Way to the state. Other topics included the urgent need for more protective equipment for health providers. This is 35 minutes. Thank you,rbert paul, and thanks to you all for being here as we have this daily briefing. I appreciate the media trying to help us get the information out to the people of utah and let them know where we are, what we are doing and what we are planning to do going forward. , ier a briefing yesterday heard one commentator talk about what we just heard from governor herbert, and it felt like repetition. Im sure it was. Feel the samele way today about repetition, because we are very singleminded and our goal to slow down the spread of the covid 19 virus. We are singleminded of purpose that we are going to make sure people understand the plan of action we have, and we are still in that urgent phase. We wont rest until we drive down the transmission right, because if we dont, the Health System will be overrun and we will have a more acute problem. So we are singleminded. We have a plan, and we are going as wecute on that plan, know it will help us slow down and stop this red of the coronavirus. So let me repeat what i said yesterday. The next two weeks are critical. Staynt you to stay safe, home, keep safe physical distancing, we call it social distancing. The safe distance should be a minimum of six feet. Wash your hands. Cover your prop, your sneeze. Ugh, youryour co sneeze. Therously followed stayathome guidelines and directives we have given in the directions of your local health apartment. Health department. If we all do that, we have a good chance of slowing the spread of the coronavirus and slowing down the transmission. There are a couple of items i would like to talk about which i think are important, update and things we are doing on organizing. We are still in the urgent phase, but i appreciate what i see happening in the community. People are showing great act of kindness andf trying to help each other. That is the utah way. It should be no surprise people are stepping up to help those who need help. We need you to continue to do that. Government cannot do it all. We need the private sector to step up, and we as neighbors and Community Leaders and all people need to see what we can find is our role to make things happen. Out to ourive a teachers. This has been a difficult time for them. We have closed down the Public Education system. Most people are now practicing home schooling. And our teachers are doing such a great job making sure our students are still learning, at all grade levels. It is difficult but they are making sure assignments are there, making phone calls to check on students, principles are following up, and i appreciate the hard work our teachers and those in education are exhibiting in difficult and trying times, something they have never been trained for. And they are doing a great job. If you have an opportunity to talk to our teachers are education people, tell them thanks. It is important for us to continue the education of our young people. An effort inize our private sector. David randall of the eccles a former business, governor and former secretary of working alongside a foundation which is helping to underwrite this effort, creating what is a free online course that starts friday. The courses designed to help Small Businesses in particular weather thestorm storm. The name of the course is navigating covid 19 how to save your business. This is free. You will learn practical tips to help tread water during this difficult time, steps to position your business to take advantage of the recovery in the future, and it is not far away but you have got to get from here to there, and they are going to give you steps to position your business to take advantage of the recovery. We are going to give immediate Business Assistance today. Help is on the way from the state and federal level and our local banks, in a coordinated effort where you can get immediate Business Assistance. It is an important aspect for our business community. And what sources of information should you listen to . Is almost a cottage business out there of people having theories and making comments and opinions, and sometimes it is hard to separate fact from fiction. Our business community, they need the facts and know what information they can rely on to weather the storm. The page you can go to is utah. Edu. N eccles. Eccles. Utah. Rmation edu. Testing is the biggest challenge we face. It is the challenge and also the solution, if we can get enough testing done to help us find who has got the coronavirus, isolate them, protect society and protect them and help them get cured. So testing is key. What we testing, but call tracing and tracking of the people in those they have been those that have been in contact with someone who has been exposed to covid19. Testing, tracking and tracing will continue to be at the top of our list of needs. I am encouraged. Some of you have heard about the new test that can give you an answer in less than 15 minutes. It comes from abbott laboratories, a rapid test for covid19. We have 15 of those machines on their way to utah. In order toful, but manage expectations, that only 100 more to test about individuals. 100 is all. That is a drop in the bucket. It is a step in the right direction, but we have got to have the test kits in order to Start Testing more people, which is what we need to do. Breakthrough. We think there are going to be others. I plan over the next day or two to give you more information on what we are doing to ramp up testing. Good news here yesterday. We had the largest number of people tested so far, 4000. 