Cooper updates NC's fight against coronavirus

our state health director Dr Elizabeth Tilson who is with

me in a number of members of North Carolina Legislature

and City Council here in Charlotte who are all interested

in the health and well being of the citizens here

across our state and across our country

Just left a meeting with a number of local Charlotte

business people health care people nonprofit educational leaders talking about

the issue of coded 19 the Corona virus and what

we need to do to protect our citizens first

As you know yesterday I issued a state of emergency

in order to help us coordinate our resources to fight

this virus to stop its spread as much as we

can and also mitigate the situation with the people of

our of our state

We're working very hard in a coordinated way at our

emergency operations center to get quality information out to people

about this virus and what it does

We also know that our state of emergency allows us

to be more flexible in waiving certain or six restrictions

and regulations

It allows our price gouging law to go into effect

and allows us to be more coordinated and effective

We also issued a list of recommendations for people to

follow regarding the level of people's risks and what people

need to be doing

I think one thing that is clear is all of

our lives are gonna change in some way

In response to this virus we want to emphasize as

much as we possibly can how important it is too

frequently

Wash your hands

Use anti bacterial

Try as much as possible not to put your hands

on your face

Try to make sure you cover your nose and mouth

when you cough and if you can stay home when

you're sick

Doing all of those things can help stop the spread

of this virus

I was in the public restroom not too long ago

and a stranger was washing his hands beside me and

I was washing my hands and he looked at me

and said 20 seconds is a long time and that's

good because obviously the information is getting out there that

you need to keep your hands clean and you need

to make sure that you protect yourself and your family

We've also issued recommendations about people in high risk groups

Uh the good thing about this virus is it doesn't

seem to be is detrimental as the flu to to

younger people into kids

The thing that's very worrisome is the higher risk category

of people over 65 years old people with chronic health

conditions or immune deficiencies

We know that they are much more vulnerable to having

this disease affect their life and potentially being fatal

Therefore we have issued recommendations to people who fall into

these higher risk categories that I'll let Dr Tilson talk

about in a minute

And you also need to know that this is a

fluid and evolving situation

We want to make decisions based on facts and data

We also want to make decisions based on the health

and safety of North Carolinians being our number one priority

And as we look at the facts and data before

us it has caused us to issue the state of

emergency

It is causing us to list to put forward this

list of recommendations and we are continuing to work to

identify people who may have this virus

And this is where there's a problem not only in

North Carolina but nationwide

The availability of tests we began this process back in

January and we have based our preparations on being able

to get supplies that we need to do tests from

the CDC

It was obvious over the weeks that we have seen

this that we have not gotten the supplies that we

needed from the CDC too

Continue testing the way we want to

All right we have worked hard to be able to

make different kinds of tests available for this

I want to come in

Lab Core which is based right here in North Carolina

just got off the phone with the CEO Adam Schechter

They have put forward to test that approved by the

FDA and already are out there testing people and working

closely with our lab

I want to commend the people who were working in

the in public health and particularly in Raleigh who were

working night and day around the clock on this problem

Adam told me about the people at lap core working

three shifts 24 7 to work on making sure that

we get testing out there

We need to know who has this and how many

people have it in order to determine make decisions about

what we need to do to mitigate

So the more people that we can get tested the

more we will know that has been a priority for

us is to find new ways to be able to

provide these tests to people in North Carolina

Right now we're still holding at seven positives

Uh they are all located in the triangle

We have issued some enhanced recommendations that Dr Tilson will

tell you about in the triangle area

Because it is an area that has thes seven positives

we expect more positives to occur throughout the state

We have a particular concern about our confined communities and

people particularly those who are at high risk

And we think about are nursing homes where you have

people there in high risk categories

They're also confined

So we've issued recommendations about that when we want to

work to try to make sure that the virus has

not spread in those kinds of confined areas

We have concerns obviously about our correctional facilities and juvenile

correction facilities in places where people would be confined in

a way that potentially could cause could wreak havoc if

if this virus infected that that community I now want

to recognize our state health director Dr Elizabeth Tilson t

give us some information and if the mayor wants to

say something that she can and then we'll take your

questions

Dr Tilson

Thank you sir very much

Um as governor Cooper said We do have seven cases

