Mayor Bill de Blasio: Yesterday I talked to you about some of the first signs we were seeing of some progress of some change. And, I want to go deeper into what it means, what we know, what we don't know at this point, but also how we are going to prepare for the weeks and months ahead. Because the fact that we've seen some initial change, we shouldn't overrate it, we should not count our chickens before they're hatched. But it does remind us that if we do everything we need to do as new Yorkers we can hasten the day when a bigger change happens, when we can go even farther. What this all is saying to me, the more our team researches the situation, the more we learn from experience, the more we really understand this horrible disease through actually dealing with it here at the front line, the front line of this entire nation, what we're seeing as how much the people matter, how much the future will be determined by all of you, by the people of New York City.
What you're doing so far is absolutely on target. It's very, very tough to do social distancing. It's very tough to stay home and practice shelter in place. No one thought it would be easy. I can certainly say, I think for all of us, it's even harder than we imagined. So, for everyone who's frustrated, for everyone who's already feeling, you know, cooped up and like, it's hard to imagine doing this for a long period of time. For a lot of people, actually, one of the things I hear constantly from people is they feel bored. They feel held back from doing the things they love. Obviously, we all feel deeply disconnected from loved ones that we would normally travel to see, particularly at the holiday season. So, there's a deep feeling in this city of the frustration with dealing with all of the changes we've had to go through. And I remind everyone, it's only been in a matter of weeks that we've had to make these massive adjustments.
So, for anyone out there who feels frustrated, who feels confused or angry that all this had to happen, I share that, we all feel it. But we also know that you've been finding a way, in an incredibly noble, consistent manner. The people of this city have answered the call. You are practicing social distancing. Is it perfect? No, of course not. We're the most densely populated city in the United States of America. We've the worst spaced place in the world to try and achieve social distancing, but people are actually doing it. You know, if you wanted social distancing to be perfect, there are places where people don't live so close together. Maybe that's where it could be perfect. But you know what, it may not be perfect, but New Yorkers are doing it in an amazing way. People really are going out of their way, and you see it all the time, to find new and creative ways to live with the reality of social distancing.
Our police officers and all of the public servants who are enforcing this law are doing an outstanding job. Again, is it perfect? No. Are there problems? Yes. And everyone sees the problem. I remind you, please do everyone a favor. If you see a store that's overcrowded or you see a line that's close together, not distanced each person six feet apart. If you see anything where social distancing is not being practiced, call 311 right away and NYPD or other agencies will come there quickly and make things right. But the fact is the NYPD, the FDNY, the Buildings Department, the Sheriff's Office, the Parks Department, they've all been out there doing enforcement and what they're finding time and time again is a very high level of compliance with the rules of social distancing. And they’re finding that, yeah, sometimes people need to be reminded, particularly younger people, that's not a shock. Teenagers having to be reminded to follow the rules, for all of us who are parents, that's something we're very, very used to. That's something we did or do every single day in dealing with teenagers. I certainly did and Chirlane did when we were bringing up our children. So, it's not a surprise that all the adults in the lives of our young people have to remind them constantly to follow the rules. And that our enforcement officers go out and see people of any age, they're going to have to remind them, particularly younger people.
But what we're finding is when the police show up or any of the other agencies, the reminder is working, the warning is working. We're not in a situation where we have to give a huge number of fines, but we do need people to call 311 the second you see it. Anyone who is frustrated, angry, or they see a lack of social distancing, or they see people crowding. You know what? Don't be angry. Just pick up the phone. Now you can still be angry, but the most important is don't be angry and hold it into yourself. Act on it. If you really believe it's a problem, and you don't make that call, then I have to say, I guess you don't think it's that much of a problem. So seriously, all it takes is a call to 311 and then help will be sent immediately. This is a highest priority for the NYPD and all the enforcement agencies to get this right.
I say that to a point. Generally speaking, people have actually been following these rules. Folks have been staying home. They understand you go out, you do just what you need to do your, you get food, you get medicine, get a little exercise, get back. People have been doing that. I've been in many places in this city, and you feel like it's a ghost town. People have been following the rules and that's why we're starting to see some improvement and we are far from out of the woods. But we're seeing something because you did that, you earned that. And I want people to think about it this way. We, all of us, 8.6 million of us have to earn our way out of this horrible situation. Do we deserve what we've gotten? Of course not. No one ever heard of this disease six months ago, didn't even exist. And yet it's visited upon us in a way that's the worst in our nation, one of the worst experiences in the world. But that, when I say we need to earn our way out of it, it's not because we did anything wrong, it's actually because you're doing everything right.
