04102020 COVID-19 PC



GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being here and thank all of you for tuning in on this Good Friday. I'm joined today by LSU gymnastics head coach DD Breaux who' going to speak towards the end of this about the Get It to Geaux campaign. We will also be joined shortly by Archbishop Gregory Aymond. He will be participating by Zoom today. We do start today on a very somber note, and that is that late yesterday afternoon we lost a member of the Louisiana legislature to COVID19, newly elected representative Reggie Bagala from Lafourche Parish spent his life make his community and south Louisiana a better place. Just about three months ago, he was sworn in to his first term, and I know that he came to the state capital with excitement and eagerness to serve our state and the people of house district 54. Today, the entire state is mourning this great loss, and I ask everyone to please keep his family in your prayers right now, as well as all the families who have suffered because they've lost someone or because someone remains gravely ill because of this disease. And before I get to the latest numbers and testing about COVID19, I want to take a moment to brief you on another situation that people need to be aware of this weekend. Saturday and Sunday, we're looking at a chance for strong to severe thunderstorms throughout many parts of the state, beginning in northwest Louisiana from late Saturday through the first half of Sunday that will also be isolated flood threat. Widespread flash flooding is not expected at this time, put please pay attention to all of the updates on the weather forecasting because that could change. Transitioning into Sunday, very large hail, widespread disruptive wind gusts and strong, long track tornados will be possible across much of northern Louisiana. For south Louisiana, the entire area has been upgraded from slight to either an enhanced or a moderate threat as confidence continues to increase at a significant severe weather outbreak is possible across a large portion of the area on Sunday. At this time the main threats for most of south Louisiana will be wind gusts up to 60mileperhour, potentially greater, which could down trees and power lines, hail up to 1 inch in diameter, and tornados, some of which could be very strong with a long track. Timing could change, but at this time Sunday afternoon to Sunday evening will be the most dangerous times for this region, and that could potentially extend to overnight on Sunday. We all know that weather forecasts change and conditions change, so get a game plan now to deal with this weather threat. So stay weather aware. Watch for alerts from the national weather service and from your local media and your local emergency managers, and look for emergency alerts on your cell phone, especially as they pertain to tornados. And with that I'm going to get back to our daily coronavirus briefing. Today, we added 970 new cases, bringing our total statewide to 19,253. Sadly, on this Good Friday, we are announcing 53 new deaths, which brings us to 755 total across the state. Overall, our testing capacity has yielded, 92,000, tests, a little bit more than that, almost 92,300 tests, which keeps us among the top nations in the state among the per capita testing. We're going to continue to do everything we can to further increase the testing that takes place in Louisiana. We did see some small increases in the number of people hospitalized and in the number of people on vents compared to yesterday. But based primarily on the current modeling, the number of new hospital admissions and the number of? I should say the ventilator utilization across the state, it is fair to say that we're in a better place today than we were at this time last week. And that gives us something to be thankful for going into Easter weekend. It is because of you. It is because of the people of Louisiana and your compliance with the stay at home order. It is because of the hygiene practices that you all have adopted and social distancing, that that is the case. And so I have to caution everyone that we're only going to continue on this more positive trajectory if everyone maintains social distancing, good hygiene practices, and follows the stay at home order. I want you to know that the federal testing sites that we've had in Louisiana for some time now, three of them operating? two of them in Orleans, one in Jefferson? are going to stay open. Because you may have seen where today was the last official day. We did request, and the federal government has authorized, us to maintain that testing capacity in Louisiana going forward with federal sponsorship. And this is something that the vice president offered to me on our video telephone conference earlier this week. And that's going to happen. The testing at the center in Jefferson Parish will continue just as it has been conducted in the past. The two sites that had been consolidated at UNO in New Orleans will be relocating. I do want to take this moment to thank admiral Brett Gerard who is, by the way, a Louisiana native, he works with at health union services in the public health service, and he is over testing for the entire country. And so obviously he had something to do with the continued sponsorship of the federal government of these testing sites. In order to take maximum advantage of them, working with the Office of Public Health and local elected leaders and knowing the hot spots that are developing between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the River Parishes, we're going to move these testing sites from New Orleans to? one is going to be conducting tests starting next week at Gramercy elementary school, another at Hahnville high school. Now, that testing will start on Wednesday, April the 15th. In addition, the test action clinic will test two days a week in Edgard on the Westbank of St. John the Baptist Parish starting next week. And we're working with local providers for a mobile testing unit that will further increase testing along the Westbank, other River Parishes, and we will have more information about that on next week. I am pleased