Transcripts For CSPAN New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham Holds Coronavirus Briefing 20240713

Governor grisham we are working on a system that respects the instructions to stay at home. Its very clear about social distancing but we want to provide direct updates and today is an opportunity to do things a little bit differently. It will take a little longer. I really believe that the benefits of this kind of conversation with everyone in new mexico who has the opportunity to do now or later will be incredibly beneficial because in fact, we are all in this together. We will do a format that starts about where we are so you will get a case update from me. I want to talk about what we have done, kind of an accomplishment so you get a sense that things are happening all the time. And are still doing what to expect, what is the next several weeks or months and what to they look like and how do we know that . And then we are going to talk about any of the questions, we will have a dialogue and move got folks who provided questions in advance. I think there is an opportunity to ask questions as we do this. With me today are some of the folks i think you have met in this process in addressing the pandemic. Health, is toof my right, the secretary of Human Services who is to my right and general nava who is the commander of the new Mexico National guard. First, lets do the case update. Today, we have announced 35 new covid19 cases in the state. Cases. Ngs a total of 315 we have two new hospitalizations. So we have 24 individuals in hospitals. Unfortunately today, we have an additional death related due to covid19. It is a male in his 40s and that brings our total death tont to new mexico souls five. As we have talked about, frankly, thats too many. Unfortunately, as we talked about what we have done and what we will do and what to expect, the reality is that we will see more deaths. The only way that we prevent that and hospitalizations is by doing more together. First, i will talk a little bit and move over a little bit, about what we have done. I have tried to provide the information either through our state website which we will put up on the screen for you or any number of other issues. I want to make sure its really clear that we are working on a number of fronts simultaneously. Number one, we have to make sure that social distancing is done by making sure we have cleared an effective public order and the instruction to stay home is meaningful. To that end, i know everyone is already aware we have closed schools until the end of the school year. New mexicans should expect we will have additional orders extending our current orders about what constitutes an essential business, which businesses are closed, and what we consider appropriate social distancing which means we dont want folks in groups more than five. We will continue to do that because in fact, that saves lives. We will show you dated today that will give you a sense of how well we are doing with social distancing and we will talk a little about what we can do better about social distancing. Included some incredible measures to deal with the fact that social distancing and closing businesses to make sure social distancing occurs, has created undue, burdensome, really tragic issues for so many workers and new mexico families. To make sure that childcare is available, we are lifting the caps on childcare services. We will continue to ask for waivers to make sure no one is denied childcare services. We talked about making sure new mexico is covering covid19 issues and related health care for entire families. If we have a childcare, because this is a group thats largely underinsured or uninsured, we will make sure they are taking care of. We are asking the federal government to allow us to use medicaid and many more meaningful ways that means more people will be eligible for medicaid. We dont want new mexicans to be in a situation because they cannot go to work, that they are now under or uninsured. We will continue to work on that and i know we have had incredible discussions and there is information on our website talking about our Continuous Learning plans and the waivers we are getting from the federal government to make sure we are not ignoring students Educational Needs but in fact, we will address them. I will tell new mexicans and a shout out to new mexico educators and superintendents and schools that many other states are looking at new mexicos plan for Continuous Learning efforts and are following suit, making sure we do everything in our power to address Continuous Learning through the end of the school year. We have extended, we were early in extending uninsurance benefits. We know there are so many folks and we got to make sure they are in a position to keep food on the table and support their families. We have protected folks to the degree we can so we dont have evictions, we dont want individuals going into foreclosure or losing their houses. Anything that we can do as a state, we are doing it. Anything we can leverage from the federal government, we will leverage it. There are several other specific issues related to making sure food is being delivered to schools, more people are eligible for Food Assistance through a program called snap. We want to make sure that we are to everyut the impacts single new mexico and as we Work Together to address this pandemic. The second thing i really want to focus on in terms of what we have done new mexico has been incredibly aggressive and is one of the first states thanks to the department of health to do driveby covid19 testing. The way that works in this system is the federal government give you permission for Laboratory Equipment that run samples. Without that, you cannot use a ton of equipment that most states have as available to run these tests. Interestingly enough, new mexico has more of capita of these kinds instruments that can run these covid19 tests. Our National Laboratories have decent instruments. Our large labs have these instruments and the department of health through their state laboratory has these instruments and the university of new mexico has these instruments. We aggressively went after test kits for every single one of our instruments and its one of the reasons why new mexico is leading in the number of tests performed per capita in the country. You will hear more about that from the secretary of health in a minute but its because we started doing this work in january to get the accreditation, get the certification, get the approvals from the federal government and to make sure we were in a position to do much better job testing. The more we know about the virus, the more we know that individuals who are infected, then the more we can do about isolating those individuals and keeping them safe in their own what can managing occur in longterm care facilities and in our Health Care Providers and hospital settings. I feel very good about that effort and we continue to get support from the federal government related to our testing opportunities. Lastly, i want folks to know about what we are doing. We are working diligently to make sure the federal government is paying attention to rural and frontier states and the states in the west. The epicenter unfold like places in new york, florida, louisiana and washington and california, we want to make sure we dont create the same kind of dynamic in new mexico. The federal government arbitrarily came up with a couple of different designations. Call tier one, states that have access to all of the personal protective equipment and related supplies and testing kits. And other states that are tier two. What that really means is we will let you know when you are eligible for that equipment, material and supplies. We have been fighting against that designation and specifically requested the president and Vice President to remove that label for new mexico. I will continue to fight that fight and heres where it is really it has really paid off. The president agreed earlier in the week to grant new mexico a Field Hospital. I know you have seen those on the news in different states including new york. We will have a Field Hospital. We will locate that Field Hospital which will have icu beds in areas where we think we will have the kind of surges with leveraging of capacity and that will make the most sense. We also have the army corps of engineers already on the ground looking at creating additional hospital bed capacity. We have secured the old loveless hospital in albuquerque and that will give us a nearly 200, maybe a little more, hospital beds right