As so many, those that were torn asunder in conflict and wars, its those that lose their lives coming back home that never left the battlefield. I want to express my deep respect and admiration on memorial day. Also to veterans and those that have come back from the more contemporary wars overseas and to extend our heartfelt thank you and deep respect and acknowledgment to the challenges and struggles that many of our veterans continue to have as they come back from the horrific experiences in combat and other experiences, noble experiences related to their service at war. We are here in their spirit, in that light of optimism and respect for the opportunities they have all provided us. I want to make a point as we are here to make this point. We not only hold those things dear and rhetorical terms but in terms of our practices. I want to recognize the outstanding practice of leadership that is demonstrable, the veterans homes from the state of california. , the veterans homes from the state of california. 2000 veterans in these homes, protected disproportionately so because the outstanding leadership of our secretary of Veterans Affairs and his remarkable team, outstanding frontline staff. That is not something every governor in the state of california or across this country can say. The reality is a lot of our veterans homes have been disproportionately impacted by covid19 and the spread of this virus. A lot of american heroes from world war ii, not just korean war,r vietnam war, iraqi are housed in institutions like this, have been immune from the spread of the virus. There have been horrific headlines and tragic lives lost where the insidious nest of this disease spread like wildfire through facilities like this across country. That has not been the case and i say this cautiously, soberly not been the case to date in the state of california. Throughout our entire system, we have had three patients test positive for covid19. We have had a number of staff but the overwhelming majority have recovered and back at work. That is because of the seriousness of purpose that was advanced weeks before californias stayathome order was put into place by our secretary of Veterans Affairs. These facilities are not immune to the challenges that are so often present in the lives of californians as it relates to wildfires, earthquakes and other hazards. As a consequence in many respects of the Emergency Operation plans facilities like this and others had already organized and practiced over the course of the last number of years in particular with so many wildfires but also in southern california, that has hardened peoples senses and distilled a real opus and Energy Around protecting staff, our patients and those that serve, the american heroes apart of this system. The team were able to put ether 38 perspective prescriptive guidelines on Infectious Disease control, symptom checks for patients and staff. Coming in today you could see the seriousness of this, like the tsa times infinity with the number of checkpoints and people asking personal questions about where you have traveled and your current symptoms and health, doing temperature checks, people Wearing Masks and the seriousness of the sanitation that has been put into place. It is because of those protocols we have been able to protect the most vulnerable californians. These are folks getting therapeutic care not just recreational support but assisted living, Skilled Nursing facilities within these facilities, all levels of care that are being provided to our american heroes. I could not be more proud and hereleged to have the team but more importantly to have the secretary of Veterans Affairs here to my right to say a few words and i think to express i hope and imagine as he does so often his appreciation to the frontline staff of these facilities that have gone above and beyond to protect some of our most vulnerable and heroic residents of the state and nation. Good afternoon. Secretary of California Department of Veterans Affairs. I want to say first of all i am honored to have the trust of the governor of this great state in running these homes where we create an environment in our homes from the oregon border to the Mexican Border where we try to create a homelike atmosphere where veterans can feel safe and we respect military tradition and honor them by their congregant living experience. Before we came to this podium, we were further up the hill aere this campus hosts cemetery where our veterans are interred, going back to the civil war and earlier. This is hallowed ground. It is full of veterans as is the case with people who are in Nursing Homes across the country, in an extraordinarily vulnerable population. Not only by virtue of their age, we have veterans here in their ninth and 10th decades of life going back to the early days of world war ii but by underlying disease burdens and the burdens they incurred by putting on the nations uniform, picking up a weapon and defending our you are in battlefields familiar with. I was a victim of the polio andemic in the early 1950s i was at the medical school of vermont with hiv aids epidemic became an epidemic. Because of those experiences i always follow the cdc reports on the emergence of rare and exotic diseases wherever they are. When i heard in december that a strange new disease, which was highly contagious and lethal, had emerged in asia, i converged our Senior Leadership we have a plan for this and the other campuses. It was made necessary by the fact earthquakes and fire, wildfires have been all the time. The wildfire three years ago came close to one of the buildings on campus. To treat the epidemic that comes with flu every winter. In early january we started brushing off these things because i had a feeling this could get out of control if the nation of origin could not control it. By late january when we realized the virus had escaped asia and was here, we started a process that culminated in a progressive way in 38 steps which we