He also spoke about the need to continue the states mitigation guidelines, the need for more medical professionals, and stressed the difference between the flu and covid19. Gov. Murphy good afternoon. We with me today is the commissioner of the department of health. A guy right, the guidance who is getting into that same category of not needing introduction, Communicable Disease Service Medical director, dr. Ed lifshitz. It is good to have you with us. To my left, a guy who needs no introduction, the superintendent of the state police, col. Callahan. We have the director of the department of homeland security, and the deputy counsel here to help us answer your questions. We are going to do the daily numbers a little bit differently today and see what you think, if this is helpful, we think it might be. If so, we carry it forward. Typically, we give the raw data of the overnight numbers all of which are reported on our data dashboard covid19. Nj. Gov. We will continue to do this. We will be plotting these numbers over a rolling three week historical timeframe to show you some trendlines. We believe and hope that this will put some of the daily numbers into a broader and better context. First, here we go. Here are the raw numbers. Today we are reporting 3026 new confirmed test results and the statewide total is now 81,420. In our hospitals as of 10 00 p. M. Last evening, 7718 residents were hospitalized. 2024 were in Critical Care and 1641 ventilators were in use. 90 patients are at one of our field medical stations and for the 24 hour period ending at 10 00 p. M. Last evening, 814 residents were discharged from our hospitals. Lets do this differently and put these numbers into proper context. The first graph we are showing you marks the rate of growth of new cases over the past 21 days. As you can see, we are flatten the curve. This is a credit to each and every one of you who has taken to heart our aggressive social distancing measures and who continue to do your part so thank you. Again, these are dailies. The bars are the amounts per day of positive test results and the curve is the one that fits through that set of bars over three weeks. The second chart we will pull up, this is the daily rates of new hospitalizations. As you can see we have been able to create some stability here as well. There is a direct there is a direct causeandeffect relationship between the first graph and this graph. The slower the rate of new cases, the slower the rate of infections, the slower the rate of new hospitalizations. Beds required, ventilators required, and these that result. It is literally almost a mathematical derivation exercise. As personal as each one of these cases are, they have a name, a face, they are human beings and belong to the beloved new jersey community, at the same time, we can derive formulas and models mathematically. This chart plots the number of new hospitalizations against the number of daily discharges. As you can see over the past three weeks, we have been able to move these lines closely together to the point we are now reporting more people leaving the hospital than entering. Finally, here are the daily number of patients in intensive and Critical Care over the past 21 days. Throughout the past week, we have seen these numbers begin and i say begin to stabilize. These graphs are what we need to see and they are why we must keep up our aggressive social distancing. So far, so good, we just cannot let up. This map which you have been seeing for the past number of days, further adds to why what we are doing is working. This is the time it is taking each county to double across the state. The numbers are a little bit small. You will see numbers ranging from nine days to double all the way up at 19 days to double. The higher that number is, the better it is. Lets keep that map as light as possible and those numbers continue to go up. That is thanks to everybody out there. It is your efforts that are leading to these results. We just have to stay at it. Not forever, that we have to stay at it for now. With the heaviest hearts, this is data that we also have to report. We continue to lose residents to covid19. Another 231 precious lives lost and we have lost a total of 4070 blessed souls. It is a number that takes your breath away. One of these who we have lost is fire captain richard campbell. He was a 28year veteran firefighter. Firefighting and Public Service ran in his blood as he followed his father in the line of service as did his brother who sadly passed last year. Mayor tom lanky of edison said that his death leaves us short a hero. I dont think there could ever be better words by which to remember him. We send our deepest condolences to his wife kimberly who i had the honor of speaking with this morning and their four children who range in age from 27 down to 11. I want you to keep arianna in a special place in your heart as you pray for this family. May richard rest in peace and may his memory bring comfort to his family and to all who knew him. God bless him. Here is another member of our family. He was 77 years old when he passed on monday. For 36 years he was a forensic scientist at new Jersey State Police North Regional Library and the team knew him well. He is remember by many for his dry sense of humor. He was a vietnam veteran and his wife reminded me, as a result of all of the cold morbidity that you have been warning about that made him my direct target of this awful virus. He continued service to our nation in the u. S. Army reserves retiring at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was dedicated to the committee of maywood, he served on the maywood board of education on the Recreation Commission and is an assistant boy scout leader to troop 12. What a servant. He is survived by his wife of 44 years, i spoke with her this morning. A giant in her own right. He is also survived by their children, his daughter and his son, u. S. Navy lieutenant who is deployed at the moment. Keep them in your prayers. And extended family. May god bless them all. Marybeth beth said one of the great memories of his life was when he was on the board