To take itot be able soon. New york times on the president s comments. The woman on my right needs no introduction. Right, the department of Health Communicable disease medical service director. Honor to be here. The superintendent of the state police. Office ofor of the Homeland Security is with us. Counsel will join us shortly. Before i get to the daily numbers, a couple of announcements and updates. Good videoconference with the white house yesterday that had a particular focus on Mental Health and the implications to Mental Health from this pandemic crisis. Good discussion and exchange. I should also say that while it was not the purpose for the call, tony fauci was in the room on the other end. Expressingly caution, and i felt his comments on the early returns on the vaccine reported yesterday were actually pretty upbeat relative to his normal demeanor. That was a big take away. I organized a call for about 16 democratic governors and Speaker Pelosi to go through her heroes directich includes federal cash assistance for states and counties and municipalities in addition to other elements we have endorsed. Wade may have been a month the first to endorse a moratorium on salt cap onof the property taxes. We spoke as well about senator bill ins significant the senate. He has picked up some cosponsors. On the republican side of the aisle, it is a positive development. It was a really good conversation. I want to thank the speaker especially. Those are a couple of good conversations we had after we were together last. As we have been discussing over the past couple of weeks, our ability to get on and stay on relies heavily on having an expanded and Accessible Program of testing. I know judy is not to speak to the demand side of testing. This means we will grow our internal programs and will need partners in the private sector as well to help meet this demand. We have authorized more than 18,000 licensed pharmacists in new jersey to administer fda authorized covid19 tests to their customers. Orders for these tests to be prescription and enter into explicit collaborative practice agreement with a physician. Across our state, there are more pharmacies. These pharmacies are run by professionals with trust and connection to their broader communities. Feel most comfortable to receive a covid19 test in a place they trust from a pharmacist they know. Note, we can follow up on our prior announcement of the plans by cvs to provide covid19 testing at their stores. As our administration continues to rapidly expand testing sites, proud to announce that cvs has notified us that they are set to offer itself swab tests at a minimum of 50 locations in new jersey. This is just about 11 days from now. This is another important step forward as we build Testing Capacity in our state. We hope to formally announce the launch of the first stores to come online with this program, and we thank them for their support of our effort to get us on the road back. We have been working with a number of partners to bring more sites of throughout the state. The department of health along with the division of consumer affairs, and judy previewed this yesterday, has issued binding guidance that will allow for the resumption of elective and nonurgent medical and dental procedures beginning one week from today. This guidance covers a number of areas for safeguarding both patients and providers. This includes prioritization of procedures, heightened sanitation and disinfectant standards and ensuring patients are scheduled in a way that minimizes interpersonal contact and ensuring social distancing in the lead up to the procedure and the wearing of Face Coverings were masks during certain procedures among other , including direct contact with the eyes or mouth. I am pleased with this guidance. I know judy is more than pleased. We are confident our medical and dental professionals will be able to get back to attending to their patients in a safe way. We are issuing an administrative order today to allow for in person sales at car and motorcycle dealerships in addition to bicycle shops that will be effective at 6 00 a. M. Tomorrow. We know this is an important step for dealerships and people who need access to transportation. It is unquestionably another step forward on our road back. Announcements out of the way, lets turn to the overnight numbers. Yesterday, we received an positive test5 results for a current statewide total of 139,014. Continues to move in the right direction overall. We must remain mindful that because of the way test results come in, we will continue to have up and down days. These trendlines are our most accurate depiction of these numbers. Rate for positivity the test now that were taken as of friday, may 15, remains at 12 . Rate isitivity reflected across each region of the state. South jersey remains higher than the rest of the state as is expected. Map that we have been regularly turning to puts this in a slightly different perspective. Cumberland county and the only county below the 30 day rate of doubling is at exactly 30 days. Everyone watching from cumberland county, please redouble your efforts. A slight regression, but it looks better than it did a few weeks ago. Looking at longterm care facilities, you can see the total number of positive cases. The rate of new cases has decreased from its peak. We continue to throw everything but the kitchen sink at longterm care facilities to push this curve even lower. The next one is the one i want to spend a minute on. Here are the numbers of Lab Confirmed deaths associated with longterm care facilities, which shows a decrease from the peak. Starting today, we are showing only the numbers of Lab Confirmed deaths, as this would give us our best representation of what is happening within our longterm care facilities in comparison to the statewide number that we report. Im going to practice without a license, but perhaps in answer to a question, you may want to weigh in on this. 1400umber was about