Industry sign banking new jersey confidentiality agreement secure
otherwise and if there is you have my word that I personally along with some Shore members of our team will be available it will call an audible on Monday even though we said we were gonna go to one o'clock for our briefings we're actually going to be a two o'clock on Monday I believe right here my hand at the War Memorial because we've got a vtc with the White House which is typically on Mondays in this case I think it's at 11:30 so two o'clock gives us enough time to attend that and communicate with the White House and then we will be with you after that honored to be joined by an all-star team today including the woman to my right who needs no introduction Commissioner Department of Health Judy purser Kelly to her right Department of Health communicable disease service medical director another guy you're getting familiar with dr. Edward Lifshitz good to have you with us doc to my immediate left chief innovation officer Beth Noveck more from her soon Beth thank you for joining us and to her left superintendent of the State Police Colonel Pat Callahan also as as always in honored to be joined by the director of the department of homeland security and preparedness jared maples i mentioned yesterday back to Beth for a second I mentioned yesterday all the great work that Beth's team is doing to keep our co vyd 19 NJ gov portal going and growing and I asked her to join us today to give us some more color on all that goes into making that portal work let's get to the the the overnight numbers if we can since we met yesterday we have received another 2289 positive test results bringing the statewide total to 11,000 124 again as usual Judy we'll give you some more color on those positives broad demographics including county of residence we are now into five digits as we predicted we would be soon and we are about at the pace that we expected and that in and of itself isn't a reason to continue your social distancing and all the other efforts we are collectively doing to flatten the curve then please take this one to heart over the past day another thirty two of our fellow blessed New Jerseyans have died because of covet 19 related complications this brings to a cumulative total of 140 invaluable precious on expendable souls who are no longer with us in the Garden State because of this virus let me put it this way no one is getting graded on a curve for their social distancing there's no opportunity for an a-minus or a B+ here this is a pass/fail test this is life and death let me give you an example of something not to do and we are not going to be shy about naming and shaming those who can't get this message into their heads last night right here in Mercer County Ewing Township police broke up a party with 47 people including a DJ crammed into a 550 square foot apartment the organizer was charged as they should have been and deserved to be I thank the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office for their work in addition to the Ewing Township Police Department as well this is not a game it is critical that you stay at home unless you absolutely need to go out or because we need you on the front lines helping us respond to this crisis in whichever way we have asked you to help for everybody else stay home period and if you do go out whether it's to a supermarket or to a pharmacy keep a safe six-foot distance from anybody else including family members and friends you may be with when you're at the grocery store for example be mindful not just of your fellow shoppers but of the women and men working hard to put that toilet paper on the shelf for you or ringing you up at the registers I had a really powerful exchange this morning with another retail giant Stuart Applebaum who was the head of the retail wholesale and department store Union nationwide he's based in New York City he's known to us they've got thousands of their colleagues up and down the state he wrote a really powerful op-ed in The Daily News that made the points that I'm making in terms of the retail workers on the front lines of this response the federal bill that was signed by the president yesterday actually includes retail workers in the provision for daycare support which i think is a great point and Stuart makes another point still too too many places in this country these workers are working for a pittance per hour I'm proud and we did it with the help of the likes of Stuart and his colleagues I'm proud that we're on a path toward $15 an hour minimum wage in New Jersey which is the least we could do for these folks likewise when you go to go out to pick up dinner which I think we're gonna do again tonight be mindful of the restaurant workers who need you to keep a safe distance so they could keep cooking and keep keep the food supply going we are all in this together and I will end later with more on this on testing as a reminder tomorrow Sunday March 29 only the testing site at Bergen Community College will be open of the of the to FEMA run testing sites testing will begin at 8:00 a.m. and it will continue until 500 samples have been taken on Monday March 30 only the PNC Bank Arts Center site of those two by the way will be open again at 8:00 a.m. and again will be capped at 500 samples these are the two drive-thru sites that we stood up with the help of FEMA so today as you know both sites are open health care workers first responders only today tomorrow the day after and every day until we tell you otherwise only for people who are symptomatic and then beginning tomorrow we're gonna go likely one on one off but at least Sunday I'm telling you the Bergen Community College will be open on Monday it will be PNC Bank Art Center and we'll keep letting you know before each day again you must be exhibiting symptoms of respiratory illness to get a test and they check you by the way when you pull up if you're not exhibiting the symptoms you are politely but firmly asked to leave the line with the new staggered schedule of for these sites I will note again I've promised in my briefings which site will be open the following day and the site will also be available the schedule site rather will also be available on our online portal again it covered 19 NJ dot as we have been over the past couple of weeks telling you when other testing sites are opening even if we are not one of the sponsors in almost all these cases we are contributing in one form or another tomorrow Bergen Newbridge Medical Center in Paramus will provide drive-through testing for symptomatic healthcare workers and first responders who live or work in Bergen County only this will be by appointment only and you must first be pre-screened via a telehealth interview with a doctor that process by the way is now open and available at their website