Delaware Primary Results Covid19 Weekly Update From John Carney

hello everyone i normally play the tape from governor carney's weekly cove at 19 briefing but we do need to bring up um the primary election results in delaware a couple of important races that we need to get into we're going to talk about um at large for congress we're going to talk about um chris coons who is still representing the state of delaware who currently holds joe biden's old seat and is still seeking another chance in the senate we now know who he will be facing we'll get to that in just a bit and we'll talk about governor because um governor's race was close but uh the new election system in delaware just went haywire last night so we'll get into um what needs to be discussed so let's talk about a huge political upset in sussex county council district number three which is served in the areas of milford and is served also for lose ig burton the famous car salesman from the car salesman empire of burtons lost his race last night to an accountant named mark schafer look how close this was last night it is incredible to think that obviously a lot of favoritism towards the burtons because again they have a huge car empire which we'll get into because uh you know a lot of people who are my new york viewers may be wondering who is ig burton versus my viewers in delmarva they know who he is because again uh most cars from delmarva are from ig burton so or they've been serviced by the burton family in the past so let me just fix my chair for a second to apologize i gotta really gotta get a gaming chair for my birthday okay so let's read this uh read the background for mr ig burton his real name is irwin g burton so again um milford is along the route 1 113 star end line of course of course if you know where that is you've got um the shopping centers along 113 in milford uh about a 20 minute drive south of dover and kent county louis is where the ferry is that goes to cape may so this is a huge loss for that district so um ig's known very well in the community um he has been a lifelong sussex county resident four generations once again they have car dealerships in milford so again if you know the burtons they have their dealerships on route 1. he does serve as one of the board of directors for bay health medical in dover a trustee for the university of delaware and a member of the delaware council on transportation so he's not really involved with deldot just a specific specific thing so once again he was elected to the council four years ago and it was a very close um a lot of people thought maybe he was gonna pull out another term but sadly this was a winner take all race this was only a republican race in district three so therefore starting in 2021 accountant mark schafer will represent sussex county district three in the council so huge huge upset so let me just show you ig burton so again i know i have viewers who are not from the peninsula again most of my viewers are from new york but this is uh this is going to be a large impact because i forget where district two is let me look up district i think district two if i'm correct that might be yeah here we go slugs county district number two i want to get into that briefly because if they serve a hobbit then i will um go into it so i'm not familiar with it that much i'm only familiar with um house senate and governor that's it so let me just see which um so we got over here so this is the current guy who's in district 2. ah interesting district 2 serves parts of georgetown milford and millsborough now if you know where millsborough is that's a long 113. that's where the jail is so let's get into um this article i just had the article that is very odd i do apologize if i if i lost the article we'll pull it back up looks like i've lost the article ah here it is okay make sure i got it so i mentioned that ig burton once again they have been around for generations so they have dealerships in milford seaford lewis smyrna delaware and even in berlin maryland so you know them very well if you're in the peninsula they always advertise on tv all the time on uh on channel 16. sometimes they'll catch them on channel 47 which is abc so this is ig burton third generation that's why it's course that one current burton right now who owns the um car dealerships is charles burton so get into that so lastly i just want to bring up that i know i don't want to promote cars but if you want specifics they um they have a chevy dealership in milford i know very well right along route one pass by and all the time i think there's another buick one there might be a mercedes one but you know a small peninsula but they've been around for again generations okay so there will be two new sussex county council members to start the new year uh mark schaefer of lewis once again he is an accountant they mentioned that on wboc he's a cpa um he defeated the incumbent car salesman edgy burton of lewis by 44 votes or seven temps of one percent schaefer garner 50 point thirty five percent of the vault while uh mr burton had 49.65 so once again we'll take a look at the official results on the delaware elections website there you have it so the website is budging today which is good news unlike last night okay so um district 2 republican primary suffolk sussex county red star cindy green topped robert wilson and lisa hudson now this is very important because sam wilson who i just showed you is retiring from district 2. so again district 2 serves georgetown and they serve millsboro so you have two different representatives who represent milford surprisingly which i never knew that because again i don't keep an eye on it unless you know it was a big deal when i g burton you know got elected that seat four years ago i was keeping an eye on it wow this is just incredible that i mean i'm shocked about uh district 3. district 2 again i don't really need to get into because again we were expecting somebody new with sam wilson retiring anyway so that really wasn't a big deal so now we're going to go to the senate race so once again let's go to joe biden's old seats if we can find it i should be able to find it now i won't mention that carper got reelected senator tom carper got reelected in 2018 he's not eligible for another re-election bid until 2024 so i will briefly mention that i don't know what's going on with the website why can't i find why can't i find senate here we go okay so in the senate race chris coons wins by a huge margin over jessica schwerney can't pronounce her name right as to be expected chris coons does have a lot of popularity in delaware because again he filled the vacancy of joe biden when he became vice president so that was a very important thing uh everybody remembers the whole controversy with christine o'donnell with the witchcrafting me i still remember that to this day because you know if it wasn't for the witchcraft christine o'donnell may have become u.s senator from delaware who knows how long she would have lasted but again this is joe biden's old seat um for joe biden's old seat you'll have christopher coons taking on lauren whitski so lauren whitski is going to be taking on mr christopher coons so let's see if they have um more of a background on uh on that i guess they won't bring that up so by the way this is mark schaefer so he will be replacing ig burton in january um this is cindy green let's zoom out they do have a couple pictures on the cape gazette because i'm because i'm thinking the cape gazette would have to have the results and i was right so cindy green will be representing district 2. scott walker how funny is that so i guess they don't really have that many pictures okay let's see yeah guess not i guess they don't really have that many specifics but we'll just check the um we'll check the senate page on wikipedia so let's get into it why see what i mean joe biden declined really he can't make the stuff up okay so lauren whitski is a conservative activist and proponent of the cuny conspiracy theory so i don't even want to get into that please that's is she really gonna win honestly not chris i'd be very surprised if chris coons lost because he's gonna win he's gonna win okay um let's go to the house who will be taking on lisa blunt rochester now to go back into lisa blunt rochester in 2018 my bad not that one we want to look for 2016 excuse me for a second little technical difficulty there because i don't know what happened with my internet just now okay so lisa blunt rochester is a former state labor secretary former state personnel director and former ceo of the metropolitan wilmington urban league so she ran in 2016 because at the time john carney was the congressman representing delaware he's now the governor of delaware so we'll go to the um 2020 uh election if we can find it and let's go to see who won last night very quickly here so nobody was challenging lisa blunt rochester last night so lisa blunt rochester ran unopposed in the democratic primary but now she will have to face a republican and that republican will be by the name of lee murphy so again lee murphy will be taking on lisa blunt rochester on november 3rd lee murphy we'll get into that now the funny thing was scott walker was running for governor as republican