seen these, to raise money earlier this month after getting a partial hip replacement. >> so great. moore was a captain during his military career and was just promoted to honorary colonel for his efforts. he also received more than 125,000 birthday cards from people around the world and a special honor from prime minister boris johnson. thanks for joining us today. i'm poppy harlow. >> and i'm jim sciutto. "newsroom" with john king starts right now. hello to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john king in washington. this is cnn's continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. europe still very much in the grip of this pandemic, that from the world health organization. it cautions against relaxing restrictions too soon. there's more ugly economic data out today around the world showing the depth of the coronavirus downturn.

contractions in europe and france, showing connectivity down around the world. 30 million americans filed for unemployment. the president on his twitter feed saying his focus not on lost jobs, but instead of polls, james comey and michael flynn. the social distancing guidelines expire today, meaning around the world social distancing becomes an experiment. take a look at state-by-state basis results.according to john hopkins data, russia trending down soon. california closing all beaches to keep the trend moving in the

right direction. more cases in other states, including texas, the center of a push right now. the deaths in the last month is simply horrifying. 4,000 deaths on the 1st of april. 61,000 deaths this morning, the final day of the month. the president said yesterday, quote, we want it to be the way it was. most scientists, though, say that is wishful thinking, a dream, until there is a vaccine. treatment, though, perhaps on a better trajectory. the nation's top expert, dr. anthony fauci, says there is now, quote, clearcut evidence that an ebola drug reduces coronavirus death. >> the improvement was 31% better chance of recovering and getting out of the hospital. that's important, but it's the first step in what we project will be better and better drugs coming along. this is not the total answer by any means, but it's a very important first step. >> let's go straight to cdc

medical correspondent elizabeth cohen in atlanta. a clearcut effect, dr. fauci says. tell us about the data. >> reporter: the data is very interesting because it points to an advantage to taking this drug, but i want to be clear this is not a blockbuster drug for coronavirus by any means. let's take a look at what this drug is since it's hardly a household name. it's called remdesivir. it was developed for ebola but it didn't really work very well for ebola and it kind of sat on the shelves. it's never actually been on the market. still, as we speak, not on the market for any particular illness. they were given permission to use it experimentally for coronavirus. this is a study that was sponsored by the nih and had over a thousand patients in various countries including the u.s. when people took a placebo, it took them 15 days to recover. when people took recommend did he say -- remdesivir, it took them 11 days to recover.

but there is a fear that people will hear about this drug and say, there is a cure, we don't need to social distance. that's not true. it cut the hospital stays by four days, and it proves it works, but we haven't seen remdesivir save lives yet. people are still taking this drug and dying. that's still happening. so we need to keep that in mind as we talk more about this drug. john? >> very, very important context. elizabeth, also some news about a vaccine timeline today. what can you tell us about that? >> rig >> reporter: right, so anthony fauci has been talking about a timeline of 12 to 18 months ever since january. i remember talking to him at the time and he was saying we're moving full speed ahead. this is just a catchy name for what anthony fauci said back in january. they are hoping they can have a vaccine for all americans by the end of the year. he said 12 to 18 months in january, so that puts us at the sort of earlier end of that takg

dr. fauci said recently. >> we're in the early phases of a trial, phase 1. when you go into the next phase, we're going to safely and carefully, but as quickly as we possibly can, try and get an answer as to whether it works and is safe. and if so, we're going to start ramping up production with the companies involved, and you do that at risk. >> reporter: what he means "at risk," you start ramping up production of several vaccines now or very soon, some of them won't work, so there's a chance you'll spend money on products that don't work, but hopefully you have products that do work on time. john? >> elizabeth cohen, appreciate that there. for more on this medical conversation i want to bring in dr. cyrus shapar. he's a former official at the cdc. let's start there with dr. fauci saying let's be ready to ramp up production just in case. if they work, we'll have them to

