Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on The Brian Lehrer Show

March 13, 2020

Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. As our world continues to change in this way that was unimaginable just a few weeks ago, even just a few days ago. I mean the world changed a lot yesterday afternoon with all the different closures and other announcements. So we're all living to various degrees in a state of shock this morning. And I just wanted to acknowledge that because I guess it's probably best to just say that out loud to each other to help us face whatever each of us is facing with this and to help us get through this together as a city, as a country, as a world. I hope everybody listening right now has a good private support system. We will keep trying to be part of your public support system and do best to provide information and community.

But not everything is different. And we begin as usual on Fridays with our weekly Ask the Mayor segment, my questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio at 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, 2-1-2- 4-3-3-9-6-9-2 if you want to call in or you can tweet a question, just use the hashtag #AskTheMayor. Mr. Mayor, welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you very much Brian and Brian, I want to thank you for what you just said. I think it's really, really important that we acknowledge the shock we're all in. It literally seems to change hourly a lot of the time and we have not been through anything like this. And people are fearful, they're anxious, they're confused, they have every right to be. And I think it's really important that people have places like your show to turn to for accurate information and you know, a real dialogue. I really want to emphasize to people there’s a lot of anxiety and fear out there. First of all, listen to the actual official sources of information that can give you facts. For example, there was a ridiculous rumor yesterday that all of Manhattan had been quarantined. That was patently false. People who want to get the truth can go to our website, nyc.gov/coronavirus, can go – can call 3-1-1 and get updates.

We also have a text, which I'll get that for you right now, what the number of people can text to get regular updates texted to them. They can watch obviously the, the City Hall Twitter feed and the Office of Emergency Management. They are constantly putting out refreshed information. So anyone who wants those text alerts and tens of thousands of New Yorkers have signed up for them. You text the word COVID, C-O-V-I-D again, C-O-V-I-D, to 6-9-2-6-9-2. And you'll get those sent to you. And the last thing, Brian, which is to people's feelings and emotions, which are real, that anyone who's really feeling worried and anxious besides trying to get good, usable information. If you just feel, you know, worried, depressed, confused in a way you want to talk to someone professional. Any New Yorker can call our helpline, 8-8-8-NYCWELL again, 8-8-8- NYCWELL, W-E-L-L, get a trained counselor 24/7. There's nothing wrong with asking for help in the middle of a pandemic obviously, and people want someone professional talk to it is available for free 24/7.

Lehrer: And those are all good places to start. Thank you for those. And before we get into policy questions around coronavirus, let me ask how you are? I don't envy you having to be faced with the incredibly difficult choices that you're having to make right now. How are you holding up?

Mayor: Brian it's, thank you for asking. I am really focused on listening to what New Yorkers are going through, but also making the right decisions for them. Never letting the fear or the panic in. And I want to say something very personal. I think it's true in my case, and I don't mean to overstate this, Brian, but it's just a human reality. I had the blessing and so did my wife, Chirlane. We happened to be brought up by parents who participated. Every single one of our parents participated in World War II, and we were told those stories throughout our upbringing. And I think when your entire worldview is shaped by people who went through something absolutely cataclysmic, that the entire society participated and everyone closed ranks and supported each other.

Lehrer: And the depression that led into that for all those years.

Mayor: My parents were absolutely children of the Depression. My parents both had any late in life at the age of 44. So I know we almost added, you know, skipped a generation, if you will. It is very much in my DNA, my worldview. I've heard stories that none of us in modern society could possibly imagine happening to us. And my dad came back, you know, a lieutenant in the US Army, fought for three years, came back, you know, having had half his leg blown off on Okinawa. You know, I think when those are the stories that you are taught from moment one in your life, it puts in perspective what pain and suffering is and how a society should deal with it. I think we're dealing with a very different reality in modern society and we have to sort of think about that deeply even more so as we deal up ahead with the challenge of global warming.

