Thank you all again for coming back today and for tuning in, and i do know that these daily briefings can get tedious, and the information, much of it, sounds the same, so people may start to tune it out, but i can tell you the situation is changing, it is evolving, and the information we are putting out is important. Just because the social distancing and hygiene guidance and the stay at home order stays in place after day doesnt mean we shouldnt talk about those things because that will be the key to success in trying to get through this Public Health emergency with the fewest amount of cases and certainly the lowest death toll. I want to think the doctor for being with us today. He has been a practicing physician in new orleans for decades although he does not look that old. Officere chief medical officer. Working with the state office of Public Health and it is great to have you here today. He will take some questions. He will have some prepared comments and take questions after i am finished. We obviously have a doctor as well from the department of Public Health today questions related to testing and other things. The doctor is here today because we mentioned a couple of days ago, for the first time, some disturbing statistics coming out of our analysis of the information we are getting, and that is that while 33 of the states population is africanamerican, over 70 of the deaths in louisiana because of covid19 are among africanamericans. That is very concerning to me and to others, and it is unacceptable. We want to better understand why that is, what we can attribute it to, and how we get rid of those disparities over time. But are there any interventions we can make in the short term that will lessen this . Of course, all the guidance and social distancing, staying at home, and hygiene, they apply to everyone, and that is in the shortterm what everybody should be trying to do to minimize the chances that they will contract this disease. Today, we are reporting 746 new cases. And you can see that the total number of cases is now just over 17,000, 17,030. That is a little lower number than we have been seeing for our daily case growth, but i want, again, to remind everyone that we cannot let our guard down because if we are seeing fewer cases, it is because of the efforts that we are making in order to minimize contact with other people. So, we have to continue to be focused and continue to be patient. Unfortunately, like yesterday, we were again reporting 70 deaths. One is too many, but this number is still much higher than we wanted to be, obviously. That matches yesterday and matches the highest number of deaths we have reported in a daily reporting period. Again, not all 70 of those individuals expired yesterday or within the last 24 hours, but that report came in today. Have 1983 hospitalized patients who are covid positive. That is actually a little bit down from yesterday, which was 1996. If you look at covid positive and persons under investigation who are together hospitalized, if you look at both of those numbers, those numbers are up by 238, and at this point, the vast majority of individuals who are under investigation, meaning they need hospitalization, they had a test and we are waiting on the result to come back those individuals, the vast majority of them will be covid positive. Overall, the hospitalization number is up but the rate of is in in hospitalizations line with us being on a lower trajectory for case growth than where we were last week. Theres also some good news with respect to ventilator utilization. 490, where number is it was 519 yesterday on covid positive patients, and it is also down if you look at the entirety of the hospitalizations for covid positive and persons under investigation so that is a good trend, and it is due in large part to some medical practices that are in some cases being pioneered in louisiana to keep people out ventilators in the first instance. And theres some things that are being developed here, Lessons Learned here, that really do constitute best practices that other parts of the country are starting to Pay Attention to, and you can talk more about that later. Interested. And so, where we are on the modeling, because i know we have had questions about that every single day, the simple fact of the matter is that the number of new hospitalizations suggests we are trending in the right direction. Thus far, the number of deaths is higher than we want it to be. The two most essential data points are not in agreement. Overall, we think we are heading in a better direction with a lower trajectory and that we are starting to flatten the curve, but we cannot be sure yet. What we do know is that people misunderstand what i am saying and they start again, we have this and where we want it now and we are moving in the right direction, and there are, we can let our guard down and i can start doing what i want to do. We are going to see those cases spice right back up, and so, i am encouraging everybody, imploring everybody, to make sure that you continue to comply with the stayathome order, that you continue to engage in social distancing when you are out. If you are going to be out in close proximity to other people, aherwear a cdc that you Face Covering, not necessarily a surgical mask. I am specifically asking you do not do that but that you find some Face Covering that you can use. Reports, weecdotal have more people out and about on the streets today around south louisiana than yesterday, and i hope that is not true, first of all. Receivede that nobody the information we put out yesterday, has any sort of an indication that we can relax and let our guard down because that. S exactly wrong our messaging in louisiana and the messaging coming out of washington, d. C. From the president , Vice President , and dr. Fauci, it is consistent for the 30 days to stop the spread, and my end date on the current executive