Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for your patience. Both in allowing us to move this to 3 00 today due to the white house vtc, which we will come back to but a lot of good content, it ran a little bit long. We apologize for the fact. We are a little bit behind. Im joined by the woman on my right, the commissioner of the department of health. To her right, another guy in need of no introduction, dr. Ed. The guy to my left who doesnt need an introduction, pat callahan. Joined by jared maples, director of the department of Homeland Security preparedness and soon by chief council, matt plotkin. Lets begin with our daily update on the numbers and charts. May these never be just numbers and charts. These are real lives were talking about. First, today, we are announcing an additional 347 positive test results, pushing ur state total to 102,196. My monitor is out. If someone could get it plugged in, that would be great. Even as we cross 100,000, we must keep in mind there are tens of thousands of new jerseyans who have tested positive the past seven weeks nd have beaten covid19. Sadly we must report with the heaviest of hearts 253 additional lives lost, meaning we have lost a total of 5617 of dents sed resident ebb to covid19 complications. Bless their hearts. As we look at the curve of covid19 cases, it is still flat. Hese are positive tests. We can take solace in that it is flattening. It is flattening positivity is a ballpark around the same, and i know what is not the same is we started from nothing. The country was not prepared for testing and now we are into the 90s of sites you can get ested. We tested i think the fourth highest amount of any state in america. We also know that is not the complete view of the denominator. Absent universal testing. We will correct if we see it differently. It is gratifying, given the alternatives. Look at the curve a month or so ago. However the map we have the showing you, good with a new color scheme, this map looks different from yesterday and not in a good way. Several counties have slid backward. The numbers in each county is the number of days it takes to double the infection universe in the county. You have seen backsliding. We cant let that happen. We cannot let that happen. Our most important weapon, the biggest we have, our ability to social distance, stay at home and stay away from each other. By doing so, we crack the bat, not just at people who are infected and the fatalities. I cant be more clear and plain, everyone has a role to play in slowing the spread. We have to Work Together to ighten this map. We cannot ease up one bit in our social distancing. I am not in a position to put our state on the road back. We need to see more progress and slowing before we can begin those considerations. Please. And thank you. You have done an extraordinary job. Dont take your foot off the gas. Please. Were 6847 residents hospitalized for covid19. This is a degrees from what we will be we have been eeing. Judy will get into this. The field medical stations reported 98 patients. There were 1933 in critical or intensive care. That is about virtually unchanged. And ventilator use had a oneday drop to 1487 currently in use. The numbers at the top, 1933, folks in critical care, 1487 the number on ventilators. We saw 385 new hospitalizations yesterday. This chart has seen ups and downs but the threeday average trend line is moving in the right direction, down. For 24 hours preceding 10 00 p. M. Last night, our hospitals reported 778 total discharges. If you look at the threeday average, we see discharges exceeding admittance is. The yellow line or the folks who are leaving. The orange are the folks who are arriving. Sadly of course we know there are those who are not being reunited with their families on the other end of covid19. The toll of this disease in terms of loss of life remains staggering to all of us. As we have been doing, i would like to remember a few more neighbors we have lost and let none of us ever think of those we have lost as numbers on a graph. They were real lives and they leave behind real families. Here is on the left jerry. For the past two decades he served the families and children of fair one, serving as a custodian before becoming a wellknown and beloved bus driver. If you need to know anything about his commitment to the community, consider this story. I told his widow i remember this last fall. He was driving a group of students back to school from a field trip on route 208 in wyckoff. He saw a truck that had caught ire. He calmly pulled his bus over. He extinguished the fire, got back in and the police have not arrived yet and proceeded to get his students back to school on ime. You talk about cool under pressure. He was a star. God bless him. He leaves behind his wife, marianne mary jane, with whom spoke this morning, two daughters and a community that loved him. Od bless you, jerry. That includes yours truly, others in the background. I see the attorney general, lieutenant governor. His is christian aviles. He was only a senior at William Paterson university where he was a mainstay on the deans list. He was going to receive degrees in sociality and communication. He had a deep interest in Public Service and interned for the state senator