Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good afternoon, everyone. We've got a lot to go over here and we're all feeling very heavy hearts as we deal with such an extraordinary challenge and we think about the New Yorkers that we've lost and we think about what's ahead and I'm going to go over a number of things now that update you. Understanding the challenge but also understanding that New Yorkers will get through this together and it’s hard to explain that balance sometimes that we're dealing with something absolutely profoundly different than anything we've dealt with before, extraordinarily difficult and invisible and confusing, but we will get through this together. That is something that comes back to just the pure strength of this place and our people. But in the meantime, we will go through a really tough, tough journey and it all comes back to, as always, needing to work with the federal government in particular to get the help we need.
And I'll give you some updates starting there. There was confusion yesterday obviously when President Trump mentioned the concept of quarantine. I think a lot of us were confused, thought it was something that would be in so many ways counterproductive and obviously unfair to so many people. What ended up happening was a CDC travel advisory, something much different – not a lockdown, something much more consistent with what we've been actually saying and doing in the city and state already, which is telling people to stay home unless they have an essential reason to go somewhere. So, again, that threat of a quarantine turned into a very different CDC travel advisory working with the federal government, working with the governors of the tri state areas. Now, I spoke to the president this morning and in truth, I did not want to discuss with him the travel advisory that had been settled in a way that, again, I think we can live with.
What I wanted to talk to him about was ventilators. What I wanted to talk to him about was medical personnel and I went over with him again, the reality in New York City, the fact that we have until next Sunday, April 5th, to get the reinforcements we need, particularly when it comes to ventilators. In fact, I asked the federal administration to get us additional ventilators even earlier. My request to them is to get 400 more ventilators in by April 1st because we've seen such movement with this disease, we have to be ready for all eventualities. So, my hope is that we'll see some of the results we've seen previously in the last few days. And again, there's a lot we could talk about what the federal government has and hasn't done over the last two months, but in the last week we have seen some real support and I want to see it again with the 400 ventilators we'd like to get in immediately.
Then we have a lot more we're going to need by Sunday, April 5th and beyond. And certainly, the medical personnel, which I talked to the president about repeatedly and to the defense secretary and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. I think the best way for us to get a lot of that medical personnel is from the military. Everyone's been receptive. I'm waiting for specific results. But again, I will keep hoping that these very specific requests and very specific conversations will yield what New Yorkers need so that we can be safe. The fact is we remain the epicenter of this crisis nationally. A day will come when I will be able to no longer use that word and we all look forward to that word. But right now, we are the epicenter and the numbers are staggering. And again, they all represent real people, real families.
As of this morning, we were at 32,308 total cases, a stunning number. And we have lost, and this is so painful, 678 of our fellow New Yorkers. That means in the last 24 hours from this morning to Saturday morning, we lost 161 more people in this city. People of all walks of life, every kind of New Yorker. And it's so painful for everyone that we're going through this and we have to fight back with everything we've got. I want to tell you some of the stories because it's important to understand the lives of the people we've lost, and many of them were devoted to all of us and helping all of us in protecting and serving their fellow New Yorkers. And I have to say every loss, every death is painful. I feel a particular sense of loss when it's one of our public servants.
So, I want to name some of them and talk about them very briefly.
At Health + Hospitals – and Dr. Katz is here, I know he feels the same pain as we discuss the loss of some of his colleagues – we lost at Health + Hospitals, Freda Ocran. She was a psych educator at Jacobi, previously the head nurse of the psych unit, and a mom supporting her family, but also supporting her mom who lives in Africa. So, what a horrible loss for that family, that hospital, and our city. Another story of tremendous commitment to Theresa Lococo, a pediatric nurse at Kings County Hospital, serving families and children. Amazingly, she was in her 48th year of employment in our hospital system, protecting her fellow New Yorkers – 48 years, serving us, and she gave her life helping others.
We've heard of terrible losses from the MTA. Our colleagues at the MTA, we grieve with you and we're so sorry for what you're experiencing. Of course, we all heard the story of Garrett Goble, 36 years old only, had only been working at MTA for six years, out there helping to keep the city run in this crisis of fire on the train put his life in danger. And what did he do? He worked to get everyone else to safety first and then got off the train and passed away immediately after, leaves behind two young sons in his family. So sad. And someone who, again, was right there at the moment, his last moments of his life, protecting others, serving others, saving others. Also, from New York City Transit, Peter Petrassi, 21 years as a conductor. And a beautiful tribute to him was posted by his nephew, Dylan, calling him the most loving, enthusiastic man, always putting others before himself.
