Transcripts For CSPAN Arizona Gov. Ducey Holds Coronavirus Briefing 20240712

Gov. Ducey good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here today. Saying i begin by talked to Health Care Leaders from around the state on friday and they told me some incredibly moving stories about our frontline workers. Our doctors, our nurses, our hospital staff. Everyone that works in health care and all of our caregivers. So, i just want to reemphasize to all of them how grateful we are for what they do. How much we appreciate their hard work and commitment, especially at this time of incredible stress and how much we value them. I know everyone in the room likely knows a doctor, nurse, caregiver, somebody works for a hospital. Please also extent your appreciation. These folks are the heroes on the front lines today for the people of arizona and im grateful for everything they do. I also want to say i am thankful for the people of arizona. Ive asked for a lot of patience and im going to ask for some more patience as we go forward. This pandemic is incredible in terms of the sacrifices that it is asking all of our citizens to continue to participate. Our numbers continue to increase in arizona. They are going in the wrong direction and we are going to take some additional actions andy to contain this virus get back on track. To do that, we will have to persevere and it is going to be for some time into the future. Remember, you are safer at home. The virus is widespread. So if you dont need to go out, dont go out. I know there are many last friday, saturday and sunday that did not go out. You are safer at home. So, if you need to get something done, get it done, get home. Personal responsibility and responsible behavior can go a long way to slow this virus. Here are arizonas latest numbers. Im saying they are going in the wrong direction. I want to show you the brutal facts of our Current Situation today. 74,553 covid19 cases. Averagege, we have 2857 new cases per day. And we have lost 1588 arizonans. So my heart and condolences go out to all the families of arizonans who have lost loved ones through this crisis. And we are going to do everything we can to protect people in this state going forward. This is a dangerous virus and we need to slow it down and contain it. A global pandemic. Its affecting all of our states. And arizona is not alone right now in terms of where we areo n record cases are on record cases and record hospitalizations. You will see most of record cases and record hospitalizations are the west and the south. Visit with the Coronavirus Task force this morning. Dr. Deborah birx, dr. Anthony fauci, cabinet secretary azar. Dr. Birx is actually in new mexico today. She was in texas yesterday and she will be in arizona tomorrow to talk about additional measures that we can take here in our state. We are grateful for their partnership and responsiveness. This is a graphic from the new york times. 29 states have seen increases in covid19 cases over the last week. In arizona, we are seeing an increase higher than many of these other states. Four states in the u. S. That are on the dec line. So, the time of additional action is upon us. This is new reported cases by day in the United States. You can see the steep spike, the flattening, and a beginning of decline and they are on the rise again. And we want to do our part in arizona to bring this number down. Is our weekly covid19 cases by age. One thing that dr. Birx mentioned this mornings we are is we are seeing a different spread of the virus in this time in the United States and arizona versus what we became so familiar with on the east coast in march and april. We are seeing increases in young people. In arizona, that is making up a large portion of our new cases. If you look at the blue demographic here, that is ages 20 to 44. That is a much larger number of cases and an increase in those number of cases. We know statistically that these folks were not in harms way from what we saw in terms of mortality. But, we have new information because of these cases today and its a message we need to get out far and wide in the state of arizona. Now, if you look at hospitalizations, weve had a lot of focus at this table about making sure that we care for folks that are in our most vulnerable category. That is someone who is elderly, with comorbidity and high risk or underlying Chronic Health conditions. That is the largest part of our hospitalizations at 40 . But, i want you to look at the 22 that are hospitalized, that are age 20 to 44, ok . If these folks who are in that category have comorbidities, and dr. Birx pointed out specifically, obesity and diabetes, you are at high risk as well. So, we want to slow the spread of this. We want to stop the spread. If you have not gotten this yet, you can avoid it and we want to make sure you have all the care and resources if you are in one of these positions inside our hospital. We also want to make sure if young people get it, oftentimes, they are going to recover. But they can also share it with mom or dad or grandma or grandfather. Thats a message we need to amplify. The numbers in arizona specifically, i have already mentioned they are going in the wrong direction. This is the criteria we have used. Today, arizona is remaining on pause with additional steps to slow the spread. Thursday, son dont expect a huge change in these numbers. The illness is up in emergency rooms. Our covid patient hospital bed use is up. And our percentage of positive tests is increasing as well. On symptoms, we want to see a downward trajectory in both influenza and covid. Were not. Were seeing it going the wrong direction. If you look at the gold line, that is the flu, influenza like illness. Fluflu is behaving like the traditionally behaves. Whats different is covid19. They call it a novel virus for a reason. Thats unique, it is going the wrong direction, and it is climbing. It is something we have to Pay Attention to. In terms of cases, we want to see a downward trajectory for a 14 day period or a downward trajectory in positive tests. This is where we are. Now, i dont know how well you can see this on your screen, but if you look at the cases, the first case happened in arizona in late january. We declared a state of emergency on march 11. And we saw cases, but no real increase in cases for weeks and weeks and weeks. If you remember, stay home, stay connected, stay healthy. That ended on may 15. You can see for two weeks, pretty steady, and then we had an increase in cases for the weeks following. So, from the actions of really slowing that spread down slowly, a twoweek lag, and now we are seeing the increase in cases. I want you to see this so you can see we can take some of the steps that we took to turn