Health and wellbeing of all americans. The path has been long and difficult, and everybody has made sacrifices to keep one another out of harms way in communities all the United States. Medical providers, Public Health officials, frontline workers, first responders, Law Enforcement, they are all working very long hours and spending significant time away from their families to help limit potential exposure. These brave men and women are literally saving lives everyday. It is impossible to thank them enough for what they have done for us. But i know that countless georgians joined my family and i praying for them daily. As you all know, this weekend is a powerful one for all americans. For years, we have taken this moment to reflect on the sacrifices made by those in uniform. We honor these american heroes who answered the call of duty and paid the ultimate price for our freedom. Earlier today, i was honored to attend a Memorial Day Ceremony with the Georgia National guard to honor the lives of retired master sergeant, Mark Christopher alan, and many other american heroes. Master sargeant alans family and many others were in attendance as we took some time to remember those that we have lost and acknowledge our Many Blessings as georgians and americans. This year, memorial day will be even more powerful, as we find inspiration from our fallen soldiers. We need their encouragement and commitment now more than ever. While this battle against covid19 is far from over, i remain encouraged by the data and the feedback from Public Health officials. As you know, testimony remains a testing remains a top priority as we take measured steps forward. In addition to rapidly increasing testing capacity, we have also seen a steady decline in the percentage of patients testing positive for covid19. This is a key data point and a real testament to the hard work of georgians everywhere who are following the guidance, wearing masks, and practicing social distancing. While inconvenient at times, these proactive measures are truly paying off. I am proud of what we have accomplished over the last several weeks, but we cannot rest on our laurels. We need to further expand access to testing and we need to encourage georgians to make it a priority. This morning, we were proud to announce that cvs health is opening 23 new drivethrough testing sites across georgia. Now, more georgians and more communities will have access to convenient and quick covid19 testing options. I want to thank the cvs president and ceo and his team for their commitment and Strong Partnership in our state. I am also excited to see that several Georgia Companies have partnered with Augusta University to help accomplish their mission in the fight against covid19. Our friends at Sk Innovation recently joined numerous businesses and organizations in financially backing their efforts. They announced a partnership with share care. Share care will help members of the States Health benefit plan access vital tools and resources to keep their families safe and sound. This website drives traffic to the Au Health Express Care app for virtual covid19 screenings 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no appointment and no cost required. Again, we are so grateful for these types of partnerships that are helping us move the needle in this fight. Speaking of making progress, we reached another milestone this week. As of today, we had less than 1000 covid19 patients hospitalized in our state. The number is now at 919 patients. I want to thank our hospitals, large and small, for working us us overrkting the last several months to enhance surge capacity. As always, i want to thank the frontline workers for helping the nurse these patients back to health. As a reminder, Georgias Health systems are ready to serve patients for elective procedures and routine appointments. I want to strongly encourage everyone to get important checkups on their calendar. In the past few days, we have seen reports that some of our largest, most successful Hospital Systems are having to, believe it or not, furlough staff in the midst of a pandemic. Please go to your doctor for a \pleas go to your doctor for a please go to your doctor for a checkup if you are due for one. One of the most aggressive actions taken to the battle and spread of covid19 in georgia has been the disinfection efforts undertaken by the Georgia National guard in our longterm care facilities, including Nursing Homes, assisted living facilities, and personal care homes. The Georgia National guard and gema have been discussing options to continue these efforts to protect our Senior Citizens and others that are in these facilities. Working together, they had developed a plan that i approved to continue the disinfection efforts in all 790 Senior Living facilities across our state. This has a threepronged approach. The Georgia National guard will provide an instructional video on how to safely disinfect these facilities. Additionally, gema has purchased and will distribute industrial foggers, disinfectant solution, and appropriate ppe to 300 Nursing Homes. We anticipate those supplies will be delivered within the next four weeks. Our ppe shipments will merit a recent seven day supply of ppe that we received from fema to Nursing Homes as part of their operation commitment to care. Will mirror. I certainly want to thank president trump, vp pence, and the task force for supporting this recommendation, and certainly for director gamer and fema as well. Additionally, fema will ship 749,000 gloves and 345,000 gowns to our Nursing Homes. Finally, we have worked with these facilities to make sure they incorporate disinfecting efforts to their regular cleaning schedules and follow the appropriate guidelines. Across the nation, the 2020 census is underway to ensure an accurate count of the population every 10 years. This is a vital role in funding largescale projects like infrastructure, health, and education. The amount of federal funding we receive for these projects depends on our states population and participation. Right now, georges Response Rate is 55. 