he was a former democrat then he decided to be a republican so how funny is that um not going to help me here because i don't see any major endorsements for her i thought joe biden was endorsing her [Music] odd okay so uh at the moment lee murphy he is an actor so another celebrity's trying to run for congress or political office how funny is that eliminating the primary last night was sales consultant matthew morris so most likely lisa blunt rochester could retain her seat governor may be a whole different story now because the establishment candidate colin bonini who is a state senator who won the republican nomination back in 2016 lost his race last night to conservative activist julianne murray yeah you heard me correctly this guy right here colin benini who was a state senator representing parts of kent county lost and he thought he could try to get another chance and get a potential rematch it looked like last night it might have happened but again the board of elections in delaware was using a new system they were figuring it out and it was just a big mess last night when the polls closed at 8 pm so interesting enough that scott walker ran in 2018 to take on lisa blunt rochester so lawyer julianne murray who was pro-trump and again colin benini was the establishment candidate that delaware gop heavily endorsed it was really wide open anybody could have taken it was that competitive for the primary for delaware gop but as you can see here none of the other candidates mattered unless you were julianne murray or you were colin benini so these are the machine votes they tally it from machine votes absentee voting i don't know what it is i'm noticing that there is more absentee votes for carney last night there were more machine votes for uh the republicans so i'm noticing there's a trend that democrats prefer to do the absentee voting than the republicans so i'm noticing that right now i'm noticing it at the moment because again look at this more absentee for chris coons and more machine voting so that's very interesting because you only had 32 percent in-person voter turnout yesterday in the state of delaware so with everything going on with kovid you know that just makes it very difficult right there so uh there you have it um that's where everything stood last night i'm still wondering what is going on with my internet today you know it's ugh you know i'm just being all buggy today so with that that wraps up the uh results from devilware from yesterday so with that being all said we're now going to watch the weekly covet 19 briefing from governor john carney i'm governor john carney thank you for joining us today for our weekly a press conference on delaware's response to covet 19. we have a whole team for you today uh joining me is the secretary of the department of health and social services molly mcgarrick thank you molly for being with us i think this is your first time since taking over the reins there at the health and social services so many important things that you and your people are doing as we respond to covet 19. also joined by saron kead who's the secretary of labor again significant activity in the department of labor getting those checks out and taking the applications for unemployment benefits uh for the cares act response monies that have been distributed to our state i know it's been a challenge for your people and and making sure that delawareans get the resources that they need to to stay afloat and then of course one of the regulars aj shaw who's the director of the delaware emergency management agency aj has been the point person for our testing efforts and is going to give us some updates on some of the changes underway there and maybe some of the challenges that we face and some of the outreach that we're doing for higher education and schools going back reopening for the fall we do have a lot of challenges most of which we've anticipated if i look back over the last six months we really had no idea what laid ahead of us so when we saw our first positive case in march uh march 11th declared a state of emergency the next day and have been working our way through this pandemic with the advice of the centers for disease control the nih following the science and the data learning more about pandemic science and public health principles we've got a great team here we got great partnership with delaware's hospitals early on as we saw a real spike up in the number of hospitalizations and most of the testing back in those early days in march in april were were done and conducted by our hospitals in the three counties and just a great partnership there we had a significant challenge with the outbreak in the poultry industry in the lower part of our state something that obviously we did to fear and anticipate and we were able to i think as i've said several times before as we look back there on this this experience of the last six months one of the things that will stand out is the outreach we made in testing thousands of uh poultry industry workers their friends and families in the neighborhoods in which they lived and staying on top of that after that and then of course we saw the outbreak as summer started in mid-june and into early july the beach communities along atlantic city and atlantic and and bay beaches here in delaware and had to react to to that and particularly among workers in the hospitality industry bars and restaurants and we've continued to see some challenges there although it's leveled out a little bit and then as we we uh expected all along and as it has been occurring in college towns across america and and i'm sure you all have been reading about it in the news it's been uh prominently reported uh in in the news over the last couple weeks is the outbreaks that we've seen in universities and colleges and in college towns across america and we're seeing that now and starting to see it at the university of delaware and delaware state university here in our own state we've got meetings this week and we've had several meetings leading up to the reopening with presidents and the administrations at university of delaware and delaware state university we've got a great partner aj in the city of newark with respect to some of the restrictions that we've put in place and most importantly i think it seems that both at a combination of complacency and and just just ignoring on the public health restriction and guidelines among the student populations as those students have come back to town that enforcement increasingly is is going to be an important part of of uh containing the spread of the virus you will see today as we go through the numbers that our numbers are trending up i've been saying for the last month that we're not no we're not bad and we're not good we're kind of in this middle area of uh where we want to be better than we are healthier than we are we're on or off quarantine lists in our in our neighboring states of uh new york new jersey and connecticut one week we're on next week we're off now we're back on and that's because we've seen any spike in cases in our university towns in our college towns over in newark and in some of the areas again in in sussex county where we see less compliance with uh mostly face coverings uh mask wearing which is the most important thing that folks can do to protect themselves and uh mostly others from the spread of of cove in 19. so we have a lot of work to do and we will lean into that work this week as we meet with administrators and law enforcement agencies connected with dover and newark as we lean into our messaging in other communities we're getting our children back to school most are learning remotely at the moment preparing for a conversion into more of a hybrid model which is present in almost a half dozen districts mostly in the lower part of our state most of the private schools are a hybrid with a mix of remote and in-person instruction so we'll continue to work on that and as i think about our challenges with respect to preventing the spread and the increased number of cases among college students if if you think about it being complacent not following those restrictions uh in newark and dover and other places means that it's going to take us longer to get their younger brothers and sisters back in classrooms in front of teachers because our numbers are going to go up as they are gradually uh percent positives are going to go up and we're going to have to be more cautious about those learning environments in person uh with teachers so let's go to the the data we're almost up to twenty thousand total positive cases now over the six months since the onslaught of coven 19 back in march we're up a little bit on total lives lost every one any everyone is obviously precious to us and to the family members their hospitalizations have ticked up from we got a low of about 38 under 40 couple weeks ago and it's been up and down a little bit over the last several weeks we're up to 61 today it's um way below our capacity to to provide service to those patients but obviously an indication of the severity of the of the virus for for certain populations if we look at uh this is the most concerning here you know as we've been saying for um for months now our world health