Data to the department of health for all individuals who have tested positive for covid19. Good afternoon, everyone. Happy earth day. Im joined by the woman on my right who needs no introduction, the commissioner of the department of health. To her right, someone else who does not eat an introduction. Our state epidemiologist, thank you for being with us. Left, the my superintendent of the state police. Thank you. The director of the office of Homeland Security preparedness is with us. For him. I, amongpat and others, were honored to be joined earlier today by commanding general tots ammonite of the u. S. Army corps of engineers to tour the new bed spaces being constructed at east orange, which you can see here. East on General Hospital and that new bridge medical center. You see the paramus set up. The army corps has provided tremendous assistance at both. I want to give a huge shout out general, who you have seen at white house briefings. We have spoken before about Major General jeff miller more who was in charge of the region in which new jersey sits. Including the three field medical establishments,. Stablishing wards one of the floors we toured was a former general workout room. You would never know it today. A lot of beds. 250 beds were added in east orange. We toured 30 at newbridge. They will put another 100 and asration in operation early as next week or two weeks from now. Thats another 130 on top of the 250380 beds. We will come back to that capacity question in a moment. Lets get to the numbers are leon. Today, 3551 new positive test results, pushing our state total to 95,865. Sadly, with the heaviest of hearts, this does not get any easier, we must also report that 314 additional blessed souls were lost since we last were with you. Meaning that a total of over 5000 now, 5063 of our fellow new jerseyans have passed due to covid19 related complications. Since we were last with you, i dont mean that literally. , anre reporting that additional 314 deaths and yesterday. We continue to see that the curve of new covid19 cases remains significantly flat. See that. Again, while we consider this a positive step in our fight, we are not even close to even considering claiming victory. We need this curve to meeting lately meaningfully start to decline before we can begin considering the implementation of any reopening strategy. This chart is the number of confirmed positive cases. This begs a question as to what element of the total denominator, what part of all of us in the state who may be infected are reflected in these numbers . Numbers are now almost 96 96,000. We must keep our Strong Social distancing policies in place. This will continue to be the case for the next several weeks, at least. By the way, it is working. Thank you. Keep it up. It is working. All of you have taken these steps to heart and are being models for your communities and practicing social distancing. Those are the reasons we can see progress now on this matter. Here we go. Dont be alarmed. The first thought is, we backslid. It turns out the shading is different because the colors have been changed to reflect longer doubling times. Again, this is the amount of days it takes to double the rate of infection by county. We had gotteny, to the point where we could not show you any more new wants nuance in the colors across counties. In 14 of our counties, shown in the light pale orange, the rate has slowed to between 1430 days. Daysarker orange is 714 in the seven counties that are slightly darker. This matches the progression of covid19 we anticipated. We spoke about this yesterday. We need to push like never before to get every county to be the lightest possible shade. As we mentioned yesterday, the progression of field medical stations was not by accident. It was to sync up as best we could plan with the reality in terms of the cases. Night,0 30 p. M. Last there were 7210 residents hospitalized for covid19. Require critical or intensive care. 1570 ventilators and use. In use. Our field medical stations are treating 84 patients. Importantly for the 24 hours preceding 10 00 p. M. Last night, our hospitals recorded 745 discharges. Now, putting these numbers into context, lets turn to three more graphs. First, the overall number of patients in critical or intensive care remained stable as does the number of ventilators in use. As i noted yesterday, we need these numbers to begin to greet decreased before we can move for next phase. Not seeing any significant increase over the past week, duty and christine would agree, is a good starting point. The lesage and strapped yesterday but that just means we had good news for one day in a row. Lets hope it stays that way. Begind to see this number a sustained increase. This will remain our most important measure of progress, the rate of new hospitalizations as a direct correlation to the new positive test results. Finally, we see the number of discharges versus the number of new admittance is. Today, the lines are intersecting again with more discharges than admittance is. Thats a good thing. These last three charts are all very real numbers. They are not estimates or abstracts. This is the reality are 71 hospitals are living right now. Ive come back to the point several times. This data is invaluable to us because it measures in real terms the ability of our Health Care System to be able to get ahead of covid19 and then stay ahead of it. Again, i want to come back to positive test results. The women to my right have forgotten more than ill ever know. We are the fourth highest tested state in america. We are testing more and more each and every day. It is not a definitive answer as to the question. No one knows this right now. How many folks in total may be infected . We dont know that. Can guess but we dont know that. Person how many people are hospitalized. How many people are in the icu. How many ventilators are in use. How many people are passing because of covid19. Those are the hard, fast, realistic, all too often grim numbers. Those are real. Those are real. That is the basis upon which duty and team make a lot of the decisions. Toward a reopening strategy, which we are working on finalizing now, one of the first things we need to be prepared for is the spike in new cases that will surely come when we do reopen. We will continue to be datadriven as we prepare for what is to come. Our Number One Mission remains unchanged, to save lives. Period. This data is not just invaluable in letting us know where things are today. It is also invaluable in telling us where we are headed in the future. However, as i noted, that future will come with fewer members of our new jersey family with us. We mourn with everyone who has lost a loved one due to covid19. I would like to remember three more of those we lost. John kerry chia. He was born in new york city but called the ford section of woodbridge township home for the past 40 years. For three decades, john work for the Port Authority of new york and new jersey and new work airport and the world