8 , lagging 3. 8 behind the national rate. I want to ask all georgians, if you have not responded yet, visit my2020census. Gov or call 18003302020 to respond. Before i turn the podium over to dr. Toomey, i want to address the recent data reporting concern involving the Georgia Department of Public Healths website. I have said from the very beginning that we are making decisions based on data, science, and the advice of Public Health officials like dr. Toomey. We are committed to full transparency and honesty as we weather this healthcare crisis. Georgia families, businesses, local leaders, and the press deserve accurate data, and i know that dr. Toomeys team is working aroundtheclock to collect, sort, and produce that information. Georgia families, businesses, we are blessed to have one of the best Public Health directors in the nation leading our state. Her team is working aroundtheclock to ensure the health and wellbeing of all georgians. They are taking massive amounts of data from countless sources, putting them into accessible format under a global spotlight, all at breakneck speed. Please afford them some patience, and please steer clear of personal attacks. We are all in this fight together. This memorial day, i want to encourage and wish everyone to have a good, safe weekend following the Public Health guidelines here in our state. With that, i will turn it over to dr. Toomey, and she will make some remarks. Dr. Toomey . Dr. Toomey thank, governor, and good afternoon. I want to briefly mention what the governor said. The integrity of our data is absolutely our number one priority. As this pandemic has evolved, data will continue to evolve as technology continues to evolve around testing to identify who has the virus. We have to have transparency. We are continuing to work to improve all of our reporting systems. That will give us the ability to respond adequately. I want to again say having multiple, actionable, accurate data is our top priority for Public Health, and to make that available to the public, to decisionmakers, to the media. We will continue to do that as we move forward, hopefully with greater agility and greater ability to provide the information you need in a timely way. The department is also continuing to make Great Strides on our Contact Tracing program. We actually gave it a new name. It is called the healthy georgia collaborative, and i think that is reflective of the fact that this is not just a covid virus prevention effort, but the collaboration, the partnership, something that is going to require Community Engagement to be effective. We discussed before that effective Contact Tracing is absolutely essential to us for stopping the virus now. We are working with a lot of community partners, some we have worked with for other health conditions. We are working with faith leadership, local hospitals, but we are also working with the Business Community and many new partners, communitybased organizations, to gain the support from the community to be able to do this work. To be able to do this, we have to have people respond to us to be able to answer our calls, to be able to feel comfortable giving us this information and gaining that trust of the public is essential. That engagement with the partners will allow us to do that. Since the redevelopment and redeployment of our Contact Tracing efforts, we have conducted case interviews with more than 3300 patients and have worked with those cases to identify nearly 9000 contacts. We have already 500 contact tracers, and by monday, we want to have 500 contact tracers by monday. By midjune, less than a month from now, we will have the 4000 1000 we predicted we would. Several people have commented, would that be enough . We were using a Johns Hopkins estimate of seven contact tracers for 100,000 populations, and that came out to roughly 1000 people. But we have the agility that if we find we need additional people, particularly as we move forward, we can hire more, because we have so much interest in these positions. I think one of the most important things to say, it is the cooperation of the community that will make this effective, not how many people we have on board. Deployed. E app we i also want to once again call out the cdc foundation, because they have been so helpful to us, not only for identifying people for us to deploy, including a Logistics Coordinator and a training coordinator, but also additional epidemiologists as well as additional contact tracers. It is these kind of partnerships with the Donor Community and others that will allow us to be more effective in the future. Our contact tracers will be reaching out and calling. Please encourage everyone to be cooperative, because this will be the key to our successful efforts. I lastly wanted to mention the remdesivir. We talked about that last time we met. We were able to get this out to hospitals very effectively. The first shipment we sent to 8 hospitals across the state, provided treatment for 110 patients. I had hospitals calling me over the