order, both are april 30. As we get closer to that day, we will reevaluate the situation to see what things will look like apple it after april 30 but we need everybody to be patient. We just recently learned that Louisiana Health centers are going to get nearly 27 million. There are 36 such Health Centers across the state of louisiana and these are federally qualified Health Centers. They will get 25 million through the cares act, allocation, and that is very helpful because it will help us prevent, the virus and diagnose, and treat the disease, covid19. Region one, which is the new orleans, Jefferson Parish area, the biggest hotspot in our state. We are closely watching region two, the baton rouge area. Region three, southcentral louisiana, and region seven, which is the shreveport area. That is not to say we are not watching every single region of our states but we are analyzing the data every single day, and those are the areas we are paying the most attention to with respect to case developments and hospitalizations and deaths. As a proactive measure, we are sending 45 ventilators today that came from the Strategic National stockpile. The last 200 were approved on friday and received over the weekend, we are sending those to the shreveport area, and we are continuously in the process of communicating with hospitals to ascertain what their needs are and then to allocate resources accordingly. And we want to make sure everyone is trending in the right direction, and it goes without saying that some areas of the state are behind others because we know was in theirus Jefferson Parish area earlier than other states. Trends that archery in one part of the state may not be true in others so we have to watch this carefully. I am pleased to say that today, in shreveport, we are standing up a Testing Center at a walmart facility. It will test first responders, healthcare workers, and people who are over 65 that are symptomatic. Softll be a relatively opening today to make sure that the process is correct, and it will resume tomorrow. Track to have a similar testing set up in st. John the baptist parish on saturday, with a soft opening for the same categories of individuals, closed for Easter Sunday and then reopen again on monday. One other note about the new orleans area, and i do this to make sure we are completely transparent, and rumors do not get a foothold, the carnival valor cruise ship, the homeport is in new orleans. It is coming in to port without passengers, but with crew. 300 crew members who have tested negative for covid19 and who do not have any symptoms will get off the ship, will board buses that are chartered to take them to the old airport terminal in new orleans, where they will word charter flights and go back to the countries where they live. Other crew members have tested positive will stay on the cruise ship. They will knock it off, and right now, none of those individuals require hospitalization. If any of them do require hospitalization, we will take those individuals into our hospitals in new orleans. They have been a lot of organizations that have been working to help get crewmembers back home safely in addition to theival and they include cdc, Louisiana Department of health, city of new orleans, the coast guard, and the river pilots in the port of new orleans and i want to thank all of them for working so hard to make this happen. We have a little bit of good news when it comes to Unemployment Benefits. Last night, we received the funding that was contained louisiana in the cares act to enable us to start paying Unemployment Benefits in the amount of 600 per week in addition to the standard weekly amount that you get through the state benefits, and that will go through july 31. I have instructed the secretary, Louisiana Workforce commission, to begin making those payments on monday, april 13. , and this is really important, this includes the 1099 for other selfemployed workers. The funding was not received until yesterday. We will begin making those payments on monday. We continue to urge people to file out their initial planes to do their weekly recertification. Both of those are important so you can qualify for and continue to receive Unemployment Benefits. While it may be somewhat inconvenient, although we are asking you to stay home, hopefully, you can make this work. The best hours to file are between 10 00 p. M. , and 4 00 a. M. , just because of the volume, and to do it online. Louisianaworks. Net. I encourage put the file their claims, do their weekly recertification, do it online, and trying to do it non during nonpeak times, and he will not have this much trouble getting through, and it will not take you as long. I do want to give you an idea of claimsume of chains we have handled over the last four weeks between march 1 and april 4 of this year, there have been 277,000 louisiana and sue workforce with the commission for Unemployment Benefits. Contrast, in all of 2019, the number of claims was 103,000. Week, from april 5 through eighth, the Commission Paid 25. 5 Million Dollars in Unemployment Insurance benefits from our trust fund and the two previous weeks, they paid 21. 2 million and 4. 8 million. For a three week total of just over 51. 5 million. In a typical week, before ,ovid19 came to louisiana weekly benefits in the aggregate total of 2. 