But I do think there are some basic rules that come from, you know, really listening to those who, you know, walk through hell and came back. Which is, you know, the number one thing is never let the panic in, never let people, anyone convince you to panic. There are so many things that should reassure us despite the fear, despite the real honest fear, the unknowns, the unknown is the biggest fear here Brian. We're dealing with a disease that no one ever heard because it didn't exist to medical science less than six months ago. And they still don't understand. And that's a very valid reason for fear. But there's a whole lot of facts, a whole lot of truth and experience that should be reassuring to us. And also this is a true statement. God forbid any of us has to deal with coronavirus, but if you had to – if you had to experience it, there is no place better on Earth to be than in New York City right now, with literally more doctors and nurses and medical professionals, the strongest public health apparatus in the nation by far. Huge, huge number of hospital beds and a lot of dedicated medical professionals, first responders, people are going to be at their posts no matter what to protect everyone else.

So I understand the fear, but I also want people to keep in perspective, this is New York City. There is no place stronger and more resilient and we will come out of it. This is, you know, our Health Commissioner, I think very rightly reminded people that this could easily be six months or more, but it is finite. And we will come out the other side and we will, you know, the vast, vast majority of people are going to survive and recover fully. I'm very worried about older folks and folks with preexisting major, serious medical conditions and we want to protect every life. But we do need to keep in our minds. We're going to get through this and we'll going to come out the other side and we're going to move forward.

Lehrer: Let me deal with the most frequent question that we're getting. And that's about closing schools. Six States have done it. We're getting some calls for it and the Chancellor and you have some reasons against it. What you're thinking as of right now?

Mayor: Oh, not just some reasons, profound reasons. I really believe this. It begins with our children. We need our children to be safe. We need them to be in a place where, you know there's now a school nurse in every single school building. We need our children to be fed, which is a reality, bluntly in a city with lots of folks who have very few resources, a lot of folks who are poor, that our schools are a place where kids often get two nutritious meals in their day that they might not get otherwise. We need our first responders, our medical personnel to be able to depend on our schools for their children, for their own children so they can do the work to protect all of us. So they did not force to have to stay home because they have no other choice. And we also, by the way, you know, I, when people, when states, or any place else closes their schools is that for a week, a month? Is that the entire rest of the school year? Do you realize the impact that has on a child's education to lose half a school year, or a big chunk of the school year?

Lehrer: Well, the other side of that is it's just a few months.

Mayor: Well, but I would say in the life of a child and their intellectual development and everything else, it's a big deal. Now the question is, you know, what's safe, what's the right thing to do? And right now we have seen that this disease has a very consistent pattern around the world. This disease, its biggest impact in terms of truly negative consequences is on older people, folks 50 and over. Folks who have preexisting serious medical conditions. The children who have experienced this disease in this city who did not have a serious preexisting medical conditions came through very, very well, very quickly. So this is Brian, just to finish it, you know, we have a very strong philosophy and I've been talking constantly with the Governor and the heads of the different agencies that the line of defense we are holding here is to keep our health care system running, including the people we need to staff it, to keep our mass transit running, which is crucial for everything for making sure health care workers can get to work, first responders so that people still can work. We need people to keep working for their livelihood and our schools. A lot of other things we could do without, but those three things are absolutely crucial to preserve.

Lehrer: But before we go to the phones on what you just said, what’s safe? It's not just for the school children. It's also for the grownups who take care of the school children. And I want to play a clip of probably you agree, the most respected national leader on this right now, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This is a 60 second clip of him after he was asked on Morning Joe today on MSNBC to lay out how he would balance when and where to close schools.

Director Anthony Fauci, National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases: I think you need to do it proportionately. If you have a considerable amount or even the beginnings of community spread in your community, clearly you need to do very aggressive mitigation procedures. If you have less, you can start doing something. I mean, physical separation. A lot of crowds, don't do unnecessary travel. The kinds of things like telework, that's all fine. When it comes to the really, really forceful mitigation, should be a little bit more proportionate. But with regard to what you're saying, what the effect is, even though we know, because we have experience now with other countries, that children, although they get infected, they really – unlike influenza, they do not necessarily at all, get serious disease. In fact, if you look at the history of what we've seen, children do very well. The only problem is when they get infected, and schools can be a breeding ground for that. They go home and infect grandma or grandpa or a relative or someone who might be in a more vulnerable position. So that's the rationale for shutting schools.

Lehrer: So Mr. Mayor, I'm not advocating one thing or another, but Dr. Fauci seem to say without naming New York or any other city, that because we have community spread of the virus and you know, there's a need to protect the older parents and grandparents, which would imply separate the kids from each other. What would you say to that clip?