to tell you that we have distributed 7.5?million items of PPE thus far, and I want to thank the National Guard because they are doing the heavy lifting there. They're maintaining our warehouse here so that they receive the shipment, they then get instructions from GOHSEP as to where to deliver those items, and they've also been the ones delivering the ventilators and other things as well. But at this point in time they have delivered 7.5?million items of PPE. Today, I'm announcing the creation of Louisiana COVID19 Health Equity Task Force. By health equity, we mean everyone has had the opportunity to attain their highest level of health. This task force will bring leverage? I'm sorry, it will leverage our research capabilities and intellectual brain power in a collective manner to tackle this issue. And I'm asking universities and research institutions in the medical community to lead this effort, specifically Southern University's Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy; also Xavier University's Department of Public Health Sciences; the health science centers at LSU and Tulane; the Louisiana Department of Health Office of Public Health will participate as well; the Louisiana Department of Federal Bureau Minority Health Access; but also the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the schools of nursing at all of our universities across the state of Louisiana. The immediate assignment for the task force is to make sure communities with health disparities are receiving good information on COVID19 safety and prevention, provide the medical community with best practices and protocols for treating communities with underlying medical conditions and health disparities, and ensure testing availability and ease of access for all communities. Obviously, the end goal is health equity. We want to make sure that we have better health outcomes on the other side of this pandemic as well. So we need to answer the question: What are the social determinants of health disparity and how do we ensure health equity for all of our citizens? And this task force will be meeting this charge. Dr.?Kim hunter read, the commissioner of higher education, has already sent an inquiry to all of our universities to identify the leading experts, and the names have start coming in to my office. This task force will begin its work immediately, and their research will result in the creation of a dashboard on health equity. This is something we can do now to minimize the spread of COVID19 really across the state, but particularly in these communities where members are most vulnerable. And as you know, the last several days, we've been talking about the fact that African Americans are comprising about 70?percent of all the COVID19 deaths whereas they are only 33?percent of the state's population, and we're going to try to figure out what we can do to address that. But the work that's going to be done by this task force is actually going to benefit everybody in the state of Louisiana. I do hope that everyone will have a blessed Easter weekend. Remember, you can be with your loved ones. I'm encouraging you to be with your loved ones, but do that one household at a time and refrain from the large gatherings that you would typically engage in over Easter weekend. I do have again today a couple of questions from the public. The first one is Debbie from Baton Rouge. I'm going to read the question, then I'm going to ask Dr.?Billioux to come up and answer it. If you test positive, what is your incubation period until you're considered well? Is it a certain time feverfree?DR. ALEX BILLIOUX: So that's a great question, Debbie and I think probably asking a question that's on a lot of people's minds. And I think it bears emphasizing, despite the fact that we've sadly lost 755 Louisianians, most people who get the COVID? who have COVID will get better. Now, my understanding is that it is a pretty rough illnesses, and it's not something that any of us want to have to go through. So by all means, everything the Governor just said, we should be staying at home and limiting our exposure to folks. But it is something that takes time to get through. Our definition from the CDC definition for when we can say that you're actually recovered is at least seven days after you had symptoms develop. That's usually when we say you had the beginning, on your onset of illness. And after that time period what we're looking for is three days without a fever and without any? without significant improvement? and with significant improvement in your symptoms before we can say that you are recovered. And respect importantly that time period without the fever has to be without taking a medicine like a Tylenol or ibuprofen that's helping reduce that fever. So, again, you have to be without symptoms for three days before we would say you're recovered. And during that entire period, between symptoms and to that point where you're fever free and feeling better, everybody who has those symptoms, even if you haven't been tested, should be isolating, so staying away from your family and friends and doing an extra good job of cleaning up after yourself, washing your hands, so that we really limit the spread of virus around the communities. So thanks for that question, Debbie. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Thank you, Alex. And Francis from Pineville has asked: Will some parishes be able to open back up sooner than those with hot spot situations? That too is a great question, and as we get closer to April the 30th, we will make a decision here about what if any of the restrictive measures that are currently in place get continued. And quite frankly, as Dr.?Fauci says all the time, the virus is in control of the timeline going forward. We really are not. But as we get close to that date, we will look at what the situation is in Louisiana, what the guidance is coming from the CDC, what the testing capacity is at that point for surveillance, for diagnostic, and for purposes dealing with the serology testing that we talked about yesterday, trying to figure out who has contracted COVID19 and gotten through it and has the antibodies that would? that should mean that they don't get it again, although this is a novel coronavirus and we're still learning about it and so forth. But all of that's going to be taken into consideration as we decide how to move forward after April the 30th. I am encouraging everyone to be patient and to understand that when we get to April the 30th and beyond, what the situation looks like is going to depend upon what we do between now and then. And that's why it's incredibly important that we continue with our present posture, be focused and be determined, to make sure that we're following the stay at home order, that we are not engaging in unnecessary travel and contact with other folks, that we're maintaining our social distancing and our good hygiene practices. And if we do that, the one thing I can say for sure is that as we get close to April the 13th, we're going to be in a better place than we otherwise would have been. Before I take questions from the press, I'm going to turn it over to one of our special guests, Archbishop Gregory Aymond. He's joining us today from New Orleans by Zoom. It is Good Friday, and I thought it was an important time for many of us to hear from someone like the Archbishop here at the start of the Easter weekend. You probably know this, but the Archbishop has been diagnosed with COVID19. I believe he is recovered now. I asked him to join us today to speak about his experience with the disease, but also to offer a prayer for the state of Louisiana. And, Archbishop, thank you so much for joining us today, and I turn the floor over to you.ARCHBISHOP GREGORY AYMOND: Governor, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this news conference. And I awesome want to thank you as your Governor for your very strong initiative during this very critical time. We appreciate what you're doing for us. As you mentioned, Governor, yes, I have been diagnosed with the virus, and I am pleased to say that I have recovered. I felt the healing hand of God upon me. And those of us who have had the virus, we know how much energy it drains from us. I only had one of the three symptoms of the virus, and so I was well aware as I was recovering and in quarantine that there were many people out there who were far more ill than I was. But that experience for me enabled me to be able to lead a ministry in solidarity, especially for those who were sick and in the hospital and on respirators. So I thank God for the healing that he has given to so many of us as we move forward from this very challenging time. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well thank you very much for sharing that with us. And as a request from me, I would ask that you offer up a prayer on this Good Friday as we look forward to Easter Sunday.ARCHBISHOP GREGORY AYMOND: Thank you. And before I offer the prayer, I would first like to address for a moment our Jewish brother and sisters. While we are celebrating holy days, so are they. They are celebrating the pass over beginning this week and into next week. So to all of our Jewish sisters and brother, may God's peace be with you and may these days of pass over be a time of blessing for you and your family. Let us pray. We bow our heads in prayer. Lord Jesus on this day we not only remember what we celebrate and be thank you for your passion and your death. You bore the cross, and you did so and we give you thanks because you set us free from sin. You showed thus Father's mercy and reassured us of the Father's love. Thank you for carrying the cross. Thank you for reassuring us that we are indeed loved and forgivable. Lord Jesus, you always promised that you would be with us. We ask you in particular during this challenging time of the coronavirus, we ask you to be with us, to protect us. It is a challenging time and a cross that we bear, Lord Jesus, and so we ask you to help us to carry that cross. Lord Jesus, on this Good Friday, we ask you to bless the state of Louisiana as we move forward. For those who are afflicted with the virus, we ask you to heal them. To those who have gone before us in death, give them eternal rest. In protection to all of us, and we ask you the blessings and perseverance on our healthcare professionals and all those who work with them and our first responders. Help them, that they be truly great healers during our time. And we ask you to bless our Governor and all the people who serve us. Lord Jesus, your death led to resurrection. We pray that this cal very, this cross that we are experiencing with the coronavirus, will lead us to new hope and to your light. We ask you to shine your light as the risen Christ into our darkness and to give us trust in kindness for all that you do for us. We ask this in your name, O God, living in reign forever and ever. Amen. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Amen. Thank you very much, Archbishop. And it's great to have you with us, and I'm so pleased that you are on the mend and feeling much better. God bless you.ARCHBISHOP GREGORY AYMOND: Thank you, Governor. I appreciate it. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Okay. And now we're going to ask coach DD Breaux from LSU gymnastics program, a legendary coach, to come up and speak about the get it to go campaign that promotes safely supporting our local restaurants. If you would, come on up.COACH DEDE BREAUX: Thank you. Thank you, Governor. I was honored to be asked to do the PSA about Get It to Geaux. And, you know, it's all about playing defense, and we have to be on the same team. And TEAM is Total Effort All Members. And when we do this, we represent our communities and our families and our states and our state. And what we want to do is win. We want to beat this thing. And WINning, what is winning? It's What's Important Now. And the message that our Governor gives and our Archbishop gives, that is what's important now. So thank you very much. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Thank you very much, Coach. I like that. I'm going to have to remember that, TEAM and WIN, as I continue to ask the people of Louisiana to be patient and do what's required of us now as it relate to social distancing, hygiene, and stay at home. So with that I will take your questions for a bit. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, on the task force addressing the regional disparities, would you say it's going to be helping the testing? And if so, in what way. And also do you have (question inaudible) in the amount of testing in Louisiana and also in the amount of?(question inaudible) GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah. Well, we've told you once before at least that one of the things that we're not able to get a clear resolution on is the race of the individuals who are being tested, and that is because over 90?percent of the tests are now coming from private labs and they don't identify that information. We are working going forward to try to have that information reported to us, along with the results, whether someone is COVID negative or COVID positive. Because it would be interesting to know, quite frankly, what the percentage of COVID positive people are in Louisiana by race because we do know and can more readily obtain the identity? or should say the race of the individuals who die. And to be able to compare and contrast those numbers would be very important for us, but we can't presently do it, so I can't tell you whether there is a disparity there or not. What we can tell you is that despite all the effort we've made, which by the way have been huge efforts and largely successful, because we either have the highest number of tests per capita in the country or we're second. And it's right there with New York and it kind of goes back and forth every day. We don't have the amount of testing that we would like. That is particularly true in some of the rural areas, although it is false? and I think some of this has been reported? mostly it's rumors out there. There is no parish, there is no region of our state, that isn't currently testing. But we don't believe that we have adequate testing anywhere. And so we're trying to improve that and get more of that into the rural areas. So this task force is going to look at these health disparities. And there's a shortterm immediate goal, and that is to help us through this COVID19 public health emergency by making sure that we're putting out as much good information? and by good, I mean, accurate and timely, telling people what they need to do. And not just the things like stay at home, social distancing, good hygiene, but if you happen to have hypertension, make sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing from a perspective of your diet, taking your medicine. Same thing with diabetes and so forth. Because you've already got these underlying conditions. And so making sure that you're treating as well as you can from a medication perspective and from other things that you can control will put you in the best possible position to withstand this virus should you contract it, this disease should you contract it. So they're going to be working on that. And then they're going work longterm, and this should benefit us well past the pandemic, is what we can do as a state to better address this underlying chronic health condition disparities that we are seeing right now. And, you know, it shouldn't make us feel any better, but it is obviously the case that this exists far beyond Louisiana. If you look at the reports that are coming out of other states, they're having similar situations, and, in fact, almost in direct proportion to ours. But the fact that it's shared by other states doesn't mean it's not a big issue. It is. We have to figure out how we can tackle this issue, figure out what the social determinant of health are playing into these disparities, and what can we do to address those. But the fact that potentially African Americans have a greater prevalence of these comorbidities doesn't mean that the study is only going to benefit the African Americans because it's going to benefit everybody who happens to have hypertension or diabetes or kidney disease or heart disease or have an obesity issue. But the disparity is playing out with a disproportionate number of death being visited upon the African American community, and that's the primary reason that we instituted it as quickly as we did and want to bring some results that bears early enough to help us with this particular emergency. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: On that, isn't this just kind of like the coronavirus has exposed a long, dark secret, not just in Louisiana but our country, that African Americans have these underlying issues but it's because of the grocery gap and just different things like that, because African Americans too, a larger extent, do not have access to healthy foods and things like that?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think we know that we can have better behavior in our state. We still have too many people who smoke. We have too many people who don't exercise. We have too many people who drink three sodas a day rather than water. I mean, it is all of it. And I don't profess to know all the answers to the question that you just asked, but that's what this task force is going to look for. But maybe this is an opportunity. Given that this virus, this disease, is shining a light on these disparities, maybe this is our opportunity to finally breakthrough to a larger number of people and get them to change their behaviors, get them to take advantage of the opportunities that they have in order to see a primary care physician and start managing their diseases better and do this before the disease gets so bad that it's really hard to treat. You know, that's what was so important about getting people an opportunity perhaps through Medicaid expansion to have primary care, preventative care that they didn't have before, to get diagnosed with illnesses and diseases before they progress to the point where they're almost impossible to treat. And then you have that pharmacy benefit so that you can actually afford to fill the prescriptions and take them as prescribed to keep these conditions hopefully in check and mean that you're healthier. So maybe this is a way to finally get people to focus on these things because it's not so abstract anymore. There is a real price to pay. And you pay it every day, but you pay the ultimate price too often in the situation of a pandemic like we're experiencing right now. So maybe this gives us an opportunity to really drive some change in behavior and some changes in society, some changes in the way we deliver healthcare, all of it, to elevate the health of the people of Louisiana. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: What's your message to those still fighting coronavirus and those survivors of this virus?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, you know, and I thought about this a lot last night after I learned that representative Bagala had passed and that the disease had taken his life. And then I looked at a video that James did, another state representative, and a very, very powerful video. And then I compared it with some stories that I had been told by some people that I know who haven't gone public, but I know that they've had the disease and they've been in the hospital. This is just really tough. And for the family members out there, their loved ones are in the hospital room and they can't go visit them. Now, depending on the condition of their loved one, they may be able to have phone calls and may be able to Facetime, or it could be that the individual is incapacitated and can't participate in that and so they're forced to obviously try to support that person from a distance and obviously they can pray with them ?or for them, I should say. But what a tough situation for those family members, and obviously for the individual with the disease as well. I can only imagine what that must be like. And my heart, it really does, it breaks for those people. And this is happening? I mean, this is happening all over the world right now, all over the country and every day we come out here with new cases and new hospitalizations and new deaths. This is just really, really tough. And which I hope that everybody who's listening to this and thinking about this understands that there are some things that they can do to make sure these numbers stay as small as possible, and they're the things we've been talking about for a month now, literally for a month. And they haven't changed. They work. And, you know, we love worse than another, and we know how to be good neighbors. Being good neighbors right now means you do what we're asking you to do. Maintain your social distancing. Make sure that you're practicing good hygiene. Follow the stay at home order. Don't go out unnecessarily. Don't go shopping more often than you need to. Don't take the whole family with you. All of these things. And be patient. Look, this is a tough, tough situation, and especially with we're going into Easter weekend, which is for Christians? and certainly I'm one of those? this is the holiest of times of the whole year, it is this weekend. And so hopefully we can lift up one another in prayer. I happen to personally believe that 3:00 on Good Friday is the? not that you shouldn't pray every day, but that is the time to offer up a prayer, because I happen to believe that it's received and it's just a little stronger than it normally is. Melinda?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, the prisons have obviously had a number of cases and multiple deaths at this point. Have you been in contact with the federal bureau of prisons and what is being done from your perspective what should be done to handle the outbreak there and whether that's to release prisoners or whatnot?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: So I have not been in contact with the Bureau of Prisons. I know that the Attorney General? U.S. Attorney General Barr has addressed this particular issue, and he singled out that prison in Louisiana as one of a handful that caused him to issue some guidance about furloughing prisoners to hominid certain circumstances and reducing those populations. What we have been doing is talking to the regional hospitals that have been taking those people into their care, and that is a very serious situation. I don't have any new information on it, but obviously that is a grave concern of ours, and it is my hope obviously that they can get that under control through the actions that they've taken, both to try to get as many inmates out of that facility as possible, but with all the other things that they're going to do to try to isolate and reverse isolate these individuals before they contract the virus. Look, I want to thank y'all for? again for coming out today for the press conference, and I want to thank all the people who have been paying careful attention to this. Please be patient and understand that we have to get through this. We're going to do it. The day is going to come. I don't know when. And I don't know what's going to transpire between now and then. But the day is going to come when this will be behind us. We're going to get back to life as we want it to be, and so forth. And between now and then, let's support one another. Let's do what we can to be good neighbors and to take care of one another, but do it from a distance. And lastly, again, this being Easter weekend, I do ask everyone to lift one another up in prayer and that we will especially remember those healthcare providers, those doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists and all of those allied health professionals who are doing so much right now to take care of people who need it the most and in very, very difficult situations and at some risk of harm to themselves. And if you just think about what, generally speaking, a hero is, that's what a hero is. It's not the athlete, as much as we love athletes. It's not the politician. It's not the rich person. It's not the actor or the actress. These are heroic actions, and they're taking place in every hospital across Louisiana in all of these healthcare settings and all across the country. So let's remember them this weekend in our prayers, and let's get through this. God bless you and thank you. ................
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