brief pro forma session while most lawmakers are back in their home states due to the coronavirus pandemic. it is possible senate republicans might ask for unanimous approval for additional funding to help small businesses with loans under the paycheck protection program, created in response to the coronavirus and is reportedly already running out of money. last week senate democrats blocked by unanimous consent whoest from mitch mcconnell had objected to legislation that senate democrats were offering. as always, you can follow the senate live on c-span. mississippi governor had a briefing on the state's response to the coronavirus pandemic. people withered how their mortgages. the other focused on child care or essential workers. such topics included

things as developing data of cases and criteria for lifting the stay-at-home order. [indiscernible] good afternoon. thank you for being here with us this afternoon. yourforward to taking questions once everybody has an opportunity to give an update. we are in the middle of a fight for our state. it is taking a tremendous cost. us to pushg all of ourselves beyond what is comfortable. what is fair or sustainable for much longer we stay strong, stay in the fight we can see the finish line but the push to the end requires all of us to sprint . we are at her new the peak in

mississippi. this is the most painful time this is the hardest time. it is the beginning of a turning point that we have not gotten past our peak pain yet. i pray every day for an end to this crisis and we are acting together to protect our people. we have been to other trials and overcome. we will come through this also. i know that what is being asked of use is not easy. it is not even close to being easy. we also notice the collective work of our people is having an impact. the damage could be far worse. our projected pain is coming down dramatically. it hurts but it is working. you are saving your neighbor's life. when we avoid death we only see the cost of the sacrifice.

you are saving lives every day stay in the fight. our enemy is doing great damage. not only to those who catch the disease but to those who have lost the ability to survive -- provide for their families. we cannot fully stop the mental and physical costs to you and your families anymore that we can fully stop this fire is. we can help lighten the load. today i want to share two new programs that we hope will help. mississippi home corporation has just authorized are hardest hit funds to provide short-term help with the mortgage for mississippians who lost employment or significant income due to covid-19 if you have lost the ability to earn during this crisis and you are at risk of losing their homes we can

provide temporary help heard it will not take over your home payments indefinitely. time to giveour you head above water to find work and become self-reliant again. it may provide a one time payment to make your mortgage current. it may also pay your mortgage for a time while you try to find work. firsthand the homes that were lost to the tornadoes this weekend. it breaks my heart. there are more who at risk of losing their homes to our nation's economic crisis. we cannot stop the wind from blowing but we can try to stop more from losing their homes. go to mshomesaver.com to apply. overike to turn this scott, who is administering the program. >> thank you. program that has been

in existence since the financial crisis. these were dollars that were repaid to the treasury. and authorized to provide mortgage assistance in 18 states they will expire next year. we have set aside some for the light of elimination. going to take this opportunity to move about $10 back over anding reopen the mortgage a system pipeline.

it is temporary but it is forbearance iste not forgiveness. and it is not forever if people are putting our mortgages in their forbearance the debt still exist that is the one of the reasons it will be won an important program so they cannot have to go into lost vacation or come up with a number of mortgage payments one forbearance is finally over [indiscernible] reeves: scott is available for questions. we are working to address one of the most taxing issues. our essential workers are being asked to do things others are not. they are stepping into the line of fire to provide what we all need it to stay safe. we need to do everything we can to help them. we are not talking about robots whose lives begin and end with their essential work. these are mississippians just

like you and me. they have lives. they of homes. and many have children. children that are now out of school for the rest of the semester. we has traveled and facilities to remain open to take care of their children. not easy. today are we providing more guidance and more help. department ofi human services and the department of health are activating their childcare crisis assistance response. this plan provides temporary emergency childcare facilities during the crisis for the families of essential workers. people in health care, first responders and knows keeping food and supplies in our homes. who do not people have access to typical providers to childcare. the sites will not be around

forever but they will meet all the standards of typical child care facilities. even more during these unique times. the state is working to find potential partners. chargell get free of training to the early childhood academy. and they will be assigned a coach to help them operate throughout this emergency. anyone, churches and businesses and nonprofits and individuals who have the capacity to operate canrding to the guidelines offer to open one of these emergency sites. we are asking those partners to step up now. if you're are willing to become a partner, please go to am dhs. \cc ai are. childcare crisis assistance isolation response. sites begin to operate

