Transcripts For CSPAN Mississippi Governor Coronavirus Briefing 20240713

Dobbs and his team. And all that has gone into mississippi being one of the states that is testing at a higher rate than virtually any other state. That has not received significant federal help. When you look at the hot spots in new york and new jersey and even to our neighbor to the west, louisiana, city of new orleans, the federal government put significant resources in there to help them testing. Understandably so. Whereas they had a significant peak that went up very, very quickly, mississippi appears to have at least for now slowed the spread of the virus and we are becoming more and more confident each day that for where we are currently plateaued that we will not be putting the kind of risk on our Health Care System as was the case in those hot spot areas. We are also seeing now that some of those hot spots are spreading out a bit. When you look at the boston metropolitan area, the detroit metropolitan area, and to a certain extent the chicago metropolitan area as well. Those are certainly have potential to continue to get worse and worse. We are praying for them and hopeful that things work out well for them. Where we find ourselves today we are obviously having conversations about what a further reopening of our economy may look like. And i want to just offer a bit of a preview for the people of mississippi. Understand that this is not going to be a light switch that we can turn on and off. There will not be one day where we return to normal as we knew two months ago. Do not expect to wake up on friday or next monday or the monday after that and it be as if a light switch went off and none of this ever happened. That is not reality. That is not what we are dealing with. Our reopening strategy will be continuous, but it will be slow. Opening up perhaps different sectors, perhaps maybe different regions of the state. At different times. As the data and the Public Health experts advise us. There will continue to be rules. There will continue to be rules that we will continue to need to follow. We will ease into it. We are not going to rush into it. But understand, we understand that we have to start heading in that direction. We have to do something. Because for some during this time the way its been somewhat comfortable. But for some you have netflix and you have food deliverry. But for others, this is deeply, deeply painful. Please all of my fellow mississippians, please remember that. Please remember the hundreds of thousands of mississippians that have filed for Unemployment Insurance just in the last three or four weeks. Many of them have never been on Unemployment Insurance in their life. So they are frustrated because navigating the system cab frustrating. Although i will tell you we as a state made great progress and well continue to do so. Every opportunity that we have to give a life line to a worker by slowly reopening, will help save lives in the long term. I truly believe that. But i also know that this virus is deadly. It is spreading. And it continues to spread. I am pleased, as i said yesterday, that our curve is flattening. It appears to be plateauing. And it appears it is going to be much lower than originally expected. Thats good news. That happened because of you. Because you made good decisions. You have made the right decisions. But understand that does not ean that the threat is gone. Im incredibly grateful for dr. Dobbs and his team at the state department of health for their counsel and expert leadership throughout this crisis. We all know that dr. Dobbs has been a steady hand on the wheel. Well continue to listen to our states top Health Experts every step of the way. We know that the ultimate help will be when workers are allowed to provide for themselves. In the meantime, we want to offer any helping hand we can. Understand that there has been a press release thats gone out just recently from the i. R. S. So this is critically important for those of you who are on Social Security. Again, this is a federal program that the state does not have a necessarily a role to play, but i want everyone to understand this. I want to flag this for any and everyone on Social Security. If you are on Social Security and do not file tax returns, you need to take action to get the extra 500 per child payment on top of your 1,200 support from the federal government. You must go to irs. Gov to do that. Let me say that again. If you did not file taxes, if you are on Social Security and you did not file taxes in 2018 irs. Gov you must go to to get that additional payment. That must be done by noon tomorrow. Im hopeful that you are paying attention and that you will do that if you fit into that category. Again, it is not state run. It is a federal program. But if you dont go to the website and file, you will not be eligible for that money if you have any dependents. Why is that the case . Because obviously if you dont file tax returns with the i. R. S. , it would be impossible for them to know that you had dependents. Now, today ive also invited a team from the Mississippi Department of Employment Services to talk about Unemployment Insurance. We do have some good news. And im happy to announce it. That starting today we have started we have cleared the hurdles to make the available the pandemic unemployment assistance program. That means that selfemployed mississippians, independent contractors, church employees, gig economy workers, and others who were not previously eligible can now get assistance. It also specifically lays out benefits for people who are not able to work as a direct result of the covid19 crisis. Now, please hear me say this. If you have previously filed and you werent eligible for the typical unemployment, you do not have to file again. Fill out your weekly certifications and you will get notified if you are eligible for this special fund. As i have said here many times before, we are continuing to staff up and work to address the 14,000 increase in claims that have caused delays for people. That work is ongoing. There is no simple fix, but i will tell you that i am proud of the efforts of these individuals at the department of employment security. They are working day and night to continue to build capacity. At this point i can tell you that we have increased the number of people answering the phones from approximately 50 to approximately 250. A fivefold