I'm good all right it is Monday June 15th which also happens to be my son wills 11th birthday so while we have a lot to cover my goal is for us to be in and out in
about an hour let me start by saying today probably looks a little different if you're watching that's because we are in the Kentucky Historical Society Kentucky Historical Society was formed in 1836 it educates and engages the public through Kentucky history in order to confront the challenges of our future the campus here is in downtown Frankfort it includes where we are right now which is the Thomas D Clark center for Kentucky history built in 1999 it houses the permanent exhibit a kentucky journey taking visitors on a walk from our native people to the innovation of today we are standing in the Keeneland gallery where temporary exhibitions display artifacts from our past including the current exhibit on Paul Sawyer one of Kentucky's most revered artists who's actually buried just a couple miles from here in Frankfort Cemetery and finally you can walk through the popular Hall of governor's where there are portraits of Kentucky leaders that are on display you can also leave notes up there or in the past could and after Cove it again to leave your thoughts for governor's I remember I think it was on the day of my inauguration as we were waiting down here looking at the notes that students had left for me as an incoming governor it was special and so I hope when kids have an opportunity to do that again and they will know that someone isn't just listening they are reading it also includes a garden a public outdoor space behind the History Center which was originally part of the property of the lieutenant governor's mansion which means that from 1984 to 1987 it was a backyard that I played in with my older brother and some of our friends the Historical Society also includes the Kentucky Old State Capitol the Kentucky Military History Museum and old state Arsenal although this Center was closed to on-site visitors March staff continue to work to help our Kentucky children and everybody through virtual services through virtual teachings from Kentucky to the you United Arab Emirates viewers engaged in Kentucky's history and connected during kovat 19 the center reopened on June 8th with plenty of safety measures and some of the interactive exhibits have been closed for the time being along with the Old State Capitol in the Kentucky Military History Museum the library is open for limited capacity throughout the week so we want to thank the History Center our goal has been to highlight some of what downtown Frankfort has to offer and to show people some different parts of their state government all right today will be almost entirely on Kovan 19 so let's start the way we always start by knowing we're gonna get through this and we're gonna get through it together so we're gonna get through this we're gonna get through this together we're gonna get through this together we're gonna come out the other side we're gonna rebuild and restart our economy we're gonna take care of each other as we're going through this and I believe we have the opportunity not just to be stronger but to be better coming out of it a more compassionate more just people we have seen and what we are capable of when we come together and that ought to tell us what our potential is moving forward so June 15th today it's not just my son's Will's 11th birthday it is also the last day to request an absentee ballot now the election is eight days away get online make sure that you order this we have had significant numbers of folks get online voting is the bedrock of our democracy agree don't agree with a candidate or with an elected official still vote it's the way we peacefully transition power it's the way we make our voices heard and with all of the various activism or or or expression that we have seen out there all of it I hope all this energy translates in in devoting so to it's the last day make sure you get online and request that absentee ballot while you're online fill out your census this only happens once every ten years it is absolutely critical to funding moving forward let's not leave dollars on the table that week Kentuckians are entitled to these are dollars for critical programs their investments from the federal government it just takes about two minutes so please make sure you do it think of them as two acts of citizenship of being a good Kentucky citizen number one voting number two filling out your census they are easy things that we all can and we should do because we love this Commonwealth and we love this country all right today's kovat update is about what we see on other Sundays and Mondays where we have lower numbers of tests coming in which are lower numbers than we saw especially at the end of last week so we're going to go through our report but then we're going to talk a little bit about what we are seeing in other states some people call it an increase some people call it a spike and the different steps that are going to be necessary for Kentucky to prevent the same from happening here so Sunday's report had 85 new cases of kovat 19 that brought our total cases as of Sunday to 12, 500 29 321 of which were probable and the rest were lab confirmed 17 came from Jefferson County 13 Fayette 12 Warren 4 and Davis and McCracken 3 and Shelby 2 in Clark Edmondson Fleming grace Harlan and Logan and one in Boone bourbon Breathitt Callaway Elliott Franklin Garrard Henderson Laurel Letcher Metcalf Muhlenberg Ohio Perry Pike Powell Rowan Russell and Union and one was unconfirmed we also I had one of the lowest reports of deaths on on Sunday and we also have a low report today and worth really thankful for that we lost one additional Kentucky and on on Sunday and once too many but that one has a Sunday put us at 500 deaths and the Commonwealth due to Cove in nineteen yes governor but I think as any citizen of the Commonwealth you never want to see us lose 500 individuals in the course of really three months to this virus you know it's a virus that