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

Good afternoon are three people who need no introduction. The woman to my right, the commissioner of the department of health, and to her right, the state epidemiologist, and the man on my left, the state police superintendent. Also joining us per usual is the director of the office of Homeland Security preparedness, Deputy Council of the guard. One quick reminder that is off given the date we the find ourselves meeting, is before i go through our discussion, a quick reminder that although today is april 15, your state tax returns are not due today. Pursuant to the legislation that i signed actually yesterday, you now have until july 15. And the three month extension is automatic. You need do nothing. Just want to remind folks of that. Now we want to get to the numbers up front if we can. Today we are reporting an additional 2625 positive test results and a total of 71,030 new jerseyans have now tested positive. According to our online dashboard, accessible again for gov, as of 10 00 p. M. Last night, 8270 residents were reported hospitalized, of whom 1980 were listed in either critical or intensive care, and 1705 ventilators were in use. 39 patients are at one of our field medical stations. And between 10 00 p. M. Monday and 10 00 p. M. Last night, 709 residents were discharged from our hospitals, and that is good news. Additionally, we are now adding daily reports from our three veterans homes to our online dashboard. We know these facilities are a specific point of concern, as they should be, god bless our veterans, and especially come obviously, for those veterans themselves who are living there, we must remain committed to them. These reports will be updated when the department of military veteran Affairs Receives their data from these homes come i believe at approximately 3 00 p. M. Some more on that as we get it. As we know, every day, all of these numbers are just a snapshot in time. Overnight changes are late reports may not yet be reflective in the data posted. And remember, too, that for our health care facilities, this remains a very fluid situation. And with the heaviest of hearts, we also have the duty to report another 351 deaths among our extraordinary new jersey family do covid19related complications. The overall cost in lives to our state from covid19 now sits at 3156 blessed souls. I do want to put a couple of numbers into a broader perspective. Judy and i have hit this point, but it is worth hitting again. First, the number of deaths that we report on any given day does not mean we lost that many residents literally in the past 24 hours since we were gathered. In some cases, these are residents who we have lost within the past several days, but the determination into the wese of death means that now are counting them among our covid19 losses. There have been several reports about the number of deaths announced yesterday. While, yes, yesterdays number was our largest single reporting number eight todays is right behind, a significant number of these deaths occurred over the easter weekend and are only now being reported. Is that fair to say, judy . Additionally, the overall number of positive test results we report is cumulative since our first case was announced on march 4. Of these, roughly 54,000 of the total of just over 71,000 have been reported in the month of april so far. Given that it is april 15 and i think the experts to my right would suggest plus or minus a twoweek incubation period is still the expected reality with coronavirus, that means approximately 17,000 individuals have not exhibited that twoweek incubation period. Sadly we lost some of those folks come in no doubt about it, but it is a plus or minus of about 17,000 that are outside of that incubation period. As we see the daily overall number of overall positive test results rise, we should also keep in mind that every day there are hundreds, if not thousands, of residents have received a prior positive test result who have now likely and may stayvirus that way. These are just contextual aspects to these numbers that i think we should all bear in mind, but they should not be seen in any way as lessening either the gravity of the situation, the strain on our Health Care System and our state, or our need for preparedness, and they in no way ease the pain of the families who have lost loved ones and the communities who have lost people who made life a little better and a little brighter in all of the bath cases all of the above cases. I would like to remember three such individuals today at first up, eugene jean thomas. There he is on the right, a guy known for his hats, and he is wearing a pretty coal one right there. He was a fixture in his beloved bridgewood where he lived his whole life, and here he is with the bridgewood mayor. Fewad just turned 78 a weeks ago, i believe on the day he was admitted to the hospital. As his daughter jackie put it, and i spoke to her earlier today, even though some may not have known him personally, they would always see him in town walking down the avenue with his hat on and carrying his beautiful smile. He was also apparently somewhat famous for taking pound cakes. He worked in a drycleaning business, but his love was music, everything from gospel to blues. And the music he recorded in the 1960s is still played today. He leaves his daughter jackie and her family, three granddaughters and a grandson due next month. He is also survived by his brother, two sisters, nieces, nephews, and a Tremendous Community of friends. I spoke to jackie, and she is in florida, and because of all that we are going through cannot even get up here to be with her dad. So our heart goes out to her and her family in his memory. Next up, lieutenant danny francis. Danny worked for nearly 16 years for the essex county prosecutors office, so to ted stevens and team at that office, our hearts are with you. After retiring, he kept going as a civilian analyst for the new york police department, and to our brothers and sisters in the Newark Police department, our hearts go out to you, as well. Danny was only 51 years old when we lost him on monday. To know a little bit about his career, consider this, in 2006, he was recognized by the 200 club of essex county for valor in the line of duty for risking his own life to take down a known drug trafficker. He leaves behind his wife, sarita vega, and i spoke to her this morning, and she herself is a detective with the essex county prosecutors office. He leaves his wife, along with two adult children, another in the college, and a sixyearold son. State, we thank danny for his career of Public Service and for his longstanding excellent work to keep our neighborhoods safe. We will keep him and his family in our thoughts and in our prayers. God rest his soul. Finally, we wish to recognize the legacy of jaclyn cruz towns and there she is on the right. Many know her as the mother of new Jersey Basketball legend and nba star carl anthony towns, but she was much more. She was a family matriarch and a constant presence, not just in her sons life but that of everyone who knew her. She also spent, by the way, 20 years working at rutgers university. Alsousband, carl, sr. , contracted covid19 but is recovering, and we keep him in our prayers, as well. One story noted that it may have who carl anthony, sr. , taught his son the skills to play ball, but he got his immersion his emotional support from his mom. She was only 58 years old. To carl anthony and his dad, and i spoke to them both this morning, and their entire family in the broader basketball community, we send our deepest condolences. God rest her soul. And i can say today without any doubt in new jersey, we are all timberwolves fans today. These are only three individuals out of what is now 3156 lives that we have lost to this disease. We do not take any pride or joy in recounting these stories, saying these names, and seeing these faces, and knowing there are quite literally thousands more we can memorialize, it does not make our pain or your pain