increase over a few short weeks. When you looked at what happened last week in overall claims, what you saw is mississippis processing actually processed approximately 50 more claims than the week before. Thats because we are building capacity. If you look at what happened in america, the number of claims filed last week compared to the week before was almost identical. Now, some of you may believe that it was identical because there were not more Unemployed People in other parts of the country. I dont believe thats the case. I believe that the capacity had reached a level two weeks ago, nationally, that for all intents and purposes was not increased. In our state, we continue to increase capacity to answer the calls so that we continue to minimize and mitigate the number of calls that go unanswered. I want to ask director turner and timothy rust to give us an update ton what i believe to be very impressive efforts to deal with this unprecedented surge in Unemployment Insurance claims. Director. Thank you, governor reeves. Its our pleasure to be back with you here again at this press conference. We had the pleasure of coming and being before you a couple weeks ago. At that time we were able to announce that the additional 600 related to those that are eligible for what we call the regular Unemployment Insurance program, those payments were flowing and in the two weeks since we have been here, we have paid out millions. I want to give those figures. Its astronomical and it tells the point, goes to the point that governor reeves was talking about about how the workload and number of claims and people working so hard every day to bring those mississippians the benefits that they deserve. What we have been able to accomplish in those weeks. On a typical unemployment week prior to the pandemic, we may n. This good economy, we may have paid out about 1 million a week. Last week we made out 72 million. 54 million of that was related to the pandemic Unemployment Compensation related to the Unemployment Insurance program. Now the two days of this week we have already paid out 72 72,880,000 and we have surpassed what we paid out all in the last two weeks. Thats strictly related to the extra 600 and the people and eligible for the regular Unemployment Insurance program. Im pleased as you are that we have made Great Strides but its not enough until we reach every single mississippian that needs our help. We are also pleased today to announce the application process for the pandemic unemployment assistance portion of the cares act. Its now available through the mds. Ms. Gov website to file for the benefits that are due to those that as governor reeves described, as the gig economy workers. You may also find yourself eligible if you were uneligible for the regular Unemployment Insurance program because of insufficient wages or other barriers, but because of a covid related reason, there are 10 of them, its listed on our website, and they are listed in the application process, if you qualify for one of those 10 reasons, and found yourself not eligible in the regular Unemployment Insurance program, you may be eligible for pandemic unemployment assistance. For a time so the application process is now on our website, and our call center, Contact Center representatives are available to take your claims through the Contact Center. We have added additional phone numbers. Please see our website for those additional phone numbers. We also have a specific Call Center Number for pandemic unemployment assistance. Ill say i have asked that we can manage it better if youll call one of those options so that others can get through on the other lines. As governor reeves stated, we are adding we have added these people in line so we can help others get to us quicker. As ill recap that, we have our normal call certainty number thats been out there the entire time. We add an additional Call Center Number yesterday for additional people that can take your claims. As of as we speak a press release is going out and information on our website and through social media, and well share it with our state leaders and our partners around the state that there is the pandemic unemployment assistance is now available and there is an additional Call Center Number for that as well. Ill stop now and let mr. Rust take a few minutes to talk about provisions, specific provisions of the cares act. Governor reeves let me reiterate that. There are multiple phone numbers now on their website. The best way for you to reach someone the quickest is to pick one of those numbers, stick with it, and call it. If you keep going from number to number to number, and i understand everybody can be frustrated, if you keep going from number to number to number, you are going to tie up those lines and you are less likely to actually get someone to answer. If we will patiently call the same number, give it a little time if you dont get an answer, and call the same number back. We are building capacity to go from 50 to 250 people answering the phone over a short three weeks has been very good work. We have more work to do and know that. Mr. Rush. Mr. Rush thank you governor, director turner. In addition to that we have upped the number of phone lines, ver 1,000. We are trying to reach as many people and return as many calls and answer as many live calls as possible. In addition to the phone lines, we are as indicated, providing now opportunities for individuals who are in the gig economy who are selfemployed, who may be working for charitable organizations or faithbased organizations. The pandemic unemployment assistance. We are hoping that will be available by the end of this week and payments will go out as early as the weekend or monday of next week. There is a specific number that we encourage you to call. As director turner indicated that number will be posted on our webpage. I would like to share that number at this time. Sorry, 8331 18339190334. Thats 18339190334. That line is specifically nor those who are part for those who are part of the gig economy. Those who are selfemployed part of the faithbased community, those who are not covered for regular Unemployment Benefits. Fpuc there is the the pandemic emergency Unemployment Compensation program. So we have essentially three programs which most of the claimants have filed and received additional 600 which is under the pandemic Unemployment Compensation. E emergency