California Gov. Gavin Newsom COVID-19 Briefing Transcript April 3

Gavin Newsom: (00:00)
… to me, but Mayor Steinberg who’s here, Carol Larson, who’s from the county, it’s around the issue of homelessness. We are at a facility here in the Sacramento area that currently has 30 individuals that were out on the streets and encampments that were brought into this hotel/motel just recently to get them off the street to begin the process of basically … well, let me back up. To basically decompress, but moreover to address the real vulnerabilities of homelessness in this state and the issues of COVID-19 as it relates to the impact on the homeless population throughout the state. This has been a point of real concern for all of us for a number of months, a top priority since the COVID crisis began to manifest. And we’re very pleased today with the partnership that we have with FEMA, the partnerships we have at counties up and down the State of California that we’ve identified roughly 7,000 hotel rooms that are now in our possession where we have occupancy agreements and we are now building partnerships throughout the State of California to begin to get folks into these sites.

Some 6,867 hotel rooms to be exact now are in our possession on the way to getting 15,000 in the phase one of our efforts. FEMA remarkably into their credit have created a template first in the nation in partnership with the State of California where FEMA is providing 75% reimbursements for this project. This is first in the nation. Their support is profoundly significant to address this crisis head on. It’s all around making sure that we address the most vulnerable Californians with acuity and focus that is required at this moment. The bucket of support for FEMA is very focused. It’s not limitless by any stretch of the imagination. It’s focused specifically on individual homeless populations that have been exposed to the virus that specifically are deemed high risk. That would be our seniors out in the streets and sidewalks and in encampments and intense and those that have tested positive for COVID-19 that’s the bucket for reimbursement that FEMA has advanced.

It’s all around saving lives and it’s all around, as I suggest decompression our medical system, particularly our hospitals in the state of California. We’re already seeing hundreds and hundreds of individuals now off the streets and sidewalks in to these non-congregate sites and I’ll reinforce that frame, non-congregate sites. What we want to do is relieve the stress in our system so we can separate individuals and ultimately again relieve the impact in our medical care delivery system. If left unaddressed, we allow our most vulnerable residents in the State of California to be exposed to this virus.

This was the crisis that predated the current crisis in the State of California and we’re doing everything in our power to meet it head on. It’s a county state partnership with the county fundamentally driving the car in the State of California building the car. We put together the technical teams and expertise. We are working with the counties as they identify these sites to get the operating agreements up and running, to make sure they’re reimbursed appropriately and to make sure that we have essential staffing needs met at these sites. Let me be specific about what I mean by essential staffing needs. We are doing laundry service. We are having an intake process that is appropriate to the site. To the extent security is an issue, we will make sure we attach the priority to security, but doing something else that’s profoundly significant.

We had Jose, Chef Jose Andress of World Central Kitchen, who’s just been extraordinary, who was there with us when the Grand Princess cruise came into the State of California providing meals as we began the process of decompressing and getting people off that ship, he was there providing three meals a day for all the passengers and crew. Well, his organization is now going to be providing three meals a day for all our homeless on these sites. An incredible contribution to these efforts and it just shows you the spirit of people meeting this moment, the spirit that defines this moment, the spirit of generosity and support. And so I just cannot thank World Central Kitchen enough for connecting themselves to this cause, connecting themselves to this movement and providing those meals, working with local restaurant tours in each of the regions throughout the state of California to help support these efforts.

So that’s the framework of what we’re doing. Phase one 15,000 units, roughly 7,000 that we’ve already identified. We begin to move these contracts county by county. County run state led in terms of providing the framework of support, but we recognize the county stress, the city stress as it relates to resources and that’s why it’s important that I remind all of you that we have provided some $800 million in addition to the work we’re doing to identify these motels and hotels throughout the state of California. $800 million of award grants have gone out just in the last number of weeks. The $650 million that was approved in last year’s budget to the cities and counties and our COCs to provide for support services and identify sites to address the homeless crisis, and the $150 million because of the leadership of Tony Atkins and Anthony Rendon that we were able to prioritize on an emergency basis just a few weeks back through our budget appropriation.

