Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. Yesterday afternoon, my wife Chirlane and I went to a very moving memorial. As the funeral of George Floyd was beginning. People gathered in Brooklyn to honor George Floyd, to honor his life, his memory, to not let him have died in vain. His brother Terrance was at the Memorial, and we could see the deep pain he was feeling. That whole family is feeling. We have to hold them in our thoughts and prayers. And I could see the raw pain and anger in the crowd gathered. I felt it, I heard it. People who've seen injustice before our very eyes, and can't live with it. And I said, even though the crowd was angry and hurt and unquestionably doubting, whether there could or would be change I said it is incumbent upon me and everyone in leadership to not just say words about change, but to produce change, and show people that we can have a better and more just society. It begins with all of us who you have chosen to lead to actually create that new reality. It cannot just be rhetoric. Rhetoric will be seen through quickly. It should not be just words. It should be actions. So, I said yesterday, and I say it again today, you will see change in this city. You will see change in the NYPD. We simply have not gone far enough. This status quo is still broken. It must change. I'm not going to forget all the progress that has been made. And it is in so many ways important and evident, but it's not enough. And people will know in their hearts when things have been made right. That's the moment I have to get us to more and more every single day. They will know when there is more justice. They will know when there is more fairness. They will know when people in this city, can walk down the street and feel they are safe from crime, but they also are not going to be disrespected, because of who they are. We are not there yet and we have to get there. So, this will be the work for the next year and a half of this administration to make more change, to make it urgently, to make it powerfully, to make it clear. And that work will proceed immediately. And you will see those results. And you'll judge for yourself as all New Yorkers do. But even though we say that phrase, words matter, and words do matter, actions matter more, and that's what we have to achieve.
So, let's talk about yesterday, last night, and also what we have to do. There were protests in our city during the day, they were overwhelmingly peaceful. Some proceeded into the night, also overwhelmingly peaceful. There are things we need to address. There are things we need to fix in the NYPD, but the overall restraint levels were clear. And I always express my appreciation to the men and women of the NYPD for the work that they do. And we need that restraint. We expect that restraint. That is the instruction that all officers have been given. There were those overwhelmingly peaceful protests. There were few or no attacks on property. There were however, some attempts at violence. And this is the point I always want to make to people. We've got a very few mingled in among the peaceful protesters who aim to do violence. Their methods are systematic. I have asked the NYPD to keep providing the information, what we're seeing here, what we're seeing around the country about that very systematic attempt to foster violence. We will not accept that. Every single time we'll intervene to stop that. We also saw in the midst of what was undoubtedly overwhelmingly, what we want to see, an overwhelmingly peaceful night, peaceful protest, little or no property damage, efforts and violence sorted. These are all very good and important things. We saw some things that weren't so good, and I want to make sure those are addressed. First of all, there is no circumstance in which a member of the news media should ever be arrested by the NYPD or any other police organization. If you said to me, well, what if that person overtly went out and committed a crime, obviously then they're committing a crime, they're not doing their job as a member of the news media. That is a different matter. What I'm concerned about is when news media is out there doing their job, reporting, looking at the truth, whether it's convenient or inconvenient truth, their right to do their job must be protected at all times. That is as clear as a bell in our constitution. So, I don't know why we've seen here, and in other parts of the country instances where members of the media that were arrested, that is unacceptable and that needs to stop. And it's clear that that is one of the underpinnings of a free society. Also, want to make clear, this curfew was brought together very quickly in an emergency situation. The message from the beginning was essential workers doing their job in the middle of doing their work are exempted from the curfew. And I want to make that clear to people. The curfew is only going on for a few more nights, but essential workers are essential workers. Any essential worker doing their job is exempted from the curfew. And we are making that abundantly clear to everyone, to the essential workers themselves, and to the NYPD.