Mayor: I would say, first of all, we should not have an illusion that if you close schools, kids are not going to still be connecting with other kids and family members and you know, be out and around. I mean this, the notion that we're going to isolate every child from the rest of their family. I think is very suspect. I think in fact it puts tremendous strain on families.

Lehrer: Well not from the rest of their family, from other families, children more, right?

Mayor: Listen to where I'm going. It's got to put tremendous strain on families. If they can't have their kids in school, everything else is going to change in their lives. And do you really think kids are going to stay in their room or stay in their apartment for weeks and weeks or months on end and not come in contact with other kids and other people? It's unrealistic. So I think the reality we have is we need the adults – anyone who is an adult in our school system needs to practice the kind of common sense measures we've talked about. If they're truly themselves, if they are sick, not out of fear, but out of fact if they are sick, they should stay home until they are well. That is very, very important. If a parent, any child, sees that their child is sick in any way, hold your child home because most of the sicknesses that are traditional this time of year take a few days to clarify. Either something more serious or something that kids will get over or anybody would get over after a few days, typical cold, et cetera. If it's something more serious, we'll get them tested. But the fact is to say we are going to shut down everything and thus in the process create a huge amount of negative impact onto itself, let alone undermine all the people who we depend on to help keep the society running and protect everyone who then have to deal with their own children. There's a very slippery slope here and I've been blunt about it, Brian. So I heard exactly what Dr. Fauci said. And I'm heartened, especially by the point he made clearly that this disease has had minimal impact on kids, particularly healthy kids. But we have to balance each of the pieces right now in a very big complex equation. And I don't think it's as simple as saying, if you do something like close schools, it doesn't have a huge domino effect that then hurts a lot of other pieces of what we need to do.

Lehrer: Alexis in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello Alexis.

Question: Hi.

Lehrer: Hi, Alexis. Are you a student?

Question: Yes.

Lehrer: What grade? What grade are you in? Can you say?

Question: I am in tenth, I am a sophomore.

Lehrer: Okay. Do you have a question for the Mayor?

Question: Yes. So my school, there's another school in the campus and there was a case of coronavirus yet we were still required to go to school. I didn't because my mom was scared that if I do go, I'll get infected. But they still made us go to school and they're not cleaning the school, they're not taking students out. And my worry is that if a student has a family member with respiratory issues or HIV or any other issues, that they might not show any symptoms and might not know that they have it and bring it back to their house. So what are doing, do you think you can close down with schools after hearing that?

Mayor: Alexis, just which school do you go to? I'm sorry.

Lehrer: Alexis, you want to say your school's name?

Question: Bronx Academy for Software Engineering.

Mayor: And which school did you say is connected to because that's not one of the ones obviously, that has the scare in the Bronx, which proved to be false. And I'll speak to that. Are you in the same building as those other two schools?

Question: Yes.

Mayor: You're in the same building as Laboratory School of Finance and Technology and South Bronx Preparatory?

Question: No. Crotona International High School. There was a staff who has the coronavirus and got tested and proved positive.

Mayor: Okay. Let me – Alexis, I want to respect your question but I want to confirm details before I – I'll talk about the broad answer but I want to confirm details because here's the problem we've had already. In the case of those two schools I mentioned in the Bronx, where on Thursday a parent, quote unquote self-confirmed, that her daughter had tested positive. When that was checked against the New York State health officials, it proved to be unfortunately false and the student in fact had tested negative. So that school was closed for day as a precaution has now reopened. The protocol in any school where there's a real positive is a full cleaning of the school. Isolation of course of the student themselves who tested positive, tracing of any other people in the school they had a close connection to because we know, and yet another study has come out from the World Health Organization confirming in tremendous detail that this is not an airborne disease. This is a direct contact transmission, by fluid disease. You have to be close to someone, that fluid has to go from one body to the next. So that's where we will trace the exact people that that student would have had direct contact with and those folks will be isolated from the school.

And you make a very good point about any student who has those very serious health issues. The Department of Education keeps a list of those students by school and we would immediately alert those parents. And I think I have abundance of caution, we would advise those parents to hold that student back for a period of time, just to be safe. But the fact is once there is a fully confirmed case that will be all those steps immediately. And the City and State are in total agreement on that, that one day full shutdown, the cleaning, the isolation of those who need to be isolated. But we need to also recognize that people are starting to suggest they have a positive when they don't. And we have to be very careful about balancing that.

