03192020 COVID-19 Press Conference



GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Before I came out, I just learned about two new deaths that we've had in Louisiana because of the coronavirus. The total death is now ten in the state of Louisiana. One of those is a 44yearold Orleans Parish with underlying health conditions and the other is a 91yearold Lambeth House resident. Obviously, these individuals are in that most atrisk category of our citizens because of age and underlying health conditions. So that makes the fifth death case at Lambeth House, and 24 cases total at Lambeth House, which remains at this time the only known cluster of cases in our state. For total confirmed cases in Louisiana, that number is now 380. You should know that I just finished a call with the President and the vice president and America's governors, some of which I understand was aired live on CNN and fox news. And of course we discussed the current crisis. I did have a chance to ask him a question and share with him my top priorities for the state of Louisiana. Certainly the number one priority has to do with rapidly increasing our medical and healthcare surge capacity. Based on the first models that we ran that I was able to take a look at just before our call with the President, we were able to determine that under basically what is a worst case scenario, the coronavirus spread and its impact could begin to out pace our healthcare capacity in a certain region, down in the Orleans/Jefferson region, within about seven to ten days without additional support from the federal government. Again, this is a worst case scenario. And we are continuing to run different models, and we're engaging all of the experts that we have here in Louisiana. And we're asking for experts outside of our state to take a look at it too to make sure that we have the best estimate of what we should expect and prepare for. Obviously, we have an urgent need to increase our medical capacity because that's the only part of the equation that we are somewhat in control of. So we are doing those things. But the other side of the equation is minimizing the rate at which coronavirus is spreading across Louisiana. This has been our goal since day number one. That's why we put in place mitigation measures that became increasingly restrictive in terms of human contact and movement and so forth over time. Mitigation is absolutely key. And I am, again, urging? I am imploring every resident in the state of Louisiana to understand that you have a role to play. Whether or not you're in the high risk category, every person is capable of contracting and spreading this infection. So we need everyone to adhere to the precautions that we have put out, everything from the closures to limitation of crowd size, following the social distancing, washing your hands, controlling your cough. All of that and much more is incredibly important. We have to slow the spread of the virus, and you've heard it referred to as basically flattening the curve so that we take this duration of this outbreak and we extend it over a longer period of time. That gives our healthcare community a longer time to ramp up and increase their surge capacity, and it also prevents more demand from being placed on them in the very near term. So that's why we're doing those mitigation measures. And, look, we've been saying for several days now that the case count in Louisiana on a per capita basis is among the highest in the country. So what I said to the President should surprise no one, because I've always said that we're most concerned about exceeding our capacity to deliver healthcare. And it stands to reason that the healthcare infrastructure that we have, that any state has, is sized to meet the demand of the population. And so while we don't have the highest raw count of cases in the country, on a per capita basis, we're right up there at the top. And, in fact, if you rank ordered the raw count of all of the counties and parishes in the United States of America, Orleans currently comes in at number?seven. Orleans Parish is nowhere near the seventh largest parish or county in the country by population. And I can illustrate that by telling you that currently number?eight is Cook County, Illinois, which is where Chicago is. So this is a very, very serious situation. And I know that's a sobering analysis, but it is entirely consistent with what we've been telling you for days now. And that's why we need people to take all of these precautions seriously. And as we also have been telling you for several days, as the testing capacity and the throughput capacity of our labs is increased and as we have commercial labs coming online with significant testing, we are going to see more cases in Louisiana. Now, it is distressing to see the cases rise, but it's actually helpful because it gives us a better idea of what we're dealing with, and we're not flying in the blind so much. And this is going to continue over the next several days, so I want to continue to prepare people in Louisiana that this situation will get more severe, much worse before it actually plateaus and then gets better. A little bit of positive news is I'm happy to announce today that the Small Business Administration, the SBA, has approved all 64 parishes in Louisiana as being eligible for COVID19 business aide. And that means that all of Louisiana small businesses which meet SBA criteria are now eligible to apply for low interest federal disaster loans of up to $2?million. And I want to thank our federal partners for swiftly approving my request for assistance. We are one of the first, if not the first, to be approved on a statewide basis. And I really appreciate that because we are working as best we can to get aide to our small businesses as quickly as possible. And we know that they are all suffering because of the mitigation measures and all of the impact related to our state and federal response to COVID19. Today, I will also be issuing another proclamation to address school accountability measures that will need to be suspended in light of the current situation. This proclamation applies to the current school year, 20192020, and addresses suspensions to testing administration, school and district accountability, teacher evaluation, student attendance, teacher workdays, and charter school application, and enrollment. Some of these suspensions will be effective only if and when the United States Department of Education grants a waiver of the relevant provisions because we have basically a contractual agreement with the U.S. Department of Education under the