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 . Gov. Edwards sure, it is something we could look at. What we dont want to do in the meantime is take the type of masks that are being warned by our Health Care Providers before they have enough. But, there is some evidence and i think its growing. I think theres a growing consensus around this, that the disease can spread perhaps more easily than they thought by people breathing and so forth. So, some covering of the mouth would aid that. Is ierson wearing the mask think protecting others more than they are protecting themselves, but if we all do it, there is protection for everyone. That may come, but i will tell you in order to offer that protection, it is not necessary for the individual to wear an n95 mask that is in short supply for the Health Care Providers, but there may be other things that could be worn. I dont believe that i would ever issue an order that says to go out in public, you have to wear a mask. Nowhere i issued something that you cannot. Individuals are free to do this right now. The surgeon general, dr. Fauci, people at the cdc and so forth, until very recently, they had a different opinion. I dont know if they have come all the way in favor of Wearing Masks but it appears they might be heading there. Individuals are free to do that now. Again, i dont think they have to have the n95 mask but there are other things they can wear. Yes, sir . I know the department of steps in will have the this crisis. You said schools will remain closed until april 30. What impact will that have on High School Graduating seniors and going to the next grade level . Gov. Edwards i think there are going to be some options i know there are options being discussed now with betsy, who is the interim superintendent of education for louisiana, and all the district superintendents. They are really going to come out with an announcement soon. I really dont want to get in front of them, but i dont believe you are going to see gradesretained in unnecessarily. There are options out there, as you could imagine. They could take the grades that existed on march 13 and that can be the final grade for the semester. They can convert to pass fail. If they do that, if that is the option, we will make sure that does not interfere with someones ability to qualify for tops, for example. Graduation ceremonys are Something Different. I dont know when we will be in position to have a ceremony, but i dont think you are going to see a radically different highntage of School Seniors graduate this year as opposed to previous years. That does not make sense for anybody, not just the seniors, but for the state of louisiana. They are working through this now and they are going to have more specific information very soon. Im going to hold off discussing this anymore until they do that. This may be for dr. B, but i know we have discussed before the idea of reporting recoveries. Are we any closer to getting to the point where louisiana ken starr reporting how these people have recovered . Gov. Edwards let me report one. Sean wilson. First of all, he is my secretary of transportation and a very valuable member of our team. Im very happy that he is recovered and back at work. There are obviously more people than sean wilson who have recovered and i am going to ask the dr. To address this. Of all the data points we have out there, the least consequential to us right now is those recovered, because that doesnt change any of the decisions we have to make. We dont want to spend a lot of time and energy trying to ascertain information that takes us off the task at hand, which is getting other data points that are critically important. We are still looking at platforms that would help us electronically. We need volunteers. One of the things, to highlight what the governor said earlier, there is a lot of Public Interest around covid19. We have to keep in mind that individuals have a right to privacy about their health information. We have to look at how we gather that information in a way that looks at privacy and honors that. As the governor said, the most important thing we are keeping our eyes on right now is Health Care Resources and trying to find the people who need to be taken care of at the hospital. The cdc indicated they were going to issue new guidance about high, low, medium risk counties, that sort of thing. Do we have an update on that . I dont believe we have received that. The way, the cdc, the federal government is doing pretty good. Every time they put something out, they send it to me, the department of health, our Communications People get it. Its forthcoming. It may or may not have information that causes us to do Something Different than we are currently doing. Your next question . [inaudible] the mentioned a minute ago, modeling we have right now for the time that its reliable when we willus exceed the capacity for beds and ventilators. When it changes, we are going to make a decision. It could be more than one that we pull the trigger on. , we areeantime surveying and studying multiple facilities in every region of the state to see what the and what the cost ,ould be to go in and set it up somewhat similar to what were doing with the Convention Center in new orleans. E are gathering data we are well ahead in the process but we havent reached the trigger points yet. Before this is over, we are going to have these facilities and all the populated areas, so here in baton rouge, but also in lafayette,otentially central louisiana and then you get up to the shreveport area. We wont have one in every region of the state as those regions are defined by ldh. There are nine of those. We wont have nine of these facilities. Some places will be surging those patients into facility set up nearby. Setting up the logistics of trying to operate thegh that many because ability to staff that many facilities becomes difficult as well. Last question. You get the last one. Is there any mechanism you have to enforce [inaudible] the order isll, valid