Lehrer: Right. And in fairness in the interest of not freaking people out with rumors we can't confirm that because somebody called a talk show and said that they heard that somebody at a certain location is positive, that that's the case without you having heard of it, Mr. Mayor, that's an indication that it may or may not be the case and maybe it is the case and you just hadn't heard it yet, but just not –

Mayor: I'm sorry to jump in there. There's a need to confirm with the actual – the actual medical professionals who did the test and we get that through the either the state or through the city public health lab, whichever is the specific entry point. But you know, no one can be – replace the doctors right now, we have to hear back that we have a confirmed positive.

Lehrer: I see that City Council Councilman Mark Treyger sent an idea to the Education Department, which is closing most public schools and using the rest to serve at-risk students and families like those you were describing who need food aid or childcare, whose parents are health care workers, and kids with certain disabilities. Those were all on the Councilman's list. Have you seen that one yet?

Mayor: I haven't and I appreciate every constructive suggestion. And he's someone I respect a lot. But again, that's one piece of the equation. There are many, many other pieces. I just actually reviewed a number of them with you. The nutrition is one piece of it, but we're going to watch this every day. And one of the things I said in detail at the press conference yesterday, Brian, is – and it fits with how you opened – this situation is changing not daily but hourly. If conditions change, we'll make decisions accordingly. But I believe that everything I laid out to you, the extraordinary negative impact of taken out schools, all the multiplier effects, the fallacy, I really believe this, that kids at home in their neighborhood are going to be in perfect isolation which I just don't believe as a parent. I'm mean, I'm a parent of two kids. I saw how they acted if they stayed home for a day. I saw how restless they were.

We're talking about weeks, months. I mean, I just think we have to be honest, but the fact is we can make sure with common sense – and everyone's in this, I think there's another real challenge here which is we got to make sure people don't think they can just sit back in a crisis and let the government fix it for them. That's not how this one works. Everyone has to participate. So anyone who is sick has to stay home, which usually means only a matter of days. If your kid's sick, you'll hold your kid back. But everyone has to participate and that's why I get back to that, you know, greatest generation reference. I don't want people thinking it's just about, you know, looking out for number one and that's all there is to it.

We actually have to think as a community here and there has to be a sort of a social commitment. Everyone involved in solving a problem. This is much farther – much bigger than government alone can solve. And I obviously, I understand everyone has to look out for themselves in a natural way, look out for their families. I do that, too. Everyone should, but there's got to be a sense here that actually you can also participate in the bigger solution and protecting each other and looking out for people in your life who might need help. We got to get to – I think New Yorkers do that. I think New Yorkers did that after 9/11 in an amazing fashion for the whole world to see after Sandy. We got to think big here.

Lehrer: Shane in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Shane.

Question: Hi, Brian. Hi, Mr. mayor. Really appreciate the weekly shows that you do. They're very informative. The weekly Ask the Mayor is so informative. Mayor, thank you for all you're doing to keep us informed. I have a dog walking business that's been around for 12 years. We have a lot of dog walkers with us and we're in the service industry. We've experienced an enormous drop in business where people don't want people coming to their homes or people are not working from the office, so they don't need our services. And so my main question here is that there's no work for our employees and we don't have a budget that can support them while we're not working. So I'm wondering what kind of support from the City is going to be there or the State that you might've heard of to help our workers. Like they –

Lehrer: So you don't just work walk dogs yourself, you employ other people who also walk dogs. Is that correct?

Question: Yes –

Lehrer: Mr. Mayor –

Question: [Inaudible]

Lehrer: That’s [inaudible] –

Mayor: It sounds like you have a –again, everyone does things differently. Sounds like you have a formal business, right? An incorporated business?

Question: It's incorporated and we didn't want to do things the 1099 route with independent contractors. So our walkers are employees.