we had never seen it's a virus that we are actively fighting against but in that short period of time taking 500 people it's devastating it's it's awful and I hope that we can continue to show the compassion to these families and and the other families that are going to lose somebody as we move forward that one individual was a 91 year old woman from Henry County so and today we are reporting a hundred and twenty new cases of kovat 19 that brings our total cases to 12, 000 647 because there were a couple of duplicates from the day before 321 are probable the rest our lab confirmed the 120 cases which now bring us to 12, 000 647 cases of kovetz since the start are out of a total number of tests that we've now administered of 325 thousand 65 if you de told me on March the 13th that as we stood here at this point and we would have tested over 325, 000 people I would say I pray that you're right but I'm not sure I would have believed it our testing capacity continues to increase we just have to make sure we continue to encourage people to get tested so as I read out the other numbers why don't we put up the Kroger way to sign up because this week you can do that in Louisville Lexington Bowling Green and Oldham counties so let's make sure that we get plenty of signups Bowling Green is Tuesday Wednesday Thursday I believe of this week five days this week in Fayette and Jefferson please sign up a total number ever hospitalized since the very beginning of this due to kovat 2433 currently 383 ever in the ICU 969 currently 63 you know I don't like to see the numbers that we're seeing you know on average now creeping up though they are not certainly not doubling in a way that that would suggest a real spike but the the most positive number we have other than the number recovered which I'll read in a minute is our ICU number it suggests that we are being able to take care of the majority of people that come down with kovat that need to be hospitalized the current number 63 in the ICU total number of people recovered is our very favorite number 3416 remember it's artificially low because those are just reports we get back in and a lot of people aren't going to call you to say I'm better they're just happy that they're better and we're happy that they are better cases new cases by county 25 in Fayette 24 and Jefferson 15 and Warren six in Shelby four and bullet Clay three and Allen Davis marshal Henderson and Woodford two in Callaway Clark Logan McCracken Monroe and Scott and one in Barron Boone Butler Franklin Hopkins Jessamine Lewis Madison Muhlenberg Ohio Pulaski Rowan Taylor and Union which means we still just have one county in Kentucky that hasn't had a reported case but in Robertson County there's at least one person who's had kovat I mean we know that it's it's everywhere we also lost five individuals that we are reporting for today well that number has been lower than in many days we have had it is five too many brings our total number of lost to Cova to 505 two of those are probable the less the rest are lab confirmed includes an 83 year old woman from Fayette a 47 year old man from Jefferson 47 I'm 42 right now we don't have a lot of information he is not a native English speaker but our understanding is that right now we don't have any comorbidities we can't identify any long-term health issues but we hope to have more information moving forward 82 year old woman from Warren 85 year old woman from Warren and a 61 year old woman from Logan County so that's six people between yesterday and today lower than many days but six too many so let's remember let's keep those green lights on regardless of anything else going on out there this is something that we ought to be able to do together to show compassion to everybody who who needs it you know my my church this Sunday there was a sermon about Jesus facing the crowds and the very first thing it says is he faced them with compassion that's an emotion that we're trying to show and it's one that these families 505 of them now need let's continue to ring our bells at 10:00 a.
m.
I was given up bail recently that had some deep meaning and walked out in the in the Capitol Rotunda this morning and alongside the the employee from the Secretary of State's office who's been doing it every day rang that Bell to lets people know that they are not alone at a time which is incredibly difficult race and ethnicity of overall cases seventy-three point three nine percent white fifteen point O two percent black six point one one percent multiracial four point eight four percent Asian on ethnicity 2.
8 6% non-hispanic 17.
1 4% Hispanic on deaths seventy nine point four one percent white seventeen point O two percent black one point eight nine percent multiracial one point six eight percent Asian and on deaths 96 percent non-hispanic and 4% Hispanic again we see a disparate impact according to race where kovat 19 is taking significantly more black Kentuckians than they make up of our population our goal is to stop that and our goal is to make sure everybody out there has health care coverage so if this ever happens in the future and we've all been regularly going to a doctor fewer of us have things like diabetes or or lung cancer or heart disease that the next time hopefully it is another hundred years or more that we face something like this we are a healthier people that are regularly seeing our doctors and are in a better opportunity and a better place to combat this now I will say to our credit given all of the pre-existing conditions that we have in Kentucky given what our death rate is before kovat hit we are in many ways fortunate that it hasn't taken more and that's because of a lot of work of a lot of health care individuals out there long term care updates again this is an area that it's hit probably the hardest 59 new residents 19 new staff nine new deaths of residents again those nine have been reported in other days but that's what's attributable to a long-term care facility seven new facilities now have a a new case all right so I'm gonna ask dr.
