Longterm care facilities. Gov. Whitmer all right, good afternoon. It is wednesday, april 15. I am in the romney building in lindsay joined by our chief medical executive. I wanted to give an update on where things are. I want to take a moment to acknowledge everyone who has stepped up and share their stories. It has been incredibly challenging, but also there are some phenomenal people who are going to work doing the hard work every single day. I have heard from nurses and first responders, educators, Grocery Store workers, childcare workers from all across the state of michigan and they are on the front lines every single day helping us get through this crisis. Every time i speak to them, i feel the impact this virus has had on them and their families. A staff member of mine has a Family Member who is a nurse. At the end of his lung shift, he will stay in the garage and cry before going into the house. Another friend of mine has multiple sclerosis and a compromised immune system. She has been in her apartment for five weeks. We have all missed birthdays and celebrations whether they are weddings or holidays with our family and friends. Incredible sacrifices have been made by the people of michigan. It is really paying off. These are hard times, but we are going to get through this together. I know that there are many who are struggling with their Mental Health right now. People are lonely and isolated and frustrated and will give anything to return back to normal. I have to tell you i would too. We are going to get there. It will not happen overnight, but we will get there. We do what we do and everyone plays their part. We have to mitigate risk. Will bewhile we reunited with our friends and loved ones again, it is important we continue to double down on our efforts today. For those of you who held your erster brunch or your sed dinner over zoom, thank you for doing your part. For every teacher who is instructing your students online, thank you for doing your part. Forever Grocery Store clerk who is working incredibly long hours so that special hours can be available for older michiganders, thank you for going above and beyond and doing your part. For every Health Care Provider who is putting their own lives on the line to save others, thank you for doing your part. This is a hard time, but the good news is that the vast majority of people in our state are doing the right thing. It is pushing the curve down. It is working. Saving lives. Inspecty, i went to suburban showplace alternate care site. I want to thank the owners of suburban. I want to thank Ascension Health system. I went to thank the International Brotherhood of electrical workers, the army corps, the national guard, the department of health and Human Services and fema. Something remarkable happened what we were there. The head of region five, or person we work with so often from fema, acknowledged the buildout of suburban showplace, which was originally slated to be a thousand bed facility is now a 250 bed facility. We will have the capacity to increase if necessary. Because of the stay home order, it might not be. We are only building it out for 250 at this time. A text fromed me someone in another state asking how they can replicate what is happening in michigan. People are taking notice. We are working incredibly hard and well with our partners at the federal level. Todays update with regard to the number of positive cases that have been reported is 28,095. 1921 numbers are also deaths. We must continue to stay home whenever we can so we can protect our families. Yesterday, the president met with a number of people who have recovered from covid19. One of them was a man from northern michigan, mark campbell, who was telling the president how he believes he caught the virus. That he andining his family decided to go up north and go skiing, which seemed like a safe activity because few people were going north. Quote, the president only thing i can think of that was out of the ordinary is i touched a gasoline pump handle. I shared that story because what we know is that covid19 can live on a steel surface for 72 hours. Think about how many people touch a gas pump handle in the span of three days. That is why we do not want anyone on the road who does not have to be there. A couple of weeks ago, im going to give you an update on pp. A couple weeks ago on ppe. Acouple weeks ago, we had days worth of ppe in south michigan hospitals. Since then, michiganders and businesses have stepped up to donate ppe to their hospitals in their areas. Her state Procurement Office has been working 24 7 our state procurement opposite has been working 20 47 to make sure we read we procure ppe. Fema sent 800,095 masks today. Worths point, a few days is a vast improvement from where we were a week ago. At, our goal is to have couple weeks worth of ppe. We are going to continue working on all of these fronts. The recent number of businesses that have stepped up to protect their communities has bolstered my hopes about how we are going to get there together. Ppe 3. 