05222020 COVID-19 PC
GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Good afternoon, y'all, and thank you for coming out to cover this press conference with an update on the public health emergency. And they've given me a lot of information to cover today, so I kind of want to get right into it. Today, we're reporting 421 new cases, for a total of 36,925 statewide since the inception of this public health emergency. Sadly, we are reporting 39 new death, bringing the total number of death to 2,545. The good news today is that we've seen a further decline in the number of people who are in the hospital and on ventilators. So today, we're reporting 867 patients hospitalized, 104 on ventilators. It's actually been since the end of March that we've seen hospitalizations this low. Just 30?days ago, there were twice as many individuals in the hospital with COVID19. And because we didn't have a press conference yesterday, I feel compelled to get into yesterday's numbers just a little bit, because you may have been jarred a little bit with the 1188?cases that were reported yesterday. Of those cases, 682 came from 23 labs that reported for the first time yesterday. They reported electronically to LDH. And some of those cases stretch back as far as March the 25th, so many of those individuals recovered, if they were ever symptomatic, they've recovered and so forth. But about 506 of yesterday's report would be what we would consider a new case. And the percentage positivity, which is obviously very important, the percentage of total tests that returned positive on all lab results that were reported yesterday was 6.1?percent. If you look at that number that I gave you that represented the new cases, it was 6.4 percent. And the national goal we have is to get positivity below 10?percent. And so we're obviously trending in the right direction there as well. We know that we are beginning to see the impact of comprehensive testing across congregate settings and workplace outbreaks. Obviously this is critical as we move forward. And we know that as we test these settings, we're going to be reporting more cases. The good news is that when we go in these congregate settings, most of these cases that we discover are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, but they're still very challenging because the individuals are nevertheless contagious. And the CDC reported I think it was yesterday, their current estimate of the number? I should say the percentage of all COVID cases that are asymptomatic is 35?percent. So this is obviously a real challenge for us and everybody else across the country and across the world in dealing with this public health emergency, but it's also why we have to go into these congregate settings. And many of the congregate settings, they don't necessarily pose a tremendous threat to the public, because they are in a setting, but nevertheless these tests have to be run. We have to identify the individuals and then start the contact tracing associated with that if we're going to be able to hold the number of cases down. As you will remember, our goal for the month of May with respect to testing was to reach 200,000 tests. Today, May the 22nd, I can tell you we've gotten to 143,577 thus far in the month of May. Those are the reports that have been given to LDH on testing. So we're on our way to meeting that goal. We are about 56,000 tests short of the goal with nine days to go. I do want to make sure that everyone understands it is safe, easy, and no upfront cost to you to get tested. And, in fact, under the federal family first's coronavirus response act, Louisiana Medicaid will cover testing for coronavirus for Louisiana residents who lack health insurance. So even the uninsured can have their tests done at no cost and Medicaid will pay for it. Coverage includes not just the diagnostic testing but also testing related services. This coverage will be available until the end of the federal public health emergency. Uninsured individuals can apply for this coverage in their doctor's office. And if you don't have a provider or you don't know where to find one, you're not sure how to get connected to be tested, I'm encouraging you to call 211. Dial 211, and you'll be able to find a testing site that can assist you. There's also a list of testing sites statewide, available at LDH.coronavirus. The good news is? bit of good news? is with Medicaid expansion, we actually have an uninsured rate now that is lower than the national average. It's about 8?percent. And we know that those folks on Medicaid are going to get coverage for their testing as well. With respect to testing also, I can tell you that there has been a concerted effort and partnership between the Louisiana National Guard, GOHSEP, and the Office of Public Health to stand up mobile testing sites across the state of Louisiana. That's happened in regions 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8. I can tell you regions 4 and 9 will start Tuesday and 6 and 7 the following week. In region 8, which is the Monroe area up in northeast Louisiana, that mobile testing started this week. And these testing sites, these mobile testing sites, tested right at 1,000 Louisianians this week. So that's going to really help to us get to our goal of not just reaching 200,000 tests but testing the individuals we think need to be tested, either because they're in a parish that has been