And a new face. Right, the commissioner of the department of Public Health. Judy, good afternoon. Ed lifshitz. Dr. Police colonel pat callahan, and we are also joined by the commissioner of the department of Environmental Protection, catherine mccabe, to my left. Great to have you. Covid 19 is ao wholeofgovernment endeavor. Lots of departments have key noes to play, and dep is exception. Commissioner mckee will talk about her departments role. We will go right to the numbers and then feel in details from their. There. We are reporting an additional 2100 96 positive test results. Our statewide count stands at 18,696. Positive test results since yesterday. 696 in total. We continue to lose members of our new jersey family to covid19 complications. This does not get any easier. Since yesterday, another 69 residents have died. 267,total net stands at each of them a precious life lost from our new jersey family. Taking that number, which is a big one, and putting a face to it, and a couple of different ways. Passaichose souls was a firefighter. He became a firefighter about a year and a half ago. He was a volunteer before that. He served as an emt. He was only 33 years old. I spoke to his wife, maria, earlier. And have two children, 19 and onee who is nine who is seven. I spoke to his chief and exchanged notes with the mayor of passaic. By all accounts, an incredible guy and someone we mourn. We keep his family in our prayers, as we do every new jersey family dealing with the worst part of this emergency. You mayyoung person have read about, then luder, head baseball coach at cliffside park, 30 years old, part of the Undefeated Team of 2008, number one in the nation. To his wife brandy and his family, god rest his soul. You just heard about a 33yearold and a 30yearold. You are going to hear from judy when she goes through the dimensions of fatalities, that those are on the somewhat of an exception side, that clearly the demographic that is older is the one being hit the hardest. Listening, this is a reality for all of us. This is not abstract, no matter how good our health is, no matter how young we might be, and if it doesnt impact you, never mind kill you, you may unwittingly carry this virus and past it on to someone you hold dear. Ben, the other, 67 folks we lost overnight, bless their hearts. The disease has taken service members, First Responders, loved ones, friends and too many New Jerseyans. And sadly, we know this number will grow. In myt be any clearer call. Stay at home before this hits for 200 it has now four 200 67 of our families. Nowour part like it has of our families. Please do your part to flatten the curve. We can see the totality of where this could go if it was left unchecked, and where social distancing can take us. This chart on the left is as of yesterday. This changes every day, but look at where this virus would have taken us had we not stayed at home and done everything we can to flatten the curve. Left, just on the under 80,000 hospital beds. There is no state in america that has the resources to come up with that sort of a surge and meet it. Look at the chart on the right. As ans just if we behave average state, based on past pandemics. That is what we can do. The blue line surging at the top is still north of that red line underneath it. The red line is current capacity of hospital beds and the blue line is the search come but that is an average result. We are not an average state. We are the quintessential, come together, one family, do the impossible state. That is new jersey. Our job collectively is to stayathome, keep social distancing and flatten the hell out of that curve. Lets all stay in this together. Lets prevent more losses like n and otherto be innocent souls who lost their lives. We can meaningfully save lives and lessen the strain at the same time on our Health Care System and communities. Thank we always do, we everyone on the front lines, especially the unsung, overlooked heroes out there working in our communities. This is beyond the healthcare workers who are heroes, the First Responders who are heroes, how about home health aides, sanitation workers, retail employees at essential businesses . The teamsters, truck drivers, transit workers . Their commitment and dedication to the rest of us means the world, and it means we know we will emerge from this stronger. But lets also help them. We help them by staying home and doing our part slow the spread of covid19. It issnt about you, about us. But nowhis isnt fun, nothe time to be selfless, selfless, and for all of us to pull together. Cabinerstand the anxiety, fever, impatience, restlessness, the unknowns. We get all that. The best thing we can do together and by the way we will shoot straight with you on the facts, where we are and where we are headed but the best thing far and away any of us can do is to stay home and keep your distance from anybody, even at home. That, allow me to switch gears a couple of times before i invite my colleagues to speak. Tomorrow, wednesday, april 1, the pnc Bank Art Center site in partnership with fema will open at 8 00 a. M. Again for symptomatic new jersey residents only. Community county College Testing site will be closed tomorrow. Hoping toan onoff, accomplish the same amount of tests but do it in a more coherent way. Site more countysponsored either have or are preparing to open. I will go north to south, and it is good news as we continue to aggressively open our testing regime again for symptomatic persons. The federal world, government would give us all the testing to real need, the personal protective material we need, and we could be like south korea. We realize that isnt the case. We dont have that level of material and support from the government, so we made the decision for personal Health Reasons to test symptomatic people only. And that has an added benefit to the colleagues to my right, because that is the most valuable data we can get, positives and negatives. Get ourows us to best arms around this and get ahead of it. Starting tomorrow, Middlesex County in partnership with the new Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission is opening a drivethrough site at the mvc Inspection Center in edison. The site will be open three days a week, monday, wednesday, friday, from 10 00 a. M. Until 2 00 p. M. , testing by appointment only, and you must be both a Middlesex County resident and exhibiting symptoms of respiratory illness. The appointment window is open. Find more information at j. Gov covid19tyn 7327453100. Ll ocean county opened its testing site at Ocean County College yesterday. The site is open monday through friday by appointment only for ocean county residents exhibiting symptoms. Information or to make an appointment, please visit the Ocean County Health Department Online at ochd. Org. We also thank ocean countys health care partners, hackensack meridian health. In tomorrow, Camden County partnership with Cooper University health care and Virtua Health will be opening a testing site at Coopers Point park in camden which will be open from noon to 4 00 each week day through april 15. Testing will be available by appointment two Camden County residents and anyone seeking a test should contact their ,edical provider at coopervirt virtua or another provider. It is for symptomatic people only. About to thank our partners. They joined a long list of other counties that are doing everything they can to test symptomatic persons. You will see now the total list of testing sites continues to grow. By my count, there are 26 at least in the state. So, we will continue that. Freddie new jerseyan. I want to come back to our allencompassing website. Freddie new jerseyan two things for any new jerseyan, who thinks they need to be set up. There is our website, covid 19. Nj. Gov. If you do believe you may be exhibiting systems of covid19, call your health care practitioner. Before i leave testing, i had a very good conversation this morning and my colleagues had preceded that with him, both last night and today, with tom evers. One of the senior guys at abbott laboratories. They have, as you have probably saw over the past couple of days, they are developing a rapid turnaround test. Im honored to say that new jersey has been picked as one of