stack to come up here in just a second what we are seeing in many other states Arizona being right now I think the most critical example is sensory opening since we have more contacts some states are starting to actually look like they are spiking have significant increases day over day with some of them reporting even cases in the thousands when they had never had them our job is to make sure that doesn't happen here and every health care professional right now and every one of the president's team that was on the news this weekend was saying the one most important thing we can do to prevent a spike to make our reopening go the way we want it to is to wear a mask I know this is somehow become a part of I think some people call it a cultural war or cultural wars folks this is not this is the key to keeping each other alive it's the key to keeping our reopening if you don't think we're reopening fast enough and you're not wearing a mask you're one of the concerns on why we might not be able to stay reopened if you want our kids to be back in school as soon as possible and you're not wearing a mask you could be preventing what it is that you want to see I know it's not comfortable but when every single health official those working for President Trump those working for me say this is the very best shot we have shouldn't we be willing to do it so this was US Surgeon General was talking about it the other day works for directly selected by the president he's talking about as we reopen the mask is one of the most critical thing he said while it's a small inconvenience it provides big benefits and gives us our best chance for an effective and lasting reopening of America this is the top doctor in the country saying a mask gives us the best chance for an effective reopening in America so whether you are an elected official a leader whether you're the head of a business whether you're just going out to the grocery store if you want to support this state you want to support this country and you want us to be able to reopen please wear a mask I don't want to tell you about mine today today I wear the mask sent to me by David Turner June David is an eight-year-old boy fighting brain cancer I met with David before kovat hit it was on jus January 23rd he had come in for a rally at the Capitol that day he came into my office he was kind of down he sat in my chair pulled up to the governor's desk and I said come on your governor for at least 15 seconds what are you gonna do with it he declared that day National Ice Cream day in Kentucky and I remember as we went out to the to the Rotunda for the event and I brought that up I looked over at him and David had a huge smile on his face something I'll never forget it's one of the best moments I've had as governor his family is kept in touch during kovat and they've written to me and say this virus is especially scary to them as David is vulnerable he was already fighting to much more than any kid should have to and then kovat hits his family sent me this mask with a note and said thank you for serving all the people of Kentucky make every day the best day ever which is what they are putting on their masks I'm willing to wear this mask for my kids I'm most certainly willing to wear it for David I think we can all do the same so with that I'll ask dr.
stack to come up thank you very much governor James could you put the slides up that I have please I have two images I'm going to show here tonight use them to make a point so in the middle is the website I took these from it's publicly available it's 91 – divock which is kovaydin spelled backwards in the top left is a graph for Arizona the top right is a graph for South Carolina the bottom left is Florida in the bottom right is Kentucky these are the new cases by day seven-day averages adjusted for population that's a lot of detail but just take from this I picked a 7-day average to smooth the data so that it wasn't is a zigzag like ours is even with the averaging and what I want to draw your attention to is if you look at all three of these other states you see a sudden increase that sudden increase is roughly 30 days ago it's about the middle of May that corresponds roughly with when social distancing restrictions were lifted in many of these states when you have it in one place you might say that it is just a random occurrence we have the middle of a desert we have the southeast of the state and we have further south in the state in Florida and then of course Kentucky if if you're hoping that the coronavirus will take a nap during the summer it's a hundred and six degrees in Phoenix Arizona today it kind of suggests that if that kind of heat doesn't slow it down I'm not sure what kind will and if you want to look for humidity in heats 89 degrees in Orlando Florida today and I think it's pretty humid at least it has been the times I've been down to Disneyworld so we have a disease that when we shut down society we saw it go dormant and start to go down in many places you can see that here that's probably what happened in Florida when they have social distancing and you see a decline and then a plateau you see that they never had a huge surge they had a surge they were starting the steep part of the curve in south carolina and then they'll head along plateau but now you see a sudden spike when people don't fear this disease don't realize that this is really gonna be a bad thing if it gets out of control and in Kentucky you see we had the increase and what I would say is we've had a very zigzag sort of pattern but what the governor has described over time I think is correct that's a pretty much a plateau if you were to map that and draw a line across it it's a pretty flat plateau for a long period I think we've done a good job here in the state containing this and keeping its growth relatively small but we are at risk just like everybody else for that sudden increase if we take our eye off the ball so James if you could show the next slide I picked one of the