Governor Andrew Cuomo called in to NY1 at 6 p.m. Thursday, where he reiterated, and expanded on, some of the things he said in a press conference earlier in the day.
Here is some of what he talked about:
- In response to a note about rumors being spread in text messages, Cuomo said "that's just what they are. They are rumors."
He said legally, no city in the state can close down if the state government does not want it to close down. He also says he spoke with the mayor, who told him there are no plans to shut down New York City or shut down the subways.
"When you hear a rumor, use that New York instinct, and when your New York instinct says, 'This is too crazy to be true,' it's normally too crazy to be true," the governor said.
- Cuomo says "there is no doubt" that there will be an exponential increase in cases, since that has been seen in every country. "The question is, when do you stop the increase?" he said. He said that depends on how effective the response is.
He says the state has been pushing the federal government hard, but is also taking actions on its own to try to mitigate the spread.
He reiterated that the tests do not indicate how many people have the virus in New York City or New York State, because the city and state do not have the testing capacity to determine that. "We're just tracking, mostly, the positive cases to find more positive cases so we can isolate those people."
"When it says we have 300 cases in the state of New York, it doesn't mean we have 300 cases. It means we've found 300 positive cases," the governor said. "My guess is in the case, we already have thousands of cases. I believe, from the people I've talked to, we have many people who had the virus, never knew they had it, and it resolved itself, and they just thought they had the flu."