CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview With Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)

Interview

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HILL: We want to get now to more on this breaking news out of New York. The state confirming its first death related to coronavirus.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo joining me now by phone. Governor -- good to have you with us.

What more can you tell us, sir -- about this death which we just learned about this morning?

GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Good to be with you -- Erica.

We unfortunately had a death -- a person who had coronavirus. She was 82 years old. She had emphysema. And on top of the emphysema, she contracted the coronavirus.

[11:14:54]

CUOMO: I think, Erica though -- perspective, perspective, perspective -- you're going to see people who are ill, older people who have underlying respiratory illnesses who get the coronavirus. They will be in a grave situation. And we will see this over and over and over again.

But by the way, an 82-year-old person who has emphysema, was hospitalized for emphysema, if they get the normal flu, they're in a grave situation, right. So yes, we have a death from coronavirus.

We have many deaths of people who are senior citizens with an illness who have the normal flu. So again, the context here is everything.

HILL: Context is everything.

I want to talk a little bit about the mobile testing. I spent a fair amount of the week in New Rochelle. I know you've been back and forth as well. Was out there at the mobile testing site yesterday.

Shimon Prokupecz, who's on the ground there for us, says about 150 cars were processed. Does that mean 150 people were tested yesterday?

CUOMO: It depends on the occupancy of the car. So if a car had one person, two people, three people, four people -- it actually worked very well because with the drive-thru it does a number of things. It keeps people out of the emergency room. And you know, everyone is so anxious now they walk into an emergency room. That's the last thing you want to do. You walk into an emergency room, if you are positive you wind up infecting other people and staff. If you're not positive, you wind up exposing yourself to people in the emergency room who may be positive.

So first, stay home, use telemedicine.

Second, the drive--thrus allow you to stay in your vehicle. You come into a drive through and people come to you, they take the test. It's about -- we thought it would be about 15 minutes per car. It's actually less. So we're going to increase the volume.

But you don't expose yourself. You don't expose others. And it's the fastest, safest way to get these tests done. The testing has been such a major problem, as everybody knows. This is a totally different way of doing it and a faster way and a better way of doing it.

HILL: And give us a sense, too -- what is the turnaround time? The mayor in New Rochelle told me that prior to this site opening -- even when testing was done, it had to be sent to Albany to actually be processed. What's the turnaround at this site?

CUOMO: Well, the watershed change is -- I spoke with Vice President Pence and I spoke with the President yesterday. And they have now allowed New York state to do its own testing. The reason the testing was so slow was it was all regulated by the FDA and the CDC from Washington. And they had very specific rules on who could test, what lab could test, et cetera. And that was a bottleneck.

You now -- now, they've allowed New York state, that has 200 laboratories in New York state, to do our own testing. So the turnaround time is about 24 hours.

HILL: 24 hours -- that's pretty good for folks to get those answers. I know the priority has been given in New Rochelle to those who were in quarantine or in that containment zone. Do you anticipate opening it up to other local residents soon?

CUOMO: The priority is for New Rochelle residents because right, when you have limited capacity, you want to first prioritize people who are most likely positive and most likely spreading.

So the first priority is for people in New Rochelle because that is the highest cluster in the United States. People within Westchester are also eligible to go to that test center. And we're going to open one on Long Island where we also see a rise in cases.

But, look Erica -- this is going to be all across the country. This virus has spread much more than we know. These testing results represent really nothing. They just represent the number of tests we're taking.

We have 500 quote/unquote "positive cases" in New York. That's only because that's the number of people we've tested. If you actually could find out how many people had the virus in New York, it's going to be in the thousands, if not the tens of thousands. All probability is, thousands have had the virus and self resolved and

never knew they had the virus. So again, it is context and perspective. And I get the anxiety, but you know, facts matter also here.

HILL: Indeed they do. And as you know quite well, we are committed to those. We appreciate you taking the time to join us, Governor -- thank you.

CUOMO: Thank you. Best to all.

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