So $800 million of grants, 150 million of the new dollars that are now out, ward letters have already gone out to support this effort. 75% reimbursement from FEMA. There should be no excuse for us to begin to scale these operations in the next days and weeks and it can’t come soon enough because we had of course one tragic death. The homeless individual in Santa Clara and we had a number of counties in the last days that have reported incidences of positive test results in counties, large and small, including San Francisco, but other counties in LA that have shown at least a dozen, in fact 14 in our last count. By the way, that’s an undercount we know. That’s just what’s been reported to us, but heightened concern around the need to do more in our congregate facilities to isolate people into shelters like this and provide those basic essential services as we work through this crisis.

Just a few final points before I bring over the head of our homeless task force Mayor Darrell Steinberg to say a few words, it’s important to note as well that this is also an operation being supported by the support of the federal government. $118.5 million of direct homeless grants have come from the CARES Act at $2.2 trillion federal stimulus. So that’s additional resources that will be quickly dispersing throughout the State of California to augment some of the concerns around these facilities being temporary.

And I want to make this point for bringing up the mayor. The anxiety often is, well, this is wonderful to help us for three, four months to get us through this crisis, but what happens after that? If you’re a county leader, you’re saying, “I’m not sure we are in a position to have the resources to continue these operations.” That’s why the federal dollars are important, why I am highlighting them and I also want folks to know at the county level and the city level, this was the crisis we needed to address before the COVID-19 crisis, and we’re not walking away from meeting that crisis head on as we move through this process. And that’s why these operating agreements or these occupancy agreements at places like this include extensions and all the new templates that we have just engaged in in the last few weeks include purchase options so that the state of California can help support through philanthropy, local government support the opportunity to purchase these sites so we could look more longterm as this being part of our Panoply’s solutions to address the homeless crisis in the State of California.

So it’s a long way of saying this, we’re not just thinking short term. We’re also beginning to process an orientation of focus and energy around longterm supports so that we could get people off the streets in a permanent way. But again, this could not happen without FEMA’s extraordinary support and partnership and the partnership of leaders like the leader I’ll be asking to the mic in just a second and that is the head of our homeless task force, the mayor of Sacramento and someone who’s been out front on this issue for years and is here yet once again to see this crisis of COVID and the crisis of homeless come together in a way that only reinforces this sense of urgency but moreover reinforces why we’re pleased and proud that he’s mayor of Sacramento and leading the efforts throughout the State of California. Darrell Steinberg.

Darrell Steinberg: (10:07)
Thank you very much, Governor. Let me begin by thanking you. You often talk and have talked frequently over these last days about Californians meeting the moment. You are meeting the moment and more than meeting the moment in every way here, and we’re grateful and proud that you are at the helm and that you are leading not just on this crucial issue of homelessness but on every other aspect of this unprecedented situation. So thank you.

Darrell Steinberg: (10:42)
It was a little less than eight weeks ago I believe that you stood in the state Capitol and you delivered a state of the state address. What was unique about that state of the state address, it was the first time that anyone could remember that it governor would devote nearly all of his or her address to the issues of homelessness and mental-

Speaker 2: (11:03)
[inaudible 00:11:00] of his or her addressed the issues of homelessness and mental health. And you called it crisis. And as you said a moment ago, your work with the legislature has put forward hundreds of millions of dollars before the crisis for cities and counties to be able to get people off the streets indoors to serve their needs, to address their underlying conditions and to keep them housed. And you asked your task force to come up with set of recommendations and much of our work was centered on the idea that maybe it ought to be required to bring people indoors not just be an option, and you embraced that idea. But the idea was to take with a great sense of urgency, a recognition that it would probably take several years before we were able to actually implement this in large numbers. And now less than eight weeks after that state of the state address, the COVID crisis has given us together and unprecedented opportunity to move up that timeline in a most appropriate and aggressive way.