nelly poe. We had an exchange this morning n christian. He was a talented artist and had his work displayed i think courtesy of the congressman in the capital. He was a bright light that has been extinguished too early. In his honor and memory, the University President has already announced his intention to have his name added to the student memorial tree on campus. He leaves behind his mother anna with whom i have the honor of peaking and his siblings and edwin and angel. Od bless them all. Nd i wish to recognize james labarbiera. The brother of when of my friends. The mar you one of the reasons we should remember him but not the only one. We should remember him because he embodies the values of our new jersey family. Humor, decency and love of family. His brother called him the fault salt of the earth. Immie leaves behind his wife with whom i spoke and she is struggling and his two sons shes johnny and michael. In addition to his brother rich, he is mourned by his brothers peter and anthony and his sister maria and many nieces and nephews. Our prayers are with the entire labarbiera family and jimmie joins his mom and dad in heaven. God bless them all. Three more treasured members of our new jersey family gone. Let us use their memories to find the strength we need to win the war. We need to continue social distancing and protecting ourselves and others when we go out. We have lost more new jerseyans to covid19 than we have in some of our nations wars and in 11. We remember every one of them and now we have thousands more for whom we will remember and pray for. Lets include every Single Person we have lost in the annals of our state history. They will not be forgotten. For them we will move forward and we will come out of this stronger than ever before. Od bless them all. Switching gears, i had a productive call with secretary of the treasury steven mnuchin. It was a good call the beginning of a meeting of minds. We have got big money issues. One of them is the first step of the interpretation of the cares act signed four weeks ago today. We have to make sure we get what is rightfully ours. I mentioned the past couple of days we have gotten assurances but could not find our way through to the actual guidance that came out. I want to give the secretary of big shout out. We are not over the goal line but had a productive call with senior members of each of our teams. I thank him for that. It was a good step in the right direction. Judy and i just came off a video call with Vice President mike pence. I thought it was a good call. A couple of highlights, what is going on with testing. You heard from rutgers yesterday, brian presented the case well. Another sense from the call that rutgers is not just a big deal for us potentially testing wise in new jersey but a national atter. Secondly i thank the army corps who was here. His team, lieutenant col. Parks, ive them a much deserved shout out. I brought money up. I have to bring up money in every conversation because we are running out of it. Not only was the call helpful, and that will be the First Step Towards a good resolution of the cares act, but i reiterated ousted other governors, we need a big amount of direct cash to states. This reception was a good one but we have to be persistent. I echo what i said, big shout out to senator bob menendez that he and senator cassidy from louisiana have cosponsored which would envision 500 billion of direct cash assistance. That is what the doctor ordered and we will stay on top of that. Today we are announcing new measures to help renters and homeowners feel more secure as we continue our battle against covid19. We recognize the anxiety so many feel about looming mortgage and rent payments especially with may 1 a week away. I had a conversation on this topic with another new jersey con. Steve van zandt. I want to give steve a shoutout. Steve was expressing enormous concern about matters such as the one i will refer to now. We have been corrective and engaging with sickle to groups to with stake holder groups to seek solutions. We have worked alongside mortgage lenders to implement a ignificant for Parents Program and worked through the housing and mortgage significant Forbearance Program and worked through the housing and ortgage. We have worked to protect 30,000 renters from rent increases. We will be proactive on housing relief. First i am signing an executive order allowing renters to direct landlords to use Security Deposits to pay rents, whether to make up for a shortfall or to pay it in full. Remember, this is money that was paid upfront to secure a lease. During this emergency, renters should have the ability to tap this deposit to help them secure their place in their home. Wish to acknowledge the assemblywoman Brittany Timberlake for her knowledge. We understand too many renters are confused about their rights and landlords need information to adhere to the orders we put in place. To the department of Community Affairs led by sheila oliver, we are standing up a frequently asked questions section online. You can see it and maybe we can come back tomorrow and put this up in big broadway lights. Ovid19. Nj. Gov renter. That is new section. It will be a point of reference for renters and landlords. As to their rights and