which is Newbridge health.org Newbridge health.org again this testing again is for symptomatic healthcare workers and first responders who live in Bergen County only so I want to tip my hat again to Newbridge for doing that switching gears but an important one today we are announcing a significant measure of mortgage relief for the many New Jersey families who are being directly impacted by this emergency and for whom that April first payment date loomed especially large and foreboding working alongside major national mortgage lenders including Citigroup JP Morgan Chase US Bank Wells Fargo and I am proud to also note for the first time Bank of America as well as many of our state chartered lending institutions and mortgage servicers we can announce today a 90 day grace period for mortgage payments for borrowers economically impacted by the kovat outbreak importantly for consumers who use this option this 90 day grace period cannot and will not be used to downgrade anyone's credit rating and lenders will also waive any late fees or other costs which would otherwise arise because of this 90 day grace period this program closely mirrors what the state of California under the strong leadership of my friend governor Gavin Newsom was able to provide for their homeowners and I thank the national lenders who were part of that agreement for working with us as well as with all the state level associations who worked with us on this for New Jersey and I'm especially proud as I mentioned a minute ago that we're we were able to bring Bank of America on board with our plan and again I think we are the first state in America to do that with Bank of America so I took my hat to them and to the extraordinary work of our colleagues including the Commissioner of the Department of Banking Insurance Marlene curry day additionally this announcement builds on the moratorium on removals of individuals pursuant to foreclosures or evictions that I previously instituted via executive order today we are going further and announcing that these financial institutions are committing to not initiate foreclosure sales or evictions proceedings for at least 60 days so put it put together a 90 day grace period in a moratorium on foreclosures and in Vixens means many New Jersey families can breathe easier keep their heads above water and have a place they can continue to call home this is a very important note because otherwise you may come to us first and while I hope we can be a source of information for you the first port of call if you're a homeowner should be contacting your your lender directly to take advantage of this relief as you can imagine these lenders or experienced a high-volume a high volume of inquiries and they may recommend using online services when available so as appreciative as I am of all the banks that sign onto this initiative and I am now is the time to do even more I urge and expect our financial institutions and credit card companies to do the right thing in all areas of their businesses that also means for example lowering credit card interest rates to reflect the reality many families are living to waive late fees and excess exercise compassion when people call with financial hardship we all need to get through this together and not just get through it but come out of it together as for renters we have begun hearing stories of landlords who are attempting to evict tenants during this emergency 2nt to any renter facing eviction let me be clear under my executive order your landlord cannot kick you out of your home during this emergency period and for any landlord who is getting mortgage relief today we expect you will in turn provide similar relief to your tenants if you need rental assistance I urge you to visit our online portal at covett nineteen NJ gov to do a quick search for rental assistance and you will find information and a link to the resources available through the Department of Community Affairs which gives me a chance to give them a big shout out to lieutenant governor Sheila Oliver who continues to do an extraordinary job not just as lieutenant governor of my partner but also as the leader of the Department of Community Affairs to every landlord I cannot stress this enough now is the time to show some compassion and to work with your renters to ensure that they stay safe and in their homes this is not the time to be raising rents and as I mentioned you cannot evict anyone at this time and if you try to we are not going to take it lightly and we will make an example out of you providing the law and to every utility provider that has voluntarily stopped all service shut offs throughout this emergency I also thank you for doing the right thing the other day I noted that we gave our municipal water utilities a deadline to follow suit and halt shut offs and I'm proud that with very few exceptions we have received their cooperation to the holdouts who have not yet responded you can expect a phone call from us perhaps from me in short order and I can assure you it will not be a pleasant conversation switching gears yet again we have talked many many times about our desperate need for personal protective equipment or PPE for our frontline health care workers this includes everything from n95 masks or gloves face shields gowns and the like we continue to accept all PPE donations and if you have PP to donate I urge you to visit kovat 19 dot and J gov slash PPE donations as you can see in the screens behind me to reach out and our team will will be in quick contact to accept your donation I mentioned a lot of the corporate citizens who have stood tall over the past couple of weeks and they continue to even since we were together yesterday I mentioned Apple already Apple has informed me through the offices of Tim Cook and Lisa Jackson even after yesterday's press gathering that they're gonna up their donation of n95 masks by 50% they're one example of many right now who are standing tall so in addition to the donations though we also recognize the need for us to work within our healthcare networks to ensure that we are properly dispersing the PPE we receive whether it's from the national stockpile more on that in a few minutes from Pat or through donations and we want to be able to do so proactively so today I will sign I didn't quite get it signed by the time I got here but I will sign today an executive order requiring designated healthcare facilities including licensed acute care hospitals long-term care facilities and temporary medical facilities Judy I think in a minimum right to report to the Department of Health and the office of emergency management within the New Jersey State Police on a daily basis data concerning their capacity and supplies and that will include things like bed capacity ventilators and PPE this will allow us to more