Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Holds Media Availability

May 10, 2020

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, good morning, everybody. It is a beautiful, beautiful Sunday morning here in our city and what a beautiful day for Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers of New York City. Right there is a beautiful image of the mother that we are honoring and celebrating in our family today, our First Lady who raised two wonderful children. There are so many mothers all over this city who do extraordinary things every single day. And I want to start by saying, everyone, as you show your love, you show your appreciation, you celebrate the moms of your families and the moms of New York City today, remember, first of all, let's think about the greatest gift we can give besides our love is the gift of keeping them safe. So, if a mom in your life is vulnerable at this moment because of this crisis, if a mom is older or has those pre-existing conditions, remember lots and lots of ways to show love, but let's make sure we keep mom safe no matter what. That's job one today, it’s showing our love and respect by keeping the moms in our life safe. 

Now, there are some moms who deserve particular credit and they are the moms who are on the front lines fighting for all of us, the moms out there who are members of – the doctors, the nurses, the members of the NYPD and FDNY, so many moms who in addition to the everyday heroism, what they do in their families, they've been heroes in this fight against the coronavirus. So, we owe a special thanks to the moms, the essential workers who have been there on the front line while at the same time caring for their families. What an extraordinary thing they have done. Let's give them our love and respect today. By the way, as we say in our household, every day is Mother's Day. So, special appreciation today and then let's continue it the other 364 days of the year.

Okay, let's talk about what it's going to take to get us to move forward here in this city as we fight our way through this crisis and move to a better place. And to get there, we've talked in recent days a lot about what we have to do with testing and tracing. But there's a whole additional piece to this equation and it's the medical side of the equation, the eventual pathway to a vaccine and a treatment. We know right now with the state of medical science that we all need to stay devoted to the things that work now, the social distancing, the shelter in place, using face coverings, while there's time provided to all the people in the medical field to find those bigger solutions and everyone's working hard on them. But in the meantime, there are some new examples of progress. They're important in the here and now. Even though the ultimate goal of course is a vaccine and the treatment, there are some things happening that actually are going to help those afflicted with the coronavirus here now. And some hope this last week when the FDA approved a new drug for treating those with severe cases of the coronavirus, remdesivir. It's a drug that now is being utilized as part of the trials that is going through in some of our public hospitals, Jacobi, North Central Bronx, among others, are starting to use this drug to treat those who are suffering and to make sure that this is hopefully part of the long term plan to help people. 

What we're seeing so far is that this drug has decreased hospital stays for those who have utilized it from 15 days to 11 days. Now that may not sound like a lot to you on first blush, but let me tell you, that means four less days of suffering for that patient, four less days of worrying for their family, four days sooner that each patient can get home to their families and continue their recovery. So, it's a big deal. And I want to tell you the company involved, Gilead, donated over half-a-million doses of this drug to the federal government to distribute. And that's a great thing. So far, however, we've gotten very few doses of the drug provided to New York City. Only 4,000 doses for hospitals here, our public hospitals that particularly need them the most. And we need that number greatly intensified. In fact, we need about 10 times that much just to get started. I've reached out to the White House, I've sent a letter to the president, I've spoken to White House officials to try and speed up the shipment. So, this is something that could really help. And this is an example of something we need here in the city because whether we like it or not, we're still the epicenter of this crisis. So, I am hoping that the White House will hear our plea and quickly get us the additional doses we need.

Now, when we think about the toll this crisis has taken, when we think about the pain it has caused here in this city, we think about the lives we've lost. For all of us who work in public service, there's a particular pain to reflecting on the fact that a number of people who have spent our lives helping their fellow New Yorkers lost their lives due to the coronavirus over these last weeks. People who, their entire mission, sense of purpose was helping other New Yorkers, people we looked up to, people we appreciated, that we've lost. Those that we particularly honor for what they do for others. 260 public servants, 260 City employees have lost their lives. And this includes police officers, correction officers, teachers, EMTs, doctors and nurses, people who have given so much and gave the ultimate sacrifice fighting this disease. Now their families, in some cases, are facing the loss of health insurance and we want to make sure there's immediate support for those families.

So, I am extending, by 45 days, health insurance coverage for families of municipal employees who passed away from COVID-19. This is a specific request we got from the Municipal Labor Council, and the MLC has been a key partner in everything we've done over the last six plus years, believed that it was crucial to get this 45-day extension to families so they could have that piece of security right now as they're dealing with so much else. There is a much bigger effort that we hope to achieve with partners all over the city, all over the country in getting much deeper benefits for public employees and for all essential workers included in the next federal stimulus bill. I'm hearing some good signs that the Congress is moving in that direction, but we still need to see more and obviously we need to see that bill voted out, but I'm more hopeful that we're going to see something really significant in that stimulus legislation. In the meantime, we want to help these families right away with this health insurance extension.

Now, we said many times this is a disease which is so troubling and challenging because it's so new, literally did not exist as far as medical science knew in human beings just six, seven months ago. There's still so many unanswered questions. There are still things we see that confound doctors and scientists. We keep learning every day. And we keep hoping that by learning every day we're going to find solutions. But some of the things we're learning are raising new questions and concerns. And particularly a deep concern is anything that might affect our children who previously have not been affected by this disease by and large anywhere near as much as adults and particularly older adults. But there is a rare condition which we're seeing more of just in the last days and it is causing tremendous concern. I'm deeply concerned. As a father, I am feeling the concern I know other parents are feeling. Our health leadership is deeply concerned. Doctors are now calling this pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome. And what it does is basically in a child's body triggers intensive, almost overwhelming, immune system response. And that actually causes harm to the body. So, as the body is fighting, it fights in such a manner that it actually starts to cause other problems. The symptoms are fever, rash, abdominal pain, and vomiting. 

