Enhance Health Outcomes and give owners more time to prepare. Gov. Kemp good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank everybody for joining us. Just to let everybody know, ive got to im joined today by my jima of, kathleen, Homeland Security director, homer bryson, our insurance and fire safety commissioner general don king, and our of Community Health commissioner, frank very will be available today for questions if you have them. Before i begin the weekly briefing, i want to provide a quick update on the model aubrey the a mod aubrey case. The past few days, there have been several important developments. As many of you know, the Georgia Bureau of investigation became involved in the case on the evening of tuesday, may fifth. Less than two days later, on thursday, may 7, gregory and Travis Mcmichael were arrested for felony murder and aggravated assault of Ahmaud Arbery. Both men are currently jailed in glynn county. 8, that would have been ahmauds 26th birthday. Georgians all over the state ran 2. 3 miles to celebrate his life and draw attention to the case. As you can imagine, this has been a very emotional time for our state. Our prayers remain with his family, loved ones, in the community as a whole. There are many questions that have yet to be answered. Frankly, georgians deserve the truth. Attorney general chris carr announced yesterday that cobb District AttorneyJoyette Holmes will leave lead the prosecution he also urged the department of justice and gbi to conduct an investigation into the process that delayed justice. I hold great confidence in Joyette Holmes. State Law Enforcement, in the department of justice. It is my belief that truth and justice will prevail in georgia. Of our plan to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for our state is Contact Tracing. With nearly 250 staff in the field today, the department is making progress. Under the leadership of dr. Toomey, dph plans to have 1000 staff deployed in the weeks ahead. To streamline Contact Tracing across the state, we are rolling tool new online monitoring , the healthy georgia collaborative which will allow georgians to identify contacts and monitor symptoms. Health data will remain completely confidential. This monitoring tool does not collect any data other than what was entered by the contact. This is how the process is going to work. President s who test positive for covid19 will be contacted by trained Public Health to staff who will work with that individual to recall anyone they may have had close contact with while infectious. Those contacts will then be interviewed by the department of Public Health to help us map and isolate the spread of covid19 in communities across our state. If you are contacted by dph staff, i want to strongly encourage you to participate in the Contact Tracing program. We need your help to defeat this virus. Continue to can take measured steps forward in the days ahead. On april 20, i issued an executive order to reopen certain businesses that were shuttered during our statewide shelterinplace. Im very proud of these hardworking georgians for following the guidance, keeping both of employees as well as their customers safe. I also stand with the Small Business owners and others who decided not to reopen their doors. These men and women have a choice, and i appreciate the incredible challenges that they face every single day in this environment. Today, ive issued an new executive order to extend several provisions, clarifying existing guidelines for certain businesses, and providing guidance to other operators in our state. Covid19r is issued as positive hospitalizations, ventilator use and percentage of positive cases continues to drop. It is based on data, science, and the advice of Public Health officials. Many have warned of a second wave and asked if we are willing to change course if conditions decline. Let me be clear. We will continue to track the numbers and continue to heed dr. Toomeys advice. We will take whatever action is necessary to protect the lives and livelihoods of all georgians. In light of this new executive order, Live Performance venues, bars and nightclubs must remain closed through may 31, 2020. I know this extension is difficult for many georgia business owners. And communities that have music venues. However, we believe that waiting a little bit longer will enhance Health Outcomes and give folks the opportunity to prepare for savory opening in the near future. All georgians must continue to follow social distancing and gatherings of more than 10 people remains band unless there is at least six feet between each person. The gathering ban applies to all nonCritical Infrastructure businesses, local governments, and organizations of all types, including social groups and formal gettogethers and recreational sports, just to name a few. We continue to strongly encourage people to wear face coverings when out in public, and we thank everyone for their willingness to do the right thing. The shelterinplace provision for the medically fragile georgians, age 65 and older remains in effect through june 12, 2020. Mandatory restrictions for sanitation and social distancing will remain in place for all nine Critical Infrastructure businesses, and for recently reopened businesses. Industrytending the specific restrictions that we have had in place. Those will remain in place through the end of the month. Reopen andes slowly do some in some enhanced capacity, we know many are safely returning to their place of employment. While returning to a new normal is exciting, the