5 million pieces of has been donated by individuals and businesses. I am saying ppe because i know you have been tuning in, but it is personal protective equipment. General motors announced the start of mass production of the life systems ventilator under contract from the u. S. Department of health and Human Services. Because of their partnership and the hardworking men of the uaw who rolled up their sleeves to get this done, more than 600 ventilators will be shipped this month. Ofndai announced the city detroit will receive a 100,000 grant and 10,000 test kits to combat the spread. This is a part of hyundais expansion of support for covid19 drivethrough testing to 22 hospitals nationwide with 4 million in grants and an inkind donation of 65,000 covid19 tests through the hope on wheels program. By increasing their testing capacity, we ensure more michiganders at the care they need and we can save more lives. Donating 28 metric tons of Hand Sanitizer to organizations in the great lakes bay region. Announcedss recently an additional 500,000 donation to the great lakes bay region to aid covid19 relief efforts. The 500,000 will be allocated between Community Foundations and Economic Development organizations in saginaw, mae, midland counties. We got word yesterday from governor gavin newsom in california they are loading 50 ventilators to the state of michigan. Today, my friend, governor andrew cuomo, announced they are going to be sending 100 ventilators to michigan. We are all in the same team. I am grateful for their support. Covid19. Is we are all working to protect our citizens. As of april 9, i went to a knowledge amway employees distributed nearly 28,000 units of Hand Sanitizer to area hospitals, clinics, senior homes and more. Amway has also worked hard to secure area hospitals disinfectant wipes and secure hygiene kits for the homeless in kent county. They are flying a steady stream vern95 masks to michiga over the next two weeks. We are grateful. We are on the same team. We are michiganders first. Our work is paying off. Lets keep working together to protect Health Care Professionals and the dedicated workers in our Grocery Stores and childcare workers, educators and everyone who is chipping in to help us. Monday, we have a lot of michiganders struggling to get by. We are doing everything we can to help people get the help they need. And have lost jobs or wages applied for unemployment insurance. While your application is pending, you may also be eligible to apply for help from the Michigan Department of health and Human Services. That includes food assistance, emergency cash assistance or medicaid. If your income was too high to qualify before, you might qualify now. Because of a change we made in the fall, you can qualify for snap or Emergency Assistance with up to 15,000 in savings and your house, car and retirement account do not count. That is the move i made earlier this year to increase the asset limit so that more people can get help when they need it. Simply visit www. Michigan. Gov mi bridges from any computer or smart device to your application. We are here to help. Food insecurity is a terrible reality for a lot of people in our state right now. I am pleased to announce pfizer contribution00,000 to the michigan food banks to help our families during this difficult time. The United Health foundation has can contribute in 250,000 to the food bank counsel of michigan. Tose donations will amount hundreds of thousands of meals for michigan families. I am hopeful more michiganders and businesses can chip in and donate to their local food banks. If you can make a monetary contribution, that is incredibly helpful. At this time because of how covid19 spreads, actual food donations are not ideal. If you can chip in, please do. Today, i signed an executive order aimed at protecting residents and dedicated employees at our longterm care facilities. Carechigans longterm facilities, residents and employees live and work in very confined areas. The lack of personal Protection Equipment makes it difficult to engage in precautionary measures recommended by the cdc. We know that covid19 can spread in michigan nursing homes. The executive order i signed protects residents from being a baited, and protects employees to stay home to mitigate the risk of infecting others. Guidelines to cdc establish precautionary measures within longterm care facilities to help us mitigate the spread. This is a hard time for michigans older residents and their families. So many michiganders are concerned for older relatives, their loved ones who may work in a longterm care facility as well. My dad is in the state of florida. I have had a constant conversation about him about making sure he protects himself. I know that is not unique to us. I will continue to do everything in my power to protect michiganders everywhere from the spread of this virus. We willou are hopeful begin to reengage sectors of our economy soon. As i said on monday, i am working with a team of experts in health care and business and labor and education to work on a data driven approach to reengaging our state. I want to be very clear that our decision to reengage sectors is going to be based on the best fax and the best science. Havefacts and science told us is that reengaging our estate too soon and too fast will lead to a second wave of covid19 in michigan. 1918, the flu pandemic of some cities lifted social distancing measures too fast and created a second wave of pandemic. There is a chart here that shows as a result, any cities were forced back many cities were forced back into a quarantined posture for an even longer time and suffered a lot of additional deaths. As tough as this is right now, we know we do not want to go through this again. It is so important that states and regions and the country as a whole get this right. Getting a right saves lives getting it right saves lives and will be better for the economy in the long run. I went to acknowledge the superheroes in our hospitals and acknowledge the protest going outside today. I had a zoom call earlier with doctors and nurses and respiratory therapist. One of whom already had covid19. Another of whom mentioned they had had eight patients die in the last 48 hours. Another talked about going home to her sixyearold and undressing in the garage and being worried about the health of her child as she takes care of others during this crisis. She also acknowledged caregivers are scared to take care of her child because he is the son of a doctor. All of these people are managing as well as they can, but they all recognize the incredible toll this is taking and the ptsd they are going to have to address after this crisis abates. I told them about the rally outside and i asked them, what would they wet me to convey to