Executive order allows all Kentuckians to vote by mail in June primary Share Shares Copy Link Copy

Hide Transcript Show Transcript

get through this together and we'll get through this together because we remember each and every day what it takes to get through this. The 10 steps to defeat Cove in 19. Number one, Step healthy at home. Even as we start to plan with patients the gradual opening of our economy, we know that healthy at home is still gonna be critically important. It's how we save other people around us. It's how we prevent the spreading of this disease. Remember, unless you're at work, unless you're getting supplies or unless you're exercising, you are healthy at home. As you'll see in our numbers today, this virus is still out there. It is still active, and it is still deadly. So let's make sure that we don't let up avoid crowds and gatherings again. There's no exceptions, you know, as we're planning for the future, we get a lot of questions that come down to that, even even were able to do things wouldn't were able to be back in a work setting, though toe look very different. You don't have meetings in a conference room. You have ah group call that people are are on very important to just change our thinking until we get a vaccine here about no crowds, no gatherings, practice social distancing, know when to seek care. Our website. It's gonna become more and more important as we're able to loosen restrictions and as we're able to give guidance. So Kyi Cove in 19 Doc Kyi dock of it's gonna become even more critical as we move forward, wash your hands and surfaces as we're allowed to have more contacts. It's gonna be really important. And I know is the weeks of worn on everybody's cheated a little bit, whether or not they've done the full 20 seconds with soap. I know you haven't having either, but we've got to be committed to doing it. As we move forward. Apply for benefits. We're going to get an update from Josh Benton today. I know it's hard. We've gone through more claims than ever before, and we will get through even mawr. Prioritize your mental health, don't travel and report noncompliance. There are the 10 steps plus one, and that's the census. Please fill out your census. We've talked about this. It's important to our rebuilding effort. It is also your legal duty, and we ask every day that you not just follows 10 steps, but and you fill out the census. But you show everybody around you that you are doing your part, that you are doing your duty. You are willing to do what it takes to defeat Cove in 19 and we ask you to celebrate that. I put it out so the rest of the world can see it and model it and want to be a part of it. All right, this is one of our Campbellsville university graduates working at CH I ST Joseph East. He's on the front lines and we're thinking about him and all of our other healthcare heroes. This is, Ah, one of the many, um, folks Ben Doughty, who is out there using whether it's a three d printer or any other resource. They have to try to create PPE to try to help us save lives. We appreciate all of this ingenuity. We wouldn't have been able to weather the storm the way that we have flattened the curve the way that we have without donations and without even manufacturing that we do in our own homes, sometimes even in our own basements and here again is different ways that we've been able to connect to those that we haven't been able to say. Our senior living facilities have been hit hard. And let me tell you, even as we're able to reopen the economy gradually and multiple phases, visitation is going to be extremely, extremely restricted. This virus is so deadly to our seniors. Let's continue to find ways to connect them, find ways to be together without being physically, together. And again. Every day we see our cities in our townships all over Kentucky putting those green lights out, making sure that we honor those that we've lost, that we show compassion. But also renewal that we know a better day is coming ahead of us. All right, so NT I here with these two kiddos in Oldham County schools, Oldham County schools didn't just get this opportunity today because they do such a great job. Oldham County is number one in the census response, and so anybody can overtake Oldham County in the census response will make sure that you're recognized to. We just really need everybody to fill that out, and here is one of of our facilities that's been hit pretty hard. And this is one of those recognitions of somebody who has recovered. This is Lucy Goodwin. We're all thinking about Lucy. We're thinking about everybody else is going through it. We're thinking about those that didn't make it. They were celebrating those that have recovered. Okay, So, uh, next we have the gun toe learn sign language, and we've done it because Virginia has been so amazing at making sure that everybody is included and Rachel and everybody else that has helped us with it. And what we have seen is that this spirit of compassion inclusion that that we have all felt during this pandemic has extended to wanting to make sure that we can communicate with everyone. So we learned a little bit of sign language every day. So today, Virginia wants to teach us I love you friends. I I love Okay. Yeah. I love you friends. Okay. And one more time. I love you, friends. Thank you. All right, we got a lot to cover today. Um, going to start with testing moved toe elections. We have a secretary of state here than to another round of releases of medically fragile from our prisons. Unemployment update cares act update, um, than our numbers And then some, um uh, information on Green River specifically. But let's start with testing because folks yesterday and our drive through testing we had our single best day that we have had here in the Commonwealth. And this is really important because if we want to move from healthy at home to healthy at work, we got to increase our testing capacity and it gives us more data about how we're going to respond. Where are hot spots can be and will also learn a lot of how maney asymptomatic people are there out there. So let's show a picture from Pike County if we have it. This is from yesterday we ended up with a single day record in Pike County of testing 535 people yesterday. Remember, we only aim at testing about 330. But let me tell you, those Kroger folks are folks from the state National Guard, local law enforcement. They were actually so excited to see this, uh, this desire to be tested on the community coming out to make sure that they were safe and that If they weren't, they wouldn't infect others. They stayed until 10 PM to test those who were in line at 5 30 The nurses and other medical staff didn't eat until 11 p.m. Last night. Because of this, their work was phenomenal on, and we actually when we get to it next week, already have three of our sites fully booked. That's a good thing. We need to make sure we're getting that testing out there. So we had testing at four locations this week. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in Pike County, we tested a total of 942 folks with a name and 1000 that is our best site yet primarily because the last day and so thank you to all those health care workers in Pulaski County. We test it 790 Over the three days again, we had more than 100 more people on the last day when it was open to everybody. Then we had on the previous day in Hopkins County and Madisonville. We tested 423 people yesterday and over the three days, 870 in a McCracken tested 325 yesterday, which is more than 100% increase on the day before for 625 total people tested. That's our best week. That's our best week, folks on that. And as we move towards the new normal, um, we need to do better and better and showing you how are testings increasing every day We had 783 tests. This is in our Kroger partnership on Tuesday, 830 on Wednesday in 1614 on on Thursday. Eso testing this next week we're actually gonna have 11 locations across the state that this the Department of Public Health is aware of or working with. And they're all a little bit different. But we're gonna walk through them to make sure that everybody knows theon to Nitties to get tested. These are the most drive. These they're all drive through. They're the most locations that we have had by far at any given point, and we appreciate everybody's effort that's apart. Let's start with our Kroger partnership. Remember, Kroger is donating the man and woman hours donating the PPE, and state is contracting with gravity of diagnostics for the test kits on the ups for the shipping, So these are four locations. Louisville and Lexington are going Monday through Friday. They are located in or are intended to be located near predominantly African American neighborhoods, and that is because of the disparate impact that this virus has. Then we're doing Monday through Friday at Louisville and Lexington were doing Tuesday through Thursday at Owens Borough and Bowling Green. Ah, Kroger will test 330 people at each site each day, so we should test, um, a significant number, a significant number this week. Now I will tell you that Louisville, Lexington and Bowling Green are already fully booked for this coming week. Owens Borough has limited availability now for Wednesday and Thursday. And under this testing with Kroger, anyone? Anyone who wants to test consign up Ah, while it was our are planned before. Certainly, in response to this demand in Louisville and in Lexington, we will be running the following Wikus well Monday through Friday, and we'll announce when you can start signing up for those weeks. The way the portal works, you can't just roll over into them, but we're gonna have at least another full week of testing at those locations in each place. Today, we get to announce another partnership in testing. This time with Walmart. Walmart is gonna be doing drive through testing in Louisville, just on the outskirts of of Newburgh, which again waas ah, location that we requested to make sure that we were serving those that are disproportionately impacted and wanted to make sure that nobody is left out or overlooked. So it's going to start Wednesday, this coming Wednesday, April 29th. It's gonna go from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Seven days a week is gonna be for first responders and health care workers, with or without symptoms in anyone over 18 that has symptoms. And because this is a different partnership, you do have to sign up in a different way. This is gonna be on our website on WalMart has its own portal and how it works. So now if you are in Louisville, you have the partnership with Kroger. That's it shone a starting on Monday, though that's booked all the way through Friday. You also have this which has just opened up, which is going to start on Wednesday at Bashford manner and run all the way through seven days a week until they run out of capacity. This is between the two. The largest level of testing that we have done anywhere at both locations were also going to be working to hand out masks and sanitizer. Now, if you are in Lexington, your two options are are Kroger site and the Walgreens site Walgreens is doing this one location that you've got to sign up for. It's for anyone 18 and older with symptoms. First responders, Healthcare workers again. You gotta register online through their portal. So two spots in Lexington one started today. One starts Monday, two spots in Louisville ones booked Monday through Friday. But we're gonna do another week, and then the Walmart starts on Wednesday. Let's get all of those tests. Let's use all of that capacity. But that's not all that we're doing in the state. The Kentucky Department for Public Health and Christian County Health Department eyes doing a drive thru test, a tiebreaker park that is in Hopkinsville Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. To 11 a.m. That's open the first responders, healthcare workers and anybody else with symptoms again this will all be on our website. That's the sign up information we also have in Trig County, um, in Katie's Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. To 4:30 p.m. That's open toe everyone, everyone, and you can register on the site that will link to off of our website. Murray has the Murray Calloway County Hospital running Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There's a number you called to 707530704 to schedule an appointment. First responders Healthcare workers Anybody with symptoms in Hazzard primary care centres of eastern Kentucky are doing, um, Monday and Tuesday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Open toe everybody and then Rock Castle Regional Hospital and Mount Vernon is doing Monday through Friday open to everybody must register on this number that is 11 sites this week. So that is a significant expanded capacity. Let's make sure we way utilize it And let me, um, back up a little bit and given this is the first day were able to talk about our WalMart partnership. We're announcing drive through testing site in Louisville. We're excited about this testing site which is a result of the state partnership with Wal Mart. I want to give Wal Mart credit. They reached out to us to make this happen. It'll be at 2020 Bashford Manner Lane, which is located on the outskirts of the Newburgh neighborhood in Louisville, again Wednesday, April 29th. In a run seven days a week. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. You must schedule for an appointment on their website. Results are available 24 to 48 hours, and they expect to be able to test between 152 100 people per day without these partnerships, without the big one. With Kroger, without what we've been able to do with gravity without Walgreens and Walmart, without our hospitals and our public health groups, we would not be able to do what we're doing this week, which is 11 plus sites. We believe by Monday will even have some additional ones. Let's take advantage of it all right. Our next big announcement is about our primary elections in June. So, along with Secretary of State Michael Adams today, we announced that we had reached an agreement on how the state's primary election, special elections and local option elections scheduled for June 23rd 2020 will be conducted given the global health pandemic caused by Cove in 19. Secretary Adam sent me a formal letter of recommendation Thursday and today I issued an executive order that outlines the election procedures that will then become part of regulations from the Board of Elections. Executive order and regulations created by the state Board of Elections will allow any Kentucky and who is registered to vote in the upcoming primary that the option to vote by mail through absentee ballots. They'll be significant education and work required as we lead up to it so that everybody understands there'll be a postcard sent out to everyone that shows them the options. And the state Board of Elections will also be working on a plan to safely conduct limited in person voting and a possible drive through voting option so that voters who do not or cannot vote by mail have another option. We have our secretary of state with me here today and I'm admit he deserves a lot more credit on this than I do. He has worked very hard on it. He has been very flexible on it. And because of his efforts, people are gonna be safer during this election. So your secretary of State, Michael Adams. Thank you, governor. So the biggest threat to our elections today is not for in its domestic. It's not Russia. It's the sort of partisanship in brinksmanship that you've seen in some other states. It's what led to the debacles we saw in Ohio and Wisconsin, where you had party versus party. You had branch of government versus branch of government. You had brinksmanship. And then the voters not clear what the rules were going to be until very late in the process and ultimately led to disenfranchisement of eligible voters. It also led to people getting sick people