of education, he got to hand each his daughter and son their high school diploma. Detective alex alex grew up in union city and even though he lived in glenridge, he remained committed to his first hometown in a big way. After joining Union City Police in 1999, 21 years ago, he is one of the original members of the Emergency Services unit and at the time of his passing was serving as a detective in the training division. He leaves behind two adult children, giuliana with who i of speaking of. And his son alex who is in philadelphia. He is remembered by his colleagues for his softspoken and genuine. He was only 52 years old. God bless you alex and we have your memory and your children in our deepest prayers. Each of these lives epitomized service. We know every Single Person we have lost in this pandemic has been a cherished and invaluable member of their communities as well. They all gave back in ways large and small. For that we thank them and honor them. We commit to them that we will do everything in our power to stop the spread of this disease and lose fewer and fewer residents to it. Throughout this emergency, i have been in contact with mayors and elected officials of all shapes and sizes. Mayors up and down our state, and they have all reported to me that the overwhelming majority of their residents recognize the vital importance of doing the right thing. It ing home even when stopped being fun. For that we are deeply appreciative, thankful, and respectful. A friend and coach reminded me that he is still hearing from too many people who continue to think that it is just the flu and that they dont have to change their habits. He suggested for us to remind you why that is not the case. Let me speak in particular directly to anyone who is sticking to this way of thinking. I cannot put it more bluntly. And ed can back me up. Based on everything we know at this time, that point of view is wrong. Surely we see flu outbreaks every year, and yes, people die of the flu every year. He flu has not caused the devastation that were seeing. Especially among our most vulnerable populations. Look at the longterm care facilities. Look at veterans homes if you need any proof. The data we are seeing, the numbers and the science prove how this is a different enemy. Take a couple of numbers to heart, if i can. In just six weeks, we have lost 4,070 blessed New Jerseyans to covid19. That is more than the cdc statistics show we have lost over the past three flu seasons in their entirety combined. We know that covid19 is more virulent than the flu and one person can infect many more without showing any symptoms. Unless someone is exposed, it can take a long time, 14 days to develop this illness. The hospitalization rate for covid19 is far greater than what it is for the flu. The general hospitalization rate for the flu is 1 10 of 1 of cases. Already look at the numbers we present for covid19, it is roughly 10 . You are therefore 100 more times likely to end up in the hospital based on what we now know. Finally, this is probably the most obvious point, we have vaccines that can protect against the flu. We have proven antiflu therapies. We are at least one year away if not longer from a vaccine for covid19. While there are promising earlystage trials, there are proven y no therapeutics. This is a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in a century. If you have been keeping your eyes and mind closed to the facts and science, i beg you to open them. Open them wide before you become one of the numbers that i report here every day. I know judy and ed would want me to remind you, will we learn more, the answer is yes. Yes, over time the contrast between covid19 and coronavirus and the year in and year out may change. Before we get a vaccine, god willing, we will get therapeutics. There are some studies out now that claim that more folks have been infected unwillingly and are asymptomatic but have been touched by this already. There is a big debate about will warm weather impacted this and it is an open question. No experts will give you a definitive answer and say yes or no to that effect. In the meantime, please trust us we dont know. The every day flu which could be a big challenge is in a completely different category than what we are talking about here. Now that i got that off my chest, a couple of other items i wanted to quickly brief you on. I had a concerning call from Chuck Schumer that there is not momentum right now in congress to put any amount of money into direct state aid and that would lead unequivocally to a national disaster. As i mentioned, we are looking at what the Federal Reserve has presented to us in terms of a potential Municipal Bond program. I was happy to see the speaker say yesterday that he was looking forward to working toward a responsible plan, i think that is a good word to use. We need that now more than we did 24 hours ago. When you hear that congress, i will not get political, there is one part of congress that does not see the wisdom to put direct money into states. Let me tell you the alternative. Particularly if we cannot borrow money, we will have layoffs that will be historic in the history at the state, and local level. I dont know how many, but it is big, big numbers. I plead this is not either or. We need both direct Financial Assistance to states from a bill passed by congress and signed by the president and we will need bonding flexibility in either case. I would just plead with folks on both sides of the aisle to please get to that reality sooner than later and make that happen. I have been back and forth secretary Robert Wilkie of the veterans affairs, he and his team have been back and forth with our team and helping us work through the veterans homes in particular. More on that over the coming days, but i want to give him a big shout out. As angry as we are, and i can speak on behalf of all of us, at the bad apple longterm care facilities operators as angry and frustrated as we are about the completely inconsistent and unacceptable level of communication, it must be said like any community, there are good apples and good actors. Folks