the early states they will put that test equipment into. Right now into bergen county, more details on that to come as we know more. It is a modest first step but an important first step. According to tom, he and his ab bott colleagues will continue to wrap up the ability to get that piece of equipment into as many hands as possible, or access as much as possible. As i said all along, it takes a village. In this case, i want to tip the cap to abbott labs. Switching gears to the topic of personal protective equipment, or ppe. I will ask pat callahan to say a few words before we go to q a about both ppe and compliance, or lack thereof. Last night, we received a shipment of ppe, another one. This is now our fourth shipment out of fema. It consisted of more than 260,000 pieces, including masks and gloves. Again, deep appreciation. We are grateful for it. It by no means alleviates our the for more ppe. We work every single avenue to get more ofor our state and frontline responders, and to ensure our Community Health personnel have what they need as well. This fight is not just in our hospitals. It gives a i think quick glimpse into our current statewide ppe numbers. Im hopeful that perhaps as early as tomorrows briefing, i will be able to give, along with pat and the team here, a greater accounting of our ppe supplies and how they fit into our current needs. Our work, both collectively and through pats efforts, is to ensure we are distributing our ppe supplies as efficiently and as effectively as possible. This is why we have put in place the daily reporting mandate for all of our Health Systems and hospitals, and why we are continuing to seek out every available piece of ppe at every available ventilator. Make no doubt, we appreciate every single piece of ppe that we are receiving, whether it is through the federal government in the national stockpile, from the many donations we have received, or through our own purchasing. But, and i repeat, we need a lot more and i continue toush our case with the white house, with fema, and with everyone i speak to. As always, if you have ppe to donate, please let us know through this website, covid19. Nj. Gov ppedonations. Colonel callahan and his team will connect with you to take that off your hands. It is not just ppe. We have also desperately have mentioned many times we need more ventilators. I noted yesterday we continue to pursue every avenue on that front. The 300 ventilators from the strategic stockpile we referred to yesterday have arrived and they are being tested as we speak. So far, so good. Haveief of staff and i each been on with the highest levels of the white house this morning, reiterating and underscoring, particularly with another 69 fatalities, the need for more ventilators. As good a spot as any to say, that i mentioned it takes a village. I mentioned tom evers and abbott labs. I have a long and incredibly powerful conversation yesterday with a guy i have been in regular touch with and that is alex gorski, the ceo of johnson johnson, one of our iconic corporate citizens. Alex and i spoke i wanted to reiterate my thanks for the 10,000 goggles they had contributed. An enormous amount of money. They are allowing their scientists and researchers to take, i forget what the sabbatical period is, but to go into hotspots and actually work on the front lines. You may have seen they are working aggressively on a vaccine. There are many working on a vaccine, but there are a few out there and i mean out there anywhere in the world, never mind new jersey or america, who can realistically hope to achieve the scale that is the key, the scale of production. Alex and i also talked through the likelihood of how this plays out in terms of the sequencing as we have said all along, we have to break the back of the coronavirus first and meaningfully reduce the cases, if not toward zero, then begin to responsibly reopen our economy and society. He and i talked about im operating above my pay grade. Talked about the likelihood of therapeutics. Drugs that can treat the symptoms, becoming more broadly available. In his judgment, i do want to put words in his mouth, but if you look at backtoschool timeframe. A vaccine they are literally out testing, retesting, making sure its safe and efficacious. And the ability, whether it is them or whoever, but they are as big a dog on the hunt as any to have vaccines at scale, god willing, perhaps as early as spring i2021. We have no bigger player in the Health Care Space in the state than johnson johnson. None with a deeper heritage. Again, to all i mentioned in the past week merck, so many other of the big, Big Companies that are proud to call new jersey home. We waeear their presence like a badge of honor. They are proving and not just takes a village in words but in actions. Hats off to each of them. In particular, the conversation with alex was particularly powerful and enlightening. Allow me to switch gears again. On saturday, i mentioned we were close to having 100 compliance from municipal Water Companies voluntarily halting all service shut off during this emergency. Im proud to report we now have that 100 compliance statewide. Between both municipal and private sector Water Utilities, should fearyan losing their access to clean water. I thank everyone for their operation. I know catherine will touch on this as well. Switching gears from the attorney generals office. I want to amplify the announcement made yesterday that we will crackdown on any physician or pharmacist or anyone else porting certain prescription drugs or inappropriately prescribing them to friends and family. As we have read on the news, certain drugs are being investigated for their in treating covid19. I mentioned therapeutics a minute ago myself. We must start now to protect that supply. Like a lot of other things, overwhelmingly, these are fields filled with good actors, but a few knuckleheads spoil it for the rest of us. From the department of labor, we cannot urge employers enough to keep your workers on payroll throughout this crisis. And allow them to benefit from the expanded paid sick and family leave programs made possible by the recently enacted federal response bills. If you do, you will be eligible for a dollar per dollar payroll tax credit against those costs. 99. 8 ofvailable to businesses of new jersey and all but the largest employers. I urgee you to do the right thing and keep your employees on payroll throughout this crisis so we can deliver them peace of mind and so we can get our economy going that much faster when this emergency ends. Also from the department of labor, residents who are eligible for unemployment will receive an additional 600 per 31 because ofuly the federal relief bill last week. This money should arrive starting next week for those already collecting unemployment. For those of you just filed, it will take a little longer. The department is working overtime to process all of your claims and we ask for your patience due to the record volume with which they are dealing. Any information, go to our allencompassing website, covid19. Nj. Gov. There has already begun some chatter about the next coronavirus related bill coming out of congress. I spoke with Speaker Pelosi not once, but twice yesterday on this very topic. Let me again reiterate our priorities. We need assistance for workers, Small Businesses and flexible aid for states that have borne the brunt of this virus and we are certainly at or at the top of that list. New jersey and New Jerseyans who are in the eye of the storm should not be treated the same lesshen states impacted by this invisible enemy. As we continue to think about a main street stimulus, congress should undo the deduction cap to help new jerseys middleclass homeowners. I thank congressman pasquarello for their continued efforts on this front. Speaker pelosi and i spoke not just about the general need for another bill in stimulus coming from congress, but specifically spoke about lifting the salt cap. Related to budget, to money, to impact, we had a good conversation late morning with our teams with the Senate President and the speaker. We are as soon as we can looking to come to folks with guidance about where the budget is headed. And specifically, about tax filing deadlines. It