As many of you know, there are some cruise ships that people in southernng, florida. I obviously am not in control with the port, that is run by in this case broward county. I know they are in consultation with the cruise ships. Be willing tol accept any floridians who are on board. My understanding is that most of the passion ors are foreign nationals. I think theyre working on ways to deal with that. Of course my concern is simply tot we have worked so hard make sure we have avid hospital space in the event of a covid19 search that we wouldnt want those valuable beds to be taken because of the cruise ship. But i think they are working to a solution on that. I did speak with the president this morning about it. I think he would like to see a solution, and i think the administration has seen a lot of the cruise ships take up a lot of resources. We just want to get to appoint where the resources can be used for the folks here, particularly southernrn for florida where we have most of the problems with covid19 and not divert those elsewhere. I think it will probably be some more elements on that today. Speaking of south florida, one of the reasons we are concerned about what can happen in terms of new people coming in is simply because broward and miamidade represent i think over half the cases throughout the state of florida. If you had palm beach, where about 60 of the cases throughout the state of florida. Thats not surprising, given the amount of travel that goes through miami international. Also the amount of people like go to in from new york city. We have known that was going to be an issue and i want to commend mayor gimenez as well as the folks in broward and palm beach. Sweepinge been measures that have been instituted down there. We have viewed that as a distinct part of florida and the measures there i think start to show some effect, we hope, very soon. I have not viewed previously that as being necessarily the same solution for the rest of the state simply because we have areas that have extremely low per capita infections. At the same time, i have been working with the president s task force. Just the other day the president announced theyre going to do a 30 day extension for the current guidelines and although the guidelines dont call for any new actions beyond what was there previously, in florida we did the 15 days to stop the spread. I think it is clear that that represents effectively a National Pause. We have seen some of the job losses, some of the economic problems that have happened as a result of this. We will be in this for another 30 days. Finds just reality we ourselves in. Given those circumstances and given the unique situation in florida, im going to be doing an executive order today directing all three deans to limit movement and personal interactions outside the home to only those necessary to obtain or provide essential services or conduct essential activities. We have the list of essential services that is detailed by the department of Homeland Security and its latest guidance. Miamidade has been operating on essential services for a couple of weeks. I think they really did a good job and kind of showed us the theybout how to do that, will be able to add if there are some essential services that we missed, you will be able to add that accordingly. ,e have been working on this devoting a lot of resources to southeast florida. Obviously they have been operating under stringent measures now going on a couple of weeks, but this is another 30 day period and at this point i think even though theres a lot of places in florida that have very low infection rates, it makes sense to make this move now and i did consult with folks in the white house. I did speak with the president about it. Ofagreed with the approach focusing on the hotspots, but at the same time he understood that this is another 30 day situation and youve got to do what makes the most sense. That order will be coming out momentarily and will go into Effect Tomorrow night at midnight. So people will have that and they can do it. As you look at some of the economic fallout that this virus is causing, we need to do all we can in the state of florida to mitigate that. One thing we know today is that there will be some federal relief. That was not necessarily the case two weeks ago. We didnt know what was going to happen. We will be working hard to make sure our citizens are able to access that. We also want to figure out what we can do to lessen the economic damage, what can we do to give people more economic opportunity, given the constraints we will be operating under for the next 30 days. One of the things that struck me just going around the state the last few weeks is the traffic, theres not cars on the road there normally is. You look at some of the most busy thoroughfares and sometimes it is a trickle. I think theres an opportunity to take advantage of that. Wereve roads that if you to do a lot of construction on would cause passing traffic in normal situations. That may not be the case now. I have told the secretary of transportation here that they point 1ccelerate two billion in transportation projects. You have the ability to operate a long time during the day. You can close down more lanes because the traffic is and what it was, and you can really start to make progress on some of these key projects. So just now we are green lighting and we will look to do more. The 864 million Howard Franklin bridge in the tampa bay area has accelerated by almost four weeks, the widening of southern boulevard in western Palm Beach County accelerated by nearly three months. I 95 sign, the i3 95, built project, 802 million reconstruction project being done in conjunction with the local