It was too early to ease restrictions. Gov. Murphy i dont see dave here. Hope he is ok good afternoon. Im joined by the woman semiright who needs no introduction, the commissioner of the apartment of health, judith persichilli. To her right, stately pm epidemiologist. Thank you. To my left, the superintendent of the state police, colonel pat callahan. Lets get right to the numbers as we have been doing. Newre reporting today 3215 positive test results, which brings the cumulative total of New Jerseyans who have not tested positive to 78,467. Cases, whichew brings the total of 78,467. According to our online dashboard, and judy will correct me if i get this wrong, accessible through covid19. Nj. G ov, as of 10 p. M. Last evening, 8011 residents were reported hospitalized, of whom 1961 were listed in critical or intensive care. 1594 ventilators were in use. At one of oure field medical stations. For a 24 hour period ending at 10 p. M. Last evening, 787 residents were discharged from our hospitals and that is good news. This is not good news with a heaviest of hearts, we also report the loss of another 323 blessed New Jerseyans, brothers and sisters, due to covid19 related complications. Our statewide total of fatalities now sits at 3840. This is now more than five times the number of New Jerseyans we lost on 9 11. We continue to mourn to keep the souls we lost on 9 11 in our thoughts and prayers and thoughts. We now have 3840 more lost souls with whom to do the same. We mourn with each family who has been directly impacted in the worst way by this pandemic. We are incredibly grateful to those who allow us to remember their loved ones here in this platform. Telling these stories is never easy, but i do hope by sharing them and putting human faces to the numbers, we can all gain a little extra perspective on why we have been so aggressive in our actions to halt the spread of covid19. Few more lives for us to reflect upon. Bycia syker she went alice. Look at that. She came to this country in 1981 from poland without knowing one word of english. Her story is the american story. It is the new jersey story. She got her first job on the night shift at a Dunkin Donuts in kearny while her first husband looked after their three children, including a son with special needs. Eventually, she was hired as a bank teller. The aluminum able to help the polish speaking customers and soon became an advocate and resource for the polish Community Across wellington, passaic, and garfield. She rose up the letter to become a bank manager. And after becoming suddenly widowed at the age of 42, she went back to school and became a certified Tax Collector and worked for the borough of wellington for five years. And then as Tax Collector, chief financial officer, and school treasurer. Alice suffered a stroke in 2011 and fought her way back to keep working, but her light was forever dimmed by covid19 on monday. She leaves her husband marion, her three children and three grandchildren, and a fort on the way. More on that in a moment. She has passed along for belief in Public Services as two of her children early work is a Public Schools speech therapist and assistant prosecutor, respectively. I spoke with her daughter, maggie. We reminisced about her mom. Maggie is the one who is pregnant. Shes got a son due on august 15, which i reminded her is the catholic holy day of obligation. I think that was only appropriate and just. God bless you , alice. You will be missed by her family for sure and buy the rest of us new jersey. Robert weber, there is. God bless him. A 15 year veteran firefighter with the Port Monmouth fire company in my hometown of middletown in monmouth county. He did more than just fight fires though. Also served as a member of both the middletown firstaid and rescue squad and the middletown Fire Departments air unit. It probably was not a surprise he chose this line of work as robs family has retold their memories of him as a child chasing after firetrucks. Not everyone gets to live their dream, but rob obviously did his. To honor him the only way they could at this time, local responders organized a motor per last night that headed out from the Port Monmouth fire department. To his wife, danielle, which i spoke with this morning and needless to say she is incredibly brokenhearted, and the entire webber family and the middletown firefighting family and the broader middletown family which i am a member, i think robert for his service to his community. His soul and memories are in our thoughts and prayers. We will not forget him. Weast. E is quentin when this photo was taken last fathers day, quentin was only 106 years old. When covid19 took him earlier this week, he had reached 107. He was born on october 29, 1912, only a couple of months before my dad was born. Yes, he survived the flu pandemic of 1918. He earned a degree in engineering from the George Washington university in washington, d. C. , and embarked on a career that would see him rise to the rank in the Telecommunications Industry with the western electric company, the manufacturing side of the former Bell Telephone system. Along the way, he married his wife of 56 years, myrtle, with whom he is now reunited. They lived all over the country, but settled in ridgewood in 1975 and he called new jersey home for the rest of his life. He was among other things an expert bridge player, even garnering a mention in the new york times. He was an avid bowler and played golf up until age 100. I suspect he would not have been happy with the fact the golf courses are still shut. He volunteered for the red cross and a local nursing home. He is survived by his and myrtles three children, yrtylele, paula,m and son quentin. I spoke to him earlier today and talked about his dad. Pretty xer extraordinary. Two