was a good conversation. Our teams are following up on that as we speak. Come when we have information for you. Before i turn things over to judy, i want to again express my thanks, indeed our thanks to the overwhelming number of New Jerseyans who are doing the right thing by all 9 million of us to get through this crisis. I cannot think enough the women and men who are out there every day in whatever capacity they are working who are keeping us going. I must give a special shout out to the many state employees who are assisting their federallow residence in any number of ways. To our state colleagues, which measure in the many tens of thousands, i tip my cap to you. I want to tip my cap actually to our educators up and down the state who are doing a phenomenal never before seen Remote Learning environment in which we are all living. As usual, we have the best educators in america, if not the world. They are stepping up in this case from home, in most cases, and walking our kids through the most unusual time in any of their educational lives. Again, in general, i cannot thank enough the millions and millions more residents who are staying at home and doing their Extraordinary Part to flatten the curve. We take our hat off to you. Overwhelmingly, folks are doing the right thing. There are still unfortunately a few who are not. So in addition to a quick comment on ppe before we take questions, i will ask colonel callahan to give us a quick summary because we have to remind folks. We need 100 compliance with our stay at home mandate. We read practically everything you are sending us. If i dont personally read it i read a lot of it i promise you, we are reading it. We understand and completely appreciate the anxiety that so many of you feel. I have said this before and i will say this explicitly as i can, leave the worrying to me. Leave it to us up here on this team. Our job is to lessen your anxiety, to be straight with you, to tell you the facts and to give you some sense of where we are heading. We are doing all that we can to ensure the safety of our 9 million member new jersey family. We are doing all that we can to make sure we dont just get through this but that we get through this stronger than ever before. We take your worries and your concerns to heart. And frankly, they educate our decisions just as much as we rely on the facts and the science. We will get through this together and we will move forward together. Id like to say it is going to be tomorrow. Id like to say we will come through this unscathed. We have already lost 267 precious lives. I dont want anyone to ever look back on this day, march 31, or any other day and said you did not warn us where there was heading. The number of positive cases will continue to rise. Sadly, so will the fatalities. But at some point, god willing sooner or later, we will break the back of this damn virus. We will flatten the curve. We will have gotten the capacity in our Health Care System sufficient enough to deal with the cases we have and we will begin to slowly but surely together, never having turned on each other, as one extraordinary, diverse new jersey family, slowly but surely, we will get back on her feet and we will be stronger than ever before. With that, please help me welcome the person who needs no introduction, the commissioner of the department of health, judy persichilli. Good afternoon. As i have shared in the past, we continue to be most concerned about our longterm care facilities who care for the most vulnerable population. Our 375y, 81 of longterm care facilities have reported at least one covid19 positive resident. Issueday, the department updated guidance to these facilities that directs them to implement universal masking of all staff and anyone entering the facility. We are taking this step to reduce the risk of illness being introduced into the facilities. Also, all symptomatic facility residents, those who are showing respiratory virus symptoms should be masked while staff is providing direct care. Concerning the readmission of their residence back into their facilities and acceptance of new outlines, our guidance methods facility should use to return or admit patients safely into their facilities. In addition to monitoring them for symptoms, facilities must create separate wings, units or tloors to accept a symptom a asymptomatic residents. This may move the facility to create a new wing or a new unit. They must limit the staff working between the wings or units as much as possible to avoid spread of the virus. They must create a separate wing covid19o accept positive residents. And they must care for those suspected or confirmed with covid19 in the cohort. When a facility receives information from its local Health Agency that a resident of the facility or a facility staff member has tested positive for covid19, the facility should follow the guidance provided by the local Health Agency to implement all actions necessary to protect the health and wellbeing of its residents and staff. Together, these two steps, universal masking and appropriately separating residents returning to the facility, will help facilities f exposure tosk ovens pos the virus. Today, i will be on a call with the operators of all of our longterm care facilities to emphasize this guidance and to give them guidance if they cannot because of the physical our abided by instructions. 2196 new casesg for a total of 18,696 cases in the state. Sadly, 69 new deaths have been reported. Fatalities l total fatalities in the state of 267. Male. Total, 55 are 45 are female. 1 ,e individuals, or were less than 30 years of age. 12, or 12 , were between the ages of 30 and 49. 17 between the ages of 50 and 64. Or 30 , between the ages of 65 and 79. Are over the age of 80. According to our records right now, many are still under investigation. 42 had underlying conditions. Obesity, hypertension, diabetes, Heart Disease and pulmonary disease. 58 are still under investigation for their full medical history. Individuals, were associated with longterm care facilities. Breakdown of the new cases, Atlantic County saw two. Bergen, 235. Burlington, 21. Camden, 29. Cape may, three. Cumberland, seven. Essex, 237. Gloucester, 25. Hudson, 183. Hundreterton, 10. Middlesex, 119. Monmouth, 99. Morris, 65. Ocean, 46. Passaic, 73. Somerset, 40. Suffolk, 16. Union, 111. Warren, eight. We are still gathering more details on 844 of these new cases. 95 ofer 9 laboratories reporting, we have of which 44,330 tests have tested positive for an overall Positivity Rate of 38. 92 . The mass testing sites of bergen and monmouth has tested 2593 individuals with 1052 remember, they are all symptomatic individuals. 1052 testing positive for a Positivity Rate of 41. 05 . Im also reporting today that new jersey state psychiatric hospital, another one that has been affected and a Forensic Center has one resident who tested positive for covid19. Again, we are being extremely vigilant to all residents and facilities in new jersey, especially those most vulnerable. In Mental Health facilities, longterm care facilities, pediatric longterm care facilities, state and county jails. I know this continues to be a stressful time for new jersey residents. In times of crisis, as the governor has shared, we all get solace by gathering and being with one another. I want to remind you again to reach out, talk to your family and friends, especially the elderly and those with disabilities. Maintain your sense of community. Check in daily with each other. Technology supports that more than ever before. For those who are in need of emotional support during this time, i encourage you to call our new jersey Mental Health 202help. Ne at 1866 18662024357. I sent all of you our best wishes to take care of yourselves and encourage you to abide by the social distancing that will make a difference. Thank you. Gov. Murphy thank you as always for not just the report, but for extraordinarynary reall extra leadership. This notion of picking up the telephone, sending a text or email, waving through a glass window, particularly for someone who is older perhaps, but more alone than not, it is not easy on any of us, the average new jerseyan. Think about folks who enter this with whatever the challenges they may have in their