Of the criteria we have to meet before we can move to phase one. Exactly what phase one looks like and what the timing is going to be and so forth, we will have more on that in the coming days. Reports, weesting are reporting 331 new cases of covid19 across the state of louisiana. And that is a smaller number of new cases than we have been reporting lately. That is the smallest in at least a week, and it is based on almost 6300 new tests, which are more tests. So that is a good sign. The total number of cases in is 24,854. Unfortunately, we did report today, 77 new deaths, and that is a total of 1405 across louisiana. The number of individuals in the hospital with a positive is 1798. Of covid19 t includes only four from that is an increase of four from yesterday. Remarkably, ventilator utilization trends and a positive way as well because even though we have more cases and more people in the hospital, we have 35 fewer deaths. So that is another good sign. As i mentioned yesterday, you will start seeing new features on the dashboard that has been created by the department of health to make the data they have as transparent as possible. And as easy as possible to digest. And they will add new features later this week that will give an even more complete picture of covid19, and one of those additions will be a racial breakdown on deaths by region of the state, and there are nine regions in the state that are and the minimum number of deaths that have to occur in a parish or region to isreported in this fashion based on cdc guidance on that. So, wherever you have 25 or more deaths in a parish, you will see the breakdown of that as it relates to race. Parishesthere are 11 where that information has already been made available by the department of health on their website. So if youre interested, you can take a look at those parishes, and i dont know certainly the biggest parishes in the state our part of that 11, but we also have smaller parishes, but with more death than you would expect to have from small peerages like st. Johns or st. Charles. To note thatting haven 21 million taken place 21 million views have taken place on their website, and we will continue to make sure we present the data in a way that is easier to digest for people as more clarity of the situation because quite frankly, it will help us as we move forward to make sure we keep a lid on the cases as we go forward over the coming weeks and months. And we transition and open up more and more of our economy, we will be bringing people into contact with one another, and we will have to closely monitor through testing, where we have cases and so forth. This will really help us as well. Um, a team called this morning that slowing the spread remains the number one priority for us at the state level with all of our local partners and federal partners, but also, it is the number one priority for the state as a whole, and i want to reinforce that. All of the things that we have been talking about for many weeks now, remain incredibly important. The number one. Already for this day. So, following the stayathome order. Please dont get out if you dont have to. When you get out, make sure you dont take everyone in your family. Practice socialdistancing. When you do have to come into contact with other people when you go to the grocery store, the bank, the gas station, the pharmacy, whatever, make sure you are wearing a mask, wash your hands freak only, use Hand Sanitizer, stay home if you are sick all of those things we have been talking to you about our incredibly important. So, that is the number one important thing for the state. Number two will be to increase our Testing Capacity, which we performed a lot of tests, especially for state our size would as we go forward, we know that we have to do more when it comes to testing, and we have been talking about it. This is diagnostic testing. We are working on that with local officials and with our federal partners as well. In the third imperative is to make sure that we can and the third imperative is to make sure we can engage in more contact tracing. As we test more individuals and they become positive, you need to be able to make contact with everyone that the positive individual came into contact with 48 hours before they became symptomatic. And get those individuals to understand that they have that they may have come into contact with someone shedding the virus, and they need to engage in a quarantine, and that will be key to us Going Forward so that we can keep the case count down. Obviously, keep the number of people who die from this disease to the absolute minimum, and then continue to open up the economy as we move forward. It is not just our plan here in the state of louisiana. This is what every state is doing. By the way, it is a big part in the plan that the president released last thursday for reopening the economy across the country. A Strong Alliance on additional testing and contact tracing. Continue to be extremely grateful for the generosity that is being shown by so many businesses, who continue to donate things to the state. Thant a donation of more 100 gallons of Hand Sanitizer to the state of louisiana for health care and Emergency Response facilities. Facebook donated 25,000 masks to us, and 200 thermometers. And i found out today that popeyes is funding one million meals for families in the new orleans area through the Second Harvest food bank, which is the largest food bank for that region. I did speak to the popeyes ceo today to thank him for the generous donation, and also for the chicken that i enjoyed on occasion. [laughter] i happen to be a big fan of popeyes spicy fried chicken. Before i take questions, i do that thereind folks is a forecast that calls for a severe risk that calls for a of Severe Weather that calls for a risk of Severe Weather. We have a midweek threat as well, and i am asking people to Pay Attention to that. We obviously dont know exactly where or when it