04222020 COVID-19 PC - Louisiana Department of Health



GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here or for tuning in. A few minutes ago, I completed the first remote meeting, virtual meeting, whatever you want to call it, of the Resilient Louisiana Commission, just to get them started and giving them some marching orders for the goals of the commission, which is a group of tremendous public servants and private sector leaders, really some of the best experts I think the state of Louisiana has to offer. And the group's work will be to prepare and guide the state through the ongoing response to the COVID19 pandemic, specifically by looking at our economy and making recommendations for more resilient business related activities and commerce as we move forward in a way that adequately balances the imperatives around public health and safety with increasing our economic activity, getting businesses open, and people back to work, as we are able to do so. What we hope to accomplish is a comprehensive economic game plan. After quickly taking a deep dive into key sectors of the state's economy, how those sectors have been impacted by COVID19, and how business related activities can be safely reenergized, both within the shortterm and within the longer term, to ensure our overall success during this unprecedented time of difficulty and uncertainty. And in just a few minutes, I'll be taking part in another telephone conference, this time with the Resilient Louisiana Task Force leaders. So this press conference will hopefully be relatively short so that I can get to that call and not keep them waiting. And with that we'll get to the numbers for today. I believe that we can say that we've reached a plateau on cases in Louisiana. Today, we're reporting 404 new cases, for a total of 25,258. Notably, with respect to cases, we are now Number?5 in the nation in the per capita case count. We were Number?3 for weeks. And, in fact, yesterday we went to Number?4. When Massachusetts got ahead of us today, we fell to Number?5 because Connecticut also got ahead of us. I don't know if that says a lot of good things about our trajectory or some bad things about the other states' trajectories, or both. But it is true that we were Number?3 in the nation per capita cases for a long, long time. And over the last two days, we've actually fallen two spots. I'll take it as good news. We're also very sadly reporting 68 new deaths today for a total of 1,473. And it seems like just the other day we were here and we were talking about how we had gone over 1,000 cases. And now we're right at 1500. I guess the best news from today's numbers, for those who, like me, look for that silver lining, we have 1747 patients hospitalized; 287 on ventilators. Now obviously that's not good news if you're one of those 1747 or you're one of those 287, but relative to yesterday's count, both of those numbers have decreased. We're 51 less in the hospital today than we were reporting yesterday, and we're ten less with respect to mechanical ventilator usage than we were yesterday. I've talked a lot about testing being our key to the phased reopening of our state, really what's been happening around the country as well. We're going to unveil more about that phased reopening over the coming days, but I want to be very clear that we have a goal in Louisiana? it's actually an imperative; it's not a goal? to do much more testing here. It's our responsibility as a state to work with healthcare providers, local officials, our federal partners, with companies that manufacture and distribute the necessary things that we need for testing. We're going to be doing that. And it's not just a function of the lab capacity, whether it's in state or out of state labs. You know, we talk a lot about Lab Corps and Quest, for example. The challenge right now, at least, and it has been for a while? and I had a call with the nation's governors today, 44 governors on a call, and this is something that's being faced by every state. The challenge is on sourcing the specimen collection kits to the degree that we need to to feel comfortable. So we're talking about swabs. We're talking about viral transport medium, and we're talking about reagent. And of course we're trying to manufacture as many of those things in state as possible and source them wherever possible. And much like we've seen, at least to date, with respect to PPE, we think that this is going to get better over time as well, but it's something we're working very hard on. But with respect to testing, it really is imperative that individual members of the public, Louisiana citizens, get tested when you should be tested. And this is what, I mean. If you have symptoms. And again, the classic symptoms are a cough, shortness of breath, fever. If you've been exposed and have symptoms or if you have a recommendation from a medical professional to get a test, then I'm asking you to get a test. It's important for you; it's important for your family; it's important for the state; it's important for? especially for the most vulnerable members of our state, those who have underlying and chronic health conditions or are advanced in age. And it's really important for those people who are on the frontlines, the doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists, the EMTs and paramedics and all of those individuals. And it helps as a state, the more we test, so the more that we know. You can go to LDH. for testing locations around the state. And I think we're still fighting this. I want to address it early on. There is no stigma for being tested for COVID19. There is no stigma if you get COVID19. And people shouldn't think about it in those terms. Think about it as an opportunity to help keep yourself healthy and safe and alive and your family members and people in your community, especially those who are most vulnerable. And understand, we've had some of the wealth I say people in the world contract this disease. We've had the