person and ideally you want to be under one and that's where we are right now but it's been a bumpy ride to get here the projection models done by the quote unquote experts in the field show new york's positivity rate continuing to decline so not only we on the way down but the experts tell us that they believe that's going to continue so that's good news also in western new york we also see the same basic pattern positivity is down december 25th christmas week big socialization week and you see the numbers go up and then you see them coming down towards the end of january positivity in erie county was 8.6 it's down to 5.2 and it's been on decline for three weeks you also see the hospitalization number on decline so that is also good we wish nobody went into the hospital but it's good to see that number dropping as well and we have a hospital capacity of about 48 percent in erie county and that's very good because remember the nightmare scenario is hospitals run out of capacity and then you have to shut down so 48 capacity is very good we talked about this and actually what we talked about happened we talked about the holiday spike we started talking about it at thanksgiving time because thanksgiving really is the kickoff of holiday season right you go to thanksgiving the next day is black friday everybody starts shopping and you go thanksgiving christmas party meet me for a drink celebration into christmas into hanukkah into kwanzaa now it's new year's eve now it's new year's day and that's all increased social activity we were saying celebrate smart celebrate smart celebrate smart but just the increased social activity we were afraid you were going to see a spike and we said wear a mask celebrate lord knows it was a terrible year but celebrate smartly and we saw that holiday spike we said we hoped the spike would end after january 1 when people stopped socializing as much and then you start to see a trail off and we talked about mid-january and late january where we would see the spike dropping and that's right where we are frankly we're seeing that spike come down that's the positivity numbers down and the hospitalization numbers down so now we can start making adjustments right i talk about open the valve close the valve when the positivity is down and the hospitalization rate is down and the infection rate is down and the rt rate is down then you can increase economic activity and we're through that holiday period by the way other states had a much higher rate of infection during the holiday period i believe new yorkers were smart about it the increased activity was going to raise the rate but i think they were smart about it and i think that's why you've seen the positivity rate did not go up the way it did in other states but i think we're at a new place now and we can start to adjust that valve and start to open up more economic activity and reduce some of the restrictions and reduce some of the what we call micro cluster zones orange zones etc and we're going to be talking more about that in the coming days department of health is going through that right now but for example elective surgeries had been stopped in erie county because we wanted to make sure we had enough hospital capacity for that spike that we now feel comf feel comfortable about elective surgeries can start once again in erie county and as i said we're going to have some more adjustments over the next couple of days but don't get cocky with covet it's a great quote i don't know if it's a great quote it's my quote don't get cocky with colvin this beast changes on us all the time and you can watch tv news all day long and not really know what's going on because i don't know that anybody really knows what's happening with the covet virus we were told the uk strain was more transmittable but it wasn't more dangerous now they're rethinking that we were told the south africa strain might be more transmittable but the vaccine worked now they're saying we're not so sure about that they're now talking about a california strain that developed in california that is a variant of the uk stream so don't get cocky with covert this virus has been ahead of us every step of the way you know there are certain things to do that are smart you know this is a changing situation socially distance wash your hands wear a mask be smart i know it's been a long time but and i know the numbers look good today but we have been down this road before and the road has curves and the road has potholes so please just be smart second is on the vaccination front we did over one and a half million vaccinations over 91 percent of the vaccine we've received has been put in arms and that's a great number and i congratulate all the providers who are involved in doing this when we say we run where 91 percent people say oh a few more percent and they're out we don't run out of vaccine we get a weekly allocation from the federal government and it goes week to week when we say we've used 91 percent of our vaccine that means we've used 91 percent of all the vaccine that we have received to date and then they start with a shipment every week from washington the shipment for week 7 starts arriving tomorrow the next day the next day the next day it arrives throughout the week because literally it's delivered it's mailed fedex etc so it arrives at different times we have told the local governments 100 times don't schedule an appointment unless you have a specific allocation for people who took their first dose you will get the second dose the federal government protects that second dose allocation so don't worry about 91 will i get my second dose you will get your second dose and if you have a scheduled appointment that appointment will be fulfilled from the allocation that we're receiving this week but we are going week to week in terms of uh the allocation and