Still hospitalized. Even during the weekend when the actual reporting slows down a bit, we continue to see record high case counts. And we continue to be concerned with our percentage of positive tests. We are watching closely to capacity. Spital bed tell you, thatll can change really quickly. As we see North Carolinas upward trends, we must redouble our work. Our department of health and Human Services team is pushing local Health Departments, especially in counties experiencing the highest growth. Forsyth, lee, mecklenburg, and wake are of particular concern. Over the weekend i talked with Vice President pence. I asked him and the federal government to help us with increasing testing sites and capabilities. Another focus will be testing all nursing home residents and staff and this testing is ongoing. Ournow going to ask secretary of health and Human Services to share an update for us. Dr. Cohen . Thank you, governor. Slowing the spread of the virus early on has allowed us to build our capabilities to be ready to respond to this surge in covid19 cases. That included building up supplies of protective equipment, strengthening and expanding hospital capacity, expanding our ability to test people, and staffing for contact tracing. We are now drawing on these capabilities. Including ramping up testing in harder hit communities. As the governor mentioned, we are targeting Additional Resources to nine counties. Mecklenburg, wake, durham, johnston, guilford, forsyth, lee, and duke lind. As we track our trends closely, we know there will be other counties added to that list. It is important that people get tested. Unfortunately we have heard that some are having trouble getting tests because of conflicting criteria. We are reaching out to providers, urgent care facilities, pharmacies, to remind them of expanding testing criteria and our desire to ramp up testing of those who dont show symptoms. We have appreciated their partnership and this is going to be key in our ongoing strategy to help slow the spread of this virus. Those who may have been exposed but do not have symptoms, especially people from historically marginalized populations who are disproportionately impacted by covid19, should get tested. People who live or work in high settingsings, or in where they are at higher risk for exposure should get tested. And anyone who has attended a mass gathering, including a protest, should get tested. If you are not sure, you can visit the check my symptoms tool on our website. You can also find testing sites near you. 500 postedbout across the state and on our website. Are tested, remember to answer the call from your local Health Department so that others who may have been exposed can get the support and resources they need. You can get a sense of what this process looks like with some new infographics online. And it is important to stay home if you are sick and stay home for 14 days if you had close contact with someone who had covid19. We all have the power to keep this virus level low. We can protect our families and neighbors if we all do our part and do the three ws. Wear a Face Covering. Wait six feet apart. Wash your hands frequently. It is the combination of these actions. Please continue to take care of yourself and those around you. Thank you, governor. Gov. Cooper thank you, dr. Cohen. As our Emergency Operations center stays activated for our response, a dedicated team at the North Carolina office of recovery and resilience remains focused on another response. Recovery from hurricanes. Some north carolinians and their communities are still recovering from the devastation of hurricanes. With families are dealing the threat of covid19 while trying to rebuild homes and businesses. The work of hurricane recovery continues. Today the second the state. Pens a new application process much work already has been done. Today North Carolina has provided more than 3. 5 billion in state and federal funding for recovery. Offices the recovery approved more than 1300 homes for the Community Development block grant funding. The Program Starting today took the federal government almost two years, 500 days after florence made landfall, laying out the requirements of how this money can be invested. And herndon an action plans within 24 hours. It was the first state to receive approval of our plan. We know help can never come fast enough if you have been devastated by disaster but the diligent work will need recovery money, getting into the hands of people who need it soon. I would like to recognize laura, the chief operating officer of the office of recovery and resilience to share a few words about what this application process means for homeowners in North Carolina. Laura . Laura thank you, governor cooper. I speak for the entire team when i say that we are proud to serve under your leadership as we work to help north carolinians rebuild their Community Stronger and smarter. In this office was established in 2018, we had our work cut out for us. When this office was established in 2018 we had our work cut out for us. There have been long delays in getting access for the federal from the federal government. It took 500 days to publish the federal notice needed to gain access to 542 million in Community Development grants for Disaster Recovery funds allocated to North Carolina. Still did not stand waiting for washington. We engaged in advanced Strategic Planning that allowed us to submit the required action plan to hud. As a result, North Carolina was the first to have an action plan approved from that allocation of federal funding. Me to the most important announcement that we made. We opened application where the Homeowner Recovery Program, a program that will help survivors of both hurricane thorns and hurricane mathew. The Homeowner Recovery Program provides Financial Institutions homes damagedair by either or both storms. A focus on low to middle income families that suffer the most damage. Our team has worked closely with hud to increase flexibility