Rovider. Next, new Jersey Governor Phil Murphy briefs reporters on his states response to the coronavirus. He was joined by state officials and spoke about the number of positive cases and the death toll in new jersey. From trenton, this is an hour and a half. Governor murphy good afternoon. Were gathering on what would have been my mothers 105th anniversary. She ended her life for many years in assisted living and a nursing home. Had she been alive today, those would be areas that would all be quite concerned about, as i know you are. So more on at that in a little bit. So god bless mom. Joining me up here today, again, the woman on my right who needs no introduction, the commissioner of the department of health. To her right, state epidemiologist, thank you. And to my left, state police superintendent. Also with us is the Homeland Security director and other members of our team who will be able to answer some of your questions. Over the past 24 hours so this is since the paper release that we put out yesterday, we have another 3,347 new positive cases that have been identified. Again, 3,347 overnight. Yesterday on paper we put out 2,316. So the statewide total of positive tests now stands at 16, 636. Sadly, i must also report that we have lost, since yesterday, another 37 New Jerseyans to covid19related complications, again, over the past day. Yesterday, on our paper release, we put out that we had lost 21plus 2321 blessed souls. A 21 blessed souls. A combination of 51. The total is now 198. Each one of them a precious life lost. God rest their souls. You may have heard that there is clearly a challenge at the lakehand Health Center in lakeland Health Center. Ive instructed judy and her team to give full support to the mayor there, to get to the bottom of that. Clearly we saw in Washington State and were living living it in our own reality right now, longterm care facilities are a particular area of concern and focus and we have been we know that lots of folks out there are worried about moms and dads, grandfathers and grandmothers who are in facilities around the state. Were doing everything we can to as aggressively get out ahead of this as fast as possible. We also lost new Jersey National guard captain douglas lynn hickock this weekend. He was drilling guardsman and physician assistant, originally from jackson, new jersey. He was a pennsylvania resident at his death and passed away in a pennsylvania hospital. While he will not be counted among our states covid19 losses, this loss hurts no less because of that. I just got off the phone with his wife, maryanne. Bless her and bless them. I sent her and tammy and indeed our entire states condolences to her and their children, alexandra and robert, who i spoke to with her. As well as noah and shandreah and their family. Captain hickock is prominent in our thoughts, as is every new jerseyan we have lost. Each of their lives was precious and i know their memories will be precious and i hope they are a source of strength to their families and friends at this time and may god bless them all. These numbers, as i have said before, never get any easier to report. Theyre never going to be easier until that number frankly stands at zero. But i also shoulder to think about what these numbers would be shoulder to think about what shudder to think what these numbers would be had we not taken the stance as it pertains to social distancing. Social distancing is absolutely necessary for us to slow the spread of covid19. To flatten the curve of new cases. To stave lives. And to protect the ability of our Health Care System, one of the best in our country, if not the world, to help those who need the help the most. I try every day, we try every day to hammer this point home. Sometimes with levity. Sometimes by standard sometimes by standing up to those who have failed this lesson as examples. And before we go to questions, im goinggoing to ask pat to weigh in with a couple of the of the overnight enforcement news. But well do that in a couple minutes. I want to make this point. By the way, i just as i mentioned, i spoke to captain hickoc ks wife and two of their four children and she asked me literally to make the point, when we say stay at home we mean stay at home. And she went through a number of examples where people were hanging out, going to the beach, mandate that clear we have put in place and that will not allow us to achieve with a we must achieve, which is to flaten this curve as fast as possible and therefore take the pressure off our Health Care System and be able to deal with each one of these folks who are sick in the very best way possible. So ive tried different ways. Today i want to do with a graphic. Maybe you can pull this one up. This chart, which i think is the chart on the left over here, there we go, this chart is built from the actual data that we have received on the ground. It is our best understanding of how fast covid19 would have spread across our state without social distancing. As counted in the number of hospitalizations that would have risen. Without social distancing he would have expected to hit our entire statewide capacity for intensive care unit beds on wednesday. In just 10 days from now, we would be expecting to exhaust our entire supply of available hospital beds. Eventually the number of residents needing ventilators would not just far exceed the number of available ventilators, but our entire availability of beds. And all this assumes that just 5 of all cases would require hospitalization and only 1 would eventually require a ventilator. This chart is the nightmare scenario that we are desperately working to avoid and that we are urging every new jerseyan to help us avoid. This is what we mean by flattening the curve and why we have taken all the steps we have taken since january. This is why it is absolutely necessary for everyone to stay in unless you need to be out or