The department of corrections is here. Thank you for joining this afternoon. Joined today by kathy from the Grocery Association and mark from banking and finance. We will be talking here in a little bit. First of all, i just want to remind people as i always do, folks, this is really, really important, the social distancing. We have talked about this in the past. If you are out enjoying the weather, it is a great day today. Keep thatyou have to six feet distance. Do not gather in groups of more than 10 people. One thing that is incredibly you are anif employer and somebody shows up , sendk for you who is ill them home. Some people are taking the temperatures of people before they come to work. To be sure way people are following the guidelines. It is allergy season right now. But if there is shortness of breath, fever, if you have those types of symptoms, you need to stay home and everybody in your household needs to stay home. This is where we really need people, if anybody in your household is displaying flulike symptoms, you all need to stay home. Dont go into a clinic, dont go into an emergency room unless you call ahead. Make an appointment so they can keep you isolated while they run the test. I want to emphasize that again. Please. These social distancing measures are so important. We need everybody to participate. Cellrday, we talked about phones and people moving around. We need to do better than that. We need to be actively on top of this to slow the spread of the virus. We can see what has happened in states like new york where it grew before they could put their social distancing measures in place. Now they have a lot of issues in new york. Sure that make doesnt happen here. The whole goal of social distancing guidelines is to make sure we dont have so many cases we overwhelm hospitals. Need units and ventilators for the people who need them when they get coronavirus. They will primarily be older and have Underlying Health issues. You are older and have Underlying Health symptoms, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, Something Like that, all that sort of stuff, you are at greater risk. Taking moreld be precautions and following social distancing guidelines. We want to make sure we are taking all the steps proper to take care of people who come to the hospitals. So, six feet distancing between you and everybody else. Coffin to your elbow. Wash your hands often. Your eyes, your nose, your mouth. These are things that will make sure we slow the spread of the virus. Absolutely critical. Yesterday, we issued two new for everything from Buffalo County and the total yesterday was 11 counties. Dded to the thm dhm party county, boyd, that of nebraska is added. Thats being worked on and it will come out later this afternoon as well. Thats on the way. One of the things i wanted to talk about today, we have a lot of questions about online notary. Of you may recall that last year we passed a measure that allows the secretary of state to do online notary. What this involves is either a meansation of audiovisual or software to verify the persons identity, but you can do it remote. You can imagine again, doing things remotely is a good thing. We want to promote that. Ive signed an executive order already that will waive the deadline from doing it by july 1 two up to today, for people to start doing that if we can put all the other things in play. The statute requires it to be done july 1. We are waving that. It can be done immediately. This will be important for realtors, people with mortgages, banking and finance, insurance. Will be impacting all those categories to give folks the opportunity to do that online so they dont have to come in facetoface. So again, social distancing and we want to emphasize, do the social distancing. Thats coming out today to assist folks in finance and all of the nebraskans doing those types of legal transactions to be able to do an online notary. I will have the directors say that here in a moment. Thank you, governor. Thank you for signing that executive order. It has to do with a lot of different regulations or a few different regulations dealing with Financial Institutions. The one on online notarys was brought to my attention quite a few weeks ago by our Financial Institutions who said that speeding up the amp limitation date for online notarys would greatly help them in their social distancing protocols, so of course, any of the relaxations on regulations have credentialn standards, safety and soundness of our Financial Institutions in the state of nebraska. That will go on as before. The reason why these relaxations are taking places so that our banks, or credit unions, our installment Loan Companies can meet the needs of their the course ofng this Public Health emergency so they can focus on their customers. So, exactly what does it do . We have a requirement that banks and Financial Institutions have an outside audit by a cpa. They still have to be completed. Y the time they file them these additional things are in the executive order as well. Correct. Also, there is an annual examination requirement for installment Loan Companies, too. Going to have to be examined by the department of banking and finance. However, that annual requirement was given some flexibility on getting that done as quick the as possiblecticable after the cessation of the emergency. Also, we have some regulations that require copies of paper documents to be filed with the department. We are waving that, allowing them to be filed electronically, and if there is any payment attached to that, to be done by ach. Thing in thert of spirit of helping banks, credit unions, installment Loan Companies focus on their customers at this time. Along the lines of continuing to focus on social distancing, one of the things we want to remind people is that when they go to the store, they need to continue to practice social distancing there. Keep that six foot distance. When you are standing in line, keep six foot distance. A number of stores like costco have done a wonderful job of putting tape down on the ground