Good afternoon I'm Mandy Cohen, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for North Carolina and I'm joined by Director Mike Sprayberry. we have Brian Tipton and Nicole Fox as our American sign language, interpreters and working behind the scenes as our Spanish language interpreters are Jackie and Jasmine Matt well thanks for joining this afternoon and I'll start with a rundown of our numbers. As of this morning, there were 6760 - four cases in. We have 370 - three people who are currently hospitalized and sadly there have been 170 - nine deaths to put that last number into context, North Carolina has had 160 - seven flu deaths this past season, and that flu season started all the way back in last September and remember for Covid- 19. March third, our first death reported on March 20, -fourth and that was less than a month ago so in less than a month we've already surpassed flu deaths for this year. Covered 19 is now the leading cause of death in the United And it's important to remember that our death rate would have been worse, unfortunately had we not taken the aggressive action as a state to slow the spread of the virus. We've done hard and important work. North Carolinians have been staying home to save lives to keep our loved ones safe and to protect our frontline health care workers. Thank you. thank you for that work, but many are doing that hard work but also having tremendous. Hardship to themselves and their families, we understand that sacrifice and we continue to aggressively pursue every resource we can to help North Carolinians, who are struggling because of covid- 19 since schools closed back on March, the sixteenth school nutrition and transportation staff have worked tirelessly to ensure children continue to receive meals while out of school since then about 1000 meals sites have served over 11 million breakfast, lunch and dinners across our. State remarkable and going forward the good news is families will now have even more help just before today's briefing. Governor Cooper announced that North Carolina is one of four States to be approved for the new pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program. This program will help families purchase food for more than eight hundred thousand children who normally receive free and reduced lunch at school. Families will receive $250 per child provided in two installments paid for with federal funds families will not need to apply those who are eligible and already receiving food and nutrition service benefits will get the additional benefit on their EBT card automatically eligible families not already enrolled in food and nutrition services will receive an EBT. In the mail in the next few weeks this new program is in addition to other food security efforts as announced at the end of March, all families that receive food and nutrition services are receiving the maximum amount allowed for their household size for March and April in March, the Department issued 70 - five million dollars in benefits to 400000 households that accounted for eight hundred and 50000. Parents who need food assistance for their children can text food and Sea to eight 778 77 to locate nearby meal sites and the food texting services also available in Spanish by texting Comedy to eight 778 77. I know that these are challenging and uncertain times for everyone. I wanna draw your attention to two additional helplines to connect people to mental health support services. You've heard them from us before, but we hope that they can help. During this crisis, the first is hope for in NYC Helpline. It's a mental health resource to support North Carolinians to during this whole cover 19 crisis Call 18 5558 73463 for support 20 - four hours a day seven days a week, and we have a second line Hope for healers helpline available for our health care workers experiencing stress call 919. 2262 zero zero two and there is help available when you need it with that. I will turn it over to Director Mike Sprayberry for an update. Thank you, Madam Secretary and thank you for your leadership and expertise Good afternoon. the state Emergency Operations Center has now been activated for 40 - two days for the coveted 19 response. We're continuing our mission to source and obtain personal protective equipment availability of men. Items is improving and we're receiving and shipping new supplies daily, but some items like gowns and masks remain in short supply, our medical providers and first responders still do not have all the protective equipment they need and we will continue to work this issue aggressively every day our support from the North Carolina National Guard has grown to more than eight hundred soldiers and airmen on active duty. They're performing missions. Including logistic support to include distribution of personal protective equipment and warehousing operations Cyber protection Leia's to County emergency operations centers and future operations planning. We thank them great deal more than 1300 medical professionals are now cleared and ready to work as volunteers to support medical surge at our health care facilities. So far volunteers have gone to work primarily supported. Long-term care homes with emergency staffing needs the food supply chain work group continues to meet daily to assess needs and define ways the state can provoke can support the private sector food producers and distributors to ensure the food supply chain remains strong. There's an imbalance in the food supply chain right now as the system works to shift from supplying the commercial market to supplying a market that is almost exclusively driven by consumers at home. Before the Cove in 19 pandemic, much of our food consumption was at restaurants, Schools universities, workplace cafeterias and other commercial locations now restaurants providing takeout are running about only at out of