Transcripts For CSPAN New Jersey Gov. Murphy Holds Coronavirus Briefing 20240713

Who will be observing good friday at noon. Honored to be joined i the woman on my right, who needs no introduction. A guy familiar to many of you there, the commutable Communicable Disease specialist. To my far, state police superintendent, pat callahan. To my immediate left, and great leader, department of corrections, commissioner marcus hicks. We are going earlier today than we usually do. We have the overnight numbers. Im not sure, judy will tell us how deeply we can dig into the numbers. We have at least the top line numbers and we will go from there. Let me get into that immediately. Since yesterdays briefing we have been notified that we have 3627 more residents who have received positive test results. That puts our statewide total at 54,588. 7 overnight and our statewide total at 54, 588. To our online dashboard that is accessible d19. Nj. Gov. I as of 10 00 p. M. Last night we residents reported hospitalized of which 679 were in critical or intensive care. 63 ventilators were in use. Hourperiod and for 24 tony for our for the hour period, many were discharged. You can see how many folks are hospitalized, how many of that cohort require intensive care, how many ventilators are in use, as judy has said all along, that will bounce around at 1 1. It is showing up to be that way we another piece of evidence are at least beginning to see some light, 682 residents discharged, that is a big deal. Lets flip to a map we have been showing you from time to time. The county heat map. It measures the amount of days of doubling of cases. When we first showed this map it was orange and red. Red would have been the fastest amount of doubling. Orange was a little bit slower. The yellow is slower again. This is the first day we have two counties where we are seeing a new color, which means it is at least doubling seven days or more. That is salem county in the southwest where there are certainly cases. Salem has a total of 46 positives and three fatalities. That is good news because that was red just a couple days ago. Small,he caseload was the curve was steep. Even more encouraging the northeast. That is the other one that is lightly shaded. They are just under 9000 cases and 390 fatalities. That is where it hit first. The fact it is showing that shade, please god, it continues to. Those are good early signs. Too early to spike any footballs, but those aretwo important early signs. We may want to go back to the hospitalization numbers. The dashboard pulls data as reported by hospitals to the new jersey hospital association. It is just a snapshot and judy would want me to remind you of that. It is not a movie, a snapshot in time. There may be overnight changes not yet reflected in that data. Additionally with the heaviest of hearts we know we have lost another 233 of our fellow residents since yesterday on the total number stands at 1932. Precious lives lost. Preciousal of 1932 lives lost. Please allow me to tell a couple brief stories about a few of these folks. This picture is evelyn sanchez. God bless her. Evelyn and her husband were partners both in life and in their family owned business, emergency pest control. She is remembered for her tremendous generosity of spirit. Sparta in she called Sussex County her home the past 35 years. She leaves behind her husband john, president of the essex latino county of commerce along with her children and stepchildren and step grandchildren. I know she will not be forgotten and she was only, and this is my age, 62 years old. God bless you, evelyn. Sam, the, handsome first africanamerican to be elected to serve mayor of hillside in 1988. He also served on the Union County Improvement authority among other posts, adding to his years of public service, a career as a High School History deaner and a 32 years as of admissions at new jersey city university. We send our condolences and prayers to his family and friends. There is also dr. Francis fourari, a physician for decades, tending to his own practice in belleville, serving , athe staff at the hospital sports complex, as well as working 30 years for Hudson County prior to his retirement two years ago. To his wife lorraine with whom i spoke yesterday and daughter andrea and their family we join you in mourning their loss and praying for his soul. The conversations i have had with families who lost loved ones to covid19 are not easy, nor is sitting here telling some of their stories easy for any of us. It is nothing compared to what theyre going through, both the folks who have left us as well as their family and friends. We have to remember them. We must recognize the tremendous toll this virus is having on our state and seeing these faces and hearing these names remind us that behind the stark and impersonal numbers are real people, real human beings, real families. We all have a role to play in reducing the number of people we lose. We have to keep with social distancing. That is the key to cracking the code, flattening the curve and getting us to a better place. Remember, when we flatten the curve with the number of people infected, we lower the number of hospitalizations, the amount of intensive care hospitalizations and ultimately, fatalities. One thing does lead ultimately directly to the other. This weekend is easter weekend. I know we are used to gathering together as we do normally at passover. We gather normally to worship. We gather for easter egg hunts, family meals with friends. We cannot do any of that this year. I feel awful that we cannot. We have to leave the gathering to facetime or zoom or simple phone calls or text and emails the family and friends. Instead of heading to church, many of us will fire up the laptops for a livestream service. Staying apart this year is the surest way we will be able to gather again next easter and the many easters to come. Please take this to heart and take this seriously. We all must work together. If we do unequivocally, we will come through this stronger as one new jersey family together. But we each have to do our part and the 9 million of us need to flatten the curve, stay away from each other. That leads to fewer infections, fewer hospitalizations, fewer intensive care unit hospitalizations, and fewer loved ones whom we will lose. We will manage this front while our extraordinary Healthcare Workers and teams represented will build out our capacity of beds, ventilators, ppe, medicines, and relief for our Healthcare Workers. We win those two fronts together. Those lines have to cross at a reasonable level. If we stay with it, this weekend is easter weekend and every day in the near term, we will win this together. We know this Public Health crisis has extended into our prisons and i want to give the commissioner a huge shout out. We will address his efforts in detail in a few minutes in his remarks. The pandemic has touched many of our corrections personnel and those who are incarcerated. A virus this virulent can spread rapidly in a prison setting and the needs of Public Health and safety have to be balanced. I just got off the phone before coming here with the widow of nelson perdomo. His wife and i spoke. Nelson was only 44 years old, a member of pba 105. He leaves behind his