1100 tests. If you combine that with the 1500 tests the first day, we have about 2600 people we have pulled samples from and should be seeing those results trickle in in the next 2448 hours. I want to thank our department of Health Employees as well as the National Guard and the cdc. They have all been fantastic. I want to remind everybody that given this testing we are seeing, we suspect this will drive our case numbers up. As we do more and more testing in a community where there is already community spread, we do expect to see a big increase in positive cases. Lets remember to keep our focus on hospitalization rates. I need people to be smart, continue practicing social distancing, washing your hands, and remembering that we are in a marathon. This is not a sprint. We have a long ways to go. I want to thank the language specialists who have been down there. They were there all day and are invaluable. Last night, i hosted a phone call with all of our legislators and talked to them about some of the questions they are hearing in their communities. Conversationeat not just about covid19 cases and hospitalization rates, but we talked about revenue numbers and some of the business challenges. Their to appreciate continued engagement and willingness to get on the calls. Are ambassadors for making sure we are on the same page as to what the facts are on the ground. I want to thank those south dakota National Guard. I dont think everybody realizes every role that the National Guard is filling for us here in south dakota these days. They are staffing at our Emergency Operations center. They have set up two alternate care facilities. They have 25 ambulance teams that are ready. 25 ground teams. But also four air support teams. Their training for medical capability teams was yesterday. They have those teams ready to go when we should need them. They have call centers helping with contact tracing. They are ready to expand those if needed. Contingency plans in place if we need food distribution. We knew they would be ready, they always are, but we dont want anyone to take for granted how blessed we are to have men and women in our National Guard who continue to step up and continue to serve in every role they are in. We also have National Nurses day today. Our estimates day today shows that we have more than 10,000 nurses in south dakota including 350 that work for our state government. To keep ourhey do state healthy. Really, every day, taking care of individuals. I had a conversation with a nurse just last week who had been in isolation for 14 days away from her small children because she worked in an ob award but did not want to spread the virus outside of the hospital. Those kind of sacrifices we are making. Pause for a to minute today and to say thank you. This is also National Travel and tourism week. Things are a little bit different in south dakota this year for tourism week. Usually, now is when we are prepping all of our Visitor Centers who Visitor Centers for people all around the globe who choose to vacation in south dakota. We want all of those in the Tourism Industry to know that we are thinking about you. Now more than ever, those in the Tourism Industry need our support, encouragement, and also encourage people, when this virus is over, that south dakota opens its arms and welcomes people to come see the state that we have the blessing to live in. This years theme for National Tourism and travel week is called the spirit of travel. I would ask you to jump on tourisms website and see all that they have with a virtual tour right now. South dakota is resilient. For everyone working in the industry, thank you so much. With that, i will open it up to any questions. Reporter governor, is the state of south dakota opening the Visitor Centers along the interstates . Gov. Noem i believe they are not open yet. We will continue to do an analysis. But, no, those are places where people would typically share germs and congregate in larger quantities. We are looking to keep those closed to slow down the spread for a while yet. Questions on the phone . Just wondering, an update on state workers returning to their physical offices, especially here in pierre where there is the bulk of the state employees. I know you said you had a Cabinet Meeting friday and you were leaving it up to individual cabinet members. I am wondering where we are at. Gov. Noem they are moving back into their offices in phases. Each agency and department is doing an evaluation on which can come back in, if they will do it itltime, if they will stage and switch them out. It is hard to be specific because every agency is handling it differently although i know many of them are anxious to get some employees back into the office to take care of the daytoday tasks they would be anxious to accomplish in an office setting. In those office settings, i want to be clear, they will physical distance, make sure that desks and workspaces are spread out, and they will make sure they are washing their hands to practice good hygiene. What it looking at would look like for their agencies and i know many of them have started that process this week. Reporter will employees continue to work remotely as well in some combination . Gov. Noem some will continue to do that. We have very little in a straight of leave still going on with very little administrative leave still going on. That means that they are able to do their work remotely and we are still able to serve the people of south dakota with their needs. So, your office sent a of our aprday, one stories inaccurate. I was wondering what you thought was inaccurate. Gov. Noem there were several things that were inaccurate. I think it is important, when you are writing a story, it is good to use individuals that will go on record. Isng anonymous sources, it hard to maintain credibility when you are talking about situations. There were several items in there that were very hard to find information in reality. Was it inaccurate that Corey Lewandowski advised you and visited pierre . Gov. Noem he did visit pierre, but i have many people who advise me and i am also an independent woman who makes decisions on her own. To say he would have undue influence on me would be wrong. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the restrictions around the 1. 