Our guest greg walden of oregon, newsmakers sunday at 10 a. M. And 6 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp participate in in a town hall n atlanta with state and local officials on the states response to the coronavirus outbreak of topics include the Homeless Population, procuring medical supplies, the Academic School year and the financial and Economic Impact on the people of georgia and Small Businesses. He also address coronavirus testing priorities and availability across the state. Coronavirus in georgia. There is no need for people to panic. It change changed life as ww it. Schools shut down. Yes, it is very scary. Stores running low on some essentials. The shells of the into. And medical facilities pushed to the limit. Many of our supplies are running critically low. Tonight member of the Coronavirus Task force and georgias governor answer the most pressing questions and lay out their plans to stop the spread. In this time of need on asking georgians to support their neighbors because we are all in this together. It is the governors statewide town hall. Getting everyone and welcome to the governors statewide town hall on the coronavirus. Throughout this hour we will be speaking with the states top leaders in charge of the task force responded to this crisis and the spread of covid19 is affecting all of us in an unprecedented collaboration, 60 the station are teaming up to bring you the Important Information you and your families need. This town hall is broadcasting and all television markets across across the georgia including atlanta, augusta, columbus, savannah and albany as well as on hundreds of radio stations and online. My colleagues and i will be speaking with Task Force Members in a moment the first lets take a look at how we got to this point. That were 28th, georges Governor Brian Kemp convened the first meeting of the states newly created Coronavirus Task force. We got a great team. I think we all bring a lot of different dynamics to the table. Three days later on march 2 georges first confirmed cases of covid19, a father and son. A week later there were six confirmed cases and another 11 presumptive positive. The same day Fulton CountySchool Officials announced it would close all schools and offices after a teacher became infected. I dont know whats going on but they didnt call me. I dont know. I just came and got my kids. March 10, the number of the confirmed or presumed cases grew to 22 22 including the first in south georgia. On march 12 12 georges officis reported the states first coronavirus related death. May be spreading the virus to others and not be aware. Governor kemp declared a Public Health emergency. Feel like with this unprecedented event with the covid19 it certainly wanted that. With schools close and most georgia felt working from home, this week some cities issued shelter in place orders. And here is where the situation stands to make the number of confirmed covid19 cases in georgia jumped to 1525. To help with that in perspective that are more than 10 Million People in our state. The governor issued an executive order to close Public Schools through april 24. And up limit claims are soaring in georgia and across the country. 12,000 were georgians filed for unemployment last week. Tonight for this tunnel we are joined i the states top leaders in charge of handling is christ the will be hearing from them throughout this hour. We begin with the Governor Brian Kemp adjoins me in our studio. Good evening governor. Good dating. Thank you so much for having me. This town hall like this is unprecedented you really want to make sure to get out this message statewide. Give us an overview right now, where do you think stint in georgia tonight . First of all let me thank everyone for joining tonight. Thank all the Media Partners for the philly unprecedented event of the statewide town hall so we can continue to be transparent with where we are, should information we need to get to our citizens so that their educated because it is going to be us. It is going to be us as georgians to beat this virus back. There is no cure now, no vaccine and it is up to all of us to get educated and to do our part to be victorious in this battle. Also want to take the opportunity to let those families know that have lost loved ones to this virus that we continue to pray for them. We are content to pray for those frontline healthcare workers and Public Health officials come First Responders and a lot of other people all over the state are on the front lines everyday putting their lives at risk. We are grateful for that and we will continue to be grateful for that. But i but i look for to talking tonight about where we are and what we need to do to end this battle and i just want to thank everyone for joining us. Doctor, let me say, our team, the folks joining the town hall tonight have done a tremendous job and we continue to be in touch with communities all across this state and we continue to work with our task force which has the brightest of minds in our state, people from emery and other elk had facilities and georgians close to this pandemic that were dealing with. Ive got a lot of great advice and making decisions on that advice. Im having to govern the whole state and different from what mayor bottoms and other elected officials have done. Im supportive of actions theyre taking much like the president , the vicepresident , are doing. Were following their advice of dr. Birx and dr. Fauci as well and they are supporting the nations governors who have all taken different tacts to deal with this virus, but, you know, the day or monday, i guess it was when we did the recent order with closing bars and restaurants, sheltering in place, the elderly and medically fragile and locking down events with 10 people or more unless they were social distancing parameters in regards it that, i was also talking to local officials in parts of our state that have not even had a single case as of that time, and we still have over 50 counties that dont have a confirmed case yet. So, you know, trying to balance all of that all of those things, continuing to go on the data that we have and supporting local elected officials. I did that in albany. I asked over a week ago if they wanted me to take action to