Washington Governor Jay Inslee Coronavirus Press Briefing Transcript May 5

Jay Inslee: (02:44)
Tara, are we ready? Good afternoon. A beautiful day in Washington State. Congratulations. Seattle Times won a Pulitzer Prize for some of their work. And thank you for joining us. Obviously, we still have a long ways to go on our battle against COVID-19, but our recovery is moving forward with outdoor recreation formally starting today in many respects.

Jay Inslee: (06:32)
Additional guidance is being drafted as we speak for other areas that will be eligible to open in phase one of our recovery, and we expect more to be released in the upcoming days so that we can make sure we have appropriate guidelines for the reopening of those businesses, which I know people were very happy about.

Jay Inslee: (06:52)
I’ve been very appreciative in the last couple of months of community leaders from across the state who have provided us such valuable insight about their efforts and their hopes and their struggles. We’ve talked to nurses and firefighters and workers and business owners and folks from every variety of nonprofits and elected leaders from across the state to help us move forward, and we are moving forward today in the state of Washington.

Jay Inslee: (07:19)
Today I am announcing three advisory groups that will be focused on specific steps that our state will be taking in the upcoming weeks. These groups include a really diverse group of voices, from community leaders in business to government, to nonprofit organizations. They represent a broad cross-section of Washingtonians from both sides of the cascades, different generations, and they focus on different parts of the impact of the virus on our community.

Jay Inslee: (07:50)
The members of these groups are in touch with their communities, and I’m looking forward to working with them. They’re going to help inform our decision making and they’ll provide a vehicle for input with our administration to focus people’s insights so we can make sure we get as much information as we can to guide our decision making to keep people safe, which is our goal.

Jay Inslee: (08:12)
The focus of each advisory group is the following. Our public health and healthcare system advisory group. This will be led by our Department of Health Secretary John Wiesman. We’ll have our safe work and economic recovery, will be led by Commerce Director Lisa Brown. Our social supports with the Department of Social Health Services. Secretary Cheryl Strange is our cabinet lead.

Jay Inslee: (08:39)
Director Brown and Secretary Strange are both here today to answer questions. I want to thank each of them for their leadership to date and working with the community in this group that we’re now forming.

Jay Inslee: (08:50)
Each group will really constitute a forum for my office to consult with the broader community on the next steps as we move forward of reopening our state. For example, our public health and healthcare system group will be looking at broadening our testing efforts to do everything we can to maximize the ability of Washingtonians to obtain timely tests, to help us prepare for a potential second wave for COVID-19. They’ll prepare for the distribution of treatments and vaccines in the happy day when those, in fact, are perfected.

Jay Inslee: (09:27)
Our safe work and economic recovery group will focus on our phased recovery plans, giving guidance for allowing more activities with appropriate health standards and business and worker assistance. We want to ensure a safe path moving forward, both for people who work in businesses and for their customers.

Jay Inslee: (09:48)
Make no mistake. We do know that things will be different as we recover from this matter, but we’re looking forward to getting the best advice we can from across the state, and this group is going to help us do it. We don’t know exactly when these efforts or when the go button will be pushed for the next steps, but we do know how to do it. These groups are going to make sure that we understand the best way to go about doing that.

Jay Inslee: (10:15)
Our social supports group will look at meeting the increasing need for so many basic human services, from food to safe shelter, to housing, and healthcare. They’ll look at the recovery through the lens that addresses the equity, the need to increase rather than decrease equity as we go through this challenge. We know our vulnerable populations have always had stresses, and we want to do everything we can to minimize those in the face of this pandemic.

Jay Inslee: (10:46)
This is a tall order, but I’m glad we’re going to have this group working on it. I want to thank each member of these groups to help inform this critical work. We’ll have the list available for the press or the members.

Jay Inslee: (10:58)
I’m joined today by three other speakers. They’re Justin Farrell, who’s Senior Vice President of Civic Ventures in Seattle and a member of our safe work and economic recovery group, and Michael Byun, Executive Director of the Asian Counseling and Referral Service in Seattle, who will serve with our social support group. Also, Alison Poulsen. Alison is the Executive Director of Better Health Together in Spokane, who will serve on our public health and healthcare group. So let’s kick it off for a few comments. Justin, I think you were going to go first. Is that right?