lives. I think that suggestion is a great one. And we know the mentalhealth side of this reality is real. I also want to again, it is march 31, so lets make sure we say it again. We are not getting out of this in the next few days. I will be the happiest guy in new jersey, if not america or the world if i am wrong. But, this is a marathon. We are going to be hunkered down for a while. So this notion of finding ways to communicate virtually, taking solace in what we talked about the other day in our isolation. Ironically, we are coming together because we are all in this together. That sort of spiritual side of this, i think and nurture a lot of us and get us through that extra mile because we are going to need it. This is not something we are going to be able to flip a light switch on in the next few days and get out of. You may have said this, judy, and even if you did, we can underscore this. Of the longterm care facilities, any one of the 375 of the positive. Since you have gotten your experts, ed and other colleagues, maybe not every case but in a lot of the case, it was asymptomatic workers coming into the facilities. I think that is a fair assessment. What we did when we first saw this trend emerging, i was in touch with the Washington State department of health longterm care division. They shared that their statistics have shown it was individuals coming in, workers, Health Care Workers that had contracted the disease were a symptom at it and spread it into the asymptomatic and spread it into their longterm care facilities. That is why we are recommending universal masking of the Health Care Workforce that comes into the facility. Gov. Murphy this is an important point and i want to make sure everybody hears that. My task is usually also to tell you total cases now, the order of counties, the top five bergen, 2909. Hudson, 1606. Union, 1418. Passaic, 1294. On, i catherine comes want to say one other thing that is not in the front burner, but i had a conversation. I have been trying to reach out to folks who have deep history and expertise in this arena. Not just obviously the medical community but also the policy community. I spoke with rod saturday night that helped to response of the obama administration. Of theght, the ceo center for american progress. This is not for today and i am not sure exactly the contours of this, but theres really two sides to this point. Number one, we are going to have off to the side, as they used to beginning now to look at what it looks like and what will be required in advance to begin to turn the lights on again whenever that may come. Weve got a team that has focused 1000 , as you can imagine. The house is on fire right now. Our job is to put the fire out. We begin,egin, how when we begin, what does it look like in a fair amount of detail to begin to get back on our feet. That is a group over there that we are sort of putting over there and asking them to begin work on that. Relatedly, we are sure as heck not going to go through the pain we are going through to go down the road and find just because of some other noncompliant, nonaggressive policies in other states in america, having people from those states we spoke about this last night then, coming back into new jersey and restarting the fire. Im not sure exactly what that looks like either. But with all due respect to the states that are not remotely as compliant as we are or new york is, by example, we are not going to go through this pain together and bring this, break the back of this curve. Bring it down. Begin to open up again just to be exposed of the lowest common don denominator. More on that as we figure out exactly what that looks like down the road. Again, we are not going to pay this price and have to watch that movie again. By the way, the virus in of itself can ebb and flow even if we do everything right. But i dont want anyone coming in from some other part of the country where they had lax policies and lax regulations and undoing a lot of the good we are collectively all 9 million of us doing right now. With that, i said it was a whole of government approach. There is no part of government that is not at the table right now. Whether it is access to safe Drinking Water, whether it is accessing supplies of their own, whether it is just making sure as we go through this crisis, as we go through our everyday life, getting a relationship with our environment right is a pass fail test for us. Im honored to introduce the commission of the department of Environmental Protection, catherine mccabe. Thank you, governor. Good afternoon. Today, i would like to bring your attention to just two of the many areas that the department of Environmental Protection has been focusing on during the covid19 outbreak. Those two areas are keeping the Drinking Water on for all New Jerseyans during these challenging times and keeping the new Jersey State Parks open to let residents get a little fresh air and exercise while maintaining the social distance that is so critical to our efforts to fight the virus. Before i speak about those, id also like to share a bit of good news on the ppe front. The good men and women of the new Jersey Parks Department primarily, but throughout our department have gone to the closet and cupboards and come up maskslmost 10,000 n95 which are now on their way to our frontline precious Health Care Workers where they are most needed. I thank them for their efforts to do that. Turning to Drinking Water. As the governor said, im very pleased to report that Drinking Water systems throughout the state have confirmed that they will not be turning the water off even when people are late in paying their bills or cannot pay their bills on time. There will be no water shut off during this crisis. Clean water, obviously, is essential for Public Health at any time and at all time, but its especially critical now when we are spending so much time every day, as i am sure all of you are, washing our hands and being sure that we are paying attention to the critical hygiene needs, we need to be religious about those in our homes and the places of business that are operating. We also recognize that many families are struggling to pay their bills with so many businesses closed to fight this outbreak and they are facing or will soon face difficult choices about which bills to pay first. So, the governor and i very much appreciate and thank our new jersey Water Utilities for their to step up to the plate and do their part to help new jersey residents protect their health and take care of their families. Parks, the other good news is that the new Jersey State Park and forest and Wildlife Management areas remain open for passive Recreational Activities such as walking, biking, hiking and fishing to let new jersey residents get a little fresh air and exercise during this stressful cooped up time for many. We are also waving park entrance fees during the situation. But, there are a few important rules and other things that are important to know before you go. First, be aware that the park facilities, and that includes all the restrooms, are closed. So go before you go. Second, please keep travel to a minimum and visit the park that is nearest to you. Third, while in the parks or other areas, visitors must practice social distancing. Go solo or with your immediate family only. Please, do not go in large groups. If you see a lot of people or a crowded parking lot, go into another area of the park or visit at another time. Keep your distance from others, even outdoors. It is important to remain six feet away from each other at all times even if you pass others on a trail please give each other a wide berth and hopefully with a friendly smile. Do not use the park playgrounds or exercise facilities or equipment. They are roped off for a reason. The reason is to keep you all safe. And please do not attempt to force your way into closed restrooms and please do not rip down the signs that our park workers have spent so many hours putting up to protect you and to let you know the status of their facilities. These rules are not optional and they will be and are being enforced by state park police and conservation officers. Ase replace the office respect the officers directions when they ask you to disperse