and asp as many storm providers possible while meeting federal requirements. This is important. People who have already applied do not need to reapply. Your applications will be reexamined using the new flex ability that the Homeowner Recovery Program affords. Due to the pandemic, or team worked quickly to create an Online Mobile friendly application that allows people to apply from wherever they are. That application is now live on our updated website at rebuild. Nt. Gov. Storm survivors can get assistance with the application askrbnc. Calling 833 when it is safe to do so, we see en 18 rebuild and rebuild nc centers. Find survivors can information on this website. Lastly, while covid19 may have required us to adapt to the current recovery program, it has not slow down the delivery of previous funds. Hurricane matthew spending has remained on pace with hud throughout the pandemic as it has been throughout since september of 2019. Through the rebuild program, 185. 4 million have been committed to Hurricane Matthew recovery and we have a total of 646 homes in the construction process with 259 of those already complete. Homeowners who have damage from hurricanes or matthew should rebuild. Nc. Gov to apply. Thank you. Gov. Cooper thank you, laura. Thank you to you and your team for the hard work and the long areas you have put into make sure that money can move as fast as federal government will lead us. Especially as we have battled covered covid19. We created the north Carolyn Office of recovery and resilience as part of our Emergency Management operations. You and your team over there have been doing a stellar job. You have done it safely during this covid19 crisis. I commend you for the great job youre doing in bringing homes to people who need them. Also with us today is our secretary of public safety, eric cooks and our Emergency Management director. On a committee and brian tipton are our sign that was interpreters. Had the scenes, design melendez dez is ourmelen spanish line which interpreter. We will take questions from the media. If you can identify yourself and your organization, we would appreciate it. Thank you. First question. Our first question is from adam wegner with the observer. Wagon from then news observer. This is in regards to the crowds we have seen the past few weeks at the speedway. It seems that with those crowds and the cases ticking up, there would be outbreaks somewhere. We have not heard their story in regards to restaurants or events. Your organization done to alert the public to the outbreaks. Is it happening in places and not being reported question mark gov. Cooper being reported . Gov. Cooper that kind of behavior in crowds helps the x birds the Health Experts. We tell people to avoid being in crowds if you can. Perform the three ws. Covering,oth face wait six feet apart and wash your hands frequently. As you know, we work very closely with our local Health Department to try to understand how the virus is spreading across our state. We have talked many times on how we track those outbreaks right now, on our website, we post and track outbreaks in congregate living setting. We track it in childcare settings and in schools. As we talked about many times, those outbreaks are not consistently reported. There are only a few that are required by law. The few that i just mentioned. Will do the detective work and are tracing or an entity may proactively identify themselves. They say will you work with us and help us understand what to do next. Those other settings that come to our attention. We want those to get in touch with your local Health Department. If your see more than 2 people, that is a cluster. Get in touch with your local Health Department so we can help track down and trace any other contacts and also to make sure that people are taking the proper protocols. Whether that is additional deep cleaning or a temporary closure or when have you that needs to be done in order to make sure t we dont seem farther see further viral spread. We need to make sure that they are taking all the precautions that we lay out in the detailed guidance that is out there. Those are incredibly important. If you see the virus spreading a your place of business, please call the local Health Department. We can all Work Together on this. It will take all of these actions together, individuals, business actions and our state and local officials working together in order to slow the spread of this virus. Thank you. Gov. Cooper take you come in a question please thank you, next question please. Our next is from chandler morgan. This is chandler morgan. My question is regarding the big crowds we are seeing at restaurants. We are seeing a lot of crowds where capacity is too high or people are disregarding social distancing on purpose. Is this kind of behavior adding to the spike in numbers . Are there guidelines for restaurants to prevent this behavior . Now, theer right restaurant guidelines are 50 of capacity. There are other steps that restaurants are taking with cloth Face Covering and trying to make sure that there is social distancing within the restaurants. We have pretty good reports across the state that most of the restaurants are complying with this. Want an increase in capacity. Hopefully that will come down the road as we move into other phases but we are concerned that if there are restaurants that are violating this, we encourage local officials to talk with all of their businesses to try to make sure that they comply with the law. Dr. Cohen, d have anything you want to add . Do you have anything you want to add . I recommend everyone go on the website for guidance. The Restaurant Association partnered with us for the program of count on me and see. Even moree restaurants to take the training and post outside so that people know that you are a count on me and see trainee. We want to see more restaurants participate in it. We always knew that restaurants were a higher risk activity. People are sitting down, sometimes