help them with the hot spot we have down there, they asked me not to do that. They wanted to handle that locally. A week later i was on a call with all of the local elected officials not only in doherty county, but surrounding counties as they came together to take action and we have a lot of resources on the ground down there. But thats why ive made the decisions that ive made. I still have arrows in the quiver, if you will. If things get worse, but my case tonight to georgians in, if youll help to stop the spread, continue to fulfill the 15 days that the prize and the vicepresident and the National Task force to stop the spread, weve got a few more days to go, we have about 10 days to go on the recent action i took. Theres a lot of great things going on at the local level. If we can get our is iz citizens to follow this, we can turn the curve and get on the other side of this and its critical for our Health Care System. Were working across the state to procure the supplies they need, whether its ventilators, ppe material, extra beds were preparing for if and when a surge occurs. So, you know, all of those things, but its really up to the public to cut down on the number of people that we have to go to the hospital and we do that by what i targeted in my order to protect the elderly and medically fragile. Thats the key to this right now. Governor, thank you for answering that question. We may touch back on that topic in the hour. Let me ask you, testing, you talk about Health Care Workers in the system right now. Talk about testing, are there enough kits in georgia . Where do we stand on the test kits right now . You can watch the numbers and i would tell people, dont get too alarmed by the number of our positive cases going up, the number of our testing every day is going up exponentially as well. Dr. Toomey and i both talked about that weeks ago, as we did more testing were going to see more confirmed cases, so thats proven to be true. I think youll continue to see and dr. Birx talked about this at the federal level the other day, weve got to get to a level in our state and in our country where were doing the same amount of tests and basically across the state and across the country, so that we can continue to measure the data. I feel like, you know, hopefully well be there in another four or five days, maybe six or seven. I think youre getting a good handle on the data at the federal level and we have whole teams of people working on the data that were looking across the state. Right now, we have 10 counties in georgia that make up 60 of the cases that we have. And there are six counties across the country. When you think about the whole United States, there are six counties across the country that represent 50 of the cases in the United States. So we have to continue to test more. Dr. Toomey and her team have done a great job. The private sector is now testing. I had a great conversation with something that were working on that well hopefully ramp that up further in the days to come and that will continue to give us more data. One of the problems that we have had, is and youll hear this from hospital officials, its a private sector test, its taken it used to be taken six to seven days to get the results back, now in some instances and probably more than not, its still taking four to five days to get the data back. We need that to get back in two days or a day and there are some tests coming out now approved by fda, and talked to dr. Hahn the other day, you can get the results in 15 to 45 minutes and thats where we need to get to be. We cant be so focused on testing that were not focused how we curb and flatline of spread of this virus, which is us practicing social distancing, and other things. Right now were still getting guidance from c. D. C. And im sure dr. Toomey may relate to this, and reply on this as well in her comment. Still preserving those for frontline Health Care Workers. We absolutely have to keep that work force in the game to be able to do that, we have to be able to test them and make sure that theyre not working in a hospital environment, if they are positive, so thats critical. Our First Responders, we need to be able to test them and then as well as those really medically fragile patients, and then the rest of the population will come after that from the protocol thats coming from c. D. C. Now, thats going to change as we continue to get more private sector testing. The good thing is, you know, a week ago we didnt have 23 testing sites up in every region of the state and today that we do. And we do today. Were making more progress on that every single day. Governor, thank you for that insight and your explanation so far. Well have more questions for the governor and hell be with us throughout this hour. Were now joined by russ spencer with waga. And standing by with dr. Kathleen toomey, commissioner of Public Health. Thank you. And doctor, the Fulton CountyHealth Department before her role. Shes an epidemiologist and means shes a detective. And shes been in botswana and working with hiv and were grateful. Thank you. The news for us, higher, you have access to the Health Department. The numbers will continue to go up and youll see that this is something, as the governor said, as we do more testing and as the virus does spread in some communities, we will continually see increasing numbers. What is the number now . Its about 1600, 1650. Its going to by morning, it will be higher, but thats im less focused on the exact number and more focused on how we can get individuals to think about prevention. And if i could say a few words, just about the virus because i think theres a lot of confusion in the community, even in my own community down the road because what is coronavirus . And somebody said i see on lysol that it kills coronavirus, but that was this was made before this outbreak. And in fact, there are many coronaviruses. The common cold is a type of coronavirus. Sars and mers that happened several years ago are a type of coronavirus. This is a novel coronavirus, which means its new and its brand new, newly recognized. Its originated in china, but its spread throughout the world and it was introduced in the United States and has spread across the country very, very quickly. Let me ask