in the Albuquerque Bernalillo county area and they are looking in gallup, farmington, roswell, las cruces and santa fe for additional locations where we build out Surge Capacity. You will hear from the doctor about what the numbers really look like based on the data we have. And thats the last thing i want to tell you before i turn it over to secretary kunkel. We have been pulling the private and Public Sector together so we can build ventilators or do 3d printing of materials and supplies that help us provide the kind of patient care, leveraging a researchers at the labs and in the private sector. We have been working across all of these interests to make sure the best people in the country, which are located right here in new mexico, are doing modeling so we can tell you what the worstCase Scenarios look like, when we think the search will happen, and whether folks and whether social distancing is making the impact we expect. You will see some of that work and it will be led today by dr. David scrace. In a position to lead the country and protocols that allow us to reuse masks and gowns and hoods, the kind of protective personal equipment to keep our First Responders and Health Care Workers safe and also protect patients. Ofause of this tiering states and using fema, and asking governors, including this governor, to go out there and secure these items on our own, it has created a draconian, unnecessarily competitive, very difficult environment to acquire any of those goods or supplies. We have been doing this since january and we are building our own supply and our own stockpile. You will hear that it is not enough to meet any surge. You will see a plan come together about how we can address that together. I want to thank you again for joining us today and i will ask secretary kunkel to talk a little bit more about our Testing Capacity and their shift in policy. Good afternoon, im happy to say that the state of new mexico has been successful in their labmpts to increase capacity in the state of new mexico. Both the state scientific laboratories and their partner try core have been successful in obtaining the resources and instruments that we need to increase our ability to process specimens. Because we have that new ability and it continues to increase, and the National Labs are coming on board, we hope in the next week or two to further increase that capacity, because we can now process more specimens, as of today, we are expanding the criteria for testing. For covid19 although we have been urging the public to only get tested if you are symptomatic, we are changing that today for two reasons. Increasedse we have capacity to process those tests and also because there is evidence that Early Detection of asymptomatic people can help us to contain the spread of Community Transmission of covid19. As of today, the criteria for testing will include asymptomatic individuals who are close contacts or household members of positive covid19 individuals. We are also recommending asymptomatic individuals in Nursing Homes be considered for testing. Asymptomatic individuals in congregate settings should be considered for testing. As always, symptomatic individuals who have coughs, fever or shortness of breath should absolutely be tested. There are many testing sites available in the state of new mexico today. Ande are over 60 sites today, 45 of those sites in 24 counties are open. We thank our partners in the Hospital Community for helping us stand up many of these sites and you can see whats open inham day on the cv. House. Org website. , in thelso removing department offices, any requirement for a referral. Some of the private hospitals may still require a referral but the department of health will not. Simply call your Public Health office and request an appointment. That testing for every resident of new mexico is still free and thank you. Thank you, secretary. Comment about the amazing performance in testing and how rapidly we got that up and thank our public and private partners who work to expand capacity. And talkow some slides about them briefly. The first is new mexico covid19 doubling rate. I want to explain doubling rate. You may have heard that. The doubling rate is how many days does it take for the number of cases to double. From 100 toe going 200 and so on. We started out in new mexico on the graph with a doubling rate very similar to that of new york 2 so the case numbers doubled every day. New york is continuing at that pace since then. We believe the social distancing interventions that have been made through the cooperation of the people of new mexico, that doubling time has gone to 3 and that makes a substantial number a substantial difference in the number of cases we will end up seeing in new mexico. The more we can separate ourselves, the less opportunities every new mexican has to get the virus from someone else than the longer that doubling time will get. That doubling time continuously allows us to go over the peak and back down and not have new cases. I will talk about modeling a little bit. Most people watching this today on probably seeing articles sunday and earlier last week on the washington model. And itt together a model was based on some old data. The model is mainly driven and its predictions by the number of people who have died and at that time, there had been no deaths in new mexico. They set about 2. 5 of people in new mexico would be affected, 55,000 cases, 529 deaths. That,cate you more about for every 1 of the population 1 will die. Id19, every 1 of people who get an infection, about 210 deaths here in new mexico. Predicted 2. 5 and they said we would peak on may 2. And at that point, we would only need 1600 General Hospital betts, 243 icu beds and 195 [inaudible] a lot of people called me over the weekend and asked if it would be this bad and i said this is the best possible Case Scenario. We do not anticipate we will have that infection rate or that low of a number of deaths. Let me talk about the modeling we are doing in new mexico. People this4 of year so far have contracted influenza, we think a 1 infection rate for covid19 is way too low. It will be substantially higher than that. Frome looking at anywhere 250,002 1. 20 5 million people. People and the peak is important. The problem with the peak whenever it occurs as it is likely to overwhelm our Delivery System. So the social distancing flattens that allows more people to be safe and taken care of in the hospital without overwhelming the Delivery System. Anywhere between now week and 68 weeks from because any model we pick and any peak we pick is an average of all the different regions of the state. For example, right now, we predict a peak in Northwestern New Mexico late this week or early next week. Maybe not the peak but the search and we are getting calls and they are concerned that they may be overwhelmed. Our data and modeling which is more of a serious Case Scenario is we need a plan for the most and if newes mexicans cooperate and keep the social distancing and is better than that, we will be in good shape. Rather than 1600 hospital beds, we are looking at 3498. About 2400 right now General Hospital beds, icu 2175 which isct obviously more than 243. Bed capacity five and ventilators in the model predicts 630 and we currently have 471 in new mexico so weve got work to do. We have pulled together a group and i will talk more about that and let you know what we are doing. The next slide is covid cases by u. S. States in highland, new york. Its highlighting the doubling time by two days. There are more cases, a lot more cases and if you squint, you can see new mexico but on the next slide, that is highlighted and you can see the doubling time is moving away from the from three days and more toward for. Four. From a medical point of view, that is great progress on that social distancing continues to work and having a bigger effect. , somes some good news concerning news. On the next slide is the social distancing scoreboard. Data of all the cell phones in the United States and they provide we dont know which cell phone is which its about how much people are moving around. This is our scorecard from a few days ago and you can see weve in some Great Success certain areas. And bs. S areas about march 12 when we announced our first case, its been pretty high motion. Right after that first announcement, we had a drop in people apparently became more complex and and it went back up in a big drop, our version of the shelterinplace urging people to stay at home. It bumped back up and now its coming down again. On thisoing for an a report card which will