About the gifts to go campaign. We will also be joint by archbishop, he will be participating today. We do start today on a very somber note and that is late yesterday afternoon, we lost a member of the Louisiana Legislature to covid19. Newly elected representative spent his life making his community and south louisiana a better place. Just about three months ago, he was sworn in to his first term and i know he came to the state capital with excitement and eagerness to serve our state and the people of district 54. Ing entire state is mourn this great loss and i ask everyone to keep his family in your prayers right now. All the families who have suffered because they have lost someone because someone remains gravely ill because of this disease. Before i get to the latest , i want to take a moment to brief you on another situation that people need to be aware of this weekend. Saturday and sunday, we are looking at a chance of strong to severe thunderstorms beginning in northwest louisiana from late saturday for the first half of sunday. Isolated flood threat, widespread flash flooding is not expected at this time but please Pay Attention to all of the updates on the weather forecasting because that could change. Transitioning into sunday, very large hail, destructive wind gusts, and tornadoes possible across much of northern louisiana. For south louisiana, the entire area has been upgraded from slight to either enhanced or moderate threat of confidence continues to increase of the significant Severe Weather outbreak is possible across a large portion of the area on sunday. The main threats for most of louisiana will be wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour, which could down trees and power lines, hail up to one inch in diameter and tornadoes, some of which could be very strong with a long track. Timing could change but sunday afternoon, sunday evening looked to be the most dangerous times for this region and it could extend overnight sunday. We all know forecasts change and conditions change so get a game plan now to deal with this threat. Aware, watch for alerts from the National Weather system National Weather service and look for emergency alerts on your cell phone. Daily get back to our coronavirus briefing. 970 new casesd bringing our total statewide to 19,253. Friday, wehis good are announcing 53 new deaths, 55 totalings us to 7 across the state. Yieldeding capacity has 92,000 tests, a little bit more than that. Among the very top state in the nation per capita testing. We will continue to do everything we can to further increase the testing that takes place in louisiana. We did see some small increases in a number of people hospitalized and in a number of people on ventilators compared to yesterday. Based primarily on the current modeling, the number of new hospital admissions and the number of and the ventilator utilization across the state, it is fair to say that we are in a better place today than we were at this time last week. That gives us something to be thankful for going into easter weekend. It is because of you, the people of louisiana, and the compliance with the stay of home stayathome order and it is because of the hygiene practices you have adopted and social distancing that that is the case. I have to caution everyone that we will only continue on this or positive trajectory if everyone maintained social distancing, good hygiene practices, and follows the stayathome order. I want you to know that the federal testing sites we had in louisiana for some time now, they were going to stay open because you may have seen where today was the last scheduled day. We did request and the federal government has authorized us to maintain that Testing Capacity in louisiana Going Forward with federal sponsorship. This is something the Vice President offered to me earlier this week. That is going to happen. The testing in Jefferson Parish will continue just as it has been conducted in the past. The two sides that have been consolidated at you and know in new orleans at uno in new orleans will be relocating. He works at health and Human Services and he is over testing for the entire country. Obviously, he had something to do with the continued sponsorship of the federal government of these testing sites. In order to take maximum advantage of them working with the office of Public Health and local elected leaders and knowing the hotspots between baton rouge and new orleans, we will move these testing sites one willeans to be at gramercy elementary school. Will start on wednesday, april 15. The action clinic will test two days a week starting next week. We are working with local providers for remote testing unit that would increase testing along the west bank of the river parishes and we will have more information about that next week. I am pleased to tell you we have distributed 7. 5 million items of ppe so far. I want to thank the national guard. They are doing the heavy lifting. They are maintaining the warehouse. They get shipments and then get instructions as to where to deliver those items and they have also been delivering ventilators and other things as well. At this point in time they delivered 7. 