wife, fannie and their three kids who , are 18, 13, and 12. Awful. A guy who has left us far too soon. I just connected with his wife. Maybe we can have a picture of him tomorrow just to make sure everybody puts a name with the face. I also spoke with my fellow middletown resident bill sullivan. He was not only a friend of nelsons but is the president of pba 105. To each, to nelson his wife, his , three kids, to bill and all of their colleagues, our thoughts and prayers and hearts go out to you. In that respect, today i am signing an executive order to help preserve this balance between Public Health and Public Safety. Under this order, certain low risk individuals whose current age or Health Status puts them at particular risk for covid19, who have been perhaps denied parole within the last year or whose sentences are to expire within the next three months may be placed and i say may be on temporary home confinement or granted parole if already eligible through an expedited process. I want to stress that no one convicted of a serious crime such as murder, sexual assault, among others will be eligible for consideration. We are setting up a robust process through which each potentially eligible individual must be determined to be safe to be placed on home confinement and each will be required to have an individualized release plan to ensure they have access to all necessary services, medical services, and housing. No one who cannot meet the standards will be released. Individuals on home confinement will be subject to department of corrections supervision. As i noted we have twin responsibilities here. Protecting those who work in our prisons and those who are incarcerated. Social distancing is extremely hard to accomplish in a prison setting and allowing some of our most vulnerable individuals who do not pose a Public Safety threat to temporarily leave prison will protect both their health and the health and safety of the men and women working in our correctional facilities. We are not the first to do this. New jersey will join several other states, some of the big ones are california and illinois and the federal government which had taken similar steps. I want to give a big shout out to marcus and his team who have been trying to stay out ahead of the challenge. You have concentrated communities from day one, this is an important step to allow them to continue to stay ahead. I want to acknowledge the director of the department of Homeland Security and preparedness in the house with us as well. Under the subject of testing. A reminder that tomorrow april 11, Oregon Community college drivethrough testing site will be open to the public and the Pnc Bank Arts Center will be open to Healthcare Workers and First Responders only. Both sites will be open at 8 00 a. M. And will be able to conduct 500 tests apiece. To receive a test, you must be symptomatic and both sites will be closed on easter. There are 18 other sites around the state that are publicly available. You can find a map with all of them by going to covid19. Nj. Gov testing. There are dozens more privately operating testing sites that your primary Care Practitioner can direct you to for a test if you meet the requirements for testing. When you add up all of the sites, it is at least 57 different sites. To receive a test, you must be exhibiting signs of respiratory illness and you can take our Self Assessment as one of your first steps on the master website. Simply go to covid19. Nj. Gov testing. It is anonymous and not only does it give you some sense of where you might be but it gives us the information that we need to help identify potential coronavirus hotspots before they flare up. That knowledge is critical for ensuring our Healthcare Networks and the supplies they will need before they are needed. Speaking of supplies, i want to give a huge thank you to uniqlo, an extraordinary retailer headquartered in japan. Another piece of evidence that we are scouring the globe for help here. They delivered a donation of 100,000 muchneeded medical grade masks for the frontline Public Health and safety responders. This is the essence of what it means to be a good Corporate Citizen and we are incredibly appreciative. Thank you. If you have any ppe to donate, no matter how much, please let us know by going to covid19. Nj. Gov ppe donations. I also want to give a big shout out to the Stevens Institute of technology and my friend for opening their dormitory so the folks at Hoboken University Medical Center and the Fire Department can have a place to rest and recharge. Thank you to everyone at stevens for thinking about their neighbors. I said we would be brief today including in the q a so forgive me because it is good friday. But because it is good friday, i want to share one more story of some of the good being done around our state. On this most solemn of fridays, heres something i hope will lift your hearts. Today i want to recognize the members of the wyckoff girl scout troop 24 in bergen county. There is a member on the left in and a Healthcare Worker on the right. After reading stories of nurses describing the physical discomfort caused by the straps of their face masks, the troop took to producing simple headbands that can be worn under the straps to reduce the discomfort and make life on the job just a little bit better. The troop donated their headbands to the Valley Hospital in ridgewood. There is an example of a headband on the right in that picture. This is how we are going to get through this. It is both the huge donations of 100,000 masks and for that, we are incredibly grateful. It is also the little thoughts like headbands to make those masks less uncomfortable to the professionals that are wearing them day in and day out for hours upon hours. Uniqlo, we thank you. To the members of the wyckoff girl scout troop 24, we thank you. New jersey thanks you. I ask each of you to keep tweeting the stories of your heroes about using the njthanksyou. Everyone helping us through this deserves our thanks. To everyone who is doing the right thing to help us flatten the curve, especially on a major Holiday Weekend upon us. This cannot be a weekend to think we can let our foot off the gas. We are not even close. We have to keep with it. War is won. We are starting to see some glimmers of hope. Look at the amount of people discharged yesterday. Look at that county map. Look at the beginnings of the flattening of that curve of positive tests and remember as we have said before, with the heaviest of hearts, even though those metrics are beginning to look positive, we will still lose many folks in this state sadly because the folks who have lost their lives, they had been infected several weeks ago. We are seeing the sad end to some of the realities that hit us weeks before us. Willtay with it read we win this, unequivocally, if each and every one of us does our part, and we will, from the Little Things like washing hands with soap and water. To bigger things like stay home. Please, social distancing no matter where you are, including at home. All the way up to the steps we are taking today including the executive order i am signing today as it relates to our corrections facilities. All of these are pieces in a broader puzzle and as we each continue