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as of 12 a.m. This morning, we have 207 new cases of Cove it 19 this spring's our statewide total 2 851 Pennsylvanians who have tested positive for covert 19 now in 40 counties in Pennsylvania. Yesterday we had 165 new cases, and today we have 207 new cases of covert 19 in one day. Approximately 70 Pennsylvanians have required hospitalization since March 6th, when we first confirmed our first cases. This is about 10% of people who have tested positive for covert 19 8643 Pennsylvanians have tested negative for covert 19 to date. Tragically, we have had seven Pennsylvanians die as a result of this fires. Two in Allegheny County, one in Lackawanna County, one in Monroe County, one in Montgomery County and two individuals in North Hampton County. Unfortunately, we expect to see these numbers continue to increase each day, which underscores the need for all of us to stay home. This is an uncertain time for all of us. The Pennsylvanians air strong and resilient and are asking, what can I do to help? Well, there is an urgent request from blood donation centers, including the American Red Cross, for blood donations. As we prepare for a surge in hospitalizations, we know that blood donations are vital. Blood donation centers air taking proper precautions to protect anyone that is donating blood donations of platelets, blood and plasma. All the different constituents of blood donations are needed. Another way you can help is to donate to a local food bank. Many Pennsylvanians rely on food banks to feed their families. You can donate safely while practicing social distancing. Please contact your local food bank to find out how the most important thing for Pennsylvania's to do is to stay home. If you don't have to go out, please don't go out now. Here are my daily reminders. Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. The time is sit takes to sing Happy Birthday twice or used hand sanitizer. If soap and water are not available, cover any coughs or sneezes with your elbow, not with your hands, and try not to touch your face, especially after touching surfaces. Clean surfaces. Frequently practicing these every day, prevention efforts can help slow the spread of the virus Cove it 19. If you have questions about your health, please contact your health care provider. If you or someone that you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact the crisis text line by texting P A 2741 seven for one. For the most reliable information related to Pennsylvania's response to Cove it 19 please visit our website at health dot p a dot gov. In what is most important for Pennsylvania's, too remember to stay calm, stay home and stay safe. And now I'm pleased to answer questions. Thank you, Dr Levin. We're getting a lot of questions about the growth in the number of cases in Pennsylvania about the exponential growth in Pennsylvania and then also in terms of assorted variables like increased testing that might not be an apples to apples comparison. Is there roughly a percentage that we would regard as a significant turn of events in terms of upwards or downwards? Well, we are continuing to see this exponential rise of cases of new cases of covert 19 and thus we are seeing a doubling of new cases approximately every two or at most three days, and so that is leading to the rapid increases that we're seeing. This is the same increase seen throughout the country that we're seeing in Pennsylvania. There is some variability in terms of testing and in terms of in test results come back. But that is really often the same each day. Sometimes we might get more test results back from a certain laboratory or less. But as it all evens out, we're still seeing that exponential rate increase as long as we're seeing that. Ah, the virus is spreading in many communities, community spread, and it remains a public health crisis in epidemic. It's a pandemic. And so the purpose of the governors strategy, the mitigation strategy, the prevention strategy is to try to prevent that peak. That big surge that could in theory, overwhelm our healthcare system. And that is why the governor has closed the schools. Why, he has asked non life sustaining businesses too close, and why now we have a stay at home order for the counties of Philadelphia, the collar counties, Monroe County and L. A gaming company secretary. We're getting several reporters who are asking aboutthe numbers of patients who have recovered from Cove in 19. Could you address that, please? We don't track. Patients who recover were certainly tracking three number of cases. The number of new cases we tracked. The number of hospitalizations, the number of intensive care unit admissions, the number of ventilator patients, patients that require artificial ventilation. But we don't track out as patients recover. And then we're getting a lot of questions about our hospital capacity. Pennsylvania has about 34,000 R 3400. I see you beds according to let life figures. What are we doing to increase the number? Is there a target that we need? We feel that we need to reach. So we are working very carefully with our hospitals and health systems. Ah, with healthcare coalitions in each agency the hospital association, Pennsylvania Medical Society in our county, Municipal health department, partners to prepare for this surge. There are a number of different parameters that we have to watch. We have to be make sure that we have enough space, so we have to make sure that we have the number of beds for the whole continuum