Unemployment Compensation program is for those individuals who may have had a claim prior to march of this year, and those benefits would have expired or ran out, or individuals who have exhausted benefits or in a current benefit year, and are not able to receive benefit as a result of covid19. If you file your claim, there may be a notice on the system indicating that you are not eligible because you exhausted benefits. There is no need to file an additional claim. The system will notify you of your eliblibility for benefits. It is important that you do file the weekly benefit certifications. We have noticed that quite a few individuals have not filed those and we encourage individuals to go in each sunday morning or each stun and file the weekly certifications. Thats how you get paid on the debit card or direct deposit. Ill yield at this point and entertain any questions if there are any. Governor reeves wellcome back to questions in a second. Ill give dr. Dobbs the opportunity to bring us up to date on where we find ourselves with covid19 in the state of mississippi. Then well open it up to questions. Dr. Dobbs. Dr. Dobbs thank you, governor. A quick update, we reported 204 new case was 14 additional zeths bringing us to a total of 4,716, and 183 deaths. Of note 90 of those deaths are individuals over 60 years of age. 51. 3 of our total case burden is africanamericans, and 4 of our deaths are among africanamericans. As of yesterday, we had completely a total of 52,364 tests for mississippians. Still wonderful progress by the Public Health lab and the private dogs and clinics have done a fantastic job. As far as hospital capacity, yesterday updates report, we have 79 could he develop patients on mechanical ventilation, with 668 available ventilators. Covid i. C. U. Patients, 144, with 277 open i. C. U. Beds. With relative stability some mild plucks wations, but the ventilator number is the lowest we have seen in a little bit a couple quick messages to share. We have flattened the curve, which is fantastic, but we still havent dropped. There is still a lot of cases out there. Nows the time to be vigilant. We dont need to let our guard down. Make sure when we are in public we are wearing masks, maintaining social distancing. Although we are looking to try to grasp some sense of additional normalcy, we are just really dont need to let our guard down. Your individual behavior is the most important thing that will protect you from covid. A couple other things we are working diligently with medical and dental community to try to find strategies for eventually improving access to care sor. So thats something that will be evolving. Appreciate the guidance from the Governors Office as we work through that process. As we look to the future, we are very worried about ongoing highrisk outbreaks. There are a lot of environments such as longterm care settings, nursing homes, places where people live in close proximity. Anticipate seeing more outbreaks. Thats part of what we are concerned about. Its also part of whats being seen nationally. That will affect our numbers as we go forward. Speaking of outbreaks, certainly we know that in some of these scenarios businesses will be affected by cases or outbreaks. We will be putting on our website Additional Guidance for businesses so they can understand what to expect when maybe one of their employees is infected. Or maybe one of their employees needs to be placed on quarantine orders to make sure they have a clear understanding how long they will be out of work and can make plans to that effect. We have put Additional Data on our website around lornl care centers. If you havent checked, we are trying to get as much information as we can. By county. Number of deaths, number of cases, by race. Thats information that you have available to you. Then just lastly, please know that we have one of our major folks making sure that we try to reach Africanamerican Community regard to testing, messaging, access to care. We know how important that is. Thats going to be a major focus of our effort as we go forward over the ensuing weeks. Thank you. Overnor reeves, thank you, dr. Dobs. I sat here yesterday and made the case to the people of mississippi that the fact we had gone from approximately 180 cases couple days towards the end of last week to 300 cases yesterday was not a reason to panic. Let me make the for consistency sake. The same argument today we went from 300 cases yesterday to 200 cases today is not a reason to celebrate. The reality is there are large variations from day to day. New testing results on a daily basis is not a perfect thing to look at. Because we know that we have delays in testing results, etc. There is not a consistent test whereby we are getting these results in 15 seconds. What i would simply say is we are in the same posture today as we were yesterday which is the same posture we were in the day before even though the actual number of tests we are reporting have varied. The reality is that we are still in the plateau. We are still in the eye of the storm. And the most important thing that every miss misian can do mississippian can do is to use common sense. Stay at home if at all possible. When you leave, go to work, and go back home, if you need to stop and get groceries, wear a mask in the grocery store. As i talk to people all over the state what im repeatedly told is that in many employers, particularly the larger employers around the state that are open, they have instituted very significant measures to protect themselves and protect their employees. You go to harm employers and everyone is wearing a mask and everyone is practicing great hygiene. If you go to walmart, maybe one in five or two in five mississippians are wearing a mask. I think thats something that we want to continue to encourage. That is something that dr. Dobbs has been adamant about over the last several weeks because the most important thing you can do is be smart and take care of yourself. If you do that, if you do that, then youre going to protect not only yourself but your kids, your mom, your dad, your grand mom, granddad, and all mississippians. If we can all do this together, if we can all make these additional sacrifices for a few more days and weeks, we are going to be able to get our economy going again and get back to what may be a new normal but certainly more normal everyday activity for mississippians. With that ill start