to drop our pieces of the puzzle in place, eventually that will be a beautiful tapestry of our one new jersey family finally back on his feet together and again stronger than ever before. With that, please help me welcome the woman who needs no introduction, the commissioner of the department of health. Judy good morning. I want to take a moment to thank commissioner hicks and all of the support he has given the department of health in working to protect the safety not only of his employees but the total forensic population and all of our sister agencies. This is really a whole of government approach. They are all vital to the effort. I thank them not only for their support but for what they are doing every day. I want to share some information on veteran homes. As you know new jersey has three , veteran homes and they continue to be impacted as well. Today the total census in the veterans homes in new jersey is 845. The home in menlo park has 16 residents and five Staff Members who have been confirmed as positive covid19. In menlo park there have been four deaths of residents directly related to covid19. Right now, 12 of their residents from that facility are hospitalized. The promise home has 29 residents and 17 staff who have tested positive. There have been 13 deaths among those residents related to covid19. Currently eight of their residents are hospitalized. The vineland location has no confirmed cases among their residents or staff. The part of health has been working with the homes and the department of health has been working with the veteran homes through our volunteer portal. We have been able to support other staffing requirements and have sent 15 registered nurses and seven licensed practical nurses to support care in these homes. Additionally, 35 combat medics have been sent to menlo park and 40 have been sent to the paramus location. As the governor mentioned, according to data reported from our hospital, there are 7570 hospitalizations which include covid19 positive individuals and persons under investigation. 1679 are considered in Critical Care and 1663 are currently on ventilators. Today we are reporting 3627 new cases. To date, tested 105,611 individuals. 46,676 have returned positive. 4 positivity rate, 44. 2 . Sadly we are reporting 233 deaths for a total of 1932 deaths in the state. Of the total deaths, 58 are male. 42 are female. The age range is holding at 1 under 30 years of age. 4 between the ages of 30 and 49. 17 between the ages of 50 and 64. 33 or 641 individuals between the ages of 65 and 79 and 45 between the ages of over 80 years of age or 866. 64 are identified as white. 20 black or africanamerican. 6 asian and less than 1 native hawaiian or other pacific islander. 48 have reported documented underlying conditions, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer being some of the highest reported underlying diseases. Along with the governor i want to thank all of you who are staying home. I know it is tough during the religious holidays when you would normally be congregating for religious services and family gatherings. While this may be disappointing to many look relatives and friends it is imperative to slowtinue to stay home to the spread of covid19. Stay home, stay safe, and stay healthy. Thank you. Gov. Murphy judy, thank you for everything. I want to thank the department of health for getting the data more aggressively and earlier than normal because they have a lot on their plate. Did you mention, i apologize did , you mention as part of race, did you mention hispanic . Judy i thought i did. Let me check. I did not, it is not on there. Gov. Murphy if you ever look at a census report, you have a listing and you have to do a sideways cross racial assessment as it relates to latino. I dont know how official this is, but my first sense of it was in the upper teens. Judy 17. 1 . Gov. Murphy that is what i had as well. Would you say this is still early stages in terms of the racial data . That looks earlystage to be about consistent enough advisedly with the representation of the hispanic population. That is something we want to stay close on. This is the first day we have had that insight. The african america number, just to repeat, is running at least 50 over what the representation of the africanamerican community. Just want to give a huge shout out to our veterans. God bless them, including the ones in those three homes and god bless each and every one of them. I got a note from someone who said you guys were talking about postal workers. That is partly because postal workers are under under federal agents. It must be said that postal workers are out there with diminished ranks. Day in and day out, delivering the mail. We have to take our hats off to the women and men in the Postal Service who are doing that in new jersey and around the country day in and day out. Thank you for everything. Top five counties, i just want to make sure. I am looking at the total cases that continue to be burgan, essex, hudson, and union. But i have to say, sorry, middlesex similar numbers of positive. Middlesex is said list equally then we should because theyre just behind passaic all week in the number of positives. And now it has just gone slightly ahead. Thank you, judy. The positives are running at about where they have been. Just north of 44 , which is something we had expected. We could have had marcus hicks here any day in the past weeks because he has been leading proactively and aggressively from the front with one of the ost challenging communities in terms of cohabitation and proximity that we have to deal with in the state. We have talked about longterm facilities, psychiatric homes, homes for the developing disabled and our Corrections Community is right near the top. Marcus, it is great to have you today. Would love to get your trach on some of the steps you have already taken in anything you have on the executive order we are signing today and it is great to have you with us. Thank you, gov. Good morning, everyone. I just want to take the opportunity to recognize the brave men and women of the department of corrections, both custody and civilian staff working on the front lines every single day. Courageously, diligently, and behind the scenes making sure we are all living out our mission during these unprecedented challenges. Governor, i want to thank you for taking time out of your day o reach out. I also know that the colonel did that to show solidarity. A loss to the department of corrections and we mourn the loss of our colleague and fellow employee. As the governor alluded to, the health, safety, and welfare of our employees and their families and inmates that are entrusted to us are our top priority. We have been in constant communication with the department of health. Thank you for your leadership and guidance to us and your staff moving forward. We have taken significant strides to combat this pandemic and it starts with cleaning and disinfecting efforts and sanitation across the board and for all vehicle fleets. We have mandated that each individual that enters into our facilities undergo Health Screenings and a required have nonsurgical masks and protective masks as we talk about ppe have been available to our staff ince march 13. As of april 4, all staff has been ordered to wear masks in our facilities and headquarters. We have taken a look at the quarantine and isolated areas in the department and ensuring we have capacity and staff working in those isolation areas and they are required to wear ppe, including surgical and n95 masks, gowns, jumpsuits, face shields, to name a few. As first inmate population, any inmate that is exhibiting respiratory symptoms are also required to wear ppe as ell. Unfortunately, to date, we have 129 Staff Members that have impacted by this virus. 