they will begin out reached parents. if you need financial assistance to afford this emergency childcare, you can apply for that assistance beginning one week from today. we hope this expanded access to childcare will lighten the load for essential workers. it will not make their jobs easy but it we hope he can make this one highly stressful element a little bit easier to deal with. at this time i will turn it over to mr. bob anderson. i want to commend him on the job he's doing at the department of human services. stressful circumstances under which he took this job, and how grateful we are for the work he and his team are doing in these challenging times. >> this obviously is a new concept but it is not a new idea. the idea is that parents who have children and who need to be at work, doctors, first

responders, whether they are sanitation workers, whoever they are, they need to be work and they have children they need childcare. this idea was put together by our division of early child in order topment come alongside existing childcare providers who are still in operation in one of the realities that no right now is of about 1500 childcare providers across the state somewhere around 900 are not 60% of them are not in operation. we understand why they are concerned. they're concerned about their safety and the safety of the children they care for. and they are following the governor's orders that we shelter-in-place we expect the parents to continue to do that ,ut those emergency personnel those health-care personnel who have to be at work, we want this idea to make it one less thing , thatave to think about

they have emergency childcare opportunities available to them if their traditional provider is no longer operating as the governor has said anybody can put together and stand up one of these sites, church, it can be we have talked with museums about doing this. all role is to simply be a partner with those willing to provide care we have a training packet available on the website the governor mentioned and we want to be a partner to providers who are beingresource to those parents who need this care for their children go ♪ >> thank you for your team for making this possible. there will be a large number of individuals that take advantage. 200 73 new cases of

covid-19 reported in our state earlier this morning. we reported unfortunately 11 more deaths. we are in the eye of the storm. please stay smart. stay safe. protect yourself and protect your family. we will reopen our economy soon. we have to. it is not going to be an option. lives are at stake due to a rapid increase in poverty as well as his public health crisis. no business is nonessential to those who rely on its paycheck for food, supplies and shelter. today this posture is preventing imminent death. it is not forever. it is a temporary tool. in the time is coming to safely move beyond it. i hope and pray it is very soon. askhis time i would like to dr. dobbs to speak where we find

ourselves today with respect to covid-19. as the governor mentioned, we have 273 new cases and 11 deaths if we look at the racial breakdown, 56% of the case for african-americans and 66% of the deaths are african-americans, something that we find unacceptable. we had a total of 66 outbreaks within long-term-care settings our definition is a single case. residentmployee or because we take these things so very seriously. as we talk about some of the things the department of health is trying to do i want to make sure everybody knows we will target our testing resources in the communities of greatest need to that end we are doing a testing location day in mississippi valley state trying to identify individuals who might be infected then tomorrow we have testing set up for lexington and homes county wilkinsonoodville and

if you live in one of these areas and you have any of the symptoms, i strongly encourage 's website thisc is free of charge and they will give you an appointment. if you lived in one of these areas, and think you might be infected we want as many people as we can to come to these testing locations if we look at these preparations for the surge of hospital resources we continue to see relative stability and a number of patients in the hospitals and in the availability of beds and ventilators. if we look at yesterday's numbers we have 149 patients with covid-19 in intensive care. we have to hundred 75 open ofensive care unit heads ventilators we have 100 patients on mechanical ventilation which is similar to yesterday's

number. have 631 available ventilators for future use. are in the eye of the storm. it is important for us to maintain our vigilance. we are all getting tired of this. right now it is so important. i want to talk to our young people out there. socialize.t and you might be sick. will bring it back to your family members, your friends folks certainly are going to be a lot more prone to have severe illness and even died do it for your families and the ones you love thank you. teamanks to you and your at the department of health for your leadership has gone tohelle

covington in lawrence county this afternoon he will be in walthall county in the morning to tour additional damage andere in jeff davis county in jones county yesterday he and i and the senators and representatives from our federal team at fema and others one of the things that dr. dobbs mentioned in an update i cannot give you today is our goal from beginning of this has been to ensure that every single mississippi and that gets covid-19 and can get better with quality care has access focus to doour everything in our power to make sure that our health care system is not overwhelmed we are beginning to feel more confident that we willhave an adequate number of hospital beds we will have an adequate number of i see you beds and we will have an adequate number of ventilators