efficiently and effectively manage the flow of PPE and to have the most up-to-date data possible regarding our bed capacity and we will establish a process that allows this information to be uploaded quickly and easily having a clear understanding of where each hospitals inventory stands as critical as I said for us to make sure we're being proactive in distributing PPE but it's even more important as hospitals begin expanding their capacities as we have directed them to and as our level 1 hospitals prepare to help us administer the field medical stations that are being created in partnership with the US Army Corps of Engineers make no mistake I am continuing to fight we all are every single day alongside our federal delegation for the essential PPE we need from the national stockpile we've gotten some of our requests but not nearly all of what we need and I won't stop burning up the phone lines to the White House until we get all that we need our centralized procurement and donations management steams continue to pursue all available PPE in the private market as well we are truly leaving no stone unturned when it comes to ensuring that our frontline responders have the protective equipment that they need but until we know we all have that we that which we need we need to pull together to make sure what we have is being properly distributed so let's not just take stock of what we have let's make sure that we distribute it as effectively and efficiently as possible I had a good private one-on-one conversation with President Trump yesterday afternoon I thanked him for the support that has already come our way FEMA for the testing sites the Army Corps for the field hospitals he and the vice president have heard at almost every step almost every day the urgent need we have a PPE thank thankful for what we've gotten but acknowledging we need a lot more and so a couple of things since that conversation following that in conversations again throughout the week with the vice president we got another slug of PPE out of the federal stockpile shipped overnight Pat Callahan will go through exactly what we got in a minute so we are thankful for that again we have a long way to go but I thank the president and vice president for the support there I also asked President Trump formally yesterday we had submitted a written request but formally asked him to federalize the National Guard indeed last night so only a couple of hours after he and I spoke we received approval from the Department of Defense to deploy the New Jersey National Guard as necessary to help us through this crisis and again I want to thank President Trump and vice president pence and secretary dr. mark Esper for the
r timely response to our request I'm going to call an audible as they say in football Pat two things number one can you run through what we got overnight and secondly can you give us a 20-second summary of the conversation that you and the team had this morning with dr. Eastman who I believe is the senior medical senior medical officer of the Department of Homeland Security that's correct governor with regard to the shipment that came last night 120 almost hundred and twenty 1095 mass 288 E 7,000 surgical masks over 62,000 face shields over 51,000 surgical gloves more than 35-hundred coveralls more than 360 8,000 pairs of gloves in one thousand medical beds and as a direct I think result of your conversation with the president yesterday governor this morning the folks on our team met with dr. Eastman who is the senior medical officer with regards to him making sure that he fast tracks any of the requests that we have through FEMA region two and basically just for more than an hour assured us that in any way shape or form that we could that he could fulfill whether it's from through regulation or actual equipment or ventilator needs a high-level discussion but it was indicative of our phenomenal relationship with FEMA which which continues thanks go phone Thank You Patton thank you for all your leadership on all the above to another important point the federal bill the president signed yesterday is as I have said a welcome first step in helping us as a state make it through this emergency but it is a welcome step but we're gonna need more we will undoubtedly need more and I am committed to working alongside our federal delegation and my fellow governors and their respective delegations in fact to get more that's my job as governor but you all have a job to play in all this - so much of what we get from Washington is determined by the census and I can't put it any more plainly we know that we were under counted in 2010 and because of that we are right now leaving critical aid federal aid on the table so take a moment please go online as you can see behind me 2020 census gov and make sure you are counted in the census the census is not just a number it's how we as a state qualify for literally tens of billions of dollars in federal funds and right now we need every penny more than ever before being counted on this this is something you could do while at the same time practicing that critical social distancing finally before I turn things over to Judy thanks to the guy to to my left Colonel Pat Callahan I'd like to lift up the words of father Jim Greenfield president of DeSales University across the Delaware River from us in Pennsylvania in a recent homily during an online service father Jim as I understand he likes to be referred to urge his congregation not to think of what we're all doing as social distancing but rather as social solidarity and I think that's an incredibly important point and I referred to this phenomenon yesterday and look at these blessed health care workers and the images behind me we are by nature a social species staying apart from our friends and neighbors and even from our families is not human nature but doing so right now is critically important for us to break the back of that curve and to flatten it and to emerge from this emergency stronger than ever before we are all in this together as one New Jersey family we may be literally apart right now but in many respects we are as close to each other as we have ever been before with one big challenging common enemy we are united in our fight we are pulling our family and ourselves through this together and that in every respect is social solidarity so New Jersey keep practicing not just your social distancing but your social solidarity do it for yourself for your immediate family for your friends and for every single one of the nine million members of our New Jersey family as I've said before we will unequivocally get through this together but only if each one of us each one of the nine million of us including yours truly does their part does their share big and small and in those moments of I halation