20 inmates currently in the system tested positive, and we have had one inmate fatality as a result of covid19. For the guidance from the cdc, any individuals that have come in contact with impact are required to quarantine and we have been following that guidance as we move forward. We have 400 inmates right now on medical quarantine. They are not symptomatic but in quarantine the status. As far as staff is concerned, we have over 1000 of our employees on quarantine status as well. As the governor mentioned, you can imagine that when you are running a correctional facility and setting that there are unique challenges in trying to Institute Social distancing. With our limitations, we have made significant modifications to reduce the foot traffic in and out of our facilities and that has been an essential element in our ability to curb the potential introduction of the disease. We suspended our inmate visitation back in march and we understand how important it is for our population to have those isits paired we instituted alternatives, including free dditional posted so they can communicate with their loved ones, increase the number of phone calls and emails to enable alternatives. We shut down our volunteer contractors and 90 essential vendors. In terms of the workforce, we have instituted work from home flexible and rotational schedules in the department of corrections for significantly reduced or eliminated staff into the facilities. For the incarcerated population, activities such as recreation, religious gatherings, education has been modified for when it comes to dining, because of following the guidelines of the cdc, we have limited communal dining to the extent we can. We look at our transports in and out of the facility, how we are transporting inmates, the number of inmates we are transporting to accommodate social distancing. There are a couple of things i want to highlight. Intake of county jail inmates into the system we have uspended that. We did that a few weeks ago and extended that to limit the foot traffic. We suspend all of our community inmate details and we place a 15day hold on inmates that enter into our facility to ensure they are free of covidrelated symptoms. We are also working with external partners such as the new jersey state parole board and i want to thank the chairman who has been a fantastic partner with us to work with parole so they can conduct the board hearings mobily. We have residents in the Community Release programs. We have Halfway Houses that we are working with every day to ensure that they are incrementing some of the same measures that we are doing in our facilities. That includes Health Screenings and temperature scans as well. We are also quarantining them if they have to come back into the facility to ensure there are not any symptoms of covid. We have suspended our work rograms as well. I cant stress enough the importance of the medical team and not just of the medical staff but also of our contract endor who has been a resourceful partner with us. From a medical perspective, we are doing all we can to mitigate the spread of this disease. One of the things we have done is we have eliminated the copays for medical exams. We have waived them during this time so as not to cause a barrier for individuals who may ant to seek testing. We have done in person assessments as needed. We transfer people as needed and olks who have flulike symptoms are covid19 screened and evaluated by medical staff and directed to the hospital if they have symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath and with the guidance of doh and cdc, that has been very resourceful. Ithin our department we have isolation areas come in from really we have in our department isolation areas and infirmary areas. We protect our population. We continue to offer a discharge plan to ensure those that are leaving custody and going into he communities are placed in the best place possible. They are given a health assessment. We work with them before they leave custody. The governor mentioned this is just another tool to help us mitigate the issue were granting temporary emergency home confinement to our most vulnerable visitors who have not muted a serious offense. It is our belief that it would improve the prospects for individuals health by providing them the individual plan that include medical as well as housing. Hose at high risk for severe illness and death, also those recently considered for arole. Each case will be assessed by any emergency medical home confinement board that will make individualized determinations of whether home confinement would better serve in eligible inmates. At this moment, we dont have an exact count of how many individuals as it may be duplication in the categories but will be working diligently to generate those lists to get this process started. Moving forward, we will continue to evaluate our processes and practices to ensure we are attacking this issue as best as ossible. We will continue to identify modifications that can be made with one thing in mind, to protect the safety of our staff and inmates and everyone, including the public. With that, i will turn it back over. Gov. Murphy marcus, thank you for even in normal times, i appreciate and we all appreciate your leadership, but thank you for the steps you have taken over the last number of weeks and thank you for leading the process that will come from the executive order i signed it today, which will come to a head to anticipate the process. It will begin in a few days and has a sevenday window. We will have results to report early the week after next. Always great to have you with us. I know it is early in the date for a whole lot of compliance, but anything you have on that or ppe or other matters. Good morning, governor. Thank you. Also in behalf of the state police commissioner, we offer our condolences and more angry along side you with the loss of the officer. With regards to overnight, a subject was stopped under the suspicion of selling stolen goods. He was found to be in possession of stolen goods and turned over to Springfield Police department, where the burglary took place. Roselle police were called to a supermarket because a subject was wearing a mask yelling at customers claiming to have coronavirus. I the time the Police Showed up, they have left but they gave a description of the vehicle and is subject was subsequently stopped in a uhaul truck and found to be in possession of narcotics and also determine the truck he was in was stolen out of newark. Newark issued 51 order violations and did not do close any instances. In union, an anonymous call resulted in Police Responding and finding an open billiard hall and charging three subjects