Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. There’s over 8 million people in this city – over 8 million people who just want to live in peace – over 8 million people who want things to get better, who want to see this city brought together, who want to see us fight back against the disease that's afflicted us all, held us back, disrupted our lives. Done so much damage to our families, and our neighborhoods. Done so much damage to our families and our neighborhoods. People want peace, and they want us to move forward. Now, there always going to be people trying to disrupt the peace and unity of this place. The single most diverse place on earth, a beacon of hope to the world. That's what New York City is, because New York City offers the possibility and the promise that people could come together from all faiths, from all backgrounds in one place, people of all nations building together something better, and that's what we do all the time. And sometimes we meet crisis, because that is part of humanity. Sometimes we meet challenges, but New Yorkers historically time, and again, overcome these challenges, and actually find more unity, more strength, and we will do that again now. These have been tough, tough days, painful days, confusing days, not just the last few days, the three months that we've been dealing with the greatest healthcare crisis in generations, but we will fight our way through together. And the only way we get there is together. Last night in New York City, there were some specific, horrible moments, but there was overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly peace. Last night in New York City, the NYPD was out there protecting us. Men and women of the NYPD, we ask so much of them. We asked so much strength, so much restraint. They were out there protecting us as they do every day. There were people out there, very few who were protesting overwhelmingly peacefully. We did not see, thank God anybody, very few acts of vandalism. We saw overwhelmingly it was peaceful protest. The vast, vast, vast majority of New Yorkers honored the curfew. The curfew helped to move us towards peace and a better place. We're going to keep at this work day after day, it will not be easy, but we will keep at it and we will achieve the progress we need.
Had a horrible, painful incident late last night in Brooklyn, three of our officers wounded in an absolutely unprovoked attack and we are piecing together the details. Commissioner Shea will speak to it, but there's still a lot more to know. But I've seen the video of myself, and I can say here were two of our officers simply trying to protect the community, and they came under unprovoked attack, and that is absolutely unacceptable attack on any one of our officers is an attack on all of us. I need you to know that the officers who were wounded represented all that is great about New York City. Represented the fact that people come here from all over this country, all over this world to find a better life. And they represent this entire world, and then some choose to serve all of us. The officer who was attacked with a knife, police officer Jean Pierre, born in Haiti, came here, an exemplary young man giving back to the country that welcomed him and embraced him. He was the one attacked with a knife last night. And two of his colleagues, Officer Ramnarine, his parents immigrated in this country. Officer Chu, as well his parents immigrated to this country. A painful, horrible moment at the same time, a picture of the greatness of the New York City, that these three individuals brought all of themselves to all of us to protect all of us. Thank God they will all recover, but it is unacceptable. I'm going to say it so clearly, it's absolutely unacceptable to attack a police officer in any way, shape or form. We will not tolerate. There will always be consequences.
Now, let's move forward. Let's move forward. Today in Minnesota will be the funeral for George Floyd. There will be a Memorial here in New York City. That marks a moment to recognize the pain that caused so much concern. So much of an outpouring, of a deep, deep, deep desire for change. But there's also an inflection point. I ask everyone to remember if we're going to make changes, we have to do it together, and we need peace. So, this is a good moment to reflect and a good moment to turn the page, and start moving forward.
Now, we saw some horrible events a few days ago. And as I keep saying, it had nothing to do with the actions of peaceful protesters. We saw attacks on communities in the Bronx, and in Manhattan, just pure vandalism criminality, only for personal gain, not for any cause. And in the community in the Bronx that I visited a few days ago, Burnside Avenue, Fordham Road, the places that were hit so hard. We have small business owners fighting back. We have community residents cleaning up the streets, not accepting anyone who would try to destroy their community, standing up, reclaiming their streets, their neighborhood, their city. We will help them. Those small business owners who scratched, and saved, and built a small business. So many of them immigrants living the American dream, today we announce support for them. The New York City Mayor's Fund will start with a half a million dollars to help those businesses recover. Individual grants, direct cash assistance. I want to thank everyone who is supporting this effort. We turn to community members who care, and they stepped up to help the people of the Bronx, to help those small businesses. Special thanks to SOMOS Community Care, to Dr. Ramon Tallaj, and Dr. Henry Chen. New Yorkers, immigrants, people who believe in helping others. They will work with us to help those small businesses back on their feet. I met those small business owners. They're not going anywhere. They believe in the Bronx. They believe in New York City. They will be back. We'll provide a variety of help to all those small businesses that were affected legal help, help get insurance, whatever it takes to get them back on their feet.