5 million items of ppe. Today i am announcing the louisiana Covid Equity Task force. By equity we mean everyone has the opportunity to obtain their highest level of health p this task force will bring leverage i am sorry, will leverage our Research Capabilities and intellectual brain power in a collective manner to tackle this issue. I am asking our universities and Research Universities to lead the nelson, specific Mandela School of public policy, and Xavier University department of Health Sciences, the Health Science centers at lsu and tulane, and the office of Public Health will participate as well. The Louisiana Department of Minority Health access, and also the Biomedical Research center and schools of nursing at all of our nurses yet all our universities across the state of louisiana. The task force is to make sure that communities with Health Disparities are blanketed with good information on covid19 safety and prevention, provide the medical community with best practices and protocols for treating communities with underlying medical conditions and Health Disparities and andre testing capability ease of access for all communities. The end goal is to help equity. We want to make sure we have Better Health outcomes on the others of this pandemic as well. We need to answer the question, what our social determinants of Health Disparity and how do we ensure health equal equity for all citizens . This task force will be meeting this charge. The commissioner of Higher Education sent an inquiry to all our universities to identify leading experts and names have started coming in to my office. This task force will begin its work immediately and research will result in the creation of the dashboard on health equity. This is something we can do now to minimize the spread of state, butross the particularly these communities were members are most vulnerable. As you know the last several days we have been talking about africanamericans are comprising about 70 of all the covid19 deaths whereas they are only 33 of the states population. We have to figure out what we can do to address that, but the work that is going to be done by this task force is going to benefit everybody in the state of louisiana. I do hope everyone will have a blessed easter weekend. Remember, you can be with your loved ones, i am encouraging you to be with your loved ones, but do that one household at a time and refrain from large gatherings you would typically engage in over easter weekend. Do have again today a couple questions from the public. The first is debbie from baton rouge. I will read the question and ask the doctor to come up and answer it. If you test positive, what is your incubation period until you are considered well . Is it a certain time . That is a great question, debbie, a question on a lot of peoples minds. Bears emphasizing despite the fact we sadly lost 755 louisiana most peopleianans, who get covid will get better. My understanding, it is a pretty rough illness, not something any of us want to go through. By all means anything that everything the governor said, we should be staying at home and limiting exposure. It is something that takes time to get through. Our definition from the cdc for when we can say you are recovered is at least seven days after you have symptoms develop, the beginning or onset of illness and after that time period, we are looking for three days without a fever and with significant improvement in your youtoms where we can say are recovered and importantly that time. To bet time period has without taking medicine to reduce the fever. You have to be without symptoms for three days before we would say you are recovered and during symptomsre period with until you are feverfree and feeling better, everyone should be isolating, staying away from family and friends and doing an extra good job cleaning up after yourself, washing your hands so we limit the spread of virus around the community. Thanks for that question, debbie. Gov. Edwards thank you, alex. Asked, will some parishes be able to open up sooner than those with hotspot situations . That too is a great question. As we get closer to april 30, we will make a decision about what, if any of the restrictive measures currently in place could get continued. Quite frankly as dr. Fauci says all the time, the virus is in control of the timeline Going Forward, we are not. As we get closer to that date we will look at what the situation is in louisiana, the guidance from the cdc, what the Testing Capacity is for surveillance, diagnostic and the serology testing we talked about, tried to figure out who has contracted covid19 and gone through it and has the antibodies that should mean they do not get it again, although this is a Novel Coronavirus and we are still learning about it. All of that will be taken into consideration as we decide how to move forward after april 30. I am encouraging everyone to be that whend understand we get to april 30 and beyond what the situation looks like will depend on what we do between now and then. That is why it is incredibly important that we continue with our present posture, be focused and determined to make sure we are following the stayathome order, that we are not engaging in unnecessary travel and contact with other folks, we are maintaining social distancing and good hygiene practices. If we do that, the one thing i can say for sure, as we get closer to april 13, we will be in a better place than we otherwise would have been. Before i take questions from the press, i will turn it over to one of our special guest, archbishop gregory eyman. He is joining us from new orleans by zoom. It is good friday and i thought it was an important time for many of us to hear from someone like lee archbishop here at the start of easter weekend. You probably know this, but the archbishop has been diagnosed with covid19. Recovered now. I asked him to join us today to speak about his experience with the disease, but also to offer a prayer for the state of louisiana. Archbishop, thank you for joining us. I will turn the floor over to you. Archbishop gregory thank you for the opportunity to participate in this news conference. I think you as our governor for your strong leadership during this critical time. We appreciate what you are doing for us. Yes, i had thed, virus. I am pleased to say i have recovered. Lf those of us who have had the virus know how complex it is, how much energy it drains from us. I only had one of the three symptoms of the virus. Was well aware as i was recovering in quarantine there were many people who were far more ill than i was. To bexperience enabled me in unison, solidarity, with