So, last week our Health Department alerted, doctors alerted the people in New York City that we're seeing cases of this and that we need everyone who experiences this to get help right away, every family that sees a child going through this to get help right away every health care professional that sees anything like this to report it to our Health Department, and we're getting more information now and it certainly is causing us additional concern. So, now as of today, there've been 38 cases detected here in New York City. That's up from 15 at the last count. There are nine more cases that the specifics of the case are still pending, meaning they're still making an evaluation to determine if it is this syndrome or not. Now, of the cases that have been verified, 47 percent of the kids involved tested positive for the coronavirus at that point. Of those who tested negative, 81 percent had the antibody. So, had been exposed at some previous point. So that's telling our doctors and our scientists a lot, this is something we really need to focus on and address. We have lost one child in New York City and previously this is something that we didn't see cases of. Then we started to see a few cases, then we saw more cases. Now, we've actually lost a child to this syndrome and that is deeply, deeply troubling and I want to express my condolences to the family that's lost their child and our hearts go out to you. This is something all New Yorkers are feeling this new threat. 

So, we now are going to make a major priority of addressing this. A set of new actions are being undertaken at our public hospitals, at Health + Hospitals. All facilities will do antibody testing for all children with the symptoms, with fever, with the abdominal pain, gastrointestinal symptoms. That will be done across the board. That guidance is being given to all pediatricians in New York City, calling on all hospitals, not just public, but all private and independent hospitals, to do the same, to start immediately administering these tests when you see these symptoms. Our medical leadership, our health leadership, Department of Health, Health + Hospitals, convening pediatricians from around the city on a video conference to analyze more of this information and learn more together what's going on. We're sending a health alert to the parents of more than one million public school kids to put them on alert of this challenge and make sure anyone who sees these symptoms in their kids gets health care immediately, reaches out to their doctor or gets their child to health care immediately.

Also, obviously, although our schools are by and large shut down, we do have our regional enrichment centers for the children of essential workers. All regional enrichment centers are being instructed to increase enforcement of the use of face coverings and masks and the use of hand sanitizer. So, we're going to take steps immediately. But remember, every parent out there, if you see these symptoms, take them seriously, act immediately. This is a real problem, but it's a problem that can be addressed if it's caught early. So, I want to emphasize to parents, if you see these symptoms, report them to your doctor immediately. If you don't have a doctor, call 3-1-1 to get connected to a doctor, a clinician at Health + Hospitals, we want to make sure everyone takes this seriously and if you see these symptoms, act immediately.

Okay, want to go back to the topic of social distancing and as we talk about the challenges we face, as we talk about the hope for new medical solutions, we've got to keep coming back to the fact that the thing that has worked, the reason we've made progress and can continue to make progress in this city is because of what all of you have done. The extraordinary effort New Yorkers have shown around social distancing, the extraordinary effort to stay home to the maximum extent possible, to wear those face coverings, all of these pieces, they work and you've done it and we need to keep doing it. Now, generally speaking, New Yorkers have just done the right thing. I mean overwhelmingly New Yorkers have done the right thing. That doesn't mean in a city of 8.6 million people, you don't need reminders, you don't need education, you don't need some enforcement. I believe you do need all those things. I believe that's true of everything in our society. No matter how good the people are, no matter how much there's an amazing team effort going on with 8.6 million people, we still need the ability to enforce these rules when needed and only when needed. 

What we don't need is anything that goes beyond the proper enforcement of these rules into something else. And we saw a very troubling video a few days back from the Lower East Side, an instance of the wrong approach to policing that was very alienating to so many people in this city. You know, we've come a long way in New York City to change the nature of policing, to build trust between police and community, to de-escalate conflicts, to train officers to help bring down the temperature. And that has worked in so many ways, but we certainly have seen one video in particular and there have been some others that have raised concern and I think they pull at people in a very real and painful way and remind us of things that were too common for too long that are not acceptable. So, I want to make sure we emphasize the positive, the extraordinary effort that New Yorkers have made around social distancing on their own, listening to the guidance, helping each other to remember the social distance. That's the big story here. The vast majority of the work that's been done by the NYPD and all the other enforcement agencies has been education, going out and reminding people, more and more giving them face coverings for free, which is great, and never wanting to give a summons unless it's absolutely necessary. And in fact, remember the number of summonses given is very, very small throughout this crisis – fewer than 10 a day for the whole city. But that being said, the last thing we want to see is enforcement, if there's any other way to get the job done. 

So, we're going to increase intensely the number of public servants who are out there educating, providing face coverings, reminding people of the rules, helping people to get it right. Enforcement has always been the last resort. It will still be there when needed, but we're going to have more and more social distancing ambassadors. We put together a group of a thousand non-NYPD personnel who have been going out already. We're going to increase that number to 2,300 by next weekend. City employees charged with educating, reminding, providing the face coverings, going out there, and working with people and helping them get to the right place. Again, a positive approach has been working in so many ways. We're going to double down on that. If we ever need enforcement, it's there. And again, we will be quick to enforce particularly in the situations that are most dangerous such as large gatherings. But more and more the emphasis will be on a communicative, encouraging approach through these social distancing ambassadors. And with a team of 2,300 we'll be able to reach deeply into the city and make a very big impact. So I want to thank our good public servants who are going to be a part of this effort. It's going to help save lives. It's going to help so many New Yorkers and really, really appreciate all that you are doing and will do.

