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WPCNR MONDAY GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO BRIEFING. By John F. Bailey. May 18, 2020:

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced he is corona virus negative this morning, after is televised coronavirus test yesterday. He said he “had a nice sense of relief. It is a peace of mind.” He emphasized this is a good reason to take the test and encouraged everyone nervous (about symptoms) to get a test and 700 locations around the state.

He announced the state was shipping 329,000 testing kits to nursing homes across the state to enable them to test employees twice a week. He has cleared NY labs to handle 35,000 test analyses a week expected from the nursing homes.

He pointed out that if you test an employee on a Monday and test them again in a week they could infect persons for 6 days if the employee contracted the virus the day after they were tested. He noted that nursing homes have been complaining about testing employees twice a week, saying to him, “No other state  requires us to test twice a week.” The Governor said, “It is necessary. You can’t have it both ways.” (There were 106 new deaths from coronavirus in New York State Sunday, the governor reported. Hospitals accounted for 83 deaths; Nursing Homes, 23.)

The governor announced that two experts were going to be analyzing the numbers produced by New York regions around the state. They are Dr. Samir Bhatt, Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London whose College had the most accurate statistical model the state used during the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. The second consultant is Dr. Michael Osterholm,  Director of the  Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota.

Dr. Bhatt commented from London, by telephone.

Governor Cuomo said: “Dr. Osterholm is a nationwide expert in this field and he has agreed to review our data, what we’re doing, what’s happening, and to advise us as to how our progress looks on the numbers. I want to thank him very much. We to have Dr. Samir Bhatt, Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, who has agreed to serve as an advisor to the State of New York. Dr. Bhatt is the senior lecturer in geostatistics at the Imperial College in London. Geostatistics is not my field of endeavor. I never heard of geostatistics before, doctor. That’s why we need you to advise us, Dr. Bhatt, because I know nothing about geostatistics. But Dr. Bhatt is joining us, I want to thank him very much. The Imperial College in London, we have had a number of projection models that were done early on by a number of very prestigious universities.

And we’ve been watching all these projection models since this started. As you know, many of the models were not 100 percent accurate because they couldn’t calculate the effect of the social participation and what people actually did to change the curve. And in a State like New York, what the people did dramatically changed that curve so it affected the projections. But, the Imperial College model, as we’ve been following this for weeks, was the best, most accurate model.”

Governor Cuomo announced judges and staff will return to courthouses in 30 Upstate Counties starting this week.

In remarks on the New York Reopenings in progress, Governor Cuomo said the success of the reopening “is not a political option. The 30 Counties reopening have to monitor the impact with the numbers and new infections:

70% of hospital beds must be available

70% ICU bed per hospital

30 tests per 1,000 residents

30 tracers in place per 100,000 residents

1:1 Infection Rate must not be exceeded

The governor called the reopening guidelines ‘a liberation in that it an exercise in science and math. What we do today determines how we ‘re going to stay there.

During the “Q & A,” the governor said the 3-day moving average on the Guidelines for opening (and staying open) is hard and fast, you can not exceed the 3-day moving average. He also said the Hospitalization rate is a lagging indicator, stressing the more important benchmark which is the new infection rate.

The governor said he encouraged, basketball, hockey and baseball professional leagues to resume and start seasons without fans in the arenas and stands, if they could make it work financially, saying “the state will help you,” without defining “help.”

The Governor said it is popular to say, “I think you should reopen slower. What is behind ‘I think.’ You say I think you should reopen faster. What is behind ‘I think.’ Let’s keep our opinions out of it. Let’s keep it on the numbers.”