Transcripts For CSPAN North Carolina Gov. Cooper Holds Coronavirus Briefing 20240713

With social distancing roles and effect. Gov. Cooper good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us on our update on covid19 in North Carolina. We have 21,618 confirmed cases, 568 people in the hospital, and 728 deaths. For theire to mourn families and friends. North carolina enters safer at home phase two. This is a cautious step forward that eases certain restrictions and keeps important Safety Measures in place. This is memorial weekend. It is an important opportunity to honor our men and women in uniform who have made the ultimate sacrifice. To reflect on their contributions and show gratitude to their families. I am deeply grateful for these heroes who gave everything for our country. I know it is also a popular weekend for cookouts and parties. Especially this year when we have been more socially isolated. The desire to gather with friends and family is really strong. I want you to have a great time, but, continue using caution. I urge all north carolinians to take the covid19 restrictions and safety rules seriously. Keep gatherings to under 10 people indoors or 25 people outdoors. Amember the three ws, wear face covering, wait six feet apart from people and wash your hands frequently. This is how we protect ourselves and particularly protect our families and neighbors. Starting at 5 00 p. M. Today, restaurants can open for in person dining at 50 capacity and we will used enhanced cleaning and Health Screening. Restaurants are a major part of our economy. This virus has been tough on them. I we enter phase two, appreciate that Restaurant Owners across North Carolina are focused on how to keep their customers and employees safe. They know strong safety precautions will be Good Business. Theelp this effort, department of health and Human Services has been working closely with the North Carolina lodgingnt and association, North Carolina State University extension, and visit nc to develop an online curriculum for owners, managers and employees of restaurants, hotels and other businesses. It is called countonmenc. Free onlineis a training focused on advanced cleaning, disinfections, social distancing and hygiene practices to better protect the public and employees from exposure to covid19. Restaurants and businesses will have a sign in the window and a logo on their website to show their commitment to using new safety protocols. Server wearing a count on me pin or name tag. Individuals3500 representing over 1800 businesses completing the training with more signing up every day. You can learn more at countonmenc. Com and find a list of businesses in your area that have already completed the training. This innovative effort is possible because of the strong and longstanding partnerships we had with industry and our universities. As far as we know, it is among the first of its kind in the country. I am proud North Carolina is leading the way on safety and best practices. They we have with us president and ceo of the North Carolina restaurant and lodging association to share more about this effort. Come if you would like to over and tell us about it. Lynn thank you, Governor Cooper your leadership. We prepare for reopening North Carolina restaurants today. There is no question North Carolinas restaurants and Hospitality Community have been significantly impacted by this pandemic. But during this challenging time we have looked for ways to help our community to prepare for our reopening that began early this afternoon. With that in mind we have come together with esteemed partners and spearheaded an initiative called count on me nc. It is designed to address safety concerns, but also to instill consumer confidence, as we welcome visitors back to our restaurants this evening. As North Carolinas restaurants and hotels and attractions and museums Work Together to greet visitors back, count on me nc is a mutual pledge, a Public Health initiative, that empowers guests and businesses to Work Together to protect everyones safety. This problem this program is an acknowledgment we are all in this together. Conveys a sense of mutual responsibility. The Hospitality Industry prepares to welcome guests back into our dining rooms. Customers will appreciate the commitment our businesses are making to protect their the same time we expect visitors and consumers to come into our establishments to take responsibility to protect customers and employees. Do every dayas we with the North Carolina department of health and Human Services as our restaurants are regulated and inspected on a regular basis. We operate a under very strict protocols every day, but particularly so during covid19. We are also proud to have in our nc, ourhip, visit states Tourism Marketing arm, who works hard to greet visitors who choose to come into our state to stay in hotels to eat and manystaurants, attractions in retail stores. They will play an Important Role in helping to assure consumers that our businesses are prepared and ready to welcome them back. And then last but certainly not least we are proud to partner with North Carolina state universities. Doctor ben chapman and his team. They are Renowned Experts National Experts on food safety. They have been a part of working with the cdc and fda on guidance at the National Level as we prepare nationally for best practices in safety in Food Service Establishments across our state. Doctor chapman also plays a vital role here in North Carolina as he has been a part of the farm to Table Movement in helping make sure that North Carolina grown products make their way safely to the tables of families and restaurants across our state. The first phase of this training is already underway. And as Governor Cooper mentioned , over 3500 businesses have completed the program already this week. In addition, we expect that that is about 10,000 employees have who have already been trained and more will be trained as as additional establishments across our state reopen. The training modules are for a