are happy to share with everyone, campus tod down the prevent entry of the virus which i was afraid would run wildfire through the veteran population. We did that almost completely locking down the eight homes, about two weeks before the state of california went into a statewide stayathome closure thanks to the governor. We have a number of systems in place, the veterans homes have a physician in each home and we have specially trained registered nurses who are expert in Infection Control. We teach every one of our employees, all 3000 it doesnt matter what your job is, cook, nurses aide or groundskeeper, you know about Infection Control in our homes. Short, welong story took all of the guidance of the organsd the cdc and the of Public Health. There is nothing magical about what they wanted us to do. All of their guidance is public sense plus a 10thgraders knowledge of germ theory. We applied it to the veterans homes, a month before everyone else applied it to the state. We have had such success in protecting the wonderful men and are our connection to the past. I lost my father this week. He was a marine, fought in the sullivan islands. We honor him as we do all veterans who died defending this nation. That is what Decoration Day and memorial day is. Our connection to that history is by honoring the men and women that live in all of our veterans homes. My final salute is to the dedicated staff that i have at all of the homes, the leadership, the rank and file. To work taking care of these , itrans is not just a job is a mission. It explains where we have extraordinary attendance rates from all of our workers even during the highest point of the pandemic. Thank you for your trust in me. I am delighted to do this job. You, dr. Mr. Thank secretary. There is not a state in the nation that has a secretary of Veterans Affairs that is also a doctor and that has been determinative as well in keeping the infection rate down not only at this facility built in 1884, same time that is when the Washington Monument was built. The twain finished adventures of huckleberry finn. This facility went up, still the largest in the United States of america. We have some states as small as 60 or so, this with capacity to get to 900, roughly thank the want to secretary, his team, their leadership, the seriousness of purpose as i suggest they have. Aken in terms of their mission i love that he frames this as a vocation, tojust a protect the american heroes. Let me extend as well a few updates that extend off the narrative of protecting the health of 40 million californians. Through a moving variance process in the state, as we make meaningful modifications to our original stayathome order. Many sectors of the economy, the state of california have already reopened as relates to manufacturing whereas in logistics, reopening in real time, the Restaurant Industry reopening including in this region of the state. Currently 43 counties out of the 58 have provided attestation of containment plans and protection plans that allow them to move deeper into phase two. We are putting more responsibility on counties not only as we move through phase two but also into free. We are getting to reopen all sectors of our economy. This is happening in real time and it is a dynamic process. 43 that haveve self attestation plans that have been put up. Counties. S many as 45 we will expect even more over the course of the next number of days. Our commitment is to continue to work with city and county leaders throughout the state of california to address their concerns and issues. This process has been remarkably collaborative. There are examples that are exceptions that tend to get highlighted disproportionately. But they are exceptions. The spirit of collaboration and cooperation is demonstrable in the engagement with city and county Health Directors and city and county officials from every part of the state of california. That includes faith leaders. That wasmade a comment picked up by many but not as many as i had hoped, that we were working with Faith Community to advance the efforts to put out guidelines, processes and procedures to keep the Public Health and safety of congregants and parishioners. We have been working throughout the verse the interFaith Community and the university of our diversity of our eighthbased leadership working on the differentiation, the purchase orces versus neighborhood churches, sanitation, synagogues, working with other faiths. We have been working on those. Uidelines and we are days away we will put out those guidelines. I want folks to know that. I have made that clear, but not everybody has picked up on it. It is important folks understand we deeply respect and admire the faith and devotion and the cause that unites millions and millions of californians, people of faith and community. At a time of so much anxiety, somethingdevotion to bigger than yourself becomes more pronounced and more important. I grew up in a catholic family, went to catholic school, university of santa clara, and i often reflect on how impactful the jesuits were in terms of i upbringing, so many that were that defined so much of my life. It is an expression of my deep respect and admiration for people of faith and i want folks to know we are working to move those guidelines forward and we expect those guidelines to come out on monday. Just for full disclosure, we did not wait for the cdc guidelines. They have not been made public in any meaningful way yet, but we look forward to it are told they are coming out today. Take a look at the guidelines and see if there is things we have not already considered over the course of the last few weeks. One thing we have considered is as we open up the economy, that the prospect of increased transmissions is selfevident. As people are no longer practicing with the discipline they were, that we could see incidences of spread and concentration of spread. We need to be prepared for that. Part of the attestation of counties, 43 to date, they have