to make sure realize that. With time, we will find ways to shout them out. Regardless of the operator, there are heroic Healthcare Workers not just in hospitals, but in longterm Healthcare Facilities who are going in day after day to do the lords work for folks, in particular, our most vulnerable, and i want to make sure i say that. I mentioned the other day that on, away from this awful virus. That includes births, deaths, again, life goes on. I had two striking calls yesterday. One was a very good friend, sheriff gilbert, whose wife, president of the board of education, passed due to a heart attack. I spoke to his daughter. She was a giant. It was a stark reminder that life and death go on even away from this virus. God bless martha and god keep his daughter and her family in your hearts. The next call was to olivia who is seven years old who wrote me an incredible nice note. It reminded me that young kids are watching. I spoke to her and her mom. Her twin and her big sister mary. Reminder that folks of all ages are paying attention. They are following this. She wanted to reach out and she sent me a note to say we are with you in this and hang in there and it was an incredible conversation and it was starker coming on the back of just coming off of the phone. The young, the old, the here, now, the alphas and the omegas in our society, we are swept up by this virus and those who are swept up by life. I have no new announcements beyond that. I want to remind everybody on testing, there are roughly 70 testing sites up and running across our state, both privately and publicly accessible. A complete list of the publicly accessible sites can be found at covid19. Nj. Gov testing. Riteaid is beginning an appointment only Testing Program new jersey its locations. A store in Bergen County opened its program today. And another ngton one is set to open on monday in ocean county to follow on wednesday. These sites will be added to our online list and you can go to riteaid. Com for more information and to make an appointment. Your primary Care Practitioner can direct you to many other sites should you meet the requirements for covid19 testing. We continue to work aggressively to ramp up testing capabilities as we know having a strong testing regime in place is critical for us moving forward as we begin to plan to reopen our state. Remember, the order of events is of this virus. Bring the new cases down and, please god, fatalities to a much lower number. Make sure we have in place the proper Healthcare Infrastructure. Rapidscaled testing, contact tracing, a means to quarantine and isolate. Those elements must be in place. With that, we can have the confidence that we can begin to open up again. We continue to ask for volunteers with medical experience to join our army against covid19. Specifically we need respiratory therapists, nurses, and paramedics. Physicians. If you have experience, please visit covid19. Nj. Gov volunteer and in doing so, well be adding your name to the Healthcare Workers who have volunteered with us. For those of you who want to start giving back to your community, not necessarily because you are a Healthcare Worker but you want to get back, please visit covid19. Nj. Gov help and we will match you with opportunities near you whether it be people with special needs or those hoping to start a local food pantry, these are critical needs. Before i turn things over, i want to mention a young man in Cumberland County who we should be celebrating today. It is his 12th birthday. He is a sixth grader in middle school. He had an unusual request for birthday presents. He asked for his neighbors to bring him boxes of pasta and cans and jars of tomato sauce that he will donate to the soup kitchen. I want to give a shout out to the guy that sent this my way, the president of the board of trustees of the soup kitchen. Since the emergency started, the soup kitchen has gone from serving 120 meals to almost double that, if not more. He set up his table outside of his house and yesterday alone, more than 100 people drove past and dropped off with social distancing some birthday presents for him. He is back at it again today so if you are in south jersey, go wish him a happy birthday from a distance. Make sure you have your face covered. He is at east grand avenue at south main road. His dad, another friend of mine, is a firefighter. The apple of service does not fall far from the tree. Dominic, we wish you the very happiest of birthdays and we thank you. If you know someone like dominic making a difference, tell us their story on social media. It is these stories of hope and optimism and service to community that are drawing us together even as we have to stay apart. To everyone doing the right thing to help us flatten and eventually break the back of this curve, thank you. Your efforts are making a real difference. It is how we will defeat covid19 and come out strong and ready to get our state back on its feet, back to where it was, and back to where we know it can be again. With that, please help me welcome the woman who needs no introduction, the commissioner of the department of health. Thank you, governor. Good afternoon. Each day i read race and ethnicity statistics that demonstrate the disproportionate impact that the coronavirus is having on communities of color. I would like to put that in more context this afternoon. Studies have shown for years that the social conditions in which people are born, learn, live, work, and age affect their health. In other words, your zip code sometimes matters more than your genetic code. These social determinants of health, economic stability, education, healthcare, social support, and Environmental Issues like air pollution in cities that contribute to high asthma rates place an additional layer of Health Concern on top of this pandemic for new jerseys communities of color. Last week, the first lady and lieutenant governor, Human Services commissioner Karol Johnson and i discussed these issues tuesday night with senator ron rice and the new Jersey Medical association. The new Jersey Medical association is a chapter of the National