many slides we've used in the past months to make these points I'm about to make the tools we have at our disposal have not changed so I want to remind everyone there is no vaccine there is no cure there is no specific treatment for the corona virus there is no vaccine no treatment no cure and what that means is we have to prevent it and since 100 percent of the population is susceptible to this infection except for the few who have already had it what it means is if it runs through our population or very quickly it overruns the health system so if you google and look for news headlines from today one of the largest health systems are the largest in Arizona has been expressing concern that they could run out of ICU beds and apparently also in Houston Texas they are having a surge and talking about if they have to consider activating a field hospital so this is all the stuff we were talking about through March and April that we successfully blunted in Kentucky it's all still out there these are the things that we have available since we don't have a vaccine or medicine specifically to treat it if you can do stuff outside do it outside definitely have social distancing more than six feet wear a mask so I have mine in my pocket here these little things keep our secretions to ourself and minimize the spread from someone with infection to someone without they probably also have some lower-value for keeping you from getting other infection and don't touch or share things including your hands we touch our faces as you've no doubt noticed now as you've tried masking we touch our faces eyes and nose a lot you have to be very disciplined not to do that that takes whatever you've touched and injects it straight into your nose or your mouth where you can get the infection and have these problems so folks we've demonstrated we can succeed we've demonstrated that we can blunt the curve and that we can prevent this from spreading but it takes a lot of discipline if we want to get back to our lives as close to normal as we can without having a lot of people get hurt we gotta wear masks and the governor's can introduce you here in a minute mark harder to talk about contact tracing and why that's so important so that we can minimize these intrusions thank you and there are plenty of masks that are out there remember a cloth mask works fine I wanted to make sure that our hosts today the Kentucky Historical Society which is also printed some gets its due Scott alveus here with us who heads the Historical Society we appreciate you for making our space available and for making the masks doing your part and while the camera never turns around here I want to also thank the media which I see not only here but throughout Kentucky in everything they're doing modeling that type of behavior with the masks that we need to see we talked about the media being partners when we face something like this that doesn't mean that they can't ask difficult questions but they're truly showing up and showing the type of example with it that we greatly appreciate one other kudos solutions to go LLC that is a company based in Ontario Canada but has operations in Louisville company officials have donated fifty two thousand eight hundred K n95 masks that are going to be distributed to Kentucky healthcare providers this is a major donation of one of the hardest it's not an in 95 it's the next best thing it's one of the hardest PPE pieces to find and it's really going to help the Commonwealth we appreciate solutions to go to us you're not Canadian you're just pure Kentucky all right we talked about testing let's put up all the different areas where you can be tested if you get on our website it's a hundred and ninety different locations make sure you're regularly tested if you've been to a group with with ten or less begin together go get tested I've been to a restaurant in the last 14 days you worth going to get tested certainly if you've been in a demonstration go get tested if you're just going to work regularly go get tested we all want to know whether we have this so we don't spread it to other people and so if we do we can prevent it from from spreading further this is a part of our world until there's a vaccine it doesn't hurt sometimes it's uncomfortable depending on which test you get but its necessary to doing it right so three tools to defeat Cova until there's a vaccine number one social distance we've talked about that a lot number two is testing and number three is contact tracing we've got mark Carter here he was heading that up for us to give us an update if I could get my slides up Thank You governor contact tracing is as the governor mentioned is a tool that our public health professionals have available to them to help stop the spread of Kovan to your loved ones neighbors and fellow citizens and it's one of the critical tools that we have and really the only tool that we have as a public health complex to try to stop the spread of the disease so I came on board a little over a month ago to try to help help with the contact tracing effort and I want to give you a brief report on where we are one of the key things is the development of this information system platform we're calling it the contact tracing and tracking solution or CTT that is was stood up and pretty pretty significant or a short period of time for a technology solution and I don't think this can be underestimated in terms of its value to Kentuckians over the long haul this is a consistent system that's deployed across the state it's very flexible it creates flexibility in terms of assigning contact tracing staff so we can quickly move them if we have an outbreak in a particular area and they're using the same system it's like southwest airlines flying 737s every pilot sees the same flight deck every time he gets on it he or she gets on a plane it's it's secure and it's very cost-effective essentially we're using care Zack money to build this system and it's going to pay dividends to the Commonwealth for