People hospitalized. If you would like more information, specifically around the people who have been diagnosed as it relates to their race, ethnicity, zip code or any other data, please check out datasf. Org covid19 for more information. We update that tracker everyday by 9 00 a. M. Today, i just want to start by again thanking you all here in San Francisco for your cooperation. I know that it has not been easy. Weve imposed restrictions to your lives that have made things not only very difficult for you, but difficult for your family. Sometimes difficult for not just your physical wellbeing, but also your mental wellbeing. We have tried to make sure that in this process as we are trying to protect Public Health, we dont create an even worse problem with a number of those sorts of challenges rette relato Mental Health, related to Economic Health of your household or those other matters. It is, then, probably, im sure for some of the most challenging time of your lives. Executive knoi know some of thes and programs weve offered from the city may have been helpful, but its definitely nothing like getting back to work and earning your own income and being able to take care of your family. Theres nothing like that and we want to make sure that we are able to get back to that, but more importantly, we have to make sure that we are able to continue to keep people safe. This has been pretty much the most difficult thing ive had to to do, is to ask the people of this city to basically stay at home and only leave your house for essential services or if youre youre an essential worker or to get fresh air or exercise. Touive asked you to do that through a deadline with the hopes of maybe moving back to allowing the city to open and today, unfortunately, we will need to extend the deadline for the stayathome order through the month of may. Its challenging and, of course through the responsibilities of mayor and making sure that i am informed and making good decisions on behalf of the people of this city, i also have to do i have to take care of myself, as well, and, in fact, being in the house all the time and not being able to visit with my friends and my family and thats been very challenging. I wasnt going to tell anyone this publically, but i had a moment this weekend and i started playing music that i grew up to. And i started dancing by myself and singing the words of songs of words i hadnt heard in years. I made me feel alive and hopeful theres a light at the end of the tunnel and i know some of you are looking at ways you can continue to use this as an opportunity to make sure that you are taking this time for granted in ways that continue the positivity, the goodness and that youre able to get yourselves and your families through this time. It has already been difficult for many of you, especially kids who cannot play with their friends or a lot of the seniors who are graduating high school. The kids who want to go to the park, not being able to see your grandmother or grandfather. I cant even imagine just how challenging, im sure, this has been for so many of you. And again, i want you to know that we realize these are real charles. Challenges. As we extended this stayathome order, it will be important for us to look at ways to develop, along with our health experts, policies that will get us back to plans in order to open our city again. And let me just be clear that Public Health is our priority. Taking the data and the information from our Public Health experts and using that to make determinations around what we can and cant do is critical to making sure that were protected. But we also need to prepare and as i mentioned to you all last week, our Economic Recovery Task force has already started meeting. The goal is to provide recommendations because when the city does open, there is going to be a change. Theres going to be a change with restaurants. Theres going to be a change with hair salons and nail salons and various Job Opportunities. There will be a chain with largescale events. Theres a lot of uncertainty because right now what we see are the numbers go up every single day in our city. We also see the number of hospitalizations. They have gone up in our city and the good news is theyve got gone up as large as other places, because you all are doing your part to comply. But the fact is, they are still going up. So we are not out of the woods yet. And so we want to be very careful that we not take the steps out of frustration, out of concern. We dont move too quickly and repeat mistakes that have been made in our paths history. About 100 years ago, i brought up the last time the spanish flu, when we thought the worst had passed us and folks threw out their masks and went out into the streets and partied and had a good time and a few days later, we were even worse off than when we started. We dont want that to happen in our city. This is not an easy thing to do and to continue to come to every press conference and not only thank you for what youve done but to ask you to do more. This has been very difficult to do because as hard as i know its been for me, im sure it is so much harder for all of you. And i just want to continue to express my gratitude because the only reason why the numbers are not as bad as they could be has everything to do with so many of you. And your patience and your understanding has been really the Guiding Light in what has been a very, very challenging situation. So i just want to appreciate that, express that there are the deadline for the stayathome order has been extended through may and we are hopeful through this Economic Recovery Task force and some of the other things that we are doing with our Public Health officials, we will be able to come back to you with good news, good news about things that we will be able to do to make things easier for you in this situation. And speaking of good things that we are able to do as a city, after examining what we know people are interested in our safestreets program