or any of our pain and grief any less. But these lives should be the inspiration we need to keep working to defeat covid19 and to lower the toll this enemy is having on our blessed state. I have said it many times before, we have taken among the most aggressive positions of any state in america to slow the spread of this illness. We have asked you to make tremendous sacrifices with us in this fight. I know some of them may seem like nuisances, but every step we have taken has been made out of sheer necessity. I promise you that. I will turn to a map we have been looking at every day recently. The lighter the shade of the county, the better it is, and we are getting new jersey lighter and lighter, and that is a good thing. The less bright orange we see, the slower the spread. That means we are flattening the curve, which not only means we are keeping people from getting covid19 but that we are also lessening some of the emmons strain on our Health Care Systems. We are continuing to do everything we can to prepare for the absolute worst. As was said, we have already been able to increase Hospital Capacity statewide, judy, i think by 60 , and we have set up three field medical stations in partnership with the u. S. Army corps of engineers, and we have beds set aside for our residents on the u. S. Comfort. I want to put a name on this, whose campton captain joe obrien, a new jersey native, and as my son sam reminds me, he is a graduate of red bank catholic, by the weight or nothing, and i do mean nothing, would make us happier to come out of this realizing that we are over prepared. That would be our new best case scenario. The best mistakes we ever made in our lives. Because if we do, that means that you will have done the hard work of helping us pull through this. It means you took to heart our call to keep the social distance, not just most of the time but sometimes but at all times and to stay at home unless you absolutely need to go out or unless you are needed as one of the folks who are either an essential worker or hoping us fight this virus. This is a war. It is the fight of our lives, onewars are not won by person or one small group. They are won when millions of people come together in a common cause. Our cause right now is totally flattening the curve and then seeing it drop down the other side. And then we can begin the process responsibly, along with our neighbors, of reopening our state and beginning to live life in our new normal. But we only get there if this entire map in front of us gets to its lightest shade and stays there. This is no time to let up. We have got to keep at it, and i have to say this again, although i think the weather for the next few days is not going to be terribly hospitable, but it will be sooner than later when the weather look at better. All of us are anxious to break free. We completely understand that, thatt that we accept completely. We cant we have to stay home. Look at the progress on that map. This is making a huge difference. Undeniably, 10 days now, the positive test results are now meaningfully less. We need to keep it that way. We need to flatten that curve, which means zero people get fewer people get infected, if you are in hospitals, if you are in intensive care, fewer kneading ventilators, and please, god, fewer people who pass. As we continue to do that, judy and christina and pat and all of their colleagues are building up the capacity of beds, healthcare workers, ventilators, medicines, personal protective equipment, again, so ross at ae lines c reasonable level and date. That is the charge for the 9 million of us. So far, so good. No state has come close to what we have done in new jersey. We could all not be prouder of the work that everyone is doing. We have just got to keep it up. Do not take your foot off the gas, folks. Stay on this. I know you are itching to get out and get back to normal, and so am i. Who can blame you . We cant. We just cant yet. I promise you, the second we think we can, we will let you know that. You have my word. But for now, stay home. Stay six feet or more apart. By the way, i meant to say this, judy, there have been some great homages. One was sent to me for healthcare workers, and you are on the text, and they were gathering somewhere in Monmouth County over the past couple of days. So the good news as everyone had a mask on. The bad news is they were not six feet apart. That, i want to repeat nothing trumps social distancing. Six feet apart at minimum. Putting a mask on, even a crazy one like this, does not give you permission to get closer than six feet. Toplease, folks, we want celebrate our heroes and healthcare workers, First Responders, essential workers, warehouse and supply chain workers, longshoremen, we wanted to do that with you, but we have got to stay apart from each other. We cannot congregate, even if we are wearing a mask. Stay on it, folks. You have done an extraordinary job. We will win this was unequivocally we will win this war i know could publicly unequivocally. But you have to stay at it. Switching gears, good conversation this morning with secretary mnuchin, talking about, again, the important need, the overwhelming need for support and financial help from the federal government, and he gets it, to his credit, and were just working through it. I spoke to senator menendez shortly thereafter and reiterated the same point. Individuals needed who are unemployed, and extraordinary over 500,000 people that have lost their jobs, and Small Businesses needed in a big way. The state of new jersey needs direct cash assistance from the federal government. It was a good conversation, and a good conversation following up with senator menendez, comparing notes in mentioning this point significantly. On testing, of our two fema partnered testing sites, both tomorrow, april 16, and friday, april 17 i want everyone to hear that come about tomorrow, april 16, and friday, april 17, only the Bergen Community college site will be open, from 8 00 a. M. Each day, maximum of 500 tests. You have to be a jersey resident and some domestic and symptom attic. Arts center will open saturday, april 18, exclusively for symptomatic First Responders and healthcare workers. It will reopen to the general public on monday, april 20. Repeat, Bergen Community college, april 16 and 17, so tomorrow and friday. For saturday and just symptomatic First Responders and healthcare workers. Then they will go back to a regular schedule on monday. I mentioned this yesterday. It has been clear that we have had an imbalance between folks showing up to get tested at the Bergen Community college versus arts center. So for folks, as you think about planning your days, this is relevant for next week because we will get a different schedule for the next couple of days. Think through whether or not you can pivot to home dell h omedale because the lines have been shorter. There are two sites listed at covid19. Nj. Gov testing. Additionally, there are roughly 40 more privately run sites that your primary Care Practitioner can send you to for testing if you meet the requirements for testing. I think the total number remains at about 66 locations in the state. We have been in regular, i would say constant, and deep contact for some time with the team at especially with the team with dr. Brad strohm, and we have been in discussion with the white house, and rutgers got a shout out yesterday, which was nice to hear. In the white house notified of the fda approval for the rutgers developed a saliva test and the potential for this new system to be put in widespread use to help us meet our testing needs. And i reached out this morning and left a message for professor andrew brooks, who is part of that team. We are working intensely with her and with Middlesex County to rule out this new testing system, and we will closely monitor how everything goes. Nationally, and you have heard this before but it bears repeating, resources and ppe have been limiting factors to the testing regime, and we know what we need, and we will advance every