years to come you can see here that we've on boarded local health departments in four waves we just have a couple of departments left that we have to bring on board we've we've essentially used webinar training and everybody's using zoom and Microsoft teams and so forth today to communicate that's how we're doing the training here so that we can maintain social distancing for our staff that will be doing the tracing we have almost 350 users on board so those are going to be contact tracers disease investigators and similar positions that are either employed currently by the local health department's or have been on-boarded over the last few weeks we have a total of 610 local contact tracers or disease investigators on board right now about 430 of those were in local health departments and it had been in place for some time even before the pandemic contact tracing isn't a new a new approach it's been used by health department's for decades but we have a hundred and eighty new contact tracers that have been on boarded in just a little over two weeks that's a I should restate that a little over three weeks that's a pretty phenomenal rate to bring those folks on board there's 15 to 20 in the pipeline today we have over 6, 000 applications on the KY COBIT 19 website and so we have a lot of interest in doing contact tracing and I don't think we'll have any problem filling the 700 or so slots that we have available turning our attention to the next slide one of the most important things here is communication not just with the public but with health professionals constituencies like the Chamber of Commerce mayors judge executives and the like to get the word out about contact tracing and to make sure people know what it is and what it isn't really what all we're trying to do here is when we identify someone that's tested positive for Kovan it's just to identify the folks that that person has been in contact with recently and then get in touch with those those people and let them know what they can do to protect their own health and to protect their their family and friends and loved ones so the most important thing here is we will have a 1-800 number that called kentucky trace which will alert people to the fact that it's the local health department calling them we just want to continue to get the word out around contact tracing or the process and the importance of answering the call when you get it and participating fully in the process just like we're in a mask and social distancing and then finally just trying to spread the word in local communities around around tracing a couple of words of caution with all the fraud and spam calls that you get these days you know there this is a private process no one will ever ask you for a bank account information or credit card or anything like that if it happens you need to call the hotline and the attorney general's office and report that call but know that you you may be asked about your address and you know who lives with you and things of that nature but that's just to identify your contacts the the fraudulent stuff with Social Security numbers in bank account information credit cards call the Attorney General and that's my update so we have talked about really three major priorities and fighting kovat 19 number one the health and safety of Kentuckians number two successfully and safely reopening our economy and number three getting our kids back to school our lieutenant governor and a task force at KDE have been working hard on moving towards that and she's going to provide an update this is the lieutenant governor jacqueline coleman thank you and good evening team Kentucky three months ago tomorrow the Department of Education put together an education continuation task force at the beginning and the outset of the Cova 19 pandemic the purpose of this task force was essentially to convene a coalition of groups within k-12 education and work together to get through the challenges that arose during the Cova 19 outbreak most importantly initially was how do we continue teaching and learning in a non-traditional way this task force continued to work to support our students and our communities through providing meals across their communities and services to families to basically keep their communities going members of this group include a wide variety of our education leaders we have superintendents principals teachers school board members the leaders of our regional co-ops officials from the cabinet for Health and Family Services officials from the Kentucky High School Athletic Association the Department of Public Health the Southern Regional Education Board and the governor's office so we have tried to include as many shareholders in in the world of public education as possible because those are ultimately the folks who live where the rubber meets the road and where these guidelines are going to come into play in our public schools recently I invited a bipartisan group of legislators to join our work I was happy that all four of them accepted and so joining us is going to be senators Reggie Thomas and max wise and Representatives Tina Bo Janoski and Regina Huff as this task force continues to evolve we are working to meet the changing demands of the kovat 19 pandemic which has shifted from non-traditional instruction in the spring to how do we reopen schools and go back to being healthy at school so with that shift in focus today's meeting we discussed the five best practices that you've heard from Public Health over and over and over again and they are wearing masks practicing social distancing hand sanitizing and surface sanitizing temperature checks and contact tracing so these are not new items but what is new is we have to now contemplate how does this look in a school system how does this look when there are hundreds and maybe even thousands of students in a building at one time and that is certainly not going to be an easy feat but I will tell you this what the governor has said today what dr.
