Represents a family in mourning, and we are praying for all of them. There are other families waiting outside hospital rooms as their loved ones fight for their lives, and we continue to pray for them, too. Today i want to share some information about a new executive order and a some information about the Budget Proposal we have been working on with the General Assembly this week. Our state has sent almost 580 million to over 257,000 people who have filed unemployment claims since the start of this pandemic. The Unemployment Security Commission continues to make improvement in its filing process and call center, but more work must be done, and it is being done. We know that this virus is taking a toll on our economy, and on our workforce. And we cannot lose sight of how this virus is impacting our families in North Carolina. Ive signed a new executive order today to help furloughed workers whose employers had paid them a severance, or a furlough payment. Before this order, these employees were ineligible for unemployment compensation. With this order, they now qualify. We are working with legislators to try and codify into law this order, and my other orders on unemployment benefits. Next week when the General Assembly returns, we hope to get consensus on more help for North Carolina. We also know that our economy, working people, and Small Businesses, and state and local governments, need financial help. Our team is compiling recommendations for how we can share of federal money that has come down to our state from washington. We will have more of that plan to share later this week, but today, i want to outline some of the significant items in that Budget Proposal. General Assembly Leaders and i agree that we need to make more funding available to help support our Small Business owners. And we will do that by providing funding to the Rapid Recovery Program through the golden leaf foundation, which is already up and running, and can act quickly to get funding to people. Small business is the lifeblood of our economy, and many of the men and women who have built these businesses are struggling right now. We owe it to them to help keep them afloat until it is safe to begin easing the restrictions. This money now is particularly smallant in that federal business business money has been depleted. Our Budget Proposal has three broad areas of focus. First, Immediate Public Health and safety, like testing and tracing. Number two, schools and other core State Government services. And number three, Small Businesses and local government assistance. Virtually every aspect of our society has been impacted by this pandemic. That has meant lost revenue, and increased needs for many parts of our state. In addition to the Small Business help, i will recommend funding for more personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies, as well as more contacted tracers who can trackpread who the spread of the virus, support for local governments, and underserved communities. Assistance for Public Schools as they teach online. And more. We have been working with the General Assembly and their staffs, and we are hopeful that this funding proposal can be a consensus effort. I look forward to sharing more details this week as we go along. And as we move through another week battling this pandemic, i want to again thank the frontline workers. You are making tremendous sacrifices to take care of our families, and ensure that we can be healthy and safe as we stayathome. We are deeply grateful for the work that you do every single day. Now i know that many people are frustrated, restless, anxious, and eager to get back to work and school. I also know that many people want to make sure that their families are as safe as possible from this virus. My Coronavirus Task force, which is made up of business, health, education, and other leaders, are getting input from around the state as we prepare the plans to ease restrictions, protect the Public Health, and get our economy moving forward. Lets keep looking out for each other. Homeight now, staying at is saving lives. Secretary of is health and Human Services, dr. Mandy cohen. Our secretary of Public Safety, eric cooks. Our Emergency Management director mike sprayberry. Our sign Language Interpreters are valerie mcmillan, and brian tipton. Behind the scenes, jackie and jasmine are our spanish Language Interpreters. And ill begin with dr. Cohen. Dr. Cohen thank you, governor. That bytart today recognizing it is Laboratory Medical professionals week. While we should always have cause to recognize our lab professionals, i think it is fair to say that north carolinians have a newfound understanding for just how vital the work our lab workers are doing to help our States Health and wellbeing. I must call out more than 200 folks who are working in our state Public Health labs right now. They have gone above and beyond these last few months on behalf of all of us. Clinical and Public Health laboratories may seem hidden from sight but i want you to that we see more than ever your contributions are making a huge difference to our health and safety. You are the heroes who wear lab coats, and we celebrate each of you. Thank you. I want to shift gears now and again shine a light on the disproportionate impact covid19 is having on the africanamerican communities. Made up 39 ofns itsd19 cases, and 37 of deaths, yet africanamericans early 21 of North Carolinas population. I want to assure you these Disturbing Trends have not gone unnoticed by