New Yorkers are answering the call, but we need to understand, we have to save ourselves here. There's clearly a lot more our federal government could be doing and I'm going to talk about that, particularly when it comes to testing. But we have to fight back this virus and we have the power to do it in many, many ways. And if we do it the way we're capable of as New Yorkers, the toughest, strongest, most resilient people in this nation, we actually can push this virus back. We actually can overcome this phase we're in. And I'm going to show you what that means. I'm going to lay it out today and we actually can get to a point where we start the pathway back to normalcy and it will not be easy. It won't be like a nice straight line. I want to warn you right now. It's not like we're going to, you know, each week it's going to get a specific easy, clear milestone and it's all going to go perfectly and cleanly. It's not going to be like that if we're not careful, if we're not strong, if we're not disciplined. In fact, this is a disease that can reassert, resurge. You should be very worried about resurgence. We all are. The last thing we can afford is to let down our guard and let this disease back in the door even more and then see the numbers spike up. The pain, the illness, the death spike up even worse because we let down our guard. So when I say earn, I'm using the phrase to make a point. You didn't deserve this, but we're in it. As New Yorkers like to say it is what it is.
But we can fight our way out, and we have been, and we have proof of it. The fact that we saw some improvement in the dynamics with hospitalization, we saw some improvement with the number of ventilators that we had to use versus the number we expected to use. That says that shelter in place and social distancing are working. And now, it's not, let's, you know, let down our guard and take it easy. No, it's the other way around. It's let's double down, let's intensify. Let's take these new standards, these new approaches we've all learned together and really tighten them up and make them as strong as they possibly can, because that's the way out of this. All of us together and everyone has to be a part of it and everyone has to help each other get better. We're one team as New Yorkers, we are one team. Think about that for a moment. 8.6 million people, we all are depending on each other now. So, if someone in your family, someone in your life, or someone on the street isn't doing what's right, you got to help them, you got to remind them. And if there's some people that are trying to figure out how to do it even better, help them too. Because the rules are out there, the standards are out there. We have to help people, literally each person do it better. Think of it this way, every time you practice shelter in place and social distancing the right way, you're literally reducing the chance of transmission to another person. If 8.6 million people do that in unison, the whole trajectory changes. Are we going to be perfect? No. But we can do amazing things together if we feel that we're all in this together and we surely are. And that's a spirit New Yorkers have shown many, many times in times of crisis. And I know, I have total faith in the people of this city that we can overcome this by helping each other to be the best we can be in fighting this disease. So, we need to win our way to the next phase. And I'm going to talk to you today about where we are now and then what it would look like to go forward.
Now, obviously we have a long way to go. Long battle. I've said from day one, this is going to be a long battle, it’s going to be a tough battle. So, the first thing I'm going tell you is to not expect instant gratification or expect something easy. I don't think you do, but I'm just going to make it plain. We still have widespread transmission, clearly. We still are seeing horrible, painful realities for so many New York families. We've got a long way to go. I don't see anything getting easier in the month of April. I think it's going to be a long, tough April. I said for a long time, get ready for a long tough May. Now, if we continue to make progress as we've seen, at least a beginning of, May might be easier than what I originally feared it would be. And I want it to be easier for all of us. But I think the way to think about this is, April and May are when we have to win this phase, we have to push back this disease. We have to open that door to the next phase where things get better. We have to fight for it. And what we're going to do, all of us, particularly our health care leadership, is constantly give you updates. More and more specific updates so you can see the progress yourself. So you can see the fruits of your labor, what you have done to help bring about the change. But the one thing I guarantee you is we will not jump the gun. Unless we have sustained hard evidence that things are getting better, we will not relax any of the Tufts standards, the restrictions in place now. So I want us all to get to that next phase together. But it's going to be based on the facts and those facts are going to be very public.