of care that we have. I seeyou beds that we have regular wanna call medical surgical beds that we have post acute beds. And so we're working with them. They can. Hospitals can expand the number of beds without having to get permission from the Department of Health. Ah, we're working to repurpose ambulatory surgical facilities so that they can take care of less acute. Patients were actually even looking at hotels to take care of of post acute patients as they as they convalesce so many different plans. This is in concert with Department of Health, Pema and then the local authorities, as we've been describing, as well as the hospitals and health systems. The other is staffing, making sure we have the medical personnel available to take care of these patients. We have to make sure we have enough supplies for patients for physicians and other healthcare personnel to take care of these patients, such as personal protective equipment, the end 95 mass that we've been discussing, ventilators, et cetera. And then there are what I call crisis standards of care ah, that allow hospitals to deal with surges. So all of that is happening. At the same time, we have actually a couple of follow up questions to that from Penn Live. What's the status of converting hotel's conference centers and other public spaces to medical sheltering facilities? What would be required to convert those spaces? And how quickly could that be accomplished? Eso were making those plans as we speak, especially in the hardest hit areas that we have been describing. Ah, there are actually some companies that we can contract with that could retrofit a hotel room to make it of amenable for patient care. Again, these would be more for sub acute patients, meaning they're not in their acute phase Maur to kind of rest and recuperate and convalesce on DSO. We're working on those plans as we speak and then as another follow up to that as well. What is the status of procuring ventilators and personal protective equipment? Previously was mentioned that a few p a manufacturer's may begin doing that. And what of the other possibility? Army Depot such as Leonard, Katie S O hospitals and health systems have their stores of personal protective equipment, and they have the number of ventilators that we have been describing. The Department of Health has stores of and 95 masks other personal protective equipment as well as ventilators. And then we are being replenished as we put those out by the federal government from their stores. In addition, many many manufacturers have called that they might be able to make these masks or to sell ventilators. The company's in Pennsylvania s so we are actually purchasing Venera ventilators to increase our stores as we speak. We're working to purchase and 95 Mass. That wood might be available and then have. Some companies may be repurposed some of their of their own manufacturing to produce in 95 masks a cZ well as perching, purchasing them from other states or even some other countries. So there's a full out effort across the administration to make sure that we have the supplies for our healthcare personnel to deal with the surge of patients from Cove it, 19 secretary from the daily American rural counties. Such a summer center now seeing their first positive cove in 19 cases, do you expect rural areas to begin to see Kobe 19 spread through these areas and possibly have to take stronger actions such as stay in place orders? Well, we do expect to see the spread of covert 19 to rural areas and really throughout Pennsylvania. Um, we don't expect the numbers in rural areas that we are seeing in some of our largest urban areas such a silly Pittsburgh and the collar counties just because of the number of people who live there in the population density. But we do expect to see cases on dhe if necessary. The governor will take all precautions to try to prevent the spread of covert 19. So we're gonna we re evaluate that every day. Secretary from Spotlight P A. Patients who rely on drugs for the treatment of chronic conditions and just Lupus or having trouble getting those specific medications do the pharmacy shortages after the president suggested that this drug could be used to treat Coben 19 even though it's not been clinically proven for this use. Are we considering following other states and restricting access to the drug or taking other steps to insure supply is available for those who need it. So we're working with the pharmacy with the pharmacists to try to make sure that patients who are using these medications for accepted FDA uses, um, have access to that. We've also discussed that with the um, with the Department of Human Service is so specifically we're talking about the medicine Clark Win or hydroxy Clark win. Now there has been some anecdotal evidence that that might help with the treatment of Covert 19 but it is not an accepted standard of care. We're not recommending that physicians routinely prescribed that out of, especially for outpatients or for prevention. There's there's there's no evidence for that. I mean, what what it's really critical is that you know the right medicines be determined to treat Cove in 19 of the right dose at the right time. All that will happen with with clinical trials sponsored by N. I. H. The National Institute of Health, I know that for critically ill patients, some physicians in expert physicians and hospitals, infectious disease experts and intensive care physicians might be trying some experimental or investigational protocols for life saving treatment. But