inadequately tested thus far because they're in a congregate setting or they're in a relative hot spot. And so that's how we're deciding where these test sites are going to operate. But I do want to thank the National Guard, GOHSEP, and the Office of Public Health for the work that they're doing to conduct those mobile testing sites. We also have some very good corporate partners out there with respect to testing. I want to single out a couple of them today for you. Walmart. It has sites in Shreveport, LaPlace, baker, Baton Rouge, Mansfield, Plaquemines, New Iberia, and Jonesboro that are up and running with testing. New Roads. The Walmart in New Roads will open tomorrow. In addition, another corporate partner that's being very, very helpful is CVS. They recently announced that they're expanding no cost testing through several of its drivethru lanes in our state. There are now 8 CVS locations in Louisiana offering this service: Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Metairie, New Orleans, Shreveport, and Slidell. More sites will be added later, but for more details on exactly where these stores are and the hours they're going to be operating, you can go to . for more details. We have not given you an update yet on remdesivir, but we want to do that today. It happened to be that on the day that Dr.?Billeaux and I were in Washington in the oval office that Dr.?Fauci at that press conference made the announcement that remdesivir had shown positive results to the point where the clinical trials were going to stop because there was a clear efficacy to the drug and that it was safe for hospitalized patients. And since that time, the maker of remdesivir, Gilead, has been supplying certain amounts of the drug to the country, and we have now received three allocations from the food and drug administration. And we received the first allocation on May the 14th. It was 1,200 vials of remdesivir. Those 1,200 vials? and one vial is one treatment. But they were delivered to 44 hospitals across the state of Louisiana. The second shipment of 3,366 vials came in on May the 19th. They too were delivered to 44 hospitals across the state of Louisiana. Today, we will receive our third allocation of 3,328 vials. They will be delivered to 47 hospitals. The hospitals are selected based on their COVID19 caseload. Any hospital with five or more COVID19 inpatients receive an allocation. Hospitals with fewer than five COVID19 inpatients can request remdesivir if they have a patient that they believe that the drug would help. And I did want to point out that there's two different treatment regimens for COVID19 patients with remdesivir. One is a 5day treatment. The other is a 10day treatment. And so, on average, it's about seven vials to treat one individual. I am pleased to report that we've made progress on the contact tracing side. We've now hired 450 Louisianians as contact tracers. You recall that our target last week was to have 250 contact tracers hired. Obviously, this is a very important part of our effort to keep the cases down as we reengage more sectors of our economy, get more businesses open, get more employees back to work, get more customers in our stores and our restaurants, and get people back into church and other aspect of daily life as well. And so we obviously are looking for the contact tracing effort to be done in conjunction with the testing so that we can identify those individuals who need to be told that they're positive or that they came into contact with someone who was positive so they know how to take care of themselves and their families and can make prudent decisions about making sure that they're limiting their contact, that they're on guard for symptoms that may develop, and that sort of thing. And the reason this is so critically important? well, there's lots of reasons, I suspect, but it is in my mind at least, because 35?percent of the people out there who are contagious don't know? who have COVID19 don't know that they have it and they're contagious. And so getting this bit of information should be very, very helpful. And we look forward to working with the public over the coming weeks and months in order to give them that information so that they can make the prudent decisions necessary. On another positive note, the department of education here in Louisiana began taking applications on Monday for the federal pandemic EBT program. It provides food benefits for students who receive free and reduced price school meals, and this is done through the SNAP program, in partnership with, at the state level, the Department of Children and Family Services, but at the federal level, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. So this was approved as of Monday, but as of this morning, applications for nearly 330,000 eligible children have been processed. This is more than half of the eligible population. So that's been able to get done this week. Parents can apply on the department of education website at . And I want to thank all of the folks at DCFS and all the folks at the department of education and the various school districts and so forth who are working so hard to make sure that adequate nutrition is available to kids across Louisiana who would typically be at school five days a week, getting one or two of their meals at school. So it's a very important effort that they're making, and I appreciate it. I do hope that