There are now 635 cases in the Capital Region of maryland, dc and virginia. 32,000 cases across america and more than 342,000 cases around the globe. Over the past several weeks, we have taken some swift, decisive, unprecedented actions in our state. In order to slow the spread of covid19 and to save lives. I just want to take a moment to thank the overwhelming majority of marylanders who have taken this situation seriously and who have remained at home, avoided crowds and practiced much needed social distancing. Unfortunately, many peopleare still not taking it seriously. There were crowds of people visiting the Cherry Blossoms in washington dc in large gatherings on the beach in ocean city and on the boardwalk and in many ofthe county and local parks across our state. Let me repeat once again as strongly as i possibly can. If you are engaged in this kind of activity, you are breaking the law and you are literally endangering the lives of your family, your friends and your fellow citizens. Because of this irresponsible and reckless behavior, beginning today, even further and more aggressive Enforcement Actions will be taken by state and local authorities to disperse these gatherings. In the continuing efforts to protect the health and safety of allmarylanders , we are also taking immediate additional mitigation and social distancing actions. This morning i have enacted an executive order which closes all nonessential businesses, organizations , establishments and facilities in maryland effective at 5 00 today. In addition to those businesses which have already been closed by our prior executive orders, this new executive order closes all those businesses not covered by federal guidelines which were issued thursday by the federal government as defined as Critical Infrastructure sectors including healthcare in food and agriculture, energy, public works , communitybased Government Operations and the defense and Industrial Base sectors, Law Enforcement, public safety, transportation , critical manufacturing, Financial Services and water and wastewater. Let me be clear. We are not issuing or ordering a shelter in place directive. Were forcing people to stay home. However, we are telling all their lenders to follow all of the directives weve already issued and to follow state law against crowds of more than 10 people and we are telling you, unless you have an essential reason to leave your house, then you should stay inyour homes. Todays actions of closing nonessential businesses are absolutely necessary. To protect the health of marylanders and to save lives. This is an exceptionally challenging time. For marylanders and for all americans. And that includes those who are out of work and our Small Businesscommunity. Our First Priority is saving the lives of thousands of marylanders. And while we are fighting this unprecedented worldwide pandemic, at the same time we are also facing another huge battle against the potential of tremendouseconomic harm. And we must tackle both of these problems aggressively and simultaneously. Both of these battles are going to take all of us at the federal, state and local levels and the private sector rising to this challenge and working together. Over the last several weeks, governors in both parties from all across america have come together and push for more robust aggressive response. As chairman of the National Governors association we submitted several priorities to the president and Vice President last thursday. Based on all of the important priorities of the governors. While we seen some progress, on some of these requests, including the invoking of title 32, so that fema can cover the cost of the National Guard Relief Missions and giving us the flexibility and some progress to ramp up the production of and delivery of the pes and necessary equipment, and on extending the deadline for the 2020 census, we are still waiting for additional action on title 32 for all the states and still pushing for the extension of the real id and were still pushing very hard for Major Economic stimulus for monies to go directly to thestate. So that we can help these businesses and individuals that are impacted and theres still no action on that. We are going to raise these issues again on our call with the president andVice President this afternoon. I have spoken several times over the past several days with us labor secretary jean elliott about helping unemployed and displaced workers. Last Week Congress passed a second stimulus package which included paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave for workers, enhanced Unemployment Insurance and enhanced Food Security programs. I also spoke with secretary scalia about the availability of 100 million in dislocated worker grants in response to this health emergency. In addition, i urged the white house and congress to include in their stimulus package this erect aid to the states who are on the front line of this crisis. Over the weekend i spoke with Vice President pence, treasury secretary Stephen Mnuchin and the leaders of the senate and house and on friday i spoke with our entire federal delegation that represents maryland. About the importance of this much needed assistance. The package currently being debated includes a 300 billion emergency Economic Relief plan to help Small Businesses make payroll and cover expenses. This legislation would provide cash flow assistance through utterly guaranteed loans to employers to maintain their