Back of this thing. Once you crack the back of it, we will be able slowly but surely to get back on her feet. We will see you tomorrow. The Georgia Congress on her will serve as an important relief valve center will serve as an important relief valve for the entire state should we exceed surge capacity. We are going to make sure that facility is in a position to serve georgia. I frankly pray we dont need it, but its going to be able to support you, your family in your time of need. Thank you very much. Governor, some state governors have talked about restart the economy. President trump has also signaled his desire to get things moving by the end of the month. Is georgia ready to enter these discussions . Have you thought about whats next . A lot of people in georgia are thinking about that, especially the people out of work. I know how hard that is. I would tell people right now our focus is on the hospital surge capacity, the ability to test more, because i think we are going to need that when we go back to work. We have to look at where some of these governors are and what their state has experienced versus what we are looking at. We are a little behind the curve of where our peak is going to be , but that is certainly a date i am ready for. I think today, specifically, we have been focused on the surge ,apacity, ramping up testing doing more than we are doing to protect those vulnerable populations we have which we know, just like every other inte in the country, people longterm care facilities, people with preexisting Health Conditions, making sure we are taking care of georgians who literally, their lives were ripped apart last night in that storm. That is our focus today. We will continue to talk about that in the days ahead. With the sense of urgency you have conveyed and the need for expanding testing across the state, what are your expectations and goals about getting this testing in place and how quickly, and how can you eliminate the stayathome order on april 30 unless testing reaches a state a certain level and what would that level be . More and more private Sector Companies are coming online. I get a text from somebody every day setting up a testing lab. That is something the private sector is going to have to look at. We know we have to do a better job here in the state. I will let her speak to that. She specifically has worked on that over the last one he 448 hours. That is certainly something we have to continue to ramp up. That is the question we have to start asking when we get back to put people back to work. What is the new normal going to look like for the immediate future, maybe not for the long term on when we get a vaccine or some medicine to deal with this, but certainly in the near term, the near norm, thats something we have to address and a lot of other people are as well. To say i really admire general harden more and more every day, not the least because he can stand at attention for hours at a time and not wobble like i do. Forgive me that i cannot stand quite as erect as he does. During press conferences. Thank you for your question. If there is one thing that has clearly concerned us, i, too, the numbereports on tested. We know we need to ramp it up. Nd ramp it up quickly many hospitals have ramped up testing. Emory has a high output machine. Hey have offered they have offered testing for others in the community as well. Have over 34 testing sites at this time. We will have more by the end of the week. We probably made it too hard for people to get in because we were requiring people to get a referral from a physician. Initially, the test sites were set up to allow physicians to refer to because physicians did not want to be testing in their offices. We also want to make it easier for us to see patients. Week, all of the districts will have an opportunity for individuals to call the Health Department and schedule a time to come in and be tested as well as to be able to take referrals from health privatents and other physician offices as well. A number of labs we are using. We have a new partnership with a laboratory in sandy springs. We also have ramped up Testing Capacity using the University System and the state lab. 1000 tests aow us day. The private labs can do 2000 today. Capacityo build that very, very quickly. Does any decision on lifting the stayathome order or extending it depend on the availability of testing and what would be your goal . Anyone who wants one can get one . I would not speculate on that right now because there are a lot of moving parts that go into Something Like that. Our peak date moved. It was on the 24th, than the 20th, and now its back to the 26th. I dont really want to speculate until we get to that peak and then we can kind of see when we are coming off of it. I will say we are seeing some which makes me want to urge my fellow georgians to hunker down even more. All of the things we have been talking about, using good hand sanitations, dont go to large events. Weekend, unfortunately, we had to shut down a few parties that people were throwing in certain areas. Of parties in neighborhoods, more than on the beaches or the state parks, which is surprising. This is the time to hunker down and make sure we can flatten things out. Are going to have to start answering things and be very nimble at dealing with them, and that is what the doctor is doing today. People are doing things a month ago that many of them are not doing now. Nobody has ever been through a pandemic. People are trying different things. We have to be nimble in the days ahead. We do know we have to do this. We have to have enough hospital beds when we reach our peak. We have to do more testing and we have to continue to focus on our longterm care facilities. We have been talking about that for over a month. See moreased to guidance for transparency and making sure we are all doubling down on this issue. We are doing our part in the state. Many of our longterm care facilities are appreciative of the help. We know there could be staffing. Ssues in the days ahead focusede things we are on today. When we get on the backside of on thee can focus whatifs, what does it look like . Lord knows i am ready to do that, but today, we have to deal with the mission at hand. There is missing critical demographic information from so many of the health reports. How effectively are you filling in those gaps so that we can know about all the cases that are confirmed and who they are . I will let the doctor speak to the specifics of that. I know she has worked very hard to