fraction of their capacity and most meals are being made and eaten at home. The industry is trying to shift from a packaging in large quantities for commercial customers to smaller quantities for. Grocery store sales available of packaging materials is really an issue. We're also closely monitoring the situation, the state's poultry and pork process and plants to make sure that work can continue at those plans. Interruptions to those operations would affect food supply here in North Carolina and beyond our borders as Secretary Cohen mentioned the pandemic Electronic Benefits transfer program approval is good news for our state and will help to feed more kids who usually rely on school meals. We continue to encourage to support food banks around the state. They're doing great work to support the growing number of people who need groceries, visit Feeding The Carolinas dot org to find a food Bank near you. You can make a financial contribution or a donation of shelf stable food. We want to give a special thanks to all of you for following the stay-at-home and social distancing guidelines. Your actions are flattening the curve and ensuring this event is manageable for our health care system. Our public safety agencies and other essential functions. please continue to follow all state and local stay-at-home orders and follow social distancing protocols in closing. Don't forget to look out for your friends and neighbors and call your loved ones daily. I know they'll appreciate it with your help. We'll get through this together as one team, one mission and one family. Thank you very much and I'll turn it back over to Sam. Cohen Great. Thank you so much Director Sprayberry and with that we will turn over to your questions if you can announce your name and your news outlet when you ask your question, thank you. Media on the line, Please press one to raise your hand to get in the queue. Our first question will be from Andrea Andrea Blandford, ABC 11 WBTV, a high Doctor Cohen. It's Andrew Blandford with ABC 11. I I had a question about the outbreak at news Correctional. We've got a press release today, learning more about that just a massive undertaking trying to get that situation under control, including moving hundreds of inmates out of Johnston County and I was hoping you could give some insight at just about how those decisions were made why the Department of Prison Self. Necessary to shut down an entire prison in order to get staff over the news. Thank you Andrea Thanks for that question. and I unfortunately don't have the details on the news correctional facility, but we'd be happy to have folks follow up. I will say that our public health team is working very closely with the folks in all of our correctional facilities to make sure that they have the right protocols in place. That they're able to isolate and cohort folks as we know in the news facility there, there was a lot of folks who they they found their to have Covid- 19 and so I'm not exactly sure on the the the staffing patterns and situations in terms of of why decisions were made so I will be sure to have someone from the Department of Public Safety. Follow up on on those specifics for Our next question is Rick Curl the daily record. Yes, Doctor Cohen is Rick with the Daily Record done and this may be a little. It's a two part question and maybe a little out of your knowledge. but where do we stand right now as far as the vaccine vaccinations are concerned as far as developing a vaccine, you know where wherever it may be and what are the treatments that folks that are that have been hospitalized are undergoing you know, obviously, there's several different kinds but can you give a kind of an? Line on what the treatment process is. Thank you. John. Thanks Rick. Thanks for that question. Let me start with vaccines so vaccines as many have likely been hearing in the news is a very extensive process to go through not only the researchers need to obviously isolate identify and isolate the virus and and put it into a form that allows it to be in a vaccine actually do they they They kill the vaccine and make make sure that it can be in in a vaccine. Form but then they have to do trials to make sure that that vaccine is safe in in humans and they have to make sure to look for unintended consequences. Sometimes the vaccine itself is fine, but then they wanna see your immune response. That's what a vaccine is meant to do. It's meant to stimulate your immune system so that you are able to to Ward off the the virus should you come exposed to it and as they develop this vaccine they want to be watching how does it react in humans and how does their? Immune system work so there's still a lot of work to be done. I think the we we have heard in the press in the last week or so that many teams have done the work of isolating the virus they're already working on testing it in in human. So that is that is good good news. That means they're in phase one and phase two clinical trials but there is still a lot of work to go as they see how this goes with not just a small group of of people where the vaccine is done, but then they go to larger and larger ones and they're looking to see how folks respond to that and see if there's any side. Unintended consequences how their immune system responds assuming that all goes perfectly, and there are lots of things that that may not go perfectly and all that then you have to think about okay. Now we have the vaccine. How do we Mass produce it for all the folks that need it not just here in the United States, but around the world that in and of itself is its own challenge. So I know there are folks thinking about different phases of that vaccine development process. I know there are some researchers here in North Carolina who've been working in the. In particular, I know it at Duke University and at at other universities