to keep customers separated. They have folks working at their stores to make sure customers are staying spread out. They are wiping down the customers. Lt between walmart is also taking steps as well to be able to make sure they are keeping both customers and employees safe. They ask people to remember the six foot distance. They are reminding folks. They are taking steps. It is so important, again, if youre going to go out shopping, to remember that we are social distancing. We are trying to keep that physical distance to slow the spread of the virus. ,f you are going to go shopping go by yourself, only get the things you need, and keep your distance from the other customers. Keep a distance and the checkout line, all those sorts of things. We want to remind people again that when you are going out to do this essential shopping, that you do it in a way thats going to be safe and helpful. Here today to talk more about that is kathy cid can with the Grocery Association. She is going to talk kathy sipkin with the Grocery Association. Shes going to talk about what they are doing to keep Grocery Stores healthy and safe. Thank you. Of the executive director the nebraska grocery industry association. I would like to thank governor ricketts for allowing me to share this information. I would also like to thank the s for theirhe mayor leadership as we work our way through this pandemic. Due to their actions and guidance, i believe all nebraskans are going to be safer. People need to listen to their messages and follow the establishedhey have in our communities and across each week will bring new challenges we are find solutionso for. The challenge today is social distancing. Each one of us has a role today to play in keeping our families, our friends, and our communities safe. We are doing things in Retail Stores that will help customers make decisions, decisions based on guidelines that our leadership has provided. Our customers need to take this issue very, very seriously. If you go to the Grocery Store and the parking lot is full, go home. Come back later when there arent as many shoppers. Shop alone. Do not bring your family. Do not make this an event. Leave them home. Designate one shopper for your family. That is for everyones safety. Plan your trip. That means make a list. Plan your trip for the week. Only shop one time a week. Dont go every day. Eyes. Ith your int touch all the products the store. Touch only the products you intend to purchase. We know that the packaging is not a big issue with the coronavirus, and that the virus is not spread through packaging. Spread through moisture droplets. But lets not take a chance. Lets try to keep everything as sanitized as we possibly can. Keep your social distance of six foot. And both other customers with our employees. Give everyone an opportunity to breed their own air and not yours. , stay home. Ll do not go out. Do not go grocery shopping. Ask someone to shop for you. Church sent, our two forms to the entire delegation. One form was if you need someone to shop for you, fill this out. The other was, if you are able to shop, we will match you up. There is help out there. There is assistance, and you need to look for it. Do not bring Reusable Bags or backpacks into the store. They could be contaminated. We dont want to take that chance. Stockpile. We have said this over and over again. There is plenty of food. Take just what you need and leave some for your neighbor. Trucks replenish supplies at the store on a regular basis, and the flow of trucks will be constant. Rural nebraskans who get normally, on average, one truck per week will continue to get a minimum of one truck per week. Stores that receive multiple trucks per day will continue to receive multiple trucks per day. The system is working. The pipeline is filling backup. There are a few items where there is a shortage. You will start to see them on the shelves within the next few weeks. One of the things i want to point out is that manufacturers have changed what they are manufacturing. I want to talk about toilet paper and explain what you will see when you go back into the stores as the supply ramps up. Manufacturers have become more efficient, and what they are doing is making one size of toilet paper, not three different sizes. So, you are going to go to the store and see mega roles. I am not talking about big wheels. I am talking about they will fit on your home toilet paper roll. The reason you see those is because they are more efficient and it is faster to produce those items and get them to stores to replenish supplies. Also most important out of everything, wash your hands more than you think you should. We also understand the need to trol the number of stores of customers at our stores. I can only assume certain steps will be taken. Those steps are left up to leaders in our community and the government. At the state level. Or governor ricketts. But my point is, do what needs to be done, so other people do not have to make the decision for you. Are allll adults, we responsible, as citizens of this state and as individuals, we have to limit the contact with other people. The responsibility is everyones job. Followingyour part by these recommendations and the guidance our governor and mayors across the state are providing. Stressfulat it is a time for customers, for everyone, and we ask you to be nice to each other. Be nice to fellow andomers, fellow citizens, the employees that are on the front line, providing the essentials and the food that you ,eed, because we are, really all in this together. Thank you. Gov. Ricketts great. Thank you very much, kathy. I appreciate your message. Like you said, one person, once a week, the things you need, make a list, be efficient, keep your physical distance 60 from other people, all of that. That is great advice for everybody paired we can all be a part of slowing the spread of the virus and beauty part of the solution to flatten the curve, so please take these common sense steps that kathy was talking about with regard to when you go shopping and how you do it. A couple