Medical association, the largest and Oldest National organization representing africanamerican physicians and their patients in the u. S. We were joined by their president , dr. Campbell, and the following physicians, dr. Bay, dr. Thomas, dr. Cook, dr. Page, dr. Williams, dr. Natalie roesch, dr. Kathy duncan, and dr. Hutchinson. These physician leaders raise important issues and we share their concerns and we will be working on their suggestions. The members of the association are basically trying to rely on telehealth in their urban environments and shared with us how difficult that is. They support more testing in community clinics. They called out areas that we should be focusing on, and they talked about the importance of staying at home and social distancing but that that is very some ult to do in domiciles. We will continue to work with senator rice and the new Jersey Medical association to do everything in our power to reduce the just proportionate impact that the coronavirus is having on communities of color. We must ensure that all of our communities stay safe and healthy during these difficult times. As the governor shared for todays report, our hospitals reported 7017 hospitalizations last week. This is a 3 decrease on the daily growth rate for the past two days. There are 2,024 patients in Critical Care. 1,641 of those are on ventilators. A total of 814 covid positive patients were discharged yesterday. Bringing our total discharges to 9,692. Today we are reporting 3,026 new cases for a total of 81,420 cases in our state. Sadly, 231 new deaths have been reported to the department. There are 125 new deaths reported and associated with longterm care facilities. We share our condolences with the families who have lost someone they loved. According to data from this morning, of the seven laboratories sending us covid19 results, 147,850 tests were performed. 66,734 returned positive. Our Positivity Rate is 45. 14 . Our state psychiatric hospitals are reporting 119 patient testing positive and as i reported yesterday, they sadly report seven of their population have passed away. The new jersey veterans since this is 787, 151 have tested positive and they have reported 59 deaths. There are no cases at the vineland location. The breakdown on race and ethnicity is as follows. 50. 9 percent white, nonhispanic. 22 blacknonhispanic. 16. 7 hispanic. 4. 8 other. An, and the underlying conditions of fatalities remain the same. For saying home. Its surely making a difference. Stay connected, stay safe, and healthy. Thank you schulte judy, thank you to you and the team for extraordinary leadership. Counties with positive tests. The list of the top six that have been the most impacted in terms of positives and sadly fatalities. Fergus, hudson, essex, union, passaic and middlesex. To repeat something we have said many times in deep appreciation for your opening remarks about the discussion with senator rice and other physicians, the African American incidence of fatalities is running about 50 higher than the overall representation in our state. That led to the calls that you have referred to. That is something we will stay on. The hispanic number is a little shy of the overall presentation. As i mentioned in prior sessions, quite at odds with the new york city numbers. That is something we will reiterate as we are looking at carefully and closely. With that, for compliance. Ppe, infrastructure and other measures, welcome colonel callahan. Newark issued 88 violations and shut down four nonessential businesses. Passaic, four subjects were cited and had been in an altercation at a party that should not have been gathered. Toms river, normandy beach, a subject was found kite surfing off the beach and found himself in distress. Multiple lifesaving units responded. He was recovered without incident and subsequently appropriately cited for the violation. Fort noris, a subject involved in a Motor Vehicle accident was unresponsive. Officers had utilized narcan to revive him. He was found in possession of heroin and had no lawful purpose to be out. He was cited with a violation. Point pleasant beach, a subject in the lobby became unruly, claiming to have covid symptoms. Coughing on ems workers and officers. Hazlett, responding to an altercation, a subject was cited for the violation. In sparta a few days ago i subject had been in a store without a mask. He was disorderly. Reported to the police yesterday. When the Police Finally Found the subject who questioned him, he became resistant. Spit at them, bit them and physically resisted. Spit in the holding cell and urinated. And had to be sanitized. He was obviously cited for the violation. Gov. Murphy where was that . I was going to say sparta, sussex. Irvington, officers asked a subject to disperse. The subject became unruly and spat on the police officer, shouting he had corona. He was obviously charged. In jersey city, at an airbnb party, 15 people were having a party. I think they ultimately cited four subjects for being in violation. In elizabeth, eight were cited fter previously been asked to disperse days before. In trenton, a subject who organized a protest from yesterdays pending charges. Not so much for the protest itself but for not having social distance involved with being in a large gathering. The last one, southhampton, a oman woman subject cited for driving under the influence, vomited at the station. While the trooper was escorting her to the vehicle she subsequently punched the trooper in the face. Although not many incidents, some were fairly egregious last night. On the longtermcare front, because that is such a challenging issue for us across the state, i want everyone to know out of our ppe allocation today, all 21 county offices of Emergency Management that serve as the point of distribution, all are receiving face shields, gowns and masks, gloves and Hand Sanitizer in our efforts to keep everyone safe in longterm care facilities. That is all i have. Gov. Murphy those are going specifically to longterm care . Yes, sir. Gov. Murphy on a very positive note, notwithstanding some of the extraordinary lack of compliance