Legislature to covid19. The newly elected representative he parish. M lafouc he spent his life making his community and south louisiana a better place. Just about three months ago, he was sworn in to his first term and i know he came to the state capital with excitement and eagerness to serve our state and the people love House District and the people of House District the entire state is 54. Mourning this great loss and i ask everyone to keep his family in your prayers right now. All the families who have suffered because they have lost someone or because someone remains gravely ill because of this disease. Before i get to the latest numbers, i want to take a moment to brief you on another situation that people need to be aware of this weekend. Saturday and sunday, we are looking at a chance of strong to severe thunderstorms beginning in northwest louisiana from late saturday for the first half of sunday. There will also be a isolated flood threat, widespread flash flooding is not expected at this time but please Pay Attention to all of the updates on the weather forecasting because that could change. Transitioning into sunday, very large hail, destructive wind gusts, and tornadoes possible across much of northern louisiana. For south louisiana, the entire area has been upgraded from slight to either enhanced or moderate threat of confidence continues to increase of the significant Severe Weather outbreak is possible across a large portion of the area on sunday. The main threats for most of south louisiana will be wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour, which could down trees and power lines, hail up to one inch in diameter and tornadoes, some of which could be very strong with a long track. Timing could change but sunday afternoon, sunday evening looked to be the most dangerous times for this region and it could extend overnight sunday. We all know forecasts change and conditions change so get a game plan now to deal with this threat. Stay aware, watch for alerts from the National Weather service and look for emergency alerts on your cell phone. Toecially as they pertain tornadoes. And with that, i will get back to our daily coronavirus briefing. Today, we added 970 new cases bringing our total statewide to 19,253. Sadly, on this good friday, we are announcing 53 new deaths, which brings us to 755 total across the state. Our Testing Capacity has yielded 92,000 tests, a little bit more than that, which keeps us among the very top states in the nation per capita testing. We will continue to do everything we can to further increase the testing that takes place in louisiana. We did see some small increases in a number of people hospitalized and in a number of people on ventilators compared to yesterday. Based primarily on the current modeling, the number of new hospital admissions and the number of and the ventilator utilization across the state, it is fair to say that we are in a better place today than we were at this time last week. That gives us something to be thankful for going into easter weekend. It is because of you, the people of louisiana, and the compliance with the stayathome order and it is because of the hygiene practices you have adopted and social distancing that that is the case. I have to caution everyone that we will only continue on this or positive trajectory if everyone maintained social distancing, good hygiene practices, and follows the stayathome order. I want you to know that the federal testing sites we had in louisiana for some time now, three of them, they were going to stay open because you may have seen where today was the last scheduled day. We did request and the federal government has authorized us to maintain that Testing Capacity in louisiana Going Forward with federal sponsorship. This is something the Vice President offered to me earlier this week. That is going to happen. The testing in Jefferson Parish will continue just as it has been conducted in the past. The two sides that have been consolidated at uno in new orleans will be relocating. I do want to take this moment to admiral who by the way, is a louisiana native. He works at health and Human Services and he is over testing for the entire country. Obviously, he had something to do with the continued sponsorship of the federal government of these testing sites. In order to take maximum advantage of them working with the office of Public Health and local elected leaders and knowing the hotspots between baton rouge and new orleans, we will move these testing sites from new orleans to one will be conducting tests starting next week at gramercy elementary school. And the other site at a high school. That testing will start on wednesday, april 15. The action clinic will test two days a week starting next week. We are working with local providers for remote testing unit that would increase testing along the west bank of the river parishes and we will have more information about that next week. I am pleased to tell you that we have distributed 7. 5 million items of ppe. The National Thank guard as they have been doing the heavy lifting. They are getting instructions on where to deliver those items and they have also been the ones delivering the ventilators and others as well. Today i am announcing the louisiana Covid Equity Task force. By equity we mean everyone has the opportunity to obtain their highest level of health. This task force will bring leverage i am sorry, will leverage our Research Capabilities and intellectual brain power in a collective manner to tackle this issue. I am asking our universities and Research Universities to lead this effort, specific the Nelson Mandela school of public policy, and Xavier University department of Health Sciences, the Health Science centers at lsu and tulane, and the office of Public Health will participate as well. The Louisiana Department of Minority Health access, and also the Biomedical Research center and schools of nursing at all our universities across the state of louisiana. The task force is to make sure that communities with Health Disparities are blanketed with good information on covid19 safety and prevention, provide the medical community with best practices and protocols for treating communities with underlying medical conditions and Health Disparities and ensure testing capability and ease of access for all communities. The end goal is to help equity. We want to make sure we have Better Health