everyone will have a happy and safe Memorial Day and that they will take the time to pause, reflect, give thanks, pray for, all of the men and women in uniform who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. That the purpose for Memorial Day after all. Obviously, this Memorial Day will be different from any others that we've experienced because the public health emergency remains in place, as does the current Phase I order. So I do encourage everyone to be cautious. We've done a lot over the last couple of months to really slow the spread, bend the curve, reduce hospitalization capacity? I'm sorry, hospitalizations, increasing the capacity that's available, and reducing vent usage and all these other good things. And the gains are important, but they are fragile. And so we do encourage everyone to be mindful, to wear a mask out of their homes, whether indoors or outdoors, and to spend? or stay 6 feet away from others to make sure you're social distancing, continue to wash your hands frequently with soap and water, and for those people who are more vulnerable, you are absolutely safer at home. And I know we've covered this up a lot of times, but those people are the ones 65 and older, those individuals with a chronic underlying comorbid health condition, such as hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, obesity. And I will tell you, we're doing much, much better, but in many ways, the virus is still in control, and we need to remember that. We're certainly not back to normal. You may have also seen that the CDC recently released information that says that we have a much greater chance of contracting the virus through airborne particles that are made airborne because someone who has the virus, whether they're symptomatic or not, but when they speak, when they cough, when they sneeze, these particles become airborne. They then get breathed in by someone else. That is the main way that the virus is spreading. There is still some risk of spread through contaminated surfaces, but that's not the primary threat for the spread of the virus. And again that's why the masks are so important, because the masks cut down dramatically on the distance that those airborne particles can travel and then they won't be breathed in by others. So we're asking that over this weekend, and even thereafter obviously, don't congregate in big groups or spend a lot of time with people who aren't in your direct household unless you can spread out, wear your mask, be socially distant. I know this is the start of summer. Community pools are not open. Lap pools at gyms and fitness centers may be open. You know, we believe, if you look at this number that we updated on Monday, that there's more than 26,000 individuals who are recovered, and we've had 37,000 just about test positive. So we know that there's COVID out there. And if you just do the math, then obviously we're looking somewhere north of 10,000. But those are among the tested people. There's a lot of folks out there with COVID who have not been tested. So there's a lot of the virus out there. Encouraging people to be mindful of that, and again, especially if you are older or vulnerable. And if you travel this weekend, please do so with all of these things in mind. I do need that depending on your destination, you may have restrictions that are a little bit more than what we put in place at the state level. I know that's going to be the case for anyone who travels to New Orleans, for example. And I will tell you that I get accolades from the White House coronavirus task force members, from different governors and folks from around the country, about the degree to which the New Orleans area, Orleans Parish, Jefferson Parish, was able to take what was the highest growth rate anywhere in the country? and we think probably at one time anywhere in the world? and really turn that around in short order. And I want to thank all of the elected officials in that part, really all over the state, but certainly in that part of our state, business leaders, faith leaders, and the general public, because they all made that happen. But obviously there's still more COVID there than any most parts of the state, and so there continue to be restrictions there that may be a little more than we have statewide. And I think that that's important because New Orleans obviously wants to be known as a safe place in order for people to actually be safe, that's number 1, but to feel safe and to return to New Orleans as tourists, as conventioneers, and all of those sorts of things. And so I just wanted to highlight what's going on there and let people know if you're going to be in that area, in Orleans Parish, over this Memorial Day weekend, you may have some additional restrictions on your activities, and for good reason. So I do want to remind everybody that the way we get to Phase II is by making sure we're doing everything we're supposed to do while we're in Phase I. And we're accumulating data now that will inform our decision later on about whether we go to Phase II. We're currently in Phase I by an order that doesn't expire until June the 5th. So that's where we are right now. Monday is a holiday, so we don't have a press conference scheduled for Memorial Day. The next one that we anticipate having will be on Wednesday of next week. So, with that, we will take some questions. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, has the house and senate given you additional notice that they have a majority of (inaudible) special session, and do you also agree with their (inaudible). GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah. Well, the? I know the speaker and the President both tried to call while I was at a lunch meeting. And I know that's what they were calling to tell me. And of course before I went into the lunch meeting, I knew about that. So I'm certainly not surprised. Obviously they have to have a special session because it doesn't appear that they're going to get through the bills that are absolutely essential before the start of the next fiscal year. And the fiscal year starts on July?1st. And it's clear that they're not going to get through the budget, the capitol out lay, and a number of other critical bills. So I believe that there's going to have to be a special session. And, you know, it doesn't cause me any problems that they're calling themselves back into session. That's something that the Constitution gives them the authority to do. It's a little bit I think problematic to have 41 objects in the call because I think that it'll operate more as a general session rather than a concentrated special session where we're focusing on those things that absolutely have to get done. And, you know, it's unfortunate that they weren't able to use the time that they've had from May?4th through June?1st to get done the essential work of the state of Louisiana, but let's hope that they can do it in the time that they've given themselves, I think between June?1st and June?30th. Obviously if they don't get it done by June?30th, there will be major disruption. So we'll work with them to make sure that they get those essential bills done. So, no, I'm not surprised, and they did try to call me today?AUDIENCE MEMBER: So just to be clear, you're not planning on calling your own special session. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: No. No, there's nothing that I would ask the legislature to do that isn't in their call. Obviously, there's 41 objects in their call. Yes, ma'am?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, there's been a lot of discussion this session with contact tracing and concerns about privacy rights, terms that people can get penalized in some fashion if they don't agree to participate (inaudible). And the LDH attorney did not definitively shoot down the possibility that (inaudible) could be coming down the road later. I guess I'm wondering, where do you stand on penalizing people that don't (inaudible) all the concerns about privacy. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, first of all, there's always a legitimate concern around privacy. With respect to contact tracing and our efforts and whether there's going to be penalties or coercion, all of those concerns and fears are unfounded. We have said from the very beginning that we will be undertaking a robust contact tracing effort in order to keep the cases down as we move forward and reengage more of our economy and get people moving again and making contact with one another. It's critically important to this overall process as we continue to navigate our way through this public health emergency, but we've also said that at no point is contact tracing going to mandate anybody to do anything. So if you get a call and you're told that you tested positive and we want to find out who your contacts are, obviously we hope that you would be a good enough neighbor that you would provide information so that we could then call those folks that are? meet the definition of the close contact so that we can contact them and let them know so that they can look out for themselves and their families and their communities and so forth, monitor their symptoms more closely, and potentially that they would agree to isolate themselves for some period of time until they could be confident that they don't have COVID19. So there's no penalty for anyone. There's no mandate that anybody participate. And, again, this is one of those efforts where I would encourage people to think not along the lines of what you have a right to do or right not to do, but think about what is the right thing to do. And contact tracing, by the way, wasn't invented two month ago when COVID19 struck. It's been a useful tool in public health emergencies for a long, long time. It's been done here in Louisiana on multiple occasions. Probably not at the scale that we're going to be doing it now, but the whole effort of contact tracing is the same as it has been for a long time. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Have you discovered any other crawfish farms that have outbreaks (inaudible). GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah, I'm going to have to ask Dr.?Billeaux to come up. I can tell you that part of the numbers that we reported yesterday, the new numbers? you remember I broke them out because 23 labs reported for the first time and many of those cases were old? but of those cases we reported yesterday, I do believe that some of those came from migrant worker congregate settings affiliated with crawfish processing. But I'm going to ask Dr.?Billeaux to come up and share what specific information he might have about that.DR. ALEX BILLEAUX: Yeah. So, you know, I'll answer it more broadly. We continue to work, as a part of contact tracing, and as a part of public