you, do you see anything in the data that suggests that the social distancing weve been doing in georgia is working . I would say yes. The social distancing and in some places began earlier than others and places like rome, which had some of the earlier some of the earlier high case rates, and we saw that related to an outbreak related to church, church attendants and it was large gatherings. We have seen now that cases seem to be levelling off, but it takes a minute. Remember, these this virus takes about two weeks as an incubation period as long as two weeks so youre not going to see immediate action and the idea if the world prevents every case, it will slow the spread. As the governor said, in his opening statement, we want to we want to flatten that curve, the reason you want to do that, you want to keep people out of the hospital. Flooding the hospitals in a way that we cant care for people and thats what youre seeing in italy. Thats what youre seeing in other parts of the europe. Right. Now shall the governor is consulting with you, obviously, but hes got other things to consider. He said he didnt want to do a state wide lockdown in one interview because there are a lot of folks doubting the effects of the coronavirus in some parts of georgia. From a purely scientific point of view, im not trying to get you into an argument with the governor, but from a purely scientific point of view would that be a good thing for the state. Let me say this, im not youre not going to get me into trouble. Ive thought a lot about this. I have friends in cedartown. I have friends in hoboken, north and south, i live here in atlanta. You know, whats good for atlanta, which is, i believe, the correct thing that mayor bottoms did, may not be the correct thing for these other areas right now where they have limited spread. If you look at c. D. C. Guidelines, the guidelines are tailored to the community and what the epidemiology is in that community and how things are spreading. And i think we, in some cases, can be doing Contact Tracing very aggressively. Still, where the spread is relatively slow. And in other areas, like albany, we really need to be doing very aggressive community mitigation. So it depends on the community where youre located in. Governor cuomo of new york, where the problem is the worst, said today no matter what they do, even if everybody locks down, the hospitals are going to ultimately be overwhelmed there, that they dont have enough protective equipment for the longterm or ventilators for that matter. Do we have enough protective equipment for our nurses and our doctors and enough ventilators for those who get critically ill . Were really working hard to ensure that we stay on top of that. Were working with our federal partners, and gema is on top of that. Were working with private vendors as well. Were not just relying on our federal partners to help us. Were stepping the needs of the hospitals constantly. We have our first shipment of ventilators coming in to help some of the harder hit areas like rome and albany and were still keeping track of that. And so thats something that were going to be very, very cognizant of. Were actually looking, i think is a creative thing to be doing, where are other opportunities to identify ventilators in the system, such as technical colleges and our university system. Where theres teachings, ventilators, we can access those now and deploy them as it were to help our Health Care System and we can even use anesthesia machines to help with ventilators so were actually trying to amass the need before it comes to that crisis point. Well, youre wargaming this. How many ventilators do we need in georgia and how many do we have . I cant tell you off the top of my head how many we have or how many well need. We need to continue to monitor and work with the hospital system. Our of our key partners is the Georgia Hospital Association and theyre in a better position to help identify those actual numbers, but we will track that and continue to work hard to ensure we have extra on hand and dont get in that behind position. We are, earlier in our epidemic, than new york is, so we have a chance to mitigate this in a way that perhaps they didnt. And i think that selective testing to try to find the highest risk individuals, aggressive Contact Tracing as were doing in Nursing Homes and other high risk facilities, and also where theres a few number of cases, and just saying some counties are relatively few cases, our epidemiology teams can get in there and stop spread quicker. We cant do that anymore where theres widespread transmissions where the Community Interventions will be our best bet there. Were hearing that folks who are asymptomatic can spread this, young people in particular it seems, they seem not to be affected as badly. If thats the case, why wouldnt it be to test more to make sure that asymptomatic arent were limited by the number of tests we have. And i want to Say Something about young people. They do acquire the virus. They think theyre immune, but theyre not. They do have symptoms, they may not recognize it as something serious because 80 of coronavirus cases are relatively mild. Like the flu or even less severe. Its that 20 of cases that are very severe, particularly in the elderly, particularly in those who have Chronic Health conditions that were trying to prevent right now. We asked viewers for some questions and weve got a lot of people asking over the phone in particular, can mosquitos spread this when it gets warmer, i think i know the answer, put people at ease on that one. No, not to our knowledge because this is not transmitted by its not a mosquitoborne or vectorborne disease. Its not like zika or west nile. This is spread like the flu with respiratory secretions like coughing or sneezing on someone or touching a dirty surface. Everybody has seen clouds of pollen outside and most everybody suffering in one way or another with allergies. Does that make us more prone to difficulties with this virus if we contract it . Thats a great question because it shouldnt make you more prone to the virus, but may make you confuse todd to ma you think you might have it because you feel under the weather. But i think the coronavirus usually has a fever, usually has malaise, a