Friday will mark Day 111 of the coronavirus crisis in New York, and it will also mark the end of a streak of news briefings that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has given on the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The governor announced this week that he would stop doing the midday news briefings seven days a week, although he noted he’ll bring them back as needed.
“I’m sure they will often be necessary, but we’re going to turn the page on the immediacy of this crisis,” he said Wednesday.
Although Cuomo was not the only governor holding court on a daily basis, he took center stage over the last three months with his updates. Part of that was due to New York being the state hardest hit by COVID-19, but New York City’s status as America’s media capital also helped his stature.
Over the last three weeks of the briefings, Cuomo shifted the focus somewhat to also deal with the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis and the demonstrations that took place nationwide calling for justice. He used the briefings to roll out an agenda of law enforcement reforms that the Legislature was able to pass last week.
He used Thursday’s briefing at times to look back over the last 108 days he’s sat in front of reporters and how the state has responded to the crisis. After seeing daily death tolls of more than 500 for most of April, the daily number of fatalities related to COVID-19 now hover around 20. Hospitalization and infection rates also have significantly declined.
“I’m proud of what the government did,” he said. “I’m proud of what the people of this state did, but you needed every piece working together to accomplish what we accomplished. And I want to thank them for that.”
Cuomo even thanked the news media toward the end of Thursday’s for showing up every day in Albany or elsewhere when most residents didn’t want to leave their homes. He said the back-and-forth dialogue, at sometimes pointed, with reporters helped disseminate information to residents.
“We gave people information, and we gave people comfort, and we gave people hope, and we gave people a plan, and we gave people a vision, and we empowered them,” the governor said. “I think most of all, they got the information they desperately needed, so they could make decisions about their own life and their own health and what to do with their kids. They needed that desperately information.”