stories, particularly the aggressive behavior and trying to infect others, the complaint overall in the state is extraordinary. You would not get the map we showed earlier, the flattening in those charts. Judy and i were looking at. There is clear progress being made here. Let there be no doubt about it. Dont ever say we did not say that. Heres the problem, and to repeat, the short connection between an abrupt change in Human Behavior and all those charts, graphs and progress is shocking. All let words, if we our hair down right now, we literally see it tomorrow. We are not out of the woods. Yet plateaued. Were still memorializing every s of people dying day. Admittedly, these are folks most likely infected some two or three weeks ago. We accept that and we know that out of the woods yet. The progress is undeniable. That is thanks to each and every one of you. But there is a grave responsibility which remains in all of our hands to continue that progress and to not backslide. Please stay with us. I know it is frustrating. Today the weather is not so hot tomorrow it will be better. Better evitably get weather and youre chomping at the bit. Who can blame you. We get it. Please stay home, stay away from each other. Find ways to get fresh air were responsible and going to get through this together. Unequivocally we will get through this together. Notwithstanding those rather sobering reports to say the least, the compliance is overwhelming. That report on ppe in particular for longterm care facilities weve had good discussions with the secretary of veteran affairs and his teams. There is a lot in motion. Notwithstanding we are in a world of hurt. Let me say before we start, tomorrow, unless you hear, it will be electronic paper. If there is a reason to get together on the phone or in person, we will get to it immediately. We have a vtc with the white house on monday. Our gathering here, we will be together for that, but we will be here at 2 00 on monday and not 1 00. Tuesday and wednesday, we will let you know the latest on monday, we have a little travel in each of those days tentatively scheduled to go visit some of the work being done to build our capacity. More details on that including how that impacts the time we gather for this daily event. Is that fair . We will get everybody. John, good afternoon. On the racial disparity, are you compiling data by zip code . Can we get that at some point to see where things are . The breakdown town by town . Any update or detailing on the inspections and teams Center Nursing homes . Id those bad apples nursing home operators we dont know about . The total number of deaths in Nursing Homes, you mentioned 125. Was that new deaths or total deaths . They are asking about reports of deaths inat 80 at en county were residents Nursing Homes. Is that accurate . Gov. Murphy duty, i will start and ask you to come in. On that last question, i dont know the answer but there were 73 fatalities as we sit here in camden county, just to put a total number on it. Judy, i cant verify the 80 . Perhaps judy can. I will say this on the racial data. We will endeavor to get as granular as we can. I cant promise you when that is going to going to be public but that is not something we will hold back. Bear with us on that. I would think we would be able to ultimately do this by zip code. We will be as hyper transparent on everything but particularly on that as we can. I cant promise you when. Judy can update you on inspections of teams. I will make this a general comment and judy and i will keep it that way on the veterans homes. It is still taking form on what the help will look like. At a minimum it will be a significant amount of help at menlo park and paramus. As a general matter, judy, if you can talk about the inspections. I wont get into the bad apples today. I promise you i was saying the opposite. We can t some point celebrate the goodles. Their rybody is ignoring responsibilities right now. My particular plea for folks to remember the Health Care Workers are heroes, whether they are in a hospital, a longterm care facility, a home for mentally disabled, a veterans home, etc. Let me start with the teams. The survey team went out to five longterm care facilities in the north yesterday. They are visiting an additional 11 over the weekend. The survey of the andover . Cms survey and the facility, the cms survey and the state surveyor is complete. A Conference Call was held with the owner and nursing consultant yesterday. He received several citations. He is required to submit a plan of correction on monday. The plan of correction includes onsite inspection prevention specialist, chief nurse officer and leadership administrative manager. On camden, i dont have the exact percentage. I can tell you overall in new jersey 40 of our deaths are related in some way to longterm care. I dont have camdens specifics. Yes, we will be looking at all deaths, particularly individuals from our urban centers by zip code. I dont have that with me. It is certainly information we need. Gov. Murphy thank you, john and judy. In addition to the cms, you had your people at andover and the attorney general is conducting an investigation as well. Thank you, john. Good afternoon. The first questions are from maria kramer from the new york times. She asks are the fatality numbers provided every day suspected cases plus confirmed cases . Or are they just confirmed cases . She also asks whether the total number of nursing home deaths released yesterday and those today add up to 1655 . My own question, is new jersey relying solely on the federal government for test kits . Is it making any testing kit purchases itself . If so, from what sources and in what quantities . Down the road, what would a widescale Testing Program look like . Talking nce, are you nine million residents . What is a realistic timetable to start . Most important, what do you do with this testing data . Gov. Murphy elise, judy and pat with your blessing, i will say couple of things here. On marias questions, let me just say one thing we have said before. I mentioned a fatality could be someone correct me if im wrong