indoors for extended periods of time. We know that when you are eating, you are taking off your Face Covering when youre actively eating. Those are risky situations and we are concerned. We want to make sure that everyone is doing their part. Is this is an individuals. I think it will take all of our Work Together if we want to continue to make progress. Movent to be able to through additional phases. We need to do those actions together. I would like to see many more do that and then see our patrons go to those restaurants that are participating in the count on me and see program. Gov. Cooper thank you, next question. Followup, chana morgan. Aggie for that answer, specifically, restaurants that tovert into bars and choose open later in a different setting, it would be the guidelines there must mark seems to be a lot of issues when it comes to capacity once they change into that setting at night. No change in guidelines. They are continuing to maintain that reduced capacity and they maintain that social distancing and can take all of the precautions that are in our guidelines no matter the time. We really want everyone to follow those guidelines really intently. This is going to take effort on all of our parts if we are going to be able to live with this virus. I will remind you that our trends are going in the wrong direction. Our fate is not sealed. We have power over this. We can all take individual action together. Restaurants included, no matter what time of day, what they are serving to make sure that people are doing everything they can to see the virus level lower and spread and see the spread lower. Gov. Cooper next question. The next question is from andrea with hb 11. I am with abc 11. We are only two weeks away from the end of june. Where you stand on that potential for phase 2. 5 . Reopenars and gyms can before june 26 . Should we assume that things that opened in phase two will be open to things that could not openin phase two would be in phase three . Gov. Cooper we will let the people of North Carolina know on the first of next week whether we will go into the next phase and if so, what that phase will look like. We are continuing to monitor these numbers. Right now, they not trending in a good direction. We still want to give this more time and we want to encourage people to continue to perform the three ws. Lets press to make sure that we can flatten this curve. Thank you. Next question. Our next question is from travis. Wral. i am travis with are most effective when a lot or all people wear them. Table at all for your initiation . If so, when with the decision be made . It is absolutely in discussion right now. Costding whether we make cloth Face Coverings mandatory and in what way we do it. Right now, they are mandatory for employees of personal care like a nail and hair salon. They are required for those employees. Our Health Experts are looking at those same studies, showing the effectiveness of cloth Face Coverings. We want people to voluntarily do this. We are looking for potential rules to make things mandatory. Thank you, you are right, there are more studies coming out that are looking at Face Coverings directly in the covid19 context. Face coveringsat for other viral respiratory illnesses. We have a lot of studies with a lot of different methodologies that show the importance of Face Covering. Youre right, the Face Covering really shows effectiveness when we can get many people doing that altogether. That is why we keep harping on the three ws and saying that we can do this together. We can have individuals take action here and if we do this collectively, the data shows that we can still flatten this curve. I know we see things going in the wrong direction but if we ask collectively, we can take control of our fate here. To getthat people want their kids back to school, i know i want to get my girls back to school this august. This is the way to do it. It is to focus on these elective actions we can do, whether it is an individual or we run a business that is open. It is following those guidelines and doing the three ws. The science is becoming pretty powerful to say that if we all do this together, we can truly flatten the curve and slow the spread of this virus we can continue to make progress. Thank you. Next question. Our next question is from the Carolina Public press. Quite good afternoon governor and dr. Cohen. Regarding homes and rehabilitation the sodas that claim to have positive cases. I understand that you have a plan to test everybody but i have a question about the ones that say they have no positive cases. They have said that the facilities are not saying whether those facilities are testing staff. I have asked dhss who talks told me to talk to the county Health Department. Are not answering if there testing anybody. Month in died this kansas in the facility and they will not tell me if they were testing anybody. Do we know whether Nursing Homes without reported infections are actually testing residents and how many of those tests are being performed . If not, please tell me why and do you think this is except the bull . So sorry to hear about your dad. It must be a very difficult time for you and your family. My personaltend deepest sympathies. It is important that we have this information and it is peoplent that we get tested in our Nursing Homes so that we can identify people and make sure they are isolated so that other people can be checked in. I will turn it over to dr. Cohen to more fully answer your question. Let me extend my summer these iout your dad and share that think testing is important and i want to answer your question but testingo make sure that is up is not the only thing we can do. That way we can have a copperheads of and do have a copperheads of strategy. As i get is really important for us to connect the dots between what is going on in restaurants and what is happening in our longterm care setting. We can see those dots because the virus is so tiny but when we circulating