stack just mentioned about wearing a mask it is going to be imperative that our students and the kids in our communities have positive role models and positive examples to actually practice what we preach we should never ask of our students what we're not willing to give and so it's really important for not just our teachers and our education leaders but our community leaders and our state leaders to follow these guidelines as well we are working with this task force to create a culture of support around these best practices from the medical community and the really important aspect of this is taking these safety expectations for our students here that we've determined at the state lab and helping to implement that at the local level that's going to look different in different places not every school district is the same size or has the same makeup or anything like that and so we are working to empower the local community leaders to take these safety expectations and make the best of this situation so as a reminder every single school district has a locally elected school board every single school building across Kentucky has a locally elected site based decision making Council which includes parents educators and administrators and every community has a Department of Public Health and so we are going to be working together again to take these safety expectations for our students and to empower the local communities to be able to implement these for the sake and safety of our students our faculty and staff our families and our communities it is going to be a difficult lift and I'm not going to sugarcoat that because we have children who are involved and so that becomes even more important obviously to every one of us as teachers we refer to them as our kids and that's often how we think about them but if there's a community that can do it what we saw our public school teachers do and our public schools do in light of kovat 19 in the spring and how they were able to turn on a dime adapt their instruction support their students not just with with curriculum instruction but with food service and other services that are needed in the community I know that we're going to be able to do this as we work together so there will be continued updates coming through today I wanted you to know who is involved in this task force and what we are working towards and as we continue through the next few weeks we'll have continued updates on working towards reopening schools and being healthy at school thank you well thank you to the lieutenant governor and she does an amazing job of displaying not just her but this entire administration's passion for education especially public education let's also make sure that we are always honest and transparent about this virus and who it can harm and as we work to getting kids back into school families need to start planning for them coming home from school remember that this disease affects especially our seniors and those with heart lung or kidney disease and so for families that have grandparents providing care after school we may need to look at different options for parents that have a caregiver that falls into one of those categories we need to start thinking through it and planning ahead because unquestionably as our kids have more contact just like they will when they when they're going back to today care and we need to acknowledge that and and we need to know just like our schools aren't going to be able to do things in the normal way that we could before what happens when we come home and how we plan around that is going to need to be thoughtfully considered as we move forward last up for questions is Michael Brown he is the top elected official atop the top appointed official in Kentucky I guess I'm the top elected official in Kentucky all right now we sorted that out but Michael has been I've been blessed to have him working with me from being the the Deputy Attorney General where we could not have done what we did without him to now having his his counsel in the governor's office he does a lot of things incredibly well but one thing that that he's always been known for and he certainly brought to this administration is the ability to walk into tough situations and not just to start addressing them but to stabilize them and even to fix them so now that I built you up Michael you got another thing to fix right Oh Thank You governor I'm sure that's more than them folks needed but today's a short update will be about the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women Nome prim pretty much as Pewee Valley and we've had some positive cases of kovat come out there and I wanted to give a quick update on it first good news no one is hospitalized from KCI W at the end of May we received three employees tested positive and eleven inmates so we used what we learned from Green River and we immediately started not only the mitigation step up the mitigation efforts which had already been in place but we starting last Friday mass testing and to date we have tested probably a little over 300 as of today I didn't get today's numbers but will be completely tested at KCI w by the end of this week we have 639 inmates at KCI W and 228 staff including a contract staffed we've implemented as I said we've got the testing we've got math we've got sanitizers we even have some foot protection at KCI W and so learning from Green River is bringing us a long way to get this one hopefully we won't even reach the levels of Green River well while I'm talking about Green River let's talk about how successful those efforts have been today we have one staff member as a contract staff members hospitalized but of the 417 positive tests that came out of Green River both inmate and staff we have 392 that have recovered meaning that we only have 19 active inmate and 6 active staff cases at Green River and in the remainder of all our correctional facilities we have two staff and one inmates with positive tests so we are confident that using the methods we've learned with the cooperation and dr.
stack staff that we will also bring case eiw under control all right we'll move into questions it looks like today we have Karen czar Lawrence Smith Joe Csonka Phil Pendleton and Catherine Collins we'll start with you Phil so the most recent numbers is in March we had a hundred and sixty-seven thousand four hundred twenty people file for unemployment we have processed and and we're able to approve ninety five point four eight percent of them and there's seven thousand five hundred sixty-six remaining in April 429, 000 fifty-six people applied there are ninety three point five eight percent of them we got processed with twenty seven thousand five hundred seven people left and then maze filings two hundred ninety five thousand eight hundred seventy nine there are still seventeen thousand six hundred and nineteen people that that haven't been approved and that's ninety four point oh four percent of those thus far those were the numbers that I got this morning we continue to work on new strategies we have brought new leadership to the table we are working through some deficiencies certainly that were found but we're also able to bring more people in in the labor