lower the number of cases, hospitalizations, icus and that the new mexico. Whatast one to close with, we are doing in the state hospitals and State Government have been planning for this january. Tainly its the nature of the hospital to have a disaster plan and have a plan how they will handle an epidemic so those were brought out. Are not licensed unless they have a great disaster plan and people have been working on them. Up theiras brought of docs. The department of Operation Center to a level one. Its a crisis standard of care which has been open and the medical Advisory Team has been appointed. We have asked michael richards, the coo of university of Mexico Health Science Center and incredibly experienced, leading disaster efforts to lead that effort to bring the Delivery System together as we are speaking. He and leaders, ceos of major albuquerque outfits are meeting for two weeks to bring this plan. They are bringing in Regional Hospital leaders as well and the plans are quite extensive. There is over 115 people today on these teams and these teams are looking at a variety of major issues, ethical issues. We hope we dont have to get to the point where we have to do ethical decisionmaking but we are ready. There is a clinical click care workgroup thats working on new developments for ppe, Critical Care and ventilators, drugs, therapeutics and any kind of new clinical innovation. Is a group working on transportation, moving people from lowerstate acuity to high acuity hospitals. That team is cordoning the regional care. The modeling and analytics and reporting, you heard about their work today. There is a workforce workgroup as well so how we can have enough supplies of nurses and respiratory therapists and those critical groups. A lot is happening. A lot of work is being done. Procureommendation to the hospital on gibson and expand their capacity by two and made and now the department of health is working on finalizing that contract. I feel lucky to be part of this piece because i thing we have the best and smartest and most experienced people in health care in the state of new mexico, all working together, public and private partnership. Singlel is to create a Delivery System so that when the next week in gallup or farmington or statewide in the middle of may, we will be ready. Governor grisham thank you, doctor and now i will turn it over to generalnava. The adjutant general of the new Mexico National guard. I would like to tell all the family members and those who have been affected by covid19 that you are in our thoughts and prayers. The team of new mexico is working very hard to try to mitigate this Public Health emergency. About a week and a half ago, the governor directed me to start working closely with the department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and i would like to let you know that we are doing very well with that department. We are working with Emergency Managers throughout the state of new mexico, incredibly dedicated Emergency Managers to make sure we have a cohesive response to this emergency. There are three priorities the governor has given me to work out of the Emergency Operations center. The first is around ppe, making sure we have a good handle on all the personal protective a quit that will be needed and will be needed in the future. We are working hard to make sure we have the ppe where its needed at the right time come at the right place, in the right quantities. The next part is around testing so we working closely with the department of health to ensure that we expand Testing Capacity where its needed. You should fully expect to see the new Mexico National guardsmen and women assisting the department of health at that effort as we increase our capacity to test. It will be very important as we move forward. The last thing is around food supply. The governor is concerned about food supply so we are working closely with all the different supply chains to ensure that food is available in plentiful quantities to all of our fellow new mexicans. I have about 160 personnel working on state active duty at the order of the governor. You should expect more new Mexico National guards men and women working in this capacity. The governor mentioned a few hospitals that have been directed to come to new mexico and we will work closely with them and there are some things the governor has been very diligent in working with the federal government to get resources into new mexico. So you should also see active duty or reserve personnel coming to new mexico as well and they will be under the command of one of my generals. To my fellow new mexicans, again, we are working hard to make sure we can deal with this crisis and the governor is pushing us and our staff and the entire Emergency Management community to find solutions to the problems we see. She is really looking at the idea of plan for the worst and hope for the best. So we are all doing that, thank you, governor. Governor grisham thank you, general. I want to do a quick recap on a couple of things and then we are ready for questions. Should you expect moving forward . You should expect our websites which you should be able to see with telephone contact information, to have this modeling data. We will put up a graph and if back. Got that now, go it shows the number of cases so you can get a quick glimpse of the case rate increases from march 12march 31 which is 315 cases today. If you cant see it, it will be on her website. We will keep updating it so you can take a look at a graph. ,hat graph is important because as the doctor said, as we look at doubling rates, the longer the time between a doubling rate, the better the work you are doing to keep the virus from spreading. That means if we dont have transmission rates that are seeing the doubling of cases and some places and some communities, its been a day and a half, two days, thats what we are seeing around the country in these hotspots that immediately system. M the hospital when you overwhelm the hospital systems, it means we put people at risk that we might be able to treat and save but they cant get in and that creates the kind of risk that no one in his country should have to endure. We will do everything in this state in our power to prevent that so its a very meaningful graph. We also did the same kind of graph looking at the hospitalizations. You should expect us to talk a little more about recovery. We are three weeks into this and we are looking at data that shows us averages for 21 day hospital days for recovery and discharge and what is it mean for inhome recovery . What does it mean for individuals who test positive dont need hospital care . What can we expect for their recovery . How do we Start Talking about that . This pandemic is critical, new and continues to plague the entire globe. Some of the data is not readily available so we are studying it and making sure what impact it has in new mexico. You should expect to see what we are doing to secure more personal protective equipment, you should expect us to be able to talk about, as we model, having actual data about when our peaks or searches are. We can tell you by region what we are doing. We see alarming rates in one section of the state. We see that in the Northwestern Region so thats why weve got the army corps of engineers looking at hospital size, Surge Capacity sites and increased investment so we are ready to deal with any of these issues. As you heard from the secretary of health, you will heroes talk about the number of tests both performed every day, the number of test sites readily available. At our current pace, we will have more than two per county available. Bigger Population Counties will have several. The purpose is to make sure we are doing the right surveillance in our state to protect every new mexican. What does it all boiled down to . Distancing is the most meaningful tool we have. The less transmission, the more lives we will save. The less transmission, the fewer people that will go to the hospital. The less transmission, the more control we have over hospitalization and surges. Because you overwhelm the technicians and respiratory therapists and doctors and pulmonology specialists, everybody on the team who will have to be available to treat covid19 patients. I have, and i and will continue to do that work. But this social contract has to be taken seriously by new mexicans. Good news you can see the doctor showed you a graph where we are seeing a doubling rate of every 3. 