Lossoflife and Property Damage was not as dire as it was in other states, so we are very grateful. While in the middle of the covid19 virus, certainly, we are all concerned about our our health. No many of our friends are also having the extra burden of having to deal with a damaged home or vehicle. We all know that you can replace a building, but you cannot restore your loved ones. We are grateful that no lives were lost in our state on sunday. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with our neighbors to the east and the west. They have certainly had a lot more of the deaths than we have, and Property Damage as well. Im offering to governors reeves, kemp, and edwards, our condolences in this time of loss in their states, and we will offer to provide any resources they would find useful. That is what neighbors do. Neighbors help neighbors. Turning our attention back to the covid19 pandemic, i want to give you a more indepth update on the progress we are making with our current stayathome order, which runs through april 30. While i am personally grateful that so many people appear to be staying at home and taking the order to heart, all indicators suggest it is working. I cannot overemphasize enough the importance in fact, it is imperative that we keep doing what we are doing. Now is not the time to let our guard down and pretend that things are back to normal. While some of the modeling suggests our efforts have been paying dividends, many around the state are beginning to ask what are our plans about reopening the economy. That is the same question that other governors are getting, and that President Trump is getting, and World Leaders are being asked as well. In these few minutes, allow me to give the people of alabama an update on our plans to open our economy back. Along with a timeline in hopes that all things being equal, we can stick to this roadmap, in all honesty, we have been working on such a plan for several weeks. As many of you know, i recently asked Lieutenant Governor ainsworth to get the Small Business commission, which he chairs, to begin looking for ways where we can restart the economic engine of our state, especially our smaller businesses. As everyone knows, this is not a simple process like flipping a light switch. With the Lieutenant Governor what the Lieutenant Governor and this commission have been working with the Lieutenant Governor to bring forward a set of recommendations that i trust will be valuable and helpful, and i hope to see their input by this coming friday. Over the weekend, my office contacted each of the Seven Members of our congressional delegation to ask that they look at this challenge on a district by district basis, setting up their own individual working groups in their respective districts. I was so pleased that all seven immediately jumped on board to be helpful. As i have said before, grove hill is not gadsden, and decatur is not the same as dover. It is especially true that there are many economic differences in our state, as there are geographic and regional differences. Our house delegation will have the report back on or before april 22. As you would expect, i am getting a lot of advice and i admit there is a lot of free advice on what we could do, should do, or first do to get the economy going again. The staff is taking every suggestion serious and we are looking at it, and weve had some good ones come in already. I intend to take all of the suggestions and recommendations and ask six members of my Coronavirus Task force to help my administration begin to vet all of these good ideas. These six individuals will serve on my executive committee, and they will work to put together a thoughtful, well planned timeline for us to open up the economy. Keep in mind, though, that these recommendations will have to be carefully integrated into the advice we are receiving from dr. Harris and the medical team of experts from throughout the state. On or before april the 28th, dr. Harris and i will review these recommendations so we can provide an updated plan of action before the current stayathome order expires on april 30. Going forward, we will hopefully be able to get regular updates on what segments of the economy to open,in a position including when and how, while also allowing our businesses ample time to plan for a safe, responsible reopening. This will be a roadmap that will help alabama begin our road to recovery. As governor, i have the responsibility to look out for both the health of our people as well as our Economic Health. On a Conference Call yesterday with my secretary of labor, i was reminded that we have had more than 264,000 people file for unemployment in alabama in just the last four weeks. That is in stark contrast to the number of unemployment that was filed a year ago in 12 months, 130,000. We can take the Economic Health and wellbeing of our state seriously, just as we can look after the safety and wellbeing of our people. We can do both of these things at the same time, and thats what coming together, alabama is all about. That is our task at hand and i am confident we can handle both of these tasks that the same time. Now i would like to ask dr. Harris to come forward and give us an update on the pandemic, and comment on things we have i may have mentioned, as well as he. Dr. Harris . Thank you, governor. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here today. Our latest numbers show that there are about 3800 confirmed cases so far in the state. Just over 100 deaths, we are still in a process of confirming those. We have confirmed about three quarters of those. Most if not all of this will be confirmed. About 100 deaths so far. Hospitals have reported they have about 400 inpatients currently who have tested positive for the virus that causes covid19. There is around another 600 or so inpatients who are currently being tested. Not all of those will turn out to be cases of covid19. Some of them certainly well. I would say that is about where we expected that we would be. We have seen a lot of modeling change, as you know, over the past week, and even the past two days. Our predictions look a lot better than we first thought when we were talking about this a month ago. Models certainly do change as we get closer to the time of an expected surge. It looks at this time that we feel fairly confident that whatever surge we might see in the next week or so can be handled within the hospitals, it is exactly what we would like to see. We certainly have been worried that we would have not enough Hospital Capacity or we would need to have an alternative care site in different areas to take care of patients. At the moment, that does not appear to be the case, although we still have some turnkeyready facilities we feel like to be up and running quickly, should we need to do that. At the moment, the numbers look as good as we have seen them, so we are very encouraged by that. The reason that that has changed is because people have been taking seriously the order to stay at home. There is certainly some changing in the mathematics and statistics and looking at other things that affect the model. The thing that has affected the modeling the most is that we have the state at home orders large have, by and been taking seriously. Very gratified this week to get photographs of people who were sending pictures of their easter services. There were people meeting in their cars and in the parking lots, or meeting at home. It was very gratifying just to see people were really taking seriously and trying to live their lives and still respecting what we have asked them to do. We know we will continue to see cases. We are working very hard to make sure we can test everyone that needs to be tested, as quickly as possible. We have testing capabilities. Not necessarily every day, but pretty much every day in about 57 counties. We still have a few more we are looking to get set up. We have the ability to test in every county, although not as completely as we would like. We also want to be sure we can do Contact Tracing on all the people who do test positive, that we can reach close contacts, and we can isolate people who need to be isolated. In public health, we are working hard to add to our capacity to do this. We are shifting employees from other parts of the agency into roles where they can do Contact Tracing. We normally have a fairly small staff for doing this. At the moment, we have just around quadruple the number of people and we plan to add a lot more as we can get them, to get them trained, so we can continue to do this. Overall, very encouraged. I think i do want to remind you again of the Health Disparity that we see from covid19. This is a disease that disproportionately affects our africanamerican citizens in our state. Like many health disparities, whether it is Heart Disease or infant mortality or certain types of cancer, this is a disease that has worse outcomes in people that already have other social determinants like Chronic Health problems, or just issues related to education and income. This is a big concern for public health. We want to make sure our most vulnerable citizens are the one we are protecting and we are committed to continuing to do that. We certainly welcome this plan the governor has today. The governor has done a tremendous job in leading this effort. It is her orders that have saved peoples lives, and it is the reason we are in position to even be having this conversation. I really respect that and thank you very much for what you have done. Thank you. Gov. Ivey kim chandler, do you want to start us off . Kim is this something that will happen all at once . It has to be a reason to process, so it will be over time in segment by segment or region by region, because one size does not fit all. That is why you have the delegation for the respective districts and we will have six team members on the committee to fit. It will be phased in, segment by segment. It is different from what a manufacturing or a retail store needs to do. We want to get folks back to work as soon as we can, but we want to do it as smart as we can. Yes maam . Reporter governor, President Trump recently said he has total authority over when states can open up their economies. The restrictions on covid19, what are your thoughts on that . Does the president have total authority, or will you lead the charge and say, ok, now, or is is the time for alabama to open up if the federal government is not on board with that . Gov. Ivey we certainly want to work with our fellow governors across the nation and also with the president , but what works in alabama works in alabama. We may have some ideas they have not thought of, and they may have some ideas we have not thought of. We will certainly Work Together and cooperate. We are doing what we believe to be in the best interest of alabamians to get back to work any reasonable, orderly manner. Justter dr. Harris reiterated that covid19 is a lot worse for people with preexisting conditions like diabetes and so forth. Those tend to be bad in rural areas where there are a lot of poor people. Has this pandemic and the circumstances caused you to more strongly consider expanding medicare and Medicaid Services . You previously said all options are on the