Conference in order to maintain social distancing during this very challenging time. I also want to take the opportunity to thank the people of San Francisco. This weekend, things looked like somewhat of a success in terms of social distancing for the most part and definitely an improvement from last weekend. The streets are pretty clear and there were some definite hot spot areas that well be focusing on, but the beaches and some of the parks and other places, people were practicing social distancing and we very much appreciate your cooperation. It will make a world of difference and, in fact, we already have made a difference in really saving lives. We may not realize the impacts this until this is all over, but eventually, we will learn, im sure, that because of what we have done and how we all have participated in complying with social distancing, it truly has saved lives. As of today, we have 374 confirmed cases with six deaths and that is six people who have passed away because of the coronavirus. And my heart goes out to the family members expect friends e have lost in San Francisco. One person is too much of a loss and as we have said before, this is a very deadly virus, as you are seeing, not just in San Francisco but throughout the country. And the reason we have taken significant steps has everything to do with saving lives and protecting Public Health. Because we know that there will be challenges on our Healthcare System and we know that people are anxious to know about the stayathome order and whether that will be extended. I know that our county Health Officers will be making an announcement tomorrow to talk about the specifics of extending the stayathome order until mar the sake of planning and everyone can begin to know this continue to have an impact, you should definitely plan to stay at home and this process and what were doing here will continue until at least may 1st. If anything changes, we will definitely notify the public. So i want to just talk a little bit about some of the challenges that we have having and will continue to have and what were doing to prepare for those challenges. Weve said from the very beginning we knew that our vulnerable populations, not only consisting of our ederly but those living in congregate settings and sadly those on our streets would be a part of that vulnerable population and so we would have to move quickly to make sure that in places where we have singleroom occupancy hotels, where our Shelter Systems are and places like ga laguna honda, we had a plan and would keep people safe. From the very beginning, we knew this would be a challenge. We have learn ed this nine employees at laguna honda hospital have tested positive, as well as two patients, and we are still testing people a at at laguna hospital and well have more information once that comes in. We knew the situation would be challenging and so immediately last week, i sent a letter to the federal department of Human Services asking for significant support so that we could not only focus on making sure we provide the resources and support to this hospital and we dont continue to drain other services, but we have the expertise and the testing on side and other things needed in order to prevent something from happening that we know has happened in other places throughout the country, including in washington, that house hav a significant populatn of ederly patients. Laguna ha honda is one of the largest hospitals of its kind in the country, housing over 750 very, very vulnerable residents who cannot take care of themselves. And this is basically their home and this is where they eat. This is where they live. This is where theyre cared for. And so we have been taken immediate steps in order to help support this hospital and support the people and the staff who are part of it. We were fortunate in that the cdc on friday, after sending that urgent request to the u. S. Department of health and Human Services, the cdc has sent two Infectious Disease doctors and two epidemiologists and the department of health has sent two prevention nurses to help assess the situation at laguna honda and make recommendations and we also have a dedicated staff member at the cdc in atlanta to help monitor and facilitate the situation specifically at l laguna honda because we know that, again, this is a very vulnerable population and more testing needs to be done and its going to be important that we have the resources and we have the support necessary to protect and save lives. Its just a start and im grateful for what weve received, but i want to be clear, its not nearly enough to get us to a better place specifically concentrating on la golaguna honda hospital. Well definitely be reaching out to federal and state partners to ask for Additional Support for the residents and the staff at laguna honda hospital. I also want to be clear that the situation will escalate at laguna honda and it will escalate here in San Francisco. The fact that we are taking such drastic steps to, in essence, pretty much shut down San Francisco has everything to do with how serious this is. I cant reiterate enough how important it is for all of us to continue to comply, for all of us to continue to be good citizens, to continue to cooperate. This weekend, i received a note from one of my neighbors. The note basically had the email address expect phone number of one of my neighbors on the block who said they were the block captain. So if i needed anything, whether its Grocery Shopping or pharmacy pickups or what have you, or even someone to take to, they were available. And i got really emotional when i received that note because it made me think about how amazing people are in this city and how ive heard so many stories about people reaching out to their neighbors, people identifying ederly people that they know