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[Music] good afternoon North Dakota and welcome to today's briefing first up today's Coben 19 cases we had 10 additional cases reported today out of only 135 tests as we predicted yesterday at this conference we knew that Sunday was going to be a very slow day for gathering and collecting tests because of the Easter holiday the one piece of data is seven of the today's 10 positive Kage's cases were people that were under the age of of 50 if you take a look at the numbers on this the couple things that jump out there that we want to point out one is that we did because of the low testing 10 positives over 135 is the 7.4% percent positive that's one of the highest we've had so far but again likely because of the some of the sampling the targeted sampling that we're doing and also because of the low the low numbers one number that's important to look at in the lower right hand corner the 3.1 percent that is our rolling run rate since the beginning of this in terms of the number of tests positive so that's the 341 positives over the ten thousand nine hundred and sixteen total cases that remains the second best in the nation if best is low positives only Hawaii has got a lower percent positive than North Dakota the if we go to the next slide again a thing we want to focus on here is not cumulative cases but number of active cases and if you take the the number of active cases we have as 194 cases so closing in on that 200 mark that is against a hundred and thirty-eight that have recovered and again only 13 that are hospitalized one of the things that when we take when we net to get that active we're netting out recovered minus the deaths and because again we had more people recovered than the ten positives if you take a look at the very top of this chart the numbers getting a little bit small but we had a slight dip from 196 to 194 this is only the second time that we've actually had a drop in the number of active cases in the state we don't want to have a drop in K active cases because people have passed away that would not be a good thing but we did have again people more people reported as recovered than new testing but again as we've said multiple times the data often gets a little skewed over the weekends because of less testing it really got skewed this weekend because of the of the Easter of the Easter holiday when we take a look at the the positive rate by county again one thing that we take away from this is that we do have higher percent positives in the northwestern part of the state than we do in in other parts of the state right now we also the patchwork of the white counties they're there a number of counties still don't have a single positive in their counties and we also have been taking a close look it's not shown on this map but as part of our reporting and planning we're taking close look at all bordering counties that border on the Montana South Dakota and Minnesota side in case those people as they often do come to North Dakota for health care and we should also note that they're the largest of the counties that border North Dakota with cases as Cass County has 40 cases positive cases so we're paying attention to that and we do have and Fargo is it Fargo the metro area continues to have a slight climb there at about 5 percent positive reporting but together I guess as we want to take a look at all of that what I would consider all of that very well may be inconclusive because the low data on the weekend it continues to being very positive we're the ninth remain the ninth state in the nation so in the top 10 as the amount of testing per capita number two in terms of positive test cases and with only thirteen hospitalized we've been saying all along we're well positioned and well-prepared and we're going to talk a little bit more about that that preparation today but the reason why we're in good shape is not because kovat wasn't a threat and we just have to ask the families of those that have lost a loved one to know whether it's a threat or any of the people that have been hospitalized and lived through this thing to know this is a very serious illness or he could talk to any of the over 20,000 Americans families who've lost a loved one we know this was serious but the reason why we're having good success in North Dakota is because we have so many people that are exercising the North Dakota Smart Plan and people have been reducing non-essential travel they've been working to stay healthy with good hygiene they've been keeping physical distance we've you know encouraged and see people now starting to wear masks which can be a positive things and you know not having group gatherings larger than 10 just a lot of great individual responsibilities and I just want to say thank you because the numbers when we see North Dakota as the number 2 out of 50 states credit can go to every individual in the state for what they're doing and how people have changed their changed what they've done whether that's changing behaviors changing travel changing how you shop changing to add many more hats that you're wearing including perhaps helping to helping your kids everyday with their homework at at home but a lot of great activity going on and again it's something that all North Dakotans can be can be you can take a sense of accomplishment in because of the the work that you've taken the strategy moving to the next topic the strategy that we want to talk about and have talked about again is is you know how do we save lives this is always a strategy about saving lives and we have avoided the sort of the cataclysmic outcomes that we've seen in other countries and in other locations around the world so far and I say so far because we're still in this battle the battle is not over yet but the strategy to save lives as we knew was to make sure that people that needed Healthcare could get it if they needed at the highest level they could get at the highest level meaning could they be attended in a ICU situation with appropriate ventilators with skilled staff and and so the whole point of flattening the curve on the bottom under the blue was to make sure that we did not overwhelm our healthcare capacity and we've done a fantastic job at that and we know that other places where they've had large accounts like in Italy with death rates is when they overwhelmed they're overwhelmed they're hot their hospital capacity but even with that even though we've avoided having those two lines cross that the little line the thin line that goes across with the arrow going up we've also been hard at work the last three weeks working to make sure that we could increase our Hospital capacity we've had great support from all of the hospital providers across North Dakota and we're so fortunate to have such a strong healthcare system in North Dakota and leading that effort on a surge planning was our unified command which is something we set up shortly after we entered this emergency and they've been working closely with health care providers and they've developed a surge plan you're going to hear about that today North Dakota health care providers do have the capability to provide just that their basic what they're doing today more than 2,000 beds that's why we've shown every day and we showed on the slide earlier