unless we need you as part of our response. This is why were going to continue enforcing the prohibition against gatherings and parties as stringently as we have. And again youll hear more from pat in a few minutes on that. And even with all we are doing, we are preparing for the eventuality that we are going to need extra hospital beds. Judy will talk about, if you go back to the chart, if thats ok, i dont know who has that. If you cant see the actual data there, let me tell you what the blue line are persons hospitalized. Thats the top line. And it comes in at just under 80,000. At a peak which is essentially in early to mid may. And you have in the same chart current capacity of hospital beds of about 18,000. And so you can see the mismatch that is before us unless we succeed at social distancing. Theres literally no amount of effort or energy we can apply to that chart that youre looking at. That will close the gap between what we will need and what we have. Literally theres nothing we can do if we did everything within our power. So the absolute number one weapon at our disposal is the one that weve been pounding away on day in and day out and that is stay at home, practice social distancing. Period. Again, judy will give you a little bit more color on what might possibly be achieved. Let me just say, whats underlying that really graphic chart that you see behind me at the moment, it assume noes social distancing. It assumes that infections double every six days. Hospitalizations among the infected is 5 . I. C. U. Among the infected, 2 . Ventilator use among infected, 1 . Average lefpk stay in a hospital, seven days length of stay in a hospital, seven days. I. C. U. Length of day, nine days. Ventilator length of stay, nine days. Theres really, and judy can tell me if she disagrees with this later, theres really only two variables there that we can control. One is social distancing. And then that in turn is the infection doubling time. The more of a social distancing reality that is fed into that model, the longer it takes for cases to double, the flatter that curve becomes. So we can then go to the Hospital Systems. This is why this is exactly why we are working with our Hospital Systems and heres a map of our acute Care Hospitals and Health Systems to expand their bed capacities in their existing facilities and to reopen closed hospitals to bring online an additional 1300plus beds. And thats why we have partnered with the u. S. Army corps of engineers to stand up three regional field medical stations capable of adding another thousand beds. The first one of which i believe will be up and running by the end of the week. Thats correct. Governor murphy so looking forward to that. I was back and forth this morning with the likes of bob barn bus, st. Joes, also the chair of the Hospital Association over the weekend. Others over the weekend. Its why weve put not just beds but its why weve put the call out to retired Health Care Workers among many others to return to service to help us. And i thank the many volunteers who have already stepped forward. Of right now, we have had 3,611 individuals respond to this call and were incredibly grateful for their selflessness and patriotism. I welcome anyone else with prior medical experience to visit the bsite you see, covid19. Nj. Gov volunteer to join our army against covid19. And it is why i have turned my focus and my ongoing and daily discussions with the Trump Administration to our dire need for more ventilators. This is right now concern number one. Following a number of conversations, and this as you can imagine, given the weekend, we had a flurry of them, including a couple with the president himself, with the Vice President. We just got off a video transmission with the president and Vice President and their teams. But after all of this back and forth over the past number of days, i received word last night that a shipment of 300 ventilators from the Strategic National stockpile is on its way to new jersey. This is welcome news. And we are grateful. And i thank the administration. But to be absolutely clear, this is far, far from what we ultimately will need. I am going to continue advocating constantly for more and in addition to that, turning over every stone we have, both in the state and our networks around the country, and around the world. We know that our hospitals are quickly running toward full ventilator capacity. We are working with them to ensure the supply given. What we know we have in state and whats on the way. Even knowing this, we are working with our hospitals and fema to allow them to covent or have two patients connected to the same ventilator. This is a necessary step that will buy us precious time. This is real life. And this is life and death. We need more ventilators and i will continue to say these four words in every phone call i have with the president and Vice President and the administration until, god willing, we get them. I just repeated them on the video call we just had. Along with everyone up here, ill keep fighting for the equipment we need, where it be more ventilators or personal protective equipment, and through state procurement, millions of articles of p. P. E. Will be coming to new jersey for distribution this week. We continue to accept donations f p. P. E. Through covid. 