Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo is a Guest on MSNBC with Alex Witt

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was a guest on MSNBC with Alex Witt to discuss the novel coronavirus and New York State's declared state of emergency to contain the spread of the virus.

AUDIO is available here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's interview is available below:

Alex Witt: Joining me now, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo. Governor, I'm awfully glad to see you. Yesterday it was a little frightening listening to your news conference that you had. But let's talk about the latest cases, the increase and where you are most concerned.

Governor Cuomo: It shouldn't be frightening, Alex. Thank you for having me, by the way. The term state of emergency frightens people. It's an administrative procedure. It gives the state more flexibility to purchase, to hire people faster. That's all it means. And if people understand the facts here they shouldn't be alarmed. The fear and the anxiety is greatly outpacing the reality. And we're fighting virus, we're fighting the fear even more than the virus, frankly.

Remember all of this is to avoid two things. Number one it's to avoid massive disruption with very large quarantines. Which is what we saw in China, what we're now seeing in Italy. We want to avoid that. And it's a dangerous situation for people who are in that vulnerable population. Senior citizens, people with a compromised immune systems and people with pre-existing illnesses. The data, Alex, should calm people. Yeah we have 105 cases. Only 8 people are in the hospital. Johns Hopkins has been tracking all the Coronavirus cases. Over 100,000. Sixty thousand people have already recovered. Just about 40,000 are still ill. Number of fatalities: 3,000 out of 107,000 cases.

So it's avoiding the massive disruption. It's protecting those vulnerable populations. And that's why we're trying to contain. How do you contain? You test, you test, you test. You find the positive person, you isolate them. And we are testing aggressively. What we need is the federal government to help us first by stopping the mixed messages, which I believe is causing, in large part, the fear where the President of the United States is saying anyone who wants a test can have a test. And then the Vice President gets on and says, oh by the way, we don't have enough tests.

You see that, you get nervous. You think your government doesn't know what it's doing. And we don't have enough testing capacity and the federal government still has not approved for our state to use private labs and something called automated testing. I was at one of the most sophisticated labs in the country this morning, Alex. We can't even use them because we're waiting for federal approval.

Alex Witt: Why would the federal approval be delayed, particularly under these circumstances? Why not allow you to use that kind of a lab?

Governor Cuomo: Who knows. Why was the federal government not ready for this in the first place when they saw what was happening in China and everybody had to know somebody in China was going to get on a plane. Why didn't the federal government approve my own state lab to be used? Now we are waiting for the approvals to use private labs and something called automated testing. The lab I was at they can test 120 samples without anyone touching them. We can get the capacity up to 2,000 within in a few days. Two thousand per day if we could use the private labs. And we're still waiting for their approval. It's either bureaucratic incompetence or one of the conspiracy theories that you hear. But at this point, we need the tests, we need the capacity and we need the federal government to tell the American people the truth and one version of the truth because I think that will go a long way in slowing down the fear.

Alex Witt: Are you at all sensing some relief at word from the government there will be 4 million new test kits available by the end of the week?

Governor Cuomo: Yeah, if that is true, that would be great. I myself am skeptical when I hear what the federal government says they're going to do. You think a situation like New York, I don't even need anything from the federal government. I just need them not to - not to handcuff the state. I have private labs who already - they have automated testing. We can get it done just give us the approval to do it. They do hamstring us because they have to approve it. But I don't need CDC to run the tests. I don't need CDC's testing kits. I just need them to approve our usage of the labs and of the automated testing. and then where all day long trying to calm people down because the fear is more dangerous than the virus. In any of these emergencies, Alex, I don't care if it is a fire, a flood, Superstorm Sandy, the fear, the panic is more of a danger than the underlying condition. Because you panic people, especially in a place like New York with that density, then you have a problem. And I think part of it is you're getting mixed messages. If you're watching the TV and you hear the president say one thing and the vice president say something else and the CDC say something else. They're also causing a panic, people were told they could get a test, but they can't get a test. We don't have the capacity to test everyone who wants a test.

So in New York we had to come up with a standard protocol to prioritize those who can be tested, because you can only test as many people as you have the capacity to actually test. So we have a standard protocol in New York, where we prioritize who can get tested. As our testing capacity goes up, we'll open up that protocol so more people can get tested. But it's the disconnect from what they're hearing from different sources on TV and the reality that suggests to people the government doesn't know what it's doing. In a situation like this that seems out of control and it's frightening, you want to believe that somebody is in charge and somebody knows what they're doing, and that somebody is the government here.

The truth is in New York, we are doing what we need to do. I have been asking private sector businesses and I'm going to be meeting with them this week to stagger their workload, let their employees voluntarily, some come in early, some come in late, stay at home, telecommuting, we're a digital economy, work from home if you can. Citizens are doing their part. Stay out of dense gatherings. We have a situation in Westchester County - 82 cases positive because we've seen the danger of large gatherings, where people got together, several hundred, and how fast it can spread. But again, it's not the underlying reality of what happens with this virus. We have plenty of data from China, other countries. If you're not in a vulnerable population, it's not ultimately dangerous. But we do need the federal government to be a bigger help or less of a hindrance, I'll take Alex.

Alex Witt: You know I'm listening to you speak about Westchester county with 82 confirmed cases and yet we talk about the density right here in New York City where we both are right now. And there's something of a silver lining that the number has not skyrocketed as one might assume it would. What are your health advisers telling you about how New York City itself, Manhattan and the boroughs, is handling this, and about how long this may last?

Governor Cuomo: Good question. For the duration, they look at the other countries that have gone through this. You look at China, you look at South Korea, but those are premised on active containment efforts, right? China may not have responded quickly, according to some experts, but they then had dramatic containment. They basically closed everything down. We're trying to avoid that in this country. Right? You could close everything down that would do the containment, but it would also be highly disruptive to the economy, to society, et cetera. So we're trying to avoid that. But that's where they get the duration from. And you're right, New York City and density is a problem. But New York City hasn't experienced it because we have not had the number of cases yet and we want to keep it that way. If you have a number of cases in a dense environment, you're going to see it spread, because it communicates easily and it transfers easily. So that testing, and as soon as you find a positive person, to isolating them and find out who they came in contact with and do that investigation and isolate them, that is tremendously important. That's all the difference. That's the early containment stage. You fail at that containment stage, it spreads into a dense environment, you will see those numbers go up. That is Westchester. Westchester is 82, New York City is only 12. Westchester, which is a suburban community outside of New York City, it started with one person who went to a gathering with several hundred people, infected some people, they went to a gathering with several hundred people and now the numbers multiplied. That could happen in New York City.

Alex Witt: But New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, thank you so much. I have to say I personally am less fearful after having spoken with you. So thank you for putting a lot of us, I think, at ease and putting everything in proper perspective. Best of luck handling everything, sir. Much appreciated your time.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you.