this in the other direction. And it really just read amplifies the message that you are safer at home. This is our percentage of positive tests. The Blue Mountain represents the number of tests we have an increase in test. The goldline shows the positivity of tests. Again, heading in the wrong direction. So, weve got more tests, we have more positive cases. An increase in positive cases demonstrate we have more spreading of this virus. So, we are going to test more so we can isolate whos necessary, slow things down, and reduce the cases and positivity. Is see want to see the Blue Mountain grove in terms of tests we conduct and then the goldline go down to lower positivity. Hospitals. We want to make sure we can treat all patients without crisis care. These are our hospital beds in arizona. Gray represents availability. Blue represents inpatient beds in use for something other than covid19. Gold represents covid19 patients. So, you can see an increase in the use of hospital beds and an increase in the number of covid hospital beds in arizona. Now, this does not include the beds that we have prepared for surge availability, if necessary. This is just our current Hospital Capacity without factoring in Surge Capacity. This is our intensive care unit, icu. If you get extremely sick, we want to make sure we can care for you. You can see the availability in gray. You can see blue is other than covid like illness. You can see the increase in covid19 cases inside our icu facilities. This does not include Surge Capacity. If you remember, we went and did the press Conference Much different than this press conference on april 9 at st. Lukes. We have been preparing since march, april and through may for what is upon us in arizona right now. Is we are prepared for what coming. This also is a graphic that will show you we pretty much have been in terms of icu beds flat, in terms of noncovid19 patients and increasing in covid19 patients in arizona. Ventilators, weve got a lot of availability on ventilators. Although we do have an increase in terms of covid19 patients using them, but we have plenty in our stockpile, if necessary. I want you to know we are working very closely with our hospitals and our hospital leaders. They have been responsive and we work to ensure that we can build capacity within this hospital system. Weve done that through communication, partnership, relationship, and executive order. I want to thank peter fine at banner health, linda hunt at dignity health, robert gray at the mayo clinic, todd laporte at honor health. Mihs. Pervis at formerly and judy rich at tucson medical. I was able to meet with each of them, hear their thoughts, talk about our situation in arizona. And i also want to thank them for their very good recommendations on how to contain this spread going forward. O dr. L turn it over t crist. She is leading the Health Care Public Health Effort for her teams hard work. And talk a little bit about our hospital relationship mean arizona. Thank you. We have been working very closely with our hospital partners, the chief medical officers, chief clinical officers. As part of the crisis standard of care plan which is a plan that wasnt limited in arizona at the end of 2014, beginning of 2015. We have a state disaster medical advisory committee. This consists of members of hospitals, health care coalitions, the medical board, the nursing boards. Groups of experts that come together. That group on friday recommended implementing the crisis standards of care is really the framework so that facilities can be prepared if they need to have if there is a reduction in the type of resources or their ability to be able to provide care at that specific facility. These standards, it was recommended that we implement that. We will activate the crisis standards of care. This will encourage our hospitals. We are recommending they activate tactics to address their space, gets surge beds up. Make sure they have staffing and resources as necessary for that hospitals Current Situation. This is being put proactively into place so that hospitals on their own individual trajectory can implement these standards if necessary. We are asking them to prepare for surge and anticipate fully staffing their hospitals. For those that do determine they are in a crisis level, that they cease all surgeries except essential surgeries and procedures that do not impair the care of other patients, we have asked them to activate their hospital incident command and do that on an increasing frequent basis. And to make sure they are establishing regular communication with their local Health Jurisdiction or local Public Health department. Gov. Ducey thank you, doctor. Lets talk about testing in arizona and our focus on testing and the information that it shows us. In arizona, we have done over 677,000 tests. Overe diagnostic or pcr, 500,000 have been done and over rheology oreveral the antibody test. We will continue to focus on testing and increase testing. It is important. It gives us the information that we need. We are building capacity around testing. If you do want to get tested, and we would like you to get tested, go to azhel alth. Gov testingblitz. So, we simply cannot let up. This is a time for us to put on a full court press as a state. We cannot be under any illusion that this virus is going to go away on its own. Our expectation is that next week, our numbers will be worse. It will take several weeks for the mitigations that we have put in place and are putting in place to take effect, but they will take effect. So over time, we will see reductions and nonincreases. That is the goal. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen. If every arizonan would join in this and follow these steps, well slow this spread, well save lives along the way and we will see it reflected in this data. Our objective is to protect lives and to protect livelihoods. And when in doubt, we will err on the side of protecting lives. We are going to err on the side of caution to make sure that we can deal with this pandemic in the state of arizona. The objective is to slow the virus. The virus is not going away at this point in time. There is no cure. There is no vaccine. We want to slow it down. Weve done that before and we can do that again at this time. We need to do that again in this time. We want to protect the most vulnerable. And, the better we communicate and people realize how contagious and dangerous this virus is, the better able we will be to protect lives and protect our most vulnerable. The best way you can do this is to wear a amask. Mask up. I want to remind arizonans to please wear a mask. I want to thank our local leaders for their communication on this with mask wearing across the state. We are