trade center. Retiring as operation supervisor in human services. Since his retirement, he remained active and was serving as the chief of the woodbridge township ambulance and rescue squad. He was active in the life life of st. James Roman Catholic church. Hes remembered by his family, friends, and colleagues as a leader, teacher, and mentor. John was 74 years old. He leaves behind a big, incredible family. Son withters and a whom i had the honor of speaking yesterday afternoon. In turn, their families. He was blessed with 10 grandchildren and three greatgrandchildren. He is survived by his sister and her family and his former wife roseann. We keep all of them in our thoughts and prayers. God bless you, john. Next one. The guy known to many. Kevin could kill a. Kurdilla. He was a High School Football standout at eastside high, earning all county, allcity, and allstate honors. He turned down the opportunity to go elsewhere for college ball and attended rutgers university. In his four years, this garlic knights would go 3213. He would earn a ticket to the rutgers hall of fame. He was an undrafted signee with the new york football giants in 1981. Injury shelved his nfl career and kevin went to work with the Production Team at the starledger. According to one former colleague, he never missed a day of work. Years,es his wife of 35 with whom i spoke yesterday. You can only imagine. His daughters jennifer and samantha. Jennifer summed up her that this way. His laughter and integrity and entire presence were larger than life. He will be deeply missed. God bless you, kevin. Retired patterson fire captain and member of Wayne Fire Company number three, john verla. , i want to family make sure i get this pronunciation right. They said, think cinderella. There he is right there. He was 70 years old when we lost him one week ago. A patterson native, he called wayne home for the past 20 years. John f. Of pattersons Kennedy High School class of 1968. He listed in the United States marine corps and served our country during the vietnam war, earning an Honorable Discharge in 1975. He would join the Patterson Fire Department and play a role in developing the citys ems system and would later serve as the emt basic program for nader court nader at a community college. At a publicctor safety institute. Right up until the end, john remained active as an emt for the new jersey sports and exposition authority. To his wife patricia, with whom i had the honor of speaking, and and theire children families and loved ones, you are in our thoughts. We thank john for his years of service to our state and to our nation. Them as we do every person we have lost to covid19 and our flags or may not have staff in their collective honor. Remain at half staff in the collective honor. God bless each and every one of them. Let us never allow this to become abstract. Yes, we talk about charts in numbers and models and trends. We must. You want us to do that. We have to make decisions based on the data, the science, the facts as best we can. Each and every one of these individuals was an extraordinary, precious life lost in our new jersey family. Let us never forget the toll in total and the toll by name. Each and every one of these individuals. God bless them all. Turning to a couple other topics. We had a good Leadership Meeting with our senior staff last night. We covered a whole range of topics. It was a good catchup meeting. We have been meeting pretty regularly, speaking by phone over the past number of weeks. This morning, i spoke with andrew cuomo. As we continue both our Regional Partnership with the seven states i will come back to that and our tristate partnership with new york and connecticut in particular, are three states are working on a Contact Tracing program that includes not just necessary human components but also a technological one as well. Add, iscussion, i might in its very early stages. We all recognize that robust Contact Tracing, in addition to testing protocol, is vital to any serious reopening efforts. , i want and connecticut to give the governors a shout out to consistently being with us in new jersey as we have shut our states down. They will be with us as we reopen. I mention the broader regional of seven states. New jersey, new york, connecticut, pennsylvania, delaware, rhode island, massachusetts. We established that Regional Council over the past couple weeks. Each state contributed three members. We are honored to have jeh johnson as one of our representatives. That Regional Council met this morning for the first time. They had their maiden meeting this morning. This is real. I will give you one metric to describe how real this is. That Regional Council will meet twice a week for the first noble future. In addition to that, the chiefs of staff for those seven states are now meeting virtually twice in a week. Testing. A list of more than two dozen publicly accessible testing on ours available website. There are many more that your primary Care Practitioner can point you as well. We have a total now of 86 testing sites statewide. Nation with both arms tied behind our backs. Thats a fraction of the resources we needed. We have cobbled it together in new jersey to become the fourth most tested state in america, behind three states that have a lot more people. California, florida, new york. We are not remotely where we need to be or will have to be in order to have that Health Care Infrastructure in place and that confidence that we will need to get the state reopen. Yesterday, the office of Emergency Management received a shipment of 500 ventilators that the state purchased. Those have been inventoried and are now ready for distribution and use by our hospitals. We procured these ventilators to ensure to the best of our ability that every new jersey and who needs a ventilator has one. This also puts us in position to be better prepared for potential spikes as we look to reopen and for spikes that many predict may continue through fall or into winter. I want to take a timeout here and add lead. Duty and christina will correct the record. You have asked on a number of occasions, have you been able to find ventilators other than from the strategic stockpile . I want to give california and new york are huge shout out. This is the first say i day i could say, we bought them, they are ours. We dont have to give them back. We have been scrapping at this every single day. This is an important day. Importantly, the point i referred to when i looked at judy, we discussed this. We have discussed it with some of our prior sessions. Are we going to need the east orange beds next month . I hope not. We might. I hope not. Will we need any ventilators over the next weeks or months . We may. I hope not. We have to monitor this thing as it travels through our state. This is largely up to us folks. The extent to which we keep that map, those new colors with those days that it takes to double and those numbers go up in terms of days, that means the likelihood of using those beds were