Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. So, 11 days ago – it seems like a long, long time ago, but 11 days ago we were here at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and we were here looking for solutions in the midst of this ever-changing, ever-growing crisis. But we are also here looking for hope, looking for answers, and the answers came from everyday New Yorkers who were stepping up, who are doing something amazing to create the products that will protect our frontline health care workers and our first responders. So, what we saw a few days ago with the face shields was moving. I was totally, totally moved to see these everyday people of all backgrounds, all together, creating something from scratch. Companies working together that never had previously built anything like a face shield, and they create it by hand, and that was part of the power of what we saw was everyday people piecing together these PPEs by hand to protect their fellow New Yorkers who are serving all of us.
Well, we're back 11 days later and what we're seeing today is equally inspiring. Two companies that got together here in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to create, again, a product they never created because our frontline workers needed it. And it is inspiring to see how quickly people figured out a way to do something that was needed and not just do it in a small way, but do it in a very big way. And to pull together the talent, the designs to pull together all the equipment they needed, all the fabric. I was just hearing how much it took to improvise this and create this as very, very moving. And it shows how much heart, how much soul people are putting into protecting our health care workers in our first responders. So, as I was touring and seeing what was happening, I felt this real surge of emotion that it was clearer than ever that New York City is fighting back. New York City is fighting back. We have an invisible enemy. We have a ferocious enemy, but this city is fighting back with everything we've got. And this is strong city and a resilient city and people are showing it in so many ways and we're seeing it today at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
It makes me very, very convinced that we're going to get through this when I see these kinds of amazing efforts. Now in the midst of a moment where we have to tell people constantly, it’s a strange thing to tell New Yorkers, we are a warm and emotional people. It's strange to have to tell people all the time, stay apart and break with all the traditions that we have had for our whole lives. But we keep telling people stay apart for your own protection, for the protection of the community, for the protection of those you love. But today we have an example of people coming together, coming together in common cause, doing it the right way, doing it the smart way, the healthy way, but coming together in common cause to help other people. And I really want to thank these two amazing companies and they're very, very different. Lafayette 148 is a high-end fashion brand and Crye Precision is a company that particularly focuses on making gear for the U.S. military. Two companies that started out with very different approaches, very different mission statements. They may not have seen that a lot in common, but they immediately found common ground and decided that together they could create something that would really help everyone else.
This creativity and this ingenuity are New York traits. Not surprising to us, as New Yorkers, to see this kind of thing happen, but it's very moving. It's very beautiful to see it go through all those rows upon rows of sewing machines and seeing the surgical grounds being sewn that very soon we'll be protecting our frontline health care workers. Want to thank of course, all the good people, all those on those sewing machines, on those assembly lines, all the working people who are making this possible. And extraordinary thanks to the leaders who had this vision and pulled it together in record time, to Gregg Thompson, Executive Director at Cry Precision, to Deirdre Quinn, the CEO at Lafayette 148, you'll hear from both of them. I want thank someone who's really been the matchmaker here, David Ehrenberg, the President CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, who keeps looking for ways to get all the amazing capacity of the Navy Yard to put it together to support this cause, and I want to thank you David. Excellent job.
Now, I want to say a number of companies here in Brooklyn Navy Yard are working with Crye Precision and Lafayette 148 to help them do their work. They're all joining in. Anyone who can pitch in is pitching in. So, there's a real community here that's working together to get this done. I also want to thank our colleagues at EDC, which plays a crucial role in all of these efforts to produce our own homegrown supplies to fight this war. Thank you to James Katz, Executive Vice President Chief of Staff at EDC. And, of course, we have with us here today as well. Two of the leaders in the fight from the health care side, our Health Commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot and the Vice President Chief Quality Officer at Health + Hospitals, Dr. Eric Wei, thank you to you and your teams always.
I mentioned the folks who are doing the work and I want to say something that needs to be said in this moment. There's been in the midst of this crisis, another crisis that we've all seen and we've all been disgusted by it, which is discrimination and hatred directed at our Asian-American communities, particularly our Chinese-American community. I think it's absolutely unacceptable and I know legally it is unacceptable by the laws in New York City and I keep saying to everyone, if you see a act of discrimination, if you see a hate crime, you see anything that is about bias, call 3-1-1 immediately or if it's an urgent situation, call 9-1-1. We want to find the perpetrators of these crimes. We want to find anyone who's discriminated and throw the full weight of the law at them. But today was a poignant message in the midst of this crisis, in the midst of this discrimination, to see so many of these workers who happen to be Chinese-American who are doing something for everyone, who despite the discrimination they have faced, they're standing up and they're joining this effort to save lives and support those who are protecting us. I want to thank all of these good working people for what they are doing.
So, like I said, when I was here last, this is a wartime factory. If you look at it, it immediately is clear. This is something that was put together from scratch with a sense of urgency created for a common cause, not for a profit but for something higher. Nine days ago. It was just nine days ago that this started to come together. By the end of the day, 9,200 surgical gowns will have been created. By the end of the week, almost 19,000. By the end of the month 320,000, amazing contribution to this effort and it protects our health care workers. These gowns and Dr. Wei can explain to you in detail, they are absolutely crucial to protection of our health care workers and these are reusable, which is crucially important and a point where we're on a crisis footing and we have to conserve every item we have.
