Good afternoon Here is our latest update on covid- 19 in Pennsylvania as of 12 AM this morning, we have eight hundred and 37 new cases of covid- 19. This brings our statewide total to 57990 - one Pennsylvanians who have tested positive for Covid- 19 in all 67. 920 - three positive cases in health care workers and 12130 positive cases among residents of 540 long-term care living facilities, which include nursing homes and personal care homes, tragically our statewide total of patients who have tested positive for Covid- 19 who have passed away is now 3008 hundred and six. Of the deaths have been in adult patients. As governor Wolf said yesterday, our common enemy is the virus covid- 19. It continues to impact our communities, especially those residents in long-term care living facilities such as nursing homes and personal care homes since the start of the covid- 19 pandemic, we have focused our efforts to protect residents living in these facilities by ensuring residents, safety, preventing and mitigating outbreaks and working in partnership. With state agencies, local health departments and long-term care facility operators. The administration has worked across state agencies in this regard, including the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, The Department of Aging, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the Pennsylvania National Guard to slow the spread of this virus in these facilities, we have provided education and training to nursing home staff using the best available clinical information from the CDC. Including how to stop transmission among residents, universal screening and use of personal protective equipment for staff treating patients. We have leveraged our existing expertise and resources to provide consultation to nursing home operators to help them prevent and control existing outbreaks. This has included staff from our Nursing home Licensure program in our health care acquired infection. As well as additional support through the independent contractor, Ecker education support and clinical coaching program partners to the Department of Human Services and the Independent State Agency, the Patient Safety Authority, we have gotten approval from the federal government to allow more flexibility so nursing home operators could hire more Staff Department of State waived and suspended several licensing regulations to alleviate. For health care providers during the pandemic and when necessary, we have facilitated direct staffing of the facilities that are in crisis, the Pennsylvania National Guard has provided direct care education and training in clinical consultation to support for now 10 facilities. we have sent more than 1700 shipments of personal protective equipment directly to nursing homes and personal care homes to make sure that they have the. Equipment to protect staff and residents testing is another essential piece of our efforts and today we are announcing a robust universal testing strategy for all staff and residents in these facilities. This strategy focuses on ensuring testing is accessible available and adaptable to the evolving landscape of this virus. If a patient is hospitalized, but then has to return to a nursing home before a patient can return to that facility from a hospital, they must be tested for Covid- 19, This will provide valuable information to the facility to assure that they take the proper precautions to stop the spread of Covid- 19 and to monitor their condition to ensure that they have the care that they need a health Alert Network advisory was sent to these facilities today. The outlines this And when and how to retest reson, the alert also outlines how nursing homes are able to manage patients through codding once the test result is received to accomplish all of this, we will be using testing swabs provided to us from the federal government for facilities to do not have an adequate supply as well as testing resources available at our state laboratory and commercial laboratories The Pens. National Guard also is mobilizing to provide a Mobile testing option for facilities that Cannot do the testing on their own and we have today Director Randy Hatfield of Pima to discuss that to ensure Pennsylvania is in line with federal guidance released late this week from CMS the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Today, I am also ordering nursing homes to report deaths cases and tests performed using the same. That hospitals are currently using they will be required to report beginning May seventeenth, and this information will be reported publicly through press conferences and on our website by testing every resident and every staff member in every nursing home, we will be able to pinpoint exactly who has Covid- 19, who has been exposed but no symptoms and cohort positive cases to prevent further spread this. It will give us a clearer picture of the extent of outbreaks in nursing homes and a head start at stopping them. Here's the thing that we all can do to help people in nursing homes. We continue to maintain social distancing, no matter what stage of reopening Your County is currently in whether it's in the Red zone in the yellow zone or even in the Green Zone, We know that Covid-, 19, didn't suddenly appear in a nursing home and it had to be brought in by the staff by the people who care for our residents in nursing homes, possibly someone who is a. At the time, so we need to do all, we need to all work together to do our best to protect people in these these vulnerable people in these facilities, sometimes it's hard to do the right thing and sometimes the sacrifice seems greater than the reward, but I am committed and the governor is committed and the administration is committed to doing everything we can to make sure that Pennsylvanians are safe, We will. Do what it takes and I'm thankful for the leaders like Governor Wolf, who have the courage to do so. And now director Randy Hatfield will speak to you. Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be here with Doctor Levine today to talk a little bit and provide some additional context regarding some of the support and really what our role as a Pennsylvania emergency management agency is in the support. so we have been working hand in hand with the Department of Health since the beginning of the Cove 19 crisis and we really serve the role as we really serve the role as a cross agency collaboration and being able to leverage the strengths of. Multiple state agencies to be able to bring the bear on complex problems such as the issue that we're seeing in a long-term care facilities. Our partners in that are one of our major partners is really the National Guard, but I also wanted to provide additional context as Doctor Levine discussed some of the work that's going on in the long term care facilities as we look at that, this is really part of a teared response. We know of many counties we we coordinate across multiple levels of government. so we know many. In our County health departments and emergency managers are actively engaged in the process with long-term care facilities. I'll be at using strike teams and a strike team concept with County health nurses and aging personnel to be able to go out and be able to provide initial inspections of these homes provide information regarding proper dawning and use of PPE or providing additional resources as needed in the form of personal protective equipment. We know that a lot of counties are in. With our Medical Reserve core already providing onsite assessments and additional support to these vulnerable facilities as Doctor Levine talked about so it's really a multi tiered approach on how we look at dealing with very complex problems. And as I said, the National Guard is really key and it's really a key partner in everything that we do and they've been activated with us in the Commonwealth Response Coordination Center since the beginning of this, the National Guard provides support across a lot. Different avenues and venues one of those is providing personnel to be able to assist in operational planning teams and we take a look at complex problems sets across multiple agencies and really leveraging the strengths of those agencies to bring the bear on some of these complex problems so far as far as the long-term care facilities, the National Guard has been instrumental in taking a look at that layered approach is doctor Levine discussed regarding a consultation with this facility. But also providing on-site assessments to be able to go out and verify the information that we're receiving through the the consultations with these facilities to be able to provide key initial information and guidance to some of these facilities to be able to protect those that are most vulnerable. They also provide medical support to these facilities. we have about a hundred and 50 Guardsmen throughout the state that have medical training and they've been actively engaged in a long-term care facility operations and providing direct medical support since early. April and they also provide general support operations as well, regarding cleaning and hygiene and any other support that would be needed for these facilities that have staffing issues or staffing challenges because their staff may be affected with Covid-, 19 and maybe out. so really the key is to try to stabilize these facilities when and where possible to be able to provide them the support that they need to be able to continue to function and also limit the spread of covid- 19 within the facilities as Doctor lena lead. Are alluded to we are also going to embark with the National Guard on Mass testing and a lot of these facilities as well. they are very well positioned and trained to be able to provide these services and we really look forward to be able to be able to operationalize a plan to be able to test individuals throughout the facilities and staff at the facilities in the Commonwealth as we look at things some of the most complex things that we deal with in long-term care facilities are related to. Staffing and we see that a lot of times the National Guard becomes engaged in these facilities for longer periods of time to be able to augment the staffing. So it's Doctor Lavin alluded to we're taking a look at ways to be able to deal with the complex staffing problem and that may be working with the facilities and providing that initial augmentation until such time that they're able to be able to get additional staff additional contracted services. We're taking a look at leveraging. Additional. Services throughout the Commonwealth and we're also taking a look at federal support that can be provided potentially through the National disaster medical system and also other support that may be available through the emergency Management Assistance compact through other States and state to state mutual aid. The challenge is that this affects just not Pennsylvania but a lot of other States so a lot of their medical personnel are committed in their own States. So this is really a a complex problem. With leveraging the capabilities across