bad feeling and it is different and it isnt treated with your allergic, antiallergic medicines. Well, dr. Toomey, we appreciate your time and thank you for being here and for all youre doing with the governors Coronavirus Task force. Anything i can do to help getting the public their health. Thank you. This week the mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had a stay at home order. And joining us now to interview the mayor, cheryl. Yes, im broadcasting from my home tonight as 11 live tries to support the statewide effort to work from home so there might be a slight delay between my questions and the mayors answers. Mayor, thanks for the time. Youre part of the state Coronavirus Task force and i understand youve made some recommendations on your subcommittee related to the homeless, can you update us on those. Thank you, and thank you for staying at home. I want to thank the governor for asking me to serve on this committee and this was a high level working group, consisting of people across the state. All with very valuable input and also, thank you to Katherine Marchman and john keane to help lead this effort. What we did was come up with a list of six objectives to pass on to the governor as relates to our Homeless Population, we know that our Homeless Population is a very vulnerable population by virtue of the fact that they are homeless. They often have underlying Health Conditions that weve discussed that make them more susceptible to severe illness as it relates to the coronavirus. So what we did was to create a list of six objectives that we wanted to achieve. Those objectives including preventing additional people from becoming homeless. Supporting enhanced cleaning and screening and full services, expanding testing for high risk individuals in areas, and establishing a reporting process specific to homeless and displaced persons, ensuring appropriate options for quarantine and isolation are available and also, ensuring that Transportation Options are available for people after they are released for the hospital. And im very pleased to say as the result of the work that weve already done, weve had an angel donor in the downtown area who has donated a hotel to allow Homeless Individuals who may need isolation or quarantine to allow them to a place to stay during that time. It also gives our Service Providers an opportunity to come in contact with the Homeless Population and make sure that we are making available to them additional Wraparound Services that may be helpful as we try on navigate them away from homelessness. Yeah, so many people are going through such difficult times. You were one of the first cities to implement the stay at home order and i had a lot of cities have been reaching out to you asking questions. Do you expect others to follow suit . And would you recommend that they do that . If it were my call, i would have a stay at home order for the entire country, but obviously, that is not my call. And i certainly understand and respect the governors position that he is balancing a diverse constituencies across the state and their needs may be a bit different than ours, but as it relates specifically to the metropolitan atlanta area, i think that many of the cities surrounding atlanta certainly have many of the same issues that i saw in atlanta. Many of our communities have underlying Health Conditions like asthma. I have four children in my house who are asthmatic. We know that thats an Underlying Health condition. Whether its high Blood Pressure or diabetes or respiratory issues or lupus or any number of other issues, and so i think especially for our more densely populated cities like atlanta and our surrounding cities, i do think a stay at home order would be appropriate. But i certainly understand that there are many other cities throughout the state that are not navigating the same challenges that we are in the city and i understand and respect the governors decisi decision. Were hearing from medical professionals in different hospitals that they are already crowded and the icus are struggling. We heard from grady on monday that they were at the tippingpoint. Talk to us about plans that you have in place for the states largest hospitals that are in your city. We have to remember that grady is already in a compromised position because of the flood a couple of months ago and on any given day grady may be near capacity, the anecdotal information that i received just yesterday was that grady was around 90 at capacity in its icu. You have to remember in the midst of this coronavirus, heart attacks dont stop. Car accidents dont stop, any of the number of other things that send people into the icu. So it is a tremendous concern to me and by the projections that ive received from dr. Carlos del rio at emery, at this rate we will exceed our capacity in the state by may 3rd. But certainly, its our hope that with these proactive measures in place, that we can stop and low down the spread of this virus, but in working with the governor who has been a great partner in leading this effort, i know that there are plans already in place to expand our footprints at many of our hospitals and i know that many sites have been reviewed as secondary places that we can house people if necessary, but it really, it is my prayer that it does not come to that in this state, but i certainly trust that with the leadership of our Health Partners and with the governors leadership that we will be prepared in the city. And it goes without saying, we cannot thank enough every person in our medical professional field, every Health Care Worker for all the work that theyre doing, day and night, under really challenging circumstances. May mayor, thank you for the time tonight and ill send it back to you. Thank you. All right, thank, cheryl and mayor bottoms. Theres much more ahead this hour and well hear from the director of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and the governor will be back to answer your questions. And here is the number for the Georgia Department of Public Health hot line, 8444422681. Again k8444422681. Remember, if you have any symptoms, call this number first before you go to your Doctors Office. We are going to have this number for you again after the break. And well be