of other things i just want to talk about, there are a number of organizations out there that may have masked known as ppe. You may not need them all because of the changes that have gone on with regard to your business. Have thoseif you spare masks, that you consider donating them to your local emts,l, clinic, firefighters, law enforcement, somebody who comes in contact with the public on a daily basis. Please, if you have supplies out there, those extra masks and so forth. I am reminded about a story i saw yesterday, a state trooper , trooper schwartz, i think is her name, and she was speeding, and instead of writing her a speeding ticket, he gave her five n95 masks. Those are things we want people to be generous. Is there someone who can use the personal protective gear,specially First Responders please consider donating them to those folks. I want to take this opportunity and mcdermitt, they both reported Public Service announcement speed i appreciate those the help of those two great nebraska coaches, to get the word out, hey, this is serious, please practice all of the social distancing guidelines, good hygiene that we talked about. Today is april 1. Often that means today is the day rent is due kate i would encourage, again, landlords. Go talk to your bank about the flexibility. If you have a chance to talk about the Small Business loan, they allow you to waive the previous sba loans you may have already had, so please work with the folks there, and then also, landlords, be mindful of renters. Renters are going to many times be impacted by the coronavirus page you may recall i signed that executive order that waives the requirement that the evictions have to be processed within 14 days. I push that off until may 31st. That only applies, though, to people who are affected by the coronavirus. It does not apply to people who may be criminalizing activity or analyzing units and so forth. Now, it does not mean they you can stop paying your rent. You still have to pay your rent, it just defers that invention eviction notice, and we have at our department of labor, the cares act that we signed last , if you areograms selfemployed, a contract worker, work for a nonprofit, all of these are now eligible to collect Public Benefits if you have been impacted by the coronavirus, so again, please do that to help you through these tough times. Hiring,g those lines of the State Government is hiring. We are looking for people in the thertment of corrections, department of health and Human Services, the department of veterans affairs, so if you are interested in that, go to the department of labors website and check out one of those willtments websites, you be able to check out the types of jobs that are available out there. The state of nebraska is hiring right now. And then finally come our department of agriculture has to out guidance in regard sale bonds. These are businesses that are essential, but they have to practice the same social distancing we expect all other businesses to do, just like we talked about with kathy and the grocers. We expect them to do the same sort of thing, so if you have got an Auction Going on, remember you must practice social distancing. I think it is www. N da. Gov covid19. So go check that out. Those are the reminders that i had for today. We are going to go ahead and now move into questions and answers. We start again, as always, with the questions we receive. The first is from krgi. In regards to the concerns of senator hunt shared over twitter that 40 evictions will be scheduled today in omaha i am wondering if the governor will be moving to a more direct approach when it comes to those evictions. Again, if you are being evicted because of a criminal charge or you are vandalizing the property, that has health and safety risks for the other tenants. The executive order is not intended to ban all elections in those specific incidents, and what it does do is differ those hearings until after may 31st for people impacted by the coronavirus, so it is very specific about people impacted by this. But impact could be, i was laid off from my job, i was sick myself, i had to stay home and take care of kids, because our schools are operating without children in the right now, so those oral reasons that you may be impacted by this and can get that deferral until after may 31. George from north platte, billington, i am not sure governor ricketts realizes that state impounds are open. Please clarify with him and ask if he has any comments in view of that. Again, it is up to the parks to manage it. If youre coming from out of state and you want to use one of the facilities, you are still subject to the 14day quarantine. I was talked about turkey hunters. I think if people know that they have to quarantine 14 days before they come use our camping sites, that will not be something that they would be interested in doing, so the game and parks will need to make sure that is happening, and again, if you are using one of our campsites in the state of nebraska and you are not subject allhat 14day quarantine, of the things we talked about, and so forth. Wnax. The question is are there any provisions for small rule hospitals to handle patient Surge Capacity . It would not take too many extra patients to create a problem for them. Yesterday, we talked about the executive order i did, that waiver requirements for critical access hospitals, that they be limited to 25 beds, so they can expand beyond that. Some of the timer surgeons they were under, how long they were caring for patients and so forth. Expand someelp capacity there appeared we also waive the licensing restriction on the people they are hiring and, you know, if the facility has to relicense, they can push those off. All of those are meant to expand capacity and do apply to our small, rural hospitals as well. One of the other questions i get asked about this is what about hospitals that cannot handle particular patients. That happens today already from the standpoint that this is not a new thing for hospitals. If they have a patient they do not feel like they