make sure that when we put information out that it is verified and correct. If you have a next of kin notification that needs to be honored, as you can imagine, there is no doubt we can continue to work on Getting Better data. 60 of the people did not have the racial makeup of the individual and that is something, when you look at who is being affected around the country and why that data is important to us, its also concerning, and we continue to work on that. Are you asking people who did not fill out the form completely to do so . Right now, my priority is not retrospective but perspective, making sure we get fully filled out demographic information. For our staff to go back and find 12,000 individuals and asked them that information is less valuable to us now than the way forward. We are looking at exactly what the Health Condition is. Some people think it is diabetes, hypertension, heart disease. We did not ask that. We asked if there were underlying conditions like those that cdc has noted put you at risk. You will see more and more of that on her website. We have Additional Information as a result of you and our elected officials. I appreciate that because i think itd hand says because it enhances the picture statewide. You see southwest georgia lighting up in a way that probably wasnt evident before when you saw the data on the table. Diligentlying very to get information out. As much as we have, you will be website. Ccess on the who are the people not reporting those facts . Is it Public Health or private institutions leaving it blank . Private institutions may be. We dont know. We can go back and retroactively do that, but as we ramp up our own testing, we will definitely ensure that dropdown box is checked so that demographic information, we can absolutely guarantee our own team is ramping up testing. And how the hospitals are doing, iector labs are cant say, but speaking for our recognize the importance of that. For me as an epidemiologist, ist i struggle with recognizing that much of our data is not as accurate as it needs to be. For example, the data on race. Its hard to say what is the trend. On our website, we have racial data for this now that we did not have before. Those are much more assured because we have that information on the death certificates. Moving forward, i want to be epidemiological he accurate, but i also want to be transparent. We have seen the fatality rate from covid19 in rural parts of georgia be higher than in metro atlanta. What do you think is contributing to that . For me, from what i have looked at, especially the hotspots and issues we have had to deal with in different communities across the state, the albany situation is as drastic as anywhere in the state even though we have had hotspots in places like cartersville. Issuewas a super spreader to trace back, i am pretty certain now, to a large funeral. Many of the individuals at that funeral attended another large funeral the same week. There was a big trial at the courthouse, and the next thing you know, the whole community is welling up. People worked in Nursing Homes and hospitals. Thats one of the reasons the rural numbers, especially in southwest georgia, are so bad. I did a lot of reading over the weekend about the people getting hit the hardest with this. Cardiovascular disease, you the, low immunity, a lot of respiratory, pulmonary type issues is just hammering people as well, the elderly, especially the medically fragile who are elderly like we have in our Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities. Thats one reason we have and so focused on that issue and will continue to be in the days ahead. Can you give us an update on best practices and guidelines for schools finishing out the year . Not just on Distance Learning but on things like sports. And do you have advice for people who do not have Distance Learning resources . I have been so difficult so busy dealing with surge capacity, storms, and other things that i have not checked in with the superintendent. But i know from the last press conference there are a lot of great things going on. School districts are in a tough spot because of lack of internet access, which is a bad thing. Is, we areing learning what Everybody Needs now. That something we can address and make better in the future. Far as school nutrition, our , dietitians,ties people working in the lunchrooms at our schools, they have done some incredible work. Our agony is getting hammered by community our ag is getting hammered by this right now. They are donating to the schools. I hope georgians will support their local farmer. This is the fourth thing in a row that has hurt our farmers and our agribusiness people. Theow we will be telling folks in d. C. About that as well for the fourth stimulus package. People are doing the best with what they have to work with. We will need doing better in the future because of it. We will have a task force to work on those issues in the days ahead. Do you think we could see schools start on time because lots of them started in august, some started in july, and yearround, some go as late as june. Do you think we will see schools start on time . Thats a little ways out considering a glitter considering other deadlines we have. I think its obtainable. Whether that happens or not, it may or may not, i dont want people to think its etched in stone. Its a great goal. Of thesense to many things, the way the private sector has come to the aid of , the speed that the Trump Administration and fda are working on treatments and other things i think has been pretty remarkable from what i have seen. We headed to Murray County to check on things up there. But it gives you hope out there, and thats certainly something we will be discussing in the days ahead. In the conversation with superintendent wood and many of the administrators around the state, that is an issue we will all work on together to make sure we come up with Good Solutions as well as with the University System and others. Can we talk about the windemere situation in augusta . What happens in a situation like that . How soon does the National Guard . Et deployed i will give a quick date update, and then dr. Toomey can add anything. General . Thanks for that question. ,hen we see a report like that we go through the index and look at the homes we have already provided services to. When we looked at that facility, we had been to it the day before. We continue to go back and heck the facilities we see and see if we can provide training or direct control. Today, we