Okay. Now, another piece of this has been the important work of protecting some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers in the middle of this crisis. And we've talked about all through the week something very big, something very different that's happening with the changes that have been made at the MTA to do the nighttime cleanings. First night we saw something we had never seen before, literally in the history of this city, an extraordinary number of homeless folks who came off the trains, who weren't going to be able to stay in the stations, came up above ground, saw there were people there from the City ready to help them, ready to provide them support and service and shelter. And a huge number of them accepted that offer. Of course, the first time you see something, you say, let's see if this is real. Next night we saw equally good results. The next night, again, we keep seeing something very special happening.

So to give you the reports from the last couple of nights – on Friday night, our homeless outreach workers and trained NYPD officers who focused on homeless outreach, they engaged 416 homeless individuals coming out of the subway in those early morning hours. 212 of them accepted services. 183 went to shelter, 29 went to hospital. Again, amazing, amazing fact. More than half. We've seen this every night. That's – these are numbers that we have literally never seen in our history happened again on Friday night. So what about Saturday night? 384 people engaged in the subway. 198 accepted services, 175 went to shelter, 23 to the hospital. This is just amazing. I mean, this is about changing people's lives. Think about if someone's life had come apart over months and years to the point they were living permanently on the street. And now in just a matter of days, hundreds upon hundreds of people accepting services, coming into shelter. Now we'll be able to get them the mental health support, the substance misuse treatment. Now we'll really be able to change the lives of so many of them for good. But we have now seen this day after day. We got a lot more to do, but this is an amazing step forward and really, really encouraging what we're seeing. And again, a great thank you to all our partners, the MTA, the State, of course the NYPD and Social Services, Homeless Services, those amazing outreach workers, keep doing this great, great work. It's having a huge, huge impact.

So every day I try and count my blessings and every day I try and remember to be thankful. And I know so many of you feel the same way in this crisis. We've gone through a lot together, but we also remember all the good around us. The people are doing so much good and the people who are trying so hard to help each other. And I like to remember to publicly thank a lot of folks who have stepped forward to help New York City. So a list of thank yous today starting with the skincare company Tatcha and its founder Vicky Tsai, who donated one million non-surgical masks, really amazing donation. Wonderful. Educare, Germany has donated 20,000 KN95 masks. AIG has donated 1,500 N95 masks. Mattel donated 20,000 surgical masks and over 6,000 face shields. Perrigo has donated 50,000 bottles of hand sanitizer. IEDM has donated 50,000 nonmedical masks. The UN Staff Union donated 10,000 nonmedical masks. Project Isaiah donated 400 tablets to H + H. And BNY Mellon donated 150 tablets to H + H. Friends of Rockaway donated 2,000 nonmedical face shields. Center for Professional Education of Teachers donated 7,000 surgical masks and Warby Parker Lab donated 1,900 nonmedical masks. Warby Parker has been amazing, what they’ve been doing for our school kids for years with eyeglasses. Now they are helping in the fight against the coronavirus too. We're thankful to them. We're thankful to all the people and all the companies, all the organizations that keep stepping up. It helps every single time. So thank you from the bottom of my heart and all New Yorkers are thankful to you.

Okay. Every day we go over the indicators and what they tell us about the direction we're going in. So this weekend, generally good. Yesterday, very, very good. All three indicators down yesterday. Today, a mixed bag. In terms of the people admitted to hospital with suspected COVID-19, we had a day, a breakeven day, 69 one day, 69 the next day. Now thank God that number is as low as 69. That's a very good thing. But again, we want to see steady downward trends. People currently in our public hospital ICUs with suspected COVID-19, that is down and that is very, very important. Down from 559 to 540. Still too many people, but that's real progress. Now this is the one that didn't go right today – percentage of people tested who are testing positive for COVID-19 citywide, up from 12 percent to 17 percent. So still a much lower percentage than where we were just weeks ago. But we want to get that going in the same direction. So when you take Saturday and Sunday together, a very good weekend. Not yet exactly what we're looking for, but a very good weekend. And you know what I'll say next. Keep doing what you're doing because it clearly is working. We just need to do more of it and keep disciplined and keep strong. A few words in Spanish –

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

Okay, we're going to turn to questions from the media and as always, please remind me of the name and outlet of each journalist.

Moderator: We will now begin our Q and A. As a reminder, we also have Deputy Mayor Perea-Henze, Dr. Barbot, Dr. Katz, Commissioner Banks, and Commissioner Campion also on the line. First question today goes to Jen Peltz from the AP.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor, hope you can hear me.

Mayor: How are you doing?

Question: Good, thanks. In light of your discussion of social distancing enforcement, I wonder whether there are any statistics from yesterday on where there were summonses and or arrests and how many?

Mayor: Jen, I don't have anything from yesterday. We will figure out a system for reporting them regularly. Again, I want to keep reminding people the number of summonses and arrests is extraordinarily low given that this is a crisis that affects all 8.6 million New Yorkers. I want to keep in perspective that summonses and arrests still have been used sparingly. When it is absolutely needed, it's going to be used, but it's been used sparingly. But we need to make sure it is used fairly and consistently in all communities. So we will get you an update. We'll put out those stats regularly and we'll figure out a timeline for that. And then we'll keep that consistent going forward.

Moderator: Next is Jeff Mays from the New York Times.

Question: Hey, good morning. I wanted to ask Dr. Barbot about the Mayor's decision to move the contact tracing to HHC. And we didn't get to hear from you when the decision was announced. So wondering if Dr. Barbot agreed with that decision or has any concerns?

Mayor: Go ahead, Dr. Barbot.

