Mayor Bill de Blasio: I want to give you a couple of updates on things are happening around the city and how we're addressing this crisis. Every day I think we're learning about the sheer challenge we're facing and all the forms it takes and every single day we're making changes. We're adding new approaches, new strategies. We're getting help from the state, from the federal government, from all over. Things are changing day by day, hour by hour. We find new challenges, we find those solutions, and, of course, we find the extraordinary efforts of New Yorkers to address this crisis. There is a lot more to do. Especially in terms of our federal government, a lot more to do. But I can at least say that we see on many, many fronts, help coming in. And I'll talk about, of course what happened in Washington yesterday with the stimulus bill. Many forms that help but also immense challenges that we're facing.
There's just nothing we've been through that could possibly compare to what we're experiencing now and where we’re going and it will be a long, tough fight. And I'm going to keep saying that because I know there are a lot of voices out there trying to act like we can turn the page soon, and I just don't believe that's true, and I don't think it's helpful for people to be given false hope. I want to give people real hope. Real hope comes from the extraordinary commitment and hard work of our health care workers and our first responders and all the people that are protecting us right now. Real hope comes from the resiliency in New Yorkers. Real hope comes from real support. Every time a ventilator arrives, every time we get more supplies we need, every time the military comes to help us, those are the causes for me for real hope. But it's going to be a long, tough fight and we're going to be stronger if we understand that, than if we try and wish away something that in fact, we're not able to change entirely right now.
Let me talk about the overall situation, and it continues to be numbers I can barely even comprehend. I know a lot of you feel the same and they all represent real human beings, real families. Total cases as of this morning in New York City, 21,873. A number that would have been unimaginable just a couple of weeks ago. Deaths in New York City, we've now lost 281 of our fellow New Yorkers to this disease. So, we got a tough time ahead, and that's obviously particularly true in our health care system. I want to take a moment to talk to all those who are doing extraordinarily valiant work right now all over New York City. Doctors, nurses, all health care workers, everyone who works in a hospital, whatever your job is, every single one of you are doing something heroic and really difficult and absolutely necessary to save the lives of your fellow New Yorkers.
There's a phrase we use. We say people have gone above and beyond the call. Well, all of you are doing that now in a way that we're going to remember. We're not just going to remember it next week, or next month, or next year. We're going to remember it for the rest of the history of New York City, oh and forward. It'll be part of a chapter in this city's history that will be unforgettable. That all of you stood up, all of you showed up, all of you gave your all, under very, very trying circumstances, because none of us have experienced anything like this, and it came out of nowhere. So, I want to say on behalf of all 8.6 million New Yorkers, a thank you to all our health care workers, and not only our gratitude, not only our words, but our deeds. That's what we should show our thanks through.
You deserve, and you must have, and you will have, the supplies you need. One way or another, we're going to get them to you every day. It will not be easy and we absolutely must get federal help if we're going to be able to sustain this. But my commitment is, if it is available anywhere in the United States of America, and we can get our hands on it, those supplies we'll get to you immediately to protect you, to allow you to do the lifesaving work you're doing. This is going to be a day to day, hour to hour reality. I keep saying, I know this week that we have the supplies in this city we need. I hope we can get through next week, but that is literally as far over the horizon as I can see right now in any way that I can feel comfortable about, because I need to know we're going to have what we need for our health care workers and our people.
But any health care worker who's out there who feels afraid or worried, we all stand with you, we understand why you might feel that. Anyone who feels resolute about serving their patients but is worried about supplies, I understand that, and I want to make sure you don't have to worry. That you can see the supplies coming and know there'll be there. It's understandable that health care institutions, hospitals, clinics are trying to be careful about their use of supply. They're trying to make sure that we'll always have it going forward. But we also have to make really clear to our health care workers that any supplies we get from Washington, from Albany, from the private sector, are immediately being turned around to our hospitals and our health care facilities, and I want people to see more and more evidence of that. We're going to show it very publicly. And to all of you who are experiencing challenges, we need to hear from you. We need to understand what you need, so we can get the job done for you, and thank you for all you are doing.