weekend, thanking me because they already had patients they were treating with it. Todays shipment went out to 29 additional hospitals, and that will give us the capacity to treat 310 patients around the state. We just found out we have an additional shipment coming in. This is remdesivir in a powdered form, so it actually has more flexibility and can be transported more easily, so we can target with this effort not only rural hospitals, it can also be used with pediatric patients. We want to make sure we have a sufficient supply for hospitals that treat high risk pediatric patients as well. Lastly, i wanted to comment that the Public Health has worked in partnership with gema on many hurricanes in the past. This is the most challenging hurricane director bryson and i have worked on and probably will ever work on again. Thank you, director bryson, for your help. Dir. Bryson thank you, dr. Toomey, and good afternoon. Gema Homeland Security continues to work with our state partners, vendors, private partners, and volunteer organizations to provide the necessary resources to georges response to the covid pandemic. A major piece of the resource is acquiring and providing personal protective equipment and ventilators. We continue to see wide availability of ventilators. Today, georgias facilities have over 2000 ventilators on hand, and 1981 available. On average, we are only seeing 30 of the ventilators available in our state in use daily. Medical facilities and Nursing Homes request resources through the department of Public Health ready ops system, and partners request resources through the gema webeoc portal. To date, the state has processed more than 16,432 resource requests. To put those numbers in perspective, during hurricane michael, gema process 1050 one resource requests. Approximately 12,262 of the requests have been for ppe, and more than 12,000 of those have been completed. To date, more than 2700 entities across the state of georgia have received ppe from the state. As part of completing these requests, georgia has pushed out approximately 3. 83 million n95 masks, 7 million surgical masks, 10 million gloves, 338,000 coveralls, 886,000 face shields. To keep georgia moving forward, gema is fulfilling requests from Critical Infrastructure essential workers and has delivered over 600,000 cloth masks to the transportation, energy, telecommunications, water, wastewater, and food departments across the state. We also support the department of Administrative Services in their efforts to safely reopen state government. As part of the reopening process, we have ordered 210,000 cloth masks, 1 million surgical masks, 153,000 gloves and 16 million wipes. We are working to purchase, package, and deliver approximately 2500 gallons of disinfectant weekly. Additionally, i would like to say thanks to exxon for a generous donation. They provided us with 5940 gallons of hand sanitizer, which we currently have in our warehouse. Making all of this happen has required the effort of all of our employees and state partners. I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the countless hours that have spent working to keep the citizens of georgia safe. Our agency remains focused, and we will never forget what we are doing each day directly affects the lives of every citizen. Now im owing to switch gears. Hurricane season is fast approaching. For the sixth year in a row, the atlantic saw a preseason tropical event. Georgias coast and our Southwest Region know all too well how devastating these storms can be. Our goals remain the same as they have been in years past. Gema wants everyone to heed the guidance of officials if you find yourself in harms way. For information on how to prepare, you can visit gema. Ga. Gov. And it is my pleasure to introduce general carden. Gen. Carden good afternoon, everyone. Your National Guard has been pretty busy over the last few weeks, at the direction of the governor and director toomey and director bryson. We have completed over 1700 Infection Control commissions in one of georgias longterm care facilities. Within those facilities, we visited 774 of those facilities on multiple occasions to safeguard some of georges most most vulnerable citizens. We are currently active in six hospitals around the state, and we are supportive of dr. Toomey and her efforts to ramp up testing. We have been doing that since the 17th of april. We have collected more than 40,000 samples for covid19, and we very much appreciate the partnership with gema and dr. Toomey in that effort. We have also been very active in the Food Security arena. This week, we finished our support of the Fulton County school system, where the men and women of the Georgia National guard ensured the delivery of more than 948,000 school meals to the children in Fulton County, and very much appreciate the honor to do that. We have supported more than 10 food banks around the state. As such, the men and women of the georgia army, air National Guard, and state Defense Force have supported the movement of more than 41 billion pounds of food to people in need and more than 21. 6 million meals being prepared. I am very proud and honored to serve our citizens in that regard. What i have told our people since we started this mission is we are what our results say we are. I am proud of the men and women and the results they have produced for georgia. In addition to Everything Else the Georgia National guard has done over the last 60 days, in the last three weeks, we deployed two National Guard units and one air National Guard unit to fight the enemies of the United States of america. I could not be more proud to lead your National Guard. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. The 2020 memorial day Holiday Season officially begins tomorrow at 6 00 p. M. And runs through monday, may 22, at midnight. The memorial day weekend will be like no other we have had before. Even in these unprecedented times, it is the job of the Georgia Department of Public Safety, as well as our Law Enforcement partners across the state, to emphasize the safety responsibilities of every one of on georgias roadways, waterways, beaches this upcoming weekend. Memorial day weekend is one of the busiest travel periods during the year, due to graduation celebrations, special holiday events, vacation travelers who will add to the regular weekend traffic. Last year, during the holiday period, troopers investigated 430 traffic crashes, resulting in 247 injuries and 13 deaths. Law enforcement across the state would agree with me when i say, even one life lost on georgia highways is too many. Last year, troopers issued 10,000 citations and arrested 384 impaired drivers. These are some of the simple things that everyone can do to lower these statistics. Make sure every occupant in your vehicle is buckled, and children under the age of eight years are properly restrained in appropriate child safety seats. Remember, georgia is a handsfree state. Put down your telephone and Pay Attention to the road. Obey the posted speed limit, and avoid being an impaired driver, by planning a designated driver or the use of a rideshare or taxi during your weekend festivities. As motorists and visitors enjoy places like saints islands and jekyll island, they should expect to see troopers of the Georgia State patrol, officers of the Motor Carrier Compliance Division out in full force. In addition to keeping the roadways safe, the beaches will be saturated with troopers and officers ensuring everyone is compliant with the governors order on social distancing. We will be looking out for large gatherings, the rules of the beaches, and making sure business and Restaurant Owners are following the guidelines set forth in the order. In addition to what is expected of troopers and officers, much is expected of the citizens, businesses, Restaurant Owners, and visitors to our state of georgia. The department of Public Safety expects everyone to adhere to the executive order issued by Governor Kemp. While it is our mandate to enforce violations of the order, it should never be necessary. Business and Restaurant Owners are expected to keep patrons in compliance with the order indoors and outdoors on their businesses. Visitors to the beaches are expected to follow the rules and guidelines outlined by the department of National Resource commissioner, and those traveling on our roadways are expected to obey travel laws. I want everyone to enjoy this holiday and have a safe holiday weekend, and i want everyone to practice social distancing and abide by the governors order. Thank you very much. At this time, i will call on commissioner mark williams, department of Natural Resources. Commissioner williams thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to hear from everyone. I want to thank Governor Kemp for having me here to share the work of dnr. Dnrs hard work implementing safety procedures and personnel strategies to make sure georgians and visitors who are safe are able to safely enjoy our Natural Resources during the covid19 response. Memorial day weekend is considered the traditional start of the busy season for boating, along with our state parks and beaches. With this in mind, it is very important that those taking the states Natural Resources follow all Public Safety guidelines, including social distancing, and that those on our waterways strictly adhere to boating safety regulations. For social distancing, the current guidance is that groups be limited to 10 or fewer people, and they should remain six feet apart at all times. Should anyone observe groups not adhering to social distancing orders on our waterways, beaches, state parks, or other properties, please report those incidents to dnr Law Enforcement division by calling our ranger hotline at 18002414113. 18002414113. For those planning to enjoy our waterways, it is critically important to follow the safety guidelines. Please remember these safety tips. Always wear a coast guardapproved lifejacket while boating and fishing. Children under 13 are required by law tort lifejacket on a moving boat. Do not boat under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Lastly, always swim with a buddy, never swim alone, and parents and guardians, dont take your eyes off small children while they are swimming. To help enforce these protocols, our Law Enforcement division will have 85 of its workforce on our state waterways and beaches to address boating violations, emphasizing boating under the influence enforcement, and monitoring for any violations of the governors covid19 directives. As georgians look to enjoy our great outdoors, our state park day use areas, golf courses, cottages, and campgrounds are open, but our playgrounds, splash pads, and swimming pools will remain closed. All sites are following strict cleaning and sanitation protocols, including the cdcs guidance for administrators of parks and recreational facilities. Should a site reach capacity or if social distancing is not possible at a certain point, our park staff can and will temporarily suspend day use admission until enough guests exit the property to reopen. Game wardens will be