Commissioner Oxiris Barbot, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Yes. Thank you. Jeff, let me start off by saying that I am proud of the dedicated staff that we have at the Health Department, demonstrated expertise in dealing with outbreaks all the way from things like TB, HIV, Ebola, most recently measles. And we are committed to applying that world class expertise to bringing this epidemic to an end as quickly as possible. And we are committed to ongoing collaboration with all of our sister agencies to make sure that we bring this epidemic to an end quickly and continue saving lives.

Mayor: Okay. Thank you. Go ahead.

Moderator: Next we have Shant from the Daily News.

Question: Good morning everyone on Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome – I know Governor Cuomo said yesterday, the State is helping the CDC develop criteria for identifying and responding to that syndrome. I wanted to ask if you think there's anything else the federal government should be doing? Other than that on homeless outreach, you've given numbers for homeless people at shelter. I was wondering if you could specify if that means those individuals actually went into shelter and spent the night there? Or does it maybe just mean vehicles drop them off there and it was incumbent on the individual whether or not to go to shelter from there? Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you Shant. I appreciate both questions. So let me do the homeless question first and then I'll turn to our health care team to talk about the federal role vis-a-vis the syndrome. On homeless outreach, so before I turn to Commissioner Banks, just say this. Remember that now for three years, this HOME-STAT strategy has about this constant engagement of homeless folks by the outreach workers who are just amazing people, the work they do because it takes such persistence and dedication to keep working with someone whose life obviously took a wrong turn, a bad wrong turn. They ended up living on the street. Winning their trust, figuring out what they need to feel comfortable to come off the street and stay off the street. That effort we've said for three years now, it is painstaking. It doesn't always work, not only the first time. Sometimes it takes many, many times. Sometimes someone comes in and goes back out, comes in, goes back out and you keep at it. It's a real study in persistence. So when someone agrees to come in, particularly if it's the first time in a long time, that is a signal moment. If they will come in one time, it's the beginning. And sometimes it literally works the first time and someone comes in off the street and then they like what they experience in a Safe Haven or a shelter, or get the medical care they need and they decide that they're ready for a different approach and they stay in and they never go back to the street. And sometimes it's not as you know, immediate. It takes several rounds if you will. But the fact is, as Commissioner Banks will tell you, thousands of people have come off the streets and stayed off the streets in the last few years. So, we know it can be done in a big, big scale. But I would expect if you're talking about just the last few nights, you're going to see a mix. You're going to see people that came in for one night. You're going to see people who have stayed in longer. You're going to see people who will some cases go back to the street over time. Others who we're going to keep in permanently. But it's all going to be about persistence. And I really believe if they come in even once, it is the beginning of something much better. Commissioner Banks take it away. I know he's out there. Commissioner Banks?

Commissioner Steven Banks, Department of Social Services: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A little technical difficulty. Look Shant, let me give you just a context of what we're working with. We are five nights into a brand new approach to try and to bring people in from the streets. And we're building on a body of work as the Mayor said, that's gone on for the last three years in which, look, the gold standard is helping someone come off the street and remain off the street. But we know from our experience in the last three years that even a single night to accept service is a victory for that human being. We also know from the body of work in the last several years that people will come to the front door and may leave. But simply getting you to the front door for that individual is a step forward. Now again, this is a five day, brand new operation. And we saw Thursday night into Friday morning some challenges with individuals who had accepted services and then didn't want to go further than the acceptance of services, even when we brought them to our central intake site at Bellevue. And so, you know, we -- our outreach workers and our staff are literally working around the clock to save lives in the middle of this situation. And we decided, you know what, let's not go through central intake. Let's make placements directly from the platforms and we'll send the buses directly to shelters instead of central intake. And we began to do that on Saturday morning and this morning. And we think that is giving an additional helping hand to those who may be ready to take the hand, but not yet ready to go all the way with that helping hand. But we're going to continue to evaluate every day. We'll make changes and we'll get to a place where we can take a retrospective look back and say what kind of individual success we're having. But I have to go back to what the Mayor said originally. I've been doing this work for a long time before I came into government. And since I got the Department of Homeless Services in addition to HRA about three years ago, a little over three years ago, if we could get five percent of the people who we offered help to actually accept it on any given night, that was just a huge sign of progress. We're getting half the people now at least taking that first step off the platform, onto transport to get the help that they need either to the hospital or shelter.

Mayor: Yeah, thank you Steve. I mean that's – Shant, just take that in from what we considered five percent a good success rate, to these last days, it's been 50 percent. So ten times more. It's striking and again, we need to see it play out over a much longer period of time. But I think the positive disruptive impact of the cleaning of the subways and sort of breaking the cycle that existed for a long time and giving our outreach workers much more opportunity to engage people. This is absolutely powerful and I'm hoping it's the beginning of something much bigger. So good news there. And Steve, congratulations to you and your whole team because I know this is part of work you've been building up to for years and years.

On the federal role dealing with the syndrome affecting our kids – obviously, this is something we are all grappling with – the City, the State, I'm sure the federal government – but in terms of any specifics of what we know so far from the federal government, what they're doing, what they're saying, we have three of our health care leaders on the phone. Does one of you want to jump in?

Commissioner Barbot: Certainly, Mr. Mayor. I think probably the most important thing that the federal government can do in this situation is really help us maximize the number of people that are getting tested. I think, you know, you've been very clear that from the beginning this response has been hampered by lack of universal access to testing and I think this is yet one additional way in which that's being manifested.

Mayor: Anyone want to add from the health care team? Okay. Yes – and, obviously, the reality of testing, because all roads keep leading back to it, and that's what we're going to keep pushing hard on the federal government on to intensify everything related to testing, particularly lab capacity, which continues to be the outstanding concern.