Restaurant Managers and owners. Theres a second module for back of the house employees another for front of the house employees. One for cleaning staff, and one for other hospitality and retail establishments. The public can look for certificates and count on me logos in windows and doors on menus on websites all over the state, and can know that these establishments have taken extra precautions to ensure guest safety during covid19. Participating businesses will be participating businesses will be participating businesses will be listed on the countonmenc. Org. Website. And consumers who want to know about these establishments can search by keyword or by map. We also encourage north carolinians to go on the website to read about the protocols that were taking and to sign their name to pledge that theyre going to dissipate in this participate in this campaign to ensure guest safety and the safety of others. We all have a role to play in keeping our communities, safe and healthy, when visiting restaurants. Businesses and other Public Places and we know that north carolinians are ready to do their part. So we encourage you to take the count on me nc pledge and remember the 3 ws to wear, wait, and wash. To use contactless delivery options and drivethru. If youve been exposed to covid19 or have symptoms of covid19, but perhaps most importantly we encourage you to be patient. And kind and respectful of each other as you come back into dining rooms across North Carolina. We welcome you back and we welcome the partnership of local Health Departments across the state. We work collaboratively with every day to ensure Public Health safety. At the heart of it all, count on nc is about working together. With businesses and customers showing Mutual Respect for each other. In this brave new era that we all find ourselves in. I thank you so much. Thank you. The count on me nc campaign is really a testament to the collaboration going on all across our state right now as we fight covid19 and i know youll continue to partner with all of us and to continue to provide the type of helpful information and training to all of your members. Thank you for being here and for telling us about that program. Have we have with us today our secretary of health and Human Services doctor mandy cohen. Our secretary of Public Safety erik hooks. Our director of Emergency Management mike sprayberry. And our commissioner of prisons todd ishi. Nicole fox and karen megan are our sign Language Interpreters and behind the scenes, jackie and jasmine are our spanish Language Interpreters. We will ask the media for their questions and if you could identify yourself and your organization and we can take the first question. With the course of cocacola 600 coming out of this weekend. How confident are you that [indiscernible] to the speedway can be done safely and did North Carolina Health Officials learn anything or see any concerns when they the Health Screen process at darlington. Well thank you for that question. Our Health Officials have worked closely with nascar and the Charlotte Motor Speedway to ensure a safe cocacola 600 this weekend. I know a lot of people are looking forward to this live sporting event on tv. I know that i am. Were glad that since nascar a North Carolina is the home in nascar that were going to be having this event here. Nascar was very thoughtful and their plan for protecting employees and drivers and pit crews and people working on the cars from covid19. They submitted a plan to our department of health and Human Services. Local Health Officials work with them. Our local officials gave them feedback on the plan. And i think that they are ready to a put on a very safe race. Obviously, no spectators will be there and that is because we know that gatherings together when people gather together that the risk of infection is so much higher. This is why we continue to have in our executive order, the mass gathering ban. I dont know about the situation regarding darlington do you know anything about it doctor cohen about any feedback . From from everything ive heard things went fine there. Get any reports back to see if but we will any changes are going to be made at the cocacola 600 from things learned at darlington but i dont have that yet sure that right now. Next question. My question for you is about youth sports, the only part of the executive order that mentions sports, dealt with, we presume nascar, because it mentions broadcast on television. We have been getting a lot of questions from a Little League administrators and other youth sports quite it is. Basketball,ravel you name it. Now, isopinion, right , or is that Say Something in between . Sports are so important to the formation of character for fitness. I love sports, i grew participating on sports teams all the way through high school and i know how important they can be for the education of children. So, start out knowing that this is something that we want to have happen as much as we can as we approach the school year. At the same time, we have to understand the presence of covid19 and i dont think that we have all of the answers to those questions yet. I know that our staff is working closely with the North Carolina High School Athletic association. And i think ill let doctor cohen come up and make a few comments about that and what shes been doing on that on that front. Thank you governor. High school and other youth four sports, we will be putting out guidance today on that. The reason you do not see it in the executive orders, there is no requirement. But we do have Public Health folks,ndations for particularly that run the leagues and the facilities that and the facilities that host the , sporting events. Our recommendations generally here is around Contact Sports. We know that Contact Sports like basketball or football where youre in in each others personal spaces, and youre breathing out respiratory droplets. We know that that is a higher way of spreading the virus as opposed to nonContact Sports like tennis or baseball or individual