health's mandate too, investigate clusters around the state. And every day looking at any of those cases that come in, identifying if there's a congregate setting associated with it, if the difference between somebody who is an isolated case and a congregate setting, then we have to do a lot more work going in and finding out, you know, who else might be exposed.And our guidelines as of two weeks ago that were released is we want everybody tested in a congregate setting. So whether that's a workplace or an adult residential facility, the same sort of approach is being taken. So we continue to do that throughout the state?AUDIENCE MEMBER: How many crawfish facilities is the state currently investigating (inaudible).DR. ALEX BILLEAUX: So I don't have that specific number. And I would just note, apropos to the point that the Governor was just making about privacy and confidentiality, that is a standard across public health. And the reason is to ensure that people feel comfortable coming forward to us. It's our job in public health to make sure that everybody gives the information that we need soso that we can identify who's at risk from an outbreak and get resources to those people, find out who may be at risk. And the challenge with giving too many details there is we actually dissuade people from coming forward. If they know the risk of telling Dr.?Billeaux's team is that I'm going to have a news crew showing up tomorrow asking me lots of tough questions, understandably, I worry about what happens to the next congregate setting that's next door, what happens to the next, you know, encampment that's concerned now and is going to hide cases. And so that's the reason that we don't give that level of granular detail. Because just like people need to know that their privacy is secured in our contact tracing system, we also want businesses in congregate settings to know, we're going to come and do our job and make sure that people are safe, make sure the public is safe, and we're going to do that in a way that really honors what we need to do to end this epidemic?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Does that mean you're not going to release any numbers about the outbreak at these crawfish ponds at all?DR. ALEX BILLEAUX: No, we've been releasing numbers every day of cases. We're trying to give information about different congregate settings that were testing. But I certainly wouldn't commit to say that every time a new farm is identified, we're going to give you who that is, what the number of individuals are. And that's not because there's not an issue that needs to be addressed. But from a public health standpoint, that relationship between the organization and public health, being able to make sure that there's transparency, because most important is getting resources to the people who are being diagnosed with COVID, that's what is our driving principal. And we're doing that in a way that also transparently shows the number of cases that we have statewide, and we're doing that in a way that honors the public interest in anything that impacts them. And again, as you've seen in other outbreaks, and the Governor made this point, you know, there's times where an outbreak happens and doesn't have an impact on the broader public, and that's perfectly protected. There's times where there is an outbreak, let's say, you know, in a restaurant and there is a potential risk to other people who might have Eaton at that restaurant, you know. And in that case we do give information say to the general public and say, hey, if you were dining at this restaurant during this time period, you may be at risk and we want you to contact us if you have any of the following symptoms. So the public should rest assured knowing that if there is a risk to the public from one of these, we do supply that information. We do reach out to the public. And if we're not doing that, it's because it's not a threat to the public and what's most important is understanding how those people who are impacted are safe and tested?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Even before you were releasing the nursing home information (inaudible), y'all were at least providing adequate numbers about those facilities so we could at least understand the scale and scope and how many (inaudible) were actually in these facility versus out in the general population. So I don't understand why you wouldn't do the same for those crawfish farms. They're work sites just like (inaudible).DR. ALEX BILLEAUX: So again we've been reporting those numbers. And maybe we're just talking about two different things. You know, we're not going to be reporting, you know, what's every congregate setting in the state, because there's going to be dormitories, there's going to be all sorts of different settings that may count at congregate settings the same as we're doing nursing homes, for instance, where each one is labeled and, you know, what their census is. And that's a lot of detail. Just because frankly that's more data than we can handle and that I think is useful. But certainly where we find outbreaks that are of impact to the public, we are sharing that information, and we'll continue to do so?AUDIENCE MEMBER: How are you guys handling (inaudible) talked about this idea of (inaudible) if we're going to be expanding mass testing to congregate settings that includes not only asymptomatic people