people . The first answer was, make sure they understand how serious this is. Another said, tell them they can get covid19 and have it for ass before it even shows up a symptom. That they might survive but someone else in their house might die from it. Tell them the people that do lose their battle with covid19 die alone. Make sure they understand how serious this is. Think about the demonstrators here today. I understand the frustration people are feeling. Im frustrated too not frustrated too. None of us wants to be in the position we are. About kids who should be at school and mr. Friends. Parents who like me want to see their child walk across the graduation stage in a month. I know people are angry and that is ok. If you want to send it my way, if it makes you feel better, that is fine. I support your right to free speech. I respect your opinions. I just urge you, do not put yourself at risk. Do not put others at risk either. I was really disappointed to see people congregating, not wearing masks. I saw someone handing out candy to little kids barehanded. When people are flying the Confederate Flag and untold numbers who gassed up on the way here or grabbed a bite on the way home, we know that this really endangered people. Activity will put more people at risk and sadly, it could prolong the amount of time we have to be in this posture. Partt ask you, to do your by not spreading covid19 for the sake of those frontline Health Care Providers that i was on a zoom call with waldo protest was good while the protest was going on. I ask you observe the six foot distance and wash her hands and wear a mask when you were in public when when you are in public when it is necessary to be in public. I ask you do everything you can to protect yourself so you are protecting first responders. We are all in this together. The governor for all 10 Million People of the state whether you support all of the policies i have championed are not. We have to do our part for the sake of one another in the sake of our economy. I know that everyone is antsy for good news. I know that you tune in to these press conferences hopeful i will be able to tell you precisely when we will be able to get back to normal. I know you have questions about your plans for the summer for june, july and august. Teams. Our kids soccer you have my word i will continue to keep you informed as we have information to share. Right now, im going to ask that you keep going. That you keep doing your part. , we will save lives and shorten the time frame we will have to take these aggressive actions. When we shorten the amount of time our Health Care Professionals spend crying in their cars before they go into the house, we shorten the time we have to be away from our families and we make it more likely my friend with ms can finally leave her apartment and talk to someone other than her cat. We will get through this together. It is not easy, but we will get through this together. There are good things to be seen in this moment. The flattening of a curve. The early stages of the flattening of the curve. The incredible deeds people are doing. The spirit of the people of our state. With that, i will handed over i will hand it over. Thank you, governor. We are continuing to work hard to fight the spread of covid19 in michigan. We are optimistic the actions we are taking right now as a state are working with continued swelling in the growth rates in cases and hospitalizations across michigan. However, a plateau does not mean we are out of the woods. There are still large numbers of cases and deaths. We see a significant burden of cases particularly among the elderly and africanamericans. It would be premature to only look at a few days of data to make a determination that we should absolutely ease up social distancing measures chain as the governor mentioned social distancing measures. As the governor mentioned, oo abruptly up t would cause a second spike in cases and deaths. We have talked a lot about testing and the fact we must significantly expand testing if we are to know where the disease is in our state and how comfortable we are with lifting any social distancing command asians. In recent days social distancing recommendations. We are laser focused on addressing that. We recently announced over 13 additional or expanded testing sites across the state. On monday, we announced that now, anyone, even if you have mild symptoms of covid19, you should contact your medical provider and you qualify for a test. This is a big change. If you have symptoms of covid19, cough, fever, difficulty breathing, call your doctor, call your locally federally qualified health center, call your insurance provider to find out where you can go to get a test. You can also go to our website, michigan. Gov coronavirus. All you have to do is put in your address and we will let you know where the closest testing site is to your home. We want anyone who needs a test to be able to get it done no matter where they live in the state. Please seek out a test if you have symptoms. Finally, when testing identifies someone does have covid19, we need to reach that person and the people they came in contact with to provide Public Health guidance. We are working closely with our local Health Department to expand its capacity. This is very important. Our Public Health workers may be calling you to identify if you have covid19 or if you have been contact with someone who has the disease. We need to give you important Public Health advice. If one of these Public Health workers calls you, please answer the phone or call us back if you are not available at the time we call. We will not ask for anything like Bank Information or Social Security numbers. We will ask you about your symptoms and where you have in so we can where you have been so we can protect you and others. Please continue to work with us so we can keep you and the community safe. We have also been