Ipmer briefs reporters in detroit. Detroit has nearly 200 deaths today. Good morning. I want to start todays comments and i wanted to acknowledge passing of epresentative icicson. Moral big heart and a compass on behalf to have people passing nted and his is a day of sadness that everyone in the capital and in the district are feeling. We are providing relief for michigan. This is helpful. This is a good thing for our state. Im hopeful that next the president will review my request for vedge assistance programs that provide meals to families who need them and the rental assistance and temporary housing for families. I look forward to federal governments continued partnership and we are grateful for the things that that happened over the last few dice help us fight this virus. I sent a letter to the u. S. Secretary of defense requesting that the deft of defense direct fema to support michigans request to use the Michigan National guard for humanitarian rposes and use the u. S. Army corps of engineers to build a ardball. We know that one hospital in the detroit area will go through 10,000 of these masks in a day. And so this is helpful now in this moment but we have a much greater need that we need to make sure we meet. I want to acknowledge a few more businesses that have stepped up. A number have, but one in particular, the production of masks and face shields for our nurses and doctors. The dedicated employees that they have are manufacturing hand sanitizers. I signed a number of executive orders in the past couple of days, including the orders that push all april 2020 state and city income tax filing deadlines to july of 2020. We have also expanded absentee voting in the main may 5 lkses. We have established a 2 million water restore grant for access to clean water for michiganders. We are protecting vulnerable populations in michigans county ails and local lockups and juvenile Detention Centers during the ongoing covid19 pandemic. And we have relaxed the scope of practice laws to give hospitals and other Health Care Facilities the flexibility they need to uccessfully deploy qualified physician assistants, nurses, and other Health Care Providers o combat covid19. I signed two executive directives, temporary suspending Discretionary Spending by our departments and agencies and temporarily suspending hiring, the creating of new positions, transfers, and promotions within the executive branch of state government. We are doing our part. I signed an agreement between michigan and the u. S. Department of labor to implement pandemic unemployment assistance and compensation programs. To grant benefits to workers who do not already qualify for unemployment benefits. Hese workers include the selfemployed, 1099 independent contractors, and lowwage workers who can no longer work because of the pandemic. The agreement includes weekly benefits for all unemployed workers by 600 and extends benefit payments from 2639 weeks. I excepted the recommendation of the u. S. Army corps of engineers, the detroit district for an alternative care facility onversion in the city of detroit this space will have 900 bed spaces, approximately. We have a few more upgraded updated numbers. As of 3 00 yesterday, we have 5486 confirmed cases, 32 deaths. We will not see the benefit of these aggressive efforts for little while. That is why it is important that everyone continues to do their part. It is important to pause and remember each of these had stories and families and friends and loved ones, people we need to think about as we are combating a pandemic that is hurting our state and our people. Cannot lose sight of that. Over the weekend, a new volunteer website was launched,. Michigan. Gov covid 19. Trained medical professionals can register to serve fellow michigan residents. We expect a great need for additional medical support in the coming days. We ask please sign up now. State residents can also use the site to find out how they can help in local communities. How they can connect to give blood or needed medical supplies. We have seen an incredible amount of strength and courage. During this hard time of uncertainty, whether it is from communities donating food, money, and resources to those that needed, or from businesses using technology to manufacture personal protective equipment. This is to slow the spread of covid19 in our state come we must all work together. Whether you are a medical professional looking to volunteer, or someone who can give blood or donate to the local food bank, everyone can help out. When you see the numbers rise, o not think it does not mean your participation and youre staying in home isnt having an impact. It is and it will. I also signed two supplemental budgets that reprioritize funding to stop the spread of covid19. My administration and the legislative leaders. Key priorities from both sides were included in the bill. We must react and change along with the changes since those negotiations. The legislative leaders who engaged and agreed that due to the incredible toll that ovid19 has taken on health, families, and the economy is, that it was important iv to a number of items to save taxpayer dollars. T is to early to determine the exact impact on state revenues and knowing that there is potential for significant loss in revenue, now is not the time to sign a bill for supplement of funding for anything for dollars that can be utilized to help the covid19 response. I want to thank legislative leaders, the Senate Majority leader, the Senate Democratic leader, the house speaker, and the House Democratic leader. I am grateful for their partnership during this tough time. With this action, we are committing 150 million to combat covid19. The state has already expended more than 800 million to begin securing more than 20 million masks, 2000 ventilators, 9 million ounces of hand sanitizer. More than 250,000 boxes of gloves, 2. 