5 days. That is incredibly good news but its over a short time so lets see how we do moving forward. He also showed you that using private Laboratory Data from information about everyones cell phones in the country, that we have to see which means that too many people are traveling away from their homes. That there are unnecessary outings and shoppings where people are congregant together. I have seen images of hundreds of people in Big Box Store parking lots, lines of people where they are right next to each other, we are seeing videos of people in new mexico at any number of stores who are in large groups together. This is not safe for your family. Its unfair to your neighbors. Its unfair to every single new mexican im quite frankly, as we try to figure out how we make 365 ventilators 365 icu beds beds,ore than 2000 icu its unfair to a Health Care System that will have to meet that demand. The only way we do this effectively is if you help us. I want to thank the bigbox stores that have already gone to a system called metering. That means they are voluntarily creating an environment where 10 people at a time can go in. They create environments where its impossible not to do social distancing. Dont take your whole family to the Grocery Store. Send one person. Think about the protections you need to be responsible for for your own family. And seniors, while many of our Grocery Stores have worked diligently, and i thank them for creating special hours, i am aware of incredible Neighborhood Work where neighbors are coming together and an individual in that neighborhood, whether its a teenager who can do that delivery or someone else in the neighborhood whos buying all the groceries and then delivering them safely on the doorsteps. Help us create an environment where we are protecting as many new mexicans as possible. Only you can do that. We will do our part. I will fight with the federal government, every private vendor and we will create the kind of environment where new mexico is as prepared as it can be, no stone unturned. We are doggedly going after every effort which is how we have been so successful with testing and testing sites. I have the same expectation for this team and frankly, many others in state and local government and the private sector who help us every day. If we do this together, we will liveso many new mexican and we will hold up and respect to a greater degree, our First Responders and her Health Care Workers who are gearing up for this challenge and providing incredible care to the whoviduals with covid19 have to be hospitalized and are receiving icu care on ventilators. I thank them for that work and i know their families thank you and i appreciate we are all in this together. Alright, we are ready for questions. I think you will help us with that . From new mexico pbs, is there a point at which new mexico will have enough tests that you would relax or lift the stayathome order or are you looking primarily at transmission data for that decision . Governor grisham its a combination of all those things. We should be looking at transmission data. Transmission data is skewed if you are not doing widespread testing. You cannot do widespread testing because this country, in my opinion, was late to figuring out what kind of testing application and opportunities they would provide. Mexicans are in better shape than other states where they arent doing enough testing, they are trying to get confirmed information while people are hospitalized and making assumptions. We are upstream in that regard. I would like to see every new mexican tested. Antibodies. At we can identify who is asymptomatic, we can isolate more individuals. I can tell you with a great deal of confidence, in the very near future, i will not have access to sufficient testing supplies to do that. To yourave, in fact, point, relaxed the testing standards because we have been successful at getting enough instrumentation certified, enough partners who can run those laboratory tests, enough partners to do those driveby testing stations and enough work by her Healthcare Providers to collect those samples. We will continue to expand in that regard. There may be a point that you are getting out which is a question i want to get answered with as much degree of specificity as we can. Thats the modeling work. When can we really expect these surges . What does the peak look like . The thing we have referenced and will keep referencing is if we have a line thats different doublingyork, like our rate you see rounded effort in our graph. You dont see this incredible spike. , we are news is protecting her Health Care Workers and dealing with her but it takescity longer, the bellshaped curve means the social distancing is working. When youworking alleviate that social distancing in terms of the requirements we have made for certain businesses like restaurants and bars and unnecessary, nonessential workplaces to basically shut down. We want to make decisions as quickly as we can to get new mexicans back to a place of , workcy, predictability and income security. Frankly, new mexicans feel they can spend the quality time outside their home with their families. The sooner we do that, the better off we will all be. But it has to meet the information we have about whats really going on with this virus. If its any indication that the federal government has sort of extended their guidelines to the end of april, the federal government is preparing for a longer cycle. I think we will have to do the same. But we are going to bring you more routinely, this modeling data so we can see it and so that you can see the same information i am using to make the decisions about when we start to lift some of these orders and change our social distancing patterns. Assetday, thats our best , to defend ourselves in this fight against this virus. Narrow, morere strict, more focused and people should expect that through at least the end of april and quite frankly, it looks to me for probably middle may. Lets see with the data tells us and lets make our decisions based on the incredible talents and science available in the state of new mexico. Thank you for that question. From the albuquerque journal, do you have a location plan for the requested u. S. Army Field Hospital in albuquerque and would patients around new mexico potentially be brought to that facility . Governor grisham we are, the army corps of engineers i want to redirect this question to crace. We are looking where that location should be and we dont have what size Field Hospital. They come in a couple of different sizes. They are not so easy to move around although you can. They take about a week to set up in about a week, maybe not so long to take apart but another week to set up. We have to be thoughtful about where that will be. We do have robust plans in place to transport patients just because the rural frontier nature of the state, in terms of health care personnel, means that even if we identify locations, and we will and we are, las cruces, gallup, farmington, roswell, santa fe, albuquerque for Surge Capacity and hospital bed capacity are notn that if we careful about where we locate the Field Hospital and related assets, we wont have enough personnel to provide the support even though it got a location. Are leaning on having the Field Hospital be in albuquerque but we will wait for data from our Health Care Experts to make that final decision and we also need to know the size of the Field Hospital operation which the federal government has not quite provided. I expect that any day. I would just add that over 90 of our Critical Care beds in new mexico are in albuquerque. So wes a scarce resource are weighing the pros and cons. A if therewas was a dramatic outbreak in an area outside of albuquerque, that would be a serious consideration. Loveless facility will really help with that. I think we are days away from making a decision about the army hospital. We do need to know exactly how many icu beds will be in that facility. The governor has tasked me to work closely with their fema partners. We have a federal coordinating partner in the emergency Operation Center and they are working hard with fema region six to get us the answers to the questions we have about the size of the hospital. The placement of the hospital will be based on data. Governor grisham next question . From the new mexican asking about the preparedness level of new mexicos Health Care System for a surgeon covid cases come a specifically about the maximum number of icu beds the state can expand to during a surge plan. Governor grisham we talked about that a little bit and i will refer to the doctor again but we know that the current plan identifies 365 icu beds. With what we expect in a