ventilators goes down. Today, we were applauding the Extraordinary Health care workers who were waving at me through the windows. They need relief. The extent to which they will get that relief not only is dependent on the amount of volunteers, over 20,000 at this point, but also up to us. If we keep the curve flat, the infections stay low, hospitalization stay low, icu stale,ospitalizations demand on our Health Care Workers stays low. Heres what we are all also worried about. What if this thing comes back . Right will to my tell you that this is the sort of virus where the likelihood of it coming back is pretty high. We dont know that. If you look at the h1n1 experience, the spanish influenza experience, this is , we i was discussing today may need the capacities that we are preparing for, whether it is beds, ventilators, healthcare workers, we may need them even if we do everything right and we get it exactly right. We may need this down the road. Not only might we need this in maycurrent surge, but we well needed in the fall or winter of next year. We want to make sure we are as prepared as humanly possible for that eventuality. Switching gears. Today, i will be signing legislation requiring our hospitals to report to the department of Health Demographic and racial data for all individuals who have tested positive for covid19, who have been admitted, and who have died as the number who have tried to get tested but were unsuccessful. Includeormation will age, ethyl density, gender, and race for each of these individuals. The data, once we start getting it, will be publicly reported by the department. We have already updated our online dashboard to reflect this. This information will be critical for us to fully understand the impact that covid19 has had on our diverse communities. We can already tell from the preliminary data that the Commission Reports that this emergency has had an impact on our communities of color. Explicitythank senator braun rice for his sponsorship of the bill. They are both dear friends and equally fierce advocates. Next, as you likely know, congress is preparing for final passage of another covid19 support package. Nearly 500aling billion. While we are grateful for the additional relief and assistance that this bill will provide for our Small Businesses and hospitals and for the support it will give for building up our testing regimes, all of which is good, i cannot overlook the fact that it is absent of any direct assistance to the state. Or any state. There is talk that this direct state assistance will be part of the next federal bill. I will not let up in advocating forcefully, often, directly for this until we see that bill on the president s desk and signed by the president. Clearer that be the traces we will have to make absent federal assistance are dire. We are dealing with an unprecedented Public Health crisis that will be followed by an unprecedented fiscal crisis. One that experts believe will dwarf the great recession. Without substantial indirect Financial Assistance from the federal government, along the lines of what senator cassidy of louisiana has proposed as bipartisan legislation, the programs we care deeply about and which we will lean on will be at risk. We cannot do this alone. We are fighting covid19 everyday on the front lines and have taken unprecedented action to slow its spread. We cannot have this fight lead to an inevitable set of taccone thatuts draconian cuts will hurt our ability to get our people off of the map. We need the federal governments help to avoid this fate. This is not just a new jersey matter. This is a near universal reality from my federal governors, democrats and republicans alike. At the risk of sounding partisan, im not saying this to be partisan, if the words were spoken by a democrat i would be equally as forceful. Im taken aback. My breath is taken away. I have almost nothing to say about what Mitch Mcconnell said earlier today. That it would not be necessarily a bad idea for states to go bankrupt. Im paraphrasing him. This is what he said. It has worked out pretty well for some cities over time. Really . This is the time, in a moment of crisis unlike any our country has faced in at least 100 years, to suggest it is a good thing for states to go bankrupt . I would say two things in reaction, senator. Im not sure you are watching. I suspect you are not. Number one, come on. That is completely and utterly irresponsible. There is no level of responsibility associated with that. I dont care what party you are in. Encouraging, engendering explicitly, almost hoping for bankruptcies of american states in the midst of the biggest healthcare crisis this country has ever faced is completely and utterly irresponsible. Secondly, as usual, hes dead wrong. That wont happen. We wont go bankrupt. You have my word we wont go bankrupt. You know what will happen . We will gut the living daylights in every state in america out of the services, the exact services that our citizens need right now. We will just cut, cut, cut and cut. We wont go bankrupt, senator. We believe our citizens in the lurch will leave our citizens in the lurch in the most profound hour of need. We will leave people on the beach alone, helpless. That will happen in your jersey. I might add, that will happen in kentucky. You have my word. Watch your words, sir. This is no time for bankruptcies and wishing bankruptcies. This is the time for the federal government i was encouraged by what President Trump tweeted yesterday. We will hold the federal government to this. This is the time to stand up on a bipartisan basis and be there for the states in america. For the american people. Please, god. Good luck following that, judy. I want to give some shout outs to the people and communities who are coming together to help us all get through this as one. Unlike the irresponsible words that i just referred to, overwhelmingly people of all parties have come together in our state to do the right thing. God bless you for doing it. I want to recognize new jerseys strong chineseamerican community. United chineseamericans has donated 10,000 n95 masks. 