Gov. Raimondo this is the best place to get your information. The most uptodate information on the coronavirus here in the state of rhode island. To report very sad and other death in the state of rhode island as a result of coronavirus. Bringing us to a total of 35 losses. Cases for anew total of 1450 cases. We now have 143 people in the hospital. The number of people in a hospital is what we are very focused on now. Tracking how quickly that number doubles and increases. , wepeople in the hospital are at a good clip of increase, which means we are in the rapid spread phase of the virus. That there isume Widespread Community transmission. Quick notes today. I am trying to respond today on the basis of the questions we are getting most frequently at this point in time. The first note i have is around testing. A couple of days ago i announced , rhode rhode island island in partnership with cbs, open a Rapid Testing facility in a parking lot of twin river in lincoln. This is going very well, and its a test where you drive through, you are swapped, tested and have the result within a half an hour, hopefully less than a half an hour. Hear that a lot of people are going into cvs pharmacies requesting a test. You cannot do that. The only way to sign up for a cbs. Com. O go online to if you have symptoms of coronavirus and you want to get tested, go to cbs. Com and make yourself an appointment. At the time of the appointment to twinave to drive river, they have a facility there, they are working in collaboration with us and you get your results right there all you way in the car in a parking lot. These do not going to your local cvs because you wont be able to get tested. These tests are rapid. We want those test to be reserved for people who are 60 and older. Health care professionals, people who have to go to work, essential workers. People who need to get a rapid result. Its only for adults. Its 18 and above. If you are under 18, or if you are young and healthy, but you have symptoms of coronavirus, we need you to call your doctor or your kids p beautician. And if you call your doctor or call the pediatric and, they can then make you an appointment for a test, but they will not send you to cbs, they will send you to one of the other numerous sites around the state being operated by the National Guard ande you will be swabbed get the results of your test in one to three days. Very important. These tests are most accurate on people who have symptoms. We are not encouraging testing of people who dont have symptoms. If you have symptoms of coronavirus, go to cbs. Com and for thatppointment day, or call your doctor and they will get you an appointment for one of the other testing sites. At this point we have capacity to do well over 2000 tests a day. If you tried in the past to get a test, try again, our systems are better and they will be better tomorrow than they were today. Final point. Cvs. Com. Com, you can dv you can only make an appointment for today. Andcan go on on a monday you can make your appointment for a tuesday or a wednesday. That functionality is not up yet. Morning, go on in the make your appointment for that same day. I hope that clarifies. , please do not walk into the cvs pharmacy. Its dangerous. If you have the virus you will you will adding that be spreading the virus. Wed ought anyone who is sick to leave their house unless already have an appointment to get a test. Way youre sick in any should not be leaving your house. The only acceptable reason to leave your house as if you already have an appointment for a test. Youret tested, dont leave car, go back home and stay in isolation in your house. A couple of other announcements. Courtsternoon the extended their closure for all nonessential business through may 17. I want to thank the court for taking this step. More generally, i would like to think the court for their cooperation. My office has been in touch with the chief judges of all the cords. You have all been terrific in helping us. You have been helping Rhode Islanders through this crisis. I want to thank you for your cooperation. Means for the people of rhode island is that you cannot be evicted at any time, or any reason between now and may 17. The eviction is a Court Procedure and courts closed for nonessential services. I hear from people all the time who are struggling to pay the rent. You wont be a victory because you cannot pay the rent. Waianae to call my office, it is not true. The courts are closed and you cannot get elected. I also know people are struggling to pay their mortgage, and we are working on ways to provide relief around that, and i hope to have an announcement in the next few days or next week to help you get some forgiveness. I know its impossible to pay your mortgage if you or your family is out of work. I dont have a good answer to that right now, i hear you, im working on it. Very soon i hope to be able to make an announcement around mortgage payments to give everybody some breathing room. We have been getting a lot of questions about food and food delivery. This is an issue for so many people right now, so many kids who are used to getting at least two meals a day in school, but schools are closed. Folks, elderly folks, seniors who are used to relying upon Senior Centers for their two or three meals a day, and of course people who are in quarantine and isolation, we need you to stay out home if youre in quarantine. But also we need you to be able to keep. We are ramping up our food delivery. I want to remind you that we have a new website. Ri delivers. Com. If you are in your house and homebound and have been ordered into quarantine, if you are sick and cannot get out, i want you to go to ri delivers. Com, we have a number of ways to get to the food, groceries or meals, prepared meals that you need. Sense of it, and the last week, more than 40,000 Rhode Islanders have used that website. Over 25,000ibuting meals a day through meals on wheels, Senior