fatalities higher as of yesterday. That is information that will continue these folks are gone. There is no question that longterm care no question i lom care facilities have been an extraordinarily, challenging reality, not just in new jersey but around the country. We were not reporting these apples to apples the other 1400 no longer in the chart were not confirmed Lab Confirmed covid19 fatalities. Thenumber we report is statewide number, Lab Confirmed fatalities. To give you an apples to oranges number. If there is information you want about those other 14 blessed ls, we are more than happy more than happy does not express it because we are not happy about this, but we are able to give you a window into that. Another point i want to make is that from now, many weeks, if anything, revisions will go up. Practicing i am practicing without a license, but maybe ed can comment on this. Do you want to comment on the rationale as to why where we why we are where we are . Once again, it always seems counting deaths should be a simple thing. If the person died, they died. If you are in a nursing home, you should be able to accurately report those numbers. What happens with the outbreak, there are a number of facilities that go thats got overwhelmed facility. Unfortunately, a lot of deaths, and quickly not only overwhelmed the facilities in their ability to respond but report accurately on what was happening in them and the departments ability to follow up on that information to get the most Accurate Information as possible. As it is now, we are following over 500 of these outbreaks on an ongoing basis and it is extremely difficult to get as Accurate Information as we can. What we have done in the last week to two weeks in presenting now is we change the way we are getting the information. We try to make it easy and clear on what we are asking as far as putting in a survey from them. While these are still reported by the facilities themselves, ning certainly, as you become comfortable and confident in the numbers, we could share those numbers and be happy to answer those questions about that. Thank you. So far, the past two days this week, we have changed our nomenclature on two different numbers. One of which is good news. It is unvarnished good news. And you take the serology tests , do you have covid19 as of last thursday or friday, and those are the numbers informing our reopening strategies, versus you may have had it over the past three months. That knocks the relevant positivity right down to 12 . Helpful,eal and really and a positive step in the right direction. There ares no longer gone. There are 1400 folks who have passed in addition to this laber, which is not yet confirmed and we dont in any way shape or form marginalize the loss of life. We want to make sure we are apples to apples. Ed, thank you for that. That insight. In the hospitals, number of the number of patients that currently are being treated decreased. Feel medical stations reported 44 patients. This is a breakdown of hospitalizations across regions and continues to go in the right direction. Here are total hospitalizations. For everys 100,000 resident residents, the number of people in intensive care fell. It is the first number it fell below 1000 in a long time. Cant emphasize enough how important hospitalization, icu, and ventilator numbers are to our thinking of the road back there, perhaps the most vital data points we received. There were 170 three new covid19 hospitalizations yesterday, and at the same time, 161 live patients left our hospitals. And are the admittance discharge numbers from yesterday, broken down by region. As judy warned us, this was from northcentral to south, but even though even the north is not out of the woods. Higher numbers both incoming and outgoing. I know we say this tactically everyday but it is true. These numbers are not happening by accident. They are happening because you made them happen. The only surefire care for covid19 is to not get it, meaning maintaining social distancing, wearing a Face Covering of some sort, practicing safe hygiene. The reason these numbers keep falling and why we are able, practically every day, to make another announcement about the road back is because you are making the fall. Keep it up. This is no time for anyone to be spiking any footballs or patting things on the back, both that would not comply with social distancing anyway, but it is a time to double down. The more these numbers drop, the more confidence we will have that we are ready to move from stage one stage two of our restart and can plan for business reopenings. We purposely have not married ourselves to dates, because we dont want to give false hope. We have purposely married ourselves to the data, so when we make an announcement, we know it can stick. Lets look quickly at the graphs we have been showing you recently. The metrics in our hospitals are down since the peak. Every major thing we are watching is going in the right direction. Acrosstheboard, key numbers are down by half if not far more. Has been a steady progression over the past few weeks. This is the last 14 days, and seeing these trends are critical. A green light means the days decrease relative to the day before. We have a lot of green lately. You can see this by region. Judy and i smoke spoke to this yesterday. There are spikes up and down, which is why we look at rolling averages of three or seven days. The new hospitalizations numbers are things we are still looking at. Those are the red balls. There are a fair amount of them in the upper left. While this really Good Progress in that chart, there are still o the coming int hospital. Here, we can see ourselves relative to the neighboring states. This is new jersey, per capita, new cases, patients in the hospital, new deaths per 100,000 residents in each case, and we are still at or near the top. Top of density of every american state. Everybody, keep it up, because you are the reason we have made the progress. You