4000 in one day. We are getting closer to our goal of 7000 in one day, so more on that to come. I would like to thank those who have been involved up to this point. We do have strong leadership in this state. Our culture is one of leadership, working together, so i thank those who have been involved since the beginning of this. Ithas only been a month has only been a month. I appreciate Lieutenant Governor who took on management of our Coronavirus Task force, 24 7 effort. He has marshaled the public and private sectors to Work Together in the Community Task force has helped us buy some time to get so we canright place have a good front in fighting the coronavirus, and time for us to develop a more effective plan. Theall those involved in Community Task force led by our Lieutenant Governor, i appreciate the work they have done to get us to the good place where we are today. In addition, we have good state leadership in other areas. This is a part of the urgency search,ill call the as we i will call the surge, as we surge more efforts to get on top of this coronavirus. A concerted effort, all hands on deck, led by dr. Joseph miner of the department of Public Health he is a capable leader, a doctor, has great management skills. He came from local Health Departments before he took over the responsibility of the state. Unfortunately for dr. Miner and us, he has Health Issues right now, having nothing to do with covid19, but it makes him more susceptible so it is more difficult for him to be out. Home and managing things from home, not coming into the office, as we encourage others to do the same. On we need to have the boots the ground effort at our department of health, as we surge toward more and better efforts. Have i am announcing i appointed former adjutant general jefferson burton, who led our National Guard here and just retired, to lead the day to day operations of the Utah Department of Public Health. General burton as a significant background not only in the military, but in disaster planning and response. His training will make them ideal to ramp up this surge effort through the department of health and coordinating other efforts. Will remain executive Director Director of our Health Department, but the ongoing efforts will be directed by general jefferson burton. Excited about the cooperation and consultation with dr. Miner and this new augmentation in our department of health. General burton will be part of what will be known as our unified command. We do have a unified command, we eoc center, Emergency Operations center here in the capita, designed for these kinds of efforts. It was operated when we had the and when we establish a unified command, it means all the departments tha that Department Heads and resources in State Government are brought to bear to see what needs to be done and who is going to do it. The unified command is what we have now, with the disaster being covid19. Together and have critical players from our division of Emergency Management to our department of health and other agencies that will be a part of this effort. We have gone to level 1. Level 1 means all agencies are involved and we have briefings daily. We will use all the resources at our disposal to defeat the spread of the coronavirus. The objectives of the unified response are these. Increasedlth, testing, tracing and tracking. And deployd ppes which we have in short supply around the country and will find and apply them as needed. We are going to plan for increasing hospital activity levels. We have suspended elective surgeries and have beds available for the increasing numbers that testing will bring to us, and those who are sick and need health care. That is why we want to make sure we dont have our system overrun , and that is particularly true about hospitals. That is the health aspect. The second area is the economy. We have a plan, utah leads together, the work of many that will work as a plan for not only protecting our health and recovery from the aspects of covid19, but also put us on a truck to recover economically. We know there is a downturn in the economy as an unfortunate result of this coronavirus pandemic, but we are also survive the we can middle part of this and come out healthy the other side. Number three is information and communication. We will coordinate our efforts to communicate with all stakeholders and the public to make sure you are informed and involved. This is everybody working together in a coordinated effort if we are going to win the battle over the coronavirus. We are doing good things. I feel good about the future, but we need to Work Together and do the things that are necessary to get on top of this. I have asked our department of Public Safety commissioner, jeff unified, to lead this command. It will be his job to make sure all stakeholders are involved and we Work Together in a coordinated effort. I have asked commissioner anderson to step forward and tell you more about what is going on with the unified command, so welcome jeff anderson, commissioner of Public Safety. Thank you, governor. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, as well as the great efforts of dr. Miner and the Health Department, and working with dr. Miner over the past several weeks on all efforts of this health crisis. Welcome to general burton. We look forward to working with him and continue to put things forward in a positive direction. We have established a unified command out of the state operations emergency the state Emergency Operations center at the state capital. This is where we put our critical players up to the table for decisions and policy recommendations to the governor every day. These are the brightest minds who are dealing with this, from the Health Department, outlook safety, Emergency Management. We also have the utah National Guard. Thee purchasing on Governors Office of management and budget, and other stakeholders. Correlate with the federal government at this level. We have a fema representative who sit in the state Emergency Operations center with us, with whom we correspond every day. The level 1 activation is an opportunity for us to leverage resources. Level 1 means we now have the ability to draw upon state resources as well as federal resources. We will be putting forward the states major disaster declaration to the president. For will open opportunities us to use resources at the federal level, logistics and also physical responsibilities that can assist all of us at the federal level. , this opportunity to work sidebyside with the department of health as well as every stakeholder on the five on the private side and public side in the Emergency Operations center is the opportunity we need to have flexibility and make progress in every area. The