responsibilities. Everyone will have access to the same information so there can be no more misunderstandings and everyone understands expectations of them during this ime. As we work on these issues, i wish to thank the new Jersey Apartment Association for support and assistance and encouraging landlords to waive late fees in this time. We are all in this together and we can only emerge stronger when no one fears for their home or residence. New jersey is fortunate enough to have the income to pay rent or mortgage, please do so. That allows us best to help those who can not. And third, we are standing up an Additional Information page for homeowners taking advantage of our previously announced mortgage forbearance and we want to make it clear to the lenders,that our expectation for them is to tack the payments on to the end of the loan. Again, at the end of the loan, in the at the end of the 90day forbearance period. Again, that page is on covid19. Nj. Com. Well get you to specific name of that page post haste. We recognize several rules allow for lenders to ask for skipped pames upfront. We are pushing to have those rules changed. However, v. A. Backed Mortgage Loans are already having payments moved to the end of the mortgage term and this is the model that we should be pursuing for all homeowners. As a reminder, if youre a landlord who has requested mortgage forbear stearns from bearance from your lender we fully expect you to extend that relief to your tenants. Lets make sure there is some symmetry here, thank you. On testing, ill switch gears were now up to 95 locations across the state where residents can be tested for covid19. 30 publicly run communitybased testing sites can be found on our with website and by scrolling down to the link for testing information. However, your primary Care Practitioner can direct you to one of the 65 other sites for testing. As we noted yesterday were working diligently to continually expand testing across the state. We continue to press, as i mentioned earlier, our federal partners for the necessary waivers to open up testing for more individuals. Were working with great partners, rutgers university, in a big way, and our private labs to bring new Testing Systems and fast tracked test processing into broad use. Again, to remind everyone, having a Robust Testing Program in place is key for our ability to begin getting our economy back running. Its a very simple equation and let me remind you if i can, Public Health creates economic health. It is in that order. Public Health Creates economic health. So the sooner that we have the esting that we need in place the sooner we can give our residents the confidence that they will know to know that they will be safe once we begin down the road to that new normal. I want to say thank you to some friends, angelo and tina koo who are donating a million surgical masks. They are en route but we didnt want to sit on this news any onger. By the way, tina and anglo, who i met independently when i worked in hong kong. Tina is a native, angelo comes from a very successful and renowned business family in taiwan, and then they met and have been married, i think, for 20 plus years. Our Global Community has stepped forward like never before to help us. In this case i thank not just angelo and tina, i thank the people of taiwan for their support. The diversity of our state and nation for that matter is one of our strongest assets. This is no time for folks to blame one group or another, especially our asian brothers and sisters, who have stepped up tremendously and for those of you who follow geopolitics, im happy to say not only have folks in this country largely checked their partisan politics at the door to fight on behalf, in this state of every single one of our residents, and in this country very single one of our residents but you dont normally get the likes of taiwan and the prc and japan and south korea and others each to their credit nswering our calls for elp. So i want to thank, again, i want to thank the koos for their help. Before i close i would like to give a few additional shoutouts to some people across the state who are really stepping up in their communities. Heres another young new jerseyian who deserves our thanks. This is 14yearold josh enberg. I have a son named josh. Every friday for the past 18 months hes been volunteering with the medical food pantry which serves over 3,000 families in Sussex County up in your neck of the woods, pat. Since many of the older volunteers who josh works along side have been taking rightfully and smartly extra precautions the pantry has found itself shorthanded but josh has been stepping up his volunteering time to help fill the gaps. So to you, josh, thank you for all youre doing to ensure the families who rely on the sparta ecumenical food pantry. Joshs dad is the state search and rescue coordinator for the office of Emergency Management and hes been part of the team helping us build out our Hospital Capacity so we thank not just josh but his dad and all the other folks out there stepping up in a big way. Speaking of which, here are four students from the leap academy in camden, a school i know well. Senior joshua ramos, junior alexandria de vensente, and bautista and another sophomore. They