03222020 COVID-19 Press Conference



GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Jefferson Parish which obviously has the greatest amount of cases. I also want to thank all the first responders. You know, our healthcare workers and first responders are absolutely true heroes. And just looking ahead? and this applies to everybody? again, I can tell you that this emergency is going to get worse before it gets better. How much worse, we don't know. But what we do know is we can influence how much worse it gets, and that's what this press conference is about because the bottom line is we're in a race against time when it comes to this coronavirus and its rapid spread in Louisiana. The mitigation measures that we have in place and that we will continue to put in place will not be effective if our people and our businesses don't actively participate, if they don't comply, if they don't stay at home unless it's absolutely necessary to move out. As you know, already, we've closed public schools, bars, casinos, movie theaters, gyms, and fitness centers. We've limited restaurants and asked government employees to work remotely. We've asked private businesses to allow the maximum number of workers to work remotely. But quite simply put, there is more that we must do. Today I'm issuing a stay at home order for the entire state of Louisiana which will become effective tomorrow, Monday, March?23rd at 5:00?p.m. however, and I want to make this explicit, the people of Louisiana who are able to do so certainly should not wait till tomorrow in order to self isolate. The time is now. If possible, as others have recommended, behave as if, you know, you have the coronavirus. Self isolate. Keep those distances. Don't engage in unnecessary contact with others. And certainly don't do it with those who are in the high risk group, those who are 65 and older and those who have underlying chronic health conditions. So this order will close additional nonessential businesses but will keep things like grocery stores, pharmacies, and other businesses open that are providing critical services. Restaurants will still be allowed to have take out, drivethru, and carry out meals. And for a complete listing of what is closed and what may remain open, I will refer you to the order itself, which is available online at gov.. However, the following nonessential businesses shall be closed to the public, and they are specifically mentioned in the order. All places of public amusement, whether indoors or outdoors, including but not limited to locations with amusement rides, carnivals, amusement parks, water parks, trampoline parks, aquariums, zoos, muse museums, arcades, fairs, pool halls, children's play centers, playgrounds, theme parks, any theaters, concerts, music halls, adult entertainment venues, race tracks and other similar businesses. All personal care and grooming businesses, including but not limited to barber shops, beauty salons, nail salons, spas, massage parlors, tattoo parlors, and other similar businesses and closed. All malls are closed except for stores in a mall that have a direct outdoor entrance and exit and that provide essential services and products as provided by the CISA guidelines. And by the way, CISA is U.S. department of home land security, cybersecurity, and infrastructure security agency. And it will become very clear to everyone. We took the guidelines from this agency as far as what essential business infrastructure looks like that has to remain open and who those essential workers are to keep them open. Businesses closed to the public pursuant to this provision shall not be prohibited from conducting necessary activities such as payroll, cleaning services, maintenance or up keep as necessary, but they are closed to the public. In general, businesses fall into one of three categories, closed businesses, which I just listed, essential businesses which can remain open, including grocery stores, pharmacies, and many government facilities, critical manufacturing businesses, utilities, financial services, name a few. Again, this is based on the federal government's CISA recommendations which we will share and which we are attaching to this order. The third category of businesses that aren't considered essential but aren't closed by this order, and these businesses like professional service providers are nonessential retail can only be open with essential employees and if there are fewer than ten people in the business. My order limits of public gatherings to no more than ten people. And, yes, for the journalists in the room, we do consider your work to be essential. As I said, the state of Louisiana relied on federal homeland security guidance in its decisionmaking. We have also relied upon health providers, trends, actions being taken in other states, and both published guidance and advice from our federal partners. I do want to thank both Vice President Pence and Dr.?Anthony Fauci for taking time to speak with me personally as I contemplated this particular decision. And I know that all of this may be overwhelming for some of you to hear. Please know that it's a difficult decision for me to make, and I do not take this action lightly. But there are some basic facts that we just simply cannot deny or ignore. Two weeks ago today, there were 0 confirmed cases of COVID19 in Louisiana. One week ago, last Sunday morning, we had 91 confirmed cases. As of this morning, we now have 837 confirmed cases and 20 deaths. So that's a tentime increase in seven days. While largely concentrated in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, COVID19?cases are now in 36 parishes, so spread has taken place across the state. I have seen a number of projections as to when we could run out of healthcare capacity in Louisiana, anywhere from seven to ten days, based on the rate of spread, the percentage of the population that needs to be hospitalized, the average length of the hospitalization and whether that hospitalization is in an acute care bed or in an intensive care bed, and then of course obviously how much in the intervening time period that we are able to surge our capacity. Now, I've said this before, but there is no reason to believe that we won't be the next