Justin Farrell: (11:34)
Yes, it is.

Jay Inslee: (11:40)
Thank you.

Justin Farrell: (11:40)
All right. Thank you, Governor Inslee. Thanks, first of all, for your leadership as we are going through an unprecedented public health and economic crisis. Thanks as well to your staff. Thank you to Director Lisa Brown, in your role as director of the commerce department. I am honored to be the community lead for the safe work. I want to thank every member of the task force …

Justin Farrell: (12:03)
… for choosing to serve the state in this way. I’d like to emphasize that the scale of the economic crisis is unprecedented and that the scope of our solutions are thereforE are going to have to be properly scaled to the scope of this crisis and that we will have to come to this work with boldness and creativity and a deep attention to the public good.

Justin Farrell: (12:28)
I would also like to emphasize that parts of the workforce, we’re already economically fragile coming into this crisis and that we will have to pay particular attention to particularly those folks on the frontline. Whether it is people in the service industry, childcare workers, parts of the medical community, nurses, other people who are providing services in our hospitals.

Justin Farrell: (12:53)
There were many elements of our workforce that faced economic insecurity going into this crisis and the crisis has only made that more acute, so we will have to pay particular attention to that. And of course the impacts are unevenly felt by sector. Some sectors have been almost completely closed down. And so the nuances of a sector by sector approach will be one that we will pay particular attention to.

Justin Farrell: (13:16)
And of course we will be prioritizing the science and the public health and safety of every single resident in Washington State. So again, I’m really honored to be able to do this work with the members of the task force and serve the residents of Washington State in this way. Thank you so much. And now to Michael.

Michael: (13:40)
Yes, again, thank you, Governor Inslee to your executive team and members of your cabinet for your wonderful leadership during this time of crisis. As we know, health concerns is the center of this crisis. But we also know that our background determines the severity of the pandemics impact. In terms of race and ethnicity, Pacific Islanders, African-Americans, Latinx and indigenous community folks are disproportionately impacted.

Michael: (14:11)
We also know social economic background is another factor. People who are undocumented members of our COFA and other immigrant communities are also disproportionately impacted. Individuals with special needs have extra challenges in navigating the system and to receive support necessary during this time.

Michael: (14:35)
And lastly, geography plays an important role, whether you’re in a rural community or an urban setting, this pandemic impacts as differently. As we are part of the social supports group and working with the governor’s office on the recovery plan, we want to make sure it’s comprehensive and that we do not leave anyone behind.

Michael: (14:59)
So our goal and our charge will be to focus on a holistic approach, recognizing the importance of coordination of support, social service support including mental health, food, housing, and other services.

Michael: (15:15)
And most importantly in this process of ensuring that we center equity and inclusion. And so we look forward to this opportunity to join others in this effort. Thank you. And now I’d like to go ahead and pass it over to Allison.

Allison: (15:32)
Thank you, Governor Inslee. I have been so proud to be a Washingtonian under your leadership these last several, several weeks as we have responded as a state to the COVID response. It’s an honor to represent the good people of Eastern Washington in this important work group. I’m super excited to join this distinguished group of experts to ensure that our communities are really well supported as we move into the next phases of the COVID response.

Allison: (16:02)
I’m especially committed to making sure our communities of color and our rural counties are appropriately resourced to get Washington back on track. I’m proud of how Washington has pulled together as we’ve made our way through phase one. We’ve already seen hardship endured by so many and we know there is more to come.

Allison: (16:24)
We must ensure that our health systems are ready not just for a possible second wave of the virus, but also the increased behavioral health needs that our frontline workers are experiencing, that people who are experiencing financial hardship and quite frankly every one of us is experiencing grief for missed graduations, weddings, and family gatherings.

Allison: (16:50)
This is a time for us all to stay connected to a common vision of health for everyone. I look forward to working with this group to ensure that our health needs are balanced with our desires to get back to normal. Thank you.