current guidelines make it difficult for parents to find child care for their children. This new executive order will increase the number of people in a single classroom of a childcare facility from 10 to 20 staff too long as the child ratio set by the department of early care and learning are also maintained. We are told by the department of early care and learning and Public Health that this expansion can be done safely and allows for more facilities to be able to reopen. Childcare facilities must continue to 13 minimum mandatory criteria to be able to operate, including strict screening procedures and sanitation mandates for frequently touched items and surfaces. In that same vein, countless families have reached out to my office to discuss how summer camps can safely operate as we battle the spread of covid19. Working closely with the department of Public Health, constituents as well as some summer camp operators, have developed strict criteria so that these camps can start planning now to reopen with safety guards in place. We are hearing the centers for Disease Control and prevention will be issuing guidance soon. When that happens, this of their guidance will control. Until that time, we will put a guard rail so people can make plans. Ishave to find summer camp any entity offering organizations organized sessions of supervised recreational, athletic, or instructional activities held between Typical School turns including entities commonly referred to as day camps. 2020, summer14, day camps are allowed to operate. If they can meet 32 minimum mandatory criteria. These are required these requirements are extensive and cover a wide range of operations to ensure the safety of workers and participants of all ages. Even though we have these measures in place to allow for summer camps, we are not allowing overnight summer camps in georgia at this time. We will continue to watch the data, keep a close eye on compliance, and make a decision make decisions based on a casebycase basis when dr. Toomey in the department of Public Health determine it is safe to resume overnight camping for campers. Throughout this pandemic, our Restaurant Owners and their employees have done a remarkable job in keeping local families fed. These hardworking georgians have followed the rules, doing the right thing, even when quite honestly it was not very easy to do so. Our new executive order, we are taking another step forward, empowering restaurants to expand operations safely only if they choose. Moving forward, we will allow 10 patrons per 300 square feet of public space in restaurants and dining rooms and increase the party size per table from six to 10 people. For gyms and fitness centers, we have made minor revisions to the mandatory criteria, all based on Public Health guidance, to allow for enhanced flexibility. But strict social distancing and sanitation rules will still apply across the board. Know, hass, as you been an unprecedented challenge for state government. Agencies have met this challenge and continue to provide Critical Services of the people of georgia. Im proud of the state employees who have done it an incredible job of teleworking and adapting to the new normal. To ensure that quality of service continues, starting may stateecific divisions of agencies will begin to phase to limited operations. Guidance for state agencies to safely reopen their offices. As we work through this process, we will issue that guidance to employees, contractors, and constituents. We will be making more detailed announcements in the coming days on how we will be phasing into limited in person operations at state agencies. Im very thankful to president trump, Vice President pence, the Coronavirus Task force for their leadership as we continue to fight the spread of covid19. As of noon today, georgia has received our first shipment of remdesivir from the federal government. We have received 30 cases with 40 vials of the drug per case. And we will work with officials on the deeply appreciate, appreciate, equipment and supplies we received from the trump administration, including our makeshift men of testing supplies. We had a great call yesterday with the Vice President done to across the country, and certainly look forward to working with them in this partnership. Call, the white house issued a call to action, encouraging states to aggressively test nursing home residents and staff over the next two weeks. We have been doing a lot of that in georgia for several weeks, compliments of the Georgia National guard. I want to thank general cardin and his troops. As of today, they have tested 46 of nursing home residents and 24 of the staff at those facilities. There are 46,000 people who still need to be tested. In total, the guard tested 140 two Nursing Homes. They continued to move forward with their Infection Control mission. Until that mission is complete speaking of testing until that mission is complete. Speaking of testing, testing is available to all georgians regardless of coronavirus symptoms. Anyone can call their local Health Department to get scheduled for a test. They can download the Agusta University express care app. Ahealth. Org orust call 706, 721 1852. 