distribute. if they don't, we'll throw them away. and the timeline. given your experience at the cdc, does that sound reasonable or overly optimistic? >> i think the timeline is optimistic. we've never created a vaccine in 12 to 18 months, but this is an unprecedented situation, so we have to try to do everything as fast as possible and also get ready for distribution. once we know something works, we really need to get it in the hands of everyone, so that work needs to start now. >> you have been big. i wrote something you wrote the other day pushing for way, way more testing. list ten to the president of th united states and tell me if you agree or disagree. >> we've done incredible with the testing, and you might see over the next coming weeks some astonishing numbers. i don't know if that you will of that is even necessary. >> the administration says they're ramping up. the president says it may not even be necessary. what do you say? >> no, we definitely think it's necessary. we do need to ramp up from where

we are now. at minimum, double to triple the number of tests in order to test the priority groups, people who need to be tested, symptomatic health care workers, people living in nursing homes, first responders who have symptoms. to do all that testing just to get eyes on the virus. we need massive testing. >> i want to show you the data as we go through the state-by-state reopening experiment. i think it's critical we talk to people like yourself. if you lean forward, you'll see the rate of transmission. if it's below 1, that means a person who has the coronavirus is not passing it on to at least one other person. greater transmission from one person below. so texas and ohio, they're all now below people with coronavirus passing it on to one person. if you look, especially in texas and georgia and ohio there, it dropped down and flattened. if you're a governor in the state, what is your goal to keeping the transmission below

1? >> it's definitely getting it below 1 and keeping it below 1. not every estimate people use is the same, just like the models. for instance, in new york city in mid-april, one model said that number was 1 to 1.1. another one said it was .8. you would make very different decisions based on those two numbers for the same place at the same time. i think that type of now casting or using those figures to make decisions, it's early in the evolution of that. it can be used to help inform, but we shouldn't be making decisions on that information alone. >> but if you see it starting to go up as states reopen, that would be a warning sign, correct? >> that would be a warning sign, yes. we're closely watching that. i think we're going to look to different states with different approaches to see what are the impacts of kind of pulling back on some of the measures. >> dr. shahpar, really appreciate your incites. for more on this, dr. anthony fauci and bill gates john dr. sanjay gupta and anderson cooper

live tonight for a new cnn global town hall "coronavirus facts and fears." that's at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. 4 million americans filing for unemployment last week. christine romans is in new york. christine, what do we take from this ouch pain? >> april was probably the worst month in the american economy than we've ever had. main street is living through six punishing weeks here. the rate of new jobless claims is slowing, but slowing from these astronomical levels. 30 million people. that's one h-fifth of the labor market has filed for unemployment in the last six weeks or so. there are parts of the country that are really, really getting hit hard. hawaii, for example, 29% of its labor force has filed for jobless benefits in just the past six weeks. that's remarkable. it's a tourism-based economy, of course, but you've got all those

people out of work there. other big states with a percentage of their labor market completely sidelined. kentucky, georgia, remarkable numbers. each of these people probably have bills to pay tomorrow. the government has said they'll give extra money for jobless benefits, but as you know, the states have been quite uneven with how they've distributed those benefits. some looking to certain states to very slowly start to reopen and they haven't even received their first unemployment check yet, john. >> such an important point you make when we show these graphs and you look at the numbers on the right of your screen. each one of these numbers is a person who lost their job, has coronavirus, lost their life. christine romans, more on this topic later. thank you very much. some rare public pushback this hour from the intelligence community. that to a "new york times" story. the times reporting that trump's officials are prodding agencies to try to find evidence of an uncorroborated conclusion, that

the coronavirus originated in a lab in wuhan, china. jim sciutto joins me now. jim, it's unusual to see this put out in public. why? >> look at the "new york times" story for a moment and look at this statement and what it says that the intelligence community is doing now on the origin of this virus. it presents the theories here as an either/or. it says while the intelligence community has eliminated the idea that this was a manmade virus, it says the two choices in effect are that this came from animals, which is the scientific consensus, or that it escaped from a weapons lab, a chinese bio weapons lab, which is located in wuhan. on what basis? is there intelligence to back up that theory? i'll tell you, in years of covering the intelligence agencies, i haven't seen, and i'm not aware, of a public