Now, I've said throughout this crisis, there's a lot of that we're facing, but we also have some extraordinary advantages and one of them is that we have the best public health system in the nation. We have the largest, we have the best by far. Health + Hospitals is an amazing organization that's only gotten stronger in recent years, but now it's under a tremendous amount of stress. And obviously Elmhurst hospital in Queens is right now the epicenter within the epicenter, dealing with an extraordinary surge of cases. It also happens to be an extraordinary hospital. It's renowned within our public health care system as one of the very best hospitals we have, with an incredibly committed staff who have been able to deal with so many challenges before with great skill, great compassion, great ability, and that's what they're doing right now.
The folks at Elmhurst Hospital, the folks doing this noble work, need supplies, and I'm committed to getting you supplies. In fact, in the last 10 days, we have four times resupplied Elmhurst Hospital with additional ventilators, and we will keep doing that until we're at the point that Elmhurst absolutely always has more than enough ventilators. Today we sent over 40 additional ventilators that have arrived at Elmhurst. This'll be an ongoing commitment to make sure that that hospital and all our public hospitals have whatever they need at any given point in time. If we have it, it will get to you. We also sent today to Elmhurst hospital, 56 additional staff members to deal with the challenges that they're facing, and again, we will keep adding as needed. We have to make sure that they really, really hardworking doctors, nurses, all the health care workers who have dealt with the sudden surge. We need to give them a break as quickly as possible. We need to bring additional folks in to give them, to spell them, to give them a chance to catch up, catch their breath, get a little downtime, so they'll be able to continue on going forward. So, it's crucial that we get more and more support into Elmhurst and we will do that.
So, in terms of our entire health care system, public and voluntary nonprofit, the whole picture. Look, before the coronavirus came to New York City, we basically had 20,000 hospital beds with everything that was needed. All the staffing, the equipment, everything that you would need to fully attend to a patient in a hospital bed. That number about 20,000. Once upon a time, and once upon a time was only weeks ago, that was a really big number and that was certainly sufficient to handle demand every day in New York City. In fact, there are people who used to talk about there were too many hospital beds in New York City. Well that 20,000 number, that once seemed so impressive, now it's only a part of what we need to deal with the coronavirus. Our goal is to triple the number of hospital beds in the city by May. Now, that's an extraordinarily difficult goal, and I am not going to look you in the eye and tell you, I can guarantee you we will get there, because we have so many challenges. The bed, again is only one part of the challenge. Location is only one part of the challenge. We need the equipment, we need the supplies, and we need the highly trained personnel. All of that we're working on simultaneously. And this is where the federal government, again could be absolutely crucial and I've been very clear about what could be done on the federal level that could affect that entire equation in our favor, particularly when it comes to things like personnel. The reality is we have a very, very difficult goal to reach, but it is our goal and we will every single day work to achieve it. The surge plans that the state put forward asking every hospital in the city to increase capacity. I think it was a very good strategy. We'll add at least 7,000 beds quickly. And that's a crucial part of what we need to do.
We've obviously – in addition to what can be done in hospitals, it is crucial to find new locations either facilities that are health care-related where we can put in more beds or facilities that weren't health care at all, but where we can now create a crucial new capacity. So, those new locations in places like Coler Hospital, part of Health + Hospital system, Javits Center, obviously a convention center had nothing to do with health care, now it does. And the Federal Government, FEMA, State of New York are playing a leading role there to get that up and running— with the surges in the hospital with the additional beds outside the hospitals. That gets us to almost 34,000 beds compared to the 20,000 we had just weeks ago. That is a very, very important start in addressing this crisis. But as I said, my goal was to get us to not just 34,000, but then the 40,000 to 50,000, ultimately to 60,000 if we can get there. And if this crisis continues to build the weight, we think it will, I would love nothing more and I know you would love nothing more than to find out in fact we got some relief from this crisis and the numbers got better and the human misery got reduced and there were fewer and fewer cases. That day comes, maybe won't need 60,000 hospitals, but I cannot depend on maybe I have to prepare this city for the toughest scenario and that's what we're doing right now.