that we are today using less than 1% of the hospital beds to do this and so for the time being while our absolute hospitalizations remain low and we don't believe that any additional health care facilities beyond the hospital zone Tier one capacity is going to be needed it is our responsibility in government to prepare for the worst-case scenarios and in that regard our state is well prepared so we've been preparing for the worst but we're executing along with all of you for the best and here to explain more about this surge plan is Tammy Miller North Dakota's chief operating officer she's the unified command co-lead along with General Allen Dorman and excited also officially welcomed her she's been at the state of North Dakota only officially for 14 days she was valen cheering for months before that but she started on April 1 prior to that she was the CEO of border states electric which I'm sure many of you know operates in dozens of states and has thousands of employees we're so excited to have her step in as North Dakota's a second chief operating officer behind the great work of Jody euchre who continues to help us out during this this incredible crisis that we're in when we were when Jodi and I were recruiting Tammy last fall and she agreed to start on April 1st we didn't tell her we're going to be in the middle of a pandemic when she started but she stepped up the plate and been contributing a ton right off the bat so here's Tammy to tell you about the surge plan Thank You governor it is just a great privilege to be part of Team North Dakota and to be a co-lead on the unified command working a lung alongside that general Dorman you all know that a couple weeks ago the governor mentioned that we were working on this surge plan and we have been working diligently with a lot of other agencies including Department of Health the National Guard des we've been working with a lot of hospitals a lot of other community leaders and we have a very good plan today I'd like to share some highlights of that plan and then I want to share though to start our overall mission our mission is to protect the citizens of North Dakota and to minimize loss of life and economic hardship so as we put together this plan the overarching goal is to ensure that our hospitals and communities will have the resources they need to handle any surge in kovat 19 patients this plan will define the roles of all the parties that are in the plan as well as all of the resources that are available so for the purpose of our plan we looked at 50 hospitals in the state of North Dakota and we identified their bed capacity and we have put their bed capacity and other resources into a number of tiers so we start out with Tier one and that is really our current state so the existing hospitals work within their current capacity for licensed beds for staff for equipment and supplies when they reach capacity at Tier one then we move into what we call the contingency plan and that has two tiers tier 2a and 2b at 2a the hospitals are operating within their increased bed capacity and for the most part they are using their existing staff with some equipment and supplies supplemented from the state of North Dakota when they reach capacity at tier 2 a then we move to tier 2 B at this level the hospitals need to increase their bed capacity they are exceeding their staffing capacity and they're tight on supplies and equipment and the state will come in at that point and supplement equipment and supplies like at level 2 t level tier 2a but we will also start helping supplement staff we have some resources for staff that I'd like to share with you we have the volunteers in the public health emergency Volunteer Reserve and the Medical Reserve Corps we have a database of potential volunteers that include doctors nurses pharmacists and EMTs and today we have about 1200 volunteers with the public health emergency Volunteer Reserve and the Medical Reserve Corps that Corps can also quickly call up other licensed professionals to increase the number of volunteers that we have available so after two A and B if we exceed our resources then we would move into Tier three which really is a crisis situation and a place that we don't expect to be but at tier three we have minimum care facilities and at a minimum care facility we would get that ramped up in 48 hours with the help of the National Guard so to be clear a minimum care facility is not an alternative hospital it is a facility that is organized only to handle kovat 19 patients who may need hospital admission when it's not available so as we carefully worked our plan we surveyed the hospitals and we identified the bed capacity in each of these three tiers so for Tier one that's kind of the current state we have 1860 staffed adult in pediatric beds we have 238 staffed ICU beds for a total of two thousand ninety eight beds at Tier one moving to tier two a our bed capacity which would be supported by some equipment and supplies from the state we have two thousand one hundred and twelve adult and pediatric beds two hundred and eighty two staffed ICU beds that gives us a total of two thousand three hundred and ninety four beds moving then to tier to be at that level the bed capacity would be increased at each of the hospitals and we would have a surge of equipment and supplies and staff provided from the state at tier two B we would have three thousand eighty four adult and PDAs for a total of three thousand four hundred and eighty eight beds so without any additional capacity from the state we have about thirty five hundred beds available with equipment supplies and staff some supplemented from the state if we need to get to tier three the minimum care facilities we could surge up another four thousand beds that would be provided from the state and those beds would be located in eight regions and we'll get into that in just a little bit but let me be clear we do not expect that we are going to need 7500 beds for kovat patients as the governor said earlier today we have 13 kovat positive patients from North Dakota in North Dakota hospitals less than 1% of our capacity but as the governor said we do want to be prepared so the North Dakota Health Department will help us monitor the bed capacity we do get information from the hospitals two times a week through survey and that will move to daily starting on Thursday so in the unlikely scenario that we would have to set up a minimal care facility we would first establish these facilities in Fargo North Dakota in Bismarck North Dakota we have pre-positioned 200 beds at the Fargodome and at University of Mary in Bismarck so each tier 3 facility would also have a medical team led by one of the local hospitals and we know we have competing hospitals great health care systems in Fargo in Bismarck so in Fargo we would have great coordination between essentia and Sanford Sanford would be the lead Hospital and in Bismarck we would have great support and coordination with ch I st. Alexis and Sanford and Sanford would be the lead Hospital so although we've identified a lead Hospital both essentia and CH I st. Alexis would be very very important and very supportive to providing medical care as we move through a crisis in tier 3 if necessary we would then set up six additional sites in the state of North Dakota and