Mayor: Okay. In your case then there's two things that we can do immediately at the City level and then I'll talk about the bigger level. We announced a few days back one for the smallest businesses under five employees, we can get cash grants to maintain employment levels. They're not limitless, but they are substantial and they could be very helpful. Depending on the size of your company you might qualify. And then second for companies up to a hundred employees no interest loans, zero interest loans, up to $75,000 to tide people over, keep them moving. And you can find out about all of those things through 3-1-1 and how to apply. The bigger relief that I believe is coming quickly from the federal side – I hope so at least – it will be a combination of things, as I understand it, including things like extending unemployment insurance for anyone who really can't continue their work and other kinds of stimulus package that might help including down to small business.

That's my hope that they will aggressively shore up employment. Because I think one of the big things to be concerned about in this crisis and a balance that we have to strike is keeping small businesses alive so we don't lose them, keeping people employed so they have money for the rent, for food, for medicine, everything people still need. There's a real balance. I met yesterday with some of the biggest employers in New York City who are trying in every way they can, to their credit, to move to telecommuting or staggering work hours. So people are staggering them so that people don't have to be all in the subway in rush hour, that kind of thing. But everyone agreed, protecting employment and protecting people's livelihoods is really important. We can't forget this piece of the equation. So Shane, if you'll give your information to WNYC I'll have people follow up with you directly from our Small Businesses Services department, but anyone – any business owner listening can call 3-1-1, then we'll help in the ways that we can.

Lehrer: And I will say that Shane kind of represents a good number of the callers on our board this morning with small businesses or just people who find themselves out of work now. Here's another one like that. Listener on Twitter writes, “I’m a stagehand, out of work for a month or more, is the Mayor willing to work with the government to freeze rents and utilities? Our theater community lives paycheck to paycheck.”

Mayor: Yes, they do. And I know I've worked very closely with the stagehands’ union and their work is, you know, something that we all think of as sort of symbolic of our city and I can imagine how tough it's going to be for them now. So yeah, look, we're trying to figure out every way that we can, for example, to stop evictions from happening, freeze that situation. If there's anything else that we can freeze up or suspend in the way that people have to pay, if there's anything we can get our hands on that we can do like that we're going to, that's an ongoing work.

So absolutely, I think it's a combination of, the City can provide support of some kinds for small business. For everyday people anyone threatened with eviction should be calling 3-1-1. And we can provide, in many cases, a free lawyer to stop it. If folks, particularly if they're lower income, are unable to pay the rent there are times when we can get them some immediate financing, some immediate money to help pay the rent immediately to keep them in their apartment. But for the larger society, we're going to work with the real estate world, the landlords, everyone to try and get everyone to be truly socially conscious and not greedy and really cut people slack in the middle of this crisis. We’re going to trying to do that on many, many levels.

Lehrer: Winston in East Harlem, you're on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Winston.

Question: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. I have a quick question about the job search requirement for people who are getting cash assistance. So right now the guidance that I have been told is that we're still expected to report in person between 9:00 and 9:30 in order to maintain our EBT and cash assistance benefits. And I'm wondering if there's a work around for that during this health crisis. So I know that some people are able to do online job searches but that doesn't seem to be the predominant way that people are getting those. And then my second question, just as a follow up would be, you know, with people who are on food stamps, is there a way to maybe give them an advance so that people can have money to prepare? And I'm – not to be alarmist, but just are there considerations for that?

Mayor; Excellent, excellent questions and I'm going to answer them, but, Brian, I want to say this is another example of why your show is so valuable. This kind information directly from people and what they're experiencing helps me and everyone in the government to make the adjustments we have to make in the middle of a crisis. So, I want to thank you for that.

Lehrer: Yes.

Mayor: To the question. I think that's a great point about getting away from the in person interviews in this situation. We actually have been moving away in a lot of different areas. Food stamps, for example, SNAP program – we've been moving away from in person interviews to an automated system or call in. That's what we need to maximize now. In this case, I think your suggestion is right on. We'll follow up today. Please give your information to WNYC so we can make sure that we make the adjustments that we can for you.

But to the maximum extent possible, I'm going to instruct our agencies to start moving away from those in person interviews immediately. And if they can cancel them all together, that would be ideal. On the food stamp advance, it’s a great question as well. I don't know what the federal rules are, which govern the program, and if we are allowed to do that and if we can, I think it's a very thoughtful idea if we can help people get ahead of this a little bit and stock up, I think that's real smart. So we're going to see if that is possible. Maybe a little complicated because we have to get a federal sign off, but let's see if we can do that. But again, thank you. Excellent questions and we're going to follow up on all those.