But we can say, now that we have had a chance to see what a little progress looks like, we can say that it's time to start planning for the next phase very overtly, to talk about it, to give you a sense of what it looks like, and to make sure that we all understand together, everyone, what the common objectives are. The more I think New Yorkers understand the game plan, the better off we'll be. Look, we all understood the beginning of this crisis, no one on earth understood the coronavirus fully, and there was no roadmap. There was no playbook just sitting around for every city, and state, and country to use. But now for the first time, as we've learned more, as we experienced more, we're starting to be able to put together a game plan for the future. So, while we're in this phase, the toughest phase, is the time to plan for the next phase when things start to get better, and to lay out the goals very clearly for everyone to understand.
So first, number one, we cannot allow a resurgence. This would be the single most powerful goal. Whatever you do, don't let it get even worse. And we've already talked about, we know what we have to do to nail this down and not let it spread even further. We have to be tough and disciplined.
Second, our health care system. Protecting it, protecting it is paramount. So much effort in this last month and more went into providing the support, the personnel, the supplies, the equipment, really beefing up our healthcare system for the onslaught that we've seen in these last weeks. And our healthcare system is strong. It's holding our healthcare workers, our doctors, our nurses, everyone that works in our hospitals, they've gone through hell, but they've held the line. They've saved a lot of lives. We’ve got to keep the health care system strong, the one thing we cannot afford is for it to buckle. We can't afford to have a single day where a patient is brought in, his life could be saved and there's not a doctor or a nurse or a ventilator or what they need, so far, we've held that line we got to keep holding that line. And then we've got to keep ensuring that we do everything we can to help people practice shelter in place, practice social distancing and get the support they need. And one of the things we talked about yesterday, and we'll talk obviously about the clear evidence of the disparities that are showing up with this disease and I've been existent for healthcare for way too long in this country and in this City. We've got to help people who need more information, more support, whether it means doing it by phone or whether it means doing it in person, whatever it means. We've got to help people who are struggling the most with this disease and find a way to communicate more information to them, get them more support, get them the ability to talk to healthcare professionals more frequently, more in depth, whatever it takes.
Now, that piece of the puzzle, helping the most vulnerable is something that again, has been hard in an atmosphere where we're all supposed to be practicing social distancing and shelter in place. And we felt very strongly that our health care professionals, of course had to be first and foremost devoted to our hospitals, which for a period of time it looked dangerously close to being overwhelmed. I'm hoping, I'm praying that we can continue to hold line in the hospitals and free up more healthcare personnel for that frontline outreach, whether it be in person or by phone or whatever way it is to help the most vulnerable, I think we can.
And the other thing is to understand as a common objective that the restrictions, the ground rules, the guidelines that we're all living by, they can be adjusted when there's real evidence, but that evidence goes down, hopefully, meaning better progress, more proof that we can start to open up more or bluntly if we don't do it right or if this horrible, ferocious virus hits us in some new way. Unfortunately, restrictions might have to go up, meaning if things really get worse, we might have to tighten up further. It's not what I envisioned today, it's not what any of us want, but the truth is the truth. You should not, and I don't think anyone out there listening or watching wants to be told, you know, pretty lies you want to hear the truth. And the fact is, if we do things right and we get the help we need, especially including more testing from the federal government, we could make some real steady progress, not perfect, not always linear and beautiful progress, but still steady. If we don't do things right or if we get thrown a curve ball, we might actually have to tighten the restrictions further, no one wants that. But we have to be honest to that is a real possibility and what we'll tell you what's going on is the facts laying out to you the exact indicators. So you'll know, you'll see, you'll literally be able to judge all of us, not only the leaders of this City, your leaders, but all of us, all New Yorkers, we're going to be a judge together, whether we're getting it right or wrong, or whether our strategies are working or not because the numbers will be out there for everyone to see. So, it's going to be participatory, it's going to be everyone in it together, we do it right and we never have to get to worse restrictions, tougher restrictions. If things don't cut our way or if we're not tight, then tighter restrictions are an option, an option I hope we never have to use. So, let's be clear about the things that are in place now and the fact that clearly we see initial progress from them and that they are all necessary. And I don't think there's a lot of people doubting that right now but if there is anyone doubting that, let me make it straight for you, make it clear that all of these restrictions were necessary and continue to be necessary. So just to remind us all, we restricted large gatherings, restricted visits to hospitals and nursing homes, obviously all of this, a combined effort between the City and the State. Closed bars and restaurants, closed non-essential businesses, called for face coverings in public, six-foot separation, social distancing, closed things like