10,000 surgical masks, 80,000 medical gloves, 2700 protective goggles, and 400 protective gowns for frontline Health Care Workers. I want to give a special shout out to west windsor councilman who was instrumental in organizing this equipment drive. Hats off to you. Lori is behind the camera. I apologize. Shes taking the picture. With her motherinlaw and her sisterinlaw, they have put their sewing machines to use to produce cloth face coverings that they are donating to jfk hospital and throughout the community. The three women are spending up to 12 hours a day on this project you so far, they have made and distributed close to 4000 pieces. These are coming from good hands. He teaches sewing classes to you, thank you and keep up the great work. Not too far down the road in woodbridge, 11 friends i think they are all there. They have banded together to create a website. They are selling yard signs and tshirts with all the proceeds being turned into gift cards for local businesses which are then being donated to a local food bank as well as to woodbridge social services. On saturday. Rted i believe today is wednesday. Is that correct . Already, they have sold 500 pieces from the website. Wow. Cares, wet colonia salute you. These are just three of the many good news stories across our state. Please, continue sharing them with every new jersey and through our social media hashta g. Finally one last plug. I encourage everyone to tune in at 7 00 tonight for the jersey for jersey fundraiser for the new jersey pandemic relief fund. As i said, it will feature some of our states global talents. , danny devito, chris rock, kelly ripa and say kwon bartley among others. Thealso touched to mention surviving members will be performing. Tribute toa special the band cofounder who we lost to covid19. It will all be broadcast live on virtually every single local television station and on radios up and down the state and streamed online. The best part is 100 of the proceeds will go to help those impacted by covid19. Another way to support new jersey pandemic relief is tonights 9 00 jersey takeover on hq trivia featuring only in new jersey trivia questions. Play along. For every player during the jersey takeover, one dollar will be donated to the fund. Everybody, tune in at 7 00 for the extraordinary fundraiser and 9 00 for hq trivia. , note i turn things over only do we talk about discharges, but people who got sick and got better or folks who have mild symptoms and to get back in the saddle and are able to pick themselves up. Its a treat for me that our general counsel is back in the house with us today. Please help me welcome the person who needs no introduction , the commissioner of the department of health. Thank you. Good afternoon. Additionalisited two alternative care sites. Sites will help alleviate pressures on our hospitals. Last night, im pleased to report that the field medical station that was the first site that we put up served its 200th patient. To date, they have discharged 135 of those individuals that have been there. They are recovered individuals. All of them had covid19. I want to thank all the staff there and those working at the other sites. They are providing a tremendous service, not only to patients and the hospitals right now, but we are convinced that we will need them in the fall as well. Report, our hospitals reported 7210 hospitalizations last night. Remaining flat with the prior 34 days. 1983 individuals in critical care. Individuals are on ventilators. Patients9 of the icu on ventilators. That is the lowest percentage we have had in over four weeks. Six hospitals reported that they were last evening. Four of them were in the Central Region. As i shared yesterday and the day before, we are seeing the increase in the cases in the Central Region and a flattening of the cases in the northern region. I was asked yesterday about the map. What do our regions entail . Includes theregion following counties. Warren, essex, union, morris. The Central Region is somerset, middlesex, mercer, and ocean. The Southern Region is burlington, gloucester, salem, atlantic, cumberland. 3551 we are also reporting 95,855es for a total of positive cases in the state. Deaths arenew reported today by the department. 5063s a total of fatalities in new jersey. The breakdown of deaths by race and ethnicity is as follows. White, 49. 3 . Black, 22 . Hispanic, 17. 2 . Asian, 5. 4 . Other or nonhispanic, 6. 1 . Underlying conditions remain the same. Cardiovascular disease at 59. 7 . Diabetes at 41. 5 . Other chronic diseases at 30. 8 . Chronic lung disease, asthma, emphysema, 19. 9 . Chronic renal, 15. 7 . Neurologic disability, 15. 3. Other, 13. 7 . Cancer, 11 . Day aboutd the other whether we were continuing services for our Cancer Patients. All of the centers that we contacted have continued to take care of Cancer Patients for their continuing services and screenings, particularly for breast and cervical. There are 438 longterm care facilities in our state report and covid19 cases, for a total of 11,608. Deaths,our covid19 2050, have been reported from these facilities. We are reconciling some of the data. This is selfreported, and some of the longterm care facilities theirhared with us that death reporting seems to be not correct, so we are giving them an opportunity to reconcile their reporting. That will go through Communicable Disease service. Well make sure by death certificate that we are counting all of the deaths appropriately. The c. M. S. Surveyors are still at andover. They will be writing their report and then they post their report once the full report is finalized. The department continues to work with the new Jersey Department of military and veteran affairs to support their response to the outbreaks that are concerning in our veteran homes. 43 staff are onsite today at paramus. With the additional staff theyve received, they are reporting that they are adequately staffed. Additionally, in conversation with the leads that are in association, they have identified a need for improved Infection Control training, improvements in the use of p. P. E. They are developing a communication plan for families that needed to be shored up. And they have noticed that the housekeeping products, they were running low on housekeeping products and they were not following specifically the c. D. C. Disinfection guidances. Additionally, they found, due to the high degree of dementia patients, that they had difficulty cohorting dementia patients that need to be in isolation. That is an issue, a problem, that we have heard from many of our dementia facilities. So theyre working on innovative ways to encourage patients that need to be in isolation to stay behind closed doors. The total census of all of the homes, the veterans homes today, is 741. 183 of those residents have tested positive. And there have been 80 residents that have died. Who were identified as covid19positive. Of the 1331 Staff Members working on those sites, 98 have tested positive. There have been no deaths among the staff. One of our psychiatric hospitals is reporting their first death of a patient today from covid19. In terms of the lab reports, according to the data from this morning, of the labs that are sending us covid19 results, 172,612 individuals have been tested. 76,818 have returned positive, for a Positivity Rate which is pretty much holding at 44. 