who are poor workers catching Corona virus. Obviously, that's not acceptable. So what the governor believed and I believed, of course, to was, we need to negotiate something in advance well in advance of the June 23rd election, as early as we possibly could to make sure that the rules of the game were in place, that they were negotiated by people of both parties. The State Board of Elections, which is a bipartisan body Democratic governor and a Republican secretary of state. So we could have bribed public consensus that these were the rules of the game and they were affair. And usually in a negotiation. People have different goals. The governor's goals and my goals were the same at number one. How do you make sure you don't disenfranchise anybody and we can have a successful election and member? You number two? How do you keep people safe? How do you protect human life? So the governor has been extraordinarily gracious and working with me, and he's really listened to the concerns I had and suggestions that offered. And I'm very grateful to you, Governor Beshear, for working in good faith with me to achieve a good outcome. So I'll just summarize this very quickly. I'll be available after the governor's press conference for any questions that you may have. But here, the big Three changes that we've made to our election for June 23rd number one We have a significant expansion of absentee voting. This is not a new concept for Kentucky. We already had. We already have ah, absentee voting in our laws in case of illness in case of medical emergency. We allow people to vote safely at home through the mail. We make that much easier now by creating an online portal that secure so that people can verify their identity through personally identifiable information. And they beat me out absentee ballot. What we didn't do was simply mail out ballots to everybody who's registered to vote. We don't think that was the right way to do it. Our voter files, unfortunately, not up to speed. So this is a way to ensure about integrity but also ensure that we make it possible for everyone who is eligible to vote to vote. The second thing we did is to severely limit in person voting, uh, just bowing to reality. We don't have the 16,000 poll workers that we need to conduct a typical traditional election. I'll be grateful if we have even a fraction of that. Many volunteer. Most of our poll workers are elderly there, in the class of people who are most susceptible to harm from this virus were not willing to risk those people's lives to have one model of election. So that's why we're encouraging people to vote absentee through the process that we're gonna make available assume this next week. We're gonna encourage people to do that for people who are not able to vote by mail for people who insist on voting in person or just have to vote in person. We're gonna make that as easy as possible. We're gonna have in person voting on Election Day. I believe that our Constitution requires that. And I certainly think most voters that will expect that. So we're gonna make that available. But we're doing two things. Number one we're limiting. The number of locations were empowering the county clerks toe limit the number of insight on site locations where people can come in a vote. And number two, we're changing the process to try to limit direct person to person contact. We're trying to get away from the touch screen machines of people press. I don't want people walking up to a machine by the hundreds or thousands of touching the same screen that neither does the governor want to try to find a way to ensure that we can limit the risk of transmission by limiting in person contact and people touching the same objects. And so we're gonna look at and probably next week introduced formally procedures like curbside voting and drive through voting. We'll have more details about what that looks like next week, but this is a way to ensure that we don't disenfranchise anybody. The homeless, the disabled everyone's taking care of. In this system, we offer two different methods. We certainly encourage people to vote absentee so we can relieve the crowds on our polling sites and the burden on our poll workers. One last point I'd like to make is there's no one who is more sensitive to the issue of about integrity than I am. I've heard a lot of concern by my party today about this method. Let me assure you, we've got that addressed in here in two ways. As I said, we're not simply mailing ballots to everyone on the voter file. Where have we have a portal to enable convenience of people in requesting bouts? But they've got another date of birth to get a ballot. And second of all, I'm very proud that something I promised to do is get our voter rolls cleaned up there out of federal compliance, according to federal judge, and this process now begins effective with the procedures of the Board of Elections will adopt pursuant to this agreement. So, Governor Beshear, I'm gonna thank you again for your personal graciousness and willingness to listen to me as I raised my concerns. And I thank you for working with me in good faith on getting this done. Thank you so much. We appreciate the secretary of state and the fact that what we have done here, um, in partisan, it's not a Democrat or Republican thing. It's what's required to respond to a worldwide health pandemic. It's just about doing the right thing. So thank you very much. All right. Um, next is today I've taken the next step to begin the release of, Ah, an additional 352 folks that are in our county jails that have been convicted under state crimes that are nonviolent, non sexual, that air near the end of of their sentence on and are at risk of Contracting Cove in 19. This isn't something that we take lightly, but we know that this virus can get in. These facilities were taking similar actions that we see governors all over the United States doing So today I commuted an additional 352 sentences. All of those who are commuted were serving sentences for nonviolent non sexual offenses and had five years or fewer remaining on those sentences. 339 of those commuted were state inmates serving their sentences in local jails. And they have medical conditions that the CDC has identified as putting them at riel. Significant risk. That's the same criteria we used to commute folks before who were in our state institutions just because we were having a county jail ultimately house those folks. It's the exact same approach that that we used 13 of those commuter today, where state inmates in both jails and state prisons who are over the age of 65. Another risk factor identified by the CDC. As with the previous commutations, these were conditional. Those air commuted can have cove in 19 or the symptoms, so they're not taking that into the community. They must have a verifiable residents so that they could be self quarantine the 14 days after their release, and they cannot commit any other crimes during their period of of release. This is something we're seeing folks all over the country doing in a worldwide pandemic. We got to take these types of steps to protect our people who are out there. All right, Next, we're going to have an update on unemployment from Josh. Been, um, Josh is working hard. We're facing more claims than we have ever seen in any time in our history here in Kentucky. And what I saw today was an article talking about us being number three. I think in the country it's not that we have the third most unemployed people in the country. It's that we've processed enough claims to be at that point. But I know a lot of you out there been waiting a long time, and that's on us. It's on us. And I know you've heard me say it a lot, and I know that's not satisfactory because you have needs and you gotta put food on the table. You may have kids to feed, so we're gonna continue to work hard and do better. And here's Josh. Thank you, Governor, just to provide an update on where we are with unemployment insurance. At