to the right. Can you extend the expanded unemployment benefit. Exactly what type of people can get that money . Governor reeves the pandemic unemployment assistance program, asically, these two my right are more knowledgeable an i am. Ill put in terms i understand and hopefully everyone else. If you are selfemployed, you are now eligible. If you are an indmeant contractor, you are now el independent contractor, you are now eligible. Pending eligibility verification by the department. These are subsets. These are groups that would not necessarily have been eligible for state unemployment. Because of the cares act, because of this pan democrat i canic pandemic, this is like Disaster Unemployment assistance. Independent contractor, selfemployed, if you are employed by a church, a religious entity, or a nonprofit organization, if you are employed in the gig economy, if you have insufficient earnings to establish a regular unemployment claim, and if you are not eligible for regular Unemployment Compensation or extended benefits, you may be eligible for whats called pandemic unemployment assistance. If you are eli amible for pandemic unemployment eligible for pandemic unemployment assistance, you may be eligible for the additional 600 as well. It chelsea brown. Chelsea. 95 reported today. S there a reason we are seeing [indiscernible] governor reeves i missed the first half of the question. Could you repeat the question, lease. A spike in coronavirus cases. Or yesterday today they were of the scernible] trepped is available on the website. Some of it will reflect testing delays that are intrinsic in the system. Certainly we are still seeing a lot of cases. Outbreaks will have major impacts on our daytoday variations. We can please give us offline and well answer that question more specifically. Porter can we go back to that. You said some things about looking for serology. Rapid testing. When might we reopen the states economy . Dr. Dobbs it will be a lot of indicators as we go forward. Test something a huge piece. We have other indicators as well. As far as serology there is not a lot of excitement around it, but a lot of doubt. Professional guidelines have basically stated that right now its not reliable. Its certainly not useful for diagnosing people who are sick right now. Eventually will be able to say who had it in the past. And really its more surveillance purposes to understand what the epidemic was like in retrospect. And also perhaps to clear folks in the future for work who might have been exposed. Its still an unknown. We are working closely to try to figure that out. I will say to the Health Care System providers, please dont buy the cheap handheld tests. They are entirely unreliable. And certainly i wish they hadnt been sold. Serology will be a question mark going forward. A promising one. As far as access to testing, it will be important. Like we mentioned before, woof we want to get ahead of outbreaks we need to know whats going on immediately. There are different types of rapid. Certainly we would like to have access to immediate results. I have some feedback some of the Health Systems have been ablele to have a minor increase in the number of rapid tests available. We are working to get Rapid Testing to local communities with high impact. Areas of transmission. Its modest because our federal distribution is extremely low. Hopefully that will change in the future. Its embarrassingly low how much Rapid Testing has been made available to the federal government. We are going to work hard to make that better. Governor reeves we think testing is an important piece. You have heard a number of people, primarily on the other slile, governors from other states, act as if testing is the only piece to deciding when to reopen the economy. Its not the only, it is an important piece. We have seen testing as critically important in mississippi at least since the beginning. Its the reason when you take out new york and new jersey and connecticut and louisiana, mississippi has in terms of per population one of the highest test rates in america because we believe its critically important. Its going to be even more important as we are having conversations internally right now and a meeting that took place today. And dr. Haste haze is in the room. In talking about elective surgeries, for instance, and medical procedures. This is something that we think is very important that we get open as soon as we possibly can. But if an only if it is done in a responsible and safe manner. And thats why the dogs are leading the effort on that because they certainly understand the safety precautions and Safety Measures much more so than any politician ever will. But we think that we have been a leader nationally when it comes to testing. Well continue to lead. Well continue to find ways. The way we have been a leader is not looking at things as either or but looking at it as bothand. While we need to continue to build capacity with the traditional at the timing method, we need to continue to look for capacity on the those 15minute tests of which we have not received a significant number. Hopefully production will increase dramatically. Hopefully well do well be fortunate enough to get a higher percentage than what we are getting right now what little bit is being produced. Thats going to be part of the solution. Weve got to have a multiple pronged approach to continue to get a lot of testing. I will also tell you, there are those i have heard them say, there are those who believe that basically we cant open up our economy until every single mississippian can get tested every single day. Thats not realistic. That is not a realistic goal because for those who believe that, their states will be closed for the next three or four years. They are not every going to open back up because they are not going to have any people there to open back up. We are looking to do everything we can. We had a group of members of my team and some folks from dr. Dobbs team participate in a call today with the white house and looking at some of their suggestions on testing. Im hopeful that that was fruitful. It happened in the last hour or so. I havent gotten a report yet. We had a call yesterday with Vice President pence and the Coronavirus Task force in which testing was a topic we discussed. And i know they are working hard. We are also working very hard. It is important. It is not the only important