opportunity to increase mass testing. It is incredibly gratifying, a source of great pride for all of us to see new jerseys own Flagship University stepping up testing gap. The i am proud of the work at rutgers and look forward to moving forward with them. I know judy and her team joins me in that. As i said yesterday, we are not alone in our desire to have more sites and more tests. We have wanted that from moment one. Every state in the nation is facing the same issue we are. Thewe also have conducted most tests of any american state him and the only states which have conducted more tests are states whose population are significantly larger, new york, california, florida. This does not mean, however, that i am not continuing to push more testing supplies and support at every opportunity. I have made this clear to the white house and to our congressional delegation. We have seen some successes, and we have received the commitment sites at to keep our both Bergen Community college in the Pnc Bank Arts Center up and running through at least the end of may. We are a rare state they got that support. As i said, i will not let up until we have everything we need to successfully flight fight covid19, whether that be testing supplies, personal protective equipment, ventilators. You name it, were going to turn over every stone, anywhere, literally, in the world to get what new jersey needs. By the way, at the same time, were going to continue to ask each of you who can help us to please continue to step forward. If you have any ppe to donate, no matter how large or small your stockpile, please reach out to us at covid19. Nj. Gov ppedonations. You can see the website right there. If you have Prior Experience in emt or paramedic or as a physician or a respiratory therapist or any of the other medical specialties, we need you among our volunteer corps. Please visit covid19. Nj. Gov volunteer to sign up. A couple more brief items before i turn it over. First my want to recognize another one of the truly good stories that is coming out of this emergency. This one was sent to us by our dear friend and great leader, senator loretta weinberg, and she lives in teaneck, which has been one of the bergen countys communities most impacted by covid19. It is one of the communities most impacted in the state if not this country. The science dr. For the teaneck schools, there he is on the left, came across the plans online for producing face shields. His first thought was how to make enough to make a difference. Using his own personal 3d printer and borrowing three others from the teaneck schools and with the support of the teaneck tto and alongside one of his students, the gentleman on the right, a sophomore, he has been able to turn his home into a mini face shield factory. They just donated their first 340 face shields to Holy Name Medical Center in teaneck, and god knows they could use all the help they can get. They have been incredible heroes in this fight. Additionally, the teaneck schools have donated the goggles normally set aside for use in their science labs and gloves from their nurses offices to members of the townships ambulances. This is the essence of the Community Coming together. So to the teaneck public schools, nj thanks you. And we ask you all to continue highlighting the everyday people doing extraordinary things by nsing hashtag njthanks you o on social media, and we will share those stories. Finally, i want to pay tribute to two folks who did not literally die directly from the covid19 reality, but they have passed. First one, i just spoke to his litman who was 90 years old and died from reasons other than covid19. We do not have his picture because i called an audible of the line of scrimmage. Worden was chairman of the Hackensack Meridian Health system, which is extraordinary that he left us in the middle of this fight. His widow said to me, unequivocally, he would be right there with bob garrett and the rest of the team in the engine room. He was a giant in our state. Gordon, god bless you, and we wish ann nothing but the best and have her in our prayers. And we lost a dear friend and great leader, as well, yesterday ofour state, a dear friend mine, professional Firefighters Association of new jersey president dominic marino. Not sure why but known to many , notwithstanding his name was dominic. We did not lose him to covid19, but his loss leaves a huge hole in the hearts of many, including yours truly. I put it last night in statement, as a firefighter, dominic would run into burning buildings, but he would just as quickly run through walls if it meant helping his fellow firefighters. Members a reason his look to him. He never stopped working for them, never stop thinking about them, and never stopped living and breathing the life of a firefighter. Personally, dominick was a friend whose opinion i greatly valued, especially in matters related to his members. Whenever i leave office, one of the greatest days of pride i look back on would be the day i signed the 21st century First Responders act. That law gives our firefighters and members of Law Enforcement greater protections when their health is impacted by their line of duty work, like the illnesses that many suffered as a result of their efforts at ground zero following 9 11. Getting that law passed was one of his great passions. It might as well have been named frankly. Inick, he was by my side when i signed that bill, and i am forever honored to have been the governor signed it. Beyond that, whenever a firefighter a department needed help, he was there. He was oneofakind, a firefighter firefighter. To his wife, ellen, with whom i spoke yesterday, and you can only imagine, he literally dropped dead yesterday afternoon, and their three children, and i spoke to his daughter rachel, and patent as well as a new jersey state trooper and someone i have known over the past couple of years, he leaves two grandchildren. We thank you all for sharing dominic with us over the years, and he will be deeply missed by many in this state. To you, dominick, god bless you, buddy. Thank you for your service per you will never be forgotten. With that, please help me welcome the woman who needs no couldnt introduction, the commissioner to the department of health. Thank you, governor. The department of health continues to work aggressively with our partners to expand our bed capacity in the state. Two field medical stations, have opened, edison and secaucus, and we expect Atlantic City to open next week. The secaucus site currently has 47 patients. 25 more will be accepted this afternoon. And overall, they have already served a total of 79 patients and discharged 32 of them. The edison field station currently has 14 patients. 10 more will be admitted this afternoon. Overall, that field station has served 19 patients and discharged five to date. These field medical stations come along with the brickandmortar hospitals that we are bringing up, will provide more than 1600 additional beds in our state, and these beds, in addition to the work that all of our hospitals have done to increase their capacity will help us handle the surge that we are in in the north and expecting throughout new jersey. Last evening our hospitals reported 8270 hospitalizations of patients with covid19 or persons under investigation. The daily growth rate in hospitalizations is 3 , down from the observed rate of 4 yesterday. Individuals in critical care, and 1705 of those individuals on ventilators. That is 21 of the hospitalized patients with covid19 or persons under investigation on ventilators. 