Italy. What happened in Italy is they started too late. People didn't social distance. They thought they could just focus on that part of the country where the outbreak was heaviest rather than on the entire country. What the world learned as a result is that you have to act fast and in places that may not look like they have a problem yet. So if you look at this graphic up here right now, you will see that the state of Louisiana currently has the nation's third highest number of cases per capita. Weir behind New York state, Washington state, and we are ahead of New Jersey. So obviously this is concerning to me because healthcare infrastructure is sized to meet the population. So it's not the raw cases? the raw number of cases in Louisiana that are most concerning to me. It's that per capita case load. Secondly, I'd like to show the next chart, a study out of the University of Lafayette, we have the fastest growth rate in confirmed cases in the world over the first 13?days, right here in Louisiana. I'm going to say that again so people can understand what I just said. In the last two weeks, our growth rate has been faster than any state or country in the world. This is why it matters. When we talk about flattening the curve, this is what we're talking about. Right now, Louisiana is depicted in purple. We don't have as much time under our belt since the spread start, and so our line doesn't continue out for as many days, but you can see the trajectory we're on. It's not much different than Spain or Italy. It's not much different than south Korea. But if you will look, south Korea started to bend the curve right in this point. That's about seven days from now. And so if we want to flatten the curve, we have to take more aggressive mitigation measures right now and limited our social contact. There's no other way to do this. So that's why it's urgent that we take this action today. It's sort of like a slowmoving ocean liner or tanker on the Mississippi River. You've got to start turning away ahead of where you think you need to in order to get to your desired destination. So we've got to take action now. And it's especially true since testing and positive cases lag for some period of time after the personal contact through mitigation actually slows down. So we just have to? and I want to tell you, we can get past this, but we're going to have to take these mitigation measures seriously. One of the core missions that we've been working on every day is to increase ICU capacity and other medical capacity in our hospitals for surge beds, for ventilators, and so forth, and doing this throughout the state. And within the next two weeks, we expect to bring online over 200 new ICU beds and with more coming in the following weeks, and we are stepping up this effort as fast as we possibly can. Hospitals and medical providers should not perform any 11 surgeries based on an order that has already been issued from the state health officer. We are pushing to get more personal protective equipment, called PPE, for our critical healthcare workers. And we simply cannot afford to use PPE or hospital bed space for elective procedures right now. And I apologize for that. I know that people have been waiting for these procedures, but now, quite simply, is not the right time. By the way, I am asking, I am urging, any and every healthcare provider f you're not operating, you should immediately contact your local hospital and provide it with any PPE that you have, including masks and gloves. All of this work we're doing with healthcare partners will be insufficient if people do not follow our advice to stay home to prevent the spread of this particular virus. Every single person in Louisiana has a role to play, and we need you to play that role. Today I'm also announcing that Allstate government offices statewide will be closed to the public. However, the essential work of government will continue. State workers will receive specific guidance from their agency heads. And to be clear, you recollect still do the following: Go to the grocery, convenience, or warehouse store; go to the pharmacy to pick up medications and other healthcare necessities; go to medical appointments. Of course, check with your doctor or provider first, and wherever possible, see your care provider through telehealth rather than actually getting out and going to the doctor's office. You can go to a restaurant to pick up, take out, or delivery or drivethru meals; you can care for or support a friend or a family member; you can take a walk, ride your bike, hike, jog, go out in nature for exercise. I'm just encouraging you to keep at least six feet between you and others. You can walk your pets. You can take them to the veterinary clinic if necessary. You can help someone to get necessary supplies. You can receive deliveries from any business which delivers. And just a note on grocery shopping. As I've said before, our supply chain will keep working. These stores are going to stay open. Their workers are essential workers. The transportation or logistics system necessary to support our stores will remain in place and active. So there is no need for you to rush out and horde groceries or to buy more than you need. Please buy one week's worth of groceries at a time. However, you should not go to work unless you are providing essential services as defined by this order; friends friends and family if there's no urgent need; maintain less than 6 feet of distance from you and others when you go out; or visit a loved one in a hospital or nursing home, skilled nursing facility, or other residential care facility except for limited exceptions as provided on the facility websites. Now, I know there are a lot of rumors out there about closing our borders or restricting travel between parishes or sending out the Louisiana National Guard and so forth. Those rumors are not true. They've never been based in anything that was factual. And I'm encouraging people not to spread, not to start, not to disseminate rumors. And I am encouraging people to get their information as best they can from legitimate sources. You can look at this order for yourself. Go to the website that I mentioned before. Follow main stream media. They will be