Jay Inslee: (17:08)
Thanks Michael and Justin and Allison, I want to thank you. I think you’re going to really help us making sure everyone has access to this effort to give us insights and input. This is really going to help us in that regard. We of course going to retain decision-making capability. That’s our responsibility but this is going to be very helpful in organizing the views of Washingtonians so that we can make the best possible decisions.

Jay Inslee: (17:39)
With that, I’ve been called away for two minutes. If folks can wait for two minutes with me. Tara, can you defer for two minutes?

Tara: (17:47)
Sure.

Jay Inslee: (17:47)
I will be back in about two and a half minutes. I have to give one decision to someone. I’ll be right back. Thank you.

Jay Inslee: (17:52)
(silence).

Jay Inslee: (19:05)
Excuse me. Thank you. The wheels of government must continue to run.

Tara: (19:07)
Hi, first question. First question comes from Rachel from AP.

Rachel: (19:07)
Hi, Governor.

Jay Inslee: (19:07)
Hi.

Rachel: (19:16)
I’m sure you have seen an informal revenue forecast that [inaudible 00:19:22] last week. It shows a projected production state revenue of 70 billion through 2023 with more than half of that amount related to the current budget [inaudible 00:19:32]. The official forecast is coming out next month, but have you made a decision yet on whether to definitively call the legislature back into session later this summer or early fall?

Jay Inslee: (19:42)
We have not made a definitive decision. I think it is a probability that there will need to be a special session before next January, but we just have not made a final decision on that. This is obviously a very significant hole.

Jay Inslee: (19:58)
We’re very fortunate that we have been responsible in the years past including my predecessors and I want to give them credit for this that have left us with about a $3 billion reserve to help cushion this. But obviously this is an enormous hole and we’ll let you know as soon as we know the answer to that question.

Tara: (20:17)
Next question comes from Joe from the Seattle Times.

Joe: (20:22)
Governor, two-part question just on the advisory groups. Are they just formally or will they be [inaudible 00:20:29] through official recommendations of some sort? This afternoon, republican lawmakers filed a lawsuit to stop the stay-at-home order saying COVID-19 is no longer a crisis. They point to the closure of the Harbor Hospital and [inaudible 00:20:44] and curious if you’ve had a chance to look at that and offer a response?

Jay Inslee: (20:49)
I’ve just looked at it very briefly. I think it would be a horrific surprise to the over 800 families that have lost a loved one already to this pandemic to think that this is not a crisis. I believe that position is biologically ignorant and humanly heartless. It’s just ignorant because this is a very transmittable disease. It continues to transmit disease. We had hundreds of new cases just yesterday.

Jay Inslee: (21:20)
It’s just a biological fact and I think it’s a bit heartless to think that some people somehow are disposable citizens and I just think that’s wrong. We can’t have a good economy without a healthy Washington and the measures we have taken are designed to preserve health and life itself.

Jay Inslee: (21:39)
And I’m just so appreciative of the vast majority of Washingtonians who want us to work together to stop the spread of this disease. So I haven’t looked at it in detail, but I’m very confident that our state is on the right track because Washingtonians want to stick together, want to save their loved ones and realize we only want to go through this once, so that we can move to a more normalized position.

Jay Inslee: (22:07)
That’s the Washington way. Your first question was about the advisory groups. We don’t know exactly how kind of formalized their recommendations will be. That will be in general up to them. So they’re going to be a bit of an organic process, but we hope that they’ll both assure that we get diverse voices and we also bring expertise to the table and it’s a way to get more people engaged in the conversation.

Jay Inslee: (22:37)
So that when we make decisions about what’s appropriate for a kind of industry to reopen, that we’ll make sure we get the broadest input and making those kinds of decisions.

Tara: (22:47)
Next question comes from [inaudible 00:22:48].

Speaker 2: (22:51)
Yeah, Governor, checking to see if you can give some clarity to whether there’s going to be return to landscaping today or is that several days of on sales, retail, curbside, the car washers and dog walkers and what if the dog walker is used a [inaudible 00:23:08] nurse. Are those still will be common in phase one?