me or by my team, and they must be addressed. We are dedicating our teams to tapping into the expertise of stakeholders across the state to identify ways to reverse these trends. In addition to ramping up our outreach and education efforts, we also have a team focused specifically on increasing access to testing. We know that as we are expanding Testing Capacity, that these sites need to be in places that are trusted, and easily accessed by our communities of color. Health disparities and Health Inequities did not begin with this pandemic, but what this pandemic has done a shine a bright light on the longstanding structural biases impact ouries that outcomes. We must look at ways our current tolth system could continue have these inequalities and must build a Stronger Health and Human Services system which improves outcomes for everyone going forward. Lastly, i also want to take a moment to thank north carolinians, whether you are staying home to protect your grandmother, or that friend of yours with asthma, or your neighbor diabetes. You are saving lives. What we do now determines when our socialcan ease distancing policies. Keep staying home to save lives. Thank you. You. Cooper thank we will now hear from mike sprayberry, our Emergency Management director. Dir. Sprayberry thank you governor, and thank you for your leadership. The statey 43 of Emergency Operations center activation for the covid19 response. Obtainsion to source and personal protective equipment continues. We are continuing to prioritize the health care organizations, congregate care settings, and Public Safety agencies at risk for covid19, but the supply chain delays are continuing. We have received another shipment from fema of personal protective equipment in the last week to support our health care systems, and we continue to partner with our local Emergency Managers and Health Care Partners to validate ongoing ppe needs. As we see increases in our congregate care settings, specifically longterm care facilities, we are pushing increasing amounts of ppe to support those agencies, as well as first responders. Yesterday, we delivered shipments to 66 counties. Gowns continue to be the item in shorter supply, and that seems to be an issue nationwide. We are continuing to place new orders and receive new supplies of various items daily. Tomorrow, the National Guard begins its mission to support the states food banks. About 40 personnel and 15 vehicles will be deployed to each of the states seven food banks to assist with warehousing, forklift operations, and distributional of food to agencies which serve seniors and food nutrition programs. That is a total of nearly 300 North Carolina National Guard personnel, and more than 100 trucks supporting Food Bank Operations across the state. You may see these trucks and National Guard members as they are out making deliveries later this week. The Food Supply Chain workgroup continues to meet every day and is closely monitoring the carolinasf north poultry and pork processing plants, which is critical to both the states and the nations food supply. They are also coordinating with a wide range of government and private sector partners to the foodgaps in chain and find ways the state can help mitigate those gaps. Please continue your generosity in supporting food banks as they provide for the growing number of people who need groceries. Carolinas. Orgthe to find a food bank near you. You can make a financial contribution or a donation of shelfstable goods. Thank you for following the stayathome and social distancing guidelines. Your actions are flattening the curve in keeping this event manageable for our health care system, Public Safety agencies, and other essential functions. Please continue to follow allstate and local stayathome orders, and follow social distancing protocols. I joined secretary coeh in cohen in thanking all medical professionals. You are among the many heroes of this pandemic, and we thank you. In closing as always, do not forget to look out for your friends and neighbors, and call your loved ones daily. I guarantee you they will appreciate it. With your help we will get through this together as one team, one mission, and one family. Thank you, governor. Gov. Cooper thank you. Thank you for mentioning the food bank. A lot of people are doing significant work to get food to people, so thank you very much for that. Theree was volunteering this afternoon. I will not take some questions from the media. If you can give your name and your and his agent, we will take the first question. Is fromirst question the fayetteville observer. Reporter hey. Can you tell us what Food Processing facilities have been affected . Being reports of plants affected, and i have heard concerns from employees at lake county. Gov. Cooper we have talked to Business Leaders regarding the Food Supply Chain, and particularly what is happening with poultry and hog production. I know that people are very concerned of employees who are working there, and making sure we continue to protect the food supply. Question,obably your regarding what specific plants. Dr. Cohen the Food Processing industry is highly regulated, and that work is overseen by the department of agriculture. So as we have been responded to covid19 across the state, we are working closely with our argo culture partners as well as a leaders at the various processing plants to make sure they have the information, guidance, and support needed to do the things they need to do to make sure that