can handle what the folks they have got on site, they do make arrangements for other hospitals, to transfer those patients to another hospital, and i expect that that same procedure will continue to go on for the coronavirus patients. Grant, associated press, for the governor, overall, how well our nebraskans complying with the social distancing guidelines and the Directive Health measures . Are you able to say at this point whether it is making any difference . We have got a d. Do better. Ave got to nebraskans by and large are paying attention to this, but we had to do better. This is something we will be in for the entire month of april, at least, so we have got to make sure, right now is the time. If you look at some of the models out there, and of april, may, somewhere in that timeframe, we will reach a peak in nebraska of the coronavirus threat, and yes, we are working to draw that out, slowing down. That will help us make sure we do not overload the health system, but we need everybody to participate in the social distancing guidelines. Is it working . Yes, it is working. A jump and some of the cases that were testing positive, 25, i think we might have a few more today, 25, 18, back up to 20 come i think yesterday was 25, 33 for today, is that right . I think ballpark, that is about right. The point is, it is having an impact. A are not seeing it turn into geometric slope in the state of nebraska. That is the good news. We need to continue to stay focused on this, so it does not happen. Make sure. Help another way we can measure this ofbefore we were at about 5 the cases testing positive for coronavirus. I think we are at about 5. 5 right now. It is creeping up a little bit. Social distancing is working. We have got to do more pit we want to continue to stay focused on this. Everybody can be a part of this. This is actually from kathy. Our customers following the social distancing guidelines and Grocery Stores . Have members been crowding in the aisles . Are they respecting the times that are supposed to be limited to elderly shoppers . Kathy, i will turn that over to you. Kathy so i dont talk to every member across the state, but i talked to a good number of then, and it appears that in the Grocery Stores, people are respecting the sixfoot social theing, and they are older, at risk people have a tendency to come in earlier in the morning. We have not had a problem of overcrowding in the Grocery Stores, and at any point in time where that becomes an issue, and i dont think it will, because variouses are adopting strategies to try to keep people apart from each other, they have markings on the score, they have plexiglass that separates people at the cash register, so that even in those situations where you have to be within six foot, you are still protected, so we are not seeing that issue, but our grocers are really proactive and have been for several weeks, because it is in our best interest to keep our employees a and our customers safe. Gov. Ricketts great. Thank you, kathy. If i could offer something, and i have got our weekly calls with the mayor, so i will be talking to them directly, but if you do see Something Like that, reach local mayor, the owner of the store, the manager of the store, sometimes all it takes is a little bit of encouragement for people to be able to take steps to change what they are doing and really help us comply with all of these social guidelines, social distancing. Walton, from don Lincoln Journal star, how much of your working day is to the coronavirus now, and how much do you communicate with the med center . What worries or concerns you most . 100 of my day is taken up with coronavirus. That is all me and my team are focused on right now is the coronavirus. We are working to make sure we are prepared, to be able to handle this. Ppere focusing on expanding , doing more testing, and making sure we have got the capacity to be able to handle the people, and that actually rose into one of my concerns, which is we have to make sure that we have the capacity to be able to take care of the people who will need our help, especially in the icu, intensive care units, and ventilators. This is where every nebraskan is critical to making sure we can take care of those nebraskans who need or use those facilities, those intensive care units. We advise practicing social distancing, social guidelines, good hygiene, washing your hands. All of that, all of us can purchase bait into be able to help make sure we do not overwhelm our healthcare system, and that is what we have seen in italy we do not want to have it happen here, so that is our biggest concern, and that is what my team is 100 focused on in the state of nebraska to be able to deal with. So with that, i am going to open it to questions and answers. I am going to go with you first. I have a question for kathy. Take . Ctions can the state gov. Ricketts who is that from, again . Questions about the jumbo toilet paper rolls, when with a the available when will they be available . Kathy, i will turn that first part over to you. There will be Product Available in the store. It may not be exactly what you want. I know that toilet paper is one of the items that they have reduced the number of skus, so gov. Ricketts you might want to explain what a sku is. Sku is a, im sorry, a number that you have for each individual item in a Grocery Store. In the past, you would walk into a Grocery Store, and he would see an entire aisle full of different brands and many different sizes p you will get some selection, but you will not see the past, until the pipeline builds up and there is enough product where they can go back to giving you a choice of those different products. And as far as what the government will do if Grocery Stores run into problems, i cant tell you what the government will do. That is governor ricketts job, so im going to love that one back to you. [laughter] gov. Ricketts that is fair. What i am encouraging people to do, if you are a mayor or police chief, if you see this is becoming a problem that one of your local stores, go talk to