Baton rouge where louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards holds a briefing on the states response to the coronavirus operate. Outbreak. 95 of thes positive results that we announced today are from t ests conducted in commercial labs. The increase of cases appears to be less a sign of exponential growth over the last couple of days and more a sign of a logjam for commercial labs that have developed over a long period of time. Many of these tests were taken several days, if not longer ago. That theery good thing louisiana has been able to rapidly wrap up testing. Day,ct, depending on the we are somewhere between the third in the nation or fifth in the nation in terms of per capita testing. That said, the reason we have been able to wrap up is weve got more and more commercial labs that have come online. But, our different data systems have to be able to talk to one another and that is a part of the problem. A bigger part of the problem is with private testing, those labs have greatly exceeded their capacity in terms of the tests that they have taken in and they are waiting through their labs. What we are seeing is a logjam and these tests are coming through in big numbers, breaking through the logjam. You may have seen yesterday q uest reported that they had 160,000 backlogged tests. Similar stories coming out of labcorp, for example. If there is good news for todays numbers, it is that the vast majority of those people who are covid positive pursuant to todays report do not require hospitalization and they have already been told by their physicians that they are covid positive and they have been in isolation for some time now. While the hospitalization death rates remain high, it is also true that as we discover all of these new cases, the trendline here in louisiana is starting to match up with what we have seen across the country in terms of the percentage of individuals with covid19 who have to be hospitalized and the percentage of those who died. So, we are moving much closer to the national average. It is true, however, that we still have more than our fair share of people dying and that is likely because we have more than our fair share of people who have the vulnerabilities. These are things like diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, hypertension, obesity. We also have a lot more covid19 in louisiana than we have thought of until now. That is with the last three days of test results has unequivocally shown. You have heard a lot of talk about modeling and i had a question about this yesterday and i want to address it. We are still working on our model as it relates to the number of deaths we believe we can expect from covid19, but i was asked yesterday about the National Modeling that was used at the press conference at the white house tonight to go. You may remember it showed nationwide, we can expect between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths. Int model suggests that, louisiana, the total deaths would be about 1834. I would assume, but i am not certain that that is the midline between those two ranges because nationally, it was between 100,000 and 240,000. There has to be arrange for the louisiana as well. We hope to be able to update you more on this shortly. But, i would like to remind everyone, and i say remind is maybe the wrong word, that model was used tonight to go from the white house to talk about the number of deaths we could expect, but they didnt say one of the assumptions underlining that model is we actually continue to have the same mitigation measures in place all the way through the month of may. So, any of these numbers would also have to be attached to that particular assumption. W, the National Model also says that we will reach our peak count of daily deaths in about eight days with the death rate being about 76, starting on april 10. Obviously, this is very imprecise and i am not sure that is what we are going to actually see or that the peak may be higher than that and it may come later than that. But what we all know is we have a role to play and we can determine collectively with our individual actions how much worse this virus will impact our families, our communities, and our state. That is related to how many cases we have in the state, how many people have to be hospitalized, how many people have to die. The demands we put on our health care system. I would underscore that this virus is in all of the parishes across the state of the louisiana. I think we actually added one more parish today, that was caldwell parish. There are still three parishes up here with a zero. I promise you there is the Novel Coronavirus and covid19 in every one of those parishes and every Community Across the state of louisiana. An extremely Serious Public Health emergency and im asking for the vigilance of all the louisianans because that is key to flattening the curve and slowing the spread. That is also why later today, i am going to sign an executive order extending the stay at home mitigation measures through april 30. I told you several days ago i would do this. Alignment would be in with the guidance coming from the federal government two nights ago when President Trump announced to the mitigation measures he felt we should have been placed through april 30. The new orders largely the same as the old one except it now go through the end of the month. I am going to go back over the list of businesses that remain closed to the public. All places of public amusement, whether indoors or outdoors, including but not limited to locations with amusement rides, carnivals, water parks, trampoline parks, aquariums, zoos, museums, arcades, fair, Children Play centers, playgrounds, theme parks, any theaters, concerts, music calls, Adult Entertainment venues, racetracks and other similar businesses. All personal care and grooming businesses included but not limited to barbershops, beauty salons, nail salons, spas, massage parlors, tattoo parlors and other similar businesses. All malls except for stores in a mall that has a