86 of the icu patients are on ventilators, slightly down from number ofof 97 a days ago. Since april 4, there have been 6300 patients diagnosed with covid19 or persons under investigation discharged from our hospitals. So while the numbers we report 6000 day are grim, over discharges serves as a reminder that people are Getting Better and are overcoming this illness. As the governor said, were still looking for Health Care Professionals to volunteer. The state is in need of emts and power medics to support our current workforce. Individuals whose emt certifications have expired within the past five years are 9 emtble for covid1 reentry. We have also granted a waiver for emts from out of state who want to help us here in new jersey. To sign up, please visit covid19. Nj. Gov volunteer. Additionally, we still need nurses aides for longterm care facilities, and we are encouraging all student nurses to sign up. 2625 neware reporting 71,030for a total of cases in the state and sadly, 251 new deaths have been reported to the department, for a total of 3156 fatalities in our state. 55 of these new deaths were residents of longterm care facilities. 51. 7 areths, documented as white. Nonhispanic. 15. 5 hispanic. 5. 7 asian nonhispanic. And 5. 2 other nonhispanic. On the underlying conditions, the trends are holding, 60. 4 cardiovascular disease, 37 diabetes villages 29. 6 percent other chronic diseases, 20. 9 chronic lung diseases such as asthma, emphysema, copd, 15. 3 chronic renal disease. 15 neurological or neurodevelopmental disabilities. And 11. 4 cancer. Currently 358 longterm care facilities in the state documenting individuals with covid19. Have been reported from longterm care facilities. In our veterans homes, there is a total sense of 800 veterans between the sites. 160 veterans have tested positive for covid19 or are persons under investigation. A total of 45 deaths have been reported. Hospitals,hiatric patientscensus of 1400 , 97 have tested positive, or 7 . Employees, a 4800, 237 have tested positive, 5 . And six deaths have been reported among our patients. According to data from this morning, seven laboratories 131,967 tests performed. Positiveve returned as , for a Positivity Rate of 44. 69 . That concludes my report. Thank you again for staying home and maintaining social distancing. It is making a difference. Stay connected, stay safe, and stay healthy. Thank you. You. Murphy judy, thank a couple followups, the counties are holding the same in terms of where we had the most positive tests. Bergen, essex now a little ahead of hudson, hudson third, union fourth, passaic sixth. You did not do race and ethnicity, did you . I did. I can do it again. Gov. Murphy no, i dont want to make you do that. We had a conversation earlier, including the lieutenant andrnor and judy, pat, myself and others. Callw that there was a last night, i believe, that you, the Lieutenant Governor, carol , the blacknator rice doctors association, no cheat sheila is doing a town hall tonight with the mayor trying to get at this question that has arounduncing around, at 50 higher representation in fatalities among africanamericans that we have in society at large, just sort of talking through the reasons for that. Judy, the ones i took away from our call, among others, were the density of the living condition, overall access or lack thereof to help. Comorbidity, underlying, disproportionate amount of Underlying Health challenges. And a disproportionate representation in the workforce that is still going to work every day. Nurses, First Responders, essential workers, etc. Is that fair . Exactly what we discussed, yes. Gov. Murphy so those are things we have to continue to unpack. It is not like we were not on a going inse bases before this crisis ever occurred, but now this, like a lot of other things, this really shines a light on the weaknesses and the inequalities in our society. I want to give the Lieutenant Governor a big shout out, senator ron rice, who has been a leader in this from moment one. The veterans, you mentioned 45 lost lives. For folks out there with loved ones in those homes, 29 of them in paramus and 16 in midland park, but none so far, and i am knocking on wood, in another location, and that is something i spoke to the veteran of secretary cares about yesterday. Again, judy, thank you for everything. Colonel pat callahan, anything noncompliance on ppe . Thank you, governor. Overnight, Hoboken Police responded to a burglary reported, and the subsequent investigation led them to the arrest and charge of a suspect who had broken him through a front window and was founded by possession of alcohol and cigarettes. While being processed, that subject coughed at police, indicating he was covid19 positive. Police issued two executive order violations. Salem issued one executive order violation in the wake of a Motor Vehicle accident where the subject provided false information. A jerseyn route 80, trooper was pursuing a vehicle in excess of 130 miles an hour, subsequently broke off that pursuit. The subject was later identified at a gas station by another trooper who then again went up onto route 80. They did not pursue him but subsequently had enough to charge that individual who turned himself in with his attorney. In elizabeth, three individuals were cited for a violation of the executive order. In passaic, an additional three were cited for the eo violation. In hillside, one cited. In newark, always leading the charge, 88 executive order violations, and five businesses were shut. Although the commission of touched upon it, just one piece that is a stark reality, Mortuary Affairs is a daily discussion, not an easy discussion, between our chief medical examiner, the medical examiners, the funeral directors, a few steps we have taken, dep issued a waiver this week to allow crematoriums to extend their hours in order to assist with the stress that our systems are under. The attorney general, i spoke with this morning, he is working through Consumer Affairs to try and extend and i think will be successful in extending the hours that cemeteries can operate. We are hearing that from funeral directors. Beyond the mortuary trailers we have, one component i will stress before i turn it back is the crisis counseling that goes along with the not normal process to have to deal with that much death. So we managed to make sure to build the crisis counseling into all of those working through this Mortuary Affairs issue. I know we use the term resiliency a lot. Some people think that is bouncing back, but in this instance, we are not sure people can ever bounce back, so we use the term johnson forward. Because none of us, included us here, and around the country and state will ever really be the same. So that resiliency piece will be monumental as we move forward to the other side of this. Patch, really well said. I let there be no doubt, dont think anyone will ever be the same, especially folks who lost loved ones, but people are but even friends in fraud or communities. We have to sometimes talk about things that are uncomfortable. ,here are meetings that go on and these two folks are in most of them, and they are not meetings you ever thought you would have. So thank you to each and every one of you who are part of it and just know folks out there, we are with you as best we can every step of the way. Notwithstanding the compliance challenges him and you go over them in our precall and went over them here, pat, it has to be said, yes, there are still knuckleheads out there who are claiming they have got it and spitting on people and coughing, but the overwhelming compliance is just so impressive in our state. And we just have to thank each and every one of you out there, each and every of the 9 million folks, and sometimes really hurt circumstances. I mentioned the density of cohabitation we have in so many communities and homes. It is not easy. We understand that. The only plea i would have is we are not out of the woods. I do not think we can see the tree line yet, to be frank with you, but we will get there. I promise you i will let you know the minute we know or at least when we think we are getting there. We are dealing with models all the time, trying to assess, looking at best and worst case. I know one thing, is if we fall off the wagon, if we stop adhering to the stayathome edicts and the stayathome pl eas we have made any social distancing pleas, we will blow through any worstcase assessment on any model we are looking at that number of 36 thousand still hangs out