Centers, schools and other community partnerships. We distributed nearly 100,000 nonperishable meals and communities across rhode island for a partnership at the food bank. Thank you to the food bank for all your doing. Thent to acknowledge fantastic local grocery. We have partnered with them and they have delivered meals to over 800 families since we launched the partnership a few days ago. My top priority is making sure Rhode Islanders are safe and healthy and well fed. That is the italian mother and me, we should always be well fed. Canre doing everything we to make sure everybody has the food that they need to get through this. We are adding more people, more groceries and getting more donations and we will have a greater ability to deliver more food. Me and arere hearing stuck at home and you need a hand, ri delivers. Com. If you cannot get to a smart phone or computer, pick up your phone and call 211. 211. Hotline and they will begin food delivery. Also you can go on new service and it maytdoor. Com be that a neighbor or friend in your community would be willing to bring you food. You can register what your needs are at next. Com. I would like to talk about Contact Tracing. Ago,we started five weeks we had a very blunt approach. Then pretty blunt the whole way. Shutting down whole sectors of our economy. Asking large groups of people to just a home. As our system is evolving, we are trying to move to a place where we get much more pinpointed. More testing. And what we call Contact Tracing. Processery detailed that if you test positive the department of health will get in touch with you and go through a really detailed process of figuring out all the people who you been in contact with. Because we then need to tell those people that they have been exposed to you, and they are at risk for having coronavirus. We have been doing this for five weeks, mostly manually. God bless the people at the department of health. Its unbelievable what theyve done. Amazing. Mostly manual, many, many man hours of work and they have done a beautiful job. But if im going to open us economy, and i am going to as quickly as we can, we have the more automated and more scalable. We have been working hard to build a system that is automated and scalable. Wem proud to announce that in rhode island have partnered with a Company Called salesforce. Com. Im sure many of you have heard of it. Companylobal software and we are partnering with them to make our Contract Tracing contract more efficient and reliable. It should give you great confidence that our systems are getting so much better, and were that much closer to getting back to work, because this is essential to get everybody back to work. The same thing will happen. If you get tested positive, you will be contacted by the department of health, and they will go through a system to figure out with whom you been in contact. Week, two weeks i want to have the whole system be much more automated. Imagine a system where you track your symptoms online, on your phone. You set yourself up an appointment on your phone to get tested. This you have tested automated Contact Tracing system , and then we monitor your quarantine and isolation all through an integrated system. Thats a snapshot of where i want to get in we are not there now. We are working 24 7 to get there, but thats the system we need to have before we go back to work or think about going back to work. You have also heard me every day, for the past few days, ask you to please keep a contact notebook. I have gotten a lot of questions. Do i really need to do that . Whats the point of it . Heres the point of it, i cannot get you back to work unless everybody keeps a contact notebook. Keep ampossible to mental list of everyone you have been with any day or week. Jew to do is, at the end of every day, or throughout the day, right down on a piece of paper everywhere you have been an everybody you have physical contact with. You go get yourself tested, if you have symptoms, and if you get a test, you should bring that Contact Tracing notebook with you to the test. You should not try to going get a test without it, because it means you are not prepared. I need everybody to get really serious about this so that when you get the phone call from the department of health and they say, who were you with yesterday or a week ago, where were you, what surfaces did you touch, we will be ready so we can move more quickly and keep you safer. So that clears up all the questions about what you talking about with Contract TracingContact Tracing. I want to address the Jewish Community in rhode island. Tonight is the first night of passover. Families allhen across the state and all around the world come together to celebrate a very special, very important, very holy holiday. This year will be different. This year it will be different because you have to obey social distancing order. Social gatherings cannot be more than five people. I know thats really tough. This will be different. Im asking you to please obey that and i know it will be difficult. Its a time for when you get together that jewish people retail and celebrate the story of triumph and freedom over an enemy. I think that is more appropriate as wever this passover all, together, maintain our sense of hope that we will triumph and have freedom against this common enemy. So i know that you will not be able to celebrate with your families and friends and communities in close proximity in the way that you want to and , but i wantle to you to know we are thinking of ,ou, we are deeply sympathetic and i personally hope that that message of hope and triumph over an enemy rings even truer this year for you and your family than ever before. Say to all of our jewish brothers and sisters in a happy passover to all. I especially want to thank the boardand the rhode island of rabbis for working with us and giving direction to your congregation. Incredibly inspired by the stories i have