multiple agencies and the expertise that is resonate within the National Guard and a lot of the other state agencies also local agencies, Medical Reserve Core County health departments. we're addressing these issues as they come up on a regular basis. so thank you. we'll open up for you. Thank you, Director Pat Field and now we're available to take your questions. Thank you. Secretary. Our first question is from ABC 20 - Seven Secretary. We're hearing that you moved your mother from a nursing home to a hotel. What message does that send to the thousands of Pennsylvanians whose parents are in nursing homes, but may be unable to move them out when the person in charge is overseeing nursing homes and it is in charge of the state's response to Corona virus moves out their own parent Well, thank you for that question. my mother actually is is a resident of a personal care home. not a nursing home and By the Department of Human Services, not the Department of Health, My mother requested and my sister and I is her children comply to move her to another location during the Covid- 19 outbreak. My mother is 95 years old. She is very intelligent and more than competent to make her own decisions. I remain committed to protecting residents in Pennsylvania wherever they live and wherever they go whether it is it is in a facility that I regulate whether it is in their homes in their communities and whether or not they agree. Our strategy Secretary from WK, OK, was 70 percent of the state's covid- 19 deaths coming from nursing homes and long-term care facilities where our greatest need for improvement in these facilities. Do we need better and more testing and how long will it take to get to where we need to be huh? so I think we are looking at continuing much all of the outreach that we have made with these facilities and we now have the capability in Pennsylvania to do the math test. That we hope to hope to do we actually started this last week and we're continuing to roll that out this week through many of the mechanisms that we discussed some of those tests can be done in our state laboratory. Many will be done at commercial laboratories, but we wanna test all of the staff and residents in these facilities and then to be able to to congregate them and and and take care of them with covid- 19 the way they need to be taken care of the Associated. How many tests a day or a week? Do you expect the personal care home will require how much will the program cost and who will pay for it? Well, we have released an advisory and that we issued to nursing homes today that helps them develop a testing schedule based upon their current situation, for example, if a facility has no cases is testing strategy is geared to detect any cases early if there is an outgoing outbreak that initial testing I will occur and then more. Frequent testing will be warranted so it'll be it'll have to be individualized to each facility under the long-term care plan. What is considered a long-term care facility? Well, we're talking about congregate facilities such as personal care homes such as nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Regarding the testing and long-term care facilities, how long will this go on for and how much is budgeted to fund this well so we'll be doing this as long as necessary and the the funding will come especially if we do it in our laboratory, the funding will come from our resources and there are other federal resources through the CDC as well as the resources dedicated by by Congress and signed by the President for the state, as well as from female, give a. The disaster declaration from Spotlight PA, Why did the state wait until now to implement such a testing plan? huh well as I've outlined before really before the last week or so and last week, we started this program we have not had the testing capabilities in Pennsylvania to perform this until the last approximately two and a half weeks, it's been extremely challenging to get the supplies and the swabs needed to be able to perform this significant amount of testing but we are resource through the federal government as well as. the the testing company, so we have more resources at the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the commercial laboratories have more resources Resources. Hospital laboratories have more resources so we now have the testing capability to be able to perform that testing from the Associated Press. Would it be more effective to focus on protecting nursing homes instead of continuing a broad-based shutdown of the economy and have the state's efforts to protect nursing home residents failed well, one of the things that we. Emphasizing all along and the governor has emphasizes that we're all interconnected given the scope of this global pandemic and so in communities nursing homes reside in communities, the staff that that are taking care of patients and nursing home reside in the communities they take care of those patients and they go home to their families. They go to the grocery store. they go to the supermarket. they go to to the pharmacy to pick up medications and so we're all interconnected. We are. We have been working and we're going to continue to work to protect the vulnerable patients in residences in these facilities but they're part of the community and so that's why they're included in a county's numbers and why this has to be an integrated strategy. From NBC 10, we state inspections take infection control violations more seriously moving forward right now. The vast majority of these