there like a storm cloud. It could have been a few weeks ago. It could have been 3 million of us are more getting infected. Even with all the good work we have done, we take our foot off the gas right now, no matter how could a job these folks are doing and they are the best in the nation right now, we will swamp them. So thank you for staying home and staying away from each other. Please, god, continue to do that. I promise we will let you know the minute we think it is safe to go back in the water, as they say. John, i assume there is no truth to the rumor that you sat there all night and compiled more questions, but you are in the same place you are yesterday with that, we owe you the first question. Thank you, as always. Thanks. Is the state tracking where people are dying, whether it is at home, hospitals, Nursing Homes, and any comparison indexed by hospitals . And any concerns from doctors who are concerned about hospitals being all hands on deck in terms of practicing outside of specialties, practicing in emergency situations . Health hadartment of complaints about medical practices right now . Anything youre concerned about . Governor, you pushed back the income tax filing deadline. What about the property tax deadline and the looming sales tax payment deadline . Any movement on that . Last night, governor, you tweeted about a chat with a doctor and technologies for Contact Tracing. There was pushback by harvard sts about his credentials. Is that something youre concerned about . And are you detailing what youre doing for Contact Tracing in the future . Gov. Murphy judy, i will take a few on my side and then hand it to you. Income tax, again, extended. It is april 15, so i want folks to remember this your income tax is not due until july 15. Nothing to report on may property tax or sales tax. I did speak to eric last night was not aware of pushback on his credentials. We had a good conversation. You have probably seen because i have tweeted about, we are to get multiple models to judy and christina and their teams, and were trying to get as many different perspectives from this and from all sides, all shapes and sizes, and he is somebody, as you rightly point out, that is particularly good at development, Contact Tracing. Nothing specific to report on we know thehan broad reality is to again remind ourselves sequencing is beat the crap out of the virus and get it as close to zero into a manageable reality were judy, christina, and experts say, ok, were sick to reconsider some decisions we have made. Then it is a responsible reopening. Again, you only get economic recovery on the back of that health care recovery. And you need health care infrastructure, need protocols, in place that, frankly, we do not have at the moment, and we will need that before we reopen. Again, judy will correct the record here, but at least two elements of that. Number ones broad scale testing, that it is a very quick turnaround. Easy to do, big numbers, get it back fast. That is why the rectors work is so interesting, too that is why the rutgers work is so interesting, too. Secondly, you have to have a really robust in practice Contact Tracing program in place parents so if you bring the Community Spread down to as close as zero as possible, you begin to reopen, and you have to have both elements in place or i do not think you can reopen. No specifics beyond that. We are looking at lots of different models right now. I do know someone who is veryive, who gave me a encouraging read out of a conversation with a contact tracer, that took place this week in new jersey, in terms of the professionalism, the quality of the questions, the understanding by this person. Im not even sure they were a Health Care Worker but assume they were. But it was encouraging. The only discouraging part is we are so swamped by this war, it took a lot of days between the positive confirmation and the conversation. I think that is all i have got. Back over to judy. Had tracking, we where folks are passing and doctors operating outside of their specialties. There are so many physicians who have volunteered. I will start with that. Just helping us in our field offices, our stations helping out in hospitals. I have not gotten complaints. I have gottens, emails with suggestions that were all very positive. And last night on the phone call with the new Jersey Medical association, the Physicians Group brought up some really important points for us to consider, particularly those that are practicing actively in urban centers and the inability that they have to do telemedicine to take care of their patients. So it is something we have to consider. A pediatrician brought up a really good point that we need to continue childhood immunizations. That is something you cannot do by telemedicine. And it is so important because we certainly do not want to see the incidence of those childhood diseases that we can eradicate with the vaccines come up again because we did not continue immunizations. So a couple things to work on peer to the suggestions from physicians have been very positive, and were considering all of them. Can talk aboutr the death certificates and the location. Actually, we would probably have to get back on how detailed some of that information is. What we are currently doing is looking at our electronic death records. You have to go through a process of what is called registration where the death certificates are ultimately finalized by through a certain process. But we would have to get back as far as the level of details and some of the information you are requesting. Gov. Murphy thank you. Elise . Good afternoon. We have heard from a company stating that it has been airlifting patients from new york city to places including new jersey. Is that so . Have any more governors signed on to the regional approach to reopen, and have you come up with any target date for any aspect of that . And regarding test kits, if you get more, can you process them . Do you have the ability to acquire test kits on your own . And what about for the avid quick test devices the habit quick test devices which came with so few swabs . Gov. Murphy i am not aware of anybody getting airlifted to new jersey, but that might be just me. I am not either. Gov. Murphy so if you have more details, we would like to hear it. I spoke with mayor de blasio last night, and i should have said that. We were comparing notes on a range of things. Groundly, it has been zero. Regional approach, massachusetts got added. I think that is Public Knowledge. Massachusetts, to the best of my knowledge, that is public. And that is important. That is a state we compare ourselves to allot in many respects, including health and Higher Education and pharmaceutical companies. Importantly, the governor, a very good guy and a guy i have known for 48 years i went to high school and college with him a republican, so it is someone from the other side of the aisle, in addition to being a good governor and a good guy. Targets on the regional approach, i think we are trying asmake some announcements early as tomorrow. Please do not hold me to that in terms of at least who will form the membership of the council, and i think their intention was to have a first meeting of that counsel very quickly thereafter. Again, you may correct the record if you know something otherwise. But i believe that is the current, so what each of our states have been going through to make sure we have the chief of staff, medical or health care expert, and a real economy expert. Any commentstt, from either of you . I think as far as the distribution, and we can probably get the exact distribution plan, was to keep two at the state lab. I think a regional approach with north, central, and southern with our primary Health Care Providers. I think the turnaround on them, even though it is three to 15 minutes based upon the studies done, we could probably do 100 to 300 today with those abbott tests, which is not a lot, but the main focus is to have them at acute care facilities and longterm care facilities where most informative given the struggles we are having at our acute and longterm care facilities. Commissioner . Knowmurphy judy, i do not if it is Public Knowledge are accurate, but compared to the 300 to 500 today . 