are the biggest reason that chart will ultimately get into a much better condition. Remember Public Health creates economic health, and data determines dates. Only you all and you have been extraordinary by the way can make that happen. With a heavy heart today, we report another 162 blessed souls we have lost from covid19. This, our statewide total stands at 10,586. That is a total number, and those are Lab Confirmed fatalities. Which is why we have wanted to make sure we have the apples to apples comparison of these blessed souls we have lost, whether in longterm care facilities or elsewhere. As we do every day, lets remember some of these blessed lives. We begin today by remembering Donnie Nicholson barrett, on the left, who gave 33 years of her professional life to the people of essex county as part of the county essex Prosecutors Office. Ae majority of that time as clerical supervisor in the special victims unit. I had a conversation with ted stevens about the donnie, who was quite an individual. As was known to many simply move donnie, the undisputed matriarch of the office with a tremendous laugh and power of unconditional love, who helped raise generations of assisted prosecutors, investigative staff , and clerical workers. The essex county special victims the is located within winona house Child Advocacy center, and she was just as revered by that step as well. Staff as well. With her, no one was a stranger. Everyone got a birthday card, but only the true lucky got a nickname from miss donnie. Fittingly, she was born on, cant make this up, valentines day, 58 years ago. Importantly, she was a woman of faith who lived her face every at and was a deaconess Shiloh Baptist church. I spoke to shilohs pastor this , and we each commiserated about how special donnie was. She leaves behind her beloved husband right there with her, also a deacon, Michael Douglas barrett, with whom i had the great honor of speaking yesterday. Their children and her sister gloria. She is now reunited with another son greg, who she had lost but has now found. May god bless her and all of those who loved and worked alongside of her. She was a tremendous presence in the lives of many, and i know her memory will remain with them all. Go to kearny in Hudson County. For paul and dolores, otherwise known as liz mccurry. They were each 91 years old, and had been married for more than 60 of those years. They each passed from covid19 within days of each other. Liz, three days before paul. He could havee played james bond in his youth with that tux edo. Paul was born and raised in kearny and served in the United States navy from 1954 to 1958. Returning home, he returned to school and graduated from the rockers school of law. He was serve in a number of ,apacities in his hometown attorneys among them. From 1962 and 1964, he was elected did to represent Hudson County in the general assembly. He was part of the Hudson CountyBar Association and west hudson Bar Association, as well as a trusteetee as of a scholarship committee. Liz, on the left there, what an incredibly handsome couple, was born to kearny to a in kearny to a single mom who worked through the Great Depression to provide through her daughter for her daughter. She is a student at Bloomfield High School and made a group of friends with whom she would remain close the remainder of her life. Liz would become deeply involved civil life in her own life. She was a member of the father washington club, friends of aaron, women club of arlington, and a social member of the arlington players club. Paul and dolores found their true calling with each other. They met through mutual friends while paul was a young attorney and liz was a secretary in. Rudential i newark their daughter of susan, a kearny councilwoman and leader in her own right, recounts how they love to dance together. Susan said, they were always a couple. Always together. It is difficult to picture one without the other. Sadly, they remain a couple in their passing. They leave behind not only susan but their sons, thomas and stephen mccurry. Stevens wife margaret and their grandson patrick, and they also lead countless friends. Thomas is in los angeles. Why did he go to los angeles . His mom was a huge fan of mute movie musicals, and he went to los angeles where he is a screenwriter. I couldnt help but ask what moms Favorite Movie musical was , singing in the rain. I also want to give a shout out to young patrick, who wondered when he heard of the passing of his beloved grandparents, whether i and we would speak about his grammy and pappy. I hope you are watching because were doing just that. Susan recounted one of her dads favorite expressions was one he picked up in the navy. He would say this when things didnt go according to plan, and it was, well, lets just press on. So we will press on with paul and liz in our thoughts, and prayers. May god bless them both and their family. Three more tremendous memb ers of our family. Our flags remain at halfstaff. While their families cannot fully gather in morning, we as a state can ensure these lives are not and never forgotten. Even as we mourn, we know there are other stories, truly new jersey stories just beginning. These are the stories of hope for our future, and the stories that tell us, in clear terms, that we will get through this and come out stronger than ever before. I would like, with your blessing, to close it. Please meet jacqueline and sebastian. Freeholdwas to be the theles wedding day, but celebration they planned could not go on, so they made other plans. They turned what was to be a celebration of their love into a celebration of support for their community. Ring, you willis be fed, asking friends and family to donate food for fulfill new jersey, run by our good friend, which helps ensure families in monmouth and ocean counties have food for their tables. On saturday, what would have been wedding day, local Police Escorted more than 50 cars sebastiansn and house, where they collected