Every Student Succeeds Act to engage in certain assessments and accountability and evaluation framework and so forth. And so I will suspend those statutory requirements today. The effectiveness of some of these suspensions will come in to play once the waivers are granted, and we believe that they will be granted. The education of our students is obviously extremely important, and I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard and quickly to adopt distance learning practices, especially our educators and school administrators. I am encouraging family and caregivers, parents too: Take every opportunity, make efforts to find out what your school district is doing, what educational activities your children can engage in while school is not in session. For that reason, I encourage parents to utilize resources like the public broadcasting educational program. And with libraries closed, I found out today that my wife, Donna, your first lady, who is a former teacher, she's going to be holding virtual reading every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00?a.m. on her Facebook page. I also want to announce that if you've lost your job or if you're paid hourly and have reduced hours, you may now be eligible for Medicaid even though you were not before because many of the programs under Medicaid, including the expansion, are determined by your income. You can apply online at mymedicaid.. You can also apply by phone, and that number is 18883426207. As I've said before, we're all in this together. Louisianians are at our best when we are in adverse times, and we come together. We are good neighbors to one another, and we treat one another as brothers and sisters, and I am encouraging everyone to do exactly that for the remainder of this crisis so that we can do all that we can to minimize the spread, make sure that we're doing what we can do for our neighbors, especially those who are older and those with underlying health conditions. So we're going to get through this. We're asking for patience. We're asking for cooperation. And certainly I'm asking for prayers. As I mentioned, I'm now going to be followed by Marketa Walters of DCFS. She'll be followed by Ava Dejoie of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, then I'll come back and take your questions.MARKETA WALTERS: Thank you, Governor. There is a lot of confusion about the supplemental nutrition food program right now that we know as SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. This is not a DSNAP situation. People in Louisiana are very used to having disaster food stamps anytime we have a natural disaster that comes our way. This is very different. So we have information for you and handouts for you that explain the SNAP program and how you can apply to receive those benefits if you have never been on them before, but now because of a different circumstance in your employment, you might become eligible. Now we have text capacity that you can text get SNAP to 898211 and that will give you a link directly to the food stamp application, and then you can fill that out. You can also call LAHELPU, 888LAHELPU, which is our customer service line that can help you walk through that if you need help. Congress has done a lot to try to loosen some of the parameters around the SNAP program. Remember the SNAP program is 100?percent federally funded program, and it's their program and they run it. The states administer it. So any changes made to it must be changed by the federal government. Congress and the senate just passed the bill and is awaiting the President's signature that makes some changes to the program that will loosen some of the restrictions, and then we as a State have applied for waivers that can loosen some others. So we will be able to directly communicate to our SNAP recipients next week so that people don't have to come into the office; they don't have to call. We'll be able to say directly to you through rave alerts and online texting, this is what you're eligible to get in your benefits; this is what's available to you'. And this is not what's available to you. It's a complicated program, and people get very confused. Our numbers have tripled. Last Tuesday, we had about 1,000 applications for SNAP benefits. This week on Tuesday, we had 3,000 applications. So we need our SNAP recipients to just take a breath and know that we're communicating directly with you. You do not have to call us. If you are new to the program and have never been on SNAP benefits and you want to know if you're eligible, then you can text 211 and get information. You can call them, and they will help you with that. And then our customer call center is also available. We are fully confident that we will be able to serve our population and give them the food help that they need in the best, fastest way that we possibly can. We will turn on every resource that we have available to us to help people get food. And so I will take questions at the end.AVA DEJOIE: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I just wanted to provide a brief update related to unemployment insurance benefits provided to those that have experienced a job loss or a reduction in hours. We would encourage everyone that needs to apply for benefits to go to . Additionally, if you are experiencing problems getting through, I would encourage you to wait until nonpeak hours, which I would call during the middle of the night or early in the morning. Just because of the sheer volume of individuals we have filing, it is slowing the system down. We are doing everything that we possibly can to increase capacity, and the governor has authorized every single support that we have asked for to be able to continue to do so. To give you an idea of the numbers of claims we've had filed thus far. As of lunchtime today, we were at 30,000 new claims for this week. 30,000 new claims for this week. To give you a comparison, last week, we had 1,700 new claims for the entire week. So we are experiencing a high call claim volume. You can also call in to your call center, although the preferred method to apply is through the internet, and that number is 8667835567. Again, 8667835567. We have put additional staff onto our call center, and we will answer each and every call. If you are unable to get in, please know that you have time to file and open your initial claim, and we will make sure that we work with you so that you can file your claim and begin to receive unemployment insurance benefits. The maximum benefit amount here in Louisiana is $247 per week. We will also be putting out a video tutorial so that you can take a look at what you'll need to file your claim in the claims filing process before you go on. So we would ask all of our friends in the media to post that tutorial so that individuals can know what they need to do and what information they need to have to be able to file a claim. We anticipate that your first checks will be received mid week next week, and we will continue to be there to assist. We have pulled other staff from other divisions within the workforce commission to support our UI team. So we have a total of 500 staff working and processing these claims. We are returning calls and responding to each and every email. So we appreciate your patience. Please know that we understand what difficult times these are, and we will work to assist you in every way possible. Thank ERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Thank you, Ava, Marketa. I will take questions. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: You referenced? can you give us some of the data underlying that? Like what is your capacity for hospital deaths and what our various projections are?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah, I'm not going to do that because I want to be responsible. That was the first effort to model. It was put into my hands just a few minutes before that telephone conference began, but it highlighted what has been our number one concern for several days, and that is increasing our surge capacity to deliver more healthcare. And so the information that I've given you, I think, speaks for itself. And we are going to continue to study and probably refine that modeling as well, you know, and we're reaching out to other experts, as I previously mentioned. But that first look that I had? and it was a worst case scenario, was it was very sobering because it indicates that we don't have much time to increase our surge capacity. But, you know, we also have to redouble our focus and our efforts as it relates to mitigation and slowing the spread of the virus. Yes, ma'am?AUDIENCE MEMBER: On that same issue, in terms of the lack of capacity, is that because of the beds, or is that because of equipment shortages? Is that because of both? Can you walkthrough what you're talking about in terms of? GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, ultimately, when you talk about medical surge and your capacity, you have to have the beds, the equipment, and you have to have the staff. And that is? you know, we ran the models based on assumptions about the continued growth rate of the spread and also the percentage of people who are positive who have to be hospitalized at any given time. And so there's a lot of different numbers that you can run.But at the end of the day, it shows a growth of the number of people in hospitals, every day. And you know what your available beds are now. You know, what your available beds are at the surge capacity that we are preparing for. And so you can kind of circle the day when your capacity meets your demand, and then every day after that, you're in deep trouble. I mean, that's the way this works. Again, this was modeling that was based on worst case scenario, but, you know, if the worst case is there? and by the way, the worst case, it will only happen if people of Louisiana don't engage in these mitigation efforts. Because it assumes that the spread continues just like it has been. And the positive cases we're seeing today relate to exposures that happened several days ago. So if we are doing what we're supposed to do in this mitigation measures, then we should start to see a slower rate of new cases at some point. And as soon as we can bring that slower rate online, then the better, because we then don't exceed our capacity to deliver healthcare services. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: There's a capacity for beds, but what about medical professionals? What is the state doing the increase the number of doctors that are available to treat patients? GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah, well, first of all? and it gets very complicated, but obviously you have? the question is a good question because we've been working on that for a few days. We actually have a strike team now working for several days at the department of health, identifying multiple strategies to make sure that we can staff new beds in order to increase our capacity. For the shortterm, individual hospitals, and certainly hospital systems, can increase their capacity internally because they know the staff that they have. They can reallocate staff from elective procedures that we are putting on hold, and then those doctors, those nurses, those PAs, and so forth, are then available. So when they look at what they can do internally at a hospital or system level, that's very, very helpful, because they also then have the ability to better use space that is currently available so it doesn't have to be constructed and so forth. So we're working that as the primary means by which to achieve this surge capacity. Now, there comes a point where if I go out and open a hospital that may have been closed and it's no longer part of any hospital or any system, I've got to find the staff to go in there, and we're working through various strategies on that. When I have more, I will let you know. This is not a problem unique to Louisiana. In fact, one of the things that is so challenging about this particular disaster? and this is unlike any that people in Louisiana are accustomed to, and it makes a big difference, is typically when we have something happen here and we're working with our sister states and the federal government, it's because we have a hurricane or we had a flood and you can always look to other parts of the country where they have the resources that you need and they don't need them, and so they send them your way. And you have a federal government that has stock piled resources and people and so forth, and they send them your way. Well, we have the entire country that is on the same footing as we are, and so we're not going to be getting the assistance from our sister states, as we normally would, and the federal government is doing the very best job that they can to resource our request for assistance, but they're having to do that across the entire country. And so I don't want to speak for them, but they obviously have to go through some triage process in order to figure out where those limited resources are going to go, at least where they're going to go at the outset, until the production capacity ramps up. So that's what we're dealing with as it relates to every