their workers are protected as well as keeping these plants running. I know it has been a very collaborative effort, but one that we are paying very close attention to. I have spoken with the leaders of a number of the plants myself to make sure that they have the support they need from both our local Public Health as well as state. So i know folks are working very hard to make sure that employees are protected, as well as the plant continues to operate so they can supply the appropriate food for our state and our nation. Question,r next please. Travis, wral. Reporter hi. Two parter. One, have we posted any new jobs for Public Health employees who would do contract Contact Tracing . Second, how many tests do we need to do a day, versus what we had the capacity for now in order to take the next step towards reopening . Gov. Cooper first, we know that we need to increase the workforce on Contact Tracing, and we informed some partnerships to do that and are working to get employees who are trained in how they do that, and i will let dr. Cohen talk about that specifically. This week we plan to lay out meet,ends that we need to along with testing and tracing capacity in order for us to be able to ease restrictions. We are working with our Coronavirus Task force. Right now, for example, the president s plan that was sent guidance,ederal requires a 14 day reduction in covid positive cases. North carolina does not meet that criteria. It also requires testing and tracing in order to be able to meet that threshold. And what we are doing is looking at all of this as a whole, and going to make determinations on the range of goals that we need to hit in order to ease restrictions. And we want to do that. We want to ease restrictions on the economy, and on families. And we know that hitting benchmarks in testing and tracing, and trying to drive a downward trajectory on covid cases, along with covidlike illness, is provided in the federal guidelines, along with our Testing Capacity, is important. And i will let dr. Cohen adjust that as well. Address that as well. I want to remind folks in North Carolina that we are very lucky that North Carolina has a longstanding infrastructure to do this kind of work through our 85 local health departments. We have more than 250 folks already trained to do this work, and have been doing it since the start of this pandemic and well before. They continue to do this work. Mobilize effort was to folks within our Public Health team that may have been working on other kinds of disease outbreaks. Mobilizing them all for this effort. And yes, we want to rent up our workforce ramp up our workforce as well. We will be establishing one partner, so we are looking to establish that with one partner, who can then start the process training, recruiting, and deploying folks as we go. Thank you. Thing iner one other my conversation with the Vice President yesterday, he mentioned about federal Contact Tracing teams through the cdc. I know the cdc is also working with us. And so we hope to get some additional federal help with Contact Tracing. Next question, please. Liz, North Carolina public radio. Reporter hi, thank you for your time. I wanted to ask, does your administration have any response to the protests against stayathome orders . Several hundred people were in downtown raleigh today. As a followup, i wanted to ask if there were any arrests, if that is known. Gov. Cooper this Global Pandemic is an extraordinary situation. And we have taken swift, sure steps in order to flatten the curve in North Carolina and to keep our hospitals from being overwhelmed. I am glad that we did that. I think that we have saved countless numbers of lives. Frustrated and anxious people are about wanting to get back to school, and wanting to get back to work. And at the same time i know how anxious families are to make sure that they are safe from this highly contagious virus t hat can take lives. We are working to ease restrictions in a responsible in a staged way. We will be bringing forward this week more specifics on that plan to move forward, and what trends, testing, and tracing we are going to be looking at in order to begin the process to ease the restrictions. We understand that stayathome that we cannot stayathome forever, and that this is not something that is sustainable longterm. But what we have to do is to ease back into it, to make sure that this virus does not spike, which it very easily could do, overwhelming our hospitals. You only have to look on tv on what is happening in new york and italy to see what could happen here. And we have modeling that shows what can happen if we just remove the restrictions and say everybody go back, as you were. I think most every day, north carolinians understand we have to approach this responsibly with Public Health and safety, saving lives at the forefront, but also understanding that we do need to ease restrictions in order to cushion this blow to the economy, and to work to get more people back to work, and people back in school. We are going to have to do it in a new way, because this virus is going to be with us until we have a vaccine. Potential when we ease restrictions of seeing the virus continued to attack people, and continue to increase. So we have to keep that balance and we have to be smart about it, and i think the people of North Carolina want us to rely on science and data and facts, and consultation with our Business Community who are actually out there wanting to wantingtheir employees, to be