prime minister of the united kingdom. We've had members of the royal family. There is no stigma. This is not something that you get? and by the way, we shouldn't have a stigma with anything that presents a public health challenge, any disease that you've ever heard of. But this is not one that you get based on behavior that some people might find objectionable. Many people get this disease and they'll never know where they got it, who they caught it from, or whatever. So everybody should just get that out of your mind. Get tested. It's the right thing to do for you, for your family, for your community, and for the state. The good news about getting the coronavirus, for the vast majority of people, is that they will survive. And, in fact, the vast majority won't even need hospitalization. But those who do need hospitalization really obviously do need it. And so we? if we're going to be successful, we have to do more testing. We have a part to play in that, but the public, you also have a part to play in that. Most importantly, as we move forward and we open up the economy, what we do is going to be informed by the testing that we do and the ability to contact trace, to go back and make sure that every one who came into contact with someone who subsequently tests positive, during that period of time when that individual would have been expected to be shedding virus, to be contagious, we need to be able to call them. So if we're not getting tested, then we don't have a basis from which to do contact tracing for the individuals who are positive but untested. So we need to make sure that everybody's doing that. If you have symptoms, consult with a medical professional. Testing is far more readily available today than it has been in the past. If you need answers to any particular questions, please call 211 with those questions as it relates to testing. As I said earlier, we're going to be announcing a plan in the coming days to discuss our next steps forward, but nobody should think that we're in the clear today because we're not. We're not even close. We know that we have a ways to go to make sure that we're on the proper trajectory. The plan that we have in place will remain in place at least until April the 30th when it is scheduled to terminate, and that the the stayathome order and minimizing travel and contact and so forth, making sure we're practicing social distancing and hygiene. And by the way many of these things are going to continue into the future regardless of which stage we're at until such time as we have a vaccine and we get fully back to normal because there's going to be a new normal between now and then. When we move forward, it will be with a plan that is consistent with the recommendations, the guidelines that came from the White House coronavirus task force, informed as it was by the CDC by people like Dr.?Burkes and Dr.?Fauci and others. And we obviously are still working on our plan, trying to figure out when we can implement it safely and what that plan will entail. But what we do know, as I mentioned earlier, there will be a new normal for some time. Not just for Louisiana, not just for the United States, but really for the world. And more social distancing will be required. Less physical contact is going to be required. The use of facial coverings and masks will be required. And I want to talk a little bit about face coverings. I know that there are some issues around that for children under two and for certain people with breathing challenges. But for everyone else, whether you have an underlying health condition or not, we really need you wearing masks when it public and coming into contact with other people. Obviously, I'm not wearing one right now because I'm trying to talk and to be heard and to be understood. Neither is Dr.?Billioux. But when we go out in public, we do wear masks, and I'm encouraging everyone else to do that as well. And for those members of the media who are here, starting tomorrow, you're going to be required to wear one to come into this room. Some of you have been doing that for a while. And I say this now because everybody needs to start preparing. Take the time that you have to make sure everyone in your family, in addition to yourself, has a face covering. Remember, you can buy them. You can make them. They don't have to be ornate or expensive. And unless you're a healthcare worker, you should not wear or purchase N95 or surgical masks because those remain in short supply, and we need to make sure they get to our frontline healthcare workers and first responders and others. What we're talking about is facial coverings that can be relatively simple and easy to make. We're going to have a lot more information for you going forward on that. But you can wear a scarf. I've seen folks who are especially creative make them out of Tshirts and other materials that you can find around the house. So I would encourage you to begin that process now, getting for yourselves and for your family. And think of wearing a mask in public as just being polite to others. It's kind of like opening a door for them or saying good morning or whatever. It's being kind. It's being courteous. Because when you wear a mask, you protect others. And when others wear masks, they protect you. So we're all in this together. And when we all wear masks, we're going effectively protect one another, which is why I'm calling upon Louisiana to mask up. There's a little different guidance when it comes to gloves. Neither the CDC nor the Louisiana Department of Health recommends that individuals wear gloves. If you're not in a particular job where you've always worn gloves, you shouldn't do that. They can actually cause more harm than good. They'll give you a false sense of security, but a virus will live on a glove easier than it will live on skin. And we're encouraging everybody to wash your hands frequently with soap and water, use hand sanitizer when you can't do that. But what we see a lot of people who