those who are sick, especially in hospitals on respirators. Healing he has given to so many of us as we move forward in this challenging time. Gov. Edwards thank you very much for sharing that with us. As a request from me i would ask thislso offer a prayer on good friday as we look forward to easter sunday. Archbishop gregory thank you. Before i go into prayer i would like to address for a moment our jewish observers celebrating beginning passover, this week and into next week. Sisters andr jewish brothers, may gods peace be with you and these days of passover be a time of blessing for you and your family. Let us pray and bow our heads in prayer. Jesus on this day we not only remember, but celebrate and thank you for your passion and your death. Bore the cross and did so and we give you thanks because mercyowed us our fathers and assured us of our fathers love. Thank you for carrying the cross. Us thatu for reassuring we are indeed loved and forgiven. Jesus, you always promised you would be with us. We ask you in particular during this challenging time of the coronavirus, we ask you to be with us, lead us, protect us. It is a challenging time. We ask you to help us to carry that cross. You ton this, we ask bless the state of louisiana, as we move forward. To those fighting the virus, we ask you to heal them. To those who have gone before us in death, please give them eternal rest. Give protection to all of us. We ask you blessings and perseverance to our Health Professionals and all those with them and our first responders. Help them that they can truly be the healers of our time. We ask you to bless our governor and all of the people who serve us and lead us. Jesus, youre definitely toisive. Your death led resurrection. Us toronavirus will lead new hope and life. We ask you to shine your light as the risen christ, and give us trust and confidence in all that you do for us. D, ask this in your name, go for ever and ever. Amen. Gov. Edwards thank you very much, archbishop. Great to have you with us. So pleased you are on the mend and feeling better. God bless you. Archbishop gregory thank you, governor, i appreciate it. Gov. Edwards now we will ask the coach from lsus gymnastic program, a legendary coach, to come up and speak about the get it to go campaign, promoting safely supporting our local restaurants. Thank you, governor. To dohonored to be asked the psa about get it to go. It is all about playing defense. We have to be on the same team. Team is total effort, all members. When we do this we represent our communities and families and state. What we want to do is win. We want to beat this thing. What is winning . It is what is important now. The message our governor gives and archbishop gives, that is what is important now. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, coach. I will have to remember that, team and win. As i continue to ask the people of louisiana to be patient and do what is required of us now as it relates to social distancing, hygiene and stayathome. With that i will take your questions for a bit. Task force addressing Racial Disparities did you say it would be helping with testing and if so, in what way. Is there Racial Disparity in the amount of testing in louisiana and the amount of cases . Before, one once of the things we are not able to get clear resolution on is the race of the individuals being tested because over 90 of the tests are coming from private labs that do not identify that information. We are working Going Forward to have that information reported to us, along with results. Whether someone is covid negative or covid positive. It would be interesting to note, quite frankly, what the percentage of covid positive people are in louisiana by race because we do know and can readily obtain the identity or i should say the race, of people who die. To be able to compare and contrast those numbers would be important, but we cannot presently do it. I cannot tell you if there is a disparity or not. What we can tell you, this fight, all the efforts we have made, which by the way have been huge efforts and largely successful, because we either have the highest number of test per capita in the country or second. It is right there with new york and goes back and forth every day. We do not have the amount of testing we would like. That is particularly true in some of the rural areas. False and i think some of this has been reported, mostly rumors there is no parish, in a region of our state that is not currently testing. We do not believe we have adequate testing anywhere. We are trying to improve that and get more into the rural areas. This task force will look at these Health Disparities. There is a shortterm immediate goal. That is to help us through this covid19 Public Health emergency by making sure we are putting out as much good information by good i mean accurate and timely, telling people what they need to do. Not just things like stayathome, social distancing, good hygiene, but if you happen to have hypertension, make sure you are doing what youre supposed to be doing from a perspective of your diet, taking your medicine. Same thing with diabetes and so forth. You already have underlying conditions. Making sure you are treating as well as you can from a medication perspective and from other things you can control put you in the best possible position to withstand this virus should you contracted. They are going to be working on that. And thisongterm, should benefit as well past the pandemic, is what we can do as a state to better address these underlying Chronic Health condition disparities we are seeing right now. Anyhould not make us feel better, but it is obviously the case that this exists far beyond louisiana. If you look at the reports coming out of other states, they are having similar situations. In fact, almost in direct proportion to ours. The fact it is shared by other states does not mean it