Now, let's go back to the moment in history we're in much more broadly. We're dealing with some very, very real issues these last days, but remember for almost a hundred days now we have been dealing with the coronavirus. This pandemic has created such pain, such frustration. That's laid bare such clear disparities that must be addressed, and taking such a human toll. And then on top of it, created a crisis that stole people's livelihood that forced people, especially our young people to have to be indoors without schools, without the things that they depended on, the community centers, all the things that mattered. This disruption has been vast, but we will not let it stop us, and we will rebuild, and we will restart. And so Monday, June 8th phase one begins, and we are resolute that we will continue this restart process. We're going to do all we can to support the businesses in phase one. We're going to do all we can to support working people who are part of phase one. Today, we launch a dedicated hotline to help small businesses. Today we will put out guides to help small businesses know exactly what they need to be able to do the work of restart. Any small business that needs help, as they prepare for Monday can call 888-SBS-4NYC. We're going to be providing 2 million free face coverings to small businesses to help them get started. We're going to help workers as well. Any worker who has a return to work and is concerned about their health and safety, needs guidance, needs support, can call 311 or they can go to nyc.gov/coronavirus to get the facts about all we will do to help working people. We must have health and safety as the priorities in this restart. So, we're going to go forward with a vigorous, energetic approach that we must restart. Phase one must begin Monday. It will begin Monday. If we all work together, phase one can move on to phase two. And at this moment, phase two can start as early as the beginning of July. So, we want to keep moving forward, but it's going to take an intensive focus on health and safety at every moment in every business in everything we do. But we're not just saying to businesses, go out there and figure it out. We will be with them every step of the way to help them protect themselves, to protect the workers, make sure that everything is done the right way. We want these businesses to succeed as they come back. We want this city to succeed. We want people to get their livelihoods back, and that's going to help create progress and peace when people can make ends meet again. So, we will be there with the business of New York City as they restart Monday.
Now, I mentioned that phase two could begin as early as the beginning of July. And in phase two, we will be able to move onto many other types of businesses. And as we heard from the state, that can also include reopening a number of our restaurants with a focus on outdoors. And that's the way we want to go. We have a new initiative, open restaurants that will focus on what it takes to make outdoor seating work. We will provide a plan to help restaurants set up that outdoor seating, to help them bring their employees back. We will provide a massive expansion of curbside seating, a big expansion of open streets. We'll do what it takes to help this key part of life in New York City, key part of our economy, the wellspring of the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to come back, come back strong, starting in phase two in July. This is going to be another important step. But again, health and safety first. Everything we're doing is to make sure that we do it safely, that this disease does not spread, that we beat it back. And as our test and trace program comes into high gear this week, we fight back to disease with more and more testing for New Yorkers, more and more tracing of those who have been infected and all their contacts to get them the help they need. To get them if they need to be safely separated, the support, they need more testing, more tracing, more support at the same time as we help businesses restart safely, bring back people's livelihood, bringing back all that people love about this place, fight this disease back every day. And that leads me to our indicators and thresholds.
Once again, we see that because of what you have done. You, everyone I'm looking at out there over 8 million people, you have achieved this success. Indicator one, daily number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19. Again, that threshold has to stay under 200 patients a day, 48 is our latest report only 48, and that is great. Indicator two, daily number of people in our Health and Hospitals, ICU that threshold is 375 and today only 354 in our ICU. And this is the most important and best news, percentage of people tested positive citywide for COVID-19, that threshold is 15 percent today we have the lowest number we have seen since this crisis began only three percent testing, positive with more and more testing, happening more and more people being reached only three percent testing positive. That is very good news, whatever else we're fighting, whatever else we have to overcome, this is what is going to allow us to move forward. And it's because of all of you, everyone has stayed indoors, no matter it's tough, everyone is socially distance, everyone who wears a face cover. You are changing things so that we can restart this city and make sure we move forward. Thank you.
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