again that will start tomorrow so the issue with the vaccination plan is the supply it's how much vaccine we are getting we were getting about 300 000 dosages per week uh last couple of weeks we got 250 000 this week seven the incoming allocation is 250 000 but uh we are ready for uh distribution of the vaccine in a much larger quantity we have 3 000 district distribution sites 3 000 providers already signed up so we can get the needle in the arm we just need the supply itself uh but between the national guard at mass vaccination sites which are probably the most effective way to do volume we have mass vaccination sites that could do 10 000 a day per site so we can live can literally do millions of doses it is a national supply issue and again this is not a new york issue it's a problem all across the country it's a problem all across the globe every country is trying to get more vaccine so that's the situation we're in it's also this whole covet situation has been an eye-opener for americans and i hope they take it to heart we've talked for a lot of years about public health there are great institutions dedicated to public health they're great public health professors people dedicate their lives to being public health experts but what we neglected to do as a nation was invest the money we needed to invest in actually having an operational public health system it's not just about studying it it's not the academic it's not the theoretical it's the operational it is the practical that's where this country fell down you have to be able to do the screening you have to be able to do millions of tests you can't run out of q-tips nasal swabs which is was the reason why you couldn't do testing a nasal swab is a big q-tip you can't run out of ventilators you have to have this vaccination capacity set up you have to have the contact tracing capacity set up you have to have the quarantine facilities set up before you have to have a communication plan where people get factual information so they don't have the same level of anxiety that people went through this last time that's all the operational capacity and it's expensive but plans alone are not enough if you can't implement them and you can't implement them to scale you can do a desktop exercise this is theoretically how i would do it yeah and then covet happens and it's bigger and it's better than you expected and we didn't have the operational capacity new york state is using the opportunity to put in what i believe is going to be the best public health operation in the united states of any state we have a surge in flux management system that now manages all hospitals statewide on how to handle a surge capacity never done before ppe stockpiles you can't run out of n95 masks we're setting up a thousand people who are just public health core trained experts to work with communities across the country we're going to train citizens free online training to be ready for the next public health emergency so you can volunteer in your community and also inform yourself so you know how to help your family and your children what advice you should be giving cornell university is doing that curriculum i'm very excited about that we're going to train all the national guard to be public health emergency responders you have to be able to test people coming into the borders it can't be you landed jfk airport or buffalo airport and they check your fruit at customs but you can walk in with a virus i mean we have to have that screening capacity we're setting up the quarantine facilities we didn't have enough lab testing capacity in this country to do the number of cova tests we needed to do we didn't have any contact tracing capacity we had plans for all of this uh but no actual capacity to do it so uh we've all learned the biden administration uh i believe gets it and i believe they take public health seriously and just in the past few days you've seen a big difference and they've taken actions that i think were long overdue i think the mask mandate was long overdue new york state was the first state to pass a mass mandate it saved countless lives they communicate factually let the experts speak and give people information because when people don't get accurate information they are more nervous about the situation they're increasing production of the vaccine and they're going to give states projection allocations so states can plan right now we go week to week and we don't know what we're going to get next week so i can't tell erie county what we're going to get next week so they don't know what to schedule and every week you get a new number and then you have to figure out how to allocate that number how to plan that number this there's no operational intelligence to this and i believe the white house is working on that we're going to have a call tomorrow with the governors with people from the white house to talk about these issues but we've already had many conversations the head of the kova task force is a real pro named uh jeff zeins i've been talking with him our secretary melissa de rosa is actually on the committee that is working to operationalize this so i think it's going to be better and smoother you're still going to have the fundamental issue of an international shortage of vaccine but hopefully johnson johnson gets approved in a couple of weeks that would increase supply and hopefully pfizer and moderna which are the two big manufacturers now increase supply in the interim the top priority on vaccination was health care workers we're at roswell today you want to have hospital capacity you want to make sure the hospitals don't reach their capacity limit we've seen that in california we've seen that in italy when that happens people die unnecessarily they die because they couldn't get into a hospital um if you ask the hospitals across the state now