also going to make sure at the state level, with state resources, that everyone has access to a mask in our state. By the end of this week, not only will we have that program in place, and every one of our correctional facilities, from Correctional Officers to inmates, will have a mask. Our inmates upon release are given two masks so they can begin their time in public wearing a mask. And the increased masking is working. This is the ihne modeling. Sometimes it has been on target, sometimes it has been off target. Arizona within mask usage on june 28, yesterday, we would be at 3891 in terms of cases. We hit that. We are at 3858. They project if you look at that descending line, that the continual use of masks, the decline it will happen cases in the state of arizona. So, this gives us hope, it gives us a target and a plan. I think we all know this and understand it. If we all hold ourselves accountable to doing it, it will make the biggest possible difference in the spread of the virus in arizona. Im asking every arizonan to do their part. As we know more about this, it really makes sense that this idea of physical distancing, of washing your hands, of staying at home where you are safer can make the difference in terms of slowing the spread. Its common sense. Its personal responsibility. Its good habits. But, we are not going back to normal anytime soon. This is the way to protect the most people in our state. Lets make sure it is part of our routine. I also want to talk about a number that i dont think has ever come up at this press conference. Its a number that is on discussion with the white house Coronavirus Task force. Its one thats been topical also on the governors Conference Calls. It is called the if you look at that symbol of r, lowercase t. Ught. Ronounce that rna that shows the average number of people that will become infected by an infectious person. What you want that number to be is less than 1. If it is less than 1, you are slowing the spread of the virus. If it is more than one, you are increasing the spread. I have talked a lot about states that were hit first and hit hardest and hit before us. New york certainly received a lot of attention and we learned a lot from what happened in new york. Massachusetts was in that same juggernaut of virus spread. And charlie baker, the governor of massachusetts, helped me understand some of the things they did to get folks to understand how to get this below 1. I want to show you where ever zone it is today. Were at 1. 18. Ok, so we are 18 basis points over 1. It was not that long ago that arizona was under 1. And for those of you that want to check more into this stuff, that is the website at the bottom of the page. Slash, slash, rt. Live. You have to put both of the slashes in or you will go to the wrong website. You can look interactively where arizona is, where every other state in the nations. You can see it was not that long ago, we were beneath 1. That is where we need to begin to trend again. That allows us to slow the other and in time have alternatives in terms of therapeutics, vaccine, cures, whatever our incredible medical professionals across the nation are going to bring to us. But until then, we have got to slow and contain the spread. We brought this number down a bit in the last couple of weeks. We have seen it flattened and lower. We need to bring it down further and we need to bring it down faster. This gives you an idea of how the math works. If you have 3858 cases on a daily basis, how quickly that can increase to 16,000. And if you want to plug in a number less than 1 four you look at the number where arizona was below 1, it is the inverse. Andbegin to see it slow reduce and our trends will begin to go in the right direction. And the best way to do all of this is to mask up. Remember, you are safer at home and be responsible. The idea of physical distancing, respecting others physical distance is incredibly important. So, reactions that we are going to take today are going to be to minimize gatherings and large congregations. Arizonans have been by and large terrific, fantastic, and responsible. But, we have found some categories where we need to take more aggressive actions and thats what we are going to do today. Todays executive order will pause the operation of bars, gyms, movie theaters, water parks, and tubing. Effective at 8 p. M. Today with a targeted reopening date in 30 reopen, these to establishments would have to attest and adhere to Public Health regulations and parse it for the public to see. Enforcement will be let by local led by local Public Health officials and local authorities. We all saw the photos and videos of some of the things that were happening around our state this weekend. And the result of that has been an increase in the spread. So with this targeted approach, we know that we can pump the brakes in arizona, we can pause. Our aspirational goal is to get these establishments reopened in 30 days with enforcement by county Health Officials, but we are going to be monitoring the data along the way and we are going to do everything necessary to protect Public Health. Mass also going to limit gatherings. So, indoor and outdoor Public Events of 50 or more will be prohibited. The department of liquor licenses and control will cease issuing special event licenses and this is applicable statewide. Cities and counties have the authority to approve larger events, but only if adequate safety precautions are implemented, including physical distancing measures. Pools, a gagain, with the focus of breaking up large gatherings. So this prohibits groups of larger than 10 from congregating together in or near the pool. Private pools, apartments, condos and multihousing complexes must post signage at entrances requiring physical distancing and limiting groups larger than 10 from congregating near the pool. We also want to bring as much certainty as possible for arizona schools. Of course, our objective is to educate our kids as best as possible, in the safest environment. At this point in time, we are going to delay the first day of school until august 17. Well continuously reevaluate this target date. We are working closely with superintendent hoffman with the objective to educate our children safely and successfully. And we will continue to communicate along the way and continue programs for kids in need. Also, we have great concern and folks in longterm care facilities, Skilled Nursing facilities and some of our folks that are developmentally ableled that have not been to be visited by family. We want that to happen. We will resume that as soon as it is safe. So if you want to see mom or papa, we havend to bend this curve the other way. In the interim, we are going to facilityg 10,000 per so they