are part of leaps fab lab. And using the schools 3d printers they are on a mission to create a thousand face shields for our front line healthcare workers. They are assembling the face shields at home using a kit developed by fab lab director christopher mccrumb and his olleagues. There are already 150 face shields deep into their project with 100 of those going to Cooper University hospital and 50 to leap Zone CommunityHealth Center and these students are going to keep going until the rest of their goal is met. So to everybody at the fab lab, and to leap academy founder, and a friend of mine, gloria, new jersey thanks you. Finally i would like to give a personal shout out to a team you never see. Thats our technology team, several of whom are behind the camera today. So heres my thanks to the team here at trenton war memorial, bill, mike, and sydney justice, and the folks in the office of information technology, jack hensley, sarah casey, roy woods, Tarra Mckenna and chris. To every one of you who continues to help stop the spread of covid19 so we can come out on the other side, bless you and thank you. But remember, this is no time for us to give up. Ets keep at it and together well win this. I mentioned, i think, recently, my dad used to say remember, alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Weve got a couple weve got a beginning and an end to share with you before i turn things over to you, judy. On the one hand, im proud to announce that our new jersey family has grown. I received this picture from kevin and windy slavin. Kevin, of course, is the c. E. O. Of st. Josephs health and chairman of the new jersey hospital association, a good friend of judys. Here are kevin and windys son sean and daughterinlaw emily with our newest new jerseyian, rosemary slavin. Everyone is safe and healthy, thank god. Welcome to our new jersey family, young rosemary. God bless you. But at the other end of the spectrum, as i close, i must send my deepest condolences to a dear friend and a mentor of mine, former governor tom cain, who has lost his wife of 52 years, former first lady deborah cain. As first lady debbie did not let the trappings of politics change who she was. She remained a quiet public presence. But was a strong private presence as a wife, mother, and lifelong friend. And even with all being governor entails, she remained focused n ensuring her husband, his greatest responsibility was to his family. And that in and of itself is an extraordinary legacy. I had the honor of speaking to both governor cain and his son senator tom cain earlier. God bless them both and god bless mrs. Cains memory. To the governor, their children, tom jr. , alexandra, and reed and grandchildren, all of our thoughts and prayers are with you. God bless her and her memory and each and every one of you. With that please allow me to turn things over to the commissioner of health, the woman who needs no introduction, please help me welcome judy. Thank you, governor. Good afternoon. Our hospitals are reporting 6,847 hospitalizations last night. That includes covid positive patients and persons under investigation. This is a 17 decrease from a high of 8,293 individuals hospitalized on april 14. There are 1,933 individuals in critical care. Thats a 6. 6 decrease from a high of 2,069 on april 13. The number of covid19 positive patients and persons under investigation on ventilators has decreased 12. 8 from a high of 1,705 on april 14 to 1,487 last evening. 77 of the icu patients are on ventilators. Although this is down significantly, on april 10, 99 of these patients were on ventilators. As the governor has said, we need everyone to continue to adhere to social distancing measures to ensure that these hospitalization numbers continue to go in the right direction. Today were reporting 3,047 new cases for a total of over 102,000 cases in the state. And we continue to remove duplicate reports in the system. We continue to scrub the numbers and reconcile them not only with Long Term Care, reconciling them against the death certificates, so sometimes these numbers vary, but overall, were still reporting significantly high numbers. Sadly, 253 new deaths have been reported to the department for a total of 5,617 fatalities. The breakdown of deaths by race and ethnicity are as follows. White, 53. 5. Black. 20. 1 . Thats slightly down. Hispanic, 16. 3 . Asian, 5. 3 . Other, 4. 9 . There are now 452 Long Term Care facilities in the state with covid19 cases. Our survey teams are continuing to inspect Long Term Care facilities. The team has conducted 30 inspections since last thursday. They have issued directed plans of correction to three facilities requiring them to hire consultants for infection control, nursing, and administrative oversight. Testing has been completed at the paramus veterans home. The v. A. Is helping us with hat. The Positivity Rate is 46 . The total census for all of these facilities in the veterans homes is 725. Of the 725, 244 residents have tested positive and 91 veterans have passed away. Additionally today, Cooper University, in collaboration with Cooper UniversityHealth System well conduct testing in Long Term Care facilities in the southern part of the state. In terms of lab reports arriving to data from this morning, according to data from this morning of the seven labs that report to us 185,329 individuals have been tested. 