Jay Inslee: (23:11)
Yeah, hopefully by the end of this week or early next week to have the protocols in place so that those phase one can open. We want to do that as soon as we can. Good progress on that. There shouldn’t be any showstoppers, so we’ll have those protocols in place so the businesses can be confident and importantly their customers can be confident that all businesses are providing for their safety.

Jay Inslee: (23:34)
This is kind of a consumer protection responsibility we have. That’s where it’s going well. It’ll be just a few days, so we can push the green button for them. I know they’re chomping at the bit. We’ll try to get those out as soon as humanly possible, but it’s just a matter of days.

Tara: (23:52)
Next question comes on from [inaudible 00:23:52].

Speaker 3: (23:54)
Two quick questions for you. First, did the four corners agree to extend the emergency orders that are set to expire and secondly, I’m told that you had a conversation with the mayor …

Speaker 3: (24:03)
… of Spokane today, where she asks to put Spokane on a fast-track for opening up. I wonder, what did you tell her?

Jay Inslee: (24:12)
Well, we talked about the potential expansion. As you know, we have basically said there are 10 counties with no fatalities and no infections in three weeks. So if those counties want to go to phase two, and if they are able to show they have adequate PPE and testing and hospital capacity, that will move forward. She and other members around the community have hope that their communities could be in a similar situation. And I expressed the thought that we will continue to evaluate those counties and look for their suggestions. We will have to base it on data of course. So we’ll look forward to the data as it comes in. Spokane didn’t quite meet that data last week. They might a couple of weeks from now. So we’ll continue to have those discussions with local leaders to keep this ball rolling. I got to get better remembering your first questions here.

Speaker 3: (25:10)
Did you get agreement from the four corners to extend the emergency orders that are set to expire?

Jay Inslee: (25:16)
They have confirmed, the vast majority of them. There’s a couple they have not. And we’ll just have to work through those. I think we’ll be able to keep government running on a couple that they haven’t agreed to.

Speaker 5: (25:31)
Next question comes from AJ with Q13.

AJ: (25:37)
[inaudible 00:25:37] Inslee. Can you address this lawsuit everybody’s talking about today with these leaders who have names on it, specifically with this growing voice of officials who were speaking in dissent of the stay-at-home order? If you keep an eye out over a weekend, there’s a business now operating in Snohomish, outside the stay-at-home order. And folks are kind of putting the reasoning behind these officials who are, now again, voicing this dissent?

Jay Inslee: (26:09)
Well we are a diverse state, but the vast majority of Washingtonians are complying both of their interests in their loved one’s health, and in common sense that we’re making progress and we don’t want to go backwards on this, and also compliant with the law. All three of those things. And the vast majority of Washingtonians are doing that. You have some politicians who have taken positions contrary to that. I vigorously disagree with them. I think they are not only shortsighted but dangerous. They are not compliant with the science that is very clear on this, that if we today released all of our efforts, if we stopped in our tracks halfway through this effort or two thirds through this effort, this virus is going to come back with a vengeance. And apparently those politicians, as far as I can tell, that doesn’t bother them too much. But when you see the tears of the families who’ve lost 800 people, I think you’d reach a different conclusion. The 41-year-old bus driver that was lost, the reverend in eastern Washington. And, by the way, it’s not just those people who lose their lives, it’s their families that lose them. That’s a loss to those that remain of all ages. And I’ve heard some of this talk that six-year-olds just don’t count in our society. I don’t believe that. It’s not true in my family. It’s not true in most families.

Jay Inslee: (27:43)
So we will stand on this effort, and we will continue it, and we will continue the success of Washington. And I’m very confident that the decisions we have made both are good for human health and fully consistent with our responsibilities under the state constitution and the United States Constitution. There’s been very few people who have not complied with this. I think there’s only been like one measure we’ve had to take to actually bring people in compliance. This person you referred to in Snohomish County, they’re going to have to come into compliance. I’ve actually been advised that there’s an effort because people are very upset about this. There’s been over a hundred people complain about that person not helping, not helping Washingtonians to save our loved ones. So we just got to keep our eyes on the prize, be confident, and realize that the huge numbers of Washingtonians get this.

