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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Still Not Sure When Coronavirus Got To New York; New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Coronavirus On The Retreat In All Parts Of The State; New Hot Spots Emerge As States Loosen Restrictions; President Donald Trump: Task Force To Continue On Indefinitely And Shift Its Focus To Safety And Opening Up Our Country; Study: Counties With Higher Black Populations Account For More Than Half Of All Cases Almost 60 Percent Of Deaths. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 06, 2020 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[12:00:00]

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): --that is exciting. Today is National Nurses Day as you know. Nobody knows better than New Yorkers our nurses really stepped up with our healthcare professionals.

You know, when the pressure is on in our lives, you wind up seeing the best and the worst in people and heroes rise to the occasion. And that's what we saw here in the State of New York. Our frontline health care workers were just extraordinary showing up every day, working impossible hours.

A virus that nobody understood, fear of infection but they just kept rising to the occasion, and that's why New York and the nation just loves all our health care workers, but our nurses especially have done a phenomenal job, and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

And Jetblue had a beautiful idea of a way to say thank you, which is donating round-trip flights to 100,000 medical personnel and nurses to honor their efforts. Isn't that a beautiful thing? 10,000 to New York medical professionals.

Michael Dowling is not eligible for that situation, but other than that, because we need him here in New York. But it's a nice way that Jetblue is saying thank you. And all of us will find our own way to say thank you.

But I'm sure every New Yorker joins me in saying thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of our heart. To all the nurses who are here today, God bless you. And thank you for getting us through this. And thank you for being New York Tough, which is not just tough, but smart and disciplined and unified and loving. God bless you. Questions?

UNIDENITIFIED MALE: --about reopening. So, along the way, you've rubber-stamped some things that you could say make common sense, like golf courses. You know, you were asked about drive-in theaters, you said hey, that might be a good idea.

So, if a business owner right now says, I have a super creative way to do this, I can do it immediately and be safe, you talk about smart New Yorkers, intelligent New Yorkers - do you trust that? And do you move forward with other things a Piecemeal, maybe?

CUOMO: Yes, we have a very detailed reopening plan with very detailed steps. I touch on it in what we just talked about. We look at different regions in the state because there are different situations in different regions, right?

New York City is different than Long Island is different than the Adirondacks are different than Buffalo, New York, and the numbers are just dramatically different. The way we talk about in this nation states are in different places. In this state, regions are in different places. That's how big this state is and how diverse it is?

So, there are specific factual data points that each region has to assess. Is your infection rate going up or is it going down? Are your hospitalizations going up or are your hospitalizations going down? Do you have health care capacity, if God forbid, that infection rate takes off on you?

Do you have the hospital capacity to deal with that? Do you have the ICU beds to deal with it? Do you have the PPE? If yes to those questions, then in that region, working with the local officials, what businesses do we reopen?

And the analysis there is businesses that are most essential and pose the lowest risk should go first. Construction jobs because construction jobs, especially exterior construction jobs, workers are basically socially distanced by the nature of the work and can wear masks, getting their construction industry up and running again.

Manufacturing in a manufacturing setting where you can do social distancing, right? The meat plants are a caution flag. The poultry plants are a caution flag. The agriculture farm upstate is a caution flag. Not manufacturing where you have density and people three feet from each other on a factory line, because that's a problem, but manufacturing where you can socially distance.

And then you can even go business by business. Drive-in theater, where an employer says this is how I'm going to operate it, everybody stays in a car, nobody gets out of a car, you can make those decisions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, pork stores, you could say maybe, a Laundromat, no. Will we get to that point?

CUOMO: You will get to that point. And we have the steps where you go through the data. Because first of all, you want to make sure you have the virus on the retreat, right? You want to make sure you're not still seeing that virus like fire through dry grass.

And we do have the virus on retreat, all across the state. Different levels of retreat in different parts of the state, but it is on retreat in all parts of this state, which is dramatically different than the numbers for the nation, which is worth noting.

[12:05:00] CUOMO: You have states that are opening where you still are on the incline. I think that's a mistake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Governor--

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With regard to spike in homeless population here in New York City, do you think by cutting the advantage program, bear some responsibility for New York City's spike in homeless population right now?

CUOMO: No, we've increased funding for homeless all across the board. Local governments then decide what the best programs are for that locality. It's different in Nassau, different in Suffolk, different in New York City. But we've increased funding dramatically, exponentially.

And so it's not just a question of funding, it's how you use that funding? And I've worked on the homeless issue since I was in my 20s. First I ran a not for profit. I was the largest not-for-profit provider for homeless families in the United States. Then I went to the Federal Government. I worked on homeless programs all across the country.