Expressway Authority accelerated by four weeks and then finally the project at san lake near the heavy tourist area of International Drive and universal boulevard in orlando will be accelerated by 46 weeks. For those for iranians who have been in any of those areas, that will be a Welcome Change if we are able to accelerate and make those infrastructure improvements. So im excited, its sad we are in the situation, but im glad were able to make the most of it as it goes to some of our cases. Done i think 64,000 tests. You will see thousands and thousands more come in. Where we are, and obviously south florida is number one. We surge a lot of resources there and will continue to do it. If we can continue the testing, and with these new rapid test, that will help tremendously. Once we hit about 105,000 tests, that puts us in the north korea range where they test one of every 200 folks. Once you get that are better, you have a really good sense of how the virus is moving in all the different communities. There are some places, you get more positives, but its kind of the same percentage every time, 6 positive. Others like miamidade, as you test more, you get more, but you also get a higher percentage testing positive so that suggests it is circulating a little bit differently in that area. I think that with the ability to test more, that will be a huge priority. At this point all the mitigation we could do is done. Theres parts of the state for that will be tough medicine, but its uniform, its done, and now i think the testing and really embracing is much as we can there going to help provide us the information that we need to be able to make good decisions. Not only about how to fight the virus but how we can eventually get people back to work with the economy. Theres going to be an awful lot to do but i would say the testing, protecting the Health Care Workforce and making sure we have enough hospital capacity, those will be three really important things in the weeks ahead. We are reiterating the previous guidance to our Senior Citizens that if you are 65 and older or if you are somebody of any age who has a serious underlying medical condition, including things like diabetes, you need to stay home and avoid contact with folks who may have the virus. The Health Outcomes for that group are much worse if they contract the virus and any other groups. This is been something we stress from the beginning. The good news is you look at the infections in a it has skewed more younger than it did three weeks ago. A lot of seniors are heeding the call. I think they are doing what it takes to what they need to do to protect themselves, and ultimately, the seniors and those who have health problems, if they are staying home and protecting themselves, i think we will be able to get through this ok. That order will be forthcoming. We will hopefully have some resolution on the cruise ships and we will continue to be working really hard across the state, but particularly in southern florida. With that, i will take a couple of questions. Was at the Surgeon Generals comments that shifted your thinking on the stayathome order . When the president did the 30 was,xtension, to me, that thats a National Pause button. I had concerns about how some of that would affect different communities in florida who have not been hit the same way. I dont anticipate being hit the same way as places like miamidade. But i wanted to see what their guidelines would actually say and even the guidelines never actually said to do that. The Surgeon General ever told me thats what they were looking for. But i think that given we are having a 30 day, i think that is a signal from the president that this is what we are going to be fighting for a month. Theres not going to be any type of return to normalcy. Hit thee that has been hardest, miamidade had had these measures in place, broward and some of the others. Southeast florida had already been under different measures, so the rest of the state, even though there are issues in other if you look state, at our numbers and you take a broward, dade and palm beach, the per capita rate is very low. I felt that with 30 more days, we should just do it. I think that will probably end up being something that will make sense. We will see, we dont know how all these measures work because its never been tried on American Society before. But i think we find ourselves in a situation where we have a National Pause and we need to deal with this front and center and we will figure out on the back and how we get out. Yesterday, you talked about the situation with director moscowitz. Who is that hurting . Governor desantis it obviously hurts the health care workers. The masks, there will be shipments coming in and you go to get them and they are not there. There was a lot of stuff going on in the market right now. I cannot tell you what exactly but its not a normal situation given how much in demand those masks are. This is one of the things we fought more than anything on. We have received some masks from hhs but most of them, we were to so many, we get a little bit here and little bit there and they trickle in. As soon as we get them, they go out the door. Wouldnt it be nice if you order 2. 