es more virus circulating in our community, whether it is food delivery or the nurses or other personal care attendants, they go out to restaurants as well. They go out to the grocery stores. When there is more virus is spreading, those working in longterm care are getting exposed to viruses more often. Ton they bring that virus longterm care facilities. We want to do testing because you can often have covid19 and not have symptoms. The person doing food service at one of those Nursing Homes can be complete fine. They went out to a local neighborhood the night before or two weeks before. Then they are going to work and they feel complete refinance could be spreading the virus. We had to make sure that the a coupleings of things we had to restrict visitors because that is how more viruses come into our settings. The testing is a huge, important component of that. Not only are we doing testing when there is one case, we are not winning for an outbreak, it is two cases. It is one case that has been reported, we have tested staff and resins. The question has been are we going to do proactive testing when we dont see virus there . And what we committed to for Nursing Homes is to do that proactive testing. That is hard. It is not an easy thing to do. It is not going to be done overnight, we already did this in our state. We are not doing the work with nursing facilities across the state on how we can marshal the the time andth people involved with the financial challenges. I want to make that important connection that it is not testing alone that is going to help your. It is it has to go back to all of those actions. The questions we were asked before, they impact what is going on in our longterm care settings as well. It goes back to all of those individual actions the together. I am so sorry about your dad. I dont want to see anymore of that happen in North Carolina. Next question. Answeringou both for my question but i am really Say Something about the facilities that dont have any positive tests, i want to know if there testing anybody at this point . Thank you. , if they dont have any cases we are working to do the proactive testing. That has not happened in the state facilities that are run by my department. If there is one case in those facilities, everone gets tested. People are not doing that proactive testing. We are now starting network with everyone. Safeve done it for our facilities and now we are doing for those skilled workers in the facilities. Gov. Cooper thank you, question. Question. Next question. I have a couple of questions for you. Ae is if we will ever see demographic by county . I think there are some counties where the demographic of that who is getting covid and who is ending up in the hospital with covid is very different than other counties. Aboutd like you to talk standardized or mission criteria coming into the hospital. Some patients say theyre coming in for hip replacement. Are they counting them as Covid Patients . Gov. Cooper i will let the doctor address both of those questions but i will say this, we want Demographic Data that is as specific as possible. That we have a very disjointed and independent Health Care System across the state. We are trying to get all of this data and focus it in one place but it is a difficult exercise. There is still some reporting that we want to that we are not getting but i know that we are working on trying to make sure that all of that demographic information is reported to us but we talk about that frequently in our meeting. So how many different places are collecting information about ting i will let dr. Cohen address that. On the collecting of demographic information by much differents on the positives, when we have positive tests on the tracers local health apartment will be touched that person and collect the additional data. What we are trying to do is get that on the front end. The federal government has moved to require the collection of demographic information that was usually hopeful to us in the state. We have now been working on the i. T. System to make that data a much more automated process that is not done quite yet. We are working very rapidly to make this a much less manual process. Right now we go one by one and make phone calls. That is really challenging. We need to be able to collect that information in a more systematic and automatic way to help us drive our decisionmaking about what we need to do next. Stay tuned for more there. As far as people coming into the hospital, whether theyre coming in for a specific covid reason and then they are found to be covid19 positive, we asked our hospitals to report how many people in your hospital beds currently have covid19. That is how we asked the question. There may be some people who came forward for different reasons. What i am reminded of about this virus is we are beginning to understand all the ways in which a virus could present. We know this virus causes inflammatory disease, particularly, we are seeing this new multiand planetary disease of children. We are also seeing inflammatory disease in adults. If someone comes in with a heart attack, a heart attack or an infarction can be an inflammatory event. Is that covid . Is that just art attack . I dont know if that has any clinical different at this point. I think what we want to do is track our utilization. What we are seeing in our Health Care System is where getting overwhelmed. I think it is important to know that if someone is in the hospital and has covid19, not just because understanding their clinical pattern but also for isolating them and making sure they are not comingled with other patients that are not covid19 and seeing that virus spread to health care setting. It is really important that we come into a setting so we can do infection control. I hope that gets to the heart of the question. Thank you. Next question. Our next question is from haley. Aboutquestion is protesters and testing. A push to get protesters tested. Is there a spike in