Speaker 5: (28:40)
The next question comes from Jim [inaudible 00:28:44]

Speaker 6: (28:47)
Governor, in your opening remarks, you talked about a potential second wave of COVID-19. Is your concern about that short-term or later in the year? Or? I was wondering if you could explain, just elaborate on that.

Jay Inslee: (29:04)
Well, I’m not a physician, but I am one who listens to them. And the epidemiologist and the virologists and what they’ve told us that some of these pandemics have had a second wave. The second wave at times can be more virulent and more dangerous than the first. That is not necessarily… Certainly not a certainty. I don’t know if even raises to a probability, but it is a significant risk. That’s important for us as we consider whether we’re going to give up on our efforts right now at social distancing. And we are not going to give up our efforts on social distancing, because that second wave is out there potentially as well.

Jay Inslee: (29:45)
So it makes sense for us to try to wrestle this down far as we can, while we’re also continuing to lift up our businesses as we’re doing. I should point out, for all of us who are eager to reopen our economy, that we’ve reopened construction, largely. We have reopened fishing, hunting, golf. We have reopened elected surgery. We’re now moving forward to reopen 10 counties. And we are reopening quite a number of businesses here just in the next few days from auto dealers to a host of other types of businesses, so a retail curbside pickup and the like. So we are making progress, but we’ve got to be aware of that potential second wave. And that’s part of the decision making we’re making.

Jay Inslee: (30:38)
I want to mention another thing too, because we haven’t talked about it much. This testing issue, I think you know that we have much work to do to increase in our testing capability to determine the presence of the virus. This is absolutely critical to our success in the next stage of our efforts. And we still do not have enough testing supplies, the swabs and the like. We hope that we will be having some help from the federal government and we hope that will continue.

Jay Inslee: (31:08)
There is another type of testing that we will be examining. And that’s antibody testing. We have the capability of looking for the presence of antibodies. As people know, if you have an antibody, it suggests you’ve been exposed to the disease. That is very helpful because it is easier to do in mass quantities than testing for the presence of the virus. So we’re looking for ways to do that. I’ve had a discussion with the Abbott company here last week about the potential of expanding large scale surveillance antibody testing in the state. The University of Washington has a serology test where they’re doing that now, looking at used a plasma or blood as well. So we think this can have potential utility as a surveillance tool to let us know what the presence of the disease really is. That’s also very important to guard against a second wave, because sometimes you can have asymptomatic people for quite some time before you even recognize it’s present. So this antibody body testing can be important. There’s a lot of work to be done to validate that testing. You heard today that the FDA removed its approval for several types, but I think we are going to have a type that works and then we’ll consider how to use it.

Jay Inslee: (32:29)
But I do want to put this caveat on this, and this is very important. It’s very important to realize that the antibody tests at the moment cannot be considered palliative. It cannot guarantee that we’re protected, that we have immunity. The science is just not consistent with that right now. World Health Organization said there’s no evidence to support that, that just because you have the antibody then you can go back to work and then you’re immune. That’s just not good science. So we can’t look at this as a passport, at least under the existing science. I know some people have raised this issue. So, we are looking at antibody testing. We are talking to some outfits that might be able to help. But we have to realize it’s for surveillance purposes, not for a passport to be able to go back to work.

Speaker 5: (33:17)
Next question comes from Austin, Northwest News Network.

Austin: (33:26)
Hi, Governor. It seems like the new cases are holding pretty steady and that we have not seen a decline, much less than a 14-day decline. And I’m just wondering what you’re seeing, how you’re analyzing the numbers, and what that means. And then also, I think there’s a little confusion out there about the reason for the stay-at-home orders in the first place, which I think was to flatten the curve and spread out the pandemic so it didn’t overwhelm the hospitals. Your focus now seems to be on reducing the number of deaths. I’m just needing to clarify that a little.

Jay Inslee: (34:03)
The second question about our goal in this. Our goal is to get the curve down, and most importantly for this point of our discussion, keep it down. This is the very difficult concept sometimes to wrap your head around. The concept is, can we stop doing what we today are doing? Can we just stop and assume that the virus will not come roaring back and overwhelm our hospital system? No, we cannot make that assumption. And the reason is that we do not have the numbers low enough where the infection rate could not get that curve going up again dramatically. So our goal still is to prevent this virus from overwhelming our hospital system, which it could do if we abandoned our efforts right now. We know that the virus can come back, it has come back in some of their communities already who had early success.