19 rry, covid19. Nj. Gov ppedonations. And i would like to thank i want to give a shoutout to, again, our corporate citizens have been huge. I want to give a shoutout to scherr win williams who contacted me over the weekend to report that theyll be donating an additional 2500 n95 masks and 1,000 gloves, on top of what they have already done. Tammy and i hosted a call this orning with a whole range of philanthropic and corporate interests to repeat the need for p. P. E. And other ways that folks can participate. Im looking forward to a call later this afternoon with the johnson and johnson folks. Again, it takes a village. We cant do it all on our own. Again, i hope to give a fuller accounting on p. P. E. In the next day or two. So please bear with me. But together as i said, as New Jerseyans, our mission must be to flatten the curve. We need you to do your part and take the necessary steps so you dont land on any graph. Switching gears. A quick announcement on testing. Tomorrow, tuesday, march 31, the Bergen County college drivethrough site will be open beginning at 8 00 a. M. For all residents, again, exhibiting symptoms of respiratory illness. Again, you must be symptomatic to receive a test. The p. N. C. Bank art center will be closed tomorrow. Regardless of where you live, if you are exhibiting symptoms of respiratory illness, call your primary Care Practitioner and they can assess whether you need to be tested for covid19 and if so, where you can be tested. The Bergen Community college and p. N. C. Art center sites are public mass testing sites operated in partnership with fema. And a list of all public testing sites is available at covid19. Nj. Gov. But tests are available elsewhere. And in every region of the state. I also encourage you to visit covid19. Nj. Gov to take a selftest. Theres a symptom pages in that website. I encourage you to go there first perhapses if youre wondering yourself whether or not you are exhibiting symptoms. Also i want to thank senator joe cryan and senator nick scuderi. Union countys drivethrough testing site is open to all frontline healthcare workers and members of Law Enforcement, fire personnel, and emts from across the state. If you are experiencing symptoms and believe you need to be nj. Org forsit uc information on making an appointment. This site is open six days a week to all frontline workers and i think our brothers and sisters in union county for doing this. I want to hold up an exhibit i held up the other day. This is an expanded list of all the testing sites in the state. To some ofe respect the stuff you may read about testing, we completely understand the and warmest demand of folks to get tested. This is a time of high anxiety. We also appreciate the fact that folks are stepping aside overwhelmingly to allow folks with symptoms to go forward and get tested. That is the way it should be. We made the decision right out of the blocks and weve been as aggressive testing symptomatic people as any state in america. What we like to be south korea . What i like to have unlimited specimen collection material . What i like to have all the Health Care Workers at my disposal . Thati like to have tests turnaround in 45 minutes . You bet. But in the absence of all of the above, a limited supply reality, you have to pick your spots. There is no doubt that testing symptomatic people is the place to hang your hat and that is where we have chosen to hang our hat. If somebody is sick, we want to make sure they know whether theyve got this virus or not, for their own peace of mind and also for their own health care. But it is also the highest quality data that people need to allow them to try to get our arms around this virus and project where it is headed. With all due respect to the Perfect World which we do not have, i dont control the amount of federal supplies. Given what we have and recognizing there is overwhelming demand and interest in getting tested, lets make a testing texting symptomatic individuals, addressing folks who are sick. It gives the epidemiologist and other Health Care Professionals the data they need to get our arms around this. Bless you. Into your arm i hope. I also have a few updates to provide. Center, imank arts glad to announce that pnc bank has signed on to the mortgage relief plan, meaning more homeowners financially impacted by this emergency will be able to take advantage of the 90 day grace period on their mortgage payments. To goe homeowners to work directly and work through pnc bank and if youve got a mortgage with any of the banks weve listed, deal directly with them. Second, pursuant to the executive order i signed mandating daily reporting by our Health Care Facilities of their ppe inventories, we have established an online portal for that reporting. Portal opened our online for all impacted Health Care Facilities at report. Covid1 9. Nj. Gov. And we do intend to make some of this information public. General, i think we may have jumped a slide. , inacting state comptroller partnership with the u. S. Attorney, have announced the formation of a joint federal state task force to investigate and prosecute misconduct ranging from unlawful hoarding of medical supplies and price gouging to Charity Scams and procurement fraud among other unlawful misleading activities. Anydents may report instance of these unlawful practices at the numbers behind me. Make sure you make note of that. Anlso wish to amplify announcement made friday by the department of Human Services that over the next two months, 70 million in additional snap for food stamps benefits made available by the federal response bill will be given to qualified new jersey beneficiaries to help with the purchase of groceries. These supplemental funds will be loaded directly onto a family ebt card. Alcoholicvision of Beverage Control is issuing todance to allow breweries provide Home Delivery to their customers. Home delivery has been prevented because of a ruling that abc issued last may. Today abc has decided to relax that ruling and allow for Home Delivery. Also this morning, we issued an administrative order updating and clarifying executive order 107, specifically pertaining to which businesses may be allowed to operate during this emergency and the ways in which they can operate to ensure social distancing. We will allow auto dealerships to conduct online or remote sales and authorized dealers to deliver vehicles directly to their customers or to arrange for curbside or service lane pickup at a dealership. Clarif