challenge as everyone has heard over the last weeks is trying to ensure we also have an adequate amount of ppe i friday this past week we did receive 100,000 surgical gowns, and over the last two days, we received 95 masksn that is very welcome news. to say it has been a difficult environment to ensure that we ise adequate amounts of ppe an understatement we are beginning to get more and more of that and we are beginning to feel more confident as we progress forward as it relates to that thank you all for being here and we will try to answer some questions regardinge questions

the hardest hit funds we will bring scott back up but for now if you have questions of mr. anderson we will start to the left. do you anticipate that the state fair site might come online? yesterday you mentioned like what you would, out of this -- and step as we entered it, it seems like this has been put in place now at least some extension as it relates to essential businesses in terms of getting the site up and functional we anticipate eight to 10 days. there is some background -- background investigation, criminal checks. on the website, there is a nine step process that lays out exactly how to become a site. is staffpart of that background checks, immunization and going to the training that

we are offering for free. anyone who wants to become a site. about a week to 10 days we could have the site up and running. how it relates to where we find ourselves in the cycle, we found that even under our executive order which did not require shelter in place, that kept some nonessential businesses open it, some health care, some childcare versatility shutdown they did it for whatever reason they chose and that is certainly asa private business that is their prerogative i will tell you we were having conversations every single day and two or three times many days about how quickly we can get our economy back open we are also planning to contingencies, not unlikely planned in terms of facilitiesat shelby and community colleges

we want to make sure we have contingencies in place if things were continue to get worse than what we expect them to get do not get worse are essential businesses will continue to fund our health care workers will continue to function ,nd the further along we go there are health care providers for instance that are working every single day they have childcare facilities that for whatever reason some of the cave are not coming no we are a little bit concerned as we always everyone else in this new economy we are dealing with that some of them financiallycould find themselves of the typical circumstance this does just another tool in the toolbox to deal with some of the circumstances with the financial assistance only apply to these facilities or some still in operation? if i understand your question

we provide a financial assistance to existing childcare facilities that will still continue to feel available to those operating trains andilities stand up and become a training facility and the children are they are entitled to financial assistance they will continue to get it you might find is their facility that exists out there and we are going to supposition but they may have had 100 kids six weeks ago. effects, thee number of effects, one of which there issome nonessential workers that are not going to work that that facility may have gone from 100 kids down to 20 they may have found it not financially prudent to stay open this may be a way for which to them -- for them to reopen so this help is provided some more kids get there so it is more financially feasible for them

the childcare centers, and that be free of charge? the range of possibilities for the facilities in terms of whether they charge a fee or whether they are made available for free is depending on who is sponsoring that facility they can fund them by donations or fun them by charging a fee, they can take our assistance vouchers as children qualify for vouchers, and they could be free the short answer is it depends on who is providing the funding for the facilityonce it is put in place >> i have got a three-part question the economic recovery task force

e what are they going to be doing and what oversight will they need? [indiscernible] reeves: my brain is not working as well as it was before this around-the-clock 24-hour a day task we are doing. individualt to the members committee, they are representative of the best in the brightest minds in our business community. they are going to be making recommendations to me and to our leadership teams in the state government. they will have direct ability to spend any of the federal funds. they are going to make recommendations and we will make decision based upon what we

believe is in the best interests of mississippi citizens >> how about -- hello, governor reeves thank you for calling me have a two-part question i'm wondering when we will be making a decision on the children -- order --ending specifically the [indiscernible] reeves: my timeline is yesterday. as soon as it is safe to do so.

we have to do it as soon as we are comfortable that our public health x are comfortable with where we are in the cycle dr. dobson i had multiple conversations over the last several days -- dr. dobbs and i had multiple conversations. where we find ourselves in the cycle. and how quickly we can get back ,pen as i mentioned yesterday we are looking at a number of different things but for the people of mississippi here is the way i explain it. back over the -- last four weeks we got into a shelter-in-place by taking numerous steps that got us to the shelter-in-place we close school initially for a week then we close schools for four weeks family when into an executive order which mandated social distancing, which eliminated the ability for groups of 10 to get together, and 10 days after that we went into a shelter-in-place

for a 16 day time for two weeks my anticipation is over the next 3-4 weeks we will see a similar approach in which we loosen the restrictions over multiple decisions so as to come out of this as we get on the other side after having flatten the curve one of the things that many people look at in terms of the data, the easiest thing to look at and that is how many new cases did we report today? just keep in mind that is a bit of a lagging indicator because reported today were actually tested a day ago or three days ago or at a private lab and it was three or four or five days ago, and the actual onset of their systems -- their symptoms occur to week ago so there is a number of