governor covered our priorities in the operation center, which is first and foremost our health component, where we are doing our best at tracking, testing and tracing where the vulnerable virus has been spread, but also all of our protective equipment known as ppe you have heard so much about. We work with our Economic Task sector,d the private the businesses, in understanding essential services and going beward with what is known to driving our economy. And most important is an information hub. The Operations Center gathers significant data that drives our decisionmaking. It is important we all share that information. State perspective work with counties and locals, their Emergency Managers and health offices, it is critical we have the data that is driving the decisions we are making. Some of the things we have been able to accomplish so far in the last couple of weeks working out we haveommand center, communicated with and brought home some 37 you taunt off the stranded onutahans the grand princess cruise ship. Quarantinentified sites. We are in communication with the public. You about social distancing and the importance of staying home, the messages the governor has pushed out. Personalranging for protective equipment donations. So far we have received weations here in wasatch, have three donation sites and we encourage the private sector to go through those donation fiscalms, both in a aspect but also in actual, physical donations. We continue to coordinate among our state and local partners as a key component of making this successful. Every day that coordination is going out in three times a week we are on coordination calls with county officials to make sure that messaging is appropriate. We continue to identify emergency funding sources. Islaring our major disaster to rely one areas some of those Funding Resources from the federal government. We have translated public materials into spanish and other theuages, which is key for operations to reach all our theforms, including having American Sign Language interpreting at our press conferences. We have also provided advice to the private sector, as i mentioned, working with the economic side of the house. The spread to track of the disease, working with the brightest minds and doctors in the medical industry. So tracking as well as updating projections on what that begins to look like for us in the state. That is a few of the daily operations coming out of our Emergency Operations center. Things are moving very quickly. We are in an urgent phase. And days inrs trying to get on top of this, trying to come up with solutions and trying to present the best policies to make those decisions to protect all of us in utah. Thank you. Thank you,rbert commissioner. You can get Additional Information and a lot of facts at ourstions answered webpage at coronavirus. Coronavirus. Utah. Gov. We have time for questions. Reporter there has been a call for people to contact your office about a rent freeze or eviction freeze, particularly in the month of april. Is the state looking at that . Governor herbert a lot of things are on the table to help employers and employees, renters and landlords. We hope there are opportunities for them to Work Together, maybe give forgiveness or delay payment of rent. Sometimes have mortgage payments they have to make and rely on rents to make mortgage payments and not have the bank foreclose. And there is another thirdparty, our banks and Financial Institutions that have mortgages on these properties. We have talked personally with banks that are willing to forgo for forgo foreclosures and give grace. This on and give grace. Eriods on mortgages. But as we address the slowdown of revenues, and postponed the filing of income taxes, your taxes on april 15 have been moved to july 15 as we mirror the federal level, there are other discussions that will occur on tax policy. That discussion is on the table. No decisions have been made. May be in the next two or three weeks, there. Think is going to be more helpful or as helpful will be the relief package in the care act from washington dc. There will be significant money is there to help Small Businesses, help keep businesses afloat so that they can continue to employ people, and not have to lay off those employees. And if we do that, that is a better way to keep the economy afloat during this tough time. And it gives a blanket, overall approach to help businesses and employees at the same time. Everybody, our Workforce Services director John Pierpont is prepared to help employees, employers, with challenges they face economically, help them line up with programs and give them personal assistance. Next question. Reporter i wanted to ask about transmission rates. When you announced the utah leads together a week ago, the 1. 5, so ion rate was was wondering if it is still there or if you know what the transmission rate is currently . And i believe the urgent phase was supposed to last another six to 12 weeks, is that the timeframe . Governor herbert i dont think it has changed much. We are doing a data analysis. Dunn,idemiologist, dr. Might have more. She will be here later to give her report. We are working with our office of management and budget, and part of this effort is to see with the transmission rate is. We hope to get it low one, which means we will shrink the number of infections. To 121ant to get down one, or one too. 6. We believe that for every one that we have tested and found to be infected with covid19, there are 5. 