organization target on percent positive is five percent we've been comfortably below that the green scenario for going back to school is at three percent positive and so we're moving away from that so that goes back to the message of a minute ago which if we want to get children back in front of teachers in schools we need to drive that percent positive number down to three percent the new cases per day were way above the gating criteria for a green scenario and school reopening we're about not quite 10 cases per day above the quarantine the gating criteria for our surrounding states we want to be below 90 and ultimately much lower than that and so as again we're seeing a combination on the percent positive that the number of people getting tested is going down so the denominators getting smaller and the number of new cases is going up and so it's driving the percent to up from in the mid four percents aj to 7.1 percent each of the days each of the last four days have have been above four percent positive and that's not a good thing as we talk about the individual cases per county we're approaching 10 000 positive cases uh in newcastle county kent county at 2 800 about consistent with the population percentage there and again too many cases in sussex county at 6 500. just to review quickly the the rate of positive cases per 10 000 and so this is where you see the real uh the high level of cases in that 18 to 34 year old demographic uh to a 289 cases per 10 000 uh higher than any of the other criteria the net or the other demographics the next one is 35 to 49 at 265 and so we really need to do a better job it's a young adult crowd it ought to be a responsible crowd it's a lot of folks that are in our colleges and universities that need to be more attentive to following the rules and and uh protecting one another frankly and mostly it's off-campus social activities partying anybody who's been to college knows what i'm talking about and difficult to to change that behavior but something that we really need to do and lean into here's our data dashboard over the last 14 days we want all those graphs to be heading in a downward trajectory from left uh to right and you can see most of them are flat our new hospitalization emissions continues to to go downward our percent positives as you can see is going the wrong direction we had it down around four percent and now it's over seven percent and we need to do much better than that and then new positive cases are going up gradually we've had a couple spikes again associated with some of this activity that we're seeing we've tested uh significantly in the skip back to school population aj i know you're going to talk about that and that that's looking pretty good it's really in the social environments uh in the student populations in newark uh and in dover that we need to get our arms around if you look at the 90-day view again you just have a more comprehensive look at the ups and downs and you can see things more recently trending up a little bit which is exactly what we don't want to do we're still in good shape with respect to protect personal protective equipment we did have some concerns a bit about that moving into the start of of schools but so far that's holding pretty steadily and i know aj we've been working on making sure that we had a good stockpile of all those protective equipment you might comment on that when we get to your piece on the testing if you look again at the current status of our school reopening we're clearly in the yellow scenario which is a hybrid of in-person learning and remote learning most school districts as i said are learning and teaching remotely much better than they were in the spring and we complement of teachers and parents for leaning into that the goal obviously is to have more a children in classrooms in person we're not going to get there if if these numbers keep going up the percent positive this is a different interval and that's why it's a little bit better than the seven point one percent but again we're still here above five percent need to be under three percent to be uh to light up the the green scenario and and have a greater safety in bringing children back to school you'll remember that we announced a 25 million dollar support fund for the nonprofit organizations to those that have provided critical services to delawareans and delaware families through the covet 19 pandemic if you are one of those most of you have have contacted us or have been contacted and so you know who you are but if you need more information you can get it at decares decaresfund.org that's decaresfund.org and with that i'm going to turn it over to secretary molly magar who's going to talk about a very interesting and i think important positive thing in in developing a uh an app for our iphones that uh that would enable us to keep track of of people that we come in contact with if they're kova 19 positive secretary mcgarrett thank you governor and thank you everyone happy to be here with you today um and i'm really excited to announce the launch of an important new tool for fighting covid19 that is going to rest in the palm of your hand it's a free anonymous exposure notification mobile app that's called covet alert de and covet alert de is going to use bluetooth low energy technology that is provided by apple and google and it's going to alert users if you have come in close contact which we define as less than six feet for 15 minutes or more with an individual who has tested positive for covid19 and the app is going to allow users to also log their symptoms every day which is going to help them be able to check back and review that list at any time including if they're called by a contact tracer who is going to ask them about the symptoms they have or haven't been having and and we also are working to be able to put data and information into the app that will help people keep up to date on the fight against covet 19 in delaware and the app is going to be available to anyone 18 or older with an apple or an android phone who lives works or goes to school in delaware and we strongly encourage you to download covet alert de from the app or google play store today and we want you to use it and we're going to do a brief demonstration for you all so that you can see how it's going to work when you open the cobot alert de app for the first time you will be prompted to select your age if you are under the age of 18 the application will thank you for your interest and inform you that you do not meet the age requirement to use the app if you are over the age of 18 the application will take you to the onboarding screen here you will review the three key features of the application exposure alert system symptom check-in and updates privacy is paramount to the cobot alert de application on the next screen you will review the data privacy policy and have the option to submit anonymous app usage statistics you can review the data and privacy policy anytime online next you will be prompted by covet alert de to enable the exposure notification system or ens on your device during your first covid check-in the application will ask you a series of optional demographic questions any information you choose to enter will remain anonymous at all times once every 24 hours you have the option to perform a daily covid check-in this anonymous information can help you keep a record of symptoms or changes in your health that you may be experiencing if during the covet check-in you record any symptoms that may be related to covid19 you will be presented with recommendations and links to additional information about covid19 from the delaware department of public health covet alert de also provides updates on the fight against covid19 if the exposure notification system detects that you may have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for covid19 your device will generate an alert and prompt you to open the covet alert de application for further information if you have tested positive for covet 19 a member of the delaware contact tracing system team will reach out to you during the interview process they will inquire if you have the covet alert de app installed and if you would be willing to upload a six digit code that allows your phone to share special anonymous keys which are random numbers that change every 10 to 20 minutes running in the background once you upload the code the app can now work with the ens on your device to upload the anonymous keys the app does its work in the background checking your phone's keys against keys from other phones that has been near since the date they were tested if there's a match covert alert de alerts the individual download covert alert de free in the app store or google play store great well as you just saw through that demonstration the covet alert de app uses random bluetooth keys that change every 10 to 20 minutes and phones that download the app share random keys anonymously with those who are other phones that are in close proximity to it if a person tests positive for covid19 the results are verified by the division of public health and if the person has the app on their phone contact tracers will give them a six digit code that they choose to enter into their phone