Coming in early everybody. We will be snappier in terms of our pace because we have folks who will be observing good friday at noon. Honored to be joined i the woman on my right, who needs no introduction. A guy familiar to many of you there, the commutable Communicable Disease specialist. To my far, state police superintendent, pat callahan. To my immediate left, and great leader, department of corrections, commissioner marcus hicks. We are going earlier today than we usually do. We have the overnight numbers. Im not sure, judy will tell us how deeply we can dig into the numbers. We have at least the top line numbers and we will go from there. Let me get into that immediately. Since yesterdays briefing we have been notified that we have 3627 more residents who have received positive test results. That puts our statewide total at 54,588. 7 overnight and our statewide total at 54, 588. To our online dashboard that is accessible d19. Nj. Gov. I as of 10 00 p. M. Last night we residents reported hospitalized of which 679 were in critical or intensive care. 63 ventilators were in use. Hourperiod and for 24 tony for our for the hour period, many were discharged. You can see how many folks are hospitalized, how many of that cohort require intensive care, how many ventilators are in use, as judy has said all along, that will bounce around at 1 1. It is showing up to be that way we another piece of evidence are at least beginning to see some light, 682 residents discharged, that is a big deal. Lets flip to a map we have been showing you from time to time. The county heat map. It measures the amount of days of doubling of cases. When we first showed this map it was orange and red. Red would have been the fastest amount of doubling. Orange was a little bit slower. The yellow is slower again. This is the first day we have two counties where we are seeing a new color, which means it is at least doubling seven days or more. That is salem county in the southwest where there are certainly cases. Salem has a total of 46 positives and three fatalities. That is good news because that was red just a couple days ago. Small,he caseload was the curve was steep. Even more encouraging the northeast. That is the other one that is lightly shaded. They are just under 9000 cases and 390 fatalities. That is where it hit first. The fact it is showing that shade, please god, it continues to. Those are good early signs. Too early to spike any footballs, but those aretwo important early signs. We may want to go back to the hospitalization numbers. The dashboard pulls data as reported by hospitals to the new jersey hospital association. It is just a snapshot and judy would want me to remind you of that. It is not a movie, a snapshot in time. There may be overnight changes not yet reflected in that data. Additionally with the heaviest of hearts we know we have lost another 233 of our fellow residents since yesterday on the total number stands at 1932. Precious lives lost. Preciousal of 1932 lives lost. Please allow me to tell a couple brief stories about a few of these folks. This picture is evelyn sanchez. God bless her. Evelyn and her husband were partners both in life and in their family owned business, emergency pest control. She is remembered for her tremendous generosity of spirit. Sparta in she called Sussex County her home the past 35 years. She leaves behind her husband john, president of the essex latino county of commerce along with her children and stepchildren and step grandchildren. I know she will not be forgotten and she was only, and this is my age, 62 years old. God bless you, evelyn. Sam, the, handsome first africanamerican to be elected to serve mayor of hillside in 1988. He also served on the Union County Improvement authority among other posts, adding to his years of public service, a career as a High School History deaner and a 32 years as of admissions at new jersey city university. We send our condolences and prayers to his family and friends. There is also dr. Francis fourari, a physician for decades, tending to his own practice in belleville, serving , athe staff at the hospital sports complex, as well as working 30 years for Hudson County prior to his retirement two years ago. To his wife lorraine with whom i spoke yesterday and daughter andrea and their family we join you in mourning their loss and praying for his soul. The conversations i have had with families who lost loved ones to covid19 are not easy, nor is sitting here telling some of their stories easy for any of us. It is nothing compared to what theyre going through, both the folks who have left us as well as their family and friends. We have to remember them. We must recognize the tremendous toll this virus is having on our state and seeing these faces and hearing these names remind us that behind the stark and impersonal numbers are real people, real human beings, real families. We all have a role to play in reducing the number of people we lose. We have to keep with social distancing. That is the key to cracking the code, flattening the curve and getting us to a better place. Remember, when we flatten the curve with the number of people infected, we lower the number of hospitalizations, the amount of intensive care hospitalizations and ultimately, fatalities. One thing does lead ultimately directly to the other. This weekend is easter weekend. I know we are used to gathering together as we do normally at passover. We gather normally to worship. We gather for easter egg hunts, family meals with friends. We cannot do any of that this year. I feel awful that we cannot. We have to leave the gathering to facetime or zoom or simple phone calls or text and emails the family and friends. Instead of heading to church, many of us will fire up the laptops for a livestream service. Staying apart this year is the surest way we will be able to gather again next easter and the many easters to come. Please take this to heart and take this seriously. We all must work together. If we