50 . So that completes my daily report. As always, i should say, i thank you for staying home, maintaining social distancing, staying connected, staying safe, and staying healthy. Thank you. Governor murphy thank you for that and for everything. A couple of quick followups. Counties, positive cases, the same six continue to be the big ones. So, in order, bergen, hudson, essex, union, passaic, and middlesex is right behind. I made this point in our visit, pat and judy, in Bergen County today at new bridge. Bergen county, if you would have put up its fatalities of 876 lives lost, would be more than most countries in the world right now. So lets not forget the toll. By the way, essex literally has now barely, just today, eclipsed bergens toll. So youd say the same thing about essex. Sadly, some of the other counties up there, hudson would be not terribly far behind. Race, just to say im thrilled that im signing that bill, that will allow us its going to require the hospitals to report in with a regular rhythm, with a lot more texture on the not just race, clearly, but a lot more demographic information. Race has been particularly concerning to judy and me and our teams in the sense that, again, explicitly on the fatalities, the africanamerican numbers continue to run consistently 50 higher than the overall representation in the state. I think you began to give us a sense yesterday, at least on testing, that the latino numbers were meaningfully higher than the representation of the state, which started to square a little bit of that circle that we couldnt figure out between new york city and new jersey. May i just add one point to the dementia issue. My mom was like that in a nursing home. She passed, sadly, in 2008, and so we lived it. But youve not only got its not just the veterans home, i think you made this point, too. Its so many of these longterm care facilities. When you have a High Percentage of blessed souls challenging dementia, alzheimers, etc. , youve got that on a regular day youve got that reality. You add then to this virus, to the mix, not only do you throw gasoline on a health care fire in terms of underlying conditions, but youre operating with a lot less staff than you need because of infections of staff and or selfquarantining. So that combination is turning out, sadly, tragically, to be a lethal one in a lot of the longterm care facilities. Not just the veterans homes. So thank you for everything. Pat, over to you with any p. P. E. , infrastructure, capacity updates. Thank you. Mr. Callaghan thanks. Ill start with the compliance. Overnight, newark issued 29 e. O. Violations. Mccutcheon Police Department issued one e. O. Violation and charged somebody with obstruction. In union city, two members were cited for operating a supermarket, they had 50plus people inside the store with no social distancing. In plainfield, subject was cited for operating a car dealership, claiming to be doing curbside auto sales, but in fact had customers inside the building. In bridgeton, a subject who was harassing citizens for money was cited for a violation and arrested and also found to be in possession of a crack pipe. Subject in blackwood was cited for four counts of burglary, had broken into four vehicles. He also was found to be wanted out of camden county. In lakewood, eight subjects were cited for using a closed school in violation of the e. O. , as well as nine members in lakewood at a separate event were cited for gathering at a wedding. One other subject in lakewood was just cited for causing a disturbance while the police and Prosecutors Office was trying to conduct their investigation. In fort lee, a bias harassment charge was made against the subject who was harassing a jewish customer within the store. In mars plain, a subject was charged with aggravated attempted aggravated sexual assault, for attempting to meet an 11yearold in a park. Just one thing, and sometimes i dont recognize them enough. I had my weekly phone call with the 21 county o. E. M. Coordinators. Theres probably not a day that goes by that i dont ask them or the state doesnt ask them to do something, and thats from sheltering to distributing p. P. E. To assisting with longterm care. I think now testing that were going to ask them to help us survey the metrics of those 73 sites. So i just wanted to recognize them. Because 24 hours, theres they always open up their emails and see another request coming from state o. E. M. On behalf of all of us to try and coordinate this effort. And day in and day out, all of them step up and do their job to support this effort. So i just didnt the day to go by without mentioning them. Governor murphy thank you. Amen to that. Its a group of folks who i have met virtually, overwhelmingly until two months ago, based on bad weather. This is a group of folks that i would find myself invariably having contact either directly with them on a conference call, of which there havent been many, but some, or more often than not, through you with the war room and the rock, typically dealing with snow, ice, storms, and what not. But theyve done just hats off to everybody. The word i would use to describe judys team exemplifies this, state police, the whole of government, the word would be nimble. In addition to incredibly long hours, incredible professionalism, bravery, heroism by our Health Care Workers and First Responders and other retail, longshoremen, transit operators, whatever, folks at the point of attack, there were folks who were doing something over here and they find themselves theyve picked up a new side profession over there and no ones complaining. Theyre just doing it. And this group is a good example of it. They werent in the p. P. E. Acquisition or distribution business two months ago ever. And now theyre up to their eye balls. So if you all could keep these to just a short handful of questions, that would be a big help for us, if you dont mind. And, john, well start with you. Reporter have you made changes to the two public Testing Centers in bergen and homedale, allowing nonsymptomatic people to go there . Governor murphy we just hit that one before we went on. The answer is no. It turns out, where we wanted to or not, we need a federal h. H. S. Waiver because of fema as our partner. We may have given an impression of that, that was innocently not what the facts are. But i will repeat what i said yesterday. The entire testing regime with an eye down the road toward what it needs to look like for reopening is something were reviewing from top to bottom. Sorry. I meant to say it earlier. I forgot. Reporter on the Nursing Homes and the numbers that youre now giving for that, can you talk to the families and some of the residents that see these numbers and say that they dont connect with what theyre seeing in their homes . Theres some confusion there. Can you speak to what people should be taking away from these numbers . And on hospital discharges, where are the people going . Are they going home . Are they going to other facilities . Are they going to hospice . Are they going to hospice in the same Hospital Systems . Governor murphy is that it . John, bless you. Setting a great example. Do we not dan or matt, do we have a page in terms of specific to i dont mean complaints per se, but probably complaints as it relates to longterm care . Have we added that feature to the website . Were working on that . Thats one thing ive been meaning to say for a couple of days. Lets accelerate that if we could. We wanted one place for folks to be able to go to. Judy and i have talked about