Deaths due to the virus. Gov. Hutchinson katie, are you ready . Ok. Thanks for coming in on short notice. You found your tie ok. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. As everyone is aware, i didnt intend to have a covid19 update today. But a couple things popped up that i thought it would be good to have the information out to the public in a transparent way. First, let me put on the screen city. Ure of the we have signed some extra testing resources. You have a drivein facility there. This was taken this morning. It is going on. Great response by the community that comes in. We expect a good number to have been tested there. So, thank you for your cooperation, your leadership, and for taking advantage of this enhanced testing opportunity in your community. Im joined today by dr. Nate smith, secretary of the department of health. Mike preston is here, secretary of commerce. Then, director dexter payne from the department of corrections. Issue in regard to an involving our Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program and the progress update on this. This is the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program that we are building a new system for. Secretary preston and his team have worked very hard on this. Over the weekend, theres over 100 staff persons working through the weekend in preparation for this system and getting it ready and getting it all ready for our checks to be dispersed. But, this system was being built by a team at the department of commerce, the department of finance, and they are all both utilizing expertise and speed of an independent i. T. Contractor. The name of the company is protech. They are part of a team that is working this weekend and previous weekends as well. Last night, i learned of a potential security incident in which an applicant seemed to have illegally accessed the system. Was this was discovered, it necessary to shut the system down. These steps have been taken consistent with our state requirements for any potential data breach. And the sequence of events that we have to go through and our protocols is that Law Enforcement is notified of the breach. Ourbviously notifiey Cyber Insurance carrier. Forensics are being conducted by an outside i. T. Expert. We want to make sure the system is in good shape before it goes back online. If we find during our investigation that any personal Sensitive Data is compromised, then steps will be taken, including the notification to the applicants or anyone who might have had their personal information compromised. Secondly, if necessary, a credit Monitoring Program for those who might have been impacted. This is something we have some experience with. It is one of the reasons we have a good Cyber Insurance program here in the state. In terms of the pandemic unemployment assistance payments, the Team Continues to work for the weekend to get this system back up, payments processed and trying to meet the goal of money out the door next week. And, that leads me to the second part of the update today. That is our case report. We can go on to the first slide of cases which yesterday, we had 4463 covid19 cases in arkansas. In the last one for hours, we have an additional 115 cases. Of those new cases of 115, we have 75 that are within the corrections department. And we have 40 that is in the community. Whenever youre looking at, i believe it is over 2000 we tested. The Positivity Rate is low. And we have 40 new cases across the state in addition to 75 which are in the Randall Williams correctional unit unitn pine bluff. 4578gives us a total of cases. Stop there for a second and you can see the seven day rolling average again which fluctuates. On the orange line, that is the seven day rolling average and the next one shows our hospitalizations. The current number of current hospitalized remains the same. Yesterday it was 65 hospitalized. In terms of deaths, there are no new depths. 98 yesterday. 98 today. In terms of the Randall Williams tot i did ask dexter payne come here today. I got a briefing from him on the unit and we have tested 515 inmates in the Randall Williams shownnd of those 155 have negative with 231 positive. Attending. Re 129 in the next couple of days we will see some of those additional tests come in and be a part of the system as well. Two of those have been hospitalized as well. The prison officials are taking extra steps to make sure those inmates are cared for and we keep the positive and negative separate and dexter may have more to say about that. With that, let me turn this over to dr. Smith for his comments. Smith thank you, governor. In addition i will give some Additional Details to the numbers the governor provided. As the governor mentioned, we have 115 new cases since yesterday and 75 are. Orrectional and 40 community the governor has already therted more than 75 from Randall Williams unit in pine bluff. Not all of those are entered into our system. We try to give you the most uptodate numbers that we have even if all of the numbers have not a it into our data system yet. 8 cases. Total is 457 are active. Se 1008 of the active cases, 370 are correctional and 101 are in Nursing Homes and 537 are in the community. As the governor mentioned, we have the same number of hospitalizations, 65 as yesterday. We have 10 currently on a ventilator which is a net increase of one from yesterday and no new deaths so we are still at 98. The number recovered is 3472, an increase of 82 from yesterday. The governor mentioned the new cases at Randall Williams. There at a total of 231 come an increase of 177 from yesterday. No new staff from yesterday. I would like to give a brief update on the testing going on in the federal correctional institute, fci in forrest city. The cdc together with the department the bureau of corrections have in testing inmates there and that will be concluded today. 473ar, we have a total of who have tested positive. Who have tested positive in the fci. From what iof 138 reported yesterday. We will continue to get positive willts back today and it take a while to get those into our system since they are being tested at various locations. I want to briefly touch on two other things, when we talk about our lab testing, i give a percent positive. Testrday, we had 2138 results and of those, 4. 