direct outdoor interest and exit that has essential services and products as provided by the guidelines. Businesses close to the public pursuant to this provision shall not be prohibited from conducting necessary activities such as payroll, cleaning services, or upkeep as necessary, but they are close to the public. The order means you still cannot gather in groups of more than 10. But frankly, you shouldnt be gathering in groups at all. That is what we have been talking about. Minimizing social contact. If you are one of the more Vulnerable People in the population, you should not be gathering in groups. It would be a great thing if louisianans can employ their ingenuity to find new different ways to connect with individuals without having to be physically together. Guidelines for Funeral Services and Health Care Workers were already extended through april 30 in the previous order, so those will not change. School closures will continue through april 30 and i can tell you that the form of Education Department of education is is in the process of what will happen beyond april 30. I suspect we will have some guidance from them very soon, either tomorrow or early next week. Today, we are also announcing a new way the public and stay uptodate on the latest information concerning this crisis. This afternoon at 4 p. M. , we are sending an Emergency Alert to all cell phones in the louisiana to alert them of the stayathome order. I know the people are used to associating this alert with severe weather, which is why wanted to give everybody a heads up that its going to come today. That said, it underscores how seriously we take this Public Health emergency in the louisiana. As you can see from our report today, it truly is a life or death situation. If people want to get alerts and updates, they should they can opt in for texts by texting 67283. To a lot of people are watching these news conferences and i appreciate our Media Partners who bring these resources to you every day. I want to let you know that we have added new information to the department of Health Dashboard in an attempt to be idtremely transparent and cand with the people of louisiana and do it in a realtime basis, so you are not going to be able to see information about available beds, icu beds and ventilators by region of the state. It will be updated daily at noon, just as all of the other information is updated related to testing. For more information and available resources, you can also visit the website, coronavirus. La. Gov. That is a new address. We are working to unite as much i information as possible because we are in this for the long haul and we want this information to be readily available. I also want to thank so many people across the state who work extremely hard every day. We have been talking about doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists and all the other allied Health Care Professionals and they are true heroes. We have First Responders all across the state, at the local level and so forth, doing tremendous work. At the state level, weve got a lot of people working extremely hard and extremely well. I do want to give a shout out to the National Guard today. They have been delivering supplies throughout the state. For the entire time we have been in this emergency. We currently have over 1210 soldiers and airmen assisting with the covid19 response from the louisiana National Guard. In addition to their numerous other missions, they have been 366,000 n95ver masks. Over one million gloves. 49,650tilators and suits, just to name a few of the items they have been delivering. Mobil want to thank exxon baton rouge for partner with the Global Center for medical innovation to develop new industrial style masks and put it on the fast track for production for doctors and nurses and other Health Care Providers. These masts can be sterilized and worn multiple times. Once approved by the fda, they will be able to produce as many and0,000 ready to use masks filter cartridges per hour. Our exxon mobil Chemical Plant chemical usedhe to manufacture this product. In closure today before i take the questions you might have for me, i did want to point out that among the deaths we have announced, louisiana lost a legend yesterday with the death of ellis marsalis. His family is attribute in his death to covid19. He was a proud patriarch of one of the most prominent jazz families in new orleans, certainly as the director of the just department. He worked at the university of new orleans. He was a mentor to countless jazz greats and left an indelible mark on the soul of new orleans and really the country and beyond. Some of his best students whose music sons, we all enjoy. This should be a set reminder for all of us of the terrible toll this disease, covid19, has taken on our people. Please join me in lifting up the marsalis family and all families of the deceased in your prayers. As i normally do, ive got dr. Alex here to take specific questions that might relate to testing. With that, i would be happy to take your questions. You described in the new cases that were confirmed, the logjam and older test results, how exactly are you leading the response to this and grappling with the numbers . Do you have better data when it comes to the specific dates these tests are conducted or are you looking at some other component of the data that is informing your response . Gov. Edwards i will tell you what i have been told, and i want dr. B to Pay Attention as he always does and if i say some thing wrong, come and correct me. Obviously, the number of cases we report on the daily basis is important. It is important to know that. But, the two data points that inform our modeling more than any other, and really inform the modeling everywhere are not new cases. They happen to be hospitalizations and deaths. The reason is new cases gets you a picture of how much covid is out there, but the fact of the matter is some significant percentage of people have covid, they were totally asymptomatic. They had never been tested and are not