do unequivocally, we will come through this stronger as one new jersey family together. But we each have to do our part and the 9 million of us need to flatten the curve, stay away from each other. That leads to fewer infections, fewer hospitalizations, fewer intensive care unit hospitalizations, and fewer loved ones whom we will lose. We will manage this front while our extraordinary Healthcare Workers and teams represented will build out our capacity of beds, ventilators, ppe, medicines, and relief for our Healthcare Workers. We win those two fronts together. Those lines have to cross at a reasonable level. If we stay with it, this weekend is easter weekend and every day in the near term, we will win this together. We know this Public Health crisis has extended into our prisons and i want to give the commissioner a huge shout out. We will address his efforts in detail in a few minutes in his remarks. The pandemic has touched many of our corrections personnel and those who are incarcerated. A virus this virulent can spread rapidly in a prison setting and the needs of Public Health and safety have to be balanced. I just got off the phone before coming here with the widow of nelson perdomo. His wife and i spoke. Nelson was only 44 years old, a member of pba 105. He leaves behind his wife, fannie and their three kids who , are 18, 13, and 12. Awful. A guy who has left us far too soon. I just connected with his wife. Maybe we can have a picture of him tomorrow just to make sure everybody puts a name with the face. I also spoke with my fellow middletown resident bill sullivan. He was not only a friend of nelsons but is the president of pba 105. To each, to nelson his wife, his , three kids, to bill and all of their colleagues, our thoughts and prayers and hearts go out to you. In that respect, today i am signing an executive order to help preserve this balance between Public Health and Public Safety. Under this order, certain low risk individuals whose current age or Health Status puts them at particular risk for covid19, who have been perhaps denied parole within the last year or whose sentences are to expire within the next three months may be placed and i say may be on temporary home confinement or granted parole if already eligible through an expedited process. I want to stress that no one convicted of a serious crime such as murder, sexual assault, among others will be eligible for consideration. We are setting up a robust process through which each potentially eligible individual must be determined to be safe to be placed on home confinement and each will be required to have an individualized release plan to ensure they have access to all necessary services, medical services, and housing. No one who cannot meet the standards will be released. Individuals on home confinement will be subject to department of corrections supervision. As i noted we have twin responsibilities here. Protecting those who work in our prisons and those who are incarcerated. Social distancing is extremely hard to accomplish in a prison setting and allowing some of our most vulnerable individuals who do not pose a Public Safety threat to temporarily leave prison will protect both their health and the health and safety of the men and women working in our correctional facilities. We are not the first to do this. New jersey will join several other states, some of the big ones are california and illinois and the federal government which had taken similar steps. I want to give a big shout out to marcus and his team who have been trying to stay out ahead of the challenge. You have concentrated communities from day one, this is an important step to allow them to continue to stay ahead. I want to acknowledge the director of the department of Homeland Security and preparedness in the house with us as well. Under the subject of testing. A reminder that tomorrow april 11, Oregon Community college drivethrough testing site will be open to the public and the Pnc Bank Arts Center will be open to Healthcare Workers and First Responders only. Both sites will be open at 8 00 a. M. And will be able to conduct 500 tests apiece. To receive a test, you must be symptomatic and both sites will be closed on easter. There are 18 other sites around the state that are publicly available. You can find a map with all of them by going to covid19. Nj. Gov testing. There are dozens more privately operating testing sites that your primary Care Practitioner can direct you to for a test if you meet the requirements for testing. When you add up all of the sites, it is at least 57 different sites. To receive a test, you must be exhibiting signs of respiratory illness and you can take our Self Assessment as one of your first steps on the master website. Simply go to covid19. Nj. Gov testing. It is anonymous and not only does it give you some sense of where you might be but it gives us the information that we need to help identify potential coronavirus hotspots before they flare up. That knowledge is critical for ensuring our Healthcare Networks and the supplies they will need before they are needed. Speaking of supplies, i want to give a huge thank you to uniqlo, an extraordinary retailer headquartered in japan. Another piece of evidence that we are scouring the globe for help here. They delivered a donation of 100,000 muchneeded medical grade masks for the frontline Public Health and safety responders. This is the essence of what it means to be a good Corporate Citizen and we are incredibly appreciative. Thank you. If you have any ppe to donate, no matter how much, please let us know by going to covid19. Nj. Gov ppe donations. I also want to give a big shout out to the Stevens Institute of technology and my friend for opening their dormitory so the folks at Hoboken UniversityMedical Center and the Fire Department can have a place to rest and recharge. Thank you to everyone at stevens for thinking about their neighbors. I said we would be brief today including in the q a so forgive me