3 million. Motorhe office of Vehicles Office closed around the state of louisiana, i do want to remind you that the l. A. Wallet app is free so i am encouraging people to go and download that app. Additionally, some people will be eligible to renew their drivers license does through the apps even while the offices are closed, and there is usually an 18 Convenience Fee associated with renewing your license through the app. That will be waived during this emergency. We can only renew your drivers license through the app if this is not your time to go in and have your eyes checked, so if the last time you renew your license, you went in and you had your eyes checked and you did those things, you can renew your ,icense this time on this app again, without having to pay the 18 Convenience Fee, so i would encourage people to go to that website for that purpose. I also want to share an important announcement. They will help unemployed patients in the United States who have lost their Health Insurance because of the covid19 pandemic. They have expanded their Patient Support Program to offer access for free to those who need it. The program will be in effect for six months. Once the program begins, Patients Enrolled can continue on the program until such time as they secure insurance. Patients programs as well as additional eligibility requirements can be determined 800schools7218909 7218909. Call 800 and theneld the podium we will come back for questions. I will take a couple questions that have been submitted from members of the public. We started this yesterday. Questions can be emailed. I think we received 700 questions. We are going to take two of them. Asks, i am from the louisiana traveled to texas to visit family. Will i be able to travel back louisiana . The answer is yes, you will. There have not been restrictions on travel to and from texas. Here is what is happening for vehicles not in texas. This is any vehicles entering texas regardless of the state they come from. Routes, troopers have set up screening points at the state line, stopping vehicles at certain intervals. They find six cars to 10 cars which they directed to a screening area at the Welcome Center and while they screen those cars, the traffic flows uninterrupted into the state so they are stopping six to 10 cars at a time. The traffic they stopped, they inquire about where motorists are traveling to and ask them to quarantine for the first 14 days if they are going to be staying in texas. Aey may be asked to fill out form about their destination. It continues to be the case that no commercial vehicles are being stopped. The state police and louisiana have not seen any significant delays or backups because of this, but an additional troopers have been deployed around the state lines, should they have problems such as breakdowns and traffic delays and that sort of thing. Do your asks when anticipate, if everyone follows the stayathome order, we will be able to go back to our daily lives as we knew them before . Gov. Edwards first of all first of all, i appreciate all the questions and the preface of this question is if everyone follows the stayathome order, that is very important, because i promise you, no matter what the timeline looks like, it will be quicker if everyone follows stayathome order. What we know is that the virus is going to dictate the timeline, not us. We are not going to be able to pick a date on the calendar. I think dr. Fauci said it yesterday or the day before that this is not like putting a light switch where the lights are either on or off. We do believe, we are beginning to see the flattening of the curve, but we have to come down on the others, and we know cases can spike. Somewhere around 95 of the state of louisiana will not have been infected if this virus goes away quickly. That means they can be infected later on, and so, until such time as there is an effective, clinically proven therapeutic intervention that can treat this disease, and a vaccine, i do not know that you will see life as we knew it before covid19, but its going to be some transition period. Exactly what that will look like, when it will start, how long it will last, i cannot tell you today. We will be leaning heavily on the federal government, the cdc, people like dr. Fauci, and others, with our department of health. It will involve an awful lot of ,esting to determine who has it Contact Tracing of those individuals, and a lot of isolation, but we will be easing back toward life as we lived it before covid19, but that will time inperiod of transition, and i think everything i am saying today is fully ssent with what you hear out of the federal government at this time as well. Although i do look forward to the day when we can start to reopen the economy. I do not know when that will be, and when people can start to move about more freely and so forth. But i do appreciate the questions. So at this time, i will ask the doctor to come up and deliver some prepared remarks. I would ask that if you have questions for him about the subject matter he will discuss with you, that you ask him while he is at the podium and then when you are finished with that, if you want, he can stay or he can depart, and then we will stay and answer your questions, as always. Just want to tell everybody to take a big breath and we are going to be ok. Thank you for your leadership, because without it, we would be in a much more dark circumstance. I am just happy to be home. I am from baton rouge although i reside in new orleans. I grew up in an area that most of you may know called the greater eden park area, and growing up in that area, i witnessed firsthand how the lack of medical care can directly cause an entire community to have unrelenting global issues. Thomas payne, in the work the american crisis, wrote these are mens souls. T try ladies and gentlemen, i will tell you, at this time, we are definitely in a crisis, and the soul of the state of louisiana is being tried. The coronavirus is ravaging our state in the form of a disease called covid19, and specifically, the numbers of africanamericans who have succumbed to this disease is clearly disproportionate to the absolute number of black people who reside in this state. The explanations for this are multifactorial and i will try to elucidate some of these issues today as well as give solutions and finally try to give some hope and inspiration to my peoples fight against the scourge of this pandemic. We know that this is a really difficult issue. We know that africanamericans