You see this really painful pattern here of people who just cared so much about others and we’re losing such good people. Also, Oliver Cyrus, a bus operator, 21 years at the MTA, based at the Manhattanville Bus Depot, a quiet and humble man, loved by his coworkers. We have lost to Oliver as well. And then you heard, painful loss at the NYPD. A man that worked at One Police Plaza, I mentioned yesterday – or Friday, I should say. We've now lost Detective Cedric Dixon, 23-year veteran of the NYPD, he worked in the 3-2 Precinct in Harlem. Not only a great detective, but someone that everyone who knew him knew would always be there to help other people. An electronics and tech genius who always could fix things for other people. A horrible loss for the NYPD and the city. And from the NYPD as well, Giacomina Barr-Brown, an administration assistant in the Bronx, 49 Precinct roll call office, seven years in the NYPD and the kind of person her colleagues said she lit up the room with her smile, also always there for other people. And the FDNY – we rely on the FDNY in so many ways they've lost James Villecco, auto mechanic. He's been with Fleet Services since 2014 and this is the kind of unsung hero who doesn't get the credit he deserves. This is the kind of man who keeps us safe because he kept the ambulances in good repair so they could get there to help all of us. We grieve with his family in Staten Island.
Finally, NYC & Company, they do such important work promoting New York City to the world and helping bring in all those tourists, all that investment that helps this city keep moving forward. NYC & Company has lost Hubert “Rally” Nurse. He was there for 30 years working to promote New York and share New York with the world. And now we've lost him and all of us, all of New York grieves with his family. These are examples – and it's just so painful to say that's just a small, small fraction of those we've lost. As I said, these are the people we've lost who are our colleagues in public service. And as you heard, every one of them, an amazing story of sacrifice and concern and love for their fellow New Yorker.
So, we see this crisis growing and for weeks and weeks we've been talking about getting ready for this and we have to get ready for even more. And it's not just the incredible toll this has taken on our health care system. As you've heard in recent days the number of cases is growing, it’s also having – putting a huge burden on our emergency system. I can't thank enough everyone at EMS, they're doing amazing work under the toughest circumstances. Our EMTs, our paramedics, all the officers, everyone who is doing such important work at EMS. We thank you and we feel for you because I know that the number of calls to 9-1-1 have been skyrocketing, it’s putting a huge, huge demand on EMS. Let's be clear, Commissioner Nigro will be available to speak to this later on in the question and answer. This is unprecedented.
We've never seen our EMS system get this many calls, ever. But what Commissioner Nigro is doing with his team and our Deputy Mayor for Operations, Laura Anglin, is we're making a series of very fast, intense moves to ensure that more personnel will be available for the EMS. We're going to shift personnel onto the work of EMS. We're going to come up with more ambulance shifts, additional vehicles, whatever it takes to keep serving New Yorkers who are in emergencies. We're also going to make sure that folks who don't have a pressing emergency, because we all know for years and years, folks have called 9-1-1 and most of those are true emergencies and some of them are not. Anyone who's calling and needs something else, doesn't need an ambulance but needs a different kind of help we're going to find a way to get that to them too so ambulances are never going to a place that they don't need to be. But what we have to do first and foremost is put on more personnel, more ambulances, more shifts. And we are doing that immediately so we can serve the true emergencies and there's a lot of them to make sure that New Yorkers get the help they need.
Obviously, there's been a lot of attention on the situation in our hospitals in general and in particular at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. I'm just going to give you a few quick points. Dr. Mitch Katz, here with me, will talk about Elmhurst and Health + Hospitals more specifically. But look, the bottom line is the incredibly valiant team at Elmhurst has gone through so much in the last few weeks. That's an extraordinarily effective hospital. Real professionals who have found a way to keep saving so many lives while dealing with such pain at the same time and real loss. And you can imagine how hard it is for people whose whole life is saving lives to see that sometimes there is no way to save a life, but they have been doing amazing, amazing work to save so many others. We've been sending constant reinforcement. So, 169 clinicians have been sent in recent days to Elmhurst.