those would be tier 3 facilities minimal care facilities the locations that have been identified are Devils Lake at the Lake Region State College gym and our lead hospital would be CH I saying Alexis in Devil's Lake in Dickenson we would be at Dickinson State University wine Bergen gym and our lead hospital would be ch I st. Alexis Health in Dickinson in my not we would be at Minot State University at the Dome the lead hospital would be Trinity Health Grand Forks we would be at the University of North Dakota Wellness Center and lead Hospital in Grand Forks would be Altru Health in Jamestown we would be at the University of Jamestown Newman Center Larson Center and the lead hospital would be Jamestown Regional Medical Center and the eighth sight would be in Williston Williston State College Thomas Witt leach complex also known as the well and the lead hospital would be CH I st. Alexis health so that's the plan for those minimum minimal care facilities and again we don't expect to ever activate a minimal care facility but we do have a plan for a worst-case scenario if we do set up a tier 3 minimal care facility the administrative management for that facility would be provided by our North Dakota National Guard we had mentioned the role of the lead Hospital in a minimal care facility most of the staffing would come from volunteers we expect it would be friends and family members who would be provided personal protection equipment training food and housing so that is a high level overview of our tiered plan for the surge if it does happen the tiers one to A to B and Tier three this plan was put together with a lot of cooperation from other agencies and communities each hospital has their own plan to support this we also have a long-term care plan and an emergency medical services plan that will complement this plan as I said we don't ever expect to use the tier 3 level of this plan but we are well-prepared and rest assured that we are doing everything we can in collaboration with hospitals and the health systems in our state to work within that tier to B scenario thank you I'm taking some of your notes there we go thank you Thank You Tammy and thanks to everybody on the unified command thanks everybody in the private sector all of our Grace Hospital providers everybody working together to put together that comprehensive plan a lot of detail behind this summary that that Tammy just shared but again know that we're very well prepared next up a new topic it has to do with our tribal partnerships and as you know as we've been working across to slow the spread across Cova 19 across North Dakota we've been working diligently from the beginning with the five great sovereign tribal nations with whom we shared geography to make sure that we've got plans and capabilities to protect all North Dakotans and we've had some great weekly calls from the start that have gone gone for hours some nights as we've listened to specific concerns and challenges in tribal within the tribal lands in North Dakota and and we've been working with we're ready for if there was ever going to be a spike in any of these locations as you know that we did do some additional testing in Montreal County both on Saturday and yesterday we did that in partnership with MHA local public health the North Dakota Department of Health and the National Guard and I do want to say again we were able to collect 282 tests during that timeframe and some people might think this is really targeted but when we go out and hold one of these drive up testing we get a lot of interest people from addresses from 13 different counties came and got tested in Montrell and five different states and the five different states I think also can reflect the fact that up in Montrell year and getting into the heart of the Bakken up there and so that's why we may have had folks from different states we've got 214 of those two hundred eighties you test back with the ten positive so far and so again we do this because we want to stand shoulder to shoulder ready to fight for the of all North Dakotans and we're super grateful for the great relationships we have with the tribal the tribal leaders and their councils and and the great communication that's going on but the person that's at the point of all that communication between the governor's office and the state of course is Scott Davis who's doing a fantastic job as executive director of the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission Scott's going to join us today to give an update on all the things we're doing with the five great tribes with whom we share geography Scott thanks for being here Thank You governor good day North Dakota good day travel nation's pet to washday Missouri on iani before I want to get into the kind of the nuts and bolts of my comets today I just wanted to start out with when this pandemic started out weeks or months ago time sure flies faster these days but when declaration of emergency comes to our state and particularly our tribal nations there's a couple ways that a travel nation can declare and in this case under this scenario the tribes have all declared the state of emergency in partnership with with the state of North Dakota so by doing that it released a number of resources and partnerships under the the federal law with the Sanford Act and so we've we've chosen to through common sense work together to provide resources and share information and and that's that work continues today and I'm so thankful a lot of gratitude as the governor uses that word daily we use it daily our tribal leaders use it daily the gratitude of the partnership that we have here daily and hourly sometimes hourly on some of the scenarios that we've been experienced here in the last number of weeks here so so that communication is very powerful as a gunner alluded to you we have we have held and will continue to hold these weekly calls with the tribes and they they don't last your standard on our meeting some of these have last at least two to three hours if not longer and there's a wide array of questions and and answers and research and guidance information that we certainly share with our tribal leaders and vice versa and so that that is very very important in how we continue the partnership we have with our tribal leaders throughout the state because I take note of this when I think about this virus and I think most of you in North Dakota and our tribal nations would agree that this pandemic this virus does not see race does not see ethnicity does not see gender does not see a border does not see a trouble boundary or a state boundary it's everywhere so it just makes sense for us to continue to continue to work with those tribal leaders and communicating as you have seen in red there are a number of tribal excuse me uh governors are executive orders tribal leaders have done the same travel chairs tribal councils have made a number of tribal executive orders and resolutions pertaining to the same thing of social distancing curfews and so forth and so and those those that information is found on our website all the governor's executive orders also the the tribal executive orders are all found on our website in Indian Affairs com so that's important that we share that information also our office through the good work of mr. Dennis Newman the