I've been in more homeless shelters, homeless programs than probably any other elected official. So, it's not just money. It's you have to know what you're doing and you have to have a program that makes sense.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Governor--

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: The Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, giving his daily Coronavirus briefing in Manhasset today. The Governor has been moving around the state as he begins to explain his criteria for reopening the state.

The Pause New York order is in effect until May 15th, the Governor outlining the metrics to reopen after that, but he also said, few moments before we dropped out there, he thinks it's a mistake that other states around the country are reopening even as their case counts and death counts from Coronavirus continue to climb.

These briefings now much more about the reopening metrics, the Governor presenting himself as a voice of caution, not just in his state, but he understands the national platform he has for these briefings at a time the President is nudging states, pushing states to reopen, even states that do not meet the President's own reopening guidelines.

Just moments ago on Capitol Hill, a John Hopkins Scholar telling a House Committee that no state has met every letter, every step of the President's reopening, and yet, states are reopening. Let's discuss the challenges ahead, including what we just heard from the Governor of New York.

With me is Dan Balz he is Chief Political Correspondent for "The Washington Post" and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, the Congressional Editor for "The New York Times." Dan, to you first. It has been fascinating to watch this early on these briefings were "ER." I need masks I need ventilators I need help. Now the Governor, understanding his national platform, is trying to outline, A, why his state, hit the hardest, is going slowly, as it approaches the reopening.

But the contrast he continues to draw, both on the question of reopening and then how he views the leadership challenge, bringing Eric Schmidt, the Former CEO of Google in there. We have not seen steps like that at the White House.

Instead, we read in "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" today, the President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is increasingly involved in vaccines, involved in the supply chain. These two men from the same state are so very different and the country is getting to watch it play out.

DAN BALZ, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: It's so fascinating, John, to watch the two of them. Obviously, I think they watch each other. They've known each other a long time. There's certainly been tension in that relationship, and we've seen it play out.

Governor Cuomo has a platform. This crisis has given him a platform, in part because the terrible hit that New York has taken with this virus, but he has used this platform to try to project a style of leadership that is in contrast to that of President Trump.

And I think day by day, week by week, we've seen people drawn to both of those sets of briefings and the contrast they've done. And right now, because President Trump is trying to get the country reopened, understandably, there's concern of people who are suffering economically and a desire to move forward.

But the Governor of New York is moving more slowly. And I think one of the things we see, and we saw it in a poll we had this week, is that the public is quite cautious about reopening.

KING: Quite cautious and also you see in all of the polling they tend to trust their Governors more than they trust the President of the United States right now. And Julie, again, as I've been going through these briefings for the last couple months going through these briefings and you compare and contrast, Governor Cuomo comes in.

At first it was about how many people are in the hospital? How many people need ventilators? How many people are being intubated? Now thankfully the New York numbers are getting better, although he does focus on that stubborn the consistent, the daily cases that come forth.

But he comes in, he has his slides and he goes through the data, the metrics. If you're going to reopen, how I would turn off the valve? You watch a White House briefing and we're seeing fewer of them now because a lot of Republicans told the President, you're hurting yourself here, sir.

He talks about Hydroxychloroquine or can we find some way to ingest disinfectants. The way these two go about presenting facts or their case are so different.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CONGRESSIONAL EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: It's so different. And I mean one of the things you see when you hear Governor Cuomo just in his briefing just now and in past briefings recently is he's really trying to strike that balance between acknowledging that people do want to reopen, that they do want to know what the path might look like to doing that.

[12:10:00]

DAVIS: But also, you know, bringing into play all of these health considerations and the fact that data is very still very concerning. But the other thing that he came back to again and again, that is such a contrast with President Trump, is he kept on saying, you know, this virus doesn't discriminate, Republican and Democrat.

This is not a partisan thing this is not a political thing. That is in direct contrast to what we hear from President Trump, who you know, repeatedly goes after Democrats in his briefings. He treats questions about testing and vaccine development and short-comings potentially in the administration's response as partisan questions that are meant to undercut him politically and otherwise.

And so, you don't really get to the discussion of the data and the actual scientific facts that the government needs to grapple with in order to figure out how to move forward here.

KING: Right. And critics of the Governor may say he's repetitive, but he comes out every day, he presents largely the same set of facts and then the same challenges, and then he gives his daily intake, his daily view, perspective of what it should be.

What we get, Dan, on the other side - and some of this, the President has a different job - I mean, the Governor of one state, so you have to give some grace into changing positions. But just in the last 24 hours.