at our state parks and will have an game wardens will be at our state parks and will have an increased presence at our heavily used parks such as sweetwater creek, red fountain mountain, and tallulah gorge, to name a few. In closing, i want to thank every dnr employee for their hard work and commitment to keeping georgias citizens safe every day. Dnr is committed to serving our state during this complex time, and we will fully utilize our available resources until the job is done. Thank you for having me. At this time, i will turn things over to commissioner gary black. Comm. Black governor, first lady, good to see you today. Thank you for the privilege of here. I would like to begin today to recognize three groups in particular that have been important in our operation, as we all have been dealing with this challenge together. First, i call your attention to the little thing in my hand. The 4h pledge goes, i pledge my hands to larger surface and my health to Better Living. One person made sure my health is in Better Living throughout this event, and i appreciate her so much. There is a great message for young people. Not just in four h the other leadership activities across the state. My message would be as we talk to adults, lets talk to young people as well. Young people, its time to be careful and follow the rules too. I appreciate her helping my health to be better during these times. Secondly, to my colleagues to the right, we have had a chance to Work Together in unprecedented times. As we are dealing with challenges in some of our harvest operations and doing testing with a remarkable response in that regard and helping those rural communities, it certainly has been recognized in our longterm partnership, and different types of supply chain activities we have been doing. Mark williams, our partnership with dnr has never been closer than it is today. But the hero of the state of georgia is general tom carden and his team with the National Guard. They deserve all our praise. We have worked closely together to make sure food operations stay open and make sure our protein processing plants are operating properly. That we have the proper equipment, certainly testing at some parts of this adventure. General carden, much is owed to my salute go to you, sir, and the entire corps we have. Thirdly, i would like to thank some heroes in my world. First, i want to thank those producers and georgia farm families who are producing for you and i every day. But there is, behind the curtain, a group of folks that need recognition, and those are the heroes i get to work with every day, the Georgia Department of agriculture. Particularly in our laboratories, we have not missed a beat during this entire challenge. We have processed, we have analyzed, and our technicians and scientists have processed more seed than ever before. We are back to certifying shipments for export. We have made sure that those businesses have stayed open. We are dealing with challenges all throughout this we all want georgia growing vegetables. I will speak to that in a moment. We want that now more than ever. But for our over 2000 inspections during the spring that put a quarter of a billion vegetable transplants into the marketplace, all throughout this time of challenge, farmers would not have been prepared for the 2020 season, but they are. There are some heroes out there i have a chance to work with every day, and i am grateful for you. We will keep working to get through this together. The whole issue with our farm family right now is a terrific challenge. They began this season seeing what was happening in florida, seeing that crops were destroyed. We were fortunate to have a three or fourweek period to do things proactively to address that have make sure it did not happen here. Ladies and gentlemen, we have had many opportunities to speak with the media the last few weeks. There is a certainty that when we lost food service, we lost school nutrition, we lost half of our market, so how do we replace that . How do we respond . I am so glad to have some positive news to share with you today with respect to the response of our marketing team. Georgia grown is alive and well. As a matter of fact, i suggest to you that it is needed now more than ever. You are going to see hashtags buygeorgiagrown, nowmorethanever. We have those efforts planned. And pivot inpond the marketplace and get directly to the consumer . We would all agree we have the , finest farm families, the finest farm Production Unit in this entire country. We have produced the finest products. Our georgia produced vegetables are the finest in this land. And those 10 million georgians i suggest are the finest consumers, how do we pull them all together . How do we do it in a unique way and do it quickly so we can address the needs of both the consumers and our production families all across the state . Georgia grown to go was birthed in a terrific way yesterday. I advise you to go to georgiagrowntogo. Com to see what we have planned around atlanta. Yesterday, a wonderful effort with state representative casey carpenter. 