Speaker 2: (12:20)
And so I want to thank you for highlighting this issue today, but more importantly I want to thank you and your administration for providing the resources, the tools and the technical assistance for our county partners and our city partners to be able to do what we all have wanted to do and now have the opportunity to do and that is to bring people in and not by the hundreds but by the thousand, for you alluded to it appropriately, a moment ago unsheltered homelessness was a crisis before COVID-19, it is at heightened crisis during this epidemic and if we do our part now, it could be less of a crisis as we come out of this. That is the incredible opportunity we all have together during this most difficult time and I know on behalf of all of the mayors and the local elected officials, we are grateful to have a state that is and an administration that is leaning in, that is partnering with us, that is providing us the resources.

Speaker 2: (13:39)
Our promise on the other side, must be that we are going to do everything we can to implement this strategy as quickly as possible, so I thank you for the opportunity and I turn it back over to you governor.

Speaker 3: (13:58)
Thank you mayor, thanks for all your support and leadership on this homeless issue. And Let me just briefly update everybody on the total number of positives in the state of California. The number of hospitalized, the number that are in ICU, total number of positives today report at 10,710 in the state of California we have 2,188 individuals that are hospitalized, and 901 individuals in our ICU. That 901 number represents a 10.4% increase from the previously reported number yesterday. We continue to do more and more on testing. Tomorrow, I’ll be putting out some more specific and prescriptive strategies and guidelines and updates on our testing protocols in the state of California.

Speaker 3: (14:44)
We continue to procure a more physical space in this state and including nearby the sleep train arena and we’re actually beginning the construction today on that project. All throughout the state of California, progress is being made and on Monday I will lay out details of all the physical assets that have now been procured as part of our larger hospital surge program, including all of those 2000 units of medical support that came from those eight FMS sites that were procured through the president’s support. Right to the issues that are our top focus, in addition to homelessness today, we continued to also focus with acuity on what’s happening in our skilled nursing facilities, what’s happening with our senior centers and our adult care daycare facilities throughout the state of California. We said when the beginning of this epidemic that homelessness and our seniors, those were our top priorities. They remain so.

Speaker 3: (15:48)
And that’s where so much of our energy and focus resides inappropriately so. Because of the vulnerabilities within those populations, within those communities, but more broadly, we’re doing what we can to continue to take advantage of this law as it relates to not yet being at peak and taking advantage of every moment, every minute, every hour and every day to continue to build our capacity and build our points of access. That capacity includes the amount of PPE that we’re receiving from around the world through our own efforts. And again, whatever support we can get from the federal government, I promise on a daily basis to update individuals just as the proxy for PPE, the N95 masks. We have as of this morning distributed now just over 38,000,095 masks in the state of California. As I said, as soon as we get those masks in, we get them out as quickly as possible.

Speaker 3: (16:46)
We’ll need tens of millions more, hundreds of millions of more masks, more broadly defined surgical masks and shields and coveralls and gowns and gloves and those procurement practices and those supply chains are being activated. Because I said, all around the globe, we continue to find and source more ventilators, found a few hundred more from the LA County region that we’re retrofitting backup in Sunnyvale, Bloom Energy and continuing to resource and stack up the ventilator assets as well. In addition to that, now almost 75,000 over 74,000 people have signed up on our health core website, which is just incredible. That’s the human resource, a part of all of this remember three legged stool. You need a physical points of access in a hospital system. You need the appropriate protective gear and supplies, ventilators, not just gowns and masks and of course we need the people that are retired to come back and those with expertise as radiologist and the MTs, paramedics, nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors and alike to get ready to participate in helping us support the surge.