4 million gallons. More than2,000 beds, 10,000 testing kits, 22,000 containers of disinfectant wipes as well as other needed supplies. T is our hope that they will reflect and require. Getting through the crisis requires all hands on deck. An unprecedented way to fight an unprecedented enemy, covid19. I am proud of the leadership of our team. People across this state are stepping up during a car a ime of crisis. My is using her time all while cleaning local rivers and waterways all while social distancing. Lisa is taking care of her 90yearold mother for neighbors and health care workers. Paul is working from home and maintaining phone and internet ervices. Marie is working with the church to deliver food to families in need. Courtney is a teacher using zoom to stay connected to students. The coming days will be unlike any challenge we have ever had before. It will require fortitude, strength, and grace. Our frontline care workers need more support. Our sick need more beds and care. The unemployed need more help. The businesses need more information. People in michigan are strong, smart, and determined eople. We have always looked to one another. No matter where you come from, how you identify, your age, risk factors, social economic status. Your health and safety matters. We are fighting for you. We will get this together so long as everyone does their part. I will turn over to our chief medical executive. Thank you, governor. I was saddened to hear about this yesterday and my deepest condolences go out to the family. As the governor mentioned, covid19 continues to spread rapidly in michigan. Michigan had , 5486 cases. We saw an increase of over 1800 cases in just two days. We also know of 132 deaths. We are still in the early stages of spread and cases have not yet peaked. We are working hard to develop the best predictive model to tell us how the disease spreads n our state. Current models suggest we are likely several weeks away from a peak in the number of cases in michigan. The goal of our response has been to slow the spread of the disease as much as possible, particularly so we protect our most vulnerable so that we do not overwhelm our hospitals. Unfortunately we know that several hospitals in this state, particularly southeast michigan, are at apacity. Last week, we started implementing hospital plans and we are pleased leaders have stepped up in support of our Public Health response. Based on the trajectory of the spread of this disease and the number of people requiring hospitalizations, we need to derive alternative nontraditional sites of care. We have already identified the enter in detroit and plans are already underway at that facility to be able to take care of covid19 patients. We will need additional medical rofessionals, doctors, nurses, sfgs assistants and others, to respond to this crisis. Yesterday, the governor signed an executive order. This important order will allow qualified professionals to work n medical facilities to help take care of the increased atient load. This past weekend, we announced a new volunteer website. We encourage medical professionals willing and able o sign up. We are truly going to need everyone to chip in and donate skills and expertise to fight this pandemic. We continue to rapidly expand testing in this state. We completed at least 15,000 tests between our state labs, hospitals, and private laboratories. The broader testing of us get a better understanding of where this disease is. Hile we are expanding hospital capacity, getting more medical professionals to help and expand testing, most important thing we can all do right now is heed the governors executive order to stay home and stay safe. No one is immune to this disease. Young people in their 20s, their 30s, and the 40s are getting sick. People are unexpectedly dying. Everyone needs to stay home and unless they absolutely must leave their house for food, medicine or to perform a critical function. Kids should not be outside playing with their neighbors and people should not be playing with each other in parks. People should not leave their homes to buy things that are not essential. This is not the time to have extended family gatherings. People must stay home. It would do the right thing and do it now, we will keep people from getting sick and we will save lives. I will turn it over to the governor. Im happy to open it to questions for the press. [inaudible] i think that the president s actions are warranted by the science. Im pleased to see that. We are continually evaluating data and information as we know it. I would anticipate that we will have a need to have expansion. Im not prepared to announce what the moment. One at this moment. We are seriously about what the plans will be to meet the Educational Needs of students. I would anticipate another press conference on the subject. Inaudible] i will just observe really uickly that without robust testing, it makes models really hard to have evidence to draw conclusions. It is a challenge. It is ramping up. Ew york has been ahead of us in terms of confronting covid19 has reported some successes with regard where the numbers are headed and what was seen result of stricter guidelines and orders from the executive office in terms of social distancing. It is not evidencebased. I will make sure the doctor has n opportunity to answer. We are looking at many models from experts in the state. Right now, if anyone said there is one particular date where well peak, or how many will die, it is not true right now. We think it will be several weeks. We know the hospitals will need more beds. Thousands more ventilators and a lot of people will get sick. Were trying to expand our testing as much as possible. And continue to improve our model. [inaudible] we have about 1700 so we have about 1700 ventilators right now. So there is no question we will need an additional 5000 to 10,000 ventilators and the people, to incubate tracheal tubes or other medical supplies. One estimate says that for every that has covid19, it will be 10 95 masks just that day for one patient. [indiscernible] i think that people should familiarize themselves with the guidance on licensing and regulation. There is better information out there than what is being talked about in the public. We want to ensure the doctors have the ability to prescribe these medicines and be sure that people who have these prescriptions that predated covid19, that they have the access to the medications they need. All of the work we have done is trying to strike the balance so that people who have that requirement for these medications prior to covid19 the drugshe access to they need. [inaudible] i think they should look at the most recent guidance. And familiarize themselves with that. I would encourage them to do that. We obviously want to be nimble in this crisis. I think we have a duty to be sure that we are making educated policies reflecting the needs of the people of our state. We are continually updating and adjusting, as we need to. No one could predict we would be in this position a week ago. We cant predict precisely where be a week from now, but were working hard to flatten the curve. Each of these decisions has ramifications. We wanted it to be clear what we were doing and why. