Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears live on CNN's News Day

March 12, 2020

John Berman: As of this morning, California, Oregon, Washington State have now banned gatherings of more than 250 people because of the coronavirus pandemic, concerts, meetings, sporting events, you name it. What does that mean for America’s biggest city, the heart and culture of major events in the United States? I of course, am talking about New York City. Joining me now is the New York City mayor, Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mr. Mayor thank you very much for being with us this morning. First of all, can you give us an update on number of cases and the situation here in the city?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: We have 62 cases right now in the city. Obviously this is a very, very serious situation and I remind you against the back drop of 8.6 million people. But it has been growing steadily. And we are going to have to make a lot of changes in our lives. But you know, John we cannot overdo, that’s the balance we have to strike. I am believer that we have to be careful not to destroy peoples’ livelihoods, not to destroy the opportunity for our kids to be in a safe place, learning every day in school. And yet we are going to have to introduce more and more restrictions which we certainly are going to be doing in New York City, today and tomorrow. We are going to have to do more restrictions in this environment.

Berman: Okay, what kind of restrictions?

Mayor: We are going to put the details out there, but clearly you know, somehow balancing the need to keep as much normalcy in society as possible, while reducing the gatherings that are causing concern. Giving people more space. And this is the trick John, how do – it’s not just about being out there. It’s trying to give people some more space in their social interactions.

Berman: Broadway shows?

Mayor: This is the kind of thing we are grappling with. Right now, today and tomorrow we will put out guidance. I don’t want to see Broadway go dark if we can avoid it. I want to see if we can strike some kind of balance.

Berman: How? I mean how do you strike that balance? It’s a gathering – definitionally, it’s a gathering of more than 250 people.

Mayor: Right. And what we are trying to figure out, is there a way to reduce the capacity, reduce the number of people? If we cannot strike that balance, of course you can go to closure. And that’s the decision we will be making right away.

Berman: I’m just curious, what would that be? Would it be like every three seats or?

Mayor: Well things like that, you know, you’ve seen and this is an analogy from Italy, they are being hit harder than almost anywhere. You know they are moving events outdoors, they are getting people to literally put space between each other. I saw an outdoor mass the other day where they organized it so people had space. We are going to have to think very differently. Our society is changing by the hour right now. But that does not mean I think we should anticipate a society with no social activity, no work, no school, how are we going to strike that balance? And we are going to figure that out quickly. And start with some new models that we’ve never used before.

Berman: But theater lovers, it sounds like you are telling me theater lovers need to brace themselves for some kind of change in the next [inaudible]?

Mayor: Absolutely.

Berman: Subways?

Mayor: Same idea. We are not going to shut down a subway system, if you shut down a subway station then you are shutting down the economy and you are shutting down work and livelihood. I am worried John, about people who have no money. I am worried about people who can’t afford the rent or medicines or food. We have to strike the balance. I wanted what we’ve been trying to do. We’ve been telling employers stagger your work hours if you can. More people telecommuting. Open up the subways, less close proximity. We are going to do more of that in a variety of ways.

Berman: Schools. Now schools I know, are something you care deeply about and have from even before you were mayor. Public schools, there have been – I live in Westchester County, it’s different than New York City. My kid’s school has closed at least for today and tomorrow. What are you going to base your decision on here in New York City?

Mayor: So with the schools, what we have heard from so many parents is, the minute you take the school away, a lot of parents don’t have an option, particularly for their younger kids of where to take them. They literally have no options.

Berman: By the way that means a whole lot of things, not just education but food, daycare all of it.

Mayor: And the food part is crucial. A lot of kids depend on school for food. So what we have said, working with the State of New York is, if we find a case in a school, we will do a temporarily closure, we will identify any close contacts, get those people isolated. Alert parents who have kids with preexisting, serious medical conditions. That’s where the vulnerability is for kids. Most healthy kids so far, thank God, are doing fine in this situation. And then we want that school back up and running, after re-clean of course the school, thorough cleaning, but we do not want to get into that slippery slope, you know the dominos falling, where school systems start to close. I think that’s very dangerous.