That means physicians, registered nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants. 100 nurses this weekend alone. In addition, within the hospital, clinicians have been moved from outpatient activities to ICU activities. Staff from the central office of Health + Hospitals are moving in, taking on roles in terms of ICU and emergency department. We are going to keep moving personnel and getting more personnel constantly to help Elmhurst and every other hospital that needs it. This is going to be an extraordinarily tough next few weeks, but we will keep sending more and more reinforcements. And again, we have to get the good people who are there doing such tough work, we have to get them a break, we have to [inaudible] them. And this is why I want to see medical personnel come in, not just from New York City, but from all over the country, including those military and medical personnel. Because we have to give these extraordinary heroes a break at places like Elmhurst.
Also, ventilators – we have added 55 ventilators to Elmhurst over the past two weeks and we will keep adding whatever number of ventilators they need. So, this will be a nonstop effort. Across Health + Hospitals, the whole system, the 11 hospitals, 500 contract nurses have been added already, 500 more coming this week. So, we are just going to constantly, constantly reinforce. Now I want to turn to supplies and the distribution of supplies. And I've already said our first milestone is this coming Sunday, April 5th, we must shore up to get ahead of the challenges. We will start to face that following week. So, this is a race against time. We have gotten some real help. As I said, the ventilators that came in from the federal government – some are coming in from other sources. That's helpful. Incredibly helpful. We need it all. We are thankful for it all.
Yesterday we sent 1,400 ventilators out to our hospitals, to all types of hospitals. That is a huge step forward, but that number we need overall is still 15,000. So, we've made a big dent between different sources to get toward that 15,000. We have a long, long way to go. We still need to see the federal government do a lot more and more quickly. We need the Defense Production Act utilized to the maximum. We need to see a distribution system that's fast and intense. And again, I think the military must be involved. And, again, my specific request to the federal government is 400 more ventilators by April 1st to get us ready for later in the week when we expect the upturn to really intensify and we need those ventilators to be in place and ready.
In terms of personal protective equipment, PPEs, a very moving moment yesterday when the United Nations provided 250,000, a quarter million surgical masks, to the people in New York City, to our health care workers, our first responders. The United Nations, we are their home and they did something very good for their hometown with a quarter million surgical masks and we've asked them, any and all help they can provide going forward we will need it. And those masks are getting out to our hospitals right away.
Dr. Katz will speak to the overall situation, but my message to all the doctors, the nurses, the hospital staff starting with all our colleagues at Health + Hospitals, our public hospitals, but to all of those out there, the voluntary hospitals, the big hospital systems, the independent hospitals – we are all in this together. We're going to go and work to get you every conceivable supply you need and get it to you quick. We have to protect our health care workers and that's what we're working on every single day. And we can only – all of us who are not health care workers can only imagine what you all are going through. We have to be there for you and get you all the help including the additional personnel immediately. That's our job.
In terms of a health capacity. We're all really moved by the fact that the USNS Comfort is arriving tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to greeting the men and women, the medical professionals, the sailors, everyone who is making this possible. I want to thank our colleagues in government at the Economic Development Corporation who played a crucial role for the Comfort to dock and be able to add immense hospital capacity for the city instantly upon docking. Well, they had to be able to dock and they weren't going to be able to dock unless the dock was dredged to allow for a ship of this size.
The operation was supposed to take two weeks. The folks at EDC, working with the Army Corps of Engineers and the State Department of Environmental Conservation that got the job done in eight days. And so, the Comfort will be arriving tomorrow and will right away be making a difference in this city. And we are so, so grateful to the Navy, to the military that this new help will be arriving in our city. Also, very important, in Central Park, we're going to be using every place we need to use to help people. Mount Sinai Hospital, working with a relief organization named Samaritan's Purse, is creating a 68-bed field hospital. So, this is the kind of thing that you will see now as this crisis develops and deepens. The partnership with Central Park Conservancy, our Parks Department, and the Mayor's Office – we all worked together to get this done with Mount Sinai and Samaritan's Purse. Going up now in the East Meadow, should be operational by Tuesday.
Some other quick updates for you and then I'll turn to Dr. Katz and then we'll go to questions. There had been a concern about those incarcerated, update, in terms of our jail system. As of last night, over 650 inmates had been released, again, working carefully with the State of New York and the DAs and being very, very mindful of public safety while also being mindful of deep humanitarian concern. Over 650 released. I can update you and say that since this crisis began, our jail population is down by about 860, not just because of the releases, but because we've seen falling crime and, and lower arrests. Want to thank the DAs and the State for their collaboration and cooperation working all together. And the State I think made an important decision related to those on parole and working through the right approach there. I just want to commend the State for that.