1,563 have tested positive for a Positivity Rate of 44. 1 . Earlier this week, i covered the importance of safely using cleaning products because of the increases in calls that we were getting at the poison center. As a reminder, follow the product instructions closely. Wear disposable gloves to clean and disinfect. Use epa registered household isinfectants and ensure proper ventilation when cleaning. Keep these products away from children. And certainly they should never be ingested or injected. When swallowed many household products cause severe gastrointestinal symptoms. You may be repeatedly sick and even vomit. You may vomit blood. You may experience swelling of the tongue or lips or have burns to the esophagus. You may have abdominal pain and you may notice blood in your stools. Do not ingest or inject disinfectants. As always, i thank you for staying home. Maintaining social distancing, stay connected, stay safe, and stay healthy. Thank you. Judy, thank you for that and for that reminder. And for all, just a quick follow up, counties, in terms of positive tests, remain the same group. Followed by essex, hudson, union, passaic and middlesex. Those continue to be the six with the most positives and not surprising given that they are largely in that new york metro reality. Thank you for that and for all. Anything on compliance, ppe, infrastructure and other matters. Thank you, governor. Very briefly overnight, Newark Police department issued 83e. O. Violations and closed one business. In clinton, three subjects were cited for playing golf on a closed golf course. In elizabeth, seven subjects were charged for congregating. They had been warned several times and continued to not they had been warned several times and continued to not socially distance and stay at the location. In another incident, a subject who failed to disperse made a threat to shoot the police and was charged with terroristic threats. A barbershop was cited for remaining open also in patterson. Five subjects were cited who refused to disperse. And in parsippany a retail vape shop was hope that did not sell other Convenience Store items that would allow them to stay open as essential and that owner was cited as well. Just a good story that i think with regard to equipment, governor, and ventilators this morning, before dawn, the commissioner reached out to me. She had heard directly from a respiratory therapist at a hospital, that was in dire need of ventilators, and specifically asked for noninvasive ventilators. The ones that you referenced yesterday, governor, the 500, both dual purpose ventilators, so within a few hours i was on the phone with that respiratory therapist and within shortly after that, 10 of those were delivered to that hospital. So i just point out, one, the commissioners accessibility, its one thing to be accessible but you have to act upon it which im honored to be part of a team thats both accessible and able to act because thats life saving equipment whether they be invasive or noninvasive, i defer to the medical experts to tell us that but it was good to be part of something that came together so quickly with such effectiveness. Thanks, governor. Gov. Murphy thank you, pat. Amen to that. Thank you, judy, and thank you, pat, both. Well start over here with brent. Before i do, just to say, tomorrow, unless im told otherwise well be here at 1 00 p. M. Tomorrow. So 1 00 tomorrow. Sunday well communicate electronically unless there is a reason to get with you either in person or telephonically, in which case well let you know. Monday is to be determined. We had a white house meeting today. Im not sure if that replace add yesterdays or mondays so bear with us. Our preferred timing is 1 00 p. M. But those video calls are important and we need to be a part of them. And they are important for new jersey. Thats why we do it. So please bear with us on that but at a minimum, 1 00 p. M. Tomorrow. Brent, youre up. Good afternoon. There are far more many people with developmental and intellectual disabilities in group homes, will they be tested, too . You put out a call for nursing home employees from other states and retirees to step up and help Nursing Homes here. Have they been deployed and if so, how many . The state website says there are 141 patients with covid19 in psychiatric facilities with 373 Staff Members which is more than double. How is that possible . That seems weird. One of the big reasons for the stay at home order is to flatten the curve. Does that mean its time to begin lifting the order albeit gingerly and studies have shown that more people hospitalized have underlying conditions much more than those who dont. What about just isolating them and letting others begin to reopen up . Okay. Gov. Murphy a couple of things. Just on lifting orders, were going to still on monday discuss the broad principles of how we see, as i mentioned yesterday, how we see the steps we need to take in terms of the socalled reopening. I read a couple of quotes saying we were refusing to think about it or talk about it which is ridiculous. Heres what were refusing. We had 253 people die today. We saw the heat map go in the wrong