schools and daycares, limited outdoor recreation, and of course most importantly instituted shelter in place. Now these things happen at different times in different ways according to the information we had, the evidence, we had our coordination with the State, but all of them have proven necessary and all of them will be with us, certainly in my view through April and I think for much of May. Now, it's not all or nothing in the future, it's not like you take this menu and say, okay, none of it can ever move. No, if we do things right, if we make progress, some of these pieces can start to be changed and relaxed, but again, it could go up or down depending on how well we do. So, let's talk about the phases and I've had really extensive conversations with our healthcare team and I want to thank all of them— all of them have been great. Our Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, Dr. Raul Perea-Henze, the team of course at Department of Health, Dr. Oxiris Barbot and our Deputy Commissioner, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis and all of their staff, Health and Hospitals, Dr. Mitchell Katz and his great team. We've had some great help in recent weeks from the Senior Advisor we brought in to advise us on the COVID-19 strategy who is an internationally recognized expert, Dr. Jay Varma, who's with us here today. Many, many people and I'm not even mentioning a lot of others who have contributed, but the constant conversations over the last few days have allowed us to want to really go into depth about these three phases of the epidemic and to help people understand it more clearly want all New Yorkers to be a part of this and to feel again invested in the solutions and the actions we have to take.
So, let's recap where we are now, again, in the first phase that we're experiencing widespread transmission. What it means you're seeing constantly new cases regularly just consistently and we're at a point because of community spread where we can't trace the origins of individual cases to their initial source. We do need in this phase the strong guidelines and restrictions and we have to ration testing, we have to prioritize testing because we have a very limited supply of testing. Where is it going? Again, testing is being focused first and foremost on saving the lives of people who are already in danger of losing their lives. Folks in the hospital in danger or people who it's quite clear are already experiencing disease in a direct dangerous way and the healthcare professionals need that testing to know what's going on. Job one, job two, our healthcare workers testing to protect them, to know who should be at those hospitals and who shouldn't to keep them in the game, all those who can be. We desperately need our healthcare workers, we've obviously lost a certain number of them temporarily to disease and— it's such a tragic, painful truth we've lost some permanently and we know it's so painful that some of these heroes are gone forever, because they sacrificed for all of us. We have to make sure they have the testing they need period, high, high priority to make sure our healthcare workers have the testing they need so they can do what they're doing to save everyone else. And then our first responders who were depending on deeply in this to save lives in so many ways, including all the ways they do that have nothing to do with COVID-19 to be the backbone of getting people to the hospitals when they need and to enforce these rules that are keeping this disease from spreading.
Those are where the priorities are, in this phase where we don't have a lot of testing and we have to think about the most basic things that we can do to make sure healthcare is— there and help is there for those who need it most. As the testing supply increases, we're looking at additional strategies that could be used with the testing here now even in this phase, but we're going to need more testing if we're going to use testing in any other strategic ways or pinpointed ways. We've got to have a bigger supply this has been— the underlying challenge from day one and we've never had a satisfactory answer from the federal government, not one single day since this began, have I felt that the federal government has proven to us they are doing everything to get us the testing we need. Because if they had done it, we would be in an entirely different situation and bluntly, I'm not going to let bygones be bygones to say the least, but I can tell you we still need them to produce in a way they have not done, because if we could get widespread testing, it would start to change the entire— strategy and allow us to do so much more. So, how do we get to the next phase? How do we get to a phase where there's low-level transmission and our lives start to get better, and obviously many, many lives are saved. Continuing to practice the social distancing, the shelter in place is the pathway to the next phase. So when I say earn it, I want people to hear this in a good positive way, we all keep doing what we're doing we actually can work our way to that next phase where things get better and our lives take a step towards normalcy and we're not talking necessarily a huge period of time. This is something, again, I don't think it happens in April, I think if we really work hard, we have a chance of seeing change in May or June so that hard work and everyone in the government has to lead the way and we have to support it in every way possible and force it in every way possible, but we need 8.6 million teammates to do it. That's what gets us to low-level transmission, what does it look like? In low-level transmission, again, I would love to believe this is something you could see later in May or going into June. You're seeing, yes, you're seeing some new cases and you're seeing them regularly, but there's a very profound difference. You can actually trace them again, what we were able to do in the very beginning of this crisis, remember when we used to talk about a individual case and then we'd say, Oh, we're talking to the family of that person or who they worked with and we traced them, we found