the moment, the governor did mention nationally, we are really ahead of the curve overall, Um, but that does not diminish the issues that that we do have and the struggles that we're having on getting payments out to those, especially those who haven't received them yet. And so we'll talk about that in a minute. I'll go over some overall numbers and then talk about how we're addressing some of the concerns since March 16th which again, is our baseline date for when we started seeing a spike in claims we've processed over 550,000 claims There's were using now the Department of Labor's number. Before, we had been providing really, really time updates on those unemployment insurance numbers. But to avoid any confusion on what the Department of Labor is providing, we're gonna be consistent with their numbers, even though they're ah week or so behind what the real time numbers are. Since that time, we were approaching paying out over a $1,000,000,000 in unemployment insurance payments that comes from our traditional program and the four new programs that were provided by The Cares Act and are being paid for by the federal government. Over the last two weeks, we've processed, on average, about 300,000 claims each week, so to talk a little bit about the concerns. While the vast majority of individuals who have applied for unemployment insurance have received their payment, we do know that a significant number have not. We have been working over the last week and 1/2 in particular, to try to identify what is holding up those claims. We feel like we're really close to being able to to clear those things up and hopeful. Next week we're gonna be able to provide some really good news to those individuals who have been waiting far too long. We're working day and night on that, especially our I T team and they when I say day and night I mean day and night. They're working to try to resolve those issues. The other concern is the phone lines, and we know that we've added capacity. We've been training upon training to make sure people are up to speed. At two weeks ago, we were able to answer 1200 calls. This week we've been averaging over 50,000 calls a day, answered a significant uptick and what we've been able toe answer and provide responses to We're now focusing on training to make sure that we have more people on the line that can handle more detailed questions and provide solutions to complex issues. So we're going to continue to train those folks. We're going to continue to add people if we need it, and we're working day and night to resolve the issues to the people that have been waiting the longest. So we appreciate everyone's patience. It's long overdue, but we're getting closer every day. Thank you. Josh and his team are are working really hard, but anybody that hasn't been helped yet, that's that's on us. And that means it's it's on. May I? Don't blame him on the governor comes back to May. We're going to keep working harder each and every day. Ah, couple of quick new pieces of news that cares act funding, which are federal dollars, that air flowing to the state. We're starting to get very specific grants that come from the federal government that have to be used in certain ways. The 1st 1 is nine million in federal funds available to assist local public safety agency and governments, So starting on this on Friday, May 1st which is next Friday. Kentucky's local public safety agencies ineligible Local governments can apply for part of this more than $9 million in grant funding. The one time funds have to separate processes for local agencies. Ineligible governments 6.2 million and passed through funds will assist local agencies like police departments, sheriff's offices and correctional institutions to prevent, prepare for and respond to Cove in 19 allowable program. Expenses include overtime and equipment, including law enforcement and medical equipment and personal protective equipment, supplies, training and travel. But that's traveled to distribute supplies because we're not otherwise traveling. New hires and overtime pay. An additional 3.3 million are available to government agencies for direct awards. The below L A ble jurisdictions must still apply in order to receive funds. A list of those and their specific counties will be on our website. Assistance of the application process is done through the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet. Again, that's on our website. So there's now an extra $9 million in federal funds to assist local public safety agencies. Cares Act funding has also been directed towards the arts during this time when when so many of artists can't come together but are still truly producing incredible work. So many people in organizations and a lot of areas air struggling right now. And that includes the arts. Artists have had to close their doors and are doing everything they can to stay afloat. So I'm proud to announce today we're distributing over $450,000 federal funding to 93 arts organizations in 32 Kentucky counties through the Kentucky Arts Council and the Tourism Arts and Heritage Cabinet. It's part of the Cares Act funding. It's going to support and assist stabilizing arts organizations and provide assistance to protect employees from long term unemployment. Funding plays an important role in Kentucky arts organizations gonna help them rebuild. We look forward to when they can stage productions, hold concerts and open galleries that we can enjoy again. Until we're to that point, we hope that this funding helps to continue not just to help them to survive, but to thrive and to show that creativity and add so much that they add to our commonwealth. All right, um, we're gonna move into our update for today in today's update is gonna be a reminder that while we are looking forward to being healthy at work, while we have our first stage of healthcare restarts starting on Monday, that this virus is still very present and it could still be very deadly and we've got to make sure that we don't take our eye off the ball and that we're committed to defeating this virus on the very first time. And while even with today's results which are this believe the single highest number of cases we've had, we still believe were generally plateau out. That means we'll have days that were up and we'll have days that were down. I think we had a day not long ago where we might have even been under 100 we know that's not the reality on the ground. But this is still very much with us, which means the decisions we make are really important. We make a wrong decision, we make it too early. The result is more people get the virus and more people die and so we're all anxious to do a lot of things. But let's remember that the decisions we make are the difference in life and death and those of the personal decisions to stay healthy at home and not spread the virus. And there the decisions that I've got to make, along with others each and every day. So let's remain committed. Let's remain positive about how we're gonna do this. Let's remember the stakes that are at issue. So today we're reporting 322 new cases of the Corona virus, and when we remove duplicates and Justin audit like we do every day, our total number of cases in Kentucky is now 3779. Now we are testing more than ever before, but this is a large number. It is in part because we're testing. Maurin are long term care facilities. There's a lot of positive cases there, and that's of great concern. But let's remember, just cause we're planning and taking some steps doesn't mean we've beaten this thing. We got to stay at it. We've got to stay strong on this is just a reminder, or even a wake up about what we're dealing with. So total tested to date 44,962 on the results haven't come in from at least two of those three days that we that we've had record tests on number of Kentucky has ever hospitalized. 