100 to 300, pardon me. Modele point the rutgers said Something Like 10,000 potentially. I do not have firsthand knowledge, but that sort of scale, were still trying to think through it, it is fair to say. How many tests you would need a day in new jersey do have that architecture in place to feel comfortable about reopening, and i suspect it is thousands. That is something were still toying with. Thank you. Do you have something, sir, in the back . I can barely see you. I was wondering, i think elise asked about it, but on the back to work plan, anything more on the different aspects of the regional . I was the testing, wondering if the private retailers and businesses were still in the picture as far as providing testing at their locations, like cvs . Gov. Murphy on the regional , not a lot new to report today, but a lot of discussion is going on. So you can think of it in sort of three rings. One is what were doing in new jersey. That is a constant, and we were having a discussion on this today. You have the Firefighting Team and the where do we go when we put the fire out team, and whether we like it or not, the numbers of those two teams are overwhelmingly the same people, so that is constant. The next part is the regional grouping of seven states now that elise was asking about, and that is early stage, but each of the seven states, it is fair to say, are having similar deliberations to our deliberations, so our pointing there is to have someone on board in collaboration. We see something other states are doing that is really impressive that we like, we will have no shame to rip a page out of that playbook and apply it. It is mostly to harmonize and coordinate. Under the theory that we did that when were closing, lets do that when we are opening. It is a little broader, but i think that is a good thing. We are the densest state in america, the densest region and america, so there is a lot of commonality. In the third ring, and it is not and both, it is there is the coordination we will need and desire from the federal government. There is no replacing the existential reality of the federal government of the United States of america. We cannot print money. They can. They have resources that we dont have. It is a significant piece of the countrys economy. So it is all three of those, not one over the other, not one or the other, it is and, and, and. We will continue aggressively. We have 66 different locations and testing sites, fourth in terms of total tests, only behind states that are california, 40 Million People, florida, 20 one Million People, new york, 19 Million People, new jersey, 9 Million People per capita, and were punching way above our weight, but it is not where it needs to be. It is frustrating that it is not where it needs to be. From day one, we have not had the support we would have wanted ideally, particularly from the federal government, to be able to do the universal testing. So as we broaden that out, it will include private sector. I know cvs, which is based in rhode island, is doing that there. Embracee models we will wherever we can. Scale will be key here. Thank you. You good, sir . Making up for yesterday, i assume . Fill outwant you to from yesterday. Colonel callahan, yesterday you mentioned the state is expecting to receive a decontamination unit and would likely send it to University Hospital to extend the life of their n95 masks. Do you have any more information on when the state will receive it . Governor, you say you have done a datadriven approach to the virus and response. Are you looking at google mobility data ended that impact your decision to close the parks . On april 5, there was a 26 increase in people using parks in new jersey. That battelle decontamination system actually arrived this afternoon. I misspoke when i said it would be physically at university, it will actually be at edison, the field medical station. We are working on the logistics thehe collection and decontamination and redistribution of that. Kathy bennett from the new jersey hospital situation is in the process of sending out the fact sheets and instructions for Health Care Providers and personnel. I would imagine that plan is up and running with a regional collection and will be sent out in the next few days. Gov. Murphy i did not on google mobility, but i know the team did and there was an uncomfortable amount of anecdotal stories that came back to us. I take no joy in having parks closed. The problem, and i know some folks have said, in the rural parts of the state, come on, we are less densely populated, and the answer is, yes, my fear is that the entirety of the rest of the state, if not the entirety of the rest of the region, would just end of the parks that are open. And we had a lot of outofstate tags in the parking lots. I forget if it is the same weekend, assume it is, but it was the first good weather weekend we had of the year. So are you using peoples queries to the state covid site and the state covid site any tracker to find virus hotspots . There is nowhere on the site that seems to tell people that is getting done. Is this an invasion of privacy, and do you think people should be giving up some of their privacy during this pandemic . Me, iurphy if that is to will take your input on this judy and christina. We should be able to fight the pandemic and not violate peoples First Amendment rights and the right to privacy. We should be able to find common ground, and i believe so far we have. That is not to say it is not without casualty, because we have lost far too many folks. But you do not get let me put it this way, i do not think it is a zerosum game. You only get what you need if you take away peoples privacy, i do not believe in that. Ok. A couple questions. First one, right before we started here, Governor Cuomo of new york was talking about we are going to have to maintain social distancing until a vaccine is developed, and or more testing is widely available, quicker testing. Would you agree with that . The reason i ask is there seems to be this sense with a lot of people that somehow, someday in may it will be like, hey everybody, everything is getting great, the masks can come off and the dancing can begin. Whats your sense about this . What do people need to understand about the severity of what we are dealing with here, and how slow the reentry will be . What do people need to understand and accept . And another question for you governor, state revenues for march were reportedly up 3. 6. We resume there is a reporting we assume it is because there is a reporting lag. Next month will obviously be very different. What is your reaction to the march numbers, and are you bracing for what we will learn next month, and how are you preparing for what most certainly will be a massive hit that is coming . May, onquestion if i your encouragement every day, you give strong encouragement to the people of new jersey about staying strong. You were particularly passionate earlier, talking about we are doing a great job but we cannot let up, we have to keep our foot on the gas. If you are afraid are you afraid that if you do not do this people will get careless, sloppy, and stupid . And is this your nightmare scenario, that somehow people will take their foot off the gas, and then the whole thing will turn into a disaster . And finally if i may for the commissioner, who needs no introduction, could you give us differente, you give statistics about people who die from covid and the categories they are in. I have heard that 99 of people who succumb to covid either have Heart Disease, immune system deficiencies, facing some sort otherious form of cancer debilitating disease, diabetes. Would you agree with that, that the vast majority of people who are dying fit into that category . I guess obesity is in that category as well, or do we not know enough about it . Gov. Murphy judy, i will start. I think without having seen or heard directly Governor Cuomo said, the notion that we are going to go back to lets just turn the clock back to three months ago, i just do not see it. Normal,alk about a new and i think that is a reality. God, in hisse sequencing of events, that the largescale Rapid Testing comes a lot faster than the vaccine. , ande not heard any expert we have tried to speak to as many as possible, from the likes of the ceo of johnson johnson, to dr. Tony fauci, and everybody in between. I have not spoken to everybody you can tell me if you disagree who thinks a vaccine sooner than one year or 1. 