On supplies, look, there's nothing more important than ventilators – we’ve all talked about this, I really didn't know a lot about ventilators a month ago. Now, I know something, at least I've realized that a ventilator, it's, you know, we could put one right here on this desk. It goes in a packet that's about the size of a suitcase, but it is a lifesaver, as simple as that. If you have a ventilator, you can save a life. You can keep someone going, get them through this crisis so they can recover. You don't have a ventilator people die who didn't need to die it's as simple as that. This is one of the most important pieces in this whole puzzle, getting enough ventilators, getting them quick. 500 have come in through our efforts working with the White House, working directly with the administration to get immediate direct supplies to New York City and that's been very helpful this week. In addition, 2,000 more from FEMA – about half of them are here in New York City now over a thousand already here, the remainder coming in the next couple of days. So, when you combine all that 2,500 more ventilators that will have a few days from now, we'll have about 2,500 more ventilators than we had say 10 days ago. That's hugely important, that's only about a sixth of what we are going to need to get through this entire crisis. We predicted this moment, we need 15,000 ventilators and we are pushing every possible button. We're looking under every stone we're calling all over the country to find every ventilator we can get and soon we'll be talking about the efforts to create them right here in New York City as well. But my deep concern remains that the Federal Government is not using it to its full disposal of the Defense Production Act.
That's the game changer, that's where we could get a lot more ventilators built around this country, manufactured and shipped to New York City in time. While this crisis is raging and every ventilator comes here when we don't need it of course when the crisis is over, we're going to help make sure it gets to other parts of the country that need it. But we've got to get to that number and we got to get to that number fast. Today I saw a great example of New Yorkers stepping up to help fellow New Yorkers at the Brooklyn Navy yard an amazing example. This is something that just a few days ago, not only didn't exist, but the idea didn't even exist. And I want to thank Michael Bednark, of Bednark Studios and Michael Duggal of Duggal Greenhouse. They are doing amazing work working with everyone at the Brooklyn Navy yard, led by David Ehrenberg.
They literally came up with idea just days ago, they said, we need to help our health care workers, our first responders, we're going to create face shields. And they literally decided they would create a factory in a place that wasn't a factory, they would create a factory from scratch to make these face shields. They'd find the equipment, the different elements, they'd find the different supplies they'd get a plan, they bring it to the Department of Health. As recently as Sunday night was when they got this plan approved by the Department of Health to come up with their own version of face shield to protect all of our crucial leaders and crucial folks in the health care field our first responders, all the people out there at the front line doing such important work. This brand-new idea out of nowhere was this was put into production these face shields were put into production yesterday. They're at full bore today, they will on Friday ship 50,000 face shields to the Department of Health to distribute to hospitals all over New York City and to first responders. By next Tuesday, they’ll have 120,000 made— this is just an inspiring, beautiful effort and we're going to make sure New Yorkers see a lot about this and understand how powerful this is. And what it means is for the future, so many New Yorkers are just finding many, many ways to help each other. So, we need more of that coming you're going to see a surgical mask, gloves, surgical gowns, all sorts of things being built right here in New York City manufactured right here to protect our fellow New Yorkers. None of that takes the Federal Government off the hook, I want to be clear, and we need everything that is being produced here just to keep going day to day.
We need the Federal Government to come in with a really big numbers that really big supplies if we're going to get all the way through April into May, but we're going to help ourselves in the meantime every way we can. Finally, couple updates, there's been a lot of concern about the situation in our jails. Want to give you an update that I'll keep doing every day I'll give you an updated number. We are looking to release the inmates that we think are appropriate to release— that we think do not pose a threat to the community. And we're also very, very concerned there are inmates with very serious preexisting conditions, inmates who are much older. We have an obligation to think about them the same way we think about all New Yorkers who are in those high-risk categories. So, we're working that through.