can purchase ipads and soeens and digital devices that we can have more interaction between loved ones from home to longterm care facilities. There will be a lot of flexibility, but the objective here is they will have devices that work, so regardless of how big the device needs to be, so the person inside the longterm care facility can see their loved ones and communicate. And once it is safe, we have protocols for how visitations can begin again. With that, i want to turn it over to dr. Christ for an update on Public Health. Dr. Christ thank you. Just to go over those questions that you should ask yourself because you truly are safer at home, there are varying risks and one of the intensive Public Health is to decrease risk to people. So, your biggest risk is going to be being around other people you are not normally around. You want to ask yourself how many people are you going to be interacting with when you reach your destination . Are they going to be able to be socially distancing . Are they going to be able to wear cloth face coverings because if they are not, that increases your risk. Engaging with new people that you may not know or know who are in their social cohort or the steps they take and also raise your risk. And we do know there are people who are asymptomatic or who have mild symptoms and can transmit the virus to others. Can you physically distance at the location where you would be . Can you stay about six feet away from others . Will you be indoors and outdoors . Being indoors increases your risk versus being outdoors. The closer you are to people in your location, the higher your risk for getting covid19. And you want to make sure if you are highrisk, so over the age of 65 or with a medical condition that put you more at risk, that you really are thinking about that question. And if you do need to go out, that you are physically distancing. And whats the length of time you would be interacting with people . The longer you interact with somebody especially at a close distance will increase your risk significantly. So, you want to make sure you are decreasing your time that you spend in close proximity with others and it also protects them in infect it and are a systematic asymptomatic. We heard a lot about the trouble arizonans were having getting tested not this past weekend, but the weekend before. We started to put different activities into place to reduce that. Arizonans to not be able to get testing. We were very upset seeing what was going on. This weekend, we increased testing in airedale. We provided funding so they could support their staff, get restrooms for their patients and water. Orprovided them with ppe personal protective equipment for staff. For everybody who got a test, we coverings. We worked with walgreens to encourage them to open a site in that area. Currently, we are working with asu. Asu has a salivabased test they can scale up quickly and we are looking to offer free salivabased testing in the area moving forward. Asks we have,gest kind of a call to action for those who have had covid19 and have recovered, there is a potential treatment called convalescent plasma that doctors are using to treat severe cases of coronavirus. People who have recovered may have the antibodies. ,hose individuals can donate and that would be given to patients having either severe or high risk for having severe disease. Asking those who have had covid19 and recovered to seriously consider donating their blood and potentially plasma. And then we have gotten a lot of questions about who can get tested. We have not changed. Our Standing Order statewide. There are providers that do require symptoms. Our Standing Order is for those that believe they have been exposed to or infected with covid19. You are still eligible to get testing. We would recommend you go to our ealth. Gov. Azh we now have Collection Sites on our map and we continue to add additional sites. Some require preregistration and we would recommend to guarantee availability, go on the website and preregister for an appointment. Forill be updating guidance Independence Day. We know a lot of people like to get together for the fourth of july and celebrate, but we are asking this weekend that you celebrate the Independence Day with your immediate household or daily contacts. Do not expand that and have large groups either at your home or out in public. We need to protect our most vulnerable family members and friends. If you have grandparents or folks that are highrisk, it might be a good time to engage them through facetime or other video chat message. If you have people over, try to stay outside, make sure youre staying hydrated, physically distanced, and wearing a mask if you are not with your normal cohort. Thank you, dr. Crist, for all your hard work and for that of your team. I want to turn it over to general mcguire. He has been serving not only leading our national guard, but military and emergency affairs, trying to stamp out the fires happening literally around our state to building our supply lines. He has been on the front lines, so thank you. Give us an update. Yes, sir. As i mentioned, a type one downent team still working at the bighorn fire in the catalina mountains just north of tucson. All the citizens were very compliant. They are continuing to manage that, hopefully get that under control. On Emergency Management resource requests, since we last met thursday, i am happy that dr. Christ and her team submitted their request for staffing assistance through fema and were able to get medical assistance to the tune of 60 personnel to yuma county to deploy to our Hospital Systems between northwest Regional Medical center in yuma and a Medical Center in tucson. They still have 820 guardsmen on mission to support covid19. Gov. Ducey thanks so much, general. I appreciate all the work you are doing on every front. Before we go to questions, i want to just say a personal thank you to the press and to the assembled media. Thursday thatlast you help spread the word, that you are safer at home and that the virus is widespread. I am grateful. I know that was widely reported. I saw it in print all over the place. I want you to know how much i appreciate it. It is going to go a long way to bend the curve the right direction. I am going to be saying. The more it is amplified, the more arizonans see this the faster we will navigate through this to a position of higher safety and protection for all of the people of arizona. With that, patrick, let us open it for questions. Good afternoon. Governor ducey, 50 or less is what you said for public gatherings. Does that include churches . Religious gatherings . What are the restrictions . Gov. Ducey those are Public Events. You are safer at home is what we are