in the state at this point

They are cases that we can

We know exactly where they're contact was

We were able to understand where their their source of

exposure waas

The next step in a spread of an epidemic is

what we call community spread where you were unable to

identify where that person's exposure was

We are not there yet

We have not found evidence of a community spread that

we don't know where that person source waas

But as governor Cooper said we are concerned because we

have not had the ability to test the level that

we want to

And so we were preparing a Ziff

We may be having a community spread

So based on that and also based on the day

that we do know of who is at high risk

not so much for getting the infection but a high

risk for having complications from the infection and really protecting

our most vulnerable people

Yesterday as part of the state of emergency we did

put out recommendations that are statewide and then enhanced recommendations

for um Wake County

Those statewide recommendations include recommendations for people who fall in

the high risk category on and then just again to

define that

That means over 65 underlying health condition like heart disease

or lung disease or diabetes are a weakened immune system

for those high risk people

We are consistent with the CDC guidelines that those high

risk people should avoid large gatherings large community events and

gatherings as much as possible and should avoid cruise travel

and non essential air travel

In addition as governor Cooper said we're worried about people

and congregate living facilities thinking about long term care thinking

about skilled nursing facilities and so that we are recommending

that any facilities that do serve as residential establishments for

high risk persons should limit visitors and restrict any visitors

who have respiratory symptoms or any potential exposure to Cove

in 19 for a mass gatherings

What we are recommending is that event organizers urge people

who are sick to not attend to their event to

encourage those who are at high risk to not attend

the event

We're also asking event planners to adopt lenient refund policies

for people who have not come to the event

Based on those recommendations we're asking our event planners to

find ways as possible to keep people as physically as

apart as possible

What we know is the uh this is spread through

what we call respiratory droplets

People within 3 to 6 feet are rest

Rest rate

Drop it

So as much as we can people keep people apart

More than six feet is possible to encourage attendees to

wash your hands frequently and have available hand sanitizer

I'm going to be sure that they're cleaning surfaces with

a approved EPA cleaners

We're issuing guidance for travellers following the CDC guidance and

State Department guidance for not traveling to high risk company

countries and then travelers who are returning from high risk

countries to be self monitoring for 14 days and they're

reporting any symptoms to their local health department or two

there um health care provider

Those are our statewide recommendations and then our enhanced recommendations

that we've been shared with the triangle area is thinking

through work place settings that we're recommending that employers or

employees use

Tell the health technology teleworking technologies to the greatest extent

possible

Toe urge employees to stay home if they were sick

and to be sure they have the most flexible sick

leave policies to really allow their employees to not come

to work when they're sick and to consider consider staggering

start in end times so that they don't have everybody

at work at the same time

And then in addition are enhanced recommendations around mass gatherings

for affected region is that if there is a mass

gathering that is primarily targeted for a high risk population

so it's a mass gathering that by design will have

people primarily of older age

Or that may be a mass gathering of people have

underlying health conditions to consider canceling that event when the

target population is at high risk

Those recommendations that came out yesterday as governor Cooper said

This is a rapidly evolving situation constantly re looking at

that and we will be making other recommendations that we

see as appropriate

Thank you

in our community

We're going to do what we do best work together

with our private sector both the city and the county

and the governor's office

This opportunity for us today to be assured that we

have the guidelines in the consistent information to share with

our community and our city is very very important

And I want to thank Governor Cooper and Dr Tilson

for being here today in this time and helping us

understand how we go forward

We will continue to have regular daily meetings around how

this impacts the people that live inside our Mecklenburg County

and we'll do that with our county health officials as

well as our health care systems

So we're fortunate to know that we can work together

to make this happen

So thank you Governor Cooper for making it possible to

share this information with our community consistently

One thing I wanted to remind people that to get

up to date information on our recommendations and what's happening

with this virus

Goto N C

D

H H s dot gov stands for North Carolina Department

of Health and Health and Human Service is n c

DHHS dot gov Backslash Corona virus

We're trying to keep that up to date with all

of the information that people might need to know if

they have questions

There's also a number for people to call if they

have questions and we're encouraging people to contact their local

health department