5 Million Masks and they say they will be there friday and they show up. Then you can distribute them in the Health Care Workforce will be protected. Its been good to send them to the Nursing Homes because if you look at those two, the broward nursing home instance, some of the staff and workers were infected and they were sick and they should not have been allowed to go in there. Having a mask on i think would be something that could potentially ward off infections for the most vulnerable. Do you think thats criminal . Governor desantis i dont want to say that it is, i dont have firsthand knowledge but i can tell you its shady as hell. Thats for sure. [indiscernible] Governor Desantis we have on here the different Enforcement Mechanisms that we had with the other ones. What i would say is if youre engaged in essential services, if you are seeking essential Services Like groceries, gas, medicine, if you are engaging in essential activity, if you are not, then you will be protecting yourself, your family and your fellow floridians better if you stick close to home. I see some of the stories around the country where you have someone stepping out and someone wants to get him arrested. At some point, you need to exercise good judgment. The government cannot ham fist everybody into their bedroom. Its just not practical but these policies are policies that will make sense and there is a lot of essential services that are still taking place. The health care, the finance, there are many things that make a difference in the economy and obviously in our fight against the virus. The university of washington model is predicting that florida will have a rapid increase in deaths with 100 people dying daily by mid april. It predicts the 10,000 people will be hospitalized by mid april and 20,000 on may 1. And 6500 floridians will die by june 1. Could these numbers be realistic . Governor desantis i would say its a very serious situation. When you see the president s demeanor the last couple of days, thats not necessarily how he always is. I think we all look at this and say this thing is really nasty. Its something that has caused a lot of harm to a lot of people. I think we need to have all levers going. Fortunately, you have seen a lot done in southern florida and i know that as we test more, you see more numbers but between with the counties have done and what we have done to help them, and some other things, i think youll eventually see some progress there. I think the rest of the state, we are monitoring one thing i am concerned with is the travel into florida. The new york travelers were a big deal, that was tens of thousands of people over a week. It wasnt just southern florida. Many flights came into orlando and some when it to tampa. How that will manifest if those folks arent selfisolating, i dont know but you also have International Travel still. From brazil, people are going into orlando and i think we have to get a handle on that because florida, you will have kids out of school and businesses close and people may lose their jobs, these Different Things and sacrifices have someone gets airdropped and with more virus in these communities, how is that something that is good . The one thing that i am optimistic about is how you get society back on its feet. A week or two ago, people were talking about being in lockdown for nine months but thats not sustainable. That wont work. If you look at the advent of things like the rapid testing, the antibodies test, it seems there is a new product that comes out every day. Every great minds and our country is working on this. I think when you harness the technology, you will be able to have a society that protects against the virus but will allow people to do more than just workathome. We are in a much better spot today on that than we were just a week ago. Are you going to deem nonessential businesses to close down . Governor desantis its in order to individual saying you are an essential service and you engage in essential activities but other than that, you need to stick close to home. We are not necessarily saying anything to a nonessential business but under the order, you would not be able to go into some of these things and conduct business and follow the order. The flipside is there are some businesses that are nonessential which yes, they will not have people be able to congregate inside their businesses but what they can do is they can do delivery orders or things like that. There is a whole bunch of possibilities where some of the nonessential businesses will still be able to do some things but its just not going to involve somebody leaving the residence, going in and congregating. [indiscernible] is there any guidance . Governor desantis the good thing about the construction stuff is they will be outside, its been hot and humid and i think it will cool off a little bit but as long as they are not on top of each other, i think they will be good. D. O. T. Is very mindful of that and i think it will work well. [indiscernible] you mentioned hospitals in florida. Any projections and when capacity will be reached . Worldly or will there be Field Hospital set up for that event . Governor desantis there have been some projections that say they would be busted by now. We look at the numbers coming in. Obviously, you see the infection numbers are important but if you look at the infection numbers but look at the hospitalization rates for example in miamidade , county, by far the most infections of anybody, any county in florida, their hospital rate is 6 . Thats a lot less than what people typically would assume to be with Something Like that. Part of the population is skewing a little bit younger and not requiring hospitalization so all these things are monitored. We have the bed counts of how many beds are available in dade right now, the total available beds is 41 of their beds, 43 43. 