here in North Carolina, I know there's there's tons of smart scientists thinking about it, but it is a very complex and and not a quick process. so we've been saying to not expect a vaccine for at least 12 to 18 months. so that is the time frame in which we are are looking in terms of vaccine, let me move on to treatment. so there is not a medicine per say that can. Covered 19 most of the treatments that folks would get if they go to seek medical medical treatment would be what we would call supportive treatment so if they're having trouble breathing, they're given oxygen, they're given medicines that help open up their lungs like in Alberta inhaler things like that that may might help with the symptoms. they'll give them tiling for fever. things like that. So those are the kinds of treatments. Obviously people get. And worse, they they might need to escalate beyond just needing oxygen, but to need to be on a ventilator to help assist in their breathing even further but right now all of the treatment, meaning medicine options that would actually attack the coveted itself and not just the symptoms are really still in the clinical trial phase we've seen some positive very small studies for certain types of medication, but we're still at the very early part of knowing is they're going to be a treatment. For Covid- 19, that that can help so all of the treatment treatment and I use that in quotation that we have right now is supportive treatment to try to treat the symptoms not to treat the virus yet, but like I said, clinical trials are going on right now. we learn more every day. These trials at first are very small and then they need to be replicated in in larger studies to make sure that we can still see those results. We learn more every day and again I know In North Carolina are partnering with others around the country and around the world to try to learn as much as we can as fast as we can. thanks for the question. Rick. Next question is Matt Mercer North State Journal. Hey good afternoon Matt Mercer, North State Journal on April six The media availability was held for the predictive modeling that was being done for several around the state have not seen anything else on the Department of Health and Human Services website of since that initial call has that model been updated and if so when will be available for everyone to see thanks Matt for that question about modeling that yes, that was done by an independent group of data scientists from Duke and UNC. RTA I BlueCross BlueShield Nova size. Some other organizations came together for that first round of of modeling. I know they have continued to do their their work. Obviously, things are changing so rapidly as are those models so I think they've been fine tuning their work. I know that they have had been hoping to put out the next version of the model. I have not seen any new updates of those models yet, but I know that they are working hard to try to get more information out to the public. I caution us older, remember that modeling as much as we wish it would be precise and would give us a road map to exactly what we can expect models are not the crystal ball that we would hope it would be there are a number of models that have been circulating from some various researchers and all of them have have been changing because as we learn more, the model is able to get better at understanding how the virus works. How. Efforts to stay home might slow the spread of the virus and how they build that into the model so these things are changing so often that it is hard to actually pin down how things would would would move forward in in Covid- 19, So I know the data. scientists are working very hard on that and we can put you in touch with those with those data scientists who are continuing to work but we continue to be able to share data on our dashboard About cases. that we're seeing right now but not doing the modeling directly ourselves. thanks for that question. The next question, Elizabeth Ann Brown Asheville Citizen Times. Hi, this is a little bit of Dan Brown from the Asheville Citizen Times newspaper especially as so much of our modeling relies on the accuracy of our data, the completeness of the data sets available to the state are on the state level or y'all encouraging posture testing. I know that the circumstances under which each County encourages testing very but I'd love to know your guidance on that Elizabeth. Thanks for that question. and you're absolutely right that that modeling is only as good as the data that you can feed into it, and we know that all of our data has limitations, we know. For example, that are case counts that we see of Covid- 19 are only the lab confirmed case counts that we're seeing and we know that there's other covid- 19 cases out there. We're not capturing in in our testing numbers and so that makes it hard to use that to to predict what's going forward for your for your question about posture testing and how that's going forward, you know meant most of that that time Family family dependent decisions whether they want to be testing their loved one for Covid- 19. afterwards I will go back and check with with our medical examiner team to see if we've given out some standard guidance, I do know if a death was was uncertain and the medical examiner needs to get involved. I know they they will do testing as they see necessary but I am not sure if a family wanted to request how that process works. so let us get back to you on on those additional details. but again more data is helpful but Also wanna respect that that families make different decisions after someone may have passed. Next question, Laura Leslie WRAL Secretary Cohen Can you hear me? okay I can hey there okay two questions that just quickly one is it looks like we're still only testing about 20 - 500 cases a day, and I know we've gotten through our