outcomes on the others of this pandemic as well. We need to answer the question, what our social determinants of Health Disparity and how do we ensure Health Equity for all citizens . This task force will be meeting this charge. The commissioner of Higher Education sent an inquiry to all our universities to identify leading experts and names have started coming in to my office. This task force will begin its work immediately and research will result in the creation of the dashboard on Health Equity. This is something we can do now to minimize the spread of covid19 across the state, but particularly these communities were members are most vulnerable. As you know the last several days we have been talking about the fact that africanamericans are comprising about 70 of all the covid19 deaths whereas they are only 33 of the states population. We have to figure out what we can do to address that, but the work that is going to be done by this task force is going to benefit everybody in the state of louisiana. I do hope everyone will have a blessed easter weekend. Remember, you can be with your loved ones, i am encouraging you to be with your loved ones, but do that one household at a time and refrain from large gatherings you would typically engage in over easter weekend. I do have again today a couple questions from the public. The first is debbie from baton rouge. I will read the question and ask the doctor to come up and answer it. If you test positive, what is your incubation period until you are considered well . Is it a certain time . Fever free . That is a great question, debbie, a question on a lot of peoples minds. It bears emphasizing despite the fact we sadly lost 755 louisianans, most people who get covid will get better. My understanding, it is a pretty rough illness, not something any of us want to go through. By all means everything the governor said, we should be staying at home and limiting exposure. It is something that takes time to get through. Our definition from the cdc for when we can say you are recovered is at least seven days after you have symptoms develop, the beginning or onset of illness and after that time period, we are looking for three days without a fever and with significant improvement in your symptoms where we can say you are recovered and importantly that time period has to be without taking medicine to reduce the fever. You have to be without symptoms for three days before we would say you are recovered and during that entire period with symptoms until you are feverfree and feeling better, everyone should be isolating, staying away from family and friends and doing an extra good job cleaning up after yourself, washing your hands so we limit the spread of virus around the community. Thanks for that question, debbie. Gov. Edwards thank you, alex. Francis has asked, will some parishes be able to open up sooner than those with hotspot situations . That too is a great question. As we get closer to april 30, we will make a decision about what, if any of the restrictive measures currently in place could get continued. Quite frankly as dr. Fauci says all the time, the virus is in control of the timeline Going Forward, we are not. As we get closer to that date we will look at what the situation is in louisiana, the guidance from the cdc, what the Testing Capacity is for surveillance, diagnostic and the serology testing we talked about, tried to figure out who has contracted covid19 and gone through it and has the antibodies that should mean they do not get it again, although this is a Novel Coronavirus and we are still learning about it. All of that will be taken into consideration as we decide how to move forward after april 30. I am encouraging everyone to be patient and understand that when we get to april 30 and beyond what the situation looks like will depend on what we do between now and then. That is why it is incredibly important that we continue with our present posture, be focused and determined to make sure we are following the stayathome order, that we are not engaging in unnecessary travel and contact with other folks, we are maintaining social distancing and good hygiene practices. If we do that, the one thing i can say for sure, as we get closer to april 13, we will be in a better place than we otherwise would have been. Before i take questions from the press, i will turn it over to one of our special guest, archbishop gregory eyman. He is joining us from new orleans by zoom. It is good friday and i thought it was an important time for many of us to hear from someone like lee archbishop here at the start of easter weekend. You probably know this, but the archbishop has been diagnosed with covid19. I believe he is recovered now. I asked him to join us today to speak about his experience with the disease, but also to offer a prayer for the state of louisiana. Archbishop, thank you for joining us. I will turn the floor over to you. Archbishop gregory thank you for the opportunity to participate in this news conference. I thank you as our governor for your strong leadership during this critical time. We appreciate what you are doing for us. As you mentioned, yes, i had the virus. I am pleased to say i have recovered. I felt the healing hand of god upon me. Those of us who have had the virus know how complex it is, how much energy it drains from us. I only had one of the three symptoms of the virus. I was well aware as i was recovering in quarantine there were many people who were far more ill than i was. That experience enabled me to be in unison, solidarity, with those who are sick, especially in hospitals on respirators. I thank god for healing he has given to so many of us as we move forward in this challenging time. Gov. Edwards thank you very much for sharing that with us. As a request from me i would ask you also offer a prayer on this good friday as we look forward to easter sunday. Archbishop gregory thank you. Before i go into prayer i would like to address for a moment our jewish observers celebrating holy days, passover, beginning this week and into next week. To all of our jewish sisters and brothers, may gods peace be with you and these days of passover be a time of blessing for you and your family. Let us pray and bow our heads in prayer. Jesus on this day we not only remember, but celebrate and thank you for your passion and your death. You bore the cross and did so and we give you thanks because you set us