comment putting out there in the public sphere an as-yet unproven theory. i'll tell you as a comparison, when the intelligence community made its public assessment in october 2016 that russia was interfering in that election, that public statement followed a high confidence assessment that russia was interfering in the election. you know, you didn't have odni at this point saying this is something we're going to check out. they did an assessment, had intelligence to back it up and made a rare public statement. what's rare about this is they're putting out a theory there, and they're not preventing evidence they have backed up that theory. when you connect that with the president repeatedly placing blame on china and raising this possibility, it raises questions about political influence to intelligence. >> it does, alex, in the context we know that the president from day one has been distrustful of the intelligence community. he has churned through people at these agencies including the

director of national intelligence, the to want perp . the current person is rick grinnell, who is acting, with less intelligence experience. if you read it it says we're looking at a and b, but to jim's point, they put something on the table that's just uncorroborated at this point. >> that's right, john, and we have to look at it in that context. this is not just a statement that is coming from the intelligence community. this is coming, as you say, from the director of national intelligence. rick grinnell really an outlyer when it comes to directors of intelligence, someone with no prior intelligence experiment, no prior national security intelligence experiment. you remember dan coats, who had both of those, was pushed out last summer. he was preceded by acting

director in place and then grinnell was given the job in february. when we talk about the politicization of intelligence, it makes sense that this kind of statement is coming from the intelligence community. it makes sense that the white house and the national security apparatus feels like they can ask this of the intelligence community, that they can ask them to look into a theory that really has not been substantiated. as jim says, it's remarkable that you now have the i.c. putting out a statement about a theory that really hasn't been so solidified. they don't have an assessment. they don't have a smoking gun. the only thing they're saying with certainty is that the virus originated in china and that it was not genetically modified. so this statement is not only in response to that "new york times" reporting but also in

response to all of us asking about, you know, the actual origins of this because you have people like mike pompeo and others in the administration who are pushing this theory that the virus originated in a lab, not in the market, seemingly to be able to assign china as a scapegoat for political reasons. john? >> you know this as well as me just kept going back to the iraq war. the intelligence agencies went through years of new processes and analysis following the misread of intelligence on iraq's methods of destruction to prevent political structure of those influences moving forward. if it is political influence here, that raises questions all those years of solving that problem in 2003. >> to button it up, it is terrible in a time of pandemic

that you have to question just about every statement that comes out of the administration given their history, but question them we must. up next for us, businesses in texas struggling with reopening under a strict new set of rules. like transform into an air fryer. the ninja foodi grill, the grill that sears, sizzles, and air fry crisps. (baby sounds and cooing (notification chime) (keyboard clicking)

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trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. so you can... retire better. today is the last day of april, meaning the end of the federal government's social distancing guidelines. it is a state-by-state call as of tomorrow. these five states, their stay-at-home orders expire today. but look at those trend lines. they're not all on a consistent downward slope. now see where you fit on this map. there are 20 states that will be relaxing at least some restrictions starting tomorrow. some are opening restaurants for dine-in service. others restart of landscape

service or state parks. they are relaxing some regulations on things like curbside pickups and outdoor activities. the order from the texas governor greg abbott says restaurants and movie theaters can open tomorrow with attendness restrictions. ed lavandera is in texas now. what are you hearing now, happy to open or afraid to open? >> reporter: we've been talking to business owners the last few days as businesses get ready to open in texas. it's easy for the president to stand at the podium and talk about how important it is to reopen the economy, they like the headlines, but it is the people down here on the ground that are really facing the brunt of these decisions.

i can tell you of all the different types of business owners we've talked to, it is a stressful decision as they try to figure out to do what is best. they are juggling the economic consequences with the health and safety consequences of all of this. take this restaurant, for example. beto & sons in a trendy area of trinity groves just west of downtown dallas. we spoke to the owners of this restaurant. they've put x's on the ground where they want their wait staff to stand. they've separated all the tables. they're limiting the area to just outdoor seating on the patio. they're training their staff on how to interact with customers as they prepare to start taking in customers tomorrow. they say that having done all of this at just operating at 25% of capacity, they're still nervous that they could go out of business in months. >> it's been extremely stressful. we're not going to make a dime out of this at all. it's 25% of the revenue, 100% of the cost. we are doing it for our family