the owner, talk to the manager, let them know if they continue to create problems, you can contact my office rightly, but in a place where we have an eh on issue, which is, you know, again, gradually more and more of the state, that is a misdemeanor offense, so you will be charged with a misdemeanor. This is serious. You need to take it seriously. [indiscernible] , ratesoss, blue shield for virtual visits. Do you know where others in the state, is that gov. Ricketts last week we announced that blue cross, blue shield was going to pay the same rate for doctors with regard to telehealth, and we thought that was absolutely fantastic. That is blue cross, blue shield, being a leader in this industry, so we appreciate their leadership in working with doctors and providers to be able to do that telework care, and then he said do i know of any other Insurance Companies that have followed suit with regard to that, and what i take any actions as a state with other Insurance Companies . We are not doing that. If we encourage people to do the right thing, step up, make it fair for everybody. You up to i will call see if you know any other Insurance Companies that have followed suit. Anton so as of last night, i received word that United Health care and medicare and some of the other private payers do have the telehealth policy in reimbursing atot the same rate that Blue Cross Blue Shield is doing. We have not seen them come through on that obligation. Gov. Ricketts great, thank you, dr. Anthone. We would love to work with those providers to reimburse for telehealth. [indiscernible] that people are not taking social distancing seriously. Gov. Ricketts so the question was about from a reader about testing here in a brassy, that people are not in nebraska, that people are not taking it seriously. We are looking to expand the capacity. Theovernor feels they have testing in their state. We have worked to expand the testing at the Public Health lab, and we are working to do that. We are working to expand, i know umc is expanding testing. Working with the private commercial testing labs, to be able to do more there. Theave 208 out from commercial labs, is that right . Yes, and we are increasing about 15 results per day for the last several days. Gov. Ricketts all right, so dr. Anthone says we have been increasing every day, and what we are trying to do is making sure we do not overwhelm the needs, because these are priorities that we want to make sure get tested, these are ones we have talking about with regard to, of course you have to go through extreme first, to beat tested for influenza a and influenza b. Letting providers use their discretion whether or not they do the respiratory panel, so they can skip that step, using their own discretion. And then it is of course, have you been traveling overseas . Have you been traveling domestically in places like new york, seattle, san francisco, where we know we have got community spread, and have we been in contact also with someone who has the virus . And then gradually expanding that out to our folks in the, you know, our health care workers, folks in nursing homes, lawenforcement, and so forth. Obviously, no governor feels like they have got all the testing for it out which is on a call with the National Governors association a couple of hours ago, and i can tell you no governor feels that they have got all the testing they want, or to be able to expand the testing, and we will do so as soon as we can. Applyingwhether we are , you know, what is available . Gov. Ricketts with regard to the staff waiters, are we applying to those, and im not familiar with the thing she is talking about pure we are going to have to be able to get back to you with regards to that question, because i do not know exactly, it was part of the cares act, we are doing a lot of work. That bill just got passed last week. It is a 900page bill, but if it is a separate issue, will you take a note, until we get back. N that [indiscernible] about people saying you were telling to do the same. Gov. Ricketts sure. The question is from if you about the april fools joke going around that i am telling people they will have to kids will have to repeat their grade. It is absolutely not true. In fact, our schools can our , theintendents, educators commissioner of education, everybody is working very, very hard to make sure that our school are getting that education this school year, even though the schools are not going to be reopening again. We had this press conference on friday, commissioner bloom will talk about that. Are gettingat they those kids ready to move on to the next grade next fall. So that is, again, if you see something in a Facebook Page of me saying kids will have to repeat a grade, it is absolutely not true. What worries you most right now . Gov. Ricketts his audio cut out, so we will repeat that again. What worries me most right now . I think he also asked a thousand contact with umc. Yes, i talk with folks at unmc just about daily, if not daily, and with regard to concerns about getting back to making sure all nebraskans are complying with our physical distancing, social distancing, good hygiene guidelines we are putting out a regards to washing your hands, dont touch your face, stay home if you are sick, everyone in your household stay home, make sure we do not overwhelm the health care system. That is the biggest concern is to make sure we did not have to many people going to our hospitals and they are not able to get the care that they need to be able to deal with the coronavirus. Reader question gov. Ricketts he already sent questions, why does he get to go again . Grant of the ap. Businesses and workers are able to was ricketts the question why dont they send people home if they are sick . We have been saying that for a long, long time. Certainly if we have to consider that, we welcome you with regard to dhnm. Hey, if you are an employer, do not let people show up to work if they have to call, send them home. They should not be something we have to put in a dhm. First of all, you should be doing that anyway. You