are very smart people and descendents of kings and queens. We are not weak or shiftless or slothful. Every leader needs inspiration to find the fortitude to reach a collective goal. The challenge is, if on your road for excellence, there is a roadblock and then another roadblock, and then another roadblock, and after some time, you see another one, you get a little weary, but as we sit at this crucial juncture, surrounded by this carnage, as africanamericans, we cannot and must not wary weary. This is a defining moment for this generation of africanamericans and americans as a whole because we must rise to defeat this monster. Our goal is to energize and to focus our africanamerican brothers and sisters on the true goals presently in our view, the goals of survival, the goal of thriving, and the goal of ultimately having full responsibility for your own wellbeing and not based upon the roadblock, but based upon sometimesty to inadvertently and sometimes strategically putting your way. I will not preach. That is not what this podium is for. However, i need you to understand, if our job as a saturday, as a total society, not a black society, to recognize africanamericans are the most vulnerable by being systematically marginalized for generations. We know that the hivaids epidemic, and now the coronavirus pandemic, these disparities have reared their head yet again. We in the medical community have been well aware that this was a booming threat for a very long time and we watched this as it spread throughout china and arrived at our borders. This disease will shine a very bright light on a weakness of our society. Pandemic,tiate this why are blacks being affected in this way . We are the service industry, the people driving your trucks and delivering goods, and all of that is true. There is overwhelming data which points squarely to the social determinants of health as defined by the cdc, as conditioned in places where people live, learn, and work and play. For Public Health professionals, these are the cornerstones we used to evaluate and bolster our care in the midst of all turmoil, and it stands to reason that africanamericans have historically been overlooked on the path to wellness that these categories meant to. When we think about scale so that africanamericans can have equitable care, it is a tough road. It is a very tough road, but what we have to remember is that we will tip the scales in the favor of the black population, but make no mistake, this is in no way any bootstrap movement that i want you to pull yourselves up by. If we are going to get to a better place, we need statewide support, which i have been assured we will have, by our great governor. I am actively working with them Louisiana Department of health and the department of Public Health to rollout a phased approach to address the alarming death rates in proportion to the reported cases. The trend of desperate black and minority deaths under governor edwards leadership, as soon as the data reveals revealed the disparity, he worked tirelessly and immediately supported key statewide officials to work to educate various distressed communities and employ additional strategies. And this is what i want people to understand. I can surround you right now with so much data from airtight scholars, and i want to give you one particular case. There was a study put out 17 years ago, a publication of the institute of medicines unequal treatment report which synthesized a wide body of research, demonstrating that u. S. Racial and ethnic minorities are less likely to receive preventive medical treatment. They often receive lower quality care and most startling is the analysis found that even after taking into account income, neighborhoods, comorbid illnesses, and Health Insurance, these factors typically racial disparities. They were still worse than whites. We are living in a time when the differences relate to what is going on in louisiana right now and the seriousness of covid19. One thing i want to step back and say is that our governor took the heroic steptoe and expanded dedicated. When i explained to you that we would be in so much more of a dire circumstance had we not expanded medicaid, which has allowed hundreds of thousands of people to be able to get primary care, black people, white people, everyone has been able to achieve, at some point, the ability to get quality primary care, and that is a cause for no concern. Now, we must address systematically and modify how we live, work, and play so the social determinants of health will be demolished when it comes to the seriousness of the africanamerican issues in our great state. What will happen now . This is what i have been asked. What will happen now . You curve will probably flatten. We want you to double down and do what you need to do. This office and all the medical professionals will make that happen. But it may rear its ugly head again but if it does, we need to be ready. Africanamericans, listen. We need to be ready. We need to eat better. We need to decrease our salts, decreased our sugar, quit smoking, exercise 30 minutes a day, decrease our stress. The reason why you must decrease your stress is because when you have a stress syndrome, your cortisol level goes up, your epinephrine goes out, which makes your immune system go down, so the more you stress, the more you panic, the more apt you are to get this horrible disease. We want you to understand that when you panic, what you do is you think that there is no onstructive, serious. Going to make sure that this disease goes away, but i must tell you that through our agencies, there , of qualitylot education and quality sought going on behind the scenes for us to be able to get rid of this horrible illness. We will win. I guarantee it. We will win. This man behind us, we will win. I want to thank all of you because without you, we will not be able to win, and you will all help us. I want