heard and all the plans for tonight, and ways of which you are adapting your customs and traditions to the coronavirus world. Thank you, thank you for the leaders in a community for working with us, helping us to enforce the social distancing today,and all the best tonight and in the coming days. I also want to recognize members of other faiths. Its holy week for christians. Holy thursday, good friday, holy saturday and of course easter. Everything will be different this year, just like him sunday was different, easter will be different. Churches will have to remain closed. To do the same and get creative. Continue to worship, continued to pray. Continue to find hope in your faith and in your face, community, but do it in a safe way. I have heard about churches , over the radio and people sitting in her car in the parking lot. Thats great if wind is everyone stays in the car and keep their windows closed. These are the kind of creative ways that we have to continue to worship, but do it safely. In the muslim community, ramadan is coming up in two weeks. I will have more to say about that, but the same thing applies. Start making your plans now will not be open and we will not have an opportunity to have large gatherings and Prayer Services as we all like to do. Two other things. Getting a lot of questions around the order that came down yesterday from the mayor of providence. First i want to think the mayor for his leadership. Decisive and swift leadership throughout this crisis and keeping the people of providence safe and has been a good partner to me and to the state throughout all of this. Thatnounced yesterday parks and boulevards would be completely closed. He did that for good reason, he wants to keep people safe. Have had the chance to speak but the mayor. We have the department of healths beak with the mayor. I want to clarify that a bit. We are getting a lot of questions. This policy in providence will be implemented in a very similar way to the policy we have at the state around parks and beaches. Which is to say, if you are lucky enough to live within a park orstance of boulevard, then by all means, go take a walk. Go walk your dog. The parking lots will be closed and we dont want you driving their to go for a walk. Above all, we do not want to see crowds were people congregating on the boulevard, on any boulevard, in any park in your local community park. In an effort to assist the mayor with enforcement, we will be offering Additional Resources of help to the state police as necessary to make sure that we monitor this. We are going to try this. We will try it and see how it goes. We haveeek from now reports people are in huge crowds at Roger Williams park. Packed,evard is pack then we will have no other choice than to totally closed on the parks and the boulevards. And i really dont want to do that. Everybody deserves exercise and fresh air, a little sanity to out of your house so house. So help us help you enjoy a walk, to do it safely according to these rules and thank you mayor for working with us. End on a happy note, inspiring note, inspiring to me and i hope to you. It has been Crystal Clear to me that when the going gets tough Rhode Islanders come together. This is about as tough as it gets. The stories pouring into me every day of kids struggling in distance learning, they cant afford to pay their rent, they are sick, possibly they have lost a loved one to the virus, people in nursing homes, i hear you and want you to know we are working every day to address these needs. The bright side, a lot of people are stepping up to say what can i do, how can i help, how can i donate . I would like to thank a second to call out mark perlman. Starting today, job lot is , andg free fabric available to everybody, so we can all make our own fabric safe coverings. Every job lot has a display set up, and they have enough free fabric for one million masks. Obviously surgical masks and n95 masks need to be reserved for health care and truly essential workers and first responders. Else, everybody time you leave your house, we are asking you to wear a cloth mask. Not everybody can have access to that kind of a mask. Due to the kindness and generosity, everybody can go to job lot, get the material and make a mask. They were giving away food and meals, and i want to thank you mark and ocean ande job lot, locally owned grown Rhode Island Company stepping up when we need it most. Overthat, i will turn it to dr. Alexander scott. Dr. Scott thank you governor for those updates. I also want to thank you all for tuning in. The governor and i are sharing messages every day, but we also need you to help us by being the messengers as well. Like gettinging information from someone you know and love. Lifeere is someone in your who is not able to watch these daily briefings, or who may be is not as plugged into social media, or the news, please help thesepassing along important messages that you are hearing every day. The governor said, we have 220 new cases today. To 1450. Gs our total shared, wernor also sadly have five additional fatalities to report. Have 35 covid19 associated fatalities total. Of the five people whose passing we are reporting today, three were in their 70s, one person in their 80s and one person was in their 90s. A person in their 90s was a golden Crest Nursing Home resident. 