to make sure they're taken care of and just hoping to make it on the day by day. >> reporter: john, so every business owner is different. here at this restaurant the economic impact on their employees was really the driving force to convince them to reopen, but there are other restaurants and owners and business owners that say it's still too soon and not worth the danger of all of this. but you really see the struggle that everyone is grappling with as they try to figure out what to do what is best in this really confusing and dangerous time. john? >> it's confusing and dangerous. well put. ed lavandera on the ground there in dallas. we appreciate that firsthand reporting. nevada is taking a more measured approach, the governor extending his stay-at-home order until mid-may, but tomorrow some restrictions will be relaxed. what is the reaction there? i know people want to reopen,

but the governor says, no, we're going to take our time. >> reporter: the people i'm talking to, john, are the people who work here, the workers. i want to widen out the shot and give you a good look at where i am. i am standing on the las vegas strip. i could do cartwheels down here, because it is completely empty. there are no cars. something you would never have imagined even just a month ago. and over here, if you walk with me, no one is here. the entire las vegas strip is shut down. anyone who would be a tourist who would normally fill these sidewalks, they are gone, and what the workers tell me is when they see all this, something like this, the belagio fountains shut off, no music, no commerce, the casinos, hotels shut down. it is eerie. what they hear here is a lack of money. they have no jobs. according to an economist we've

spoken to is already locally at 25%. they believe that is actually higher, and that has meant food lines and middle class workers struggling. >> i never see myself to do this before. i never see myself to do this before, but what can you do? i said before, i'm not going to go over there because maybe there is somebody else that needs that, and then now i have to do it. i haven't gotten any unemployment. >> reporter: so you can hear in her voice there, she's afraid, and that's what we're hearing from workers. yeah, they want to go back to work but they're also worried about their health and safety. the governor saying it's going to be phase 3 or phase 4 before any of this comes back to life. what he is expected to announce later today, john, is that some curbside retail will begin to open up, but the stay-at-home order extending until middle of may. john? >> kyung lah, fan tafrk

reportirepor -- fantastic reporting there on the strip. if you have the resources to give to a food bank, this is the time to do it. coming up for us, president trump erupts at his campaign manager over coronavirus criticism and his drop in poll numbers. we customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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any moment now, the governor of new york, andy cuomo, scheduled to give his daily coronavirus briefing. we'll take you there live when it happens. today is the last day of april, the month the president predicted the coronavirus would disappear and the numbers would turn to zero. the numbers on your screen tell us just how wrong the predictions were, the death toll in the united states now climbing past 60,000. the president's morning tweets, as always, tell us what's most important to him each day. here it is today as we close this painful month. the polls show him losing to joe biden are fake, and they mistreated michael flynn and james comey. never mind that one was

convicted in a jury trial. brand new cnn reporting details a shouting at his campaign manager, blaming him for that bad polling data. and in an interview with reuters, the conspiracy-minded president says china will do anything they can to hurt his chances. the president lashing out to you in a tweet. you were the first to report this. it's shown up in other reports as well. this is how we know it's true. the president tweets that it's not. saying cnn falsely reported a shoutout at his campaign manager. he did shout to his campaign manager who then made a trip from his home in florida to try to mend fences. tell us what happened. >> reporter: that's right, his campaign manager had been trying

to work from home in florida for the past month, but clearly after this outburst for his sliding position in it is pothe and also threatening to sue him, although it's not clear how serious the president was with that threat or what he would sue his campaign manager over particularly bad polls. but it did prompt him to come to washington a couple days ago and actually meet with the president. i'm told he spent several hours at the white house. they actually patched things up, i'm told, friday night after that angry phone call. i'm told the president actually called parscale back -- >> i'm sorry, i have to interrupt the conversation. governor andrew cuomo in albany. >> to my left, chairman of the mta. dr. howard zucker you know. commissioner of the department of health, to my left, the secretary to the governor. to her left, robert mojica who

wears a second hat today because he's also a member of the mta board. he doesn't really wear a second hat. that was metaphorical. what day is today? when i was at the department of housing and urban development, i would sometimes say, what is the date? i worked with a great fellow, who was a catholic priest, father joe hakela. he would say, today is another day to do better, with this warm smile. he passed away, father hakela. i have his picture in my room, and i was thinking about him last night. today is another day to do better. it's another day to improve, it's another day to be better, to make life better, to be better at helping people. today is another day, another opportunity god gave us. hospitalizations are down.