payroll during this emergency. This will help workers to remain employed and help Small Businesses to ramp back up after this crisis. As i said repeatedly, governors are leading on the front lines of this crisis. And we need congress to Work Together to support our efforts. This is no time for partisan dysfunction. Its going to take all of us working together in order to save thousands oflives. This afternoon ill be meeting another one of these teleconferences with the president and Vice President with all the nations governors. Going to continue to press for further coordination and furtherresources from the federal governments. This will be our fifth such teleconference with the governor. All of the federal assistance is critically needed and the efforts so far are appreciated. But the states continue to need more assistance and more action. However, maryland is not just going to rely on or wait for action from the federal government. As we have time and again, we will continue to lead you can take action. In the. Three weeks ago, i submitted a supplemental budget to provide an additional immediate 10 million in resources to prepare the states response to covid19. Two weeks ago, i submitted emergency legislation to tap into the states Rainy Day Fund in order to respond to this crisis. Thursday i signed emergency legislation into law which provides relief to maryland workers by allowing them to collect Unemployment Insurance if their business has been closed due to covid19, if theyve been quarantined or if a Family Member has been quarantined. Also on thursday, we were successful in receiving a statewide disaster declaration the Small Business administration so that all businesses in our state that had been affected by the coronavirus can immediately apply directly for low interest federal disaster loans to help cover the cost including payroll bills and accounts payable with longterm payments stretching up to 30 years. Today, we are taking additional major steps to help support the states all businesses and workers area were immediately launching a 175 million comprehensive Business Relief Program in maryland. This will bring together resources from two of our key state agencies. The Maryland Department of commerce and the Maryland Department of labor. To help hardpressed marylanders and Small Businesses help them get through this difficult period. Our Unemployment Insurance program has ramped up and is dedicated to helping employees and employers whove been affected by covid19. If youve been laid off, you can immediately file a claim iphone or email or by submitting anApplication Online. Unlike other states, maryland has no waiting period whatsoever so claims can be filed right away immediately. And we are launching the covid19 layoff a version fund. As of today an additional 7 million is available to help all businesses retain their employees during this crisis. Marylands Small Businesses can apply for up to 50,000 in Flexible Funding to help continue operations and keep their employees on thepayroll. These resources are available right now at business express. Maryland. Gov coronavirus. Through the Maryland Department of Congress Today we are introducing the maryland Small Business covid19 relief fund. A 75 million fund that will provide working capital to Small Businesses and nonprofits with fewer than the employees that have lost revenue due to this pandemic. These funds can be used by Small Businesses to pay their employees, their suppliers, their rent and to cover criticaloperating costs. To help them stay in business. Were also establishing a 50 million maryland Small Business covid19 relief grant fund. Which will provide not longterm but loans but direct immediate grants. Of up to 10,000. You Small Businesses that have lost revenue because of the coronavirus. Were also immediately developing a 5 million fund to provide incentives to maryland Small Businesses. To manufacture masks, personal protective equipment and other supplies to immediately help meet the critical demands of our healthcare workers. We are deploying another 40 million in emergency money through all of our existing commerce finding finance programs, to specifically target assistance to maryland Small Businesses to help them survive this covid19 crisis and to help them preserve the jobs of their employees. Today i also issued an executive order to protect families price gouging. This covers all essential Household Items and commodities. Retailers who attempt to exploit this crisis for profit and game will be prosecuted to thefullest extent of the law. My administration is marshaling every tool in the arsenal of Public Health to combat and slow the spread of this pandemic. A week ago we launched our plan to increase Hospital Capacity by an additional 6000 beds. In order to meet the demand created by the escalating spread of this virus. Phase 1 of this surge plan has already made 900 bed immediately available. We expect an additional 1400 beds by early april. Plans are underway as we speak to establish a field hospital. At the Baltimore Convention center. As an alternate care and an alternate care site at the adjacent hotel. In baltimore city. Maryland National Guard will be setting up these sites in coordination with the army corps of engineers which these will be operated through a joint partnership with the university of maryland medical system and johns hopkins. My direction, fema will be delivering 250 hospital bed packages and