There’s been concerned about our juvenile detainees. A number of actions have been taken. Over the last two weeks, there's been a significant reduction in our juvenile detainee population, there's been a 67 percent reduction in one category, 53 percent reduction in another category. So, when you combine that, obviously we've been able to reduce very, very substantially – it was not a huge population to begin with. We'll get to the exact numbers, but more than half of those who had been detained over the last two weeks have been released, again, while always making sure there is follow-up and monitoring to protect safety. Want to thank our Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, want to thank the Law Department, the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, and the Administration for Children's Services for working together to ensure that was done properly and quickly.
Related to transportation – a couple of things. Staten Island Ferry, we had made a substantial reduction in service because ridership was down so intensely. We have seen ridership continue to drop, it is now down 86 percent from the same time period last year. As a result of the lower ridership and the need to conserve resources and a number of factors, we're going to be moving to hourly service on the Staten Island Ferry. That will be 24/7 but it will be hourly service. There's so few people using the ferry now compared to what we normally have that we had to make this move. It will go into effect at midnight tonight.
And then related to our subways. We've gotten some reports of crowded subway cars despite obviously a huge, huge reduction in subway usage. Obviously, there's been service reductions as well. We've had some times where there was a service problem and that led to – in other words service had been delayed and that led to some crowding. We are going to work together, the MTA and the NYPD, to go and do spot checks and immediately intervene if we see any subway cars that are crowded. Want to ask all New Yorkers again if I – that should not be something you see very often. And if you're on the subway, it means of course to begin with, you're an essential worker or you're doing something essential under the rules. There obviously should be a whole lot of New Yorkers who have no reason to take the subway at this point.
But if you do have an actually a central reason to be on the subway and you see a crowded car, we want it reported immediately to 3-1-1, so the NYPD and MTA can act on it. And if you're an individual in the subway and you see a crowded car, please avoid that car. Please go to a different part of the train or a wait until another train comes. It's crucial that we avoid any crowded cars. Social distancing means everywhere, including in our subways. I'll finish up and then a couple of words in Spanish – on a very, very important topic, which is the direct relief that New York City needs from the federal government. I had several calls today and over the last few days with Senator Schumer who is not only our Senator, of course, but is the Democratic leader in the US Senate. I spoke as well this morning with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin.
The two important topics. The first is regarding the third stimulus just passed, ensuring that the resources devoted to New York City could be accessed immediately. That's $1.4 billion so we can keep providing essential services to New Yorkers. I'm very satisfied based on the conversations with Senator Schumer and Secretary Mnuchin that we will have access to that money very quickly and under rules that will be very usable and flexible. So that's good news. But I immediately spoke to both about the need for the fourth stimulus, for action to be taken in the month of April by the Congress to provide real and immediate relief to New York City and New York State, given the vast new expenses that we are incurring to help people, to save people, to protect people. We must get additional support. We all know all parts of government are losing a huge amount of the revenue we depend on to provide services to people.
The Congress, the president have to act to keep New York City and New York State whole. It's the right thing to do morally. It's the right thing to do to protect people. And anyone who wants to see a recovery – you're not going to have recovery if the nation's largest city and one of our largest states cannot do our work and are not going to be solvent, we need that support. So, I spoke to them about that and I feel, in addition to the conversation last week with a Speaker Pelosi, I feel hopeful that additional help will be coming.
Finally, just to say we're having a strange experience, all of us would go out in so many parts of the city and see something we've never seen before or only once in a while during a blizzard or some very exceptional event. We see a lot of empty streets, a lot of empty sidewalks. I’m sure it feels strange. It feels strange to me. I'm sure it feels strange to so many of you – remember that that's a sign that New Yorkers are taking the instruction seriously, that they are doing the right thing. The vast, vast majority of New Yorkers are doing the right thing. The vast, vast majority of New Yorkers are practicing social distancing, are really only going out when they absolutely need to and are staying in otherwise. And I really want to thank New Yorkers, all of you, for the way you're handling an incredibly tough crisis. Again, we will get through this together, it will not be easy, but we will get through this together –
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