deployed our first Infection Control team, tomorrow will be one week, two weeks ago. We went back friday to take a look at that facility in south georgia. Time,e did this the first they had 23 positive patients out of 112. When we went back on friday, they only had five additional residents test positive for covid19. Again, anecdotal evidence, but we are now able to establish a data point. We can go back and measure our effectiveness or lack thereof and update our techniques and procedures so that we can better. To get whether its when a mirror or any of the other homes we have been involved in windemere or any of the other homes we have been involved in, we are alerted, we do testing. There may be a complication with. Ur Epidemiology Team we have four Infection Control specialists on our team. Health directors work with me directly as well as with the. Pidemiology staff in the case of windemere, i contacted frank berry to do a full court press to make sure this is addressed. But this is the way it has been working throughout the state. As far as our local health we do the testing and then mobilize the resources if needed. Of questionslot about Antibody Testing as a race for the cure. Everybody wants to know, at least in georgia, where do we see that timeline . How can people donate or help out with that . There are two separate questions. Plasma,ant to donate emery is doing a study right now and i know several people who have donated. There may be other universities doing state as well studies and asking people who have recovered from covid to participate. The antibodies is more difficult thing. We dont really know if you test positive for antibodies if that means you are protected from future infections. We are waiting for that data. We will be working with local hospitals to study that as we go forward. Really the question, isnt it . Mean you aret once protected for the rest of your life, the rest of the season, or is it like flu that you can get over and over again because it changes constantly . We dont know that. Right now, our primary focus is getting a test for everyone who needs it, eventually opening up to everyone with symptoms as well as those as at highest risk. This question is from the coney media group. Had aeekend, a hospital second employee die who tested positive for covid19. 36 patients and have and staffers have tested positive. Questions have been raised about how personal protection was handled. Do you have a comment on how it was handled and on the leadership of the hospital . I would refer how that was handled to judy fitzgerald. I know she has been involved with that. Was signifying i my sympathy to that group, how hard those folks are working in the hospital. If there are other details on how something was handled, we can get that information. I would not want to speak to that because i dont have firsthand knowledge. I dont know if dr. Toomey or anyone else up here does. The folks in the community are concerned in general about how it was handled. Look, if somebody thinks something was not handled properly, we have a covid19 hotline. I encourage them to call it. I personally have not heard from folks in that area about that incident. That does not mean somebody hasnt been called, but i have no firsthand knowledge of that, so i wouldnt want to speak to it. This state before covid had a high rate of uninsured. With a lot of job loss, we expect to see that go up. Do you expect higher medicaid enrollments as a result . What could be done with the uninsured who dont qualify for that . Rethinking about the waiver or the Medicaid Expansion . Continue to work on the waiver and our innovative ways to tackle the high cost of Health Insurance in our state. All of those reforming the ioken medicaid program, and think our waivers are going to be very innovative in regards to that. Obviously, with the coronavirus, the task of our administration as well as cms ia well i dont want to speak for the director, but i know they are all hands on deck in response to this virus. There are things we will continue to look at them work on look at and work on in the days ahead. Do you want to give a ppe update real quick and anything else on the storm today . Good afternoon. We all know that this is a issue that no one thing can fix. Surge beds cannot fix it by themselves. Ppe cannot fix it by itself. It is a combination of all of solveworking together to the issue and to move us forward. Ppe continues to be a struggle for us. It is a struggle for every state in the nation. It is a struggle for the world at this point. But we have worked diligently with federal partners. We have had some success in the private sector. We have been very fortunate with donations, and we are making strides in providing the ppe necessary for medical folks and first responders. Regarding the weather this , unfortunately, the forecast was correct this time. Dont say that very often. Pretty confident predictions there was going to be Severe Weather last night. Agency outrated our of an abundance of caution because of covid19. We had people in our state workingn center remotely. We worked remotely to stand up and operate a separate command structure and to partner with private, local, and other state partners to manage the weather event last night and into today. Do we know how many tests are being done per day at the georgia tech drivethrough facility . I know they have the ability to do up to 1000. We can get that for you. Thank you, everybody. Cspan has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response , ande coronavirus pandemic it is all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch White House Briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u. S. In the world with interactive maps. ,atch ondemand any time unfiltered, at cspan. Org coronavirus. Tonight, a special edition of washington journal on the federal response to the coronavirus. Join us at 8 00 p. M. Eastern with dr. Anthony faucher, a member of the Coronavirus Task force, and then, michael chang, director of Infectious Diseases at the university of alabama on the national fight against coronavirus and his own experience contracting and recovering from the disease. Prime time,journal tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, on cspan. Look at the White House Briefing room where in just a few minutes President Trump will brief reporters on the coronavirus response. We expect Vice President pence and members of the task force to also join the president. Good morning. I am the executive Vice President fo