Everything Associated with them in the coming days. We also worked with the university of maryland medical systems to reopen the Laurel Hospital which will make an additional 135 hospital beds available in short order. Maryland National Guard in partnership with the Maryland Department of health and the Prince Georges County Healthcare Department is establishing a pilot coronavirus drivethrough screening location at fedex field in landover. We also have five vehicle emissions inspections enters ready to immediately open as drivethrough screening and Testing Centers as soon as the necessary testing kits, pes and Lab Capabilities become available. Today i have issued orders to authorize a fasttrack process which will bring more testing capability directly here in maryland without waiting for federal action or fda approval. This will dramatically shorten the process which would havetaken several months. Healthcare providers are now required to prioritize tasks for hospitalized patients and Healthcare Providers will cease elective procedures to free up capacity. I just want to take a moment to say thank you to the countless healthcare professionals, doctors and nurses, the First Responders who are on the front lines every day, working around the clock to help keep us safe. And i want to thank the soldiers and airmen of the maryland National Guard, we deployed these citizen soldiers to assist with humanitarian missions all across the state and they never hesitate to answer the call to help their fellow marylanders. And i want to all of the Small Businesses who had to close their doors during these uncertain times. I can assure you that these actions while incredibly difficult, will save the lives of thousands of your hello marylanders area and we will have your back in the weeks ahead and we will do everything we can to help get you back on your feet and to help all of your employees recover. Finally, i want to sincerely thank the people of maryland who have helped their fellow marylanders just by staying home and those who have volunteered their time to distribute school meals, who have picked up groceries for an older neighbor or given blood to the red cross and i encourage all marylanders to visit our maryland unites website to find out what you can do, help your neighbors and your communities and i also asked that you keep giving to your local churches who are not able to pass the collections baskets on sunday and all the other volunteer organizations, all of whom are desperately in need of your donations so that they can continue to help others in our community. To my fellow marylanders, let me say that i know how incredibly difficult this is on each and every one of you. There is a great deal of fear and anxiety and the truth is that none of us really know how bad its going to get or how long its going tolast. But i can promise you, that there are a great deal, a great many dedicated people doing some tremendous things, working around the clock and doing their very best to help keep the people of maryland safe. And we are all in this together. And we will together, we will get throughthis. God bless each and every one of you and may god continue to blessthe great state of maryland. At this time im going to turn it over to our commercesecretary , kelly scholz who will provide some more detail on our comprehensive Relief Program for maryland Small Businesses and workers. Thank you, governor and good morning. Coronavirus is really preventing a series of challenges that we will be facing together in the coming months. We know this is frightening. We know people are not just worried about the health of their loved ones. We know you are worrying about your job and whether the store will be open and about taking care of your families. We are doing everything we can and balancing the need to spread the slope of the virus the need for businesses to keep operating. Thats why we are encouraging restaurant to continue providing carryout services for example. We have also worked closely with our Small Business community and federal partners to ensure maryland will improve for the Small Business administrations assistance. Small businesses across the state can apply for Disaster Relief Funding Group the fda. Thats an important resource. But we do know that wewill need to do much more than that. If we do not act to support our businesscommunity during this emergency , and the economic risk to our industries, our Small Business employers and above all the livelihoods of maryland residents will linger even after we hit the down side of the curve and the pressure on our Healthcare System pieces. Our Small Businesses must survive andour people must have jobs can return to when things returned to normal. Sowere acting now to ensure that. Commerce is two new emergency relief funds will help our Small Businesses and nonprofitsweather the storm. The first, the maryland Small Business cove in 19 emergency relief grants fund offers up to 10,000 to businesses with 50 or fewer employers. There will also be funding that will be set aside specifically for ournonprofit community. These grants can provide working capital to cover payroll, rent or mortgage payments, utilities or other expenses incurred during ordinary operations. The maryland Small Business covid19 Emergency Relief Loan Fund is our Second Program which offers low interest loans of up to 50,000 to businesses with fewer than 50 employees where offering that at a zero percent Interest