that and we want to get that up, that partly answers where i would hope folks could go. But there is judy, theres no question theres an unevenness and that would be charitable. Charitable of communication to loved ones, next of kin, about the state of play. Weve heard far too many stories, right . I called and no one picked up, or i asked and didnt get an answer. Some operators are doing the right thing and playing ball. But some still are not. Its extremely not just frustrating for us, but its crushing for a loved one. Judy, please. Ms. Persichilli first, on the discharge disposition, i do not have statistics on that. Except for the ones that come to the field, medical services. But we can probably get that. Ill work with hospital association. Because every patient who leaves the hospital, discharge disposition has to go on their chart. We might be able to get that for you. Gov. Murphy that would include stepdown. Ms. Persichilli stepdown, skilled nursing, nursing home skilled nursing, rehab, hospice, all of the ones that you identified. So its a good question. Just have to see where we can get that information. Because it is collected. As far as the data on longterm care, what were hearing is that there was a it was a problem with addition. Positive employees were also counted with positive residents. So the number looked higher. Then there was the suggestion that that happened with the mortalities as well. We really have to sort through that because we do not have a significant reporting of employee mortalities. Thats where i have heard the issues being tina has been all over this as well. We will reconcile it. But directionally, i said it yesterday, ill say it again today, its correct. Gov. Murphy let me ask you, i have a friend whose sister just got out, a health care worker. She went straight home but shes got intensive physical therapy, a nurses aide. How would we characterize that . Would you characterize that as having gone home or would you characterize that as ms. Persichilli that would be a discharge with community nursing. Governor murphy because thats the case i assume ms. Persichilli i would bet most people when they recover, if they have been in i. C. U. , if they have been on a ventilator, usually need some followup care. Were looking at that pretty critically. Because the damage to the lungs and the kidneys seem to be more than was originally expected. So we have checked with the Renal Dialysis Centers to make sure that they have adequate p. P. E. , to determine whether theyre seeing a significant increase in the patients that theyre seeing. And they shared with us two days ago that things are pretty cool there. They have not reported any significant uptick or issues. But were keeping a close eye on that. Governor murphy this is one thing that i know a lot of folks out there are living this. I ask my friend, how would you describe her and he said, incredibly weak. Incredibly weak. Ms. Persichilli were keeping an eye on oxygenation. Thats the lungs are getting affected. Its a covid pneumonia. Posthospital care is going to be as important as inhospital care. Governor murphy john, your question leads to a very good point. Very few people are walking out scottfree, skipping out of the hospital, right . Youve been knicked up here. Thank you. Reporter a lot of people asked questions about recoveries. There are some that are thinking the recovery number is confirmed cases versus deaths. Obviously we know thats not the case. I read the c. D. C. Definition, and part of it seems to have to do with swabs. Two negative swabs after. Is that part of the issue . Were not reporting recoveries because we dont have enough swabs to do that . Governor murphy anything else . Reporter no, thats it. Governor murphy thank you for that. Judy . Or christina. Dr. Tan the definition of recovered is a squishy term in general. There sst a Case Definition for recovered. Thats something that c. D. C. Might be looking at to standardize because as the commissioner has mentioned in previous weeks, whenever we get this question, its really, you know, how exactly would you define that . We have many individuals who are never hospitalized. The reference related to the swabs relates to potential strategies to consider continuing isolation. There are two different strategies. A testbased versus a nontestbased strategy. Thats more for the purpose of releasing individuals from isolation from a health care facility. Governor murphy matt, if you could move one way or another. I want to put you on the spot. Youre a good example of this in the sense that it was both a number of days but also of rigor, getting two negative tests, is that fair to say . Thats correct. Governor murphy thank you for that. Good to have you back, by the way. Sir. Reporter hello. I have one from john mooney. The administration reported at the start of this that more than 100,000 students were without Necessary Technology for remote instruction. Do you have an update on that figure and, either way, what can you say with confidence about the situation in schools regarding Technology Access and concerns that large numbers of students dont have the same Educational Opportunities as their peers . Governor murphy is that it . Thank you for that. That was from john. Is john ok, by the way . Ok. Because john was here as a regular. John was here every day until we closed the schools. I havent seen him since. It occurred to me the other day. So i think we need in fairness, i need to get back to you in terms of a more datadriven answer. Dan, can you help me out there . I want to go to the department of education. So the standard answer, first of all, its very hard to bat 1000. Anyone who is a kid right now who is Remote Learning is living that. It also terms on the grade the kid is in. But the standard concern that we had, that we spoke, to again, remember, Food Security was a big one. Secondly was access to devices per johns question. And so there was a paperheavy answer to that in the districts where we had a disproportionate amount of kids who didnt have access to devices. And i know it was raised in trenton. At least early days. There was unevenness in that respect. The answer to that was preprinting packages. I think they said every 30 days, as i recall, preprinting to get these packages to the kids. Thats the generic answer. Thats the hopefor answer, that thats working. I think for the most part it is. But if you could bear with us or tell john to bear with us, well have someone give you an update on that. Thank you. Down in the front here. Reporter could you clarify for us the two fema sites not now testing asymptomatic people, but is that the plan . Do you feel that is important . You mentioned for the first time yesterday, i believe, that we will need to test asymptomatic people and that is part of the whole relook at the testing. How significant is that . Beyond the reopening which everybody is excited about that idea and we know its weeks away, but could you talk a little more about the spikes in the