Moderator: Next is Debralee from Manhattan Times.

Question: Hey, good morning, everyone. Can you hear me?

Mayor: Yes, Debralee. Good morning.

Question: Excellent. Happy Mother's Day to everyone on the call. Wanted to touch base with you, Mr. Mayor, specifically on how the pandemic and the kind of hit that small businesses are taking has in fact perhaps transformed your own thinking on rezoning? And the fact that the communities that have been hardest hit overlap with the ones that were targeted for rezoning, some of which have been successful, some of which have so far stalled. Have you thought about that in terms of thinking of it as more than just recovery, because many of the small businesses, particularly those that are a small mom and pop and immigrant-owned, are concerned that what gentrification and the powers of the market forces do – weren't able to accomplish before, the pandemic essentially will successfully execute. And then secondly, have you consulted, had any conversations with, and can you share those if you have with the Governor on pause being extended potentially to June and beyond and how the City is also planning for that?

Mayor: Thank you, Debralee. So, in terms of the Governor and the State – I mean, we've been highly aligned on the approach to the pause. So, we're all talking all the time between the Governor and his team, me and my team, everyone's engaged. And I think the approach to the pause is the right one. I mean, we're looking at our indicators and clearly need more time according to just the sheer facts. And the State has its own indicators as well and I think there's a high level of alignment. We need to be confident as we start that it's going to be safe and it's going to hold. Now, I'm going to combine your two questions for a second and then go more fully into the small business question. So, I spoke to a number of small business leaders on a conference call earlier, I think it was Friday, and then large business leaders on Thursday night, and it was very interesting, Debralee, that there was a real continuity in the two conversations on the question of getting the restart right. I couldn't help but notice, you know, sort of, when you see something that looks like a consensus or unanimity among New Yorkers, it's a pretty striking thing. Everyone kept saying, get the restart right, we cannot afford a start and then a stop. We cannot afford a boomerang. We cannot afford what happened in some of those Asian cities, very big sophisticated cities that, for whatever reason, had a kind of false start and then had to double down on restrictions. From the point of view of all of them, and I think the small business owners were particularly sensitive this point, it would be most devastating to their business if they put in the resources and the energy to restart and then had to bring it back down again. So, we've been cautious here in the city. The Governor's been cautious in terms of the state. We’re united that we're going to get this right. And each step, I keep using that kind of rock-climbing analogy – you get your toe hold and you make sure it's firm and secure and then you get your next one – that's going to govern the approach here.

So, we'll keep coordinating on that for sure. On small business specifically, it's a great question. Look, we have a particular challenge in terms of how to help our small businesses and particularly our immigrant small businesses and small businesses that are the most tenuous, the smallest, the most mom and pop. And they’re such an important part of life in this city in every sense in terms of everything from the life of our neighborhoods and the identity and the culture of our communities to the fact there's a whole lot of people employed in them and they're hanging in the balance right now. When I talked to the small business owners, interestingly – rightfully, their first concern was not – not that I'm saying your point isn't a good one, but it wasn't sort of the big playout of what's going to happen in the months and years ahead – it was the immediate question, just how they dealt with the rent and how they just kept going in the here and now to try and get to that point where they could restart. And we're trying to figure out any way in every way we can to help them to just hang in there until we can get to a point where we start and then the sheer force of – you know, the buying power of 8.6 million people starts to lift them up again. And I do think New Yorkers are going to want to embrace their neighborhood businesses when we can go out and engage them again. I think there's going to be a lot of energy for that.

But to the question of rezoning – I mean, the whole land use process now is on hold. When we're able to think about that again, we're obviously going to think about it differently in light of what's happened here. We need to be really, really mindful about anything we do, going forward, what it means in terms of affordable housing, what it means in terms of small business, what it means in terms of working people and more vulnerable people. I think that's going to be a singular focus of our policies, going forward, when it comes to land use and city planning because we're in a whole new reality. So, I think the essence of your question is, is it going to be business as usual? No, it's not going to be business as usual. It's going to be reexamined from scratch. And even the ones we've done previously, we've been studying carefully to understand what the impact is on small business and how we can make sure we get when we do have a situation where rezoning is helpful, putting additional measures to support and protect small business. And there's a lot more I think we can do on that front, going forward.

Moderator: The next is Katie from the Wall Street Journal.

Question: Hey, good morning, everybody. My question – I want to go back to Commissioner Barbot again. You know, I guess there's still some confusion about the Test and Trace Corps. I know that the disease detectives are with the Department of Health, but the rest are with HHC. So, Dr. Barbot, do you believe that having HHC lead this test and trace effort will hurt, given the Department of Health’s history of doing this? And do you believe that you and your agency has the full confidence of the mayor? Thank you.

Mayor: Katie, as we turn to Dr. Barbot, I just have to say, it's America, anyone can ask a question the way they want, but I don't honestly think the word confusion is right. There's a plan put forward here to take a huge operational agency, Health + Hospitals, has been at the forefront of this crisis, and use that operational capacity to build a test and trace program all over the city in a way that an organization with that kind of reach and with local outposts all over the city is well suited to, but deeply engaging the Department of Health and bringing over Department of Health personnel to be in the center of the process as well. So, again, confusion, respectfully, that's your word. I think we laid out a really clear organizational plan that makes sense for a massive undertaking that’s never been tried before in New York City and we are going to bring a talent from those two agencies and a lot of other agencies to bear to make this work. With that, turning to Dr. Barbot.