1143 currently hospitalized, 303 ever in the I. C U 575 currently in the I C U 164. Pretty stable like it's up one from yesterday. But remember, was 164 people that are struggling that they need our thoughts. Our prayers andare help on our number of folks that have recovered 1341. And we are very excited about that, UH, new cases by county 121 in Jefferson. And remember, we reported different times, and they come in at different times to public health than they made to a public to our Department of help public health, as opposed to a local local public health agency. So 1 21 and Jefferson, 35 Warren, 19 and Muilenburg, 17 in a Dare 13 and Davis, 13 and Grayson, 11 and Hopkins, 10 and Canton, eight, in Ohio, seven, and Butler, six, in graves. Western Kentucky has been hit really hard. Four and June Foreign boil Foreign Campbell Foreign Edmondson three and Bullet. Fats Madison Nelson, two in Callaway and Henderson, Pike and Shelby in one. And Alan Ballard, Baron, Bourbon, Boyd, Breckenridge, Caldwell, Christian Franklin, Grant Harden, Harrison, Jackson, Marshall, McCracken, McLean, Oldham, Owsley, Pulaski, Taylor and Todd. And four Unconfirmed. Remember this information in Perfect? It's sometimes that's where people were tested and the volume is a challenge. I think there are a couple counties in there that will be potentially the first case in those counties. But it's everywhere. It's everywhere. And it's one of the reasons that as we're doing are reopening plans. We can't do them county by county. This virus doesn't care if there's accounting line doesn't care at all. We got to make sure we're unified in our approach. Eso that we don't have the virus jumping from one place to another and creating a type of hot spot. With that said, we're gonna listen to everybody's everybody's input. Our local leaders are absolutely critical. They've been critical in us, flattening the curve and their critical tow us making a safe reopening and they're gonna be full partners with state. So today we're also reporting nine new deaths, which which raises our number of total deaths in Kentucky to 200. It's now 200 souls, 200 of us, that we have lost Teoh to this virus. I will say that is far less than we thought that we would have lost today. Far, far less. But it's to money. I mean, 200 people, every single one of which I think I've set up here and at least rather demographic information is 200 more than we want to lose. So let's remember every decision we make. Let's be smart. Let's do the right things. Let's make sure as we take steps to reopen that we don't increase that count. Our job is to protect one another. We've come too far to stop. So the nine new deaths and again they're more than an age and a gender and accounting our 93 year old female from Graves, an 82 year old female from Graves, 74 year old male from Shelby, an 89 year old female from a dare, a 79 year old female from Jackson, an 88 year old female from Graves, a 90 year old female from Hopkins, a 54 year old male from Hopkins and a 59 year old male from Muilenburg County. We continue to see those, especially in long term care facilities, um, being hit really, really hard in terms of race and ethnicity of the known cases. Overall cases 76.2% white, 13.9% black or African American, 5.72% Asian, 4.9% multiracial and on ethnicity. It's 92% non Hispanic and 8% Hispanic. On deaths on the 86% of cases where we know 79.65% white, 17.44 percent black or African American, 1.74% Asian, 1.16% multiracial and on ethnicity, 98.8% non Hispanic and 1.2% Hispanic. Uh, let's go through a couple of the areas that we talk about each time specific areas that have been hit hard. Let's start with Green River Correctional Complex. So we've had an additional 10 cases since yesterday at Green River. Eight inmates to staff and we had an additional death at Green River. We've got ah, video of our secretary or Justice Cabinet Secretary Mary Noble talking a little bit about our efforts in Green River. And then I have one additional announcement on that. Several questions have been asked about what we're doing to stop the spread of the virus in Green River Correctional Complex, where the Corona virus has claimed two victims. By following medical advice and the CDC guidelines, we are applying a two step protocol to address this problem. The first step is an expensive sanitation. Bleach. Cleanings of the building were done multiple times daily hand sanitizer and so has been dispensed for hand washing. We sanitize officers shoes before they come into the building mask have been distributed, and both officers and inmates are required to wear them in. Officers are required to wear gloves. When officers began their shift, their temperatures taken and they checked for other Corona virus symptoms. The second step is controlled containment in controlled containment. No outside visits are allowed. The seven dorms are separated and the inmates been the majority of the day in their cells. Onley Small group movement is to allow for exercise meals, showers and phone calls so that the inmates can practice proper social distancing medical personnel goes to the inmate in the cell to dispense medication and to check for Corona virus symptoms even and made a symptomatic. He is immediately tested and his quarantine as are any people being close contact with him for 14 days. If the test comes back positive. The inmate is contained in a cell and treated. And should his condition require he's taken to the hospital. There are over 900 inmates in Green River Correctional Complex that's less than 4% positive. And the justice and public safety cabinet is committed to keeping those numbers. Look s. So I want to thank Secretary Noble for her leadership. But today I also ordered that we're gonna test every single person at that facility. Every inmate, everybody who works there, we're gonna test all of them were gonna try to do it over the next several days, the complications actually doing the tests. But I've committed within our testing capacity that we're gonna test everybody. I want to make sure that we've taken the steps now that we need to take to protect everyone in that facility. Andi, make sure that we're doing our job and our part. Now let's look at long term care facilities again, This is what this virus does. This is why we work so hard on. And this is where it causes the maximum level of devastation. So since yesterday we have 48 additional residents that have tested positive. 17 additional staff and five additional deaths were now up to 61 different facilities that have a positive test. Ah, positive case in some form or fashion. I believe that we're doing everything it that we can, that we will always work to doom. Or we have put more testing than ever before towards these facilities. Doctor Stack and his team are working daily with these facilities. Norton now has. They're hotline and different teams that come out toe work for these facilities and were in direct contact with them. Now, sometimes other local leaders aren't aware of some of the things that we're doing because we're working directly with the facility. Just go on exactly where the problem is and trying to help to the to the maximum amount. But this is continues to be a real concern. Want to have a brief, healthy at work? Update will have mawr on this on the weekend. We have a committee that's that's leading that, and my chief of staff, Latasha Buckner, is going to give a brief update on that now. Thank you, Governor. So we launched our healthy at work initiative on Tuesday, and since then we've made quite a few strides. First of all, we've met with your mayors and the governors been on each of the calls, along with my team members, which are Cabinet Secretary Larry Roberts, the Labour Cabinet, Cabinet for Economic Development Secretary Larry Hayes and then also Jim Gray, who's Cabinet secretary for the Transportation Cabinet. We had a great cold with the mayor's great call with county judge executives today. We talked to the Chamber of Commerce and Local Chambers as well, and we're also going to be talking to other states and industry specific, um, heads