if the covid positor positive user decides to enter the code into their phone it triggers their phone to upload special keys and those anonymous keys are checked against the list of random keys that they have encountered on other users phones over the last few days if there's a match the covet alert de app will then send an exposure notification alert to those individual app users taking into account the date and the duration of the exposure if you receive an alert on your phone it is recommended that you follow the division of public health advice included in the app which includes staying home for 14 days and self-quarantining getting tested at one of the many sites that delaware's provided for free covid19 testing and wearing a face covering if you're in your home and can't avoid close contact with family members and we also always recommend if you have questions reaching out to your health care provider for further guidance so in looking for a solution like this one of the foremost considerations for the state was the privacy of people who would be using the app excellent thank you and so i want to assure everyone today that no location data is used or collected by the covet alert de app again the exposure notification system works through bluetooth low energy technology and so phones that have downloaded the app recognize the app and the keys on other phones when the phones are in close proximity to each other so again it's closeness of the phones not location that is detected with these apps and so to be more specific the covet alert de app will protect your privacy by not collecting or sharing any personal information such as name address or age that can identify you again we do are not using gps navigation geocoding or any other location services as part of this app the app cannot be used to track you the app does not know whether you are supposed to be self quarantining or self isolating and the app does not know any personal details about the exposure alert that was sent to your phone and so since we do not know who you are and the app does not know who you are it cannot reveal your identity at any point next slide and so why was this important why did we want to bring this tool to delawareans knowing about your potential exposure allows you to self-quarantine get tested and reduce potential exposures to friends family co-workers or fellow students as the governor outlined where we're seeing some of our case growth and typical contact tracing relies on an individual being able to successfully name all of the people they came in contact with including contact information for those individuals and we also ask them how long they've been around someone and in many cases unfortunately the coveted positive person may not have those details to provide to contact tracers this is especially true in large gatherings or public settings where again you may not know the person that was sitting next to you or that you were conversing with at a party and so using this app will help us speed up the process of notifying close contacts and even identifying close contacts that may not be known to the covid positive individual and a final benefit of the app is that we're going to our app covet alert de utilizes the same technology as those apps being considered by surrounding states and so that interoperability and the ability to have the the same product and technology be used across state lines we think is incredibly important and we're really excited to be joining a handful of states that have utilized and are deploying this technology to help in the fight against covid19 but the important part is we need people to download the app which again is available today in the google google play and the app store and we want you to use covet alert de if you are living in delaware and you expect to be tested in delaware because the testing results go to the state that you provide at the testing site so while we have seen a bit of an uptech we are grateful that our positive cases and hospitalizations are relatively stable but we know at any point that trend could change and so the more delawareans who are aware of their covet 19 potential exposures and were more likely to be able to keep transmissions low protect people's lives and keep our economy and education systems moving forward so again we urge you to download this free anonymous app by going to the app or google play stores and additional information is available about covet alert de by going online to de dot gov forward slash covid alert and for next slide we do have prepared thank you to our wonderful communications team in partnership with the office of the governor we have created marketing and other materials so for any businesses non-profit schools or anyone who's interested in partnering with us on greater marketing and helping your the people you serve and the your the people who work with you know about this app we urge you to email dhs underscore townhall delaware.gov and as always any general questions can be directed to dphcall delaware.gov so thank you governor and again hope everyone downloads the app and and starts using it today thank you very much uh secretary secretary mcgarrett this is a really significant breakthrough step forward for us it's a will become an important tool uh to enable us to achieve uh the objectives of contact tracing if you think back with respect to the way we've approached and responded to covet 19 as cova 19 started to spread and we didn't have the capacities to test we tested it people who were symptomatic we told other people to stay at home so they didn't come in contact with somebody who might be positive we didn't know the extent at the time of the ace asymptomatic spread that that we would ultimately see and so we essentially used our contact tracers individuals who called an individual who who registered a coven 19 positive test and then got in touch with others who may have that who that person remembered that they came in contact with within six feet over a 15 minute period of time well that's difficult for anybody to remember so here's a tool that helps the person who toasts test positive completely anonymous that others that they may have come in contact with that they don't remember will get pinged and will be alerted that they anonymously by the way that they might uh that they should think about quarantining and getting tested as one as well plus it it helps you know that you or you're at risk because you've come in contact with somebody within six feet for 15 minutes that is tested positive and the and is triggered by the person who tests positive through the public health system and so there's the control there what we need to be clear on though is it's not going to include everybody because everybody's not going to voluntarily adopt it and so all the other things that we talk about wearing a mask keeping social distance making sure you get tested from time to time particularly if you think you're at risk or exposed are important to do not just if you have the app and you haven't been pinged but it's important to wear that mask at all times and very important this this will be an important tool for university of delaware and delaware state university and to the extent that we have other states joined with similar technology that we'll be able to to use it for them as well and so uh next up we have secretary keid who's going to talk about additional benefits that have made been made available through uh the federal relief efforts secretary kate thank you governor as many people are aware the federal government established the cares act earlier this spring which established a handful of unemployment programs that provided added benefits to individuals who were on unemployment that program has expired and it expired at the end of july since then president trump has issued an executive order or memorandum i think is probably a more appropriate way of putting that that established the lost wage assistance program which each state had to apply for delaware applied and was success our application was successful and this program is going to provide an additional 300 of temporary uh benefit or assistance to eligible unemployed workers it's going to be retroactive to august 1st of 2020 which is the same week that the original programs expired um you can go to the next slide you don't need to call or apply separately for this program it will be automatically attached to your unemployment benefits so you don't have to worry about about that the initial payments will be separate but going forward we're going to work to figure out how to make sure that they're combined in one individuals to qualify for this payment must have at least 100 in weekly benefits issued by the state of delaware claimants must also certify that their employment has been disrupted due to covet 19 which is an essential component to to this we have about 20 percent of the individuals who collect benefits from the state of delaware who their unemployment is not considered covid related also claimants must be eligible for benefits during the period of the program so uh if you collected benefits and your benefits expired or stopped for whatever reason after these dollars have already been expended