to leave with a quote from an africanamerican, as i started with a quote from thomas payne, and the quote is from a scholar, Benjamin Elijah mays. I want you to think of this as a job. Benjamin said i want you to do your job so that no one living, no one dead, and no one yet to be born could ever do it better. I dont want you to have any pressure because of that. We are going to support you with the messaging and the outreach that you need through the agencies of this great state. Thank you very much. I will take some questions. Yes, maam . The thingsobviously, that need to be addressed, a lot of these are longterm factors that you cannot fix quickly, so are there any shortterm things that can be done to help minority communities to combat coronavirus at this point . That is the most important question. The studies also that when people want to hear things from you so that you can actually have an action item so they can actually do it, it needs to be done in a way that they understand, they can relate to. So we can have dr. Anthony fauci come here and speak to africanamericans all day long, but sometimes, that message will not resonate because dr. Does not actually know the africanamericans in the Louisiana Community and that is what we are doing with the state agencies to be able to provide that messaging because things are a lot different now. People know what they need to do for all practical purposes. They need to be inspired to move and do them, and my job and this agencies job in our states job is to inspire people to do the things that we need to do. The things sometimes are simple, and sometimes, they are complex, however, no matter their complexity, these must be done for us to flatten the curve, for us to make sure our most vulnerable populations, and i dont mean just black people, and i say that because anybody that has been disenfranchised, that does not have Quality Health care, that does not have a primary care doctor in a Rural Community will also be affected by this disproportionately. It is just that those numbers tend to be a lot of black people in the state of louisiana but thats be very clear. Who are most susceptible to catching this disease, is there any data that shows he can catch it twice . Setsen we talk about data and we talk about the recommendations that we are given, we can base it on fact when we have fact or we can base it on experience when we do not have the facts. Is Anthony Fauci worldrenowned epidemiologist, virologist, Infectious Disease guru, and we do not know the data because we have never been at this point because this is a novel virus, but what we do know is the behavior of coronavirus is throughout time. Because you have no immunity at all to this virus, no windows, no human, when this started. Now, some people there, obviously p it when it started, no one did. As you have to make so much antibiotics to kill it in your body so you can coexist and live that the probability of you having so much antibiotics and not being protected, that will be very, very low. Our estimation, what we think is our experience, from our experience, is that this will go away, you will be protected for this season, but for next season, meaning next spring, we are not sure. Just like with influenza. We have to get a shot every year, vaccine every year, because it switches a little bit, but with this particular virus, we think that through the season, you will be protected up until next season, and then there is more work to be done. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, governor. Ok. Money talked about the from the federal legislation to supplement the states unemployment. Is that retroactive . Also, what is your understanding from your secretary about how long it is taking for people to apply, even if they went to the nonpeak hours . I cannot tell you. I know that there are some people who have called in multiple times during the peak hours and they have not been able to get through. We are encouraging them to call later in the day. I believe they can call up until 7 00 p. M. The online application is available 24 hours a day that is why we are encouraging people to do that after 10 00 at night because the volume really does go way down at 10 00. Now, the funding just came in. It is going to be in place through july 31. The enhanced Unemployment Benefits. It is pandemic unemployment assistance and it is not just available for those people who would traditionally qualify for on Employment Benefits because typically, 1099 contract workers, selfemployed workers, gig workers, they would not qualify. They will qualify for that 600 a week through july 31. And so, we are going to start getting those checks out on monday, and they will go through that time period. It is really important for everyone to do their initial filing but also to weakly recertify because bilal requires them to recertify. Remember that i waived the requirement to get the first benefit and i also weighed the job search requirements waived the job search requirements so that will not be an issue but you do have to go on and recertify. That is quickly important. The law simply does not allow us to continue to pay benefits week after week for people who are not recertifying that they remain eligible. [indiscernible] i do not know the answer to that question and i will get you that answer. I know it goes through july 31 and we do have some people who have applied for benefits over the last three or four weeks related to covid19. And do they go back and pick up at 600 a week . I dont know. I should know the answer to that and i apologize for it i will get that to you. Yes, sir. We talked about the trajectories. Rouge, wew, for baton are seeing good trends in new orleans. Are we still seeing the trend line going the wrong direction in baton rouge, for instance . We see that the case numbers are increasing in baton rouge and they are at least a little bit behind new orleans