good news. a net change in total hospitalizations down. good news. a net change in intubations down. good news. new covid cases, slightly down. 933 but still unacceptable. but down from where it was. number of lives lost, still terrible. 306. an optimist would say the numbers are on the decline. a realist would say that's a tremendous amount of pain and grief for hundreds and hundreds of new yorkers who lost a loved one. the big question everyone is asking, reopening. when? how? where? i said from day one on this situation, we have to be smart. we're at a place we've never been before.

emotions run high. be smart, follow numbers, follow data, talk to experts. don't get political even in this election year, even at this partisan time in this country where everything is political and everything is polarized. not now. and respond to facts and data and experts, not to emotion, which also runs very high right now. if we do this right, it is a science reopening. it's not a political exercise, it is a science. it can be based on numbers and data. and that is true. everybody wants to reopen. the caveat is reopen but don't reopen in a way that increases the spread of the virus, doesn't

increase the rate of the spread of the virus. how do you know that? you can test. you can get numbers. test. get a sample and see what's happening. you know that if the rate of transmission goes over 1.1, you are in an outbreak, you're in an epidemic, so you don't have to guess. it's not what it feels like. get the numbers. do the testing, get the numbers, rely on the numbers. the second fact you have to deal with as a science in this formula, do you have the hospital capacity available if that rate of infection increases? don't go above 70% capacity, so you have a 30% buffer, so we don't wind up in the same mad scramble we were in last time. make sure you have icu beds with a 30% capacity and make sure you have enough equipment. we're not going to go through who has a mask, who has a gown,

who knows someone in china. let's have at least a 30-day supply of stockpiled equipment. ventilators, masks, gowns, gloves, et cetera. they are facts, there is science, there is data. what's testing? test, trace and isolate. that remains the key to controlling the rate of infection. the testing is how you monitor the rate of infection. what's happening to the rate as you increase the economy, the economic activity? we'll take a test and we'll test enough people so we have enough data to make a decision. we're increasing the number of tests. it's hard, nobody has done it on this scale before, there's been a lot of back and forth. met with the federal government, met with the president.

we have now a partnership in how to do testing. we're ramping up testing. we're moving very quickly in this state. we do more tests in this state than any other state in the united states. we do more testing in this state than any country on the globe per capita, so we're doing it well, we're doing it aggressively. we've increased from about 20,000 tests to about 30,000 tests per day, and we're still ramping up, and that's good. more to do on testing and more to talk about on testing but not today. today we're going to talk about tracing, which is the second step after testing, right? you test, you now know what's happening on the infection rate, you can gauge your decisions based on that infection rate. second step is trace those people who came up positive, all right? you tested, you have the data, you can adjust the opening valve, reopening valve. now you trace.

when you get a positive, you talk to that person and trace back who they have been in contact with. you then test those people. you then isolate those people so you don't increase the rate of infection. that's what tracing is. the faster you trace the better. you want to test right away, you think you have symptoms, you think you're exposed, come and get a test, do it today. once you get that test results, you have data on what's happening with the infection spread. you then right away, as quickly as you can, trace that person. who have they met with, who have they been in close contact with over the past 14 days, and you then contact those people and say you may have been in contact

with dan, dan tested positive, you should check your symptoms. if you develop any symptoms, let me know right away, and we'll bring you in to take a test. that is tracing. the problem is, it's not rocket science to do it on an individual basis. the problem is the scale that we have to do this at. yesterday we tested 4,681 people who were positive. yesterday 4,681 people were positive. how do you now communicate with 4,681 people, trace back all the people they've been in contact with over the past 14 days, close contact, and contact those people? that is an overwhelming scale to

an operation that has never existed before. we do tracing now, but on a very limited basis. that's why this is so hard, tracing. in and of itself, one person, it's easy. 4,681 on one day, today, will have another 4,681 people. so just think of the scale of the operation. last week we announced that michael bloomberg would lead the first ever testing tracing isolation program. figure out how many people, how to train them, what technology, how do we do this. and it's of a scale never been done before and, by the way, we need it tomorrow. there is no time to go get a university to do a study and a blueprint and then put a plan