obviously you would not be entitled to those funds next lap we also want to make an announcement regarding the pandemic emergency unemployment compensation program which essentially is extended benefits so as a part of the cares act the federal government congress and the president signed off on peuc which provides extended benefits beyond delaware's 26 weeks of unemployment originally when this program was established we had it situated where your benefits would pick up uh your extended benefits would pick up immediately after your unemployment expired or exhausted now we have to direct people to the pandemic unemployment website the new website that we had established for these federal benefit programs you're going to have to reapply there the way the system is essentially going to work is that as your benefits begin come to expire you're going to receive a letter from the department of labor alerting you to the ex to your benefits exhaustion date once you receive that letter it would alway also encourage you to apply for extended benefits through the puc program uh individuals who would be looking to apply would have to go to the website that you see on the screen pua.delawareworks.com it is a secure website so if you go to www.pua it won't come up you have to either put it in the exact way that you see it here or you have to add the https colon backslash backslash for secured websites but it's easier if you just plug it in the way that you see it here on the screen notification again will be mailed to you once your claim is about to exhaust so you're coming up on your 26 weeks and you will have to go to this website to apply for your extended federal benefit you'll have to go establish or activate your account and apply and you'll have to do your weekly certifications from that website you'll no longer be utilizing the traditional unemployment website when you do you go to next slide just to give you some insight or some brief update these numbers are solely individuals who qualify for the federal benefit the total number of individuals who've received unemployment or have applied for unemployment benefits is over a hundred thousand uh the 82 000 number is solely for folks who are covid related we we're we're classifying it as we've paid out a total of 560 million in federal cares act unemployment benefits to uh that population in total we're we're probably we're around 760 million once you factor in the state unemployment benefits and the other individuals who are in that pool so um currently we're almost at 800 million dollars very close to uh and served over uh delawareans to this point you can go to the next lap also just to briefly mention the governor also established executive order 43 which is a rapid workforce training and redevelopment initiative that we've actually started rolling out an application deadline for that is september 25th and mind you that application deadline is not for individuals who are looking to apply for training that is for training providers and uh large uh uh you know in industry groups who are looking to train up their workforce to uh connect them with uh or to train up our workforce of individuals impacted by covet to connect them with job opportunities applications are going to be reviewed on a rolling basis but again since these are karazhak dollars we have to get these these dollars out of the door by the end of the year we expect for majority of the training if not all of the training to be completed by the end of march of next year so a very lofty goal but with the partners that we've been able to establish through the workforce development board we're extremely confident that we're going to be able to do a heck of a lot of good for a heck of a lot of people who are going to be looking to get back into the workforce next year you go to the next slide secretary cade and so you're if you're looking for that step up for high demand jobs in our workforce that rapid workforce training program is is something for you uh you can get information about it at de.gov slash a relief thank you secretary kade for everything that you're doing and your folks there at the department of labor lots of demands on their their time with the outreach necessary to serve so many thousands of delawareans over the last six months aj i know you've been busy could you comment just briefly about ppe how we're doing with our stockpiles and whatever uh else you want to share with us with respect to new testing programs no thank you sir so uh ppe i think is something we have worked on uh quite a bit with uh dr tay's team at public health over the last several months uh we've had great partners with our government support services team to be able to support and really go out and find what we think we need going into the fall to really be the backstop for our first responders for the long-term care facilities and for the hospitals and clinics that will uh continue to operate if and when they come into a hurdle so uh we have uh you know built the stockpile back up a lot of that was pushed out early during the pandemic in the spring on we continue to source orders and stock stuff up so we talked about this we're talking about the you know surgical gowns we're talking about gloves for medical procedures we're talking about n95s or surgical mass so the medical grade equipment and continue to uh you know little by little just build up that stockpile hopefully in the fall we won't need it but we're going to be ready if we are to assist our partners across the state uh so that going into testing so um at the end of may if ever as the governor alluded to earlier we started off this uh you know pandemic with only testing individuals that were symptomatic and uh there are supply chain issues there's testing issues there's that you know the capacity and you know hurdles that we had with our partners through with the hospitals and the private industry just to get that number up so middle the end of may we really came together with a strategic plan across the state which used local providers the hospitals and as well as the state to step forward and try and reach that 80 000 number a month that we've talked about we've been short we did have a high water mark just around 60 000 not two months ago and as you've heard me say for about the last six weeks um you know our numbers have been decreasing uh in the community testing sites we've been going from about fifteen thousand individuals a week closer to about ten thousand 000 the last several weeks we did see a little uptick two weeks ago and last week with schools going back in session both in you know some sausage county and the private schools as well that were really helping with our outreach and sharing the importance of testing so what we've done uh starting this week is really pivot a little bit from these road shows which were we're averaging anywhere from about 14 to 18 different testing events across the state a week usually we're doing it six days a week with the assistance of newcastle county to really 19 permanent locations throughout the state and these are made up of walgreens service centers so the state service centers in the public health clinics across the state a variety in each county um that will at least have hours during business hours monday through friday some of the walgreens do have saturday and sunday hours for their pharmacies uh and that varies by location so we have longer hours consistent consistent places so this takes away the fear of somebody that you know wants to get tested on monday but there's not at a community event that's coming until thursday or friday you know there should be something that they could uh get to sooner rather than waiting until something pops up in the backyard we've been working on this probably for about the last four to six weeks and public health and dr tay's team lisa and others really identify like where are the best place to put these locations knowing that walgreens was going to help us with some and then we were going to lean on these other state centers that we already had so they looked at you know where the infection rates were where we were getting response to testing the community vulnerabilities that we wanted to overlay so there was a layered approach to make sure we identified places where we knew people needed access and needed easily to get tested so the locations right now will not be uh changing you know as much we are still going to have the road show it's going to be a little bit smaller because we're using some of that a labor pool that has been going to the different schools or church groups et cetera to do these testing events and moving them uh you know into some of these service centers to assist so we will still be doing community testing i think the next slide but i'll go through this at first and talk about the at-home testing kits the other layer so we're going to have the permanent testing locations pop-ups will continue and we have a schedule at the end and then at-home testing kits which we launched last week a month ago we were asked to test all the faculty and staff for the schools before they went back in we entered into a partnership with the lab that was able to do at-home tests somebody went online we provided a