could be someone infected some two or three weeks ago. They did not all necessarily pass between 2 00 yesterday and 1 00 today. I believe the reason is you are confirming these, are you not . We aim to count every death out there we think is related to covid. You talked about confirmed deaths. The numbers we report everyday and our daily numbers are confirmed deaths. These are people that had lab tests that tested positive for covid. In addition, we then attempt to link those deaths back to people who died in longterm care facilities. That is sometimes a slower process. We might report that but not connected until a week later. Sometimes you cant look at them daytoday as far as that goes. In an attempt to get as accurate a picture as fast as we can out about what is going into the longterm care facilities, since we know a lot of people who died have not been tested and wont have results yet when we release results related to longterm care facilities, and those numbers sometimes we include those people who may not have been confirmed but are with an outbreak that has been confirmed. Gov. Murphy the question is, do the longterm care numbers add up to 1655 fatalities . Can we come back to you on that . Test kits. We have more sources than the feds at the moment. Rutgers university is one good example of that. I cant give you a particular detailed rundown of the variety of sources. We can come back to you on that. Do you have that . Can we come back to you with some broad sense of that . Ed, what is the testing regime going to look like in your opinion to be able to give us the confidence to be able to begin to reopen the economy . Is it a statistically significant percentage . What would you look at as the satisfactory level . In an ideal world, which we would never be at, you want to test everybody every day to see if they were exposed and possibly infected. That is just not possible. What we need to do is prioritize. At the very least we need enough testing so the people who are ill can be tested easily and quickly and reliably and get results fast, and enough testing to ensure that certain populations such as our Health Care Workers and so forth who are coming into regular contact with ill people are reliably known to be not infected. You do need to have some testing as background surveillance to get a sense of what is happening in the general community. As to exact numbers, i dont have an exact number of the types of tests. This will be a combination of a variety of different types of tests. A lot of different about whats out there. More tests are coming online as well. Gov. Murphy i think we said the other day we are currently doing between 7000 and 9000 a day. Has the ability to do up 10,000 with their current configuration. There is a Rapid Response on those tests. That will be as important as how many we have. We need to know quickly. Folks are still waiting. It has gotten better but its not just the scale. It is the rapidity. It will have to be before we can confidently reopen. I hope that is sooner than later. I think we have said this before. On the list of unknowns i mentioned warm weather. This is one that gets actively debated. Judy, is it fair to say that like the h1n1 story old us also you could get a potential reboot. You could have if you follow that path, you have a fairly benign Summer Season in the northern hemisphere. Then we got whacked again badly in the fall. We just want to repeat that potential. Even if we play our hand perfectly, that is a potential. Is that fair to say . Kenny anything to add generally or on the Nursing Homes . Com. Persichilli the tests was 655. And includes covid positive deaths. Deaths and persons with pending test results and respiratory illness deaths for which covid testing was not performed. The assumption is that there is a possibility they were covid so they are in that number as well. Gov. Murphy thank you. Do you have anything . With all thats going around the country gov. Murphy can you get closer . With whats going on around the country, the governors and the president , everyone is being positive opening the beaches in jacksonville. How do you get people to understand it is different there than here and appreciate the difference . Gov. Murphy i have been to jacksonville a lot and i have been to florida a bunch over the years but i cant say with great granularity that i personally or that we have deep insights into what is going on there. There is an absolute evident and natural pentup desire to begin to get back to normal. That is shared by everybody, including us. This is not like we dont see that. But we have to continue to make our decisions based on the facts. Based on data and based on science. We have to have a plan. If you saw our lives behind the curtain, you would see a number of parallel tracks run at the same time. The most important is to put the house fire out. You would also see i was on a call earlier today on what elements we need to have in place for our economy. Mentioned leader schumer last night and other members of the federal side of the ledger talking about the urgent need for financial support. You heard ed and judy and me to some extent talk about what a Healthcare Infrastructure needs to look like to be in place in new jersey to give us the confidence so we can begin to open that up. That is sort of that is the reality we see in new jersey. We want to get back to some kind of a normal. Who wouldnt . We want to do that, but we cannot do that if it means we put lives at risk. We just cant do that. We will continue to call the shots based on the facts. I cant speak for the decisions that get made or dont get made in florida, but i do know if you stick to the facts and you stick to the data, i think you get something that looks like what we are doing. We cant predict timing either. I think it is fair to say we know what the Program Needs to look like. I think. We just dont know i cant give you a date because there is a fair amount of hip bones connected to the thigh bones. Of putting the house fire out and the faster we can do that together, and thanks to everybody helping us do that because