but also places where these cases aren't really at risk to the general public (inaudible) or how are you handling that.DR. ALEX BILLEAUX: We're not backing any cases out of the data. The point with the work that we're doing is that the only way to control the COVID outbreak, and the only way for us to get resources of places that we need, is to turn over every rock and test anybody that we think has a high likelihood of being infected. Now, for the general public, that's still people who have symptoms. And contact trace, when we reach out to somebody, if they're a contact of a case and they have no symptoms, right now you're not going to get a recommendation from public health to say we need you to go get tested. If you develop symptoms, that's a different issue. But in congregate settings, to the point that the Governor made, we know that that asymptomatic spread, now in a concentrated area, actually does fuel the further spread of COVID19 in those areas. And so we are going to find as many of those cases as we can. That means not only testing that entire population and the staff there, but retesting that population that's negative to see if people do change their status over time. And we're not trying to hide that. We want that number out there. Because though our numbers may grow, what that slows is that Louisiana's doing a great job of finding COVID where it is. And so that we can have fewer and fewer of those cases that we don't know about out circulating in society. And when it comes to getting criteria, and I can the Governor and I have said this from the beginning, all of those criteria? and it's not just the ones we've talked about previously. But we really holistically look at what are the data that we have. So if we see cases increasing because we've been surging into nursing homes, into different congregate settings, we need to take that into consideration with the percent of those tests that are coming back, are we continuing to see that trend that we showed a couple of weeks ago where as we still were increasing tests, we're seeing a decrease in percent positivity. And we also have to look at what's happening at hospitalizations. What's happening with people showing up to the emergency room with symptoms. So we don't want toot back data ow out. In fact, we want as much data as possible because that's how we make the best decision across all of those different measures?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Have you been getting useful data on the serology testing that's going on? Are you still learning from that? Has there be enough of it around the state? If so, what are y'all learning from it?DR. ALEX BILLEAUX: So it's a tough question. We do get serology data sent to us. The challenge with serology data is that right now there's a variety of those tests that are available. More and more tests now do have the FDA approval, emergency use authorization, but not all of them. And so a lot of that data needs to be really closely scrutinized for us to understand what that means. What we are more enthusiastic about are settings like Ochsner, Tulane, LSU in Shreveport, who are looking at doing formal studies of the population, where they're going to apply statistical methods as they're doing serology tests to understand what does that likely mean for the broader public. That will give us a sense of whether the broader public has been exposed to COVID19 to some extent. But even then, as we've talked about previously, one of the open questions that still remains with serology tests, with the results that we get back, is what is the meaning of those antibodies? What does it mean that somebody has antibodies? Does that mean that actually have been exposed? Is there cross activity with other coronaviruses, like, you know, the 10 to 30?percent of the common cold that's caused by the coronavirus? And most importantly, does it mean that those people with those antibodies are unlikely to be able to be reinfected, at least in the shortterm. Right now, based on the data that we look around the globe, we think that that's the case. But, really, you know, we need to wait and see those data come in. So I think looking at those formal studies is most important to us?AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible) local hospitals and they have kind of seen an influx of patient intake, more so patients from congregate settings and not necessarily community spread. Percentage wise, number wise, what are y'all looking at in the cases of in these congregate settings versus what we saw so much in the beginning of this pandemic, especially in Orleans, Jefferson communities?DR. ALEX BILLEAUX: It varies by region, varies by hospitals, and especially for what we've been talking about, for instance, the nursing home communities, we've seen some companies really try to get out ahead of this and establish nursing home or nursing home units that are specifically for people who test positive for COVID19. I personally think that's a best practice because then it means that you're really moving people out of a setting where there's a risk of spread and isolating those folks who we know are COVID positive. So in a region where there's more of that going on, you might expect to see fewer people in the hospital. But really it varies region by region. And this is to the point, you know, my answer to Sam's question, when we're looking at these