5 years is realistic, at least one that is safe and scaled. Im praying the broad scale testing turnaround was a salivalike test that records is trying to develop, that that comes a lot sooner. Then, i have mentioned this example before. I can easily see the restaurant check,l, a temperature or some type of check if it is available, maybe a quick saliva test. I do not know if it will be that available. You go inside and servers are gloved, the wiping down of surfaces is hyper aggressive. You are at 50 capacity. I cannot get closer than i am to you in terms of my table to your spirit not shaking hands. Apparently there is some harvard study that came out today that said they would be social distancing until 2022. I do not know that anytime soon we are going to go back have to say, i love a big handshake, a kiss on the cheek, hug, highfives. I think that is postponed for the foreseeable future. That leads to your second question, which i think i have kind of already answered. Im getting an enormous amount of incomings from parents of high school seniors, and i do not blame them for one second. Its in part related to sports. Cant we just get back to sports again . The other part relates more to the pomp and circumstance related to graduation ceremonys. An incoming today questioning a couple religious gatherings currently expected to take place in june. We have not given you the guidance on schools, and i think we are probably going to do that tomorrow, and im sorry it is a day later than i was hoping for, but it is for good reason. We are trying to figure all that out. I would love nothing more i just do not see. I take my cues from the Health Experts and i will continue to. I do not see a normal. Even if a worker take place, a normal gathering in the foreseeable future. I just do not see it. And i will be the happiest guy on this planet if i am wrong. Lastly, two other quickies. I do not have the numbers for you, but revenues are falling off the cliff. That is part of the reason i was with secretary mnuchin today, underscoring the the subsidy that states need direct cash assistance. Both how the cares act is interpreted and any other steps that will be taken. Its expenses going this way and revenues going that way. Nightmare, iworst think i said it earlier. Other than the loss of life, which is far to drop far too jaw droppingly large already. My nightmare scenario right now is people get sloppy. I do not know if i would use the word stupid, because i do not blame them for being frustrated, but they basically let their guard down. And i mentioned this yesterday and i think you would agree, that the direct line between Human Behavior and what the 9 million of us are doing, and what the reality then that these folks have to figure out in terms of hospital beds, ventilators, ppe, medicines, Health Care Workers, literally the model changes like that. And we can see from that map it is going in the right direction. Bedthat 36,000 worst case need is not out of the realm, assuming folks do just how you have described it. Again, we have dodged one bullet. We could have had 3 million or more infected. Because of the steps we have taken from day one, we have avoided that awful bullet. But 36,000 beds, if we drop our guard right now, there is no amount of work that we can do, no amount of help from the states, no amount of help from the federal government that could allow us to stay above water in that circumstance. I will put my shoe back on and stop pounding the podium. Any comments you have about social distancing and how you see that Going Forward . And secondly, underlying conditions, Heart Disease, obesity, etc. Comm. Persichilli let me give you some statistics. Cases,p dive into the 60 have identified underlying cardiovascular disease. Thats 871 cases. Remember, it is not unusual that if a person has one comorbid condition to have others. So the percentage will not add up to 100 . But 30 of the cases, or 533, had diabetes. 427 chronicr diseases, of which 20 of the cases are chronic lung diseases. Which with pneumonia, you would understand that that would be a couple getting factor. And for the immunocompromised 15 arens, about identifying along with that in cancer. The cases. Or 164 of so definitely comorbid conditions are complicating factor for covid19 deaths. Gov. Murphy one comment and a question, then we will go to sam after this. To your point, more than one condition, if you add up the percentages it is about 201 . It is invariably more than one thing . Gotcha. 42. Ondly, that is n 11 3156. We have been asked this before. That does not mean no one else had an underlying condition. That is just the 1442 folks you have visibility into. Thank you. Ok, back to you. A couple questions from me. Yesterday a lot of reports out of illinois about Governor Pritzker working to keep the details of his states shipments of ppe and ventilators from china secret, out of concern that the feds would seize the materials. I know new jersey is always a sourcing ppe abroad. Are you at all concerned about the feds taking whatever you can find from china or taiwan or whatever, should that come . And did this come up in your discussions yesterday with one thing . Second question has to do with triage guidelines. I understand there are no exclusionary elements in those guidelines, but the scoring system clearly prioritizes those who do not have conditions with high comorbidities like Heart Disease or diabetes. I know we are only supposed to use the worstcase scenario and understand there is no tolerance for discrimination or bias here but given the high prevalence of those conditions in the Africanamerican Community and given these guidelines are supposed to take lifespan into account, dont they somehow reinforce the implicit biases that exist currently in the application of health care . It last question, i think touches on some ground that john covered earlier. New york city has now begun to release the number of deaths that occur each day at home as opposed to just reporting the deaths in hospitals. Will new jersey begin to provide that data, and until then, can you give us a sense of what you are seeing in terms of deaths at home . Gov. Murphy i think on the last thatwe are going to defer, is something we want to come back to. Make sure we follow up on that. To the extent we have the data, we will share it with you. There is nothing we are holding back from you. So lets come back to that if we could. I was not even aware of Governor Pritzkers situation. I am not aware of anything untoward in terms of seizing anything. Conversations that you have with governments, this was part of the conversation with china, is you want to make sure that the folks on either side of this understand where this is coming from and what its intended use is. So you are constantly looking for help in raising that as a factor. That is harkening in my case back to being a u. S. Ambassador. That is just a fact of life. But we have seen no evidence of anything untoward on that. We just do not have enough ppe and we are constantly out fishing. I would just say judy is going to take the socalled triage guidelines, that we are hyper focused, overwhelmingly focused on the nothing exclusionary and notice termination piece of this, and we mean it. And we expect all the Health Care Providers in the state to also mean it and act on that basis. The last thing we need right now is a state