single facet of this particular crisis, whether it's our testing capacity, our collection kits, testing kits, whether it's ventilators and so forth, staff. And so this is a particularly hard emergency to navigate through, and it keeps bringing it back to the point I keep making. And I guess I'm hopeful that if I make it enough times, people will take it seriously. What we can do is we can slow the spread of this so that it doesn't overrun my capacity, but I can't do it for you. You're going to have to use the mitigation measures that we've put in place. You're going to have to honor those. And certainly if you're a leader, you're going to have to be a leader and you're going to have to make sure that you're telling people to follow the rules. And certainly don't do anything that would lead people to ignore them. And so, you know, I know I keep going back to that point, but it is the most critical point that I can make to the public right now. Yes, ma'am?AUDIENCE MEMBER: The National Governors Association among the list of requests it had in the letter was flexibility on the use of the National Guard. Is that an issue that is of importance to you, and are there ways you'd like to use the guard that you currently don't have the ability to do?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: No. Really, what my request of the President was, and the number one request from the NGA to the President, has to do with how it's funded. If they're funded under title 32, it's easier for us. And it's kind of complex, and I can have General Waddell come out with me next to explain this. But to answer your question, we're able to use the National Guard as we need to right now. And, in fact, we're employing a little over 400 national guards. I think it's 389 that are on state active duty for this particular event presently, and we can ramp that up considerably. As you know, they're providing security at our shelter sites where we have people in isolation or quarantine, depending on whether they are positive or not. But they are either homeless or they just cannot go home. And so they're doing that down at Bayou Segnette, and they're going to do that at two other parks around the state because we want to employ this regionally. And then they're also going to be out assisting with the drive through test sites, three of which will open tomorrow, two in Orleans Parish, one in Jefferson Parish. Or at least that's the latest information that we have. Those should open tomorrow. We are helping Jefferson and Orleans to run those sites. And so we're also? the National Guard is working warehousing operations. So as they receive many of the things that we're requesting, then they are the ones that actually push that out to where it's needed. So the National Guard is? they're activated. They're doing what we need them to do. We would just rather have them operate under title 32. It's just easier from a funding perspective from the state. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, in light of the cases at Lambeth House, twodozen you said, how many in the Baton Rouge areas have originated from these assisted living facilities?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: I don't know that I can answer the question, and we don't have that information. And I don't know if it's one or two or? I don't know. I don't have any reason today to tell you that assisted living facilities have been a driver in the cases that are being reported anywhere outside of Lambeth House. And I just really don't want to speculate on that. AUDIENCE MEMBER: In light of your new proclamation regarding schools, just to clarify, I know you mentioned school testing among other things. Is that to suspend the school testing that is to start April?1st for the year? GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: It is to suspend certain assessment and accountability measures, whether it's leap testing, end of course testing. And then you take those test results and you build in evaluations for teachers, letter grades for schools, et cetera it's a complex system that really is built around accountability. And we didn't just put them into statute. We also, after the federal government passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, we agreed, we committed ourselves, we obligated ourselves to engage in those things. It becomes necessary then for secretary DeVos, the U.S. Department of Education secretary, to then granted us a waiver from our contractual obligations. And so while I'm going to suspend state law, those suspensions are really only effective once we get the waiver. And it's a little more complex than it probably should be, but that's just the way it works. I don't anticipate we're going to have a problem getting the waiver. And I can tell you we will probably be one of all 50 states who ultimately get similar waivers from the federal government because every state has these contractual obligation, I think, every state but one or two. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, as you get more data and modeling done on this thing, are you moving closer to adding more mitigation measures, or is it possible we might stay where we are now?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Certainly it's possible we could stay where we are now, but as we refine the modelling and take into account what it's showing us in terms of when or if the demand for healthcare could eclipse our capacity, then it becomes incumbent upon us to do more, both as it relates to surging and as it relates to mitigation. And there aren't too many more mitigation measures that we can put into place. What I can tell you is I am reasonably certain that if we had compliance by the people of Louisiana to the maximum extent, we certainly wouldn't need to have additional mitigation measures put in place. And so I would rather the people focus on doing what they should be doing. And, you know, a doctor on CNN the other night said it best, I think. Everybody should conduct him or herself as if they have the coronavirus. I suspect if we did that, nobody would be in this room listening to me right now. But if people would engage that way and wash their hands and do the social distancing and so forth, that's what we need to do right now. AUDIENCE MEMBER: A couple of hospitals in the Baton Rouge and Lafayette area have put out a call for equipment. They say they're critically low on certain things, masks and safety goggles, things like that. Is that on your radar statewide? And also has the ventilator situation improved? GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah. So