Rate for the first 12 months. These loans can be used to cover the same sort ofregular operating cost such as payroll , rent, utilities, etc. Im very pleased to say that in the past week or so, it seems longer than actually , many of our partners in the Business Community have come forward and ask how they can help. We are absolutely grateful for that. If you are a business that has important supplies that you can sell to the state that may help, please send a message to resource. Mima maryland. Gop to let us know. There is one critical area in particular where our Industry Partners can step up and participate. The immediately Public Health concern of covid19 is being amplified by a nationwide shortage of the personal Protection Equipment of doctors and hospitalsbadly need. As Governor Hogan said, there is an opportunity to work with our manufacturing partners and ball businesses help to meet that need. To that end commerce has introduced a 5 million maryland covid19 Emergency Relief Manufacturing Fund to incentivize the production of personal protective equipment such as facemasks, ventilators and other equipment. The state may purchase this equipment or we may connect manufacturers with buyers who need these vital resources. Congress Industry Experts are working with our partners in the industry including Maryland Manufacturing Extension Partnership , the Regional Manufacturing institute of maryland and the maryland manufacturing Advisory Board to identify those companies right now that may be able to meet the needs of our healthcare industry. Please visit our business express website for all of that information which has a wealth of that information and more that can be consistently updated for your reassurance. You can find information about all the ways maryland is helping businesses cope with covid19 including our new programs and we will have more information about the Manufacturing Program available to you by the endof the week. I assure you our teams are working around the clock as the governor has stated they are all working together. We are in Uncharted Waters now. The situation is unlike anything weve seen in our lifetime but we will as the governor said through this and we will be doing it together. Weve heard from many, many businesses are frightened and unsure of what to do. They want to keep serving their customers they want to keep paying their employees. I want to be here when covid19 is fading only into our memory. To our Business Community, i want to say that these programs at the department of commerce and our partnering agencies can help you get through this. We know this is a difficult time for you and we are here to work hard on your behalf and to support you. And now i would like to turn thisover to secretary of labor tiffany robinson. Iq secretary scholz and thank you Governor Hogan and goodmorning. In addition to the programs being offered by the Maryland Department of commerce the Maryland Department of labor as one the new covid19 layoff of version fund. Starting today as the governor mentioned, a total of 7 million is available to support our state Small Businesses and workers undergoing Financial Stress because of the coronavirus. Small businesses can apply now for up to 50,000 in very Flexible Funding to help continue operations and keep marylanders working. All businesses who apply will receive over a response within just two Business Days of exhibiting a simple application and our team at the Maryland Department of labor is ready and available to providetechnical assistance during our application process. As the governor mentioned were talking to our federal partners most daily and my department is seeking as much as possible of the 100 million in dislocated worker grants recently announced by the Us Department of labor. This will allow us toexpand this program further. But we know how important it is to provide immediate relief during this rapidly evolving state of emergency so were cutting through all the red cake in order to get our businesses the help they need right now. With these flexible layoffaversion plans , we can do countless things such as purchase Remote Access equipment and software allow employees to work from home. Advertise their facilities to protect employees providing essential services onsite. Pay for Liability Insurance needed to change Business Models like previous died in only restaurants are now delivering food to the community. This fund can also provide to 50,000 to supplement a Small Businesses payroll cost if they are enrolled in worksharing Unemployment Insurance programs. The Workshare Program provides an additional alternative to layoffs by allowing employers to reduce the hours of work or their employees can then collect Unemployment Insurance benefits to replace a portion of their wages. Unfortunately for some however, unemployment has already become a reality during these difficult times i want to be clear that the Maryland Department of labors Unemployment Insurance program is fully operational and remains dedicated to helping with employers and employees who been affected by covid19. If youve been laid off you can file a claim immediately by phone, email or an Application Online as the governor said maryland does not have a waiting period, weve expanded our call center hours, added servers to increase online application speed and capacity and create a dedicated emailaddresses to provide better customer service. And no matter when or how you