factor. But it is an important factor to making these decisions. Reporter dr. Dobbs, Start Testing on College Campuses. Why students are in class right now . [indiscernible] dr. Dobbs it wasnt the College Campus itself that was important but the location. Its for the community. So we are trying to get testing to communities in need. We will continue to do that. Sometimes it might be through drivethrough testing mechanisms. Sometimes we may try to find other mechanisms and getting out there. The Community Health septemberers have ramped up testing, thats fantastic. Would encourage folks who dont have access to care or one of the folks being cared for there seek testing there if you need t we have so many partners across the state. We are really extremely fortunate. To have all these avenues. Sincerely our Health Care System has been the hero in this testing success. Porter governor, neesan nissan has put production on hold. Same thing with toyota. Toyota recently announced in may they were going to open up a production line again. If you spoken to any of the local heads of the two to see if neesans going to do the same . Nissans going to do the same. Governor reeves we have been in conversation with Business Leaders throughout the state. Particularly in specific some of those very large businesses. Reality is they are going to do what is in not only the best interest of their employees, but the best interest of their shareholders. The fact is that worldwide demand for new automobiles has declined over the last 30 days. But will i also tell you that we had a conversation about this yesterday. When you go from statetostate and look at those states that have completely shut down everything in their economy, including new automobile sales, used automobile sales, etc. , you can as you can imagine the sales in those states are down significantly more than they are in those states that have tried to responsibly allow those individuals who are working outside to do so in a way in which they are social distancing , etc. Well continue to work with all of our employers, large employers, small employers and do everything we can to get people back to work as soon as possible. I can hear you now. It reporter that number you have, pandemic unemployment [indiscernible] heres my question. From the northeast to the west coast we are seeing regional plans to start reopening the economy. Georgia, tennessee, South Carolina looks like florida announcing some bold moves. Maybe beginning friday or monday. Do you see yourself following the lead of some other governors who might be likeminded in terms of reopening . Governor reeves cloverpb thank you for that question. Quit calling that number. You are tying up the line. Other people are trying to get in. Yes, we had a great call over the weekend with our fellow southern governors from florida, georgia, tennessee. And alabama. We had a great conversation. All of us are of similar minds. We each have different circumstances and different situations that are unique to each individual state. But i do think its very clear. We actually moved first last week by reopening beaches for those communities who wanted to by opening fishing on lakes for those who were responsible and wanted to do so. Also by allowing curbside sales for Small Business owners throughout the state. Im not at all surprised. This is sort of exactly what i anticipated occurring with some in the south continuing to work to reopen. I think youll certainly see us continue to have conversations as to what this rollout looks like. We want to do it in a responsible, safe way. We also want to make sure that we get as many people back to work so that they are providing for themselves as best they can. Yes, we are working together. We are in conversations. I spoke with Many Republican governors late last night again. We spoke with them on sunday, i believe it was. We may have had a call on saturday as well. The days are running together. Yes, we are working closely together and will continue to do so. We have some challenges, particularly, dave, down where you live because of the major spike in cases in the city of new orleans. Thats a little bit unique to many in the southeast. Weve got to recognize that. Weve got to deal with that in a different way than maybe some other state that doesnt have new orleans within 30 or 40 miles of their border. Yes, we are working closely with them. Emily. Reporter i wanted to follow up a bit on the question that another reporter asked yesterday about the Contact Tracing. Does the Health Department need to hire more employees to do that . If so, how many new employees and what would it cost . Dr. Dobbs we are are steadily adding new members to the team. And this is seven, eight weeks. It takes a good bit of folks to make sure we can keep that running smoothly. We have around 180 people now. Couple weeks ago we had about 140, about 10 days ago. So we are increasing our work force. Probably would like to add another 20 to 30 over the next week. So we are working to do that. As far as funding, these folks are being deployed under orders with fema. Its part of the response thats being funded in that mechanism. Governor reeves ill say we have had multiple conversations. This is a growth pattern that well continue as we move over the next several months. I am fully supportive of their efforts to improve and increase the number of individuals that can contact trace. I would not be surprised to see the c. D. C. Also deploy additional personnel out to the states to help with that. But its got to be state led. And we will find the resources either through the stafford act, which is the federal law which to reimburse large numbers of expenses when there is an emergency declaration, which we have in mississippi. We also have cares act money. These are dollars that will be eligible for the cares act because these are things we would not have been increasing employment to deal with the pandemic unless of course the pandemic had occurred. Well work with dr. Dobbs and his team to continue to build capacity there as well. Reporter new employees or existing employees for some state agency being send to do sent to do dr. Dobbs its a combination. A lot of them are Health Department employees that have been reassigned. Its important to know that there are certain skill sets that need to be there and certain technical capabilities. Software programs, expertise