together. we need it tomorrow because we're literally doing it right now. we're doing the testing. we're coming to scale on the testing. you need the tracing to come up to scale to meet what we're doing on testing. the estimate so far is you need 30 contact tracers for every 100,000 people who are in the affected area. statewide that would be about 6,400 to 70,000 tracers depending on what happens on the testing rate. the more people who test positive, the more tracers. the less people who test positive, the less tracers you need. so these things are all linked, right? the better you do on reducing the spread of the virus, the fewer people you test positive, and the fewer people you need to trace back. but it will require, under any

estimate, a tracing army to come up to scale very, very quickly. and mayor bloomberg has put together a great team who is going to work on this. he has great talent in his bloomberg philanthropy. johns hopkins university working together with the new york state department of health. this is that undertaking, and it is massive, and that's why bringing in a person with the talent of mayor bloomberg and the experience of mayor bloomberg to do this is essential. where do you get the army? we have department of health employees all across the state, counties have them, cities have them, the state has them. we'll martial those employees. you also have a lot of government employees who are at home now getting paid but are not working. what government employees who are now existing, city, state, county, can we deploy to become

tracers? and then train them, et cetera. after you go through all of that, if you don't have enough, you're going to have to hire people. then you have to train them right away, because nobody has done this before. they're going to need help, they're going to need technology, they're going to need monitoring, they're going to have to be tested before they can do this, so it's a massive undertaking, and that's why mayor bloomberg's involvement and his generosity here is so important, and we want to offer a big thank you to mayor mike bloomberg, who i believe may be joining us by telephone for some technological needs. there he is. how are you, mayor mike? >> i'm here. governor, i'm fine. and it's good to see you, and i want to thank you for all your good work getting this state through this crisis, and to deliver facts and data to the public and also a sense of hope,

which really is important. i know your daily press conferences have become must-see tv for a lot of people, and for the record, i thought your advice to fathers on what to say about a daughter's boyfriend was exactly right the other day. anyway way, the question on everybody's mind continues to be, how can we begin to loosen these restrictions and begin reopening the economy? and one of the most important steps we have to take to reopen the economy as safely as possible is to create a system of contact tracing, as you just outlined. when social distancing is relaxed, contact tracing is our best hope for isolating the virus when it appears and keeping it isolated. the governor has recognized that, and since bloomberg philanthropies has deep experience and expertise in public health, we're glad to support the state in developing and implementing a contact

tracing program. as andrew said, the contact tracing is a way to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus but don't know it. and doing that requires a lot of well-trained people who are coordinated and managed effectively. it is a very big undertaking just because of the scale, so we've enlisted the best public health school in the world at johns hopkins university. no offense, but it's named the bloomberg school of public health, which our foundation works very closely with on public health and other issues. and we've also teamed up with the non-profit organizations vit vital strategies and saving lives. we are d pl

deploying a small army of new york workers is really the big challenge. to recruit contact tracers, we brought in a staffing organization, and we're also teamed up with cuny and suny, both which will help identify job applicants, and i want to thank them for joining us. johns hopkins has developed a training class which can be taken remotely. it will cover all the basic information of epidemics, contact tracing and privacy. there's also a test at the end of the training which you have to pass in order to be hired. so we're not going to put up people there that don't know what they're doing. we'll also put technology to use in other ways. vital strategies is developing three new smartphone apps. the first will help contact tracers find information and data quickly. the second will help the public provide information to health departments, and the third will allow those in quarantine to

access the guidance and services they need, including the ability to report any symptoms they may be experiencing. vital strategies is also working directly with the state to develop protocols and work flow materials for contact tracers. that includes a comprehensive playbook that will detail the steps needed to do contact tracing effectively. and i want to make it clear, we will release that playbook publicly so cities and states around the country can use it and so can nations around the world. that way the work we do here in new york really can help fight the virus globally. we'll also bring in a group of outside experts to conduct an evaluation on the program so that other states and countries can see what worked well and identify areas they can improve on. and we'll learn as we go and make adjustments and share what we've learned. sharing and spreading best

practices is something that bloomberg ifphilanthropies have worked with around the world, and i know other before i turn it back over to the governor, let me echo something he has said repeatedly and really is important to remember. as tough as these times are, we are new yorkers. we have been through a lot together. we are going to get through this together again. so governor, back to you and thank you for everything you are doing. together we'll lift this and get back to a normal life. thank you all. >> thank you very much mayor