saying. We want to see physical distancing. We are going to continue to put that message out there. Those are Public Events. Then places of business where there are large congregations. The enforcement is by city, correct . Gov. Ducey buy local Health Officials, yes. That is up to them if there are any . Gov. Ducey up to them. The department of liquor and licenses will be doing enforcement. Followe that would not the executive order for bars and nightclubs. How do enforcements work with bars who also serve food . The loophole the last time around. Gov. Ducey in the executive order, there is much clearer guidance as to how this is going to work. It is going to limit large congregations. We expect our operators that are going to be operating in terms of food service and dinein to have physical distancing inside their establishment along with the proper use of these coverings. Really quick,ist, the results being released, what happened . Electronic it is an lab recording file. Something happened with the file. It did not get transmitted to the department in time. It will be included in tonights because it will include labs from today and labs from tomorrow. Two things. Restaurants . Ut are we going to keep rules the same for them . Gov. Ducey this guidance goes specifically to bars and nightclubs and tubing. The guidance in terms of physical distancing we put out for restaurants is the expectation. Lets come back to bars. We were here in may when you said restaurants, not bars. Food ll, if you have you allowed to continue as happened in scottsdale and tempe. Did you screw up . Gov. Ducey we are fixing it. We are going to continue to adjust depending on what the data and information is. I have had a graphic that shows us turning up or down the light and energy in the academy. I said, when it comes to protecting lives versus protecting livelihoods, we are going to air on the side of protecting lives. We have to break up large congregations. Thats what we did so well in march, and that is what we are doing now. To follow up on peters question, i want to make sure. An exception for First Amendment protected activities. I would assume political bodies and churches are not subject to the 50 . Gov. Ducey the constitution remains the supreme law of the land in arizona. Governor, i wanted to know what the purpose of Vice President pences visit is tomorrow and if you know any kind of itinerary for the visit . Gov. Ducey i believe things are changing. It is basically to accompany dr. Deborah birx. Texas,x is going to arizona, today she is in new mexico. Of course you know she is leading the Coronavirus Task ande along with dr. Fauci she is going to be in arizona and Vice President pence is going to accompany her for the update on whats happening in arizona. It is an official visit and it is focused on health care and Public Health in arizona. And one question for dr. Christ. I know we have enough ventilators. But do we have enough staff . Is there enough staff for weeks if that is needed . Dr. Christ we continue to work with our hospitals. We have requested our Health Care Workers have been working for a very long time and we know tiredveryone is getting and there are a lot of patients. We have worked to request a federal medical assistance and give relief to hospitals as well as we are working on establishing a National Contract that would provide a coordinated, centralized location where we, through the state, can provide staff and resources to our hospitals. We are working on that. We are in the process of finalizing a contract for staffing. We do not want to pull from the pool of arizona nurses, so we are going with the National Vendor as well for that. Gov. Ducey thank you, stephanie. Hi jeremy. The delay in the start of the school year, what does that mean for teacher pay . Will that mean less pay for teachers . Gov. Ducey the question i think everyone could hear, what does that mean for teachers . Our objective here of course is to fully fund our schools, to provide the resources and flexibility necessary. We know no matter what, where we were today with the virus in arizona, there would be some parents and kids that were in a position where they would not be able to go back into the classroom. What we want to do, what the objective is is to educate our children. We believe that can be done better inside the classroom. The question is, can it be done safely . We are going to have resources for our teachers. If we have to do distancelearning again, its not optimal, but it is something we certainly got much better at on the turn of the diamond last time. Theres a lot of time. Between now and mid august. We are going to work with superintendent hoffman, listening to our superintendents. We are going to have flexibility. Flexible asto be long as we have this in our midst. It is going to be for sometime in the future. Some people in the extrication the Education World say they would like to be to haveave a full the requirement of five days of inperson learning. That something youre considering . Gov. Ducey im listening to the superintendents and principals. I know they are listening to the teachers. I think when we released our , itrational reopening plan was informed by the superintendents of the Public School districts. Our decisions will continue to be informed by subject matter experts. Also about the distancelearning options . Gov. Ducey the objective is, yes, flexibility and resources. We are not going to do anything to be punitive, to punish anyone. We want to do what is in the best interest of arizona kids and families in terms of educating them, and part of that is flexibility. Hi, how are you, governor . Couldnt this have been avoided . Isnt this where we did not want to go . Havelot of states activated their crisis standards of care plan. It gives hospitals a framework that allows them to determine, if they do get resources, how they can allocate those. The other thing it does is it gives our Health Care Workers liability protection. Not all of our hospitals actually meet crisis standards of care just yet. It was a proactive step by our hospitals. Are hospitals going to be moving forward with activating theplan, the scorecards, care . Dr. Christ only if they get to a stage, that would be on a casebycase basis. They may implement that triage. Health care professionals are you have put them in an impossible situation of having to certified who lives and who dies. How do you respond . Gov. Ducey the first thing i want to say is we have been focused on three months for what is coming at us right now. Of course we are always hopeful Something Like this is going to pass. But it is in front of us. It is time for arizona to act. Christs of the plans dr. Just talked about, stepping that can be