greatgrandchildren with another on the way who is undoubtedly going to learn great stories. Young quentin, that is him in this photo with his own son, quentin and theodore. Four generations in that photo. Young quentin with whom i spoke shared this summation and i quote him. When it came to life, he left nothing on the table. A remarkable life and a remarkable man. Amen. Just coming in here, i learned friend i read that my benji wimberleys cousin passed. I realized it was councilwoman rubi kottens husband ed who also passed. I spoke with rubi on the phone just before coming over here. I want to give her and her late out from us shout to say that they, his memory, she and the whole family are in our prayers and will remain so. Was alife we mourn remarkable person. We have only been able to bring a few of their stories forward, but each one leaves a legacy worth celebrating and protecting. And protecting them we will by continuing to wage our war against this disease that took these tremendous people from us. And in that, we must all come together, Stay Together and keep working together. Every day, i share this map get it up there. It shows how far we have come in slowing the spread of covid19. Again, the lighter the color of this map, the better. That means it is taking longer for the virus to spread. The darker it is, the worse it is. Just a few weeks back, the number of cases in each county were doubling within only a couple of short days. It was deep red and dark orange. But because we come and i mean all of us have been aggressive in social distancing and making the tough decisions we have had to make to cancel public gatherings, close nonessential businesses, close our schools and require all of us to wear face coverings we all do that. We only take them off when we are speaking to you. Among all the other steps we have taken, those rates of increase have dropped dramatically. This is what we have been working towards and what we must keep doing. I know it is hard. I know it is not fun. I know it is going to be a few for a few more weeks at least. If you want to be mad at me or find someone to blame, go ahead. But my number one goal, my entire focus is on defeating this virus and getting our state back to where we can responsibly reopen it. I gave an interview the other night to a dear friend of mine who reached out and said you are missing something here. You talk about you close the state. I quote my friend. Covid19 close to the state, you just organize it. He said ask any restaurant tour how business was for the two weeks before we officially closed. Ask a Theater Owner how sales were. New york city restaurants, it was announced before new york city closed down that restaurants could not go over 50 capacity. There were that literally zero people coming to those restaurants and the restaurateurs laughed at this edict because they cannot even get to 20 because people were scared literally to death. Im coding my friend. Zero people would come to the restaurant tomorrow if you allow them to go out. His point is a very good point. We need to have confidence that we have broken the back of this virus. That we have Health Care Infrastructure in place as we begin to open our state backup. That will give people the confidence to say, you know what, it is ok to get back in. It is ok to go out again. It is ok to do the things that are being allowed. Again, we will not back off of breaking the back of this virus. Again, that is the order of events. Break the back of the virus, have as close to a full Health Care Recovery as possible, and only on the back of that could we have economic recovery we desperately want, including yours truly. I take solace and guidance in the words of one of my heroes, Vice President and senator Hubert Humphrey. I quote him. The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children. Those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly. And those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. Those are words that guide us indeed. Want to give my dear friend lou a shout out. He and i are cochairs of the Hubert Humphrey fan club in new jersey. This is a moral test for us all. The last thing we can do is relax and get complacent. If we do, that map before us will get bright red once again. And if that happens, our health care system, no matter how great a job judy and christine and their team do, the system will be swamped and countless people will die. It is really as simple as that. We found that infection curve down, we pound down the number of hospitalizations, we pound to the number of folks who require intensive care and thank god, we pound down the number of fatalities. Switching gears before we turn things over to judy we had a good videoconference with the president and Vice President and their teams yesterday, talking about how they are seeing the reopening of the american economy. There is an enormous amount of responsibility given to governors and latitude given to governors. We are still sort of parsing through the recommendations and steps they have put forward. I spoke privately with the president after that video call. The president and Vice President , secretary mnuchin also joined us. Again, we will continue with the order of events that we have laid out and continue to take advice in the best guidance we can for best practices around the country and around the world. Announceam proud to the Attorney Generals Office through the division of Consumer Affairs will begin issuing temporary emergency licenses to foreign licensed physicians. Doing this, new jersey is the first state to fully tap the tremendous wealth of International Knowledge and experience to help us on our own frontlines. It is entirely fitting that we are the first state to do this. This is a state where the