Yesterday, the Vice President of the United States says the Coronavirus Task Force will be likely winding down its work by Memorial Day. The administration sees it shift on to other challenges. Yes, the President will still get expert advice, but we don't need this task force anymore.

The President on Twitter this morning saying the task force will stay in place probably indefinitely, even though there will be some additions and subtractions in the key players and the focus will shift more to safety and roping and then to therapeutics and vaccines.

The mixed messaging, often contradictory messaging, is one of the trademarks of this White House right now.

BALZ: And I think that's been one of the problems, and it's one of the reasons that you see that the President has lower ratings in terms of how he has responded to this crisis than with the Governors. The reality I think is that there is going to need to be some kind of task force ongoing for a very long time. Perhaps some of the emphasis needs to change, and that may be right and proper, but the idea that in one way or another the task force would go away or would completely shift its focus. I mean, everything we know from the scientists is that we're far from eradicating this virus that a second wave is quite possible and if not even likely.

And that as we go forward with a reopening state by state, we're going to get a good test, and the Federal Government has to be on top of this. Now, obviously, vaccine is one area where the Federal Government can do things that the states can't do in terms of kind of marshaling the operation.

But they have a lot of work to do and the task force is going to have to continue to report to the American people as a whole. Governors can do it, as you say, state by state, but only the Federal Government can talk to the nation as a whole, and they're going to have to do that.

KING: And Julie, again, one of the things that strike you in the contrast between the two and how they will go about their business? We know the President is very insular. We know the President doesn't trust the institutions of his own government, let alone people outside of his inner circle.

So again, fascinating stories, both in the "Post" and the "Times" today, about how Jared Kushner has been called in to help with the Coronavirus Task Force work. You see the Governor of New York. One day he has the Former Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, taking charge, using his philanthropy to build this contact tracing army in New York.

Today the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt wants to come in. How do we use technology to improve Telehealth, to improve education, to get broadband into rural areas? This President is insular. Governor Cuomo seems to be saying, you know what, I'm doing the best I can, but I could use some smart help. Who are the best minds?

DAVIS: Right. I mean, you see him pulling back the lens and trying to reach outside of government for the best possible solutions to what is really much more than a public health, just a public health problem.

You see the President, on the other hand, turning inward. And one of the reasons why, and I think part of the reason that we're seeing contradictory statements and plans on what to do about the task force, is that I think that the President has felt that having the experts inside of his government out there and talking publicly about this is undercutting his message, and that's the last thing he wants to do.

So you see him trying to find ways of narrowing the focus back to him, back to what he wants to do, back to the idea of reopening, even in, you know, in the presence of these figures that show that reopening could carry risks and it does carry risks.

His answer to that is to refocus on loyalists and that people who will be consistent with his message. But I think that there is some significant risk that comes with that. If they don't end up having a practical solution, that is going to look like a very short-sighted approach. KING: Right and it will be ten days, two weeks from now, as Georgia reopens, Texas reopens and other states start to reopen.

[12:15:00]

KING: We will see the data in ten days, two weeks, about whether the cases start to spike or not, then we'll know whether the President's reopen gusto is worthy or whether Dr. Fauci's caution is better, and then include the Governor of New York. Dan and Julie I appreciate you coming in to analyze this moment.

And as we go to break now, a historic moment in New York City last night, for the first time in 115 years, the subway system shut down, the entire transit system so that the city workers could give it a deep clean 472 subway stations disinfected by 700-plus cleaners in an operation that also involved 1,000 NYPD officers.

The extraordinary measures also include clearing out some of the homeless who live in the subway system, 252 of them, on night one. We'll be right back.

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KING: The medical examiner's office in Chicago now searching for overlooked Coronavirus cases to find out if the virus was spreading earlier than anyone realized. Cook County's death toll is among the top five in the nation with more than 1,900 lives lost.

[12:20:00]

KING: The County now plans to review heart attack and pneumonia- related deaths for indications of COVID-19. CNN's Omar Jimenez is in Chicago. Omar, how far are they looking back, and why is this coming up now?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, officials here tell me they had noticed other places start to move in this direction, so they decided it was time to do the same. This also comes as the World Health Organization is urging countries to investigate some of those early Coronavirus cases.

But specifically here, the County Medical Examiner's Office is going to be looking back at cases as early as November. They're going to be specifically looking at deaths involving viral pneumonia and heart attacks that weren't brought on as a result of heart failure.

And let's say they find a Coronavirus-positive case from back in November. That would prompt them to then look back even further. And to give you an idea of the timeline that we are working with right now, it was back on January 24th that we saw the first confirmed case of Coronavirus here in the City of Chicago, the second in the entire country at the time.