5 others out there who have not been tested. If we have whatever we have out there, 1000 people with infection, there are probably 5500 out there that have it that we dont know about that we have not been able to test. If you have symptoms, we want you to get tested. We have the capacity now to test people that have symptoms. Dont hesitate. Contact your health care tovider, your doctor, go insta care and call them, they will make arrangements for you to be tested immediately. That is an important aspect of being responsible, and we have the capacity built up to be able to handle those who have symptoms. We would like to get to the point where anybody who wants to be tested to say, am i ok, we would like to get to that point. That is when we will really get a handle on the spread and stop suspecthappening, but i there are probably about the same number. I hesitate to say it is Getting Better until we have data to back that up. Any other question . I understand we have a business that has somebody that has covid19. What is the proper protocol for the business . They need to work with their local Health Department. They are the ones that have the ability to give you a clean bill of health. Go through aes very significant sanitation effort. Our airlines, are fogging the plane after every flight and wipe it all down. That hase a business had so much exposure, we track and trace the person who has been exposed or has the coronavirus. They willy all all be tested, the business than , and to be cleaned out wiped down to make sure it is safe for people to come back. This is an effort we need to all embrace. We need to exhibit patience because it is disruptive to the thinkss, but we need to for most about the health and protection and welfare of the people. If we do that, the economy is going to come back. They are joined at the hip. It is not one versus the other. Follow your local Health Department follow good common sense and hygiene practices and you will be able to keep on with your businesses. Any other question . The command of operation is supposed to help deploy protective equipment. You think you will have enough to give to people who arent in the medical field, such as Law Enforcement . Governor herbert commissioner anderson . The question has to do with personal protective equipment in relation to the stockpile we are collecting at the state level, and how that gets deployed out. Having access to all that necessary equipment or , it has become very hard to come by at this called uponis throughout the world. We have received a couple of shipments from our fema counterparts from the National Stockpile which they have shared with us as that comes into them, but it is very small in number for what we need in the state of utah. That wes is in place used to push that out as needed, and that first and foremost, because of the demand of ppe within our Health Care System right now, is taking priority of that need coming from our own local stockpile. 80 of it goes to our health care. 20 of it is going out to the rest of the counties as well as first responders. To start the ability to provide that for the general public right now is not an option for us, until we continue to get shipments we are expecting. Governor herbert let me add this factoid. We have 27,000 masks. We need 2 million to 3 million. We have short supply, certainly, in that area. We are working with the hospitals. Some of the materials used for weks and ppes material already have having the hospitals that are used and then discarded. We are working with the hospitals to see if we can use that on recycled to make additional masks. So hospitals are stepping up to see if they can bring material we can create ppes with in a recycle fashion. So we are seeing if there are ways we can address the shortage. It is a national issue, not just a state issue. Yesterday the phone with the president and Vice President talking about that very thing. They understand this is a high priority for the states. We have got to have more ppes. Hopefully we will get relief on that over the next few days. Last question. When we talk to dr. Dunn about tracking people exposed to the virus, she said the state doesnt have a system to track that. What do you think the chances are that we could create what . It sounds like people are getting sicker and sicker and we are not learning about people who have gotten better. Great question. This is commissioner anderson. Out of our Operations Center we are focusing efforts on tracking current cases, but also something on our radar is to wein tracking and knowing need to be mindful of what you just mentioned, those who have recovered from the covid virus. Radar, definitely on our for lack of better terms, one of our dashboards, to be able to track with realtime data. Toernor herbert let me and what commissioner anderson said. Importantd data is for us all. This certainty that data gives us is critical. We are trying to refine that. Part of the challenge is, some out there have had the virus that didnt even know they had it. They had a mild form, maybe they thought they had traditional flu or a cold so it is hard to know how many have had it and recovered. But that is a challenge we face in getting data accurately, and testing we need to have done our Component Parts of that, to get information to the public so they are confident we are doing everything we can. This is a coordinated effort of everybody working together. Towe do that, we are going be ok. It is going to be a few weeks of discomfort, but we are going to get to the stabilization phase and then recovery. It is going to take us all working together. Thanks, everybody, for your patience and all the good things you are doing. Thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] our live miss any of coverage of the government response to the coronavirus outbreak, watch any time fromn. Org coronavirus, daily briefings by the president to updates from governors of hardhit states, it is all there. To track thed maps virus global spread and track it county by county in the u. S. Our coronavirus web ages are fast and easy way to watch cspans coverage of this pandemic. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Ating up wednesday morning, discussion on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on u. S. Agriculture and supply chains. Then, and emergency medical doctor and member of the American College of emergency medical physicians talks about the u. S. Response to the virus. And a discussion on how operators of the u. S. Power grid are responding to the pandemic, washington journal, live at 7 00 eastern wednesday morning. Join the discussion. Tuesdays Coronavirus Response briefing, new Jersey Governor Phil Murphy updated the state death toll and announced positive cases in the state are now over 18,000. This is 90 minutes. Governor murphy good afternoon. Bym joined