Or wherever you have to be wherever you happen to be tuning in on your radio or television or your computer. By thebe followed secretary of the department of children and family services. She has updates on nutrition and snap benefits. Doctorstill have the here to answer specific questions about health care testing, that sort of thing. I want to start out by thanking the medical professionals of all types who are working all across louisiana aerobically every single day. I want to thank all of the Health Care Professionals working heroically every single day. I know that today President Trump declared it National Doctors day and i want to join him in saluting our doctors and thanking them. They are absolutely on the front lines today and every day. We would not be able to come close to managing this emergency without our frontline physicians. We still have the same imperatives we have been working on for the last few weeks, to flatten the curve, slow the spread of this disease, and make sure that people dont all seek medical care at the same time. In the time we have available to us, we have to continue to serve to our medical capacity. These remain the imperatives today. Earlier today, i participated in a Video Conference call with the president , Vice President , and Coronavirus Task force that has been assembled at the white house. We had a separate call prior to that from the Vice President. First of all, we are thankful that the president granted our request for title 32 status for the national guard. That will stand for 30 days. It unlocks protections and benefits for National Guardsmen and airmen. This is something we have used previously in disaster response, including hurricanes katrina, ike, gustaf, and again with the bp oil spill. Last week, the president granted us a 60 person medical strike team that was going to come from the u. S. Public health service. We found out yesterday morning that team has been diverted but replaced with the medical unit of u. S. Navy sailors coming out of jacksonville, florida. Between that will be 180 and 200 person strong unit. They are going to augment our staff at the Convention Center in new orleans. The center will have 1000 beds operational by this coming sunday. There will be a personal housing unit across the street from the Convention Center with another 250 beds. That will be for persons under investigation. So inside the Convention Center will be covid positive patients. Persons under investigation will be across the street in the personal housing unit. That detachment from the navy will staff principally at the personal holding unit but could augment the staffing and the Convention Center that we will fill primarily with the staffing contract we have executed for doctors and nurses and other Health Care Providers. We have Navy Personnel coming to louisiana and they will be working with us. We believe it is the first time in state history we have signed a letter creating a dual status commander commanding guardsmen and the navy sailors when they arrive in new orleans. I am proud to announce that general lee hopkins of the Louisiana National guard will serve as our dual status commander. Ventilators continue to be the most pressing need in the short term as it comes to searching our medical care, capacity. Unfortunately, i dont have much progress to report in terms of having received new ventilators over the weekend. However, on michael with the president today in the video on my call with the president today in the videoconference, he acknowledged our need for ventilators and made a commitment that they will send ventilators to louisiana. I dont have a precise number to give you, but i believe he was referring to an allocation we can expect to receive from the Strategic National stockpile. We have been sharing information with the white house and with fema about the timeline we are on to exceed capacity as it relates to ventilators. Obviously whatever assistance we get from them, we hope to get it very soon. I will talk more about ventilators and just a moment as it relates to our capacity. We are obviously going to continue to look for ventilators through manufacturers and vendors. All total, we have ordered 14,000 or so ventilators, including 5000 from the Strategic National stockpile. The number we have received continues to be 191. We do think that at some point this week we will have another shipment. Be 100 or so. Y we will update you on those as come in. As they over the last 72 hours, the flow of personal protective equipment has improved. We know this is going to play out over an extended time. One of the points i made and the and the other governors made today with the president and Vice President was to keep the ppe coming in greater numbers. We are really doing just in time deliveries right now. We are emptying our warehouse every single night, bringing ppe to different regions of the state and different hospitals. The process will work so that as fema brings in additional ppe to the United States from all over the world, 80 of that will be allocated to traditional ppe vendors and Health Care Providers will access ppe in the way they normally have, and a 20 allocation stays with fema and they allocated to the states based on formulas considered on a formula that considers the hotspots as well as the state population. They are calling this an air bridge. They are flying in this ppe from all around the world. The first flight started arriving today. This is going to play out for some time. It is our expectation that over the next several days or week or so, that ppe supplies will be ly, in in more robust terms of the frequency and the amounts. On the Video Conference call this morning i also thank the president for extending federal mitigation efforts through april 30, which was announced yesterday at the white house. This is obviously very helpful for states like ours because it sends a