Obviously, since then, we have seen the number of confirmed cases grow by the tens of thousands in this county, and as of just a few moments ago, just crossed the 2,000-death threshold here in this county. And the goal is obviously to find if this virus was spreading before we knew it was. And the County Medical Examiner's Office tells me this is only going to be a handful of cases that they're looking at. And they could go through this entire process and find the first case confirmed was exactly when they thought it was.

But the implications of that not being the case could change the entire way this virus has been studied. And when I asked him how long this could potentially take, they said it would take about a month, but that it also depends on the unprecedented caseload they currently have in front of them, John.

KING: All right. About a month, Omar, when you get some of those findings, even if they're preliminary, please come back, share that with us. Omar Jimenez in Chicago I really appreciate that reporting there. Let's follow up.

A new report shows that many black Americans may be at an elevated risk for Coronavirus illness and death. Census Bureau data tell us the country is about 13 percent African-American, but this study shows counties with higher black populations account for 52 percent of all Coronavirus cases and 58 percent of deaths.

97 percent of counties with a higher black population saw at least one case of Coronavirus. With me is Greg Millet, Vice President and Director of Public Policy at AMFAR the Foundation for AIDS Research. Thanks for being with us today, sir.

One of the findings I saw interesting was when this first came up and we begin to see the numbers telling us COVID-19 is disproportionately hitting African-Americans, we were looking at places like New York, like Chicago, like Detroit, places, and we thought, oh, urban density. But you're finding it stretches out to rural counties as well.

GREG MILLET, VICE PRESIDENT & DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AT AMFAR (FOUNDATION FOR AIDS RESEARCH): Yes. Thanks for having me, John. And I just want to say very quickly that this was a study that was done with multiple institutions, including AMFAR and several universities. And we're very happy to have the findings come out.

But what we did find was that COVID-19 diagnoses as well as deaths were not only confined to large urban areas. We also saw in small metro communities as well as rural communities exactly the same pattern, that disproportionately black counties were more likely to have higher COVID-19 cases as well as deaths.

KING: I want to play out this timeline, as this is a development. And you can roll it in the control room now. Just as we watch COVID spread across America, you'll see the orange counties as they come in on your map

To the left are cases and to the right are deaths. And you see the orange counties come out of it, a lot of them in the south. Those are counties with a significant African-American or black population. Greg, take us through why this matters and what it tells you? MILLET: Thanks. Well, why this matters is because we can actually see the degree to which many of these communities are impacted by COVID- 19. And specifically, when these data were collected it was April 13th. These data were collected fairly early when we're taking a look at this pandemic, and we already saw disproportionate impact in disproportionately black communities.

And why all of this is important is because we know that the data that we're seeing are actually undercounts of COVID-19 cases in disproportionately black communities. Black communities are less likely to be targeted for testing. They're more likely to be COVID positive.

So, the fact that we're seeing these data pop like this, with higher COVID cases and deaths in disproportionately black counties, means that what we're actually estimating is probably higher than what we're seeing.

KING: And so, allaying your concerns, particularly about testing. I'm going to bring you back months from now when we know more to talk about the economic disparities, the health care disparities, the other disparities that you think are the root cause of this.

But in the here and now, you saw those counties filling in, a lot of them across the southeast where the states are moving ahead with their reopening plans. What is your concern now, knowing the numbers as you know them now, even if you think they're underrepresented, as people are told time to go back to work?

[12:25:00]

MILLET: Thank you, John. I think that's part of the reason why my colleagues and I felt strongly about releasing these results right now, before it was done, the peer review, at the journal that we have. We're very clear that as many of these states, half of the U.S. starts to reopen and to move forward, that we're going to see black communities at disproportionate risk for COVID-19 cases as well as deaths.

And we were hoping by releasing our study results early that it could help give some of these states pause so that they could understand that there is going to be disproportionate impact. There is likely going to be an increase in cases as well as deaths in disproportionate counties.

And one thing that we're doing at AMFAR is we will be tracking all of the disproportionately black counties, particularly in states that are aggressively reopening, such as Georgia, Tennessee, and others, just to see whether or not we see a bump in COVID-19 cases as well as deaths within the next few weeks.

KING: Greg Millett, appreciate your time today and please come back as you get that follow-up data. As you go through this come back and share it with us. We'd be glad to talk about it.

MILLET: Thank you for having me. KING: Thank you, sir. Coming up for us, the health scare that has the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg working from her hospital bed today.

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