Commissioner Barbot: Katie, thank you for the question. Like I said, we've got world-class expertise in our agency and we're focused on one goal and one goal only, and that goal is to bring that world-class expertise on tracing to this effort. And we are committed to collaborating with any and all sister agencies, community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, because, at the end of the day, the reality is, you know, we all need to be focused on saving lives and this is a response that requires all of us to be focused and not to be distracted. So, thank you.

Mayor: Thank you.

Moderator: The next is Luis [inaudible].

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. I've got two questions for you.

Mayor: Yes, Luis.

Question: Over two weeks ago, you mentioned that as part of your grassroots outreach there would be four tele-town halls with faith leaders. Anything you'd be able to share about that now? Also, regarding the sector advisory councils, the numbers of those appointed range anywhere from 20-something to 40-something. I'm trying to grasp how all of that works. Do all of these people submit suggestions? Do they get questionnaires? Do they have one big virtual conference call? Can you explain that?

Mayor: Sure. Luis on the first question, I'm going to confirm with the team, but I believe those faith-based tele-town halls happened back around the time that I raised it. We'll get you more information on that. On the advisory councils, so it's kind of all the above of what you mentioned it, you know, through the magic of WebEx and Zoom and everything else, you can put obviously a huge number of people together and have the ability to have a serious conversation with a larger group. And I participated in some of these already and I've found them to be very successful in terms of people sharing concerns and ideas. But then, of course, beyond the group meetings, there is every opportunity for people to put forward written ideas. We definitely circulate things and have people's feedbacks feedback, questionnaires, things like that will be used. So, we've brought together some pretty extraordinary people who represent so much of the city, and what we're finding is, you know, a very, very, sort of, rich experience already of folks bringing perspective, bringing ideas, bringing concerns, saying some things that are different than what we might hear in the regular daily discourse and things we need to hear. I mean, I'll go back to the question that Debralee asked a moment ago about the interplay of, you know, land use policy and small business. I mean, that's exactly the kind of thing we need to think about differently for where we're going. And that's the kind of thing we're hearing from these advisory councils. We're hearing really interesting ideas. We're also hearing people sort of volunteering what they will do, what their organizations will do or their constituencies can and should do to help bring this forward. So, you know, it's understandable that if a group of us here are trying to make the very best decisions for the people that you have, you know, we all have a lifetime experience we're bringing to bear, but we also inherently need other fresh voices to help us see perspective and new ideas. And I find that the advisory councils already are doing that really well

Moderator: Next is Sydney from Gothamist.

Question: Mr. Mayor, good morning. I hope you're well. I wanted to talk about the syndrome that's impacting children. Could you walk us through a little bit of the timeline of like when symptoms were first started to be linked to – when the syndrome was first started to be linked to children and what is the City doing to determine the extent of this and how far back this may have already been impacting children? Or, has the City already found evidence that these symptoms have been happening in children for longer than we've been aware of?

Mayor: Thank you very much, Sydney. I'm going to turn to – again, we have Dr. Perea-Henze, Dr. Barbot, and Dr. Katz on the line, so I'm going to open it up to them in a second. This has moved very, very quickly. Sydney, suffice it to say that, you know, for the last 10 weeks all day, every day, we've all been talking about the coronavirus nonstop and looking at so many different elements of it. And this particular challenge around kids, I mean, it came up literally days ago – was the first time that I remember it in any discussion and Melissa Russo brought it forward in one of these press conferences. And literally at that moment we had not seen a bigger trend. But shortly thereafter, as more and more facts were gathered, it was clear that something was happening that was a real concern. And so, I'll let the doctors speak to that timeline. But, again, it's literally been a matter of days. The question you raised, Sydney, how far back might it have been going on and what research are we doing to better understand it – and, again, we'll let the doctors speak to that. Who wants to go first?

Commissioner Barbot: Mr. Mayor, I'll begin. This is a syndrome that has been evolving over the very recent past, but it first began to be identified in the UK and it was roughly maybe about two or three weeks ago and we hadn't seen any cases here in the United States. We actually had our first webinar alerting health providers to this emerging syndrome on May 1st, because part of this identifying this syndrome – and I've said this before, but it's worth repeating – really relies on a student's clinicians recognizing that something, which is potentially presenting in an atypical fashion needs to be reported to the health department. And Kawasaki's is a rare illness to begin with, but when it presents atypically, that's when we need doctors, whether it's for this syndrome or for others to report to us. So, right now, with this infectious inflammatory syndrome, we're still learning quite a bit about how it manifests. And we issued a health alert that goes out to thousands and thousands of clinicians, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners rather in the city alerting them to letting us know if they have patients that meet certain criteria that we want them to let us know. And those criteria, as the Mayor listed before, but I think are worth repeating, are children who present with prolonged fevers that have laboratory indications of inflammation and who may be suffering symptoms consistent with shock, meaning that their organs are overwhelmed and they need more intensive support in hospitals. All of those – so you can well imagine that's a fairly broad, yet defined set of potential symptoms and signs that we need clinicians to alert us on. And, as the Mayor mentioned, you know, we're doing ongoing investigations about suspected cases. We do have a series of confirmed cases, 38 that meet the case definition. But the reality is that this is still evolving. We are working in collaboration with our state partners, with the CDC. And it may be that this case definition evolves, and so it may be that we add even more children. But the important thing here is we are very much focused on first and foremost ensuring that parents are aware of potential early warning symptoms such as prolonged fever, that rash, kids being really cranky, having bright red lips, and what we typically think of as a strawberry tongue. These kids look really sick. And when I was a clinician, I actually treated some of these children and the most important thing is for them to then contact their doctors and for the doctors to make the potential diagnosis early and then refer them to specialty care. So that is sort of the evolution of this and I'm certain that we will continue to learn even more over the course of the next few days and weeks.