cabinet that are trained and similar jobs to the table we're also going to be looking at the potential of outside help too we have got to not only continue to process these but we need to move faster I think we all agree on that many people have been waiting far too long and I'm committed not just to owning it but when you own it I think it makes you committed to doing better Joe the question is on the Kentucky Correctional Institute for women peewee Valley it's just which is what we call it there were seven individuals who filed a lawsuit I haven't read the lawsuit yet and I believe they allege they're medically compromised and what we see from Green River is if you were able to test the whole facility and you were able to move those that are medically compromised as quickly as possible and then take the steps that we took that you can stabilize a prison and the fact of Green River none of the once we started doing the testing the medically compromised individuals and ultimately contracted the virus we believe will be able to do the same here right now there are not plans for an additional release we've already released those that were non violent non sex offenders with a shortened period left on their sentence but obviously it's everybody's right to go to the court system and we will listen to those arguments in court I've got a couple of written questions let me get through one will you issue recommendations to school districts on how to reopen and strongly encourage them to do one thing over another similar to the closure recommendations well we're working on that right now and what I anticipate and again it's where we are right now is that there are going to be some things that are mandatory and there going to be some things that are highly recommended and the more a school district does of not just the mandatory but the highly recommended the safer it becomes that we're doing this in kovat 19 there's not going to be a perfectly safe option out there we know we got to get back to school and and we hope that that our school districts have a high commitment to safety and do everything that they can under both the mandatory and the the recommended Katherine the question is how are we seeing the same number of openings of non signups can you put Kroger back up just to give people the opportunity the website on where to go I don't believe at the beginning of this week and I'll get you updated information as it goes on Mondays there's only two of them that are open this Monday Louisville in Lexington and Monday's tend to track pretty well but we are seeing less people sign up the rest of the week and though it's not two to a level to where it's still not worthwhile but we need more people to get tested and part of that is we need other people encouraging now I'm doing my best though there have been days that I haven't encouraged testing and I should be doing it every single day that I'm up here yeah we got a test test test and continue to test even more while we are very excited about where our testing numbers are we can't let them fall off but we need other people encouraging it too we need our business owners we need our principals if you know our teachers are gonna be coming back we need our superintendents talking about it we need the County Judge executives talking to to their employees about going in and getting tested so it's not spread around we need everybody who is in a leadership a servant leadership role to to encourage it but we need everybody who has a voice out there to say it's my health too and if those around me don't get tested then my safety is compromised as well so we need to pushed and pushed and pushed more and while we haven't seen a drop off that threatens reopening yet we have we have the capabilities to test so much more and the more we test the safer it becomes because then we can really dig down and see where these outbreaks are and and get a better get our arms around a symptomatic spread better Karen I don't think that that the task force yet has a recommendation for a start and end time at school or a number of days a week or whether or not there's going to be days in and and and days out and we know that when kids aren't in that class the the quality of their education is is less that doesn't mean that teachers aren't trying it doesn't mean that parents aren't trying it's just an important experience that that our kids need now with that said we're gonna have to be flexible you know we can't just wish the virus away by by what's by simply knowing and we know what the best learning experience for our kids are we got to balance that with their health and safety and everybody else is too and try to come to the best outcome we can let's remember Cova didn't fare and in many ways it's the most unfair virus that we have seen because of its impact you know it prevents us from doing as many site visits by social workers it prevents us from have it prevented us from having kids in class at the end of last year prevents us from seeing our relatives where we want to make sure that they are safe in their long term care facility this this virus isn't fair at all and what we can do is the very best we can by trying to allow as many of those experiences as possible while still protecting people's overall health Lawrence education is guiding television to prepare for an event enclosures what's your take on that I believe that the Kentucky Department of Education is saying for people to prepare for closures now we saw that with the flu in this last school year before kovat and what we see is that when when there's an active virus and you're not doing the right things one of the quickest way there spreads is in schools because and one of the most effective things when you have a major flu outbreak is to shut down school for a couple of days so we do need to be prepared and we need to be prepared with MTI because if a school has a major outbreak you can't continue to ask the students to go in you got to give it enough time you got to do the cleaning just like we do in a place of business and and then and then bring the students back in when we believe that it's safe so we have to be prepared for that and in France we've seen that kids went back to school and a number of the schools had to close and then reopen I believe it'll depend on the size of the outbreak now what we'll recommend to any superintendent I mean it the the smallest level could be potentially a class though potentially a school hopefully not a school district but we will be able to be surgical and targeted with our recommendations on that but yes we've got to be prepared for that and we have to be prepared because if we weren't prepared for intermittent school closures during this then we wouldn't have the resources ready and available to try to do the best we can to make up for that instructional learning Phil so a question from Phil as as we're reopening he's seeing businesses some that are strictly following different guidance others that aren't where do they get that guidance ky kovat 19 ky gov has guidance for most industries the better you follow it the safer it is and it is a benefit to your business to follow it in Arizona there was just an article about the