with. There is a bit of a learning curve. When we can recruit people doing other stuff that have familiarity with it it helps us run fast. Thats what we did initially when we assigned these teams. We have been adding contract employees and others and hiring new individuals to sort of fill out these teams. Almost certainly have to do more and more of that as we ramp up the number of folks doing this. Governor reeves clonch no short, what i would say much like the answer earlier, its not eitheror, its bothand. Its a little of both. And will continue to be, im ure. Reporter my question was for dr. Dobbs. On the state Department Health website there are seven longterm care facility deaths. Im told there have been eight. Seven of the eight have come from one facility. My question is, at what point does the state step in if at all to tackle some of these issues where there are high death rates in longterm care facilities, if at all . And what would those steps be. Dr. Dobbs thank you. This is something that we knew. Governor reeves going back seven weeks ago that this was going to be a problem. Certainly appreciate longterm Care Industry for being responsive trying to keep it out. Once you get infection within the longterm care setting it can be difficult. Dr. Dobbs its something we take extremely seriously. With every outbreak we are actively involved, both from our licensure and epidemiology Response Teams with guidance. Helping them find pathways to protect their folks. Making sure they are doing proper prohe textive equipment. We do supply women them with protective equipment as well. And guidance on cleaning and stuff like that. We are certainly going to be additionally more involved as far as ensuring cleaning and what we would like to do, although we are doing a lot of the testing, around individual outbreaks, it hasnt been 100 penetration. Thats the next thing we really want to work on is making sure that when we do have outbreaks, especially longterm care, that we do extensive testing and we can find out at a point estimate on who all might be shedding. One thing thats very important about this, we did cut off visitation for folks which i know is hard but its been helpful t would be worse than this. But its so important for employees to stay home when their ill. Because they have to get in there somewhere. The residents arent coming and going. Its very, very important for people who are ill to not go into work and potentially spread his disease. It reporter thank you. Do you think isolation within those facilities work when theres already been, if im king correctly dr. Dobbs there are different strategies. The folks who are sick a lot are removed. They are hospitalized or taken out. For safety reasons. This is something that we had a lot familiarity with in regards to flu outbreaks. Other viral outbreaks. G. I. Track infection outbreaks. If we are pristine in our response and make sure that we have folks doing proper cleaning, proper protective equipment, we dont have any sort of social events. People eat in their rooms. Its just like being in a hospital. Youll be hospitalized with folks in certain rooms who have it and some who dont. We have the full expectation if we do the right thing its not going to spread from room to oom. Reporter how do you see restaurants getting back to work . Or do they still continue takeout only for weeks after . Governor reeves we are having conversation was that right now. I think whether its on monday or the following important or the monday after that, what we are going to be looking at i would presume, if i were a restaurant yure i would think about restaurateur, i would think about even if we reopen inroom dining well do so in such a way that allows for far fewer people in the restaurant. So if you, for instance, had a capacity according to the Health Department of 100 in your particular restaurant, we may open back up at half capacity or a third capacity or we are talking about the possibility of removing every other table. Or the potential for ensuring social distancing continues to occur amongst individuals and amongst parties. No decision has been made with respect to any of that. We do know that that is an industry that has been particularly hard hit. In this particular pandemic. They have been hard hit in terms of their overall selves. They have also been hard hit because many of their employees have had to have been laid off. Its going to be hard to for them to significantly increase. This is true of the Tourism Industry as well. For them to significantly get those individuals back to work as quickly as we would like for them to. There may also be additional guidelines with respect to, for instance, what the individual employees, or whats required of them in temples ensuring that they are of them, in terms of ensuring that they are wearing masks. We are having discussions on that. But there is a plethora of options and conversations going on as it relates to that. Again, as it relates to restaurants its the same as it relates to the entire economy. We want to open them up as soon as possible. As soon as its safe to do ofmente so. Reporter can you hear me . Governor reeves we can. Reporter question here. What dr. Dobbs just said. Africanamericans 50 of the infection rate and death rate. That . Stion is, why is and it what can be done now to address that . Dr. Dobbs it is extremely concerning. This is not just a mississippi issue. Its a nationwide issue. It certainly is an acute issue within mississippi. Its not something that we find remotely acceptable. As far as whats happening, we in ave a fantastic team led part through the department of health, working with multiple lks both local leadership, working with hbcus, working with faithbased community. Working on communications mechanisms. We are doing a statewide survey of prospectus with a focus on africanamerican understandings of what they feel is important to them from covid. We have a whole bunch of things going on. We are doing testing locations within areas that are most impacted. We are also trying to deploy other resources such as our Rapid Testing capabilities in areas that have been most impacted in the black community. It is absolutely one of our main priorities. It will continue to be for obvious reasons, not just because its the number one Demographic Group thats been impacted. But also, too, because of these Historic Health despair its, we know how