706seven to eight1852. Staff will schedule your appointment at one of our testing sites. Cases of covid19 continue to drop as we ramp up testing, certainly an encouraging sign. But here are things Everyone Needs to know about data as we move forward. Many Health Care Facilities and labs are not reporting negative test results to the state. We are working with them to get this Data Collected and published. Test moreaggressively Nursing Homes and longterm care we may see a sharper increasing positive test results. This, it willing allow medical providers to intervene earlier and mitigate adverse outcomes amongst vulnerable citizens. Now nursing home, assisted living and personal care home residents and staff make up , and of our positive cases 49 of total deaths involved nursing home, assisted living, and personal care home residents. We ask everyone to continue to protect the elderly in the medical fragile the medically fragile, as we work to ensure quick, convenient testing is available for our georgians for all georgians. To emphasize a few points. Every day, we are seeing reports that more and more people are holding off important medical screenings and vaccinations, out of the year of exposure. Yesterday evening, i read a wall street journal article that new cancer diagnoses increased a staggering 30 . Please do not risk your health delaying important import important appointments or treatments. And healthviders care facilities are open and have safeguards in place for their patients. I want to renew the call to action all georgians, to heed the advice of Public Health officials by avoiding large gatherings to help slow the spread of covid19. Your cooperation is making a difference in saving lives. Finally, i want to give a shout hardworking georgians who worked tirelessly, aaron shoemaker and david cowan, who report for duty to provide American Sign Language interpretation for deaf and hard of hearing georgians at a moments notice. Their efforts are vital as we Work Together to stop the spread of covid19 and to put georgians back on a path to prosperity. So aaron and david, thank you so much for your tireless work during this pandemic. With that, i will open it to questions. We have general king, general cardin, commissioner frank mary and dr. Toomey available. How concerned is georgia in terms of folks from other states coming in . And what is being done to manage that, if anything . Im not overly concerned about that. I know that had been an issue early on when there was a lot of air travel, but that has been drastically cut. Most of our visitors coming to educated,are well like georgians are. They are complying with the rules. If they are going into our businesses that are open or enjoying our beaches or state parks, they are having to provide by the rules. From everything i have seen and heard on our daily and weekly calls with Law Enforcement personnel, Public Health officials, we havent really seen any issues with that. I would certainly encourage all georgians to stay and vacation in georgia, but if they decide to go someone else go somewhere else, i asked them to take best practices they learned here and use them in other states and follow the orders of my fellow governors, wherever i have a question about data reporting wherever they travel. Like question reporter i have a question about data reporting. When we first reported march 12, the website now says march 5 is the first death. Commissioner toomey i will have to get back you exactly what the change was about. We have been working with updates and increasing capacity of our website to allow for it to be more visually impressive and easier to access. And i will have to ask the webmasters as to what might have led to that change, because i dont know. Kemp, thanksernor for taking time to speak with us. My question to you is, since things are reopened and more people are deciding to come out, and you said everyone can get a test, what are some new goals right now you have in store for the next three weeks . We still have to continue to move the needle on testing. The trumphankful for administration and the Vice President. His part of the team, the shipments home or in the team have gotten, general cardins work to ramp up testing, right now we have tested 262,179 georgians. That is 2. 4s desk 2. 4 7 . We have move the needle in the last few weeks. Y and our dr. Toome team with making sure we did that. But we have to continue to do that. We are going to be focused on the longterm care facilities specifically, the Nursing Homes, and we are strategizing that right now. General cardin, i think him and his crew were at a nursing home or longterm care facility today , as a matter of fact. But we have also got to continue guess get the troops on the battlefield, if you will, for Contact Tracing. That is something i have charged dr. Toomey with. That is what she has been doing for i guess almost 40 years now. She knows what to do. She is typing the people to do it read we have a lot of Resources Available to us, with very hardworking people in the state that are willing to help us with that. We are doing this now in all 18 Public Health districts, so it is not like we are going to do this in a few days. That is actively going on now with around 250 people. We are implementing the technology piece of that. It is not something we flip a switch on. I amis in the field, and sure she will be giving us more updates in the days ahead about that. I feel much better about where we are on that piece, and then weve got to continue to stay focused on any potential hotspot. Was inexample is, i albany a few days ago, looking at the mobile hospital unit. I mentioned i felt like hall county was an issue we were concerned with that the time, and there was a lot written about that being georgias next hotspot. Numbers there are starting to flatten, potentially going the right direction. General king has done tremendous work in the