PIO for office has worked daily with our North Dakota Jick office and compiling the daily information and weekly information that goes out to Easter tribal leader every day so again that's a consistent very consistent fluid information of the the data that we've collected the testing the results information that it goes directly to our tribal leaders daily so I'm very very thankful to the Jick for doing that and also with Dennis Newman in our office so we also do compile a number of social media ads and messages throughout there we did some radio spots also some some TV things that are coming to your to the tribal nations and those again those are just strong messages that are reiterated from tribal leadership and from our governor and our administration here probably the be the three big key leaders I we work in partnership with the tribes is obviously the department health Mylene and my my Lin and her team have been so outstanding in the communication that they've shared and the work of the physical work as the governor alluded to the test and we did this past weekend with with MH a nation has been very very outstanding at cants enough with her leadership her team the unified command general Durham and his team and in this case elbow woods all the ladies and doctors at the elbow woods clinic chairman Fox boy what our undertaking it took a lot of work to do that and it was a successful and I know some of those results governor's you understand are still pending but much more to work to do to all this in that and so that work will continue the other key a leader in our in our on our team here with team North Dakota is dpi Kristin Mazur Lucy Frederick's I can't say enough how much communication we have channeled to our schools our higher ed programs on guidance some school closings meals for kids and so forth so so that work will always always continue I know Kristen will be on our call again tomorrow as she always is and so we'll be open to that the other one the other two that we're focusing on is as as we see the Congress with Treasury and SBA coming down with a lot of economic business help is is the North Dakota in and Business Alliance that we have under our office and most Commerce so mr. el Nygaard and Lyman mercy will be leading that front on getting guidance and technical assistance to our native owned businesses on and off the reservation no different than across North Dakota you know we got a we got a steel prefer business and now that the resources are being channeled through the feds to our office to our state how do we navigate through those for those programs so I'm very very thankful for Elle and Lyman for leading that charge for our office and the other one has elections as we all know aside from businesses elections are got to continue and again we worked very closely with secretary State al and Jim serum on how to continue these elections coming up in June so so we're very very thankful in that partnership and so we'll continue to work with the tribes and the counties on making sure those elections will move forward but it's going to be a busy week obviously with the cares Act from a tribal standpoint I know we have a call here with senator Hoeven his staff and some people from Treasury again very thankful for governor in his support in letters of support phone calls on some of that federal legislation that is so important to our tribal leaders on the business aspect health care and education and so we've been been successful in some some some cases not everything's perfect when it comes to Congress as we all know but we are very thankful for the governor's support and making sure that we get those resources and financial needs to our tribal nations and businesses so we'll continue to do that so in closing I think again I just want to reiterate all how important this communication is with the resources that we have leave me I'm on calls every day hour after hour and I listen to a lot of other states and a lot of other tribes in this country and they're struggling and it's unfortunate we that we see in here that but these are the examples of the work that we've done in the last three and a half years with the governor and lieutenant governor and the team team burgum and making sure that resources are available for our tribes and this is example of it and so again it's a lot of gratitude for that but take note you know this this virus is real and it's powerful and it's something that we really need to respect and all have to set again we really need to respect that and we have guidance out there there are rules whether they're state or tribal and we as relatives speaking from a relative standpoint we need to follow those we need to follow us back home tribal councils have made decisions trouble leaders have made decisions and these rules are just not not for for sure play this is this is real so we really really need to respect what this means to our people and because we all know and in the country we've been through a number of pandemics in the history of our people and I'm very confident by by following the rules and and taking courage don't panic getting the facts I know there's a lot of hearsay out there and gossip and so forth on Facebook but get the facts most facts are laid out through my office's through the governor's office Department Health your trouble and she sees continue to read what those facts are and if you if you don't feel like you have the facts call us call me I've taken a number of calls from people from from constituents if I can't answer I'm gonna call you back but if you need the answers the facts I'll definitely get those to you in a in a timely matter and lastly I'll just say this you know take courage take courage take courage in a good way keep your mind open pray daily if you're like me in my household you know we we smudge ourselves daily we smudge our homes and we just continue to to be thankful and I have gratitude we're rad as North Dakotans and tribal leaders so with that just say well plancha meegwetch thank you thank you Scott for your leadership stick around Tammy and Scott for questions later I would just add on the back of Scott's comments some gratitude first of all to the to the Kotel we've got a great Kotel and of course a lot of things tribal relate to federal whether it's Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian Health Service Indian education so many complex federal rules that touch and make the the challenges there during a pandemic even harder but I want to thank them that especially want to give a shout out to Senator Hoeven who chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee I spoke to Senator Hoeven last night he's fighting hard as you know Scott with the secretary of minuchin to make sure that all the rules can be adjusted to make sure that the aid in the SBA packages can fully reach all of the entities on a tribe including the Tri casinos which are often the biggest employers in those in those communities so thank you to them and then also want to give a shout out to all the tribal leaders but especially the chairs in addition to chairman Fox who was mentioned here that we collaborated with on the testing but chairman faith chair manager a chairwoman Kavanagh and chairman white all of each of you have been fantastic both in your frankness