If they have specific questions will now open it up

for questions

Yes let me

You've been tested at this point so we don't know

exactly Because Lap Core is accepting tests from medical providers

out there

Lap core is only requiring us to all really required

They let us know when they have a positive

So we're not sure we're gonna work it out where

we can know from Lap Core and others who are

doing the test what that number is because it's gonna

help us figure out the denominator

And what kind of percentage is that we have

So we were doing tests in the lab and that

number you know Betsy you might be able to address

this question but but we know that we're gonna be

getting that information

Yeah e don't have the specific county of residence of

all of our test again

Of the seven that have been positive we know those

air Wake County and one in Chatham County

They're of no known positives in Mecklenburg County this time

here

Fragile Astri

Hi

No state numbers

I'm sorry

New were here before that

There are way that is not true that way we

know of

And remember there are other seasonal corona viruses that are

not covet 19

So some that could come from from that Because some

of those have been around for a long time that

they're required to report to hire say health Director

Our Department of Health and Human Service is when there

is a positive

So I would say things were happening as we speak

But I'm not aware that that's the case and would

not think that would be the case

Betsy is that you Yeah

So really um the question is how many people can

we test Because there's a difference between how many test

kits with the re agent

So what was the question that you really wanna know

is a think of how many people can we test

right now at this Now again lab core has more

capacity and I don't know the exact number of lab

cores capacity for the state lab

Right now we have the capacity to test 250 people

because um because that we had a lack of testing

and unsure of how many tests were going to come

in we did have ah more stringent criteria that really

was identifying our most high risk people

As of last night we expanded that that testing criteria

to allow more people into the into the funnel

people who were not meeting the more stringent testing criteria

In the beginning we were not approving testing

We are opening up that that floodgate to allow more

people in however will be limited with a number of

tests we can actually run but we're gonna be approving

testing of more people as of last night

It's from

So what Well there's a different components of the test

of the test kits

Specifically the piece that we are missing is what's called

So we've received the test kits were missing

What's called the extraction agent is specifically the part of

the process that allows us to take the genetic material

out of the virus in order to to run

We have sufficient supplies for that to be able to

test about 250 people

We have not gotten more of that re agent from

the federal government

Thio test test three

Now it's two but we're tested between yesterday and today

Uh so let me just take a step that when

we get to this specific numbers changing No no no

I know it's it's fun

The numbers are changing so many of our hour by

hour which is and so some of that is we

are doing some validation testing for for lab core

We also have to be mindful of retesting

The people have already been positive Which is why right

now we feel comfortable that we could have the capacity

to test 250 new people because we have There's other

things we need to do with you

Yes

I mean is there any estimated by telling you Okay

by next Tuesday we're gonna be able to test anybody

that walks into a doctor's office in this state that

thinks that so that is our biggest challenge right now

is the is the challenge of exactly when we'll be

able to test everybody needs to be tested

Exactly

Our biggest challenge right now

Here let me let me talk

Um this is traction agent to test

One way for covered 19 was something that our lab

had depended on

And we had been promised from the CDC that we

would get this

Uh it hasn't happened

Nationwide's of every single state is going through this right

now because there is a shortage of this extraction agent

However there are other ways to try t test for

a cove

It 19 and lab core has a way that doesn't

require this particular extraction agent

They are ramping up their capacity and are taking tests

from all over the state and taking samples from all

over the state and doing tests

There's also a lot going on right now to try

toe

Think of other ways because once you have this kind

of test lap core is likely to run into its

own supply chain issues because of the vast number of

tests that would be needed

So I know what you and C and Duke they're

working on different ways to test we had one that

we were working on

Our state lab that has been the primary objective of

our mission right now is to find ways to test

so that we can test more people

We've gone ahead and opened up the criteria because we

think it is important to get people tested

And now the scramble is is to make sure that

we can get people tested

For example there's something's going on in Washington where some

people have discovered way contacted them all across the country

We're all working with each other because we didn't get

this extraction agent from the CDC

We're working on different ways to make sure we're testing

and that is that is a primary objective because we

have to know what we're dealing with

And in order to be able to know what we're

dealing with we have to test people for this virus

