Cuomo Urges National Mask Mandate As U.S. Coronavirus Cases Spike

LONG ISLAND, NY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a message for President Donald Trump: Enact a national face mask mandate.

During a coronavirus briefing Tuesday, Trump encouraged Americans to wear masks. "That's a positive step forward, especially from where we have been," Cuomo said Wednesday. "I think the president should have taken the extra step and called for a national mandate on masks. You're in public service to make a difference."

If Trump mandated masks across the country, 40,000 lives can be saved according to a model by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Cuomo said.

"Just by signing a piece of paper, the president can save 40,000 lives," Cuomo said. "Why wouldn't you do that? I would urge him repeatedly to do that."

Cuomo, who held a call-in news briefing on Wednesday — Day 144 of the coronavirus crisis —said Tuesday that 705 people, or 1.04 percent, tested positive out of 67,000 tests administered; a total of nine people lost their lives statewide due to COVID-19.

Across New York, 714 are hospitalized, the lowest that number has been since March 18, Cuomo said. And even as all of New York has entered into phase 4 of the state's plan to restart the economy, the infection rate has gone down, despite concerns it might spike after reopening.

However, Cuomo said numbers continue to rise across the nation. "There is a COVID ricochet effect," he said. "We are now seeing where the infection rate will bounce across the country."

To that end, Cuomo said coronavirus cases could surge again in New York. "To say New York will be fine, when you see what's happening in Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, we know that's not the case," Cuomo said. "We know the infection rate travels because people are mobile and the virus travels with people."

Cuomo said that's why New York is reaching out to help other states, because goal is to get the infection rate down nationwide. "People in New York have paid too high a price with what we have accomplished to go backward," he said.

New York, Cuomo reminded, was the first state in the country to pass a mask order, on April 15.

On Tuesday, Cuomo said: "I am still repulsed, frankly, by the federal government's failure to do a mask order. It is to me just one of the really gross, negligent actions by the federal government."

Cuomo said he has "beseeched" Trump to pass a law mandating masks nationwide.

When asked about Tuesday's national news briefing, Cuomo said the fact Trump held the briefing was a "recognition of the federal government's lack of leadership, and the reality of the situation — in that the virus is increasing all across the country," he said. "It's a recognition that denial doesn't work."

Trump's saying that people should wear masks is "a much different message" from he has conveyed in the past and the words reflected a "marked shift," Cuomo said. Before Tuesday, Trump "was out of step with the people of this country." Cuomo said. "They know this virus is as serious as life and death. Period. At one point you can't deny everything that's going on in the country."

Cuomo nixes Trump's suggestion regarding federal agents to help with crime

Cuomo and Trump spoke on Tuesday and the president suggested that he was sending federal agents to New York City, among other cities, to "deal with what he saw as an increasing crime problem," Cuomo said.

The governor said while he is also concerned about increasing crime in New York City, he believes the situation can be managed by the state. "There is no need for federal involvement," Cuomo said.

If there were a public safety emergency in New York City that would require additional assistance, Cuomo said he would address the situation. "If the state failed to address a situation, then the federal government can come in. We're not there," Cuomo said. "I have not declared a public safety emergency."

Cuomo said the current concerns are shootings, civil unrest and young people congregating at bars and flouting social distancing mandates across New York.

"I am concerned but not at the level yet where I would declare a public safety emergency and take more aggressive and intrusive actions," Cuomo said. But if he had to, he would, he said — not the federal government, which Cuomo maintained is the "last line of defense."

Cuomo also urged the federal government to provide federal assistance to state and local governments to help the economy recover from the COVID-19 epidemic.

"This is a matter of basic economics," he said. "Every study shows that when you starve state and local governments, the economy does not recover completely."