url they registered they got a test sent to them at their house they self-administered the test mailed it back in or dropped it in a ups overnight box gets the results emailed to him within approximately 48 hours had great success with that we expanded that starting last week on our on the get tested website right now we're prioritizing uh delawareans over the age of 60 a vulnerable group that we know we're identifying zip codes that public health is looking at knowing that there might be a greater need for testing there and that's going to rotate right now i i'll tell you you know we're not running up against the capacity issue with this we'll be able to do over a thousand uh on demand urls a day for people to get kits and we're going to make sure uh you know as we build this we use it as smart as possible we are using you must be a double resident to get the kit or work in delaware the two caveats that we'll have there and again you can get go to de.gov home test to register for that that is a little longer process because if you register today you should get the kit tomorrow or thursday you have to mail it back in so um you know it's not something that we want somebody that has a high risk level to uh you know rely on but that is for those that know they don't have a known exposure maybe they're traveling in a week or so to see family they want to get tests if you have that time flame and that flexibility it's a great backstop where you don't have to then go into a you know a clinic or a walgreens and something you can do it on your schedule as needed so here is just a snapshot of where the 19 permanent testing locations now are across the state again these are a mixture of walgreens and state service centers in the public health clinics all at least 8 30 to 4 monday through friday as well as hours on the weekends uh eight walgreens five service centers and the uh six public health clinics these are all self-administered tests so they're a mix they're either the saliva-based tests that we've been using or a a nasal swab that is not the um you know the brain ticklers people were calling it earlier in the pandemic it's just the outer nasal spot that you're doing but individuals do it that themselves put it in the kit pat hand it in to the staff and it gets sent off for tested and most of our turnaround times are around that 48 to 72 hour mark now so we've been very stringent to making sure that we get this turn around as much as possible this also helps us really spread out and use multiple labs to make sure we don't overwhelm just one so that's the you know the the static testing sites and again the pop-up testing locations will continue this week tomorrow we'll be at eastside charter in wilmington kingswood community center on thursday saint francis has a walk-up event as well on thursday seeds of greatness over in new castle on friday another new castle county site that's not on here yet is going to be newark high school on monday we're still finalizing the hours for that but uh we know the community has a demand there for testing with seeing a little bit of increase there at the university back in session we have the hudson uh service center that's right outside newark that is available monday through friday but hopefully we'll have a site that's easier for people to drive through and get you know several hundred people through there on monday and then right now in sussex we're keeping our georgetown sites they're kind of in the hubs one in dovers one in georgetown and then as public health identifies other areas that need testing move those weekly sites around sausage county so you know if you go to the de.gov get tested more options than we had last week we've made the promise to you know the governor and our citizens across the state we're going to analyze this make sure we're getting people tested and you get tested and you know continue to push the envelope and come up with new and exciting ways to hopefully get people back to work and open up the economy better thank you very much aj director shaw obviously this is one of the most important things that we're doing in responding to covet 19 making sure everybody gets tested and so we're going to have 19 locations several new partners if you remember from the beginning going back to march we only had hospital sites i think the most we had at any given time were six we were only testing people that were symptomatic had to have a script as they came in here now we've been testing thousands since then and at least for the last uh several months uh we've uh peaked out i think 60 000 per month and we've come off that a little bit of late as people have gotten a little bit complacent obviously if you're not symptomatic that you don't really feel the urge or the need to get tested but you never know now if you sign up for the app and you get pinged that you've come in contact with somebody uh this this that's positive obviously you're going to want to get tested this is a great tool so really a strong development that today that we're announcing that that will enable us to improve the contact tracing effort that's underway with live bodies and to alert people that they might be at some risk so with that i'd like to open it up we've got press in the room as well some appreci pre-submitted questions meredith thanks for joining us again the floor is yours so i wanted to start off with the increase in the percent positive um and you mentioned just the college students attributing to that increase what do the universities specifically ud need to be doing that they might not be doing right now in terms of seeing that increase yeah so that's something we're going to be talking about first of all let's talk about the numbers right yeah first of all we we were getting a lot of positive cases from the university and because of a glitch in the system in their own testing we weren't getting all the negative so that was affecting the percent positives and we're not getting as many people tested as you could see from from the numbers and uh we compared we did some reverse math before we came down today and and the number that we came up with 14 uh 1400 tests with the number of positives at 103 i think it was was 7.1 percent over the over the period uh shows you that that number that denominator number is is lower but so is the numerator at 103. we want to be below in the low 90s and below and so we're seeing a little bit are are they dramatic increases no but we're seeing specific off-campus parties not surprisingly i'm not going to ask you about your college days but that and and it's not just delaware it's every college town in america just look at the news on on the tv read the the papers and that's what you're seeing so we've gotta we can collectively have to figure out better messaging number one consequences and the communications and aj might want to talk about this he's been uh heading up the conversations among law enforcement so you got new new newark police department dover in the case of the of dsu you've got uh delaware state police lesser role you've got new university of delaware campus police and then you have civil citations and you've got university sanctions guess what the students care more about university sanctions which end up in their parents hands as opposed to a citation from the city of newark that their parent never sees so we need to think through that that's one of the things and we me need as uh dr assanis in my conversation with him the other day talked about other other universities and i saw it in an article i guess it was indiana university where they they sent kids home 33 kids they sent home and i think it's that kind of messaging in order to get the message across that it's not just about you and your party and your 20 friends or 30 or 40 friends it's about the community it's about getting uh children back in schools by pushing those numbers uh no there's numbers down so to your question it's that coordination and we're going to have a we continue to have conversations on the law enforcement side i think it's going to come down enforcement the it's the indications we're getting it's not as much the controlled environments of bars and restaurants that we are restricting in terms of bar service in terms of capacity of uh people in the restaurant at a given time it's more these off campus and some of the outbreaks we've had the interviews that the contract chasers have yeah we had a big party blah blah blah was involved these these num these kinds of students some associated with sports teams and we're going to get the the coaches and the athletic directors together and say hey look we need your help on this as well aj is there anything the only only other thing is i'm going to give credit to jamie mack jamie has been working with you know the university communities and really having these weekly coordination calls we've stepped up the temple a little bit i had a follow-up call yesterday to check in on the weekend down in newark and he's really pulled a lot of partners together because it's messaging it's education um and you know that there's a ripple effect if everybody goes inside if you know if there's it's a bar issue like we saw at the beach then the people are just going to go