are unaccustomed to wearing gloves f they start wearing gloves, then they stop washing their hands and they'll stop washing the virus off of the gloves but they're going to use those hands with those gloves on to touch their face and others and surfaces. And so they're really not recommended. And so we're asking people not to do that. Now, we've got a couple of questions from the public that we'll try to get to today. And after that, we'll take questions here in this room. And Dr.?Billioux is obviously with me to answer medical questions and questions about testing, although I think I can answer Theresa's question from Shreveport. When asked to return to work, what safety precautions are in place for immune compromised people, considering people can be asymptomatic and have COVID19? By the way, that is a great question. And one of the real challenges with this particular virus, with COVID19, is that some degree of people who have it are going to be asymptomatic. In fact, they may be asymptomatic the entire time that they have it or only mildly symptomatic. They don't associate themselves with this disease and they don't curtail their activities and so forth, and it makes it very, very difficult. And that's of particular concern to people who are older and people who have hypertension, diabetes, kidney failure? disease, I should say, heart disease and so forth. And that's what Theresa's asking about. So I can tell you this. Everyone should be wearing masks. If, you know, that your immunity system is compromised, then you should follow your doctor's orders. Take all the precautions necessary engineered stay healthy. Take whatever medicines you've been given to make your immune system as strong as it can possibly be. Eat well. All of those sorts of things. Work remotely if you can possibly work remotely. And then the things we're talking about, if you have to physically go to work, make sure your coworkers are doing the things that we're talking about. Following the social distancing, wearing masks, and all of those sorts of things. If you have one of these conditions that make you more vulnerable than others, such as an immune system that's been compromised, then you probably need to wash your hands more frequently than other people. And we all need to do that more frequently. It is very important that your coworkers stay home when they are sick. In fact, we're asking everybody to do that. But if you are in this situation that Theresa's asking about, it's really important that your coworkers stay home when they are sick. So those are the sorts of things. Really, they're the things we're asking everybody to do, under all circumstances. It's just more important for people who are vulnerable. And then we have a question from Thibodaux, from Guy. And he asks: Do you think the uptick in hospitalizations we've seen over the past two days? specifically related to, I think, April the 20th and April the 21st? is due to a decrease in social distancing associated with Easter weekend that happened about ten days ago? What I can say is not following social distancing guidance has an impact on the number of positive cases and on the number of hospitalizations. According to Unicast, we went from a B to a D over Easter weekend, and remember they look at your cell phone and your GPS in particular to try to figure out what the movement looks like. And so we did regress, at least by that measure, over Easter weekend. But, today, we're reporting a decrease in hospitalization from 1798 to 1747, and that number of a decrease is much larger than the increase we saw over the previous two days. But to get back to the question, because it was specifically talking about Easter weekend, you know, here we are day ten or 11 from the Easter weekend. I'm not sure that we have seen yet whether we will have an uptick in the number of cases associated with that particular weekend and the behavior that people in Louisiana, given how long it sometimes takes for this particular disease to manifest its symptoms that then cause people to be tested and become sick and all those sorts of things. So I don't think we really know yet. And before I take your questions, I'll ask Dr.?Billioux if he had anything to add to either of those two questions. Okay. So, with that, I'll take your questions. Greg?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, you've mentioned many times over the last few days the 14day requirements in order to be able to go into Phase I and reopening. So how many days does Louisiana have under its belt?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: On that particular metric?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, ERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: I want to say we're approaching day seven.DR. ALEX BILLIOUX: Yeah. We had a little bit of an uptick. Seven to nine. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: So and by the way I've been speaking of it because this is part of the guidance we received last Thursday from the White House coronavirus task force when the President and the vice president released their guidance to the states on transitioning into I guess what they would call reopening the country, and in our case, reopening the state with respect to our economy, getting more businesses open, getting more workers back to work, getting more consumers back into stores and restaurants and all of those sorts of things. And it's a phased approach. What you're talking about is what we call phase 0. It's those requirements that we have to meet. And right now we're about halfway through the 14?days. And the current trajectory looks promising, especially as it relates to hospitalization. And on the cases, they've actually plateaued. We do need to see them coming down. And on influence of like illnesses that have been reported, you know, we have a pretty good picture there as well. But it has to continue for the requisite 14day period, which is why I'm unable to stand here and tell you with any certainty exactly what our timeline is going to be going forward. But the imperative? the imperative today is the same as it has been for weeks now, and that is to comply with the stayathome order, to maintain our approach to social distancing and our approach to hygiene so that we transmit fewer cases and we stay on the trajectory that we need to that every day in the 14day period, the numbers have to be better than the day before. But you have to be able to ascertain a clear and defined trend over the 14day period. And just go back to when you were in school and you remember looking at all the graphs. In fact, we've been showing a lot of graphs in here at our press conferences. We just need the trajectory, the trend, to be positive over a 14day period. Yes, ma'am?