Latino Community there to raise awareness about the virus. Dr. Toomey has been working with officials,c health the business community, elected leadership there, neighborhood leadership where the spread was and it was a fairly contained environment. So through those processes and that work that we have done dealing with all these situations and other places like upson county and carrollton and cartersville, we were able to jump on that quickly. We are not out of the woods. We continue to throw resources up there, including temporary medical personnel to help with the hospital, but we are in really good shape up there. We just have to keep hunger down up there. General king is going to be up there friday. There is a lot of good things going on. We have to continue to focus on areas like that, or if we have any other areas that pop up. We are in a great place to do that now because of the hospital bed capacity cannot capacity, number of ventilators we have, i was talking with director bryson about ppe supplies, the one thing we are concerned with his surgical gowns. We are seeing that market free up. We are in good shape on ppe right now. We are just in a good place that want to keep these numbers moving in a right direction. How does the state plan to distribute remdesivir . Governor kemp dr. Toomey might want to add something to that. We literally just got it today. Public health is working on protocols for distribution. I believe there is federal guidance on people that get it, and report to help with the clinical part of that. Commissioner toomey let me quickly say we will be pulling together a team to look at this, including health directors. We want to ensure hospitals have access to this drug. It will go to hospitals. To othergo providers. We want to create a consistent algorithm that will be the most fair and provide the most impact in the hardesthit areas, as well as the smoldering areas that continue. We will get that out, we hope, in the next day or two. Reporter governor, on longterm care, will owners of these facilities be required to have the residents tested . Governor kemp we are talking about Nursing Homes specifically. So our charges is to test them. If the owners dont want to participate, that is something i would advise commissioner barry speak to, or perhaps general cardin. Do you want to mention how that will work . Thanks. Us to forceult for people do that, so it is highly encouraged. We had great conversations with the nursing home association. We will get tremendous cooperation with that. Unless there is some federal mandate that forces them to comply, i dont believe we can force them as a state. But hopefully, through cooperative agreements we have in place now, they would be willing to do that. Thank you. We have had great conversations with the association, and they are really working with us on the situation. And we are grateful for that. Reporter as you are speaking, the speaker of the house sent a memo saying the session will start in june. With a multibillion dollar deficit, a hole in the budget, are you willing to consider tax hikes, fee increases, other than budget cuts, to help . Governor kemp i dont want to get into specifics of what might be legislated during the session. That would be something that has to start in the house. There is a lot of issues being thrown around. What the General Assembly takes up, i wouldnt want to speculate on that. We are working with the appropriation shares every day, really watching our revenue numbers and what that is going to look like in the next couple of weeks. And as we get toward the end of this month. Mym a budget perspective, priorities on the same they were the last press conference, supporting our educators, standing up for our hardworking as we come out of this really tough Economic Situation we are going to have. Georgian, from a workforce perspective, is as important as ever. We have to put a focus on health care in our state, and we have all seen how important a black safety is in our state. That is where my priorities will continue to be, and what that looks like with the numbers and revenue and what happens with the federal government and potential new guidance with the ares act, or if there is fourth stimulus, i wouldnt want to speculate that this point. With 11 help ford alive. What would you say to members of the community who are hoping for a discussion on a hate crime law in georgia following the death of Ahmaud Arbery . Governor kemp we continue to look forward with the General Assembly. In plays of bills are right now, hate crimes legislation being one of them. Speaker atant and both been talking about that. Withok forward to talking them about all things legislative on june 11. Wondering ifas your commissioner could give more details about Contact Tracing. Cases at this point being contact traced . If not, what share are being traced . Idea ofyou give us any what capacity we have each day to trace cases . We areioner toomey incrementally increasing capacity every day. In with virtually every case a nursing home, in a highrisk situation, it has been contact traced. It isnt as though this is new. This is something that has been done. What is new is the tracking of them with the app, and the capacity to improve our ability to have the data identify how many contacts per case. We have a number of people on 250 of our own staff deployed, several hundred wedents, but by june 23, will have 1000 people working on Contact Tracing. We have been able to ramp up that quickly. We have training capacity. Already we have been able to get