Mayor: Thank you doctor. Either one of our other colleagues want to add?

President Katz: Oh, I'll add Mr. Mayor. Thank you. I agree with Dr. Barbot’s summary. The only things I can think to add is I don't think we missed children who were at the sick end of the spectrum before because at the, this is obviously a disease with a wide range of manifestations and we certainly would have seen the children who we've seen with the very sick syndromes in the hospital before. We would have noticed that they would have been in the hospital at the sicker end, so I feel confident in New York City to miss those kids. I think the other interesting observation as we learning more and more about this disease as Dr. Barbot says, is that it may not be a coincidence that we're seeing these cases several weeks after the peak in New York City of the transmission of the virus. That this is likely, at least in part, an immunological manifestation that occurs after infection. And so it's not surprising that several weeks after the peak time of transmission of this virus, we may now be seeing a variety of these manifestations in children. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you.

Moderator: You next. We have Ruben from Hamodia.

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to ask you the state's ban on plastic bags has been postpone during the coronavirus pandemic. People are hurting financially and reusable bags are believed to carry germs. Many progressive places like Massachusetts and San Francisco have banned reusable bags now. Well, you as part of your emergency powers, at least lift the 5 cent fee on paper bags until the pandemic's over? And my second question is, you tweeted on Thursday, tenants are hurting, we need to let every New Yorkers who needs it be able to defer rent payments for up to 12 months. Last month, Council Member Justin Brannan tweeted “one person's rent is another mortgage payments. I want rent relief for my constituents. I also want to make sure small mom and pop landlords, yes they exist, don't have to shoulder that burden on their own. We can do both and we must.” Now we know what property tax payment was doing first. The grace period ends April 15th. I think it's fair to assume that those who haven't paid as of now having trouble possibly due to coronavirus, what's the city doing to help property owners, perhaps you'll consider waiving interest for unpaid or late property taxes? Thank you Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Thank you Rubin. On the small landlords, look, we know that so many people are struggling right now and small landlords are struggling too. In terms of property tax, we said from the beginning, right now we're in a tremendous crisis in this city. Adjust the ability to pay for the basic services that people need is being stressed deeply right now, and obviously this is why the upcoming debate over the federal stimulus and it can't happen soon enough is so crucial. We have to get support to allow us to keep going in this city, to be made whole to be able to provide those services. But especially since we don't know what's going to happen in Washington, we right now are absolutely dependent on whatever resources we can get and property tax is a part of it for sure. So we can keep this city moving forward and get to that restart. But we've also said from the beginning that anyone who's just not in a position to pay, there are hardship provisions where if someone can document that they are unable to pay there's something that can be done there, there's a process for that. Also the different methodologies that we've been talking about and the State of New York has acted on one of them, which is great, you know, allowing tenants to be able to apply their security deposit so that they can pay the rent if they don't have any other money, that's good for the tenant, that's good for the landlord. That's the kind of reform that I wanted to see and I'm very glad the state did that. But any other of the suggestions that we put forward as things like figuring out a way for if a tenant can't pay the rent, that there's still a payment plan for the future, so the landlords at least know that they will be able to depend on that. So all of these tools are going to be needed to help people through. But I think the single most important question going forward, everything hinges on the stimulus, our ability to support the people of this city. And if it comes, you know, we're going to be able to be helpful in a lot of ways. If it doesn't come, it's going to be very, very difficult.

On the plastic bags and all, we'll work with the state on the question of what makes sense in terms of any short term relief. The underlying ideas are still the right ideas because again, what was done on plastic bags on paper bags was about addressing profound challenges. We're having challenges, we're going to have, you know, this, this crisis, this virus, we're going to beat back this virus. This crisis is going to be over and it's going to be over sooner rather than later. But the challenge we are facing with our environment, with global warming is going to be with us for the rest of our lives. So those ideas around the plastic bags and the paper bags, the right ideas. In terms of anything we might do to modify them in the short term. You know, we'll work with the state on that and come back. But I want to affirm why the underlying ideas are just as pertinent now as they've ever been.

Moderator: We have time for two more today. Next is Todd from AM New York.

Question: Mr. Mayor. My question is actually inspired by our first demonstration, 1982 at NYU and that was against tuition hikes. So question is about, they were eight rallies this week. Two of them were by people who against the, the economic lockdown. One of them was by Reclaim Pride against a Samaritan's Purse. At those, the police were very strong, and nine people were taken into custody at the economic rally, and one person was given a summons at the Reclaim Pride rally in which people were socially distant. Now there were five others. One was by the fire union and four others were by the nurses union. All of them, police were at and did nothing to interfere. In fact, one of them, the nurses rally, there were 50 people there, 50, 60 people and there was no social distancing. So my question is, what right does the government and the city have to determine which organizations, which groups have the right to gather and should the police get out of this business like Eric Adams says?

