Delaware News Journal In his State of the State speech to Cabinet members and state lawmakers, Gov. John Carney promised a better year ahead as Delaware continues to reel from the pandemic. The virtual speech was starkly different from the speech that Carney made a year ago in the crowded House chamber of Legislative Hall in Dover, just as the first case of COVID-19 had made its way into the U.S. Carney's speech, the first of his second term, on Tuesday touched on promises that he made last year but were put on hold during the pandemic. In the Senate chamber across the hall from last year's speech, this time near-empty, the Democratic governor spoke on camera to his state that has suffered through more than 10 months of the global pandemic that due to Carney's restrictions has shuttered businesses, led to more than 160,000 people filing for unemployment and taken 1,049 lives to date.