back in two minutes. Here again is the number for the Georgia Department of health. Public health hotline, 8444422681 is. Again, 8444422681. If you have any symptoms and you think you might have the coronavirus, youre asked to call this number first before you go to a Doctors Office. And welcome back to the governors statewide town hall where we are hearing from the states leaders about georgias coronavirus response. Were now joined by shaun gabl gables shon gables of wgcltv. And shell be speaking to mr. Bryceson. Thank you for cbs 46 along with myself and my corporate family, we are exercising social distancing. So director bryson, ill ask you these questions from my own home. And you were head of emergencies and homeland security. How is the coronavirus pandemic different from those natural disasters and how is it the same . Well, thats a really great question and the press and Emergency Management are the same. We have a great book in our state and were following that. Weve got 15 state partners and our Emergency Operations center, of course, our primary partner at the state level and Public Health. Thats unique and different for us. But principles and processes are the same. We get in the partners we need at the state level, local level, private partners, we identify what the issue is and then we focus on what we do to address those issues. Were identified a number of different areas that are primary importance to us with this particular incident. You heard the governor speak earlier about the testing sites. Were coordinating and managing those 23 test sites. Were finding isolation rooms. For people that have the virus, arent sick enough to be in the hospital and dont have a home environment to go to because of elderly relatives, whatever the case may be, were looking for, as the mayor mentioned, were looking at additional bed space for the hospitals, plus inside existing facilities and were also looking with private vendors and the core of engineers, the option to build space if we do need that. We were looking at a lot has been said about the personal protective equipment and the ventilators and weve made a lot of progress in the last week and have been able to find that equipment and push it out to our medical Health Providers and our First Responders. Great progress, were not where we need to be. Next week our state will be an in lot better position than that, but thats certainly one of the big challenges were working on. Director bryson, weve discussed the capacity in icu and hospitals across metro atlanta, food shortages, residents not obeying social distancing. What are the worst case sna scenarios that you can see and what are the best. Were going to leave the worst Case Scenarios on the medical experts and well lean on them, and for scenarios and well be planning based on those scenarios. Earlier you mentioned whats different with this, with the hurricane or a tornado. Here is whats really different. A hurricane or a tornado is coming. There is absolutely nothing that we can do to stop that or preve prevent where this is completely different. Its in the citizens hands of this state. If people would just listen to what their local governments are telling them, listen to the department of Public Health, listen to the c. D. C. Guidelines, separate ourselves from one another, isolate, be cautious when were out, then we dont have that big an event. So the uniqueness of this is the ability of the citizens and our state to control how big an issue this truly is and how quickly we can recover and get back to normal. Director bryson, we have less than 45 seconds left. I want to get this in. What are the contingency plans to protect georgians in case a significant number of our First Responders get covid19 and cant respond to emergencies because they are sick . They have put in c. D. C. Has put in place some guidelines relative to that. Weve set up some isolation sites where we can quarantine medical First Responders to get them through a cycle and get them back to work as quickly as we can. Were working diligently to find the personal protective equipment they need to do their jobs and be safe and not get sick. Director homer bryson, we certainly appreciate your time with the emergencies and homeland security. Back to you. Shon, thank you. Tonight, were also partnering with Univision Atlanta and telemundo atlanta. Working to keep our fellow spanish neighbors and georgians informed. Joining us know you, univision. I spoke with the commissioner by skype and hes by lingual and i asked him in spanish and english. And i asked him about those who are unassured and testing because of medical bills. [speaking spanish]. Absolutely, unfounded fear there. We want people to be screened, but they need to be screened by a doctor. And they can call a doctor and get screened and if the doctor, the medical professional decides they decide to have those persons tested, the testing will be done free of charge. The department of Public Health has got a very, very comprehensive me thothod of doi this and instructions on their hot line. In espanol. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]. Were getting concerns and a lot of calls and messages from viewers that are being worried about being evicted from their homes because they lost their jobs and the landlord are still demanding the rent to be paid. Is the issue being tackled . Will there be leniency for these renters . [speaking spanish] i know that local leaders, both mayors, and county commissioners and leaders in the local communities are engaged in the Governors Office and thats one of the things thats being figured out, how to approach that very carefully. Clearly theres a role where the State Government takes the lead and in many of these situations, obviously, the State Government has to defer to the local control. Its incredibly important that we respect the authority of our local leaders to make those kind of decisions and these are all very hard decisions to make. Nobody is minimizing the challenges that we have. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] thank you for your time. Gracias. Gracias. And now we are joined by Governor Brian Kemp. Governor, good evening. Good evening. My first question, the emergency phone line for covid19 is only giving information in english, is there a place to offer this information for georgia residents that may not be able to benefit from this information . I think probably the best thing to do would be people to go to the department of Public Health website. That becomes an issue, we can certainly work with all georgians. Look, we want people to be educated. We have a lot of different resources and they also can go to their county Health Department which is a great resource, as you can imagine. We have a lot of people calling the statewide hotline on sundays, it may be easier to go to the county. We have actually added work force to the call center hot line to keep up with the volume and look, thats what we want. We want people to get information so we can share with them, best practices, what we need to do. If they feel like they need to be tested. Thats part of our message tonight. While were so thankful that this event is taking place so we can tell georgians, if you feel like youre getting sick, if youre showing the symptoms of the flu, coronavirus, whatever it is, call your Public HealthHealth Department. Call our hotline number, call your doctor, ask for advice before you leave the house. The last thing we want people to do is to be sick and to be transmitting this disease by going to a Doctors Office waiting room, a hospital waiting room, or maybe saying ill get over it tomorrow. Ive got to run to the grocery store. This is not the time to be doing that. We need people to stay at home if theyre sick and get that medical advice. One. Ways that weve stopped the surge at the hospital is for people never to have to go there to start with. And if people will stay home, most people, most georgians are going to have very mild symptoms, they can get over this in a couple of days and theres no need for hospitalization. Obviously, if you start feeling bad you need to call your doctor or call 911, but thats part of our goal is to educate georgians so we want to communicate in every way possible. Governor, are there any people around that may assist georgians who do not qualify for medicaid, due to proper documentation and the coronavirus. What i can tell you with folks on the federal and national level, no matter the person, if theyre in our state or country, weve got to make sure that they get treated and that they dont continue to spread this virus. Whether its through medicaid, medicare, the indigent population funding, which i know is part of the stimulus, one of the stimulus packages the president and vicepresident have both spoken to that. Anybody that needs a test will be eligible to get one at no cost and certainly the same is for treatment. You know, this is vital that we stop the spread. As dr. Toomey continues to say, we need people to do the right thing here. Georgians will be the solution to this. Thank you, Governor Kemp. Back to you. And thank you, john carlo. Tonight, were partner with the georgia public broadcasting which broadcasts across the state as you know. Gpb anchor Patricia Murphy is also here in our news room with questions for the governor. Thank you, governor. Earlier today you ordered that georgia schools remain closed through april 24th. What new information did you have that led to that decision . And will Georgia Student be expected to meet state standards in the fall if they cant return to school this spring . Well, i did make that decision today and like every decision ive made since we started dealing with this issue, ive been leaning on a lot of professionals, whether its in Public Health, whether its, you know, Public Safety from a response standpoint with gema, general kings preparedness committee, mayor bottoms on homeless and displaced population, dr. Ben watson, a state senator who is on our Physicians Task force and communicating with the medical community all over the state, our hospitals, you name it, faith leaders and were doing the same with our School Leaders from across the state. Ive had some great calls with a group of very Diverse School superintendents that represent metro, you know, urban, suburban, rural areas across our state to ask them their thoughts on, you know, when could you think you could go back. What is ideal for them, kind of measuring where peoples spring breaks are for systems and theyre different, but theyre fairly close, measuring those type things and then looking what the end of the school year looks like if the kids can come back, if this virus gets shut down by the people of the great state of georgia, and really, after all of that conversation, theres a lot of different thoughts. The School Districts are much like our cities across the state and you know, atlanta is certainly different from dublin or from, you know, homerville and we, after talking with them, i really came up with this decision because i felt like it gives us enough time to really see where the virus is going to go. I think one of the things that dr. Toomey and i have talked about so much is the data that were seeing today is two weeks old. The data that were going to see two weeks from now is going to be what really happened today and thats just the nature of this. Weve seen it in china, south korea, italy and were certainly seeing it in other parts of the country, and across the United States today. And i just felt like that gives us enough time where were not moving too fast, weve got to have some lead time for our School Leaders to be able to ramp up, get the teachers back in a few days before the students and i just felt like the date we set would an allow us to do this and hopefully we are on the back side of this virus. We want parents comfortable sending our students back and kids, we want our teachers working in that environment and administrators to be comfortable they can go into that environment and theyre not going to be adversely affected by the coronavirus and thats what really led me to the decision today. All right. And do you have any insight into the state standards that students may still be expected to meet if theyre not going back to school in the spring . Yeah, i think these decisions have been made along with the superintendent, our state school superintendent, richard woods. I appreciate his work, the state school board, all the local boards and local leaders