Each night, we see a lot of good work. Each night, we see some progress towards our goal of getting back to a fully peaceful circumstance so we can move forward. Because, phase one, the restart of our city begins Monday. That's where we're supremely focused to start moving us forward. But each night we see certainly several situations that raise real questions. Individual instances, where our officers take an action that raises a valid concern. In each and every case, there must be a full investigation, and where discipline is warranted, it needs to be speedy. I've had this conversation with Commissioner Shea. We are working together to ensure that the past history where internal discipline of the NYPD was slow. We're not doing that anymore, we have to move past that. Commissioner Shea spoke passionately yesterday about his desire to heal, to bring police and community together, to continue that progress. And to make clear to people, there are consequences when something has done wrong. The vast, vast majority of officers do their job, do it right, but when someone does something wrong, as in all of our society, there must be consequences. Commissioner Shea made clear yesterday, disciplinary actions are about to be announced. Some will include suspensions of officers. There's a lot going on, but one thing that has to happen is people need to see. The people of this city need to see that when an officer does something wrong, it is investigated. If it is found to be true that something wrong was done, there must be consequences, and they must be swift. That is one of the ways to restore trust and begin the process of moving us forward. And that is what we will do.
I want us to get to the day where no one wonders if they're being treated differently because of the color of their skin. We are not there to say the least, we have to get there. But again, it's not about words. People will know it. If they start to experience something differently, young men came up to me over the years, and told me how different it was to not be stopped all the time. Stop and frisk was a horrible stain on this city. Hundreds of thousands of young people in a given year treated like criminals, even though they hadn't done anything. Devalued young men of color, the future of this city, devalued. Treated with disrespect. That was broken. We fixed that. And I've heard from those who used to experience that disrespect, how much better it feels to just be able to walk down the street, go to school, go to work, be treated with dignity and decency. We've got a lot more to do. That should be every encounter that a citizen of this city has with the NYPD. That's what we strive for. But in the meantime, we've got huge inequities we have to address. Not just in policing, in our economy, in our health care system, everything laid bare by the coronavirus epidemic. And right now, we must address those disparities. We must keep our city safe in this moment of this pandemic. We have to restart our economy. Wherever I go, people talk about how fearful they are for their health, for their family's health, but also, because they're running out of money or they already have run out of money. How are they going to pay the rent? How are they going to pay for food? How are they going to pay for medications? We have to fight back this disease more. We cannot take our eye off the ball.
So, Monday is the restart, and that will be something that allow us to get people back their livelihoods, but we'll also come— with challenges of fighting back this disease. What does it come down to? If we're going to fight this disease, it is once again about that word you've heard so many times testing, testing, testing, testing. That is a way forward, then tracing following up on everyone who was in contact with someone who tested positive so much to do, to make sure we keep people safe, but this is our focus right now. Last week, we had a day where 33,000 people got tested in one day in New York City, the highest we've had since the beginning of this crisis, we intend to keep building that number up to at least 50,000 a day.
Now, the message is I want every New Yorker to get tested and more and more testing capacity is out there in your community. Go take advantage of it, it will help us to move forward. Today we announced something really important that will be mobile testing in New York City— mobile diagnostic testing. So, you can literally stay in your neighborhood, and the testing trucks come to you. We're starting in two neighborhoods next week, Soundview in the Bronx and Kew Gardens in Queens, and they'll be moving around in neighborhoods all over the City. This is an idea that came out of the work within this city government, our task force on racial equity and inclusion, our center for community and faith partnerships, our leaders in this administration talking to community members saying, what do you need? What would help? And people said, mobile testing. We need it in neighborhoods hit hard, we need it so that people can more easily connect with testing. We need to remind people, it is always free, it's easy, it's fast, and it's coming to you. Two trucks next week, we're going to ramp up to 10 trucks in the next few weeks. They can do 80 tests per day, excuse me, 80 tests per day per truck. So, 800 more tests per day because of the trucks. And again, whether it's one of the trucks or one of the hundred and 80 centers that we now are putting up or have up, you can get a free test by going to nyc.gov/CovidTest or calling 3-1-1.
Final point on this, if you have been at one of these protests, I want to strongly urge you to get tested. It has been a real concern that people have gathered in close proximity. I understood, and I understand still this painful, real moment in history, but I want to keep reminding people. It is dangerous to be close together and people must keep social distance, and we got to get back to that clear understanding. We're going have to hold that clear understanding social distancing, face coverings, we got to get back to that discipline. So, if you have been in a protest, I strongly urge you to get tested.