future, because that obviously is concern even beyond the reopening and will we continue to maintain the Field Hospitals . What kind of future do you envision . And then on the comments by Mitch Mcconnell, how do you really feel, governor . Any further comments that you would like to make with regard to the president s position on this and why you feel its unamerican to take the kind of position apparently that senator mcconnell is taking. Governor murphy is that it. If i get this wrong im going to have you answer the Mitch Mcconnell question, judy. I have no words. Governor murphy the two fema sites by direction from h. H. S. Are for symptomatic folks. And that is a fact. And i think we need to get a waiver if we pursue that otherwise. I think and that will continue to be the case. The number and christina can give you how she analyzes the overwhelming number of tests which is why the positives, which has stabilized and went down a couple of a tenths of a percent, overwhelmingly symptomatic people. It has to stay symptomatic. They have a strong edict that ea that a symptomatically asymptomatic folks have to step aside and let symptomatic folks get tested and we are supportive of that. And christina will need to correct the record, we have to be able to test a broader population, not just symptomatic folks, and it needs to be a rapid return test. It is two dimensions. Its not just the amount of tests you are doing. It is getting them back lot faster than historically we have been able to get them back, not just in new jersey but anywhere in the country, and i will let christina and judy come in on that. Spikes ill let the science should be the guide, but that relates to a Field Hospital question. As i mentioned earlier, even if we bat 1,000 based on everything i have been told and looked at, the chances are highly likely this comes back again. What are we going to do to make sure we are prepared for that and having the capacity of veapts for todays news and pat, thank you for the lift there hospital beds and getting h. H. S. To grant us the money to keep it fresh, whether it is a field medical situation. It may be hard to keep javits for the Exposition Center in the meadowlands if you have an economy getting back on its feet. But you can do that at east orange general, which is a singlepurpose health care facility. Ill let the experts come in. But our hope is, a, we dont need this capacity in the near term, although we have it if we do need it, but we have it for the medium or longer term. I dont think i called him unamerican. I take it back. I dont think i called that. That is completely irresponse i completely irresponsible and its not how it will play out. What i have said is and by the way, im not on the ballot this year but a lot of people are, including him, you are not only going to leave people on the street with no services, you are probably going to double unemployment in the country. The only reason unemployment isnt double what it is because for the most part, state and Municipal Workers by the way, we need government more than ever before, this just in for a little headline. Look at the people laying it out every day. State police. They couldnt be working harder. How about department of labor trying to field all these unemployment claims, requests, just to pick several examples. In addition to leaving people in the lurch, you are going to double unemployment. The number is off the top of my head, but im probably about right for that. The last thing we should be doing is leaving states in the lurch. The good news again he tweeted this yesterday and i take him on his word, and i had a private confirmation, not with me, although i raised it with the president as well and he didnt say no to it, is i believe the president is in a better place on this. Hes going to have to be, because its not optional. The states if we are going to continue to serve folks who are unemployed, Small Businesses that are bust, folks that are sick or god forbid dying, there is no other way around it. The federal government has to give us the wherewithal for us to continue to do that. On the nonmcconnellrelated stuff. The fema stuff, spikes in the future, testinga symptomatic folks, christina, et cetera. As we have been saying for the last four weeks, there has been limitations with the asymptomatic testing because of the issue of potentially not capturing an individual when they might be incubating the illness. With that said, we are thinking about where opportunities where testing might be valuable in expanded settings. The efforts with the longterm care facilities in the south. Might represent an opportunity where testing results especially in those less impacted facilities might make a difference because ultimately, it ties back to everyone is focused on the testing, but it is what you do with the information so you can take action on it. And that is the approach we are taking down the south, and its also something that many other less impacted areas, less impacted longterm care facilities are looking as opportunities arise. As far as spikes in illness are concerned, we tend to look at trends. We dont look at daytoday because we recognize there could be some dramatic artifcacts in the daytoday data. There mate be a weekend or holiday that might delay some reporting. We monitor just in general in normal times. In precovid times we would monitor that to make sure we have an understanding of what that baseline is, and we would expect to continue to do that moving forward in the future as well. Governor murphy i still want to add the page that covid19, longterm care facility complaints, you can go on nj. Gov health. Thats our basic health website, or the hotline. That will still be available even if we do add a page here, but i would like to add a page if we could hear. Thank you for that. Lets go to elise. Good afternoon. Speaking of unemployment, all of my questions are related to the unemployment system. Can you update us on claims processing . Have there been improvements to the bottlenecks . Have you hired programmers . Do you have any idea how many claims are waiting to be processed . A reader sent me a question about the pandemic assistance for selfemployed independent contractors. He applied on march 29 and he hasnt received payment yet and is there any particular tieup with that program . And thats it. Governor murphy we have to come back with you on this. But there has been improvement. If you are still on the phone and cant get through or log on and cant get in and you are frustrated, i dont blame you. Just because the general numbers are better, but they are better, no question about it. Either in this forum or the Leadership Meeting, matt, i recall a couple of things. 