80s lived ateir oak hill, as did one of the persons in their 70s. While im on the topic of data, i want to return to something i got asked about yesterday. Which is, democratics demographics, race and ethnic city. There ethnicity. There has been coverage about racial and ethnic disparities that are being noted in cities and states across the country. Highlights why we have, many times, before this pandemic, spoken often about zip code and how much zip codes matter. While we cant do anything definitive yet about rhode island, we understand when these types of disparities occur. We are still building out our data system for rhode island so we can look at things anymore granular way, and often times its because of the enormous amount of data that we are collecting in a very short window of time. Definitivelyo know , that there are certain environmental, social, and economic factors that make people more vulnerable. We talk often about making it so that your health should not depend on the zip code you are from. And knowing that zip codes can lead to differences in outcome. When we have stressed situations, such as this pandemic, those types of disparities are more evident. For example, if people dont have access to fresh fruits and vegetables in their community on a regular basis, that to Underlying Health issues, like diabetes and other medical conditions. And we know that while while quarantining and isolation are key guidances that we are giving , and that they are challenging we know that it can be even more challenging for people who live in communities with less access to good, stable Job Opportunities that pay a living wage. We also know its more challenging for people with unstable housing conditions. There is also the challenge of exposing many of the other structural inequities that occur. There can be differences in policies and discriminatory approaches across the country in place based on race and ethnicity. We know many communities deal with that. These are just some of the examples that highlight why you are seeing certain communities now with higher rates of cases, and, unfortunately, of deaths as well associated with covid19. As we respond now and in the future, when we start to rebuild and repair, we need to be very conscience of these kind of structural and equities. Once we have been talking about for quite some time. And ones of the numbers that have been asked about clearly make evident. Secondly, i want to address the issue of isolation. We have received a few questions about that that add to what the governor already spoke to. If you go into isolation because you are feeling sick, which means, if you are not feeling well, you need to stay home. You should stay home and in isolation for at least seven days. That, you need to be fever free for 72 hours, three days, during a time which you are not taking any fever reducing medication. And, all of your symptoms need to have resolved completely, before anyone can be considered clear of the illness they have, whether covid19, or any other viral infection. Meanseminder, isolation staying home if you are ill with symptoms, and doing everything you can to stay away from other people in your home as well. That might mean it using a different bathrobe, or being in the kitchen in shifts. I highlightedday the need for Health Care Workers who have symptoms to also stay home. That is critical, given the population that they are caring for. Want to add two things to that, because people are continuing to hear that message and responds so that the folks they are caring for remain safe. We are working to prioritize opportunities for Health Care Workers to be tested. If they are staying home when they are ill, it can be known whether or not these are symptoms of covid19, or otherwise. Because people need to stay home if they are ill, we want to continue to make out that call for volunteers. Particularly an hour nursing Home Settings and other health care facilities. When a healthcare workers are doing the work of staying home if they are ill, there is still a need for the Health Care Workers to provide the care for the residence in nursing homes, assisted living, and other health care facilities. Island responds still needs volunteers. We are also working on making ways for people to begin to get an accelerated license for becoming a certified nurse, or certified assistant. Please go to the website if you want to volunteer and be able to assist, knowing that Health Care Workers are doing what they need to for the best care for their people that they are treating. We are willing to strike the balance between having symptomatic Health Care Workers , but also make sure we have the staff levels needed in Rhode Island Health care facilities across the state. It back to will give the governor so we can get started with questions. Gov. Raimondo good afternoon. Begin with steve, he must be the fastest type or because he always seems to get the first question. He asked Grocery Store workers across the country are starting to die of covid19, do these workers and all lowwage essential workers desire time to have hazard pay and mandatory Workplace Safety by executive order if need be . Gov. Raimondo thank you for the question. I would like to acknowledge the fact that while so many people are out of work and laid off and struggling, there are many thousands of Rhode Islanders who have to go to work every day. Especially Health Care Workers, first responders, many people in the state. And in Grocery Store workers. I want to thank you for doing your part in a crisis, and for your bravery. It is the responsibility for every employer to do everything they can in order to protect the health and safety of the employees. A means any employee who is sick, even a little bit, have to be sent home. , at alle forced to work under any condition. I want to remind everyone that by federal law, you have 10 days , a minimum of 10 days paid sick leave. That is extremely important. We are certainly working hard on our end to procure more surgical masks and gloves, we will continue to push it out to aslth care workers, and ppe in respiratory masks and downs, we are pushing that out to folks in health care and the same for Grocery Stores. You need to do everything that you can, space out your employees far enough. Give them hand sanitizer, apple apple opportunity to wash their hands. Nobody comes in when they are sick, do everything you can to keep them safe. Next question. Can you describe how someone is officially determined to have died from covid19 . Is there an assumption that if they