immigrant experience is writ large in our collective history. This is a state where people from all over the world have come to build a new life and to live the american dream. Look at alices story if you need any examples. These are tremendous and often unheralded members of our unique, diverse and strong new jersey family. This family is now coming together as it has a few times before in our common history. And every member of our new jersey family has a role to play. Even as we begin issuing these licenses, we continue to look for experienced volunteers to work alongside our Current Health care teams in fighting covid19. In particular, and judy will correct me if i get this wrong, we have a need for anyone with qualifications as a respiratory therapist and for physicians, nurses and emergency medical technicians. If you have Prior Experience in any of these fields, please go our team9. Nj. Gov and will work to match you with a location and need that can use you. Already more than 22,000 of you have raised your hands and many have already been set out to help, but this army could always use more reinforcements. Today, we launched a new page for all of you who are not medical professionals, but wish to volunteer your time and efforts in other ways. Sibley go to covid19. Nj. Gov help and click on volunteer in your community. Our most immediate needs are for people who help deliver meals to elderly or otherwise vulnerable residents, and to assist us in our food pantries. Forank the governors volunteerism within the department of state, the new jersey voluntary organizations active in disaster, and the office of Emergency Management for the partnership and identifying these opportunities. State,ing across the there are now 70 sites in which you could receive a covid19 test if you are exhibiting symptoms of respiratory illnesses. Two dozen of them are publicly accessible. You can find a complete list. But, there are many more privately run sites that your primary Care Practitioner can direct you to if you need to be tested. On this, we continue to pursue every possible avenue for expanding on testing capabilities, getting this in place is a key component for our future decisionmaking. Once we get through this emergency, our charge will be to aggressively attack any future cases to prevent another outbreak. I want to also acknowledge the director of the department of Homeland Security and preparedness, jared maples. Thank you for being with us. Before i had things over to judy, i want to highlight as we have been doing over the past couple of weeks the tremendous work that ordinary New Jerseyans have taken to help get us through these extraordinary times. You have shared many of the stories online by using that hashtag. Each one has been a little bright spot during our days. Please keep sharing your stories, keep forwarding them. First, i want to give a shout out to to the montclair drifters, and especial special credit to my partner in government, the extraordinary Lieutenant GovernorShelley Oliver for sending us this story. The montclair drifters first formed in 1964. For 56 years, this group of dynamic and service driven africanamerican women has dedicated itself to bettering their community. This week, they got together to donate 40 hot meals for the frontline medical team in montclair. You can see some of the team members. A huge shout out to the montclair drifters who continue to build upon their already tremendous 50 plus year history and legacy. Then, back down in my county, monmouth county, there is Georgetown University freshman William Marshall liam marshall from siegert. He is always the back home from hilltop and wanted to help out in between his online classes. He had the idea to begin an Online Campaign to support feed the frontline which is providing meals for the Health Care Workers at monmouth countys area hospitals. Liam used his social Media Presence to ask people to donate 15 in exchange for a yard sign to show there is one of them to show support for every Frontline Health care worker working hard. To producehad close to 800 signs. Obviously, this got bigger than just liam so he enlisted his parents and brother and a whole squad of friends to help him deliver signs to front lawns all over the monmouth shore area. Liam is a business major. Something tells me he has a tremendous future ahead of him. To you, liam, and your family i know you are watching. I hope you never give up your spirit of giving back. Kudos to you. Even though i didnt go to georgetown, i say hoya i think this is a positive way, leftillanova grad to my has some mixed emotions about that chant. I think this is a positive way to end today. To the millions of New Jerseyans who are with us in channeling our deep new jersey values to defeat covid19, keep up the good work. I know it has not been easy, it has not been fun and it is not going to get any more fun, but it is absolutely essential to our success. We have come a long way already. We are flattening the curve, there is no doubt about it. But we cannot let up until we have read the curve down the other side. We can do this. After all, we are new jersey. There is nothing else that needs to be said. With that, please help me welcome the woman who needs no introduction, the commissioner of the department of health, judy persichilli. Thank you, good afternoon. As you know, we have seen extreme vulnerability of longterm care facilities in new jersey and nationally with the pandemic, covid19. We continue to be vigilant and do everything in our power to assist these facilities from shipping personal protective equipping to connecting facilities with staffing report, to replace certified nursing assistants who are either ill or have not reported to work. There are 384 longterm care facilities in the st