working closely with our hospital leadership and meeting with them everyday to understand what is going on the front lines. Hospitals are doing a great job of working together to ensure patients are being cared for in the most appropriate settings. We are pleased several of our hospitals are studied to see a plateau in the number of covid19 cases they are caring for an everyday, they are discharging more and more patients. That is great news. The greatest barriers our hospitals are still facing is with staffing. If you are a medical provider and if you are a registered nurse or a respiratory therapist, we still need you. ,lease go to our website michigan. Gov fight covid19 and sign up. Our hospitals are also experiencing challenges with medications, especially those that are used to keep people on a ventilator. The state continues to work closely with the federal government to ensure hospitals are getting the medications they need to take care of patients. The bottom line is, social distancing works and it is working and we need to stay the course. At m dhhs, we are going to continue to do everything we can to protect michiganders from covid19 and save lives. Gov. Whitmer with that, happy to open it up. Governor, i want to return to the protest for a moment. Not since the right to work protest that we so in 2012 have i seen this kind of a crowd of people here. I appreciate what you said that the doctors and hospital workers would tell them. What if anything beyond what you have said to slow opening back of commerce here in the state could you tell them to perhaps put them at ease . There was one gentleman who apparently had his own company and he said 27 years wiped out in 27 days. I know there is some help for personal businesses. Could you direct them or Say Something to them that might in some way recognize there was a lot of grief today . Gov. Whitmer i understand that. I appreciate the question. I have had a lot of conversations with people who have small businesses. Who are really struggling. Spent decades building something up and have a lot of people they employ. They are worried about whether or not they will have something. I get that. I think one of the important pieces that i am encouraging Business Owners to think about right now to start planning, what is safely reopening look like . How does that particular business protect their employees and their customers . Now is the time to throw our energy into planning. We know that covid19 is not going to be gone on april 1 or august first. Or this is a virus that will continue to spread unless we do our part. That is why as we think about reengaging sectors of our economy, it is going to be critical we have confidence we can do that safely. That means our ability to test and trace and ensure our hospitals can handle any increases. We also have to have confidence these businesses can be conducted in a safe way. That would be the best way to start informing how we move forward. The frustration and the pain is real. The felid the fear is real. I hate that. Each of these orders has weighed incredibly heavy on me because i know there are people who are hurting because of this. I know it was absolutely necessary with the path we are on. Michigan had the thirdhighest number of covid cases and deaths in the country and we are not the thirdbiggest state in the country. This was a dramatic, terrible virus that has been killing people in our state. That is why we had to be bold. I would ask that this Business Owner really start to work through, how can reopening safely what does that look like . How can we make sure that when we are able to reengage, we do so in a way that prevents a second spike. If we have to come back to this position in a month or two, it will be devastating. I would ask for that kind of help from the Business Owner. I would hope that we can Work Together on that. So many republicans as well as people outside have urged you to reassess any of these executive orders. Have you given it any thought or what would be your response to that . Gov. Whitmer these are not political decisions. Is about Public Health. Health. Is about public i am the governor for all 10 Million People whether they voted for me or against me or did not voted all. I am the governor that is focused on lyons Public Health focused only on Public Health and it comes to decisions on covid19. We know this is a virus that does not discriminate on party lines or state lines, has no cure or vaccine, is deadly, highly contagious and you can be carrying it for a week and not even know it. What happens in your household might be one person gets a fever and some sore muscles for a few days and for the other person, their body might react it might be fatal for them. That is why we have to be so aggressive here. Any partisan efforts to get me to change policy based on politics, i am focusing on politics. Im trying to save lives here. I am happy to work with people on both sides of the aisle and we need to. We have to remember the enemy as the virus, not one another. I think there is going to be a need for us to find Common Ground on a variety of issues as we are moving forward. I welcome that. I put my hand out in partnership. The enemy is the virus, not one another. We have to keep that straight. We have to keep our eye on Public Health. We have to make smart decisions about what we engagement looks like. I know you do not know a date. Stay know this current home, stay safe order is through the end of the month. At that point, there will be some other directive. Do you have any feel at all if this is as we are today, is going to continue beyond with the understanding cannot stay certain when things will start to we open. Gov. Whitmer i am hopeful it is not. That is what my hope is. Where we are, what the science is telling us, i cannot predict what things are going to look like next week. I will say we are doing the hard under theinging