die while infected with the virus, that its the virus that killed them . Does artificially inflate the fatality rate data . Thank you, we are specifically using the term associate if the talent he. It is important for us to be able to have the data that shows covid19 was associated with that persons death. This is consistent with the Public Health approach across the country and how we are assessing the for tallies associated with covid19 fatalities associated with covid19. Our next question is also for you. It was announced with the state was 80 of hospitals that makeshift ones would be utilized. What percentage are we at now and when do you envision that we will hit the 80 . Dr. Scott that is an important question. We are using a variety of mechanisms to be able to see when we need to extend to the alternate care sites that are working very quickly to be set up in place. So i dont have the numbers specifically of the percentage of where we are now. We can certainly get back to providing that. But we are working closely with the hospitals to be able to surge their capacity first within the hospital setting prior to expanding to the alternate care site. So working with them, we have a targeted approach in terms of when it is necessary to expand to those additional sites, while the hospitals continue to do the work they have to plan for increased capacity within their localized facility. We have both mechanisms being advanced Forward Together simultaneously. This next question is for both of you and the governor, from tony. How do you disconnect from these difficult times for a living . What do you recommend Rhode Islanders due to maintain peace and sanity. An importantat is question, it is important to take a breath and reflect during these times. For me personally, it is looking at what things around me i have to be thankful for. You know, if we are not able to the wayther with family that we would like to, im thankful that my family a safe and i can still communicate with them. Electronically and on video. To be ablee not able to go to a social gathering that we would like to go to, we are thankful to be able to come together and have a meal or what is needed to move forward. To bese are ways for me able to take a breath and reflect on what things im thankful for in the midst of that, and use that to stay motivated, to keep Going Forward every day. Governor . Gov. Raimondo thank you. I agree with everything nicole said. You know, i love to go outside. I continue to say this, but i think even to walk around the bloom. The flowers are in there is a lot of beauty. So just getting outside, taking a walk, taking a minute to slow down. I think exercising every day is very important. Calvinanything general has taught me, a battle buddy. , peopleerson or persons in your life who will check in on you and you check in on them. Of course, you cannot see them. That makes it difficult, but ive said so many times, dont let yourself get isolated. Even if you are alone physically, pick up the phone and call somebody, text somebody, face time, just find a way to prevent yourself from being isolated and half human contact every single day. Every day make sure that you have some human contact, and it would be great if you have human contact with the same people and you have an arrangement where you help each other out. Say,se somebody people this is so hard, how are you doing . Im struggling like everybody else. Ups and downs everything will day. So know that you are not alone, and find a way to keep yourself connected with some people in your life. Anyan you foresee assistance for College Students living on their own who have lost their jobs and cannot pay for food or rent . Gov. Raimondo yes, excellent question. To im going to continue find specific answers. At the moment, Unemployment Insurance, chances are eligible for it. I want to remind everybody, as of yesterday, new Unemployment Insurance rules are in effect, so freelancers in the economy, website,to the dlt file for Unemployment Insurance. All the food deliveries we are mentioning, the food bank, 211, we are raising a lot of information to help people get through with food, with essentials, with rent. That is for everybody including College Students. I dont have an answer specifically for college but wes specifically, will continue to work on that and im open to ideas. But remember, everything is available for everyone should be taken advantage of by College Students. The next question for the doctor, from tonya for people who are former smokers who catch covid19, how does this impact their recovery . Dr. Scott we are seeing that folks who are former smokers are oftentimes also associated with being people who may have some forms of underlying illness, oftentimes associated with being a former smoker. And are having a little more of a challenging time with covid19. It does tend to impact the lower respiratory system, where our are, so it is something people can be aware of. Peoplelso helpful for who are currently smoking to know there is benefits in quitting smoking, and you can quitnow to 1800 receive services for doing that. And its also helpful for people to know who are smokers or otherwise, there are other vaccines that are out there that can also help minimize, like the flu vaccine, the pneumonia vaccine are also good to get to help build your reserves in being able to combat this and prevent against covid19. Alan,s next question from a bunch of different questions, so i will start with, what criteria must be met to diagnose recovery, for sample, two negative tests, and a somebody who has recovered without testing able to carry and spread the virus . Dr. Scott there are two strategies to clear someone of covid19 or say they have fully recovered. There is a testbased strategy, which is two negative tests over more than 24 hours. We are usually reserving that approach for folks who may be hospitalized with covid19 and the hospital needs to know whether