what is your main capacity issue when you say capacity what do you mean they have the beds and they have the equipment they're worried about staff shortages they're worried about nurse shortages health care professionals shortages staff shortages why because they have staff getting sick so top priority was vaccinate the health care staff right vaccinate the nurses and the doctors so they are healthy and they can provide medical treatment we've remained focused on that priority that was the top priority for the vaccine that was what they called 1a then was supposed to be essential workers then older americans older new yorkers but one a the top priority was always the health care workers we have focused on it i've said to hospitals all across the state numerous times personally in these briefings you have to vaccinate your employees first and it was initially a problem but the focus has worked we were at 63 percent last monday of health care workers vaccinated one week later we're 72 percent so that is a huge improvement 70 to 90 was the range for herd immunity right that was the goal for the vaccine so we wanted health care workers to be above 70 percent and in one week we went up from 63 to 72. so i applaud the hospitals i know we literally said what the percentage of hospitals was across the state i think that got their attention but it made a big difference there is still a variance among hospitals that we have never gotten a good explanation for so while we're above 70 across the state you still have hospitals that are lower and we need the local governments to focus on it there are over 200 hospitals statewide i can't call every hospital and our state department of health can't call every hospital and work out local issues but county governments mayors please you know what hospitals are at what percent congratulate the high performers and ask the people who are at a lower level what help they need to get their percentage up because the variance is too great and there is even if you look at regions within the region you see a variance it's not like you can say well western new york is different than the capital district within the region there's a big difference and again i want the county executives and supervisors and mayors to really focus on this but capital region 85.5 percent at albany medical center down to 72 is the low so it's 85 to 72 in the capital region central new york it's 98 to 65. finger lakes it's 85 to 48 right long island you go from a hundred percent at sios at hospital 97 plainview 251 st catherine 53 saint francis uh why why is uh why does it drop by 50 percent uh mid hudson you go from 93 to 40 right why why is northern duchess hospital saint luke's health alliance hospital what's the differential among these hospitals there are going to be a certain percentage of health care workers who say i don't want to take the vaccine i get that but why within the region do you have such a disparity mohawk valley 89 to 42 new york city 100 linux hill 100 staten island university 99 new york city health and hospital woodhull but new york city health and hospital harlem 37 38 how why we'd like to see everyone as high as possible i understand again there will be a certain percent that refuses fine that's their right but why do some hospitals have 100 and others have half that amount western new york roswell park 88 all high highest number in western new york congratulations again roswell park so 12 percent didn't have it my guess is 12 percent said i don't want to take it but then why do you get the chill children's hospital at 42 percent so uh that's for the local governments but overall we've made great progress the vaccine is scarce so it's important that we're fair in the distribution uh and this is how we distribute it if you look at who's now eligible health care workers are eligible that's what we just talked about essential workers police fire teachers public safety they're eligible and then 65 plus if you look at the numbers healthcare workers are 1.3 million essential workers 1.7 million 65 plus 3.2 so of the eligible population 21 percent from when we get an allocation 21 percent goes to the health care workers 27 percent goes to the essential workers 52 percent goes to 65 plus the way we do that is by giving it to providers who are supposed to be prioritizing that population right the essential workers are being done by city department of health county department of health health care workers are being done by the hospitals fqhcs 65 plus by the pharmacies and the mass distribution sites if the providers don't follow their prioritization then you won't get a fair allocation if the pharmacies use their vaccine for police fire etc then the 65 plus won't get a fair allocation so everybody wants it i want it but it has to be fair and providers please don't schedule an appointment unless you have a specific allocation i'm the former attorney general i said a few weeks ago you're going to see scams on the vaccine you have a high demand for the product will see scam artists and you will see fraud i guarantee it we've already seen it and there are a number of situations that we're looking at if you get an offer that sounds too good to be true 833 vax scam everyone wants it but beware of fraudsters third priority is rebuild the economy first step we need congress to repeal salt it sounds technical people don't understand what it means it was federal law that passed that ended the deductibility of state and local taxes it was the first double taxation in the nation's history federal government taxes the tax that you pay to the county or the city or the state federal government government now taxes what you pay in property taxes so you pay four thousand dollars in property taxes the federal government now taxes that four thousand dollars whereas up until now you deducted