4 were positive. We take all of the positives that came in yesterday come from midnight to midnight period of time and we had a total of 2044 negative and 94 positive. That. S how we calculate i know some of the journalists have tortured themselves trying to do the math from the numbers i report. What i give at this briefing, was as ofe, the 115 10 00 this morning. I want to give you the most uptodate numbers but you will not be able to use that to positive because they are different time frames. I want to touch on the ways we are preventing the spread of covid19 broadly. We have precautions we all need to maintain including maintaining a six foot physical distance from other people, hand washing, and wearing a Face Covering or mask especially when it is difficult to maintain the six feet of physical distancing. We also have Public Health disease intervention steps like testing. Case investigations. Contact tracing. And the third are the directives we have put out that limit things like restaurants and other businesses. As we move forward, and it looks like we will be dealing with covid19 for some time and as we relax some of these directives, we will be moving away from these mandates as a way of preventing the spread of covid19. And we are scaling up the Public Health interventions like testing and Contact Tracing but more and more of that responsibility is going to be on our individual behaviors. Individual interventions that we take. It is even more important now than it has been before for us to take those steps individually. The physical distancing. The Face Coverings. The handwashing and other things to protect ourselves and our loved ones. And with that, i will turn it back to the governor. Gov. Hutchinson thank you, dr. Smith. Ne ifow, director pay you could give us an update on how we are taking care of the inmates at the Randall Williams unit. Ne thank you as always for your guidance and leadership and sing to you, dr. Smith. The Randall Williams unit has 231 of515 inmates and those are positive. Negative. This facility has been placed on lock down and we are moving the positive inmates in the barracks with the positive inmates to keep from cross contaminating the inmate population. Randall williams is in a better position to deal with this issue because we have two other facilities next door and they can assist with the feeding and other needs that we have at the Randall Williams facility. Note, we are following the guidelines as always from the department of health and the cdc to make sure we are doing the things we are supposed to to treat our inmate population. At the cummings unit, we had 872 positives during the time we tested every inmate there. As of yesterday, 860 of those were considered to have recovered. Unit, we canngs put the negative inmates with other negative inmates so we are no longer feeding those inmates in the barracks as we were before. Thank you, governor. That is all i have. Thank you. Gov. Hutchinson thank you, dexter. That is a good report. I appreciate the care because p wenmates arkansans care about them and we want to make sure that they have the care that they need. I also want to say that there is a lot of decisions that have to be made during the course of this pandemic. In many times, they are tough decisions and we realize the impact peoples lives very personally. We recognize there are people that are hurting out there. They have lost income. We want them to get back to work. We want to make sure they get the compensation they are entitled to and we are working hard to get that done but we realize every decision that is takenevery action that is does impact somebodys lives and we put that for most. We are anxious for everyone to be working and having the income that they want to have and to be able to return to normal in a safe way. With that, we are happy to take any questions. Reporter [indiscernible] when will the for an sick analysis be completed . And in the meantime, what do you sensitive information. Gov. Hutchinson first of all, in terms of the forensics of it, we hope that will be done today. Contractoroutside that will calm in that is independent and will review that and give us confirmation that we can bring the system back online. Secondly, as we continue the investigation, we will know to thatxtent if any individual information has been compromised and in terms of the applicants, they will be notified once the determination has been made. It is also very important we continue the processing of the applicants so we can get the money out the door. The the individual our team partners, our department of commerce and finance are looking at ways they can continue to process those payments even though the system is down and the applicants cannot access it. There will not be any need to access that until they have to file a claim. We are looking at ways to continue to get the money out the door. Secondly, if they are the only other ones that would be impacted are in addition to the 30,000 are in the system, if there are new ones that need or want to apply, that cant happen until we get the system backup but those are the steps we are taking. What i tell the applicants is we have over 100 people working as theykend to come have another weekends, to get the system right to protect their data but also to process these payments for money a very much need. Yes, maam. Reporter there was a map you showed us on thursday. The 13 as one of pua. Do you have an exclamation as to why others explanation as to why other states have succeeded . Gov. Hutchinson we did not show a map on thursday so im not sure what map you are talking about. That does not sound right. I dont know what all that the states have done. I know that it is my understanding that some states have received applicants but money is not out the door yet. There are a lot of different ways to measure that. Ive not done a thorough study of all the states as to where they are on this. I know there will be opportunity to compare our progress and how we are doing compared to other states but in the meantime, we are trying to make the best judgments we can to get the money out the door. Cyberer you mentioned insurance. How much money could you see the state losing . What claim is the state making with the insurance carrier . Fiber insurance is not something we had as a state when i became governor. I have some background in Cyber Threats and i know that is a risk and i have and Insurance Department that has moved us in the right direction and we have been able over time to get this Cyber Insurance. It is not related to this incident but we have it covering all of State Government in terms of any loss of data or cost that might be incurred in doing the