within that location. In trenton, a subject was cited for the executive order violation for failure to disperse. In union, three subjects were arrested in violation of the executive order and also for burglarizing five vehicles. Since executive order 107 has been in effect across the state, there been 124 incidents that have risen to the level of indictable crime. Beyond compliance, governor, just a quick note we did put out a wind advisory because of he tenting that happens. The bergen site, the fema supported one is temporarily there are 40 cars in the queue as we speak. They are trying to moderate that situation to make sure the tents and the people there and the fence is secured and the people are safe. Be on that, governor, as my brothers at the u. S. Postal he will think i planted that seed in your head so thank you for recognizing our men and women of he Postal Service. Gov. Murphy it may have been your brother sent me the text. It came in untagged. We are supposed to be getting a blizzard but we have largely escaped it. Please, god, it stays that way. Although my family reminded me during the breifing yesterday that an advisory came in but it was mostly wind yesterday and today and we will keep you posted on that. Martel has been with us every day. We will do this and lets keep it low. Tomorrow we will be here at 1 00 will not be with you on sunday. We will let you know by paper and virtual release of any data that we have gotten. The only exception to that would be if there is something we think is material and i will volunteer to get with you. But otherwise we will see you on monday. Monday is scheduled for 1 00 p. M. Because we do not have insight into the white house chedule at this point. If that does come to pass, we may shift the time on monday so please bear with us. Thank you, martel appeared you have been here every day. Brian, you are up. Several questions, one dealing with the plan to transfer either Covid Patients or nonCovid Patients, i have a message from one nursing home in wayne that says we were asked to admit 62 covid positive from paramus and i turn them all down. How realistic and how practical in light of that sort of thing is that plan. In some of the Nursing Homes, staying on that topic, many are on the medicare ratings and they are low in extremely low, whether Health Inspections or overall rating or staffing. Also when i went online to medicare. Gov, much below average. At some of them are as good as average. Basically, why are they allowed o operate. Then there is the issue of whether people have died and have not been tested how can you give any closure to people who want to know, was a virus nfested home or the guy in the room next door are the bed next to me was tested earlier and was positive and yet you are saying, we may have for example military affairs same 37 people could have died based on statistical model or youre only saying 13. Said you cant test the dead and you cant waste the kids, are you trying to develop some sort of historical model, as military affairs did come for all of these homes is to say welcome any nursing home might have three people die every month. They had 12. We only know of three positives. We have to assume that six of those were also. May i just say one thing . You are going to get the bulk of this for obvious reasons. We said this from day one that lawn care facilities have been an area of focus. And they continue to be. Judy will go through the answers. We are not alone in this front. This is a particular we do the national postmortem and the new jersey postmortem facilities and they will be at or near the top of the list. We are going into this really challenging reality. I am going to start at the beginning. It is great question. What we are finding is a realistic plan on monday becomes not very easy to carry out on friday when the number of organizations and facilities with at least one covid positive case has just increased exponentially. We are at the point now where we are going through every 375 of the homes to determine if they can cohort appropriately so that residents would stay in place and also cohort the employees. Also to management the move from the positive to the nonpositive to try to make sure everyone thats the care they deserve and that we are not transmitting the disease. It is becoming a daunting task. But we are continuing it. What we are going to Pay Attention to his first those who an cohort good we have Nursing Homes that cannot cohort. There are two things that we need to do, make sure they had the ppe to take care of all of their patients in the same way, which means considering that everyone is a potential covid19 and then we have to make sure they have the staff. To see if we can support those who are dreamily stressed and they are primarily in the north and there are a lot of them. I dont want to sugar coat what is going on with the Nursing Homes but we are on it fulltime but it is going to be very difficult. How about the medicare ratings . The ratings they looked at a variety of indicators. With medicare, we do inspect those organizations during we go out within 24 hours for any complaint that is considered what they call immediate jeopardy. For those, we are getting complaints right now on specific Nursing Homes that are considered higher risk and we are getting ppe for our staff to actually go onsite to those Nursing Homes to determine what is going on. I do have to say, it is not one. There are a lot that we have concerns about. So covering them all, some will have to be remotely because we just dont have the staff. Our staff, which are licensed registered nurses are being eployed into hospitals and testing sites. This is a daunting task but we are on it. The frail and vulnerable of our Nursing Homes, we knew from the getting, were going to be at risk and the statistics are proving that they are. Let the governor said, it is not just a statewide issue, it is a national issue. We just have to take care of them as best as we can. The historical model i will let wd talk about that. Here is a statistic we are keeping in mind for our report of how it can we be more predictive about what will occur. Maybe ed can share his houghts. It is important to know what is causing the outbreak and we always want to do testing to figure out what is going on could once you know what is causing the outbreak, and this is true with other outbreaks such as flues public dont require that everybody who has symptoms go ahead and get ested. We also dont tell facilities they cant test. So we are not telling any facility not to test somebody think has covid. But if you have the capability and the supplies and all that to go ahead and test and you can. We do compost people separately in what is sort of a probable category. We do a confirmed separate from the probables but we do keep track of that. Overall, we are well aware that while we certainly try to keep track because we think it is important, we know we are missing people and we cannot count every person who dies of code for a variety of reasons. We try to do our best. There are a small number of people that we cause as covid deaths who probably didnt die but who had covid and died of something else. So the numbers will never be perfect. We think we are doing a