that from your federal income they now tax your property tax first time in history they did this three years ago everyone said it was unfair it was partisan it was political it was terrible it costs on average twenty six hundred dollars for new york taxpayers everyone said they would repeal it they now earn a leadership position repeal it uh that will be a big deal for the state of new york second what they call state and local financing the state has a very big deficit if i have a deficit we have to cut if we cut we have to lay off essential workers we don't want to do that in the middle of a pandemic we have a 15 billion dollar cost from the covid crisis that's what washington has to help this state and every state with and that is number two and number three which is part of rebuilding the economy but people don't often think of it this way is public safety especially in our urban areas you want businesses to grow you want people to move in public safety is essential and this is also a national crisis i said months ago i understand the tensions from the community i understand the tensions from the police i have seen the demonstrations we've all seen the demonstrations but we have to work through these tensions because you need public safety you need a relationship of trust and respect between the community and the police and the police in the community trust is a door that swings both ways and we have 500 localities with police departments in this state i said work with your police with your community work through the issues and come up with a plan that your community accepts by april 1. and if not april 1 is when we get we pass the state budget that locality won't be included i understand it's a difficult issue but in life the problems you ignore do not go away those problems mount it's true in an individual's life it's true in a family's life it's true in society some localities have done a great job city of buffalo is doing a great job but they have to have a plan done in 66 days it's a difficult issue i get that it's a difficult issue police have strong feelings i get it protesters and the community have strong feelings i get it i understand the problem what's the solution there has to be a solution because you can't allow the tension between the police and the community to exist right divorce is not an option here one side feels this way the other side feels that way yeah reconcile it or we get a divorce we can't get a divorce because we need public safety so we have to reconcile these feelings and these tensions and we have to get it done quickly because you're not going to rebuild a city if people don't feel safe also gratuitously communities that have elections this year if i'm running for a city position if there's a mayoral election uh this is a topic to discuss what is your plan and your vision to make public safety work in our city but it has to be addressed and it's community by community new york state is ready to go we're anxious to get on with the reopening and the rebuilding and we are poised like no other state in the nation we know how to move we know how to build we know how to get things done and we have demonstrated that and we have great plans that are just already in the works and when the federal government actually starts to move we are going to be the first out-of-the-box building in new york that is better than it has ever been before all across the state and then last point i want to thank the buffalo bills for a really great great season uh it's been many years before since we had the opportunity to watch a game like we watched last night for the afc championship and they really did have a great season a lot of great talent a lot of great young talent with a lot of promise for the future but best of all is the way they played together as a team and the way they supported each other even last night in the game there was a couple of instances where you saw how the team rallied together to protect each other and defend one another and it was beautiful to watch yes we would have liked to have a different outcome but that does not diminish uh the accomplishment that was uh achieved by this team and we thank all of them kim and terry pagula they have been beautiful to work with and they've brought such pride to buffalo coach mcdermott general manager brandon bean we all work together to get fans in the stands safely and i know they appreciated that and 7 000 fans cheered like 70 000 when they were in buffalo but that is the buffalo way right and the buffalo bills what's beautiful about them and beautiful about the relationship between the team and the city the county western new york really the team symbolizes buffalo there is no quit in buffalo there was no quit in jim kelly there's still no quit in jim kelly there's no quit in thurman thomas there's no quit in buffalo tim russet was a beautiful friend of mine passed away too young there's no quit in tim russert that's that's buffalo that's the new that's the buffalo spirit that's the buffalo constitution you know they're not going to back down they're not going to give up and that's the essential quality in life that's what resonates all across the nation about the buffalo bills people have said it all different ways uh mark twain it's not the size of the dog in the fight it's the size of the fight and the dog right winston churchill never give up never give up never give up that's the buffalo bills that's buffalo and it's beautiful to see to the kansas city chiefs mr mahomes congratulations on a good game congratulations on the win not taking anything away from them at all but mr mahomes kansas city we will see you next year and i will wager today that the outcome is going to be different so let's get on with it because we're new york tough smart united disciplined loving let's take a couple of questions and