of associations as well. We want to make sure we get the best input on how to do this right. Another update is or website is healthy at work. Kyi dot gov We've updated to make a couple of things clear. First, is that you are not required to submit a proposal, uh, or your business or industry, whether your business can reopen will not be determined on whether or not you submit a proposal. And submitting a proposal does not mean that you're able to open up those air things that we're gonna work on together to identify the best time to actually open up specific industries approach intends to be by sector and by groupings, which will get feedback from the Department of Public Health on. So far, our website has had over 500 submissions that are thoughtful and great input for us to go back and think about and consider the next couple of weeks. We plan to take those exchanges and the proposals and create those groupings than we hope to share detailed information about which sectors will be able to open up and what the requirements will be for each of those sectors. What we're not gonna be able to tell your dates. Those dates are set by the benchmarks that the governor is identified, as well as the White House guidance, and the process is just to be ready when we're able to do this and have the best plans. It's about being safe and doing it right now. Doing first and as The governor says, you know, we're gonna get through it together. We're gonna reopen Kentucky together. Thank you. And I got so yesterday, um, it could have been a different governor. Could have been one of the one of the public health National public health officials say it right. You know what determines the dates were able to do things is a Corona virus is Cove in 19. How it's spreading where it's spreading is ultimately what sets the timetable. So while we had our largest number of cases today, I still believe Andre. Let's see the data going forward that were generally plateau with. That said, we're not on the decline yet and remember to take a lot of steps. We need two weeks of being on the decline in in cases. Some people may think that that's Ah, negative, but I also see the positive in that if we have plateau even with this, with this number today, we're in such a better place than any of us would have modeled or predicted today. And that's because of of your work. I can't believe I even said it thus far in this press conference, but I'm really proud of you Kentucky I'm really proud of. You are saving lives every day. Even with the nine we had to read off today you are saving lives every day. It will be countless. It'll be thousands upon thousands of people. By the time that we're done, that you saved each and every one of you by what you're doing. Everybody following the guidance is a hero or Shiro In Kentucky, you are doing your job. And because of that, people are safer. Let's remember, though, that we did lose nine more people. We've now lost 200 Kentucky and on, and we gotta honor them. And we got a lighter houses that are places of business and our institutions up green tonight let their families know that they're not alone. And while they won't get to express their grief, likely in the normal way that we would that we're thinking about them were with them. Green is the color of compassion, but also renewal as their spirit moves from their body to a better place. All right, we're gonna open it up for questions. I know we had a lot of information today, but we wanted to get it all out. We have Philip Bailey, Brian Walker, Joe Radusa and Mike Valenti. I think I'm gonna go last yesterday. So fill. You ought to go first today, don't you? In the Secretary of State, shown remarkable cooperation. Private first. Can you speak to both of you? Speak to how you worked. Just do this despite your deep philosophical persons. In second for you, Governor, can you explain to conductors? Have a state plans to clean up our voter rooms? The question is first about working together on the agreement we reached with our our secretary of State. We've had a pretty good relationship since Ah, um, we've known each other or gotten to know each other and both gotten toe to be sworn in. I think it's open lines of communication, but I think in this instance we both put politics aside. Doesn't mean that you don't have folks in in politics tryingto to talk to you about it, but we're dealing the worldwide health pandemic. Um, and you know, I said I left politics a long time ago, and I'm way beyond it with the things that I've had to do. But I've been really impressed that our secretary of state has has stepped up, um, seeing the situation for what it is and has absolutely done the right things. Um, hey, deserves a lot of credit for putting together this proposal, putting in a lot of work while we work back and forth. And in many ways, we just had to get it to a place where I could say yes. But you made that pretty easy. Eso Let's let's get sick. Secretary of State. Well, thank you. First to your first question. Ah, the governor and I have been working on this for about two or three weeks, back and forth, and the solutions and the approaches that we took were not really ideological. They really were dictated by the facts on the ground. The biggest one for me was the absence of volunteers to be poll workers that we've through the process of delaying the election. We suspended the deadline for our county chairs to provide nominees for poll workers to our county boards of elections. But even with that extended, we just didn't have the numbers that we needed. So this was driven primarily by that reality. Your second question was, how do we get these rolls cleaned up there to provision in this plan. First of all, first of all, there are two ways that you clean up the voter rolls. So one thing that we do is we notify every single registered voter in Kentucky about this new approach about their option to vote absentee about how they do that. Directions of the Web portal, the phone number of the county clerk, and so forth to make sure everyone has maximum awareness. Obviously, I'll be doing a public information campaign. I'm sure the governor that will do one as well. We wouldn't make everyone aware of this, So we're going to do that. But the nice catch with that is under federal law, if we send a postcard to a voter and it comes back returned, that were unaffordable. We get to count that toward our list maintenance procedures. So this was a clever way, I think, to use federal dollars to help us cover the pandemic election costs and use it in a way that actually has a dual purpose of helping us learn who are the voters on the files who are actually not at their addresses anymore. The second thing that we do is is very proactive to actually take steps immediately, which is we contact voters directly, and we ask, We know that they're not listed at their address anymore. We've got evidence from other states notification by the post office or notification from other states that they've moved. They've re registered elsewhere, and we send them a letter and we asked them to verify that. And that's the case. Then sign were not able to take people off the rolls without their prior consent. Unless we give them to federal elections, chance to vote or otherwise change their information. We're not gonna purge the roles in a mass purge of that nature this year. But what we're allowed to do by federal and state laws proactively contact people and offer them the opportunity to update their information. So that's just one of the silver linings that we get out of this reform plan. Well, and from my perspective, the step that's being taken here is when you think somebody lives out of state and you contact him directly and they say, Yes, I live out of state. At that point, they should be removed from our voter rolls you got that? That direct proof there. Let me do one of these questions. And then how many applications that we received healthy at work over 500. What types of businesses are we seeing? Apply. It's really all across the board. 