Speaker 3: (17:56)
And we’re triaging all of those individuals as well. And before I open up to questions. I just want to remind people you can help as well as individuals. serve.ca.gov, serve.ca.gov that’s our website for information. If you want to help folks like the folks that are now has a behind me for individuals, for shelters, food banks. That’s the site to go to serve.ca.gov it also has a volunteer link to count volunteers more broadly defined of how you could volunteer, how you could contribute blood, not just time at the blood bank, all the things that I think individually required to do more of at this moment. That’s a site we’ve created clearing house to help advance that cause and to help the collective cause of all of us are doing more on a daily basis including the admonition that I’ll always end remind you, continue to practice safe, physical distancing and social distancing, continue to practice physical distancing above and beyond any and everything else.

Speaker 3: (19:07)
We have done a remarkable job in the state of California. We continue to do that job, we’ll continue to buy us time before that peak so we could continue to do more projects just like this. And if we do that you are quite literally responsible for saving lives and there is no greater or more noble pursuit in life. Than able to look back at the end of your life and say you met that moment and there are people walking around their kids and grandkids because you did the right thing just by practicing safe, physical distancing, continuing to stay at home except for essential purposes. You’ll have I think at that moment in profound and significant ways and with that we’re happy to answer any questions.

Speaker 4: (19:51)
Thanks governor. We’re getting a number of questions from different outlets about asking you to clarify who is paying for these hotel leases and who might step into finance them moving forward once the pandemic is over?

Speaker 3: (20:04)
I try to lay that out in my remarks. Let me reinforce more specifically, we have the first in the nation framework of support to have FEMA reimburse 75% of the costs as long as we do what we are required to do and that’s focus on a subset of the homeless population that are COVID-19 positive have been exposed or are high risk. And the job and the responsibility for the state is to provide the technical expertise to the counties to make sure that we are conducting and appropriating that commitment in the responsible and legal way. So that’s 75%, as I said specifically, we provided $650 million of emergency grants, all those award letters. Now 100% of the award letters are already out. Counties and cities, we’re already spending that money against those award letters. But now all the award letters are out, which means to floodgate on all those dollars.

Speaker 3: (21:04)
And we put out $150 million in the last few weeks of emergency aid because of the support of the legislature. So that should address the issue of the 25% gap amply for the cities and the counties. And as I said beyond that very clearly, we are looking at our new leases, these occupancy leases that have month to month extensions and have the ability to have purchase of these properties through a right of first refusal or at least a right of first offer on all the new contracts that we are now procuring. And we are not walking away from obligations on homelessness. The state of California has entered into that space in unprecedented ways. And as long as I’m your governor, I’m going to be there doing everything in my power to support the cities and counties so that we could continue to keep people in an environment where they’re safe, particularly these non congregant environments, not only through COVID-19 crisis, but to the extent we can begin to fashion a longterm strategy where…

… The extent we can begin to fashion a longterm strategy, where we can continue to utilize these assets that we’re procuring at this moment.

Speaker 5: (22:10)
And to follow up on that, some homeless advocates are saying that people aren’t being moved off the street fast enough at this point. Can you clarify how many people have been housed so far, and how many you hope to house?

Well, with this specific program… And again, we have 58 counties, 470 plus cities doing a magnificent job in certain cases, not doing good enough in other cases, that continue all of their homeless operations with all of the new money that the state of California has provided. And so that is separate and above, but let me be specific to what we call Project Roomkey, which is this program. 15,000 units that we will identify and procure under this new FEMA framework, just shy of 7,000 have already received occupancy agreements, and we have 869 people that are already in hotels just like that, including 30 of the 34 units in this hotel.

I want to caution people, we don’t want everyone flooding in to all 6,867 of the existing rooms. That, again, number, roughly 7,000. We want to make sure we create some slack, so as we manage the situation and we decompress the rest of the system, we’re doing it in a very judicious and thoughtful way. That’s exactly how we’re appropriating ourselves with the hospital search as well. You don’t want to run to capacity too early, you want to do it in a methodical way. So the answer to the question that the advocates pose is they’re right, and we recognize good enough never is.