60 of the claims as of monday and hope to be at 80 by friday. Does that sound about right . We will come back to you if that is different. Programmers, i believe they have augmented their team, but ill confirm that with you. Numbers waiting to be processed, i dont have that number, but thats whether 60 versus 80. I think im approximately right. And we heard explicitly yesterday that independent contractors, and im not sure i understand why, and well get you an answer, is a particular challenge. And i dont have a good answer as to why it is. Matt, do you have any call on that . Matt well get you the answer. Gov. Murphy im not sure i understand why, but that is a particular challenge for the system as opposed to the broader issue. Will you make sure we come back to it . Sure. Reporter so leader mcconnell tweeted going back, im proud of congresss agreement. Im sorry the democrats shut down for partisan for leverage that never materialized. There is back and forth from democrats and republicans. I wanted to get your reaction on that. Also, are you committed to working with him on any legislation or anything Going Forward after you made those comments . And what if his reaction to you is negative in terms of what you said in this briefing . Thanks so much. Gov. Murphy hard to know they could get more negative. There is asymmetry in my risk appetite. If he is implying he wants to bankrupt states, we are constantly open, and i said this today, i said it yesterday, look at senator menendez hooking up with senator cassidy in louisiana. I dont know how often they hook up for bipartisan legislation. My guess is its not every day. Its a big step and big statement. And i think most folks have said responsible things and left their partisan affiliations at the door, which is why i said i would be saying it about his statement whether he was a democrat, republican, a martian, a communist. It is responsible and its wrong. Would i be willing to work with him . 100 . What would that look like . 500 billion direct state assistance from the federal government to states, measured in the right way such that new jersey gets its fair share. I would work 24 7 with him or anybody else to get that passed and signed by the president. Thank you. Reporter we continue to hear from nursing home workers and administrators and the state data released on the numbers who died or tested positive does not present an accurate picture. While the commissioner addressed the issue briefly yesterday, does the department know why there have been so many discrepancies in the reporting, and has it been resolved Going Forward . Curious also if you are separately counting Staff Members who tested positive for covid. In real quick, colonel, wondering if we have an update on the number of Police Officers who tested positive and those in selfisolation. Gov. Murphy on the first question, we have been pretty clear that the numbers are directionally accurate, even though there may be some discrepancies. There is an indication that employees that have tested positive and residents that tested positive, that that number was combined. So then we asked the same question about deaths. But we have not it has not been reported to us that we have had an overwhelming number or even one death from the longterm care employees. That doesnt mean there wasnt any, it means i have not gotten a report of that. I cant imagine that it would skew the reports significantly. I know cdf is now taking the reports and comparing them with the gift certificate. They are trying to get confirmation, generally, on deaths. Dr. Tan we hope we will be implementing a new type of survey. Again, just to reiterate the points, these are data points we get from the facilities of the local Health Departments get. It is based on what we get. We are going to try a separate type of strategy to get that information. Gov. Murphy i dont want to overstate this. People will think we got up on the wrong side of the bed here, but it long time for these operators to put forward the information that we loved ones and others, media, to your credit, have been asking to do that. And secondly, we believe the numbers are overwhelmingly directionally accurate, even though there may be specific discrepancies. I forget your second piece. I apologize. Maybe that was it. I think we got it. We got it, judy . Gov. Murphy thank you. 701 Law Enforcement statewide tested positive, and as of this morning, 871 are out statewide quarantine. Governor murphy thank you, commissioner. Dr. Tan, thank you for everything you are doing. Colonel. Jared, matt, good to have you back. As of the moment, there is at least not one that we know of in terms of a white house v. T. C. Tomorrow. We are back together at 1 00 p. M. Tomorrow, is that accurate . And if that changes, well let you know. Not only do i thank you for your patience and coming out every day, i would say to everybody out there, we have clearly come in enormous distance. We are clearly headed in the right direction. Everything overwhelmingly tells us that. But with the same level of conviction and judy will correct me, we are not there yet. We are not there yet. Just because hospitalizations have stabilized and our ventilators have stabilized, we are not there yet. If that werent enough to lose 314 blessed souls of our state, is a sobering reminder even when we see those curves start to come down, some folks were infected weeks ago who were losing their lives. Please, god, keep every one of those precious lives, friends and communities in your prayers. Keep doing the right things. Wear your masks. Stay home. Stay away from each other, wash your hands with soap. Keep the faith. Thats important. This is the fight of our lives. Keep the faith. We will win the fight. Not without casualties. But we will get through this. Assuming all 9 million of us do our part, we will get through this together, stronger as one new jersey family like never before. God bless you all. See you tomorrow. [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] tracked the spread from the u. S. And around the world with interactive maps. Watch unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus. For the first time in four weeks, the u. S. House meets for legislative work thursday to debate and vote on nearly 500 billion more for coronavirus pandemic response. This fourth round of funding would go to the Small Business loan program, hospitals, and virus testing. Watch live gaveltogavel coverage of the house getting at 10 00 eastern on cspan beginning at 10 00 eastern on cspan. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago, but our mission continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year, we have brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process, and now the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on public television, online, or listen on our free radio app. Be part of our National Conversation through our washington journal program, or through our social media feed. Cspan, created through private industry. Brought to you today by your television provider. Committee metules on capitol hill to consider a resolution that would establish a select committee in response to the coronavirus pandemic. A vote on the measure expected tomorrow on the house floor. The meeting will come to order. First of