should be doing this. Please do that. Send people home when they are sick. All right, great, questions from our audience. Yeah, in the back. [indiscernible] can you comment on what you are doing to prevent any gov. Ricketts so the question was about in illinois, where apparently coronavirus got into the correctional facility they are and what are we doing in the state of nebraska . Several weeks ago, we shut down visitations. I know that is tough on the inmates, to not be able to see friends and family, but that is what we are doing is cutting off all of the interaction from people coming in ever dissing that opportunity for people to thatle to spread that by is one of the steps we will be taking, and we will have other steps we will be talking about as well, as we are prepared to implement them, but scott franks has got a plan for how we will implement this all. It is a concern, because we have a population of people that we cannot just let out, so we are taking steps to make sure we keep them isolated and away from folks so the virus does not get in there and there are other things we will be talking about as well along those lines. [indiscernible] gov. Ricketts we are taking a lot of steps to educate our teammates, this is a lot of what sure we doing to make do not bring this into our facilities yes, paul. Aul what numbers gov. Ricketts the question from paul was how much do you have to do to be able to make sure you are doing enough . And ultimately, we want to continue to expand testing could we want to continue to protect those high risk folks, and our plan considers that. Would nots that we have the sizable testing for everyone in the population or even a random sample, so if you want to know it true spread of the fibers in the community, you have to be able to do a random sample of people, paul, to get enough of a sample size to be representative of that area, and have randomly selected people to be able to do that. We dont have a number that we paul, onyou right now pau, that, and people who want to be able to get tested, to allow them to be able to do that. I think we are months away from that kind of capability to be able to do that for right now, we are limited with what we can buy right now in the open marketplace and what we can get from the federal government, so, you know, we are pursuing and expanding both of those, trying to buy more, working with Public Health clubs to expand our capacity. We are working with the federal government to get more testing and new regimes, and i think you will see Companies Stand up and do more. I was talking to the ceo of dd. He said 30 days from now, they will be able to roll out more of their tests. I think you will see more testing come down the pike. I cannot give you what the number is, i just know we want to do more. Is the department of health and Human Services getting deciding where the s go, and what would happen in a small, rural . Ommunity what kind of criteria are they doing . Gov. Ricketts the question is, is the department of health and Human Services, specifically Public Health, are they involved with Something Like what happened to carter house in blair, where the residents need to be moved, and what actions to take and that sort of thing, moving around between hospitals and so forth. The answer is absolutely, yes, and it is done in conjunction with the local Public Health apartness well. , i woulddr. Anthone like for you to come in again and give the note on how the state works with Public Health officials and how carter house and blair and all of this all works. Dr. Anthone we have had some plans in place as far as what to do in situations, like when there is an outbreak, like longterm care, Skilled Nursing facility, and it includes obviously, we were prepared for what happened at carter house by utilizing what we had available, at Midlands Hospital and Elizabeth Hospital gov. Ricketts talk about what you did ahead of time. Dr. Anthone that was exactly our plan, to use those extra beds at those facilities, renovated for us and prepared for us for that particular situation, and it was so good to see the cooperation we had from those hospitals, the cmos the s that weekend for it obviously we cannot give using hospital beds for that kind of situation, unless someone is ill enough to require a hospital bed could we are working right now to try to get the dormitory rooms ready at the university of omaha, university of lincoln, as well as working unemployment and a plan to open up some of the hotel rooms in the larger policy and areas to help with that kind of overload. And to be able to even use those hotel rooms as maybe even a way beingnsfer patients from inpatients of the hospital back to the hotels or dormitory rooms , where theres convalescence, so those plans are all in place right now. Maybe you can talk, dr. , about how you worked in blair and the cooperation between the state, public officials, carter house, and that sort of thing. Dr. Anthone yes, so we receive a call on saturday evening about the concern there of what was happening at the blair carter , and i cannot tell you how hard the local Public Health toector, terry ewing, worked get this going and how are our publichealth vision works, to implement transportation, to call the cmos kathy hospitals. Went to the hospital that nextday and witnessed myself the cooperation we had from the midlandsthe floor that gave us for this type of situation. They were prepared, pleasant, almost excited in a way that they were able to help out, so i was totally thrilled with the way everybody handled this situation. [indiscernible] dr. Anthone the question is, are we going to use the dormitory rooms or the hotel rooms for the ill patients . The ill patients will be mostly hospitalized. These are patients that are recovered after hospitalization or quarantine or hospitalizations that are not more ill. Gov. Ricketts we will give you more details when we are ready to go on that. You have a lot more testing capacity. The question is, even though we have mentioned before, we probably have the capacity to do