doing more to help contribute to the economy. I think it will take all of us pulling together to do that the right way. Next question, please. Kate, Carolina Public press. Reporter hello, governor. Question travis asked i do not know if you got to. Weasked how many tests do need to do a day versus what we had the capacity for now. I am also interested in more information regarding the Contact Tracing. It sounds like you guys are working with a private company, to hire these workers. Are there any other details you can share regarding the number of workers we will need across the state to increase Contact Tracing, how much money they are expected to make, that sort of thing . There are a lot of out of work north carolinians that i am sure are paying attention to this. Gov. Cooper we want to do as much testing as we can, and our testing work load working furiously to ramp up testing as much as possible. We have 14 labs in our state, we have lab capacity, we are working to get more personal protective equipment, and we are working to get that number up. We are over 80,000 testing going on now. This week we are going to talk about the ranges where we need ofd to be in the number tests and Testing Capacity as we lay out how we want to move forward in using restrictions. So we will get you something more specific as we lay out the plan this week. And dr. Cohen, you may want to talk about Contact Tracing or add to what i just said. Dr. Cohen not much more to add, because we do not yet have the partner we will be working with. That is something we are working on this week. I hope by the end of this week or early next week we will be able to share more information as well as start to recruit folks to be part of that workforce. We already have 250 folks and and ourto do that work, teams are estimating now the kinds of numbers we think we might need to get to in order to do the tracing we think is necessary to move forward. Thanks so much. Gov. Cooper next question. Reporter hi. Thank you for taking our questions. I have two questions that are related. You mentioned the General Assembly coming back next week. The stayathome order expires a week and a date from today. Why not let people know now so they can prepare . If businesses will be reopened. Housed to that, the Education Committee is supposed to meet on thursday. Is there any guidance on when you can say you will make the call for schools also . Gov. Cooper thank you for those questions. First, we will be announcing this week as part of our plan moving forward and our efforts to reach to ease restrictions, we will make an announcement regarding the executive orders that are in place and set to expire at the end of the month. An announcement soon regarding schools. Our Public Health team is looking at what is needed in order to be able to make sure that children are safe at school. We are talking with the school superintendents, with the board of education, the department of public instruction, about the kinds of things we can do to make sure to keep children safe. And we will be making an announcement probably this week as well regarding schools. And what we are going to do right now, we have them closed until may 15. I am very proud of our teachers, our cafeteria workers, our bus drivers, people who are continuing to strive for Remote Learning for children, continuing to provide them hot meals. And i appreciate the parents. I know the parents are so frustrated to have their children at home and not getting the kind of education they would want to have. I think there are a lot of good things going on out there, but nothing substitutes for being in the classroom and learning. Area lot of our efforts going to be working toward a goal of getting to a new normal where we can do it safe with our children in schools, but getting we can to as soon as make sure they get a quality education. And i will say that this week we should be having announcements on both of those things. Next question, please. Wsmy. Reporter hi there. My question has to do with unemployment. I wanted to see first, has the division of on a limit security really have just really tripled their staff . Are the folks hired now actively working or are they in training, and has this helped the influx of calls and claim files . Gov. Cooper there is a significant amount of work going on right now. I had about a two hour meeting yesterday pushing the employment Security Commission to be able to handle the calls that are coming in, and to be able to help people to get their unlimited compensation faster. A significant amount of money i gave the figure earlier, i forget millions of dollars have gone out to tens of thousands of claimants. And more are filing every day. They have got a significant crush. You look at a normal month before this came about was about 13,000 people claiming unemployment. The past month it was over 650,000 people. They immediately had to ramp up. They should be over 1000 people by the end of the week in those call centers. People are working to go through training, they are working to do more automation. People are able to file their claims, because we have close to 700,000 claims that have been filed now. A lot of people are calling the call center in order to get the status of their claim. We want to make sure that people can get an answer to their questions, and that we get this money out to them as soon as possible he cant. Possibly can. We will get you specific numbers on that soon, but i know that they are working to handle