that have weighed in. You know, superintendent woods has taken some action in regards to our school. We have signed executive orders to do a lot of Different Things to deal with this crisis, whether its department of labor, Unemployment Insurance claims, and other things, but superintendent woods has taken action on that, and i think it was the right move at the right time. This is unprecedented. Our states never had to deal with Something Like this and i can promise the citizens and kids of our state that were going to continue to collaborate, not only with state leaders, but with our local partners to see how we address this, and make sure that our kids are doing everything that they can between now and the summer break and i want to applaud our ka educators what theyre doing with Distance Learning and how hard our bus drivers and lunch room workers and all the folks at the local level, how hard theyre working to get meals out to kids. Many kids are not getting meals if theyre not getting them from school and theres great work going on across our state with those folks. And governor, earlier today we learned that state uninsurance claims have doubled just in the last week alone. So many people when they lose their jobs, they lose their Health Insurance. Do you have any plans to expand medicaid to help those georgians who lose their Health Insurance continue to have coverage while theyre out of work during this crisis. The whole medicaid argument westbound a legislation question, with the legislature suspended, thats not what ive been focused on. With the nations governor, i was on a call with the president , vicepresident , many members of the task force, secretary mnuchin, i talked to secretary esper today and secretary azar the other day, its unprecedented the communication were having with the top layers of government up to the president. Theyve been listening in a bipartisan way to the nations governors what we need to deal with this Health Care Crisis we all have going on in our state. Many of us in different phases. Im in a very different phase than Governor Cuomo and new york, or Governor Newsom out in california, but we all know that were going to see more cases, were going to have hot spots like we have in our state, that were dealing with, and weve got great teams that are on the ground doing that, but i just think that theyve accounted for a lot of that. Theres billions of dollars in the budget for a hospital. Theres billions of dollars for the states, and this is one of the things that i actually spoke directly to the president about and the call before todays call and asked that they give block grant money to the states so we could put that money where we need it. Nobody knows where to do that more than the nations governors do because were on the front lines of this crisis and georgians can know that we continue to work with the state appropriations chairman and the legislative leaders, speaker ross and lt. Governor duncan and many other people to make sure that were looking at those issues and we have the ability to be flexible to pay for our Medicaid Program and take care of all georgians during this crisis. And i want to again thank all of those on the front lines of the health care battlefield. Our doctors and nurses and the emts and Lab Technicians and just everyone thats working so hard to fight this virus. Wrell, thank you, Governor Kemp. And were joining russ, and youre teaching out with questions for the governor as well. Patricia, thank you very much. And governor, thank you for doing this. Yes, we certainly have and the overwhelming number of questions, governor have been specifically about this question of a statewide lockdown. I know youve answered it before, but what do you say to seal and woodstock who says, my husband has a compromised immune system as do many fellow georgians, and not doing this from a governor i voted for. What do you say to think that the media and democrats are blowing this out of proportion . I appreciate it, i hear from a lot of georgians, i continue to do that, thats one of the reasons part of the order i had on monday was to focus to the most at risk population. Those 65 and older, the medically fragile. It is up to all georgians, including myself. Ive done this with my own mother, telling her, you need to stay at home, dont go out. It would be, you know, just not a good thing to do. By her staying at home and other elderly or medically fragile folks staying at home, it will lessen the burden on our hospitals, especially our icus, the number of ventilators that we need, its basically, you know, equipment prevention that we would need in the future if we could keep people, especially that population out of the hospital. They are adversely affected, but im also having to balance that with, you know, in jeff davis county, i know two days ago they didnt have a single case down there and you have people saying, look, we need to be working. Im worried about losing my home. Im worried about getting meals for my kids, and so, those are the kind of things that were balancing, but all of this is to focus on the Public Health of our citizens, and the things that i knew that we needed to do from a statewide perspective on monday was protecting the medically fragile and the ill elderly. Making sure that we are closing down bars and nightclubs. I may have said restaurants early, but bars and nightclubs, where large numbers of people are gathering and making sure were not having large events in our state. Over 10 people youve got to socially distance. If you do not, you do not need to hold any large event. I know thats tough in the Faith Community and i wrestled with that very much, but our faith leaders i was on a call this week with almost 800 faith leaders across our state making sure they knew how serious this is, dr. Toomey spoke to them as well. I asked them to do Online Services and theres some creative pastors out there, doing, people used to go to the drivein theater and now people are going to drivein church and staying in the cars and Holding Services and practicing the social distancing. So i think weve targeted the areas that we need to target. If we need to do more in the future i certainly have that tool still in the toolbox. All right. Governor, thank