out these people are okay there, they tested negative. We knew exactly how to trace the map of people that they came in contact with we actually could go back in that direction, which would be a very good thing. So with low-level transmission, you're actually able to use those disease detectives again, because there's few enough cases that you can trace the whole universe of anyone who may have been exposed and get them whatever help they need. In that scenario, with low-level transmission, you can do some relaxing of the restrictions. Not all, not all at once, but you can start to make life a little more normal and people have to be smart about it, not overdue but if we're patient, if we're measured, we can actually sustain that low-level transmission phase and work our way towards the next even better phase. To do this we would need a more substantial amount of testing, if we tried to do a low-level transmission strategy with just the testing we had now, we would constantly run up against the problem of lack of testing capacity. So we need some greater capacity, it's not clear how and when that happens, it's not clear if there'll be enough technological advances or if somewhere on the international market we can get the right kind of tests. It's not clear at all if the federal government will really have the—breakthrough of that they need to, that they'll focus their energies on getting testing to all the places they need it. I think the federal government is still the single most important piece of this equation and when it comes to testing, so we would need more testing and we don't have it yet. But since that phase is not likely until May or June, there's time and now we're going to work very hard to get that testing one way or another, we're searched the whole world to find it, whatever will get the job done. And then they'll next phase is the one we all want to get to, and that phase where there's no transmission to speak of— is when we actually can get back to normal. And always being vigilant, always guarding against the resurgence, always realizing we're up against a very ferocious and clever enemy in the coronavirus. But there is a phase and we can actually describe it now, where you have the ability to see very few new cases so much so that you can basically say it's a no transmission dynamic. To get to that phase you need a lot more testing, that phase requires testing whenever needed, however needed, again, we would need that federal help to get there. In a no transmission phase, what it basically means is there's very, very few cases and essentially the cases that do emerge come from outside the City, not from within the City. So, someone travels or comes here and that's how someone contracts it, but again, rare and traceable that kind of phase means we're out of the social distancing business if we really work hard, we get to the point where we don't have to practice the same kind of restrictions that again, is months away but it is something we can at least envision. And in that phase, you do a lot of testing, you test anyone who might potentially have been exposed, even if they're not showing symptoms, you test anyone who has any kind of symptoms that might relate to the coronavirus. It's a very aggressive testing approach and it is very, very much focused on a lot of information and a lot of support for anyone who needs it. That's a phase we could get to, but it's going to take a lot of work.
So, let's go back on this whole idea of how we go from here to there, to that no transmission phase we all want to get to as soon as possible. So, this graphic is on purpose showing you that it is not a beautiful straight line. In truth, we've talked to all of our health experts and I mentioned Dr. Jay Varma, who's worked all around the world fighting the Coronavirus and other infectious diseases and he's brought back lessons from a lot of different countries and what they've seen and what is one of the most important lessons is it doesn't go in a straight, perfect line. In fact, there's always the danger that people start to relax a little bit and you see the disease start to come back and then you have to fight it back. Our job is to try and make it as straight a line as possible; to stay focused, stay disciplined, practice whatever the standards are at that time and practice them really well and enforce them. And that's where all of us - I keep saying that this is participatory - everyone's in it, but the government, this is piece where the government 100 percent has to always create the right kind of enforcement. And that's my job and the job of all my colleagues, but we need you always. Again, if you see it, call 3-1-1. We used to talk about in the fight against terror; if you see something, say something. Well for right now the enemy is a disease; the terrorist is a disease and if you see something, call it in immediately. Crowding helps this disease to grow and where people are not social distancing, the disease grows. We need you to call 3-1-1. Just call. Don't even think about, just call, report it and help will come right away. That is something I'm guaranteeing and if there's any place where it doesn't come, I will deal with that agency or that official who didn't get the help where we needed it. So, I need the report so I can protect you. So, resurgence, I've addressed, this is a real thing, this is a danger always, this is why we have to look at this and feel it. I'm asking people to not just think about it, but to feel it. We get too loose, we loosen our grip, we get overconfident - this is what can happen. You think things are going good and then suddenly it's back with a vengeance. That does not have to happen, but God forbid it ever did happen, then restrictions go back on and in fact, restrictions may get to a higher place than we've ever seen them before. That to me is incentive to all of us. None of us are enjoying the restrictions we have right now. Lord knows we don't even want tighter restrictions. Let's get out of this phase and get to the better phase. Get up, but let's hold it. Let's stay firm with it and never let that resurgence happen.