different things we have to look at as it relates to that but we feel like at a minimum where we find yourself today we are at a plateau phase we are not seeing significantly new additional cases then the other thing many people look at is the daily number of deaths the keep in mind and this is been true everywhere in the world and we have seen it in america in new york the number of daily deaths is a lagging indicator there is no doubt in my mind that the things that we have put in place has significantly reduced the total number of cases in mississippi and reduce the likelihood number of deaths with respect to your question on , the elimination of the allowance of evictions has stated in effect because it was in the shelter-in-place order that is currently scheduled to be done on monday.

april 20 at 8 a.m. a final decision which we should make in the next 48 hours with respect to that shelter-in-place order, we will make a decision on whether those evictions itl be extended as well >> is a question for you governor and dr. dobbs this 447talked about page plan that existed there was finished last year dr. dobbs, you were on the committee that formalized this plan i wonder if you can speak about how helpful or not helpful that plan has been i know is very heavy on the department of health

and emergency management extremely useful because it is a framework for developing response if you read through you see all of those -- the jargon about who does what important most functions is where we stand at the state emergency operations center everybody knows their role and they have a defined operations likely have mental health we have social servicesand we have law-enforcement everybody has a piece in that regard it is extremely helpful assumptions we had based on pandemic influenza which is very different that was a real challenge because a lot of our assumptions from that perspective is that even if you have the flu pandemic there is a subset of people thatwill be mostly a partially immune but coronavirus we do not have any of that

everybody is wide open susceptible is a bigger challenges far as like if you look at the social distancing interventions were a lot softer in the plan and what we are doing that speaks to the severity and susceptibility of the population we do not have some of the other told they had in place especially the pharmaceutical editions like tamiflu that we can use for pandemic flu. and the other one is vaccine development although we are on the early phases for vaccine development for coronavirus we have a long way to go we have a pathway. we make flu vaccines every year we put it in bags those two factors are sort of like really the things that will make it especially difficult for us to have a comprehensive response likely would've liked to for pandemic flu the single most important aspect of our pandemic plan that has made the biggest difference

thes being able to mitigate height of the curve and the total number of cases and the total number of deaths has been the fact that when we, when that group meets in the state emergency operations center at their headquarters, and i call in typically the first few weeks , the i was self-isolating most important piece of the plan that has been is the fact the state department of health is the lead agency in making decisions needed to be made as governor i have to sign of lot of the executive orders and have to be the ultimate when i look at the governor's conference room dr. dobbs has a table fema is a supporting agency

the national guard is the supporting agency they do have done a fantastic job, both of them the mississippi department of transportation, the department of human services every agency's representative thateverybody knows the role they of the plane we have had zero infighting about who is in charge it was known from beginning the department of health is leading her efforts and i will tell you theyhave done a fantastic job they have built up their team over long time. and they have continued to build insuring that in as he sent teams to various communities that have potential of weeks, there able to assess -- contact tracing and determine who has the virus and isolator quarantine not only those who have the virus but those who come in contact with those who have the virus like what you were saying, dr. dobbs, you could not have possibly planned for this

scenario but there were some perils governor, i wonder if they were to rethink the -- two or three things in that plan, school closures, set forth in the plan clearly it did not let you make thecall. coordination with school officials there were two or three other clear moments i wonder if you think that it has been good it could've been better planned ahead of time i would tell you is when you are dealing with pandemic i will go back to hurricane katrina i think mississippi was well prepared for what could have been envisioned with a major hurricane hitting the mississippi gulf coast we had one in 1969

mississippi had seen a major hurricane before so we believe at that time mississippi was prepared what ultimately happened when hurricane katrina hit is a hurricane that was five times larger than and natural disaster in the history of our country hit the mississippi gulf coast we were not prepared for that you have for something fivetimes larger than anything you could fathom to a certain extent with covid-19, many of the factories that existed for instance, i do not think when the pandemic plan that was being put in place, some 450 pages, by our partners in leaders across the state government andnot sure we felt don't it is becoming more clear that accurate information was not coming out of china for months and months