might hit. The threat from north to louisiana as more significant than south to louisiana yet again. I am asking people to Pay Attention to their new stations and radio stations, check your local weather, and heed the advice of your local officials, and make sure youre monitoring your cell phones because quite often the last morning you might get before tornado hits is going to be that cell phone warning, and if you get that, heed that particular warning. Just before i came in, i saw the headlines that it appears that the u. S. Senate is on the verge of passing by unanimous consent later today, additional relief for the country, and certainly louisiana will be positioned to get its share of this as well. The primary focus was on replenishing the paycheck Protection Plan money that the ppp that ran out last week, there was 349 billion dollars initially. I think there was another 329 billion agreed to wind between the white house and congress. That should be very helpful. 75 billion for hospitals. Dont know exactly how that will willllocated yet, but that be helpful. And 25 billion for coronavirus testing that would include 11 billion that comes to the state. Again, this is following up on that imperative we had about testing Going Forward, and that will be very helpful. Have the firstll meeting of the Resilient Louisiana Commission that will be tomorrow afternoon. Remotely and i will address the group to give it some marching orders, so to speak, and so to speak, and we will be back with another press Conference Tomorrow afternoon at 2 30 in the afternoon. We got a question. And wants to know what are your secrets were distressing . I dont know if there are any secrets. This is a stressful situation for many people, including maisel, but quite frankly, i myself, butcluding quite frankly, i dont try to think of myself in comparison to what nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists are going through, but i do know that it is a stressful situation, regardless of your age because we have young kids who want to be in school and they are not in school and they are not seeing their classmates. They are not going to the graduations they would normally go to and all that sort of stuff, but no matter who you are out there, if you are feeling anxious or stressed, there is free counseling available. You can call it is open to anyone. It is free and it is confidential. Some of the things that i do to i plantedplant a vegetable garden and i get to tend that a little bit every day to make sure it is watered and weeded and that sort of thing. I do continue to enjoy my chickens, making sure their fed and well cared for. What i havent been doing as much as i should and will get back to because i think it would help me tremendously would be to do more exercise. I will do that, and i encourage other people to do that as well. And get outside and enjoy some fresh air, especially we do have good weather. We have been having a fair amount of that lately. Watch a good movie. I dont recommend horror movies, especially those that are themed around pandemics and so forth, and there are a lot of those on tv, by the way. I had no idea that there were so many movies that have a theme that is somewhat similar to what we are going through, so dont watch those. Becky from shreveport asks a question that the doctor will answer. Is there any Scientific Research about the longterm effects upon genetics related to covid19 . I will ask him to come up and answer that question. Thank you, becky, for the question. It is a good opportunities to highlight there was a lot of longterm questions we dont all about covid19. Illnesse aware of the really in a january, and we are now in mid april, trying to learn as much as we can. The question asked about genetics. In general, most infectious diseases, like covid19, the virus that we are all talking about, does not cause longterm genetic changes. Sometimes people have concerns about what happens if i am infected with a virus, and i am pregnant and could be giving birth to a child . We know there are a lot of concerns around that we are talking about zika. In this case, we dont have any evidence that there is a direct impact on the fetus or on newborns. There has been several cases now where women who have covid19 had given birth to baby swift tested negative. It is too early to say there was no chance of virus would be able to transmit from the mother to the fetus, or to the baby while it doesntero, but seem like there is an increased risk. Gov. Bel edwards thank you. With that, we will take your questions. Have you worked out in the next phase, what is your sense about if there will be some of your order in the eight or nine days . Gov. Bel edwards i dont get very often, but if you made even a dollar, i would bet that on may 1, we would be under a different order than we are now. That really does depend on what happens over the next week or so because we have to make sure we have those 14 days, where our trajectory is the way we want it as it relates to cases, as it relates to hospitalization capacity of our hospitals and then, a downward trajectory over 14 days of influenzalike illness. And so, those other things we are monitoring. Hopefully, that will be the case, and we can transition to something. I do want to continue to make sure people have realistic expectations about what that will look like, whether it happens may 1 are sometimes after that. It isnt like we go back to where we were before, but it will be a gradual phase and reopening of different parts of the economy. Socialdistancing will remain a prominent feature of daily life. There will still be restrictions on crowd size and other limitations, and to make sure we do things in a way that is as safe as possible. And then, we are always going to be monitoring through testing. Happens, butat timewe believe, when the is right, we can move forward in a way that balances Public Safety on the one hand, and the need to gradually reopen the