brought to the fore, Surge Capacity that we have if necessary, is not needed today, but we are anticipating it will be better in the future. This is our time to act and protect as many arizona lives as possible. If we were to follow the supposed when we were to, doctors would not have to decide gov. Ducey if you look back to the stay home, stay healthy, stay connected order and when it ended on may 15, six weeks of asking arizonans for dramatic sacrifice, the virus in arizona was slow to a crawl. We can go back to where we were in terms of slowing the virus, but in terms of what we were planning for and preparing for was, if we were hit hard with this pandemic, and we are, then we are prepared. Rachel from the arizona republic. Do you have any regrets about how you handled this pandemic so far . Gov. Ducey no decision has been we declared the emergency on march 11. Every day, there has been a set of problems that need solving. It has literally consumed nearly everything in state government. All i can say in addition that none of the decisions have been easy is that i have made what i believe in my heart of hearts is decision tosible protect peoples lives in arizona and to protect livelihoods in our state. That has been the standard. I have deferred to Public Health along the way. I will tell you right now, the next couple weeks going forward, to expect more cases in arizona, to expect additional hospitalizations, the decisions we are making today will allow us to navigate through this so that we can help as many arizonans as possible. Lord only knows what the virus holds for us in the fall. We want to stay vigilant and flexible. Like i have said before, humble. We want to deal with the problems as they come. Turn andolved each in im confident we will solve the ones in front of us today. Good afternoon. Thank you. To be frank, the last few weeks we have seen an 84 increase in hospitalizations. Numbers are only going to increase and i fear we are going to be standing here two weeks from now asking the same question, why did we not take further steps today at the end of june . Why not implement stay policy right now . Outside of scottsdale, Fashion Square park, my concern is this weekend we are going to go out. Bars may be closed, Swimming Pool may be closed, but folks are going out. We have been urging people to stay at home, take precautions. They have not. I do not have much faith the next week or two are going to be much different. Why not implement a stayathome policy right now . Could you lay out in laymans out at quality health. They are doing gods work. I know the efforts from our health care providers. At the same time, thousands of people across the state do not have access to tests and they are confused why. They are waiting more than a week to get results. Peoples nursing home for their grandparents, there are cases there. Can you say why there is not more widespread testing and what the state needs to make that happen . Gov. Ducey i will handle the first question first and then touch on the second and turn it over to dr. Christ. We are following Public Health in terms of the decisions we are making. The objective today is to slow the spread of this. If you look at where arizona is today versus where we were on may 15, we can get back to where we were. We need to reduce large congregants activities. That is what we have seen. That is what the actions are put in place right now. I want you to know i talked to Health Care Leaders from around the state on friday, talked about different options in front of us. We are making a decision that is a targeted approach to address the issue in front of us today. I think arizonans are smart and have common sense. Table next be on the week, the stayathome orders . Is. Ducey every day there an additional set of problems and we solve them in their turn. The humility of this is to not guess or speculate, but to prepare. Do you want to talk on testing . Dr. Christ sure. There are a couple of different approaches we are taking. We understand how frustrating it is when people cannot find a test and it takes a long time to get result. We have been working with partners to get the additional reagents they need as well as the additional equipment. That just takes a little time to get that equipment into the system. We are also working on bringing on large providers. We know we have partners that will be doubling, such as banner at the fairgrounds, they will be doubling their capacity. We will be putting out asu into different sites. They can run up to 100,000 new tests on our contract. We are working on that to get that out. We do not want arizonans to be frustrated. Says they are going to be able to process 50,000 tests. Do you know what their platform is . Dr. Christ it is a platform that happened has been used in arizona before. It comes from europe. Runs a high output that can white a bit of tests at once. There does not appear to be any issues. That would be a good question for some request. I have asked them. Gov. Ducey i want you to know how important testing is. Testing, testing, and more testing. No excuses. We were not at capacity on testing in may and parts of june. We have focused now on this, arizonans in terms of the demand are also there. Weekends this past available for testing. What dr. Crist tried to put into laymans terms was what dr. Birx talked about on the Conference Call this morning, something that is going to take the United States somewhere from 500,000 tests on a daily basis to millions of tests. A tenfold increase. Arizona will be part of that. It is something we are going to continue to expand. Thank you for taking questions. I know that today youre announcing these measures moving forward. We have spoken to a lot of people who have said the situation we are in now was foreseeable, and to some extent, some of it was preventable. Im trying to get to the bottom of one specific decision you made. That was when you opened the state backup, why it was that you presented cities and towns and counties from enacting their own mask requirements. What was the goal with that . Gov. Ducey around preventing masks, i think i have been talking about masks since sometime in april. The objective was more around safely and successfully reopening businesses and making sure there was not confusion in terms of how those businesses reopened. We adjusted that around masks because we want to maximize mask use. The idea around statewide orders, and when he statewide order is required or necessary, and i imagine there will be future, it is a way to have clarity on how things roll out. With what we are learning about the virus and what is necessary, and nothing could be more important than wearing the mask and physically distancing. Mayors and