vulnerable some of these communities are. Its our job to make sure we reach them as much as we can. Governor reeves i would just reiterate what dr. Dobbs said. Incredibly concerning to to he and his team, me and my team, we are looking at it. It is fair to say this is not unique to mississippi. In fact, mississippi is the same as the other 49 states as it relates to this. Some of the things that we are contemplating and continuing to inle up on the testing sites africanamerican communities is critically important. As has been said we did jackson state over the weekend. We are doing one here in the hines county area. I have been in conversations over time with the mayor of jackson and other africanamerican leaders around the state. Preachers that have come here and asked folks to be careful. There is no question that when you look at the when you look at the demographics and look at the Health Challenges in the Africanamerican Community, that certainly puts them at a higher risk. Thats not something thats happened in the last 10 or 15 days. Thats something thats happened over the last many, many years. Weve got to continue to work to fix that. We also have to continue to work to communicate. Make sure that the messages of encouraging social distancing and other things are actually getting out to all of the people across mississippi. And we are continuing to find reative ways to do that. We will continue to do so. Reporter thank you. Wanted to ask dr. Dobbs, following up on these questions. What triggers Contact Tracing. For example, could you give us a scenario certain number of cases. Would you describe what that would look like. And the location where this is happening. Lastly, specific number of people you think you would need do contact ly tracing statewide . Dr. Dobbs the first questions are easy. Anybody who has a positive test gets tracked. Its everybody. Anyone who has a positive covid test what we will do, we will contact them, make sure they are educated to whats going on. Make sure that they have the isolation order, make sure they understand and are following the rules. Not to spread it. Probably even more important is in this next phase of quarantine. Anyone who has had more than just a few minutes of close proximity in unprotected if you are in protective gear, its different, if you are in a social environment around somebody, more than 10 minutes, within six feet, someone who is actively contagious, you would likely be placed under quarantine order. We investigate everybody who falls within that criteria, whether its in the home environment or the work environment. You can imagine thats labor intensive. As far aser where are we doing . Everywhere. We have across the state we have a county Health Department everywhere in the state. So we have a presence throughout the state. No matter where you live in mississippi we will we have teams out in nine different areas around the state to make buloxi. A locksy. This is a Good Opportunity to point out. The total number of cases in by definition are going to go up. Bestcase scenario they go flat have no new hey cases but they wont go down in cases. F total number of but what you have to realize is, some of the cases we announced ago, these people are now covered. Any times theyre back in the workforce. The total number of active cases point re important data which, of course, the department of health has. Is a more cases important data point in terms of determining how many individuals do contact to tracing. There is no reason to do contact who haverom four weeks gotten it, we have done Contact Tracing and that person and all that were we found ithin their inner circle now have been contacted, if they are beyond the 14day period and recovered, they kind of fall off the chart, we think, in terms of necessity in continuing to do that because we think once you the virus once that its not likely you will get it again. Not sure anyone is willing that l on the sword on particular data point because we believe done it but i thats to be fair. Reporter questions about the pandemic unemployment assistance. For those that have already filed, they didnt qualify for the regular unemployment, saying, well, we file our weekly certification, how know what the process we now whether or not qualify for the pandemic unemployment response . Will they get some type of will let themthat know yea or nay . Yes. Questionyou asked that because i was going to make that point before we left here today. If you already filed and have denied for unemployment, that you do not have to file application. Let me back up and say, we nnounced today that the inlication process now is addition to the regular employment questions, we added he pandemic unemployment questions. Its not a separate application process. The regular into unemployment. So to answer your question, they o not have to file another application and they will be notified potential p. U. A. Any action and needed. Its very, very important for eople to file their weekly certifications. Through that weekly certification process, those hat have already filed for p. U. A. Will get some additional questions asked that will then their p. U. A. Ive benefits. So mr. Elliott said earlier, you know, we can add and we are dead level best to do whatever we can to help that draw the benefits they are entitled to. To re we will continue add phone lines if necessary. We all call the same lines and i tried to call that line this morning and i did through. Its things such as that, its ike me calling in and checking to see or someone having all the numbers called at one time. Still say the best way to file online. Service im sitting here and listening to dr. Dobbs and governor reeves about the Health Community and response from that part of covid19 response effort and unemployment and all the programs we offer plus we should ct that help our neighbors, a community those a couple of other things. Not filed a claim for Unemployment Benefits since youve been off work to covid19, a claim should be filed and understand that it we were this is the way told by the department of labor how it should fall. It will take you through the eligibility questions for Unemployment Insurance, the program, and you may even get correspondence that ays you do not qualify for that. It will then get you to the uestions for the pandemic unemployment determination. So it is you will get pieces of correspondence either through