I'll give you updates regularly about where we stand – we have to work in many cases with the district attorneys in the states – state governor, I should say, to get to a specific decisions case by case, but we'll keep updating you. So, as of last night, 200 inmates from our jail system had been released from the beginning of this process, 200 that action last night allowed us to hit a major, major milestone and none of us expected this crisis. But one thing that has come out of it has that our jail population continues to decline. Last night we went below 5,000 inmates in our jail system again, last night we went to below 5,000 inmates in our jail system in a City of 8.6 million people. The last time the New York City jail system had fewer than 5,000 inmates was 1949 right after World War II. So, this is an important a note against the backdrop of this crisis, something happening that has a real value in other ways, even though it's part of addressing this crisis. It should be noted as an important moment by tonight, by the end of the day, going into tonight that number of inmates released will go from 200 up to 375 and we will keep giving you updates as we go along. So, I wanted you hear about that, just to officially know that now our jail population as of this morning is 4,906.
On supermarkets, there's a lot of concern to make sure we keep our supermarkets clear so people go in there, can shop, observe social distancing, not be crowded, not end up being in a situation that violates the rules we put forward. We need everyone to stick to that idea. So a couple of thoughts, first of all to again, the store owners, the store managers, the employees, very, very important to practice social distancing and insist on social distance in any line inside or outside the store needs to be distanced six feet between the person before them and after them constantly have to make that happen. We have to be conscious about limiting the number of people coming into a store, if you start to see an overcrowding situation again, if that means the line outside, keep that line distanced. To any storeowner or store manager or employee says, wait a minute, we need some help to do that, we need some backup, we need some enforcement. Just pick up the phone and call 311 and we will get you help quickly. Whether it comes from the NYPD, the Fire Department, the Sheriff's Office, Buildings Department, whatever it is — members of our City Government will come to you and we'll help you achieve that social distance and you're not alone in doing this, we want to help you do it. Call 311 and we will get help to you quickly, but we've got to get this done.
Finally, a recommendation for all store owners; this will certainly be true for grocery stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, if you can - and some it will be easier, some will be harder, but if you can, there’ve been a lot of requests to institute senior citizen hours early in the day. So, the idea would be to set up a time – and I'm going to suggest something like 6:00 am to 8:00 am where only seniors come into shop. Look, this is a suggestion, this is a recommendation. It's something that is not typical, but, in this crisis, people are adapting and you know, getting used to very different realities. I think all New Yorkers want to make sure our seniors are safe and they get what they need. So, having those early morning hours available to any pharmacy or grocery store supermarket, anyone who can do it, whether it's six to eight or whatever version you choose; letting seniors have that time, that's just for them, keeping the crowds low, making it a little easier on them - a lot of them are up early and can get to you. If you can do that, it would really help, if we can stretch things out, it would really, really help to avoid social distancing other times of the day. I mean, excuse me, to ensure social distancing, to avoid crowding, my apology.
So, everyone, just to finish and then we'll take questions from the media and I will be joined by Dr. Oxiris Barbot remotely, our health commissioner. I talked earlier about our health care workers, our doctors, our nurses – every single human being whose working in a hospital right now, whatever your job title, you're a hero, we need you, you’re at the front line. I want to also remember at the same time our, everyone at EMS, everyone emergency [inaudible] medical service who is constantly there saving New Yorkers. We depend on them 24/7, you know, you call 9-1-1 and [inaudible] as New Yorkers, we expect not only an ambulance to arrive quickly, but some of the best professionals anywhere in the world to be there and they are, and they've been great throughout this crisis. They're dealing with a lot, but they've been there for us every single day and I want to thank everyone at EMS for all you are doing.
And I want to thank the folks who get even less attention, I would say. I want to make sure EMS gets their fair share of attention and their praise and their appreciation, but our voluntary ambulance services, community based, neighborhood-based ambulance services that really play a crucial role as well, a lot of times they get low overlooked. I want to thank all of you for all you do for our communities and especially in this time of crisis and I'll make sure to, make sure to use Twitter and other forums to thank each of your organizations individually for everything you're doing. We appreciate it and it makes a big difference.
I conclude before saying a few words in Spanish by saying, it'll be a hell of a challenge these weeks ahead, but there's nowhere on earth where people meet a challenge like New York City and I want to thank you all, I know it's tough. I know people are really, really changing your lives, but you're also doing it in a way that's inspirational and showing the whole nation what it looks like to deal with a crisis, and, and do it with strength and dignity and resolve and I want to thank you all for that.