around 700 or 800 tests per day, if we did max out on the number of tests, and you are correct, it is the reagents right now. E we have a lot of reagent once we have a lot of reagents on order right now, and once we get those in, for healthcare workers, longterm care residents, the inpatients in the hospital, which we are starting to see a little more people coming in, to rule in or rule out covid disease, we will be rolling out that expanded capacity for that, and like the governor said, at some point in time, hopefully, you cannot imagine how many times we hear and get emails the say hey, use our test. It is going to give you result in 15 minutes. I mean, we will wait for that to happen. When that happens, that is when we will be able to do that. One of the things , when you were working with Public Health officials, the ability to do so called search testing, for lack of a better term, is when we had the carter house issue and blair, what we wanted to do is make sure we had everybody tested and got that turned around quickly, all the residents, all the healthcare workers. We want to make sure we do not overwhelm with regard to our testing so we have the capacity when we have Something Like what we had to do it carter house, to be able to make sure we can test everybody that hes get tested needs to get tested. In kearny. Gfw ryan [indiscernible] gov. Ricketts i guess i dont understand the question. Why are they not being taken to the bio containment unit . If they are somebody like that . Ryan yes. Gov. Ricketts i think our hospitals are capable, and dr. Anthone, jump in if i say anything wrong, i think our hospitals are capable of taking care of people who have coronavirus, even people who are severely ill with coronavirus for the bio containment facility is only going to be maybe five or 10 people, so not everybody who is getting coronavirus will be taken care of. There,our patient one go but she had very severe, you know, very severe disease and Underlying Health conditions, which is why she was taken there. We did not have the room to take everybody who has coronavirus to go to the bio containment facility. Anything you want to add on that . Dr. Anthone i do not know all that but the details of that that het i understand had flu like symptoms, and quarantine, selfquarantine at home, so isolated at home, and it was not even determined until after his death that he tested positive for covid, but i would say over 90 of patients right now that have tested positive for covid are selfisolating at home and not in a hospital setting. Only if they are ill enough for a hospital admission do they go into the hospital. Do you want them to stay home in my gov. Ricketts the question is for a statewide stayathome. Here in nebraska, we are not planning on doing that. Governor canowup, bigboxs conference, stores, walmart, sam stores, are overcrowded and not following the dhm. Anything from your office that you can do . Having the state patrols, is there anything you can do . What can you do from your office . Gov. Ricketts the question was about the mayor of omaha had a press conference, which is telling the bigbox stores, hey, you cannot get overcrowded peer you have to follow these rules. That is part of why we have kathy here, to talk about those rules, but also the roles that, you know, stores need to follow those rules, and when it comes to those stores, what i said is what i said earlier, if you have those types of issues, the mayor should reach out to those store owners and those managers and talk to them directly first. We do not need to bring down a big, heavy hand get most people will do the right thing if you talk to them about it and give them a chance to do it. That is the approach we want to start with peer that is what the mayor of omaha has done, she has reached out to the bigbox stores come asking them to be more rigorous and how they are lamenting social distancing in their stores. We at the state can take steps, but the first up is not to bring the hammer down right away, it is to ask people to be cooperative, work with us. We can always go down the road with more severe sanctions, but the first thing to do, the easiest thing to do is to get the voluntary compliance from those bigbox stores. One more question. Yeah, andrew. Talking about people coming in on airplanes, buses, and things like that. Gov. Ricketts sure, my directive with people coming in from out of state, as you come in from outofstate, you have to quarantine for 14 days. Whether that is to go hunt go to one of our parks, people coming in for easter weekend, you have to be in for 14 days before you can go out. So you pretty much missed your opportunity at this point to be able to do that now. So everybody coming here now, this does not apply to people who are transportation workers, truckers, railroaders, people that are actually coming here to work, who cross state boundaries regularly for their job, that does not apply to them, but if you are coming here because you are a returning snowbird, maybe you were down in arizona or florida, you are coming back to nebraska because the weather is starting to warm up it is a Beautiful Day today yes, you have to quarantine for 14 days. If you are coming from overseas, from any other part of the country, you have to self isolate for 14 days. Maybe you have a cabin herein nebraska. You have to quarantine for 14 days. Everyone who is coming back and it is not part of their job function has to quarantine. In fact, we actually have it on our highways right now, that we are posting that everybody ing into the state, they you see the signs we use for amber alerts . We have it posted, if youre driving back and, you have to quarantine for 14 days. [indiscernible] traveling in and out of the state. Gov. Ricketts right. If it is for your job, it does not follow that same category. So if you are a trucker, you do not have to quarantine for 40 days every time you drive back into the state of nebraska. It is mainly for snowbirds returning, people with cabins, coming back to visit, that sort of thing. If you working omaha