sports like swimming, those nonContact Sports. We said that is fine to proceed. From a recommendation perspective but then we do have some guidance on how to do each of those activities safely. So were not recommending Contact Sports go forward but for nonContact Sports to go forward but with a set of guidelines and again all these are recommendations and weve worked as the governor mentioned with the athletic associations across a North Carolina we hope to have that guidance for folks to take more look at thank you. Gov. Cooper thank you doctor. Our next question please. My question for you is, are you personally comfortable with eating inside a restaurant this weekend . I have been in the executive residence and ive been here at the Emergency Operation center. Yes, i would feel comfortable going to a restaurant. Not saying that im necessarily going because i hope i can spend some time with my family this weekend. Were continuing to work on issues here and will be working through the weekend. But yes, i would feel comfortable. I would certainly want that restaurant to be following all of the personal safety rules. And doing everything they can to prevent the transfer of covid19. But we hope that that people will feel safe enough to go to our restaurants throughout the state. And we hope that all of the restaurants continue bay the rules and i think theyll find that thats Good Business for them to do that. Next question. Governor, what kinds of conversations are you having with large entertainment or convention venues. Should they expect because for months to come. And is the state tracking the number of positives. There are from asymptomatic versus symptomatic people is that a metric we could have soon thanks very much. Now ill let doctor cohen address both of those, but our office is having conversations with these large event then use who obviously want to begin the process of having people back in them. These are the kinds of places that are much higher risk for covid19 and transferring it from one person to another. So obviously right now where we are in phase 2 of the executive order, we wouldnt have any of these large gatherings but were certainly planning ahead. For the potential of them being open at some capacity and were trying to figure out exactly what that would look like safety. I will let dr. Cohen answer both of those. Symptomatic and asymptom for, we do not track that all of our cases but i would put your attention to our website and our dashboard where we post Surveillance Data. I would direct you that Surveillance Data which does contain some information that were starting to collect about symptomatic and asymptomatic spread as weve been talking about related to covid19 is that and we are seeing a fair amount of spread of this virus by folks who dont have any symptoms who are asymptomatic. That is one of the primary reasons why the 3 ws is so so we are not tracking that for all of our cases when we get information back from the lab, its very minimal data. There are certain places where our Public Health team does more indepth study particularly the surveillance kind of of work in prevalence kinds of studies. Those are the things were going to be able to get more symptom based information and link it with some of this data so i direct you to our Surveillance Data to start. Ill just echo what the governor mentioned about large venues, right. We know Mass Gatherings are places when folks particularly when theyre indoors close together for longer periods of time and sitting right those are the places are higher risk. We actually know that North Carolinas first cases here in the state were seated from a a mass gathering up in new so up in new england. We know that those kinds of events have huge implications not just for here in North Carolina but can can cross state so those are are things that are concerning. We definitely want to take precautions as we go here and i think that were trying to step through that we want to look at our numbers and understand how are we doing with the easing of restrictions that were putting in place that only just start this evening but look at our numbers and well see as as we go here, but again Mass Gatherings is one of the because it does bring so many people together and has such a high risk of of spreading the virus to so many people at the same time, thank you. What is the of restaurants, facinges and churches responsibility to the public to report for new cases tied to their establishments for staffers and diners. Regulated in terms of required to report to us. As was mentioned the Restaurant Industry is regulated and we continue to do inspections. But in terms of reporting outbreaks, that would be two or more cases, reporting clusters of five or more cases, restaurants are not one of the Industries Acquired to report back to us. We often do you want restaurants to get into kutch with our Public Health department if there is an issue because we want to work in close collaboration with them to make sure they are doing all of the right things to prevent further spread of the infection. But there are a few industries required by law to report to us. Those are settings like Nursing Homes and again thats why you see those reported on our website. Thank you. I want to ask about lawsuits. That one thats in was going to be filed. Now our state representative for Beaufort County is looking at allowing all businesses to reopen in phase two. What is your reaction to these legal challenges and are they affecting how your team is addressing opening . Gov. Cooper it would be a responsible to allow to remove restrictions all at once and clearly thats a situation that could result in a massive spike in covid19 and our entire effort here has been to slow the spread and to keep our hospital. Our Hospital System and medical providers from being overwhelmed and weve been successful with that. We are turning the light up to move into phase one and now we have moved into phase 2. And we are slowly easing restrictions here while remembering that the vast