as a matter of law. You whattell percentage of businesses are complying, although it is a very High Percentage that are complying and remaining closed. Where we have Law Enforcement that sees one of these businesses open, they have the power to go in and remind the individual, point out the order, that they should close. If they choose not to do so, there are remedies available including charges, but also the loss of their occupational license, that sort of thing. , we willvery beginning enforce the order to the extent that we need to. Ends ifsiana people in louisiana insist we enforce our way through this, we are going to have a very hard time flattening the curve. Tensve millions of people, of thousands of businesses, 4500 or so churches, so i am counting ofthe goodness, the decency the people of louisiana to cooperate. Abouteve been talking since the very first day for the people of louisiana, the imperative is to embrace the mitigation measures, the stayathome order, the social distancing. Limite if we john greatly if we dont greatly limit going contact, we are not to flatten the curve to the degree that we cut. Exceed degree that we could. That exceed our capacity, will directly correlate to the number of people who will die. I am again urging everybody in the state of louisiana to comply. This is not just a problem for people in jefferson parish, shreveport, baton rouge. If you are somewhere that doesnt have a large case count, dont breathe easy. Youtime is now to make sure dont get the cases. You are always further behind. If you wait until the numbers grab your attention, guess what . You just let the virus win. Been behind this thing in the United States in the state of louisiana from the doinning, so we have to better on compliance. By the way, i want to thank those people who are complying. We have different ways to on socialmpliance distancing. I know people cell phones have gps devices and we have studies being done. Theres a high level of compliance right now. There are some areas that are doing extremely well. There are other areas of our are not doing well at all. This virus, this diseases throughout the state of louisiana, and Everybody Needs to take it seriously. And everybody will at some point, when there is a death close to them. Well, when it be better if we took it seriously so that never had to happen . Think the answer speaks for itself. So, i would encourage people to comply. We will have another briefing. I will let you know when its going to be. I suspect it will be tomorrow about the same time. Now and then, i ask everybody to do what they can to comply. And lets lift each other up in prayer. Thank you so much. Earlier today, how Speaker Pelosi announced a committee for oversight of spending on the coronavirus pandemic. She held a Conference Call to answer questions about the response. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] Speaker Pelosi i am announcing a Bipartisan Committee called the House Elect Committee on the coronavirus crisis. This is a house select committee. Greatness of our nation is in its ability to rise to extraordinary challenges, no matter how big. Now is the time. We face a deadly virus and a battered economy with millions of americans out of work. Congress has passed over 2 trillion in emergency relief. We need to make sure those dollars are spent carefully and effectively. Our country faced a similar challenge 80 years ago at the beginning of world war ii. Recognizedry truman the urgency of oversight and accountability in making sure money did what it was supposed to do. Ofator truman was in charge the special committee to investigate the National Defense program. Thats what it was called. Eight years later, now president truman looked back at that time and summarized it. He said i knew after world war i, the first world war, there were 116 investigating committees after the fact. One before the fact would have prevented a lot of waste and maybe even saved lives, and that is how it worked out. The speaker is talking about a fourth bill. I dont think that is appropriate at this time. We have just passed three bills, the largest in history. Also, from the standpoint of anything else we need to do, we should have the data and the knowledge to make sure we do it right. I though the speaker just talked , iut an Oversight Committee have a couple of concerns about this. Ne, who she is naming, clyburn its concerning to me because thought thislyburn was an opportune time to restructure government. Thats not what we should be doing. We should be taking care of the health of the american public, keeping the economy strong just as it was before. Is,other concern i have inside the bills we passed, we put in oversight. Every committee has oversight,ut in the bill we just passed we had an accountability committee. Specialcreated a Inspector General for treasury and gave it a more than 25 million budget. We created a congressional oversight commission, and we gave the gao another 20 million. If this isite sure political. , forther concern i have any committee to get up and running takes a vote in congress. I dont know when we will be back to vote on that. I dont know what the budget would be. I dont know what the responsibility would be. Does the speaker not trust the Oversight Committee . If you missed any of our live coverage of the governors response to the coronavirus outbreak, watch it any time at cspan. Org. For daily briefings by the president and White House Task force to updates from governors of the hardest hit states, its all there. Use charts to track the viruss global spread county by county. Our coronavirus webpage is a fast and easy way to watch unfiltered coverage of this pandemic. Next, nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts briefs reporters on how his state is responding to the coronavirus crisis. He says his state is social distancing but not considering a stayathome order at this time. An hour. Oln, this is how are you doing . I am doing well. We have our hand sanitizer