in those moments of loneliness when you may think that you're all by yourself remember that we are all in this together in that respect we're developing a bond which will become unbreakable and because of that we will win just as we've won world war two we will win this war together as one New Jersey family stronger than ever before with that please help me welcome the woman who needs no introduction the Commissioner of the Department of Health Judy personally Thank You governor excuse me good afternoon before I provide today's update on new cases I also would like to acknowledge and salute the hard work and dedication of our health care workers our first responders and the staff and long-term care settings who are caring for patients on the front lines of this public health crisis I also want to thank employees in grocery stores pharmacies gas stations and on maintenance crews who are working hard every day to ensure that food and other essentials are available they are all heroes and we thank them for keeping things going however I want it I want them to take care of themselves we need them they're essential for a reason for grocery store clerks and others who interact closely with the public please try to maintain as much social distancing as you can as you can carry out your essential duties after each interaction use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol if you are sick stay home please consider that repeated use of the same gloves between customers can actually be worse than not wearing gloves at all because the gloves could become contaminated and with the virus you could be spreading coronavirus around wash your hands with hand sanitizer as much as you can I know many of our frontline health care workers especially those who work in long-term care settings with outbreaks / and the hot zones are fearful of the weeks ahead fearful that they will not have the necessary protections that they need to stay healthy so that they continue if they can continue taking care of their patients I want to assure you that our leaders governor Murphy State Police Superintendent Callahan myself all of our teams are doing everything possible to get as much PPE personal protective equipment as we can we're monitoring the number of critical care beds particularly in northern New Jersey and we know that the CEOs of our hospitals are doing everything to increase that capacity they are also working together and collaborating to make sure that the necessary equipment particularly ventilators are available for the patients who need them this morning I spoke with and had a meeting with New Jersey Hospital Association president Cathy Bennett the hospital association is working with us and we are doing as much as we possibly can to increase again the number of critical care beds and also the number of ventilators as as of the data from this morning from our major laboratories and at this point 95 percent of the commercial labs are sending us information there were two twenty nine thousand eight hundred and twenty two tests performed twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and twenty two tests of which ten thousand four hundred and thirty six tested positive for an overall positivity rate of thirty four point nine nine percent now as I've said confirmed cases are rising quickly and today we are reporting two thousand two hundred and eighty nine new cases for a total of eleven thousand one hundred and twenty four cases in the state as the governor shared sadly were reporting thirty two new deaths those deaths were in the following counties and union each have seven Middlesex has five Morris three to each in Hudson Passaic and Essex counties and there was one death each in Ocean Somerset Warren and Sussex counties of the deaths report we were we are reporting today twenty are male 12 are female the age range 30 years to a hundred years cases with underlying conditions of the ones we know 12 of the 32 had underlying conditions the rest are under investigation there were no deaths reported today associated with a long-term care facility we offer our condolences to all of the families who have lost loved ones as of the data available today 71 facilities in our long-term care facilities are reporting at least one case of coronavirus yesterday it was 55 today it's 71 of the 375 long-term care facilities in New Jersey the breakdown of new cases by county is as follows Atlantic for Bergen 250 Burlington 27 Camden 28 Cumberland to Essex 197 Gloucester 8 Hudson 155 107 Mercer 36 Middlesex 126 Monmouth 122 Morris 42 Ocean 86 Passaic 88 Somerset 29 Sussex 13 Warren 132 I'm sorry Union 132 Warren 9 they're approximately 928 case is that we're still gathering information on a total of the new cases today include a hundred and sixty new positives received from the mass testing sites there have been a total of 662 positive cases since the testing started at the mass testing sites thank you thank you Judy this is my want just to remind folks in terms of total cases so far by County Burgin is number one and it has been number one eighteen hundred and thirty eight Essex number two and it has been number two now for a number of days 1086 Middlesex 808 Monmouth 781 Union apologies Hudson 771 and then right behind Hudson is Union County with 742 thank you Judy for that and for everything you and your team are doing Beth Novak and I met a couple of years ago and and hers was a name that I had heard from her time working with the Obama administration and if that weren't enough hurt I'm advising both David Cameron has his time as prime minister as well as my friend the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and so I thought to myself man that is a you know by the company you keep that's keeping really serious company and Beth has been our chief innovation officer and has had a huge impact with her extraordinary small she'll remind me but extraordinary team across a whole number of fronts none more so than helping us set up the all-encompassing kovat 19 NJ gov website I thought it made sense to invite Beth to join us today and share with you a little bit more detail and a little bit more texture in and around this site what you can expect in some some color behind the each of the facets so with that please help me welcome Beth Novak governor thank you very much I wanted to give a little color as you say about the ways in which technology data and innovation are helping us to play a really key role to provide the public with up-to-date information and also drive data-driven decision-making for all of our leaders here in addition to the many people who have been thanked already and who deserve our thanks for being on the front lines of this every day I also want to thank my as you said small but mighty team at the office of innovation and the many