table. Are you changing because of what happened here. Gov. Ivey we are concerned about the health of all her citizens, wherever they may live. At the same time, it would be irresponsible to think about expanding medicaid just for the sake of expanding medicaid, without having a complete and honest discussion about the source of Stable Funding to pay, etc. It is an option. Im aware the interest is there. There is a lot of exploring that has to be done on how you pay for it. Reporter are you exploring finding a stable source of funding . Gov. Ivey we are trying to make a plan when we can get our people back to work. Yes, sir. Reporter around the world in yourtions i plans to restart the economy, what is the factor of [inaudible] gov. Ivey that is the reason we want to be sure we are working as soon as we can come about as smart as we can, to reopen the economy, because we could have a resurgence of this virus even this fall we have got to be prepared and nimble enough to meet that crisis, should it present itself. Over here. Reporter yes, governor. What specific benchmarks are you for, for determining when and how you want to reopen alabamas economy . Gov. Ivey i dont know that we need to have benchmarks. We are working to have a plan in place that will allow every region and geographic location, and every type of industry to have a say so in the steps that are needed for that respective industry to get up and running in a responsible manner. Yes, sir . Reporter when do you expect to see the peak of virus in alabama . When can we expect to see the peak or the flattening of the curve . Gov. Ivey i think sometime between april 20 and april 22. Dr. Harris yes maam. That is exactly right. We think the peak demand for hospital beds will be around the 20th. Im sorry, for icu beds will be around the 20th. The peak demand for total hospital beds may be a day or so earlier than that. But certainly within the next 6, 7, 8 days. Something like that. Reporter [inaudible] this is already a vulnerable population. Is that oversized [indiscernible] dr. Harris sure, Nursing Homes are very vulnerable populations. We have been engaged very closely with Nursing Homes since before we had our first case. Nursing homes do a very good job of thinking about infections and thinking about outbreaks, because they do have a vulnerable population that is confined and so flu season, for example, or gastrointestinal illnesses are things they have to think about and deal with on a regular basis. They do spend a lot of time working on their Infection Control plans. What we have brought to them are other ideas about how they can deal with actual cases, so for example, when we have known positive patients who are not sick enough to be hospitalized, we are encouraging them to keep cohort those patients to keep those patients and perhaps a single wing or even a separate building, if that is possible, to have dedicated staff and dedicated equipment to use only for those patients that are known to be positive. In many cases where we have had outbreaks, they have proceeded with trying to determine if people have asymptomatic infected people, as well, and that allows us to isolate those people as necessary. Our Nursing Homes are always having to work very carefully with hospitals, particularly when they are receiving a patient who has been diagnosed as infected, been hospitalized, and is returning to a nursing home. They want to make sure those patients are no longer infectious and are clear, so there are a number of ways that we are working with them to make sure their people are protected. They are probably the most Vulnerable Group we have in our state. Reporter can you talk briefly about the effect of covid19 on the Africanamerican Community . [inaudible] dr. Harris yeah, absolutely. Africanamerican alabamians are very susceptible to severe disease, as we know. We spent a great deal of time working with Senate Minority leader senator singleton on ideas that he has had, particularly in his district, but also statewide, in terms of reaching out to hospitals, providers, helping them understand the particular susceptibility they have. We are trying hard to communicate and get the message out. We think sometimes the problem is, we are not able to communicate as effectively as we would like to. We struggle sometimes getting people aree out that susceptible and at risk. Over the past two weeks or the last weekend a half, we have seen a lot of evidence that the message is getting out. People are not having the same kind of gatherings we have seen before. They are not having, for example, the Large Services we have seen before, although they are finding ways to meet. It has been a little bit of a challenge to get that message right. We think we are improving there. Reporter can you explain your reasoning behind why bigbox stores can stay open when there are other Stores Selling similar items, with similar sanitation policies, and they have less people . What is the reasoning behind that . Gov. Ivey the Big Box Stores have a limitation of 50 of the fire marshals occupancy rate. They are limited to how many can be in the store in a given time. They follow similar protocols. They can have 50 gov. Ivey maybe some of the recommendations when we come forward will start to open up more businesses. Reporter [inaudible] gov. Ivey what is your question . Reporter system of winners and losers behind store closures . Gov. Ivey the issue is not who can open and who can close. Keeping people separated and apart, and limit contact with people. That is the initiative. Certainly, we can make improvements as we go along. We will continue to do so. At