as you try tod lay out the plan, there is no way to plan for every possible scenario that exists but what i will tell you is gently speaking, the plan was very well thought out and contemplated various things my very first decision really was a recommendation to shutdown school buildings for that first week the vast majority of school districts chose to do that the way the statutes read in mississippi is for instance local school boards have the ability to shutdown their schools the state department of education would argue they do not have that authority the reason that i had to step up and do it was because under the is whaty guidelines gaveme the authority to shut down school buildings withd it in conjunction state opponent education working with the chairman of the board

and dr. wright we did a conversing with numerous school districts all state the state was it perfect? of course it was not perfect. i do not know if anybody could write 460 pages about any topic -- a framework and a guideline for various steps we are taking >> we now have our first reported covid-19 death in our state what states are they taking to -- stop the spread of the virus in our corrections system today include test for covid-19 and how long did the results takes? reeves: we have not had nine inmates tested within our correctional system

is i appreciate that. one of those nine has now, have we had a test that are returned as positive positiveed return as after that one inmate had passed away my understanding has significant pre-existing conditions but the things that we are doing within our prison system do everything in our power to avoid an outbreak in our prisons, which have been seen in many many other states around the country. we were very early to cut off visitation to our prison system. that is a difficult thing to do. for many of those that are in the system that are looking for to getting out, having visitation is something that is important to them. that helps from a mental health aspect that we did try to keep the virus and getting into our prison system. hadlso a large part have

our facilities under quarantine with very few, very restricted transferreds. we have not a lot of visitation and we are doing daily screening of facility staff in each of our facilities, things similar to what we are doing here in this building as each of you who are here came through and get temperature tested. we know we have to do everything in our power to protect her inmates, and we will continue to do so. thank you. >> we had our national investigative team, on small business loans this week. around 5% of small businesses around the country will be able to access that money because of the amount available. how important was it for you to early on and through that for mississippi and make that available?

reeves: we were one of the earlier states to receive that from the federal government. this is an issue in terms of the payment plan that is critical. and it is critical because the congress put $350 billion into that program, and everybody agrees in washington the program passed 96-0, republicans and democrats agreed that it is a good program. they allocated $350 billion. and everyone agrees, i believe republicans and democrats alike in washington of set a year for the extension of the program and for putting more money into it. they need to quit playing politics. they need to quit using this crisis to try to get things they cannot otherwise get people to vote for, and let's find the

small business program, continue to allow small businesses to pay for their employees to keep them on the payroll, because from the federal government's perspective with what they already passed, either we will help small businesses keep people on the payroll, or those individuals will get laid off and the federal government will pay for them through unemployment compensation. it makes no sense for speaker pelosi to play politics with this. let's get more money into the program and help more spots this is. let's get the house of representatives come back to washington and do their job and we can debate all these other things republicans and democrats alike want in the future. >> speaking of that. endorsed $500 billion for states for budget shortfalls. do you support that? second part of that question, the cares that provided 1.2

billion to the states to deal with the coronavirus. i know we spent a lot of money but if we do not spend that much what happens to that money? reeves: i'm going to take the second one first. the original package provided $350 billion for small business programs. , excuse me,d about $280 billion for state and local governments and hospitals. about $150 billion of that was dedicated to state and local governments. of that 150 billion, 13 billion went to territories and washington dc $137 billion went to state governments. 55 percent was dedicated to

states with each state getting $1.25 billion. of many ofs support the democrats, and this is one of their bargaining tools, 45% of that money went to states had cities who had more than 500,000 people. billion that was left, 45% we were not eligible for. amount, $1.2mum billion. we have not received it yet but talk into the secretary, begetting a tranche of that money before the end of april. and i supported that. that was the right thing to do. the national governors association, i knew they had asked for significant resources. am supportive of the get federal government supporting states and local government for money spent in response to the i am morerisis, but

interested in individual supportedians being through programs that make it easier for our economy to get operating, get back running so those individuals who want to have a job can get her job and continue to provide for their families. follow-up. >> will you spend their $1.2 billion? will the state spend that much on the response? reeves: yes. we will adequately use the resources. in such ang to use it way that we can grow our economy , and that we can fill in the budget holes that were presented because expenses that were not previously budgeted are eligible.