Jay Inslee: (35:03)
So the lesson is that, until this thing is on the ground… They say when you’re in a fight, don’t let the other person get up. Of course, I’m not involved in fighting. But that’s the situation with this virus. I’m sorry if you’ve heard this one before, but it is like the person in the parachute. If you jump out of a plane, and you pull your parachute, and it slows your descent, and you feel pretty good about that, you don’t cut the straps right then, because you know your fall will accelerate if that happens. And that’s the same situation here. We can’t cut the straps right now. So, the original purpose remains the same. And obviously it is to save lives as well. And I say that advisedly, because I think it is sometimes easy when we talk about these numbers to forget what these numbers represent. They represent human lives. They represent fathers and mothers who are gone, and some middle aged people-

Jay Inslee: (36:03)
… [inaudible 00:36:00] fathers and mothers who are gone, and some middle aged people], and so those remain our mission statement, and I think it’s very important. So we have done part of it and we have to keep doing it to have success.

Jay Inslee: (36:16)
The testing situation, tell me again what your interest was in testing, Austin?

Austin: (36:26)
I’m just wondering about the 200 new cases a day-

Jay Inslee: (36:26)
Oh, yes. Excuse me.

Austin: (36:28)
[crosstalk 00:00:25]-

Jay Inslee: (36:28)
Yes. So, yes, we’re continuing to diagnose, to have a positive test for over 200 people a day, and we think that the, that is, well, we know it’s kind of a curious number, because the more people you test, the more positives you get, and we are now testing more people. I think the other day we might have gotten up to 7000 tests in one day. We historically have done somewhere between 2500 and 4000. So the number we get in positive tests is a slippery critter to figure out what it really means. We have had a reduction, some degree of reduction in the rate of positivity. That’s gone down a bit, which is a good sign, and I think one of the most indicative metrics is the date of onset of people who enter hospitals with COVID- 19. That number has shown some not insignificant reduction over the last two weeks, and that is reflected in the disease modeling.

Jay Inslee: (37:42)
Can we put the disease modeling slide up? Do you have that by chance? Okay, we don’t have this slide, but I’m sure you’ve seen it. The Institute for Disease Modeling, in their model, which I showed the other day, it showed the data points that were actually below the predicted curve, and some of that information was in the hospitalization data I talked about. So bottom line, we think we’ve had some progress, but the infections remain in the thousands. As you know, for every one that we have diagnosed there are many, many that have not been diagnosed yet, and that’s why it’s important to have more testing.

Speaker 7: (38:18)
The next question comes from Jerry, who we have right here.

Jerry: (38:25)
Good afternoon, governor.

Jay Inslee: (38:26)
Hello.

Jerry: (38:27)
I have two quick questions, one followup. Earlier you mentioned a couple of the emergency proclamations were not extended by republican leaders. Can you tell us which ones they were or what they, what those were? And secondly, on the budget situation, I know your team has been looking at and asking staff to prepare, but what specific reductions have been taken or have you ordered be taken to start saving money now?

Jay Inslee: (38:58)
An answer to your second question, I vetoed 445 million dollars of spending a few weeks ago. That was not insignificant. I would point out it was always painful, because that vast majority of that money I vetoed I was sometimes passionately in favor of, so that’s a start. Beyond that, we have not made decisions to date, but we know we’ll have some difficult ones going forward.

Jay Inslee: (39:22)
The proclamations that the Republicans did not agree to, I believe one of them was something that would effectively effectuate what the legislature passed last year. So, the legislatures passed a bill that will go into effect, I think June 1st, that would say it was not necessary to arrest a person in certain circumstances for a violation, sometimes very minor, of their conditions of release. The legislature passed that, I think by overwhelming margins in the House. J. T. Wilcox voted for it, but now they won’t sign it, and that’s disappointing, because they voted for it, and it passed, and it’s a law, and it goes into effect June 1st, but they won’t let it go into effect May 1st. I can’t figure that out.