you are the ones who are doing that, the faster we can get to the other steps we need to take. Thank you. We will go over to brent here. Are you all right . How can you say the curve is flattening if youre not testing more people each day and the percentage of positives is so high . Is this data youre not sharing with the public . Families are telling us testing in Nursing Homes is very limited. Should they be a priority . Do what the National Homes as a top suggested yesterday . Does the total number of in long term s care facilities include deaths that have been different patient was transferred to a hospital or just if they died there . Do the numbers reflect only patients and staff at longterm facilities . Do the numbers reflect just patients or staff and patients . Are you aware there are empty beds inside University Hospital and the er is backed up everyday because of a Staffing Shortage . Anything new on the main one property tax deadline. That will remain in place. What do you say to protesters after a woman was arrested here yesterday for doing her thing . Gov. Murphy should we address these by alphabetical height . [indiscernible] gov. Murphy ok. Bless you. We are in a particularly charitable mood today. Curve flattening. I will give you two curves, one of which i mentioned to be determined by what the denominator is. There are lots of different studies. Have any people actually have been exposed to this . That is going to be one of the big pursuits. Not just in new jersey but in america. There are a couple of curves we do know. We know people who pass. Judy reminds me, we know hospitalizations. We know icu beds. We know that for sure. That curve those curves are flattening. Those are ones we would far more hang our hats on then admittedly the positive test curve is flattening. Remember, it is flattening, and think every day i have said testing sites of either held or has gone up. While i would still say we dont know what the denominator is, we are getting more testing in more places in the state in the curve is still flattening. Testing in Nursing Homes, judy, i will let you come back to that one. The national guard. That continues to be an option on the table. Longterm care details in terms of both where they pass, whether it is in the home or hospital, i will defer to judy. Patients and staff, i think we can give you that as well. Empty beds at University Hospital. Judy ran University Hospital. She is more qualified to talk to that. Said all along, you have a number of capacities we are desperately staying ahead of. Pretty id 24 this doggedly. Beds, ventilators, medicines, ppe, Health Care Workers. Those are all they are the heroes here. Those are all capacities, if you want to put it that way, we are desperately trying to stay out in front. Any color e specifically on the empty beds but Healthcare Workers are not heroes but they are beat up right now. A lot of them, many, sadly, are infected. Most are doing better. A lot are quarantined. They are literally our heroes. Nothing new on the property tax deadline. Sorry to disappoint. On the protesters, listen. With all due respect, anybody who thinks we are doing this just to take away peoples liberties and rights is not looking at the data we are looking at. We are doing what were doing to save lives and keep as few people as infected and hospitalized as possible. We are trying every step of the weight to make the right calls based on those facts. We will continue to do that. The minute we think we can begin to tweak this, open things up based on data and facts and science, well be out there doing just that. Meantime, i ask folks, i to protest right this. Ust us on stay home. We are basing this on the facts. Nursing homes where folks passed, patients versus staff at University Hospital. Com. Persichilli let me start with University Hospital. All of our hospitals at 10 30 every night, we know exactly how many icu beds they have. How many are filled. How many are empty. We have that on the full Hospital Capacity as well. We are seeing open beds in some of our hospitals. Because there are no elective surgeries being done. Surgical units that are not filled at this point with patients that are covid positive or pending are empty. We want it that way. I think the governor mentioned Healthcare Workers need a break as well. This perhaps gives it to them. We look at beds, Health Care Workers, Critical Care beds and ventilators. At 10 30 every night we know exactly what is going on throughout the whole 71 acutecare hospitals in the state. I can show you our graphs on that. We can see the dark lines. The beds that are full. The gray line is the beds that are empty. We have this for all the hospitals. On the total deaths, ed is our watchdog on the statistics so i will let him explain the cross checking with the death certificates. I believe that is regardless of location. Dr. Lifshiftz the commissioner is correct. We associate the death with hospital, it is counted as part of that outbreak. That is part of the hospital. Com. Persichilli as far as testing, today we have a Conference Call about developing our strategy for testing in longterm care facilities. More to come on that. It is a priority. Gov. Murphy needless to say it is happening. We want to make that more robust than it is. Com. Persichilli exactly. Gov. Murphy we get most of those . Charlie, how are you . I have to ask about any inconsistency. Were hyper transparent today. You did sign a bill to relax the open public records act. Now youre at ministries and has the nightly s1 request for the daily has denied at least one request for the daily data. Will that data be made public . Your response was your default position, is to give you as much as we can buffer privacy considerations we asked for more time to put some information out there on your own. I give you more time. I followed up on april 3 at your briefing. You asked to clarify the question. This is less a question of where we have the data and when we get it. Is this going to be data but to we get it is this going be data that everybody has access to and your quote was, to. Re is no reason not youre