these calls and get these claims paid as quickly as possible. Every claim file represents a family that may hanging by a thread, and they need that money as quickly as possible. I am glad they have gotten a significant amount of money out, but they need to do more and they need to do it faster. We are going to continue to do that. I am glad also that the executive order that i signed will allow more people to claim unemployment compensation. Because before people who had gotten separation payment or furlough payment would not have qualified. And this executive order will allow them to qualify. Goingeres a lotta work on to try to make sure people get this money. That is good for the families that need it. It is also good for our economy, putting this money into our economy right now. Next question, please. This will be our final question. Andrea, wtvd. Reporter hi, governor. Part question about how covid19 deaths are being isnted, and how that data playing into how much ppp we are asking for. Last week as it last week secretary cohen said we still did not have a definition of when someone recovers from covid. So how is someone identifying a covid death . Then, we have been hearing from the state that there is still a shortage of certain types of ppe, and governor, you are still asking the federal government. From what we have heard from major hospitals, the Big County Health department as well, they have enough right now. Who does not have enough, and how do covid case numbers and staff tie into how much we are getting . Gov. Cooper i will answer the second part. A number of our hospitals and medical systems to have enough, because everyone has been working so hard to try to provide it for them. We are pleased that is the case. But there are a lot of other medical providers who are short. We also did not have enough personal protective equipment for our first line responders, our law enforcement, our firefighters. There are a lot more than just the people who are conducting tests. Testing still requires people having ppe. So there is still a lot of ppe that we need to cover all the ,eople that should be covered and we are going to continue to scratch and work every single day not only to try to get help from the federal government, but we have made lots of orders across the world to try to bring ppe to North Carolina. There is always a problem with masks. Problem gowns is a big right now throughout the state. And we are working on that. But i will let dr. Cohen take the part about covid deaths. Mike, if you wanted to add something about ppe, you could. Dr. Cohen quickly on covid deaths those are deaths that are determined related to covid19 by our medical examiners. Yes, it is usually a covid positive test prior to someone passing. But we can get you the specifics on how our medical examiners are determining that. Again, we have a team of those that are both at the local level and the state level do that work. You are right on the recovery piece. We certainly know folks are recovering from covid19. We have requested assistance from the cdc partners in helping us define, how do you define recovery. That is something we have not seen anyone define, and we do not want to start, all of us started to define that in different ways. That is something we are looking from guidance from the cdc on. I will just add on the ppe front for health care providers, that yesterday was one of our biggest days we saw of requests for personal protective equipment from our nursing homes, in particular. D ourhy certain places an acute survivors might have better access to ppe, we do still have pockets of concern. And i will turn it over to director sprayberry. Dir. Sprayberry thank you, dr. Cohen. The governor is right. We do have a lot of ppe for our health care systems, but those are not the only places where we are trying to get ppe for. And to be totally clear, gowns are a shortage in our health care system, so we are still aggressively seeking to buy more of those. And as dr. Cohen mentioned, we have to look out for our longterm care facilities. And as the governor mentioned, re also have to look out for o t agencies at the county level. Firefighters, police, and others. To make sure that they all have personal protective equipment in order to keep them safe, as they are on the front lines of this pandemic. Thank you. Gov. Cooper thank you everybody for being with us. Safe, stay atstay home as much as you can, and we will be back with another briefing tomorrow. 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] announcer cspan has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it is all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps, watch ondemand, anytime, unfiltered, at cspan. Org coronavirus. Announcer coming up this afternoon, louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards will update reporters on the Coronavirus Response in his state. We will have that live at 3 30 eastern, online at cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. Announcer President Trump leads the white house Coronavirus Task force briefing this afternoon scheduled to start at 5 00 eastern. You can watch it live here on orpan, online at cspan. Org, listen with the free cspan radio app. Sen. Schumer here to talk about the coronavirus pandemic, our guest, alejandra castillo. What is your mission . The ywca is the oldest Womens Organization in the country. We were created to provide a safe place for women
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