and move on and allow them to maintain a safe social distance from you as well. If you love to fish, a great social activity, we have good news for you. I shouldnt say great social activity, i meant to say a great cell activity solo activity. Trout season will open 10 days early tomorrow, wednesday, april 1, for catch and release only. This is to help us to help you maintain safe social distance while fishing. Weve released the state raise trout early to disperse them before fishing season opens so that you can disperse too as you move out to catch them. Instead of everyone gathering around the hatchery on day one of the trout season which is traditional. If you find others gathered at your favorite fishing hole, consider trying a new location this year. The fish have moved out and you should, too. At a minimum, please spread out to at least the required six foot social distance. Conveniently, this is the typical length of a fishing pole so it should be easy for you to measure. And for better fishing, you probably want more distance anyway. If someone gets too close to you, have a friendly conversation about that six foot distance or find another spot. So, please do feel free to go out there and get some exercise and enjoy yourself, whether in a park or a forest or along a fishing stream. But please, please be responsible and remember that social distancing is absolutely essential to keeping you, your families, and our communities safe. And to help us all flatten the curve of this serious viral outbreak. Thank you. Gov. Murphy thank you. That was a report with overwhelming good news except for the trout. So, i thank you for that. Thats a nice, for any of the trout watching, they just got a heads up. Thank you seriously for that, and the notion for folks to be able to, first of all, keep their water supply as a reliable constant is a huge deal. Thank you for that. And the notion also to be able to go outside and get some fresh air in a responsible way has to be a part of what our plan is about. We are telling everyone to stay home. The notion is everyone is cooped up, you want to be able to go outside and get some fresh air. That is a good thing. Please, do not repeat those scenes from the waterfront. I think it was in San Francisco a few weeks ago where there were gobs of people on top of each other, running shoulder to shoulder, holding hands. We cant have that. I want to reiterate, whether it is fishing at the six foot pole which i think is a great way to think about it, or outside walking, hiking, jogging, please keep your distance. Thank you again. Thank you for everything you do. Nice to have you with us as well. Questions, we go to any quick comment on ppe and or compliance matters overnight . Ppe, with regard to that algorithm we are using, is primarily for healthcare workers now. Its really only for healthcare workers now. We still have caches for First Responders and the commissioner kelly can attest to it. Im a jersey trooper but are healthcare workers need this ppe right now as the highest priority. They are the ones that are at the front lines in the hospitals and their burn rate is considerably more than anybody whos a first responder. If you reverse engineer this, to how we get to how much bp is needed ppe is needed, is ours with bed capacity which then drives ppe. With that algorithm in mind, we have laid this formula across all 71 hospitals. As dbe comes in and what they are getting through the regular streams and regular vendors, we want to make sure we are able to make the most wellinformed decisions as to where ppe goes. With regards to compliance, there was an incident last night reported in lakewood where two subjects were charged with maintaining a nuisance. In newark overnight, having spoken to director ambroise, across 21 separate incidents, they wrote 161 summons. They closed 15 businesses. Theink of that effort, zerotolerance policy we have been talking about i think everybody also has to understand that when Law Enforcement has to go to a large gathering, regardless of which municipality, those Law Enforcement officers are now exposing themselves as well. This is a close up, hands on profession. We cannot do this profession from six feet away sometimes. I dont understand why people are not thinking about themselves, and if you are not taking about yourselves, at least think about our First Responders and Law Enforcement because we are going to take action. I think the city of newark last night showed what that policy would look like in order to, as the governor indicated, to make sure that you stay home before this hits home. One gathering is one too many. Wejust ask everyone have been talking about it for four weeks now. From, i just stressed that a Law Enforcement perspective and really from a Public Health perspective, just request that everybody cease and desist public gatherings. Thanks, governor. Gov. Murphy i appreciate that. I cannot underscore that enough. We are going to take aggressive action, whether it is the state police, local, county prosecutors, whatever it might be. Weve got to bring compliance to 100 . If we dont, we will be living with this longer and the consequences will be more severe. With that, i will go from my left to right. Please try not to give us a war and peace in your litany of questions. Not just you, nothing personal, but each and every one of you. Lets try to get through this as fast as we can. Brenda with the microphone. Number one, how are you feeling . Have you been tested . Gov. Murphy i have not been tested and im not symptomatically. I hope it stays that way. Some healthcare workers, nurses, especially criticalcare nurses with symptoms say they have been turned down for testing because they are short on tests. Should hospitals be required to test symptomatic healthcare workers in order to find out if they are likely to spread the virus . Can you name the longterm care facilities that have been affected and, if not, why . Gov. Murphy i will take the first one is a general matter and judy can address the second if thats ok. We have tried to prioritize healthcare workers and First Responders across a number of both days and testing sites. I would ask any Health Care Worker, lest my team tells me otherwise, if they are symptomatically, they should go on covid19. Nj. Gov and register who they are. It is our job to get out and give them a satisfactory answer regarding testing. Judy, locations, names, etc. I think you heard me say before, we have lots of discussions internally. The department of health about how much information we give and at what level. Part of my conversation this afternoon with the longterm care facilities will be the fact that you are all asking for the names. We dont want to scare anyone because there are people that have nowhere else to go. These are their homes. Giving up your home address. We have some concerns about that. I want to have a discussion with the owners of the longterm care facilities. These are these peoples homes. Gov. Murphy may i just also add to that. We were very exquisite about saint joes and woodbridge. That is something i know you are looking at. Disinfecting and potentially it is happening right now. Lets not get in i will not get into the names of facilities, but again, this is a delicate area because not all these places, but in many places, youve got endoflife realities. Again, i will have the Health Care Experts correct me if i get this wrong. So what might be concluded at observervel by one in terms of cause of death may in fact be more complicated than that. The notion of of the longterm care facility, youre dealing with life and death issues on a much more regular basis then we are in general society. So, it makes it even it makes the assessment of exactly the facts more complicated. Please. We will go to the back. Brandon has the microphone. He will try not to knock any teeth out. Certain counties, atlantic to be specific, of starting to report numbers of recovered patients in their daily, weekly numbers. Is that something the state is keeping track of, numbers of recovered patients . Also, on the new guidance for longterm care facilities, given the shortage of ppe, are these facilities asking for more masks . Do they have what they need in order to comply with what