Jay Inslee: (40:16)
There’s another one that escapes me right now that is-

Speaker 7: (40:19)
[inaudible 00:04:17]-

Jay Inslee: (40:20)
Relatively modest, but I’ll get it to you.

Speaker 7: (40:21)
We have time for a couple more questions.

Jay Inslee: (40:24)
I will point out, unfortunately there is a possibility that politics has entered into some decision making here, and I think that’s disappointing.

Speaker 7: (40:36)
Then next questions from Hannah with [inaudible 00:40:36] Radio.

Hannah: (40:38)
Good afternoon, Governor. A couple of quick questions. [inaudible 00:40:42] in phase one who are a bit unclear as to where they’re going to be getting this guidance [inaudible 00:40:50]? Could you elaborate on where the guidance will be coming from for each of these industries, in other words how will they be alerted to the fact that it’s ready? And then, who’s overseeing that they follow that as we move forward? I’m also curious, the members of the advisory groups, how were they selected? Did you get any input from Republicans, or are there various ideologies represented, and if so what are they?

Speaker 7: (41:07)
We have Nick on the phone, [inaudible 00:41:14].

Jay Inslee: (41:15)
I’m sorry?

Speaker 7: (41:15)
We have Nick on the phone, and [inaudible 00:41:16] he could answer some of those, if you want.

Jay Inslee: (41:18)
Nick, are you on the phone? Would you like to ask about our outreach on the task force? Are you on the phone, Nick?

Nick: (41:25)
Governor, I’m here, and I can speak specifically to the question related to the guidance that’s coming for phase one businesses. We’re working as quickly as we can to get that developed and issued, receiving input from the various industries, as well as the workers in those industries. That guidance will be released through the Governor’s Office through some type of a either press release or other mechanism, and we’ll make sure that it’s prominently displayed so that way folks know it’s out there and they know how to comply.

Jay Inslee: (41:53)
And we’ll have our agencies help in any questions about those protocols, the relevant agencies that have jurisdiction, labor and industries principally, to help people think through some of the safety precautions, and obviously we want to protect the employees, and consumers and customers as well. We want to thank the press for helping get this information out. As I’ve said before, your participation in this is just so pivotal, and it’s been very productive for Washingtonians. I appreciate your professional work.

Jay Inslee: (42:28)
Your other question-

Hannah: (42:29)
The outreach?

Jay Inslee: (42:30)
The outreach. We’ve done broad outreach is what I can tell you. I don’t know if there’s any litmus test to politics, I don’t think there was. If there was any political inclinations of this group, I couldn’t tell you what they were right now of the people who were selected, but I am pleased. We got some real talent from a broad variety of folks, and if you don’t have those lists, I’ll obviously get them to you right away.

Speaker 7: (42:52)
The final question comes from Vanessa with [inaudible 00:42:58] Five.

Speaker 8: (42:58)
Governor, going back to the advisory groups talking about how they’re going to include the community in this conversation, how will they go about doing this? Can we look forward to town halls or seeing a presence of theirs in our communities, the ability to weigh in? And also, especially with the social side of this, the advisory group, people in Washington have already had a problem with housing, how are you and your teams going to make sure that is going to be addressed in this?

Jay Inslee: (43:30)
Well, the social services group, obviously that’s a principle concern. It was a concern before COVID-19. It’s been more pivotal now. One of the particular issues is isolation ability too for people who become positive. We need them to isolate, and we’ve got to make sure they have a place to isolate if they don’t have a home or if they don’t want to go back to their household, so that’s going to be one of their focuses. We’ve had some progress on this to make sure people would have a place, but I know that there will be more work.

Jay Inslee: (44:02)
As far as how they receive it, again, this is going to be largely organic with these groups. They’re going to largely make the decisions, the best way to really collate information, and I’m sure they’ll be successful at that, and I know that you will help make sure people get insights as to how they are going to do that. So we haven’t ruled anything in or out except we want to hear from Washingtonians.

Speaker 7: (44:24)
Okay. Any final words?

Jay Inslee: (44:27)
No, I just, again, thank you very much. Wash your hands, please. Thank you.

Speaker 7: (44:39)
[inaudible 00:44:46].