Lehrer: We have time for one more caller. Alina in Manhattan. You're on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Alina.

Question: Thank you so much for taking my call and thank you guys for your leadership and intelligence. I'm calling because I just am a person sort of going through it on the ground and trying to sort my way through and it's been pretty confusing and I just wanted to share that experience and to see if others had had the same and what I'm either getting wrong and what I can do or what we could change. So my boyfriend was asked to be quarantined because he worked in WeWork with the financial advisor of like patient zero in New Rochelle. And we were asked to quarantine ourselves. Nobody ever contacted us. I, after that, got symptoms. They got worse. I called my doctor, my doctor wasn't sure, but he had no tests. So he put me to a hotline with Weill Cornell.

They basically told me that they are asking people to just stay home if they have symptoms that are not critical. And the only way to get a test was to be critical. So I've been extremely diligent and my boyfriend's been extremely diligent, but I have two children who can't come home. I have an elderly mother that I can't see who's now showing symptoms. So I called her doctor, was on hold for an hour. Not sure what to do, short of trying to take her to the ER, but there are a lot of problems with going to the ER. You don't want to infect yourself if you're not sick. You don't want to get others sick. We don't have enough masks, we don't have enough gloves to be able to do that in a safe way. And then it's really unclear, even if you're guessing whether you have it or not. It's unclear what the time frame is. I know [inaudible] yesterday that said about two weeks from showing symptoms. But anyway, this is sort of what I'm going through on the ground and it doesn't seem like there's a particular test center, a place we can go to, just kind of get tested. And I'm worried that people are, you know – I was very careful, but I have other friends who are coughing and because they're not getting tested, they're just assuming they don't have it. So that's my experience. Sorry to be long winded.

Lehrer: Oh, and it's so complicated, Alina. I feel for you so much, Mr. Mayor, how can you help her?

I feel for you too, Alina – and I'm shocked actually that, you know, the Westchester case is the one true cluster. Like that's been the epicenter. There's nothing else like it. And if you're saying that your boyfriend was directly related to that case and no one gave you guidance on what to do, something's very wrong there because there's been a – I've seen in many, many cases a lot of follow up and taking very seriously that folks need to be given guidance and support. So I wanted to say, I don't know how on Earth that happened. I think it's absolutely unacceptable that you were left in that situation. I'm very, very sorry that happened to you. First of all, give your information to WNYC and we will absolutely have someone in authority follow up with you today who can really make sure that all the right follow ups happen for you, for your boyfriend, for your mom right away today.

Because this is unbelievable that you were left in that situation. I want to, though, speak to the bigger picture because I think everyone who will listen to that needs to hear what's supposed to happen and what we're trying to make happen for everyone. First of all, anytime you're – you have a private doctor or whatever health care facility you turn to regularly, that is of course the first place to turn. But if as Alina was saying, you're not getting satisfaction from that, you can't get through or you're not getting good answers you should call 3-1-1 and they can connect you to our Health + Hospital system, meaning our public hospitals and clinics, connect you to someone who can either give you a guidance over the phone or tell you where we need you to go to come in and see a doctor directly.

The goal here, Alina, is for folks who don't have an immediate direct connection like you have to someone who tested positive – what we want for the vast majority New Yorkers is if you start to feel sick, with the kind of classic cold and flu like symptoms get home, stay home, and if after a day or two it's, you know – if it's getting better that's great. If it's not getting better, it's getting worse, it's really important to alert your health care provider or if it can't reach one again through 3-1-1 alert our Health + Hospitals team. And then what happens typically is someone comes in to whether it’s a medical office, clinic, urgent care or a lot of people getting tested at urgent care for the first level. And the first level – we said this to people, and we really want people to hear this. There is a standard test that has been around for quite a while well before this outbreak, it's called BioFire is the name it goes by – and it is a test that immediately identifies if someone has one of 26 more typical diseases especially that we see around this season. If you go and get that test – if you were sick and it persists, you go in, you get that test and if it's one of those 26 things then it's not coronavirus. That's going to be true for a whole lot of people. If you take that test and it proves that it is not coming up positive on any of those 26, then we're going to want you to be tested for coronavirus. So there is a prioritization around people who have been exposed to other folks. Direct contact with someone who tested positive, we want them tested, we want folks tested who are coming back from one of the worst affected countries.