direction. Positive tests are still going up. They are not plateauing or going down. Hospitalizations, thats good news. That is going down although judy reminded me today the icu percentage of those hospitalizations is higher than we would like. So were not out of the woods yet. So with all due respect, this is not directed in agitation, brent, towards you, its a fair question to ask, were not there yet. Were not there yet. Folks, this does not benefit me or any of us personally to stand in the way of the facts suggest we should proceed. When the facts suggest we should proceed we will proceed, i promise you, and by the way were spending an enormous amount of time including gathering as many men and women in the state and perhaps beyond the state to give us the advice we need not just from a health standpoint, on judys and eds side of the house but from an economic and developmental reality standpoint. I think, judy, these are largely, group homes we addressed yesterday, i think, but you may want to repeat that. Thats obviously a major focus of ours but in terms of both group homes, nursing home and also the anomaly i think youre pointing out in psychiatric hospitals, between the number, as i understand your question, number of positives mopping patients with a much bigger number of positives among staff, and then the other question, judy, where is the underlying conditions reality stand now relative to where it might have stood recently . We can start with the underlying conditions. Im just looking for my sheet. While im doing that, we know we have 1,400 individuals in the psychiatric hospitals. We also know that some of the patients move between hospitals. We may see some of the same phenomena as weve seen in the Nursing Homes. However, weve not done wide scale testing in the psychiatric hospitals. Its considered a vulnerable population and we do intend to do that. The same with the dd population. So its 1,400 in psychiatric. I think in the dd population we have over 5,000. And i know that the department of Human Services in collaboration with rutgers university, you heard from dr. Strong, they are developing a plan that may be rolled out as early as next week to test, to do wide scale testing, in the dd. Remember, Long Term Care, assisted living, probably about 75,000 individuals in new jersey, over a hundred thousand individuals when you add in all types of group homes, but for Long Term Care and assistive living its probably around 70,000 and well be laying out plans similar to the use case that were doing in south jersey, to test all residents and employees. Judy, just for clarification, dd is developmental developmentally disabled folks. Im sorry. I meant to say this up front before i throw it to you, rutgers was very explicit about this yesterday, bryan was very explicit about testing those homes and i say the word homes because, in some cases, as we mentioned yesterday, in all cases, these are their homes and in some cases, for decades, so i just want to add that point. You were going to hit underlying conditions. Yeah. Underlying conditions pretty much stayed the same. Cardiovascular disease, 58. 4. Other chronic diseases, 31. 4. Chronic lung disease, asthma, neurological disability, 15. 5. Other categories, 13. 7, and cancer, 11 . What did we miss there . Is it true the majority of the people hospitalized also had underlying conditions and then there was a question about bringing other people in to help with Nursing Homes. Have they been deployed . Depending on what they are hospitalized for, its not unusual for a comorbid conditions, something you would see every day, its a matter of the extent. And then the volunteer army, the matchmaking process is, in fact, happening. The matchmaking process goes on every day. Were looking, and, for people, individuals, that want to work, in Long Term Care, thats our biggest, thats our biggest push right now. And we have some ideas about different populations of individuals that might want to do that. Well be putting out a push next week. Youve got another push. I think its covid19. Nj. Com. Thats the page. We want folks to go there. Well travel over here if we could, matt. If you look at judy and ed, tell me if you disagree with this, if you look at elderly, if you look at folks with comorbidities, and if you look at folks in Long Term Care facilities, those are the three big blows to our state overwhelmingly that weve taken. We saw christians picture earlier, 22 years old. There are unfortunately, folks, no one is immune from this. There are overwhelming exceptions, but its fair to say those are the three big parts of our society that have been crushed. Please. Ian. Governor, you said youre concerned about people of color and possibly latin people being overrepresented in covid deaths in new jersey. The department of health does not seem to have or is not reporting ethnic or racial data on the population tested. This is not required in the law you just signed but shouldnt we track this as well so we can make sure the testing system is not biased against these populations . Is that it . Gov. Murphy in a Perfect World the answer is yes. I dont know that weve got were playing the hand weve been dealt. Ed, would you weigh in on that . Ed sure. When the Doctor Orders a test and