county supervisors have risen to the occasion, we will continue to do that. The decision today was informed by mayors and county supervisors. It would have been nice if it could have been done on a more limited basis. We need to shut these things down statewide. That is why you saw the executive order today. I imagine it will be different in different parts of the state from rural to urban. That flexibility and authorities will be cascading in a way that protects Public Health. I apologize for putting you on the spot, but dr. Christ, did you lobby your boss to allow mayors and county supervisors to require people in their communities to wear masks earlier on . Dr. Christ we have been advocating for mask used since april. We know the data showed it decreased transmission to other people. The was in response to local leaders actually asking for that. I understand you have encouraged it and i have retweeted your tweets about it. But encouraging and then requiringommunities the masks, i do not understand why it was when you opened backup, you did not say you have you did nots, or allow county supervisors to say you have to wear a mask. Gov. Ducey and to clarify, dr. Christ does not lobby me. She informs me on Public Health. Masks are a good idea. [inaudible] i am a reporter with the associated press. It sounds to me like we are going to be over 100 Hospital Capacity. I what point do you expect that to happen . Dr. Christ it is really hard to predict. We are hoping the mitigation strategies will have an impact in the next week or two. We are encouraging by activating the crisis standards of care so hospitals can prepare to get ready to need to be fully staffed, to open up surge beds in case there is a cant a chance we go over their current licensed capacity. But there is no target you are looking at . An christ it is really on individual hospitalbyhospital basis. Next we are going to speak fernandez. We are having a little trouble. Go ahead. Can you hear me all right . Gov. Ducey yes. Can you provide more detail, the specific timeline for when all in arizona will have a mask available to them . Gov. Ducey many have masks right now, but by the end of the week, we have confirmation that all inmates, Correctional Officers, and everyone released from state prison will leave with several masks. Back to the room here. Crenshaw. Fumblestate continues to unemployment claims. Mother told me today she has not gotten any Financial Assistance yet. She had to sell her car, affecting her ability to take her daughter to pch for appointments. Hundreds of arizonans who have died are getting debit cards mailed to them. How does des still have issues all these months later . Gov. Ducey the first thing i want to say is i am thankful to the men and women in department of economic security. They went from hardly anyone statistically being on unemployment in arizona to over one point i believe at the peak, 1. 5 million arizona applications, with billions of dollars going out in assistance. I know that the system has not been perfect. It has needed Computer Resources and capacity from additional servers. It has caught up. It likely is not still perfect, but it is much improved. That the number of dollars are going out in terms of unemployment and benefits, so if you want to give us this arizonans information, we will happily fix it and make it easier and convenient. The other thing i want to say is, unemployment fraud, unfortunately, is on the rise across the country. It is not only in arizona. Ofhave aired on the side trying to help people who have been displaced and are in need. By and large, those 1. 5 Million People are good, hardworking arizonans that have never asked for anything from the government and all of a sudden found themselves with no income. Group,hers, a very small is taking advantage of that by frogging the system, defrauding the system and they will be prosecuted. Renters, we are about a month away from that. Believe me, we spent so much time talking about Public Health today and in the last several weeks, appropriately so, protections are in place. We are looking at this in totality of where we are as a state or whats happening with the federal and state packages. We do not want to seem anyone see anyone fall through the social safety net. Our actions to date should be evidence on how we want to protect arizonans. We are getting better, and hopefully, although des will be much improved through the stresses and investments that beenn put into it have put into it, let us be hopeful in the future we can be working on having people safely and successfully participating in the private sector rather than government assistance. I want to followup about enforcement. We have heard on enforcement chief williams say they prefer education to enforcement of citations. What is your message to police itefs, and sheriffs, when comes to actually enforcing this . Gov. Ducey i would say our Law Enforcement officers, you mentioned chief williams of phoenix, the brave women and men of phoenix pd, whats going on with the department of public safety, all of our sheriffs and cops on the front line, i think the idea of communicating and educating is a posture that most local leaders have embraced. Of course, when necessary, there is important enforcement. Our cops do not shy away from enforcement when necessary. Some of the things we are trying to do, things that are more publicpolicy campaigns of ,ersuasion and best practices like masks, in addition to the mandates at the local level, officers have done a great job. When it comes to other things like defrauding the government isdoing something that adverse to an executive order to slow the spread, it is not going to be so much communication and education. Hi, dennis. Afternoon, governor. I want to ask you to follow up on enforcement. You have not shown a lot of willingness to crackdown on restaurants,rs and for example. There were videos showing downtown scottsdale was packed. You kept telling the public we should be focused on the good actors and not the bad actors. Meanwhile, the number of cases continued to rise. You are acknowledging the problem by saying you are putting a pause on this to get numbers down. Should arizona take you seriously this time . Can you guarantee there will be not just communication, but enforcement . Gov. Ducey in the presentation earlier, you saw an executive order shutting these places down for 30 days. How much more accountable bad actors could be held. I also want to say this was not all of the bars. This was some of the bars. Information from Public Health, what we were able to witness and what we saw is not possible through education and communication became the most severe possible enforcement we have in the toolbox. That should