notifications. That is in place. We pay a fixed amount every year on the Cyber Insurance so was so that is not any extra cost. In terms of the overall cost that might be incurred, it is too early to know right now but the major cost is the notification and then the credit Monitoring Program that should be put into place for anybody who has their data compromised. And so, that is a protective measure. It is one of the things our Cyber Insurance would help cover. Reporter i want to switch over to that rainy day fund. There were a couple of senators that said they refused to sign off on the money earmarked do you have any thoughts on that . Do you know where that fund will wind up going . Gov. Hutchinson i have not spoken to the two senators that objected to that budget support universityon state so i really dont know what theyre thinking is. I hope we can have some conversations about that. The assistance for henderson state university. I realize they have made mistakes in the past but we dont want to penalize the future for mistakes that may have been made in the past. We want to correct things and have them on a Good Foundation for the future of the students and the future of the school which i feel are important for our state. There will be continued discussions as to whether that presented. Yes. Reporter you mentioned some of the work had been contracted out. Was a contracted out . Was there a bidding process . Gov. Hutchinson im going to ask mike, if i say it wrong, jump in here. That we a contractor had experience with and so they had already been utilized by sogovernment with fast they were fast in assigning the responsibility to them. You asked why we utilized a contractor because of this be that a private contractor can bring to build a system that is necessary. That is not something the state is necessarily good at or has the capacity for so we need to utilize the expertise and speed they can bring to build that kind of new system. Mike, i got that but if you have anything to add there. Governor. K you, i think you covered that. Our team has been spread as thin as possible to cover our existing unemployment Insurance Program and system trying to handle the additional claims we are seeing through that. When the federal government passed the cares act and said we had to build a brandnew system to account for a certain classification that has never been covered before, it was almost imperative that we bring in some additional outside help because we did not have the capacity within State Government to do that. Partnering with this contractor who had knowledge with our team at dws, we were able to use the thirdparty vendor through the department of finance and administration to bring them on and get this done in a quicker manner than we would have been able to do so. I would have to get back to you on that. Reporter [indiscernible] to sayt is too early whos fault it was. Obviously, they are doing the forensics on it and as they are building the system as they go, we are trying to do it in a fast manner to get payments out and we are testing it along the way. This is one of the things that came up and was tested from the outside and we realized it needs to be correct it. We will continue to monitor that and do the forensic investigation. One of the issues with getting it launched was you had the new system talk to the existing unemployment system. Is there a concern that normal unemployment is impacted by this potential breach . Mike that is not an issue at this point. They are separate now. Reporter how do we know as far as the cyber hack is concerned that it is not an act of terror . The second question is how many applicants of applied for the Actual Program in state . Gov. Hutchinson well, in terms of the information we have is that our forensics today indicate it was an applicant who system thatd the accessed the additional information. In terms of the total number of overcants, it is 30,000, 30,000 have been approved. Mike might be able to give you more specific information on that. Getting back to the previous question, protech those with initial forensic but we will restart the system and we have another independent group coming in who will be able to give isfidence in what the system and its integrity before relaunching. Reporter [indiscernible] would behinson that connected with our Cyber Insurance notification that they would bring in someone. Reporter do you have a specific message for the thousands of arc kansans that are struggling . Gov. Hutchinson our hearts aches that the covid19 came about that caused action to be taken that impacted their business and their livelihood. Even though we had to make some of those decisions, we recognize the cost of them to their individual lives and that is why we want to get not just the businesses back open again but for people to have confidence that it is safe in that environment whether it is a restaurant, we dont want them wante third capacity, we them at larger capacity but for people to go back and shop and enjoy life as normal, they have to feel comfortable with the Safety Measures and feel they will be protected when they go into those as mrs. We want those people to have that full employment. I think we have taken steps to reduce the unemployment even though we have got hundreds of thousands that are out there that are seeking assistance and need it and are entitled to it, we probably have over 100,000 that are working that because of the decision we made did not lose their employment and we did not do a shelter in place at the time. And then in terms of the weight they are going through, that is they are going through, that is why we have 100 people here working this weekend. They need to understand we understand the hardship on them that at the same time we are fully dedicated in getting that money out to them. Are there any questions remotely . Reporter this is richard with kpsq. You being prompt about testing all of the inmates at Randall Williams. , have a question for dr. Smith a followup from thursday. Rologygnize that the barela tests are not good to tell who are active carriers that can spread the disease but during e virology tests, 90 d they be useful if of the previous negatives that exposed andhad been had passed through that you that separation was a failure where as if you only had 10 positive results from the , yes,that you would say these separation policies would have been successful. And also a 90 positive would give the inmates some confidence that there would