free from sin, showed us our fathers mercy and assured us of our fathers love. Thank you for carrying the cross. Thank you for reassuring us that we are indeed loved and forgiven. Jesus, you always promised you would be with us. We ask you in particular during this challenging time of the coronavirus, we ask you to be with us, lead us, protect us. It is a challenging time. We ask you to help us to carry that cross. Jesus on this, we ask you to bless the state of louisiana, as we move forward. To those fighting the virus, we ask you to heal them. To those who have gone before us in death, please give them eternal rest. Give protection to all of us. We ask you blessings and perseverance to our Health Professionals and all those with them and our first responders. Help them that they can truly be the healers of our time. We ask you to bless our governor and all of the people who serve us and lead us. Jesus, your death led to resurrection. The coronavirus will lead us to new hope and life. We ask you to shine your light as the risen christ, and give us trust and confidence in all that you do for us. We ask this in your name, god, for ever and ever. Amen. Gov. Edwards thank you very much, archbishop. Great to have you with us. So pleased you are on the mend and feeling better. God bless you. Archbishop gregory thank you, governor, i appreciate it. Gov. Edwards now we will ask coach d. D. Breaux from lsus gymnastic program, a legendary coach, to come up and speak about the get it to go campaign, promoting safely supporting our local restaurants. D. D. thank you, governor. I was honored to be asked to do the psa about get it to go. It is all about playing defense. We have to be on the same team. Team is total effort, all members. When we do this we represent our communities and families and state. What we want to do is win. We want to beat this thing. What is winning . It is what is important now. The message our governor gives and archbishop gives, that is what is important now. Thank you very much. Gov. Edwards thank you very much, coach. I will have to remember that, team and win. As i continue to ask the people of louisiana to be patient and do what is required of us now as it relates to social distancing, hygiene and stayathome. With that i will take your questions for a bit. Task force addressing Racial Disparities did you say it would be helping with testing and if so, in what way. And is there Racial Disparity in the amount of testing in louisiana and the amount of cases . Gov. Edwards once before, one of the things we are not able to get clear resolution on is the race of the individuals being tested because over 90 of the tests are coming from private labs that do not identify that information. We are working Going Forward to have that information reported to us, along with results. Whether someone is covid negative or covid positive. It would be interesting to note, quite frankly, what the percentage of covid positive people are in louisiana by race because we do know and can readily obtain the identity or i should say the race, of people who die. To be able to compare and contrast those numbers would be important, but we cannot presently do it. I cannot tell you if there is a disparity or not. What we can tell you, this fight, all the efforts we have made, which by the way have been huge efforts and largely successful, because we either have the highest number of test per capita in the country or second. It is right there with new york and goes back and forth every day. We do not have the amount of testing we would like. That is particularly true in some of the rural areas. Although it is false and i think some of this has been reported, mostly rumors there is no parish, in a region of our state that is not currently testing. We do not believe we have adequate testing anywhere. We are trying to improve that and get more into the rural areas. This task force will look at these Health Disparities. There is a shortterm immediate goal. That is to help us through this covid19 Public Health emergency by making sure we are putting out as much good information by good i mean accurate and timely, telling people what they need to do. Not just things like stayathome, social distancing, good hygiene, but if you happen to have hypertension, make sure you are doing what youre supposed to be doing from a perspective of your diet, taking your medicine. Same thing with diabetes and so forth. You already have underlying conditions. Making sure you are treating as well as you can from a medication perspective and from other things you can control put you in the best possible position to withstand this virus should you contracted. They are going to be working on that. To look longterm, and this should benefit as well past the pandemic, is what we can do as a state to better address these underlying Chronic Health condition disparities we are seeing right now. It should not make us feel any better, but it is obviously the case that this exists far beyond louisiana. If you look at the reports coming out of other states, they are having similar situations. In fact, almost in direct proportion to ours. The fact it is shared by other states does not mean it is not a big issue, it is. We have to figure out how to tackle this issue, figure out what social determinants of health are playing into these disparities and what can we do to address those. The fact that potentially africanamericans have a greater prevalence of these comorbidities does not mean the study is only going to benefit the africanamericans, because it will benefit everybody who happens to have hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, or obesity. We note the disparity is playing out with a disproportionate number of deaths visited upon the africanamerican community. That is the primary reason we instituted it as quickly as we did and want to bring results to bear early enough to help us with this emergency. On that, isnt it, the coronavirus is exposed not just in louisiana and our country, that africanamericans have these underlying issues, but it is because of the grocery gap and Different Things like that because africanamericans largely do not have access to Healthy Foods and things like that . Gov. Edwards i think that is fair and we know we can have better behavior in our state. We still have too many people who smoke, do not exercise, drink three sodas a day rather than water. It is all of