you are asking . Gov. Murphy judy, do you mind addressing both . The recovery numbers as well as the ppe . The ppe is an issue. They will not be asked to mask with n95s. They can use the surgical mask which we believe we have the supply for them. They can use cloth masks. Remember, it is to protect the residents from the employees somemay have a cold or respiratory symptoms. As far as recovery statistics, that is something again we discussed at communicative eservice so i will let ed talk about that. Gov. Murphy come on down. We know this information is important as we have thousands of cases in new jersey at this point. It is very difficult for us to track outcomes of all these people. We are working to get more of that information. We do have a team working to get these outcome type data. We dont have yet enough of this information that i feel comfort over exactly what we are seeing. Gov. Murphy thats clearly data we are hoping to get to at a certain point. I look at the total positives. This is a nonmedical answer. Total positives. On top of that, the overwhelming amount of negatives and then you will recall you have heard before, 85 are going to get mild to moderate symptoms. And will not require hospitalization. There will be a segment of that remaining 15 or so that will require hospitalization. Sadly, there will be a percentage we will lose. I will go down to dave and then to paul. Two questions. The first one on Shore Medical Center had sent out a letter asking if people want to voluntarily have layoffs. People heard about this, it sounded insane, especially with a call to action which has been put out for doctors and nurses. Is there any guidance about this . Would you be concerned about this . I would think a lot of people would be very concerned about this. How much of an issue is this and other medical centers and hospitals . Second question, if i may, on compliance. Perhaps the governor and colonel can talk about whats the problem here . Dont people get it . New jersey residents are very smart. It would seem that the knucklehead factor here is a little unusual and onyx cleanable. On a cleanable. Gov. Murphy im flattered you are using the knucklehead moniker. Im not sure about shore medical. As a general matter, we need all hands on deck. Believe me, we appreciate the stress this is causing the frontline Health Care Workers, but we need all hands on deck. We discussed this morning at our meeting that we have every morning on covid19 to redeploy any staff that has been laid off to redeploy them up to the northern part of the state. Part of that is to get accommodations, housing for those individuals. Right now, we have a team working on that to get housing for people that would be coming from the southern part of the state up to the northern part of the state. So, more on that, but we need every Health Care Worker that we have in the state and more. Gov. Murphy does anyone know i didnt check coming in. Maybe judy you know how many folks, we said 3611 had signed up yesterday. Do you know the number today . Can someone while we are sitting here this is a group that we asked for volunteers. On the knucklehead factor, i dont know that i have a good explanation other than we are not happy. I assume theres some amount of ignorance. Theres maybe still some about o im above it all and it is one elses problem. No one is above it. I referenced two deaths of people that were in their 30s, the prime of their lives. Theres nobody for which this is abstract. It angers us. Swift, believe the more visible action that is taken such as you saw in newark last night i want to thank director ambroise and his folks. The more quickly we can bring this noncompliant behavior 20. Pat . We are looking at a place we are looking at whoever is hosting the party or gathering and we need maybe to shift to, which i think you might have seen last night in newark, that everyone at that gathering is not going to be cited. Im not going to say that is going to happen in every instance because i talk about discretion. If and when those large gatherings happen, that everybody there is going to be charged. Gov. Murphy remember, there are 9 million of us so the overwhelming vast majority of us are doing the right thing, but this is a virus that wants to mmon the lowest co denominator. Commissioner, you had mentioned with regard to the Shore Medical Center, the reason they were putting out not you had mentioned, but the letter had mentioned they are losing money because they cannot do elective surgery and theyre trying to get as much ppe as possible. And this could be a concern for other hospitals. Is there that concern and how are we addressing it, if we are . I think all of the hospitals are concerned for their financial position that this epidemic puts them in. Obviously, hospitals that are full with covid19 patients would have a Financial Foundation for that, because most of them would have insurance they would be paid for. But, the impact of the code table of elective surgeries curtailment of elective surgeries, my past life would tell you if you dont do over 50 elective surgeries in your hospital, you will have difficulty managing your finances. So, every single hospital in new jersey will have faculty with finances. Gov. Murphy i will say this before i moved back to paul. Its why correct me if i am wrong, the federal stimulus bill is a huge chunk of money for hospitals for this very reason. There are certain sectors that desperately need the help, and particularly the hospitals on the frontline of the covid19 are at the top of the list. Thanks for passing it along. Lksve have as of now 4764 fo who have registered in helping expand the medical services corps. We are going through that and processing that, but thats a big deal for us. Paul, thank you. You got a policy of letting people get out and exercise on the state level, which seems to be working quite well, but i have been hearing all these complaints of people. For example, i got a picture of the boardwalk read they shut that down for walkers. Theres a person walking in traffic instead. If there was another person, they would be six feet apart, one but be in the middleoftheroad. You are seeing this all over, local people are making these decisions to shut things down that on the state level would not be shut down. What are you going to do by the way, when they shut them all down, everybody congregates at the one thats open, federal or state, which creates the crowded parking. Are you going to do anything to have some sort of consistent statewide policy on that . Gov. Murphy can i ask matt to weigh in . Chief counsel . In executive order 108 laid out, with very limited exceptions, no county or local government can limit an order that contradicts with the governors owner. There are a few exceptions. One of which we give local jurisdictions the option in consultation with us to close parks, boardwalks, beaches. That is in part because some towns are very dense and our local circumstances that it did not make it manageable, especially with shortages in their Law Enforcement officers to monitor those public places. So, it is a local decision that we work closely with them on. That is one of the few exceptions in the statewide policy. Gov. Murphy thank you for that. Please. Governor, in the course of covering covid across the globe, we have seen photos and video of other nations disinfecting public spaces. Is there any plans for that in new jersey . For the colonel, do we know how many troopers are out sick at this time relative to the whole force . Gov. Murphy thank you for that. I would say this i answered it. I am not sure why it felt to me at the point with spraying versus wiping down. Theres an enormous amount of disinfecting going on. Oh overwhelming me, it is wiped down mode, is that correct . You saw a lot in asia and to some extent in europe, you saw the spraying routine. On the efficacy of wiping down versus spraying . Not specifically. We certainly do encourage the wiping down of high touch surfaces guardrails, handrails, any place people are likely to touch with their hands on a regular basis. Gov. Murphy an aggressive protocol in place for a number of weeks which you would not be surprised by given the line of business they are in. Pat callahan on state troopers. Local lawthe enforcement numbers which i will not give out on the top of my head. Law enforcement positive across the state, 373. 