backlog. You feel like that's enough if it's not what the what's stopping us from testing a lot more. And then the second question is is you know a lot of folks are increasing crisis to reopen the state. We're seeing South Carolina looking at rolling back some Texas rolling back as well. Why is North Carolina, not in a position to follow suit or are we well? thanks for that? So yes untested was talking about for about a week now testing and increasing our testing capacity is gonna be important as we respond to covid- 19 and particularly to your second part of your question as we think about a reopening strategy increasing our testing capacity is something that's really important. There are I I wanna make sure we know that. There are two parts to the testing the sample collection, as well as running those samples at the lab and we need to increase both so we are we are trying to work with our private lab partners to increase their throughput per day, so the number of samples that they could run every single day and I'll say we have we have come a long way in North Carolina in a very good position there, but I wanna see it get even better. I think we also wanna diversify the kinds of tests that we are doing. So that we don't know one lab relies on on supply chain that may have trouble so we want our state to be diversifying as well as using different types of testing modalities the ones where you have to send it off and it takes 20 - four to 30 - six hours. We wanna also start to incorporate the rapid testing as well. though I will say the rapid testing has even more supply chain issues, then we're we're doing better on the higher throughput lab test and it's still the rapid test that has issues. But then the sample collection side is also the issue that we have to think about having enough swabs but also the personal protective equipment that is needed to take those samples. I think there are new modalities that are are just coming online. We we were starting to hear about it over the weekend and today our lab team is exploring this more with our lab testing partners about new ways to collect samples that won't take as much personal protective equipment as we've been talking about for many weeks, Personal protective equipment has been a real challenge on a lot of fronts and so we wanna. We want to be able to collect as many samples as we can, but not use up all of our masks and our gowns and our gloves. So as we get these new modalities for testing, that's gonna be really important. So there isn't there. It is isn't a precise number is that we wanna go from this number of test through put to that number because it's a component of the sample collection in addition to the lab through put number, but you are right in saying we're not at enough today. I wanna see us go get get even further as we go and it's exactly what our testing search work group is. Working on right now, we particularly wanna be targeting our communities of color. We wanna make sure that every community has has access to testing so what our focus for this week is to make sure that we are standing up additional community sites that focused on our communities of color. So that's really our our focus in particular this week and on the reopening guidance. Yes, we have said that you know we all want to start to think about reopening, but it's gonna take a few components. For us to get there first is the testing as we've been talking about the other is our capacity for tracing as so the detective work once people get covered 19 to understand their contacts. But importantly, we have to look at the data. look at our trends right the last tea of that and so we have been looking at data points like our case counts are death rates are hospitalization rates are percent of positive tests to negative tests. All of those things are gonna be important. Our surveillance are our syndrome surveillance data. All of this is up on our website right now, we're trying to do different ways of looking at those trends looking at at the County level, the regional level the state level and so as we look at those trends that is what's going to guide our decision about reopening and I think we we've said many times that all remind us that this virus is here with us to go back to the earlier question until there's a vaccine. and so the question is how do we reopen in? A smart and phased way to make sure that we're protecting folks as we go forward here. so that's the work That's that's underway right now. Thanks for question Laura. The next question is Claire Donnelly WSA highest Clear Donnelly from WFAA Radio. I'm Secretary Cohen. Do you have a time frame for when those three teas that you were just talking about would be at a level that that you would be satisfied with for reopening Claire thanks to the question. So I I think that we're it's too early to tell you know what I think that North Carolina has been very successful at slowing the spread of the virus. we. We have been we have seen that staying at home and that early aggressive work has kept us from having a spike in cases where a surge on our medical system and that's been fantastic. I think that we have done the work that we needed to do. I feel really good about that work. and so the question is how do we think about the the appropriate time for reopening? I think that those are the things we wanna think about in the in the coming weeks. I think that is a weeks and not a month but again, it's too early to tell and we're gonna continue. You to have to look at the trends that we see in in our data and we wanna make sure that we are not accelerating cases and accelerating upwards our hospitalization. We wanna make sure that we are we're trending downward and that is the the guidance that the White House put out last week as well right, they said downward trajectory of cases downward trajectory of