it. I do not profess to know all the answers to the question you just asked, but that is what this task force is going to look for. Maybe this is an opportunity, given this virus, this disease is shining a light on these disparities, maybe this is our opportunity to break through to a larger number of people and get them to change their behaviors, take advantage of opportunities they have in order to see a primary care physician and start managing their diseases better and do this before the disease gets so bad it is really hard to treat. That is what was so important about giving people an opportunity perhaps through medicaid expansion, to have primary care, Preventative Care they did not have before. To get diagnosed with illnesses and diseases before they progressed to the point they are impossible to treat. Then you have the pharmacy benefit so you can actually afford to fill the prescriptions and take them as prescribed to keep these conditions hopefully in check and mean that you are healthier. Maybe this is a way to get people to finally focus on these things because it is not abstract anymore. There is a real price to pay and you pay it every day. But you pay the ultimate price too often in the situation of a pandemic as we are experiencing right now. Maybe this gives us an opportunity to drive some change in behavior and changes in society, the way we deliver health care, all of it, to help the people of louisiana. What is your message to those still fighting coronavirus and survivors of this virus . Gov. Edwards i thought about this a lot last night after i learned that representative bagala passed, that the disease had taken his life. I saw a video another state representative did. A very powerful video. I compared it with stories of from people i know who have gone public but i know they have the disease and have been in the hospital. This is really tough. For the family members out there, their loved ones are in a hospital room and they cannot visit them. Depending on their condition, they may be able to have phone calls or facetime, or it could be that they are incapacitated and cannot participate in that. They are forced to obviously try to support that person from a distance. Obviously they can pray with them or for them. What a tough situation for those family members. Obviously for the individual with the disease as well, i can only imagine what that must be like. My heart breaks for those people. This is happening all over the world right now. All over the country and every day we come out with new cases and new hospitalizations and new deaths. This is really tough. I hope everybody listening to this and thinking about this understands there are things they can do to make sure these numbers stay as small as possible. They are the things we have been talking about for a month. They have not changed, they work. We love one another and we know how to be Good Neighbors. Being Good Neighbors right now means you maintain your social distancing, practice good hygiene, follow the stayathome order. Do not go out unnecessarily. Do not go shopping more often then you need to or take the whole family with you. And be patient. This is a tough situation. Especially going into easter weekend, for christians and certainly i am one of those, this is the holiest of times in the whole year, this weekend. Hopefully we can lift up one another in prayer. I happen to personally believe 3 00 on good friday is the time, not that you should not pray every day, but that is the time to offer up a prayer because i happen to believe it is received and is a little stronger than it normally is. There have been a number of cases in multiple deaths. Have you been in contact with the federal bureau of prisons . From your perspective, what should be done to handle outbreak there . What message . Gov. Edwards i have not been in contact with the bureau of i know u. S. Attorney general barr has addressed this particular issue and he singled out that prison in louisiana as one of a handful that caused him to issue guidance about furloughing prisoners at home under certain circumstances and reducing populations. What we have been doing is talking to their regional hospitals that have been taking those people into their care. That is a very serious situation. I do not have any new information, but obviously, that is a grave concern of ours. It is my hope they can get that under control through the actions they have taken, both to try to get as many inmates out of that facility as possible, but with all the other things they will do to try to isolate and reverse isolate these individuals before they can track the virus. I want to thank you for coming out today for the press conference and i want to thank all the people who have been paying careful attention to this. Please be patient and understand we have to get through this. We have to do it. The day will come, i do not know when and what will transpire between now and then, but the day will come when this will be behind us. We will get back to life as we want it to be and so forth. Between now and then lets support one another, do what we can to be Good Neighbors and help one another, but do it from a distance. Lastly, this being easter weekend, i ask us to lift one another up in prayer. We will especially remember those health care providers, those doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists and all allied Health Professionals doing so much right now to take care of people who need it the most. And in very difficult situations. At some risk of harm to themselves. If you just think about what generally speaking a hero is, that is what a hero is. It is not the athlete, as much as we love athletes. It is not the politician, not the rich person, not the actor or actress. These are heroic actions taking place in every hospital across louisiana and all these Health Care Settings and all across the country. Lets remember them this weekend and our prayers and lets get through this. God bless you, and thank you. Gov. Northam good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. Today we have updates on the status of our nursing homes, unemployment, and people in the department of corrections. We know there are concerns about the spread of the virus in nursing homes. Here in richmond, the canterbury nursing home is dealing with one of the largest concentrations of
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