We want folks tested who have symptoms and are over 50 and have pre-existing conditions. That means cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, or a compromised immune system. And obviously again, someone who goes through that normal pattern, gives it a few days, disease persists whatever it is, goes and gets the test, it is not one of the 26 from BioFire. That's someone else, of course, we want tested.

And today for the first time, and Brian, this is breaking news as of this morning after us pleading with the federal government and the FDA for many, many weeks to authorize more testing, they finally this morning for one of the major testing companies also authorized automated testing, which means that we are on the pathway now as a city to be able to get thousands of tests done in the day and get the results back the same day. That's going to ramp up now. This is the first time we're finally going to be able to have the testing capacity to get to a lot more people, which we've been needing for a long, long time.

Lehrer: And that doesn't change what an individual does in terms of how to have contact with the medical profession if they think they may need a test?

Mayor: Given that – the basic answer is no, and I'll tell you why because given the fact that we are going to have a lot more testing but we're also going to have obviously more cases. We still want to keep that progression intact. If again, if you're someone who is over 50 with those preexisting conditions, those five areas I mentioned, we want to treat you very carefully. That's a whole different discussion. Or again, if you've been in direct contact with some of this already confirmed, tested positive or you just came back from one of the highly affected nations, those folks are going to go to the front of the line for obvious reasons. So we're going to do this in progression. The more testing capacity we have, the deeper we can go into the community obviously, but I want people to understand there's going to be a lot of people who will have symptoms this time of year and it will turn out to be something that resolves like it does for all of us.

You know, every year there's – often you'd get the cold, you get the flu, whatever, and it resolves quickly. For other people, if it's not resolving, they're going to find out if it's something that can be identified by a doctor, as not being coronavirus. And for those who it turns out it is coronavirus we know exactly what to do. For a lot of people – for about 80 percent of the people who even end up with that diagnosis they will be able to go home, stay in isolation, ride it out and fully recover. 80 percent is the consistent number we're seeing of folks who go through it with minimal impact, fully recover. 20 percent have a more serious impact. The vast majority of the 20 percent will come through. It'll be – they'll have a tough experience, but they're going to come through, they're going to fully recover. There's a small percentage who are in true danger, who we are very worried about we could lose, but that is overwhelmingly not only anyone over 50, over 50 is sort of the base, much more likely over 60, but even more likely over 70 over 80 years old and one or more of those five preexisting conditions. We know that's where the real danger is.

Lehrer: Mr. Mayor, thank you for staying over your usual time this morning to take some peoples – and I know you’re –

Mayor: [Inaudible] yeah, just one more very quick point – to anyone thinking about the parents, grandparents, if you are – everyone wants to visit with each other, that's normal. If anybody in your family is sick, make sure to not visit someone who is older and has one of those preexisting conditions. We have to give them space. Do not put anybody who even might be sick in direct presence with them. That's actually the dangerous thing that we have to have that kind of separation for a period of time here.

Lehrer: When should they visit people who are very elderly, even if they're not sick? I see there's a restriction in New York – and I'm sorry to throw on another follow up question, but I see there's now a restriction in New York from anybody visiting nursing homes.

Mayor: And that has to do with the fact that it is a congregate setting where unquestionably, you're going to have a lot of people who are much older, much more vulnerable and undoubtedly a high percentage of people who will have a major preexisting condition or a meaningful percentage of people have a preexisting condition. If you're talking about an older relative, first of all, if they do not have a preexisting condition, that's a much better situation meaning of those five areas I mentioned. Also if you're absolutely certain no one who would be visiting is sick at that point in time – and one very easy thing our Health Commissioner says, just take out a thermometer if it hits at 100.4 or above don't even think of visiting someone elderly or someone who has those preexisting conditions.

So you can just literally do that every day. If you want an extra measure of clarity. If you go – if you're above 100.4 so less than two degrees above normal you should exercise that caution. So folks can visit if they're convinced everyone is well and if they're, you know, if they know what's going on with the older person they're visiting. But it's just an abundance-of-caution reality, Brian. If you think someone might be sick, don't put them in the presence of an older person with those preexisting conditions.

Lehrer: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Talk to you next week.

Mayor: Thank you, Brian.