surge, weaned to get to probably about 2000 or more. The way in which i instruct this team is to take the next worst Case Scenario and plan for 3000. Thats not so easy to accomplish. Do to planing we can is reduce the number of folks by reducing the number of people who need the icu care to reduce the people who contract covid19. Work wereally the best can do. You can see that we are already, with the Field Hospital, figuring out how we convert and retrofit different current hospitals and to the specific of your question, how prepared are new mexico hospitals . In one way, quite frankly, we are more prepared. This is a state that has half as many hospital beds per thousand than any other state in the country. It is based on a whole variety of factors that i dont think are very fair and a number of systems including medicare. It really speaks to the rural and frontier nature of the state. That means that a ton of our hospitals and our Public Hospitals have always really had to think about any particular outbreaks or issues where they had to quickly convert certain areas or beds and leverage personnel. Today, when i was looking at updates from other governors and getting a sense about whats going on the country, thats important to us, too. It helps us plan and respond to questions by our neighbors and new mexicans. In new york, they are just bringing their hospitals together because they dont have the same resource limitations. They are being day lose d eluged. Butre incredibly prepared its not going to be enough. Probably even in the best Case Scenario. We will have to really think about how we do things differently which is why we put our request in so early and thats why we are retrofitting loveless and other places so that the nonicu folks can be moved for the remainder of their hospital care. But we covid19 focus can also really keep expanding what we call icu care and we do that by also expanding ventilation, the ventilators and making sure we have the right equipment and the right drugs. I think new mexico will be ahead in many ways by thinking about ways to use our current ventilators and other equipment that can be turned into ventilators. Our National Laboratories are helping with that. That creates a different dynamic for the state. So its both. We are incredibly prepared because we have been working on for years and we are working on it now since january. We have real risk. The way i mitigate the risk is preventing people from going to the hospital. The doctor might want to comment. You said it very well but i would add a couple of things. Last august, there is a nationwide disaster drill for a pandemic. New mexico was the only state that went on full alert and brought up all systems and went through the exercises to determine what we needed. We had a history of preparedness. We did another exercise on march 1 for the covid epidemic. This is ithink about think we can get the Delivery System to double or more the number of icu beds in ventilators and General Hospital capacity. If we can get new mexicans to cut in half the transmission of the disease, half the disease doubles our capacity so we can make this work. Governor grisham thank you, next question. Easter is around the corner and what should and what does that mean for services and celebrations . Governor grisham i want to thank our Faithbased Community havein this state demonstrated what i believed to be incredible leadership by being very clear that there faithbased services are incredibly important to their Church Members and they have thought of any number of ways to do that without congregating. Ourshould expect Faithbased Community will continue to do that. Services in the state we expect to be canceled and away you might normally think about them. For example, the archdiocese for the state is very clear about making sure Easter Services are available through televised ofgramming and any number other internet available accommodations. They are canceling all pilgrimages related to easter that era Jewish Community did the same effort, to Cancel Services and find other ways to serve and support their congregations and members, that any number of our other Christian Churches are following suit. I want to give a shout out to today to calvary who is working on a different way to create absolute social distancing but brings people together. They are talked about having folks invited to drive to the parking lot and stay in their cars. You get a sense of how important and strong that faith membership is. All of these strategies save lives. The places that are still considering having services, i want to thank you for caring about your members but i want to challenge you. If you really want all of us together to keep new mexicans safe, it is not a responsible way to support your members if you are bringing them together in a congregate setting stop i am clear that the Faithbased Community at large is working to support any church in any capacity to find ways to meet the individual needs of their members. Im very proud of that work. We can do better, we can do more and it is my hope that i wont have to do anything directly about that, that new mexicans will continue to do that good work by volunteering their efforts for best practices. Thats what new mexicans should expect. Will bevices, my goal all services, that are congregate in nature or canceled, the opportunity to participate in your faith during this holy time can and will be available under different mediums by a whole variety of different faithbased organizations. What is the current inventory of personal protective equipment for the state including masks, face shields, gloves, etc. And are we prepared for that level of search . Governor grisham that is one of our largest challenges which is why we have talked about creating protocol to safely certaine and reuse personal protective equipment. I will tell you that that logistically has been one of the Biggest Challenges and disappointing efforts. Today, we are receiving shipments. We have received another 25 stockpile. Deral that means new mexico has received 75 of its allocation but its not enough. So we have to do better. Forave placed orders literally, hundreds of thousands n of what we call95 respirators which are specific hundreds 5 masks, wes of n9 are making materials for gloves and gowns and surgical masks and we have a pretty broad list of what that encompasses, buoys, ything to make sure buoys anything to make sure we are say. Weekly to getue supplies in. Its precarious. Onhad a supply that was due march 26. Airport wherethe we expected it to, got delivered to some other entity. This is what happens when states and hospitals and the federal government and other countries are all competing for the same equipment. Early start incredibly and we are working with hospitals to do a pretty incredible inventory. And we are really trying to get our arms around what we call a burn rate. For a covid19 patient, how many practitioners in the room, how many times a day, how many times do you have to change that personal protective equipment . That helps us create a logistics in the supply chain. Have, in a stockpile, we thousands of all of those pieces of equipment and we are working i think effectively with their private sector partners to make that available when they need it and we have supplies for at least a week or two that we feel very comfortable about. Its the surge that is precarious. The not comfortable that if supply chain, the way its been working today, stays the same, we will have real challenges so we are trying to make some of that in the state. I think we have the best possible effort at making sure we need meet those needs to the highest degree. Am i missing something about that . No, maam, the inventory we have a sufficient right now. The surge is the big concern and there are some very Creative Things being done through the medical communities. The cdc has looked at how we reuseppe or how it can be used in different matters and how can we make more in new mexico and leveraging the different parts of the supply change. The pushes when the surge comes and make sure we have enough ppe on hand. Governor grisham we have also been more proactive than many states so we need the supplies today. Maintained ouro orders for those supplies all the way through the fall. Now we are in a priori position in a priority position needing equipment for all the other Health Care Issues that we need to provide to every new mexican and have that readily available. We are learning from the experiences of other states and while the president said states that aggressively go