we cannot use that money to say we spent 400 million dollars on something we should not because we did not have the money. but for things like the amount of money we're spending for our covid-19 response, those are the kinds of things we will utilize that money for. we will also use that money as a law under the statute -- as allowable under the statute for setting up ways in which programs, and other government entities can use it and also for investing in our economy, investing in our people to get them back employed. in the long term that has got to be our goal -- we lost almost 100,000 jobs in the last three weeks. lost 120 have mississippians to the covid-19 virus. i pray for those families ever since they. but we also lost 100,000 jobs. we have 100,000 people who were employed three weeks ago who are

not currently employed. and that is 100,000 people that actually got through the call center or some other method or avenue at the department of employment security. there are many others out there and we think that number will go up considerably tomorrow when in unemployment claims come out tomorrow. we have got to recognize this is the short-term public health crisis the likes of which we have not seen in over 100 years. economic also an crisis. and the longer we allow the economic crisis to foster the more trouble we are going to be in, not only as a state but as a society. and that is something we have got to consider as we are trying to get our economy back reopened. >> you talked about the testing sites in lexington and would fill that target african-americans. you guys have known for some time that blacks are most at risk for dying.

why have you guys not ramped up testings before now? >> different counties. our first one was called home of oma. we have been to adams. we have four teams that are running. we target numbers -- target areas with the numbers are high and percentage of african-americans are, lauderdale. it is a continuation of our previous effort. also we are looking at doing additional was with jack and trying toackson state make sure we make it is available as possible. these mobile sites are drop in the bucket. we really need to work and we have worked nicely with our private partners and community health centers because this will be where the stability is. we encourage people to identify, we have over 120 and sites that have dedicated themselves to testing. and a lot of those our community health centers. if you go to your regular

doctor, that's great. resource issues. we know our community health centers are picking up the ball. and they have got support from federal sources to make sure they meet that obligation. reeves: there is $150 billion for states and local for -- local governments and $130 billion for hospitals around the country. i talked to several administrators you say that the first received their payment at some point within the last couple of days. there is also a significant number of dollars. in the care sector was a single testr of dollars for the to increase and enhance testing. if you look at the department of health website, what you find is a list of testing sites throughout the state. i have not looked in the last several are eight days but when i looked at week or so a day,

there were nine full pages of testing sites throughout mississippi, and there were 180 total sites statewide. you look at testing, it is one of the things and we talk about this on governors cost, how many tests have you run. you heard me say it in the early days. it is still true to a certain is sent. ,ood total number of tests excuse me your total number of positive cases as much anything else is a portion of tommy test you had done. now we are beginning to see some states widen the gap. if you look at test on per capita compared to every other state. and you take out the states with the federal government has pumped, like our neighbor to the west, louisiana. in new york and new jersey. and i am not being critical. they were clearly the hotspots. when you take those out of the equation and you look at

mississippi, we have done 40,000 tests. that is approximately 13000 and some change for one million population moving towards 14,000. that is to an half times what south korea did in terms of testing and they were considered a model nation two weeks ago. andve credit to dr. dobbs, and theirral and usm partnership coming online and the department of health and private labs. testing is one area in this crisis that has put up relative to other states in a very favorable position on per capita testing. dr. dobbs, are you testing postmortem? >> we can in certain circumstances. hospitalized and have not been diagnosed previously, what are the

numbers? we have done some corner cases.- coroner undetected bute i think our numbers are pretty solid based on the number of request and everybody is very key about kobe diagnosis -- covid-19 diagnosis i know some other states have started to come online with this as we get more cases more data is added to the site has there and been any more discussion about addingthe number of recovered cases? >> as you can imagine it takes a while if you recover we are only in this amount we are doing a case-by-case assessment which is a lot of people going back and seeing what the recovery rate is

and some stamp -- some sampling calculations that will be avaluable that will be available as we go to this the bulk of our cases have not been sick long enough to have recovered but that is something available >> as you look at the data and you look at the recovered cases, i would commit to you and i am no scientist or physician but even if you listed the number of recovered cases, you would be wrong because their own awful lot of people hadthe virus whomever were symptomatic is in there right now position in which we had 3000 and him change test positive unfortunately had approximately 120 debts and 100 people in nicaea you like every other state, even the vast majority of people who test positive are going to recover

if you're over the age of 65 and pre-existing conditions, those risks are much higher i think everyone appreciates that so, among those that are symptomatic enough to get tested early on, the vast majority of individuals who get covid-19 are not going to pass away with it >> just a follow-up i was wondering, do you know how that -- tested positive coronavirus got the virus? other inmates and staff he's been in contact with have they been tested? >> >> i will follow up and tried to get you an answer on that. known that once it became