the same time, the focus is on physical distancing and limiting the exposure to groups of people. [inaudible] ventilators going forward. Dr. Harris in terms of ppe and ventilators, it is a day by day calculation. Right now, our best calculations on ventilators is that we are ok we believe the capacity in the state, which includes additional ventilators we have acquired and some others that should be here any minute we think we have covered the number of patients who are going to need those, particularly as our hospitals are pretty good at sharing with each other at these particular times. We think we are ok on that. Ppe is a different issue altogether. There is a worldwide shortage of ppe. The supply lines are completely changed. It is different for everyone, everywhere to get ppe, and we find ourselves trying to compete with other states for the same limited supplies. I think that is going to be an issue as we open the economy up. In that we probably will have chances are we will see recommendations about different kinds of behavior, just forever just for average citizens, people who are going out in public and wearing masks, or who are in certain types of workplaces, having to wear some degree of ppe. We continue to try to source that everywhere we can. The governor has an assets team that has done a great job of finding ppe for us. In public health, we do not know how to evaluate a business offer from china. The department of commerce and the Governors Team are going to do those things. We have been able to track some things down. We have made a significant purchase or placed a significant order over the weekend that we hope to get in the next few days. It is just day by day. Reporter governor, i just want to clarify the timeline. You are saying no currently closed businesses will be reopened before may 1 . Governor, i just want to clarify the timeline. Were saying no currently closed businesses, by order of the state, will be reopened before may 1 . Gov. Ivey i hadnt said anything about me first. May 1. The stayathome order goes through april 30. Reporter dr. Harris, both you and Governor Ivey have said the stayathome order is working. What are the indicators you are looking at . Gov. Ivey just look at this week ands traffic. The traffic account was much lower than an easter weekend Traffic Count usually is. That is a strong indicator that folks are staying at home and paying attention and doing what they ought to do. Reporter i was asking if there is any chance that some businesses will be open before april 30 . April 30. Gov. Ivey it is possible. A couple more questions. Brian . Reporter hillary coordinated effort is there a coordinated effort is there a regional plan for reopening the economy . Gov. Ivey we will share our plan, but i have not been asked by any other state. Nor have i reached out to another state and said what are you all doing . Workingaid, we have an on developing this plan for several weeks now because we all want to get back to work and we want all our people to have aced a good paying job. We had a Strong Economy going into this. To that, butt back we have to do it in a planned, methodical method to give businesses ample time and opportunity to gear back up and find some creative ways to do their businesses that they have not thought about before. We have a question right here. Reporter governor, a lot of people in the state have changed their lives for social distancing. How is that working for you . Are you working from the mansion more . Are you limiting how often you are around people . Gov. Ivey im staying alone wherever it is i am, as much as i can. Im relying a lot on technology to stay in touch with groups of mayors or county commissioners or hospital ceos. Legislators, etc. Technology, we are utilizing that. Probably working twice as hard as before, but that is what we are doing. One more question. Reporter you mentioned in your remarks that there are over 200,000 alabamians who are out of work right now, through no fault of their own. What message to all of those people at home watching this, their lives are completely changed. Can you speak to what the department of labor is doing . To process those claims faster . Gov. Ivey the department of labor time is working overtime around the clock to process these claims. Like i said, in the last four weeks, they had 264,000 applications, compared to 130,000 in 12 months last year. It is an overload. They are working to stay on top of it as best they can. Anybody who has made an application will be attended to. Dont feel like you are going to be left out. Youll get attended to. It is a matter of patience. Reporter what words of wisdom would you offer to people who are watching right now . That are out of work . Gov. Ivey the bottom line is the stayathome order has only been in place a little over a week, and it takes at least two full weeks before you can get any kind of data to evaluate. April 17 is friday. That will be two weeks. I know two weeks maybe sounds like a long time to stay by yourself or with just your family, but time flies when you are having fun. It is just imperative that we continue to stay at home and practice social distancing. One more question. Reporter [inaudible] gov. Ivey that is just speculation. I have got these teams in place. We are going to listen to them and evaluate the information we get. Hope springs eternal. Thank yall. Has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. And it is all available ondemand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps, watch ondemand any time, unfiltered at cspan. 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