inside it doesn't stop the spread so it's really the education that has to be the foundation and as the governor said finding that right um the important message where people are actually going to help and adhere to it and we've got to be careful of unintended consequences if we tighten up the bars and restaurants more the controlled environments they're going to go back into the basements right and we don't want to see that in turning to public schools have there been any confirmed cases amongst teachers or students in delaware yeah i'll have secretary mcgarrick take the specifics but my understanding is we've had isolated cases but not connected to one another in other words somebody didn't get it in a school environment most again or these are you know transmission that happens outside of the school environment governor you're correct so obviously we've had intense coordination with the school districts and the school nurses specifically to make sure that as we're finding out about positive cases in school you know we're providing technical assistance we're providing support to help the schools understand how they have to react notification of parents do people need to quarantine et cetera and again the governor is correct while we have had cases we've yet to identify that the case was caused by an exposure within the school environment or was spread in the school environment it just so happens to be an individual who works in school or a child who has gone into school but again to date have not seen evidence of somebody that that person being positive and then spreading it to other faculty members or and or students within the school environment but obviously that's something we are paying very close attention to and want to ensure that whenever there are cases in school we're deploying all of the public health resources to support those individual schools to again work through it in the way that's best adherent to public health guidance and safety of students and teachers and other school members which of course underscores the need for those protective measures distancing you know plastic separations within the schools mask wearing among students and teachers and staff because it comes we know you know with respect to the nursing homes it's this similar thing obviously very very different in terms of the vulnerability of the populations there and since its primary day governor i was hoping you could tell us who you voted for for the city of wilmington and county exec well i have not voted yet but i was out early this morning going around to the polls and i can share some some some observations one is it was very slow and that's because i understand from the department of elections they were sharing with all the campaigns 62 000 democrats had already voted by mail which is frankly more than most primaries and you still had a thousand still voting and a significant number of republicans i didn't pay as much attention to that voted as well so this probably will be the highest turnout primary vote that we've had in the state of delaware i remember sadly a primary that i was involved in unsuccessfully in 2008 which was the high water mark at the time on the democratic side again at 71 000 who voted that day we're gonna we're gonna pass that almost reached it in absentee valley so the point is is that vote by mail works a lot of people took advantage of it the demographics of that overwhelmingly those who voted by mail already were people that are 60 years old and above uh the next sliced down uh was obviously and then younger voters much much less so and so it's uh i think it's going to prove to be certainly critically important uh allowing people to vote safely in the pandemic situation and then as a matter of of democracy just having more people the access to vote just follow up can you say who you planned to vote for uh well i can tell you this um i uh i was quoted in one of mayor pizicki's lit pieces that my wife and i were supporting him for mayor that's all the rest is a secret ballot okay um and finally you touched on it but with the november election coming up and a lot of concerns nationally about not finding out the results on election day what does delaware plan to do to make sure that all of the ballots are counted in an efficient process yeah so one of the things that i've been saying since the beginning of this pandemic we've had lots of local cities and town elections we've had school board elections since i am on the ballot i've taken kind of a hands-off approach to it now i have staff that coordinate with the attorney general's office mostly and anthony albans our elections commissioner by the way i think he's doing an outstanding job we uh under executive powers we did allow some of the towns to vote by remotely by absentee no fault absentee but i was uncomfortable with doing it that way for the primary so the legislature passed a bill that permitted vote by mail for the primary and for the general election and we have i did take a meeting with the postal service locally regionally to understand how those votes will be processed we are a ballot in hand state meeting by eight o'clock tonight the prime all primary ballots have to be in the department of elections if you didn't get it in by mail you could deliver it and deliver it here to a dropbox and so our efforts have gone primarily into communications here's how you do it everybody got a a notice in the mail if they wanted to vote by mail ballot they could ask for one and on our side over 80 000 asked for a vote by mail balance that's an incredible number so we just i just need to continue to talk about it's a safe way to vote if you're going to do it by mail you've got to make sure you get it in by the friday before the tuesday election that was a very strong recommendation from the postal service could they could they count it or get it in by tuesday if you've got it in saturday maybe but don't take the risk we felt comfortable i felt comfortable anthony was on that call as well from what we heard with the postal service um i don't have any question whatsoever about in fact i'm allowed secretary mcgarrett to if she would like to explain her experience that there's any going to be any double counting because the people at the polls they know that you requested a ballot and if you show up and try to vote they say well you requested a ballot did you send it in um [Laughter] calling on some prior background experience so yes i was not sure given the pandemic what what today would bring and so a couple weeks ago or actually longer than that i had requested an absentee ballot i do live in a newer neighborhood unfortunately sometimes mail gets lost i never receive the ballot um again that's not unusual in my neighborhood so i wanted to vote and i went to the polling place this morning and the lovely and uh very accommodating volunteers politely said ma'am we already sent you an absentee ballot and we actually have to call and verify with the commissioner of elections office that the ballot had not been received before we're permitted to let you vote and so i stood there and they got on the phone and and they talked to them and they verified thank goodness that no one had found my ballot and cassette so i was permitted at that point to move forward with in-person voting so bottom line is i have confidence that anthony and his team are doing it right that we're not double counting ballots that were efficiently processing them we're giving people the opportunity to vote by mail and it's incredibly effective particularly when you have a coven 19 pandemic underway thank you all right this first question is from amy cherry at wdel is the state expanding its investigation into the organizers of the bridgeville rodeo we have reports the organizer has attempted to get special event liquor licenses through various non-profit organization names will you what will you do in the future to prevent illegal gathering yeah first of all this was uh a disastrous as dr retay uh characterized it last time potentially a super spreader event we have got the word out that anybody that was at that event ought to get tested we have fined the person who sought the the permit to have the event uh for misrepresenting it and for allowing it to get out of control and yes we've we've got to be able to prevent these kinds of events from happening in the future and the way to do that is to to have consequences uh when it does happen uh i i don't know that we're aware of these other things in in the question but the point is is that these are these are events that can't happen shouldn't happen and people ought to be punished when they do so that we don't doesn't happen again the next question is from sean green at wdel what are you hearing from school communities after the first week of districts in hybrid and remote learning models are you concerned delaware is becoming a state where if you want your student to have an all-in-person instruction they'll have to pay private school tuition yeah i've heard some i've heard some pretty good uh feedback uh mostly from parents uh who were satisfied or at least happy with uh the changes that districts have made and teachers and adapting to to a new kind of remote learning environment