Now, let me talk to you about the way we will be giving you the information going forward so that you will be able to watch in real time along with everyone here at City Hall, everyone in the Health Department, Health + Hospitals, Emergency Management, all the people leading this effort to fight the coronavirus, you'll be seeing the same data they see in real time and this will start on Monday. And the goal here is that everyone together, all New Yorkers can watch the movement of this data and have a common goal, a common standard. When all of the data, all of the lines move in the same direction for a sustained period of time, that's when we can start talking about changing some of the rules and making life a little easier. So the goals will be clear and the three indicators are these; we're going to show you every day the number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19 conditions. We will also show you, second, the number of people admitted to the ICUs for suspected COVID-19 conditions and then we will show you the percentage of people throughout the city who tested positive - the specific positive tests for COVID-19 throughout the city. Now, what do we need to start to discuss moving to the next phase, that better phase and to start to discuss any change, any relaxing of restrictions; we need to see all three of those indicators move in unison in the same direction. We cannot see two of them get better and one of them get worse. That doesn't work. All three have to move together down; all three have to move in a better direction together. They have to do that for at least 10 days to two weeks -sustained, consistent. If it's one day gets good and the next day goes bad, that doesn't count. We need to see a clean, clear pattern that sustains itself for several weeks to then say it's time to even discuss some of the positive changes we'd all like to experience. So you will be watching in real time and I think it will be inspirational to all of us to realize we're all in this together. We all have agency here, we all have power here, we all have the ability to make a change. You're going to see in real time if it's working for all of us or not working or what we have to do next to drive that down- drive all three of those numbers down.
Okay, what do we need as a city? What do we need as a people to get to where we want to go? That promised land, low level transmission; that's where we want to go and want to go there as soon as we can and it's not going to be easy - long battle - we're going to be at it for a while, but we need to get to that place - all of us - and we need to sustain that. What do we need? Testing, testing, testing; number one, we need a whole lot of testing. We need the federal government to step up. We need them to do it quickly. You can't just snap your fingers, they have to work on it now so that we get more and more and more of it and we get it when we need it. We already have been suffering since January, a number of us on January 24th pleaded with the federal government to get testing in New York City in substantial numbers immediately so we could do tests here. From that day to today, there's never been a single day where our federal government has provided the amount of testing we need. That has to change if we're going to beat this disease not only in New York City, but everywhere else in the country.
Second, we're going to need to take a lot of people power. A lot of staff, a lot of human beings are going to do the outreach; talking to people constantly, primarily by phone of course and text, constantly keeping in touch with people as we get into those better phases where we want to stay in touch with anyone and everyone who either has the disease, might have the disease, needs to be quarantined or isolated. Lot of communication, a lot of follow-up, making sure people have what they need, making sure we're finding out what's going on, making sure people know how to handle things or if they need additional medical advice or care. A lot of staffing, which we will provide. We're also going to need to use information technology to constantly communicate with people in a very advanced way, constantly tracking what they're experiencing - what they need - using IT as a tool where everyone will be able to log-on and say what's going on and what they need and it will allow us to keep so much more information and get so much more information out to people. We're going to need more options for quarantine and isolation. So, we've been building out hotel capacity to create temporary hospitals. If we get to those better phases, particularly to the best phase, to the one we want to get to - low level transmission. That in the end to low-level transmission, again to no transmission I should say, that requires being able to have a lot of capacity for people, for example, say someone needs to be away from their family, from their family because they have the disease or they're symptomatic -we need to isolate. We're going to be doing that on a really big scale; someone needs to be quarantined, we'll do that on a big scale. So were going to have to build that out. Hopefully we'll need less of those rooms for hospitals, but we will need a lot of those rooms for isolation and quarantine. Either way, we have a lot of hotel rooms at our capacity and we will do what it takes to have them available.