volunteers who are working with us who are really truly working round the clock for their dedication in their long hours here but all of the work that we're doing and the reason we're able to be effective as a small team is because we are collaborating with all of our colleagues and their agencies at this table and many other departments as well as across the between public and private sector across the state to deliver a number of projects that I want to bring to your attention and hope that they are of use so the governor has already mentioned many times and you can see the URL up on the screen the covin and 19 information hub that we have made available we have already had 1 million so 600,000 people who have visited this site there are updates made a dozen times a day in terms of new information and collectively our team has pushed out more than 12,000 content updates including key points you've just heard the governor talked about so you can go there to find up-to-the-minute information articles range on topics from benefits and housing protections to guidance for businesses and health care professionals resources for the disabled and answers to your science and health care questions about the virus the site is now available in Spanish as well as in English so you can go in there search for information it's fully bilingual the site this could not have been made possible in the time that it was done without the generous volunteer support from our corporate partners it yx2 helped us to stand this up there is also you will find from this same site right front and center is the symptom checker can also get there from self kovat 19 NJ gov that is the place in which you can get answers to your questions about what to do if you have a fever or a cough the anonymous data that the site collects also allows us to know where the virus is spreading and where to anticipate spikes we were very glad to develop this in partnership with the Department of Health and we've already had a hundred and twenty nine thousand people used this site since we've stood it up for businesses there's a business information hub CV business NJ gov we've had on this site already two hundred and seventy thousand individual users who have viewed over eight hundred thousand pages on this site and I might add over eight thousand live chat sessions that is as a business you can go in thirteen hours a day seven days a week our colleagues at the Department of State's Business Action Center also the EDA and the Office of innovation are all chipping in to provide assistance at peak traffic times and answer your questions in real time so in less than two weeks we've had order of over a quarter of a million businesses use this hub and again lots of lots of action there and we hope answers to your business questions yesterday for example working with EDA and the BAC we were the primary place to go for answers about EDA is forthcoming business assistance programs in addition for businesses and for jobseekers there was a job portal that was the first portal stood up in the nation the first one to launch to provide in less than 72 hours information for jobseekers about new jobs that are available to people there are 43,000 jobs that are listed on that site from 435 different employers those are jobs that range from salaries of $11 to $75 an hour but also salaried positions in excess of $100,000 the jobs range from warehouse workers and delivery drivers to civil engineers and registered nurses and we stood it up really fast again in 72 hours so bear with us we're improving it as we go to make it more searchable for you to make it easier to find different industries and find different jobs but we hope that this is of some use in addition we are seeing as we've already heard an outpouring of support in terms of donations of personal protective equipment if you have personal protective equipment to donate go to the kovat 19 NJ gov / PPE donations that's all lowercase PPE donations we stood this up just a day ago and already 203 people have committed to donations and yes we've had the big companies you've talked about but there's also a dentist in Edison New Jersey who's donating 20 surgical masks there's a yacht company ambassador of her Township which is offered to donate more than 180 and 95 s so we're just thrilled every little bit counts whether it's big or small and we want to really thank you for your donation related to that businesses were required as of 5 o'clock last night to comply with executive order 109 add to inventory any PPE that they have if you've missed the deadline the site is still up please comply with the requirement and go up there as already 3700 businesses have done to let us know what PPE you have in the event that we need it medical volunteers kovat 19 NJ gov / volunteers we have already had in the last 24 hours 2,000 people who have volunteered if you're a doctor you're a nurse you're a healthcare worker of any kind we desperately need your assistance and we've had offers of volunteers for nearly 600 zip codes both from New Jersey but also from around the country who have offered their assistance to our residents finally last project I want to mention is a site that we've stood up to report violations this is kovat 19 NJ gov / violations that's meant to streamline the reporting of violations of executive order 107
and to alleviate the call center volume so if you see something say something let us know there we've worked hard with the office of homeland security and preparedness to stand up a very simple form where the public which the public can use to report potential violations so these are some of the projects that we've been able to make available in the last week and we look forward to doing our part and I want to thank everybody for their collaboration in making it possible to get out this information to people and to get in above all your offers of help and assistance for which we're very grateful Thank You Beth can I thank you and your team enough that's the website it's as you've just heard multifaceted all-encompassing gets more robust by the day almost literally the case we think we were the first state in America to establish this and we wouldn't have been able to do so without Beth without your work and without your team's help this is a great first place to go if you've got questions as you've heard from all different varieties that reflect the impact of this challenge that we're in the midst of so thank you there are as we've already discussed an extraordinary group of folks who have lost their lives 140 at this point of all shapes and sizes we could probably say something about in fact we could say something about each and every one of them in a perfect world we would and we're trying to find ways to make sure that each one of these precious