giving you up to date and accurate information. Many people will ask how the stay at home order is different than what we already have in place. This order expands the businesses that are closed statewide and will dramatically reduce the number of people who will be out and about. It should dramatically reduce the frequency with which people come into contact with others. That is how this virus is spread. It states explicitly that nonessential workers should not be going to work, period. However, telecommunicating, working from home is obviously encouraged and should be maximized. Right now, we know it's critical for our people to obviously have the most accurate information possible, and we have all been focused on the testing and the testing results and so forth every single day and I think there have been multiple updates every day. As more testing comes online with more commercial and private providers and a greater number of tests, it takes some period of time for that information to come in to be aggregate, to be sorted, and to make sure it's accurate. We still have to get that information back to the providers who are ordering the testing so that they can give it to their patients and so forth. And so I have decided that we're not going to keep asking our lab to disseminate this information twice a day. So we're going to go to once a day at 12 noon where we will be updating. This is what the CDC does. It's what other states are doing. And quite frankly, the pace that we've been going at over the last number of days is just not sustainable. I do want to thank Dr.?Villue who's here with me today to answer any specific questions as it pertains to testing, and by extension, everybody who works at the department of health and public health and over at the lab for the work that they have been doing. We have now had more than 2000 commercial lab tests reported to the state. That is great. We like knowing what we're dealing W. The worst thing is to be in the dark as to what's going on out there. But just as a point of reference, because I was talking about south Korea earlier and how they were able to flatten the curve. Quite frankly, their testing was much more robust, much earlier, and they were able to get a grip on a lot more people in public who were actually positive for COVID19. They then engaged in isolation and contact tracing at a level that we simply have not been able to do because our testing, quite frankly, not just here in Louisiana, but around the country, was inadequate to the task in terms of the capacity and the throughput. And it is ramping up and I'm thankful for that. And over the coming days and weeks, I think we're going to see it expand much more. But I say this because if we want to flatten the curve the way that south Korea did here, we're going to have to have people who are isolating who don't know whether they're positive or not. And so our actions, our mitigation measures, are going to have to be a proxy for testing that was insufficient. And if anything we're going to have to have more isolation in order to be able to flatten the curve. Again, the reason this is important is we don't want everybody being infected all at once to then create an immediate and overwhelming demand on limited healthcare resources. We need to flatten the curve, extend the duration of this emergency, and expand our capacity to deliver healthcare all at the same time. In closing, I'd like to make a plea to the people of Louisiana on behalf of our healthcare workers who are out there on the front lines fighting COVID19, and also on behalf of our brothers and sisters and mothers and grandfathers, all of those individuals who are especially vulnerable because of their age or because of their underlying chronic health conditions. Stay home every minute that you can. Keep yourselves isolated when you? whether or not you have symptoms. But certainly if you have a fever, if you have a cough or so forth, make sure that you are not interacting with other people. The fewer people that we have to treat, the less chance that healthcare workers are going to be overwhelmed and the less chance that obviously we're going to have unnecessary spread to the most vulnerable population. The less masks we're going to need, the less ventilators we're going to need, the less hospital beds, the less nurses and doctors and so forth. I know that there is anxiety. I know that there can be confusion. We need to be resolute. We need to be focused. We need to be determined, and we need to beat this. We will. We're going to get through this, but we're going to do it because we're going to comply with these directives. There's nothing that we as Louisianians cannot accomplish if we work together. So let's be selfless. Let's be good neighbors. Let's be good Louisianians. And let's continue to lift one another up, our state up, our country up in prayer. And, with that, I will take your questions. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, what actions are going to be taken for those found to be traveling for nonessential business or items?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: First of all, I would hope and pray, with the information that I just went over and what's immediately obvious to anybody who's tuning in to CNN or fox news or any of these news channels that the situation will be enough to get people to comply with what these orders are. Obviously we have an enforcement issue because we know that there are still tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands of essential workers in those businesses that are deemed critical infrastructure by CISA and those workers who are deemed critical who are still going to have to move about every day. We know that people are going to have to periodically go to the grocery store, to the pharmacy, to the bank. They're going to have to go fill up their cars and so forth. So there's going to be travel out on the road. We're not going to be doing checkpoints and asking people to tell us why they're out and about, but that doesn't mean we're not asking for their cooperation. When you have an order of this magnitude, quite simply, if the people of Louisiana demand that we enforce it before they honor it, we're in deep trouble. We are in deep trouble. So I'm asking people to be good citizens, like you have never been before over the course of this time. And I think I mentioned this. If I didn't, I apologize. We expect right now that this order? in fact, it will stay in place? through Sunday, March? I'm sorry, April the 12th. April the 12th. It expires on Monday, the 13th, unless it is extended. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: How many cases of this do we currently have confirmed at Lambeth House in New Orleans?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: I'm going to ask? and I didn't get that information before we walked out. I'm going to ask Dr.?Villue to come up and answer the question. But I do want to address something real quick. About Lambeth House. We know that the coronavirus was in Lambeth House, in particular in the independent living side, long before we knew it was in Louisiana and they knew or should have known it was in their facility. And this is a very, very tough situation. But Lambeth House has always been an excellent facility. I know that the administrator there and the staff have always done their absolute dead level best to take care of their patients and they have cooperated in every single way with the Louisiana Department of Health and the Office of Public Health and the epidemiological team that CDC sent in that actually took up residence in that home in order to manage this. The other thing that I would say is we're still inside that 14day window of where all of the exposures that have come to light were probably exposures that happened before any actions were taken, that they knew to take any actions. But since the very first case manifested itself in that home, the folks at Lambeth House have done everything that they've been asked to do. And it is a very, very tough situation, and I just? I just want the administrator and I want those healthcare workers, everybody associated with Lambeth House, to know that that's been the information that I had been getting from day Number?1. But it is a tough situation, and my heart goes out to them and to the families of all of those residents. And so Dr.?Villue if you would come up and...DR. ALEX VILLUE: So as of the information that I had this morning, and again, labs change over time. We have still 24 confirmed cases at Lambeth House, and we know of seven confirmed deaths of residents of Lambeth House. As the governor said, you know, we're still within that 14day period. So we'll continue to have more information come?AUDIENCE MEMBER: While you're up there.FEMA has been reporting that we have at least seven nursing homes that have been affected. Can you tell me which? what the homes are, what seven?DR. ALEX VILLUE: We have individuals who may have been at a nursing home at the time they're diagnosed. We don't count a nursing home as a cluster until we have multiple cases there. But what I can tell you is that my team, anytime somebody is identified as having been in a nursing home, has a special team that contacts that nursing home and works with them on the same kind of work that we were doing with Lambeth House. And we continue to be in daily contact with Lambeth House and daily contact with any other facility that has people with symptoms. We even start at the point of symptoms. We want to be very cautious and watchful here?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. But can you tell me which seven houses?DR. ALEX VILLUE: No, I don't have that information. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, last week I asked you about the church in Central that had service. Today, they're reporting that they had service again with over 1,000 people at their service. What's your response to that?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: First of all, my response is to reinforce what I've said here today. If you look at this chart and the other ones we've shown you, including the fact that we have the highest Case Number per capita in the? third highest in the country. And you see that the rate at which our cases are growing compared to Italy and Spain and so forth. We need everybody, we need everybody, especially every leader, whether they are an elected leader a community leader, a faith leader, we need everybody to embrace these mitigation measures and to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. And, again, it's my hope that citizens will take this seriously and do their part and that leaders take it even more seriously, because their part is even bigger. It's more important. So I haven't gotten that report prior to this particular question that you asked. If it's true, obviously, I'm disappointed, and I would urge that faith leader and all others to heed this directive and not unnecessarily engage in mass gatherings where this coronavirus can spread and continue to do what we've shown is actually happening in Louisiana. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: You said you had a call with the VP and Dr.?Fauci just right before this, and they were talking about the efforts while you were mulling this over. What did they say over the phone?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: The conversation actually happened on Friday because we were already looking ahead to what additional mitigation measures we might have to take, what they would be, and under what circumstances would I make this decision. And so I reached out to the vice president's team. He called me back. I let him know where we were on a number of areas, and of course he expressed his support for what we've been doing here in Louisiana. And then he made it possible, through his team, for me to actually have a conversation with Dr.?Ferachi. We then went over what was the case count on Friday night relative to total tests administered, what the positive number of cases were, where they were clustered, the mitigation measures that we had already put in place and when, and the additional mitigation measures that we believe might be necessary. And then he just, in general terms, gave me some things to look for, if the trends continued, then statewide action on a stay at home basis would be necessary sometimes around Monday. Well, we don't have