And then finally, what we don't control, but we're trying to support with all the efforts of our health team and we're praying that the national and international medical community advances on the front of treatments and vaccines. These are two areas where there could be real progress. I think most of the professionals I've talked to, say the vaccine is probably at least a year away, if not more, but treatments, there's been some interesting efforts going on, research going on, trials going on, maybe that changes the picture and that is happening in large measure in the city of New York. So we are a part of that effort and hopefully that will help to change the whole situation for everyone for the better.
So, we understand what it’s going to take and we understand we're going to need a lot of tools to get there. Some we can create ourselves, some we're going to need help from the outside, especially the federal government. So, the testing capacity that underlies all of this – solve that problem and you can solve a lot of other problems. The ability to isolate people when they need to be isolated; that's something we have more control over and we can build out that capacity. The ability to trace and quarantine folks who need that - that's something that this city does well - our Department of Health and Disease Detectives do well, when they can get to a point where they can actually have a number of cases that they could reach, not an overwhelming number like we have now. But we have a lot of that capacity and we can build more and continuing to do the right kind of social distancing when we need it. We've already proven that, people in New York City have proven they can meet that standard. We just have to show we can hold it. So, we can get to a better place - that's the bottom line - we can get to a better place. We have the ability in so many ways, yes, we need help, but we can do it. People are already showing that we can win – were going to have to do a lot more to get there and we're going to update constantly. Me and my team will update you constantly so you’ll [inaudible] see exactly how we're doing and all the questions, all the concerns that New Yorkers have, you'll be able to ask those questions against all the facts before your very eyes.
As I conclude, then we'll turn to questions from the media. I want to just say, you know, we've talked so much and rightfully so about our health care workers and so many New Yorkers have poured out your hearts to our health care workers and they feel it. I've talked to so many of them; they feel your love and your appreciation. Please keep showing it all the time. Let's sustain them, let's support them, but so many individuals and organizations are stepping up to help our health care workers. I don't think I've ever seen in, in all the years of public service in the city, I have never seen more love, more support, more appreciation for our healthcare workers than at this moment. You know, they, they've been through it after Sandy, they were saving lives after 9/11, and this every day - you know - dealing with the toughest situations. But I think for a long time we sort of took for granted, we had these amazing doctors and nurses and hospital workers and they really haven't been given the thanks that they deserve for a long, long time. Finally, this horrible, horrible crisis is at least bringing out into the open just how amazing they are. So, thank you to everyone who is supporting them. Even the smallest act of appreciation and generosity towards our healthcare workers really helps and they feel it. And there's been some big acts of generosity, I want to thank Goldman Sachs, which already had been very, very helpful - made a major donation to our public schools - now have given a half million dollar grant to Health + Hospitals for staff and supplies, staffing and supplies - that's very much appreciated. And I want to thank a very civically engaged couple, Mark Gallogly and Lise Strickler, I’ve known Mark a long time – he's done a lot for the city. Well they've given a very generous gift to our healthcare workers to make sure that they get food and care packages to make their days a little bit easier while they're fighting this fight. So, thanks to that great couple and so many other people who are stepping-up. We're going to keep celebrating that piece of the love and generosity of New Yorkers for our health care workers.
Okay, so I think I've said it and said it again; you have the power. It doesn't always feel that way in this fight, it really doesn't, and for a lot of times I think we felt confused, pain, powerless, but in fact, you have the power in so many ways to fight this disease back. Our job is to build up a strategy, get the resources in place, get the enforcement in place, do all the things to support you. Of course, get you the healthcare you need when you need it. Everything we're going to do from this point on is to protect you, to protect the people who do protect you - our healthcare workers, our first responders - to enforce these rules, to get you the things that allow you to get through this crisis and for so many people, that means the basics like food, make sure you have shelter protected from eviction. All the things we have to do to protect New Yorkers and also to empower you with information, with support to get through this crisis. We can do it. I wanted you to see those phases ahead, I wanted you to feel those next phases. I wanted you to see where we could go and I know we can get there together.