not be a second wave going through the prison at some future time. Dr. Smith thank you, i think that is a good point about Antibody Testing which can provide useful information and especially in a situation where maybe someone was in fact it but did not get tested at that time. T think that potentially a correctional institutions come this testing will be a useful tool. Because of the approach we have taken at the commons institute and the Randal Williams unit and others where we went in and tested pretty much everyone, segregated them and then did followup testing if there were any additional systematic patients. The Antibody Testing is probably less useful in that situation then for example at the fci where the Testing Process has monthtretched out over a or more, more than a month. There are some that test negative but actually were infected previously. This testing as a tool, Antibody Testing, there are some complications. It is involving a blood test and that is more difficult to do large numbers of people in a short amount of time. And second, we have been trying forcale up our pcr testing active cases. That is been a priority. We dont want to distract from that at this point are using Laboratory Resources for a test that will give us useful information but not actionable information at this point in time. We will get there with the Antibody Testing but it is not our top priority right now. Gov. Hutchinson let us take another question remotely. Reporter my question is for the director, you mentioned that the Randall Williams facility was better equipped to deal with an outbreak because they are in close proximity to other facilities. Which facilities are those . Is there a concern that coronavirus could be spread to other prisons because of that . Director payne the facilities that are in close proximity are the pine bluff unit and also the barber ester unit there in pine bluff. I dont have much concern on spreading it to those facilities because we do not allow the staff to go inside of a williams. If they deliver something, they deliver it to the back door. The staff will not be crossing over into that facility. Yes, anotheron question. The latest count of cases in county. Some officials are saying 20 four. Do you have official numbers . Dr. Smith sometimes there is a difference between what the county is reporting and what we report. We report this by county of residence. They may have been tested in the county but the resident is documented as outside of the county. Another important reason is we dont always get the county of residence on the information that comes with the test results. At any one time we have a number of those test results that are missing county information. When you look at our map, it does not all add up to the total because we have those missing information. Sometimes, we can go back and get that information later from other sources. We have some ways of linking names with addresses that we use but it takes a little bit of time on that and so i know it is particularly frustrating or smaller counties when they know exactly how many are in their county and it is not showing up that way on our map that we are working to get those as close as possible. Gov. Hutchinson one more question here. Two more at the table. Reporter this is a question that is being repeated. Is this unique to arkansas . We have relatively modest numbers across the community in terms of covid19. But sky among the prison population. Can you explain that . Gov. Hutchinson you have seen it elsewhere. I had a call from the governor of tennessee who said they were having an outbreak in their prison how do you handle that . Do comewhat governors have those kinds of exchanges. And you look at illinois and the outbreak in their prison. It is not uncommon at all. I think actually we have handled it very well. And the good news you heard today was about 90 of the inmates at commons have recovered. We separated them with it and they recovered from it and we are restoring that to a more normal operation there. We have one at the Randall Williams unit. You have other units that there were one or two positive cases but did not lead to an outbreak. They vary but this is similar to Nursing Homes. Every state has had a challenge in the Nursing Homes as well as in states because of the as well as in the prison environment because of the closeness. We had a question here and then we will go remotely. Reporter any word on be ready for Business Grant . The Public Record suggests otherwise. Gov. Hutchinson i think that has just been beaten to death by every by any number of hearings in the legislature. Mike we have turned over all of our emails on that and if you look at those, there was information about an Economic Development partner call. That happened. It went out and was addressed that day in a press conference. Those folks were made aware and it was made public at that time. There was no advance notice given. If you read through the emails with the freedom of information act presented by the commission, that supports that. Gov. Hutchinson is there any other question remotely . With that, thank you, all for coming in on short notice on a saturday. I hope this is helpful to get some of those questions answered. You all have a pleasant saturday and a good weekend. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, journalists from around the world provide an up date on global coronavirus end of pandemic efforts. Time Magazine National political correspondent, volleyball, discusses her new book pelosi. Q a, journalist theanna discusses her book great pretender about a 1973 experiment led by a stanford professor. There was wide influence on so much that we contend with today, so much of the Mental Health crisis we see today was touched in some ways by this ready and a lot of Public Opinion about psychiatry and its institutions were in part shaped by the study so i think that in questioning it, we have to go back and question some of our assumptions. This gives us an opportunity to go back and reassess in a way to move forward because we cannot move forward on a rotten foundation. This studyect if was not legitimate, we have to question some of the conclusions that came from it. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. The white house friday, president hosted a recognition ceremony to honor frontline workers for their contributions during the coronavirus pandemic. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States and mrs. Trump. [applause]