the commissioner of health, there is no reason not to. Up after the meeting. Whats your question in so i filed an open request to get data and i was surprised to get a rejection letter yesterday. Wanted to ask what changed since april 3. No idea. I wish you better luck next time. Whats your next question. This is the only issue im addressing today. If your Health Commissioner a reason not to and you dont see a reason not to and i spoke to the state police of if you dont see a reason not to why is your administration rejecting a request for that and your administration reverse its position on this and release the Important Information about healthcare . I have no idea. Thanks for the question. I just saw the following post by the surrogate in atlantic county. Let me just say, folks, lets be with statements like this. Atlantic county officials need alarm, reopen new jersey immediately without estrictions, trust american freedom, ingenuity, and the u. S. Constitution, untie the hands of private sector so it can rescue new jersey from this nightmare. Persons have died nacovid19 in atlantic county. I would just say this, folks. That is irresponsible. The system right now, there will be blood on our hands and i want to make sure folks understand that. This is literally life and death. What we need now is responsible leadership. We do not need irresponsible leadership. Leadership. Ponsible now, im openminded. Have you thought about this . ve had a lot of very constructive and i will say why e back and forth with are we keeping our parks closed . A lot of golfers out there want golf. And again, its im just examples. Ose two as those have been good back and forths. We believe strongly that what doing on both of those fronts is what we need to do to safe. Eople keep them out of hospitals and ultimately keep them alive. Doing it t be otherwise. Think about it why, the heck would we make you not go to a didnt think we were trying to protect the general Public Health of the state . Sense. S no we didnt run on an antipark platform. This is just doing the right safe, keep ep people them out of hospitals and keep them alive. Anybody out there, who thinks that, lets just open the place to lower ead infections, lower hospitalizations, and lower fatalities, is being completely utterly irresponsible. Me on this. Trust us on this. Okay. Try , were doing this to to keep infections as low as we hospitalizations as low as we can and please, god, we fatalities as low as can. And well continue to do just that. My minute we think, you have word, and by the way, yall are doing an extraordinary job on this. Reckless responsible actors there are thousands times more of responsible actions elected not just officials, although there are, but folks, who are in their own right now watching this. Every day new jersians doing the right thing. To keep doing that. I promise you, from the bottom of our hearts, the minute we see data, the minute we have that ealthcare infrastructure that allows us that scaled rapid testing, to take place, to allow tracing, hat contact the minute we think weve got a window into that, i promise you, well be telling you that the second weve got that be idence, and well tweaking and or reopening parts of new jersey the minute we do confidence. Until then youre we have to trust each other. For those of you as old as i am, know i can speak for pat, the scene in Butch Cassidy and the 300 nce kid, looking down, feet below, judy you probably wont remember this, ed might, cant swim and there is a profanity which i wont use but they basically said, you were going to hold hands and jump. So folks, im asking you, were now. Ng hands right were doing everything we believe is the right thing to do in this s many of us state safe. And well continue to do that. O as i put my mask back on, skewedy would be upset if i didnt before we leave so im going to do that. Again for coming out. Stay safe. Keep doing what youre doing. Oure doing a great job, everybody. Well be on electronic communication tomorrow. Be unless there is a reason not to be, in which case back to you and well be in god bless you all. Thank you for everything you are doing. Keep it up. It is new jersey no state in america is doing what we are doing right now. Thats a tribute to all 9 million of you out there. God bless you. Thank you. When the coronavirus pandemic continues, members of the congress are working from their home districts. Many are ones in the automotive industry. The other majority are what i would call your front line workers. Now they are considered essential workers. I hope people dont forget these are folks that have been demanding 15 minimum wage. I think it is really important to highlight that. They are the ones keeping us afloat. This is a very, very serious issue. What ive been telling people is please listen to the federal authorities, the state authorities, the local authorities, the Health Experts and do just stay away from people right now. I see this as a war. And the United States is at war with this virus. Stay in touch using the newly updated cspan congressional directory. It has all of the Contact Information youll need to connect with your u. S. Senator or representative. Order your copy online today at cspanstore. Org. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Dean up sunday morning, of the university of Nebraska Medical Center to discuss his book, the next pandemic on the front lines. And oklahoma memorial executive director Perry Watkins will discuss the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Be sure to watch live at 7 00 eastern sunday morning. Join the discussion. This is the headlines from the sharon, pennsylvania herald. Mike kelley recovering from covid19. From pennsylvanias 16th Congressional District joins us on the phone from his home in butler, pennsylvania. How are you feeling . Guest i am feeling much better. Health, to my normal which is usually excellent. It was quite a trip. One of those things i totally did not expect, did not see it coming. March,t the middle of started to feel a little bit funny. This
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