13,500 produce boxes from the farms of georgia were able to go direct consumer purchase in northwest georgia. Shout out to casey carpenter for his heroic work. I was up there for about six hours yesterday. I felt this morning that i touched 5000 of those boxes, but we were able to get them all in a wonderfully organized bin. That is going to continue this weekend. Tomorrow georgia grown to go is coming to dekalb tomorrow. We know there are vulnerable families. We wanted to address their needs. Mike thurman has provided excellent leadership in this. We are glad to partner with him. 100 georgia grown products coming to his citizens. I look forward to serving aside mr. Thurman tomorrow. Cobb county is saturday. Georgia grown to go in cobb county is saturday. We start in the morning. Just in two days being in the market, over 100,000 dollars in sales just in 48 hours, preorders, produce boxes for great georgia products from all over the state. We will be excited to gather saturday morning. I hope all of you out there would like to come, but if we dont get to you right now, Sandy Springs is underway, trying to get things done there. Gwinnett wednesday. Local leaders are joining together with our georgia farm families, and then we are facilitating these activities. It is going to be great for all of us. We are glad that we can play this very important part during this critical time. There are others ladies and gentlemen, a frequent question i am getting these days is, im a consumer, what can i do . Go to georgiagrown. Com. There are over 250 of our georgia businesses, farms, processors, manufacturers, food manufacturers that have Product Available online. I am hoping our viewers are able to do this as we wrap up this event. But we are here to stay throughout the growing season and into the fall. Great partnerships are being built, and we at the department of agriculture are happy to serve both farms and consumers of the state. God bless you this memorial day weekend. Thank you. Orial day weekend. God bless you this memorial day weekend. Thank you. Gov. Kemp thank you, commissioner. Let me take a moment just to thank this whole team and many other people that are not here today that have been serving our state during these unprecedented times. I think georgians can be proud of the efforts that many of us, some of whom you have seen ,hrough these press conferences and hundreds of thousands you have not that have been working 24 7. We are grateful for all you are doing to help us respond to covid19 and the pandemic, but also to help our farm families and to Economic Disaster get these products to people who really need them. I am grateful for that as well as the support for my wife and our girls and many other people that are behind the cameras. That will with that, i will open it up for questions. What specific steps is the state taking to ensure the Public Health that is accurate, transparent after repeated missteps to reporting over the last few weeks . Gov. Kemp i will let dr. Toomey speak to that. I want people to know that they can be confident in the data, but we are not perfect. We have made mistakes. When we do, we will owe matt, change it. Change. It change it. I thicket is important for people to know that i am not following one data point. It has been interesting as we move through the pandemic and the response and what people have been focused on here and there, what other states have been doing, but we have been doing, but know that every day i am looking at a lot of different data points. We talk about a lot of those every day. There are some things i see that we dont necessarily talk about a lot. There is a lot of minutia involved in that. It has been helpful for me to be able to follow those data points. Confidentople can be in the decisions we are making being based on more than just one thing. I will let dr. Toomey speak to that. Thank you for the question, because i think it is an important one. Are not alth data simple process. As the governor stated, the data comes from many different sources. This is a novel virus. If you remember, we reported the first case march 2, and here we are just a few months later with thousands of cases, so this is an unprecedented task of any Surveillance System to ramp up this quickly, plus make the accommodations for the new technology, because new tests become available. Tests are being collected in addition to the pcr and other direct current Covid Infection tests. There is things happening as well as the new syndromes. We have nine cases right now in pediatric,f the new kawasakilike syndrome. That is something we had to start reporting just now because it was never recognized before. I guess what i am trying to say is this is an unprecedented ask for Health Surveillance to be this agile and able to expand this quickly. Team ofa very competent largely cdctrained epidemiologists working on the data, meeting many times daily going over these data. Was aa month ago, there change in the way the website looked, and we got the assistance of a staff programmer to make the information look more professional and updated. We are working with them to ensure the graphics that get up thee are consistent with way we as epidemiologists look at the data. We are working with them literally daily to ensure that is going on. That is new and will be continuing. We recognize this is an unprecedented ask for any Public Health system. This is a timee, when we need the Publics Trust, and we want to have the Publics Trust unless we can ensure them that these data are accurate, timely, and represent what is going on in the community. We have a strong commitment our department, but the districts working with us and all the many were orders throughout the state reporters throughout the state. We do take in data from many different sources, not just our own Public Health testing, but private physicians, hospitals. We have to make sure it is consistent. Sometimes there are things that are not quite right. Someone noticed a couple of cases were lost today. It