31 industry group or trade associations. 570 individual businesses. We've had 138 since three PM yesterday, right? It's a good question on contact tracing if you could just put up the guidelines on on reopening and just put him all up. James. Obviously, we're excited about our increase in testing capacity, and we're doing better each day. 11 sites just just drive through sites. Next week is a big step towards getting where we need to get when we have those two weeks contact. Tracing is the other piece, so we're finalizing our plan and either through direct, tiring or through going out through organizations. Right now, we're seeing about 700 plus people that will need to do contact tracing throughout the state. I think that excludes the folks in Louisville. Louisville has their own cares, act money. They're gonna be some things that we covers the state. There's gonna be some things that they cover directly. That's all being done in direct collaboration with, um S O. So it depends on the level in the contact tracing what you need. So we're gonna have additional people in our state. Um uh, department of public Health. We're gonna have kind of regional coordinators and investigators, and they're gonna have a bigger background, a lot of the contact tracers we're gonna be able to train or they'll come with some form of background. But but a lot of it is about being able to ask the right questions. And you know, your community. In many ways, it reminds me of the connectors that were hired when we expanded Medicaid and and, ah, launch connected. It's folks who know had asked the questions to know who the contacts are on ultimately, because when we get to the test and trace stage, it's gonna be you got somebody who test positive and who are the closest people they've been in contact with. And everybody's gonna need to quarantine for 14 days. That world's gonna look really different, but that is the only way we can reach the new normal with a reopening What information does the administration have on Corona virus cases at meatpacking plants is and and slaughterhouses throughout Kentucky? I think we have one facility that's been hit on guys been hit fairly hard. I believe it's in Louisville and their local health department is working directly with them. It certainly can spread. And those facilities this is happening nationwide and saying area, we need to be really careful. We gotta protect employees. We also got to keep that food chain supply. Um, in, in in operation, Yes, a couple of vetoes. You has it Not for why you decided to eso I vetoed what's called Senate Bill nine because, ah, current state law already protects any child born alive in the way the bill would have. And as I said, my veto message, I'm just not doing divisive issues right now. We got to defeat this Corona virus. We've got toe have, ah, 100% of our effort aimed towards it, and we've gotta have unity in this commonwealth and a whole bunch of lawsuits that would be out there and would be pulling people one way or or another, creating discord in the middle of a time where we've got to be together. I just didn't think was the was the right direction for for us to go on. And I will tell you that even though I've got a look at these bills, I got to sign him or I've got a veto. Them. I'm 100% focused on defeating this this Corona virus. All right. Um, have I been in contact with the Muslim community regarding the start of Ramadan today? Um, and And what about mosques that are out there first? Ramadan is an incredibly important time for our Muslim community. And so we are, um, thinking about them during this time. Um, it involves a prayer every evening that would normally have services. To my knowledge, every single mosque across Kentucky has agreed not to conduct in person services. I made a check on this today. We appreciate that sacrifice just like it's being made. Uh, all across Kentucky. Welcome. Um, I work unable to play and has also been able unable to receive. He's looking for guidance and wants to know what he could do. Question is ah, uh, musician in Hardin County has has both. Both can't play because of the challenges of the spires and hasn't been able to get unemployment first. Before you leave, let's get his name so we can try to help him directly. But this is our challenge every day that we goto work to try to do better on. Yeah, we have. We still have tens of thousands of Kentucky and that we have been able to help yet, and that's because we've helped hundreds of thousands of Kentucky, and to date that's not acceptable to those that haven't been helped. But I'm also not gonna make excuses, right. I mean, we've got we've got challenges with our system. We got challenges with hiring enough people. But it's my job to get it done. And every day that goes by that we haven't helped somebody. It's on May the best. I mean, we can tell them the steps were taking, which I know Josh did. But at the end of the day, we're gonna work harder. We're going to doom or nobody's gonna be penalized by the amount of time that it's taken. But I know that's not very helpful to so many people to that need those dollars right now. If you have to dip into your savings. And I hate that you have to please know that the dollars will be backdated towards the application towards when you qualified, and we hope to be able to make you whole. We're also going to take a look on and the logistics. We have to figure out whether we can use part of our team Kentucky fund toe help as a bridge to those that haven't been able to get their unemployment yet. If I can do that, I'm gonna have to find a practicing lawyer toe. Walk me through that. If we can do that, we want to help. Is what? Someone to work. But they will they be able to receive the money they did. That answer is yes. The question is, if somebody is about to go back to work but filed for unemployment, was unemployed for a period of time and hasn't yet received payment, will they receive it? And that answer is yes. We're gonna make sure that that occurs. Do we have guidelines for how to keep workers safe? Is businesses reopened? That is exactly what we're working through. And the guidelines? That's exactly what the proposals Therefore, we then take the proposals make a determination mainly through public health. They become mandatory guidelines and a part of the orders that allow for the reopening. And yes, yes, employees and workers are absolutely at the top of our list about our considerations and making sure that they are safe. Miss Somebody, Yeah, a little bit. Refraction center questions about Green River on DNO. One steps were taken, but it's enough. Been done. That's one of the reasons that I have now instructed that we test everybody, absolutely everybody who is who was serving time there or who is working there. And I think that will make us help us make better decisions going forward. Um, any. Any area that this hits it's hard and it's scary, and I understand that it's scary for those that are at the facilities and for the families that are at home on. And it may be hard to get accurate information in these types of situations anywhere where there is a major outbreak. I'm gonna want more done, and I don't think I've ever gonna feel like enough has been done. But we're going to take more steps and we're gonna continue toe to take steps. Um, yesterday we mentioned driving options for various businesses. Can I clarify drive in movie theaters? Um, she has a plan to reopen, but the health department says she could not. Is there a way that they could let us work through that, but provided that there aren't concessions provided there in anything being passed back and forth provided people aren't touching knobs and doing that, this is a type of thing that hopefully we can we can make happen. And we can even work directly. Um, with that facility as well. Phil, government of the president got a little hot water saying Investing disinfectants Life could help cure people of Kobe. 19. We did a story today. About it is a rise in disinfected injections and bleach battle. Kentucky. What message do you have for Kentucky? Saw that repeat over maybe thinking that that is the best way to deal with this. Nobody should in just disinfectants for any reason. Adult. It is harmful. Don't do it. Bleach will do terrible things to your body and to your system, and you want your system to be strong. You want your immune system and the rest to be, Ah, very healthy. And before any comments that have recently been in the news, we have seen more calls to our poison control hotline. Remember, especially parents with young Children, your disinfecting now, and you should be more than ever before. But you got to be really careful with your kids. Gonna be really careful with those cleaners. You got to keep him away from surfaces right after you've cleaned. I know that's asking a lot. You may be working from home. You may be doing in T I with your kids. I mean, you're there's so much that piles up, but make sure that you protect them to the full extent. What's the update at Ridgewood Terrorist Facility in Hopkins County? 