your openness your questions and we appreciate and treat the relationship with real respect and thank you I've told many people I think there's a lot of hard jobs in elected jobs whether it's a mayor a County Commission a Township a school board member those are hard jobs the hardest job in elected job in anywhere in our state is if you're elected as a tribal chair because you got to deal with all those entities plus all those federal agencies it is one hard job so I've great respect for those that are stepping up and serving their people I know they have one thing in common which is they all care deeply about their people so thank you for that next topic is behavioral health update we've tried to include a little behavioral health update every day because we know that one of the side effects of the prolonged isolation that we've asked to some people to participate in as they try to do the the distancing of others we know that that creates other challenges but I want to start off with some thank-yous because behavioral health is health it's I think sometimes we think of health as something you go you know you go to a clinic or go see if you got a broken leg or you got a some kind of physical illness that's when you use the healthcare system but mental and behavioral health is also health we need to start thinking about it on equal footing as we do any other form of Health and the services and the supports that are provided by behavioral health professionals are more important than ever so I want to kick this section off with a gratitude to all the behavioral health professionals in our state who continue to serve individuals and families whether you're a counselor a direct service worker behavioral health nurse peer support specialist new program which we've created that working on helping people on their recovery care coordinators psychologist and just family members that are there to be there when someone needs you all of you are supporting the behavioral health of North Dakotans so thank you for whatever role that you're playing and today we want to go specifically to provide an update regarding the state's efforts to ensure a safety net for behavioral health services and assure people that the behavioral health services are running uninterrupted for individuals being served at our State Hospital in Jamestown well the hospital there the State Hospital continues its kovat 19 preparedness efforts along with other hospitals including current bed capacity as a hundred with a surge capacity being prepared to go to 120 for additional 60 beds can be added on top of that more than 400 employees that work there continue to provide the vital behavioral health services to those in need but again this is a very specialized organization they provide specialized inpatient and residential care to individuals with severe complex or persistent mental illnesses or substance use disorders so they've got a a challenging job on any day of the week and a job they do with great hearts but now they're having to do that like many other residential facilities having to take the extra care under the threat of kovat 19 because it's a challenge for the patients and the staff and I want to say thank you to all the members that work at MND who continue to care for our citizens who are really challenged with behaviora and mental health as well as physical health issues they're also on the front lines right now and taken all the precautions to keep themselves and their family members and our residents of those facilities safe so great job way to go team next topic quick update as of noon today more than 17,000 participants are using the care 19 app again you can download this at the Apple App Store and completely confidential if you haven't done it check it out we're it I've got mine downloaded on my phone as does the first lady and again appreciate anybody who's doing this that you actually are caring because you're helping to create mmm save protect yourself and protect family members and help us get really excellent with contact tracing without without giving up any information personal information about yourself so thank you for that check it out on the Apple App Store Android again still that's still coming still on target for later this week next update is a commerce business update the weekly Department of Commerce Business brief will be a that is hosted by the greater North Dakota Chamber will be this Thursday April 16th at 11 a.m. Central time I believe you can go online and register for that that's free and you do not have to be a member of GND see we've had thousands of people tie into these calls each week and there is great information coming from our federal partners from North Dakota job service from the Commerce Department from the Bank of North Dakota there the briefings are concise and tight and super valuable and would recommend that if you're in business in North Dakota that you or someone on your team listen in to those business briefs this one will provide guidance on the emerging information about financial support for North Dakota businesses also on the agenda there have been increasing concerns of course when there's this much money flowing out of the federal government at rapid paces we also know that there's a rapid increase in the potential scams so they'll talk about concerns about fraudulent activity around the paid check protection plan and direct payments what to watch for and how to avoid those scams in addition additionally on Thursday the V new information around the employer payroll tax employer retention tax credits that'll be discussed and they're all been again and you can register I guess to go for this again by going to ND response gov there's a place to register there for this Thursday April 16th 11 a.m. briefing and again thanks to the great work of our Codell congressman armstrong senator Cramer and Senator Hoeven there's a 2.2 trillion cares Act includes many supports through the SBA you probably heard about how the SBA is so popular that that people are running through it again I want to mean running through it as in the dollars are quickly evaporating there is an effort in front of Congress right now by unanimous consent to try to put more money into that but the for right now would again encourage people to get their applications in and again as of April 10th small businesses sole proprietors independent contractors self-employed individuals were eligible to apply so again even if you don't think of yourself as a traditional small business or someone that you know may not have had interaction with these government programs before checkout because you may be me eligible and again for more information you can go to nd response gov select businesses employers or directly you can visit the website on sba.gov slash paycheck protection plan and again encouraging people to act quickly because there have already been loans totaling two hundred and forty seven billion dollars nationally but in North Dakota eight thousand loans totaling 1.4 billion have been completed by the SBA so this is a real substantial financial relief you may be eligible check it out any response that gov business and employers the daily update on unemployment next topic is the claims continue to climb we're closing in on the fifty thousand marks a