3081. Statewide out of work for another reason is 618. I do that from the road Field Operations standpoint. It is a small percentage of troopers that are out. Gov. Murphy thank you. Sir, are you asking or not . Are you just on a camera . Ill apologize like i did before because i have an insane amount of questions again, but i will start do you have a timeline for the june elections and are you close to a decision on whether you will take those to all vote by mail . Because the division of elections is quarantining paper petitions, do you plan to extent the amount of days that candidates have to file a challenge or file bracketing letters . Beenso seems like you have a little bit less willing to criticize the president recently. Is there any concern on your part that doing so would endanger federal aid to new jersey . Has the administration identified any other issues that would require legislative action . If so, what are they and have you ruled out calling the legislature in . Gov. Murphy our administration . Yes. Gov. Murphy ok. Does the list go on . Ok. No closer other june elections. I say this with respect because we respect each and every one of you. I think we thought after the last time you asked the question about the timeline, we have a very different timeline on when to make the decision on the june elections but we have nothing new on that. I missed the second part. Divisional elections are quarantined . Quarantining petitions for 24 hours. The petitions in person. Everyonesnot petitions have been checked as theesterday, so you know, candidates essentially have less time to file challenges. Gov. Murphy got it. I dont have a crisp answer, but i know matt is more likely to have one. The state as of now does not see a reason to change that now. They are actively working with the campaigns. They feel confident they can count the petitions. They are also working with the county clerks on that side. Gov. Murphy let me address the president which has come up a couple of times. Again, i have said this before and its just a fact. I would hope the folks, the 9 million members of our family would appreciate this. I dont get to wake up in the morning and pick who is and what position in the country. The president of United States is donald trump and the Vice President is mike pence. Theres one federal administration. If we are going to get through this crisis sooner than later with a lower curve with fewer sickness, in terms of it will be because we found, among other things a lot of it will be due to what we do in the state, including the personal behavior of all of us, but a lot of it will also relate to how much Common Ground we can find the administration. So, it has nothing to do with what i think a given person wants to hear. It is substantive, deeply some similarly, i was on the phone with Speaker Pelosi talking about what elements we would like to see in the next stimulus bill. At very high levels with the administration. We will do what it takes to save as many lives as we can in new jersey. We will deal with everybody and anybody. There is no price too high, political or otherwise, in order to save as many lives and keep the people sick in this state as low as possible. As it relates to our administration and legislature, we had a good conversation this morning as it relates to things like the budget, tax deadlines. I hope we will have news to report on that sooner rather than later, given tomorrow is april 1 in particular. Is beyondow there dealing with the budget season and the tax reporting timeframe. Those are the top items, thats what we talked about this morning. They have been really good about i will give you one example, which is a few days old. They have been working on making sure we had a law in place where you couldnt foreclose on somebody, couldnt evict somebody. I want to take my hat off to the senate, the menorah leaders in both minority leaders in both houses. I want to thank them for that. My first question is from daniel from nj biz. Are you considering the sort of construction ban new york has put in place in the next couple of days . Are you reconsidering new jerseys rules on that . Are you likely to go less or more restrictive . The rest of the questions are mine. There is a 680 million pension payment due today, the quarterly payment. Im wondering if you will make it. If so, what is your guidance on cash flow over the next several weeks and months . Earlier, you mentioned the state residents from out of state. Would those be as restrictive as those in texas and florida . The answer is we are holding where we are in construction. We look at that regularly. We look at other areas, as well. Eliminateid nonessential construction. That is something we have considered. We are Still Holding where we are. The pension payment will be made. I dont have any window on the cash levels. As you can imagine, thats a moving target. That is something we are in close touch with the treasurer on. It is too early to say anything about what i mentioned that would be down the road. Both in terms of how we reopen and get back on their feet. Refuse, and im looking to the 9 million folks, many of whom are watching. We can make the folks go through the pain they are going through, which they had to go through. Theyre going through together. And find some other state didnt take this as seriously. They were basing decisions that werent based on science, data, and fact. Therefore, through a back door, we are reignited the fire. Exactly how that looks, it is too early to tell. With our aggressive policies, we havent gotten that curve flattened yet. We will do this. Let there be no doubt about it. I hope sooner than later. When we do this, when the numbers on the back half of that ,urve begin to come away down you are getting into a place where you can responsibly begin to shed more daylight on the economy and society, i will be darned if we let some lowest common denominator suck us back in. The pension payment will be made on time . On time. I shouldnt have said it will be made at some point. It will be made on time as it is stipulated. Are you keeping i promise we will start right to left. Are you keeping track of frontline medical workers, nurses, the way superintendent has available at his hands . Stand . How things the ppe numbers you gave earlier, what were those . State stockpiles, from the survey of hospitals, from the federal deposit . Model for covid uses a social distancing percentage is one of the factors. What is the percentage you are using in your estimates for your modeling . What does that say about new jerseys compliance rate . Ppe, that was i believe it is state levels at the moment. On the social distancing, the compliance is 31 . We have been showing two models. One was zero. One was 31 . Historical on pandemic experience. My call to arms to everybody is we are better than this. We can beat this. We can be better than 31 . In your current models, are using another number besides 31 . In our current model, we are using 31 . We would hope it would get up to 44 . If it were 44 , we would be ok. Capacity as we currently know it would be fine. We are expanding capacity, because we are 31 . We believe in working with the hospitals and the alternative care sites, of which there will be many that we will be able to handle. The frontline nurses, those reports go to njha for the individually of the hospitals. Workforces dedicated to each hospital. Opportunitys as an to go back. Can we pull up the graphs for a second . If you look, the left is armageddon. Thats assuming we did nothing. Go get them, enjoy yourselves. There is no state in america that can deal with that. But even if you look at the right graph, which implies an average performance, i cant say two things enough. I dont want anyone to look back on today or any other day. The numbers are going up, positive tests, fatalities. There is no price that is too high to pay. We will lay it all out to save lives. The numbers are going up. Even if you can do performance on the right graphic, you still are short on beds, ventilators, and ppe. We are doing everything we can for all of the above. Curve same time, beat the to get it down as close to the red line as humanly possible. Anything else . 