pretty good job and are close but we are never going to say it is absolute accounting. Gov. Murphy we have to keep moving because we promised. We talk about data and homes and ositive tests and strategies and policies that i want to make sure that everyone knows that they have family and friends and we are doing everything we can and there is no price too high with limited resources and a once a century onslaught, everything we can to save every life we can. On demographics what percentage of people do we know recent underlying conditions and why was Underlying Health conditions removed from the ortal . Can you go through each underlying condition and give the consent. Are they going to a home or a longterm care facility . Have any hotels or dorms been taken over for recovering patients. In on Nursing Homes, have there been any relocations or longterm care facilities where they have been so many deaths and is there a state task force about beds and availability. Gov. Murphy i know that on underlying conditions, you had 990. I think ed has the breakdown. Gov. Murphy we have 990 of the total. As far as the breakdown goes, a few general things. We get more and more information on people who dont. It comes in the slowly and we have a general rate down this far as what happens. Hypertension comes as a cardiovascular disease and it is very common in the country, but we dont have an exact breakdown of how many people have say hypertension versus others. Gov. Murphy he said it was taken down from the portal. I am not sure. We have a general breakdown on the percentage of the 990. It is 29 cardiovascular disease, 50 other chronic diseases. 17 diabetes. We know how prevalent diabetes is, 10 other chronic lung disease, 7 chronic renal, 7 neurologic. 6 cancer and then there is another category. Ov. Murphy what else . I missed a couple of your questions, i apologize. On modeling, what does it show about the peak, particularly in how prepared are not are the hospitals as far as discharges. Are they going home or to longterm care facilities . Have you taken over any hospitals or hotels or dorm for recovering patients, and then on Nursing Homes, have there been relocations for longterm care facilities where theyve had 70 deaths and is there beds and availabilities for those . Gov. Murphy we will have to make the question shorter because we will run out of time. Do you want to hit any of those . In terms of the discharges from the hospitals, that is a stepwise process. At this point, we do expect 20 to 25 of the discharges to be in the medical station by this afternoon. We were hoping to take those people with low acuity perhaps to be discharged in three or four days and have them in the field medical. Concurrent with that, we are bringing up some hotels for those individuals that perhaps have tested positive and need to quarantine and do not have a home. Our situation allows them to isolate or quarantine to the number of days they would go to a hotel. We are working to bring up some of those hotels. I dont know if we have anybody in the dorms but we do have a number of dorms that are available throughout the state that is primarily for Healthcare Workers who for whatever reasons maybe they are in quarantine and cannot go home to protect their family, they can stay at a dorm or one of the hotels. There is a will series of Spaces Available not only for patients but also for the Healthcare Workers. Slowly, they are coming into those spaces. Gov. Murphy how about peak . At this point with the Predictive Modeling we have and in conversations with hospitals, we believe they will be able to handle the peak in terms of available bed spaces, particularly Critical Care. They have all increased their available spaces. We have to make sure they had the available staff. And then the ppe and the equipment. We monitor every day how many hospitals have to go on divert and primarily they are going because of workforce at this point. Gov. Murphy we think we can withstand the amount of beds, but if we take our foot off of the gas, you can fill that tatement out the window. We have got to stay home until further notice. We cannot think that we are in the end zone. We are not close to the end zone. Judy makes another point, it is beds and ventilators and ppe and Healthcare Workers and medicines that allow it to take place. You had a question on Nursing Homes . Have there been any relocations or facilities with have been so many deaths that they need to be closed . Do you have a dashboard on nursing . One total relocation. That facility has been totally clean and decontaminated and we will work with the sisters after the holiday to bring that back p. Gov. Murphy thank you. Gov. , you have constitutional borrowing power without voter approval during times of war or acts of god. Is that a possibility for this budget process . Also, we ask this every day how many New Jerseyans are in Nursing Homes, how many patients are positive, and omni have died. Can you please include this on the portal every day . Finally, you have identified the veterans homes in the numbers of cases of deaths for both employees and residents. Yesterday the Health Commission referred to three Nursing Homes that are under additional state scrutiny. Like the veterans homes, they no doubt receive taxpayer money in the form of medicare and medicaid and with all due respect, the nursing home counts are far larger. They touch more lives why the transparency distinction between the nursing home and veteran homes . Can you please identify those Nursing Homes under scrutiny and if not explain why. On the Constitutional Authority to borrow, everything is on the table. You are actually correct in your assessment that is a power that we have and something we are looking closely at. Nothing more to report than that. Secondly, i think not only god bless our veterans but god bless veryone who is in these. I think there was a significant amount of focus, rightfully, at the paramus home that came up over the past couple of days, but i dont want anyone out there to think we are in a prioritization. We can salute our veterans and thank them for their service to our nation and do the very best we can to take care of them and we will do that. On the other hand, to the populations in nursing facilities and longterm care cilla tease, generally we had the same obligation and we will do everything we can to meet that. In longterm care, it is about 60,000 or you could compare that with the number of cases currently that are positive for covid, which is about 4000 have it right here. 4179 individuals. We look at every single one of them. We know exactly how many and with the census is and how many staff tested positive and how many residents test positive and how many are under investigation and how many are showing respiratory symptoms other than covid and how many deaths directly related to covid19 and how many deaths are overall. We look at that every single day. How many deaths and explain why you not identifying the three Nursing Homes that are under state scrutiny that you mentioned . I am not sure of the three that we are talking about that were under scrutiny. I dont know which ones we have mentioned other than those in the press and may have been responding directly to elizabeth