obviously they were forced into it pretty quickly back in the spring but there's obviously been a lot of preparation over the summer and i think by and large teachers and staff came back with a better approach to engaging students to getting their material across to working with the content and so i'm i'm i give kudos to districts and schools i'd like to see more children in at least some some period of time during the week and we've got several school districts that are that are working through that the other districts that are fully remote now they only have a few more weeks to go then they're going to move into more hybrid models so i think that we'll see we'll see that and with respect to the reference to the private school i think we'll learn from the the challenges and successes of private school and how they've been doing with again more of a mix more in-person instruction than remote instruction but again with all the protections separation of deaths lining them up in rows mask wearing of uh teachers and uh and students uh plexiglas separations all all that kind of things a lot of effort went in and a lot of logistics uh to the geometry of classrooms the the science of of uh disease transmission and and the the attention to detail with respect to school nurses and and administrators in terms of folks that are that have turned up positive coming from the outside i don't know secretary mcgarrick if you want to add anything to that but i've been generally pleased i think we've made progress but my goal and i think everybody's goals is to get children in classrooms in front of teachers in in person instruc for in-person instruction i think governor you covered it and just as you said earlier based on the prior question from meredith because we have seen individuals come into school and find out that they're covid positive it just again underscores all of the public health the importance of all the public health guidance and why we need to utilize all the tools available to us to ensure that if somebody does become positive that we're able to quickly isolate that person other individuals are able to be tested and hopefully exposure and risk has been limited by the face coverings and the physical distancing and i think the key there again is to be guided by the science uh and the public health appropriate public health pandemic prevention you know procedures and not so not by fear you know or that kind of thing which you know is understandable uh we knew we knew that that people would would test positive you know the question isn't so much that it's where that transmission took place is it happening in the school or are we taking appropriate measures to to protect teachers particularly those with pre-existing health conditions and students as well and to get across the message that uh that everybody has to follow the the restrictions outside of the the school building you know in their social environments in their you know in their movements around the community the next questions from doug rainey at delaware business now are you satisfied with the university of delaware's testing policy that seems to rely on tests made prior to arrival on campus versus regular tests offered by delaware state university in light of the recent uptick in cases yeah i don't think the uptick in cases has anything to do with the testing a piece of it and i'll let aj talk about that again from everything that we know from contact tracing and and from you know uh observation it's these off-campus social activities super spreader events that's causing the uptick in cases and it's important to have a rigorous testing program and protocol to be able to to identify uh that spread and we're working on doing that i think we're were making progress um in a mixed uh you know scenario there in both cases both ud and delaware state no so um governor's right the both delaware state university and university of delaware have been working with public health for some time now um delaware is offering so the university of delaware is offering testing as well they're doing about a thousand tests a week so they will do that for their faculty staff and anybody in the member of the delaware community the university of delaware community so just if you're a student that returned to newark but may not be on campus you're still eligible to get their testing an additional at the university is doing in newark you know we've identified the hudson state service center which is around 273 before main street that will be holding testing as i mentioned before the newark high school will be holding a community event on monday because it's not just the students it's that's community that we want to make sure we have testing in as well as some of the clinics on main street are doing rapid tests for students as well so it's a layered approach we've worked with delaware state university as well we're supporting them making sure they can get through the fall as well this is the last question for today from betsy price at delaware live with all the halloween stuff out in stores and fall decorations showing up in yards will the state restrict trick-or-treating because of covet 19. well nobody's going to have to buy a mask that's for sure i mean but i don't know i i was the i am the irish governor that canceled saint patty's day god forbid that i cancel uh halloween i'm gonna i'm gonna defer to secretary mcgregor for this question um as a parent i understand the anxiety i've heard from friends of my kids and others our goal is not to cancel halloween like we've done with other holidays that have occurred during the pandemic it may look a little different and as director shaw had referenced jamie mack and his team at public health have been working already on guidance to be able to provide to towns and parents and schools and families and everyone who has has events planned or is thinking about doing fall themed or halloween themed events to make sure that we can offer guidance that will enable them to do it safely and that includes trick-or-treating as well so as the governor said people you know best best opportunity people have had to to dust off their masks and use them but again we look forward to helping people understand how they can safely enjoy the fall season and halloween maybe we can use it as another way to incentivize mass wearing in our state because one of the things that if there's anything that i've learned as your governor over the last six months is that the most important thing that we can do to prevent the spread of kova 19 is to wear a mask particularly when you're in public and it's hard to social distance you really just should just wear a mask at all times because you never know we're going to have an app now that'll enable you to to be alerted if you've come in contact with somebody who's tested positive who has participated in the program and so you'll know whether you should get tested in corn teen yourself but you can always protect yourself and others by wearing a mask and obviously that's what halloween is is all about um so i just remind folks uh to uh to act with a sense of community we really need to focus now on the on the hot spots again our college towns and doverin and newark we know the challenge that's that we face there with with college students and off-campus social activities they know it we would just ask that they uh they work with us and and not have the kinds of events that turn into to super spreaders for for coven 19. try to think in terms of whether or not you would want your younger brother or sister not to be able to go to be in front of a third grade teacher learning how to read and doing basic math because our covet 19 positive cases were too high and we couldn't allow that to happen and so we're going to work with the city of newark city of dover university personnel and delaware state university personnel and coming up with an approach to that that will hopefully be more effective we also need to do a better job in the lower part of our state with respect to some of the public health guidances there those numbers there are are picking up again and then finally today is as as we've talked about a little bit today is primary day in the state of delaware whether you're democrat or republican you've got a full slate of candidates out there running for office i would encourage you if you haven't voted so many people over 60 000 have voted by mail and so if you do go to the if you haven't voted and you're worried about going to a poll because they're going to be a lot of people voting those people have voted already and so the crowds are not there like they normally are it was a really good way of getting people to to participate in a democracy in a safe way and we'll have probably more people that voted in the primary today both the democrat and republican primary than have ever voted in a primary before in our state's history and hopefully as we move into november the same situation it's a beautiful day out there the weather's up beautiful the polls are open to eight o'clock so if you haven't voted go out and vote whether you're democrat or republican i said full slate of candidates on both sides of the aisle thanks for joining us today we'll see you next week