bloomberg. this is such a great asset for the state of new york and all the people in it. this is a monumental under taking. so many of these things we talked about never existed before and testing of this magnitude and contact tracing of this magnitude never existed. this problem is bigger than anyone of us. it is not bigger than all of us. using the expertise and the talents that we have, we'll do this. the mayor is right -- he says new yorkers in my cases we dub this challenges first. we figure it out and then we work with others places to

actually learn from what we have done. i think this is going to be one of those examples. we have the best system that we can have to get new york open and to protect new yorkers. but, it will also be a laboratory to put together the best system ever put together so we can share that with other governments. that's what mayor bloomberg does so well. we'll develop a system here and then what we learn can benefit other people. we'll be coordinating this k contact tracing. many people coming to new york whether connecticut or new jersey or back and forth, we don't want to get limited by jurisdictions when you do this contact tracing. somebody turns out to trace a

person in new jersey, well, we work in new york and we can't go to new jersey having that tri-state alliance makes sense so i am working with g murphy and lamont on that. i want to thank them very much. next problem. in this situation everyday is a new problem that pops up. okay. let's handle it. in an emergency crisis situation what happens is problems compound, right? you're in the middle of a hurricane the power line goes down and now the heat is off. heat is off and now people are

freezing in their homes. we did not anticipate that. i know but that's what happens. one problem creates another problem. it is like a bad game of dominos. these problems compound each other. the combination is oftentimes foreseen. we have that now within new york city of several systems. daily news today, front page story which crystallized it but had been happening for weeks but no one is anticipating it. you have an outbreak on the new york's subway system for variety of reasons rapidly deteriorated. when you think of what happened

you can put it together in a retrospecti retrospecti retrospective. covid happens. employees care for the system gets sick and calls in sick as they should. the number of nta employees come down. number of new york police department, they get sick and their numbers come down. you have fewer workers and fewer nypd workers on the trains and in the stations. we have a greater need to

disinfect the subway as and bus and substations. why? you have thousands of people going through these subway stations and these buses, trains and aviators. officers who are sick, we have fewer people to monitor and maintain the system and this all happens in the midst of a public health emergency. you have more homeless people who are on fewer trains and you have fewer outreach to the homeless people. you put all of this together and at the same time we need our essential workers to go to work. i said the other day, i had two great nightmares from day one. nightmare one, you did everything you did and close

down and etcetera and you did not stop the rate of increases of the virus. that could have been a nightmare, can you imagine that? we did all of this and we still see that virus going up. that would have been a real problem. second nightmare, the essential workers saying i am not going to work. the train operators and food delivery people saying too dangerous, i am not going and i am staying home too. you don't have food, you don't have power and you don't have transportation. you don't have electric and now you see society in a really difficult situation. so we need those essential workers to go to work. i am pushing everyday to get your essential workers to go to work even though they see a lot of their colleagues getting ill.

you need those nurses and doctors in difficult circumstances. that's why i say they are the heroes of today, all of the essential workers. how do they get to work? they need the public transit systems through new york city and across the state. they need buses and trains and subways to get to work. we need them, they need the buses and they need the subways. and, we are as a society need a spokesperson from the state. i know it is hard but i need you to do it. we need them to do it but what's our obligation? our obligation to make sure we do everything to keep them safe, right? you want them to deliver the food, what's your obligation is to do everything you are doing

you can do to make sure they are safe while they are doing it. mta understood where we were with the global pandemic, they stepped up operations and cleaning trains and buses every 72 hours which is an amazing under taken when you think about it, to clean all those buses and trains every 72 hours. we know the virus can live for hours or even days on a surface. which means if somebody positive walks on the train this morning that virus can be there tomorrow and the next day. that changes the focus of the problem. you want to honor the essential workers, we'll have people demonstrations of gratitude, yes. even better than that is what you do and how you act.

let's make sure we are doing everything we can. why? that's the way to best protect the health of our social workers. it makes sense you don't want the essential workers to get sick and again it is our obligation as human beings to reciprocate and make sure we are doing everything we can. now to say disinfect every train every 24 hours is just a test that nobody has ever imagined before, okay? i would wager in the