to the leadership at the department of corrections that he did in fact test positive for covid-19, they had conversations with the state department of health. they worked to ensure that everyone who had come in contact -- they are have staying in quarantine, etc., and i think that is something we will continue to monitor and be ,ery diligent on and sharing that there is proper and adequate sanitation at the facilities and that we are inmatesng to keep our as safe as is possible. i wanted to ask about the issue of restrictions on the manner of worship. last week you brought in the

minister for the palm sunday service and talked about the importance of several different , about easter sunday services. the justice department has gotten involved in a lawsuit that yesterday, because of the city restriction on in person worship services, and yesterday probably praised the involvement in that. i wanted to ask come in terms of playing politics with issues pertaining to the coronavirus, have you reached out to the city to trychurches involved to defuse the situation? not spoken: i have to anyone in greenville over the last two days. i have been fairly busy with the tornadoes that occurred on

easter sunday. what i will tell you is this, in greenville, the local ordinance is in direct conflict with the --te emergency declaration excuse me, with the state executive order, which lists churches as an essential entity. now, i have been very clear, i have urged, i have made phone calls, i have all but big preachers to not have in person services with more than 10 people in their facility. but when you look at specifically what happened in greenville, it's the actions taken by an over-burdensome government actually putting more had they notk than taken actions. in other words, if you have family sitting in an automobile with their windows up and they are listening on their car radio to a preacher standing at the front of that building or at the

front of the parking lot and no one gets out of their vehicles, then the individuals who are sheltering in place with their family and those same individuals with their family are in their vehicle, they are putting no one at risk. when you take 20 police officers and put them in that parking lot and you force these individual families to roll down their windows in these police officers, at the direction of politicians, or handing them tickets, they are putting more people at risk than had they not done that, in addition to the fact the executive order specifically lists churches as an essential operation. and as i have said repeatedly, i do not believe that government has the right to shut down churches. i think they have constitutional rights to do that. -- to all me be clear of our pastors out there, please

do not have in person church services while the shelter-in-place is in order. we are going to get our economy back open, we are going to get our churches back open when it is safe to do so. it's not safe to put thousands ,f people into individual rooms given where we are with the virus. governments do not have the right to shut down outside church services, and they certainly don't have the right to put more people in harm's way just because they want to do it for whatever reason. clear, you had time to tweet out that message to the greenville city, but you do not have time to call the mayor? you said a number of times the frustrations at different things, between lawyers and the documents, it's probably going to be a different response. why not call the mayor and say this is what my executive order

says and this is how it should be implemented, instead of turning this into politics? had multiplei have conversations with the mississippi municipal league. we had over 70 mayors on the call i believe this morning when i was communicating with them. i don't know if that's pacific mayor was on the call or not. but i have made it very clear throughout this process, and it's very clear in the executive order that i signed that local jurisdictions have the right to my executivean order does. for instance, my initial executive order that we had shut down restaurants with the exception of if they could properly social distance. then we did not shut them down. but that gave local

jurisdictions, if they wanted to, they had the ability to do so. but we also said is, and we were very clear about this, local jurisdictions don't have the ability to issue executive orders from the local level that directly conflict, for instance, what we list as essential businesses. so i think that is very clear. ultimately the courts will decide this. obviously, attorney general barr and the trump administration believe the guidelines are very clear, and ultimately a judge, whom ever is hearing it, will make that ultimate decision. but i believe that the executive order speaks for itself and i think i have been very clear throughout this entire process. reporter: a quick question. do you think the state should in lawsuits being

filed against the city of greenville? well, that will be a decision for the lawyers to make. again, i'mw that -- not a lawyer, but i'm not sure that an amicus brief from the state of mississippi is any more powerful than the chief legal officer of the united states of america, the attorney general under president trump, he made clear what the u.s. government's opinion was with respect to freedom of religion. i have made very clear publicly what my opinion is. now, whether or not we need to put that in writing on a legal document, i will let the lawyers decide that. but it's a pretty easy call for me. seeing no other questions at this time, i'm going to wish a

few wonderful people happy birthday. rogers and alanna holmes and alex eagleton. ainsley is turning five, alana is turning 16, alex is turning 10. happy birthday. allie rourke is turning 18. allie is a senior in high school. jonesbirthday to mariah and angeline lancaster. happy birthday to andrea johnson. happy birthday to a senior at the university of southern ,ississippi, anna gail welsh southern miss to the top. happy birthday to asher addison, turning six. happy birthday to bailey sanders. happy birthday to billy grubbs. billy, by the way, is turning 83 years young. happy birthday to brendan burris. happy birthday to braxton in