Mayor: Todd, thank you very much for the question. Your NYU education is doing you good right now because you're asking a very good, important question. And I thank you for reminding me of our younger years when we first knew each other long ago as undergraduates. So look, first of all, I want to start with common sense. We're in a time in history where anyone who wants to get their point of view across, there are so many ways to do that without gathering in one place that will get plenty of attention. You can go direct to the people with Twitter and so many other methodologies. You all in the media will cover any number and sorts of protests and concerns, people do not need to gather in one place. It does not make sense in the middle of a pandemic, for people, you know, to be using a form of protest that could endanger each other and other people and our officers. It doesn't make sense. We're asking people to do things differently across the board. The same goes for protest. If people gather, the NYPD is always going to try and use its judgment like they do every single day in every situation. And if there's a gathering that is carefully, socially distance, I saw one of the earlier gatherings that nurses did, the nurses union did, and they were all socially distanced and everyone had on PPEs. Look, I still would ask them not to even do that, but at least that was a very conscientious effort. But if there's any attempt to gather that is going to endanger people, the police's job is to not let that happen. And that means to tell people from the very beginning that they should not be gathering because it is about addressing this pandemic and any two people that get too close together and there might be a spread of the disease, it then leads to more and more people. It's as simple as that. So I'm a huge believer in the First Amendment. I think there's another way to do it. If people gather and then NYPD gives instructions about social distance and the right way to handle things and those instructions aren't followed, then of course they reserve the right to summons or arrest. But Todd, I don't know why anyone is gathering in this environment. It is a choice. Let's get real here. We can believe absolutely in our constitutional rights, but it is literally out of step with the times we're living in to believe that the only way to get something done is to gather in the middle of a pandemic. It's just idiotic. There are plenty of ways to express yourself, but if you gather, you're inherently creating a problem for other people. And so I would just start at the beginning and say to anyone who's thinking of expressing themselves and working on behalf of whatever cause do it in step with what we're all going through. Do it online. You'll get plenty of attention, but you won't put other people in danger.

Moderator: Last question for today goes to Roger Stern from 1010 WINS.

Question: Hi, good morning Mayor. I wanted to get back to the issue of this inflammatory syndrome. You said that kids going to the hospital with symptoms will be tested. Will they be tested for the actual virus or for the antibodies or both? And how would that then affect their treatment?

Mayor: So I'll start, Roger and then turn to Dr. Barbot or Dr. Katz. What we're going to do in our public hospitals is give the antibody test for sure. Because again, what is crucial to know is have these kids been exposed before. We're going to do that across the board and we're urging all hospitals to do testing. The doctors can talk to you about the virtues of either or both types of testing in this situation but the important thing – again, I want to emphasize the health care professionals can do a lot. Again, this is really important, Roger, to recognize from what we're hearing from our health leadership. This is in that category of early detection makes a huge difference. We all know this from, you know, years and years and years of talking about different diseases, how many times early detection is the difference maker. This is one of those times. So for all the parents out there, you see these symptoms in your child act immediately, pick up the phone right away to your doctor. If it's something urgent, get your child to a health care facility. If you don't have a hospital, or excuse me, if you don't have a doctor, you don't know where to turn. Call 3-1-1, they'll connect you to Health + Hospitals. So the early detection of the early action is the way to then empower our health care professionals to address it. But in terms of the different types of testing and how they're being used, Dr. Barbot, Dr. Katz turning to you.

President Katz: I'll start on this one and then Dr. Barbot will help me out. At our Health + Hospitals facilities children will be tested both for the antigen, which is what people think of as what they get when the nasal swab, a PCR test, and the antibody tests. And the significance is that this is a syndrome that we think may occur after a child is infected. So we don't want clinicians to send just the nasal swab, have it be negative for the antigen. And then the doctor thinks, oh, this is unrelated to COVID, when in fact it may still be related to COVID because the child may have had an actual infection some weeks earlier and had they had a nasal swab at that time, it may have been a positive. So in this case, the antigen and the antibody provide different but complimentary pieces of information. And that's why at our public hospitals we'll be testing children for both. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you. Dr. Barbot.

Commissioner Barbot: I'll just add to what Dr. Katz laid out and I agree with him is that really we need to think about this from the broader perspective of both prevention and treatment. And with regards to prevention, you know, it goes back to more wide-scale testing so that we can identify people early, put them in appropriate isolation, quarantine, et cetera. The other thing, it's also a reminder of the importance of continuing to stay at home, continuing to use face coverings because the reality is that for this syndrome there is no way – you know, you develop it after you had this infection. And so the best treatment prevention for it are the prevention messages that we're getting all New Yorkers and it's just yet another reason why we need New Yorkers to continue adhering to social distancing.

Mayor: Thank you very much Dr. Barbot. Dr. Katz. That's a perfect note to end on. Remember how many times you've heard from Dr. Barbot about these really basic things that make all the difference in the world. The basic hygiene, the washing your hands, using the alcohol-based hand sanitizer, the social distancing, that simple act of keeping distance, the use of the face coverings, which have been, you know, another example of New Yorkers taking something that we would not have imagined ourselves doing just weeks ago and now doing it overwhelmingly –go out in the street, you see the vast majority of people are using face coverings. Our job is to keep informing, educating, but also encouraging, letting you know that what you're doing is working. It's having a huge effect and that we want to facilitate it. We want to make it easier. So, we're in the process of giving out 7.5 million face coverings and we'll keep doing that as long as we need to, to help people get it right and to help people protect each other.

Think about social distancing. Think about how unusual that is for New Yorkers to practice that. And yet people have done it. We're going to keep building on that effort with 2,300 social distancing ambassadors. So, you're going to be seeing people constantly reminding people, helping them see if there's something that has to be corrected, making sure if they need information, support, they get it. If they need a face covering, they get it. We're going to use all these tools to keep the progress going.

We're doing really, really well as a city, people, everyone's participating, but we could go even farther and again, everyone wants that reopening, everyone wants that restart. Double down on the things that are working that is the pathway to speeding the restart. So, every time you go out there, just double down on really focusing on the social distancing, on remembering to put on that face, covering on reminding the people in your life the right way to do it. It makes a huge difference. And then our ambassadors will be out there more and more, helping to get the message across, helping to make sure people are moving in the right direction. That's how we move forward as a city. And with that again, ending where we started: Happy Mother's Day to all, have a wonderful day today. Thank you.