Berman: Look, New York City has so many wonderful hospitals, there is a concern – Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks about it all the time, number of ventilators, number of hospital beds, how do you feel about the capacity if the number of cases surges here?

Mayor: You know, in our public hospital system alone, we’ve got about 80 public facilities, we’ve identified between public and private systems, at least 1,200 beds we could make available. We would cancel elective surgeries, instantly open up a whole lot more capacity. I believe our public system has a 1,000 ventilators to begin with. Can we handle the next few stages? Yes. If this truly becomes something like we’ve never seen on a vast, vast scale, we all have a problem. But this gets back to the federal government. Here’s what the federal government should be doing right now. And really, it’s a war time footing. All the material we need, as we would do in a war, ventilators, surgical masks, even down to hand sanitizer, the federal government should be mobilizing those resources, maximizing production through the private sector. Rationing it, if you will, to where it is needed around the country. Obviously Washington State in particular, but other places like New York. Look, the federal government can take charge of the situation and John, the most necessary thing, the thing we are still waiting for was not in the speech last night. The testing. We’ve gotten more ability to test, but we have not gotten the automated testing the FDA needs to approve that would mean we could do thousands of tests and get same day results. Still waiting on that.

Berman: One of the things the President’s suggested is everyone who wants a test can get a test. Is that true, here in New York City?

Mayor: No. It’s true only in the narrowest sense. That if you prioritize the folks who need the test the most, we are doing hundreds per day, that’s happening. But it’s not fast enough and we should be testing on a bigger scale but we need that automated capacity that you need a FDA approval to do that.

Berman: Obviously New York City is an international city, a lot of travelers coming from around the world, the President just announced a 30 day ban of Europeans coming to the United States from 26 countries. How will that effect New York City and is that a good policy in your mind?

Mayor: Look, I accept the notion of travel bans in this environment. So I disagree with President Trump on many things but actually I think the travel ban piece of his strategy has been in many ways, warranted. It does not replace a proactive strategy by the United States of America to address our own issues because we have our own community spread now. And it does not forgive the fact that the basic supplies are not being organized by the federal government and the testing is not wide spread. But the travel bans I think inherently make some sense. It will hurt every place that depends on tourism, business conferences, it will hurt our economy, it will hurt people’s livelihoods, but I don’t think it’s wrong, I think it’s necessary at this point.

Berman: The NBA decision to suspend – the right decision? What do you think that other sports should be considering today?

Mayor: Every private organization and the leagues are obviously private has to make their own judgment. I think in the end, we are going to see a lot of this.

Berman: But do you like it as Mayor of New York City, does it help you?

Mayor: It helps in the level of, once these private organizations decide to do something, it gives us some clarity. It helps because we are going to always strike a balance. We are not going to rush to close anything and everything because of all the negative unintended consequences of closing down our society and we are seeing that in Italy in a big way right now. So when the private entities make their own decisions. I think it is a different thing then the government deciding to shut everything down. I am sympathetic to their decision. I am still looking for something short of full closures everywhere. And that’s again where we are going to very quickly, put out guidance about having to do reduce crowds and audiences while still having a certain amount of activity.

Berman: You mentioned Italy, just final question. What assurance can you give to the people of New York City, that it will not become Italy, Milan?

Mayor: So the best assurance I can give is a couple of things. One, that crisis was already deeply developed before they even understood they had it and before they took serious precautions. I had my first press conference on coronavirus for New York City January 24th. Six weeks, five weeks, five weeks before we had a single case. We’ve been bracing, we’ve been preparing. I also think New Yorkers and many Americans are adapting in a way that in China and Italy, there was no chance to do. People are really changing their habits. But here’s the number one thing. And the President said it and he’s right. If you are sick stay home. If you think you might be sick stay home. That never happened in Italy, that never happened in a lot of places. We still have a chance to stay ahead of this relative to them.

Berman: Mayor Bill de Blasio, I’d shake your hand to thank you but let’s not.

Mayor: Just tap elbows, brother.

Berman: Thanks so much for being here.

Mayor: Alright, take care.