and closing off streets and allowing people to socially distance easier and safely, that program has been successful and closing jfk drive on the weekends has been successful and after our review of jfk drive and the fact that people over the weekends are basically, definitely complying in most instances with the order following the direction, we think its only fit its only fair to offer jfk drive to close that street effective 6 00 a. M. Permanently through the course of this stayathome order. I want to be clear after this stayathome order has expired, that will no longer be the case. But in the meantime, in an effort to provide more space for people to move around and maybe get some exercise and to run and to bike, we wanted to do something that would help. We dont want people driving to the park, still. We want people walking through their neighborhoods and to their neighborhood parks. We dont want people setting up picnic or play dates or the things we talked about. We still need you to socially distance yourselves from people out in the park and to stay six feet apart. That is so critical because we are going to close jfk drive and were going to close shelly drive in mcclarin park to car traffic as a way to provide more space for more people to move around because we know that there are larger populations using these parks in these areas and it gives you an opportunity to move around safely. And thats what this is about. And so we hope that this new opportunity, this new adjustment will make this additional extension of time to stay at home a lot easier for each and everyone of you. So again, thank you for your cooperation. I want to talk a little bit about whats happening with rent collection for tenants that are tenants with the city and county of San Francisco and as some of you are aware, a moratorium on residential and commercial evictions has been placed, has been moved forward through an executive directive by my office. Weve extended that to ensure that as this pandemic continues and people are unable to get back to work in a timely manner, we are able to make sure that no one is evicted because of whats happening with covid19 to each and everyone of us. That doesnt mean that if you can pay rent and you are able and you are still getting paid, that does not mean that you should stop paying your rent, but there are so many people out there that are in a situation where they have a space that they lease and theyre not generating any revenue whatsoever because they are not an essential business. And as a result, they cannot pay their rent or other bills for this space. Our goal is to make sure that when our city reopens, we want our economy to, of course, get going sooner rather than later. What that means is making sure that were not losing all of our businesses, our Small Businesses, our medium sized businesses. That they are able to come back to work on day one with a new guidelines and get started right away without the fear of being evicted. So weve done this with the city already, with the city tenants in particular and were asking our enterprise departments and they are seriously considering and im sure move in this direction. In fact, the port of San Francisco will be moving this week in that direction with their clients, the people who occupy a number of real estate along the port. They will get some relief soon, as well as the airport and other enterprise departments in this city, where theres an opportunity to hold off on rent collection and to work with our tenants. That is something we need to do. Because even when we reopen the city with new guidelines, financially, its going to be challenging. Tourism, our number one industry, where a lot of revenues generated for the city, it just wont return overnight. So we are all facing very similar charles and s challenges important to provide tools to face it together. And so i want to thank the port commission. I know tomorrow night theyll be considering extending this policy and it appears that they are very receptive of doing so. I want to also just take a moment to talk about some comments i made on friday around ppe. It has definitely been very frustrating. The fact that we knew that a crisis existed or was coming and there was just a lack of coordination from the federal government to help prepare and get ready for what we knew was to come. There are a number of challenges that we still face around ppe and we operated our Emergency Operation center pack in emergency of this year and its april, almost may, and were still having the same conversations around ppe. And while those challenges still exist, i want to point out some information that was not accurate that i stated at the last press Conference Regarding fema. In particular, the information we were given by one of our sources that we were purchasing ppe from, and third party, basically provided us that information when we had anticipated the ppe to come to our location. We were preparing to purchase it and the excuse that we gave, that we were beyond frustrated with, was that these materials were diverted to some place else and confiscated by fema. As a result, that was along with a number of other challenges that exist and that was one that i was particularly frustrated with, else in light of the fact that we are working with fema are on our thoug hotels and food delivery. This was just very frustrating. We found out when the director of fema here in San Francisco reached out to our office to make it clear, that not only was this not true, butth but they at investigating the third party that we are working with to ensure that Accurate Information is provided. Providing the Incorrect Information is not only irresponsible, but its also very dangerous in light of what we are all dealing with. And so, not only do i want to apologize to fema for that particular information and providing inAccurate Information, i want to just point out that that the other challenges that i talked about are still challenges that we