clear message that we are nowhere near over the hump. We still have an awful lot of work to do to flatten the curve. I think it creates a realistic expectation in the public about andtime horizon we are on so forth. My current proclamation goes through april the 13th. By the end of the week i will be issuing an additional proclamation to get mine in line with what the president and we willsterday see whether the stayathome order is warranted based on the revisions we get in terms of guidance from the cdc or from the cybersecurity and infrastructure he security. Gency we will also be talking to our office of Public Health in louisiana as we fashion the next proclamation. I also thank the Vice President because he called me this morning to see what louisiana , principally in region one but understanding it will later be other areas of the state. He also extended his personal. Ondolences it was the office of disability affairs. I want to thank him for doing that. In addition to april we have had three other state employees who have passed away because of covid19. Ofy work in the department transportation. Of another at the department transportation. Since last update we have had a 22 increase in test for a total of 34,033 test. Have 4025 positive cases of covid19 in the state of louisiana. Lastis a 14 increase over 24 hours and the total increase in cases is 485. Tragically, we have 185 deaths now. That is an increase of 34 over the last 24 hours. We have expanded Information Available to the public about the cases of covid19 on louisiana Public Healths website. In addition to seeing the paris breakdown of positive cases and deaths, you can access Additional Information on that website as well. We know at the start of this briefing that 59 of our 64 parishes now have confirmed positive test results from covid19. While there is a slight positive trend in our numbers, we still see that according to our modeling, and this gets refined every day with new entry of data , we are able to watch what is happening. Scenario, wesible are going to exceed our medical capacity here in the state of louisiana and in region one first. Region one is in the new orleansjefferson parish area. We believe based on the most recent numbers that came in today that we bought a couple, three days in region one as it relates to Ventilator Capacity, which we should now exceed around april 5. Bedacity we will capacity we will exceed by april 12. This changes not just because number of cases and the percentage of people being hospitalized and the length of stay on average, you know, is changing a little bit as we get more information and the percentage of those hospitalized who need an icu bed, ventilator, and how long they need the ventilators, but on the others of this we are working very hard to increase our capacity ventilators. That is going to feed into our modeling to see when we have clips what are capacity is going to be. We are not just looking at this point for the traditional ventilators you see in icu, all those happen to be the best. We are looking for other ventilators you typically would not see, perhaps one you would see being used with anesthesia in a surgical center, or you in theee some used ambulance with emt personnel and so forth. Those inventorying all of and working hard to make those available in our hospitals as well. While they are not ideal, they are certainly better than having no Ventilator Capacity at all. We certainly need people to honor the stayathome order that is in place across the state of louisiana. We need to continue to practice social distancing. I will go ahead and say it. We need to have better compliance around the state of louisiana than we have had. Based on the information i have gotten, some of which is anecdotal and others we are clearer on, there are certain regions of the state where there is a higher percentage of people complying. And that is where the numbers seem to be the highest because those communities understand firsthand how serious the emergency is, how deadly, and i want to thank all the people across louisiana who are complying, but im urging people to do better across the state. It is in 59 of our 64 parishes. If there is anybody in the state of louisiana who thinks this virus, this disease is not in their region of the state, not in their parish, not in their community, i am just telling you, you are wrong. It may not have been detected yet, but it is out there. We need everybodys help in slowing that spread. It is the nicest thing you can do for your family, the nicest thing you can do for your neighbors, and surely the nicest thing you can do for anybody in your community who might have one of these vulnerabilities we have been talking about because of their advanced age or a Chronic Health condition. We are asking everybody to do better. Lets be Good Neighbors and understand we can show our love now by staying away. We can show our love by staying away from people. In closing, im going to ask that everyone continue to join me in praying for those who are ill, those who have lost loved ones, for our frontline leaders, our First Responders, all of our medical professionals. Doctors and nurses. Respiratory therapists, all of them. I will tell you that tomorrow, until this emergency is over, on tuesdays, we are going to have a lunch period that i am asking all louisianans who are likeminded to join me in, a time of fasting and prayer. Over lunch on tuesdays. With that, i am going to ask secretary walters to come up and talk about the snap program. I will come back to take your questions. If you have questions about the snap program, i would ask you to ask those to the secretary while she is up here. When youre finished with that we will come back and the doctor and i will take your questions about the Public Health emergency. Thank you,s governor. We want the people of louisiana to have food during this time. We are