What was your reaction to what the President said about I'm not looking at months, I'm not going to let the elephant jump off the ledge because of a cat, or whatever he said. We're looking to open back up - surprised?
Governor Cuomo: I'm not surprised. The President is very concerned about the economy. The economy was doing well - the economy is now truly suffering. The consequences haven't even been felt yet because not only have you stopped the revenue machine - you've increased the expense machine, okay? So those two things are going to compound each other. So the President is very eager to get back to the economy. Everybody agrees this is an unsustainable situation. You can't keep spending money and close down the economy and the President is eager to get it opened as quickly as possible.
I actually have a group that is working on the restart of the economy because I get it, too. This is New York and we're with the home of so much of this. So coming up with the plan to restart the economy is very important. But this, you don't want to - it's a false choice to say public health or restart the economy. Nobody's going to make that choice, and by the way, if you have to make that choice, it's public health. Because you cannot put a value on a human life. Nobody cares how long it takes to get the economy up and running if you actually saved lives.
But, Christopher, there is an art form here which is overlaying a public health strategy and an economic strategy. In other words, what we did is, we just closed everything down as quickly as we could. Shut all the doors, border all the windows. There was no art to what we did, no nuance. Is there a public health strategy that says, "Look, you can start to bring young people back to work. You can start to test and find out who had the virus and who resolved from the virus, and they can start to go back to work." That's how we'll restart the economy with a smart public health strategy, because closing the door on everyone was only because we didn't know better, right? If you now look at it, it didn't make any sense to close the schools, send my kids home with me or older people, or with grandmothers who were vulnerable to this virus. And young people were then maybe bringing it into the house. We didn't have any data or science to instruct us. But now you can come up with a smarter public health strategy that actually protects older people, lets younger people get back to work, and that can start the economic recovery. But it has to be that smart. It can't be reactive. It can't be emotional.