need help and just dropping off groceries, folks just stepping up and being there for one another. Because we know that its not just about the physical health and what we need to do to combat the coronavirus. We also understand that as human beings, theres an emotional toll that this will take on so many of us. So its so important that we continue to uplift one another and be there for one another as much as we possibly can. My thoughts and prayers go out to the team at laguna honda. I want to thank them for all they continue to do to give dignity to so many elderly patients who may not have family visits or support and resources to do anything just to be there and to know the nurses and those doctors and those social workers continue to put a smile on the face of those patients. They show up everyday and they just really deserve our respect, our support and we will do everything we can to continue to do just that. So at this time, i would like to introduce dr. Grant colfax to provide us with more detail specifically whats happening at laguna honda, what were doing to prepare for the inevitable and how, together, we will do everything we can to save and change lives and get through this. So thank you all so much. And let me wipe this mic down. Good afternoon, im gra grant colfax, director of health. Thank you, mayor. Today im saddened to report to the San Francisco community that laguna honda hospital has a growing outbreak of coronavirus. Weve prepared for since the start of the pandemic and we will continue to do everything we can to protect laguna honda hospital and staff. I want the community and all of the families to know how much i care, we care about them and they are our top priority. We are intensely focused on doing everything we can to protect everyone at laguna honda from harm, but i also need to be realistic and forthright. As we look at the data and the patterns around the world and in our country, we know that longterm care facilities are at most risk for coronavirus outbreaks. Therefore, we expect the situation to, unfortunately, get worse. Across the united states, many longterm care facilities have been hit hard by the coronavirus, including in california, washington, colorado, minnesota, new york and many other states. No local community is equipped to manage this escalating crisis alone. And that is why we have asked for help from the state and federal government and, i am thankful that some of our requests are starting to be answered. As of today, Infection Control nurses from the California Department of health and Infectious Disease physicians and e epidemiologists from the c are on la go laguna honda exper. They will make decisions for management that is expected to escalate and will work with leaders at the department of Public Health to develop a prospective Response Plan for longterm care facilities in addition to l laguna honda. I am grateful for this help and we need more. From the beginning of the global outbreak, efforts by the city to prepare for the coronavirus have prepared the most vulnerable population. Residents who are over 60 years old and those with certain Underlying Health conditions and chronic diseases. The residents of laguna honda hospital are in the most vulnerable of these groups. Laguna honda has a total of 11 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Nine are amongst staff and two are among residents. All are in good condition. Since march 26th, 158 staff and 54 residents were tested for the virus. Among residents, two have tested positive and 51 negative and one result is still pending. Among staff, 156 have tested negative and 25 more tests are underway. And i expect more cases of coronavirus in the laguna Honda Community among both staff and residents because it is now spreading throughout the bay area. We are drawing on all of the resources we can muster at the local state and federal level to strengthen our response. Laguna honda has been and remains a top priority in the citys preparation and response to coronavirus. The first Health Officer order after declaring a local Health Emergency in early march was to restrict visitors from laguna honda to protect the institutions residents. Laguna honda leadership has worked actively and diligently to train staff on coronavirus including the use of personal protective equipment, ppe, for all cleaning of common spaces of resident rooms and other prevention technique. Here is what is happening on campus right now to respond to the outbreak. First, the hospital incident command system is activated to manage the crisis and the incident commander, troy williams, is here to answer further details about that process. The state Infection Control nurses are creating expanded protocols on environmental cleaning, ppe, and staff safety. The cdc is intensifying the information to look for sources of infection and the pathway of spread and this will prevent a plan that taking the coronavirus situation fully into account. The two units where the cases have been diagnosed, south 4 and south 5, are under an extensive quarantine order. Each of these units houses approximately 60 residents. Within these units, doors have been secured, sheriffs are at the doors preventing residents from leaving and only allowing appropriate staff to enter and residents are being assessed for symptoms on every shift and staff are being screened twice for symptoms at every shift. Testing of all staff on south 4 and south 5 where staff cases have been found is almost complete. To date, nine positive cases have been confirmed. And testing of all patients on south 5 where patient cases have been found is complete and results are pending. To date, two positive cases have been confirmed. All nonessential personnel are restricted from entering the facility. All essential visitors, staff and residents are medically