turns out that wherever that patient was reported, they actually live somewhere else but was tested in a hospital in fulton. That change will be made within the data system. So when you are looking at that, what does that mean . They made a mistake. It wasnt a mistake. That is the way Public Health data are. Toy have to be updated reflect the information we take in every day. As we improve Contact Tracing and get additional information, we will be updating those cases even more so we have even more information, to have our Surveillance System be even more accurate. That is a longwinded way of saying there is a lot that goes into Public Health surveillance that probably does not meet the eye. Are you doing accuracy checks to make sure there are no misstatements . Dr. Toomey that and more. Within our agency, more communication and more efforts to ensure that the data dont just meet our needs as epidemiologists but are presented in a way that the public can use. Whoever only useful if is looking at it can understand and get the implication of what we are trying to say. It is not useful if only i as a trans epidemiologist can use it. That is the other thing, to make sure there is some simplicity. Website and data here or there should not be the holy grail. It is just one piece, one tool that we use. Those interviews we are doing with the patients, with contacts, all the work we are doing an outreach in the community, those community efforts, all this put together will help us better address what we are doing. So, thank you. Good afternoon, governor. My question is another data question. In nearby hancock county, there is a nursing home facility, smarter health and rehabilitation, by no means the only facility which is doing this, but it is the one i want to cite to you today. In that facility, there have now been 17 deaths at last check from the department of Community Health data release. There are 52 residents who have been covid19 positive and 20 staff who are covid positive. I spoke with the spokesman from the North Central health district, and he told me that agencies are not sharing data. The department of Community Health is not sharing that data directly with the department of health. , it said theyicle do not have access to the other agencies data. Since data is so important in this response, why arent agencies sharing data . And what can the state do to compel Nursing Homes to report that data accurately and in a timely manner to all agencies . Dr. Toomey, if you could also gov. Kemp i will let dr. Toomey speak specifically to the situation in hancock county. We have had many discussions about that. I know general cardens team has been down there. Theve spoken with commissioner at the department of Public Health about that. We might have to get more information from him to follow up on your question. But our focus, as i have said a month now, and as we have seen our trends move in the right direction and our curve get flat to all these different tricks we are using starting to go in the right direction, headed downward, our focus continues to remain on the Nursing Homes. Director bryson, general carden, and i all spoke at length about that today in this press conference with our remarks on how we are going to continue to do the Infectious Disease control cleanings, how we have been training not only nursing home staff, but many other industries across the state to help them do a better job in this, the delivery of ppe supplies that fema, the trump administration, and the federal government are sending and we are going to be sending, so we know we need to continue our focus there. There is no doubt in my mind that we are doing everything we can in a really tough situation. Viruse seen this covid19 is deadly for medically fragile in elderly people, which is why we continue to have the shelterinplace order in effect for those individuals, especially the medically fragile. I have asked dr. Toomey repeatedly, as well as general carden, are there other things we need to be doing . I believe we are doing everything we can now, but we the need other partners in private sector that own these homes and the general publics general publics help as well. Half our fatalities in georgia are from these facilities. Thankfully our numbers are not nearly as high as the others, but we are not celebrating that. Colonel vowell said, one life lost is one too many, but i will let dr. Toomey speak to specifics. Dr. Toomey one, i think there has never been more communication between the department of Community Health and Public Health than there is now. We share information daily. There is a lot of information going back and forth. If they know of cases we dont know, we take action on that. Today i have a team of epidemiologists specially trained in Infection Control going down and meeting with staff and administrators to make sure we identify any issues going on so we can continue to mitigate this. Beforeve said many times , we can test and disinfect a facility, but unless they continue with good Infection Control practices, we are going to continue having these problems. I see that as an ongoing role. Or a Public Health teams there is a good deal of partnership and data sharing about this and other facilities. Governor kemp, who ultimately decides what data is and is not included on the website . Also, in the effort of transparency, are you guys committed to making sure these errors and mistakes that do happen are released before they are called out by the media or somebody else . Gov. Kemp i certainly am. I have told people for