richland. braden graham.to happy birthday to breanna mcginty. turning 16 years old today. happy birthday to brody welcome, who is turning 18 curry -- was turning 18. brady is attending holmes community college to play baseball in the fall. happy birthday peyton miner in marin again. happy birthday to caleb, to chloe finnegan, to colin, and happy number four two connor low. connor is for an loves construction equipment. connor waters is a green belt in karate. keep working hard, connor, you will be a black belt before you know it. happy birthday to cooper connor, a third grader at vide a lower elementary and daniel decatur. ,appy birthday to daniel paul deborah jackson, ella grace

kennedy, ezra ladner. happy birthday gabby walters. and gavin in oakland. happy birthday to george thorton, gloria myers, grayson lewis, who wants to be a police officer when he grows up. happy birthday to easton cornelius in union county. happy birthday hamilton edwards, hannah grace bennett, hannah loper, harley in columbus. he birthday harper taylor. henry yates. loves all ole miss sports and misses watches college baseball games. huntly odom, ian sylvester loves his dog come happy. everybody these days needs a dog named happy. happy birthday, jacob phillips, and james and katie love it. , hannah beard, attending the university of mississippi medical school.

thank you, janet. happy birthday to jj windham, turning 27, cadence brown turning seven. jc and jean-luc. happy birthday john riley. joshua, carlisle madison, 17 today. and loves playing soccer. darnell,d kelsey clawson madison, turning 17. sweet 16er cook, whose is today. coffee andd, lindsay logan beckham, turning 18. and as a senior at newton county high school. happy 16th birthday to madison mcveigh and madison surely and mckenzie harris is turning 13 today. happy birthday malika clark. happy number 10 to a fourth-grader as scott central elementary, michelle bradford.

milli-ander 10 to that happy number 12 to molly. happy birthday porter. happy birthday to morgan laird, suite 16 very happy birthday to natalie griffith. natalie, your aunt mallory is also helping us save lives. fowlerirthday to nathan and paige davis, a student at the mississippi school of a rt in brookhaven. happy birthday to ray adele robinson, celebrating their sweet 16. happy birthday to river and riley bailey and happy number nine to russell and scotty bradley. happy birthday tyler and skyler long and spencer kirk and sylvia bell, turning 15. bria antonioay to ta cooper junior

happy birthday to tyler hallmark. happy birthday to tyler mclaurin, a senior at north forest high school, going to play football in the fall. go, majors. glad to have you at millsap, tyler perry happy birthday virginia robinson and will and wyatt, and happy birthday zach cobb. and also to my good friends down in ocean springs, represented of happyuber's' dad, birthday, barry. finally, one of my favorite things to do every day is wishing a happy birthday to one of our great servicemen and women, one of our great veterans at the mississippi veterans home in oxford, miss shirley robbins is turning 88 years young today. happy birthday, shirley, have a great day, and god bless. thank you all. at 11:30ay on c-span a.m. eastern, house minority leader kevin mccarthy holds a

conference call with reporters to discuss the coronavirus response and the house's legislative agenda. then at 12:15 p.m. eastern, the speaker of the house nancy pelosi holds her weekly press conference, also via conference call. the senate meets thursday at 3 p.m. eastern for a brief pro forma session, while most lawmakers are back in their home state due to the coronavirus pandemic. it's possible senate republicans might ask for unanimous approval for additional funding to help small businesses with loans under the paycheck protection program, which was created in response to the coronavirus and is reportedly already running out of money. last week senate democrats blocked a unanimous consent request from majority leader mitch mcconnell, who then objected to legislation that senate democrats were offering. as always, follow the senate live on c-span two.

and his coronavirus briefing wednesday, new york governor andrew cuomo announced 752 new previous 24 in the hours, but hospital and icu admissions and intubations were declining to the governor said any reopening of the state requires the ability to perform widespread testing and contact tracing. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] gov. cuomo: good afternoon. bigger group than usual. the more the mary r. merrier.re the thank you very much for being here. we will give you some updated information and go from there. on this format of the presentation, i brought one of my own personal bias to the way we do this.