to wait until tomorrow now to know that we need the pull this trigger based on the information that I just showed you. But it's also been done in coordination with the folks here in Louisiana and the department of health, particularly the Office of Public Health, Dr.?Villue, and others, about what we're doing, and in consultation with other local leaders. So I've had the opportunity to personally brief the speaker of the house and the President of the senate and others about the measures that I'm putting into place. So that's how this happened. But the decision is obviously mine. I am making the decision today. I've issued the order. And again it's effective at 5:00 tomorrow because the City of New Orleans basically did this on Friday. It remains the hottest spot, but we know that we're now spread across the state of Louisiana. But nobody should wait until 5:00 tomorrow to be a good and responsible citizen. But we knew that anytime you have an order of this magnitude that affects such a large percentage of our population and a large number of our businesses out there and workers, that we wanted an opportunity to be able to disseminate information, answer questions, engage in industry specific, business specific conversations so that everyone would know exactly what the order does and what it doesn't do so that they can? they can come into compliance with it just as soon as possible. Maximizing compliance and minimizing confusion is incredibly important. And so this is the route that I elected to take. Yes, sir.AUDIENCE MEMBER: You have 36 parishes that have reported the virus. You have 28 that haven't. What would you tell those people to prevent them from getting to that false sense of security, that they won't?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah. Well, first of all, there's every reason to believe that just because they don't have a positive case as confirmed through a lab test, they do have coronavirus in their parishes. I am certain of that. And coronavirus is present in all of the 36 parishes to the degree that it exceeds the number who have actually tested positive. We know that. We know that a good percentage of these people are asymptomatic or only very mildly symptomatic, but they are capable, especially once they've become symptomatic, even mildly, of spreading this virus. And so nobody, nobody, should look at the map and say, whoa, well it's not in my parish yet. I don't have anything to worry about. And that is the mindset that other places fell into, for example, in Italy when they said, okay, we've got a problem but it's all in one region of the country, up in the northern Lombardy region of Italy, so that's where we're going to take action, and before they knew it, it's all over the country. So we cannot? look, we have to try to do the best we can, but we've got to learn from the experience of others as well, and all of this takes? plays a part in the decisions that we make. So nobody should take this lightly. I don't care who you are or where you live in the state of Louisiana. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Has your office heard about how many people, if any, have recovered yet and if not how long it might be until those figures start coming out. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah. Well, we're? obviously, we don't have an official figure yet on those individuals who have recovered. And recovery means you've been diagnosed through a positive test that you have COVID19 and then at some point subsequent to that, you have to test negative twice with at least 24?hours separating those two tests. Typically, you've got a 14day run before you would even have that first test. Well, we've only been about 13?days since we reported the first case in the state of Louisiana. So we're not there yet. I can tell you that we will have, soon, people who are recovered, and we are obviously thankful for that. And we're thankful that the vast majority of people who get this virus are going to recover. But we don't have those figures yet for the reasons that I just mentioned, but you will start seeing those reports in the coming days. I don't know exactly when. We will start telling you as we are able to determine the exact number of people in Louisiana who have recovered from COVID19. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Do you have any numbers as far as how many people are hospitalized because of the COVID19?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: We have numbers that are around the state of Louisiana. I don't have them with me. I will try to get that to you. And by the way this is an important point, because we have to try to figure out what is the hospitalization rate for a COVID19 positive patients. Once they have this test result, what percentage are actually going to require hospitalization? We know that the vast majority of the tests administered, especially through the health lab, were for individuals who were already in the hospital. So we know that those numbers are going to be skewed early on because a high percentage of those people were in the hospital. But as multiple other testing labs come online with high throughput and we test a lot more individuals, many of whom are not in the hospital, I think you're going to see that rate go down to approximately what it is in other states, and I'm reading 23, 24?percent is what New York, California, I think it's Illinois and some other states are experiencing. I competent tell you that's where we're at in Louisiana right now, but that's why it's important to know that. We will get you the information about the COVID19 positive? the number of COVID19 positive patients in our hospital just as soon as I can. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor, our state has been through a number of tragedies and you've had the opportunity to lead us past a lot of those. Is this the toughest one for you yet. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, it's tough for a lot of reasons. One, it's not one that I'm personally accustomed to, but it's not one that anybody in the state of Louisiana is accustomed to. The last time that I'm aware of that something like this happened would have been in 1918. The governor was rough and pleasant and just? he didn't leave behind a play book. But there's another reason why this one is particularly hard, and that is, for our natural disasters, typically you have some small part of the country that's adversely impacted and the rest of the country and the federal government can marshal resources and personnel dollars and they can respond pretty quickly and generously and they always have and we very much appreciate that. In this case, this fight is taking place simultaneously all across the country. And so from where are we going to get more doctors and nurses? I can't put out an EMAC request and have other states send me 2 million N95 masks. I can't all of a sudden go out there and buy 5,000 ventilators. That's what makes this one very, very tough. And I will tell you that? I hope that we can get to a different place nationally soon as to how PPE and ventilators are being managed because, knight frankly, Louisiana cannot compete with New York and its purchasing power when it comes to? and of course New York isn't getting what they're needing right now, either. But we have every hospital, every state, trying to go to manufacturers and vendors of this PPE and we're all trying to access what happens to be in the national stock pile, this is the one area where I hope the federal government pretty soon will figure out and will construct a role that it can play in terms of procuring and allocating out PPE, ventilators and so forth, in accordance with some sort of a distribution metric that makes sense. Again, every time I speak with our federal partners, including the vice President and the President, I make sure they know where our per capita case count is. I make sure they know what our trajectory is. So this is something that we continue to work on. We are literally trying to source PPE all over the world right here from this building. It is a difficult thing to do. We do have PPE coming in, and not in the numbers or with the frequency that we would like, but it's something we continue to work on. And I do know that our manufacturers are ramping up production. There's going to be some lag time before those items do get produced and get put into the supply chain and so forth. But it makes it very difficult. And so this particular emergency is very different and in many, many ways much harder than previous emergencies for the reasons that I just mentioned and probably for a host of reasons that at the moment escape me. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: On the state government shutdown or the kind of calls you had last week, you had work at home but had trouble finding the laptops for the folks working at home and finding enough expedient access to the state's system. Where does that stand out? And if I can't get a laptop, can I just stay home as a state employee?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, state employees? I'm not going to communicate with state employees through the media about whether they're to stay home. We're going to do that through the state agencies and the agency heads. And so they will know if they're to go to work and if so where they're to report or whether they're to stay at home. We are ramping up our capacity for people to be able to work from home. It was a number of state employees already had that capacity. We're increasing that capacity over time. But essential state government functions will remain open, whether they're done from the offices or not, or from home will depend on what those agency's capabilities and needs are. We are closing state offices as it relates to interaction with the public. But I really don't want to try to communicate with my state workers through the media. We're going to do that directly through agency heads. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: We're looking at 50 different states dealing with this right now, but we're talking about 50 different governors dealing with it on different levels. Can our neighboring states screw things up for us?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Look, I have a lot of confidence in all of our states and all the state governors. We're on conference calls several times a week. Not every state has the same degree or concentration of cases and growth in cases and so forth, but we're all facing the same challenges. And what we see today, our neighbors could see next week. And so we're learning from one another. For example, I have had conversations with multiple other governors, including the governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, and so forth, and, you know, we do want? it's helpful if every state? it's obviously helpful if every state is engaging in very significant, robust, mitigation measures because no state has closed its borders to another state; right? And because the goods in commerce that keep our stores open, they're coming from all over the country. So this is a nationwide effort. But I have a lot of confidence in my fellow governors and in the work that they are doing, and we're going to get through this together. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: What about daycare facilities? How does your order impact those. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Yeah, so those daycares, early learning centers, can stay open, but they need to do so in accordance with the instructions and the directives they're being given by the department of education and by the department of health. And we do understand that this can be challenging. And it's one of those places where we have to strike the right balance because we need to make sure, at a minimum, that our healthcare workers can go to work, and some of them can't if they don't have daycare, for example. So we are working with the department of health and with the Department of Education to provide directives as to which early learning centers should stay open and how they should operate. And so we're asking the early learning centers to plug into the departments of health and education. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: There's so much uncertainty in the last week. A lot has happened. And even with all their warnings, a lot of people in the state are living in fear right now. What do you say to those people who are in that state of fear?