or not personal protective equipment is still needed or if the person has recovered from their symptoms but is still in the hospital. Strategy is a nontestbased strategy, one just based on symptoms. This is what we are recommending for the majority of people who have covid19 come hospitalized or otherwise. It means you have to have at least seven days since the symptoms began. You have to have the last three es where you had no fever without taking any feverreducing medication. And the last three days have to involve improvement of symptoms and your symptoms need to have completely resolved. Thatall of those applied, is when someone is considered andvered from covid19, its particularly important for people who need to return to work. Ask, how manyto in rhode island have recovered and is that number reflected in daily updates . Dr. Scott the way we are able to determine that is knowing the number of new cases we have, plus being able to see who is hospitalized and who has unfortunately passed away. The remaining numbers, between those two groups of numbers, are all people who have recovered. The next question, governor, is from michael. A Hunger Strike has been reported at the Detention Center in a driveby incar protest has been announced for friday at 11 a. M. You have worked with the department of corrections, but what authority and responsibilities do you have for wyatt . Gov. Raimondo i was unaware of that and i dont have authority over wyatt because it is a federal facility. Having said that, i do care deeply about what is happening in my state, so i will have to look into it more. The next question is from ryan. Wedding season has arrived in rhode island with hundreds of weddings scheduled across the state over the next three months. What advice or guidance do you have for those couples planning to host a big day . Gov. Raimondo this is a tough one, and i have heard from a number of couples. This is obviously very personal. We cannot relax the restrictions now. Which is to say you cannot have a large gathering. Under any circumstances. So if you wanted to have a small, intimate wedding with five or fewer people, go ahead and do that and get married. And then i would say push off the bigger celebration for later. But at least for now, and i think its safe to say in the months to come, its going to be very difficult for us to allow large group gatherings. So for planning purposes, i will leave it to you, but i think if you want to get married, keep it small now and plan for the party much later in the year or next year. The next question from bill bartholomew. Our surgical masks being distributed for Grocery Store and pharmacy employees . Grocery store and pharmacy employees fall into the Critical Infrastructure worker group. These are workers we strongly encourage wearing some form of face cloth mask. Face cloth covering so they are amount ofnimize the infectious particles that are released into the air. Workinga team of people night and day to get us the supplies of surgical masks that we need in the state for the longterm and for as many people as need be. When those are available, we will look for being able to advance those two Critical Infrastructure workers who we think would benefit. But its important for everyone to know the ability to where a face cloth covering is an effective way to go forward as you are doing Critical Infrastructure work that you are doing. Thisr last question for wednesday briefing is for the governor perry is for the governor. The british Prime Minister is in the icu with coronavirus right now. What is the contingency plan you have in place if you yourself all ill . Gov. Raimondo well, of course, it would depend how ill i were to become. If im able to work from home, then thats what ill do. If i have to go to the hospital, we have a Terrific Team in place and i think i will leave it at that. I think we all know what happens with the chain of command if something were to happen to me. But i want people to know this although you see me every day , there are a thousand people behind me, more than a thousand people behind me working seven days a week. Up a series of work streams. Have a team on ppe i have a team thinking about how to get the economy reopened. I have nearly a thousand National Guardsmen and women deployed all over the state getting our surge plans in place, working well with hospitals. I dont plan on going anywhere, and i know how to work from home, but i want you to know that weve got this. It isnt just me. It is an army of people, and every day we get a little better at what we are doing. Thank you, governor perry gov. Raimondo thanks. [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] the white house is asking congress for an additional 250 billion to help Small Businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell said this week he hopes to approve further funding by unanimous consent or voice vote during Thursdays Senate pro forma session. If passed without objection, the measure would go to the house for approval. As always, follow the senate live on cspan2. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago, but our mission continues. To provide an unfiltered view of government. Already we have brought you primary election coverage. The president ial impeachment process. And now the federal response to the coronavirus. Watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online, or on our free radio app. And be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media feed. Cspan, created by private industry. Marek is Cable Television companies as a public service. And brought to you by your television provider. Next, Colorado Governor Jared Polis gives an update on the coronavirus in his state. This News Conference from denver is just under an hour. Gov. Polis an update on the numbers. People 1,154 hospitalized under state with covid19. 190 deaths come at our thoughts and hearts go out to every family who has experienced