after it, we are and we have an incredible abouthat spends earnestly 20 hours every day chasing different equipment and i am part of that team. I spend a great deal of my direct time making sure that supplies and equipment get into the state. I push the federal government hard and no apologies for that. And i am pushing the private sector hard, and no apologies for that. And i am pushing the National Labs and any company in the state of new mexico who can help us. To that end, i expect it. And we have got some folks who can make some of the protective shields and masks, and it is not enough to meet the surge even with their work, but it is part of a system to get it all. And so, again, what is the best way to make sure we have enough ppe . Reduce the surge. Reduce the number of hospitalizations. I cannot do that by myself. Only you can do that by minimizing your contact and stopping to the highest degree the spread of the virus. Next question. Thank you, governor. You actually segued into my next one from koat, asking if there are manufacturers in new mexico doing anything to help produce equipment to help in the fight against covid19. Gov. Lujan grisham they are, and what we should probably do to answer this question is get on our website a number of our key partners. You know, new mexico is not a manufacturing state. That has long been a debate about diversifying our economy, and it is an issue that puts us in a bit of a tougher position than states that are Large Manufacturing states because they can turn that manufacturing enterprise. But even those states have had trouble. So there are any number of companies and labs and individuals, frankly, that have come forward and literally in their office and in their garage can make a respirator mask for a health care provider, but it has to be done in a sterile environment. I have to know that it is not going to bring an infection or disease. We have to know that it works. They have to be fda approved. So that creates more challenges because we do not have those manufacturing systems, but we do have any number of companies who are working on supplies and ppe efforts that, even if it is 10,000, that makes a difference. And we have people who are donating. Intel donated ppe to us. Labs are working on they gave it to the national stockpile. They are looking at getting an allocation that can help us. Everyone is looking for strategies to get our ppe stockpile where it needs to be. But i would like to thank some of those companies and our 3d printers, companies who are really stepping up and are interested in helping, but they are not it is not enough to meet the need. So it is going to be i need it to come in from the feds. I need it from the private sector. I need every new mexico business and if we have not reach out to you, reach out to us to make sure they are productively engaged, and we have to reuse ppe in a meaningful and safe, sterile environment. If we succeed, and i expect us to, in every one of those fronts, we are going to be in the best possible position, and that is the goal, to be in the best possible position given what we know about this virus and given what we know about the number of hospitalizations. Next question. Thank you, governor. Just a few more, trying to get these all in. Can you expand on your reported comments this weekend regarding the threat that the Novel Coronavirus poses to tribes in new mexico . Gov. Lujan grisham well, specifically, my biggest concern about our sovereign nations is that many of them, right, if not all, are located in areas where it is very rural and frontier, and specifically when you look to some of the chapters, right, they are not that is a body of government for the Navajo Nation. They are in areas where there are no resources, right . There are no Grocery Stores. There are no health care services. So you have to leave those environments in order to have access to anything. Or if you have populations who have very specific rates of chronic disease and they have long distances to travel for, say, things such as dialysis, this creates a different set of risks. So my comments to the white house were meant to make sure that they do not forget that this is a state that has considerable challenges, and, as a result, we expect them to give us the kind of focus. I think that is in large part how they made a decision on a phone call to grant us Field Hospital even they they do not see new mexico yet as a priority. I think it is clear that, in particular with the Navajo Nation, with the challenges where we have to have a coordinated efforts between arizona and utah, and that because of the rural frontier nature, there is incredible leadership. Both the president and Vice President and the council were were very clear that we have elders living in very remote areas without Running Water and phones, that we are going to have to do things differently. So my focus and comments were intended for every new mexican to know that i have not and we will not forget you or those challenges, and that those risks must be addressed so that we do not see transmission or infection rates that can cause harm in ways that we could have prevented if we had thought about ways to serve the Navajo Nation differently, all sovereign nations, all tribes. And, in fact, that is one of the reasons we are having conversations with them about new messaging. Dont send a whole family for Grocery Store shopping. Lets have one location and say, and now im really focused on the Navajo Nation but were going to do this for all of our sovereign nations, lets have a location in Mckinley County for Grocery Store shopping. Lets have a location in san juan county. Lets think about ways to coordinate this so our social distancing concepts take hold in a more meaningful way. And so i appreciate that the white house responded immediately, based on those comments, and i appreciate the leadership and the partnering by the Navajo Nation and every single sovereign nation in the state of new mexico who is clear that, if we work harder together, we can protect more new mexicans and more native americans, and that is our obligation and our goal. Thank you, governor. From the associated press, where are the potential gaps in medical personnel in new mexico right now, and is the state recruiting retired medical personnel or student medical personnel . Gov. Lujan grisham so, we are opening those doors. We are currently using students to help us, and id be happy to have the secretary of health chime in, secretary kunkel. They are helping do some of our contact and surveillance work by calling back individuals who have been tested, engaging in that way. So our nursing students and physical therapy students and pharmacy students are engaging. Its students at the Burrell College in las cruces who are engaged in helping us stand up our testing sites. So, in any number of ways, you bet that if you are a Health Care Student we need you and we have been recruiting and weve got parternships already established. Where retired professionals can come back in and help with triage and support, were beginning to have those conversations. Im leaving that to our medical Assistance Team because thats also your highrisk individuals. So, while we are seeing transmission and serious Health Care Issues by younger populations, still the high risk and if you look at the number, which is hard. It is hard to look at the number of deaths in the state. It is five too many, and we know that more will come. Its really a hard topic to talk about, but its the truth. So far, those have been largely older individuals or, where it has been a younger individual, there have been underlying significant chronic care issues. So that is a population you want to be a bit careful about. We are still working on bringing in nurses from canada. Thats an ongoing effort, and we report more about that. That requires a little help from the federal government. Its on their radar. I keep pushing every day or so, very aggressive about making sure that occurs. And were looking at ways of bringing in our Health Care Corps, and the secretary can talk about that. And weve got guards, men and women who are also health care professionals, and we are asking them. That is a title 32 request to the federal government, and, last but not least, we got a commitment. We are not sure what it is going to look like, but we expect more guardsmen and women, particularly in the health care fields, to be available to us from other states because we have a medical unit that is currently deployed to poland. So the federal government is working with us to sort of make new