in that regard. But they are not more alarming than the numbers that we saw in new orleans. And if anything, they are slightly less alarming, and that is because, before there was a significant outbreak and seating of the virus about baruch, in baton rouge, we put in mitigation levels so we did not have that steep rise in cases like you have had elsewhere. But that can always happen. If at any time the people of louisiana decide that they are just not going to follow the mitigation measures, not going to obey the stayathome order, do proper hygiene and so forth, these cases will spike, whether that is in baton rouge, new orleans, or wherever. That will be the result. A do you know if we will hit rougewhere the baton regional capacity for hospitals. I cannot say we have avoided it but i do not want to say it will happen either area right now, but i can tell you is the modeling does not show that we will exceed bed capacity or Ventilator Capacity anywhere in the state of louisiana in the next 10 days. When you start trying to get beyond the 10 day period, you are really guessing more than anything else and i do not want to engage in that, and look, i recognize that what i just said is very different from what we said last week. That is because we have different facts this week. And it is not just modeling for louisiana that has changed dramatically over the last several days. Look at the modeling for the country as a whole. This is what we are seeing. Forecast, if int can call it a forecast, the improved modeling, those numbers of total cases and deaths that we think we will see, they were all based on is continuing to do the mitigation that is in place. If we want to get back to where we exceed our capacity for health care, if we want to get back to where we will have patient to have a ventilator who cannot get one, we just have to resume daily activity, stop following bad mitigation levels, and that is what will happen. That is my number one message for the people of louisiana is thank you for what you have done thus far, for those of you who have not, i am asking you to get home,e and start staying only go out when it is essential, and do that do not do that more frequently than is necessary. If you are going to be in close proximity to others, social distance to the maximum extent possible, and use hygiene. The practices we talked about. Washing your hands frequently and for 20 seconds with soap and water. Hand sanitizer when you cannot get to soap and water. Make sure you cover your cough. Stay home when you are sick. No matter whether you think you have it or not, stay home if you are sick. Yes, sir. Rouge parish is only 25 of the test rate and yet each baton rouge is the most populous parish in the whole state. 40,000 more than new orleans. I realize the hotspot was why is it taking so long to ramp up and get test results when you have more People Living here than any other part of the state working . First of all, we are hopefully testing people who are symptomatically or if we are testing symptomatically people, we are testing symptomatically people and it does not have so much to do with how many people live in one particular area and that has been my charge to the department of health, working with all of the hospitals and clinics is that we are going to do as much testing as possible within the proper protocols. As we mentioned before, if we administer these tests are people who are a symptomatically the result is not going to be reliable, and therefore, someone can actually have the virus, have the disease. They will potentially not engage in the mitigation measures and social distancing of quarantining and isolation that they should, but you know, nobody is happy with the amount of testing we have done because we want to have more visibility, not less. We have done more testing per capita than any state in the United States of america. And we are trying as hard as we can to test those individuals who need to be tested and we are going to continue to increase that capacity and as new and better tests come online, we hope to get results in much quicker. 95 or so of the testing we have been reporting over the last 10 days or so is coming from commercial labs. Has called backlogs so we are not getting those results as fast as we would like. By the way, they are doing better and we are talking to them about doing better and we are trying to get different clinics and hospitals to move away from those Testing Companies that are slow with their results and move towards those that are faster. I am not saying that we are satisfied with what we have been doing. We are trying to do better. We are trying to make these tests available all across louisiana to the people who are symptomatic and in those categories that we talked about. Yes, sir. Going back to the 600 federal unemployment checks for gig workers who obviously have not been eligible, they have been denied. All they need to do is apply now to go through and as far as the workers who have that, they do not need to do anything else. Other than recertify every week. If you had an initial application from someone who was a good worker, i would tell them they need to recertify. The process will look very similar with respect to those people who qualify for traditional benefits and those who did not from this point forward through july 31 because the benefit runs out at that point. Yes. What was your advice to families . Another question for you. Leaders answer this question and kids are asking this. Essential worker. [laughter] i hope the easter bunny pays me a visit. He normally does work she normally does. I am not sure what gender the easter bunny is. People to beking patient, and the fact of the you can boil crawfish for your immediate family. Those people who typically eat together and reside together, you should not be doing a block party. You should not be inviting all your siblings and children and