PPE is on our radar as it relates to healthcare workers, first responders, nursing homes. But it's on the radar of all of these healthcare providers in Louisiana, elsewhere, all around the country and around the world. And so we're doing everything that we can and working with the federal government, working with the vendors who typically sell these items into the state of Louisiana. We are making maximum use of N95 respirators that have authorized now by the FDA to be used in the healthcare setting. But you would typically see these in industrial settings, so these may be more readily available, both because they are here in sufficient quantity already, and because the manufacturing capacity or the warehouses related to their distribution system may be in a place. Hopefully, they are. And so we're trying to make use of that. And, by the way I'm encouraging all of the industrial entities in Louisiana that may have stock piled N95 respirators, these masks, to please contact the Louisiana department of economic development and I'm asking you to be generous in donating those masks to the state of Louisiana here in the shortterm until we can get the normal PPE stock piles that we need in order to meet this demand. But obviously this is a challenge all around the country. The situation with ventilators is particularly challenging. Because if an individual is hospitalized because of the coronavirus, there is a very good chance that that individual is going to need to be placed on a ventilator. And we only have so many ventilators in our state, but that's true for every state. And so we're all trying to get more ventilators and we're trying to figure out what flexibility we have to move ventilators that may be used, for example, in some of these surgical suites for the optional surgical procedures that we're going to be delaying, can those, in fact, be brought into the hospital and used. We think that they can, and we're working to make sure that that's authorized and that we can maximize our supply that with way. We are also trying, with some success, to acquire new ventilators, just by buying them. But everybody in the country is trying to buy ventilators right now, so they're very, very difficult to find.AUDIENCE MEMBER: In terms of the numbers, when you released the positive case numbers, I obviously understand that all of those people aren't necessarily in hospitals. So how are y'all keeping track of and monitoring the people who have positive tests to ensure that they are self quarantining and that they are doing what they're supposed to do to not spread things? GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: First of all, that is a great point, and it's one that sort of goes back to the modeling, and I really shouldn't get too deep into this. Initially, our testing, because of our limited capacity to test and the protocols that we received from CDC, a large percentage of people that we were testing were those people who were in the hospital and therefore if you just look at the positive cases, then there's a very high percentage of people who were in the hospitals. As we expand our testing to people who are ambulatory, not in a hospital, and probably never need to be in a hospital, then the percentage of people who test positive who need to go into the hospital would be much smaller. Okay? And so you've got to figure out what that number is as best you can, and that needs to inform your model. We're not really there yet because we're just now starting to get the test results from the increased testing capacity and all of the testing that has come online here recently, including all the private labs. But for those individuals? and by the way we should all hope that a large percentage of the people who were positive do not need to go into a hospital, but they do need to go home and they need to isolate for the period that they're going to be told. And they need to abide by that. And we are giving them very specific instructions to go home, to stay home, to call in a couple of times a day, I believe it is, with their temperatures and so forth. And if their symptoms worsen, that they need to be back in touch with or go back to their healthcare provider or their hospital. But this is one of those things that gets right up there with the mitigation measures. If you are an individual who contracts this virus and you're lucky enough not to need a hospital, you need to go home and do what you've been instructed to do because to the extent that you don't do that and you allow people into your home to visit with you, you are spreading? or at least you're taking an unreasonable risk of spreading that virus. And so it's a great question, but, you know, in the coming days and weeks, because this is not something that's going to be over soon a much greater percentage of people who test positive are going to be given instructions and told to go home and isolate. And so it is important that people do exactly as they are told by their healthcare providers when they are sent home. All right. Last question. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, you talked about the importance of changing behavior, and you've said a couple of times that if we don't, these things may come true. I just want to clarify. Are we on pace in Louisiana to meet that worst case scenario?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yes. We are. And if you just look at the increase in cases daytoday, the percentage of new cases and how long it takes to double the number of cases? and this is early. But our trajectory is basically the same as what they had in Italy. And if there's? if anything that I've said today that ought to get people's attention, it is that. And if you think that just because we're the United States of America we can't possibly get to where Italy is today, I would ask you on what assumption are you making that determination? If we are not going to look like Italy in about ten days or two weeks, it'll only be because of these mitigation measures. It will only be because of these mitigation measures. So I hate to leave on such a sobering note, but there you have it. I'm asking for the very best of the people of Louisiana. I'm asking for prayers. We're going to do everything that we possibly can to increase our capacity to manage this as best we can using every available resource, thinking outside the box, but there's only so much your state can do. There's only so much your parish, your city government can do. I need you to do for yourself. Thank you very much. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download