face. And we will continue to do everything we can to work with fema and to work with other agencies to deliver the ppe our city so desperately needs. We are not out of the woods and even if we have the ppe we need to help with our hospitals, maybe for this month and some of next month, we are going to be dealing with the coronavirus for some time. And so, when we talk about not only the need for ppe to help with our hospitals, when were thinking about restaurants, hair salons and nail i salons and otr places opening, we have to make sure that when we are implementing regulations on their reopening around masks and other things they may need, that we have access to those resources, as well. So theres a larger conversation here in terms of resources. And there still continues to be a challenge with the coordination around the efforts for large cities like ours with our federal government. But i will take this opportunity, again, to thank fema for their willingness to be able to work with us and to ensure that some of the obstacles that weve had, that those obstacles are removed. They have extended that support and i appreciate it. And we desperately need it. So with that, thank you for the time and at this time, i will ask dr. Grant kolfax to come forward and provide an update. Good afternoon. Im the director of health and thank you mayor breed. A week from today is may 4th, which would mark the end of the bay areas current stayathome health order. I commend everyone who has done so much to make that intervention successful. We have, indeed, flattened the curve. We, each and everyone of you, has literally saved lives. In San Francisco, and in the bay area as a whole, we are lead the country in taking aggressive early action to protect our communities from the threat of the coronavirus. I would like to reminded you ofa few key moments in our journey. On january 21st of this year, as we had watched closely the developments internationally with regard to the coronavirus, the San Francisco department of Public Health activated the Department Operations center. With that, we set as a top priority our preparation and response to the coronavirus. We devoted significant resources and staff in th to address the upcoming issue. A week later, on january 27th, the city opened its Emergency Operations center, expanding and strengthening the effort of the citywide response. At that time, we were monitoring incoming travelers from countries with confirmed cases and still had to cases in sanfrancisco. Yet, the mayor continued to heighten our preparedness. On february 25th, she declared a local emergency, even before we had any confirmed cases. This decision was pivotal as it allowed under the circumstancesy faster in our citys collective response. On march 5th, we had our first confirmed cases as we had anticipated. On march 11th, we made Strong Social distancing recommendations so that the public could understand how to help slow the spread of the disease. Slowing the spread has always been our goal. Later, on march 16th, the entire bay area issued a shelterinplace, also known as a stayathome order and over 7 Million People joined together to protect the health and safety of our region. That health order was renewed on march 31st and the work that all people in San Francisco and bay area residents have done has been a model for the nation. We are also following and are aligned with the governors statewide stayathome order and the framework he has laid out for the states recovery. We are fortunate and grateful that our state leadership is so focused on protecting Public Health, leveraging resources and following the data, science and facts. And yet, at this time, none of us can get complaisant. We need to stand our ground and maintain our gains. And make no mistake, this virus is still out there and it is still a threat. Today, there are 1424 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of covid19. A total of 23 people in sanfrancisco have died from the disease and my condolences to their families and friends. Of the 1424 people diagnosed with covid19, 134 or professional 9 are people experiencing homelessness. For these residents, for other vulnerable populations, and, indeed, for the entire community, we must continue to have a unified, regional approach. That is why as the mayor announced, the bay area will extended the stayathome order until may. I know that this is very hard to do. We are missing vital and important parts of our lives. We are sacrificing time with our families, our friends, coworkers and neighbors. Thank you for your sacrifice, your patience, your collaboration and your support. As we think to the future and consider loosening some restrictions, i cannot stress enough that it will become even more important to continue to protect one another. This means establishing and sticking to what will be the new normal. This will include staying six feet apart, covering our faces, washing our hands frequently and still staying home as much as possible. These actions are based in science data and facts. And they are working. And they need to keep working. They need to keep working as we move forward. As we have done throughout our response, we will be informed by the data. We know we need to continue to expand testing and learn more about where cases are. And we know that we will find more cases that way. Right now, we need to increase the number of tests being done in San Francisco each day. With ongoing expansion, this will happen. In terms of recovery, another key metric we will be watching closely is hospitalization of covidpositive patients. Now why is that . Well, that data point tells us a lot. It tells us how many people we have in our system who are seriously ill with covid19 and who need the highest level of care in the Healthcare System. That number has varied somewhat over the past two weeks from 94 patients on april 11th to 85 on april 25th. But the overall pattern has been pretty stable, a flat curve. That means that today, our