and that nursing home was in the process of being closed. I dont have my remarks from yesterday but the ones i usually respond to are the ones that i think well have followup questions because they have already been identified in the press. Ov. Murphy we can come back and give you more color on this. I think the reason why we may not have numbers is we want to make sure the numbers are right. You are asking for similar numbers on hospitalizations for a number of days before we felt comfortable putting those up and we want to make sure we put them up we get it right and you can follow up on that. Just one question. You said the folks that died overnight or longterm care acilities. Out of the total number of patients on ventilators in new jersey how many of them are covid19related and how many, do have less available in the state that are unused for either covid19 or any other illness . I dont have the breakdown, i just have covid19 and how many are on ventilators. Gov. Murphy and you are asking how many are left in the state inventory . Gov. Murphy we dont have that peewee will come back to you. Gov. Murphy i dont know what number for either. We have some amount left but we are also assuming the need is going to go up and we will not at the moment have enough. I dont have a number for you. We will come back if we do have a number. Thank you. Just wanted to interrupt. 70 of the 233 deaths, 71 were associated with longterm care facility clusters are outbreaks. Gov. Murphy where did you go . Old on one second. With the peak expected as soon as sunday, how is the state preparing emergency staff and vehicles for a possible surge in patients over the weekend . Commissioner, could you explain the growth rate and doubling rate and the trend you will see and the difference between those two figures. Governor, where houses have been deemed essential work. Is there any oversight of warehouse conditions and would you consider changing requirements for what is considered an essential product or warehouse . Why havent the hours of those working in the Unemployment Office been extended . Viewers are saying they are closed and the dialin center is closed, even though there was a backlog. So this week was a short week to process claims. Gov. Murphy vehicles, pat, do you have any comment on that . We are expecting the peak as early as sunday. Is there any statewide plan for preparing staff and vehicles and is there a surge in anything done to prepare for that . If youre talking about ambulances, we have 50 basic life support and and 20 private life support ambulances that are staging at the Meadowlands Metlife stadium under the leadership of the new jersey ems task force. Gov. Murphy im not going to question the date as to when we peak, please, god, dont wake up monday morning and behave differently. We will let you know when you can behave differently. We are doing this for your protection and safety. Changing the definition of essential, we put the directive out the day before and we expect people to follow it. It is an executive order. What a lot of resources we have to spotcheck that, to be determined. If you think that your employer or if you have a complaint about someone who is not, go onto the website and let us know. That has been very effective. As far as the Unemployment Office, i get input is winter you can lay people off in government, and the answer is we need government more than ever before. And also why are they working onger hours . We are doing our best there they have lives as well and families who are home from school and homeschooling and remote learning. They may have challenges in their own family in terms of illness. We are doing our best to find our way through this. I was going to ask and the umber of questions from people related to unplugging and insurance and getting through. That is never a question. We are breaking any prior record by 10 times in the country and state. E have now broken into the Great Depression in terms of unemployment ranks. No one will lose a penny as a result and will not lose the federal benefit that has been dded onto the cares act. Trending rate versus doubling rate . How do you look at those . We look at the doubling time, which is the number of hospitalizations to double at a current rate, and that tells us a lot about the severity of the patient and the condition of the patients coming in to the hospital. Our doubling time for all covid hospitalizations as of last night was 18. 6. He day before it was 28. 8. So when mark does not make a trend but we want the doubling time certainly to increase rather than decrease we want infection rates to decrease. For the hospitals we look at the doubling time of hospitalizations. The monger that is the better it is. Gov. Murphy and while the trend in positive testing is looking like it is flattening, it is still going up. Infections are still increasing in the state. The fed announced yesterday for the first time they would start purchasing state and federal debt. Has that been utilized and if so where . On state collaboration, have you spoken specifically with Governor Cuomo about purchasing ppe and ventilators to the nga and are you participating in that consortium has, pledged to make the Antibody Test being able to new jersey . Gov. Murphy all things are on the table. It is unusual and historic and something we are looking closely t. I will let pat callahan answer in a minute. I speak to Governor Cuomo all the time. I have not had a specific question but we would absolutely be interested in participating in thatz and we have not had a specific discussion about the antibody work that new york state is doing what we have the directional discussion about meeting to coordinate as we get back on our feet, just as we have shutting down. In antibody is part of that in the sense that we have the right Health Care Infrastructure at our disposal, not just in new jersey but certainly in our egion. Ask the processes in place. Work with the division law and the attorney generals office. Have identified those ventilators. Gov. Murphy thank you. Driveby bridges and parades, should they stop . I know some local police have asked for them to stop. Regarding inmates how can you assure that you are doing everything you can to protect hem . How is the doc determining who gets tested and what would they suspect would be the number of tests if more readily available . The state Supreme Court suggested the doc meet with the Public Defenders Office to talk about possibly releasing inmates. Do you plan to do that . Gov. Murphy on the driveway birthdays and parades we have to be careful. On one level it is very emotional when you see funerals and the firefighter who passed in passaic, pretty darn emotional. As are the ones where, you may have seen, i think it was on cnn and they showed a nurse returning home and the neighbors had masked and were social distancing but applauding. I think it just lets the acknowledgment of something that assed. But we just want to be careful because we want people to stay home. If you are in your car alone but you are still going out. I will let marcus enter the corrections. We just signed an executive order to put a process in place for folks to be released. It is not a release, it is much more equivalent