lives are remembered and memorialized and celebrated for all they did during their lives so when you start to mention some and not others mimosa's a disrespect for those that you don't mention so I don't mean any disrespect but for those who remember watching desperately seeking Susan mark Blum is Bea was a victim of the corona virus born in Newark grew up in Maplewood an outstanding actor both stage and screen a real Jersey guy you know we mentioned a lot of the talent we have in this state and he was high on that list so our thoughts and prayers go out to Mark's wife and his family and to everybody who's lost their lives and just to remind ourselves that the beat goes on in life even away from the coronavirus the dad of one of our colleagues Darrell Isherwood's dad James Isherwood passed away not of Coronas to the best of my knowledge former deputy mayor Livingston a giant I think he lived to the age of 89 known to many live in Livingston and beyond and again his son Darrell works with us and as an outstanding colleague and professional so we take our hat off to him and on a lighter note but importantly you mentioned yext and I had given them a shout out a week ago Beth but it's fair to say this site wouldn't have taken place without their partnerships I want to repeat in their own way they've contributed mightily to our efforts with that I think we're gonna start questions Matt we're gonna start we'll go right to left and then sweep back across if that's okay and we'll start John with you earlier this afternoon the president mentioned the possibility of putting New York New Jersey and parts of Connecticut in a quarantine did he mention any of that to you and a thought in your phone call are you aware of that you went you yes you and other governors have talked about the the difficulty in purchasing PPA particularly ventilators in all your cooperation have you talked about forming a regional a state-based consortium to purchase PPE to prevent the types of shortages or the the blockages and buying them as individual states you've talked about a financial aid for hospital systems their systems in South Carolina in Ohio that are laying off and furloughing workers are you looking at any financial stress tests for hospitals right now and the the CD there's some confusion about wearing face masks has the CDC said anything to the state about the possibility that Americans should be wearing face masks in the coming weeks that's quite a start though right I did not have any part of the conversation with the president yesterday which was very productive I might add not nothing on quarantine came up I literally saw the story as I was walking into this room I've got no more color on it there's no question the Greater New York metropolitan area is the number one hotspot in America right now it's not the only hotspot but it's the number one in terms of number of cases and until further notified we're gonna do keep doing exactly what we're doing because we believe the data and the facts are on our side in terms of this aggressive as aggressive as any American state right now in terms of social distancing and flattening the curve do we consider regularly taking further steps you bet whether prompted by the president or more often than not on our own and so we'll continue to be as aggressive as we have been and not let up I don't know of any consortium conversations about ventilator purchases not a crazy idea by any means there's a lot of coordination Ned Lamont just reached out to me and something as I was sitting here there's a lot of coordination with our regional partners and there's a lot of best practices that we can learn from other governors who may not be contiguous to our region and the last thing we need to do is to be bumping into each other in the acquisition market which which has happened layoffs are furloughs to the best of my knowledge I've heard nothing Judy have you heard anything as it relates to hospitals or health care systems not in New Jersey New Jersey the country we're going the other way we need all hands on deck and CDC on face masks Judy you should you were head should weigh in I literally in The New York Times today there's an article you may have seen this it may be the genesis John of your question that you know this is a revisiting because we heard a few weeks ago the face masks weren't really as as efficacious as we might think they are when we put them on and there were sort of a reconsideration of that at least in the press that I saw today Judy you're editing from this Edie from the CDC sign yeah let me just talk a little bit about the face masks and what they can do and what they can't do and why there's this question in general you know face masks which people put over their faces are effective at preventing bigger droplets from either getting out if you're actually coughing or getting in if somebody's coughing on you it's very important that people who are ill for example if they're around people wear these masks is that can prevent them from spewing droplets around and infecting other people if you're close to somebody who is also infectious they can have some affected not as good as en 95s is being able to keep out the small particles but they can keep out those larger particles and cab in an effect as well the issue about using them routinely is how often are you coming into contact with somebody who's sick and spewing those larger particles where that facemasks would give you protection and there are several reasons why you might think that you might not want to wear a face mask first you know you've heard us talk about PPE shortages and so forth so if all of a sudden we're saying that everybody in America should be wearing them you'd have that issue in concern the second is that it can actually make things worse because people who wear face masks particularly those who aren't used to wearing them very commonly do things like this they readjust they touch they move around their face and other things and if I'm touching my eyes with my contaminated hands that can be worse than wearing a face mask and then wearing nothing at all and the face mask itself may get contaminated when you go to take it off and haven't I made my hand said again if I'm not used to doing this I don't use hand hygiene I'll wash my hands I may and again infect myself so we have heard the rumors that CDC may change the recommendation we certainly know that other countries do it differently and I certainly see the arguments on both sides as to whether you should wear a face mask or not edy thank you and obviously if we get more direction from the CDC we'll make sure you all hear that at least good morning good afternoon good afternoon a couple of questions during your conversation with the president yesterday did you bring up ventilators specifically