months that we want to be transparent. I will let dr. Toomey speak specifically. There is a whole team of people that are deciding the data. We have added things as we have gone along. I want people to remember that when we were reporting this data one time a day, we were getting pressure from people that we need more realtime information, everye need a report minute or three times a day or two times a day, and we started doing that to get the information out as quickly as we can. I think by doing that, sometimes the information and i will let dr. Toomey speak to this, because i am not over there with her team every day, but sometimes they may not be having the 10 im they need to check on these things. I have asked them to look at these procedures to see if there is Something Different we should do, perhaps like colorado, who is reporting a day later. They are getting all their data today, they are not going to report in real time. They are going to do it this time tomorrow. I imagine if we had done that a month ago, we would have gotten heavily criticized, but my goal is to make sure we be transparent and we have the right data there, and if we dont, we are going to matt and tell people what happened, and we are going to get it fixed and keep moving on. This is something that public lth officials are working in todays world, they have not been in a pandemic like this, or Something Like this where you have the Realtime Data apparatus that we have today. That is not what dr. Toomeys team thats not their best there epidemiologists, they are Public Health officials, and this is what they do every day. Until this pandemic, they have not had to deal with a massive dump of these issues. We have sent people over to help her with that. If she needs more, all shes got to do is ask us and we will continue to do that. Dr. Toomey . Dr. Toomey one of the things we have talked about is monitoring trends and disease. They are never realtime because there is a delay in the tests getting back and a delay in the reports getting to us. There is a delay in getting the death certificate. Things like twitter or facebook can be realtime because that may be posted by somebody as soon as they hear about their test result, but we dont hear ,hat test results until later or they may think we have it but we may not get that information until weeks later. Our data are never actually realtime. I think as the governor pointed out, taking more time to be able to ensure there are not those data mayons, sometimes be reported by a laboratory and their doctor by a health department. Getting unduplicated data and making those corrections will make data more accurate. But these systems, i think, were never designed to be looking on an hourly basis. Thats not the trends we look at. We look at it take picture, where are we going . We also generate hotspot analyses once or twice a week, and that has been very useful to areas we have been doing popup sites throughout the state where there have not been Testing Available before, as well as in Nursing Homes throughout the state along with general carden. And where we see these areas of positive test results, we can quickly go in and try to understand what is going on in the community. I have to say, in gainesville, it was not our Surveillance System that told us about what that increasedth transmission, but actually the hospital themselves reported to us before our Surveillance System was even sentient enough to pick up on that. Data is not say the the only piece. It needs to be a much more comprehensive approach. I think no data system, whether it be needles or this were designed to be looked at with this scrutiny. I am grateful that the media are looking at this closely, because often we can recognize things we do not see, or there are consistencies that i didnt notice. Its not that we are trying to hide things. There is no deception. There may be several explanations that have to do with how the data was collected or some of the other issues reported. Data i hope that helps explain at least some part. Hi, governor. Supreme Court Justice cleef isckwell Keith Blackwell going to be retiring soon. Do you believe georgians should be electing the next georgia supreme Court Justice . Gov. Kemp first of all, you will have to talk to Justice Blackwell about why he resigned. It is my duty as governor, i took an oath to follow the law of the state of georgia, and thats exactly what im going to want to do. Have weighed in on that issue many times about how that process works, and that is the process im going to follow. Hi, governor. We know there have been issues with absentee ballots and voters having to vote again and some mailers being sent out with the wrong data for the primary. How is the state handling those issues and advising counties to handle those issues . We have a constitutional officer who is the secretary of state who is administering elections, along with the county elections official, so i would refer that question to them. I have been focused on a pandemic. Thanks. Ralph northam gave an update on the commonwealth testing ability and will provide recommendations on how to proceed but left regulations of two officials. He criticized leaders in illinois, michigan, and new york for their handling of the coronavirus. Good afternoon. It is great to be back in jacksonville. I was at Dolphin Point this morning. A very great visit. Since i was in town, since we did this last friday, i figured we will do it again. I want to thank the mayor for doing being here and dr. Bonnie white, a pediatrician. Thanks