file a claim, eligible marylanders will be paid benefits back to the first day after they were laid off. As the governor mentioned expanded eligibility as well make sure everyone is covered during this state of emergency. Maryland is allowing workers not been terminated to collect Unemployment Insurance their employer has beenclosed due to covid19. Theyve been quarantined or if theyre caring for a Family Member. And in light of the current market conditions, and a need for social distancing, labor has temporarily waived all search requirements for Unemployment Insurance recipient benefits. Unprecedented actions are being taken now to save the lives of marylanders so we just want everyone to know the Maryland Department of labor in conjunction with all the other state agencies are doing everything in our power to support and protectour Small Businesses in the workforce. Thank you. We also have with us Fran Phillips from the Maryland Health department and Major General timothy galan on the National Guard and with that ill be happy totake any questions or any of them. Theres a whole lot of businesses that are exempted. Basically they are the ones we already took actionon. Its a long list of federally protected ones that are considered essentialand we can get you the list of all of those but we will be putting that out with the press release later. Many businesses are still open. Everybody in the supply chain to make sure we get services out to everybody but it affects a wider array of businesses. [inaudible] im not sure if anybody has an estimated number at this point obviously its something we will be concerned about taking a look at with our federal leaders. [inaudible] excuse me . Daycare is covered by a different order and thats being handled i the Maryland Department of education and we put out clear directives on that already but maybe taking further action and further explanations on that here tomorrow or the next day butwe did that last thursday i think. [inaudible] i think we still want to abide by the social distancing and did not have crowds of people and i think we can work on limiting those crowds. Weve asked Law Enforcement officials to work with those Big Box Stores to help on crowd control but we want to make sure those stores stay open so that they can get people the essential things they need especially food and the other necessary items. They are a critical part of the supply chain. Is a great question brad and quite honestly if you look at, listen to all experts at the federal level and local level, nobody at the perfect crystal ball is a are we going to be and are the actions want to help or not . We believe, we were among the first states in the country to take many of the actions one of the first to declare a state of emergency, one of the first to close the schools, one of the first to close the barsand restaurants, first to take action on social distancing. Weve been very aggressive. Were hoping these actions will help us not be as badly affected as other states or to help slow the curve but we also know we have not yet hit the peak. We know the numbers are going to dramatically rise as testing increases and so we dont want to unnecessarily alarm people having taken no action we know the numbers would be dramatically worse and the question is these actions that we have taken how much are they going to do and were hoping that they are going to stop tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people from being infected in maryland and hopefully save the lives of thousands of marylanders. Most of the increases are now because were dramatically ramping up the number of tests. So a week or so ago it was 50 test today, went up to 250 test today, 500 test today youre seeing more number is were testing more people. That doesnt necessarily mean more of a spread but the numbers are going to go up as we test more people. Im not sure if fran has an answer but we are pushing as fast as we can with the private labs, with the federal government, with our teams here at hopkins and the state lab is going to continue to do the ones for our investigative cases on the people that were tracking. This person, who they comein contact with when we have a known case. The private sector and all those other things will handle all the folks in the hospital and that is increasing not nearly at a fast enough rate which is the general frustration of all of us, thats what youre hearing about you were going to talk more about that this afternoon with our federal partners. Id like to hear that were making more progress on these needs on testing. On the pts, on ventilators, unmasks. And i like to hear that theyve taken action on the five diary request of the governors from last thursday area. Our department of corrections, we are taking measures as is every other agency and part of the imitation of the equipment is hurting us across so we have so many dvds, we need them or correctional officers, healthcare workers, Police Officers and we need them for all one people doing the testing and theres got to be some kind of reauthorization as you get them first. Our First Responders so its just further exacerbates the issue. Theres a problem of needing more of these things protect everybody involved. At this point our orders, we believe are more encompassing than perhaps more effective. Its all semantics. Some people, some states have said theres a shelter in place order but were going to leave all these businesses open so