4 in broward so these are things you are watching. Then at some point, you will start to see indications of some type of surge. When you do that, you know what you need to do but there is already Field Hospital set up in miami and fort lauderdale. We have the army corps working with us to be able to do more if needed. And then we also have some other facilities we can use. Hotels have offered. We have tried to figure out what makes sense. One of the things as may be put up the healthcare workers there because the fear is if you are a nurse, you go home, youre most likely to get infected in a closed environment. If you get infected by someone in your household and then you go to work and potentially expose others, that creates problems. We talked about maybe giving them a safe place to stay during the real stress period. We are looking at all that but we look at this every single day. Remember the flattening of the curve is the Hospital System has to be able to cope with this. We have done some things like stop the elective surgeries that freed up beds and i think some of the behavior changes have helped free up beds because people have taken the hygiene and social distancing seriously. I think you will probably see, when the march numbers are done, a big drop in flu hospitalizations from last year. Thats obviously a good thing as well. I wonder if you are thinking at all about the problems with the Unemployment Compensation system that has turned so many people away from using it. Are they in danger of not being able to get a 600 dollars per week federal stimulus . Governor desantis its obviously a priority. I know they are working very hard on it. You are talking about a capacity for that agency that is so far beyond what they have been able to do. I will get a report on that sometime today but basically, my direction has been dont spare any expense, higher who we need to hire in order to be able to get this done. It is important for folks. These are not people were losing their jobs because of anything they did. It was something that was a shock to the system. You look at the numbers in the Restaurant Industry and in florida, obviously the tourism is totally shot right now. I know disney is paying their cast members i think at least until the middle of april. I know a number of businesses are trying to do that as well but reality, the Financial Reality is even businesses that want to do that, you can only do that for so long. We think we will continue to see an increase in people seeking Unemployment Compensation and given the shock this is an particularly given the fact that sometimes you lose a job or a business goes through a hard time, you can probably find another one. Its not that easy right now and is through no fault of their own. The website was not working before the crisis even happen. Why didnt you fix the website in advance of this . Governor desantis you can talk to the department of economic opportunity. Im not sure what they did or did not do. When i dealt with it in terms of the personnel, we kept more personnel on then was needed at the time. That was in a situation we had a 3 Unemployment Rate so its a different system. I will get a brief on that today and hopefully, we can push that in the right direction. How do you define the essential . . S it going to be uniform Governor Desantis you will see the order and its the department of Homeland Security who published i think two days ago, there thing for essential services, essential businesses. We will identify that and anything there is considered and then we are also going to adopt what the mayor did in miamidade because there are other things you dont think about that really pose no danger in terms of the virus but that really do make sense. One of the things that was that were just that we were clear on in the executive order is taking care of your pets is an essential activity. Anybody selling pet food or something is an essential service. People have been concerned about of they cannot do it but you will be able to. We understand how important that is for folks and we need to be looking after our pet so that well all be in there. If there is a different essential service we did not include in there, someone can ask and then we can add it as we see fit. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. [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] television has changed since esa ban began 41 years ago, but are nation continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. We brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment coverage, and now the federal response to coronavirus. Watch online or listen on our free cspan radio app. Be part of the conversation through washington journal. Cspan, created by private industry. Americas table Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Sunday on q a, he has been on the front lines as a prominent member of the White House Coronavirus task force. When youre dealing with in the interface of politics, policy and medicine, the thing that i have found to be very effective is, be consistent, be totally honest, and dont tell people things that you think they might want to hear. Truth, that is based on evidence, because even though politicians, be they in the administration or the congress, may not be happy with what you tell them because it disappoints them. They will respect you if after a le it is clear to you that clear to them that youre telling them the truth, based on scientific evidence. Dr. Anthonyrofile faucher, looking at his personal life, his relationships with past president s, and his career fighting infectious diseases, h1n1, and now the global coronavirus pandemic. Watch a profile of dr. Anthony found she must sunday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Today, World Health Organization officials held a briefing in geneva, switzerland on the coronavirus. They announce that in the next few days, the world will reach one million confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths. This is an hour. We do apologize for