and live in council bluffs, vice versa, sioux city, cheyenne, those people are not subject to that quarantine. Paul is cheating. He is asking for one more question here, taylor. Make it snappy. Lets go. Paul [indiscernible] gov. Ricketts we are not considering stayathome orders, because it is not part of our land paired we want to continue to get people to comply. We can do better. We want to take care of the guidelines so we dont overwhelm the health care system, but we are taking them early compared to other bases like new york, that had to issue stayathome orders. They have different circumstances than we do. Paul so you are not considering it . Gov. Ricketts we are not considering it, thanks very much, folks. I appreciate you coming this afternoon. I appreciate that you are rotating things around. And again, please comply with our social distancing guidelines, this is how we can all make a difference in slowing coronavirus. Onen i will talk to you again tomorrow. Take care. [indiscernible] gov. Ricketts no, i dont fit the criteria. [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] we wait for todays White House Briefing on the coronavirus to get started, we are going to show you some of todayssec. Dejoie washington journal, from earlier this morning. Guest its been an interesting change. We were one of the last states with outbreaks, and we have now mounted up to be one of the highest, jumping rapidly over the last several days with over 9334 cases, 337 deaths. My district also started out very, very slow with numbers and has been mounting up now, primarily in pockets. But we have 558 cases and 11 deaths. The deaths are predominantly in the wash in our county area, ann arbor. The university there, university of michigan, with all the surrounding issues. Thats probably the reason some of the numbers are so strong there. My district also butts up to wayne county and detroit, where it has reached significant proportions. So, it is a challenge at this point in time. Our hospitals predominantly are not being overrun yet. We have been checking with them regularly. The challenge comes with the rural hospitals and the fact that they have been told that they cannot do any elective surgeries. And of course, that is where the rural hospitals make their livelihood and have been able to stay open. Of course, its a challenge for them, and we are concerned about that at this time, that after this covid19 crisis is over with, that we still have rural hospitals to carry on the functions that are necessary in those communities. Host one of the storylines we have an hearing over the last couple of days over ventilators coming from the federal government, and the states ability to gather ventilators on their own. What number has been received . What is the state doing . And, particularly, what are you doing on this front . Guest our hospitals right now are not expressing concern over having enough ventilators in the hospitals in my district, which takes in seven counties, going tom the middle of lake erie the state capital. Predominantly what im hearing, the major problem for ventilators is in detroit, wayne county specifically, those main hospitals, like beaumont and henry ford, those are the concerns. I dont know the exact numbers we have right now, but hopefully we are seeing ventilators that are capable of being used in local hospitals all over the state that are not having a significant challenge. That they could be moved knowing that there are ventilators being produced daily by the Ford Motor Company now. And general motors, who are going to be producing ventilators and ramping those up significantly. We will have the ability to backflow those to some of the hospitals, if there should be a need out at the state hospitals at some point in time. The major problem that we are seeing across the spectrum is for Health Care Providers and First Responders to have ppe. That is still a challenge to some degree in the state. And especially, of course, in the higher population areas. Challenges, the representative, you talked about with the Auto Industry and the impact. It is too early to tell, but what do you worry about in the sense of what it will do to the locality if this persists . Guest well, its a major thect, because this being motor capital of the world, there is a huge connection to the Auto Industry. We have of course the big three here in my district. We have all three connected. The biggest is the supplier component. When you have machine shops and the small factories that are supplying resources to general motors, chrysler, and ford, as and toyota, with the Largest Toyota research and Development Center in the entire nation sits in my district, near ann arbor. That causes concern that those entities will still be alive and kicking and moving forward, yet some of the small Provider Companies will have a difficult time. We are appreciative of the fact of passing the cares act this last week and getting that into the pipeline, but that will only have a limited impact on a number of Provider Companies. Hopefully we wont see to many that will shut down, but relative to that is all of the suppliers in the industry, such as the restaurants and the local stores that are really hardpressed, some to open up again. It touches the families and impacts them, as well, to be able to have an available force for the future. We are hoping that our people, and we are pushing it daily with press releases, with town halls, teletown halls, encouraging physical distance. We are trying to get away from the term social distancing. Because we want people to, not social distance, give a phone call, use your ability to electronically communicate. We want to get through this as quickly as possible and see the rise in numbers in the state start of level off and go down, but still have a constituency and a community of individuals that have kept in contact with each other and thus solve some of the problem that comes with fear, etc. F concern, that is out there, that we still have that relationship with people that is positive, building, and comforting