violations are categorized as a minimal harm or no harm. Well, we haven't been taking it seriously and even more important than exactly how we categorize it in the report is what we're doing about it and we have infection control experts in public health experts in our Department that have reached out to every single facility Nursing home personal. Home that has had cases and then we have further consultations and then we have our consultant that does even further consultations as well as outlined in my remarks, as well as the director of Hatfields remarks for facilities that are most strange, particularly in terms of staff. Then we now have the National Guard on their tenth mission to help these facilities and we will continue to do whatever we can to protect the residents and staff in these facilities from NBC 10. The nursing home industry says it was left. In the early days of Covid-, 19, with the focus being on hospitals was it and could you provide specifics as to what supplies will each health care? what supplies went to each health care facility in the state? so we have had over 1700 push outs of a personal protective equipment to these congregate facilities and I would respectfully disagree with with the with the organizations that are saying with that they were left behind. They were not we were focusing on these facilities from the beginning, as well as focusing on hospitals to make sure that they were not overwhelmed by patients with Covid- 19, So we have been working to balance that in terms of all of our work and we have done so from PA Post. Can you clarify the benefits of population based testing and facilities such as nursing homes or prisons and jails? purpose does that serve considering the lag between testing and the results? More infections than originally tested well, so what we're trying to do is to find people who are asymptomatic, We have been testing symptomatic patients in these facilities all along, but as we're learning in terms of this novel, Corona virus is that many patients have no symptoms or they might be transferring virus before the symptoms developed and so by testing them when they start to develop symptoms, We're missing people and so we now have the testing capability to do this population based. In this type of surveillance testing within the facilities and that's why we're implementing it from the Bucks County Courier Times. Can the Secretary tell us what data points will be made public about long-term care facilities and if the Department will include assisted living and personal care homes, so we are working to provide all of the data that is on in CM s' guidelines so the in terms of the facility the number of patients et cetera. So whatever is in their guidelines, we will be. On our website, to be consistent with CMS guidelines and then they're reporting as well, We are working with the Department of Human Services because they regulate the personal care homes and assisted living facilities and we're working with them to provide the same type of data from the caucus. It seems that the Department is on the verge of releasing specific nursing home data on pelvic cases and deaths. Why did we wait two months into the pandemic to release this information when many other States have had from here on? well, this level of disclosure be the standard you use well, We have all wanted to be very transparent. We were waiting for the federal Government's guidance about exactly what their recommendations were in terms of the data to release. and now we're going to implement that release from WPXI A lot of backlash with Brighton rehabs some calling for federal investigation your reaction and what was the delay in getting extra help into the facility, the temporary manager and the National Guard Well, we have been working with. Since the first case and we've been working to provide infection control guidance, health care and acquired infection and et cetera and there was a consultant that was placed on weeks ago but because of continued issues within the facility and continued cases we installed the temporary manager that we are paying for that reports to us and it got to the point where the National Guard had to come in and they did our last question is from NBC 10 Monica. County says there was some confusion as to which agency was supposed to help long-term care facilities in the early days of Covid- 19. Who's job wasn't to make sure nursing homes were prepared for Covid- 19. Well, it's all of our collective responsibilities. So as we've been outlining this is this is a collaborative effort against the dangerous virus. Kofi 19, So it's the States responsibilities so, of course, the Pennsylvania Department of Health but also working as I mentioned with the Department Of Human Services. The facilities that they licensed and regulate, of course, we also work with the Department of Aging because the vast majority of these patients are seniors. We've been working collaboratively with director Hatfield and Pima from the beginning, and of course, now the National Guard in addition in counties that have County municipal health departments, they often have lead on many of these and we're working with them as well. So it's through this collaboration that we will be successful in battling this dangerous virus. Thank you. Secretary of those are all the questions we have time for. For reporters, who's questions, we were not able to answer the Department of Health Communications Office will reply within 20 - four hours. Our next briefing will be tomorrow Thank you.