majority of businesses in North Carolina can be open some of can be open . Some of them are not because of the consequences of this pandemic, whether be supply chain or employees who have to stand home. Their businesses that are not operating at full capacity for a lot of reasons you know we hope that we have put made these orders constitutional. We did have the one lawsuit regarding houses of worship where weve made accommodations for that in this order. We believe that this is a smart way to move forward to protect the health of north carolinians while also trying to boost our economy. And that goes hand in hand in hand. Weve got to make sure that people have confidence to be able to go out into the economy and were doing that and giving them that confidence by talking about things like count on me today. But also using the data to make decisions about when its safe to do more easing of the restrictions and when people know thats what were using to make decisions not emotions , not politics, but science and data, people will have more confidence and our economy will improve faster. Today, senator berger sent us a letter demanding answers to questions and documents that reporters have been asking for for weeks. And you intend to ensure dps will provide those answers and documents to senator berger and the media . Gov. Cooper first, we want to make sure that all our employees at prisons and inmates are safe. And we want to make sure that we abide with all of the public records laws. Ive not seen this letter youre talking about but i do have todd ishi here our director of prisons who can provide a response. This morning i did receive communication from senator bergers office and well be sending a response back very timely. To answer all the questions and to set the record straight. Can you provide more clarity on how craft breweries are classified under the phase ii guidelines . The craft brewers killed said they do not believe brewpubs meet the definition of a bar but there seems to be confusion around this as far as reopening. ,gov. Cooper right. Our legal team and our departments will be issuing guidance on that this afternoon regarding what establishments fall under what category, they will be a legal distinction there. Its important to know that we have worked very closely with the restaurant association, making sure that we put in place protections with this count on me nc program that is is going on right now. We feel really good about where we are with with our restaurants and that clarification will be coming this afternoon. Next question. Since april 10, i have been reaching out to the department of Employment Services or security. Asking them for metrics, the number of applications they accept or reject every day. Several exchanges of emails in they have promised to give eithere numbers and then those have never materialized, or they decided they have concerns with timing that was not the right time to answer that. Your pio has tried to help me get those numbers. We have not been successful so far. Is there a reason that you know that ds would not provide those numbers . Will bequickly they able to dig them up out of the backlog . They do post numbers of claims that were rejected and claims that have been paid and right now about 585,000 people are receiving benefits of almost 2. 4 billion. But this division knows and i know that there are thousands of people who have yet to be paid. And every Single Family that has applied for Unemployment Benefits deserves a fair adjudication and deserves to get paid if they qualify. I know that additional federal money has been activated today so there will be more opportunities for people to provide unemployment insurance, but ill take those concerns that you have today and make sure that our Communications People get up with you to provide that information to you if thats something that can be provided under the public records law, and its supposed to be given out. From people who have said they have spent thousands of dollars to be ready, with everything from air purifiers to hand sanitizers and different protocols. We have also heard from bars nextdoor st. Nick cannot open and theyre willing to do whatever they can to open. Say tohave anything to those businesses who have invested the time to get ready only to be told no . And you expect the bar restrictions to continue for the next five weeks . Appreciate all the businesses in North Carolina and certainly are concerned about those that cant open right now, but we have to keep the Public Health and safety of north carolinians as the number one priority here. Our our department of health and Human Services, were going to continue to work with those businesses. But many of them are high risk for transfer of covid for example, the state of georgia, which moved a lot faster and easing restrictions, still has not opened bars as of now. I think we all would know the reason why that would be the case. What were doing is moving cautiously, trying not to move with haste. Making sure that in this phase we can watch our numbers to see how North Carolina is doing and then, hopefully, we can include those businesses as we move on through the phases in North Carolina. But weve got to keep the safety of north carolinians as the number one priority. Thanks very much for being with us today and i hope everyone has a wonderful memorial day weekend. Thank you so much. Georgia governor reports less than a thousand people are hospitalized due to the coronavirus and talks about transparency in publishing virus data and how this is used to determine further statewide openings. Gov. Kemp good afternoon, everyone. Let me just thank everybody for being with us today for our covid19 weekly briefing. We have a big crowd you will hear from. Dr. Cathleen toomey, a director from fema, from the national guard, colonel al, the department of Public Safety, commissioner Mark Williams with the department of natural resources, and to wrap us up, the agriculture commissioner, gary black. For several months, our nation s