you very much. Ill turn it over now to Cheryl Preheim from wxia. Cheryl. Thank you. Because of a limited number of testing in our state, governor, you have said that the priority will be people at risk over 60 years old. Our Health Care Workers as well. I have a question from a doctor in decatur, im sick, certain i have covid19, i cannot get a test. If i as a frontline medical worker cant get a test, how can others . Have you asked the federal government to send georgia more tests . Dr. Toomey may want to respond to that. Its my take that that individual is absolutely the person we need to be testing. They should call the hotline or get to dr. Toomeys office or our office and we will talk to them about getting that done. I know theres been a high level of frustration with testing, including with myself and with our task force and your promise the people of this state, were doing everything in our power to ramp up testing. You can see that we have through our numbers with 23 mobile testing sites right now, in every governor and our country is asked for more testing and theres some unprecedented things that are going on right now. I believe weve tested in the United States now more than any other country, is what the president was saying today. I said earlier, i talked to somebody earlier today thats really got something neat that were trying to make happen in our state. I hope we can get that done, but those things continue to wrap up daily. Georgians as they see the number of cases go up and number of testing go up, that will prove to be true. And i dont know if dr. Toomey may have the ability to answer. Kimberly is asking, please ask Governor Kemp why hes not put up protections from loss of care gafrs for high risk groups. If i cant go to work, i cant have my job, care for my father with serious medical conditions, and three children at home, if i dont go to work, i dont have a job to go back to, a lot of people in difficult times here, governor. Im very empathetic for those individuals. Ive been a Small Business person over 30 years, theres been tough things ive been through, tough times when i couldnt pay myself and i was paying hard working georgians that work for me, i knew if i didnt do that, they couldnt buy groceries, couldnt pay their rent. We have an unprecedented amount of people across our country that just in a matter of days have had that happen to them. And that literally tugs on me every single day as well as these, you know, really tough decisions that myself and members of the task force are trying to tackle from a health care perspective. I can promise you, were doing everything within our power in the state. Ive signed executive orders, af he been working hand in hand with our labor commissioner, mark butler, who has presented some great ideas to us on the Unemployment Insurance, thats part of the package that we have talked to the president , the vicepresident about. Its part of the stimulus package that i have discussed with our u. S. Senators and congressional delegations, to urge their support to help working georgians as has been said many times by nofault of their own have lost their jobs, been laid off or in a position where they cannot work right now and this is a time where we all have got to pull together and support the individuals. Well do everything we can with the power of the State Government, but the federal government, im hoping tomorrow will get that package passed and help will be on the way. Im told as early as april the 6 6th. Governor, thank you so much. Ill pass it off now to shon gables. Governor, we have less than 30 seconds. This will be the las question. Michelle sent this question in to cbs46. Will you force employers to pay for time off to curb the rate of infection and fine the companies who lay off or fire employees who become sick or do not come in due to risk to themselves or even to their families . Well, ill just say, im very pleased with our Business Community and corporations and companies and Small Business owners across our state have responded to this. Some incredible things going on and our department of Economic Development is working with a lot of our private sector company, company folks to retool and revamp to help make the supplies that we need on the front line of this Health Care Crisis. I can promise you that theres a lot of support out there for them, but i think that is exactly what the federal package is designed to be doing. Thats something that we have pushed for. I have, myself and the nations governors have because we know that our people are hurting right now and weve got to continue to fight for them and im very hopeful that that help will be on the way shortly if we can get the vote done in the u. S. Congress tomorrow. Governor kemp, thank you for your time. Back to you. All right, thank you. Governor thank you as well and dr. Toomey and the rest of the task force, for spending this time with us and providing us with Important Information tonight. A reminder to please follow the social distancing guidelines. Follow your city or county shelter in place orders that have come down this week and take all the precautions you can, including thorough hand washing and again, social distancing, on behalf of all of my colleagues here at wsbtv and the stations participating tonight we hope that you and your family stay safe and healthy and were in this together. The Georgia Department of Public Health hotline, 8444422681. 8444422681. Call this number before you go to your doctor. Stay healthy. This week on news makers, the Top Republican on the house energy and Commerce Committee talks about how congress and the administration are addressing the coronavirus pandemic and the 2 trillion economic aid package passed by congress. Our guest, congressman greg walden of oregon, news makers, sunday at 10 a. M. And 6 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Next, the president of the European Commission on the response to the coronavirus outbreak. She spoke to members in the European Parliament during the opening of their plenary session. First of all, i would like to thank all of those who have made this extraordinary sitting possible in such extraordinary conditions. Its difficult to understand the degree to which the world has changed since