for routine treatment, we're not recommending any specific medication. Besides, you know, acetaminophen for fever and fluids and rest. Dr Levine from ABC 27 can you touch on the mental health resource is offered during the Cove in 19 Outbreak, so we have been working with the department of Human Service is in the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, as well as the Department of Drug and Alcohol programs to make sure that patients have the mental health service's they need during this extremely stressful times. In addition, there's the hotline that I've mentioned before the texting hotline, so these are very difficult times, and it's it's it's normal and expected that people have emotional needs. We want to make sure that we meet those needs. We have a question from W N E. P. With New York City area seeing such a rapid increase in the number of Corona virus cases, is there any way to limit or restrict access of people from New York and New Jersey into Pennsylvania? He's saying that we have hundreds of commuters who take the bus into New York City every day. There are no federal efforts or statewide efforts to prevent interstate commerce or to prevent interstate transportation. Not at this time. And then a question from wf m z about homelessness. Any suggestions for the homeless we're hearing some warming stations have closed and they don't know where to go. So there is a, um, a working group at in the governor's administration, working with communities such as Philadelphia and other large communities with significant homeless populations to work on the needs for the homeless. Staying at home is really difficult if you don't have a home. So we want to make sure that the homeless have resource is and in a place to shelter on DDE that their needs are met. We have some questions around testing from W P X I. How long is it taking to turn around test results? We've heard some facility saying it's taking his longest 5 to 10 days. So there are a number of different ways that individuals can get tested. Eso at the Pennsylvania Department of Health We are prioritizing our laboratory for healthcare personnel for individuals that area in very vulnerable groups for for intensive care patients things like that. So we have certain criteria for our laboratory. Many hospitals and health systems have their own testing being done there, where they actually can obtain and then test it themselves. Ah, and then through the commercial laboratories, Quest and lab core testing can be done as well. Our turnaround time at the Pennsylvania Department of Health is up to 24 hours. Hospitals and health systems have. Usually, if they're done in house, how am have, Ah, a turnaround time of approximately that? We have heard that the commercial laboratories I have somewhat of a backlog and is taking a number of days to get results. We'll do anything we can to work with them to try to limit them. We have a couple of questions on some of the statistics that you gave out a little bit earlier. First, is the state subtracting the number of deaths from the total number of cases? No. And then finally, when we give our daily statistics on Cove in 19 cases, does the county where the case was counted mean the county of residents of the infected person or where they're being Trent treated, it would be the county of residence on. That's why, occasionally, actually, the county might change because we might find out after further investigation that they might have been hospitalized in one county, but their true residents is in another. Ah, we've even had some occasional cases where actually they were from another state, they would count towards that state. That's the way the CDC does the statistics, and we we comply with that. We have, ah question from W Jail about community spread. Are we now seeing sustained spread across the state or in specific areas way we are seeing sustained community spread, particularly in the Southeast, the cult counties that have been asked for the state included in the stay at home order in Allegheny County. We are not seeing sustained community spread in many other counties, which is why they're not included at this time. In the stay at home order and then from the lil, it's daily News. What's the last request you made to the federal government on behalf of the citizens of Pennsylvania? And what was the federal response S O? The last request was for of and 95 Mass and for personal protective equipment, and we have received that material from the national stockpile and then a question from W P X. I are nursing home personnel or other medical personnel in a separate queue in terms of testing or just processed in the same been is everyone else? If so, why shouldn't medical personnel be given priority? Well, so there is a different Q So we is critical for medical personnel, including long term care living personnel with symptoms to be tested right away. Because then we would have to quarantine all their contacts within the hospital health system or nursing home and patients that they might have seen so they would be considered priority patients because of the consequence if one of them is positive. From the Tribune Review, what are the criteria the department has asked Dennis to meet in order to perform emergency procedures? So we had put out dental guidelines, which were consistent with the CDC guidelines. There were challenges associated with that, and we heard from many dentists, the dental association and dental schools about those challenges. There is actually a meeting going