syndrome, mix surveillance and so all of those things are are what we're. Be looking at I I know folks wanna get back to other parts of their lives. I do to and so we're gonna work as hard as we can, but I will say the the better we can do right now here in April at staying at home, doing all of the important things when we have to go out to do the social distancing when when you're out in public, even in the grocery store to make sure you're washing your hands all of those things matter. As we go forward here and will help us understand where we are as a state and how soon we can get to the the first phases of reopening. The next question is Dan Cane News and Observer. Thank you for taking my question is being came the news of server and I'd like to have an opportunity for follow-up question. I wanted to ask about the what what the plan is for doing a wider testing of prisons in North Carolina. They're about they're more than 20 prisons that what I see on the website have have no test done at all the number of others that have only. A handful of task and when I asked about this yesterday spokesman said that there is some kind of process in place to try to go to to go there and I'd like to have more details and and more more of a timeline as when they're supposed to happen. Thank you Dan. Can I clarify did you say testing in prisons? is that what you said, yeah. Sorry, Okay. State Prison. Sorry I I just wanna make sure I was clarifying so generally testing start. When someone has symptoms right as as you as you might expect so when someone presents with fever or cough and there is a there is suspicion for covid- 19. I think that is when testing would be initiated and then if you see a positive case come back in that that situation you would wanna find out who would that person be in close contact with test their contacts. If those contacts are positive, then you test Sort of the the same way that we would follow procedures for any person who was who was having symptoms found positive and and and go forward from there. So I I'm not surprised to hear a place didn't have testing and maybe that's no one was presenting with any symptoms of fever or cough of or anything of clinical concern but I'm also not in those settings, but that that would be my first thought on how testing is approach there, but we'd be happy to have someone from the Department of Public and. And the correctional facilities follow back up with you on the details there, but I again, I think it would be symptom symptom based certainly at the beginning. Okay. Can I follow a question? Sure go ahead dance so you're saying basically that 20 jails with probably hundreds of inmates, No one has shown any covered like symptoms and then to add to that. I am not aware of a case to emerge from a County jail which we have roughly a hundred and and if there are any, I'd appreciate that information I'm just curious as to whether or not given these are you know tightly, you know, confined facilities. people are close together. It's hard to have social distancing, you know. Or not you know not going in and doing sample testing. so to speak is a good idea. Right. Thanks Dan for the question. So yes the way we are doing all of our testing protocols even in congregate settings like a jail or a prison is it their their symptom based and then they are contact based so it starts with symptoms and then from from moves from there. I think you're definitely right in pointing out that these are settings where viral spread is more likely to certainly settings that we are tracking and that we are offering help from the state public. Perspective as well as the local public health perspective if any of those folks need help with identifying cases and and setting up a testing plan but again it does start with symptom recognition and folks who have fever and and cough. Our last question will be holding quickie, WNCN. Yes, this is directed at Secretary Cohen and I just wanted to kinda double back around on some of these pressing questions that we've had what has been done to make sure that you're maintaining social distance between the offenders and the Stafford is that even possible and are you trying to quarantine the people who have been in close contact with the question about prisons. I'm I apologize that we didn't have our correctional facility folks with with me today given us. Focus of today's questions but we'll make sure to be following up on this. but what what I would say is that any of these congregate settings we have given guidance about how to do the appropriate infection control it does require identifying a positive cases cohorts in them, which means putting them them together in in a in a way that is is a way from those that are are negative with Covid- 19. It is obviously symptom monitoring to make sure folks are an escalating Symptoms of shortness of breath or need additional treatment. Obviously there's deep cleaning involved hand washing and and and those sorts of activities. I know folks are using face coverings as well. So all of those things are written in our and detailed in our our protocol. but we'll also make sure since there's so many questions here to see if we can set up a phone briefing with our folks at the correctional facilities so that you can get even even deeper into into the details here. So I think that was our last question. I just wanna thank everyone again for tuning in thanks to our our teams who have been working incredibly incredibly hard to respond to not only outbreaks in long-term care facilities or correctional facilities but to prepare all of the data that you see every day that is not an easy task to do all the work on our food security announcements that we made today. That was a ton of work and I think a lot of great help for North Carolinians going forward so Thank you Stay well. Stay home. Save lives. Thank you.