mexico whole. All of those strategies are going to be necessary, and, lastly, you know, we really want to make sure that respiratory therapists, this is an area where we want more support in the state. Its an area where we ive already identified a gap, and so it is an area where we are diligently looking at ways to fill that gap. Dr. Scrase, you want to talk about any of that . Toretary kunkel, do you want fill in holes i may have left the Health Care Corps . Holes,did not leave any but i will say the university of new mexico responded immediately and gave us students to assist in Contact Tracing and calling in results, calling individuals with results. Burrell college responded immediately. True that many of the individuals who signed up and volunteered to be medical reserve corps are over the age of 50. We want to be 50 careful about how we use those individuals, but they are volunteering to take calls and help us organize things like test sites and work without in other ways rather than direct contact. We are receiving great support from our universities and reserve medical core. A new age add we have of telemedicine. There is no reason that a 70yearold retired pulmonary specialist cannot sit in his living room and advise a doctor in silver city or farmington. We will be leveraging every possible resource. I think we have drawn a fairly hard line at the age of 60. We are aware that for every 10 years over 60 you go going over 60 doubles the mortality rate of covid. Over 70, it doubles again. Over 80, again. We have ways of communicating and supporting people in the field. To complement the team. When i say remove every barrier, utilizing telehealth, which has long been something that states need in order to meet the basic Health Care Needs of our citizens, there are so many barriers to paying for that service, whether it is the private sector or through medicare and medicaid. We have, for everything we have the power to directly control or ask for waivers from from the federal government, we are doing it. Structureant payment, lack of a contract, any of that, to create any barriers to providing as much care and assistance in any way possible to meet the health Care Hospital in Critical Care needs of every single new mexican that is going to need us. Frankly, using telehealth as governors and states where we have an epicenter that set help us, send us stuff, anything we can do we will do, by the time that surge hits new mexico, i can think of a lot of expertise in an urgency room and hospital that can provide treatment advice through a telehealth model to new mexico. In the same way we already do that, serving our Cancer Patients by having partners, we will do all of that in order to ensure best outcomes for every single new mexican. Next question. A followup question about the expanded Testing Capacity and numbers that we will now be able to run with expanded Testing Capacity moving forward. Thank you. Currently, the state laboratory can run 350 tests a night and try cork can do 1100. With our new testing tricore can do 1100. With our new testing, they are being installed right now, we should be able to do 500 more at the department of health state labs. Try court specs to do tricore expects to do more with their increased capacity. That is what we hope to see. We have a projection for every week because we had more including the opportunity to do rapid testing. Some of that is up to 15 minutes. We have some instrument instruments we can deploy to do that. We are asking for more. We get it. Pull the virus and tell us whether there is a positive or negative. Reagents on the back end so each instrument has everything it needs to run these tests for us and give us results. If we put everything together, and that is our plan, we have the ability to get between 4500 and potentially we could run 5000 tests a day. That would take us all the way through april, to get all of that equipment completely up, certified, tested. And we have to have the supplies. We will be the only state in the country that can do that with this kind of population center, which gets us closer to that kind of robust surveillance. That opportunity will save lives, protect us, and give us necessary data to do modeling in ways most states will not be able to do until after having the surge and dealing with their incredible emergencies. I want to thank the secretary of health and our partners, National Labs, state universitys, public and any number. They have leveraged every single thing in their power. I am confident that with this aggressive work we will get there. I am excited about the opportunity to build capacity every day. We had a couple followup questions asking about modeling and specific numbers that we are estimating right now. My understanding is it is recorded. Im tempted to do is compare and contrast the washington model we all saw of ourhey predicted 2. 5 population would be infected, 55,000 cases. What we think is more realistic influenza this year effective 14 of the population. We had a pandemic in 1918 with 50 of the population. Covid is more easily spread that influenza, so we think higher numbers than that. We have not nailed down an exact percent. We made the point that new mexico is not one homogenous population. We are many populations. That is the sum of many curves. We believe we will see the beginning of a significant surge in the northwestern part of new soon, very soon. Lucky, it, if we are will be either late april or early may into midmay. In specific numbers about ventilator supply, i do not know if i need to repeat those now. The medicall that team is working on his capacity in these areas to meet the need in the coming surge while we encourage new mexicans to reduce contact with each other so that surge is not as high. The federal government released guidelines today on how to make better use of ventilators and make the ventilator supply go farther. The number one recommendation was social distancing. If you social distance, you are less likely to get covid. You are less likely to be emitted to the hospital, be on a ventilator. Those are the key points. Of this dataore available as we refine the motto. The motto will also be refined based on data every week. That peak is going to be later and shallower. We have an opportunity to make a difference. Thank you. There are many new mexicans still driving around, going places not identified as essential. Is there anything you can do to strengthen the stayathome order so folks stay home . We think there are. We have continued to refine and work with partners. I talked about the Faithbased Community, really hitting home that although they are exempted Congregate Services are hugely problematic and incredibly risky. There are some states in the country, including florida, who restricted that by virtue of an order. We have refined central businesses. We will continue to do that. We are working with box stores and Grocery Stores to make sure that metering, limiting the number of folks in at one time and working to prevent the allowance of congregating in lines. That defeats the entire purpose. I know new mexicans are worried about making sure they have necessary supplies in their homes every week. Limit, thereased the weight limit for each truck bringing in commodities and personal items. When you do not do that, because it is tough on your roads, it can have Public Safety impacts. Without creating more Public Safety issues on our roads, recognizing we need more goods and supplies getting here and leveraging. I have lifted that restriction so our trucks can be heavier so more stuff is coming so people can feel more secure about spending less time trying to get everything in one effort and spending more time and not doing social distancing. We can do a better job. It is on acceptable for new c. Ico to have a unacceptable for new mexico to have a c. We have been light on enforcement because we want people to understand these restrictions, to understand our stayathome instructions and to abide. Public there are other things Public Safety officers need to be doing. If that is a vehicle for increasing our social distancing and minimizing social contact, it is something that could be under consideration. More Community Containment strategies are being discussed. We are so that we are clear about the number of people traveling great distances from one county to another and making multiple stops. More sources to Individuals Services to individuals that have no other choice but to do that. I have alerted you by todays press conference that we will extend our Public Health orders through the end of april. These