to a furlough. What are we coming . Emergency medical home confinement. In terms of information and how we are getting the message out there are a couple of things hat are available. Our website has frequently asked questions. These are the questions that we have been asked many times regarding the actions that we take to mitigate covid19 that is on our website and open to the public. As far as employees are concerned, we sent out daily updates to every employee and giving them the information as to the number of positives throughout the system. As far as testing is concerned, as i said previously, everything we do is based upon direction of medical and cdc guidance. When it comes to testing, we are screening folks who have symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath. They are being sent to the ospital for testing. We believe that right now we are following prudent medical guidance and will continue to do so as we manage this crisis. Gov. Murphy thank you. Good morning, governor. We ask for a little leeway because it has been getting information. I have two generic questions one is, do you plan to continue to release data based on hispanic origin and break that out of the white and the black . Gov. Murphy we would hope to rebut we are only get a relay stated we are confident in. The second one is, some urses apparently were told there not allowed to resign during an emergency. Is that correct . Gov. Murphy judy . I dont have any information on that. We are not aware of any restrictions preventing esignation at this time. Gov. Murphy if you have specific instances not for now but maybe we could take a look at the specifics. In terms of corrections we have been hearing from staff and people in Halfway Houses. There are multiple people who are inmates who are coughing, who have fevers and are not being tested. We are told that the Halfway Houses, people are not even i guess there are daily health logs and they are no longer even asked to fill these out and are no longer being given a emperature test. There are people coughing. There are rooms where 60 people are living in the same room. There is no way for them to be social distancing. Again, why are more people not being tested and just in general, why has this taken so long . People have been warning that this is been happening here just a week ago, i think you had maybe 30 positive cases among staff and no inmates. Now you have more than tripled that. Gov. Murphy is that basically what the gist is . May i just say this . How many states in america have generally are about to do . Seven states. Gov. Murphy seven plus the eds. I would say it may have been weeks weve been hit with a tsunami and i think marcus and his team, relative to other states, an extraordinary job that does not mean we all bet 1000 1000 every day. It doesnt mean we cant do better and it doesnt mean we dont care. Not only do we need to care is one human for another regarding other circumstance, and the more coldblooded answer is if we dont break the back of this fives on this we bring all of us together. Throughout this entire process. To address specifically, it is my understanding that the temperature checks are still happening. Health logs are still being implemented. We have compliance checks from staff and we have one today at 7 00 p. M. Everything was operating as it was supposed to be. We will continue to monitor that. If you are hearing things, please let us know. In terms of testing, as i mentioned, the testing protocol we have incremented, particularly, if anyone is feeling symptoms, because those in the community are still under our jurisdiction, there is a process in place. They contact our regional facility and triaged. If they have to go to the hospital on 911, they have to go. If they come into a facility for additional screening, we have that as well. I dont believe that really anybody can make the point that they dont have access to health care if they have symptoms or if they want to move forward with testing if they are symptomatically. Gov. Murphy if you know of specific situations and specific persons and places, get them to us. E cant we strive to back 1000 but it is frankly hard to do that and we are doing the best we can, but thank you for asking. Charlie, you are going to clean up. Charlie the four staterun psychiatric hospitals, have there been any deaths . Sad to hear about the death of the corrections employee and the inmate. Can you give us the name, age, and the facility where the person was . Is it known how he or she got infected . And also want to do here about the relationship with rutgers or you mentioned some sort of arrangement that i would like to hear more. Gov. Murphy let me just say his. Judy, can you take the psychiatric hospitals and facilities . I am not sure we want to say that or know that. You just have to bear with us. The name of the corrections officer i already mentioned. I dont know the name, but for privacy reasons. I would not fill comfortable releasing the inmates name. I will do that. It was at new jersey state prison. Gov. Murphy the age of the corrections officer as i understand was 44. Yes. What was the other question you asked . Rutgers is a contracted medical provider, so they are responsible for all of the physical care we work closely with them. They are advising us, along with doh on how we are moving forward and treating patients and how we are responding to the pandemic. Gov. Murphy will have judy address the psychiatric hospitals. On individual cases, we have to balance, as you can imagine, privacy concerns with making sure folks out there and every one has information they need to live their lives in the safest way also will. Judy i have the statistics not with me but i will send them on. I will get them to you this afternoon. I just dont have them. Gov. Murphy i have a new mask with jersey colors and it is a little snug so im going to put this on as i walk out. I want to thank everyone for being with us. Our commissioner, and our doctor, thinking for being here. Pat callahan, thinking for your eadership. Marcus, it was good to have you looking at a few loose ends that we need to look at and we will do. We find it imperative to shut down before noon and it is five minutes before noon. We will see you at 1 00 tomorrow we will not see you on sunday for the time being, we will see you at 1 00 on monday and that will be separate to the white house. As you celebrate and observe the holidays, today is the most solemn day in the christian calendar for most and for those celebrating this weekend, happier reality of easter and resurrection and for those cell reading passover and for those living your lives, please stay home. Please keep your distance from others please have the memories from the past and know that we will have the ability to do that again in the future for many, many years and decades to come. Please stay home and keep your distance. You can see the early data that we are beginning one foot in front of the other and this is beginning to pay off. We are not in the end zone yet. Someday we will get there assuming all 9 million of us continue doing what we need to do. We will unequivocally get there and come together again as one new jersey family, stronger than ever before. Thank you all