the mail or through when you enter your user name and account that our tells you different things. So there will be a denial for and then an eligibility determination for the pandemic unemployment assistance. Pay attention to all of it. Others and we have a host of people on the phone lines. E talk specifically about the but centers and that like there are volunteers that have retired and volunteers from other agencies, our partners on different elp teams not only to help take also take these email oxes we said to the public, contact us through the email boxes to help bring down the workload and we made significant last few days. Its not enough. Its not enough until we serve person, but we continue to strive for for that. Dr. Dobbs made and i wrote it down about a certain skill set. Dont you put why more people on . And we are training every day to help people gain a certain knowledge and skill set that is eeded to help with unemployment. I said in our first opportunity here to be with you that is a oyment insurance complex program. To we have we are trying weigh as we put people on whether it is a benefit for them they cant or if nswer the questions for which people or will they become more frustrated. We have people who were not experts in unemployment four, five weeks ago and now are others. That expertise has grown exponentially in the last few weeks as well as mine but we have to weigh the skill set that is needed for those hat will help our mississippians. Eporter a question for dr. Dobbs. If they nursing home, ere to clear everybody out, sanitize, who certifies them . Who goes in from the health or does the Health Department say, we did all these or youre s fine, lacking, you didnt do this, you didnt do that, what type of type of tion, what qualifications, what criteria oes the Health Department provide so that they know they ollowed all the rules, did the best they could and are ready to their clients . Dr. Dobbs there are a few things in there that are very elements. Certainly environmental cleaning, those standards are and y straightforward thats actually pretty good. We have good guidance for them to make sure they do it. More proactivebe in that regard as far as taking a more active role. Ont want to say exactly what that is in case it changes. But certainly thats something important. But the most important thing about transmission is people themselves. Take a imagine if you bunch of people, some of whom asymptomatically hedding, instead of protecting people, youve endangered a group of people. Where they of folks are are so very important. You have to make sure theyre but we thout a doubt, are very actively involved, will actively involved, especially with these assurance pieces and i think the testing important as were able to ramp up. It gives us visibility as whats instant in a snapshot hat well be able to give them better guidance and directives. [inaudible] reporter i have a question for dobbs. You think that testing should should look into [inaudible] dr. Dobbs yes, we need to we looking at doing some surveillance testing. We will need to do enough to ake sure we get a valid estimate to understand whats the likely percentage of folks that have had it before. That it would be a significant number of individuals. Here will probably be some utility to the future for certain highrisk occupations. Know, in Health Care Systems or somebody who might be exposed so we know not only the likelihood of also who is but immune. There is a tool for it. We dont really know the best large use it yet in measure because we dont have a sense of how accurate it is. Into this too much, but if you test too many people, you get more false true positives. And so you got to be selective how you do it or youll just yourself because they ill probably be pretty good tests but not perfect tests and if we misuse them it will more conviewings. Confusion. Governor reeves the University Stanford professor which claimed in a couple of counties in california that as many as 50 80 times more people had actually had the virus than had positive. Now, there are other studies there put the number much less that. Its just while i think long term every single piece is to this, its not something thats going to get 24 hours. The next [chuckles] talked about you know the numbers applied for filed yment and numbers is not a full picture yet. Nowing some folks may have waited to it come online to begin the filing process, what of surge are we bracing ourselves for in terms of the unemployment knowing this is now governor reeves this is a very group of individuals. When you think of selfemployed, contractors, those d by a church, or establishing regular unemployment claim, its a fairly significant group. Know if yall have estimates or not. But kind of hard to determine because those registered. Are not unpredictable. Current current number were seeing the current number ere seeing could be individuals that were denied or 0,000 140,000 include those filed . Yes, it does include some who have filed and received determination thats eligible and we estimate it is 8,000. Governor reeves remember if you iled and you fit in those categories and youve already gone through the process, the next thing you need to do is certification y because the system will then ask you questions which will help you you dont have to go through the whole process again. Certification. Y additional questions may be forthcoming and once those you ions are forthcoming, can then become eligible. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this afternoon, House Minority leader Kevin Mccarthy nd the Republican Leadership will discuss the federal Coronavirus Response and the houses legislative agenda. That news briefing is live at 3 00 eastern here on cspan. President trump leads the white house Coronavirus Task force briefing this afternoon, start at 5 00 eastern. You can watch it live here on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan app. British foreign secretary ominic raab took a range of questions from members in the house of commons during Prime Ministers question time. In for was standing Prime Minister Boris Johnson whos recovering at home from the coronavirus. From new labour arty leader keir starmer who recently replaced jeremy corbin. This was the first time they ask questions remotely and in person. Thank you, secretary of state. We go to questions for the Prime Minister, for 45 minute