As time went on, the team wanted to use more modern visuals on the PowerPoint, with different colors and fonts. They thought ours looked straight out of the 1960s. But I didn’t want to make it look slick. I wasn’t trying to sell anything.
After the presentation of the day’s facts and numbers and statistics, I would offer my personal take on how we were doing, under a banner on the PowerPoint slide that said “Personal Opinion.” When I was afraid and I was frustrated, I said that. I did not know what tomorrow would bring. When I was sad, especially when the fatalities began, I communicated honestly and extemporaneously exactly what I was feeling. All we can do is our best, and all I could do was my best. I vowed I would work as hard as I could, be open and honest and present every day.
We also had to coordinate the voices within this state. New York has the same political divide seen in the rest of the country. We are a majority Democratic state, but we are about 40 percent Republican. There is New York City, but there are also rural counties that have more cows than people. All politicians want to dictate policy for their jurisdictions, but it was vital that government speak and act with one voice. Different or competing plans would only further confuse an already frightened public and further erode confidence. While we have our political differences, in New York we lived through the experience of 9/11 together, and most understand that at a time of emergency, building unity and commonality are the primary responsibilities of a true leader. Fortunately, in the face of this unique challenge, 90 percent of the politicians in New York were collegial and helpful and eager to cooperate. In truth, I suspect they were happy to let us lead in those days when all the news was bad. We would have to deal with harsh conservative elected officials in upstate New York who followed the Trump doctrine of denial. Downstate, we would have to deal with Mayor de Blasio, who was quick to make public pronouncements despite his having no authority under the law to do so. And I was sure that sooner or later we would run afoul of President Trump. He used the partisan divide to insulate himself and demonize any contrary voices. He would surely accuse me of playing politics as soon as what I was saying was not convenient for him.
I am not a typical politician. If I were, I would have run for president. Period. I had to make sure that it was clear that I had no agenda besides helping New Yorkers. This was not about me, it was about them. And there was no politics at play. I am a Democrat and a proud Democrat. I am the son of Mario Cuomo and a proud son. But I am first and foremost governor of all New Yorkers.
A rumor would emerge in mid-March after the briefings had become popular nationally that I might be interested in being vice president on a Biden ticket. Although I specifically denied it several times, the rumor was difficult to kill. I could anticipate President Trump’s tweet: “Andrew is just running for vice president.” Nothing was more important to me than my ability to do my job in this moment. Therefore, in Shermanesque, absolutely clear, and specific language, I would repeatedly state that I had no political aspirations beyond being governor of New York. I would not run nor accept the nomination for vice president. Never satisfied, the New York press asked the next question: “Did I want to go to Washington in a Biden administration?” My answer was again definitive: I wanted no position in the Biden administration; I was governor of New York. I would not let politics get in the way. If they wanted to attack my analysis or plan, they would have to do it on the merits.
MARCH 7 | 11 NEW CASES | 10 HOSPITALIZED | 0 DEATHS
“I have officially declared a state of emergency.”
ONLY SIX DAYS AFTER OUR first reported case in the state, we got word of two confirmed cases in Saratoga County, thirty miles north of Albany and at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. One of the patients was a pharmacist who had been working out of different pharmacies, so he was in contact with hundreds of people in the area. That changed the tenor of fear upstate.
Meanwhile, the virus was spreading in Westchester, following the trail of patient zero.
The following day, a Sunday, we got in the helicopter and visited the main lab at Northwell in Nassau County, one of the largest hospital systems in the state. We were federally authorized to conduct tests only at the state lab at Wadsworth, but not at Northwell and other labs, although I already knew we needed to utilize them. The early kits provided by the CDC produced false positives, and even when the kinks were corrected, the CDC didn’t have the capacity for the number of tests we needed. The WHO had been offering test kits to “underresourced countries” but deemed wealthy countries like the United States capable of developing their own.
We still needed FDA approval before we could run the test that Wadsworth had developed at other labs in New York State. Dr. Dwayne Breining, executive director of Northwell Labs, showed me the instruments that, once the FDA approved, would be used to run the Wadsworth test, doing a few hundred a day