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from the medical society to individual doctors in regards to our policy on that front. [indiscernible] no. They agree that given the proper guidance so that educated decisions can be made that are supported by the science and are protective of patients who require those drugs and required them precovid19. [indiscernible] well, we know that thats going to be a Pressure Point and that is why we have called out to people who are perhaps retired from the medical field who consider coming back and helping out. We have made it easier for people to join the front lines. All of these are pieces of the problem we know will exist in terms of making sure we have got First Responders and frontline medical professionals to do the work. There is no question that we do not have enough right now. We dont have enough medical professionals to date but we are aggressively loosening laws. Also, we will be looking across the state for medical professionals working in areas that might not be as hardhit right now and perhaps volunteer as well. [inaudible] right. So it depends. Right now, some hospitals expect patients excepting patients with covid19 and others are not. It depends on what hospital and what patient at this time. For the tcf center, we are currently planning to have covid19 patients who are not critical. As we start developing these alternative sites, it would depend on where we are as far as what patients are treated there. [inaudible] right. So there is a shortage of acute care physicians. I would say it is certainly nurses. We are definitely having a significant shortage of nurses to take care of covid19 patients right now. [inaudible] the system is overwhelmed, to be sure. Other states have gone down. For a while, it is cumbersome. We are asking people to be patient. Were working incredibly hard. I will just add this. We have, by executive order, loosened up some of the rules around how to go about filing unemployment, what the timing looks like, what you need from your employer so that we make it easier for people to actually file. We are recognizing the hurdles that are there and trying to level them so it is easier for folks to get the support that they are going to need. [indiscernible] so were working with director washington. With regard to policies for transport and encouraging local facilities to consider doing exactly what you just described, and we are looking at our with an eyes well towards the possibility of that and working with director washington to be sure we have a thoughtful process that does not compromise Public Safety and recognizes the challenges we have because of covid19. Regarding the may elections, [indiscernible] what we are trying to do is to encourage voting by mail, voting from home. The safest place for people to be right now is at home. We know that for the foreseeable future, that is a fact we have to grapple with. We cannot sacrifice core democratic principles. So we need to figure out how to be sure people can exercise their right to vote and do it in a safe manner. Each decision we have made has been motivated by two goals. Where there are additional improvements to be made, we will make them. Covid19 and the increase is continuing to grow right now in michigan. [inaudible] yes, i have talked to everybody. Im on the phone with the a,ministrator of the fem also, people from the army corps of engineers. We are grateful for the work we are doing. They are working 24 7, as are we. I think my experience is not unlike governors and mayors across the country who are also trying to procure as much personal Protection Equipment as we can. We are hopeful that with all of these contracts come to fruition. Our experience has been that other contracts we have entered into have been delayed or been diverted to the federal government. As has been the case in massachusetts, illinois, kentucky. You have heard the governors say the same things i have. We will scrap as much as we can. Were trying to mobilize michiganders and warehouses to donate. We need all the help we can get, to michiganders who are stepping up and helping out. We all have to be a part of this. [inaudible] so at this point, i have issued executive directives to shore up spending in our departments. We have got a lot of essential services we have got to continue to meet the needs of our people. But where there are unplanned expenditures or additional operations, we will stop that. We know that we have got to be really conservative right now. We know that the tool covid19 will take on the state economy and the ability to meet the needs of people will be real and in the budget. Weve had great effective conversations with legislative leadership both sides of the aisle. We all have a healthy respect to meet those challenges. [indiscernible] we are having that conversation right now internally. I have not made a decision yet. I do know this. The fewer people out and about, the better, as we see, our covid19 challenge is continuing to climb every day. That is always kind of the core of how i am looking at these issues and always driven by the best medical advice. I have not made a decision and i am not going to announce one right now. Thanks. If you miss any of our live coverage of the governments response to the coronavirus outbreak, watch it anytime cspan. Org coronavirus. From daily briefings by the president to the White House Task force to updates from governors of the hardest hit states, its all there. Track the virus global spread and confirmed cases in the u. S. , county by county. It is your fast and easy way to watch cspans unfiltered coverage of this pandemic