Now it comes at a critical time, this new supply, because as I said to you yesterday, this is one of the areas where we're seeing a real problem, surgical gowns. Our public hospital has enough for this week, but some of the private hospitals and nursing homes are running low and this is an area we're very, very concerned about. Last week, all hospitals combined used approximately 1.8 million surgical gowns in New York City. This week they are projected to use 2.5 million as the crisis grows. So, we have to find more surgical gowns urgently. There are orders out, we believe that there's a good chance these orders will come in time, but we're also working intensely with the federal government to see if we can get additional supply in time. So, this is an area of real concern as we start this week.
And again, we will leave no stone unturned. We'll be as creative as we need to be to create new surgical gowns or use anything else that may be appropriate as a surgical gown to get us through this crisis. Now the other thing I talked about yesterday is the N95 masks. This is the other area of real concern for this week. We got – at the time I spoke to you all yesterday afternoon, there was still an outstanding need for N95s to get us through the week. Very appreciative that we got a major supply from the federal government. My thanks to President Trump and to Jared Kushner for the role that he played as well. 600,000 N95 masks coming today for our independent hospitals. Those are some of our hospitals that have the greatest need and serve communities in greatest need. That's on top of the 200,000 arrived for our public hospitals on Friday. So now we can say that our supply of N95s for the week is sufficiently secure. Again, it's going to be a tough week. People are going to have to be careful and conserve on the crisis standards we're working on, but this has definitely changed the dynamic for us for this week and that's a very good thing. So, we continue to focus this week on finding more surgical gowns and of course on ventilators to get us through.
Now, more and more the challenge is going to be personnel and we need these supplies, but we also need to heroes to wear them and more and more personnel than we needed from every source. Remember, our overall need is 45,000 – from where we started, the additional need is 45,000 clinical personnel over this month, an ever-increasing number to get us through this crisis. I've been pushing particularly for more and more military medical personnel to come in. My requests for our public hospitals again is 1,450 clinical staff from what's – that's what I've requested from the federal government, 291 arrived yesterday – that's a good start, but we need more. I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday. I will be speaking to more federal officials and the President today to let them know how much our public hospitals have really borne the brunt of this crisis. We'll need more of those medical personnel from the military. Those I greeted yesterday upon arrival. It was very inspiring that came from states from all over the country. They were ready to immediately go to where the need was greatest in our ICUs, in emergency rooms, in our public hospitals. I'm so grateful to all of them. It was very, very moving to greet them as they arrived in New York City.
Again, this is just the beginning for this city and for many cities and states all over the country. I'll continue to say we need to have an enlistment structure to find medical personnel from all over the country, civilians who would come forward as volunteers, be compensated for sure, and then be mobilized by our military and sent where they're needed most. I remind you again, over a million doctors in America, almost 4 million nurses in America – thank God we have many, many medical personnel, many ready to serve where the need is greatest but no mechanism right now to get them where they need to be. And I will keep pushing the federal government to achieve that.
So, I want to finish before a few words in Spanish and then we'll hear from our colleagues here at the Brooklyn Navy Yard who've done this amazing work. But I want to finish with a point about the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Those of you who have looked at the history – so this place is heroic by its nature. In World War II, it was one of the single most important places in the United States of America fighting the war effort. This was a place that so many of our troops left on their way to battle. This is a place where so many of the ships were built and repaired. This was a crucial, crucial place in the war effort. And it comes with an incredible tradition of service in a time of crisis. And you know, when the Navy Yard became a civilian facility and became a place synonymous with jobs and economic development. People might've thought, well, it's years of service are over. But now we're seeing once again, the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a symbol to this city and this whole nation of extraordinary and selfless service leading the fight against the coronavirus. So history has come around in a very, very powerful way. And I remind everyone, a lot of us heard stories maybe from parents, maybe from grandparents of the epic times of the past, World War II, the Great Depression, what people had to fight through as a full community. Now it is our time. We are living that reality now. It's our generation that has to make that imprint on history and fight that fight now. I don't think when we heard a lot of those stories, we ever thought it would be us one day, but now it is us and it's time for all of us to show what we can do in this moment of crisis and that's what folks are doing here at the Navy Yard.
Everybody out there who can help, try to emulate the amazing work of the folks here at the Navy Yard. Not everyone happens to have a clothing line of their own or a company that makes military gear, but if you have a company that can help us, we need you. If you have access to surgical supplies, we need you. If you're a health care professional who can volunteer, we need you. Anything you can donate that will help us to continue this fight. We need you. If you want to donate food to our frontline hospital workers. If you want to donate money to pay for the kind of support they need, whatever it is we need you and anyone who wants to help can go to nyc.gov/helpnow or call 8-3-3-NYC-0-0-4-0.
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