the lab runs it, lab can only report back the information they get from the doctor and the Doctor Orders that test and that reports the patients ethnicity or race. They are just reporting the patients name and that sort of stuff. When the lab reports that data to us, particularly all the negative ones, we dont have that information. We dont have any way to tie a name together with anybodys race or ethnicity. Further investigation is done on those that are positive and thats why we can pick up race and ethnicity on those and we prioritize those with worse outcomes but as far as knowing the teeth the race and ethnicity, its not possible. I love the point. So if you could somehow find that nirvana where you could scale up testing and have a rapid turnaround on the result and get that information, count me in. I just think it will be challenging. Let me ask judy a quick question. Ed, thank you for that. I dont know if youve got it today. We know the profile, at least first cut of fatalities. You had at least a first cut, i think it was hospitalizations in the day in terms of do we have that updated since then . I dont have it today but im sure i have it but i do want to respond to testing. Part of our plan is to make sure that underserved populations have access to testing. So were calling in hqscs, were looking at mobile testing over neighborhoods, so youre absolutely correct. Its something we have to pay a lot of attention to and we plan to do that, and when we put out our testing strategy, you will see that involved. And the point i want to repeat which i know you agree with, we do know based on fatalities that the African American community is 50 plus or minus more representative of fatalities than in the overall society. Weve not seen that number yet, and again, i remain suspicious in the number that judy had mentioned the other day on hospitalizations, was at least beginning to square the circle with the new york city reality in terms of the hispanic, latinx population, something well come back to as we get this more refined and robust. By the way, one thing everyone has got at this point, its not like testing will end sometime in may or june. Weve got testing will be with us for a long time. Thats the bad news. The good news is, well be able over that long runway to be able to make it much more robust and refine it. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Two questions. On rentals, your executive order allows the use of Security Deposits. Does that mean that landlords must accept Security Deposits or are you simply encouraging the use of that . And secondly, have Operation Air bridge deliveries been a significant part of new jerseys ppe supply . Im going to take the former, and maybe, pat, you can take the latter. Is that okay with you . I think its more in the category of encouraging, recommending, as opposed to mandating. Would you correct the record or agree . There is a statutory bar on using Security Deposits to cover rent so this removes that statutory bar. It does prevent them, if they take it, if they accept the Security Deposit, from seeking another Security Deposit for at least six months after the end of the month, or the end of the Lease Agreement whichever is later. So thats how the order is written. Do you want to hit the air bridge . To classified as significant would be an overstatement. We have said we will take anything we can get by any means we can get it. And we appreciate it. It is still an ongoing process. There have been 73 national air bridge missions in the last month or so. It is an ongoing process. We appreciate every piece of ppe that we get. Do you have any idea how much you have received from average air bridge. I can circle back to you on that. We can give you a specific count. On testing, how do you view the role of Antibody Testing to getting back to normal . It would allow for noncovid and nonurgent care. This week you were talking about longterm care facilities. You set the standards and protocols were incredibly disappointing. On the discharge data, do you include deaths in the hospital as part of the discharge data . That seems to be the case from some of the other health department. If you are including deaths and that discharge data, is that a fair figure to show people . It gives people the assumption that things are Getting Better. Things are Getting Better. But we slept a little bit. There are no question things are Getting Better when you look at hospitalizations, icus, ventilators, and admissions. I will let ed and judy address the question on Antibody Testing. I am not qualified to answer that. The v. A. Has become a very good partner of ours over the past several we. I think the jury is out. I will come back to you on paramus. I dont want to call out a particular facility. They are in there right now with our teams not only serving staff but helping us figure out how we can coordinate all of these things. I will reserve the right to come back to you. I would like to get their independent assessment. They are there to help our workers. Tenants can instruct their landlords to use the Security Deposit. When you are looking for Something Like if someone has covid or had it. There are two ways to do it. You can look for pieces of the virus in a swab test. Get