and did you get any reassurance that any will be on their way and in New Jersey have any hospitals reached their census maximum are any hospitals on diversion and have any hospitals exhausted their supplies of ventilators at least ventilators did not come up specific in that conversation but they've come up in virtually every conversation that we've had Pat was on with the FEMA folks in his on with them constantly we were on with them on ventilators this morning as a general matter PPE comes up all the time but again my my specific we did get a slug of pee-pee out of post this conversation my specific ask was in and around getting the National Guard to get federalized which was an urgent request of ours Judy any comment on maxing out in terms of hospital capacities sure a couple things first first on on the ventilators they at this point it's getting a little it's getting more than a little tight with the ventilator so there are hospitals working with one another and moving equipment around we were able to send out we had asked for 400 ventilators we got 200 we were able in the past week to send out I think about 65 to hospitals that had urgent needs were convening our professional advisory group to talk about the concept of CO venting which has been approved at this point that's where you can use one ventilator to support two individuals to be prepared for the possibility of that down the road it was reported this morning in my conversation with Cathy Bennet the president of the Hospital Association that a couple of hospitals in the North went on divert it was not a PPE issue as much as a person power issue some individuals home not feeling well and not enough or health care workers in their emergency rooms so that's being handled in on a regional basis at this point so as I reported yesterday the North is really feeling the stress right now so our goal is to work with the hospitals increase their critical care capacity give them the equipment that they need to the degree that we have it and give them the guidance that they need if they have to start sharing equipment and we would only do that along with the guidance of the CDC and the FDA and safely I think you know this just from yesterday I believe yesterday that we have sort of gone Judy just refer to this but to be more efficient in our beds in our equipment in our manpower we've gone to a North Central South Regional strategy which in the past couple of days is proving to have been a very smart move for us but again there's more coming at us let there be no doubt about it Elise a follow-up how many hospitals are on diversion or can you can you name which hospitals are I don't have that in front of me we all be able to get that to you for sure we actually have a map with the counties in the hospitals that are in those counties we might be able to bring it forth it's a great slide do we have the which map sorry we have a map at the Department of Health that identifies the regions and the hospitals within the region that mind you had that slide in the can here the we do not okay well we can we have that maybe on Monday that'd be great sir I'm looking about the changing face of policing I'm sorry can you changing face of policing and it's make me for the colonel I guess what it is I'm sorry good what are some of the things that can you talk about what police are doing it from a dispatchers asking information to a police officer walking into a scene it's in a house somewhere what are some of the things they're doing to keep themselves protected as well sure I mean as we've noted not only our health care workers are heroes and at the point of attack but they are joined in that reality by our first responders and not very far behind them essential retail workers and getting them tested and protected in our our highest priorities which is why we've got two sites today dedicated exclusively to that pack could you give a little bit more color in terms of protocols and protections for our first responders up and down the state sure governor to the one critical point that the Attorney General worked hired tirelessly with Commissioner Percy Kelly's legal staff was with regards to basically getting a waiver for the addresses of positive Cove Aid positive patients to be released to our operational dispatch units throughout the state so that when an officer or trooper was arriving on scene it was basically a flag in the system we didn't go as far as named at this point that's certainly under consideration but at least to give that responding officer a heads-up in order to to make sure that they properly donned that their mask as well as their their gloves and as far as the guidance the Attorney General put out guidance we also have guidance from the International Association of Chiefs of Police that has been distributed and we are on almost daily phone calls with executives we do do a daily phone call every day a covert 19 call as I indicated yesterday was almost 800 officers on a call every day and this is where we stress how what the guidance and what the protocols are for when you arrive at at these locations and if you have any doubt we we asked them to n to just act as if that person is symptomatic with with a Cove in 19 had I know you mentioned you and I mentioned over the past number of days at least two officers who were in a tough shape but were God willing sounded like they were improving is that still the case than anything else there that is the case and also daily governor we track every single police officer who's positive and who is quarantined at home at this juncture there's more than 700 police officers quarantined at home and there's about the same amount of number that have tested positive in all from all 21 counties thank you for that Charlie yes Thank You governor regard your upcoming executive order the daily data will that be public shared with the press and the public is will that be public actually don't know I think we said it would be up uploaded right it will be uploaded to a dashboard portions of it will definitely be public it's gonna have a lot of items on it that are for probably internal decision-making but I see no reason why not let's let's come back to that Matt placards with us Matt some of the data might be confidential and proprietary data to the hospitals as well as confidential health data about people there so well certainly as we have been make public whatever we we can and be as transparent as possible yeah that would be our default position is to give you as much as we can priority but for privacy considerations priority though would be for our professionals to maximize their ability to manage this crisis obviously you good thank you and starting when would that be starting I think you said on Monday it'll take us a number of days to refine the data