data and we're looking at hospitalizations, we are looking at the data that we have from our epidemiology team to understand well who is in that hospital, what is behind that hospitalization rate. And again it's not the kind of thing that's easy to put on a dashboard. You have to talk about each individual trend at each individual regional level. And as we're seeing more of our cases being testing in congregate settings, we take that into consideration. As we see a hospital trend that's demonstrating more people who are lower acuity, less sick, but need to be in the hospital, driven by congregate setting testing, as opposed to what we were seeing early in the epidemic, where people were showing up late, very ill, and our ICU levels were very high, we take that into consideration as well. So it's a matter of looking at a lot of data and having long conversations about what that looks like. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Thank you, Dr.?Billeaux. You did a great job with that. So the short answer to your question is the cases will never be ignored or, you know, rendered meaningless, but as we increase our testing, we do expect to have more cases. So more cases in and of itself doesn't mean that we're doing poorly with respect to our phased reopening, for example, of our economy. So you've got to look at not just the raw number of positives, but you've got to look at the percentage of positivity relative to the overall testing, where those positive cases are, and in many congregate settings, they're not going to pose a risk to the general public. And that obviously is a good thing. And then how many of those cases are feeding into the hospital with inpatients. And so all of that comes into play, and that's why this is not a simple process to go through. These gating criteria are numerous, and they're complex, and they change over time as your testing increases, which is a good thing. Because I guess if we were just going to move forward as our case numbers decreased, we would stop testing and everything would be fine. But that's obviously not the real world. So we're never going to ignore any of that. I do want to make a point about serology testing because there was a report yesterday where I think four states were reporting both the testing they were doing for COVID19 and serology testing in their overall numbers. We are not doing that in Louisiana. We have never done that in Louisiana. So all of these numbers that you're seeing on the chart, the 36,925 COVID positive tests all were testing for COVID. None of those are serology tests. We think that that gives us the best picture of what's going on. The serology testing is important too. We also have to remember that serology testing, historically, and it's true in the case of COVID19, because of the specificity and the sensitivity, that there's a lot of false positives. And so anybody who gets a positive serology test, meaning that they may have had COVID19 and developed antibodies, they need to repeat that with at least one more serology test. And I think they may even recommend a test of a different type than the first one. And so it's? this is complex and so forth, but the serology testing is important, but it's also has a higher error rate than other types of testing. So one more question and we'll go start our Memorial Day weekend. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, a lot of people are traveling this weekend (inaudible) Florida is requiring Louisiana residents to quarantine once they get into the state. Your thoughts on states continuing to (inaudible). GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, I would invite them to look at our numbers and see that while two months ago we had the highest growth rate in the country, today, we're doing much better than other states who at that time had significant growth rates in cases and clusters and community spread and so forth, those socalled hot spots. But obviously Florida's free to do what they want to do. I would encourage people not to be doing a whole a lot of traveling right now, quite frankly, but those people who are going to travel to Florida, they should expect, I guess, to be asked to identify who they are and where they're going. I think that's about all that they're doing right now. But, you know, they can do what they want. I don't believe that there's any reason to do that with respect to people coming from Louisiana today, unlike was the case a couple of months ago, relative to people coming from other states. Look, I want to thank all of you again. Have a safe and joyous Memorial Day weekend, but do take some time to remember the reason for Memorial Day, and let's reflect, let's pause, let's pray for those individuals and their families who have made that ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. And let's be careful out there. Remember there's still a lot of COVID out there. We are in the first phase of our opening. We're encouraging all individuals to wear a mask when they're outside of their home and engaging with people who don't live in the immediate household with them. Keep your distance, 6 feet away from others, and practice good hygiene. And if we will all play our part, we will get to Phase II sooner than if we don't. That's what I can tell you. So everybody have a great weekend and God bless. ................
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