grandparents and inlaws over to a house. Remember, we have asked that when you have together in a group, that group be no more than 10 people. But we are asking you not to get in a group of 10 people if you can avoid it, and so yes, it is easter, and that is a very special day, and it is the biggest day for christians in the year and on that sort of thing, and i get it. I mean, that is true for me too, but we need to be very patient, and this easter is not going to look like previous easters, but it does not mean that you cannot find some significant way to meaningfully worship and to celebrate. We should not do it in groups of people that violate what we have been talking about. No easter exemption from the stayathome order. There was no easter exemption from the 10 person limits. Because that virus is not going to honor that. This is about the virus. And that is the virus is very much in control. That is why we are trying to do things that will actually limit the impact of the virus. You had a question. I do about the testing sites at the walmarts and in shreveport. Are they going to be like the other drivethrough testing sites we have seen where you need a in some ways, they will be very similar. In some ways, they will be different. There will be sites like the ones in new orleans. First responders. Health care workers, individuals over 65. At least initially, we want to get a sense of what the sites can handle. And symptomatically. We only want to be testing people who are symptomatic. Need aly, they wont prescription or Something Like that to use those sites. Going to beare instructed on how to use a swab themselves. I believe they will be watching a short video. They are bringing some of their learning to the states. In. Will put their own swab that swab will be handed over to the staff that are working the drivethrough sites. By which they will have access to the results, one of the concerns we heard early on was waiting on these phone calls. We had a couple of different ways we are trying to get the results back in a timely fashion. The experience in chicago, do you know what the turnaround time was . I dont know. I believe it is providing the testing. They have been doing a lot of work. I think because of the National Attention to increase their turnaround time. Tomagine it would be similar their turnaround time and hopefully continuing to improve. [indiscernible] or today,ening injury then hoping to see more numbers. Shreveport, than hoping to see more numbers. As the governor noted, taking Easter Sunday off, then monday starting in large numbers. You also have the Health System operating a drivethrough testing as well. [indiscernible] yes, so sadly, as we have shared from the beginning, this is one of the populations we have the greatest concern about. Because we know they have almost all the risk factors that we worry about for doing poorly with covid19. 65,s being over the age of having multiple underlying conditions, common ones like hypertension, diabetes, obesity. When we see the case numbers part of, sadly it is the reason we are trying so hard to get people to stay at home. We know that those numbers can continue to increase if we continue to have spread in our communities and the best thing we can do is do not interact with them more than we have to. But people in a nursing home need help, by definition they need that assistance. There are workers going back to the home community. We are grateful that they are. We are still not able to keep the virus out of every facility for that reason. We are working with the Nursing Homes, the nursing home association, we are working with the cdc. We are taking the best guidance and information we have learning from places like Nursing Homes around the country and trying to put in process the kinds of measures that are going to keep these individuals safe, including restricting visitation that we did early in in this outbreak, including giving recommendations on how to isolate people who are known to have the virus, but able to stay at the nursing home. One of the things we are doing is giving them personal protective equipment. That has been very thin on the ground. We are encouraging those Nursing Homes to reach out through the local coordinators, response coordinators to get those requests to us so we can get the supplies to them. Part ofa critical trying to reduce the growth in new communities. The virus continues to spread and we sadly anticipate we will see the spread in those centers. How much ppe is distributed to Nursing Homes . Off the top of my head, i dont know. We can get that information to you. Any other questions . [indiscernible] what we can do now for minorities, things like that. Solution foroping parents of kids that have problems or people with anxiety or people with parents that have dementia and things like that . What could we do now to help deal with those situations . Its a very important question. We need to start controlling what we can control. We need to let things go that we cant control and that will decrease the anxiety. What i will say is that the next 120 days or so are so important. The reason why the governor talked about how the curve is probably starting to flatten a little bit. Thats awesome for us. The reality is that if we dont continue with the stayathome order and do the things we need to do for this easter, we may not have a great easter next year. Thats the reality. Wet we must do is that as start to get our own control over the next 120 days, you have to make sure that you do the things you need to do in your household to protect. Keep your hands washed. Making sure you are physical distancing. I want to think physical distancing. The social support of that theork that you have decrease of that anxiety. I cant believe what the teachers go through every year. People are living in very close quarters. What are you doing here . You dont live here eight hours of every day. I