So that is going to continue to be a primary

objective

You don't know

now

Dark tales

Hey Hannah and his mother and I are in a

book club right now as of last night and this

is online so you can go on look on through

our website

It is fever or symptoms of our lower respiratory illness

That means cough short of breath and then with a

contact with someone who's known positive

In addition fever and symptoms of lower respiratory infection and

negative for the flu and no other likely diagnosis

I'm just a fool

If you build it any additional people could be tested

because Lefcourt it's you like So the 2 50 number

is the test See through our state lab Yes

Or the state line Yes but you don't know how

many additional people lap core has not time at this

point I don't way will

We will be knowing that

Oh yeah

Oh yeah Yeah

And they've gotten a lot of negatives but we don't

know for sure how many they have

They are required to notify us when they get a

negative that we excuse me when they get a positive

but we want to get all of the data from

them and I think that they will be willing to

do that

They're just going Uh uh They're going really strong right

now

And also we're trying to find different ways to get

the extraction agent that we need from other sources to

be able to continue testing in this the state lab

with the test that we had to start with

So we're using that

That's correct

We've already tried to get it from the CDC supplier

We ordered some

We thought it was coming

It didn't come

So now we're working to see if other people have

that extraction agent

It's an all hands on deck on

I am determined that they heard me time and again

about how we we've got to make sure we get

people test that that's a primary objective

This is also for Mayor Wise

Financial ones

isn't clear

We don't We don't know at this point what the

financial impact is

You know I know that the result of this buyer

virus there will be inconvenience

There will be loss of income

There will be disappointment

But we've got to make sure that we protect the

health and safety of North Carolinians and that has to

be our primary objective

One thing I do want to make sure is that

cost is not a barrier for someone to get tested

and we already have some of our insurers like Blue

Cross who are waving co pays

We know that there's some federal money that's going to

be coming down

We're probably gonna make some presentation to the state legislature

once we know what's coming from the feds

But we want everybody that would meet the criteria for

testing to be able to get it and that costs

should not be a barrier for that

And we're my executive order

Encourages that to occur in Mayor louse

If you want to answer that the governor said it

Well we're looking at How do we make sure that

people are able to be tested that we have treatment

We will have costs

And we will deal with the cost after we deal

with how that we can protect our public

Yes sir

The obvious right You re thinking we were constantly evaluating

data and are in constant contact with health experts

We put forward our recommendations that we recommend to people

in this high risk group that they do not go

to mass gatherings like the A C

C tournament

But our uh thought process is continuing to evolve as

we talk to health experts in consultation with everyone

So at this point there is no change in that

I that's you

Um what we understand is that their guidelines that have

been talked about in terms of the crowds what size

making sure there's distance

All of those things are under consideration

But there has been no guidance to say that we

should not have gatherings

I think the guidance is trying to address the proactive

part of it looking at the vulnerable populations looking at

making sure that people understand simple hand washing the idea

that you can have space between each other

So what we're trying to do is talk about what

we should be doing and we'll continue to assess every

day what we're trying to do here in Mecklenburg County

Let me say one thing

There are also a lot of recommendations that go to

these arenas and we work with commissioners Swofford and others

to make sure they're following those recommendations

So is this

I hear you

sure this is where the strength of our local public

health department comes into play

So if we know of a positive anywhere in this

state really immediately contact our local health department the local

health department then contacts

That person understands where that person waas I'm thinking about

what we call contact tracing understand what was the risk

of the person in contact with that person following up

on monitoring with those people and we talk about risk

Let's just take it for a second and say what

we define as risk is that people if somebody is

unknown positive the highest risk of people are in that

same household as that person second tier first week considered

moderate risk

Is that because of the way this virus has spread

its respiratory droplets that if you are within six feet

of someone who is symptomatic who is coughing um for

longer than 10 minutes we consider that moderate risk

If you were in the same room but farther than

six feet from somebody we consider that low risk

And then if you were just walking by somebody in

a crowded space considered as pretty negligible risk that is

on the on our website an artist CDC website So

what the Health Department does it goes and tries to

identify everybody who was in that high risk and everybody

who was in that moderate risk and they make sure

they do monitoring with those with those people

This contact dressing

Thank you guys

Appreciate it

Oh I'm so sorry sir