2 5 billion federal dollars. I guess, what can the state do with that money at this point . Gov. Noem it is specifically in the legislation to be used for covid19 response. So, that is how much of the guidance has come out of itasury, we can spend delivering health care to individuals. We have also been able to use it to pay employees, individuals, other entities. I will say that the guidance is changing quite often. Treasury keeps giving out more pages of guidance and direction on how they want those dollars spent. That is what our bureau of finance and management, and department of revenue are working on, making sure we are staying uptodate and have clear direction on how those dollars should be utilized. Reporter does that moving target make it hard for the state to respond . Are we running out of money to respond to this at all . Say weem no, i would are utilizing no resources. We live in a state that has always balanced the budget. We have money in reserves and Rainy Day Funds. We are going to take care of people and make wise decisions in the future as to how we deal future as to how we deal with future budgets. We are doing well today but we also have to plan for tomorrow and make sure we have the revenues in place to care for people. This question might be a little premature given the fact that you dont know how deep the budget hole is going to be yet. But i am just wondering what your thoughts would be on employee cuts, cut backs or raising taxes versus dipping into the states Rainy Day Fund when it comes to trying to balance the budget. Had noem i have not indepth conversations yet with legislators on those issues because we have not had a clear picture of what our sales tax receipts will look like and how hard we will hit how hard we were hit. I think right now we can tighten our belts, make sure we are spending money wisely. There are federal resources. As we get a clearer picture in the next month or weeks, we will be able to make clearer decisions. Reporter what is your definition of what the Rainy Day Fund is for . And would now be a time to use at least some of it . Gov. Noem i would not have a great answer for that today. I know that is why the rainy day unforeseenre, for circumstances, and this is certainly one of those situations. I would not take it off the table at this point. But my hope is that we could leave it intact. Governor, or possibly secretary of health, is the state doing anything specifically with Good Samaritan in sioux falls, where 15 people toe been reported smithfield, working with staff, trying to figure out some of our . The practices going on sec. Malsamrysdon we have been working with the folks at good sam. They did testing with employees and they were very proactive so they could assess the situation at hand. They have daily calls. We are working on them with infection control. We are very confident with those practices. They have been excellent to work with and are taking it seriously. One of the things they have been doing is cohorting their patients to minimize the spread of covid. We feel like they are doing very good work in that area. Impactsa disease that populations that live in longterm care settings. We are confident in the response up to this point. As a followup, looking at Nursing Homes across the state, yesterday you spoke about unannounced reviews of some of those practices. I guess, as a whole, what are some of those reviews showing . Sec. Malsamrysdon they are showing Good Practice across the state. One thing to mention is that most people dont like the thought of state inspectors coming in unannounced, checking them out. We have been met with open arms. People have been receptive to wanting that review. We have met absolutely no resistance. What we have seen is very Good Practice. Good use of ppe, good infection control, good disinfection of services and the environment. We expect to see those kind of results as we continue to work with longterm care facilities and assisted living facilities in our state. Governor, two quick questions. The nationale with guard air support units do. Secondly, in your discussion with legislators last night, was there any discussion of a special session . Gov. Noem we did talk about the potential of a special session. I told them i did not have clear guidance if we would need one and when that would be. I think the conversation was around having a special session in june. If we do have the ability through treasury guidance to utilize some of the federal funds, we may want to come back later matured september, and make some decisions about what we can do to utilize those funds better and refurbish some of the dollars in other accounts. That is the question we need to find out from treasury, how we can use the dollars they are sending to us. The legislators input on that was very helpful. As far as how the air teams with the National Guard would be utilized, they are Medical Transport teams, so they would be conducting ems type activities. The ground ones would be helping us get patients back and forth. Be air ones would probably utilized to bring patients in from remote areas, so they can get them off the ground in a remote area and get them extended care. That is what they are trained to do and that is part of the duties that we anticipate could be necessary and that they are prepared to do for us. Go ahead. I did not understand who was on the phone. Therter this is morgan at rapid city journal. Maybe kim might be able to help answer this. But how many people are involved in the hydroxychloroquine trial so far and i guess how many patients have taken it so far . Gov. Noem the last number i had from a few days ago was about 270 individuals, which would include focus on an inpatient and outpatient basis, and people from other states through the sanford network. Number youas that a were expecting to see or do you think it has been affected by fda warnings against the drug . Sec. Malsamrysdon i think the numbers are low because we just dont have as many people impacted. You will remember that this was geared towards people that were hospitalized primarily, as well as positive cases on an outpatient basis. Gov. Noem was there another question on the phone . Go ahead. Reporter i was wondering if you heard from smithfield as far as the reopening, what the conversation has been this week . Gov. Noem they intend to put out some information soon as to what the phasedin approach will be. The company will be releasing information shortly. But they do have people in the facility now and they will continue to phase in different areas of the plant throughout the next this weekend hopefully full production some point next week. But those are great details to be asking them and their management team. Any further questions . Ok. Thanks, everybody. Journal,s washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up thursday morning, richard on for the Banking Association talks about banking and Small Business loans. Senator chris van hollen, democrat from maryland, will be on to talk about the Pandemic Response in his state of maryland and on the federal level. A College President and ceo talks about Racial Disparities in covid19 cases. Watch washington journal, live at 7 00 eastern, thursday morning. Saturday when we take calls and questions from High Schoolers throughout the country preparing to take the advanced placement u. S. History and government exams. A look at our live coverage on thursday. At 10 00 a. M. Eastern, the head of the National Institutes for health, dr. Francis collins, testifies before the Senate Health committee about new technologies being used for covid19 testing. 2, they vote in the afternoon about whether to override President Trump veto on a resolution constraining his ability to take military action against iran without congressional approval. From publicidents affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. Of every president , organized by their rankings by noted historians, from best to worst. And, a look into the lives of our nations chief executives and their leadership styles. To learn more and order your copy today, wherever books and ebooks are sold. Iowa governor kim reynolds met with President Trump at the white house to discuss the Coronavirus Response and the need to keep meet processing plants open during the pandemic. Includedng also members of the Coronavirus Task force
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.