total regular claims forty nine thousand seven hundred and sixteen the pandemic unemployment assistance claims since April fourth that new program that came with a cares Act that's for the gig workers a self-employed there's fifty four hundred that have gone for that and then the pandemic emergency unemployment compensation that also started in April fourth there's five thousand four hundred twenty six that's for people that that were unemployed but they're unemployed benefits ran out and they can apply for additional thirteen weeks so again check out that information at ND jobs calm for more information on those programs closing before we go to the gratitude section we always like to add a little good and here's a fun one since today we were talking about tribal activities across the United States summer is traditionally a time for Native American tribes or universities like here at United tribes Technical College to host powwows that showcase cultures and our fantastic gatherings and this year the spring of course many powwows have been postponed or canceled but that is there's of course new things popping up all the time that have not stopped people from gathering at least virtually and the social distance powwow is a public Facebook page where more than a hundred and fifty thousand members have joined Native American cultures by sharing songs dances and words of solidarity words of hope and words of prayer vendors who might otherwise be physically attending these this summer and make their living selling their beautiful beadwork jewelry and basketry or clothing they're able to share their talents through a market based on this page and about this page even hosts weekly virtual powwow with a live lineup of volunteer drum group singers and dancers this week's social distance powwow will take place Saturday April 18th and two sessions one from 12:00 to 1:30 central time and another 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and it's just one example of creative and innovative innovative ways that people are using an embracing technology to rise above the challenges today to continue to come together to celebrate culture and tradition the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission led by Scott Davis is also inviting tribal members to share a video message as a hope and prayer which are either spoke and sung danced painted or drawn any forms that send a message of hope and comfort and more information will be available from the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission website but thanks for everyone that's pitching in to slow the spread and finding new ways to connect while we're a part we are all in this together and in my closing gratitude comments today we like to single out there's so many people to share gratitude with but today our shout-out goes to all the public health hotline workers there are so many of these on the national and the state level and lots of different phone numbers which we've shared here but just within the public health hotline within our own Department of there's we've ramped that up there's now 30 dedicated hotline workers who were over there rotating around to answer those calls they've answered you know hundreds and hundreds of emails and have taken over 8,000 phone calls to those hotlines and they're working hard to make sure that citizens have factual and up-to-date and accurate information as we move through this through this crisis and again there that hotline is availible seven days a week from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and that number again is 186 6 207 2881 866 207 2880 when you call that hotline take a minute and say thanks to the person that answers the phone so with that we say gratitude to everybody in the state that's helping us keep on this great track and we'll move to questions Jacob first up today Tammy Miller actually pairing these search plans and you're talking about having skilled staff and having properly staffed facilities what role are the the mass furloughs playing in your ability to make sure staff are ready to go at the different tiers well I think each hospital is working very hard to evaluate their staff I know many of them are bringing on staff getting them trained up so I think that will in some ways help our resources because as we went into the pandemic our state had full employment we had 30,000 open jobs so I think those furloughs will give us a little bit of a cushion and then we do have retirees that we're drawing on and others who might have been out of the workforce but each state I'm sorry each Hospital in the state has their own plan and then the state would supplement it through the volunteers that we have in our database as well yes do you have a customer about how many employees you need if you have to actually gather to two or three actually I don't have that number but I can assure you that each hospital is working that plan we have been meeting with elite hospitals one on one to make sure they have their plans in place and then we will work with those next level hospitals all later this week in addition to the hospitals I know the long-term care facilities have good staffing plans as well yes I was wondering how many hospital beds are currently taken up by non Kovach agents we get those statistics every day well two times a week now and it will start on Thursday daily and approximately 50% of our beds are occupied each Hospital though does has a have a plan to free up as many beds as possible and they can do that through moving out swingbed patients stopping elective surgeries and some other avenues yes I've seen that photo of the Fargodome with beds and it's circulating around are the other seven locations also set up right now or are they waiting no the intent was not to set up the Fargodome this the intent was to pre position beds in Bismarck and Fargo in the event that we would have to activate so we easily could have left those beds in a trailer in a parking lot yes when I asked why the Fargodome was set up then we did have a kind of a protocol as sites were evaluated and Cody is here Cody Schultz from the our deputy from Homeland Security and he knows the protocol for evaluating those sites and if I could ask Cody to come up and share a few comments about the site selection process well thank you so to talk to the site selection process so prior to them being set up there was a thorough evaluation done in conjunction with the Army Corps of Engineers that came in to look at a number of different facilities to see which ones would potentially work best in this case the short answer as to why they were said is it was a bit of a proof-of-concept to make sure that we could get it done should they need to in exercise in a real world prior to a real-world situation of need it is it is and we also have networks with other states to also get resources that might be coming available as other states are starting the recovery mode sure the coders I guess do you have any idea how many ICU beds are normally taken out or I just right now at the top of my head but that does come through to our in our surveys so we will have that information and now daily ask about you mentioned 1200 volunteers for those all recruited in the last few weeks and I just want us to break down between retired nurses and