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, in some other states, they're starting discussions of ratcheting down and closing the temporary hospital facilities that they've set up. Is that something you're considering with the convention center at this point, or what are the plans going forward for that?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: It is not something I'm considering with respect to the convention center because it's fully stood up in terms of the physical facility. It is not fully staffed. And we have made that investment. And quite frankly, we're not going to have conventions coming to New Orleans in the immediate future. And as we look at our modeling that comes from Johns Hopkins and other modeling that we've seen in addition to what we're producing here locally, we do see the possibility of an uptick in the future that would really threaten our ability to deliver healthcare. So what we have done, based on what we believe we will experience in the future, is we have not gone forward in the Sheraton Hotel or the Hyatt hotel. We do have the personal housing unit, the PHU as we call it, that can house about 250 people across the street from the Morial Convention Center. In all likelihood, we will not be renewing that contract. So that capacity will go away. But then I also want to remind you, that what we have at the Morial Convention Center is available not just for surge capacity in Region?one, which is the New Orleans/Jefferson Parish region, but if we need it to, in the future, it could serve as surge capacity for region 3, in Houma, Thibodaux area, River Parishes, and even region nine, on the north shore. So we've already made that investment. And given the modeling, we think the prudent thing is to hold onto it, leave it in place. We should have a census to date of about 100 in the Morial Convention Center. And that will probably be relatively stable going forward. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, for several days, you've talked about managing expectations once this new order goes in place and just going forward. How do you necessarily get that message across to some people who might think we're out of the woods or they don't necessarily need to follow everything once the new order comes in? And then how do you get maybe businesses that are reopening or sectors to also help with that message of managing expectations?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, it's a great question, because nobody likes the restrictions that are in place. I don't like them. People who are staying at home don't like them, and so forth. And so sometimes they'll look for any messaging that they can cling to to say, okay, we're past it. That's just not going to be the case until we have a vaccine. Not only do we not have a vaccine. We don't have an effective therapeutic treatment yet for this particular disease. So as we move forward, we're going to have to do it in a way that preserves a lot of the things that are in place today, with respect to social distancing and hygiene and wearing masks and all of those sorts of things. And so we're going to keep talking about it. I do hope you all will help. The members of the media, you have a role to play here too? it's a big one? to make sure that that is being communicated over time. And what people should understand: If we want to have success with reopening our economy, you can't have that if our cases spike back up. And remember, a month ago? and that may not be the precise date because I lose track of time and we've been doing this every single day? but it was about a month ago we were reporting the highest case growth in the world. You get back to numbers even approaching that and there is no way to successfully reopen your economy. When are you going to get the next convention to come to New Orleans? How are you going to get people to feel safe enough to go out and eat again? So we all have a role to play if we're going to protect public health, and protecting public health is necessary to reengage the economy. You know, I hear people say? and, look, it's not that I'm overly sensitive on this. I'm the Governor, and I make decisions and so forth. People say the stayathome order has had an adverse impact on the economy. I'll accept that. But had we not done the stayathome order, we would have had a bigger adverse impact on the economy, and it would be one that we would be a long time, much longer, trying to recover from. Because you are not going to reopen the economy when people are getting sick and dying because they don't have access to an intensive care unit bed or to a ventilator or whatever. It just isn't going to happen. So we all have a role to play here. We need to manage expectations. We need to understand that this is going to be with us for a while. And I know that people don't want to hear that, but it is the truth. And so we just need to adjust as best we can to this new normal and get through it in a way that allows us to, as best we can, maintain the balance between public health on the one hand and economic activity on the other. Because if you don't preserve the balance, you're just not going to be successful. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm not going to ask you anything about testing ERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Please don't?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Oil is in free fall. In fact, two days ago the May contracts were below 0 so producers were having to pay refiners to take the oil because we are slammed full at storage. Is there anything on the horizon that would help Louisiana oil companies? to say that they can't shutdown and simply cap wells because it costs too much to do that in order to reopen? So if they do, that means they have to layoff their workforce. The White House is considering some measure, but it sounds so at audits to be bailing out oil companies. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: It does. And you may recall that at one time? I don't know whether the oil sector was in the language in one of the previous bills for a stimulus, but I know that there was discussion at the end of the day, they were not in there. Obviously that would be helpful to the industry, and it would be helpful to states like Louisiana that are as reliant upon that particular industry and economic sector as we are. And one of the challenges that we're having is, with oil being so cheap and with the supply not being cut to the degree that it should be, is we're feeling? not we, but across the world, pipelines are being used to store oil. Vessels are being used to store oil. Railroad cars are being used to store oil. So even when demand starts to increase, the demand is going to tap into what's already being stored. There's not going to be a need to produce. This is something that Dr.?Lauren Scott was talking about yesterday on a PBS program that I'm not sure that it's aired yet, but it's a particular challenge for this industry and for Louisiana. We are looking at what we can do here in Louisiana. I am calling on the the federal government to do more for that particular industry because with transportation being down, I think there's been a 90?percent decline in demand for jet fuel. There's something like a 50?percent decline in demand for gasoline right now. And I'm not talking about Louisiana. I'm talking about around the country, around the world. This is a particular problem. And we have a task force that's set up, as you know, and one of the components of that is energy, and we're going to be consulting with experts to see what we can do as a state to help. You know, there are some things that are helpful, but it's not a magic bullet?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Would you consider severance taxes?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, you? I am going to authorize, and have authorized, the Department of Revenue to delay the collection of severance taxes. Cutting severance taxes depends upon the legislature. And, you know, so we'll discuss that going forward. There is a fundamental difference between the state and the federal government. And Leo, I know, you know, this, and others. We are being called upon right now to deliver more services while less revenue is coming into the door, and we don't have the option to run a deficit. The Constitution doesn't allow it. And so we have a lot of things that we have to balance. But what we can do in the shortterm is to delay when we would have those severance taxes paid. And I've authorized the secretary of revenue to do that. She will be making that announcement shortly. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: When you talked earlier about the reopening not being a oneway, we could have to close stuff back down? GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: We hope it's a oneway. But that means that we can't go too fast, and we hope to go in one direction. But we're going to be monitoring all the steps we take through testing. And we're going to? that's one of the reasons why we're building out a public facing dashboard at LDH that's going to give the public, not just us, the public, more information about what's happening in near real time about testing and cases and hospitalization and so forth, deaths and everything else, so that the public will know whether we're doing better or doing worse. And it helps us decide whether we need to continue to loosen restrictions over time as we are able or whether we need to ratchet back, and whether we need to do both or either of those actions as a state or maybe as a region. You know, so there's a lot of things that we have to take into account, but we know that it's not necessarily a oneway. We would like for it to prove, at the end of the day, to be a oneway, but we're going to have to move slow enough to know what's going on?AUDIENCE MEMBER: I guess my question is do you have a sense for how low we have to keep down the rise of cases, for instance? If we get to a point where in the next 14?days your modeling shows us running out of healthcare capacity, for instance, if that warrants a rationing type? GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: We're still working on the triggers and what that looks like. And I know because earlier this morning I had a meeting with our team and Dr.?Billioux led the meeting, and I'm going to let him come answer the question because he will do a better job than I will. But we're still trying to figure out exactly what that looks like. And by the way we're trying to get some guidance from CDC and the federal government on this as well. How do we measure over time whether we hit the next gate so that we can proceed to the next phase of reopening or whether we actually see numbers that cause us to not move forward and under what circumstances should we go back and tighten up the restrictions a little bit? And it's going to depend upon where hospital capacity is at the time, what the cases look like. And we expect that this may play out not so much the state as a whole, but in certain regions. And we we don't know, but anything we do will have to be informed by