with inequalities that already exist in peace time before this ever came upon us, is to have those inequalities exacerbated. It is why leadership from the Africanamerican Community, the minute there was a press article about one of the providers doing something that was not consistent with judys guidelines, when it came immediately to me and raised this rightfully, we will do everything we can to avoid that at all costs. But judy, please take away any specifics. Comm. Persichilli you brought up a really good point about implicit bias, because we do know that it exists. Its institutional bias, it exists throughout all of health care. Allocation policy requires that there are groups of people who helped make the decision, and the directly treating physician cannot make the decision. Hopefully that group will be able to control for the bias that we know exists, prior to pandemic. As far as the underlying comorbid conditions, there are andxclusionary criteria, there are degrees of underlying conditions. You may have cardiovascular disease that required you to have a stent. Thats not an exclusionary criteria, and it does not perhaps affect your lifespan. So, it does not necessarily mean that you are going to be excluded because of it. We all have some underlying condition, especially as you get older. Matt, we are going to close this out with you. I am wondering if you answered sams last question about the whole issue of undercounting deaths. Gov. Murphy we did not. We said we need to come back to that. Ok, apologies. Gov. Murphy thanks for looking out for sam. Homes been nursing cited for violations during the outbreak so far . If so, which ones . I am curious if you can confirm any deaths at psychiatric hospitals or centers. And im curious if new jersey is ordering people to wear masks in stores. Has anyone been cited for violating the order . Is that something you folks will keep stats on . Lastly offtopic, the department of justice concluded monday the States Womens prisons for years has ignored rampant sex abuse by prisoners by staff. The feds say in your your a ministration im curious what your reaction to the report was and what you plan to do Going Forward about it. Gov. Murphy i will leave the Nursing Homes to you, judy. And the psychiatric end of elemental homes, in terms of you asked about employees. Can you stay close . You asked about employees in particular . Employees, yes. Gov. Murphy i will deal with the offtopic one, and we do have some experience with the stores being enforced. On monday or yesterday this came , this is a situation that existed as we came into office, and we have taken a whole range of steps since then. We have a new commissioner. I signed a whole series of Prison Reform laws. Allfemale advisory board. There have been a number of training protocols that have been put into place. It is something that was a complete and utter not just deeply troubling situation. I dont have a list in front of me, but we are probably taking 10 and 15 steps between laws signed, new leadership, protocols observed, etc. So it is a black market without question in the corrections history in our state, and frankly, it is a black mark in our states history. And i am not dodging it in any way, shape, or form. It is a situation we have inherited and we have taken a whole range of steps to redress and address the situation that we inherited. And let me just say that we continue. This is one of the situations that each and every day try to get better than the day before. Judy, do you want to hit first the questions on nursing home violations, if any, as well as psychiatric and Development Homes . Comm. Persichilli yeah, we have not cited anyone. What we would call a quoteun quote violation. We have gone out with local Health Officers to some of the Nursing Homes to help correct what are really daunting situations where staff has called in sick, or have abandoned the nursing home, and they needed some oversight and some extra help. We still need help and are Nursing Homes. That is why we are trying to call up as many nurse aides as we can. The staffing on the ppe continued to be a problem. We did put i think we reported yesterday, we did send a significant allocation of ppe to our Nursing Homes. And today or tomorrow, we are sending our survey team with n95s, because we expect they will be making more visits. Institutions,tric out of a total staff of 4800, 237 of our employees have tested positive. Thats 5 . And we have had two employee deaths. Gov. Murphy pat, do you want to hit the enforcement of the retail . Col. Callahan sure. As recently as yesterday there was a subject in pleasantville that was cited on saturday, cited on sunday, and then because of his persistence of failure to abide by that, the last charge was put on a warrant means he was lodged in the county jail. It is one of the charges that we ask all Law Enforcement to track and report on a daily basis to our regional operations intelligence center. Gov. Murphy before we break on the longterm care facilities, we said this yesterday, and judy laid out a whole series of steps that have been taken for a measure amounts of mohnths of months. Offwe continue through our ices pounding away on these operators to do everything they can in their power. Obviously we are providing them with trying to address a huge shortage of ppe, but also to do the right things by these folks, including notification of loved ones and status of the facilities. The comorbidity question that eou triggered, dave, is non more true than it is with longterm care patients. So you have an overwhelming overlap between underlying existence, age, etc. This is not a new jersey unique situation. But when we all do the postmortem, and we will do as a nation, please god, we do an aggressive postmortem that is in the spirit of the 9 11 Commission Led by governor kane so well, congressman lee, hamilton. It must be done, it cannot be partisan. New jersey, i promise you, if we have anything to do with it, we will do something very similar. But it is pretty clear that a , andeakness in the system the reality is longterm care facilities. We are going to close down. We will get to you, though. We are going to sleep sweep across once every day. In the interest of fighting the fire we have to get back to the shop. Dan, john may have a followup you can get. So, we will be back here at 1 00 tomorrow. Right now isse scheduled for 3 00 p. M. Tomorrow, so we will be here at usual time at 1 00 p. M. If there is something material to report between now and then we will. I want to thank the commissioner, dr. Christina tan, our epidemiologist, thank you. Pat, thank you. Jared, thank you. And to each and every one of you, keep doing what you are doing. And if we keep doing what we are doing, we will get through this. As you rightfully asked, the new normal probably will not look like the old normal, at least at first, but we will get through this together, stronger than ever before. Thank you all. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer President Trump leaves the White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing this afternoon scheduled for 5 00 eastern. Watch it live here on cspan. Washington journal prime, a special evening addition of the washington journal on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. On the importance of metrics and data interacting and slowing the spread of the coronavirus. And washington republican congressman Dan Wu Newhouse on the Coronavirus Response in his district. Join the discussion tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Announcer on the clinical front today, senator Elizabeth Warren endorsed joe bidens 2020 campaign for president after suspending her president ial Campaign Last month. She made the announcement in a web video. He grew up on the ragged edge of the middle class in scranton. He committed to Public Service early in life and never stopped serving. And he has faced unspeakable tragedy, with fortitude and grace. Experiences animate the empathy he extends to americans who are struggling,