doctors and I don't have that right handy with me but we can provide that I don't know Cody if you have a good estimate on that No okay retired healthcare workers for the most part not necessarily just people who might not be in the workforce or who might be deployed in a different fashion right now who might become available thing I wanted to ask right now I guess there's a disproportionate amount of cases in Cass County obviously that's the biggest county in the state but about 36 percent of the cases in the state are in Cass County if the hospitalizations are unevenly distributed what's the plan for that in terms of you know a serger yes so first off I you know it might look like a disproportionate number but you need to look at positives per capita and if you look at those relationships and I'm not sure if we had that on a chart today but you would not see that the the rate of positives in cass county is the highest in the state we have other counties in the state that have higher kovat positive cases as a percent of the population in the county but to your point about if we had a lot of cases the intent of the surge plan is to be able to transfer patients and that's why AMS is so involved in the plan because we would maybe put some nursing home patients that are in the hospital back in the nursing home if they could we could transfer patients to other hospitals that maybe don't provide the same level of care maybe a step-down level but all of that is built into the plan to maximize all of our hospitals collectively through that transfer system and then only get to a tier three if we have maxed out all of the capacity first within the region and then looking across the state yes Danny and then with like family media kfy our radio how much is the cost for the use of the Fargodome or any other search facilities to the state Cody do you know that no charge everyone is pitching in to help alright thank you Jack and then that Lane governor you talked about the two types of pandemic unemployment claims that have come in have those $600 I guess and enhancements on unemployment have have those been starts to be issued in the state I know that that's the the $600 relate to the one that I was describing as a pandemic unemployment insurance which which to the end that's where we've received five thousand four four hundred and ten of those and I know that's what's been filed I don't know exactly if those checks have gone out but we'll get an answer to you will go Lane and then online governor the 1200 other stimulus checks are starting to circulate but for some people that's not going to be enough for them and they may go try to go back to work which could put themselves or others at risk is the state planning on doing anything to help prevent that help excuse me help prevent what help people potentially going to work because they have to if the stimulus check is not enough for them well I think the the one piece that we're looking at because I think many people will get you get the stimulus check the 1200 per person if it's a family of four then it's twelve hundred plus twelve hundred and five hundred for each kids you're talking to thirty five thirty four hundred dollars so you've got that coming in for a family or the twelve hundred for an individual that individual separate from that could also be a apply for and receive the unemployment insurance that we've talked about if they're a small business owner in addition to the check because there's really no qualification to get the check other than you've been an adult who is paid taxes or is also now registered to get the check if you weren't paying taxes before because that really goes to everybody if you're a small business owner then you can qualify for a number of the small business programs separate from the unemployment which then some of those are loans actually but they're disguised as a grant or it's a grant disguised as a loan because because you don't have to pay them back so I guess I'd call that a grant so I think again this is complex because it's all new and it's all only a few weeks Newton old but I would say that if people are feeling like you know how do they make ends meet they should be again calling uh you know go to ND response that gov go to businesses and employers even if you're self-employed or if you're an employee and check out those resources try to see because there could be two or three different programs simultaneously the don't overlap and don't conflict with each other that don't eliminate your eligibility that you could be getting all those resources from the state standpoint were things we've looked at through our economic resilience task force which has been going on for the last couple weeks is we're trying to see is there a place where we might fill in the gaps that the federal government has that that's the work that we're we're doing with the Bank of North Dakota and the Commerce Department is trying to figure it out right now these federal programs are quite comprehensive and one area we have been alking to the to the Codell about is to make sure that the dollars that were allocated to the state you heard earlier there was a 1 billion two hundred fifty million 1.25 billion that we're going to go to the states that interpretation that language is not out yet how that actually gets interpreted if we could use that say for example to to help reinforce the unemployment insurance fund at the state that would be a great thing for all states to be able to do that to make sure the money is the money is there but we'll keep looking to see where those those gaps are for individuals online Alan Burke with the Emmons county record is there any word on when rapid testing will be available in rural hospitals for Allen I'd no word I mean in the sense that you know there's lots of discussions about that there's more testing and faster testing coming but those are weeks away not days away don't have any definitive date on when that would get here and by mass testing we're talking about the serological meaning like the finger prick blood tests that can you can get a result instantly and they're super low cost and you could do them for everybody heading into a factory or everybody heading into a workplace and you know that that's the kind of the mass testing where people may be getting tested multiple times over a period of time if there was an outbreak that testing not available yet but no that that is manufacturers are hard at work trying to deliver that because for us to get back to even the new normal we're gonna have to have that broader testing Dave and then Jacob yes over the weekend a long-term care facility in Fargo reported a Kovach case I was just kind of curious if issued some guidance on the 13th of March I believe about that about long-term care facilities has there been anything since that based on the Fargo report well there's a situation that we're working very closely with because there's actually been three facilities in Fargo that have had cases and when that happens you know we want to come in and do what we've done which already which is have the testing capacity to come in in case one we tested all hundred and twenty residents and sixty staff and we did that very quickly and as we were from once we had the first one come in we were able to initially