going to be tested anytime in the near future. If you read different studies, one came out of iceland that says it could be 50 . The number of new cases does not necessarily tell you the trajectory you are on in terms of what you can expect to happen after hospitals and in your icu beds and on ventilators. If you look at the number of people you have in your hospital and the number of deaths, those two data points actually can tell you what trajectory that you are on. So, thats whats informing our frankly, it, quite suggests that we are still headed to a place where we are going to overwhelm our capacity to deliver health care as it relates to the total beds available and to ventilators. Are reporting the highest number of cases today, the modeling that we have shows those dates have slipped back in time, not ahead. I think it is one more day then we reported yesterday. So and i did not write this down and i will have to confirm this. I think it is april 7 for vents and the 12th for beds, in the new orleans region. Our modeling doesnt show the further out you try to model, the more error there is going to be and the less you can glean from your modeling efforts. We dont have in the 14 day window of our current modeling any other regions running out of beds. Updatewill continue to this modeling with new information as it comes in every single day. Yes, sir . Somewhat of a followup. Tuesday, we saw a big spike of cases. Wednesday and then today. This may be a question for the doctor. How long can we expect cases as it relates to how big is it backlogged, this logjam of cases . Gov. Edwards we dont have really good information until we get it. We can tell you anecdotally, for example, that the drivethrough testing that was conducted, has been conducted in new orleans at two sites which has now been combined into one, but they are testing up to 500 a day. 250 drivethroughs in jefferson parish. The majority of all of those tests have not yet been reported. So at some point, they will come through. Whether they come through in a uniform amount every day or whether there is an exceptionally large number of results that come through in a single day, we dont really know. Until we come out here and tell you what that report is, we dont really know what to expect. But, we think that is going to continue to happen. The good news is the vast majority of those tests are being done on a drivethrough basis. Those people are not so sick they have to be in the hospital in the first instance, so it is much more likely those individuals dont have to go to the hospital in order to deal with this particular disease. And, we are telling people when they show up to be tested, you may or may not be covid positive. We are going to tell you the results as soon as we have it. From this point forward, you have to act as if you are. So, go home, quarantined yourself, and we will let you know what the results are. Those people should be, until they are deemed by their Health Care Providers to be recovered, at home in isolation. That is the good news with the vast majority of those particular individuals. I wish i could give you a better answer, but the truth is we know more every day, but we dont know it before we report it. Yes, sir . Any update on the two state lawmakers that are battling covid19 . Gov. Edwards i dont have an update. I have not been authorized by them or their families to share the information about their identities or their situations in any case. I just dont want to do it. Like everybody who is struggling with covid19 right now, i want to ask everyone to lift these individuals up in prayer. Yes . Inhave you made any progress getting additional ventilators at this point . And, what is going on with the pricing you are seeing and has it reached a level of affording it . Gov. Edwards we have already reported some to the u. S. Attorneys for the middle district with respect to potential price gouging. Distributed 450 i ventilators since the start of this, and that included the 150 yesterday that came from the Strategic National stockpile. We have not gone any additional ventilators. We believe some of the orders we have with vendors will come in. Certainly not all of them. We continue to call those people daily to check on that. We are trying to source ventilators literally all over the world, and the price has at least doubled on every ventilator we are looking at from just where they were three to four weeks ago. So, it is a very expensive thing, but we have to do our best to get what we need to take care aof as many people as possible so if and when we exceed our capacity, it is the smallest number of people possible. That is what we do in order to protect the health and welfare of the people of the louisiana. We are being aggressive. We are also redoing requests for those ventilators that had been held at the Strategic National stockpile. While weve got 150, we know some additional ventilators were held there for subsequent allocation and distribution. We are making our case for our share of those and i dont have any update on that as we speak. On that point, i know there has been guidance put out by fema about a checklist the state has to provide. Are you finding it, a checklist that is easy to comply with or are the hurdles great . Gov. Edwards i am not going to say it is easy to comply with, but we complied with it. We sent in an updated request last night with every data point they were requesting. Including Additional Information we thought would aid us in getting the attention of the decisionmakers as it relates to those ventilators. We did it last night. We continue to pursue those ventilators and every other ventilator that we can find because it is incredibly important. Yes, sir . A few nights ago, you spoke about the possibility of further guidelines maybe requiring people and the public to wear masks or Face Covering of some kind. I know some states have looked into that. From your standpoint, is that something possibly down the line you could be looking at or are you waiting for the feds . Go