were going to tell you to stay in your house you can still do all of these things. We said we want youto stay in your house but were going to close allthese things. And its a little bit , youre comparing apples to oranges. I think our actions are more aggressive in some states who have ordered shelter in place its not as, we dont think its as draconian a lot people in their homes but to stopping in the places where they gather and stopping in some of the places where they are is probably a smarter action for us. But were going to continue to look at decisions every day. Im doing what im suggesting to everyone else. Im not staying in my home every day because youre seeing me here at work but we have limited our size of our press conferences. You see social distancing here but we only have were people standing herewhere we used to have 12 or15, theyre spaced out. They have fewer reporters. My staff is down to a handful of people, most people working from home as are many state workers. Theyre still working hard but theyre on their computers and laptops im not going out in public and there arent many crowds and im practicing the same advice were getting everyone else, washing hands frequently, avoiding contact. Avoiding crowd. Staying home as much as possible and limiting the involvement and exposure, im following the advice im giving everyone else. I know Governor Cuomo is my vice chairman of nga was talking about quite a bit over the weekend. Its probably something we will have a discussion about this afternoon. It is an issue that we will certainly be talking about there arent enough of these items and were pushing to get our supply wherever we can and pushing the federal government to produce more of them and distribute more of them and hopefully we will get some progress theres been a little bit of progress but not fast enough. Thats what we were talking about, thats one of the things we want to incentivize that there are marylandcompanies have been helping. Some of these things are more difficult, producing a ventilator is more difficult than making a mask but there are people stepping up all over the place. Like i mentioned last week a simple thing like our distilleries, we are making Hand Sanitizer they produce alcohol theyre just using it for a different purpose. Instead of drinking it there making a different type of alcohol so you can wash your hands. Some of our smaller businesses are in the process of ramping up so they can produce masks that will be sanitized andable to use. [inaudible] not to my knowledge. And it may not require a rest but weve asked, were putting directives out to our local Law Enforcement and all our Police Agencies to, you may see police cars lighting up there sirens and going on their loudspeakers and saying please disperse, youre endangering the public and violating state law area if you have hundreds of people gathered someplace theyre going to try to break up the crowd which they were doing in new orleans last week and id rather see that just encouraging people that this is not safe. I saw pictures that were just making your toes curl over the weekend not just in our state across the country about people completely ignoring thedirective. [inaudible] i think that the economic damage could be significant and thats what i talked about, the twin battles we dont take any of these steps and hundreds of thousands ormillions of people are going to die in america. You take these steps and hundreds of thousands of millions of people are going to be hurt economically and its a terrible choice so the solution is we try to save lives and we try to help save the economy and thats unfortunately the situation we are in. You cant make the choice. We dont want our businesses to die and we dont want our people to lose their jobs but we also dont want to lose the lives of so many people. [inaudible] i mentioned that briefly and all the stuff earlier but most of our major hospitals had already taken that step last week on their own area at university of maryland medical system, i think medstar hospitals, johns hopkins, most of the major hospitals have but some of the Outpatient Centers had not so we included that in executive orders so they would have a directive across the state to limit all elective surgeries, maybe with some exceptions with doctors that thought they should do it but you got to free up beds for things that are needed to save peoples lives. Likeyou very much. Its easy to follow the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at cspan. Org coronavirus. Track the spread throughout the world with interactive maps and charts, watch readings and hearings with Public Health specialists anytime unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus. The u. S. Senate will be back at noon eastern after failing to advance a third coronavirus aid bill yesterday with negotiations continuing today, we expect to see votes this afternoon on the bill to live coverage is here on cspan2 and the Coronavirus Task force headed by Vice President pence will head a news briefing at 5 30 eastern on cspan and a responder you can watchall of our programs online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. More of yesterdays senate debateon the Coronavirus Relief dabill. Mister president , we dont have the luxury of time here and i think we all know that. Certainly american peopleknow it , they can see it just unfolding right in frontof
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