Ned Lamont

Right now, all of our higher ed institutions mandated vaccines for everybody. Overwhelmingly, people are complying with that.

I`ll tell you that through encouragement and incentives, we got about 88 of our adults vaccinated. We got the overwhelming majority of our nurses and teachers vaccinated, but that wasn`t good enough, so we put in place mandates.

Whatever I'm doing with emergency powers is specifically related to COVID, nothing else.

One thing has come crystal clear to me why it's important that we have this emergency declaration is, it gives us the opportunity to get more testing capacity faster for all the people of the state of Connecticut.

The whole purpose of a bar is the opposite of social distancing.

We`re twice as likely to wear a mask as they are in Texas. We`re twice as likely to be vaccinated. We`re half as likely to be infected.

If I`m a Neanderthal, I`m a Neanderthal with a mask.

One of the reasons we got hit is we have more people more likely to be in nursing homes in most other states in the country.

I think I lead with public health. And if you want to get this economy going, public health has got to be the key metric or we're never going to get this economy back.

A, it's the right thing to do for those seniors. And B, hopefully, don't get any complications, don't have to go to the hospital, and frees up capacity for other people in the hospital.

Testing, testing, testing, we're in there testing in every facility on a weekly basis, Chris.

I haven't calculated it, but I'm afraid there could be a sea change.

We've mandated that you've got to wear a mask. If you're an employee in that grocery store, wear a mask. If you're a customer, going in there, wear a mask.

Obviously, there was some frustration from the governors that, and yet another supplemental, 'There is maybe money for airlines, but no money for frontline workers, state employees, state and the local government.'

I wish they'd go to some ICU units, and they be reminded what this disease is doing. And I, as a Governor, feel every day how serious it is the responsibility to keep every future Jonathan safe.

What worries me is that 90 percent of my deficit is related to just income tax and sales tax revenues, just eviscerated in the last 90 days.

I've told the people of Connecticut, May 20th, we're going to be able to give you a roadmap on how we slowly get back to normalcy.

I worry about people taking that, and taking them literally, and how dangerous that is.

I want people to plan accordingly. I want them to take social distancing accordingly. Sometimes I worry people are going to take their foot off the accelerator too early.

I think the President should give us guidance. I think the federal government should give us guidance, but then leave it up to each and every governor, because every situation is so different.

I think it makes all the sense in the world, especially for the factories. We have thousands of people going into a factory. A factory can be just as contagious as a nursing home, if you're not careful.

It's a bit of a mess out there.

That was the right move. It took us a while to get there. And the thought of a mandatory quarantine that the president mused about -- you know, my phone was ringing off the hook. What does that mean? Are you going to shut down the highways?

No, we desperately need more testing. Three weeks ago, we were doing 20 tests. Now, we're doing closer to 2,000 a day.

We're working very closely with Andrew Cuomo. As he said, New York needs relief. I would broaden that. I would say the New York metropolitan area needs relief because we, in southern Connecticut, are part of that pandemic that's coming out…