56 positive residents 13 residents have passed away at that facility and 16 positive staff, and we have not lost any staff at that facility. What's being done to contain the outbreak in the facility? Along with the many steps taken at Ridgewood terrorists and other long term care facilities, we have now tested the entire facility. Everybody Rich would ask CHF s for assistance response team, including registered nurses and volunteer medical students from U K's College of Medicine to support certified nursing assistants has been deployed to the facility. And there's the last question. How helpful the strike team's been going to the facility. We help helpful, we hope, as Mary and once, once this virus, it's thes facilities and it reacts even differently in different people. It could be devastating. We want to do everything we can to help. Sometimes it's gonna have a better outcome than others, and it doesn't mean anybody is necessarily done anything wrong as this. This virus is contagious and it's deadly. And we got to remember that despite hospitalization, the question is, what's our current capacity? If we had a spike as term in terms of hospitalizations, were actually in a pretty good place on that. You know, I lie awake and I know where a lot of things and one of the ones that kept me up most nights was, you know, the spike where you don't have enough beds and you lose more lives because of that, and that's something we worked very hard to prevent. We still have plans in place, but right now we don't see exceeding our our even our hospital bed capacity in Kentucky. And remember, we have two field hospitals across Kentucky. We have hotel options. We can turn on within a week. And we have state parks that have been activated too. Eso originally with our plans and how I had a scaling up. I was still trying to find 20,000 more beds. Right now, we don't see a scenario where we reach what we have in hospitals, but weaken significantly expand it beyond that. With our current planning capacity, the virus pandemic could be Memorial Day. Are you seeing any data that you believe? Okay, Our Pandemic cove in 19 won't be behind us by Memorial Day. At best, we are in a new normal where it is out there were able to do many more things. But the way they do that way we do them is dramatically changed. I think it's really important for people to know we will reach something akin to an old normal once we have a vaccine or a or a very effective treatment. But our lives are just gonna look very different. Until then, you know when when we're when we're not just healthy at home, we'll be able to be healthy at work, which will be the next step. But guess what after work were just healthy at home. We don't get to expand our contacts beyond going to work and coming back because we're still trying to limit those to keep down the spread of of this disease, and then when we're able to do a little bit more, it's still not the same. And we need to get ready for masks. I'm gonna talk about this a lot more, but we're going to reach a point real soon where everybody in public and everybody at work is going to need to be wearing a mask. Once we're able to move into phase one of healthy at work are number of contacts really grows, and that's gonna make masks incredibly important. So again, it's not gonna look the same in the near future. That doesn't mean that we're not all living a good life and can't live a good life and that we won't get there because we will. There's actually some kind of promising news out there on the vaccine front, but my goal is to be transparent and to be honest and to make sure that we know what we're doing so we can be strong and resilient. Ana and address it. Um, what's the state's burn rate on key P P E. How many days of supply does the state have, and how is it aiming to stockpile in the event of a second surge? Eso Our burn rate is an indicative of the burn rate that's out there. That's a of hospitals and nursing homes. What they do if they're participating in the state programs, they report to us every day. And when they are crucially low, that's when we distribute what we have. Right now, it's our hope that we could help Justin critical shortages that we would see in the state for about a month, maybe, maybe even less than that on where we are. It would depend on on what the surges, But that's one of the reasons that we're going to require our health care hospitals systems to stockpile enough whether it's a week or two weeks worth of PPE to prepare for that surge before they start doing certain procedures. It's something that we've been talking directly with them. Um, I'll take one more cover for Mo again. Callus comments about bailout insinuated that Kentucky gets more federal pop money than it receives in New York. Puts in moment that received saying that Where do you stand on this? You stay with some Kentucky and to save the question is on kind of back and forth between Governor Cuomo of New York on Senator McConnell. And I think it's in response to some comments that the senator said about not being in favor, at least now, of aid coming directly to states and local governments. But in mentioning maybe we should consider filing for bankruptcy. Let me start by saying, Senator McConnell and I have had a very good relationship, not just now, but when I was attorney general and and to date in this crisis, we've worked very well together. Hey has been very responsive to my calls. We've had some good conversations, but on this piece I disagree with him, as does every other governor in the United States. This isn't a blue or a red state issue. It's that if in the next cares act, state and local governments don't get direct relief, a recession will last longer. We won't have the dollars we need for teachers and firefighters and police officers that basic services that people need to survive will be cut in 2008 and nine, just in the midst of a recession, not a worldwide health pandemic. Direct aid was provided to states, and it helped us get through. Surely we should consider doing it now. I hope the senator, um, thinks about that. And here's us and ultimately helps us get it through because it's not a disagreement I want to have with him. I want to help. He has the Senate majority leader. He could do a lot to help Kentucky by pushing that through. All right, we're gonna end tonight on a positive and a creative note, which is important on a day where we've had so many cases. But we know that people are giving up opportunities that they would have otherwise had and a lot of those air for young people who have graduation or prom. So we got a video from Nalli Markham, a senior at Pal County High School. She had heard my call to find creative ways to celebrate

SIGN UP FOR BREAKING NEWS Get local stories sent straight to your inbox as news breaks. Submit Privacy Notice