CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Interview with Ned Lamont

Interview

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OUTFRONT now, the governor, Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut.

Governor, you know, obviously, you've talked about your state and having issues with testing, being behind on testing. You just heard Drew's report.

Are some of these problems caused by the red tape he was detailing from the feds on down?

GOV. NED LAMONT (D), CONNECTICUT: I think the feds, Erin, just got off to a slow start. They didn't take it quite as seriously as they could have. There was maybe some red tape regarding testing.

Imagine if we had commissioned Ford and G.E. to start making ventilators three months ago instead of three days ago, imagine where we'd be today. But the feds are catching up now.

Fortunately, the governors are -- hit the ground very early in terms of social distancing and a lot of protocols, and I think that's going to save a lot of lives.

BURNETT: You have announced and you are one of the few to try to put a date on it. Obviously, I know the date depends on what the numbers show, but you had said you wanted Connecticut to possibly re-open schools, bars, restaurants, by May 20th at the earliest.

How realistic do you think that date is?

LAMONT: I think it's probably a little wishful. But I wanted to give people at least a sense that over the next seven weeks, you know we're not going to open anything up. You should apply for those federal -- you know, forgivable loans if you are a small business. Parents should think about tele-education and other ways to take care of their kids at least until May 20th. But most of the models we show this is going to linger beyond there.

BURNETT: And we are seeing that. I know there's also been a lot of talk and hope about the antibody test, right, that you would give people an antibody test, you would know who had it, you pick up people who had been asymptomatic theoretically and they could go back to work.

That would work of course if this has much more widely penetrated the population than it seems to have from other models in other countries, right, where you'd be looking at 1 percent to 5 percent of the population. That doesn't help get many people back to work. Obviously, a much more deep penetration would.

How important is antibody testing going to be for you in Connecticut to re-opening?

LAMONT: I think it is quite important. I think we're going to do very broad based antibody testing, focus, first of all, on first responders, maybe folks in our defense-related industries, big manufacturing facilities.

BURNETT: Yes.

LAMONT: I don't -- the people we test to see whether or not they have COVID is a small minority of the people who actually probably had it and they built up some antibodies.

[19:50:01] They're immune to COVID. If I can test for that, we can get people back to work sooner and get them back to work safely.

BURNETT: So, Governor, one day hospitalizations totals I know have dropped to their lowest level in two weeks. But the CDC is still saying that Connecticut has the highest rate of hospitalizations in the country when they look at it on a per capita basis.

Why do you think that is from your medical experts?

LAMONT: I think we had a very high level of infections down in southern Connecticut. We are part of that New York metropolitan area. New Rochelle, remember that hot zone, was just across our border. And, frankly, a few folks from New York come to our hospitals in southern Connecticut as well.

And now, the virus is slowly moving up the state, but it's tough because maybe it's going to slow down in southern Connecticut, but it's going to speed up in northern Connecticut.

BURNETT: All right. Well, Governor, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much, Governor Lamont.

LAMONT: Thanks, Erin.

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