in doctors leadership, the best minds in the medical field to help us chart our path toward a safe reengage me. T. Are we engagement. What actions need to be taken so that when it is safe to start reengage in, that would keep people safe. We are not just waiting to see what happens on that day. We are planning to return. What the date looks like when the phases begin, i cannot tell you right now. We are putting a lot of work into assessing regionally, assessing by sector of bisectors of our economy. Staying very attuned to doing everything we can to keep flattening the curve in the interim. By byu surprised the number of people that turned out today outside the capital . Gov. Whitmer as i said, i am disappointed. Aboutl a number of posts we saw a number of posts about people blocking an ambulances ability to get into the hospital. The bus system was not able to help people get to their essential needs whether it is to the Grocery Store or the pharmacy. We know that this demonstration is going to come at a cost to peoples health. It already did in those two examples. We know that when people gather that way without masks, they were in close proximity, they were touching each other, that is how covid19 spreads. The sad irony here is that the protest was they do not like being in this stayathome order. They may have created a need to lengthen it, which is something we are trying to avoid at all costs. I am not saying that is what is going to i am not saying that a certain percentage of people get sick but they made that a real possibility. They endangered by the peoples lives. I told about the story who met with donald trump in washington, d. C. Yesterday. Touched a gas pump was how he got covid19. Invokethe visual i because our nurses and our doctors in our grocery clerks have to gas up when they go to work. W we need them to do their jobs. The more people that are thehing that one gas pump more likely they are going to get sick and not do these critical jobs. Quite thethat was uir revelation that played out in washington, d. C. And it is important to shares of people understand what they are risking by being out when they do not need to be. Questions . You are talking about testing, the need to expand testing. Could you talk more about that t whomore specificity abour is eligible . A there being developed reliable Antibody Test so people may know with their condition is if they were mildly sick and didnt have a test. No question as a country we were late and expanding testing. We know that even people have mild symptoms should be tested. As many people as possible. That is the only way we will be able to understand who has the disease. We think we will need 10,000 to 20,000 test every day and the state. We are expanding capacity this week, expanding the priority for individuals it can get a test. We will keep working on that. When it come to the and about a test day i think the antibodies are an important part of our broad Public Health strategy. We also have to be careful. We got our love experts that are working on studies about the Antibody Test and people in the state around the country are working on this. We have to be careful to make sure that even if someone has an antibody that is not diagnostic for whether or not they have covid19. There is crossed activity with the test for the antibody. It does not mean you actually had a cold or something before. And you have the antibody we do not know how well it works could be able to say you are immune to the disease. As it stands today the antibody is very important for research and for surveillance. We will continue to work to make sure when it is ready to be used for our policy decisions that we are using it. There has been a lot of frustration are on the unemployment site being down. Is there anything you want to tell the people about, that are frustrated with the people in having shovel filing trouble filing. Gov. Whitmer we are going to make sure you have got the opportunity to fill in your application. I know these frustrations are not unique to michigan. I did see stories from across the country on the national news. Similar situation where unemployment offices have just been overwhelmed by the need. Here is what i can tell you is we had a 5000 increase in the last four weeks. 25,000 unemployed michigan workers, and we have seen 745 million in payments. We have been able to get a lot of payments out. The few states to begin the additional 600 in federal payments. Those people that are already on unemployment, 350,000 have gotten this as well. We have begun accepting applications for selfemployed workers, a group that was not traditionally included which we wanted to make sure they were. Those federal payments will begin on april 20. And there is more than 200,000 of these workers. An estimated 95 of all potential claimants have access to this system with more than 90 filing online. Weve extended our Call Center Times and quadruple the number of staff. When you have 5000 increase, quadrupling staff is a big step but it is not 5000 . We still have people calling and needing to make sure they cannot. What i can tell people is that i cut the red tape requiring that your employer create give you certain documentation. I cut the red tape of having timelines by which claims needed to be filed. We are not going to require those things. Appreciated. S we will get to everybody and we will make sure that everyone gets every dime for which they are qualified. Thank you, governor. House minority leader Kevin Mccarthy olds a Conference Call with reporters to discuss Coronavirus Response in the house legislative agenda. Eastern, speaker of the house nancy pelosi will hold a press conference via Conference Call. [indiscernible] good afternoon. Thank you for being here with us this afternoon. Yourforward to taking questions once everybody has an opportunity to give an update. We are in the middle of a fight for our state