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: First of all, I don't think fear and panic are helpful, but being serious and understanding that we need to have a sense of urgency. You be, those things are helpful. We want people to take this seriously. We want people to comply. Look, this is, in many ways, mysterious, because it's the novel coronavirus. There's a lot that we don't know about it. We don't have immunity to it. There is no vaccine. As of right now, I don't think there's an approved therapeutic treatment for it. But there are some things we know. You catch this from contact with other people, either because there are droplets in the air or because there are droplets on the surface that you come into contact with. And so minimizing contact between people is the most effective way to slow the spread. And then the additional things? I didn't mention all these today, but they still remain really, really important. You know, wash your hands for at least 20?seconds with soap and water. Use hand sanitizer if you can't get the soap and water. Control your cough. Don't go anywhere if you're sick. Stay 6 feet away. Practice social distancing. Those things are still incredibly important. So I want people to understand that they shouldn't be paralyzed by fear, and they shouldn't be motivated by panic to do things that don't bear a rational relationship to the situation. But I'm telling you what you can do. I'm telling you what it is rational that you do in the situation, and I am asking you to do that. And don't just do it for yourself. Do it for your neighbor. Do it for the healthcare workers. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: You spoke to the legislature right before coming in. GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: I spoke to the speaker and to the President and Clay Schexnayder, the Speaker of the House. Senate President, Page Cortez. And we are having? I don't know if it's going on right now, but very soon we're going to have a conference call with all rank and filed legislators, just basically having the same conversation with them that I'm having with you right now so that they understand why we're taking this action, why I believe it's necessary, what they can do to help with respect to making sure that more people do as they're being directed. And, you know, we also still have to find a way between now and June the 30th to get enough legislation done so that our state can continue to function on July?1st. And so I had a conversation with them about all of these things this morning. I appreciate the degree to which they were engaged, and they were knowledgeable of the situation. And quite frankly to the degree which they support the action that I am announcing right now. Yes, sir? Couple more questions. Three more questions. Here, here, and here in that order?AUDIENCE MEMBER: Does the stay at home order include a curfew at this time?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: It does not. That is something we could do later. And, you know, every parish government has the ability to do that now, and we've equipped the sheriffs of each parish as the chief law enforcement officer of the parish with the authority to do that by virtue of an earlier proclamation. What we want to make sure is that they can reserve their resources too. And so if they're particularly challenged and they don't have to have 24hour service to the degree that they currently do? no parish is going to go any period of time without having law enforcement on the street, but if there's something they can do, a curfew, that helps them to better serve the public and if it's necessary to maintain order or to promote and protect public safety, then they're able to do that. But I'm not doing that in this order?AUDIENCE MEMBER: A lot of people were asking about car dealerships and getting their vehicle serviced. Is that considered a nonessential business?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: First of all, I'm encouraging everyone? and I know this is not a satisfactory answer. There is an exhaustive list under that CISA repair that I made. Go look there. I can tell you that automobile repair shops, including those that are attached to or part of dealerships, will remain open. Yes, sir?AUDIENCE MEMBER: You said I didn't get a chance to look at that list yet. Are daycares considered nonessential?GOVERNOR JON BEL EDWARDS: Well, I just answered about daycares. And what we're asking daycares do is to consult with the Department of Education, consult with the department of health, Office of Public Health, and we're going to be getting information out to them. I'm encouraging everyone to visit gov. to answer more questions. That site has information now. Every time there are changes made, we're going to be sending people there. Gov.. And we will spend whatever time, make whatever effort is necessary, to make sure people understand this order, what they can do, what they can't do, and so forth. And, look, my final comments today are just going to be directed directly to the people of our state. This is a serious situation. I am asking for maximum adherence, compliance to these directives that we've gone through today. And we don't have time. We can't wait until next week. We can't figure out whether in two weeks from now because that's just not the nature of pandemics. We have to act now. I'm asking you to do everything that you can to make sure that you are not out there spreading this virus, not only for yourself but for your neighbors, and particularly those who are most vulnerable. So I'm asking everybody to do their part. We're going to be successful. We're going to be successful because people do what they're being asked to do. And the sooner we engage it together, the sooner we're going to get past this and the better that we're going to be able to manage this particular emergency. So I thank everybody for their cooperation thus far, but it is going to have to get better. I encourage everyone to be patient, and I encourage everyone to be prayerful. God bless and thank you. ................
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