to have the ability to toggle back and address their lead spread of covid virulent spread of covid19. Testing capacity, appropriate levels of ppe, protocols and procedures that keep economies safe and healthy. Let me give you an example of a county that continues to be of concern in the state of california. But his Imperial County. I mentioned a few days ago and we haveous occasions been watching this as one that is not densely populated but is really one of the most beautiful counties in the state of california and it is a county that has resources but often the resources are stretched. They have hospitals in that county currently. Those hospitals are stretched because of the number of people that have ended up with covid related concerns into that Hospital System. We sent out a team and we are putting a field medical station in Imperial County up to 125 beds to decompress the system. They have been using ventilators. They were up to 70 of use last week. I mentioned that. That is about 52 , but we are making sure we get down with appropriate ppe and make sure our combat teams are present and cal guard. Sensees you the kind of of diplomat we will see in the future if we see incidences of spread if it cannot be contained. This,an expression of expression of eighth and devotion to this cause as well of Public Health and the marylands of this disease. We are at a facility that stood in 1918, stood up through another pandemic. There was a second and third wave in that pandemic. There were elected officials and leaders that were the antimask brigade that were disgusted by the idea people would appear so weak as opposed to the strength i think is the symbol of wearing a mask. Historyof they say doesnt repeat itself, but it does. We need to be students of that history. I just want to caution everybody as we move through memorial day, to spend time and reflect on american heroes and the cause of freedom that united each and every one of them, spending time with family and we do so in a thoughtful way and that we are cognizant of not only our loved ones but the reality of the spread of this disease. We saw an increase in the number of cases in the state of california. We saw 88 more human beings, 88 more families torn apart because of deaths related to this virus in the last 24 hours. If you think just because the sun has come up and there is a sense of optimism that there is more light, not just in surrounding environments but at the end of this tunnel, those are proof points, but there is another we all at the that is stubborn. That is the virulence of this lives aremains and being lost even in the state of california that has done so much not to experience with huge increase in cases and actually is and continues to experience a decrease in terms of total number of hospitalizations, total number of people in icus. Let me say, i will remind you again we are Holding Strong in that, becoming more and more of a trend line, that we are not just seeing stability with icus straight statewide but seeing declines. 7. 5 over 14 days in hospitalizations, 6. 1 decline in total number of people. Those numbers are more significant than they may appear. Those come off relatively stable over the course of many, many weeks. We are not coming off a peek in seeing decline. We are coming off a relatively stable trend and still seeing some and still seeing some declines. Way, those are 14day trials. We also saw a reduction yesterday. I caution you. Just an county is example of a county not living in the aggregate. Little to no spread. No cases. That is why these variances are appropriate and we are very, very pleased. We are responsibly and safely reopening. The final points i want to make and that is to update you on teacup things the final point i want to make and that is to thate you on two things are critical. Thats our ability to trace, isolate, and quarantine individuals to may have come in contact with this disease. We announced a partnership with sf and ucla to train tracers to work with our existing infrastructure of close to 3000 tracers that already exist in our county Health System and supplement that workforce. The goal is 10,000. Phase one with the capacity to go up to 18,000 with a second phase goal. We have 500 people that were our first cohort. 300 people are in the new cohorts. Now we have in the new cohort. Now we have a workforce that are not in 24 7 jobs in the state of california that will provide us trainedn capital to get and commit six months to become part of this tracing core that will get us to the 10,000 goal. Today we launched california connected and that the psa campaign to explain to people what tracing is and what its not because none of us are naive. I am certainly not naive. When you get a call, from some stranger on the government, they are not always pleased to receive those calls. Some may think it is fraudulent. Some may be reticent to tell the truth about what is going on or feeling uncomfortable about having a twoway conversation. That is why it is important that buildin the tracers and on existing infrastructure that has been there for years and diseaseslates to other. I can, well established over the course of decades in this again, well established over the course of decades in this state forwe do this anew covid19. What makes this psa so different is the cultural competency part of it. We are reaching out to communities that have not traditionally been reached out Infectious Disease control. Not just translating documents into milk multiple languages messengerstrusted caning them know that they provide information. None of this information is shared. Well testing has substantially these are the pcr tests, not the antibody tests. There are some states that are conflating the antibody tests with the pcr tests. They are not. These are the traditional that youd pcr tests have become more accustomed to in the media and may be personally, those of you who have been tested. Our testing is averaging over 40,000 tests a day. Th