But I’ll tell you, I don’t know another state that’s gotten close to 7,000 housing units just in a few weeks that has an agreement, none do, with FEMA to get reimbursed, and now a real process and protocol that’s bottom up county by county, to begin to triage individuals and move them quickly and effectively and safely in an orderly way into hotel rooms, and I’m very proud of that.

Speaker 5: (24:02)
A number of reporters also have questions about the state’s modeling, and when we’re going to see a peak in the number of infected cases with Covid-19. So some models other than the state’s show the state may be having a peak in April. I’m wondering why is California’s modeling different, and when… Go ahead.

I can’t answer to what specific model someone else has, there’s certainly national models that show April. We’re in a very different place than, for example, New York. We’re in a very different place than other parts of the country, there’s a unique set of circumstances in this state and every day it’s dynamic, every day we’re iterative in terms of incorporating new data sets, new trend lines, and updating our modeling. That’s what our modeling shows.

Our modeling’s not done in isolation, it’s done in collaboration. It’s done with the systems, the healthcare professionals. It’s done by taking a look at everybody else’s modeling and incorporating some inputs on the basis of their expectations, and we recalibrate ours and that’s what our modeling shows. And right now I can only say this, since we put those models to the public a few days ago, all they have been in the last three days is reinforced. And so we’re standing by them with always our eyes open, and on a daily basis those models get adjusted.

Speaker 5: (25:23)
So when exactly is your modeling showing that California will hit the peak infection rate?

Well, as we showed everybody just a few days ago when Dr. Ghaly presented those models to the public, we were looking into the May month that we started to see things begin to peak, and so that’s where we currently are. We don’t have an exact date because every day adjusts, and I don’t want to say on this particular date we’re going to see a peak, anyone who could say that is misleading you. And so on the basis of our current modeling, we are in those first few weeks of May.

Speaker 5: (26:01)
Matt Levin, CALmatters asks, “What’s the status of the 1,300 trailers that were procured from FEMA, and how many have already been distributed and are operational?”

There are 1,305 trailers, of which 584 I believe, and I’ll get you a clarified number if I’m off by one or two, but roughly have been distributed throughout the state. All the rest, we’re trying to get out as quickly as possible. Again, the challenge is the state is not every part of the state, meaning I, as governor, cannot cite them against the wills of the local unless I want to get the local government to be supportive. So we’re working with those governments like Sacramento, the city and the mayor, and LA, San Francisco, others, that have created framework of support, so once they take those trailers they’re actually being utilized.

There’s been some circumstances where we’ve given trailers and they’re not being utilized, so we’re doing this in a very thoughtful and methodical way. I should note that we just got another 28 that were contributed this morning. We were very proud of that, so we’re now north of 1,305 trailers, but we’re trying to get him out as quickly as those sites are offered by the cities and counties, and we’re starting to see those efforts at the local level really start to bear fruit.

Speaker 5: (27:20)
John Ruwitch of NPR asks, “Given the ongoing challenges in procuring personal protective equipment and ventilators and states bidding against each other, what specific changes would you like to see FEMA and the White House make today to improve procurement, supply chain, and delivery challenges during this pandemic?

Look, I’m not going to offer advice at that scale. I’m dealing with a nation state at scale, the state of California with 40 million folks, and we are working very, very collaboratively with our private sector partners, and within and around our supply chain, and with FEMA specifically. We are blessed to have Bob Fenton, who’s the regional FEMA administrator, who happens to be a resident of the state of California, and we’re working hand in glove with him as it relates to that supply chain of ventilators.

Clearly the national stockpile will be insufficient to provide the ventilators that we’ll need and the ventilators that will be needed for the rest of the country, and so that’s why we’re not relying on the national stockpile. By the way, we haven’t received one ventilator yet and I don’t anticipate anytime soon that we’ll get those vents, but rather than rolling over, rather than complaining about that we’re going out and we are securing new ventilators, and we’re refurbishing ventilators in ways that I think should make us all very, very proud.