want everyone to download a mindfulness that on their phone. Whats past is past, you have to put it in the hands of how this virus is going to go. Get you through. What realistically, you have 277,000 people who are not just whaty reemployed, realistically does personal economic recovery look like . Go backe things may not to normal once the viruses flat. I cant tell you with any precision. All i can say is we are committed in making available every form of assistance, every benefit we can bring, every bit of flexibility we can get. Know what the cares act has done and that is the third installment from congress. They are talking about doing some things in the next several days to help Small Businesses. One of the things we can do to get people back to work is make sure as many businesses as possible resume operations as soon as it is feasible to do so. The Small Business administration loans, they are forgivable under certain circumstances. By the way, the last figure that i got of the original 350 billion available for the ,aycheck Protection Program this was sometime mid afternoon yesterday, they had already been accounted for. Thats why they are already talking about doing another installment of funding for that program. I encourage louisiana doinesses, do not delay area what you can to qualify for a forgivable loan. That means you have to keep people on your payroll. That is better for the individuals that we are talking about. Also the program that the state is doing in concert with local banks that is on top of what the sba is doing and we will continue to work to make sure we stand our economy back up as soon as we possibly can. We know how much hardship this is bringing now and that is likely to continue for some time Going Forward and we want to get through this as quickly as we possibly can. [indiscernible] you know, the answer to that question sort of depends on the cooperation we get from the people and whether the trends we are starting to see hold true over time and that we dont just flatten the curve, but that we start to go down. What happens is those expenditures would be lower than they otherwise would be. We have to make sure we know where we are headed. You do that based on modeling. If there is any realistic chance that you exceed your capacity to deliver health care, you have to hedge against that by making the investments, the expenditures necessary to have additional capacity. At the holding unit across the street from the convention center. Obviously, if we are not trending in that direction, then we wont continue to make those expenditures. We have to do what i think prudence demands of us and we have to be prepared for what is the worstcase feasible scenario because we dont want to lose life unnecessarily. We dont want someone to die simply because they did not have a ventilator available to them and that is what they needed. So, we pray that we dont get there. If we dont get there, it will be because the people of louisiana took seriously the mitigation measures to stayathome, the social distancing. We can control how bad this gets. It is looking now like the people of louisiana are understanding that and acting accordingly and i do hope that these reports that ive gotten today and they are rather anecdotal but im told that the traffic is a little bit heavier today than it has been previously and that is not a good indicator. Hopefully, we will double down on these strategies, which we know work. One more question if youve got it. And i guess you dont. Thank you. Same time tomorrow . We will see you at 2 30 tomorrow. Thank yall. [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] cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up thursday morning, the Heritage Foundation discusses the think tank the establishment of a National CoronavirusRecovery Commission and proposals to boost Economic Activity once the pandemic abates. The Thomas Sullivan with u. S. Chamber of commerce talks about federal efforts to support Small Businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. And the National IndianHealth Board Chair on the organizations response to coronavirus and the effect it is having on native american communities. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern thursday morning. Join the discussion. The white house is asking congress for an additional 250 billion to help Small Businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell said this week that he hopes to improve further funding by unanimous consent for voice vote during Thursdays Senate pro forma session. If passed without any objection, the measure would go to the house for approval. As always, you can follow the senate live on cspan2. When it comes to trying to keep people from gathering toether, how close are we remote voting in that building behind me . Is one chamber closer to that happening than the other . It does not seem like it. Is there some type of guideline why this virus affects people differently . This virus is much more transmissible than any other virus we know. Do you guys have any way of pushing the idea of recovery preparedness up through the Government Organization so it is more of a top priority instead of the second most important priority . Thatm smiling as you say because im shocked that you set it is a second highest priority. I would argue that it is oftentimes dead last. Share your experiences and ask experts your questions. Join our live conversation every morning on washington journal which starts at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. Join us for washington journal prime time. At a News Conference in wyoming, governor mark gordon announced a 14day quarantine period for all outofstate visitors in response to the coronavirus pandemic and explained his decision to not issue a statewide stayathome order. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us again online. I want to thank wyoming pbs for