testing, which is going to have to be more robust than it currently is, even though we have greatly stepped up the amount of testing that we're currently doing. So, Dr.?Billioux, you've now had enough time to think about your answer to this question. Come up and answer it.DR. ALEX BILLIOUX: Yeah. I actually don't have much more that I would add than what the Governor said. I think that going forward we're going to be looking at, obviously, wanting to continue to see cases go down. There is a bottom; right? Zero?cases would be our eventual goal. I'm not sure that that's a bottom we will see until we have vaccines, frankly. But if we're talking about how long do we move from phase to phase, you know, there's going to be things that tell us we just need to stay in this phase longer. And then unfortunately there could be times when we see an uptick in cases or even just people presenting to the emergency department ill with symptoms like COVID. And we call that syndromic surveillance. If we start to see people showing up with the symptoms of COVID in a larger number, we know that that's the leading indicator that following that is a wave of hospitalizations a wave of people on ventilators, and then all the consequences from that. And so looking at that data, working with the CDC to refine our recommendations, you're going to see, you know, how we're going to recommend to the Governor that we either move forward, stay where we are, or worst case scenario, move backwards. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: And let's expand on that a little bit before we get to the last question. As we get to the fall? and I think you heard Dr.?Redfield talking about this yesterday? when we get back to the next flu season, people who present with the flu are going to demand the same resources from the medical community as people who present with COVID19. And the good news is mitigation measures that are effective against COVID19 are also effective against the flu, but what you don't want is both of these things taking place in the state of Louisiana unchecked because then you're going to present a tremendous difficult challenge to the medical community to meet the needs of our people. And so when we get into October and November, for example, then measuring the syndromic presentations to our healthcare providers, that's going to become even more important. It's going to be important throughout, but it's going to be even more important as we approach the next flu season. So we have one more question. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: You mentioned the Unicast scoreboard, the grade for our social distancing. We're at a C now, which is great compared to the D that we once had. Any concern about that? well, what part does this grade play in decisionmaking? And any concern of that grade possibly dropping with what seems to be more cars on the road now and our neighbors Texas reopening and people from there possibly coming here?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah, you know, the grade? we won't be making our decisions so much on the grade that we get. It's going to be informed by the things we mentioned: What is our hospital capacity? What is our case count with respect to COVID19? How many people are presenting with these influenza like illnesses to healthcare providers over a certain window? So that's going to inform our decisionmaking. But to the extent that these grades are accurate, they predict that we would see an up surge in cases, the less disciplined we are with our social distancing and our staying at home and so forth. So they don't directly play a role in our decisionmaking, but they indirectly play a role in the decision that we are likely to make if, in fact, a worse grade does translate, as we fear it will, into more cases. Now, obviously, you know, we have interstate commerce. We're going to have I20 and Iten and I55 and I49, they're all going to stay open. And we're going to have people moving from north to south and east to west. Anytime you do that, you run the risk of having people transmit the virus who otherwise wouldn't if they had stayed wherever they were going to be. That's just part of our society, and we're? you know, we understand that. But we believe if we have the ability to robustly test and then to quickly followup with the contact tracing that we need to do, that we're going to be successful. But we're still? you know, we're talking about the future, and it's important that we do that because we're trying to manage expectations, but the most important message today is we're not in the future yet. We're still in today. We need to make sure that we are achieving the case count numbers that we're looking for on that downward trajectory, that we're not having more people going to the hospital. And certainly we don't want to keep having to report these large number of deaths that we're reporting every day, even though we know they are a lagging indicator, those are real people. And that is tragic. And we don't want to keep having those reports. So everybody doing what we're asking them to do is incredibly important for all of those reasons. So thank you all for being here again today. I would ask the people of Louisiana to continue to be patient and continue to be focused and resolute. I know how resilient we are, and I know that we're going to get through this. And I would ask you to continue to lift one another up in prayer, especially those family members of people who have died as a result of this, and especially our first responders who are challenged in ways? I say first responders? our healthcare professionals who are challenged in ways that they probably never imagine. And they are real heroes in this. They're being very selfless. And we're all much better off for it. So let's remember them in our prayers and be thankful for them. I know that I am thankful for all of them. God bless you. ................
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