are all things i can do that narrow exposure to other humans, and people should expect us to keep leveraging that in any way i have the power to do so. Thank you, governor. We had a couple questions about Distance Learning and plant schools have put in place, as well as a couple questions about economic recovery. Bythose two topics themselves deserve incredible attention. I want to commend our secretary secretaries, whose plan is being looked at by any number of states around the country. We created a plan to get notebooks every student, a real challenge for a number of states that have closed schools but do not have the equipment to provide to families and students. We are doing that. We will have real issues and places where you do not have Internet Service and broad. We have to figure out what we can do about that and what that plan looks like. Televiseding programming, call in Distance Learning . We have to figure it out. It might be worthwhile to have a section on education that we build into our website so people know what we are doing, how we are handling special education students and the like. We need to do more, and im confident that we are ahead in really making sure that we address every single challenge to the highest degree. Students deserve that from the state, so we are putting together those resources. I want to direct that. I do not know that we will do it tomorrow, but new mexicans before the end of the week teamd expect my economic to create a call in News Conference and invite certain business sectors around the state so they know what the federal stimulus package is looking like. We are all expecting checks to get into hands in the next three weeks. We are getting information from the federal government. It little bit is trickling out every day about what that is going to look like. We can talk about any number of strategies and we are not going to enforce getting licenses renewed or registrations. I do not want people to worry about getting that done. I want folks to know the federal government is going to give us an opportunity to provide loans to make payroll to Small Businesses but then forgive those loans. The second we have details about that, we will make sure every new mexico business knows them. Ahead of that, i think it is wise to have come conversations specific to those efforts and strategies so people know about federal and state tax relief, federal and state loan programs, federal and state investment programs, federal and state ranch programs, Unemployment Insurance opportunities, and the fact that we are going to protect businesses from having increases in uninsurance on up limit insurance premiums so we are going through all of it. I would also like a place where people can get questions answered. One check is not enough. We need to start having a dialogue about how we can protect families to the highest degree possible. Just like this health core format, new mexicans should expect in short order that we are going to answer directly education and economic recovery and economic protection efforts for every single new mexico family and business. Thank you. That is it for today. I want to say thank you to our Media Partners working with us to stream this remotely for Everyone Health and safety and for getting this information out to the public. Have incredible Media Partners who are working hard to help us. I get any number of constructive criticisms, complaints, and suggestions that are all valid. There are states that have incredible budgets and Sophisticated Media opportunities that they control themselves. New mexico is not one of those states. We are putting together different formats so this is meaningful for our viewers so we can answer questions. We need to do better with the visuals. Graphs are hard to read on the screen for just a minutes. We need to think about ways to make sure the information is valuable when you hear it, is available on our website, and we keep putting that out for viewers. You should expect us to get ater and better. I want to thank my own Communications Team for dealing with those challenges and are private Media Partners who are struggling to meet our social distancing requirements and make sure their viewers are informed and our print media, who is aggressively asking us for information. We appreciate it. Again, expect us to get better and better and better, building resources for this kind of effort that we did not have before this emergency. Those ideas and that criticism. Lets end with this. New mexico should not be a c state for social distancing. New mexico should be an a state. We can do better. The better you do, the more lives we will save and the less toficult it is going to be build our hospitals, Critical Care, and healthcare care response to this pandemic. Toy need us all to continue do our parts. Please do not engage even in essential services in a way that has large groups together. Please do everything you can to stay in your home. Think about ways you can serve your neighbors i delivering and dropping off at their doorsteps. By delivering and dropping off at their doorsteps. This will make all the different and it has been these early efforts that have put us in a situation, despite our challenges, as a rural frontier state and to be the best possible job to protect all of us, including our health care and First Responders, our Grocery Store workers, our childcare workers, any number of volunteers delivering hundreds of thousands of meals and any number of new mexicans who have stepped up, who are making do it yourself masks, who are engaging in preparing food boxes and coming up with any number of strategies and ways to make us all feel connected while maintaining social distancing. Thank you, new mexico. We are all in this together. And the ability that we have to continue to protect each other. Thank you. Coming up, new York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks to reporters on his states efforts to combat the coronavirus. He will be in albany. It gets underway starting at noon eastern here on cspan. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] if you miss any of our live coverage of the governments response to the coronavirus outbreak, wash it and watch it any time at cspan. Org coronavirus, from daily briefings by the president and White House Task force to updates from governors and hardest hit states. It is all there. Charts and maps to track global spread and confirm cases in the u. S. Confirmed cases in the u. S. County by county. It is the easiest way to watch cspans unfiltered coverage of this pandemic. Anight, President Trump holds briefing on the coronavirus with reporters at the white house. He is expected to be joined by Vice President mike pence and members of his task force. Watch his comments live starring at 5 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. At 5 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. A special edition of washington journal. He serves as the chief quality and patient officer at ohio state universitys medical center. We will speak with Debby Dingell and a virginia hospital official. Begins live tonight at 8 00 last friday,span the u. S. House considered a coronavirus Economic Relief package provided 2 trillion in Economic Relief. The bill was approved after over four hours of debate. The coronavirus kept several members from the house floor and in home districts. 150 of the current representatives and it is took current representatives took part in the debate. Cspan offered any lawmaker who was not able to speak on the house floor a chance to provide us with video statements on their views of this legislation. 33 democrats recorded videos which will air tonight starting at 9 00 eastern on cspan. As of now, no republican members have summative videos. Submitted videos. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago, but our mission continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. We have brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process, and now the federal response to the coronavirus. Public watch cspans Affairs Programming on television, online, or on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through cspans Washington Journal Program or through our social media feet. Privatecreated by industry as a Public Service and brought to you by your television provider. All month on cspan we are , featuring the winners of our studentcam documentary competitions. Middle and high schools students created videos answering the question what issue do you want , the 2020 president ial candidates to address . Our second place award goes to