that back, you can be pretty sure that the person actually has covid at that particular time. Then your body starts to respond to infection. It creates antibodies. They come at a later time. It can vary. Those become important to try to decide if someone has had the disease before. Antibodies, one of the things you hope is that they become protective. They can prevent you from getting the infection again. You might assume that you are immune from getting the infection again. People say, can i get this test now . It will show you if any individual has have this disease in the past. That is what we would like the Antibody Test to be able to tell us. Unfortunately, that is not actually the case. For a variety of reasons. The testing that is out there now comes from a variety of forces. Exactly how specific that test is is unclear. It is not fair if you are infected with one of the more common coronavirus is circulating last year. We also dont know exactly how protective those antibodies are. All of these tests have a level of a all causative array. If i had a population where about five and 100 people actually had it and i tested all of those people, some might test positive. It would be a 5050 chance. For all of these reasons, at this we do not recommend any of that. What we are trying to move forward with his looking at our population to see how many people we dont know who were sick for my defense the and get a better sense of what happened in the past. The answer is yes. But there is an important footnote. I thought we made this point. When we say discharges, we mean between 10 p. M. Two nights ago and 10 p. M. Last night. Deaths we report did not come within the last 24 hours. This is a rolling number. There is a different timeframe associated with these. Not everybody dies at a hospital. If you asked me what the breakdown is, i do not have it. That does not take away from what we believe are significant stabilization, particularly in the number of hospitalizations as judy has pointed to. Thank you. That is something we endeavor, including, we are also going through a rigorous assess to make sure the fatality numbers are as accurate as possible. Including presumptive cases that we will be constantly looking back and reassessing. I think it is important to note, there will be people who expire who have the symptoms of covid19 but what forever reasons they were not tested. Maybe they expired at home. Maybe they are in the hospital but the test is not been performed yet. We are looking at every single one of those. I think it is fair to say that we should count probable cases. We definitely need those numbers. No question. We consider a confirmed case or death anybody who tested positive and has died. Those are relatively simple because you know someone died and they had a positive test. The probable cases go into two broad categories. We are getting there but we are not reporting them out as fast. They might have died at home or in the hospital. The test was never done so it was never reported that way. They become a probable case. If someone were to die where there was a known outbreak and testing was not done, even if it wasnt written on a death certificate, even though they had symptoms that suggest covid, that would indepth being counted as a probable. We are working on getting those numbers. The problem is some of them are not as easy to tease out as it may sound. We will get there but it may take some time. We promise you that. We are talking about a scenario that is more or less dire than it needs to be. We are basing everything on the facts. It is our job to give you all the facts. Think a lot of other states are going through the exact same thing. New york city, pennsylvania, we are doing it. I meant to say this earlier, completely unrelated. I had a short conversation with the president of goldman sachs. I would like to give them a shout out. They are putting 10 million to work. I had a short conversation with him earlier today to thank him for that. That will make a huge difference. There was a bill signed by the president and passed by congress. It is another big slug for small god knows theych need. We continue to plow through the normans backlog of folks claiming Unemployment Insurance and we know you are frustrated by that. We are getting through it. I know slower than a lot of you would like. I want to give them a shout out. Doing everything they can to get through that as fast as possible. Remask i want to thank , judy and and all of the brothers and sisters at the department of health for all they are doing. Pat callahan and the state police and all your colleagues. Jared and others. Two things very simply. We will be back with you tomorrow at 1 00 p. M. In this room. Secondly, folks please stay the , course. It is working but we have seen that we cannot let our guard down. The weather will be better. Not please stay at home. Very hospitable today. Stay away from each other. Keep the social distancing up. That is the most important weapon in the fight to beat this virus. Those hospitalization numbers show that it is working. Lets keep up the great work. Thanks, everybody. God bless. [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] good afternoon, thank you for joining us again this afternoon