announcing today that those snap recipients that are not at the maximum they are allowed will be put to the maximum. This will automatically be loaded on their cards. They dont have to do anything to receive this. Only about 47 of louisiana households are receiving their maximum benefits. This is helping 63 of our families get to the maximum level. Again, they dont have to do anything. This will be loaded on cards automatically. It will be loaded tomorrow night for the march benefits and it will be loaded again on april 17 for the april benefits. We have also, during this time, temporarily waived the redeterminations. Every six months you have to be redetermined to get your snap benefits. That has been waived. You do not have to do anything. Your benefits will automatically come to you in march and april. You do not have to call, email, text, or worry about that. If you are a current snap recipient, that will automatically be loaded and the timeframe will be waived. We are not doing interviews right now, either. You dont have to worry about snap an interview for recipients. We have tried to eliminate every deadline we possibly could to make this process easier. We have also suspended the work requirements. There is some population that receives benefits that has to work a certain amount of time in order to be eligible for those benefits. That has also been waived. That is not true for that population that many of you know as ablebodied adults without dependents. The ablebodied population does not have to honor a work requirement right now. The call center is at limited capacity. We are having three and a half times the normal amount of applications as we do, normally do, so the very best way to get information is to go to the website, dcfs. La. Gov getsnap. That is the best way to go. Or you can text get snap to 898211. Either of those will get you into the application process. If you are already a recipient, you know how to sign onto the cafe portal and you can just do that and that will give you all of the information. Is a long wait time at the call center. It will be easier for you to go straight through the electronic measures to get that information. . Ith that, are there questions what percentage will get an increase . Sec. Walters 63 will get an increase because only about 40 of our current recipients get that maximum number. Anything else . Thank you. Gov. Edwards thank you, marke ta. I will take your questions now. Have you heard from the department of education on what will happen if School Closures are extended and whether students will be passed along or not . Gov. Edwards i have not. I know betsy and the interim superintendent is working on this. As i mentioned earlier, i will, i the end of the week, extend the current order for shelter at home and School Closures at least through april 30. That only leaves the month of may. I am not sure what the situation will be, what the facts will be when we need to make a decision about extending, but that would leave less than a month in the current academic year. I gave betsy a heads up this morning that she should start planning accordingly, and i expect in the near future there will be information forthcoming from the department. She is working with the School Superintendents from around the state of louisiana as it relates to graduation and promotion to the next grade, all of those sorts of things. I do not want to get in front of her. Obviously, they are going to make the smartest, most Strategic Decisions they can for the maximum benefit of our young people. Other governors have started using clemency power and releasing inmates from jail. What have you done regarding letting prisoners out of jail . Letting inmates out of jail to alleviate the crisis. Do you plan on using clemency powers or regulatory powers . We have folks in process because they are pretrial detainees. I can tell you the sheriffs have been working with the das and with the courts to make sure that the number of people they are holding us pretrial detainees around the state of louisiana is as low as it can be consistent with public safety. They are doing that. They are doing it in a smart way. We also have probation and parole working so they are not revoking individuals and bringing them back into custody if its a technical matter. If the revocation that would spring from a nonviolent offense, for example. As a matter for which they were on probation initially is also a nonviolent offense. We are minimizing the number of people we are bringing back into the system. I will work with secretary leblanc at the department of corrections on any recommendations he has. I know he is taking a look at individuals who are in prison for nonviolent offenses who are nearing the completion of their sentence and trying to see what additional flexibility he might want. Or what actions he might want me to take. I dont have anything beyond that right now. The locations for drivethrough testing, there seems to be less demand at some of them. Initially, they were running out of tests within two are three hours of opening. Now that two new orleans sites are merging into one site. I wonder, what does that indicate . Does that mean testing gotten to the people who need it the most . Should we look at a change of who we are testing and how we are testing . Gov. Edwards the doctor will address testing. In every state, we want more testing, not less. We need to have a better idea of the percentage of our people who have covid19, and where they are across the state of louisiana. That requires more testing, not less. In new orleans they decided to consolidate two testing sites. It will all be out at uno tomorrow. They will still administer the same number of tests. They were doing 250 at two sites. Tomorrow they will do 500 at the one site. That continues, along with the other drivethrough testing site. These were the first three sites set up in ortne