I want to clarify, so people understand there’s been some reporting about roughly 170 ventilators that did come from the national stockpile. Those didn’t come to the state of California, there’s a separate agreement in LA County from the national stockpile for PPE, those are the ones that came into LA County. As you know, we had to refurbish the vast majority of those. They’re now fully operational, and they’re back in the hands of LA County health officials.

We have over, you’ve heard this number before, 4,252 ventilators that we have sourced ourselves and identified. We have a few hundred more that came in this morning. Not all of them are working, we’re going to get them fixed, so I’ll be updating that number in the next few days, but we are doing what we can to find as many vents as we can. And final point, Virgin Orbit is in our office as I speak, and they’re showing their prototypes on these bridge ventilators. It’s just another proof point of the kind of creativity that a lot of the manufacturers here in the state of California are advancing, and offering their products in real time that we also hope can help bridge the need for many, many more ventilators.

Speaker 5: (30:00)
Who’s footing the bill for those companies that are, as you say, stepping up and producing things like ventilators and PPE? Is the state paying them for that work or are they donating it?

It depends. If you ask me what 7-11’s done versus what The Gap has done, versus some of these distilleries that are converting into hand sanitizing companies, each and every instance is different. You have companies that are contributing all of that. Apple did that with their masks that arrived. The ventilators that Elon Musk provided, 100% contributed, no cost to the taxpayers. There is a modest cost to refurbish some of the ventilators, and that’s borne through our emergency grants, borne by state dollars to the extent appropriate on the front end and we get reimbursements on the back end. So in each and every instance, the answer is different based upon the largess, the contribution, or the creativity at play.

Speaker 5: (30:59)
Can you generally characterize how much has been donated and how much the state has been spending?

We’ll give you an updated number on that. I’m just trying to procure in real time all of these assets, but certainly it’s an extraordinary amount of money, energy, time, and volunteer and philanthropic support that we’re seeing. It’s unprecedented, and it’s in the hundreds and hundreds of millions, billions of dollars when we are done.

Speaker 5: (31:35)
Angela Heart of Kaiser Health News has a question about the state’s Health Corps. She asks, “Will the state be paying these healthcare professionals, and will they essentially be temporary employees of the state? And if not, can you please explain where funding will come from to hire them?”

Yeah, they’re being paid, they’re being compensated. There was an additional contribution, another specific proof point to your previous question. $25 million was provided by Facebook, specifically Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla, his wife, to help with the stipends for that workforce, for transportation, childcare, and for hotel stays so they can stay close to their patients. We are triaging all 74 plus thousand applications in real time, and that alone is going to take hundreds of folks going through the applications, matching people to needs, wage requests, wage capacity. That will be borne within the healthcare delivery system, the hospitals specifically. Many will be part of our larger delivery system, will be paid for by traditional sources, be it state or federal support. And again, augmented by private sector’s willingness to help with all of the incidental costs associated with that workforce. But they are compensated, they’re not a volunteer workforce.

Speaker 5: (32:57)
Marisa Kendall of Bay Area News Group asks, ” Which homeless individuals should be placed into isolation housing? Are you-”

Speaker 6: (33:03)
Which homeless individuals should be placed into isolation housing? Are you prioritizing people based on whether they are infected or could be infected? They’re elderly or medically vulnerable. Can you explain?

Yeah, let me be more clear. As I stated a few times FEMA has specific guidelines as it relates to Project RoomKey. This specific program, again, we were doing all kinds of other work at the local, regional and state level on the issue of homelessness, broadly defined. This is a subset of that work. This specific subset requires three things and we have to be very deliberative in terms of that triage and number one, if you’re COVID positive, that is an isolation responsibility and it’s an opportunity in this new partnership. Number two, if you’ve been exposed to the virus, meaning you are, for example an easy to understand example. If you’re in a shelter and an individual’s been there, a symptomatic may have been spreading it, but ultimately was COVID ID identified, there is a likelihood that others may be infected or a staff member was infected.