that was contained to the the resident the was assisted living facility was a resident his spouse and the and the receptionist when we tested their other hundred and twenty and the other sixty staff we only came up with three more positives but people remain in isolation prior to when we got the testing done they closed all their congregate eating and all the other their workout facilities all that stuff that's the kind of response that's the kind of the good result you want to have where when you get that and we've been trying to practice that model in the other two facilities and of course it really varies by facility some facilities that might be multiple floors with multiple pods with multiple wings have the ability to create isolation if they have one sometimes they get of someone who's a kovat positive they're out and they go to the hospital and then they come in and do all the disinfecting and there's been a lot of diligence by long-term care to make sure that that we that there aren't people that would travel across so nursing teams have been segregated into different teams and I think something that we have to pay close attention to is if you're a physical therapist if you're a chaplain those kinds of things that there might have been one for the whole facility that would have a contact with a lot of patients we're trying to really work with the the the providers to make sure that you don't have what could end up constituting a super spreader in one of these cases and we're you know very fortunate so far that we can because this is an area where you know there's people are talking about opening back up but you know for me to be convinced that we ought to be like sort of quote back to normal we've got to make sure that this we have a proven capability to protect particularly our most vulnerable citizens that are living in in these congregate living situations because it can as we've seen in dozens and dozens of other states below the headlines read below the headlines you know it all started without one case in Kirkland Washington were thirty five deaths out of a hundred and twenty five people that has repeated itself in other states where there have been mass outbreaks multiple deaths in facilities and so this is a one of it one of the areas where this is a virus is particularly deadly and we've got a real I think a real commitment to those individuals as I've said before in North Dakota we have a higher percentage of people over age 65 living in long in our 218 long-term care facilities than any other state because that's good news because people live a long time in North Dakota but we've also got a lot of long-term care facilities Jacob with other states talking about opening back up does that change North Dakota's ability to compete with other states to acquire medical supplies right I don't know that we were I think you've noticed that we were never caught up in the whole hype about competing for medical supplies I we had great providers here that had systems that were you know doing their own sourcing we had a strong medical cash we also were calm enough to understand that we had to keep looking at the numbers in terms of the of of the actual patients that were coming in and and it's you know as the thing there's been a whole you know there was a a shortage or a perceived shortage of equipment then there's been a massive increase in supply and now you may see a decrease in demand so I think when you the further out you look the the likelihood that there's going to be shortage of equipment is pretty slim I mean I think we got you know you've heard states that had that had gotten four hundred ventilators out of the national medical cash that didn't eat him that sent them back I mean there's I think gonna be a lot of availability equipment so the things that were in short supply in the early days of the you know the huge outbreak particularly in the New York metro area I don't think we're gonna see that across the the rest of the country I think we're going to be in good position in terms of beds and equipment last week I said next week so this week it would be later this week one more on line Rene Jean with the Williston Herald have we asked for any n95 masks from FEMA and if we have how many did we ask for and have we receive and how many have we received but go do you want to shout out an answer to me or so I don't very heard that but we can get that we can get that data but we did start out I think with large quantity of masks I know early on we shipped 50,000 masks to Montana when they were having trouble getting them elsewhere and we've got an order in with the feds and are replenishing but I think we're in good shape on masks but we can get the exact info other questions one more on line Matt Henson with WDAY on March 27th personal-care businesses such as Hair Salons tattoo parlors etc had were closed they've been unable to get unemployment and when they applied for a small business loan under the Care Act they were notified they were only eligible for up to $1,000 is there a plan to compensate these workers if it closures are extended the I understand the question but I'm but in the context the question there was some information that's confusing me because that's not my understanding that they would be limited I've never heard anything about that limit and they should be eligible for the pandemic unemployment insistence claim so I would just maybe we can follow up with Matt and we can get the actual name of the individual that he's spoken to and contact them and see if we can help them and if and if somehow they're not able to we'll all have learned something but I I believe that there is programs available for certainly those programs were designed for exactly that case of the you know self-employed individual you know gig workers salon workers all those folks so it's not reaching them let's let's drill in and find out more so this week okay that was a question everything I'm not sure who asked that earlier maybe was Jack but the answer is that the the $600 checks which are part of the panic unemployment assistance that's the $600 on top of the on top of your regular or if you weren't part of the unemployment insurance it's $600 or payment that they're working to get those out this week okay other questions seeing none I I want to again a close by just saying to all North Dakotans say thanks for tuning in thanks for everything you're doing to help keep North Dakota safe and healthy and to protect the most vulnerable thanks for your input thanks to the media for their questions and their everything they're doing to show up thanks for everybody that's listening in for the media around the state we appreciate the online questions as well and as I look through the back of this room out at the sunshine and a little breeze blowing I think that the snow is starting to melt here again so maybe a springtime is here again in North Dakota or at least coming in the few days ahead but with that as always in North Dakota it gives us certainly the hope of better days ahead and I know that North Dakota is going to come through this because as we always have we've always persevered we've always innovated and we know that'll be the case this time around so thank you North Dakota and we'll see you tomorrow at 3:30 [Music] you you