because it is good friday. But because it is good friday, i want to share one more story of some of the good being done around our state. On this most solemn of fridays, heres something i hope will lift your hearts. Today i want to recognize the members of the wyckoff girl scout troop 24 in bergen county. There is a member on the left in and a Healthcare Worker on the right. After reading stories of nurses describing the physical discomfort caused by the straps of their face masks, the troop took to producing simple headbands that can be worn under the straps to reduce the discomfort and make life on the job just a little bit better. The troop donated their headbands to the Valley Hospital in ridgewood. There is an example of a headband on the right in that picture. This is how we are going to get through this. It is both the huge donations of 100,000 masks and for that, we are incredibly grateful. It is also the little thoughts like headbands to make those masks less uncomfortable to the professionals that are wearing them day in and day out for hours upon hours. Uniqlo, we thank you. To the members of the wyckoff girl scout troop 24, we thank you. New jersey thanks you. I ask each of you to keep tweeting the stories of your heroes about using the njthanksyou. Everyone helping us through this deserves our thanks. To everyone who is doing the right thing to help us flatten the curve, especially on a major Holiday Weekend upon us. This cannot be a weekend to think we can let our foot off the gas. We are not even close. We have to keep with it. War is won. We are starting to see some glimmers of hope. Look at the amount of people discharged yesterday. Look at that county map. Look at the beginnings of the flattening of that curve of positive tests and remember as we have said before, with the heaviest of hearts, even though those metrics are beginning to look positive, we will still lose many folks in this state sadly because the folks who have lost their lives, they had been infected several weeks ago. We are seeing the sad end to some of the realities that hit us weeks before us. Willtay with it read we win this, unequivocally, if each and every one of us does our part, and we will, from the Little Things like washing hands with soap and water. To bigger things like stay home. Please, social distancing no matter where you are, including at home. All the way up to the steps we are taking today including the executive order i am signing today as it relates to our corrections facilities. All of these are pieces in a broader puzzle and as we each continue to drop our pieces of the puzzle in place, eventually that will be a beautiful tapestry of our one new jersey family finally back on his feet together and again stronger than ever before. With that, please help me welcome the woman who needs no introduction, the commissioner of the department of health. Judy good morning. I want to take a moment to thank commissioner hicks and all of the support he has given the department of health in working to protect the safety not only of his employees but the total forensic population and all of our sister agencies. This is really a whole of government approach. They are all vital to the effort. I thank them not only for their support but for what they are doing every day. I want to share some information on veteran homes. As you know new jersey has three , veteran homes and they continue to be impacted as well. Today the total census in the veterans homes in new jersey is 845. The home in menlo park has 16 residents and five Staff Members who have been confirmed as positive covid19. In menlo park there have been four deaths of residents directly related to covid19. Right now, 12 of their residents from that facility are hospitalized. The promise home has 29 residents and 17 staff who have tested positive. There have been 13 deaths among those residents related to covid19. Currently eight of their residents are hospitalized. The vineland location has no confirmed cases among their residents or staff. The part of health has been working with the homes and the department of health has been working with the veteran homes through our volunteer portal. We have been able to support other staffing requirements and have sent 15 registered nurses and seven licensed practical nurses to support care in these homes. Additionally, 35 combat medics have been sent to menlo park and 40 have been sent to the paramus location. As the governor mentioned, according to data reported from our hospital, there are 7570 hospitalizations which include covid19 positive individuals and persons under investigation. 1679 are considered in Critical Care and 1663 are currently on ventilators. Today we are reporting 3627 new cases. To date, tested 105,611 individuals. 46,676 have returned positive. 4 positivity rate, 44. 2 . Sadly we are reporting 233 deaths for a total of 1932 deaths in the state. Of the total deaths, 58 are male. 42 are female. The age range is holding at 1 under 30 years of age. 4 between the ages of 30 and 49. 17 between the ages of 50 and 64. 33 or 641 individuals between the ages of 65 and 79 and 45 between the ages of over 80 years of age or 866. 64 are identified as white. 20 black or africanamerican. 6 asian and less than 1 native hawaiian or other pacific islander. 48 have reported documented underlying conditions, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer being some of the highest reported underlying diseases. Along with the governor i want to thank all of you who are staying home. I know it is tough during the religious holidays when you would normally be congregating for religious services and family gatherings. While this may be disappointing to many look relatives and friends it is imperative to slowtinue to stay home to the spread of covid19. Stay home, stay safe, and stay healthy. Thank you. Gov. Murphy judy, thank you for everything. I want to thank the department of health for getting the data more aggressively and earli