restaurants the individual restaurants that have had to shut down due to kovat you don't want to be on that list they were all listed there because when there is a massive outbreak it's really hard to tell people who need to know that they have it without that identification so those that aren't doing it well I believe it is a bigger threat to their long-term business I believe it's not only the right and the moral thing to do to follow the rules as best you can as a person as a business as an institution but it is also the best thing for a business an institution Jo question is about the state budget shortfall for the current fiscal year we have put in action a plan now that will balance the budget by the end of the year it's tough it won't require massive cuts in this fiscal year because we had extra dollars that we're going to flow into next year that we're now going to have to use but the next fiscal year and if we do not see a federal influx our budgets going to be devastated and and I don't see right now if we don't have federal dollars flowing in how we come anywhere close to the tea even the the conservative dollars that they put into the budget it is absolutely necessary for the federal government to have another cares Act that directly helps it's not just States it's also local governments no one's going to make it through this without that in the interim they could allow us to use some of the cares act money they've already provided to help with those services that would be helpful but they're in a state in this country that can get by without that help Oh what we would do is we call in the consensus forecasting group but you know that that fiscal year doesn't start until July 1 we can still potentially see federal action before then but we can also get into the month a little bit certainly even even two months and before calling the consensus forecasting group if we can do that it is more accurate and we're already looking at steps that we would take to curb spending until then it's just like last month the last reported month our receipts were a lot better than we expected now they still weren't good but they were only half as bad as we expected so if we'd had the consensus forecasting group end well they did predict it twice as bad it would be significantly less accurate moving forward so we'll be will be looking at the next couple months and trying to make the best determination of that but I'll have a decision on that yet Catherine it probably is lessons learned on treatment to the coronavirus when people start with a this is probably a question for dr.
stack it almost always is so the question is are there any lessons learned for treatment with kovat right so the lessons learned I think are to stick to the science to not let false hope overtake the science and the pace it can work and to and then if you follow that guidelines what we find is chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have so far not been proven to be beneficial at least not in any significant way Ramdev severe is still experimental it's not approved by the FDA for any particular indication although there are some signs that it is helpful when that patients who receive it get benefit and we're receiving shipments from the federal government like other states are and all the hospitals know how to request it and we've shipped out over a hundred doses of that and other than those there are other experimental things but nothing yet that is proven and as far as vaccines that's not happen until next year but the federal government is doing a number of things to take the risk off to the vaccine developers so that while they have candidates that are promising they will assume the financial risk essentially and start producing vaccine before they know they can use it for the whole population that way if it is proven to be useful they have it already ready to start deploying so I have optimism that our scientists are going to find answers but it's not going to happen over the next few months probably while we still work through things where do things stand overall as the state proceeds towards gradual reopening so right now we believe we're basically back to a plateau we will see as the numbers continue to come in we are not increasing at the rate of those that people talk about spiking whether you look at Arizona and Texas and some others and and while our numbers kind of go up and down they are not doubling every day or week or really even two weeks and continuing to increase we still continue to have a lot of ICU beds and enough hospital beds and so because of that I think that as of now you know our reopening continues but we're watching it and we're watching it closely is there somewhere that lists the daily infection deaths and testing totals every day going back to March 6 we'll get with this reporter to see how we can get them that information Karen they should contact their local health department and they will work on a case-by-case basis because it could be other things too to where they shouldn't be coming back in but they can work with our Department of Public Health you know when you've got a child that has shown symptoms that could be kovat then we won't we want to figure out what the testing was and the accuracy of it and so I think it's really important when that happens call the local health department they'll work with us we want to make sure that there isn't just some rule where where you you do one thing or the other that we do the right thing for that situation Lawrence oh I think it I think it impacts everywhere the Supreme Court has ruled I think rightfully so that you can't fire someone or deny them housing simply because they're gay now I believe that discrimination in all of its forms is wrong and we should all be judged by our merit especially when when it applies to work I think this was a good decision by the Supreme Court I was happy to see it that's now the law of the land and and certainly in Kentucky state government while that has been one of our rules it's it's it's the law and I said it's a good decision and you look at even the makeup of the court in that decision and it shows you that they did the right thing they did the right thing alright let me let me finish out with this question asking why some tests are coming back non detected that is now the terminology that's used for negative so somebody gets a test that says non detected it's that they did not detect kovin in your test that could be a little confusing that's important for everybody to know all right so this week we are going to do these updates Monday today Tuesday and Thursday and so we hope that you will tune in for each of those I'm gonna cut a little short here at the end it's my son's 11th birthday he only gets at 11th birthday once though I hope he has many birthdays after that to everybody out there remember stay safe there's still a pandemic out there and please wear a mask whether it's for David who I talked about today the other compromised kids and adults around you or whether it's that you believe Kentucky should be reopened wearing a mask is what helps us get there thank you very much Thank You Virginia you
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