screened and all laguna honda staff are screened at the start of each shift. In addition, laguna honda is setting up a field care clinic on its grounds as a precaution in case there is a need to separate groups of patients. We are continuing to assess the situation and adapt our response accordingly. Working with our state and federal partners. However, even best efforts are no guarantee against the spread of the virus. There are currently 374 cases and six deaths due to coronavirus in San Francisco. In addition to our focused, Rapid Response efforts at laguna honda hospital, they are preparing for the expected surge of hospital patients. I remind all of sanfrancisco to do your part in slowing down the virus. By decreasing community spread, you will help protect vulnerable groups like the very residents of laguna honda and other longterm care facility residents across the country, other ederly people and those with underlying he health conditions. This is the time to come together as a community while we stay home whenever possible. I cannot stress that enough. Unfortunately, we will be seeing more cases and deaths in the coming days and weeks. Please do your part to keep those numbers as low as possible. Thank you. And i would like to introduce mr. Yee, board of supervisors. Good morning. Im t norman yee, president of e board of supervisors and im in district 7 in which laguna honda is located. I want to thank dr. Colfax and mayor breed in taking a stand with these vulnerable populations were dealing with. We knew that at some point somebody was going to be infected. So as tough as its been to say no visitors coming to laguna honda, its something we had to do. Think about it. The people that are there in the hospital are now not with their families, not with their friends visiting. And the love that the family and the friends want to provide for them, they cant. So a tough decision, it was very difficult to make, but think it was the right decision. Problem, in fact, it delayed any infection there. It probably, in fact, reduced the numbers that were seeing today. What im saying is probably reiterating what dr. Colfax was saying, that we need to take an aggressive stance. We need to attack this aggressively and do everything we can to slow it down, to minimize how many people are going to be infected, whether its staff or the seniors themselves. One thing that we could do even more aggressively if we have the tools is to Start Testing everybody there, everybody. We cant be working in a vacuum. We cant be guessing oh, where is the next person that will be positive . We have to get ahead of that. So as dr. Colfax and mayor breed were saying, were reaching out to the state and federal government and please respond because we need your help. Thats all i have to say today and thank you very much to the residents who are behaving the right way, social distancing, stay at home as much as you can and enjoy whatever you can at home and if you have to go out, make sure you are staying away from people, at least six feet and to continue washing your hands. Thank you very much. Well open it up to some question. Madam mayor, this is a question from abc7. What is the city doing to help Small Businesses during this crisis. So one of the first things that we announced early on, because we knew there would be some real challenges with our Small Business community, is a fund to provide a Million Dollars in grants right away and that money has dried up and we provided a delay in business taxes until 2021 so that businesses here can hold off on paying taxes until next year. We put a delay on a number of fees that businesses get charged and we also provided a 10 million fund for employees where you have businesses who have sick leave and, for example, if an employee only has two weeks of sick leave, we could provide an additional week of sick leave through a fund that is available and weve tried to make sure that we provided all of these options to Small Businesses. They can check out the website oewd. Com for more information on how they can get additional assistance. The governor added additional there are others other actually before did not qualify for Unemployment Insurance that now qualify for Unemployment Insurance. And so state Unemployment Insurance is available to a lot more people than it hav ever has before. So its important that people apply because you may not think youre qualified, but you are. Im working to develop a nointerest loan fund where weve partnered with a number of nonprofit agencies excuse me, folks in the private sector to contribute money along with public dollars and were hoping to make that Fund Available to businesses sooner rather than later. We understand that businesses are suffering and theres some real challenges with paying bills, but i think our commercial moratoriums on convictions and a number of other things were doing to really slow down or hold off on extreme responses to the lack of our Business Community and their inability to pay bills because of the resources that theyre no longer able to regenerate, i think that some of the measures we put in place will be helpful. I know they wont be enough so well continue to add a number of resources to help support our Small Business community and i just want to be clear, theres a lot of folks who are hurting out there and wer were going to do everything we can but this is a problem that doesnt exist in San Francisco. Its all over the country, all over the world and it will be difficult to help every single person, but well do our very best. Question from sin singh tao. For affordable housing, but what about luxury Home Building . The fact is in San Francisco, costle building anything is so expensive, the fact we dont build is a problem. It doesnt matter what sort of housing gets built. The fact is, when this is al