31 , at least here, you havent shut schools, you havent done aggressive stay home, hide in your house social distancing before here. Is 31 still the best way to model that, or is there a higher number . May i see this as a nonmedical, nonhealth expert . Remember a couple of things. We took a whole range of aggressive steps, closing schools that is now several weeks old. Wereost aggressive steps taken a week ago saturday. You might want to move a little bit. Those are 10 days old. Tell me if you disagree, we are getting specimens that are tested that may also be seven to 10 days since the collection of them. Were reportedat in every case, it is highly likely given how jammed up the Testing Facilities are, including the private high scale, high speed ones that are seven to 10 days old. You may be right, we are not another sevenfor to 10 days to heaven of data to draw conclusions. Is that fair to say . We are looking in the Rearview Mirror because the way tests come in, we want to plan for this, we think it is the worst case. The resiliency of our health care institutions, i believe they will be able to handle what we are planning for. Even in that far better scenario, bids, ventilators, ppe, everything judy and her team are doing to fill those capacities out is urgently needed. For the rest of the 9 million of us, we have to get on top of that curve, sit on it, and drive it down to at least where the redline is. David wants to know whos going to lead the team . To be determined. I give him my best regards. I dont know yet. Are you good in the back . Commissioner, it has been mentioned, and you went through some steps about the positive cases. Is it accurate to say we are seeing more younger people in new jersey than perhaps other states getting positive test results for covid19 . If that is the case, do we have any reason to think of why thats happening . Do we have a demo of everyone getting tested . In other words, if it is negative, do we know a certain percentage of younger people, aged 20, 50, whatever that have tested negative . I dont have the demographics on the negatives. I think our statistics are asually following the same the rest of the United States. It is a slightly younger population than what was seen internationally, as far as we know. What we are seeing is similar to what other places are seeing. The very young age groups who are seeing few people being tested, that are sick. As you get older, we see more. I dont have the numbers in front of me, but the other thing we are seeing is in the relatively young adult ages, a lot of people positive. Older, overder and the age of 80, there arent that many positives. Similar to what other countries are seeing in that the older you get, the worse this is looking. Thank you. The senator is saying he , can ans your policy doctor not prescribe it off label . How does it work . A licensed physician is able to prescribe any approved medication on and off label use. Thats always been the case. It is saying we dont want people to be hoarding or writing prescriptions inappropriate. We dont want doctors writing prescriptions for family itters, friends, or pulling out of the supply chain for those people who might benefit from this medication, which we dont know whether it will work or not. Is preventive use of it by a doctor, is it a legal . What is the policy . Somebody that doesnt have full symptoms . Tothe policy is designed help protect against that sort of thing. The thing you wouldnt want to happen is a large percentage of pictures for medication that have no effect and bullet out of the supply lines for the people we know it will work for, use for other things, as well as potential in sick or populations, where it is still being seen if there will be an effect. We dont want a doctor to be writing prescriptions out there for everyone and their family, or on the block, or even in their patient practice. It may not be high risk for this medication, but they use up the supplies. I want to come back to one thing i do want to say about a group of folks that will look at how we reopen this place. , to be be jersey run determined as to who, but it will require, by definition, input that is probably both national and global. We have to learn from other models beyond our state. I mentioned speaking last night input from a lot of the work that they may be doing. Mckinsey is a global firm that helps us in different ways. That seems to be something that would help us here. Oflaim who saw implications the ebola. There are others like that. Just to get some sense. It will require more that we need. I think you get the last word. Im a little confused. Talking about people from other states. Do you plan on doing what florida is doing . Are you not at the point of restrictions . Im not at the point to give you an answer, but i will put folks on notice that im not going to make people in new jersey this is in addition to the fact the virus we do everything right , the virus could have been slow between now and the time we get a vaccine that is scalable. A reality if we bet thousand. But i am not going to make the people of this state go through hell and back to flatten the curve. You can put it up if you could to smash that curve down and all of the isolation and social distancing and stayathome only to have some lowest common denominator throw gasoline on the fire. Isont know how the evidence. It is too early to even say that. We are still in our own world doing what we have to do on our own. You issued guidance to hospitals. How long positive patients must rain out home emco workers should be up to volunteer. I deferred to the experts on this. The hospitals on how long will you issued guidance to hospitals about how long their covid19 positive patients must remain at home . Thats a great question. Really an testing is important aspect. Guidance, not just for hospitalized patients, but those who have recovered as to how long they should isolate. As the commissioner mentioned, there are two ways you can look at it. One is serial testing. And look for negative tests in a row. Thats not really practical for most. Our basic rule comes down to this, which is confusing. At least three days after symptoms got better. A minimum of seven days from when it began is when we would say you can remove yourself from isolation. We are going to wrap up. I want to make points. Ones with the graphs still up behind me. Our job, the left graph is armageddon. In january, we chose we were going that route. The chart on the right is assuming we punch at an average weight. I want to repeat what i said, we are not an average estate, where the quintessential state. High character, one family, nobody works harder. That is the state we need to be right now to take the blue line you see on the right and smash it down as close to that redline. We need to do this now. Well go beyond that, but we are going to have a really strong sense in the next week or two as to whether or not we get a shot of bringing that blue line down to the redline. If there is one state in america that can pull that off, it is new jersey. God bless you all. If you can put the website up. If you have any questions, go to covid19. Nj. Gov. Its allencompassing, from losing your job, testing symptoms, and everything in between. Time,l be together same same place tomorrow at 1 00 p. M. God bless you all. If you miss any of our live coverage of the governments response to the coronavirus outbreak, watch it anytime at cspan. Org coronavirus. From daily briefings by the president and White House Task force to updates from governors on the hardest hit states. It is all there. Use the charts and maps to track the virus global spread, and confirmed cases in the u. S. County by county. Our coronavirus webpage is your fast and easy way to watch cspan unfiltered coverage of this pandemic. Next, President Trump and members of the White House Coronavirus task force on the federal governments response to the pandemic. Topics included efforts by governors to mitigate the spread of the virus, and medical claimant recently released to the states. Th
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