and to confirm the data so maybe by the end of next week like we're gonna get a beginning of money but bear with us sooner real quick please one more on voter registration I know the League of Women Voters ACLU and Institute for social justice sent you and the Secretary of State a letter Board of Elections offices are closed NBC is closed a lot of ways people normally register are not available to them speaking of innovation will you be able to get the online voter registration up earlier and would you consider waiving the the 21 day requirement to register before an election that you tell me if I'm wrong I must we need a lot of to go to online voter registration which is something frankly that I I would actually welcome but but the answer is as a general matter we're reconsidering and we're trying to get as I've said to you in some of our answers from the past couple of days balancing that life has to go on particularly democracy in the exercise our sacred right to vote with an acknowledgement that we're in a crisis on which unlike we've ever dealt with before so that's sort of been guiding our our decisions to try to strike that b
lance it will continue to strike it Thank You Brent three quick things mortgages that uh will they be due in one lump sum after the 90 days and it's only for people who have been affected by this and what is the qualification for that - we have been updated on hospitalized patients and three I missed the PPE equipment that came from the federal government can we get a even even afterwards if I can get a rundown I'm sure yeah okay so on mortgages and Matt correct me if I'm wrong here this is gonna depend on your relationship with your particular bank and that's the place folks should go most I believe are just adding if you have a grace period of two or three months now it's being added on the back end of your mortgage I believe that's the practice that is most common but in terms of your qualification and exactly how that plays out it's between mortgage payer and the bank that is providing it it's or servicing it is that about right generally yeah we've we've spoken to all the major banks that we don't regulate as well as the state chartered banks through their associations that we do our clear expectation is that they will attack three months on to the end of the mortgage and not have one lump sum payment they've all said that they intend to do that and have expressed that commitment the one caveat is that some of the federal loans we don't have jurisdiction over and they have to follow federal guidance which is why that language is in the release but you know we've been pretty direct gov if I can just one quick follow-up on the online voter registration we did sign a law that would allow that to be in effect however hasn't even implemented it and we are exploring whether excuse me whether that's a possibility thank you Matt hospitalisations Judy now that'll be part of the dashboard that's nothing to add today nothing today and pee pee real quick pal just give us a quick summary again of what we got overnight real quick one hundred and twenty ones that were almost one hundred twenty one thousand and ninety five over two hundred and eighty seven thousand surgical masks over sixty two thousand face shields over 51,000 surgical gowns over 3,500 coveralls over 3,300 68000 gloves and 1000 medical beds thank you for that right you good anything else look at Charlie you good sir are you good Elise you good John hold on one sec Matt just to follow up on the ventilators and some of the PPE you said you got 200 ventilators can you detail where they came from the 3,700 businesses that filled out their survey by the end of Friday any word on how much and what kinds of any more specifics on the equipment that we're getting for that so the 200 ventilators do you happen to know where they came from that we got that from the Nationals stop that was national stockpile and then any any results from the survey that we were required folks to fill out by Friday last night I don't have that together yet okay too early to tell everybody okay so thank you all I want again by thanking the the folks to my right the Department of Health the Commissioner the extraordinary Judy purser Kelly to her right dr. ed Lipschitz thank you both and to all of your colleagues to my immediate left Beth Novak thank you for everything you've done to make that website a reality to make it even more powerful and valuable with each passing day colonel Pat Callahan for everything director maples likewise again the way we'll leave this is for tomorrow we will put out anything that you need in terms of open overnight data electronically if we collectively make the decision and ultimately that'll be in my hands that we think we need to either be with you physically in person if there's news to report or if we need to get on the phone ma Hendon team we'll get the word out and then otherwise we'll be back together Monday at 2 p.m. in this very room unless you hear otherwise I want to repeat and end where we have ended most of these gatherings to say unequivocally that we will get through this together not without not without a price to pay as we've already seen 140 precious lives have been lost bless each and every one of them we will not come through this unscathed I'm sure we won't come through this without mistake but we will come through this assuming each and every one of us all nine million of us does our part from the little washing your hands with soap and water up to the big heroic work on behalf of our health care workers first responders and others at the point of attack I'd love to tell you that we'll be out of this in the next couple of days that's not the case I've said pretty clearly over the past number of days the number of positive tests is going to continue to go up dramatically that's partly due to community spread that's overwhelmingly due to opening up testing again still of symptomatic people and that's been our focused from day one that's not all bad news those positive tests it allows these folks the data they need to much more aggressively and thoroughly deal with this we will pay any price to save anyone life that number we would love to see never go up and there's no amount of any acceptance of that number to continue to go up sadly it most likely will again there's no price too high for us to pay to be on the battlefield saving each and every one of those lives I remind you again this is war it's no time to panic we win wars because we're smart aggressive we shoot straight with each other we come together as one extraordinary New Jersey family we don't cut and run we don't turn on each other but together we fight the war we win the war and we come out of it as one family in New Jersey stronger than ever before thank you all you you