on this afternoon, an internal meeting to discuss that, and then a call with the dental association and some of the dental schools tomorrow to discuss the dental centers of care and determined the right way forward and then from the PLS reporter. Have there been any discussions involving the state into reopening Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia, among other options to increase capacity. So there are discussions about potentially open up other spaces that have closed to serve the healthcare needs as we've been discussing in terms of the whole continuum of care again outside of of ah, currently functioning hospital, that would be more sub acute patients. The Hanneman hospital, I think, would be unlikely. I think that it has been empty for six months. I think it would be really challenging to stand up a facility such as Heinemann Will. You know, we'll see what what the Health Commissioner Philadelphia Doctor Farley wants to do. But I think that would be really unlikely given the state of the facility from W L V R. Yesterday, Dr Levin, you said it was Why wonderful that people were sewing masks at home. They aren't the mass that hospitals need. But hospitals in the state are asking for people to so mask and donate fabric. Can you clarify the confusing message so it depends on what those mass was being used for. So what I What I meant was that interview for personnel that air directly caring for patients with covert 19. Those are not the right mass that we need to use those in 95 Mass. And again, we have just received mass from the federal government which will be putting out to healthcare facilities. There's a standard way that healthcare facilities through the healthcare coalitions, which are in all these areas in the hospital association asked for. Resource is, and then we will respond in terms of sewing other masks. You know, they're they're not super effective and in protecting people. But I guess it's better than nothing. But I think that is really important that people not become complacent, that they not have a false sense of security that they might have a homemade mask on. Thus they are not susceptible to contracting covert 19 and they go out and about. We want people to stay home. Secretary from W. L. V. R is a follow up. Eastern Hospital says it needs $40 million from the state or could close its doors next week. Is the state going to provide support to keep the hospital open? Well, we're having discussions at the highest levels of the administration about the Eastern hospital situation and how we might be able to thio help that facility continue to stay open, especially in these very challenging times. I don't have the specific answer yet about how that's going to be accomplished, but we are working on it. And then a question of from Fox 43 about testing about the similarity between testing and hospital labs versus commercial labs. Are the tests basically the both valuable? Yes, so all of these tests have been have been approved. Eso whether it's our testing at our public health laboratory in Exton, whether it's hospitals and health systems testing, for instance. Instance, I know they're testing at the Hospital University of Pennsylvania at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia at Guy's ING our health system at Allegheny at UPMC eso all these excellent hospitals and health systems. If they're using their own laboratory, it's approved. Ah, and then specifically, Quest and Lab Corps are doing the commercial testing all our equivalent and all are very, very accurate from news talk. One of 4.1 since rural Pennsylvania to date has had so few cases could medical centers in those areas received patients from other parts of the state? If necessary, we could we'd rather not transfer patients if it's not absolutely necessary. But if they needed to, ah, we could use what we'll use whatever facilities and whatever space is available to take care of patients As that surge develops, there's a question from Penn Capital Star. In terms of our testing capability at the state health lab, how many new tests can do Aged minister and process each day? What's the current reserve of tests? And are their difficulties obtaining testing kits? Eso We're testing more than 100 specimens a day. We have the right materials, chemicals and re agents to continue testing. We do receive those from the federal government from the FDA and CDC on a times we've had challenges as many other state laboratories request supplies. But we've always gotten them when we need them from Lehigh Valley Live. Have there been any cases reported in nursing homes? There have been cases reported in nursing homes. We're not going over the specific facility by our health department as well as county municipal health departments have been assisting in those cases, and then a couple of questions about thresholds for a statewide state home order. What is the threshold for that? Um, and how would it be issued? Ah, well, So if the Department of Health myself the senior staff, the governor, in discussion with people with the local authorities have evidence of community spread are concerned about ah, the increases of covert 19 in their area. Then the governor would make a determination and consultation with local authorities whether to issue that order. A couple of questions regarding federal authority from wf m. C. Does the president have any authority over state government when it comes to pulling back on restrictions? Are you concerned he might try to S o you know, from a public health