That is someone that’s likely been exposed and we’re trying to get them out of a congregate facility into a non congregate more isolated setting, which is second point of appropriation, or a second point that is appropriate for the appropriation for FEMA. Number three, the third category is high risk and high risk is defined many different ways, easy way to define it, 65 and over, but people that have many other underlying health issues that are living out in the streets and sidewalks would also apply under that definition. So that’s the prioritization of how we triage and prioritize and that as allowable for reimbursement. Again, it’s 75% from FEMA and with all the money to states providing locals, they can easily pick up that 25% and then we all work together to figure out how we can deal with the longterm needs of the homeless crisis. That again predates the COVID-19 crisis.

Speaker 6: (35:07)
Lisa Ross of Telemundo has a question about requests that Senator Maria Elena Durazo and other advocates have been asking you for more relief for undocumented workers. Can you clarify if you’re doing anything on that front?

Well, no state in America does more to help residents regardless of their immigration status and I’m very proud of the work that we did together last year to expand our healthcare capacity more formally, not on the emergency side, but on a prehensile side on, on the side of providing health insurance for those that were uninsured. We’ll continue to do more and we have very specific processes on every proposal that we advanced publicly. We have a culturally competent component of those proposals, which is a long way of saying this that we always consider those that are documented, those that are undocumented, those that are living in mixed status families.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Just yesterday I announced the work we’re doing to help support small businesses. I very specifically mentioned in my remarks yesterday that there are many businesses, tens of thousands of businesses that do not and cannot get the support of the SBA. Those individual businesses, we are making available these emergency grants through our iBank to do these micro loans to provide access. That’s an example of what we’re doing to provide support for people across the panoply, including those without documentation in the state of California. More will be done. More needs to be done.

Speaker 6: (36:49)
Final question from Jessica Rosenthal at Fox News. She says she’s been getting inquiries from doctors and other healthcare workers in Los Angeles about testing for them and she’s wondering if you guys have a plan to prioritize testing for healthcare workers and if you’re looking at expanding testing for that particular group.

Yeah, and first responders, the answer’s yes and yes and tomorrow will be specifically laid out this time tomorrow our new testing strategies, protocols. Moving not just towards more PCR tests but also serological tests, blood-based tests, looking at proteins, antibodies, looking at immunity, but more broadly looking to expand points of access and the rapidity of the diagnostics on the test. And that remains stubborn, not just in the state of California. This is a huge issue across the country as labs, particularly commercial labs have such large accuse because so many tests now are being done at the same time. It’s taking six, seven to 12 days to get test results back. So we want rapid tests, we want point of care tests, we want a blood based test, not just the traditional swab PCR tests and we’ll be laying out very detailed terms what our new expectations are and what we’re promoting tomorrow at this time.

So with that, I appreciate always the questions. I hope we’re providing some specifics as it relates to responses and know that we’re working on a myriad of other issues that I haven’t even touched on that touched the lives of millions and millions of Californians from addressing the challenges in our jail system to our California corrections system. More broadly defined CDCR in making sure we’re working with probation and parole and of course continuing our work to address the anxieties coming up around payroll, taxes being due on April 10th encouraging people to sign up for the new federal programs, small business loan programs, loan forgiveness loan programs that we promoted yesterday.

Following up on all the things we’ve been promoting, including perhaps the most important thing you could do outside of physical distancing. And that is check in with seniors, check in with neighbors and strangers and continue the spirit of civic contribution. Serve.ca.gov. Serve.ca.gov creates a clearing house for all of that and more. And so I just want to thank the Mayor. I want to thank our county health director and so many others that helped make this possible here in the Sacramento area. And all I can say is more is coming and it cannot come soon enough. Thank you all very, very much. [ inaudible 00:40:01].

California Gov. Gavin Newsom COVID-19 Briefing Transcript April 3

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