two staff from the cdc foundation, so they were hired and placed to help us with training, the additional staff as well as several epidemiologist and several contact tracers as well. We are developing videos, and i hope in a future meeting not only can we show the videos at one of these press conferences, but actually demonstrate the app to show how that works. Single case is being interviewed, and every single case is being asked about contacts. We just rolled this out last week, so it is fully deployed throughout the state. And we will be providing that data on an ongoing basis as we move ahead, but we will have or contact tracers, which will give us more capacity to do not only these interviews and followups, but i talk about social networks, being able to look more broadly at networks where people have been exposed, and be able to do more aggressive intervention and education in the community. One of the most important things thean do, not only through video education materials we are developing, it is also working with specific communities. Because it is so critical communities understand why we are doing this, why it is important to cooperate, and to engage in community leadership. We are looking to find champions for this in various communities, among celebrities and others that are recognized, to help us let people know this is important. This is not something that is a negative, it isnt the government tracking you, our app is not one that monitors your if you go through waz e, or as you are driving around. Our app is to allow our staff to monitor people without having to can see daily their temperatures, how they are feeling, to expand capacity. But we were have been able to move so quickly in this, i think the first time we talked was just a few weeks ago. You and i talked about being able to get this many people on board this quickly. And there has just been this tremendous response to the application process, both from the student interns from our own staff, and from the website and job announcements. So we can comfortably say we and get more0 beyond middle to late june. This is a question for you, governor, and dr. Toomey. Today dr. Anthony faucher was testifying to a Senate Committee and set the nation would not be ready, would not have a vaccine ready, when schools are set to reopen in the fall. Despite that, chancellor wrigley was quoted as saying today they are going ahead with plans to reopen all schools, all university of georgia system schools, as well as beginning the opening over the summer. Are you confident that students will be safe when they return to school in the fall . Dr. Toomey, are you sharing the concerns of dr. Fauci that we inevitable second wave, as you alluded to, governor . Governor kemp i have spoken to chancellor wrigley. He is working on different plans on what that would look like to have students back on campus. I let him know my prerogative would be for that to happen. I know a lot of parents around the state want to see that in a multitude of ages, and what that looks like is something we are working on now. Chancellor wrigley has been working very hard with the president s of the system to see how that would look and see how you could check especially the and what arele, the requirements for the students and professors, and that is something that is working. We are not the only state doing that. There are people going back to school, i think already, in other states. I think Purdue University announced they would have in person classes. I dont think this is anything out of the normal i will let dr. Toomey speak to this, but we will continue to follow the data, continue to follow the advice of Public Health officials in these best practices on how we stop the slat stop the spread event the spread in a campus setting, toomey and id dr. Have had discussions on what it looks like in a dorm environment. Those are early on right now. Dr. Toomey, i dont know if you want to add something. Commissioner toomey the other thing i wanted to add is that we are looking not only at the data , but looking at trends and hotspots and running to get on identifyingquickly, those hotspots and then intervening very quickly on top of that to ensure that there is no further spread, so that a hotspot doesnt come a progressive trend in the community. But the most important thing we can do is to continue social distancing, continue to talk about the importance of wearing a mask when you go out in public, when you cant social distance well, and continue to say this isnt over. We have to continue to follow those guidelines. And when you are wearing a mask, you are protecting me, not just yourself, especially me, and i think that is something that still a lot of people dont understand. You will hear me say that over and over again. We can ensure that our state is as everyone takes responsibility for themselves, their families, and their communities, as we move forward together. Reporter greetings. This is kind of a political question. And i know you are not up for reelection, but we are less than six months from the election it the Washington Post had 39 percent approval to your response to the coronavirus. Governor kemp im not concerned post pollwashington today. I am concerned about two battles, to stop the spread of covid19 and the economic battle we are in. Toomey, i was talking with a doctor who mentioned remdesivir. I know the state is getting more supplies. He said he and other doctors have concerns that it might not be effective or even harmful in some populations, and that there are