perspective, we would not pull back from restrictions at this time. You can see what the challenges that we've had in New York. Ah, certainly that this immense challenges that have have occurred in Italy with surge of patients and the strain on the health care system. And so we have really a three pronged strategy, that mitigation that prevention with those with those separation orders that we've had stay at home orders, closure of schools on dhe, then our testing and then our increase in health care capacity to deal with the surge. It is far too early to ah to change those prevention and mitigation orders. I'm not an attorney, so I'll leave the two attorneys and and other people to decide the Federal versus State regulations. But we firmly believe in public health that social distancing is key. And that's why our request is that people please stay home. And then as a follow up to that from news talk, 104.1 President Trump has said that he believes the country should be work back to work by Easter. Do you share this optimism as P A case? Numbers continue to rise on a daily basis. Well, we'll see if the numbers continue to rise. But there is every reason to believe that this increase will continue, um, and rise exponentially. We are concerned, hopeful that that the mitigation and prevention efforts that we've been implementing will help Thio cut off that peaks of the surge is not quite as high. It's hard for me to predict Ah, month out. So we're gonna take this day by day and week by week, a couple of questions on the materials in terms of ventilators and P, p e and masks. How much have we received from the federal government and Havel? It be allocated. So we have received personal protective equipment and masks from the federal government from this stores. They are allocated according to regional needs, the county needs and health and health system, and how hospital needs so well, as long as we have supplies will be continuing to put those out and and provide. The resource is that hospitals and health systems need to take care of patients with covert 19. In terms of our state home policy, we've had multiple reports. This is from the record herald of non life sustaining businesses closing but asking their employees to work from home but meet with clients in public places. So they're working from home but meeting with their clients in public places. We've also heard of restaurants who are failing to prohibit workers who have traveled or may have been exposed and are exhibiting symptoms from a cold from working. How could this be? Report reported? And can you remind us what concerns are affected? Workers should do to ensure their concerns their address so especially in the counties that the governor has delineated and stay at home order. We would not recommend that people ah visit clients person to person. We want people to stay home, and it's fine to tell a work, um, using whatever technology they have. But we wouldn't want people to meet. Certainly if if anyone that works in a restaurant or food preparation is sick, they shouldn't stay home and they should not be working. Actually, that's not different than before. Covert 19. We don't want sick people preparing food frumpy. I Post state representative Tauron Ecker is asking the governor to add construction to the life sustaining list and says that the jobs were mainly open air and very low risk of spreading Corona virus. What's your response? And is the administration considering any expansion of construction that's allowed eso? Personally? I am focusing on our public health response. A CZ we've been just as we've been describing it, and I know there's a whole other part of the administration, particularly the Department of Community and Economic Development that has been working on the on the business closures and the the waivers. And so I'll leave it to them to answer that question as a follow up. E. A Post would like to know. Some gun shop owners and gun owners say gun shop should be included in the life sustaining list because people buy guns for personal protection. What? Why should they be included in the non life sustaining list? So I'm gonna provide the same answer. I'm not really part of developing the list Andi and the waiver process. So I would leave that to the Department of Community and Economic Development to answer and then secretary our last question that we have time for today from the morning call. Can you clarify the interplay between the stay at home order and the non life sustaining business order? Someone proved non life sustaining business but lives in a state home county. Can that person leave home to go to and from work? Eso They're a little bit separate. So the idea was to go in a sequential way to increase social distancing to prevent the spread or mitigate the spread of covert 19. So first was the school's. Then it was non life sustaining businesses, and now it's it's individual people and families to stay at home. If someone is working in a life sustaining business, then they can go to go to that job. Ah, but we want people, especially in those counties that have been outlined by the governor to please stay home, practice rigid, extensive social distancing to protect themselves, protect their family and to protect their community. Thank you, Secretary. That concludes our question and answer for today for reporters that we were not able to get to the Department of Health and the governor's office will follow up with you directly. Please stay tuned for our next briefing tomorrow. Two o'clock. Thank you.