economy on the other, relying upon the guidance we got from the White House Coronavirus task force, informed of the cdc, but also locally. You already saw us do that yesterday. Yesterday, we issued an order from the department of health cashd directly toward the toward toward surgical procedures at hospitals around the stay, so we are moving forward. I cannot be more specific than that right now. I can only tell you that is what we are working on just around the clock. It seems experts are agreeing there should be some level of a resurgence of the virus from start to reopen. Guideline fors a those of the underlying condition . What are you doing to prepare that second wave doesnt overcome us . Gov. Bel edwards that is a 64 question, right . When we do this phased reopening, it will always be very clear that we are encouraging people to know they are more vulnerable than others, probably because of age or because of these Chronic Health conditions, and you know what they are. They are hypertension, kidney disease, heart disease, obesity, respiratory illnesses, and so forth, that they always exercise more caution. And so, when you have limitations on crowd size, for example, that limitation is for someone who is relatively young and healthy, and it really doesnt apply to those people and those folks and those vulnerable categories. They will have to be more cautious, and so, we will continue to focus on that. With the work we are doing with the passports we created to analyze the Health Disparities that we have seen across louisiana, we will be communicating in the shortterm of the need for those individuals to be more cautious good also to get in the best possible health. It is never too late to start eating better. It is never too late to reduce your sugar in taken your salt and take, to start exercising, make sure youre taking your medicines. One of the reasons we are opening up more Outpatient Services in our clinics and hospitals is that those people can start seeing their doctor again and get healthier. That will always be a prominent feature, at least until such an effectivere is therapeutic treatment, as of right now, unless something happened today, there is not, and obviously, we know there is no vaccine yet. The secretary of state has plan. D an emergency have you been in contact with him about the latest draft and does it focus on building on the mail in ballot issue . Gov. Bel edwards key and i had an opportunity at 1 00 this afternoon he and i had an opportunity at 1 00 this afternoon, and i was able to review the draft plan that he is submitting to the legislature before that call. And i think that draft plan was calibrated to make sure it would enjoy the support of the majority of folks on the House Affairs committee, and do the most it could to protect Public Health, while affording people Viable Options to actually vote in the primary in july and the general election in august. I think his plan does that. I there will be enhanced opportunities to request ballots by mail. Not quite as open as it was in the first plan, but i think it is a reasonable plan under the circumstances, and i would hope it meets with the approval of the legislative committees tomorrow, and the legislature as a whole, once it is voted upon by them by mail, of course. Peoplee is a group of who will have another protest at the capitol this weekend, for the economy to reopen again. What do you say to them. They are saying this is taking their rights from them and they want to get back to work . Gov. Bel edwards nobody wants to get back to work more than i do, but nobody wants them and others not to be safe, and we get on top of this virus in terms of the spread and the deaths it is causing. Those things are imperative, and so, the things i was sated them are no different than what i have been saying to every person in louisiana for weeks now. We have to be very careful about balancing Public Health on one hand, the economy on the other. As best weg things can with the information we have, relying on our federal partners, working with the president , the Vice President. Their guidance as to under what circumstances you should start reopening the economy, and then, the phases by which we will do that. An know, i havent had opportunity to observe any of the protests, but understand their rather political in nature, and i would make sure they understand that what we are doing is what we have been advised to do by the president , and by the Vice President. So, we will continue in the fashion we have been setting is 4. 7d you know, there Million People in louisiana. Obviously, you will have some people who feel differently about any given issue, and they always have the opportunity to express themselves. That is one of the great things about living in the United States of america. So, they can make their views known. I will continue to make mine known amy we will move forward as best we can but we will do it in the manner that i have set dontd here, and i really need anybody protesting to tell me that we should open up the economy as soon as we can. I get it. Nobody wants to do it more than i do, but as governor, i am going to protect Public Health and safety. You know, you hear elected officials all the time talking number one is Public Health and Public Safety. This is one of those times where it has to be priority number one, but we will start moving as we are able to, toward opening the economy. It is a phased approach art again, i dont want people having an unrealistic expectation that when the stayathome order goes away that all of a sudden, we will be free to do everything we were able to do before this Public Health emergency ever came about because that is not going to be the case. There is nobody, to my knowledge with any credibility on this issue, who is recommending we do that, and it is sunny not coming from the president , or the Vice President , or anybody working with him. Yes, sir. Fact thattioned the we are incre