protesters being positive for covid . Gov. Cooper any time you have a group of people crowded together, many of them not social distancing, many of them not wearing cloth Face Coverings, you have the Great Potential for spread of covid19. Dr. Cohen may have information on whether we have traced any particular protest to cover 19 infections. Usually the contact tracers in that kind of a situation will trace things down and letting people know and it is not necessarily anything that would come to our attention. But we want people to get tested if they have been in any kind of crowd, because of their increased chance of getting infected. Dr. Cohen, do you want to add to that . Thank you, and a question. You talk about the importance of using science and data and reopening the economy. Given how bad these numbers have been in the past couple of weeks, im wondering whether you have thought about pulling back. And is part of the reason you have not because people may not listen at this point because theyre so eager to be out . Gov. Cooper we have three major initiatives here. We want to make sure anyone who gets sick with covid has a hospital bed and in icu bed and a ventilator, if they need one. Number two, we want to slow the spread of the virus. Number three, we want to cushion the blow to our economy. We have a lot of our businesses that are open and a lot of things pushing our economy along. We still have some restrictions that potentially we can ease, as we go further. But we are looking at these numbers and we are concerned about them. At the first of next week, we will announce our decision based on science and advice from Health Experts, is to, if we are going to go into the next phase that would start on friday of next week, and if we are, what it will look like. That is what we are doing right now. We believe that we can get a handle on this. We are encouraging people to continue to do the three ws. We are looking at trying to get more people to use Face Coverings. We believe we can flatten this curve and prevent this second surge from happening. And we hope that we can do that soon. So im asking the people of North Carolina, lets pull together so that we can continue to move forward and easing restrictions. That being said, we will always what is the best for the health and safety of north carolinians. Next question . That was our final question, governor. Gov. Cooper ok. I appreciate all of you tuning in. We are grateful for the hard you are doing now and fighting the spread of covid19 and we ask you to keep it up. Thanks very much. Today, the Senate Continues work on a public lens package that would provide permanent funding for the land and Water Conservation fund. It would also establish a fund for maintenance of parks and other public lands. A vote is expected this week executive and judicial nominations. Floor, negotiations continue on a motion to reach the house on pfizer negotiations. Follow the senate life on fisa. Follow the senate on cspan2. The house is not in session but memos continue to work on police reform. The house returns and you cost house live on cspan. You can watch the house live on cspan. Tonight, on the communicators. Federal Communications Commissioner michael orielly. Everyone faces dickel circumstances with the covid19 pandemic. The Communications Network as a whole seems to be Holding Quite well. I do not like to promise anything or congratulate anything to early. Well have to see where things hold but im impressed where things are now. In terms of conductivity issues, some of the work from home issues, certainly conferences being done through this medium is more likely to increase over time. I would not say this is the new normal but it is more this way than returning fully to the oldstyle. Easternht at 8 00 p. M. On the communicators on cspan2. First ladies, influence and image, on American History tv, examines the private lives and the public roles of the nations first ladies. Through interviews with top historians. Tonight we look at the first two first ladies, martha washington, and abigail adams. Watch first ladies, influence and image, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, on American History tv. On cspan3. The house military personnel subcommittee holds a hearing on Racial Disparities in the military justice system. Live coverage begins tuesday at 12 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. The Senate Judiciary committee convened a hearing tuesday, to examine Police Department use of force roles, and community policing. Watch it live at 2 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Online at cspan. Org, or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Binge watch book tv this summer. Every saturday evening at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, settle in and watch hours of your favorite authors, saturday we feature your times bestselling author david marinus, the author of a dozen books including, once in a great city, a detroit story. Obama, the barack story. And most recently, a Good American family. And we feature historian david mccullough. Binge watch book tv all summer on cspan2. Kevin landrigan, a political reporter for the New Hampshire union leader newspaper, is interviewed by cspan about the forces at play and issues motivating voters in the 2020 race heard and how influence has changed New Hampshire from a republican stronghold to a battleground state. Kevin landrigan his bureau chief for the union leader and he joins us from New Hampshire. Over the past years the Granite State has become a battleground state. What has changed . Guest it is interesting. It is quite a contrast. Ronald reagan when he ran for reelection in 1984, he declared the most republican state in the country right you could have case,hat state that other than the far and nevada perhaps. New hampshire has become more of a swing state because of migration here. We are unusual, in that now fewer people new
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