Now, fighting disparity means focusing on the hardest hit neighborhoods, fighting disparity means providing more to those neighborhoods all the time. These neighborhoods are filled with people who have done the work that built the city over generations, but have never reaped the rewards of their labors. We have so much more to do to create fairness and redistribute the wealth of this city, to the places that actually built that wealth, but weren't rewarded. So, one of the ways we do that is through a strong public health care system, 11 hospitals, 70 clinics that serve the people of city, regardless of ability to pay. We've got to strengthen that system, we invested in it years ago to save it. That became a crucial element of how we were able to save many lives at the height of this crisis and help push back this disease, now we need to go on the offensive and deepen our investments in communities. Once again, our taskforce on racial equity and inclusion, push this notion hard that we need tangible impacts now to address disparity, not in the future now. And so, the task force insisted that we look at how to speed up all of our plans and make sure that real investments happen in communities right now that will help people get more health care. There's a specific new initiative called Centers of Excellence, and this will mean that three new ambulatory care facilities will be built in neighborhoods that need it in New York City. In Elmhurst Queens, I don't think I have to say anything more, after what we saw happen at Elmhurst Hospital, Tremont the Bronx, Bushwick and Brooklyn. Centers of Excellence, they were supposed to be something in the future, now they will be open this September. The task force made the point, this is why I named the task force speed intensity, redistribution, focus on impact now in communities that are hurting. these centers of excellence will provide a wide range of health care, they'll focus on COVID, fighting COVID, they'll focus on making sure that respiratory diseases are addressed. they'll make sure that people not only get physical health care, but mental health care as well. Tens of thousands of people per year will benefit, construction is beginning immediately. And I want to thank, of course, the Racial Equity and Inclusion Task Force, I want to thank Health and Hospitals. I want to thank our Department of Design and Construction, that's doing amazing work, extraordinarily fast work. These three centers will be opened this September and many, many people will benefit, and it will help us fight back this disease, but it will also help us fight back that deeper health care disparities.
Now, getting people back to their livelihood, that's what phase one is about. Getting New York City back on its path, to being strong again, to our economy being strong to our people, having what they need. Three days from now, phase one begins, one of the big pieces of phase one is construction, 32,000 construction sites will reopen. Some magnitude is a reminder, as recently as February, how vibrant the economy of this city was and how vibrant it will be again, 32,000 construction sites will come back. That means a lot of New Yorkers will come back to work, but it has to be safe, has to be healthy, that is the bottom line. Every site has to be ready and we're going to make sure it's ready, the guidelines are clear. You go to nyc.gov/coronavirus, every single company can see and working people can see what those standards of healthy, safe work would be, and we are going to protect every single worker. Department of Buildings will be out inspecting the sites constantly, every single one, making sure their social distancing, proper hygiene rules, hand sanitizer, face coverings, you name it. For the first 30 days, I want this to be very clear to all the owners and managers of the companies involved in these construction sites. For the first 30 days, we will educate, we will constantly monitor, we will help you to ensure what you're doing is safe. Our department of buildings will be there to help, not to fine to help, but if after 30 days of nonstop engagement, you are not doing what you need to do, then the fines begin. I don't want to give a single fine, I don't want to take money from anyone unless you are ignoring the health and safety needs of your workers.
Let's now talk about our thresholds and in general, the news is good, but this is going to be something we will be talking about for days and weeks ahead. And we're going to watch when we see something that isn't as good and make sure it does not turn into a larger trend. So, indicator number one, daily number of people admitted to hospitals for a suspected COVID-19. That was only 48 yesterday, today we saw a jump I don't like that, It's 84 today. Now 84 is still well within our 200-person threshold, but that's a meaningful movement in one day, we're going to keep a close eye on that. We need to stay under 200 to keep sustaining phase one and to move on to phase two. Daily number of people in our Health and Hospitals ICUs is under threshold today, 344 against the threshold of 375. Percentage of people tested positive for COVID citywide, well within under our threshold of 15 percent, that number today is four percent, that's a very good number. So overwhelmingly good results based on all of your hard work, but we got to hold the line, we cannot loosen up because these numbers start to move in the wrong direction, we're going to talk about it. If ever to move in the wrong direction, we're going to talk about it, they move too much in the wrong direction, we then can't keep moving forward on our plan for reopening. So, we have to be clear about holding the line.
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