demonstrate that, when necessary, when needed, we will do what it takes to get the job done. Crowds . About larger are you guaranteeing that is going to be cracked down . You have not shown a big willingness to go out there and enforce these measures. Gov. Ducey i think you have seen a change in tone and direction because of the change in direction of the trajectory of this virus. We are going to do what is necessary, and i mean whatever is necessary, to protect the lives and livelihoods of arizonans. You feel like you have done enough to communicate with the public, this crisis standard of care, there is going to be a lot of focus on workers today. It is a very serious situation in the hospitals. Future, you are going to have to decide who gets treatment and who does not because youre going to be graded on a point system. One, they are going to send you home. There is no room there. Do you feel like you need to level with the public . Gov. Ducey we have to communicate, communicate, communicate. I dont know that we can enough. Ate in terms of Health Care Leaders and facilities, communication has been there. We are going to continue to communicate with the public. On the side of communicating. Think about march 11 and the First Executive order. It was around protecting longterm care. One of the first things we knew in an avalanche of new information around the novel virus was it was the elderly that were most vulnerable. If there is a message that was missed along the way, it was that young people who are not in danger of the disease or the virus, we are seeing young people with comorbidities, diabetes and obesity, are at high risk, and how this virus is also being spread, and it has got a dramatic spread that makes it difficult to contract. In terms the providers of access, support, and resources, that is what we are focused on every day. Hello, governor. A question im getting about going toyou said it is take weeks to play out. As far as i can see, the view of many people we talked to, so why we are going to open on the 17th. How realistic is that . Why not wait until the end of 2020 . Gov. Ducey august 17 is an aspirational date. We do not know what is in front of us in july and august. Of course it can change. I would think arizonans would Pioneering Spirit that we have, we would just say lets wait until 2021. Options on the table. When i talk about that idea, being vigilant, being flexible, being humble, we are not guessing. We put out a date that delays the opening that is aspirational. Tbd. More to follow. I dont know what more to say beyond that. We have to get ready to educate regardless. Whether that is not, thatearning or is not optimal. There are other services that are provided by the school in terms of lunches and nutrition. Regardless of what is in front of us, we still want to make sure our kids are being educated. The other services that we provide. Bars were supposed to say closed , but they opened up. Why did it take six weeks to fix that . Gov. Ducey we want to make sure there is clarity around the guidance. We do want to open our economy. We just want it to be safe. We want it to be successful with what we saw with the numbers and the spread, we had to adjust this. This was not all. This was some. But the only way to fix it was through executive order and enforcement. A lot of folks have a question about sports. Youth sports, high school sports. Can you walk folks through how each of those is affected . Gov. Ducey it is going to continue to be informed by publichealth guidance. I do not think anything has changed in terms of, if a professional league wanted to play, it would be about the participation from a fan basis at this point in time. We are working with county Health Officials to revise our youth sports depending on the. Ports the idea is, where can we wear masks . This is why im talking about tests. Tests can help inform some of these decisions. We want to make the best possible decisions. The objective here is to tell is not to tell people no. It is to turn trajectory on the virus. We want to provide plex ability understanding there will be limitations. Mary jo, go ahead. Inen that school is Person School is going to be inayed, what about children foster care . Have you considered whether to visits children have with their parents, or should digital . Ack to foster care has been a great concern for us. Besteachers are our realtime reporters of abuse that does happen. When teachers are not inside classroom, they are not able to see what is happening with our children. Ideas, im going to leave this to dr. Christ and director faust. With physical distancing, with masking, visits can continue and would be encouraged. I want to again say thank you to the press, the communication has helped save lives and slow the spread. I would also like to close by the mask ismber, your best defense against this virus. Cspans washington journal. We are taking your calls on the news of the day and discussing policy issues that impact you. Tuesday morning, Princeton University discusses a new book, begin again james baldwins america. End the state of rac relations after the death of george floyd. Also, Ranking Member of the Small Business Committee Talks about the pandemic effect on Small Businesses and economic recovery efforts. Watch washington journal at 7 00 eastern Tuesday Morning and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. On the cspan networks, the house returns at 9 00 a. M. To begin debate on a 1. 5 trillion infrastructure package at 9 00 a. M. On cspan. On cspan 2, the Senate Returns at 10 00 a. M. Eastern and continues work on the fiscal year 2021 defense policies and programs bill. Cspan 3, a. On Senate Committee holds a hearing on reopening the economy and starting school safely. Witnesses include dr. Anthony fauci, head of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases, cdc director dr. Robert redfield, and dr. Stephen hahn of the fda. At 12 30 p. M. P. M. , the House Financial Services Committee Hears from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin on operations at the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserves pandemic response. Tuesday on our website, cspan. Org, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee looks at covid19 and the International Pandemic preparedness prevention and response efforts. That is at 10 00 a. M. House energy and commerce subcommittee on health hears from professionals on the impact of covid19 on mental health. That is at 11 00 a. M. Decision, the Supreme Court struck down a louisiana law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility where the procedure is done. Chief Justice Roberts joined justices breyer, bader ginsburg, sotomayor, and kagan, to form the opinion