many questions about it. What do you stated that as a medical professional . Commissioner toomey before we fully deploy, we will learn as much as we can. It appeared to shorten the ingth of the illness hospitalized patients, which is if it can mitigate some of the severity of the illness and shorten the illness. And we will be very closely monitoring. But our own Emory University hospital did some of those very trials, and we will rely on their experience, their expertise, to help us, even as we develop odd lines for how it is going to be used. So we would certainly not be recommending its use for anyone who was identified as potentially at risk. I want to also reflect on the fact i am not an elected official. Answering as a passionate Public Health official. Reporter governor, the extended restrictions you announced on business that run until the end of the month, do you tend for any of those are all of those to expire at the end of the month . Governor kemp i wouldnt be able to answer that right now. We just implemented this. We are going to do like we did last time we had the order, continue to watch the numbers. It is important for people at home to realize, the folks tuning in, that the data is always a couple of weeks behind. We are just now being able to really dig into the data from the move i made a couple of weeks ago. You know, you have a good feeling avoid you think that data is, based on other things we are looking at besides all these different models and just the daytoday information of the department of Public Health website, which gives us a really good guide, especially information they are putting up every day, but also i have had constant communication with especially metro hospital ceos and ceos from all over the state, hospital ceos small over the state, and that data continues to look very, very good. Number of newthe cases we may be seeing in a day, if there is a heavy day or a not so heavy day, and you also see i guess thee beds, Critical Care beds use is going down, so it gives you more availability regardless of what some model tells you. Whatever it is happening out there, nobody is going to the hospital because of it. And that is what we want. We said early on, the targeted response we had to be responsible, to be methodical as we moved into the restrictions, and now we are as methodical as we move out, we learned early on weve got to protect the vulnerable, the people most at risk. You are seeing that in our a live now going to africanamerican communities come a lot of nursing home in areass that are that are unusually susceptible to covid19, general king and his team focusing on the Latino Community in hall county. That is where we have to focus our efforts every day, as well as testing in the Nursing Homes. That gives us a good idea of what we are dealing with. That is one reason we had in the remarks about, if we Start Testing the Nursing Homes and go into a lot of these type of areas, you may see a spike in our case numbers, but it doesnt necessarily mean that weve got some new hotspot. Because we are focused on a vulnerable population, and want to know if they are positive so we can take care of that problem and stop the spread, get resources to that community. Could do otherwise. You could go test in places that probably dont have a high probability rate, that may make your numbers look better, but we are not focused on numbers looking better, we are focused on vulnerable populations to protect them. That is why i made the cal for all georgians the call for all georgians to continue to protect those who are medically fragile as well as those in our longterm communities. I glanced at the executive order about driver services. It appears to say students, teenagers who didnt take the test and got licenses now must take those tests. Can you provide clarity . Governor kemp yes. That was always the case. We wanted to clarify that. We had a lot of questions out there. Anybody that has gotten a drivers license and hasnt taken the test even though they met the criteria of so many hours on the road and had been to driving school, had their parents verify, they are still going to have to take the test. Reporter why did you sign the additional executive order . Governor kemp to make sure that is clear. We can follow up with more information. I just signed that a few minutes ago. That was something the legal team sent over. Thank you, very much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] todayand order your copy wherever books and ebooks are sold. Wednesday, the Supreme Court continues hearing oral arguments. On wednesday, here cases on the Electoral College and casting votes by electors for another candidate, despite the outcome. On demandwednesday, on cspan. Org, or listen on the free, cspan radio app. Immediately following the live Supreme Court session, joined Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution center, leading a live discussion with scholars. Personal directory for Contact Information for members of congress, governors, and federal agencies. Order your copy online today at cspanstore. Org. Washington journal primetime. For the next hour, a special evening edition. Your questions and comments about the coronavirus epidemic start now. Host with the u. S. Coronavirus dr. H toll past 82,000, fauci telling a Senate Committee earlier today that the official number is much higher. On this tuesday, may 12, we welcome you to the washington journal. House Speaker Pelosi outlining a new stimulus plan. The price tag, 3 trillion. Votes this friday. Live on cspan